Peace on Earth--and the U. S. A
I
POLITICS are often explained by geography. To understand certain existing differences between Europe and America, we need only look at a map. The nations of North America are few in number. Their populations are relatively sparse and they possess vast natural resources. In consequence, their inhabitants feel no great need for expansion. They lack powerful armies simply because they do not need them. If the United States bordered on a large overpopulated country, instead of having Canada and Mexico for neighbors, its outlook on military problems would certainly be altered.
In Europe, however, the situation is different. On our side of the Atlantic many nations are crowded into a small piece of territory, and frontiers devoid of natural character separate one thickly settled country from another. Our standard of living is lower, and our lack of resources makes expansion necessary. The inequality of the various European nations tempts the stronger countries to oppress the weaker and compels the latter to guarantee themselves against invasion. Thus the Continent of Europe is at least committed to anxiety, if not to war, and the problem of security dominates all our political life.
The peace treaties of 1919 did not essentially lessen these dangers. To be sure, they put an end to the war and made another war impossible for a certain length of time. History teaches us that Europe is smitten about once a century with a great convulsion. We have witnessed the Thirty Years’ War in the seventeenth century, the wars of Louis XIV at the dawn of the eighteenth, Napoleon’s struggles at the beginning of the nineteenth, and the World War at the beginning of the twentieth. Between these outbursts local conflicts occurred, but general weariness and exhaustion of economic resources have not permitted nations to entertain vast ambitions or to indulge in slaughter on a grand scale.
It would be chimerical to hope that the new frontiers established by the peace treaties can definitely ensure European stability. It was a good thing to eliminate most of the injustices that apparently caused the World War, but new injustices have been created and their effect will make itself increasingly felt in international relations.
The truth is that the principle of nationality on which peace was made cannot be rigorously applied in Europe. The populations of certain regions are so ethnically mixed that it is impossible to lay down definite frontiers dividing people of one nationality from people of another. The negotiators of the peace treaties cannot be reproached with having failed to establish just frontiers, because the very idea of justice is incompatible in Europe with the idea of a frontier.
And here is something perhaps more serious still. Victory was gained by a coalition of nations, aided by the United States. The significance of this fact is that no one of the victorious nations is strong enough to dominate Europe by itself and to establish peace. This makes it possible for weak nations to enjoy a condition of real independence, and it explains why so many small States wanted the Allies to beat Germany, since Germany would have established a powerful hegemony over the Continent. On the other hand, however, the strongest European State now finds itself in the ranks of the vanquished, while the other camp, which supports the present condition of affairs, is entirely made up of the weaker nations.
Peace is a problem of security, and security is a subjective element. As a general thing it is not imperialism that causes war, but fear. It would be easy to prove that Napoleon waged most of his wars — and all of his later wars — not to subdue new nations, but to assure the security of those he had already subjugated. The same thing is even more true of modern Europe. Those big armies which are often held responsible for war are not due to ambition, but to fear. Thus it is that all great political alliances are concluded with a view to security. They may afterward be transformed into instruments of aggression, but at first they possess a merely defensive character. As one group gains more adherents the other side is automatically provoked to make new alliances of a similar character. Even a war of aggression may really be preventive. Fear of a Russian attack explains why the German Government has unceasingly claimed that this aggressive war they fought was really a war of defense. For peace to be assured, nations must be made to feel certain that they will not be attacked, and for the past ten years this has been the goal toward which all governments have labored. Their efforts can be divided into these categories: first, the efforts conducted within the League of Nations; second, the efforts of various European governments conducted outside the League of Nations; and third, the efforts of the government of the United States.
II
Everyone knows the mechanism that the League of Nations employs to bring about security. Countries belonging to the League have agreed in advance to recognize that the League Council is authorized to declare whether a war is one of aggression or of defense. In this way they are themselves deprived of passing judgment, having given an exterior body the right to pass on this point beyond appeal. When the Council unanimously agrees that a State is guilty of aggression, the sanctions of the League of Nations are unleashed against it. When, on the other hand, the Council is unable to pass unanimous judgment, the war becomes legal. In any case the League Covenant has made war more difficult by creating delays and imposing a peaceful method of procedure to which every State must submit or be qualified at once as the aggressor.
