What Substitute for War?
I
GREAT discoveries and great movements used to penetrate slowly through the world, buffered by the passage of time. Until the last century, speed was measured by the horse’s gallop and the force of wind on sail, city dwellers lived an uncle’s distance from the farm, armies moved at a walk, knowledge had progressed but life itself had not altered greatly for a thousand years.
Then came the era of science, changing completely our methods, our customs, and our ideas; changing also the relationships of men and of nations, spreading its influence throughout the world. This new environment for human life has struck our generation with full force and left us staggering in confusion.
Since a changed environment favors some and injures others, the rights of men and nations must be readjusted to coincide with their ability and strength in this new world. If they are not readjusted by agreement, they will be readjusted by force. If war is to be avoided, a nation must be given a peaceful means of representation equal to the strength of arms it can bear. Men must be accorded rights equal to their ability rather than to their numbers or to their inheritance from the past. But here science fails us, for it has created no adequate measure for those intangible qualities of men which make the one superior to the other, and which gave birth to our western civilization. Science has changed our environment of life, but it has not taught us how to adjust ourselves to that change peacefully. And since peaceful representation has failed, at a time when adventure has been armed by discovery and encouraged by opportunity, Europe is again in a period of war and revolution.
Much of the civilized world looks on aghast that such a catastrophe could take place in this day and age. But why should it seem so shocking to us? The history of Europe has always been interwoven with conflict. Experience would warn us to be surprised if much more time had passed without a war. One need only glance at a record of the last century to realize that hardly a year has gone by without at least one European country’s being involved in war or revolution. Even we in America have not been left untouched.
The present war, the Ethiopian war, the World War, the Boer War, the Franco-Prussian War, the war between Germany and Austria, the war between Prussia and Denmark, the FrancoSardinian war against Austria, the Crimean War, the British opium war; revolutions and uprisings in Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, and the Balkans; British actions in Africa, India, China, Afghanistan, Palestine, and elsewhere; French actions in Africa, Indo-China, and Mexico — all these conflicts, and more, took place within the last one hundred years of European history. And the farther back the pages are turned, the longer the list becomes. Why is it, then, that this present war struck us with such force and horror? What cause had we to believe that our particular generation had found the golden key to peace? How can we justify this vanity of ours? For some reason we have come to feel that war should be a thing of the past.; that in our age, our century, our lifetime, through no great sacrifice of our own, the plan of history and the laws of nature should change.
Have we not been swept along by the rapid developments of science, and the material progress which follows, until we deluded ourselves into believing that we had eliminated the competition of life itself—which, after all, appears to be one of the fundamental laws of nature? It seems more reasonable to suppose that this great change we are going through, this mutation in our methods of living, will alter the technique but by no means eliminate the conflicts between peoples which have existed since life began. The developments of modern warfare give us little cause to associate progress with peace.
II
Many people say that war must cease, that it is not an clement of civilized life, and that, as man’s intelligence increases, armed conflict will end. That may be, but then increasing intelligence must offer some adequate substitute for war —something to take the place it has always held in the affairs of men as the final judge of their claims and of their rights. For when law and arbitration are no longer acceptable, when the simplicity of strength seems more at tractive than the complexity of intellect, when desire is so strong or ideals so great that words fall meaningless on minds convinced, then men turn to war and justice allies itself with force, while each side calls on God to bless its cause of righteousness. From the Crusades through the conquest of the ‘New World’ to the struggles of modern Europe, it has always been the same.
But the reply comes back from hopeful minds: ‘A League of Nations,’‘A settlement of all controversies by peaceful representation.’ And we are brought again to that old argument between ability and numbers that has wrecked every attempt to end fighting between men — some way to represent in peace the strength of arms in war. It is the rock upon which the League of Nations foundered. It is the question that must be answered before war ends upon this earth — how to represent India, Russia, and China at the same table with England, Germany, and Japan.
‘Peaceful representation’ succeeds in major controversies only when competing nations feel that the influence they exert by peaceful means is reasonably in accord with that which they could exert in battle. When this is not the case, we have Japan and Germany leaving the League of Nations for more effective methods of procedure. No system of representation can succeed in which the voice of weakness is equal to the voice of strength.
