Is there any way in which this could be assured, or at any rate made highly probable, so long as countries continue to have armies and navies of their own? Fortunately in no community, either of nations or individuals, are the gangsters likely to outnumber the law-abiding citizens.
Most peoples, as has been said, want to live in a peaceful and orderly world. It might seem, therefore, that if they would all arm themselves and agree to act together to hold down the gangsters, the peace-loving majority could easily keep the community in order. But unfortunately between nations there are far greater differences in power—in the ability to use force—than there ever are between individuals.
Thus a very few of the most powerful ones might be stronger than all the others put together. The question is, then How, if at all, can we make it reasonably sure that the international peace force will be clearly stronger than any aggressive forces, even if one or more great powers should at some time be numbered among the aggressors?
There are some who say that this cannot be done and that to attempt it would therefore be a dangerous mistake. For a long time after this war, the great powers in the military sense—the countries whose manpower and ability to manufacture armaments will far exceed those of any other countries—will probably be only three: the United States, the British Commonwealth of Nations, and Soviet Russia.
China is a great power, but until its industries are much more fully developed, it will not be among the first in military strength. In a longer period of time other countries may, of course, become great powers, too. If as members of an international organization the three great powers were pledged to use their national forces against any aggressor, and if one of them were then to commit an aggression itself, the others would be bound to go to war against it.
Perhaps two of them might be on the side of aggression. Whichever way it was, the war would be long and on an immense scale, and it would not necessarily be certain in advance that the countries supporting the international organization could defeat the aggressor. For the defensive strength of each of these three powers is very great—so great, in fact, that it would certainly be hard, and might be impossible, for even two of the others to overcome it. In any case, if the law-abiding members of the international organization fulfilled their pledges the result would be another world war.
And it has been argued that if they should some day have to face this situation, they probably would not fulfill their pledges; they would find some excuse for doing nothing. Those who reason in this way, therefore, believe that the idea of compelling any of the great powers by force, or the threat of force, to obey the law must be given up.
We may hope that none of them will be tempted to aggression; we can try to keep their relations with one another friendly and cooperative; but in their case we cannot rely upon force as a means of preventing war. On the other hand, it will be easy for the great powers to prevent disturbances of the peace by weaker countries. They are fully able to put down aggressions by minor states if they wish, and they might well find it to their interest to agree to do so.
There could thus be established an international organization in which the smaller countries would be protected against one another by the Big Three or the Big Four , but in which there would be no guarantee of protection against any of the great powers, or of any of these against one another. It will probably not be disputed that if this is all that can be done to prevent future wars, the outlook is a gloomy one.
For it is, of course, aggressions by powerful states that most need to be prevented, because they are the most dangerous to all countries, large and small.
It is more important to prevent murder than petty larceny. After the last war, Germany and Japan were great powers—though they will probably not be after this one. And in the 's the same situation existed which, under the program just outlined, would exist in the future.
The League of "Nations did suppress a few attempts at aggression by small countries; but its members did nothing to stop the aggressions of Germany and Japan because they were great powers with which it would be probably dangerous, and certainly expensive, to interfere. An attempt to stop them seemed to involve the risk of starting a great war. It was this fear of war on the part of the peaceful countries that chiefly explains the unwilling-ness of the members of the League to take any strong stand against Japan and Germany.
We already know the result. Japan and Germany, finding that they could succeed in their first and comparatively small aggressions, went on to commit bigger ones, one after another, and in the end war came all the same. It is a far greater and more desperate war than the one the League countries thought they were avoiding when they lacked the courage to use force to nip aggression in the bud.
The history of the 's thus gives us a sample of what is likely to happen if an international organization for mutual defense and security is based upon the proposition that force is never to be used against a great power. But the question still remains whether it is possible to make reasonably sure that the forces available for use by the international organization will be stronger than those of any aggressor, and so much stronger that aggression will be too dangerous to be attempted, even by a great power.
Two means for accomplishing this have been suggested. One of them has already been outlined page 8 ; it is the plan of a purely international police force having the exclusive use of "heavy weapons. By this plan it is proposed that all the important countries, the three or four great powers and a number of others also, should agree at the end of this war to fix the size and strength of their national armed forces at certain "quotas" or ratios.
These would be such that no one country, and no combination which is in the least likely to be formed for aggressive purposes, would have a force anywhere near equal to the combined forces of all the other members of the international organization.
If such an agreement were made and carried out, a great state, though it would still have a sizable army, would not have such military strength, that it could hope to succeed in acts of aggression. Even if an attempt at aggression should be made, the law-abiding majority would not be prevented from suppressing it by fear of possible defeat or of a long and uncertain struggle.