If this system is applied, war is a practical impossibility, for there is no country in Europe — and probably no country in the world — sufficiently independent economically and financially to be able to wage or even risk a war against the rest of the world. America presents the only difficulty. Since the United States is not subject to the League Covenant, it would unfortunately be possible for its government not to agree with the League Council as to which country was the aggressor, and the nation subjected to the sanctions of the League might thus be able to gain efficient aid from the New York money market and from American industry. Thus if a nation were declared the aggressor and the League were compelled to bring its sanctions to bear, there would be grave danger of a conflict between the League of Nations and America.
Everybody knows that an efficacious blockade can only be applied by sea. In the last analysis, therefore, it would be incumbent upon the British fleet to blockade any country condemned by the League of Nations. As long as the United States would collaborate, this task would be easy enough, but the moment that there is any possibility that the League of Nations would be standing on one side of the fence with the United States even morally standing on the other, the British fleet would be facing a difficult and perilous task.
The United States and England have different conceptions of maritime neutrality, and it was to defend her conception of neutrality that America went to war in 1812 as well as in 1917. The spectre of a war between the two great Anglo-Saxon naval powers thus emerges once more, and it is this factor that has been influencing British policy toward the League during the last few years.
To sum up: No one can foresee how Article XVI of the Covenant would be carried out in case of some aggressive act. Its chief value is preventive. If the United States belonged to the League it might well be that the preventive effect of Article XVI would be so great as definitely to prevent all war, but in the absence of the United States an aggressive act remains theoretically possible.
III
For this reason nations have been led to attempt various methods of securing greater security outside the League Covenant. The first of these methods consists of making alliances. This category includes the Little Entente and a series of treaties between France and the new countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In principle these treaties are not hostile to the League of Nations; their one purpose has been to reënforce the guaranties of the League. The States that gained by the war have merely acted on the maxim that two precautions are better than one, although it hardly applies when the two precautions are contradictory.
What will happen in actual practice? Recent history teaches us that solemn alliances are often broken when they do not express popular feeling. Italy, Greece, and Rumania proved this during the last war. Will a nation break its word as a member of the League in order to help an aggressive State, and will it remain faithful to a treaty that the Covenant has alreadydeclared illegal? Since this is improbable, to say the least, the very statesmen who have made alliances are aware of the weakness of these treaties and have not hesitated to return to the bosom of the League.
As for armies, they offer but a false security. The only real security lies in the strongest army, and even then such an army may tempt a nation to ruin, as was the case with Germany in 1914. Moreover, armies are expensive, and in the present state of economic and financial exhaustion not many European countries can afford them.
Article VIII of the Covenant has made disarmament the first duty of the League, and ever since the first sessions of the Assembly this question has played a rôle of prime importance. Successive commissions have studied it from both a technical and a political point of view, and have all agreed that; disarmament is impossible in Europe unless security be established first.
In 1922 this point was affirmed in Resolution XIV of the Assembly and was elaborated by Lord Cecil and M. de Jouvenel, the French representative. In executing this resolution, the 1923 Assembly adopted the treaty of mutual assistance, which the British Government promptly rejected. The weakness of this treaty was that it defined the duty of mutual assistance among League members, but provided no mechanism for the peaceful adjustment of any conflicts that might arise. It is futile to hope that in the Europe of to-morrow harmony will be so complete that no point of difference between nations will ever emerge. If war is forbidden purely and simply, and if no method of peaceful procedure for adjusting international litigation is created, aggressor States will not have been disarmed, but States that would act in good faith will have been.
Taking advantage of favorable political circumstances, the Assembly was able to make a new step in the same direction in 1924 when it framed the Geneva Protocol, which England again rejected as she did the treaty for mutual assistance, though for different reasons. If we go to the bottom of the matter we cannot fail to recognize that the principal reason for British opposition was the fact that the United States did not belong to the League. Quite naturally England was not disposed to lay herself open to fresh international complications and to increase the risks she might run in case sanctions against an aggressive nation should have to be enforced. There is no doubt that the British Government would not sign the League Covenant to-day. It has no intention of resigning, but it can hardly be asked to go beyond a strict interpretation of its obligations under the Covenant as long as it is not sure that these obligations may some day set it up against the American navy. This explains why Sir Austen Chamberlain, immediately after the Geneva Protocol was rejected, took the initiative in creating a system of security on the European Continent, in which Great Britain participated. The Locarno Pact does not differ essentially from the Protocol. It, too, contains full assurances of mutual nonaggression, a system of compulsory arbitration, and an implicit promise to disarm; but it applies only to certain Continental States, and the risks that it involves can be calculated closely. Furthermore, there is so little chance that the Locarno Treaties will engender difficulties between England and America that the English Government felt able to run this small risk. These treaties have affected European politics profoundly, but they have remained impotent in the domain of disarmament.
