ABSTRACT
In 1915, Walter Lippmann wrote that ‘the chief overwhelming problem of [international] diplomacy seems to be weak state[s] … “weak”, because they are industrially backward and at present politically incompetent’ to prevent outbreaks of internal violence. Serious breakdowns of internal order endangered the nationals and trade of the great powers, disposing one or another to intervene. Regardless of the initial purpose of the intervention, which sometimes was just, too often there was no way to curb violence without assuming responsibilities for direct administration: ‘Imperialism in our day begins generally as an attempt to police and pacify. This attempt stimulates national pride, it creates bureaucrats with a vested interest in imperialism, it sucks in and receives added strength from concessionaires and traders who are looking for economic privileges.’ Equally troubling, the effort to pacify and to preserve trade benefits to defray the cost of intervention often brought the great powers to the brink of global war with each other: ‘The arena where the European powers really measure their strength against each other is in the Balkans, in Africa, in Latin America and in Asia.’ Yet one could not refuse to act: ‘Who should intervene in backward states, what the intervention shall mean, how the protectorate shall be conducted – this is the bone and sinew of modern diplomacy.’ Lippmann's solution to the ‘unanticipated consequences’ was joint action by the major powers through permanent international bodies, each body specifically constructed from the parties most pertinent for the issue at hand. 1
