Great Power Politics and Briand-Kellogg Pact

Abstract

When the First World War ended, the victorious states rebuilt the international system by meeting their own national interests at the highest level via the Treaty of Versailles. They also adopted a status-quoist foreign policy in order to protect their acquisitions. This situation formed a ground for a number of international interventions such as the efforts of making the outlawry of war. The purpose of this study is to give information about the historical development process of Briand-Kellogg Pact and examine the conflicting/reconciling interests of great powers during the inter-war period, in terms of the political history. Main theme of the article is to present the assertion regarding that great powers started to act with the reflex of protecting their acquisitions that were obtained after the Versailles and thus, England and France made the Briand-Kellogg Pact an open-ended treaty by winning the United States of America over.

Keywords

Status-quo States, Revisionist States, Great Powers, Self-defense, Treaty of Versailles.

Citation

Dilek, Mehmet Sait, “Great Power Politics and Briand-Kellogg Pact”, International Relations, Volume 10, Issue 37 (Spring 2013), pp. 145-169.

Affiliations

• Mehmet Sait DILEK, Assist. Prof. Dr., Ataturk University, Department of International Relations