Since Germany herself is virtually disarmed, she presents no problem. The chief sources of anxiety are Bolshevist Russia, Italy and Jugoslavia, and the Balkans. All these matters are untouched by the Locarno agreements, which have really made disarmament all the more urgent because they have stimulated the impatience and hopes of other countries. They brought Germany into the League of Nations and thus permitted her voice to be heard. The League has had to set to work once more, and still finds itself confronted by the same problem of security.
The Committee on Arbitration and Security has attempted to adapt the Locarno Pact to other nations, but as long as the British Government remains opposed to any universal agreement the League can only establish model treaties whose adoption and practical application are entirely dependent on the good pleasure of the various nations. Clearly the science of international law has in this way made an appreciable advance, but not national security, for these treaties can only be accepted by States already living in a condition of mutual confidence, whereas they would only be useful between States that distrusted each other.
If we analyze the naval difficulties between England, France, and the United States, we promptly discover that England looks upon herself as the only eventual executor of League sanctions. To accomplish her task she needs powerful resources. The British people quite sincerely believe that the one purpose of their fleet is to bring an aggressive nation to reason, and they do not understand that other countries equally peaceful may oppose them in this task. It is clear where the logical flaw lies. The world at large is not sure that the British fleet will never execute any national designs, but the English themselves are sure, and this difference — like all the others — arises from the fact that all members of the League are not equally obligated by the conditions of the Covenant.
IV
From this brief historical survey, it is clear that peace is a whole. No lasting peace can exist on earth without a feeling of security; and security demands an effective means of regulating international conflicts as well as an appreciable reduction of armaments. Every attempt to solve one of these questions without the other has failed. They must be treated together, as they were in the Geneva Protocol. This method, however, always encounters the opposition of Great Britain because of her fear of the United States, which only goes to prove that peace is also a whole from the territorial point of view. It interests the entire world.
The people of the United States have understood this fact. Although their geographic situation assures complete security, their economic interests — to say nothing of their moral preoccupations — are so vast that America cannot fail to be interested in the maintenance of peace throughout the world. Beginning in 1921, the American Government tried to take a decisive step in the direction of naval disarmament. Although the results of the naval conference at Washington are satisfying in many respects, they have not made an essential contribution to world peace. Why is this? First of all, because peace does not depend on armaments, as we often believe. Armaments are merely a symptom. If we desire to reduce them without making sure that peace can be maintained in some other way, we are grasping the wrong end of the stick. In the second place, there is no danger of a breach of peace between Great Britain and the United States; the place to work for peace is between countries which are divided by real conflicts. And, last of all, the categories of ships limited at Washington did not represent the type of boat that interests most admiralties nowadays.
This fact became clear in 1927, when a new effort was made in the same direction. It then appeared impossible to apply the same rules to cruisers as to ships of the line, and for a very simple reason. Battleships are essentially offensive instruments, while cruisers are necessary for defense; in other words, for the security of maritime nations. And in this way the United States was once more led back to the great question that has been haunting Europe for ten years.
The international position of the United States is dominated by two factors — on the one hand, by the desire of the American people to remain free from European entanglements, and, on the other hand, by the impossibility of remaining politically isolated because of all the economic and financial interests that bind the United States to the rest of the world. Just after the war the first of these preoccupations came to the fore. The American Senate’s rejection of the Versailles Treaty was the symptom of an irresistible current of opinion that favored returning to the traditional position of political isolation. Years have now passed. The United States has been obliged to invest larger and larger sums abroad. It is no longer a debtor nation, and its industries have sought out new markets in other continents. Trade no longer follows the flag; the flag follows trade. And all the hesitations of American diplomacy during the last ten years, all its attempts to mingle in world politics, are explained by the fact that the country has not yet definitely chosen between these two attitudes, although the American people prefer an isolation that economic circumstances render impossible.
