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Politics Among Nations
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Part 8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 8: “The Problem of Peace: Peace Through Limitation”
Part 8, Chapter 23 Summary: “Disarmament”
The Problem of Peace in Our Time
In Western history, people have long sought to establish peace, either through a universal empire like the Roman Empire or through international coalitions and organizations. Since the 18th century, there has also been a hope that scientific and economic developments would make war “obsolete” (418). Instead, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars made peace more of a pressing issue; these conflicts led to the emergence of nationalism as a powerful international force, disrupted the established balance of power, and once again seemed to make a universal empire a possibility. In the years since the Napoleonic Wars, nations have been motivated to find a lasting solution to the problem of war.
History of Disarmament
Morgenthau defines disarmament as “the reduction or elimination of certain or all armaments for the purpose of ending the armaments race” (419). This approach contrasts with arms control, which is an effort to regulate the types or amounts of weapons. A general disarmament is an agreement between all nations on general military weaponry. (Historically, disarmament agreements have mostly failed.)
In the 19th century, European powers made a number of unsuccessful attempts to establish a general disarmament. For example, in 1816, Russia and Britain tried to initiate an international conference to discuss disarmament, but the proposal did not progress very far.
In the 20th century, efforts like the Second Hague Peace Conference, the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, Article 8 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, and Article 26 of the Charter of the United Nations were also unsuccessful. Similarly, attempts to achieve disarmament with nuclear weapons were unsuccessful until 1962.
The “only successful disarmament provisions of the nineteenth century” were in the 1817 Rush-Bagot Agreement that put a limit on naval forces at the border between Canada and the United States (423). The 1922 Washington Treaty for the Limitation of Naval Armaments was quasi-successful in that Japan, Britain, and the United States only agreed to limit their numbers of capital ships instead of other kinds of military ships. Japan later renounced the treaty in 1934. In 1937, another limited but successful agreement between the Soviet Union, Germany, the United States, Britain, and France put a limit on the size of naval vessels.
The SALT Agreements of 1972 and 1975 are examples of successful nuclear disarmament agreements. The provisions of these agreements limited specific kinds of nuclear weapons for both the United States and the Soviet Union.
Four Problems of Disarmament
The first problem with any disarmament agreement lies in determining the ratio of arms between nations, especially when there is a power discrepancy between the nations involved. Because of this, negotiations over disarmament are most likely to succeed in one of three scenarios: when the nations are not actively competing for more power, when one nation or group of nations already has a massive advantage over the other nation or nations, or when it is better for all nations involved to refrain from engaging in a military competition.
These points are supported by the fact that most successful disarmament agreements are solely local, as neighboring nations are less likely to compete aggressively with each other; alternatively, their relationships may be fully stable and non-hostile. One example of this is the Rush-Bagot Agreement between the United States and Canada.
If there is a competition for power between nations, “the chances are nil” that a general disarmament will be successful (428). For example, in the World Disarmament Conference of 1932, the obstacle for disarmament arose between France’s desire to maintain its superiority over Germany and Germany’s goal of building up its military forces.
Negotiations over nuclear disarmament have centered around the question of a “system of control” (430), meaning issues of monitoring and enforcement. The debate was “fought on two levels: on the superficial level of disarmament and on the fundamental level of the struggle for power” (430). As a result, any successful disarmament must be achieved via a negotiation that addresses problems of power.
If the issue of ratio is resolved, then the next question is how “different types and quantities of armaments are to be allocated to different nations within the agreed ratio” (431). Such a question must be answered by measuring one nation’s power relative to that of other nations in order to determine the “political intentions of the governments concerned” and ensure that any political problems will be addressed through the nation’s policies (432).
Improvements in military technology often harm the effectiveness of disarmament treaties. For example, the Washington Treaty drastically reduced the number of capital ships, but these ships soon became obsolete anyway. In another case, the 1930 London Treaty, which was intended to ensure naval disarmament between Britain, the United States, and Japan, “simply recognized as legitimate the existing naval supremacy of Great Britain” since the treaty’s concept of disarmament was based on Great Britain’s naval supremacy (434), imposing a “maximum that […] the United States and Japan were unlikely even to reach” (435). Nor did the treaty cover Italy and France, which were also major naval powers.
Morgenthau suggests that the theory of disarmament is based on the idea that the fewer weapons nations have, the more likely they will be to remain peaceful. Morgenthau counters that stance by asserting, “[T]hey have arms because they deem it necessary to fight” (436), and he also believes that war happens because it is seen as preferable to the alternative. In his view, disarmament would only change how war is carried out and could compel a nation to seek alternative weapons.
Even if nuclear weapons were successfully banned worldwide, nations would simply develop weapons that might be just as destructive. In fact, Morgenthau believes that “the threat of all-out nuclear war has actually been the most important single factor which has prevented the outbreak of general war in the atomic age” (437). He also contends that it is impossible to outlaw the knowledge of how to create nuclear weapons.
