Los estudios internacionales en América Latina: realizaciones y desafíos

Los EsTUDIOS INTERNACIONALF.s EN AM~RICA l.ATINA lf you look back on the hístory of the negotiations between Britaín and France from 1904 to 1914, from the formation of the Anglo'French entente in 1904 down to the outbreak of war in 1914, you will find that a very small number of men in Britain virtual1y committed Britain to going to war in 1914. Those crucial negotiations between the British govemment and Franee were not even disclosed to a11 members of the Cabinet, although constitu– tionally the whole Cabinet is collectively responsible for all decisions taken by the govemment of the United Kingdom. 1 think the Prime Minister, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, possibly the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary for War were the only members of the Cabinet who were in the secrets of the Anglo-French relations ~and one or two very senior permanent officials in the Mínistry of Foreign Affairs- so that when the crisis carne in August 1914, the British govemment did not know whether the British parliament would ratify the acts it had taken during the past ten years, and the faet that Britain was virtually committed, carne as a surprise and a shock to the Britísh people. When 1 was a student at Oxford, which was from 1907 to 1911, not so long befare the outbreak of the first World War, 1 was very unconcious of intemational affairs anywhere, stíll more unconcious that international affairs might be physical -affect me in a contemporary, in a personal way. My wife tells me that 1 perhaps lived in rather exceptional1y liberal circles whích did not take the tbreat of the war between Britain and Germany seriously. She says that her mother and her sister were at that time training themselves as nurses to work in hospitals in the event of war breaking out. At the same time 1 think it is true to say that at Oxford during those years, 1907 to 1911, foreign affairs were always beyond the horizon. Let me illustrate this by an example. The students of the uníversity had a debating society, the Union Society, which has perhaps thirty or fourty debates in the course of the academic year. Out of these debates, one on1y per year, down to the outbreak of war in 1914, was assigned to foreign affairs. Because foreign affairs was thought to be a rather silly and unimportant subject, this debate on foreign affairs was for trying out the fresh men to see if they were good speakers or bad speakers. They said, "unimportant subjecf', we may use it for this purpose. This would sound incredible if it was not historicaI fact. The undergraduates of Oxford, and, 1 think, a large part of the British people at that time, were living in a kind of fooIs' paradíse, really ignorant of the disaster which was rushing foreward to overwhelm Europe and finally the whole world. My own education in international affairs began in 1911 to 1912. After 1 had finished my studies at Oxford, 1was going to go back to Oxford to teach ancientGreek and Roman history, so my college at Oxford gave me ayear to spend trave11ing about in Greece, studying the archeological sites -the &Cenes 20