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| TWO OPTIONS The Treaty of Westphalia, signed on 24 October 1648 at the end of the Thirty Years War, divided Europe into a number of sovereign nation states. Kimon Valaskakis argues that, over three and a half centuries later, this system of managing the world needs a long-overdue renovation [VALASKAKIS]. One flaw in this treaty is that it set the stage for war. If two of those sovereign states disagreed and the issue could not be settled by diplomacy, then the only option was to go to war. No higher sovereignty could settle the issue. Indeed, it set the stage for WORLD war because those sovereign states make treaties with one another and thus when any two nations went to war, all the other nations were required to join in. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919, at the end of World War 1, worsened the situation [MACMILLAN]. It created more nation states by drawing lines on the map without any consideration of cultural differences and thus set the stage for later disasters in, for example, Yugoslavia and Iraq. Also, by punished Germany so severely, it created such resentment that the German people democratically elected Adolf Hitler and set the stage for World War 2. Various steps to renovate the management of the world after World War 2 were more constructive. The Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, including Germany, contributed to a speedy post-war recovery and laid the foundation for the United States of Europe [REID]. The creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund was designed as a sort of Marshall Plan for the development of what was then called the Third World, as well as a means of stabilizing global currencies to prevent another depression. The formation of the United Nations created a higher sovereignty by nation states agreeing to yield some of their sovereignty with respect to issues which transcended their national borders. The Nuremberg Trials sought to establish that leaders of countries are subject to a higher sovereignty. |
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