North American Review. 195: 28-39. January, 1912.

Place of Force in International Relations. A. T. Mahan.

Can force, broadly considered, be regarded as an inevitable factor in international adjustments and in the maintenance of the general international balances? The point is interesting, especially at this present moment when the apparent inclination of public sentiment throughout that which we esteem the civilized world, the world of the highest development in material progress, and in artistic and literary culture, is tending toward the elimination of that active display of force which we call war. May it not be that in confounding force with war we are simply ignoring a fact of not only general but universal existence? Law, itself, which its extreme advocates desire to see installed in a place of War, is, in last analysis, simply force regulateda most desirable end—but inadequate for the very reason that it is only one manifestation of a power which is manifold in its exhibition. Not only does law for its efficacy depend upon force, as is shown by the entire paraphernalia of justice from the single policeman to the final court of appeal, but under law and within law force continually controls.

In this country we have recently been passing through, and have not yet emerged from, a period in which force, astutely managed and directed, has largely controlled the business relations of the entire community. The force of concentrated capital is as real and as material as the force of an organized army, and it has the same advantage over a multitude of unorganized competitors that an army has over a mob. At times well within memory the contest has narrowed down to a conflict almost personal, at times quite personal, between concentrated financial powers, ending at times in a disabling reverse or disastrous overthrow to one or the other. As the disadvantage of such contests has become apparent to the greater competitors, there has succeeded a disposition to co-operation, corresponding to alliance between political entities for their mutual benefit. Coalescence of force dominates more and more, until the mass

of individuals constituting the community realize that such force n.enaces their independence, and must be opposed by other force; the force of money by the force of votes expressing itself in legislation. This is the condition to-day, the condition of regulation. Yet it is realized that for the benefit of the whole the force of concentrated capital must be permitted free play, within certain limits which are fixed by the opposing forces of the ballot-box.

The States of the world of European civilization, in which America is included, in their organized national activities represent among themselves an international community of competing business organizations. They recognize that the general benefit depends ultimately upon the welfare of each and all; but nevertheless the aim of each is to compass for itself—that is, for its people-the utmost preponderance of advantage possible to be secured. Of this aim and effort, Protection, technically so called, is the most evident and the crudest manifestation. Protection is simply the use of force, of national power recognized as legal, to secure commercial advantage; but it becomes immediately apparent that, so far as the system is economically sound, the greater the area that can be embraced within it-that is, the larger the concentration-the more effective is the operation.

Hence results inevitably the attempt to enlarge the national boundaries, in order to include and to administer to the national advantage as much territory at least as can be securely held and profitably exploited. The motives thereto, though not purely economical, are largely so; but undoubtedly there does co-operate the perfectly human and universal motive of enjoyment in mere possession. This must be taken into account, as a real and influential national factor. It is a mistake to argue that because nations and peoples are largely animated by self-interest, self-interest alone moves them; and it is a blunder to infer that there is inconsistency in maintaining the predominance of interested motive, and at the same time affirming the existence of other and competing impulses. Both classes exist. If there be inconsistency here, as is sometimes asserted, the inconsist

ency is not in the statement, but in the human nature concerning which the statement is made.

