Towards an enduring peace

by Unknown

DIFFERENTIAL NEUTRALITY FOR AMERICA

One would prefer to think otherwise, but the truth probably is that the future peace of the world, and the nature of international organization depends a good deal less upon definitely conceived plans like that of the League to Enforce Peace (however admirable and desirable it may be to promote definite projects of that kind) than upon the nature of the foreign policy which each nation individually pursues. Disagreements between nations arise generally in situations in which both sides honestly believe themselves to be in the right. Most nations are honestly in favor of peace in general, and would go to The Hague and assist in drawing up plans to maintain it; yet each may be persisting in a line of conduct which, in its own view entirely defensive and defensible, appears to another unwarrantably aggressive. And when that is the case paper arrangements for avoiding conflict are apt to break down.

So the most practical question for each of us for some time is likely to be this: what will be the effect of our own country’s conduct in its relations with other countries, upon the future peace and international condition of the world? Or, to put the question in another form: What can our country do, irrespective of what others may do, to contribute to a more orderly international condition, saner world politics?

America is of course concerned in the present war whether she will or no. She may, by her material resources in supplies, ammunition, credit, be largely influencing its decision. As part of the problem of protecting her own rights, incidentally menaced by the operations of the war, she has taken very solemnly a certain position in international affairs. She has declared, for instance, that she stands irrevocably for the protection of innocent non-combatant life at sea in war time. She would undoubtedly stand as decisively for certain lesser rights of trade and free communication on the seas as well (in the past she has gone to war in their defense) but for the fact that doing so against one belligerent would aid the cause of the other guilty of still greater offenses.

And if we look beneath diplomatically expressed claims into unofficial, but unmistakably expressed public opinion, we find America standing strongly for certain other rules of life between nations—the right of each nation to national existence for instance—like those violated in the invasion of Belgium.

Is America really serious in the stand thus made? Or is she going to avow by her future policy, if not in words, that she will take no real risk nor assume any real obligation in support of the principles she has been maintaining diplomatically and by her clearly expressed public opinion. Is she going to submit lamely, to the indignities and violation of right involved in the massacre of her innocent non-combatant citizens at sea?

I put the question in that form because it is generally a rhetorical prelude to the demand for warlike action. And yet the American who is moved by his country’s dignity and right to have thought this thing out, as well as to have become angry about it, knows that warlike action is perhaps the very last thing—though it may be the last thing—which the situation calls for; and that warlike action alone would be a betrayal of his country’s highest interests in the matter. If America is really serious she must prepare herself—in public opinion, in political education—for action of a different kind: for the abandonment of certain traditions about freedom from entangling alliances, for the assumption of risks and obligations which to most Americans is to ask a great deal more than the mere act of going to war.

Why will war of itself not suffice?

Suppose this country goes to war, over, for instance, the submarine issue; and is finally entirely successful, so far as defeating Germany is concerned. How do we then know that America has got what she has been fighting for? Our demands at the end of the war will be that American rights at sea shall be respected; that, most particularly, non-combatants shall not be drowned by attacks on merchantmen. Very good. Germany gives us her promise. She has given it before. How do we know that it will be kept—either by her or any other nation that in a future war may find a ruthless use of the submarine the only weapon left to it against a power commanding the sea? Can we hope that if we show now that we are ready to fight “at the drop of the hat,” in future a hard-pressed belligerent will be overawed by the great American navy? Then why is not the belligerent we now propose to deal with held in check by the combined navies of Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Japan and Portugal? Again, when we have that promise at the end of our victorious war how do we know that it will be kept, that we shall have got what we have been fighting for?

And what of the American case against the Allies? Is America now to surrender rights upon which she has insisted ever since she became an independent State and which she once fought a war and twice very nearly came to war to defend? Is America, in fighting Germany to make the British Order in Council the basis of future sea law, so that when say Japan goes to war with some other nation America will have to submit to Japanese control of her trade and communication with neutral States—even to mail and banking correspondence—as she now submits to British control?

It is quite obvious that American claims have this difference from those of the Allies: they, in so far as they are territorial can at the peace be satisfied on the spot. America’s cannot. Hers depend absolutely upon the establishment, after the war, of a different and better international order; upon agreement as to what shall constitute international law and some method of ensuring its observance.

Now has it not become evident that the present German-American situation contains the elements of a great opportunity for America: not only of putting an end to a situation humiliating for herself but of creating a new state of world affairs out of which might grow—would almost inevitably grow—the restoration of general peace on conditions that civilization could accept?

But that result is certainly conditional on one thing: that American diplomacy is great enough to make precedent, to be dangerously honest to the point of dropping diplomatic make-believe and breaking with diplomatic usage.

Germany says in effect that she will make military sacrifices for the purpose of respecting American neutral right, if America on her side will reciprocally fulfil neutral obligation by insisting on the military sacrifice from both belligerents; so that American rights are not made a means of handicapping one party as against the other; are not invoked in what Germany regards as so one-sided a fashion as to become an arm for the use of one belligerent against the other.

Now it is quite within precedent, right and usage, to reply, as in the past, to such a demand by diplomatic punctilio: “America cannot discuss the behavior of one belligerent with the other,” and so forth and so forth. The American government could make excellent debating points and be diplomatically entirely correct.

