As for effect abroad, propaganda could present a better case to Frenchmen who believe Britain let them down if complete Anglo-American union were not an accomplished fact; and the whole Continental and Russian and Asiatic suspicion of our motives might be allayed if we did not unite completely and permanently with "the people of Canada, the United Kingdom, Eire, Australia, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa" while we were not so fondly embracing the peoples of India, China, and the Netherlands East Indies. The abiding union of literate, superior, capitalist white men is not going to be taken as a first step to world equality by Slavs and Orientals; and much as the British Empire may wish not to acknowledge the fact, Communism has completely undermined the idea of white supremacy, and has given a new hope to Asia and Africa. It may have been a very bad thing to do, but we cannot stop for recriminations now. There are new soldiers for democracy in the world, and if they are fighting beside us, we cannot ignore them and fall into the arms of their traditional oppressors. We have a great work to do with the Chinese and the Indians, and all the other peoples who can stand against our enemy; we cannot begin to do it if our first move is accepting British overlordship in the East, uncritically, without pledges or promises.
As a post-war program Federal Union is more persuasive. It begins with a Wilsonian peace offer—the influence is strong and supplies the deep emotional appeal of the organization. It guarantees free access to rubber and oil and gold; it accepts any nation whose people had certain minimal freedoms; it implies, of course, free trade—with new markets for our manufactured products, and no duties on British woolens; plans for the Union Congress "assure the American people a majority" at the start. (As between the United States and the British Commonwealth; as soon as "all peoples willing and able" to, enter, the 200 million American and British Commonwealthers would be swamped by 800 million Chinese and Indians and other Asiatics.)
The average American pays a great tribute to the largeness of the concept of "Union-now"—he doesn't believe that anyone really means it. He thinks it is a fancy name for a war alliance, or possibly a new simplified League of Nations. The gross actuality of Iowa and Yorkshire ruled by one governing body, he cannot take in. And as the argument develops, this general scepticism is justified; for the American learns that while he may be ruled, he will not be over-ruled, and he wonders what Mr. Churchill and the man in the London street will say to that, or in what disguise this plan is being presented to the English or the Scots or the New Zealanders. So far no responsible British statesman has offered union to the United States, but Mr. Leslie Hore-Belisha has said that we need a declaration of inter-dependence and our Ambassador to the Court of St. James's told an international Society of writers that we need a sort of international citizenship. Mr. Wendell Willkie however has said that "American democracy must rule the world."
Entry Into Europe
By union or by alliance, American or Anglo-American rule over the world will have some strange consequences for us, citizens not accustomed to worry over "foreign affairs". Perhaps the strangest thing is that the results will be almost the same whether we are partners with Britain or alone in our mighty domination, with England as a satellite. An American or Anglo-American imperium can only be organized by force; it is, in effect, the old order of Europe, with America playing Britain's old star part, Britain reduced to the supporting role of France or Holland or Portugal. In any controversy, we step in, with our vast industrial power, our democratic tradition, our aloofness from Europe, just as England used to step in with her power and traditions; the Atlantic is to us what the Channel or North Sea was to Britain. England's policy was to prevent the rise of any single Continental power, so she made an alliance with Prussia to fight France in 1814 and made an alliance with France to fight Prussia in 1914. In an Anglo-American alliance, England would be our European outpost, just as Prussia or France was England's Continental outpost.
Our policy would still be the balance of power. Like England, we should be involved in every war, whether we take up arms or not—as she was involved in the Crimea and the Balkans, and South Africa and North Africa; we should have our Fashodas and our Algeciras and our Mafeking; our peace will be uneasy, our wars not our own.
The Atlantic Charter suggests a "policing" of the world after the war; it holds off from anything further; it does not actually hint that a reorganization of power in the world is needed. Yet, at the same time, the creation of an oceanic bloc to combat the European land bloc is hinted. It is all rather like a German professor's dream of geo-politics; Russia becomes a Pacific power and Japan, by a miserable failure of geography, is virtually a Continental one, while the United States is reduced to two strips of ocean frontage, like a real estate development with no back lot, with no back country, with no background in the history of a Continent.
The Sea-Powers unit is as treacherous as "the Atlantic group" or "the Democratic countries"; the intent is still to create a dominant power and give ourselves (and Britain) control of the raw materials and the trade of the world. No matter how naturally the group comes together, by tradition or self-interest, it becomes instantly the nucleus for an alliance; and as the alliance begins to form, nations we omit or reject begin to crystallize around some other centre, and we have the balance of power again, the race for markets and the race for armaments.
This will be particularly true if we begin to play the diplomatic game with the stakes greater than those ever thrown—since we are the first two-ocean nation to enter world affairs. At the moment nothing seems more detestable than the policy of Japan; but diplomacy overcomes all detestation, and if we are going in for the game of dealing with nations instead of peoples, we can foresee ourselves years from now as the great balance between the Atlantic and the Pacific, between Japan and England, or Japan and Germany, perhaps the honest broker between the two sets of powers. In 1942 we are independent, fighting for freedom, helping all those who fight against tyranny; and we can do this because we have kept out of the groupings and combinations of the powers. But we are being pushed into a combination and we know now that there is only one way to avoid entanglement: we must prevent the combination from coming into existence.
Our Historic Decision