America and the Crisis

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22507, 15 September 1938, Page 10

America and the Crisis

Reactions in the United States to the present phase of the European crisis are as puzzling as they are important. Backed by the strongest navy in the world and by limitless financial and industrial resources, the United States Government has in its hands the power to avert a world war. A declaration that the United States would stand with the democracies in opposing Herr Hitler would make German aggression an act of suicide. There,is, of course, not the remotest chance that the United States will assume any military commitments in respect of the dispute between Germany and Czechoslovakia. From the beginning of this dispute, Washington’s attitude has been purely that of an, observer; and although Mr Cordell Hull has lately reminded European States of their obligations under the Kellogg Pact and has aired his Government’s preference ■for “orderly processes of international rela“tjqns” he has said nothing which could be takfen to imply a direct American interest in ti»e Negotiations between the Czech Government and the Sudeten Germans. Moreover, Mr Roosevelt has been at some pains to disabuse the .American press of the idea that the Administration’s freedom of action in foreign policy is fettered, by any commitments to the other democratic Powers. Nevertheless, should war. break put, it is possible, and indeed probable,, that the United States would find ways of helping the democratic Powers, short of giving them military assistance. In its present state, the neutrality legislation in theory obliges the Administration to prohibit, immediately on the outbreak of war, the supply of munitions i arjd_even of the ordinary commodities of trade. The first test of this legislation has been the war in China; and with widespread public approval the Administration has used a legal technicality'to avoid a , step which would seriously impair China’s powers of resistance without greatly affecting Japan; There are therefore good, grounds for supposing that, should war break out, the United States would continue to supply Great. Britain and France with food, raw materials, and munitions. Presumably'this is how the British and French Governments read the 'situation, since they have placed in the United States large contracts? for the delivery of military aeroplanes. Such an application of the neutrality legislation would be equivalent to economic sanctions against Germany, whose overseas trade, apart from that with Baltic countries, would cease with the outbreak of war. This, perhaps, is as far as American help would go; in the : early stages of a purely European war. But the attitude of America would necessarily’ be different if, as might happen, Japan threw in her let with Germany, thereby extending the war to the Pacific. The whole tendency yf .American naval strategy in recent years, as witness the Administration's anxiety to acquire islands in the Mid-Pacific and the testimony of high naval authorities before the Senate Navy Committee, has been to push America’s first line of defence in ■ the Pacific, further and further westwards. This has created at least* a possibility of AngloAmerican naval co-operation; and the unanimity shown by the British and, American Governments in the recent naval negotiations with Japan, the agreement over Phoenix and Enderby Islands, and the indiscretions of an American admiral- have aroused a strong and justifiable suspicion that between naval staffs, if not between governments, such co-operation actually exists. In the event, therefore, of a war extending to the Pacific area, America could not for long adopt a passive role. Even if at the outset she preserved a nominal neutrality, it could not be an impartial neutrality. The tragedy of the situation is that America is inhibited by her political traditions and institutions from using her vast influence and power to prevent a war in -which, directly or indirectly,- she will inevitably be embroiled.