However, Morgenthau does not believe that disarmament is pointless. Instead, he argues that disarmament must come from more general negotiations that address the disputes and claims of nations and their concerns over power. In that sense, disarmament should be seen as merely another aspect of power relations between nations.
Arms Control in the Nuclear Age
Nuclear weapons differ from other military weapons because their use guarantees a level of destruction so severe that it is “meaningless” for a nation to increase its supply of such weapons. This fact has justified the attempts of both the Soviet Union and the United States to regulate the proliferation of nuclear weapons. They have done so by regulating the production of nuclear weapons, by “tacit agreement” (440), and by formal treaties. Anti-nuclear treaties have also been imposed to ban nuclear and biological weapons from certain areas and regions, like the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and the Seabed Treaty of 1971.
In other ways, nuclear weapons have altered military and diplomatic thinking. They are not conventional weapons because they are so destructive that they can cancel out “all possible advantage” (442), and unlike with traditional warfare, a nuclear war can have no “rational purpose.” Nonetheless, in negotiating nuclear disarmament, leaders and diplomats have still treated nuclear weapons like conventional weapons and have failed to “assimilate nuclear weapons to the traditional purposes of the nation state” (443).
Even a limited nuclear war could only end with a “stalemate” or with mutual devastation, not victory. Also, any defense of nuclear weapons would only eliminate the “main deterrent against nuclear war” (447). Attempting to limit the use of nuclear weapons to “tactical” purposes would also be ineffective because the tactical use of nuclear weapons (i.e., the use of nuclear weapons only in specific areas) could easily escalate into “an all-out strategic war” (448). Morgenthau concludes that the only certain way to prevent nuclear war is through deterrence. Even then, the proliferation of nuclear weapons poses a huge existential risk because history shows that “fools and knaves, and even a combination of both” (450), eventually come to rule nations.
Part 8, Chapter 24 Summary: “Security”
Security is a more effective tool for achieving peace than disarmaments. By giving nations a sense of security, the “motive force and the actual need for armaments would then disappear” (451).
Collective Security
Collective security denotes a situation in which a group of nations (or all nations) look after each other’s security. For this approach to be effective, participating nations must have the “overwhelming strength” to withstand any aggressive nation or nations (452). They must also share the same concept of security, and they must be willing to put aside their self-interest when necessary. Unfortunately, all three circumstances are unlikely under the current state of international relations, especially because many nations would most likely act against collective security. In fact, attempts to achieve collective security without these circumstances “will not preserve peace, but will make war inevitable” because the arrangement will instead result in hostilities between two groups of nations (455): one pro-status quo and one anti-status quo.
A historical example of the failures of collective security occurred when Italy attacked Ethiopia and the League of Nations tried to invoke the principle of collective security via Article 16. This action failed because the nations of the League were divided according to national self-interest and were therefore unable to fully commit to a principle of mutual cooperation.
Another example is the Korean War, when only 18 out of the 60 members of the United Nations gave military support to South Korea against North Korea, which was supported by China. Instead of all nations attacking North Korea and China, the conflict was limited to the Korean peninsula in order to serve the national self-interest of the United States and China.
An International Police Force
The proposal of establishing an “international police force goes a step beyond collective security in that the application of collective force against an actual or prospective lawbreaker no longer lies within the control of the individual nations” (461). However, large nations like the United States would have to amass enormous military power. In addition, any recruits to an international police force would naturally have to come from nations to which they will likely remain loyal. An international police force would only work “within the framework of a world society” (462).
Part 8, Chapter 25 Summary: “Judicial Settlement”
The Nature of the Judicial Function
At the end of the 19th century, the “Arbitration Movement” sought to force all nations to settle disagreements before international courts (463). However, arbitration does not address the fundamental issue of the “legitimacy of the existing law in the face of the demand for change” (464), nor does it address the question of whether or not the existing international status quo should be changed.
The Nature of International Conflicts: Tensions and Disputes
Challenges to the status quo “will generally not even be formulated in legal terms” (465). This is important to the question of the effectiveness of international arbitration because any conflict that has the potential to lead to war is essentially a clash between the desire to preserve the status quo and the desire to overturn it.
Morgenthau makes a distinction between conflicts and “pure disputes,” which are differences between nations that have “no tension” (466). He cites the example of a disagreement over exchange rates for diplomatic staff. Such pure disputes can be easily resolved through international courts.
Disputes may be related to broader tensions. For example, any disputes between the Soviet Union and the United States might reflect the tension between the two nations over “the distribution of power in Europe” (467). Because international courts are far more likely to support the status quo, they usually do not address the sources of such tensions, which would involve challenging the status quo.
