The Evening Star (April 8, 1946)
ON THE RECORD —
Renounce the sovereign right to make war
By Dorothy Thompson
On Friday, in Tokyo, the Allied Council for Japan met for the first time, and Gen. MacArthur made the most drastic peace proposal of history. Coming from one of this war’s greatest generals, it advocated what was proposed by this column, that all the members of the United Nations follow the example set by Japan in the new constitution, renounce the sovereign right to make war, and, logically, do away with armies, navies and air forces.
Every human being is concerned with ending war. There is the atomic bomb and all that. War, we see, has at last yielded to the law of diminishing returns. The defeated lose everything, and the victors gain nothing. The war had to be fought to prove just this: That the lesson we are trying to drive home to Germans, at Nuernberg, is for everybody.
Everybody is disillusioned with the “peace.” That can be the greatest thing that ever happened to mankind. The passion for new ways begins with disillusionment.
To stop war, we need the most comprehensive understanding of aggression. On July 3, 1933, the Soviet Union embodied a definition of aggression in treaties signed with Afghanistan, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Iran and Turkey. The USSR and these countries agreed to accept the definition of aggressor outlined in the report of the Security Council of May 24, 1933, proffered to the Disarmament Conference, by the Soviet delegation.
Under that definition the “high contracting parties” defined as aggressor any state that commits the following acts:
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Declaration of war against another state.
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Invasion with armed forces of the territory of another state even without declaration of war.
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Attack by land, naval, or air forces, even without declaration of war, upon the territory, naval vessels or aircraft of another state.
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Naval blockade of the coasts or ports of another state.
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Aid to armed bands formed on the territory of another state and invading the territory of another state, or refusal, despite demand on the part of the state subjected to such attacks, to take all possible measures on its own territory to deprive said bands of any aid and protection.
These articles were followed by an appendix which said: “No considerations whatsoever of a political, strategical, or economic nature, including the desire to exploit natural resources, or obtain any sort of advantages and privileges on the territory of another state, no references to considerable capital investments or other special interests in a given state, or the alleged absence of certain attributes of state organization in a given country, shall be accepted as justification of aggression. Nor do the following situations in a given state, such as political, revolutionary or counter-revolutionary movements, civil war or disorders or strikes, or the establishment in any state of any particular political, economic or social order.”
On these terms you can’t make war on a state because it’s Fascist, capitalist, Communist, liberal, radical, backward, conservative, or anything else. You can’t support armed independency or counter-independence movements, or back up secessionism or anti-secessionism by force.
I know the Soviets broke these treaties themselves, in 1939 and thereafter. But Mr. Litvinov had a good idea. Just get universal ratification of this definition, and armies, navies or air forces have no conceivable use. Every nation, having agreed to these principles of nonaggression, would become an aggressor the moment it built one tank or one bomber. And include in this definition of aggression a prohibition against any state, or any instrument supported by any state, directing, influencing, or subsidizing movements or parties within another state.
This wouldn’t mean “one world.” It would only mean “no war.” A state could be liberal or conservative, backward or radical, and it would be no other state’s business unless it started building tanks or bombing planes, and manufacturing bombs, atomic or plain.
But if no government could keep its people in chains by painting the bogey of a ring of enemies, we might move rapidly toward wider freedom.
Well, it was a Soviet idea, and a good one. If the Soviets have moved toward reaction while the Western world is catching up with Mr. Litvinov, no nation can move faster backward or forward than the Soviets, so why not forward again – and we with them?
It’s amazing how friendly and tolerant everyone can be with everyone else, if none are too intimate, nor afraid of being socked on the nose. It doesn’t even hurt to talk tough – if the old child’s taunt holds: “Scoldings don’t hurt, lickings don’t last, and kill me you dassn’t.”