Policy debates often treat neutrality as an ideal solution, but last week, when my radical United States history class simulated the Treaty of Versailles debate, we revealed how misleading that idea can truly be. During the simulation, each of my classmates took on the roles of real senators during the debate who were internationalists, irreconcilables, or reservationists.
Four of my fellow classmates and I took on the roles of reservationists who, at first, seemed both neutral and reasonable while supporting the treaty with conditions to make it more bipartisan and appeal to those who hoped for American isolationism. In reality, many of the fourteen reservations that we argued during the debate fundamentally blurred the true soul of the treaty and would end up undercutting the League of Nations’ true effectiveness and its goal of achieving true international cooperation and world peace. Our choice in the simulation and in the real Treaty of Versailles to try and ‘compromise’ was not neutral at all, but clearly demonstrated a prioritization of national independence over foreign tranquility.
The simulation debate conducted in our class made it prevalent to me that there is no such thing as neutral policy decisions. Even attempts to avoid taking a certain stance on an issue can harbor a policy’s value and bring consequences. Much like in the real debate in 1919, our group was unable to ratify the treaty with the demanded reservations. In this case, the refusal to fully commit contributed to American isolationism and weakened global efforts to prevent future world conflict.
Dubbing a policy neutral does not remove its impact but only obscures it. Public policy always reflects certain priorities and perspectives over bipartisanship. The real question is not whether policy is neutral, but whose interests it ultimately ends up appealing to.
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