By John Martine Court
Van Dyke Prize winning essay, USNA: 1933
"We are going to war to end war, and to make the world safe for democracy".
With what exalted fervor we said that in 1917! And how hollow it sounds now! To the cynical it has become a bitter jest; to some, it echoes tragedy; to others, the vast majority, it recalls only the unreality of a nightmare.
Our high purposes, so solemnly declared, are discredited in a triumph wherein none of them are achieved. We won in victory no more than a cessation of hostilities. It now appears that the war to end war, and the truce which followed it, strengthened the foundations of neither peace nor democracy.
Realizing this failure, our natural reaction has "been to impugn the wisdom -- if not, indeed, the motives -- of those who led us into the undertaking. But was their decision to go into the war more blundering than our subsequent decision not to participate in the peace?
Hundreds of millions of war-weary souls whose representatives met at Versailles in 1919 yearned for peace and believed in the potency of democracy as earnestly as we did when we entered the war. Their representatives sensed, dimly perhaps, that in the chaos upon which that year dawned, organization for peace was as vitally necessary as organization for war had been in the years just past. The Armistice had left the United States with power, prestige and a position possessed by no other people on earth, which could not be used by any nation but ours. To us the opportunity came then to compel a settlement which would have carried in its train a durable peace and better living conditions for all.
Wilson found on his return from Versailles a decisive majority of his countrymen unprepared to lay hold, in victory, upon that which he conceived to be our objective when we entered the war. The product of his high endeavor we disowned. The settlement designed on the assumption that we, as a great impartial power, would support it with every influence short of armed intervention, we recoiled from. Instead of continuing to carry the common burden of our Allies, we dropped it and ran, turning our backs on the problems that afterward racked the peace, seeking in fancied isolation immunity from war's alarums.
Bereft of our support, this peace has been a cripple from birth. One by one its feeble organs have failed, until now it lies weak and palsied, half or less than half alive.
To be sure, we had highly resolved never again to be forced or cajoled into somebody else's war. But instead of taking an unequivocal stand, exerting our strength toward molding the peace settlement into fair, freely-accepted agreements, organizing support for it and pressing our decision, we stood on the sidelines and moralized. We have sought, indeed, nothing more than to assure our own neutrality in the war we expect to come.
The utter inadequacy of the policy is gradually becoming plain, even to us. Staying out of war by negative policy is likely to cost us both our prosperity and the integrity of the American hemisphere, and in addition is none too certain to keep us out of war because it is unlikely that we would, in the showdown, stand idly by while losing that prosperity and integrity.
It is not intended herein to rehash the League question, whether we were right or wrong in 1919 in not joining the League of Nations is not only a question in which prejudice still carries as much weight as logic but is also a hypothetical one, at present of interest mainly to academic minds. Joining the League now, twenty years late, in its present inconsequential position would be at best a futile gesture. Wilson championed it in 1919 because it appeared to him the most suitable device with which to exercise the power and prestige we gained in the war. Debating this phase of his logic bears no fruit but bitterness. The League is not what it was at its creation, nor can it yet be what once it might have been.
The preceding phase of his logic, that which led up to the League, bears more on the subject. The decisive part we took in the Great War was proof to every student of European affairs that whether we liked it or not we had to be reckoned with in the balance of power. No authority in Europe had appreciated this fact in 1914. It was of course painfully discovered by the Central Powers in the course of the war and by the allies in the course of the Peace Conference. It became evident that whatever we did end whatever lay within the scope of our endeavor, would have an important bearing on the balance of power in Europe and elsewhere. Even our deliberately negative policy carries considerable weight. Our refusal to sign or support the treaty has acted as tacit but potent support for the revisionist states. Our present cash and carry neutrality law is a boon to states with available cash and oceanic sea power, such as England, France, and possibly Japan as against Italy, Germany, and Russia. Our attitudes in both the Manchurian and Abyssinian affairs, quite as strong as the League's, provoked even more direct and intense resentment than the League's. The diplomatic tiff over the La Guardia-Hitler incident demonstrated again the concern abroad about our position in the seesaw balance of power. If any great power were openly and avowedly to take sides in Spain, bringing on the threat of a World War, who can deny that this country's participation or non-participation (in the demand for withdrawal) would be a vital factor in the preservation of peace? Anything we do or decline to do tips the scales. We have a power and a consequent responsibility in foreign affairs that we can not dodge. Blinding ourselves to the situation, burying our heads in the sophistry of isolation, merely leaves to chance what should be carefully considered policy.
