Research Post 3: When Collective Security Abandoned Abyssinia

Economics. As it does with many things, the Economics of a situation dominates how nations will and can respond to it. Whether to invade or to not invade, to stand against an enemy or to yield, or to apply sanctions or to not, the economics dictate what a nation is willing to commit. This was especially true after the Great Depression, where, in 1935, nations were just starting to recover, but national economies were still very weak compared to their 1928 statuses. Adherence to the gold standard in nations continued to hurt national recoveries by constricting the money supply and preventing the necessary forced economic expansion. Two nations, Great Britain and Italy, that were still very much feeling the strain of the gold standard, knew this, and knew that taking strong economic actions against each other could severely hurt the other’s economy, or at least, that was the strategy that was forwarded by the world populace at the time. However, what I have discovered, through my research, is that the League sanctions, no matter how well intentioned, could not have been successful due to both a British unwillingness to see the sanctions through to their logical conclusion, and by the supplies and businesses of nations outside of the League.

[Read more…]