istent every day, the League of Nations is as yet in its embryonic
state, and the storm clouds that are gathering may for a time totally
eclipse its powers and obliterate its machinery, yet the direction in
which the institution itself is operating is most significant. The voices
that have been raised ever since its inception, the efforts that have been
exerted, the work that has already been accomplished, foreshadow the
triumphs which this presently constituted institution, or any other body
that may supersede it, is destined to achieve.

Baha'u'llah's Principle of Collective Security

A general Pact on security has been the central purpose towards which
these efforts have, ever since the League was born, tended to converge.
The Treaty of Guarantee which, in the initial stages of its development,
its members had considered and discussed; the debate on the Geneva
Protocol, the discussion of which, at a later period, aroused among the
nations, both within the League and outside it, such fierce controversy;
the subsequent proposal for a United States of Europe and for the economic
unification of that continent; and last but not least the policy of
sanctions initiated by its members, may be regarded as the most
significant landmarks in its checkered history. That no less than fifty
nations of the world, all members of the League of Nations, should have,
after mature deliberation, recognized and been led to pronounce their
verdict against an act of aggression which in their judgment has been
deliberately committed by one of their fellow-members, one of the foremost
Powers of Europe; that they should have, for the most part, agreed to
impose collectively sanctions on the condemned aggressor, and should have
succeeded in carrying out, to a very great measure, their decision, is no
doubt an event without parallel in human history. For the first time in
the history of humanity the system of collective security, foreshadowed by
Baha'u'llah and explained by 'Abdu'l-Baha, has been seriously envisaged,
discussed and tested. For the first time in history it has been officially
recognized and publicly stated that for this system of collective security
to be effectively established strength and elasticity are both
essential--strength involving the use of an adequate force to ensure the
efficacy of the proposed system, and elasticity to enable the machinery
that has been devised to meet the legitimate needs and aspirations of it