A dispute can represent a tension, and pure disputes can even become disputes that represent tensions. Two nations in conflict can take a dispute and “make it the concrete issue by which to test their respective strength” (468). Even though such disputes only serve as a proxy for the actual tension, nations still treat them as if they were the tension itself—a stance that renders such disputes impossible for international courts to resolve.
Limitations of the Judicial Function
The assertion that arbitration cannot resolve conflicts between nations is supported by the fact that nations try to exercise complete control over the results of arbitrations. Only nations in which there is no possibility of a conflict, like Peru and Bolivia, have been able to agree to court decisions that resolve disputes. Also, decisions made by the international court, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, have all been non-political or threatening to the status quo.
Part 8, Chapter 26 Summary: “Peaceful Change Within the State”
Peaceful Change Within the State
Peaceful changes within nations happen when there is free public opinion, when institutions can “absorb the pressure of public opinion” (473), and when the government can resist violent threats to the status quo. Examples include the rise of the middle class over the old aristocracy and the transition into a more regulated capitalism in the early 20th century United States.
As in international affairs, courts are generally inclined to protect the status quo. However, when a nation’s legislature enacts reforms, courts can choose either to combat the change or “contribute to its peaceful and orderly realization” (475). How the courts act depends on the relative power of public opinion and the willingness of the courts to accept public opinion. Even in a dictatorship, the dictator must accept public opinion to some degree.
Violent resistance to the status quo via civil war, revolution, or a coup happens when “society as a whole” is “unable to settle by peaceful means the conflict between the status quo and the desire for change” (476), which is how the US Civil War happened. To prevent such an outcome, there has to be a “moral consensus of society, supported by the authority and material power of the government” (476).
Peaceful Change in International Affairs
One of the challenges with international relations is that “there is no longer an international moral consensus” (477). Additionally, the absence of a true international legislative body (a function that even the United Nations cannot fulfill) makes it difficult for peaceful change to take effect internationally.
Article 19 of the League of Nations, which provided for the revision of treaties before nations, also added that the League of Nations could only advise nations. There was no mechanism for compelling nations to revise or annul an agreement.
Article 18 of the Charter of the United Nations allows the General Assembly to make “recommendations “ to member nations. Because nations can choose to reject such recommendations, the only real way to impose change is through collective security.
Part 8, Chapter 27 Summary: “International Government”
One possible permanent solution to the problems of war and peace is the establishment of an international government. There have been three attempts to do so: one after the Napoleonic Wars and one after each of the two World Wars.
The Holy Alliance
The Holy Alliance was a 20-year alliance between Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia following the Napoleonic Wars; it was established to preserve the new order of Europe, and it was also a “reaffirmation of a moral consensus among the nations” (482). Morgenthau also describes the Holy Alliance as “international government […] by the great powers” (483).
The goal of the Holy Alliance was “the maintenance of peace on the basis of the status quo” (484). However, it was hampered by a major flaw: the fact that the members of the Holy Alliance had different understandings of the status quo. This disconnect led to incidents like the one in 1818, when Britain refused to agree to Russia’s proposal to support Spain’s war against its South American colonies. In this case, national self-interest still trumped the principles of the Holy Alliance. Furthermore, the members of the Holy Alliance could only bring themselves to intervene against nations that held much less power than they did.
By 1825, the Holy Alliance was effectively nonexistent, and it was ultimately “a short-lived experiment that contributed nothing to the maintenance of international peace” (487). It was doomed by competing national self-interests and by the fact that the members had different principles. Austria, Russia, and Prussia held “principles of legitimate government,” while Britain held “principles of liberalism and nationalism” (488).
After the Holy Alliance, there were further attempts at international government through the domination of great powers. This was called the Concert of Europe, but it was less formal than the Holy Alliance, and it did not share a “strong moral consensus” (489). Even then, the Concert of Europe was successful in preventing major wars for 90 years because the moral consensus was strengthened by the “humanitarian moral climate of the times” (489), hostilities were eased by colonial expansion, and Europe benefited from a series of talented politicians and diplomats.
The League of Nations
Unlike the Holy Alliance, the League of Nations “was a real organization with a legal personality, agents, and agencies of its own” (490). Its guiding principles were based on peacefully preserving the status quo that prevailed after World War I—specifically, limiting the military power of Germany and defending “the principle of national self-determination” (493). From the beginning, the League of Nations was weakened by the conflict between France’s desire to maintain its dominance over Europe and Britain’s goal of regaining its own superior position over the rest of Europe.
The League of Nations “prevented no major war, and it was ineffective in maintaining international order” (496). Besides the conflicts arising from its members’ national interests, the League of Nations had very few provisions to prevent war. It remained primarily European at a time when the power of non-European nations was increasing, and it relied entirely on the ability of its member nations (especially strong nations) to reach a consensus and put the League’s principles ahead of their national self-interest.
