Wilson’s Fourteen Points

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How did Wilson’s Fourteen Points reflect both changes and continuities from the United States’ earlier approaches to international policy?

On January 8, 1918, ten months before the armistice in Europe, President Wilson revealed to Congress his Fourteen Points, his blueprint for a new democratic world order. The first five points affirmed basic liberal ideals: an end to secret treaties, freedom of the seas, removal of economic barriers to free trade, reduction of weapons of war, and recognition of the rights of colonized peoples. The next eight points supported the right to self-determination of European peoples who had been dominated by Germany or its allies. Wilson’s fourteenth point called for a “general association of nations”—a League of Nations—to provide “mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.” A League of Nations reflected Wilson’s lifelong dream of a “parliament of man.” Only such an organization of “peace-loving nations,” he believed, could justify the war and secure a lasting peace.