How Did Woodrow Wilson's View Of International Relations

As industrialist Thomas J. Watson said “The toughest thing about the power of trust is that it's very difficult to build and very easy to destroy.” While there have been many instances where America as a nation struggled to balance her lofty ideals with the realities of international power dynamics, perhaps none stand as starkly as the gulf between Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points and the reality of the Treaty of Versailles. Wilson, a thoughtful and erudite proponent of the Liberal ideal of international cooperation between states, was confronted with the realities of European power politics of the day and the entrenched Realist outlooks of his partners which placed the individual interests of their states first. In the end, it was these conflicts
In the waning days of colonialism, competition for diminishing resources was fierce and most contests were viewed as zero-sum games where any benefits ceded to a rival were relative and relinquished at the one’s own expense. Relations between states were complex, frequently predicated upon a tangled web of military alliances that themselves played a large part in setting the stage for the first horrifyingly modern war. At the same time America, having grown to full flower an ocean away largely unhampered by the pitched struggles for territory and influence that most European actors wrestled with, was an ascendant power in on the world stage who looked poised to only grow more influential on both economic and political fronts in succeeding decades. When war did break out, America’s having remained aloof till the end of the conflict both allowed her to emerge with greater gains and fewer losses than any other participant, as well as reinforced her claims to ‘exceptionalism’. It was in this setting that then President Woodrow Wilson swept into Europe with fervor of true American Idealism and a plan for the future of Western Democracy that promised peace and stability for all time to
His League of Nations would see states would embrace the rule of law rather than outmoded justifications of force and self-interest, would ensure each state’s right to self-determination and reflect the highest American ideals. For Wilson, true security was not to be found in State’s individual strength, the quest for which had led directly to the First World War, but rather in the new idea of Collective Security, contingent on the acknowledgement of the rights and sanctity of all by all. However, lacking the same level of zeal and commitment, his partners in peace remained focused on gains on the level of their individual states, arguing over the allocation of reparations money from Germany, the distribution of colonial territories in Africa and the Middle East. Further, the dissolution of not one but four great empires forced Wilson into positions where made concessions to the policy of self-determination enshrined in his fourteen points, while the demands of other states and his own biases caused him to deal with representatives of the Middle East and Japan in a manner that did not fully align with the principles he expressed. Rather than being afforded the right to rule itself, oil rich territory in the Middle East was parceled up between England and France and the claims of Japan