Conclusion
The use of alliances . . . has in the last age been too much experienced to be contested; it is by leagues well concerted and strictly observed that the weak are defended against the strong, that bounds are set to the turbulence of ambition, that the torrent of power is restrained, and empires preserved from those inundations of war that, in former times, laid the world in ruins. By alliances . . . the equipoise of power is maintained, and those alarms and apprehensions avoided, which must arise from vicissitudes of empire and the fluctuations of perpetual contest.
ROBERT WALPOLE
IF the foreign policy of a state is to be practical, it should be designed not in terms of some dream world but in terms of the realities of international relations, in terms of power politics. The international community is without government, without a central authority to preserve law and order, and it does not guarantee the member states either their territorial integrity, their political independence, or their rights under international law. States exist, therefore, primarily in terms of their own strength or that of their protector states and, if they wish to maintain their independence, they must make the preservation or improvement of their power position the principal objective of foreign policy. Nations which renounce the power struggle and deliberately choose impotence will cease to influence international relations either for evil or for good and risk eventual absorption by more powerful neighbors.
A sound foreign policy must not only be geared to the realities of power politics, it must also be adjusted to the specific position
446
conclusion 447
which a state occupies in the world. It is the geographic location of a country and its relation to centers of military power that define its problem of security. The international community is a world in which war is an instrument of national policy and the national domain is the military base from which the state fights and prepares for war during the temporary armistice called peace. In terms of that location, it must conduct its military strategy in war time, and in terms of that location, it should conduct its political strategy in peace time.
The Geographic Location of the United States
The territory of the United States is located on the northern land mass of the Western Hemisphere between Canada and Mexico. Our state is unique in that its base is of continental dimensions and fronts on two oceans. It represents an immense area in the temperate zone with large sections of fertile soil and a rich endowment of mineral resources. The national economy, in which a highly developed industrial structure supplements an extensive agriculture of great productivity, sustains a high standard of living for about 135 million people. No other country in the Western Hemisphere has a war potential equal to our own. Our power position is one of unquestioned hegemony over a large part of the New World. We are far stronger than our neighbors to the north and south, we dominate completely the American Mediterranean, and we are able to exert effective pressure on the northern part of South America. The remoteness of the economic and political centers of the A.B.C. countries has given them a relative degree of independence and they represent the only region in the hemisphere where our strength could not be exerted with ease.
The Western Hemisphere is surrounded by the Old World across three ocean fronts, the Pacific, the Arctic, and the Atlantic, and, because the earth is a globe, the same applies in reverse, the New World also surrounds the Old. It is the power potential of these two worlds and the internal distribution of forces in each sphere that define the geo-political significance of this geographic fact. The Old World \s iy2 times as large as the New World and contains 7 times the population. It is true that, at present, industrial produc-
448    America's strategy in world politics
tivity is almost equally divided, but, in terms of relative self-sufficiency, the Eurasian Continent with the related continents of Africa and Australia is in a much stronger position. If the three land masses, of the Old World can be brought under the control of a few states and so organized that large unbalanced forces are available for pressure across the ocean fronts, the Americas will be politically and strategically encircled. There is no war potential of any size in any of the southern continents and South American can, therefore, offer the United States no compensation for the loss of the balance of power in Europe and Asia.
It is true that the Western Hemisphere is separated from the Old World by large bodies of water, but oceans do not isolate. Since the Renaissance and the development of modern navigation, they have been not barriers but highways. The world has become a single field of forces. Because power is effective in inverse ratio to the distance from its source, widely separated regions can function as relatively autonomous power zones, but no area in the world can be completely independent of the others. Only if the available military forces within a zone balance each other out, will the area be inert and unable to influence other regions, but in that case the explanation lies in the power equilibrium, not in the geographic distance. If power is free, unbalanced, unabsorbed, it can be used in distant regions.
Originally, the center of military and political power was in Europe and it was the European balance that was reflected in other sections of the world. Later, relatively autonomous power zones emerged in the Western Hemisphere and in the Far East, but they have all continued to influence each other. The New World, notwithstanding its insular character, has not been an isolated sphere in which political forces found their natural balance without interference from outside. On the contrary, European power relations have influenced the political life of the people of this hemisphere from the beginning of their history. The growth and expansion of the United States has been challenged by every great power in Europe except Italy. We achieved our position of hegemony only because the states of that continent were never able to combine against us and because preoccupation with the balance of power at home
conclusion 449
prevented them from ever detaching more than a small part of their strength for action across the Atlantic.
Since the states of the Western Hemisphere have achieved their independence, there has never been a time in which the transatlantic and transpacific regions have been in the hands of a single state or a single coalition of states. Balanced power in Europe and Asia has been characteristic of most of the period of our growth. But four times in our history there has been a threat of encirclement and of destruction of the balance of power across the oceans. The first threat was the appeal of France to the Holy Alliance for co-operation in the reconquest of the Spanish colonies. Our reply was the Monroe Doctrine. The second threat came in 1917 when the defeat of Russia, the demoralization of the French army, and the success of the submarine campaign suggested that Germany might win the First World War. Japan was using the golden opportunity presented by European withdrawal from Asia to make herself the dominant power in the Far East. Our answer to the danger in Europe was full participation in the war. The completeness of the victory made the existing British-Japanese Alliance a minor danger to our security. In terms of geography, the agreement did mean encirclement and both partners had come out of the war with greatly increased naval strength, practically unbalanced in their respective spheres. We, therefore, made the termination of their alliance the condition of our participation in disarmament in 1921.