Part 8, Chapter 28 Summary: “International Government: The United Nations”
The United Nations According to the Charter
Morgenthau argues that the United Nations “is an instrument for governing the world through the combined power of the United States, China, and the Soviet Union” (504). However, there is no practical way for the United Nations to prevent conflict between China, the Soviet Union, and the United States, nor can it establish an international government that can overrule the three powers.
The Charter of the United Nations focuses on two general principles: preserving peace and collective security. It also provides tangible ways of achieving these two goals. The other three principles laid out by the Charter—protecting the independence and territory of existing nations, maintaining international justice, and preserving the principle of national self-determination—do not present specific ways to put these principles into practice.
The United Nations—Political Reality
The United Nations was designed according to the assumptions that the major powers would always work together, that they would be able to ensure collective security, and that “no such threat would emanate from one of the great powers themselves” (506). However, the United Nations’ Security Council has proven ineffective, as demonstrated by the Cold War, as well as the gap between the principles laid out in the Charter and what the United Nations has actually been able to accomplish. Also, in contrast to the intentions of the Charter, the General Assembly has taken power from the Security Council.
Instead of guaranteeing peace generally, the United Nations has instead become “a weapon against certain individual aggressors” (511). Morgenthau states that recent developments with the position of the Secretary General and the General Assembly have only heightened the conflict between the sovereignty of individual nations and “effective international organization” (514).
By 1965, the United Nations became even weaker when it accepted the precedent that nations’ support to peace-keeping missions was voluntary. Thus, the Secretary General and the General Assembly lack the ability to motivate nations through the “threats and promises” that are “the very soul of political action” (516).
In the modern era, strong nations can resort to the “traditional method of diplomacy” (517), which would entail the use of diplomatic pressure on weaker nations, or they can operate through the United Nations, which would require even a strong nation to convince enough nations to gain enough votes. The latter approach would require a nation’s proposal to be “presented in language reflecting the common interests of the prospective members of the two-thirds majority” (518).
Morgenthau argues that although there is no evidence that the United Nations prevented any war, it did succeed in shortening wars. However, even in those cases, the United Nations only succeeded when it acted in accordance with the goals of the great powers. The United Nations “is a child of the Cold War” (521). Because of this, its limited successes are not an indicator that it can be relied on to prevent a war between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Part 8 Analysis
In this section, Morgenthau explain why lasting, global peace is so difficult to achieve, even in a time when avoiding a catastrophic war is in the self-interest of humanity itself. The question of how to achieve peace reveals The Limitations of International Law and Morality, especially given that not even collective security can reliably prevent war from breaking out. Collective security would arguably be in line with classical realism because it would require a community of nations to protect each other’s self-interest and ensure each other’s survival, just as individuals form states to defend their own interests. However, Morgenthau remarks, “[W]e must conclude that collective security cannot be made to work in the contemporary world as it must work according to its ideal assumptions” (455). In other words, there is a functional difference between individuals who surrender a portion of their freedom to institutions (e.g., government and the courts) in order to guarantee their security and nations that would be willing to sacrifice a portion of their sovereignty for the sake of their own security.
From an idealist’s perspective on the history of international relations in the late 20th century, the creation of institutions like the League of Nations and the United Nations has represented a form of moral and societal progress toward peaceful international cooperation— or, at the very least, a more formalized method of cooperation. However, by extrapolating Morgenthau’s views on the matter, it is possible to counter that resorting to war will remain common among a society of nations in the absence of radical change. He remarks, “In a society of sovereign nations […] which by definition constitute the highest authority within the respective national territories, the satisfaction of those desires and the release of those emotions will be sought by all the means the technology of the moment provides and the prevailing rules of conduct permit” (436). In a civil society, individuals tolerate institutions that hold power over them, but nations have no such parallel institution, as even the United Nations has as much power as nations provide it.
Although Morgenthau stresses the importance of tangible institutions in courts, he also believes that intangible forces, like cultural and moral attitudes, hold a vital role in ensuring order on the domestic level and the international level. It therefore follows that the problem of maintaining peace does not persist only because the United Nations cannot easily enforce it. Morgenthau takes it for granted that “there is no longer an international moral consensus from which quarreling nations can receive a common standard of justice for the settlement of their disputes” (477). Arguably, this is the most vital point of contention between idealism and Morgenthau’s classical realism. At the least, the spread of democratic nationalism and the victory of democracy over fascism in World War II would provide something of a moral consensus. Nonetheless, Morgenthau’s perspective indicates that these forces have been insufficient because of The Concept of National Interest. As he states, “What makes for war are the conditions in the minds of men which make war appear the lesser of two evils” (436). In other words, no matter how undesirable a war may become, nations may judge it to be the less disastrous outcome when compared to an alternative that jeopardizes national interest or even survival. An example of this would be a nation that must choose between war and the prospect of being conquered by an invading nation.
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