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The Thirty-Third Session of the Council of the League of Nations met in March, 1925, in the modest surroundings of the dining room of the old Hotel National in Geneva. The order of the day was acceptance by the Council of the Geneva Protocol worked out by the preceding British and French Premiers, MacDonald and Herriot, on the lawns of Chequers. The hopes for a successful League of Nations were still high, and this was the first and only serious attempt to organize collective security within the framework of the League.
At this fateful meeting of the Council, Britain was represented by Sir Austen Chamberlain and France by Aristide Briand. France and all the representatives of the smaller countries at the Council were for acceptance of the Protocol, but everybody knew in advance that Sir Austen ChamberJain, in the name of his newly elected British Conservative Cabinet, would flatly reject it. His arguments were that His Majesty’s Government were unable to enter into such general commitments which would tie their hands in the future, that the purpose of the League was to preserve peace [ p. 62 ] and not to prepare for war, and that in the whole project there was too much talk about the possibilities of war : “It seems to His Majesty’s Government,” said Chamberlain, “that anything which fosters the idea that the main business of the League is with war rather than with peace is likely to weaken it in its fundamental task of diminishing the causes of war… ”
Briand, trying to put on the best face in the situation, replied to Sir Austen Chamberlain in a witty impromptu speech which created a very gay atmosphere for the interment of the best hope of mankind between the two world wars,
“What is peace?” asked Briand. And he gave his own definition. “According to my philosophy,” he said, “peace is nothing but the absence of war.”
All of us who were present smiled. Sir Austen Chamberlain was visibly amused at the logic and rhetoric of his eminent French colleague.
This debate between the two greatest Foreign Ministers of Great Britain and France during the post-war period clearly demonstrated how far away the nations were from a clear understanding of the problems of their time.
Until now, peace was indeed nothing but the absence of war, and all the efforts of diplomacy were concentrated merely on adjournments and on compromise solutions of any conflicts arising among the nations. This primitive conception of peace has been prevalent throughout our entire history and particularly in the recent years of exaltation of nationalism and of sovereignty.
During the twenty years preceding this war, we wanted to [ p. 63 ] preserve peace. We wanted nothing but peace. Believing that peace is merely the absence of a shooting war, and desiring ardently to maintain peace, we were prepared to accept any solution to the problems that arose if only such solutions kept us out of a shooting war.
So we permitted treaties which we signed to be regarded by our enemies as scraps of paper, because insistence on the sanctity of signature would have meant a shooting war. We hypocritically closed our eyes to military aggressions, because we thought that any attempt to prevent such acts of aggression would have meant shooting at us. We called intervention “non-intervention” because we thought if we spoke the truth, it would get us into war. We allowed ourselves to be cheated, to be double-crossed and to be blackmailed because we wanted to keep our peace. And finally the great democratic powers violated even their own commitments and pledges because they thought that peace was more important than honor, decency and confidence in the pledged word.
All the mistakes and blunders committed during the past two fatal decades by the democratic governments were justified by the argument that only by accepting such acts could the democratic peoples preserve their precious peace. We had no policy, no ideals, no purpose, save one—to prevent shooting. We wanted nothing but peace. So the war came.
Whatever we may think of this war, one thing is certain: it is the indisputable and conclusive proof that the policy by which we wanted to preserve peace failed miserably.
As peace was conceived until now—a period without shooting war—it is nothing but the reverse of the Clausewitz [ p. 64 ] definition of war. The more or less short periods of “peace” we have occasionally enjoyed in the past were nothing but the continuation of wars waged by different means. All those brief respites from war which we called “peace” were nothing but diplomatic, economic, political and financial wars between the various groups of men called “nations,” with the only distinction that these conflicts, rivalries and hostilities have been fought out with all the means except actual shooting.
If this is what we call peace, if this is what we are aiming at as an ideal, if this is a state of affairs we hope to keep “eternally,” or at least for a long time, then peace is a Utopia which we shall never attain, just as it had never been attained in any other period in human history.
But this conception of peace is utterly primitive, outdated and undesirable. There is nothing moral, nothing Christian, nothing civilized, nothing democratic, nothing hopeful in such a status quo.
Whether peace will remain forever a Utopia, or whether it will become a political reality; whether it will remain a hazy dream a thousand years hence, or whether it will be the task of our own generation to realize and organize it, depends entirely upon how we conceive and how we interpret a state of affairs in this world which we would call “Peace.”