The fourth threat has emerged since 1940 and this time it is in a form more serious than ever before. The German-Japanese Alliance, signed in that year, provided for co-operation against the Western Hemisphere. By the fall of 1941, Germany had conquered most of~Europe; Japan most of the coastal regions of the Far East. Only Great Britain and Russia in Europe and China and the Dutch East Indies in Asia stood between them and the complete conquest of the Old World. Victory would have meant for Germany the realization of her dream of a great Euro-African sphere controlled from Berlin. Victory would have meant for Japan the transformation of her island state into a unit of continental dimensions. For the New World, such a situation would have meant encirclement by two gigantic empires controlling huge war potentials.
45°    America's strategy in world politics
Hemisphere Defense?
In the face of this contingency, what was the correct policy for the United States to pursue? Public debate followed.the traditional pattern of intervention versus isolation. Those interventionists who were impressed with the importance of power relations, contended that the first line of defense was of necessity the preservation of a balance of power in Europe and Asia. Those isolationists who were impressed with oceanic distances, felt convinced that we could disengage ourselves from the power struggles across the oceans and rely on hemisphere defense.
During the progress of the war, the interventionist position found wider and wider acceptance and the policy of the United States became one of increasing support to the Allies. The American people were spared the necessity of deciding on the last step, the transition from Lend-Lease Aid to full belligerency. The German-Japanese Alliance decided to strike before our war industries went into full production and large quantities of material became available for our allies. We are now full participants in the Second World War and our opponents have begun their attack on the outposts of the Western Hemisphere before their victory in the Old World is complete.
Isolation versus intervention is no longer a debate over war participation but the two geo-political theories which these attitudes represent will continue to influence our thinking about the principles of grand strategy that should guide us in the conduct of the war and in the formulation of the conditions of peace. There is still a danger that the erroneous ideas regarding the nature of the West-^ ern Hemisphere inherent in the isolationist position may tempt people to urge a defensive strategy in the belief that the New World could survive a German-Japanese victory abroad.
It should be remembered at the outset that our attempt to achieve effective solidarity with the nations below the Rio Grande will be opposed by the German-Japanese Alliance with all the power at their command. The struggle for South America is an inherent part of the Second World War and will become more, not less, important if victory in the Old World should be achieved. The campaign
conclusion 451
will be fought by the fascist powers with all the weapons of totalitarian warfare, ideological, psychological, economic, political, and military. Their purpose will be to hinder the political integration of the New World, which is a prerequisite for common defense, and to prevent at all. costs the creation of a system of collective security.
A political integration of the New World would be difficult not only because of the effective opposition of our enemies, but also because of a number of difficulties inherent in the project itself. The Western Hemisphere is devoid of most of the elements necessary for effective integration and successful defense. There is a wide divergence in ideological orientation between Anglo-Saxon America and Latin America. They represent two worlds that are different in racial and ethnic composition, different in economic and social structure, different in political experience, moral values, and cultural orientation; and the Latin American half is, in terms of historical tradition and present practice, much more predisposed toward dictatorship than toward democracy.
Economically, the Western Hemisphere is dependent on the products of the Old World for the strategic raw materials for its war industries, and the same applies to many of the articles necessary to preserve its standard of living. It is impossible to create, in any reasonable length of time, within the New World itself, an adequate . raw material basis for the quantity of armament production that encirclement would impose, and the modest self-sufficiency that might be attained after ten years could be achieved only at an exorbitant cost and too late to do any good in the present conflict.
In case of German-Japanese victory, the dependence of the New World on exports would be an even greater weakness than its dependence on imports. Under the regional specialization which accompanied nineteenth-century free trade, the Americas developed as a colonial economy producing foodstuffs and raw materials for the Old World. Political independence and the industrialization of the United States have altered the relationship only in a minor degree. Twenty-two independent sovereign states could not defend themselves against the economic power represented by a commercial monopoly of the European market. Nothing short of a single hemisphere economy with centralized control of international trade could
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452    America's strategy in world politics
provide the possibility of defense against the economic power of a victorious Germany. No American state would, however, be willing voluntarily to make the changes necessary to create such a regional economy. It could be achieved only by the same process which is now being used to transform the national economies of Europe into a Greater German Co-Prosperity Sphere. Only the conquest of the hemisphere by the United States and the ruthless destruction of existing regional economies could bring the necessary integration.
The Western Hemisphere is, like Europe and Asia, a world of power politics full of inherent conflicts and oppositions in which individual states pursue their national interests and not the higher interests of some super-continent. The pursuit of these interests and preoccupation with the balance of power produce two outstanding conflict patterns in the political constellation of the New World. The first is the basic opposition between the United States and South America, which would like to balance the strength of the Colossus of the North. The second derives from the struggle for power between Brazil and Argentina, which provides the core of the political alignments of the southern continent. These conflicts and oppositions offer the German-Japanese Alliance an ideal ground for political intrigue and it is extremely doubtful whether, in the face of its destructive activities, hemisphere solidarity could be preserved.
Through the Union of American Republics, the New World has made some halting steps toward political integration, but it has not moved much beyond platonic resolutions on the beauty of solidarity. It has also failed to create the political framework for a system of common defense against threats from across the ocean. There has been a great deal of phrase-making about the continentalizing of ' the Monroe Doctrine but no state has yet accepted a treaty obligation to defend anybody else. The enormous differences in war potential between the states make it impossible to create a multilateral system of defense based on equality and reciprocity. A formula has finally been found which preserves the legal equality of states, but protection continues to depend wholly on the military strength of the United States.
The military establishment of the United States would find the task of defending 15 million square miles of territory by no means
conclusion 453
easy. The Americas contain at least six strategic zones of which only one, the North American Continental Zone, has a respectable war potential. There is not a single state in the whole of South America that is not, in military terms, a liability instead of an asset. It is true that certain, regions of the Western Hemisphere must be defended because of their strategic significance to the security of the United States, but the weak states in those regions cannot compensate us for the loss of strong allies across the water.
