Duties of The Council

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 307, 11 May 1945, Page 11

Duties of The Council

HE executive council should be charged with the following duties: 1. The assumption of responsibility for determining the form of the admini« stration of any Axis territory from the date upon which the military authorities of the major powers which have occupied that region agree that the purely military objec tives in that region have been attained. 2.The determination of the procedure to be adopted for the pacific settle. ment of any dispute which may arise subsequent to the armistice and which threatens the peace. 3. When pacific methods of settlement ‘ prove ineffective, reference of the dispute, actual or threatened, to the police agency functioning under the authority of the executive council. It is proposed that a security and armaments commission be designated by. the executive council to function under its control and act as the policing agent of the council whenever armed force is necessary to keep the peace or to en« force the council’s decisions. The security and armaments commission should be composed primarily of military, naval, and aviation representatives of the states and regional groups of states ree presented on the executive council.

Regional Force

(| HERE are two ways in which their j Pe ; can be out. The first is through the creation of an international police force. The second is through the agreement of the major powers that each will contribute its military, naval, or air strength whenever that becomes necessary to check or prevent hostilities. I do not believe that the first of these alternatives is either feasible or desirable. It is not feasible because, I believe, no one of the great powers will be willing for marty years to come to reduce its own armed strength to a level lower than that of an international police force ovet which it does not possess full control. And unless an international police force is superior in strength to the military, naval, or air power of any nation, and éven to the combined power of several nations, it will serve no practical purpose. The second alternative seems to me the only practical solution. It would be both expedient and wise, therefore, for the ‘nations within each region to agree upon the manner in which they will make force available, should it be requited to prevent the outbreak of war within that area. The plans must, of course, be subject to the approval of the executive council and its security and armaments commission, which will coordinate them with whatever overall agreement for world security it may have devised. From the standpoint of preserving world peace and expediting world order and stability, regional systems have great practical advantages. It is obvious that the states composing each region are far more familiar with their local problems than states geographically distant from them. They are more competent to work out constructive solutions and to take the initial steps necessary to prevent the growth of controversies. Should war break out bétween two American republics, for example, and should the present Pacific methods for the solution of such controversies fail to prove effective, none~ of the American republics, it must be frankly stated, would willingly see British or Soviet or Chinese troops or airplanes sent to the Western Hemisphere to quell the outbreak. They would unquestionably prefer to try to settle the conflict within their region through the use of a strictly inter-American force, one designated for such a purpose by agreement between the American republics and yet operating in accordance with the provisions of an overall plan laid down by the supreme international organisation. For very much the same reason, the European nations would not care to have U.S. troops and airplanes used to check hostilities within Europe. It must be also admitted that the people of the U.S. would not be willing to have American soldiers or airplanes utilised whenever a Balkan controversy flared up or whenever minor disputes outside the world areas in which the U.S. is directly concerned required police action.