On January 8, 1918 President Woodrow Wilson delivered his speech to the U.S. Congress outlining his 14 Points, a statement of war aims and peace terms for World War I, the only explicit statement of war aims by any country fighting the war. The speech was also in effect a blueprint for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy in which Wilson emphasized the issues of open international agreements “openly at arrived at,” free trade, freedom of navigation, removal of economic barriers, and introduced the concept of national self-determination and the ambition of making the world safe for democracy. Wilson’s speech was also a response to a speech, "Decree on Peace," delivered by Vladimir Lenin on November 1917, that proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war, and called for a just peace. It was a great disappointment to Wilson that Russia did withdraw and that the final Versailles Peace Treaty of June 28, 1919 ending the war incorporated few of...(Read Full Article)