The amount of territory which the United States would be able to defend against invasion would depend on the relative naval and air power still at our disposal after the defeat of our allies across the ocean. It is impossible to predict how much of the United States fleet would be available for the Pacific and how much of the British fleet would be at our disposal for defensive action in the Atlantic. The United States would probably be able to defend the continental domain of North America and the North American Buffer Zone, except perhaps the outposts in the Aleutians and Alaska in the west, and Greenland and Iceland in the east. She would in all likelihood be able to protect the American Mediterranean and the South American Buffer Zone provided that Brazil grants the use of the necessary air and naval bases. It is, however, not possible for the United States to defend the Equidistant Zone of South America, which extends from Patagonia to the bulge of Brazil and which is as far away from the centers of power in North America as from the centers of power in Europe, and very much nearer to Africa.
But even if the whole hemisphere could be protected from actual invasion, encirclement by a victorious German-Japanese Alliance would still mean ultimate defeat. In an era of totalitarian warfare invasion is not the only form of coercion. The New World would be surrounded by enemy territory and submitted to economic strangulation by the simple process of blockade through embargo. It does not control strategic raw materials indispensable to the Old World and it could not, therefore, break this economic strangulation through counter-embargo. Military action would be necessary, and effective military action would be impossible. Encirclement would preclude all possibility of a military front for a counter-offensive across the
454    America's strategy in world politics
seas. The Western Hemisphere would be in the same position in regard to the Old World as Great Britain would be in regard to the Continent of Europe if Russia should be defeated. She might not be invaded but, without the possibility of a front on the Continent, she could not hope to win the war. Allies across the oceans are as indispensable to us as allies across the Channel have been to Great Britain.
There is however little likelihood that the New World would remain united long enough to have an opportunity to practice common defense. Hemisphere solidarity would have been broken up by the other weapons long before the final military assault. With a social and ideological structure in Latin America predisposed in many ways toward the fascist ideology, with an abundance of ancient hatreds and present conflict patterns, and a complete dependence in many sections on the European market, propaganda, the psychological attack, and economic warfare would have a much better chance of success. Germany might obtain dominion over the southern part of the Equidistant Zone, without having to send an expeditionary force, by the simple device of dictating the conditions under which products of the Argentine would be permitted to enter the European markets. It is quite likely that the acceptance of a fascist regime friendly to Germany would be one of those conditions and that the Argentine would be asked to have her armies trained by a large force of German military instructors accompanied by the necessary aides and technicians. In that case, military occupation would simply register the result of surrender induced by economic warfare. It would not be the result of actual military operations against the southern continent. As in other regions of the world, military occupation would be merely the last step in a campaign of total warfare.
Such German intervention would bring into power a puppet government controlled from Berlin and a fascist party devoted to a program of national expansion and the re-establishment of the historic boundaries of the Viceroyalty of the La Plata. Uruguay, southern Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Chile would all become candidates for absorption into a Greater South American Co-Prosperity Sphere.
conclusion 455
The struggle for power, which normally lies just below the surface, would burst into open conflict and the southern continent would enter a period of long and bloody wars.
■ Quarter-Sphere Defense?
The establishment of a Berlin-inspired fascist government on the La Plata would explode the myth of hemisphere solidarity and the possibility of hemisphere defense. The United States would be obliged to limit herself to quarter-sphere defense and to adapt her policy to the realities of South American power politics. If she acted immediately when the threat first emerged, the logical response would be an alliance with Chile and Brazil. If Chile, either voluntarily or under duress, joined the Argentine before we could prevent her, an alliance with Brazil and Peru would be indicated.
The territorial security of the continental domain of North America does not demand that the temperate zone of South America be in friendly hands. All that is required is-that we hold the South American Buffer Zone. The La Plata, as a starting point for military operations against North America, is actually less dangerous than the Rhine or West Africa. A German naval base in Argentina is considerably less of a threat than a German naval base in France. Buenos Aires is 6,500 miles from Norfolk, and Brest is about 3,800 miles, approximately half the distance. The La Plata region as the starting point of a great military movement overland should cause no anxiety. The area between Montevideo and the Panama Canal Zone is comparable neither'to the plains of Poland and Russia nor to the flat lands of Belgium and northern France. The new German mechanized divisions have won the admiration of the world, but they are not yet quite good enough for an overland journey from Buenos Aires to the Panama Canal. To ask them to swing north along the Paraguay River, cut through the tropical forests of the Matto Grosso, wallow through the mud swamps of the Amazon river lands, and scoot along the roller-coaster profiles of the Andes Mountains, is asking too much. The interior of South America is a wilderness without means of transportation, a true buffer zone. The only feasible route from the La Plata to the Panama Canal is a sea route longer
456    America's strategy in world politics
than that from Europe or from Africa, and it must round the bulge of Brazil. As long as the United States can keep her air power on the bulge, Buenos Aires cannot be more dangerous than Dakar.
There is also an exaggerated fear about the possibility of making the southern region the starting point for a series of hops, each one of which would establish an air base nearer to the Canal. It must be remembered that those bases would use material originating, not in the Argentine, but in western Europe and that the route is, therefore, slightly indirect. Because of the absence of transportation in the interior of the continent, the bases would have to be moved north by means of air-supported naval power. Again the bulge would have to be taken or neutralized. A German foothold in the Argentine or southern Brazil may be very undesirable for political reasons, but its military implications are not by any means disastrous. Strategically it is the bulge of Brazil, not the country farther south, that must be defended in the interests of the territorial security of the United States.