This situation Wilson rightly perceived, whatever blunders he may have made. By 1919 all Europe was acutely aware of our importance or Wilson's ideas would never have been so completely incorporated in the Treaty. We had convinced every one but ourselves of our own importance. But, lacking the proper degree of self-assurance it was perhaps wisest that we let the opportunity, tantalizing though it was, slip by. "Had we," thought some, "really earned it, it would present itself again."
Though the weight of our influence in the affairs of the great powers is perhaps conceded, those who, since grammar school days, have had the theory of isolation drummed into their heads by pedagogues and journalists, will not accept without explanation the statement that in the peace of the great powers the prosperity and security of the united States is at stake.
"Thanks to a wise Republican tariff policy," they have been drilled to say, "we are an economic unit unto ourselves in which the fluctuations of international trade are scarcely felt, and as for security our adequate Army and Navy provide that."
There are several notable historical precedents in contradiction to the economic tenet and numerous all too possible hypotheses that refute the security belief.
During the Napoleonic Wars we tried to maintain neutrality by the same measures now in vogue, embargo and non-intercourse. The administration then thoroughly appreciated the fact that we had little in common with either power in the struggle and had little to gain in entering the war. Its preventive measures stifled what trade the belligerents were unable to stop and thereby ruinously reduced the revenues of two major occupations of this country, shipping and agriculture. Total foreign trade at that time represented substantially the same per cent of total business as it does now, and a considerably smaller percent than before 1850. The economic repercussions were ample however to bring a demand for aggressive instead of defeatist action. The distress of economic dislocation had brought desperation and that in turn brought war.
During the Crimean War Russian grain was prevented from reaching the world markets. This, coupled with a subnormal Balkan crop, created a boom in American grain prices. This rise brought a rise in land values, this brought inflation of credit, speculation and, finally, a widespread bank crash. The war had ended, Russian grain flooded the market, the bottom fell out, panic occurred and the depression of 1857 followed. The distress and desperation resulting therefrom contributed largely to the success of the Republican party and the split of the Democrats, secession of the South and the Civil War.
The World War brought undue expansion of American industry, rapid rise in prices, over-capitalization and a consequent pinching of the salaried classes. This coupled with the obstruction to trade and the danger to our investments, domestic as well as foreign, brought desperation and contributed largely to the hysteria that led to our entry into the War. The end of the war and consequent deflation of all values brought another violent reaction and the same train of distress as before.
The producers and processors of American oil, cotton, grain, coal, tobacco, the American makers of automobiles, textiles and innumerable other items -- and those who serve the workers in those activities, all have a vital interest in world markets. In every state of this country the basic industries are finding their margin of profit in exports. This margin of profit makes possible tariff subsidies to non-exporting industries. Foreign trade is the difference between prosperity and depression. When cotton, wheat, tobacco, and oil are high or even normal and steel production is up nearly to capacity America is prosperous. These are the money-makers, these we can offer to the world in better quality and at lower cost than any competitor. From the foreign markets that constitute 10$ or more of their sales come the interest being paid on investment and the dividends to stockholders, the basis of confidence in business and the difference between pinch and plenty. Without this margin of profit, readjustment is enforced, less then capacity production, part-time employment, and a generally lower standard of living, result.
Since we are now a creditor nation and have no debts against which to balance our war-trade credits and since our neutrality laws will stifle the bulk of it in any event, peace among the great powers is necessary for the continuance of our international trade.
The overwhelming re-election of Mr. Roosevelt meant, among other things, acceptance of the theory that the Government is responsible for the prosperity of the country. If the Federal Government is expected to thwart domestic threats to prosperity, must it not also thwart external threats? War abroad is as real a cause of economic distress here as unregulated credit expansion or soil erosion and the more extensive steps to prevent it are quite as feasible, also.
The Sunday morning quarterbacks who find our entry into the World War so purposeless forget that the defeat of the Allies would have meant not only the collapse of American finance but also the necessity of dealing alone with an imperious aggressor, about to establish himself in our own backyard. The Zimmerman affair which showed the intent of German Imperialism on this continent was the final slap that led to war.
The natural security of America is so great that we rarely have had to concern ourselves with the matter. In this we are indeed fortunate. The most casual student of European affairs is aware of the concern for security existing where strong powers lie adjacent. We long since decided not to tolerate any powerful aggressive nation's getting a foothold in this hemisphere. As we found out in 1917, a major war among Great Powers involves such a danger.
