Why Don't We Learn From History? (9 page)

The illusion of treaties

One of the clear lessons that history teaches is that no agreement between Governments has had any stability beyond their recognition that it is in their own interests to continue to adhere to it. I cannot conceive that any serious student of history would be impressed by such a hollow phrase as “the sanctity of treaties.”

We must face the fact that international relations are governed by interests and not by moral principles. Then it can be seen that the validity of treaties depends on mutual convenience. This can provide an effective guarantee. While there is no security in negotiating from weakness, there is a better prospect in any negotiation where it is clear that the strength of both sides is closely balanced. For in that case any settlement is based on a mutual recognition that the prospects of a one-sided victory would be incommensurate with the prospects of mutual exhaustion and of the consequent subject of both parties subsequently to the interests of third parties who are standing outside the struggle or participating to only a limited extent.

The Romans coined the maxim “If you wish for peace, prepare for war.” But the many wars they fought, and the endless series since their day, show that there was a fallacy in the argument—or that it was too simply put, without sufficient thought. As Calvin Coolidge caustically remarked after World War I: “No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace, or ensure it victory in time of war.”

In studying how wars have broken out I was led to suggest, after World War I, that a truer maxim would be “If you wish for peace, understand war.” That conclusion was reinforced by World War II and its sequel. It signposts a road to peace that is more hopeful than building plans—which have so often proved “castles in the air.”

Any plan for peace is apt to be not only futile but dangerous. Like most planning, unless of a mainly material kind, it breaks down through disregard of human nature. Worse still, the higher the hopes that are built on such a plan, the more likely that their collapse may precipitate war.

There is no panacea for peace that can be written out in a formula like a doctor's prescription. But one can set down a series of practical points—elementary principles drawn from the sum of human experience in all times. Study war and learn from its history. Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent and always assist him to save his face. Put yourself in his shoes—so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil—nothing is so self-blinding. Cure yourself of two commonly fatal delusions—the idea of victory and the idea that war cannot be limited.

These points were all made, explicitly or implicitly, in the earliest known book on the problems of war and peace—Sun Tzu's, about 500 B.C. The many wars, mostly futile, that have occurred since then show how little the nations have learned from history. But the lesson has been more deeply engraved. And now, since the development of the H-bomb, the only hope of survival, for either side, rests on careful maintenance of these eight pillars of policy.

The dilemma of the intellectual

Neither intellectuals nor their critics appear to recognize the inherent dilemma of the thinking man and its inevitability. The dilemma should be faced, for it is a natural part of the growth of any human mind.

An intellectual ought to realize the extent to which the world is shaped by human emotions, emotions uncontrolled by reason—his thinking must have been shallow, and his observation narrow, if he fails to realize that. Having once learned to think and to use reason as a guide, however, he cannot possibly float with the current of popular emotion and fluctuate with its violent changes unless he himself ceases to think or is deliberately false to his own thought. And in the latter case it is likely that he will commit intellectual suicide, gradually, “by the death of a thousand cuts.”

A deeper diagnosis of the malady from which left-wing intellectuals have suffered in the past might suggest that their troubles have come not from following reason too far but from not following it far enough—to realize the general power of unreason. Many of them also seem to have suffered from failing to apply reason internally as well as externally—through not using it for the control of their own emotions. In that way, they unwittingly helped to get this country into the mess of the last war and then found themselves in an intellectual mess as a result.

In one of the more penetrating criticisms written on this subject, George Orwell expressed a profound truth in saying that “the energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions.” He referred to the deep-seated and dynamic power of “racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war.” There are powerful emotions beyond these, however. The energy of the intellectual himself springs from an emotion: love of truth—the desire for wider knowledge and understanding. That emotion has done quite a lot to shape the world, as a study of world history amply shows. In the thinking man that source of energy dries up only when he ceases to believe in the guiding power of thought and allows himself to become merely a vehicle for the prevailing popular emotions of the moment.

Bertrand Russell remarked in 1964 that the “task of persuading governments and populations of the disasters of nuclear war had been very largely accomplished” and went on to say that it had been “accomplished by a combination of methods of agitation.” If there is one thing that seems to be clear, it is that such methods have had very little effect compared with the effect of logical argument in converting the mind of the military leadership to a realization that nuclear war is futile and suicidal.

History bears witness to the vital part that the “prophets” have played in human progress, which is evidence of the ultimate practical value of expressing unreservedly the truth as one sees it. Yet it also becomes clear that the acceptance and spreading of their vision has always depended on another class of men—“leaders” who had to be philosophical strategists, striking a compromise between truth and men's receptivity to it. Their effect has often depended as much on their own limitations in perceiving the truth as on their practical wisdom in proclaiming it.

The prophets must be stoned; that is their lot and the test of their self-fulfillment. A leader who is stoned, however, may merely prove that he has failed in his function through a deficiency of wisdom or through confusing his function with that of a prophet. Time alone can tell whether the effect of such a sacrifice redeems the apparent failure as a leader that does honor to him as a man. At the least, he avoids the more common fault of leaders—that of sacrificing the truth to expediency without ultimate advantage to the cause. For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought.

Is there a practical way of combining progress toward the attainment of truth with progress toward its acceptance? A possible solution of the problem is suggested by reflection on strategic principles—which point to the importance of maintaining an object consistently and, also, of pursuing it in a way adapted to circumstances.