From the purely military point of view, quarter-sphere defense is a feasible policy, but from an economic point of view, the restricted area is even less viable than the hemisphere as a whole. It is true that economic integration would be a little easier because there would be no need of finding a market for the agricultural products of the La Plata, but the problem of the surplus agricultural commodities of North America would still remain. Much more serious, however, would be the question of imports. It has been suggested that, on the basis of the whole hemisphere, with all the resources of all the countries at our disposal, we might eventually arrive, after years of labor and great sacrifice, at an approximation of self-sufficiency in strategic raw materials. But this is not possible without the full participation of the temperate zone of South America. Without the tin and the tungsten of Bolivia, the copper of Chile, and the tungsten, wool, and tanning products of the Argentine, our war industries would be seriously crippled even if we could produce in northern Brazil the materials which now come from the tropical zones of Asia and Africa. The quarter-sphere does not contain the power potential necessary for an adequate system of defense against the complete encirclement which would then prevail.
conclusion 457
There is no possibility of achieving an adequate integration of the states of the New World in the face of German opposition, and even if there were, the power potential of the Americas would still be inadequate to balance the Old World. Because of the distribution of land masses and military potentials, a balance of power in the transatlantic and transpacific zones is an absolute prerequisite for the independence of the New World and the preservation of the power position of the United States. There is no safe defensive position on this side of the oceans. Hemisphere defense is no defense at all. The Second World War will be lost or won in Europe and Asia. The strategic picture demands that we conduct pur military operations in the form of a great offensive across the oceans. If our allies in the Old World are defeated, we cannot hold South America; if we defeat the German-Japanese Alliance abroad, our good neighbors will need no protection.
The Post-War World
In the first world conflict of the twentieth century, the United States won the war, but lost the peace. If this mistake is to be avoided, it must be remembered, once and for all, that the end of a war is not the end of the power struggle. It will be immediately resumed by other means, and the defeated powers will continue to challenge the victors. The interest of the United States demands not only victory in the war, but also continued participation in the peace.
The importance of the voice of the United States in the peace settlement will depend on the size of her military contribution to victory and her power position on the day of the armistice. Discussion about the type of international society to be created after the war has already begun. It will become more widespread as our participation in the war becomes greater and sacrifice and suffering begin to turn men's minds increasingly to the problem of shaping a better world order. The discussion will then inevitably have to consider the question of the role of the United States in the post-war period, and the old problem of isolation versus intervention will reappear in the form in which it was debated in 1919.
Although it is quite possible to conceive of a great variety of forms of political organization for the international community, there are in
458 America's strategy in world politics reality only a few basic types of power distribution. International society might disappear as such and the individual states might become incorporated into a single world state, or the world might be ruled through the hegemony of one or two large empires. On the other hand, the international community might continue to operate through an unstable equilibrium of a number of large powers. All of these plans will be discussed and the more they differ from past practice, the greater will be their appeal. Plans for far-reaching changes in the character of international society are an intellectual by-product of all great wars, but, when fighting ceases, the actual peace structure usually represents a return to balanced power. This is not surprising because it is the preservation of that balance that inspires the great powers to participate in world conflicts.
World Federation
Abolition of the individual states and their merger into a world federation would involve the most basic transformation of international society. The struggle for power between regional groups woujd then change its character and international wars as such would disappear. This fact explains the appeal which this radical solution has for a great many persons. The people who have the most progressive ideas about the problems of peace are, however, seldom the ones in positions of political power. World federation is still far off. This is perhaps just as well because the world-state would probably be a great disappointment to its advocates and very different from what they had anticipated. Brotherly love would not automatically replace conflict, and the struggle for power would continue. Diplomacy would become lobbying and log-rolling, and international wars would become civil wars and insurrections, but man would continue to fight for what he thought worth while and violence would not disappear from the earth.
American-British Hegemony
Both in England and in the United States, there is talk of a world order based on American-British hegemony. The theme appears in several variations, from Mr. Streit's Anglo-American union to looser
conclusion 459
forms of alliance and entente. The Anglo-American federalists present their program as a first stage in the creation of a world federation and they concede that other states, upon certificate of good behavior, will eventually be permitted to join. The fact remains, however, that in the, meantime the union is expected to function as a hegemony. It is undoubtedly true that, immediately after the armistice, the United States and Great Britain could exert great power through control of the seas, particularly if they had previously destroyed Japanese sea power. But it is highly problematical whether American-British hegemony could be translated into a permanent form of world organization, and it would be a mistake to assume that this program would appeal to any but a limited number of Anglo-Saxons as an ideal substitute for German-Japanese hegemony.
American-British dominion is particularly appealing to people who have a nostalgic attachment to the eighteenth century and consider that the American Declaration of Independence was a mistake. The new impérium is expected to rest on sea power and financial strength, but the analogy which inspires it is faulty. Great Britain never ruled the world because of her sea power alone, the pupils of Admiral Mahan to the contrary notwithstanding. Great Britain was dominant during the period when Europe was the only center of power and when the European Continent could be neutralized by balancing its forces. The world of today contains three centers of power. The United States, which represents one, is to be part of the new hegemony, but a scheme for ruling the world by sea power would have to include Japan as a third partner unless she were destroyed first.
The response to any plan for a permanent Japanese-American-British hegemony based on sea power would inevitably be the creation of a counter-alliance by the great land powers. The integration of the Eurasian land mass by force, which the Second World War was fought to prevent, would then take place through voluntary co-operation because Germany, Russia, and China would find themselves encircled and in need of combining their strength. An alliance of the insular continent of North America with the two off-shore islands facing the Eurasian land mass would have great merits from the point of view of the territorial defense of the Western Hemisphere, but it would not be strong enough to rule the world and it
460     America's strategy in world politics
would leave England and Japan in extremely exposed positions. The Second World War has so far given no indication that, in a period of three-dimensional warfare, when land-based aircraft has an advantage over ships in narrow seas, sea power could dominate the world.
