Originally Published in Madras Courier
Editorial Note
How long can America endure a world that has learned not to trust it.
On 19 November 1919, the United States Senate perpetrated a breach of trust that would set the template for a century of American statecraft. It rendered the presidential diplomatic signature unreliable in the eyes of the world, and that ignominious precedent echoes to this day. Woodrow Wilson had travelled to Paris to champion the League of Nations and secure its incorporation in to the Treaty of Versailles, staking America’s moral authority as the architect of a new international order in which law, not force, would restrain power.