Opposition to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished—by giving thought not only to the aim but to the method of approach. Avoid a frontal attack on a long-established position; instead, seek to turn it by a flank movement, so that a more penetrable side is exposed to the thrust of truth. But in any such indirect approach, take care not to diverge from the truth—for nothing is more fatal to its real advancement than to lapse into untruth.

The meaning of these reflections may be made clearer by illustration from one's own experience. Looking back on the stages by which various fresh ideas gained acceptance, it can be seen that the process was eased when they could be presented not as something radically new but as the revival in modern terms of a time-honored principle or practice that had been forgotten. This required not deception but care to trace the connection—since “there is nothing new under the sun.”

A notable example was the way that the opposition to mechanization was diminished by showing that the mobile armored vehicle—the fast-moving tank—was fundamentally the heir of the armored horseman and thus the natural means of reviving the decisive role which cavalry had played in past ages.

The limitations of conformity

Even among great scholars there is no more unhistorical fallacy than that, in order to command, you must learn to obey. A more temperamentally insubordinate lot than the outstanding soldiers and sailors of the past could scarcely be found—in England one has only to think of Wolfe and Wellington, Nelson and Dundonald; in France, Napoleon's marshals in this respect at least were worthy of their master.

Robert E. Lee's conduct at West Point was so immaculate that he had not a single offense recorded against him, while he became known among his fellows as the “Marble Model.” What a contrast this offers to the experience of Sherman and Grant, who were both often unbearably irked by the petty restrictions and often kicked over the traces. For Sherman, even when looking back upon it when he had risen to be commanding general of the United States Army, sarcastically wrote: “Then, as now, neatness in dress and form, with a strict conformity to the rules, were the qualifications for office, and I suppose I was not found to excel in any of these.” As for Grant, when a cadet he fervently prayed for the success of a bill to abolish the institution so that he might be released from its constant vexations!

Comparing their youthful record with Lee's, any student of psychology would be inclined to predict that they had more promise of being successful commanders in later life if given the chance. Also that, if either were to be pitted against him in war's grim test, they were more likely to come out on top.

A model boy rarely goes far, and even when he does he is apt to falter when severely tested. A boy who conforms immaculately to school rules is not likely to grow into a man who will conquer by breaking the stereotyped professional rules of his time—as conquest has most often been achieved. Still less does it imply the development of the wide views necessary in a man who is not merely a troop commander but the strategic adviser of his Government. The wonderful thing about Lee's generalship is not his legendary genius but the way he rose above his handicaps—handicaps that were internal even more than external.

The problem of force

The more I have reflected on the experience of history the more I have come to see the instability of solutions achieved by force and to suspect even those instances where force has had the appearance of resolving difficulties. But the question remains whether we can afford to eliminate force in the world as it is without risking the loss of such ground as reason has gained.

Beyond this is the doubt whether we should be able to eliminate it even if we had the strength of mind to take such a risk. For weaker minds will cling to this protection and by so doing spoil the possible effectiveness of non-resistance. Is there any way out of the dilemma?

There is at least one solution that has yet to be tried—that the masters of force should be those who have mastered all desire to employ it. That solution is an extension of what Bernard Shaw expressed in Major Barbara: that wars would continue until the makers of gunpowder became professors of Greek—and he here had Gilbert Murray in mind—or the professors of Greek became the makers of gunpowder. And this, in turn, was derived from Plato's conclusion that the affairs of mankind would never go right until either the rulers became philosophers or the philosophers became the rulers.

If armed forces were controlled by men who have become convinced of the wrongness of using force there would be the nearest approach to a safe assurance against its abuse. Such men might also come closest to efficiency in its use, should the enemies of civilation compel this. For the more complex that war becomes the more its efficient direction depends on understanding its properties and effects; and the deeper the study of modern war is carried the stronger grows the conviction of its futility.

The problem of limiting war

Can war be limited? Logic says, “No. War is the sphere of violence and it would be illogical to hesitate in using any extreme of violence that can help you to win the war.”

History replies, “Such logic makes nonsense. You go to war to win the peace, not just for the sake of fighting. Extremes of violence may frustrate your purpose, so that victory becomes a boomerang. Moreover, it is a matter of historical fact that war has been limited in many ways.”

Read Julius Caesar's own account of his campaigns in Gaul, and you may realize that Hitler was quite a gentle man compared with that much praised missionary of Roman civilization who is revered by so many students of the classic. But the Romans at their worst were mild compared with our own ancestors, and the ancestors of all the Western European nations, during the Dark Ages that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire—and the Pax Romana. It was the habit of the Saxons and the Franks to slay everyone in their path—men, women, and children—and to indulge in the most reckless destruction of towns and crops.

It is important to understand how the “total warfare” of those times came to be modified and gradually humanized. It is a story of “ups and downs”—but far more up than down.

The first influence in the rescue of humanity was the Christian Church. Even before it converted the pagan conquerors of the West, it often succeeded in restraining their savagery by exploiting their superstitions. One of its most notable efforts was the two-branched “truce of God.” The Pax Dei introduced in the tenth century sought to insure immunity for non-combatants and their property. It was followed by the Treuga Dei, which sought to limit the number of days on which fighting could take place by establishing periods of truce.

A wider reinforcement came from the Code of Chivalry. This seems to have been of Arabic origin. Here it has to be admitted that the followers of Mohammed were much quicker than the followers of Christ, in the West, to develop humane habits—although Mohammed himself had shown much more of the Old Testament spirit revealed in Moses. Contact with the East, however, helped to foster the growth of chivalry in the West. That code, for all its faults, helped to humanize warfare—by formalizing it.