The Balance of Power
The difficulty with speculations about the merits of world federation or American-British hegemony is that they provide very little guidance for the practical problems which will face the United States on the day of the armistice. On that day, there will be neither world-state nor hegemony but many large and small powers. If the Allies are victorious, Russia and China will be operating as independent units; and there is a fair probability that there will also be a Japan and even a Germany. Strange though it may seem at this moment, it is quite conceivable that the British government would not relish the idea of a Germany so completely defeated that it could not defend itself against the invasion of victorious Russian armies. It is even conceivable that Washington might become convinced of the cogency of the British argument that asks for the continued existence of a powerful Germany. A Russian state from the Urals to the North Sea can be no great improvement over a German state from the North Sea to the Urals. Russian air fields on the Channel are as dangerous as German air fields to British territorial security. The present war effort is undoubtedly directed against the destruction of Hitler and the National Socialist Party, but this does hot necessarily imply that it is directed at the destruction of Germany as a military power. Similar reasoning is applicable to the Far East. The danger of another Japanese conquest of Asia must be removed, but this does not inevitably mean the complete elimination of the military strength of Japan and the surrender of the Western Pacific to China or Russia.
Armistice day will find us, therefore, with an international society composed of at least six great powers and a number of small ones. It is well to remember that, whatever may ultimately be achieved in the form of integration and federation, we will start more or less where we left off when war broke out. Unless the United States con-
conclusion 461
tjnues the struggle until she has defeated not only her enemies but also her former allies, the post-war period will begin with an international society composed of numerous independent states.
There will be other similarities between the post-war and the prewar world in the power pattern of international society. To the extent that geographic factors determine international relations, they will be present in both periods. The distribution of the land masses, the location of strategic raw materials, and the relative distances between countries will not change. The post-war world is still going to be a world of decentralization of power with autonomous zones in the Far East, North America, and Europe, and the relations between these three zones will continue to dominate world politics. Basically, the new order will not differ from the old, and international society will continue to operate with the same fundamental power patterns. It will be a world of power politics in which the interests of the United States will continue to demand the preservation of a balance in Europe and Asia. The same considerations of political strategy that once led us to aid the Allies and that should guide our conduct of the war, will continue to demand our participation in the political life of the transoceanic zones in peace time.
Territorial Security and Peaceful Change
The post-war period is going to begin with a small number of large states and a large number of small states, and the architects of the New World Order will, therefore, again be faced with the old problem of territorial security and peaceful change. In the light of the technical developments of modern warfare and the character of total war, this problem is going to present special difficulties. Territorial security and political independence have traditionally rested on the power of individual states or, in the case of small states, on the strength of more powerful neighbors. Interest in the survival of small states because they served as buffer states or as weights in the balance of power has preserved them notwithstanding the power differential between the strong and the weak.
Mechanized warfare, with its emphasis on mobility and speed, and the development of air fighting, which has made war three-dimen-
462    America's strategy in world politics
sional, have greatly complicated the problem of security. In the days of two-dimensional warfare, defense rested in the first.place on frontier fortifications. Certain types of geographic frontier gave more protection than others, but the border always offered an opportunity to create some kind of defensive front. The retarding influence of frontier fortifications gave time for full mobilization and permitted allies to come to the aid of the invaded state. Blitzkrieg and aerial warfare have changed all this. The blitz technique conquers small states without giving the protector time to offer effective aid. Air power ignores the linear front at the border, makes it possible to fly over fortifications, and drop bombs on the interior of the country. There is still some geographic protection against mechanized warfare in an insular position and in extremely high mountain ranges, but survival is now possible only when great size permits defense in depth.
The League of Nations, created at the end of the last World War, was expected to neutralize the differential in strength between weak and strong states and to provide protection for the smaller members of the international community. Article 10 of the Covenant clearly established the principle of collective security, the right of the individual state to receive protection from the international community against aggression and the threat of aggression. As it turned out in practice, the right to protection proved illusory and the doctrine of collective security a pious fraud. This was due in part to the failure of the power structure. The League envisaged international sanctions both in the form of economic measures and in the form of military action, but the Council did not have at its disposal the organized force of the international community. Collective action depended not on an international police force, but on ad hoc co-operation of the military forces of the individual states. The League was not a federation, it was not even a confederation, it was merely an organization for the improved application of balance of power principles.
Economic sanctions were applied in the Italo-Ethiopian dispute and proved ineffective. Applied alone, they can be a deterrent only if aggressor and defendant are so equally matched that economic pressure could determine the outcome of the struggle. Where there is great inequality in military strength and victory is easy and quick, the only conditions under which aggression is likely, they are useless.
conclusion 463
They did not save Ethiopia, and they would not have saved Holland or Belgium. If military sanctions had ever been tried, they would probably have been equally ineffective. They cannot provide protection comparable to that of an old-fashioned military alliance. The process of collective action is slow, cumbersome, and uncertain; it cannot work out strategic plans in advance of action. In the days of blitzkrieg and aerial warfare, collective security cannot neutralize the power differential between the weak and the strong. The policy of the fait accom-pli and the quick thrust against the small foe can still be profitably pursued. As in the case of economic sanctions, military sanctions are helpful only if aggressor and victim are fairly evenly matched.
The result is that there can be no security in an international society in which there are wide differences in strength between individual units. Small states have become even less viable than they were already and they have ceased to perform buffer functions for the larger states. They are more than ever a power vacuum in a high-pressure area and a temptation to ambitious neighbors. Whatever may have been their great historical contributions to thought and civilization, in days of three-dimensional warfare they are a political hazard to the whole international community. The builders of the post-war order will do well to attempt to eliminate great differences in military strength between states within the same power zone.
