At the Paris Peace Conference that year, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and other leaders conceived of a new organization called the League of Nations, whose purpose would be to preserve world peace. Under the auspices of the League, states would collectively commit to punish any would-be aggressor with devastating economic sanctions. If all member states unified behind such sanctions, they could, in Wilson’s words, unleash “something more tremendous than war.” Aggressors would back down without a shot being fired. “A nation that is boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender,” Wilson
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