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For the second time in a single generation the world is at war. Is this to be our tragic lot world without end? The answer quite certainly is Yes — unless by some extraordinary exercise of reason and self-control man can succeed in finally eliminating the conditions that make wars inevitable.
For the second time in a generation the opportunity is ours of building a world in which peace rather than war may become the prevailing order. Are we today any better prepared than in 1918 to grasp this opportunity and turn it to lasting peace? The answer must surely be No — unless the world is now ready to learn from its past mistakes how wars can be avoided in the future. Are we now willing to recognize how we lost the peace even after we had won the first world war?
Why did we fail to achieve a lasting peace after World War I? What mistakes were the cause of this second global war? When the people of the United States and the other United Nations can agree on the correct answer to these two questions, a lasting peace will become a genuine possibility — but not before.
From many years’ experience in the practice of medicine, I have learned that accurate identification [ p. 2 ] of the true source and nature of an infection is the necessary first step in working out a permanent cure. If this important truth could be generally recognized and put to use by all concerned with finding a cure for war, the prospects of a successful outcome would be greatly improved. To help bring about such a recognition and to promote a sound understanding of some of the causes of war will be our endeavor throughout the early chapters of this book. The later chapters will oflPer a “prescription for peace.”
To treat of war and peace in this manner is no idle analogy. War really does have the diagnostic characteristics of an infectious disease, including (1) a preliminary stage of incubation, during which the latent germs of greed, suspicion, hatred, and fear proliferate at an ever-increasing rate and pour their deadly toxins into the bloodstream of world society; (2) a stage of crisis, during which the antitoxins and antibodies of health lock themselves in feverish combat with the now-rampant forces of destruction; and (3) a stage of convalescence, during which the world-body gradually returns to its normal condition. War further reveals its pathological nature in its lingering aftereffects and its chronic tendency to recur with ever greater severity. And with war as with sickness, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
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To discover and understand the causes of war is therefore the scientific way to begin the search for its prevention and cure. Only by a systematic effort to get at and uproot all of war’s causes can peace be effectively maintained. And to say that is to suggest the immensity of our undertaking. For the causes of war are legion, and every passing conflict leaves fresh provocations in its wake. World War II will be no exception. Our task then is twofold: ( 1 ) to ascertain the causes of one war and ( 2 ) to anticipate — in order to forestall — the causes of another. Difficult though this be, we dare not undertake anything less. The penalty we shall have to pay for any shirking of present duties will be another and still greater world war to come.
One of the first things we must learn is that wars cannot be prevented by blind concentration upon the comforts of peace. If they could be, then there would have been no World War II. For the one thing that stood out above all others as the characteristic feature of the armistice years (1919-1939) was the unprecedented and uninhibited passion for “peace at any price.” These were the years during which the victorious powers voluntarily scrapped most of the armed strength by which their victory had been won. So earnestly did they desire to avoid war that they fell into the fatal error of thinking [ p. 4 ] that lasting peace could be had for the mere wishing. They solemnly subscribed to the KelloggBriand Pact, whose only real effect was to confirm the peace-loving peoples of the world more blindly than ever in their wishful thinking.
Faced in the 1930’s with the growing might of armed aggression, the leaders of the democracies still refused to believe that anything could happen to break the magic spell of peace. Their fondest desire found its perfect expression in the phrase “peace in our time.” Their blindness to realities was finally demonstrated at Munich. Thdr dream of peace ended in the horrible nightmare of a war for which they had foolishly done nothing to prepare.
No. Wars are not to be prevented by a too-anxious devotion to peace. On the contrary, as the past twenty-five years have proved, such blind infatuation on the part of the peace-loving nations constitutes a standing invitation to acts of aggression on the part of nations for whom peace is a concern of lesser importance. The first — and perhaps the hardest — lesson to be learned from our past mistakes then is that our own pacific intentions afford no guarantee of a lasting peace. We shall have to convert our noble intentions into realistic lines of action.
One serious weakness of our overemphasizing the virtues of peace is that doing so does not keep peace [ p. 5 ] loving nations from pursuing contrary lines of action which ultimately lead to war. This was amply demonstrated after the first world war when all the democracies, despite their frequent protestations of peace, resorted each in its own way to policies which proved to be anything but pacific in their combined effects. The United States contributed to the outcome by its high tariffs, discriminatory immigration laws, and narrow isolationism. The other democracies contributed in various ways, including burdensome trade restrictions and failure to co-operate effectively to curb aggression. None assumed any responsibility for safeguarding world peace.
