Kellog-Briand Pact
Summary: The Kellog-Briand Peace Pact served as an extremely idealistic attempt by most of the world's largest powers to limit or abolish war as a national policy. The short and concise treaty had nations including the USA, UK, Italy, Japan, Poland, and Germany agree to abolish the use of war as an instrument for furthering national interests or resolving international disputes. However, as history showed us in the next decade, the Treaty was essentially worthless as soon as one nation decided to break it (Germany). It lacked any real provisions to help enforce its one and only element, and essentially relied only on the goodwill of politicians to remain functional.
(The post-WWII United Nations would pursue a similar effort to limit warfare, but instead of relying entirely on goodwill, the UN also utilized international sanctions and the threat of the mass of armed member nations to keep dissenters from starting WWIII. Even this has proved ineffective in many cases).
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