World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

by Henry Kissinger

What Wilson meant by community of power was a new concept that later became known as “collective security.” In traditional international policy, states with congruent interests or similar apprehensions might assign themselves a special role in guaranteeing the peace and form an alliance—as they had, for example, after the defeat of Napoleon. Such arrangements were always designed to deal with specific strategic threats, either named or implied: for example, a revanchist France after the Congress of Vienna. The League of Nations, by contrast, would be founded on a moral principle, the universal opposition to military aggression as such, whatever its source, its target, or its proclaimed justification. It was aimed not at a specific issue but at the violation of norms. Because the definition of norms has proved to be subject to divergent interpretations, the operation of collective security is, in that sense, unpredictable.