By reason of the grip of this system we supported (while proclaiming the sacredness of the cause of oppressed nationalities) or acquiesced in the policy of Czarist Russia against Poland, and incidentally Finland; we supported Poland against republican Russia; we encouraged the creation of small border States as means of fighting Soviet Russia, while we aided Koltchak and Denikin, who would undoubtedly if successful have suppressed the border States. We supported the Southern Slavs against Austria when we desired to destroy the latter; we supported Italy (in secret treaties) against the Southern Slavs when we desired the help of the former. Violations and repressions of nationality which, when committed by the enemy States, we declared should excite the deathless resistance of all free men and call down the punishment of Heaven, we acquiesce in and are silent about when committed by our Allies.
This was the Fight for Right, the war to vindicate the moral law in the relations of States.
The political necessities of the Balance of Power have prevented the country from pledging its power, untrammelled, to the maintenance of Right. The two objects are in theory and practice incompatible. The Balance of Power is in fact an assertion of the principle of Macht-Politik, of the principle that Might makes Right.
CHAPTER IV
MILITARY PREDOMINANCE—AND INSECURITY
THE War revealed this: However great the military power of a State, as in the case of France; however great its territorial extent, as in the case of the British Empire; or its economic resources and geographical isolation as in the case of the United States, the conditions of the present international order compel that State to resort to Alliance as an indispensable part of its military defence. And the peace reveals this: that no Alliance can long resist the disruptive forces of nationalist psychology. So rapid indeed has been the disintegration of the Alliance that fought this War, that, from this one cause, the power indispensable for carrying out the Treaty imposed upon the enemy has on the morrow of victory already disappeared.
So much became patent in the year that followed the signing of the Treaty. The fact bears of course fundamentally upon the question of the use of political power for those economic ends discussed in the preceding pages. If the economic policy of the Treaty of Versailles is to be carried out, it will in any case demand a preponderance of power so immense and secure that the complete political solidarity of the Alliance which fought the War must be assumed. It cannot be assumed. That Alliance has in fact already gone to pieces; and with it the unquestioned preponderance of power.
The fact bears not only upon the use of power for the purpose of carrying an economic policy—or some moral end, like the defence of Nationality—into effect. The disruptive influence of the Nationalisms of which alliances are composed raises the question of how far a military preponderance resting on a National foundation can even give us political security.
If the moral factors of nationality are, as we have seen, an indispensable part of the study of international economics, so must those same factors be considered as an indispensable part of the problem of the power to be exercised by an alliance.
During the War there was an extraordinary neglect of this simple truth. It seemed to occur to no one that the intensification of the psychology of nationalism—not only among the lesser States but in France and America and England—ran the risk of rendering the Alliance powerless after its victory. Yet that is what has happened.
The power of an Alliance (again we are dealing with things that are obvious but neglected) does not depend upon the sum of its material forces—navies, armies, artillery. It depends upon being able to assemble those things to a common purpose; in other words, upon policy fit to direct the instrument. If the policy, or certain moral elements within it, are such that one member of the Alliance is likely to turn his arms against the others, the extent of his armament does not add to the strength of the Alliance. It was with ammunition furnished by Britain and France that Russia in 1919 and 1920 destroyed British and French troops. The present building of an enormous navy by America is not accepted in Britain as necessarily adding to the security of the British Empire.