An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation

by Thorstein Veblen

Chief among the relevant circumstances in the current situation are the imperial designs of Germany and Japan. These two national establishments are very much alike. So much so that for the present purpose a single line of analysis will passably cover both cases. The same line of analysis will also apply, with slight adaptation, to more than one of the other Powers, or near-Powers, of the modern world; but in so far as such is held to be the case, that is not a consideration that weakens the argument as applied to these two, which are to be taken as the consummate type-form of a species of national establishments. They are, between them, the best instance there is of what may be called a Dynastic State.

Except as a possible corrective of internal disorders and discontent, neither of the two States "desires" war; but both are bent on dominion, and as the dominion aimed at is not to be had except by fighting for it, both in effect are incorrigibly bent on warlike enterprise. And in neither case will considerations of equity, humanity, decency, veracity, or the common good be allowed to trouble the quest of dominion. As lies in the nature of the dynastic State, imperial dominion, in the ambitions of both, is beyond price; so that no cost is too high so long

as ultimate success attends the imperial enterprise. So much is commonplace knowledge among all men who are at all conversant with the facts.

To anyone who harbors a lively sentimental prejudice for or against either or both of the two nations so spoken of, or for or against the manner of imperial enterprise to which both are committed, it may seem that what has just been said of them and their relation to the world's peace runs on something of a bias and conveys something of dispraise and reprobation. Such is not the intention, however, though the appearance is scarcely to be avoided. It is necessary for the purposes of the argument unambiguously to recognise the nature of these facts with which the inquiry is concerned; and any plain characterisation of the facts will unavoidably carry a fringe of suggestions of this character, because current speech is adapted for their reprobation. The point aimed at is not this inflection of approval or disapproval. The facts are to be taken impersonally for what they are worth in their causal bearing on the chance of peace or war; not at their sentimental value as traits of conduct to be appraised in point of their goodness or expediency.

So seen without prejudice, then, if that may be, this Imperial enterprise of these two Powers is to be rated as the chief circumstance bearing on the chances of peace and conditioning the terms on which any peace plan must be drawn. Evidently, in the presence of these two Imperial Powers any peace compact will be in a precarious case; equally so whether either or both of them are parties to such compact or not. No engagement binds a dynastic statesman in case it turns out not to further the dynastic enterprise. The question then recurs: How may peace be maintained within the horizon of German or Japanese

ambitions? There are two obvious alternatives, neither of which promises an easy way out of the quandary in which the world's peace is placed by their presence: Submission to their dominion, or Elimination of these two Powers. Either alternative would offer a sufficiently deterrent outlook, and yet any project for devising some middle course of conciliation and amicable settlement, which shall be practicable and yet serve the turn, scarcely has anything better to promise. The several nations now engaged on a war with the greater of these Imperial Powers hold to a design of elimination, as being the only measure that merits hopeful consideration. The Imperial Power in distress bespeaks peace and good-will.

Those advocates, whatever their nationality, who speak for negotiation with a view to a peace compact which is to embrace these States intact, are aiming, in effect, to put things in train for ultimate submission to the mastery of these Imperial Powers. In these premises an amicable settlement and a compact of perpetual peace will necessarily be equivalent to arranging a period of recuperation and recruiting for a new onset of dynastic enterprise. For, in the nature of the case, no compact binds the dynastic statesman, and no consideration other than the pursuit of Imperial dominion commands his attention.

There is, of course, no intention to decry this single-mindedness that is habitually put in evidence by the dynastic statesmen. Nor should it be taken as evidence of moral obliquity in them. It is rather the result of a peculiar moral attitude or bent, habitual to such statesmen, and in its degree also habitual to their compatriots, and is indispensably involved in the Imperial frame of mind. The consummation of Imperial mastery being the

highest and ubiquitously ulterior end of all endeavour, its pursuit not only relieves its votaries from the observance of any minor obligations that run counter to its needs, but it also imposes a moral obligation to make the most of any opportunity for profitable deceit and chicanery that may offer. In short, the dynastic statesman is under the governance of a higher morality, binding him to the service of his nation's ambition—or in point of fact, to the personal service of his dynastic master—to which it is his dutiful privilege loyally to devote all his powers of force and fraud.

Democratically-minded persons, who are not moved by the call of loyalty to a gratuitous personal master, may have some difficulty in appreciating the force and the moral austerity of this spirit of devotion to an ideal of dynastic aggrandisement, and in seeing how its paramount exigence will set aside all meticulous scruples of personal rectitude and veracity, as being a shabby with-holding of service due.