But although the democracies did each contribute in its own way to the conditions which made the present war possible, nevertheless, even these mistaken policies were not the true cause of the conflict. Blind and selfish the democracies were, to be sure, but they did most sincerely desire peace, and their worst mistakes sprang from their too-innocent hope of avoiding war.
Yes, the democracies hated war. They longed for peace, and they consistently pursued appeasement from the days when the Japs invaded Manchuria on through to the Darlan episode in North Africa. But any account of the coming of the war that imputes a major share of blame to them falls far short of being a sound diagnosis. Nothing they did or failed to do adds up to a sufficient cause for war. [ p. 6 ] They created no situations that could not have been amicably adjusted if the other nations had reciprocated their preference for peace. War came because the will to peace was utterly lacking among the Axis nations. The democracies could have avoided war only by continuing to appease the aggressors. It is to their everlasting credit that they saw the folly of appeasement while there was yet time to save themselves and the world from a disaster more terrible than war.
Undoubtedly the Axis nations would have preferred peace, too, if they had always been able to get what they wanted without having to fight for it But when their continued aggressions finally encountered a show of resistance, as in Poland, they did not hesitate to start a war. Never did a nation resort more brazenly to war and the threat of war as an instrument of foreign policy than did the Axis powers from 1935 on. They not only engaged in wars, they preached war and violence as national virtues.
What chance have the peace-loving nations of the world to abolish war as long as other powerful nations glorify it and make it an essential part of their foreign policies? It is all very well to point out shortcomings in our own policies. But that is only part of the job that must be done before war can be finally abolished. The other part is curing the war-like [ p. 7 ] propensities that have twice in a generation led Germany to engage in aggressive war.
It is no longer possible to account for Germany’s warlike propensities in the usual way as the normal conduct of a “have-not” nation deprived of its colonies, made the victim of an unjust peace, and compelled by the pressure of its growing population to expand its national boundaries. Such explanations try to explain too much, for if they are the grounds of Germany’s belligerency, like conditions should produce like results in other regions of the globe. They have not done so.
The true explanation of German aggression lies deeper. It is to be found neither in history nor in economics but in the province of abnormal psychology. The fact is that Germany’s national policies for the last century and a half exhibit pronounced symptoms of paranoia. This being the case, it is the height of folly to treat the patient for any sort of illness other than the one he has.
As a medical man I know the danger of an incomplete diagnosis — one based only upon the more easily recognized symptoms. If we are to get at the true seat of the trouble — as we surely must if we are to effect a cure — then we shall have to look beyond the superficial symptoms ordinarily presented. We shall have to look for the cause deep inside the German nation itself. We must recognize the German proclivity for violence, persecution, and war [ p. 8 ] as a disease and search for its cause within the person of the German people.
Attention has been frequently called to the resemblance of German military aggression to the behavior of paranoid individuals. Accumulating evidence leads to the conclusion that this resemblance is more than apparent. It is real. And the next two chapters will outline the evidence for the diagnosis that Germany — and to only less degree Italy and Japan — has been the victim of national paranoia.
It was our failure to recognize the true nature of Germany’s condition that allowed us to err in our handling of the situation between wars. The policy of appeasement which we followed was precisely the wrong one to adopt toward a nation of Germany’s paranoid trend.
In the first world struggle we won the war and lost the peace. In the present conflict we must win the peace as well as the war.
War is a deadly disease of nations; it incubates and spreads like a ravishing infection. It can be mastered only by searching out its causes and applying eflFective preventive and curative measures.
Pacifism betrayed us; wishful thinking failed to bring “peace in our time.” Peace pacts do not prevent wars ; our dream of peace was a delusion.
Our idealistic love of peace only invited barbarous [ p. 9 ] aggression. Our noble peace sentiments must be converted into realistic and effective action.
It is possible to provoke war while earnestly longing for peace. But notwithstanding the mistakes of the democracies, nothing could have prevented war while the war-mad Axis aggressors stalked over the earth.
There can be no permanent peace so long as powerful aggressor nations preach violence as a virtue and proclaim war as a national policy.
The first victory in the battle for peace will be won when we get to the bottom of the reason behind such antisocial credos. We find it in the fact that German aggression is rooted in abnormal psychology — the increasing egotism and ruthless cruelty of the Teutonic paranoid character.
We must not be deceived by the superficial symptoms of German violence and cruelty; the true cause lies deep in the Germanic paranoid attitude of suspicion and delusions of persecution.