Decisive strength would be known in advance to be on the side of the international organization-that is, of the law-abiding countries in that organization that want to live in a peaceful and orderly world. Those who propose this plan admit that it is not a simple matter to figure out just what the quotas of the different countries ought to be. But they maintain that this calculation, though not so easy as twice-two-is-four, is entirely possible. The number of aggressive alliances that might conceivably be formed, in any future situation which we can imagine, is not really very large.
When these various possibilities are all set down, it is not particularly hard to figure a set of ratios between national forces which would give us the result desired in each case—that is, would give the decisive superiority of force always to the countries that would want to stop the aggressors. Working out the necessary proportions of the national forces, it is argued, is much easier because of two important facts: first, the majority of countries are pretty certain always to want to have peace preserved; second, we can be fairly sure that certain countries will not themselves attempt aggressions and will be ready to back up the international organization in enforcing peace once they have taken a binding pledge to do so.
These would include most of the middle-sized and small countries. Most Americans believe that among the great powers the United States would, for one, be always on the side of peace—though possibly some other peoples may not feel so sure of this. An effect of the quota plan—if it were adopted—would be to decrease the disproportion between the military strength of the big powers and the lesser ones. While the larger countries would still have the larger armies, the size of their armies would not be proportional to their populations; so that the total of the forces of the smaller countries could overbalance the force of any one—or, possibly, even two—of the great powers.
Probably the chief difficulty about any quota plan would be to get all the great powers to accept it. No one of the Big Three or Four would be very likely to accept for itself a quota smaller than that of any of the others. This particular difficulty might perhaps be got round by giving all the great powers equal quotas. But some of them might not be satisfied with this; they might feel that their armed forces ought to be proportional to their population, or territory, or wealth.
If any one of them should insist on this, the purpose of the quota plan would be imperiled. On this point what the advocates of the quota plan say is that it is merely a question whether or not the great powers really want to have a world organization that will be capable of preventing wars of aggression.
If they don't want it, then of course nothing can be done to bring it about. But they have declared that they do want and intend to have such an organization. It is therefore argued that they will accept and carry out a system of quotas by which no country, and no likely combination of aggressor countries, can possess military power equal or even nearly equal to that of the rest of the countries belonging to the world organization.
If no such system is adopted, say the supporters of this plan, the purpose proclaimed at Moscow cannot be realized. To prevent wars, they argue, you must not only have force behind the maintenance of peace but a permanently stronger force; and, it is asserted, if the international police force plan is rejected, the only other way of making the force behind peace too strong to be challenged is by a quota plan.
There is, however, a third type of plan for an international armed force which may be called the "dual-force plan. The greater part of the force at the disposal of the international organization for use against aggressors would, as in 2 above page 11 , consist of the national armies, navies, and air forces of the states in the international organization.
These states would be pledged to supply these forces, if or when needed; and the sizes of the national armies could be fixed at certain definite ratios, as in the quota plan. But there would also be a separate international police force, like that in plan 1 above page 9 , except that it would not have a monopoly of heavy weapons though it might be mainly an air force , and would not, by itself, be large and powerful enough to be a danger to the organization or the countries belonging to it.
The system would be something like a combination of a sheriff's posse with a professional police force. This international police force, which would be directly and exclusively under the command of the international organization, would, it is argued, reinforce the military power of the nations backing up the international organization whenever it was necessary to suppress an attempt at aggression.
This force would thus increase the probability that the total strength at the disposal of the organization would be great enough to do the job. It could probably be more quickly brought into action at any point where trouble broke out than the large national armies, which usually need some time for mobilization. Minor disturbances—attempts at aggression by one small state upon another—could be put down by the world police force alone, without the necessity of mobilizing national armies.
This third plan, then, it is maintained by those who advocate it, would combine the advantages, while avoiding the weak points, of both the others-and would therefore provide the most effective means of preventing wars. These are, in brief outline, the major proposals that have been made for providing the future international organization with an armed force that could prevent wars by making aggressions too dangerous to be attempted by any country or, at the worst, could make it practically certain that if any aggressions are attempted, they can quickly be suppressed.
All the plans aim at the same result. But, if this result is what we want, all will admit that the important thing is to choose the right plan—one that will be really effective, and the most effective, for safeguarding peace between nations.
This problem of deciding what model of international organization to prevent wars is most likely to work now faces all of us. The great purpose of our own and other governments expressed at Moscow will certainly not be accomplished unless, by taking thought, we can find definite practical means for accomplishing it and then are willing actually to adopt and use these means.
