WWII Timeline 1939-1940

Why did collective security fail to keep the peace between 1920 and 1935?

Collective Security failed because the method chosen to attempt it, the League of Nations, was poorly designed in its plans versus intent form the very beginning. The League of Nations was formed with the intent of maintaining peace after the devastation of the First World War. It was, in an essence, supposed to be a parental governing figure for the world as its children. Each time there was an argument or conflict the country who was the victim would be protected while the aggressor sibling was met with threats and then punishment. It began with an attempt to reach a calm, mutual agreement before escalating to have implications on finances and moral codes. The League of Nations, although a good idea, could hardly work at all for the very same reasons that the analogy above results in tension until someone leaves: it places expectations for how people behave too high. In a sense, the program expected people to act benevolently towards others instead of attempting to ensure they're own successes in the same manner that Communism expects people to behave economically; both theories may sound appealing but the execution is impossible. Besides the irrational expectation that a country will prevent their own progression in favor of allowing another to maintain they're standard for life, the grandiose issue found within the Covenant is in fact how much of it wasn't even dedicated to the maintaining of peace in the practical military sense. Over half of the articles were dedicated to details of minimal importance such as Membership (1-7), Characteristics of a good member (18-21, and even some consumed with humanitarian/charitable causes (23, 25), resulting in an organisation who in retrospect looks more like a service group than an international peace maintenance committee. The rational behind why collective security failed in the 1930s is that the League was faced with three key issues that manifested in smaller events to be detrimental. For one, the Great Depression led to countries focusing more on their own personal issues and being hesitant to spend money on causes not directly effecting them (see the United States - though not a member- and Great Britain). Secondly, the state of many of the countries on a political level had made Europe unstable, whether it be the rise of Communism or dictatorial power as in Russia and Germany or the attempt to stand on their own after centuries of being an empire as it was for much of Central Europe. Finally, the most important catalyst was perhaps that key members, like Italy and Japan, began to blatantly disobey the rules of the League to expand their kingdom and League attempted to appease rather than be the forceful hand they claimed to be, breaking down functionally and viably to do what it was intended to until it deteriorated completely.