If in the next war England were defeated would we stand idly by while aggressors moved into Canada, Jamaica, Bermuda, Honduras and the Bahamas?
In the event Russia goes to war and Chile supplies her foes with copper and nitrates, Chilean communists inspired by Bolsheviks revolt to halt the flow of vital war materials, Russia's enemy sends troops to Chile to support the constitutional government there, what will we do? The war can be won or lost. In Chile, both sides are desperate. Platitudes are not going to save the integrity of this hemisphere.
If Italy goes to war, the Argentine sends vital supplies to her foe, Italian submarines provoke Argentine declaration of war, as Italy gains the upper hand the four million Italians in the Argentine seize the government proclaiming union with the mother country. What do we do? Moralize? The land hungry countries of Europe would be loathe to lose their foothold In South America without a struggle, and an American Navy strong enough to scare them out without firing a shot would have to be far stronger and more expensive than the present one, which is designed only for the defense of our own territory.
Any war between great powers is likely to put us in a similar dilemma. There is no way out but the systematic stamping out of the causes of war. Once a state of war exists the opportunity to act effectively in our own behalf will have gone by. We must take steps of prevention, not isolate ourselves to avoid contagion.
The causes of war must be understood before they can be thwarted. Why do whole nations take up arms and go about annihilating one another? The answer is historical.
In the spring of 1917 the vast majority of Americans believed that Germany had become a barbarous and insanely destructive military machine, bent upon imposing the tyranny of the Hohenzollerns upon the world, and that, in the idleness of further insecure neutrality, we would only be aiding and a-betting our own destruction. The submarine warfare, the invasion of Belgium, the reputed atrocities, the sabotage, the Zimmerman affair, and the economic strain caused by the war all helped to produce the reaction. Such circumstances were all incidental to a dilemma from which the prosecution of war on foreign soil appeared the best of few, and none too inviting, ways out. As soon as the popular imagination fancied Germany as it did through the winter of 1916-17, a declaration of war followed in what we pictured to be self-defense.
Tactically our part in the war from beginning to end was offensive, but strategically, in our estimate of the situation, it was defensive. In the words of the song we were "coming over" and we weren't "coming back 'till it's over over there". We were going to end the war over there, before it reached our own shores.
But Germany's efforts, which appeared to us so indicative of intent ruthlessly to subjugate the world, were from her standpoint all primarily defensive also. She went through Belgium to disable France quickly, so that she would have to ward off only one adversary at a time, i.e., France first and Russia next. She carried on submarine warfare, sabotage, and Central American intrigue in order to reduce the ever swelling flow of supplies to her enemies.
Austria and Russia, indeed, started the World War by struggling over the Balkans, in which each considered a dominant position essential to his own economic and military security. Neither thought he could afford to let the other gain an upper hand. So, both went to war in self-defense.
The First French Republic began a defensive war against meddling monarchists, who, on their sides, saw their thrones endangered by the principles of revolution. This was culminated in the effort of Napoleon to dominate Europe for the safety of France.
Rome conquered Carthage, Greece, Spain, Pontus, and Gaul, in succession, all in "self-defense".
Great nations have never set out to subdue their equals except in what seems to them to be self-defense, however much of their successful conquests may seem to indicate other initial motives. To be sure, both in Asia and in Europe, professional soldiery has at times been employed in the course of dynastic rivalry in consciously offensive exploits against equal foes. Islam set out to conquer the world by force of arms. But great nations have not. The elements of greatness in nationhood prevent it. In order to attain the wealth and organization that constitutes power, nations have to outlaw the employment of armed forces internally. Until internal peace is achieved, greatness is impossible. The anarchy of armed conflict and the importance of wealth and order are so apparent to the ruling forces -- be those ruling forces concentrated as in a despotism or distributed as in a republic -- that these requisites are never jeopardized by an attack on anywhere near equal forces. Before force is employed against a major opponent, the motive of self-defense must be apparent. Intelligence dictates this, not morals.
The basic cause, then, of major wars is the quest for economic and military security, as the maintenance of these constitutes self-defense. The lack of economic security is the threat of severe privation and probably near, if not actual, starvation through the cutting off of essential raw materials or foodstuffs. The lack of military security is the threat of mangling or enslaving whole populations and of the destruction of the whole wealth of large areas. We in America are so blessed with natural wealth and the absence of strong neighbors that we fail to appreciate what maddening fear and suspicion the lack of economic and military security, the very foundation of civilization, can engender.