But suppose, instead, it were undiplomatically honest and unprecedentedly bold and said bluntly what every one knows to be the truth: that because of the slowly acquired American conviction of the badness of the German cause—the danger to civilization and ourselves which this country has come to believe inherent in that cause—it is impossible for America to enforce the law—or what America holds to be the law—sharply against England, to take any action which would seriously add to the chances of German victory; to be, in other words, really neutral. Suppose America bold and honest enough to avow the quite simple obvious truth that we are not indifferent as to the outcome of the war and that in the long run our conduct won’t be guided as though we were; that so long as we have reason to believe German policy a menace it will encounter in one form or another (not excluding necessarily even the military form) our active or latent opposition.

And then, suppose that on top of that impossibly bold and honest stand this country were further to announce that it can only act effectively for the sea law Germany desires, and otherwise withdraw its opposition, if Germany is prepared to reassure us as to her cause by stating definitely that the terms upon which she is prepared to discuss peace include such things as the evacuation of Belgium and France and indemnification for damage done; the acceptance of the international principles involved in the American claims; recognition of the absolute right to existence of all States great and small; readiness to enter, at least to the extent that others are ready, into European or world arrangements for the guarantee of that right and the mutual discussion and limitation of armaments; together with such minor details as agreement to the appointment of an international commission to enquire into the violation of the laws of war on land and sea and the punishment of the individuals convicted by that commission.

Once convinced that Germany stands for a policy such as peace on those terms would imply, America could on her side (so this impossibly honest diplomacy might make plain) stand effectively for the freedom of the sea as against England if needs be at least to the extent of upholding the Declaration of London; could assure Germany that this country would never be reckoned among her enemies, but on the contrary would co-operate with her in defense of that equality of commercial opportunity in the world of which Germany accuses her enemies of trying to deprive her.

Such a “Declaration of America’s International Position” as that which I am here imagining would, in more precise terms, be about as follows:

1. Though America since the outbreak of the war has done everything possible to observe the form of neutrality which international practise had heretofore imposed upon States not actively participating in a war, the circumstances of the present conflict have shown that the future protection of her own particular interests are so identified with the maintenance of certain general rules of international intercourse that in all future wars she will differentiate in her treatment of the combatants. Thus in no case will American resources be available for the military purposes of a belligerent who had entered upon a war refusing to submit his case to enquiry and the necessary delay, and to adhere to certain rules necessary for the safeguarding of innocent non-combatant life.

The United States could not in consequence feel that her relations with Germany could be placed upon a really sound foundation of friendly cooperation until that country had

(a) accepted the international principles (as for instance the sanctity of non-combatant life) involved in the American claims and the further principle that their violation is an unfriendly act towards America whether American life and property are concerned or not;

(b) undertaken to evacuate Belgium, France and Serbia and indemnify Belgium for damage done;

(c) agreed to the appointment of an international commission of inquiry into the violation of the rights of non-combatants on land and sea, with authority to assess damages, and to payment of any damages in which Germany may be cast, and to punishment of individuals convicted of offenses against the laws of war.

On the acceptance of these terms by Germany, America would undertake:

A. Not to furnish military or naval aid to Germany’s enemies in this war.

B. To become one of the guarantors of the integrity of Belgium.

C. In the event of the creation of new buffer States, to assist in the maintenance of their inviolability by refusing to allow American citizens to furnish their invader with supplies of any nature: by the application, that is, of the principle of differential neutrality above indicated.

D. To accord to German citizens in protectorates subject to American control, commercial access on equal terms with American citizens and to support by the differential neutrality already indicated the policy of the open door in all protectorates and non-self-governing territories. That is to say America would undertake not to furnish military or naval aid to any power or group of powers that refused to apply the principle of the open door in their protectorates, and to prohibit the export of supplies or munitions to such powers in their military operations.

E. To join, pari passu, with other powers in any arrangement for enforcing the submission of international disputes to enquiry.

Now whatever followed that announcement America and the world would gain. If Germany refused she would by that prove that she was still unchastened, not ready to surrender or modify her policy of world hegemony. America then knows that her fears are justified. She is definitely warned of a fact which sooner or later she will have to face if it is really a fact. And it is obviously far better that it should become patent to America (and the world) now, than later (after a possibly patched up peace). Indeed, on grounds simply of sheer national security America should attempt by some such means to establish now, when Germany is relatively helpless so far as damaging us is concerned, where she stands, what America faces. It would enable her to make her future policy definite and objective.

But suppose Germany, realizing at last that it is impossible to maintain a national policy which during the next generation or two will have to meet not only the opposition of the Western democracies of Europe and the potential forces of Russia, but all that North America might during the next generation develop into, accepts? What if the German government were pushed by the best elements of the German people to take the opportunity thus so publicly offered for putting themselves right with the world and starting afresh on a more workable basis?

If that happened—which after all is the most probable thing of all—America, without striking a blow, would have secured from Germany the main thing for which the Western democracies are now fighting. Not only would she have laid the foundation for the future protection of her own sea rights in the only way in which finally they can be protected—by an international law that is a reality because rooted in a real international order—but she would have helped win the battle of democracy by bringing about a discussion of terms before the democratic nations have bled themselves white.

Never in history had a nation such an opportunity. But to take it means breaking with routine, employing a new method, a new manner; great governmental boldness, great political honesty. And all that is, perhaps, too much to ask.

But that is no reason why we should not face the fact that on those conditions the opportunity is there. Nor why those most responsible for the direction of American public opinion should not help the nation to realize it.

Norman Angell.