American World Policies

by Walter E. Weyl

To right the wrongs of the world, to build up a firm international policy and thus to create and establish peace seems easier if it be attempted in alliance with two or three other virtuous powers. But if we unite with England, France and Russia, to maintain virtue in the world, may we not, at least hypothetically, be playing a fool's part in a knave's game of diplomacy? May we not be simply undermining Germany and Austria? To use our army and navy for such purposes would constitute us a part of one great European combination against the other, and our disinterested assistance might be exploited for purposes with which we had no sympathy.

A proposal, at least potentially more popular, is the formation of an Anglo-American Union for the maintenance of peace. It is assumed that the two nations, and the five self-governing British colonies are kindred in blood, inspired by the same ideals and united by a common language. Their white population exceeds one hundred and fifty millions. They are capable, energetic, individualistic peoples, favourably situated on an immense area, and holding dominion over hundreds of millions in various parts of the world. These Britons, Colonials and Americans, by reason of geographical position, are naval rather than military, and if they could hold the sea, would be able to preserve peace in lands not accessible to military powers and to dictate peace even to the military nations. Such an integration of the English-speaking peoples would thus constitute a step towards international peace.

It is not here proposed to discuss the value of this proposal as a means of defending the United States. In general, its defensive value for us would probably be less in the coming decades than for Britain and her colonies. The British Empire has the greater number of enemies and is the more easily assailed. Great Britain cannot protect her colonies without maintaining her naval supremacy not alone in the North Sea, but in the Pacific as well. As for England, she occupies the same position towards us in any attack from the European continent that Belgium occupies towards England. She is an outpost. Our own continental territory could probably be protected in most cases by a smaller military and naval effort than would be required of us as part-defenders of a British-American Union. It is true that these conditions might change, with the result that we should need Great Britain's help most urgently. For the time being, however, we are discussing a British-American alliance or federation not as a possible protection to us but as an instrument for eliminating war.

In all probability such an instrument would work badly, and to the non-Anglo-Saxon world would look much like a sword. For the fundamental defect of such a proposal lies in the fact that it is a plan for the coercion of other powers by a group of nations, not at all disinterested. If the British and Americans possessed eighty per cent. of the military and naval power of the world, they might establish a peace like that which the Roman Empire was able to establish. It would be a peace dictated by the strong. In fact, however, there would be no such superiority of power. Russia, Germany, Austria, Japan united, would be quite capable of exerting a far superior force. Even if the force opposed were only equal, the result would be a confrontation of peoples in all essential respects like the Balance of Power in Europe, but on a vaster scale. We should not have advanced an inch towards the goal of a world peace or a world economy.

For the United States to enter into such a federation would be to take our part in the world wars to come and the intrigues that precede and accompany such wars. We might be called upon to halt Russia's progress towards Suez, the Persian Gulf, or the Indian border. We might be obliged to defend Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We could not permit any nation to reach a point where British commerce might be assailed. We should cease to be interested in the freedom of the seas because sharing the dominion of the seas. We should have no leisure and no inclination to seek a more equal utilisation of the backward countries. We should need armies and navies to protect the approaches to England and to hold back the land nations. Against us would work immense potential forces. Strong, growing, ambitious populations, envying our arrogant sea-power and forced by their insecurity to remain militaristic and become navalistic would prepare unceasingly for the day when they could try conclusions with us. The Anglo-Saxon Federation may be an exhilarating conception, but it is not peace.

Parenthetically an agreement or understanding with Great Britain, less ambitious and pretentious than the proposed federation, is in the interest of the two nations. In the more than one hundred years of acrid peace between the two countries, there has been revealed a certain community of interest, which might properly be utilised to prevent future conflicts. While we are not ready to involve ourselves in Britain's European and imperialistic policies, and do not want a whole world in arms against us, we do wish to avoid misunderstandings with England. We should be better off were we to give Great Britain assurances that we would not contest her naval supremacy (however much we may strive to alter its nature), and if we were to obtain from England her unconditional support of the doctrine that the Latin-American countries are not to be colonised or conquered.

In our efforts to secure a basis of international peace, however, we must rely not upon England or any other single nation or group of nations but upon a league, into which all nations may enter upon identical terms. We must depend upon all-inclusive, not upon exclusive alliances.

At this point it may be well to recapitulate the difficulties and inevitable limitations of any such plan. In the first place nationality exists and cannot be exorcised. The several nations, though they have common interests, are also sundered in interest, and in present circumstances may gain more from a given war than they lose. No nation, because of a moral appeal, will surrender its vital interests, and each believes that its own ambitions are morally justified. To pursue these interests the nations arm, and this competitive armament breeds fear, which in turn provokes war. In various parts of the world broken nationalities seek to attain to national independence or autonomy and these nationalistic differences are exacerbated by economic quarrels. Moreover, within the nations certain sections or groups find their true economic interest in policies leading to war, and these groups are able by means of ceaseless propaganda to drive their nation into war-provoking policies. Finally we are faced with the grim fact that in Europe at least no great nation can pursue a consistent policy of peace unless other nations move simultaneously in the same direction. Furthermore the instinctive efforts of each nation to secure its own peace by force constitute a menace to other nations and a danger to the world's peace.

The outlook for peace is thus not cheering; "the war against war," to use William James's expression, "is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party."