In spite of our failure to comprehend the full significance to peace of security among the great powers, we follow the basic logic of the present naval race, that no matter how large the navy is, we are not safe if a possible foe is stronger, and that whatever the cost of preparedness, the cost of losing a war is greater.
But why does the quest for security of which peace is the surest guarantee, lead eventually to war?
The answer is that the quest is misdirected by excessive nationalism, that political philosophy, which carried to an extreme, lays mistaken emphasis upon the man-made divisions, nations, in a God-given whole, the Earth.
The adherents of nationalism base their philosophy upon the complete and obligatory allegiance of every man to the state into which he happened to be born. They assume that since all nations are similarly constituted and man therefore owes no responsibility except to those of his own nationality, that foreigners can never be trusted to act in anyone's behalf but their own, which is probably contrary to everyone else's. Then since trust is essential to order, and order is essential in modern life, those of the same nationality must closely hang together, maintaining within themselves a complete economic unit and an invulnerable military stronghold safe from the malevolence of untrustworthy foreigners.
Now while the resources of the Earth as a whole are as yet ample to maintain every man on it at a standard of living commensurate with contemporary scientific achievement, the Creator in His Infinite Wisdom somehow did not apportion these resources equally within the confines of each nation in ratio with the number of mouths to feed, heads to put roofs over, and hands to warm. He omitted also to make of each national boundary an impregnable frontier, so that the quest for economic and military security has met with increasing difficulty with the increasing wants of man and the increasing range and efficiency of his war machinery.
Consequently, today, with man's material appetite more voracious than at any time since the dawn of creation, he finds the reservoirs of natural wealth more and more difficult to draw from. Still he frantically plugs the last leaks in a vast system of compartmentation, wondering why it is that his individual standard of living does not keep apace with industrial development and why, though he pays more taxes each year, he feels no whit safer than before from the awesome "foreigners".
To Americans, if to the citizens of no other great power, the artificiality of excessive nationalism should Se apparent. On this continent the German has "become the countryman of the Pole, the Englishman of the Italian, the Frenchman of the Swede, and we with free trade from ocean to ocean have prospered as no nation on earth.
In attempting to avert the disastrous effects of excessive nationalism, the narrow outlook that produces the philosophy of nationalism must be struck at directly as well as its divers manifestations, i.e., trade restrictions, armament races, the lack of accepted codified international law and treaty-sanctified injustices.
As those who have kept an eye on foreign news must have noticed, there has been considerable agitation abroad of late to do something about paying the war debt. Our former allies realize that they need our good will, and, as they become creditors again, they would like to wipe their slate clean of bad precedents for their debtors to follow.
By shrewd diplomatic bargaining with the war debt, the United States should be able to wring out of her debtors some concessions towards peace. Broader education among the upper classes of all great powers, disarmament, satisfaction of German colonial and war-guilt complaints, facilitation of international trade, and specific guarantees of neutral rights are five long strides toward lasting peace that we can force debtors to take.
In all our negotiations, if we are clever, we can rely on the support of England. For all her troubles, she can be a potent friend. The absolute necessity of peace to the British can be used to obtain their whole-hearted cooperation with our proposals. Her extreme vulnerability, her terrific armaments burden her position as creditor and her advantage in freer trade make her aims in international politics almost identical with ours. Why not seize this opportunity and avail ourselves of the wealth end power that is ours? We can dominate Anglo-Saxon policy as Prussia dominated Teutonic policy.
Various European states are indebted to the United States to the extent of some eleven billion dollars. They obviously cannot pay in gold. However, they can pay us in the form of cooperative education, armaments, colonies, and agreement on the rights of neutrals. These payments would have a greater value to us than gold, of which we have a plethora.
The American government is creditor of the following governments in roughly, the following amounts:
England is owed about twice as much as she owes us.
From England, France and Belgium we could accept in partial payment some two and one-half billion dollars worth of colonial land, say in West Africa, as appraised by an impartial commission agreed to by all parties concerned. This land could be transferred to German title and a debt of Germany direct to us of two and one-half billion be created. To further reduce German inequality, American pressure, supported by English, could be brought to bear to strike out the war-guilt clause of Versailles as this thorn in the German side is no longer of vital interest to our former Allies.
The debts to the United States would, then, be in fair proportion with the amount of armaments in possession of major powers.
From this point discussion of disarmament could begin, all armaments above the limit set might be bought up immediately by the United States and England and credited against the debts owed. These purchased armaments could then be scrapped, the proceeds of sale of scrap being used to finance the machinery of the omnibus agreement, and the balance could go to international charities, such as the relief of famine, flood or earthquake sufferers and the like.
