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Jan 01, 2014 02:00 am | Graham Allison
Precisely
a hundred years ago today, the richest man in the world sent New Year’s
greetings to a thousand of the most influential leaders in the U.S. and
Europe announcing: mission accomplished. “International Peace,” he
proclaimed, “is to prevail through the Great Powers agreeing to settle
their disputes by International Law, the pen thus proving mightier than
the sword.”Having immigrated to the US penniless, created the steel industry as a pillar of America's rise to preeminence, and become fabulously wealthy in the process, Andrew Carnegie had the confidence of a man who had achieved the impossible. When he turned from making money to spending it for public purposes, his goals were universal literacy at home (funding public libraries in cities and towns across America), and perpetual peace abroad, starting with the great powers of Europe and the US.
Events in the year that had just ended convinced Carnegie that 1914 would be the decisive turning point towards peace. Just six months earlier, his decade-long campaign culminated in the inauguration of the Peace Palace at the Hague, which he believed would become the Supreme Court of nations. The Palace was built to house the new International Court of Arbitration that would now arbitrate disputes among nations that had historically been settled by war. As the Economist noted, “the Palace of Peace embodies the great idea that gradually law will take the place of war."
read morehttp://nationalinterest.org/commentary/2014-good-year-great-war-9652
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