Walter Edward Weyl - American World Policies

Whatever our course of action, however, whether we strive for an American imperialism or for internationalism, one thing is certain: it cannot be instinctive, fluctuating, undirected. We cannot revolutionise our international relations with each new administration or with each change of the moon. Nor can we stay at home and, ignorant of the causes of war, content ourselves with a long-distance preaching of peace to the menaced nations of Europe. Each of the two courses open to us involves self-direction, valour and strength. If we are to enter upon a struggle for place, power and profits, we must prepare for a dangerous contest: if we are to labour for a new international harmony, for peace and good-will and the delicate adjustments without which these are but words, we shall also need courage—and infinite patience. Without knowledge we shall accomplish nothing. To enter upon an international career without a sense of the conditions underlying peace and war, is to walk in darkness along a dangerous path.

To ascribe world events to the action of a single individual is a naïve yet persistent manner of thought. All over Europe men blamed the war upon a wicked Kaiser, a swaggering, immature Crown Prince, a weak-fisted Von Berchtold, a sinister Tisza, a childish Poincaré, an unscrupulous Sir Edward Grey, an abysmally astute Sasonof. We in America blamed everything on Von Tirpitz and the irrepressible Reventlow. In all countries, millions of men drifted helplessly toward a war, which they believed was due to the evil machinations of a man.

So long as the belief holds that one man can set the world on fire, there can be no reasonable theory of war or peace. It is a conception which makes world destiny a plaything, unmotived in any large sense, accidental and incalculable. On the other hand, those who regard war as merely irrational, a general human idiocy, are equally far from any true approach to the problem. We are being deluged to-day with books and newspaper articles describing war as a reversion of mankind to a lower type, a betrayal of reason, a futile, revolting struggle, creating no rights, settling no problems and serving no useful purpose except, in Lord Salisbury's phrase, "to teach people geography." Let us be rational and adult, cry these authors, adjuring an insane world to return to its sanity.

No wonder that there is prejudice against this particular variety of abstract pacifism. It is a negative doctrine, anæmic and thin-haired, with a touch of gentle intolerance and a patient disregard of facts. It does not recognise the real motives to war, upon which alone a theory of peace may be based. It defeats itself because ultra-rationalistic. For if war, though irrational, has always been, would it not follow that man himself is irrational, that the fighting instinct is deeper than reason, and that to-morrow, as to-day, men will fight for the joy of killing? If this were true, pacifism might as well resign. In truth, this interpretation of war as a mere expression of man's fighting instincts is no more adequate than is the personal devil theory. War has outgrown the fighting instinct. It has become deliberate, businesslike, scientific. It demands sacrifices from those to whom fighting is an abomination. How many red-blooded warriors could the German Emperor or the French President have enrolled, had there been no appeal to national interest, duty, justice, indignation? War is won to-day by peace-loving men, who abhor the arms in their hands.

The closer we study its motives, incentives and origins, the more deeply do we find the elements of this problem imbedded in the very foundations of national or group life. War depends upon growth in population, emigration, the use of natural resources, agricultural progress, trade development, distribution of wealth, taxation. It is never unrelated to the economic web in which the people live their lives; it is seldom unaffected by the necessity of expanding and the opposition of neighbours, the desire for bread and the longing for luxuries. War and peace are functions of the national life, steps in national progress or retrogression. Peace and war are two paths leading often in the same general direction, and whether we may take one path or must take the other is often determined for us long before we reach this parting of the ways.

At first glance this economic or business side of war is obscured. We find tribes and nations fighting for women and heads and scalps, to please the gods, to destroy sorcerers, to slay heretics, to show prowess, and for other reasons which seem equally remote from an economic motive. A nation will go to war "to save its face," or to annihilate the "hereditary enemy," as well as to improve its position in the world. Yet these diverse human motives are related to, though not fully absorbed in, the omnipresent economic motive. The "hereditary enemy" usually is no other than the tribe or nation that blocks our way; the "gods" enjoin war against neighbours who occupy the lands we need or can furnish us tribute; the women, whom we capture, are tame and pleasant beasts of burden, who help to swell our numbers. As for pride and tribal vanity, which so often precipitate war, these are a powerful social bond, which by holding the tribe together permits it to conquer the things it needs. A war for prestige is often a war for economic gain once removed. There remains a residue of martial emotion, not so closely united with the desire for economic gain, but all these derivative motives do not prevent the economic factor from remaining preponderant. Remove the economic factors leading to war, give men more than enough, and the chief incentive to war disappears.

The modern historical trend has been towards a fuller recognition of the influence of this potent, though often disguised, motive to war. Historians are recognising that the mainspring of social action is not an emperor's dream or soldier's ambition, but the demand of vast populations for food, clothing and shelter, then for better food, clothing and shelter, and finally for the rights, privileges and institutions which will make such economic progress assured. Ancient war, which seemed so empty and causeless, is now revealed as a half-conscious effort of human societies to adjust themselves to changing economic conditions. It is a struggle for bread. Indeed, so complete has been this change in our theories that we often exaggerate this economic influence, and speak as though no emotion save hunger impelled humanity. But such exclusion of other motives is not necessary to an economic interpretation. We can emphasise the influence of economic desires, which modern Americans and Germans share with ancient Greeks and Babylonians, while still admitting the influence of other factors. Race, creed, language, geographical position, increase national friendship or animosity. While these factors influence wars, however, they are less universal, if not less potent than is the economic motive.

The significance of this economic motive to war can hardly be overstated. If wars are in the main due to fundamental, economic conflicts, then we cannot end or limit war unless we discover some alternate way to compose such economic differences. We cannot hope that the human race will stop wanting things. Men have never lived like the lilies of the field, nor wished to live so. According to our every-day morality, wanting and getting are ethical and wise, and not-wanting is unethical and decivilising. Our whole intricate, complex civilisation depends upon the physical well-being and the economic ambition of our populations, and morally, as well as physically, a beggared nation tends to decline. We may trace this degeneration of impoverished groups in some of our mountainous districts, where communities, shut off from the main productive energies of the nation, brutalise and decay. All the conditions of our life impel nations, like individuals, to advance economically, to fructify labour, to gain. If, however, the nation in its struggle for new wealth clashes with other nations, intent also upon gain, if these mobilised, economic ambitions necessarily lead to destructive wars, then we must cease declaiming against war's immorality, and seek instead to discover whether economic readjustments cannot circumscribe or even prevent wars.