10 - PEACE BY POLICING

Summary

I think the Crimea Conference was a successful effort by the three leading nations to find a common ground for peace … It spells – and ought to spell – the end of the system of unilateral action, exclusive alliances and spheres of influence, and balances of power and all other expedients which have been tried for centuries and have always failed.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 1, 1945

I confess to growing apprehension that Russia has vast aims and that these may include the domination of Eastern Europe and even the Mediterranean and the “communizing” of much that remains.

Anthony Eden, March 1944

The memories of 1919 lay heavily upon the Allied leaders during the Second World War. A number of lessons had been learned, one of which was not to wait until the war was over before planning for the postwar world. While the Allies were hard pressed militarily through 1942 and 1943, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain had already put in place bureaucratic mechanisms to begin assessments, projections, and plans for the postwar order. The Atlantic Charter, negotiated by Roosevelt and Churchill on a naval vessel off the coast of Newfoundland four months before formal American involvement in the war, spelled out general political and economic principles that would constitute both war aims and guidelines for constructing the postwar order.