Limits similar to those set on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles could be imposed on all parties concerned. For example, all submarines and capital ships should be scrapped, the number of light forces and aircraft limited, the size of home armies limited to 100,000 men and colonial troops limited in proportion to colonial populations, stocks of munitions limited, stocks of small arms limited, planes limited in numbers and in horsepower, mobile artillery and tanks scrapped, etcetera. The various armaments and munitions could be credited against the debt at so much per ton average cost minus depreciation for age, total depreciation occurring, say, in twenty years.
As the total value of the United States Fleet so computed is less than a billion dollars, the total value of all the excessive armament of Europe could be computed at under sixteen billions, seven billion to be bought by England and nine billion by us.
A tacit agreement could leave all powers with interests in the Pacific with certain forces above treaty limits, to be kept in that area until Japan could be prevailed upon to disarm to a level corresponding to that set in the treaty.
With the hatchet, then, effectually buried, a debt of some two billion, owed us by major European powers, would still exist. This we could use to finance a system of international scholarships, half in the United States and half abroad, so that the debt would be paid back in the course of, say, fifty years in the form of education.
Let us say, out of a total annual payment of 140,000,000, half be in credits in Europe and half in gold to our Federal Government. The credits abroad would finance the scholarships, i.e., traveling and living expenses and tuition, of some 14,000 American students for each year, all students being able to retain the scholarship for two to four years, depending on the type of course pursued. Let us say there would annually be three thousand students, the guests of each of England, France, Germany and Italy, and two thousand in various other countries. Assuming the average time spent abroad at three years, nearly five thousand American students would annually enter foreign universities on government-financed scholarships out of the war debt.
The 830,000,000 received here would be applied to the scholarships for foreign students who would come to American universities in numbers corresponding to the number of Americans at universities in their native lands.
A permanent International committee could be financed out of the debt to administer the scholarships and assist the student nominated by their own governments.
If the scholarships were awarded in a manner similar to the Rhodes Scholarships - on general all-around ability and variety of interests instead of on scholastic standing exclusively, there would be a broad field of competition; the most representative students would win the scholarships and interest in languages would be vitally stimulated. Through the gaps in the language harrier could flow a freer exchange of views, tempering extreme partisanship, and making the "foreigner" a less sinister character.
Men who have gone to college together have a comradeship that transcends nationality. Men of college age are more democratic and more ready to accept different ideas than at any other time of life. Men and women who had studied abroad under the scholarships above mentioned would "be the finest envoys of good-will imaginable, without question. In college towns on both sides of the Atlantic these international students would see the better side of their host-country. Sincere admiration for their professors and class-mates, which they would bring back: to their own homes, families and friends, would supplant the ignorant suspicions of former years.
The facilitation of international trade is fortunately underway already as a natural reaction to excessive protectionism. Suffice it to say here that the free flow of trade would be a boon to peace for two reasons. First, it would, as authoritative economists agree, improve every nation's standard of living, thus diminishing discontent, and second, it would make peace so important in economy that the outlawry of war would have a more compelling material basis, more potent than morals.
There is a large enough prospectively neutral bloc in the world to insist effectively upon explicit guarantees of respect for specific neutral rights. With the navy we are building there is no need, no advantage in voluntarily surrendering any ground here. We can hold out for the immunities we want for neutrals and have our other demands acceded to besides.
This is virtually the case in every step necessary for lasting peace among the great powers, a peace essential to our prosperity and the integrity of the Americas. We have repeatedly shown ourselves unwilling to forego either of these to avoid war. Their peace is therefore essential to our peace. A neutrality policy that needlessly sacrifices our prosperity and the integrity of this hemisphere brings a peace like war, a peace without dignity, without wisdom, without honor, the cringing peace of cowardice.
Why must we wait for a showdown to learn again the lesson of costly experience? Why do we fiddle while Rome burns?
The outbreak of war among the great powers will put us in a dilemma from which we cannot emerge otherwise than as a loser. We are still in a position of military and financial dominance, where we can force the maintenance of the peace. We can check-mate the prime causes of aggression. We can diminish the distrust and insecurity and moderate the whole cycle of their attendant evils.
Being so deeply concerned, having so much at stake, we can afford to risk a commitment where a wise one will so vastly reduce the jeopardy not only of the interests of kindred nations, but those of our most vital.
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© 1993-2008 Helen Glenn Court | All rights reserved