Five of the 14 Points restated the liberal vision of a new system of international politics to which Wilson had been committed since May 1916. There must be an end to secret diplomacy. Instead, there must be ‘open covenants of peace openly arrived at’ (Point 1), freedom of the seas (Point 2), the removal of barriers to the free and equal movement of trade (Point 3), disarmament (Point 4). The fourteenth point called for what would soon be known as the League of Nations,