As a merely negative conception attempting to defend something, as a merely static conception trying to conserve any kind of territorial, political or social order existing or to be created, as a conception of tranquillity and inaction, peace is impossible and will remain forever out of reach. In fact, [ p. 65 ] if that kind of peace could ever be established, it would sound the death knell of progress.
An absence of war for any considerable period between nations organized as sovereign states is impossible. A just international order based on the sovereignty of nations is inconceivable because even if we could at a given moment establish an order which would be felt to be just by all the nations concerned, it would not be the case for long because the essence of life is movement and constant change. To try to keep a peace for more than a short interval between sovereign states possessing arms, merely by diplomacy, means to base the fate of mankind on snake-charming. Against the unalterable realities of history we need mtore efficient instruments than a flute.
It will be less and less possible to keep nations from shooting at each other as education progresses and more and more nations will claim equality rights with the others.
The claim to equality is almost as old among peoples as the drive for freedom. Equality is another ideal creating a great deal of confusion and misconception.
Since her defeat in 1918, Germany and the other vanquished nations have claimed “equality of rights” as a condition of a pacific evolution. For a decade international policy, and particularly European policy, has been revolving around this principle of “equality of rights.”
After long fights, in December, 1932, this principle of equality was granted by the victor nations to the vanquished. Since the granting of this status of equality, the European situation became more chaotic than ever before, and the psychosis of war grew from month to month.
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This was the inevitable consequence of the creation of a “basis of collaboration” which was nothing but a fiction and which did not represent any real value.
What does this “equality of rights” mean?
There is hardly an ideal in history which has been abused more often and in a higher degree than the ideal of Equality. And during the past ten years we have seen with our own eyes the most monstrous of these abuses. For Germany the claim for equality was nothing but a technique of imperialistic conquest.
The Germans declared that they had not been treated on an equal footing because they did not have the right to arm as the French, the Poles and the Russians had, and claimed the right for equal armaments. The French declared that in view of their smaller population, freedom for Germany to rearm would put them in a position of inequality. The Germans said that France possessed rich colonies; to which the French replied that Germany disposed of a much more powerful industrial potential. The Germans repeated that France constructed a network of military alliances. To which the French replied that the Germans were training their entire youth for military purposes.
And so on ad infinitum.
And even when the Third Reich had already subdued and dominated millions and millions of foreign people, when they had the most powerful armed forces ever created by any nation, their leaders were still clamoring for “equality.”
Nobody had the courage to declare publicly that this was a debate in a vacuum without any chance whatsoever of arriving at a satisfactory solution, because this so-called [ p. 67 ] equality was nothing but a subjective feeling interpreted by each government according to its own momentary needs.
Equality is an ideal of the human mind and not something which exists naturally. There is no such thing as equality in Nature, where the stronger always exterminates the weaker. Only when man realized that he was a creature superior to the other animals was equality born as an ideal of man.
But as an ideal of man, equality always needed institutions without which it could not exist. The first great institutions to spread the ideal of equality were the Judaic-Chris- ~ tian religions with their postulate that man has been created in the image of God and that all men are equal before God. ‘This principle enunciated many thousand years ago shows the only form in which equality can find expression. This is equality before a certain specific authority, under a concrete symbol.
There have been many attempts in the course of the centuries to establish equality among men in the political or social field. With one single exception, they have always failed. Only the French Revolution and the revolutions in connection with it have been able successfully to enact legislation for equality, in guaranteeing equality to the citizens before the law. This interpretation of equality—equality before the law—was always self-evident in English common law.
The reason for this success was that the Fathers of the Revolution followed the same practice as the Fathers of Christianity. They did not want to institute “general equality” among men, which does not exist and never will exist, [ p. 68 ] but they wanted to establish equality in a limited and specified field, in the field of jurisdiction, and they made all men equal before the courts, before law, just as Christianity made men equal before the symbol of God.
In many fields inequality remained unchanged in the relationship among men. There was still a difference between strong and weak men, poor and rich men, clever and stupid men, but before the laws of the state they were made equal.
In the general claim for equality among nations, we have now arrived at the stage where we must clearly define what we understand under equality of nations. The present interpretation of “equality,” the right to do what the others do, the right to arm to the same extent as the others do, the right to possess just a little more arms than the others have (because otherwise, the others might possess a little bit more and thus there will be no “equality”), is such nonsensical logic that it is not necessary to waste any time in discussing it.