The wars of the past half-century bear witness to this, for it may safely be affirmed that self-interest, especially of the pecuniary order, bore in them a relatively small part. The American War of Secession was with both parties one mainly of sentiment; on the one side the objection to see its country dismembered, on the other the instinct of self-preservation, as misunderstood, and of independence as essential to self-preservation. Bismarck's wars of 1864, 1866, and 1870 were motived, doubtless, by the interest of Germany; but they embraced a conception of German racial unity consolidated into political unity which, while assuredly a utilitarian end, was certainly not devoid of a lofty nobleness to which German sentiment responded with an exaltation that ennobled the wars themselves. The war of Russia against Turkey, in 1877, no doubt took account of Russian ambitions concerning Constantinople; but the determining impulse, which constrained even the autocratic Tsardom, was popular sentiment inflamed by sympathy with the oppression of nearby kindred peoples. A similar impulse dictated the war between Spain and the United States; the transfer of the Philippines, the chief material gain, if so it can be called, not only was not an object of war, but was accepted with reluctance, under an unwilling sense of duty, as one of its unfortunate results. Various motives, some of them sordid, may have entered into the transactions preceding the war between Great Britain and the Boer republics; but the shuffling, invidious handling of the Uitlander franchise by the Boer Government was the predominating factor. The author of "The Great Illusion" shows clearly enough that much is now done in South Africa contrary to the views of the British Government, an inevitable result of local self-government, especially where there is a color question; but the constitution of South Africa establishes equality of suffrage, in its basis and in its exercise, among all adult white males. Union and equality are thus the outcome of war. The war between Japan and Russia I believe to have been felt by Japan one of national self-preservation;

that sentiment prevailed among her people, and not without

reason.

It is, I believe, the cardinal mistake of the author of "The Great Illusion" that nations now go to war, or are preparing for war, under the impression that there is financial profit in injuring a neighbor. His other proposition, that the extension of national territory-that is, the bringing a large amount of property under a single administration-is not to the financial advantage of a nation, appears to me as illusory as to maintain that business on a small capital is as profitable as on a large. It is the great amount of unexploited raw material in territories politically backward, and now imperfectly possessed by the nominal owners, which at the present moment constitutes the temptation and the impulse to war of European States. The difficulty of the situation, from the point of view of the peace advocate, is that law is not competent to the solution, while diplomacy is; and that in diplomacy force is always a factor. The recent difficulty between France and Germany, and its method of solution-in fact, the whole Morocco question during the past ten years-illustrates this series of propositions.

As the motives of these several wars rose far above a mere financial advantage, so their results have been beneficial from a nobler point of view. The preservation of the North American Union, with the abolition of the degradation of mankind in slavery, and of the disastrous economical condition of slave labor; the welding of the German race into the German nation, followed by the great industrial and economic advance, which only a unified administration could have insured; the detachment of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria from the rule of Turkey, the benefit to the inhabitants of those provinces, attested by the results and newly witnessed-to in the past years by the miseries of Albania under continued Turkish rule; the advantage to Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines from the substitution of American influence, or American control, for that of Spain; the opportunity of Japan, and her national security, purchased by the successes in Manchuria at a money cost far exceeding in proportion that of any of the other wars

named-all these are instances of benefits secured by war, and which could not have been secured by law, for in no one of the cases was there a law which could have accomplished the specific result.

Law could not have abolished slavery; could not have given the impetus which achieved German unity; could not have dispossessed Turkey of her misgoverned territories, nor Spain of hers; could not have extorted from the Kruger régime fair treatment for the foreigner, nor established equal rights in South Africa as it was; could not have vindicated the natural rights of Japan against the encroachments of Russia in the Far East. Diplomacy using force accomplished that to which law was unequal, and could not but be. The great objection to law, however, is not merely that it is inadequate, but that in most of the above cases it is inequitable—perpetuates injustice by sanctioning outworn conditions or inapplicable principles.

University of Chicago Magazine. 36: 138-42. January, 1911.

From Diplomacy to War. Harry Pratt Judson.

While force as a means of settling international differences seems archaic, it should be remembered that within states force is still the ultimate means of preserving public order. There are still tendencies toward disregard for law extending even to anarchy which can be repressed only by the firm hand of the police power, whether exercised through ordinary peace officers or through military organization. If this is true within states, still more will it continue for a long time to be true among states. It can hardly be expected, therefore, that the good order of the world can be maintained permanently without military and naval armament of some sort.

Notwithstanding the probable relative permanence of arms as the means of enforcing the international police power, there is still a wide field for those who are seeking at least to reduce international collisions within the narrowest possible limits. It is to this end that arbitration has been sought and so largely