[ p. 144 ]
IF AT any time since the Tower of Babel utter confusion has reigned in this world, it is today—confusion created by discussion of the why and wherefore of the second World War and of the conditions and possibilities of peace. Thousands of books and articles have been published and speeches made about the all-important problem confronting us: how to establish a world order that will prevent another global war.
All the planners of lasting peace believe that theirs is the magic formula; that they can make something work which never has worked; that after the failure of thousands of peace treaties they can draft one that will prevent war.
What caused these world wars?
Again and again we must raise this question to see clearly the anatomy of peace, because only by accurate diagnosis can we find a cure and arrive at a healthier international life.
[ p. 145 ]
As an explanation of the second World War, no reasonable man can accept Hitler or Mussolini, or Fascism, or totalitarianism, or Japanese militarism, or French corruption, or Bolshevism, or British appeasement, or American isolationism. These and many other explanations are easily accessible sand piles in which to bury our heads like ostriches; they are convenient self-justifications for our delusion that we are the innocent victims of circumstances and of the malice and mischief of others. They tell nothing at all of the why and wherefore of the second World War.
That war came because our social institutions and principles—as we inherited them and as we worship them today—are in total contradiction to economic, technical and scientific realities of the twentieth century in which we live.
Our democratic national constitutions, the result of slow ideological development, of a long and laborious upward struggle, with much shedding of blood, and revolutions not a few, were drawn up by our forebears who lived under primitive, rural conditions. The laws and institutions they created were determined by the conditions in which they lived.
The institutions established and the standards set by our eighteenth century forebears opened up a century of unprecedented progress and prosperity. More can hardly be expected from human institutions. Conditions that have arisen since the birth of this century, however, have made it impossible for those institutions to control and channel the torrent of events, the force and scope of which could not be foreseen at the time national institutions were created.
Our leading statesmen and political thinkers, puzzled [ p. 146 ] by the events of the first half of the twentieth century and unable to understand the essence of peace, seek to escape responsibility by taking refuge in such nebulous assertions as: “It is impossible to foresee what the situation will be in twenty years . . .” or “We cannot at this time prescribe rules of conduct for future behavior. . . ” Consequently, they argue, let us seek a “temporary” solution, a “provisional” settlement for a “cooling-off period” for a “transitional” period, after which—“we shall see. . . .”
Looking back five thousand years, it can be seen that every decade, every year, every day, has always been a “transitional period” Human history is nothing but an endless chain of “transitions.” Transition is the only permanent thing on this earttu In human affairs the temporary is the perpetual.
The problem of peace is not to create a permanent status quo. It is to pass through these endless changes and transitions by methods other than violence.
We have always been able to solve the problem of peace -within sovereign groups of men. We have never been able to solve this very same problem of peace between sovereign groups of men, today between nations. The reason is obvious.
Trying to solve international problems by diplomacy or foreign policy, through alliances or the balance of power, is like attempting to cure cancer with aspirin.
We could not have a peaceful society in any country if it were based on the idea that the Jones or the Smith family should enter into an agreement with the Al Capone family or Jack the Ripper family, pledging peaceful relationship among themselves.
[ p. 147 ]
Peace in a society means that relations among the members of the society are regulated ty law, that there is a democratically controlled machinery of lawmaking, of jurisdiction, and that to carry out these laws the community has the right to use force, a right which is denied to the individual members of that community.
Peace is order based on law. There is no other imaginable definition.
Any other conception of peace is sheer Utopia.
Each time a war is fought, it is followed by endless debate on the land of peace treaty that will be made. Hundreds of suggestions are advanced, but no matter what kind of treaty is signed, the next war is inevitable.
Why?
Because the content of a treaty is irrelevant the treaty idea itself is at fault
We have had thousands and thousands of peace treaties in the history c mankind. None of them has survived for more than a few years. None of them could prevent the next war, for the simple reason that human nature, which cannot be changed, is such that conflicts are inevitable as long as sovereign power resides in individual members or groups of members of society, and not in society itself.
Quite certainly peace is not a Utopia.
The only question is, what kind of peace?
If we seek peace between x sovereign units, based on treaty agreements, then peace is an impossibility and it is childish even to think of it But if we conceive peace correctly, as order based on law, then peace is a [ p. 148 ] practical proposition that can be realized just as well between the nation-states as it has been realized so often in the past among states, provinces, cities, principalities and other units.
