DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 153, 2 December 1938, Page 10

DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE

THE LESSONS OF MUNICH

COLLECTIVE SECURITY MYTH

Arrangements have been made by "The Post" to publish at intervals articles by Mr. H. V. Hodson, editor of "The Round Table," on Imperial, economic, and international questions on which he is a leading authority. The first article of the series, published below, discusses the effect of the Munich agreement upon the League of Nations ideal, and its important bearing upon Empire defence.

The Munich Conference opened a new phase in world affairs, a phase of great opportunities as well as great dangers. If we are to make good use of those opportunities we must first cast off the yoke of sterile phrases which burden us like an Old Man of the Sea, strangling action and confusing thought. One such phrase is collective security. It has been repeated until it is almost meaningless in the minds of many who use it. In some circles it is venerated like a holy relic, not for what it is, but for the mystic sensations that it evokes. To abuse the formula is not necessarily to abuse the idea behind it. But genuine collective security is of two kinds, and unless they are clearly distinguished the value of neither can be justly appraised. The first kind is that envisaged by the British and American founders of the League of Nations. They imagined a compact among the overwhelming majority of civilised nations to render international justice and to prevent or punish attempts to override justice by force. Such attempts were conceived as being made by a single recalcitrant country or, at worst, a small minority, who would be easily overawed by the power of the remainder. UNALTERABLE IDEAL. This kind of universal collective security has never existed in practice; for the abstention iof the United States meant that the League' became, for the greater part of its career, an instrument for maintaining the peace settlement in the interests of the victors. It could not render justice where that involved breaches of treaties or changes of frontiers, because it could not command overwhelming force. That alone could have given all the nations a sufficient sense of security to disarm and to submit to peaceful change^—the two necessary conditions for the working of universal collective security. It is indeed hardly too much to say that the universal kind of collective security cannot be attained with the nations as they are. It requires an end to the supremacy of national sovereignty. It means that nations must bow to outside decisions, perhaps to render international justice at the price of their national interests, perhaps to wage war against an aggressor contrary to their national will. No democratic electorate is willing to handover the choice between peace and war to an international authority in which its repi-esentatives may be overruled. Hence automatic, universal collective security is incompatible with democracy in a regime of sovereign States. It is valuable as an ideal, but impossible in practice while the nations insist on retaining their sovereignty intact. The trouble is that partisans have tried to deck out the second and limited kind of collective security in thegarments of the first kind, hiding the limitations of the practical behind the prestige of the ideal. The inevitable result has been to discredit the ideal without furthering the practical. These partisans have spoken of the League of Nations as if it possessed overwhelming power, whereas its power was always seriously" restricted by its want of universal membership and by its members' unwillingness to go to war in defence of interests not immediately their own. DRAWBACKS OF PACTS. The second kind pf collective security is that of a compact, written, or understood, among a limited group of nations, who regard themselves as having common interests, to support each other if one of their number should be attacked. A typical example of this kind of collective security is the ordinary defensive alliance, like that between Great Britain and France. A different type is the one-sided guarantee, like those which Great Britain has given to Belgium and to the new Czechoslovakia. The same difficulty, of course, is present here as with the universal kind of collective security; the choice between peace and war is decided when the crisis comes, not by the fancies of the moment, but by the pledges of the past In this case, however, the pledges are firmly grounded in national interest, and are therefore unlikely to run counter to the national will. Many people regard the British Commonwealth as a collective system of this second kind. In Great Britain it is still accepted doctrine that if any part of the Commonwealth is attacked Great Britain herself is immediately involved up to the hilt. Many people in the Dominions, although not all, accept the converse, that, if Great Britain is attacked, or seriously menaced, they too are involved up to the hilt. There seems to be a tendency towards translating these indefinite understandings into specific, though not necessarily written, pacts of mutual defence. Danger compels such a process. Collective security, either of the universal or of the limited kind, implies the possibility of war. In these days of swift mechanical action, the conduct of war cannot safely be improvised after hostilities have begun. It must be prepared beforehand. If there are to be allies, their role must be worked out and must be interlocked with the whole defensive scheme long before war comes. Military calculations cannot be based on the mere chance of co-operation. They must be based on a degree of probability approaching to certainty. As an example, British naval plans cannot be laid on the foundation of a mere chance that the Canadian bases of Halifax and Esquimalt will be available to the Royal Navy in time of war. Fortunately, there exists a written agreement ensuring that they will be so available. WEAKNESS OF LEAGUE. It was the great weakness of the League system of collective security that there was no means of ensuring and co-ordinating definite contributions to the conduct of a hypothetical collective war. Thus a country like New Zealand could support collective security in name while having nothing to contribute to it in practice—neither military expeditionary force, nor air force serviceable overseas, nor navy fit for more than coastal operations. In greater or less degree, all members of the League have exposed themselves to the same charge, for none was willing to join in co-operative war plans to make collective security a reality. On the other hand, it is the strength of the Anglo-French alliance that it is reinforced by military staff co-opera-tion. The new guarantees to Czechoslovakia will in turn be dangerously weak if they are not also backed by clear military preparations. Jn, this respect, fche inchoate* system^

