Collective Security

11 Pages 2810 Words

Should the Concert of Europe be viewed as an example of collective security?


The Napoleonic Wars, lasting from 1789 until 1815, were unlike any previously fought on continental Europe. For the first time, it was fought between nations and not just the ruling elites of each state . In addition, the terrible toll in lives lost and damage done was of a previously unthinkable scale. When, therefore, Napoleon was defeated and France was restored to its original (pre-Revolutionary) frontiers, the Great Powers of Europe sought to create a system between them that would ensure a lasting peace. This system came to be known as the Concert of Europe, and acted to sustain a viable peace from 1815 until the Crimean War in 1848. This essay discusses whether this system acted in a way consistent with the theory of Collective Security. This essay will begin by discussing the theoretical framework of Collective Security, its key principles and objectives. Following this, a look at the structure of the Concert of Europe will show its theoretical incompatibility with Collective Security doctrine. The two systems show two clearly different approaches to power among states, and the principles of Collective Security are not the same as those of the concert. Thirdly, it will be shown how the Concert acted in practice, not in line with collective security, but with balance-of-power, the system that theorists of Collective Security attempt to replace. Nevertheless, the following section of this essay will show how some of the key participants in the Concert of Europe, particularly Metternich of Austria, did sometimes act with collective security, rather than balance of power, in mind, and that many of the Concerts techniques seem at odds with traditional balance of power logic. Thus, the theory of ‘Concert collective security’, put forward to explain this discrepancy, will be explained and examined. This will lead to the conclusion that, while t...