Whether we are to have peace or continually recurring war depends on a very simple proposition.
It depends upon whether we want to base international relations on treaties or on law.
If the second World War is again followed by another treaty or covenant, the next war may be taken for granted. If we have the foresight, and decide to make that fundamental and revolutionary change in human history, to try to introduce law into the regulation of international relations, then and not until then shall we approach an order which may be called "peace/’
The reason for this is not difficult to understand.
The essence of life is constant change, perpetual development.
Up to now, peace between nations has always been a static conception. We have always tried to determine some sort of status quo, to seal it meticulously in a treaty, and to make any change in that status quo impossible except through war.
This is a grotesque misconception of peace. After having tried it a few thousand times, it may be wise to remember what Francis Bacon said three centuries ago, that “it would be an unsound fancy and selfcontradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.”
Human society and human evolution, a dynamic [ p. 149 ] phenomenon par excellence, can never be mastered by static means.
Treaties are essentially static instruments.
Law is essentially a dynamic instrument.
Wherever we have applied the method of law to regulate human relationship, it has resulted in peace.
Wherever we have applied treaties to regulate human relationship, it has inevitably led to war.
If we continue to refuse to recognize the essence of peace and believe that it is a negative state of affairs which can be “lasting,” which can be “kept” for a long time without changes, which can be “enforced” by any means, then the problem of peace will be solved only after we solve the much easier problems of the quadrature of the circle, perpetual motion and how many angels can sit on the head of a pin.
But if we realize that peace is not a status quo, that it can never be a negative or a static conception, but that it is a method, a method of dealing with human affairs, a method of adapting institutions to the uninterrupted flow of change created by the permanent, inexorable dynamism of life, then the problem of peace is clearly definable and perfectly solvable. Indeed, it has been solved many times in many fields.
Policy, diplomacy, treaties, are static, nation-centric conceptions. The only way to control and canalize dynamic social realities is the proved flexible method of law. Clear recognition of the distinction between the two methods of regulating human relations is of utmost importance in determining the direction we wish to take.
The method of treaties and the method of law are [ p. 150 ] qualitatively different and can never converge. We can never arrive at a legal order by means of treaties. If our goal is a society based on law, then it is imperative to start afresh.
The confusion existing in this field is alarming. Many government officials and political writers, in discussing national sovereignty, argue that every time a nation signs a treaty with another nation and undertakes certain obligations, it surrenders parts of its sovereignty. This is an absolute fallacy. The signing of treaties by national governments, far from limiting or restricting their sovereignty, is the very criterion of national sovereignty.
A strange paradox lies embedded in the dogmatic minds of our statesmen and political thinkers. It is the traditional belief, inherited from the past and entirely dominating their outlook and actions, that there are two different ways of maintaining peace between men.
The one—universally recognized and applied within national, sovereign units, is—Law, Order, Government.
The other, so far used leetween sovereign national units, is—Policy, Diplomacy, Treaties.
This is a mental aberration, an utterly warped picture of the problem.
Peace can never be achieved by two such totally contradictory methods for the simple reason that peace is actually identical with one of those two methods.
Peace is law. It is order. It is government.
“Policy” and “diplomacy” not only may lead to war, but cannot fail to do so because they are actually identical with war.
[ p. 151 ]
The use of force—the act of compulsion and killing—is irrelevant in defining peace and war. It cannot be the criterion of one or the other because force is inherent in both states of society. The application of force by a government within an established social order does not create xvar. It strengthens and supports the established legal order, therefore strengthens and supports peace. On the other hand, force used as an instrument of policy and diplomacy between social units without previously established law is identical with war.
That peace between sovereign nations can ever be achieved by policy or diplomacy—no matter what policy and what diplomacy—whether or not force is at their disposal, is a mirage.
“Peaceful policy” “peaceful diplomacy” are terms of absolute incompatibility. In the world of reality, the methods of policy and diplomacy between sovereign social units are identical with war and can never be anything else.
Several thousand years of social evolution have crystallized this axiom concerning any human society:
Peace among men can only be achieved by a legal order, by a sovereign source of law, a democratically controlled government with independent executive, legislative and judiciary bodies. A legal order is a plan laid down by the common consent of men to make their individual lives, their families and nations secure. Of all the methods hitherto tried, this alone has proved capable of developing and carrying out changes in human relations without violence.
