THE UN PROJECT IN THE STRATEGY OF AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP: THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE (1939–1945)

DOI 10.17721/2521-1706.2025.20.7

Oleksandra Kotliar,

Ph. D. student (History), Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2653-0443

Abstract. World War II forced the Allies to rethink the architecture of peace. In Washington, this debate unfolded alongside broader plans for a new international order. Competing visions of collective security, legitimacy, and institutional authority shaped the contours of wartime planning. These discussions also reflected shifting assumptions about the distribution of power after victory.

The article aims to identify the role of the U.S. Department of State in developing the United Nations Organization (UN) project during World War II. The study demonstrates how the process of conceptualizing the goals and foundational principles of the new international organization was integrated into the country’s broader strategy of international leadership.

The scientific novelty of this research lies in analyzing the creation of the UN through the lens of the State Department’s strategic planning, revealing the U.S. government’s aspiration to secure both the symbolic and institutional foundations of its leadership in the postwar global order. The article examines the approaches of key State Department figures to designing the UN and identifies how their intellectual contributions influenced the content of its Charter.

The methodological framework is grounded in the approaches of intellectual history, focusing on the analysis of political thought, ideological structures, and the mechanisms through which conceptual ideas of international order acquired practical form in the work of the State Department. The study employs a structural-functional approach, a historical-comparative method, and discourse analysis.

The author concludes that the proposals for the establishment of the UN developed within the State Department provided the conceptual basis for the new international organization. Figures such as Cordell Hull, Sumner Welles, and Leo Pasvolsky played a decisive role in shaping its foundations. The study establishes that the process of the UN’s creation contributed to consolidating American international leadership by embedding into the postwar international system the political and value principles that reflected the strategic thinking of the United States in the 1940s.

Key words: U.S. foreign policy, international leadership, World War II, United Nations, strategic planning.

Submitted: 20.09.2025

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