Approximate equality of strength between members of regional groups might also simplify the problem of so-called "peaceful change," which the League of Nations equally failed to solve. The Covenant stated in Article 19 that the Assembly might advise the reconsideration of treaties which have become inapplicable and of conditions which might endanger the peace. But the League was even less prepared to use force to induce change, even change that was considered necessary and just, than to use force to protect the status quo. Both are, however, indispensable to any ordered society. The first step from anarchy to order is not the disappearance of force, but its use by the community instead of by the individual members.
In this respect, the Concert of Europe, as it operated during the first half of the nineteenth century, represented a much more realistic system than the League of Nations. It accepted as a matter of course
464    America's strategy in world politics
that force should be available not only for the preservation of the status quo but also for its transformation. Collective action was used not only in cases where maintenance of a specific situation was desired, but also in cases where it was necessary to force a change upon a reluctant state. Holland and Turkey were forced by collective action to accept Belgian and Greek independence.
The replacement of the force of litigants by the force of the community is the first step toward international order. This transfer would be facilitated if individual states were of approximately the same strength and neutralized each other's power. The overwhelming force necessary to discourage resort to arms could then be much more easily created. No single state would be so small that it would have to hesitate to participate in common action, for fear of becoming a special victim of revenge. Difference in geographic location would still mean difference in exposure to aggression, but, when combined with equality of strength, proximity does not necessarily mean danger.
The United States and the Peace Settlement
If the last World War was an indication of what we may expect, there will be no dearth of statesmen fully aware of the dangers implied in a return to isolation and fully capable of visualizing the problems of the post-war world. But whether public opinion will be ready to support them remains to be seen. When the armistice approaches, the American public will probably be thoroughly sick of Europe and Asia and profoundly disgusted with its allies. The temptation will be almost irresistible to repeat the fatal blunders of 1919 and to believe that, the war having been won, we can return to our insular domain. But international life is dynamic, and preserving the balance of power is a permanent job. It cannot be solved once and for all by making the perfect treaty, not even by making a "just" treaty.
It might be more in harmony with the nature of totalitarian warfare and provide a better transition to other forms of power struggle, if a scheme could be devised for the termination of the military conflict without a peace treaty. But, if we must have a peace treaty, it is more important that it provide procedures for revision than
conclusion 465
that it be a just treaty. The only practical criterion of the justice of a treaty is the intensity of the desire to change it. A defeated nation that has not lost its vitality inevitably adopts a revisionist policy because national pride demands that the symbol of its defeat be destroyed. The- desire for treaty revision is, however, by no means limited to the vanquished. Many dynamic and expanding states have later felt restrained and hampered by a peace structure that registered earlier victories.
In a dynamic world in which forces shift and ideas change, no legal structure can remain acceptable for any length of time. Preserving order within the state is not a question of designing once and for all the final and permanent solution of all problems, but a question of making daily decisions that will adjust human frictions, balance social forces, and compromise political conflicts. It involves deciding ever anew in the light of changing circumstances what should be preserved and what should be changed. Preserving order in the international society is a problem of the same nature, although complicated by the decentralization of power in individual states. It can be handled on different planes of organization, by diplomacy, by ad hoc conferences, or by permanent consultative committees, but as long as the community remains composed of individual states, the nature of the political decision remains the same. It means deciding on which side of a dispute the military power of the state shall be placed.
The United States and TLuro-pe
The post-war policy of the United States will have to operate in a world of power politics under conditions very similar to those that prevailed before the outbreak of the conflict. It should be guided by a political strategy which demands the preservation of a balance of power in Europe and in Asia, and by the consideration that territorial security and peaceful change are more likely to be achieved if the individual states in the different power zones do not differ too widely in their relative strength.
For the European Continent, as for the world at large, it is possible to envisage three different types of power pattern, a United States of Europe, a hegemony by one or two great states, and an
466 America's strategy in world politics unstable equilibrium of forces. A European federation is not a power constellation that the United States should encourage. Balanced power, not integrated power, is in our interest. From the point of view of power politics, it is immaterial in the long run whether the economic and military potential of a region becomes integrated into a single unit by a process of conquest or by a process of federation. The United States did not start her career as the result of the conquest of twelve colonies by Massachusetts, but she is none the less today a danger to the states of Latin America because of the mere fact of her size and power. A federal Europe would constitute an agglomeration of force that would completely alter our significance as an Atlantic power and greatly weaken our position in the Western Hemisphere. If the peace objective of the United States is the creation of a united Europe, she is fighting on the wrong side. All-out aid to Mr. Hitler would be the quickest way to achieve an integrated transatlantic zone.
If the interests of the United States demand the prevention of a federal Europe, they also demand the prevention of,the establishment of hegemony over Europe by one or two states. Fortunately neither of these two contingencies is likely to face us at the outset. Post-war Europe, as suggested, will begin with at least two and probably three great powers, Great Britain, Russia, and Germany; a number of smaller ones, Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy; Sweden and Switzerland; and the refugee governments operating from London. The practical problem will be to design a workable grouping that will create both a balanced continent and achieve a maximum equality of strength among the individual units. To achieve this, it will be necessary either to break up the large powers such as Russia and Germany, or to combine the smaller ones into large federations which will preserve the cultural autonomy of the component parts, but which will be strong enough to discourage thoughts of easy conquest. The latter is bound tp be a more satisfactory procedure in the long run.