This last point is the most important of all. For it may be that men will know what are the necessary and sufficient means for maintaining peace, but will not be willing to use them. As was said above, people sometimes know the remedy for a disease from which they suffer, but can't bring themselves to apply it, because it is unpleasant, or expensive, or requires them to give up their usual habits, or calls for hard and persistent effort.
Any real remedy for the old and deep-seated disease of war will not be a cheap or easy remedy. Lasting peace can be had by nations only at a price.
It will be a high price, requiring some changes in their habits of thinking and acting, and time alone will show whether they are ready to pay it at the end of a second world war within a generation. If it is decided that an international organization must have some sort of force at its disposal in order to preserve peace, every nation belonging to the organization must be willing to provide men and armaments for that force.
Their readiness to act when they are called on to help put down an aggression cannot be less because the immediate object of the aggression is some other and perhaps distant nation. If all peaceable nations unite for mutual defense, each will gain greatly increased security. Each must pay for that security, however, by increased responsibility—responsibility for sending its own forces, if they should be needed, to help maintain the security of others. If China decides to invade the island, this could, some fear, trigger a chain of events that could escalate very quickly.
The PRC has been taking particularly belligerent actions recently, including violating Taiwanese airspace, which some analysts think could be a sign of things to come very soon. Of course, other parts of the world could also equally be the kindling for a new world war — Iran and North Korea being key areas to keep an eye on. The world's population is around eight billion today. This is set to grow to at least almost 10 billion by if current trends are maintained.
That's two billion more mouths to feed and water. While some are confident technological improvements and management strategies can handle it, others are concerned that this might reach a tipping point in which demand outstrips supply. If the pessimists are right, water and food shortages will likely not be taken lightly by much of the world's population. After all, food scarcity was one of the major triggers for the French Revolution.
Many compounding issues, from environmental issues, water-hungry industries, and poor resource management from governments, may create a perfect storm where food and water supplies will not be able to keep up with the rising population to come.
Not to mention the potential impact climate change could have on extreme weather events and droughts. If this prediction is correct, then we may be entering a period of increased civil unrest, revolutions, and, perhaps, state-on-state struggles for control of basic commodities. It is not difficult to see how this could trigger a global war the likes of which we've never seen. But, experts are more confident that intra-border conflicts will be more likely. If that is any encouragement to you?
However, this doesn't need to be the case. Technology could rise to the challenge as it often has in the past. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.
Not a day goes by that some financial expert appears on our screens, or in the press, about an impending economic collapse "worse than ever before. However, they have happened before, and do occur in ominous, almost predictable cycles — roughly every decade or so. But when they do happen, instability tends to follow in its wake. While never usually the primary cause of global conflicts, events like depressions create the kind of social unrest that can lay the foundations for war.
Around the world, many governments have turned on the printing presses to try to spend their way out of the crisis which will have serious consequences in the near future. How this manifests itself in the global economy is yet to be seen, but it's not looking good so far. Our modern electronic world would not be possible without some key resources critical for making many of the electronic devices we use every day. From smartphones to your internet router, and everything in between, they all need basic electronic components to actually work.
Pretty much all electronics require a good deal of mineral raw materials and chemicals that, if supply were to dry up, would pretty much bottleneck electronic production.
Typical common key resources include materials like copper, lithium, tin, silver, gold, nickel, and aluminum. The pressure on these resources is also being accelerated with the global push to decarbonize and switch to renewable technologies and electrically power vehicles too. Some of these key resources, like lithium, for example, are not universally abundant or available, and maintaining access to them has become something of a national security issue for many nations.
For its part, China has repeatedly intercepted U. When rival military aircraft operate in such a confrontational mode, a mere miscalculation or accident could trigger an extremely nasty incident.
That is precisely what happened in the spring of when a U. The resulting crisis lasted for weeks before cooler heads prevailed and a compromise diplomatic solution was reached.
One might think that Beijing and Washington would have learned from that alarming experience and taken steps to avoid similar dangers. But there is little evidence of such prudence. Indeed, both countries are currently engaged in risky posturing regarding the South China Sea. Beijing flirts with the idea of proclaiming an ADIZ in that region , despite the ongoing, multisided territorial disputes with its neighbors. Washington is deepening its involvement in the underlying tensions, including by conducting air and sea patrols in the area.
It is bad enough if a conflict between major powers erupts because of intractable grievances over crucial substantive issues. Unfortunately, that appears to be the trend in both East Asia and Eastern Europe.
0コメント