ABSTRACT
The intervention of the United States in April 1917 tipped the scalesin favour of the Entente Powers in the First World War. Americans,first and foremost President Woodrow Wilson, wished to ensure that such mutual self-destruction never occurred again. His vision of a world free from the awful threat of war involved national self-determination for all peoples, representative government, the promotion of political changes through constitutional gradualist means and not by revolutions, and the fostering of enlightened public opinion. Wilson perceived in the guiding principles of pre-1914 diplomacy – namely, spheres of influence and the balance of power – the seeds of inevitable doom. He wished to render these principles obsolete by the establishment of an organisation, universal in its reach, which would group all independent states in a league of nations. It would ensure that the legitimate security needs of all states were recognised and respected. Crises could be defused through negotiation and the moral authority of the league. A major plank in the platform of Wilsonianism was an ‘open door’ world economy. This implied that tariff barriers, imperial preference and all other state-erected obstacles to the free flow of capital and goods worldwide must be dismantled. In short, Wilson had a gleaming liberal capitalist vision of the future, and his political assumptions were based on civil liberties and freedom for every individual to develop his talents and abilities not only in the United States but throughout the whole world. Wilsonianism, then, was the expression of faith of a confident, strong nation. American values, it was confidently assumed, would in due course become universal values.
