Preparing peace requires states to attempt to anticipate the future. States need a certain capacity for anticipation and planning. This capacity for anticipation and planning began to take shape at the end of World War II, then institutionalized at the end of the Cold War. We welcome Lelia Roche, her thesis focuses on how American and Western European diplomats and intellectuals sought to anticipate and plan the international order after the Cold War between 1985 and 1995.
Lelia Roche reflects on her note-taking work for the “Verbatim of the Second World War conferences.” She explains that she “read the verbatim texts, adding footnotes to every mention of a character, place, or historical event that was not obvious to the reader in order to clarify the reading.” She emphasizes the importance of this annotation exercise, which aimed to “be useful to the reader without weighing down the text and allowing the text to speak for itself.”
The historian then highlights what struck her in the conferences: while “the war rages,” the Allies were already seeking to “prepare for peace and imagine a new international order that would guarantee peace and stability.” Several questions dominated the discussions: the German question, the fate of liberated states, and “what international organization to create to replace the League of Nations that had failed to protect peace.”
Asked about the goals of each leader at the time, Lelia Roche explains that Stalin sought above all to “protect his empire” and ensure that the Eastern European states would serve as a protective buffer in case of future conflict. In contrast, Churchill and Roosevelt shared the “major challenges” of “reconstruction and stability,” even though Churchill also wanted the French state to regain its status as a major power in Europe to counterbalance the USSR and Germany.
Regarding the human dimension of the conferences, Lelia Roche notes that “Stalin’s somewhat rough side” sometimes surprised Roosevelt, while Churchill could “tense up with the Soviets.” What she finds striking is their “capacity to get along quite well, to joke, to toast each other.” Lelia Roche draws a more general conclusion: “large international conferences in which all subjects are discussed honestly and openly by heads of state,” despite their limitations, “can still provide a certain form of stability.”