The greatest difficulty will be that of balancing Germany and Russia. In case of Allied victory, the Soviet Union will come out of the war as one of the great industrial nations of the world with an enormous war potential: Germany, unless destroyed, will continue to
conclusion 467
represent an impressive military strength as demonstrated in the First and Second World Wars. The easiest solution would be to give them a common frontier. But if this should prove impossible, then the political unit between them should be a great eastern European federation from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, not a series of small buffer states. More troublesome is going to be the problem of Holland and Belgium, the old buffer states that have ceased to perform their protective function and that can neither shield Great Britain from bombing nor France from invasion under conditions of modern warfare. It is possible to conceive of several different combinations in addition to an eastern European federation, such as a British-Scandinavian group around the North Sea and the Baltic, and a Latin group around the Mediterranean. The Versailles settlement sacrificed economic and power considerations to the exclusive demands of the principle of self-determination with the result that the whole power structure came to rest on two weak crutches,* a disarmed Germany and a non-fortified Rhineland. The new peace will not only have to correct the Balkanization of Europe, which was introduced after the First World War, but it will also have to achieve the integration of other states into a few large units.
The ideal of units of approximate equality in military strength and power potential is, however, not likely to be fully realized. But even if it were, it would still not permit the United States to withdraw from Europe. Third party strength will continue to be needed to neutralize differentials, and a balance of power is essentially an unstable equilibrium that needs constant attention and adjustment. Twice in one generation we have gone through the cycle of isolation, neutrality, intervention, and war, the same cycle which Great Britain has repeated many times. It should be clear by now to both nations that their respective moats do not protect and that there can be security only in balanced power. The efforts and sacrifices of the Second World War should remind us that it is easier to balance a power differential when it is small than when it is large. The world conflict might well have been avoided by the expenditure of 20 million dollars and the employment of an army of 50,000 men in March, 1936. It will be cheaper in the long run to remain a working member of the European power zone than to withdraw for short intermis-
468    America's strategy in world politics
sions to our insular domain only to be forced to apply later the whole of our national strength to redress a balance that might have needed but a slight weight at the beginning.
It is to be hoped that this European power zone can be organized in the form of a regional League of Nations with the United States as an extra-regional member. This suggestion is made in the full realization that a league system is merely an improved balance of power system. From the American point of view, that is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Such a league offers the only effective method for permanent participation in the political affairs of Europe. Our strength must, remain available to preserve the balance of power. This means that it cannot be tied up in a one-sided alliance with one or two states. Such a procedure would force us to play the power politics of our allies instead of our own, and to aid in the establishment and maintenance of their hegemonic position in Europe. The only form in which the United States can both protect her interests in the preservation of a European balance and aid in the maintenance of order and political justice, is through participation in a league based on states of approximately equal strength with a covenant that provides for a revitalized Article 10 and a really effective system of "peaceful change."
The United States and Asia
The United States has been interested in the preservation of a balance of power in the Far East primarily for the protection of her position as an Asiatic power. But even if she were to withdraw from Asia and grant independence to the Philippines, she would still remain interested in the power relations of the transpacific zone. The Asiatic Mediterranean is perhaps the most important single source of strategic raw materials for the United States, and its control by a single power would endanger the basis of our military strength. The Far East was the last area to become an autonomous power zone and it is still inferior to both Europe and the United States as a source of political power. Advanced technology will however sooner or later translate the inherent power potential of the region into actual military strength, and, when that occurs, its relative importance com-
conclusion 469
pared to the two other zones will increase. The preservation of a balance will then be necessary not only because of our interest in strategic raw materials but also because of what unbalanced power in this region could do to the rest of the world.
The end of the. Second World War will also find in existence in the Far East a number of independent units: Russia, China, and perhaps Japan j Great Britain, the Dutch East Indies, Australia, and New Zealand. The problem of building out of these units a balanced power structure in terms of states of approximately equal strength is going to be even more difficult than in Europe, and the main difficulty of the post-war period will be not Japan but China. The power potential of the former Celestial Kingdom is infinitely greater than that of the Land of the Cherry Blossom and once that power potential begins to express itself in actual military strength, the position of a defeated Japan as a small off-shore island near the Asiatic mainland is going to be very uncomfortable. When long-range bombing squadrons can operate from the tip of the Shan-tung peninsula as well as from Vladivostok, fire insurance rates in the Japanese paper cities will undoubtedly go up.
A modern, vitalized, and militarized China of 400 million people is going to be a threat not only to Japan, but also to the position of the Western Powers in the Asiatic Mediterranean. China will be a continental power of huge dimensions in control of a large section of the littoral of that middle sea. Her geographic position will be similar to that of the United States in regard to the American Mediterranean. When China becomes strong, her present "economic penetration in that region will undoubtedly take on political overtones. It is quite possible to envisage the day when this body of water will be controlled not by British, American, or Japanese sea power but by Chinese air power.
It will be difficult to find public support in the United States for a Far Eastern policy based on these realities of power politics. It is true that intervention in Far Eastern affairs is traditionally much more acceptable than intervention in Europe, but this tradition is also tied up with a pro-Chinese and anti-Japanese orientation which the war itself will greatly intensify. Public opinion will probably continue to see Japan as the great danger, long after the balance has
47°    America's strategy in world politics
shifted in favor of China and it has become necessary to pursue in the Far East the same policy that we have pursued in regard to Europe. Twice in one generation we have come to the aid of Great Britain in order that the small off-shore island might not have to face a single gigantic military state in control of the opposite coast of the mainland. If the balance of power in the Far East is to be preserved in the future as well as in the present, the United States will have to adopt a similar protective policy toward Japan. The present inconsistency in American policy will have to be removed. It is illogical to insist that Japan accept a Chinese empire from Vladivostok to Canton and at the same time to support Great Britain in her wars for the preservation of buffer states across the North Sea. In the Far East, as in Europe, such protection can only be provided by participation in a regional League of Nations. A one-sided treaty of alliance with Japan would be unwise. Only by generalizing our commitment and thus maintaining our freedom of action can we serve our best interests and aid in the maintenance of order and peace in Asia.
