[lit-ideas] On the Pragmatics of Peace
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 10:37:43 -0800
On the Origins of War isn't the only book I'm reading, but none of the
others inspire me to write notes. Besides, JL is probably spending the
holidays out on his country estate and Simon has unsubscribed over the
injustice done JL and almost everyone else seems fiddling. Not that we're
burning, but one who spends his time in words, if one is philosophically
predisposed to do so, may follow them out to their logical conclusions. I
have done so recently and smelled smoke.
Donald Kagan believes that Britain and the U.S. erred monumentally prior to
World War Two. Their inept foreign policies fed the aggressiveness that was
rising in Germany after the Treaty of Versailles. Britain went home and
disarmed itself. America went home and did the same thing. Not utterly of
course but largely even though they had both signed up to backing France up
if Germany began acting up. France was in no position to keep Germany in
line on its own, and strangely, Britain behaved as though it feared France
more than it did Germany:
p. 301: "It might seem strange that Britain should fear it recent ally,
itself dominated by fear of a resurgent Germany. To be sure, British and
French interests clashed at several places around the world, especially the
Near East, but these were not serious problems. It was the great immediate
military predominance of the French Army, the only powerful one left in
Europe, that impressed the British, who had raced to disarm immediately.
Their sudden, self-imposed military weakness relative to France, and
Germany's enforced disarmament, helped lead them to oppose the French and
support the Germans in a traditional, if only semiconscious, attempt to
establish a balance of power. In a remarkable failure of judgment the
British focused their attention on the short-range situation, ignoring
long-range realities. 'The momentary superiority of the French army and air
force, along with France's submarine building program, alarmed Britain's
leaders who seriously thought the next war might be against France.'
p. 302: ". . . British leaders between the wars disarmed swiftly and
thoroughly and refused to rearm in the face of obvious danger until it was
too late to save France and almost too late to save Britain. Europe from
1919 to 1939, moreover, was far less well able to resist the power of a
resurgent and dissatisfied Germany than it had been in 1914, and Britain was
far weaker, far less able alone to redress the imbalance of power. When the
Americans withdrew from their responsibilities it was for Britain to take on
its considerable share of the burden of keeping the peace it so badly
needed, but for too long the British preferred to take refuge in illusions."
Comment: It seems hardly worth the effort to point out that one cannot
simply "embrace peace" as Geary recommended recently, and avoid disaster.
Britain, America and much of the rest of the West did that after World War
One and that had no effect on the thinking of the Germans who were busy
not-embracing peace. It seems hardly worth the trouble to point out that
one cannot "embrace peace" unilaterally. Britain and America threw away
much of their war-making machinery but that did nothing to further peace,
quite the reverse. Britain looked across the channel and noticed that
France hadn't similarly disarmed and they became suspicious - of France!
I'm not exempting America by referring to British stupidity. America was
even more stupid. Wilson as inept as he was at foreign affairs at least
made commitments that he thought would further peace, but his commitments
were repudiated by an isolationist congress.
Did we learn anything from our colossal WW I foreign-affairs blunders?
Perhaps a little. We didn't totally disarm after World War Two, but we were
wanting to. We weren't prepared to defend our South Korean Allies. The
famous battle we remember from that war was the Battle of Chosen Reservoir
which was an American retreat. We fought the North Koreans and Chinese
with WWII weapons. Our equipment was not suitable for the cold weather of
that region. In short, we had taken another "peace dividend" after World
War Two and were stupidly (I considered using the kinder word 'ignorant,'
but what excuse was there for being ignorant about the North Korean/Chinese
threat in 1950?) unprepared to defend our South Korean allies.
We seem later to have learned how not to take "a peace dividend," or at
least not a very large one. We did take one after the USSR folded in 1989,
but as far as I can tell it was not harmful to our troops or to the
acquisition of adequate equipment. It was harmful to our intelligence
agencies. We decided it wasn't right to be spying on other nations. We
made up for that self-imposed ignorance later on by calling the CIA on the
carpet after 9/11 to demand how they could have been so remiss as to not
know Al Qaeda was coming.
If you disarm a little then you can expect a 9/11. If you disarm a little
more, you can expect a Pearl Harbor. If you disarm more still you can
expect a Battle of Britain and you had better hope you have an American
ace-in-the-hole who can send you enough equipment to keep you going.
Well before my first cup of coffee kicked in I was idly wondering why I
could not for a moment embrace Geary's mystical "peace." I recalled that
one of the early philosophers I was attracted to was William James. I read
him so long ago that I couldn't swear he has influenced me or if he has
precisely how, but he was a Pragmatist, and while it would not, prior to
this morning's coffee have occurred to me to describe myself as one, I have
an aversion to skipping over the pragmatic steps one must take to achieve
the important goal Peace. We have seen evidence that unilateral
disarmament doesn't do it. Even the partial disarmament of a "peace
dividend" doesn't do it. But when we suggest that a small war might be
necessary to achieve a larger peace, minds around us go blank. They
mystically imagine that a road exists to their larger embrace of peace that
entirely avoids war of any kind. What are your mystical steps, I ask?
But I receive no answer. Well, I add, here are some practical steps, and
cup my hands up by my ears which don't hear as well as they used to, but I
hear nothing. If some sound were to emanate from these Peace Mystics, I
would wager it would in no way echo, or take seriously, anything discussed
in this note. Peace Mystics, as is well known, float over Pragmatists
should they encounter any - and later, if questioned, will have no
recollection of having done so.
Lawrence Helm
San Jacinto
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