The Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security, or Four Power Declaration, was signed on October 30, 1943, at the Moscow Conference by the Big Four: the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, and China. The declaration formally established the four-power framework that would later influence the international order of the postwar world. It was one of four declarations signed at the conference; the others were the Declaration on Italy, the Declaration on Austria, and the Declarations on Atrocities. The declaration was drafted by

US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

advisers such as Cordell Hull and Sumner Welles, who presented it to President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

on August 10. Their proposal eschewed the regional councils, preferred by British Prime Minister

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

, in favor of establishing an international postwar organization. It omitted any discussion of the potentially-controversial establishment of a permanent peacekeeping force after the war. Instead, its stated aim was simply the creation "at the earliest possible date of a general international organization." Roosevelt revealed the proposal to Churchill and Anthony Eden when they met at Quebec. Roosevelt stressed that the declaration would "in no way prejudice final decisions as to world order" and that the declaration was only an interim agreement. Churchill and Roosevelt reached a consensus that the declaration should be given high priority at the Moscow Conference, but

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

wanted the conference to focus on the ongoing war against Germany. The Soviets also objected to the inclusion of the Republic of China as the fourth

Great Power A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power in ...

of the declaration, officially on the grounds that the Moscow Conference was planned as a meeting between three Great Powers (the US, UK and the Soviet Union). Roosevelt suspected that Stalin's true motivations were to avoid antagonizing the Japanese with whom they had signed a

non-aggression pact A non-aggression pact or neutrality pact is a treaty between two or more states/countries that includes a promise by the signatories not to engage in military action against each other. Such treaties may be described by other names, such as a tr ...

in 1941. Churchill's view was that Stalin had a similar reluctance to recognize China as a Great Power.

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* * {{Diplomatic history of World War II, state=expanded 1943 in the Soviet Union 1943 in international relations History of the United Nations United States and the United Nations China and the United Nations Soviet Union–United States relations Russia and the United Nations

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