An effort to reconcile these two currents occurred in 1926, when the attempt was made to bring America into the World Court, but the conditions under which she was willing to join would have made her membership futile and might well have weakened the Court itself instead of strengthening it. Something else had to be found.
Article XVI of the Covenant was the determining factor in steering the American people away from the League of Nations. At no price whatever will the American people place themselves in the position where they may sometime be forced to apply sanctions against some European State without being able to come to such a decision of their own free will. This fear, however, is groundless to a certain extent, since Europe does not desire the United States to participate actively in any sanctions that the League Council may order. Such action is not necessary. By uniting against an aggressor, the nations of Europe will always be strong enough to bring that nation to reason without the help of the United States. But, if peace is to be maintained, Europe must know definitely in advance that an aggressive State cannot count on the moral, economic, or financial aid of the United States.
It was this idea that gave birth to the suggestion several American citizens advanced to M. Briand and that brought about his first proposition to outlaw war. The United States Government declared itself sympathetic to the scheme, provided that it could be expressed constitutionally and provided that it would not be opposed by the Senate. Hence the Kellogg Pact, which possesses two great advantages. Its absolute legal condemnation of war profoundly transforms the traditions of international law, for war in the past was always legal in the eyes of jurists. Now, however, nations have renounced in the most categorical fashion what they had previously considered as one of the essential attributes of their sovereignty.
In the second place, although the Kellogg Pact does not lay down any positive obligation in case of war, it places any aggressor in such a moral position toward the United States and toward the signers of the Kellogg Pact that it would be extremely difficult for the American people to give positive aid to an aggressor State. And this fact, as we have seen, would discourage any aggression in Europe and renders a new war almost impossible.
The influence of the Kellogg Pact in the domain of security has been considerable, and it may be equally important in the domain of disarmament. Whatever the present differences between the United States, France, and Great Britain may be on the subject of naval disarmament, it is impossible that these difficulties should not be surmounted as soon as some general agreement has been reached as to the policy they would pursue toward any aggressor. Naval disarmament was very difficult as long as the British and American fleets might find themselves in conflict, but it becomes a simple matter as soon as it is certain that they will not oppose each other in case of some active aggression.
V
Developments in the last fifteen years prove that peace is not a mere theory. The current discussions of the subject are due to the fact that the new economic structure of the world has made peace necessary. Nations could afford the luxury of war as long as they were not economically interdependent and as long as it was possible to limit the theatre of war and its destructive effects. Now, however, it is clearly proved not only that wars spread automatically, but that they also tend to bring all the belligerents to a state of complete ruin.
Moral evolution has followed practical evolution in this field, but, as so often happens, the attitudes of different countries do not change at the same rate of speed. In 1914 moral evolution was much further advanced in Western Europe than with Germany and her allies, and this was one of the profound causes of the last war. Whereas the democratic Powers of the West looked upon war as a veritable crime, the men who took the responsibility for it still considered it a normal means of exerting political pressure.
Defeat possesses an educational value impossible to overestimate, and to-day all countries seem to have achieved this degree of moral evolution. Our attitude toward war is totally different from what it was a century, or even fifty years ago. War then seemed to be a misfortune, but not a crime. Statesmen tried to avoid it, but they did not feel dishonored if they had to make it. To-day the statesman who will assume responsibility for declaring a war, and will admit it, can be sure that his memory will be abominated.
Changing moral ideas underlie all human progress. It would be futile to make treaties outlawing war if these treaties were in advance of public opinion, but the truth is that the agreements now concluded gain their strength from the fact that they harmonize with opinion. Even so, morals are not enough. They are subject to sudden collapses, and laws must be established to maintain them. The twofold mechanism created by the League Covenant and the Kellogg Pact is based on morals and strengthens them.
Economic and financial ties are bringing all nations closer and closer together. Internationalized markets have bound the world in a network of common interests so closely woven that war, which was easy and natural in the past, becomes more and more a physical impossibility. It is this fact more than the texts of peace treaties and the security of nations which makes us believe in the duration of peace. Only skeptical or ignorant people can believe that what has been always will be. The history of the world is a history of continued progress.