III
We in America have a tendency to look on this war in Europe as a conflict between right and wrong, with right represented by the ‘democracies’ and wrong represented by the ‘totalitarian’ countries. But the motives and causes of war are not so easily caged. If one looks at Europe objectively, neither side seems to have a monopoly of right — except the kind of right which is judged by its own particular and rather momentary standards. Even this type of right frequently changes when it is applied to the opposing side.
For instance, one of the banners which ‘democratic’ peoples follow is called ‘Equality of Opportunity.’ But this flag now waves before the German legions in their demand for equality of opportunity in the influence and possessions of the world today, while the ‘democratic’ armies of England and France stand defending empires of conquered and hereditary wealth. So that we find ‘equality of opportunity’ within a nation called ‘democratic’ and ‘right’ by the same people who call the demand for ‘equality of opportunity’ among nations ‘totalitarian’ and ‘wrong.’
But the former is based on law and the latter on force, someone replies. That is true, and this fact, lies at the base of the present war. There are laws within nations, but not among nations, that permit the redistribution of land, influence, and wealth, as generations pass and the tides of human character ebb and flow. There is no adequate peaceful way for a nation to expand its territory and add to its colonies — no international measure for the right of birth rates, virility, skill, and all the innumerable factors that enter into the rise and fall of nations, of empires, of civilizations. And therefore, when a strong people becomes dissatisfied with its position and cannot attain its ambition through negotiation and agreement, it turns to that primeval ‘right’ of force — as we did with the American Indians and with Mexico, as England did in Africa, India, and America, as the Italians did in Ethiopia, as Germany is doing today.
This present war is a continuation of the old struggle among western nations for the material benefits of the world. It is a struggle by the German people to gain territory and power. It is a struggle by the English and French to prevent another European nation from becoming strong enough to demand a share in influence and empire. The ideologies of the opposing sides are but in keeping with the conditions in the countries they represent.
Those countries which, like England and France, are well satisfied with their position and possessions follow the types of political ideology that come with luxury, and stable times, and the desire to enjoy rather than to acquire. The countries which, like Germany, have recently gone through great hardships and chaotic times have the types of political systems that spring from such times, and which involve rigid discipline and the subordination of individual freedom to the strength of a recuperating state — a slate whose people must acquire before they can enjoy.
Both sides in Europe are fighting for a right. It is the old story in a modern world — the right of conquest against the right of possession. Measured by their own standards of today, or by their enemy’s standards of yesterday and tomorrow, the Germans are as much in the right as the English and French, for right is not an absolute quality; it is relative to outlook, and oullook changes with conditions—varies from year to year, and from generation to generation.
The English and French claim they are right in fighting to maintain their possessions and their ethics, and the status quo of their last victory. The Germans, on the other hand, claim the right of an able and virile nation to expand — to conquer territory and influence by force of arms as other nations have done at one time or another throughout history.
This war in Europe is not so much a conflict between right and wrong as it is a conflict between differing concepts of right — a conflict in which the ‘defenders’ are represented by the static, legal ‘right’ of man, and the ‘aggressors’ by the dynamic, forceful ‘right’ of nature. No nation has been consistent in its concept of either. At the time of Napoleon, England and Germany said of France what England and France are saying of Germany today. At the time of the Boer War, to quote an English historian, ‘in Germany and France the waves of anti-English indignation rose mountains high.’ Napoleon was defeated and his conquests lost to France. England won against the Boers and incorporated the Transvaal in her Empire. The arguments of right and wrong are left to historians.
‘Right’ is a capricious word and an intangible ally in any struggle, for it has a dimension of survival and of time, and changes sides even after history is written.
This problem is not new; it has always existed. We have never found a way of agreeing on the rights of nations or of men. The ‘rights’ of one generation are often built upon the ‘wrongs’ of a previous one. Drake was a successful pirate, so he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. Washington led a successful revolution and changed his status from that of an English traitor to that of an American hero. In periods of satisfaction, ‘right’ becomes associated with law, while in periods of strife it becomes more an ally of force. And one period follows the other throughout the ages.
IV
The vital need at this time is not to decide who is at fault in the war in Europe, or to criticize the vacillating policies that caused it, or to argue over our concepts of right and wrong. That would simply leave opinion as divided as the opposing armies. The important task is for us to determine what procedure is best for America and for the western civilization of which we are a part — how we can protect, enrich, and pass on the heritage to our children that our forefathers fought for and guarded and passed on to us; how to control these rapid developments of science and prevent them from destroying the very culture by which they were created.