The United States in the Western Hemisphere
If the Allies are victorious, the position of the United States in the Western Hemisphere will remain unchanged. That means a position of hegemony over a very large part of the New World. From the point of view of a desirable regional organization, it would obviously be an advantage if some of the South American states could federate into larger units. But even an alliance between the A.B.C. states, in itself unlikely, could not balance the strength of the Colossus of the North. Our hegemonic position rests in large measure on a difference in power potential between North and South America which no amount of political combination within the zone can overcome. To transform existing power relations in the Western Hemisphere into a political structure composed of units of about equal strength will involve even greater difficulties than a similar program for Europe and Asia. Our position in the New World can be neutralized only by means of extra-regional influences and our good neighbors must, therefore, inevitably continue their efforts to balance our power by means of European or Asiatic affiliations.
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There is already in existence a political organization of the American Republics. The Pan American Union is an obvious starting point for a league of the Western Hemisphere and it should not be difficult to make a place for Canada. It has suffered in the past and will continue to suffer from the unbalanced position of the Colossus of the North. There are people in the United States firmly convinced that all power corrupts. They feel that the United States should be balanced just like other states. Their conviction may well lead them to advocate that we please our Latin American friends by accepting an extra-regional member in the political organization of the Western Hemisphere. Such a member would then occupy a position similar to the one which we envisage for ourselves in the Asiatic and European political constellations. In the light of our devotion to the principles of the Monroe Doctrine and the fact that we are fighting German intervention in South America, it is, however, not likely that such a program would find wide support.
The United States in the World
International life, as well as national life, has problems that can be solved only in terms of a functional approach. The post-war world will therefore need organizations such as the Universal Postal Union and the International Labor Office that must, of necessity, operate in terms of the world as a whole. The regional approach remains, however, the best way to deal with political problems. The quest for universality that characterized the League of Nations only led to weakness. The Scandinavian states were not interested in the boundary and power problems of the La Plata region, and the Latin American states were not interested in the questions that confronted eastern Europe. For a long time to come, international organization must provide both for many states whose field of operations and political activity is inevitably regional, and for a few world powers which must have an opportunity to participate in the politics of more than one region.
This program does not promise the end of international strife. It accepts the fact that there will always be conflict, and that war will remain a necessary instrument in the preservation of a balance of
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power. An equilibrium of forces inherently unstable, always shifting, always changing, is certainly not an ideal power pattern for an international society. But while we can deplore its shortcomings, we shall do well to remember that it is an indispensable element of an international order based on independent states. It encourages co-operation, conciliation, and the growth of law and is more likely to preserve peace and maintain justice than any other type of power distribution. The founders of the United States were impressed with the value and importance of balanced power. They created for this nation a government of checks and balances in the profound conviction that only in that manner could tyranny be avoided. Our government has been criticized for being slow and cumbersome, and it has irritated many who prefer quick and efficient response to executive command, but it has lived up to the hopes of its founders and preserved the political and civil liberties perhaps better than any other government. A similar merit extends to balanced power in international society.
The League of Nations was offered to the world as an instrument of international co-operation. As such, it was conceived in terms of the liberal ideology of the nineteenth century. But the new institution did not protect the status quo, it did not provide for orderly change, and it failed to create, through voluntary delegation of power, the new levels of integration which modern industrial and technological development make necessary. The German-Japanese Alliance hopes to achieve world order through conquest, a program which has been thoroughly rejected by most of the nations of the world. America can offer a third approach, one that provides possibilities both for integration and for the protection of the rights of individual states. The program suggested does not preclude the eventual development of federal patterns of political organization. It does not require permanent opposition to the trend toward political and economic co-ordination. It merely asks that the geographic pattern of integration shall not be such as to exclude us from the transoceanic zones, thereby exposing us once again to the danger of encirclement.
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i. Power Politics and War
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Dupuis, Charles: Le Principe d'Equilibre et le Concert Eurofeen de la Paix de Westphalie i L'Acte d'Algesiras. Paris, 1909.
Foertsch, Hermann: The Art of Modern Warfare. New York, 1940.
Franke, Hermann (ed.): Handbuch der 'Neuzeitlichen Wehrwissenschaften, 4 vols. Berlin, 1936-1939.
Friedrich, Carl Joachim: Foreign Policy in the Making: The Search for a New Balance of Power. New York, 1938.
Höijer, Olof: La Theorie de l'Equilibre et le Droit des Gens. Paris, 1917.
Inter-Parliamentary Union: What Would be the Character of a New War? New York, 1933.
Marshall, S. L. A.: Blitzkrieg: Us History, Strategy, Economics and the Challenge to America. New York, 1940.
Merriam, Charles Edward: Political Power: Its Comfosition and Incidence. New York, 1934.
Nickerson, Hoffman: The Armed Horde, iy93-1030: A Study of the Rise, Survival and Decline of the Mass Army. New York, 1940.
Russell, Bertrand: Power: A New Social Analysis. New York, 1938.
Wright, Quincy: The Causes of War and the Conditions of Peace. London, 1935-
II. The United States in the Western Hemisphere
Haushofer, Karl, et al.: Bausteine zur Geopolitik. Berlin, 1928. Henning, Richard: Geofolitik: die Lehre vom Staat als Lebewesen, 2te Aufl. Leipzig, 1931.
Jones, Chester Lloyd: The Caribbean Since 1900. New York, 1936. Maull, Otto: Politische Geographie. Berlin, 1925.
Miller, George J., and Parkins, Almon E.: Geography of North America. New York, 1928.
Platt, Raye R., et al.: The European Possessions in the Caribbean Area. New York, 1941.
Royal Institute of International Affairs: The Republics of South America. New York, 1937.
Shanahan, Edward William: South America. New York, 1927. Smith, J. Russell: North America. New York, 1925.
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