of collective security inherent in the British Commonwealth has elements both of strength and of weakness. If the Commonwealth is to survive and to play its part in the defence of justice and freedom the world over, the system must be strengthened by the elaborationv of clearer military ententes. One fundamental principle, however, must be borne in mind. In the words of a distinguished service representative at the recent British Commonwealth Relations Conference, no nation can be expected to contribute to a collective security system except as a by-product of its own national defence preparations. The contributions of the United Kingdom and of the Dominions to the Commonwealth collective security system must derive from their national defence needs. Have the several Dominions a vital interest in contributing to such a, system at all? Their degree of in- ! terest in the security and independence jof their fellow-Dominions and of the United Kingdom may be held to vary. But one thing is clear: if the United Kingdom is defeated in a world war, is deprived of her naval strength, and thus becomes a second-class Power, the Dominions without exception become third-class Powers, incapable of independent influence or action in world affairs. Their own national security systems can neither spare them that fate nor save them from sharing in England's defeat. If.England strikes the flag in a world war, the Dominions also must accept dictated terms of peace, unless they can exchange the dictatorship of the victors for that of some other great Power. Neither the scale nor the nature of their defence preparations is such that they could pursue a war on their own. against a great Power that had already mastered England. Their present sense of security and independence is due to the unchallenged • supremacy of the British Navy in the waters in which they lie. But, as a cause for their ignoring other aspects of British security, this reliance on naval power is a complete illusion. If,-- for instance, action in the air obliged Great Britain to capitulate, |it would be of no avail that the Navy ! was undefeated. The terms, of peace would almost certainly compel its surrender. Two distinct conclusions which we have reached can now be combined. First, any Dominion's contribution to Commonwealth collective security must be based on its own recognised national interests, and must emerge from its own national defence arrangements. Secondly, such a contribution is most valuable if it is applied at the weakest link in the whole chain of British Commonwealth defence, or if it enables that link to be strengthened by relieving pressure elsewhere. DISPERSED LIABILITIES. The weakest link at present appears to-be the air defence of Great Britain. This is a point at which the Dominions can make no direct contribution. But their indirect contributions may be of very great value. Great Britain is relatively weak at home because her liabilities are so dispersed. In employing her air power she has to consider the needs of Egypt, the Far East, the Indian frontier. In employing her trained manpower she has to consider the needs of Singapore as well as the needs of Shoreditch or Southampton. In apportioning a limited financial capacity, she has to study the safety of distant colonies, bases, and trade routes, as well as that of her own shores and cities. Hence anything that the Dominions can do to relieve Great Britain's responsibilities in their own regions, or at points on whose security their own depends, is a genuine contribution to the collective security of the Commonwealth and therefore to their own safety. An example in point would be an undertaking on the part of Australia and New Zealand together to furnish men, aeroplanes, and munitions for the defence of the Singapore zone in time of war. This suggestion obviously cuts straight across the isolationist or localdefence theories of Dominipn military needs.' Such theories are based on a profound error. The more the Dominions seek to rely on their own strictly local defences the greater in fact is their dependence on the naval and other power of Great Britain. The self-reliant and responsible Dominion cannot be content with such a position, but looks beyond its own shores to see what part it can play In the world-wide defensive scheme on which it actually relies. By this means not only may it be able to keep war away from its own lands and its own people; it also takes its share in the task of preventing world war altogether. That is the prime purpose of all defence, whether national or collective, in the peaceloving and democratic countries.