The otter method, the method tried and tried again to keep peace between sovereign units of any type and [ p. 152 ] any size, the method dogmatically and stubbornly adhered to by our national governments, has invariably failed at all times, in all places and under all circumstances. To believe that we can maintain peace among men living in separated, sovereign national units, by the method of diplomacy and policy, without government, without the creation of sovereign lawmaking, independent judiciary and executive institutions expressing the sovereignty of the people and equally binding on all, is a mere dream.
To try to prevent war by the use of policy is like trying to extinguish fire with a flame thrower.
Agreements and treaties between national governments of equal sovereignty can never last because such agreements and treaties are the products of mistrust and fear. Never of principles.
Diplomacy, like military strategy, consists of hoodwinking, tricking and outwitting the other party. In every other field of human activity, if someone succeeds in making his opponent believe the exact opposite of his real intentions we call this man a liar, a deceiver, a cheat. In military life he is regarded as an outstanding tactical genius and becomes a general. In diplomacy, he is looked upon as a great statesman and he is called Your Excellency.
I^aw is the only foundation upon which social life in modern society can exist. We cannot rely on men’s promises not to murder, on their pledges not to steal, on their undertakings not to cheat. That is why we have to have laws and courts and police, with duties and functions clearly defined in advance.
We all recognize that when we talk of individual [ p. 153 ] freedom, we mean a synthesis of freedom and compulsion, as quite obviously freedom is a relative notion which depends not only upon the extent to which we are free to act as we please, hut equally upon the extent to which the free actions of others affect us.
It is extraordinary that despite recognition from time immemorial of this elementary and self-evident truth, we still ignore the essence of individual and group interdependence in the relations of nations, in international Hfe.
In international relations we still talk ahout the “independence” of nations in absolute form, believing that a nation is independent only if it has absolute sovereignty to do whatever it wants, to sign treaties with otter sovereign powers and to “decide” upon war and peace. We categorically reject any regulation of diat national sovereignty on the ground that this would destroy national independence.
In the past we have tried to regulate the relations of nations on the basis of pledges, promises and treaty obligations. We have seen that this did not work. It is not surprising that such a structure always broke down. The extraordinary thing is that it worked between recurrent wars even for the briefest space.
The old system crumbled because a peaceful collaboration of independent sovereign nations based on mutual treaty obligations is an impossibility—like some acrobatic feat no trapeze artist could perform.
The independence of a nation, just like that of an individual, does not rest solely on its freedom of action, but equally on the degree to which the freedom of action of other nations may infringe upon its own [ p. 154 ] independence. Independence of nations, therefore, does not mean that each nation should be free to choose the form of government it wishes; it means that relations between nations must be regulated by law.
Our task is not to devise a status quo—no matter how just—but to proclaim fundamental principles, and on their basis to set in motion machinery for the creation of law.
If world society is again based on treaties, then no change in the established status quo is possible without war.
Only if we base international relations on law—just as we base on law the relations of individuals and groups within organized society—can we hope that the constant and inevitable evolution essential to life will be brought about by peaceful methods within that legal order.
The dogma of “national sovereignty,” which is supposed to overawe us, has no relevance in this connection. In either case—whether we stay on a treaty basis or set up a legal order—sovereignty is vested in the people. The difference is that in the treaty system sovereignty of the people is not exercised in sufficiently effective form because each sovereign nationstate has power over a limited area only, without any possibility of control over other sovereign nations seeking changes in the existing status quo; whereas in a world based on law, changes in international relations could for the first time be carried out without violence—by legally instituted procedure.
Any treaty the best or the worst will bring antother [ p. 155 ] war. History offers hundreds of instances to bear out this assertion and not a single exception to disprove it.
We cannot prevent crime. For thousands of years we have tried to do so in our social life and we still have murderers and thieves and kidnapers. But what we have been able to achieve is to define quite clearly what we mean by crime, to establish a certain system of laws with coercive force; to establish independent courts to apply these laws and to establish police, prisons and punitive measures to give effect to the decisions of courts of law.
This is the only thing we can realistically hope to achieve in our international life. But this we can achieve if we agree upon the proper diagnosis of this world crisis and if we realize that when we talk about international peace we mean exactly the same thing as when we talk about keeping the peace within a nation—in other words, order based on law.