It is worth remarking in this context that it is now possible to be an orthodox Catholic and a complete pacifist. To condemn war as such and to refuse, as the Quakers and other Protestant sects have done, to participate in any war whatsoever, is heretical. St. Thomas has laid it down that war is justified when waged in defence of the vital interests of a community. Starting from the Thomist position, certain Catholic thinkers, notably in Holland and England, have reached the conclusion that, though it may be heretical to condemn war as war, one can be a complete pacifist in relation to war in its contemporary form and still remain orthodox.
War is justified when it is waged in defence of the vital interests of the community. But the nature of modern war is such that the vital interests of the community cannot be defended by it; on the contrary, they must inevitably suffer more from the waging of war than they would suffer by non-resistance to violence. Therefore, in the circumstances of the present time, complete pacifism is reasonable, right and even orthodox. Bertrand Russell’s pacifism is based upon exactly the same considerations of expediency as that of these neo-Thomists. His and their arguments are peculiarly relevant to the problem of sanctions. For what the sanctionists demand is that wars which, in the very nature of things, cannot do anything except destroy the vital interests of the communities concerned in them, should be automatically transformed from wars between two or a few nations into universal combats, bringing destruction and injustice to all the peoples of the world.
To this contention sanctionists reply by asserting that the mere display of great military force by League members will be enough to deter would-be aggressors. The greater your force, the slighter the probability that you will have to use it; therefore, they argue, re-arm for the sake of peace. The facts of history do not bear out this contention. Threats do not frighten the determined nor do the desperate shrink before a display of overwhelming force. Moreover, in the contemporary world, there is no reason to suppose that the force mustered against an aggressor will be overwhelming. ‘The League’ and ‘the Aggressor’ will be two well-matched sets of allied powers. Indeed, the composition of these two alliances is already pretty well settled. France, Russia, and probably England are booked to appear as ‘The League’; Italy, Germany and Japan as ‘the Aggressor.’ The smaller nations will remain neutral, or back whichever side they think is likely to win. As for the sanctionist’s exhortation to re-arm for the League and for peace, this is merely a modern version of si vis pacem, para bellum. Those who prepare for war start up an armament race and, in due course, get the war they prepare for.
According to sanctionist theory, the League is to take military action in order to bring about a just settlement of disputes. But the prospects of achieving a just settlement at the end of a League war are no better than at the end of any other kind of war. Wars result in just settlements only when the victors behave with magnanimity, only when they make amends for violence by being just and humane. But when wars have been fierce and prolonged, when the destruction has been indiscriminate and on an enormous scale, it is extraordinarily difficult for the victor to behave magnanimously, or even with justice. Passions ran so high in the last war that it was psychologically impossible for the conquerors to make a just and humane settlement. In spite of Wilson and his Fourteen Points, they imposed the Treaty of Versailles—the treaty which made it inevitable that a Hitler should arise and that Germany should seek revenge for past humiliations. A war waged by League members allied to impose military sanctions on an aggressor will probably be at least as destructive as the war of 1914-18—possibly far more destructive. Is there any reason to suppose that the victorious League—that is, if it is victorious—will be in a more magnanimous mood than were the Allies in 1918? There is no such reason. The sanctionists are cherishing the old illusion of ‘the war to end war.’ But wars do not end war; in most cases they result in an unjust peace that makes inevitable the outbreak of a war of revenge.
In this context it is worth mentioning the project for an ‘international police force’ sponsored by the New Commonwealth and approved, so far as the international air-police force is concerned, by the British Labour Party. First, we must point out that the phrase ‘international police force’ is completely misleading. Police action against an individual criminal is radically different from action by a nation or group of nations against a national criminal. The police act with the maximum of precision; they go out and arrest the guilty person. Nations and groups of nations act through their armed forces, which can only act with the maximum of imprecision, killing, maiming, starving and ruining millions of human beings, the overwhelming majority of whom have committed no crime of any sort. The process, which all self-righteous militarists, from plain jingo to sanctionist and international policemen, describe as ‘punishing a guilty nation,’ consists in mangling and murdering innumerable innocent individuals.
To draw analogies between an army and a police force, between war (however ‘righteous’ its aim) and the prevention of crime, is utterly misleading. An ‘international police force’ is not a police force and those who call it by that name are trying, consciously or unconsciously, to deceive the public. What they assimilate to the, on the whole, beneficent policeman is in fact an army and air force, equipped to slaughter and destroy. We shall never learn to think correctly unless we call things by their proper names. The international police force, if it were ever constituted, would not be a police force; it would be a force for perpetrating indiscriminate massacres. If you approve of indiscriminate massacres, then you must say so. You have no right to deceive the unwary by calling your massacre-force by the same name as the force which controls traffic and arrests burglars.
This International Massacre-Force does not yet exist and, quite apart from any question of desirability, it seems almost infinitely improbable that it ever will exist. How is such a force to be recruited? how officered? how armed? where located? Who is to decide when it is to be used and against whom? To whom will it owe allegiance and how is its loyalty to be guaranteed? Is it likely that the staff officers of the various nations will draw up plans for the invasion and conquest of their own country? or that aviators will loyally co-operate in the slaughter of their own people? How can all nations be persuaded to contribute men and materials towards the international force? Should the contributions be equal? If they are not equal and a few great powers supply the major part of the force, what is to prevent these powers from establishing a military tyranny over the whole world? The project sponsored by the New Commonwealth and the Labour Party combines all the moral and political vices of militarism with all the hopeless impracticability of a Utopian dream. In the language of the stud book, the International Police Force may be described as by Machiavelli out of News from Nowhere.
Morality and practical common sense are at one in demanding that efforts to create an ‘International Police Force’ shall be strenuously resisted and that Article XVI shall be removed from the Covenant. The effort to stop war, once it has broken out, by means of military sanctions or the action of an international army and air force is foredoomed to failure. War cannot be stopped by more war. All that more war can do is to widen the area of destruction and place new obstacles in the way of reaching a just and humane settlement of international disputes. It should be the business of the League to concentrate all its energies on the work of preventing wars from breaking out. This it can do by developing existing machinery for the peaceable settlement of international disputes; by extending the field of international co-operation in the study and solution of outstanding social problems; and finally, by devising means for eliminating the causes of war.
About the machinery of peaceful settlement and international co-operation it is unnecessary to say very much. A machine may be exquisitely ingenious and of admirable workmanship, but if people refuse to use it, or use it badly, it will be almost or completely useless. This is the case with the machinery of peaceful change and international co-operation. It