There will always be differentiation between nations, just as there will always be differentiation between individuals. And it is essential for cultural progress that such differentiation should persist.
Equality of nations is just as much of an ideal of civilization as equality among men. In itself it is against nature and can only be attained through the proper institutions.
Equality without law has no sense and no moral justification whatsoever. This is valid for both the social and the international life. It is only law that makes equality possible, [ p. 69 ] and only before clearly specified laws can we make nations, just like men, equal.
Without law, the drive for equality in international life is the greatest danger and direct cause of wars.
Without international law, the drive for equality among nations leads towards armaments, towards alliances, towards coalitions. Between two neighboring nations, one will always be weaker than the other. First they compete in increasing armaments. When this race reaches its optimum they begin to seek alliances with other nations. The process which has been repeated over and over again in history was called the search for a “balance of power.” It always led and must continue to lead to wars.
Equality without law means war.
The only way to maintain peace for a certain period without law is the domination of one nation by another, the supremacy of one group of powers over the others.
The only possibility of maintaining peace and of giving the nations equality is the establishment of law under which each nation has to be equal.
Therefore, the cardinal point in the definition of peace is: Law.
Only if we are decided to enact international laws having the same characteristics as national laws, binding all nations, or at least a certain number of nations, can we lay the foundation for a peaceful development in international relations. Any conception of peace without mandatory international law is a hopeless dream. The criterion of any realistic interpretation of peace is its foundation on law.
Peace is not an end in itself. It cannot be achieved by wanting [ p. 70 ] it for itself. It is the reward for a right and just policy. Nobody who has no idea other than to become rich -or famous ever has any chance of achieving his aims. Fortune, fame, comfort, security are not gained by wanting them for their own sake; they are rewards which come to those who are active and useful, and who produce something which is useful to others. They are only the accompanying results of talent, diligence, perseverance and creativeness. Only those who have creative ideas and concentrate their efforts on productive work have any chance of becoming successful in life.
If we want peace and nothing but peace, we shall never have it. Peace is the result of positive, creative and constructive policy. And any positive, constructive and creative policy today begins with the realization that we have to give up those views on the fundamental principles of international life which have been proven to be obsolete, and to give them interpretations in accordance with the realities of our time.
The usual distinction between national law and international law, the former having coercive force, the latter without such coercive force, is a purely theoretical definition. It has no practical value whatsoever.
“International law,” as we know it, is merely a system of norms, customs, rules, treaty obligations, without compulsive power. It is no law at all. It isa game. To call it “law” only makes the problems of international relationship even more confused.
Most of our statesmen and authorities on law believe that the problem of peace can be solved on the basis of such “international [ p. 71 ] law.” It has been tried several hundred times in history. The time has come when we must realize that we have been running after a Fata Morgana.
What we used to call “international law” is no law at all, and it is important to avoid the use of this term in describing present and past international conditions. We must limit the term “law” to measures with coercive power. And we shall only be able to talk about “international law” when we establish a system of norms in the relationship between nations with the same executional force as in national law. ‘The organization of peace on the basis of that hypothetical international law which we have known until now and which is merely a custom or a treaty obligation has never succeeded and can never succeed.
‘There can be no peaceful relationship among the nations without a machinery to determine cases of “delict,” and there can be no peace without the possibility of reprisals against such delicts.
Only the existence of law makes a certain action a delict. And only the existence of law makes a certain measure a “sanction.”
The recognition of a delict and the application of sanctions which form the bases of any legal order—both presuppose the existence of law.
The history of social progress shows that the use of force in the relationship between individuals within an organized state can be abolished only by instituting the employment of force by law in all cases where an individual member of the state commits an illegal act.
International order based on law means exactly what [ p. 72 ] national order means in the social life. It means that the use of force is prohibited for the individual, but, under specified conditions and in specified forms, it is permitted for the community.
To institute legal employment of force by a central authority among nations is regarded by many as Utopian. However, it is the only solution to the problem. On the contrary, any scheme which suggests solving the problem of peace without the legal use of force in international affairs is Utopian, as history definitely teaches. It has always been tried. It has never worked. And it will never work.
Peace is law.
Law is the justified use of force—a coercive order.
Consequently, peace without the employment of force is inconceivable.