The solution to this situation in Europe does not lie in fighting to impose one ideology upon another. History is filled with the failure of such attempts, and nowhere are they more numerous than in the most idealistic of all its chapters — that of Religion. The answer is not in war among western nations, but in sharing influence and empire among a sufficient number of their peoples to make sure that they control an overwhelming military strength. Then, and then only, can our civilization endure in safety and in peace — only through the coöperation of a group of western nations strong enough to act as a police force for the world.
Germany is as essential to this group as England or France, for she alone can either dam the Asiatic hordes or form the spearhead of their penetration into Europe. That intangible eastern border of European civilization, which Germany holds today, has fluctuated back and forth for over two thousand years. Persia pressed against the Greeks. The Huns rode their ponies from Central Asia into the Roman Empire. The Mongol Khans penetrated Poland and Hungary. Turkish armies nearly took Vienna, and now Russia is pushing Europe’s frontier slowly westward again, while Germany, France, and England carry on their suicidal quarrels.
Security and peace can be maintained only by the military superiority of the world’s dominant civilization and the coöperation of the nations which compose it. When superiority is lost, as it was by Rome, or when coöperation fails as it did in Greece, civilization falls and conflict takes the place of culture. Asia alone is no threat to the powerful mechanized armies of the West; but Germany as an outcast European nation, skilled in the technique of modern warfare, organizing and leading the limitless resources of the East, is as great a danger as European civilization has ever known.
V
The condition of Europe affects us greatly in America, for we have a bond to her as a child has to its parents. But that bond is to neither of these warring sides alone; it is to both. We have a material and a spiritual interest in their welfare. From a spiritual standpoint we are interested in the preservation of European culture, and from a material standpoint in the preservation of European strength. From either standpoint it is a united and not a divided family of nations that we need.
Europe divided in war reduces the stature of our civilization and lessens the security of all western nations. It destroys life, and art, and the spiritual growth that springs from peaceful intercourse among men. It removes that superiority in character and arms that has made ours the dominant civilization of the modern world, and which has spread the influence of our culture and our commerce to the remotest corners of the earth. It is only when western nations turn inward to war among themselves that Asiatic armies stir from their contemplation and feel the smothering strength of their myriad numbers.
America’s security lies primarily in the character and resources of her people and in the adequacy of her national defense. We have the strength and the geographical position to withstand invasion regardless of opposing forces. But, beyond the internal welfare of our nation, we have a broader security that lies in the western civilization which we have both inherited and advanced. Alone, our nation is unconquerable, but with a united Europe at our side our civilization is irresistible and can progress unchallenged in security and peace throughout a warlike world.
Neither America nor western civilization will gain by a continuation of this struggle in Europe. The longer it goes on, the weaker our family of nations will be, and the more it will add to the conquests of Russia and Japan. American policy should always oppose these internecine wars among our parent nations. No one could be in a better position than we to forward the cause of peace, both by influence and by example. With three thousand miles of ocean between us, we should be able to look objectively on the difficulties of the Old World, and our attitude has great effect on Europe.
But let us not delude ourselves into believing that we can bring peace to European countries by entering their wars or by guaranteeing their treaties. If a lasting peace is to be established, it will be by the prevention rather than the imposition of another such treaty as Versailles. It will be only by avoiding the wish for war on the part of those who arc in a position to wage it. For this there is no formula but intelligence, and no guarantee but satisfaction.
The last war demonstrated the fallacy of sending American soldiers to European battlefields. The victory we helped to win brought neither order nor justice in its wake, and these interminable wars continue unabated and with modern fury. We cannot impose a peace by force upon strong nations who do not themselves desire it, and the records of both sides show little indication of such a desire, except when it is to their own material advantage. Whether one reads a history of England, Germany, or France, the wish for conquest, when opportunity arose, has always overshadowed the wish for peace.
Our policy should be to prevent these European wars if we can, and otherwise to stand aside while the nations of Europe find their own destiny and adjust to their changing birth rates and conditions. We must stand aside if for no other reason than that one strong western nation may be left to preserve the flame of civilization and to lead the way from the chaos that will come to Europe if this war goes on. Somewhere among us that flame must be kept burning if this civilization, too, is not to lie with the bones of marble and of bronze that represent the greatness of Rome, and Greece, and Egypt, and Babylon.