WHAT'S YOUR FOREIGN POLICY?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 401, 28 February 1947, Page 18

WHAT'S YOUR FOREIGN POLICY?

Oxford Don Calls For More Controversy

I | FROM a talk, in the BBC’s Third Programme, by

A. J. P.

TAYLOR

Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.

one of a series, A. J. P. Taylor commented on the difficulty facing him in having to follow the distinguished people who had preceded him at the microphone, each of whom had, in his different way, been telling listeners the foreign policy which Britain ought to follow. But, continued the speaker, I cannot spin an ideal foreign policy out of my head like a spider making a web out of its stomach. As the poet said: I am not Mahomet Far from it. ‘ A great war washes away many established landmarks: it ereates the illusion that anything is possible, that you can rearrange the world as you like. But you cannot. Foreign policy is not a matter of what I should like or what you would like; it is a matter of what you can have-what the facts will let you do, or, more probably, make you do. For instance, when some authority talks about a Western European union, that is something he would like, not something he can have. He ignores the fact that the Communists ‘are now the largest single party in France-partly owing to blunders in British foreign policy-and that therefore you could not get France into a Western Union without civil war. Or take another instance: ever since the end of the war, the British. Government has been trying to establish a common economic policy in international affairs with the United States --advocating a free world ‘market, reviving what is called equal economic treatment for all countries, or (as I would call it) the rule of the jungle. A long time ago, I said to myself: "That cock won’t fight." Well, now the British Government is beginning to discover that it won't fight, that the Americans have no intention of reducing their tariffs-their political system won't let them-and that we in this country cannot afford to go back to the rule of the jungle, we are not king of economic beasts any more. I do not flatter myself that anvthing I said made them change their minds: they were far too emboeged in 19th Century laissez-faire prejudices, No, they have had to give way, grudgingly and in a confused way, before the impact of facts. What is Possible In international affairs more than in any other sphere the saving is true: "Politics is the art of the possible." What is a possible foreign policy? And, still more iwnortant, what is an im-. possible one? Foreign policy is not made in the studies of professors, not even of Professor Carr*: it is not even made at the Foreign Secr-tarv’s desk---what is made there are the phrases to put the House of Commons sin a good temneér. Foreign policy is made by the jostling of forces: by shifts of economic power, bv conflicts of class-interests: bv the clash ef moral princivles and preindices ie beginning this talk, which was

(by principles I mean the ones I agree with, by prejudices the ones I do not); and, to a large extent, by the hangover of old ideas once perhaps sensible but now out-of-date. ‘ It is influenced by the outlook which elderly members of the Foreign Office and diplomatic service acquired when they were boys at school, thirty or forty years ago; and men in their fifties or sixties do not change the mental habits of a lifetime. That is why a change of foreign secretaries, or even a change of government, cannot bring a complete change of foreign policy: the men who carry it out are the same. Look, for instance, at the ententes which this country made with France and Russia before 1914, British and French diplo‘mats had a long experience of working together, though they had also experience of quarrelling; therefore the entente worked. with very little suspicion on either side. British and Russian diplomats had only the experience of quarrelling for almost a century; and they went on doubting and scrutinising each other even when the famous entente agreement had been made. And in just the same way, much as I should like to see it, I do not believe that a policy of day-to-day co-operation with the Soviet Union is possible now. The background and training of both British and Russian diplomats are against it. Fighting the Last War Policy is influenced, too, by the preparations which our military men are making, now as always, to fight the last war over again-only this time to get off to a flying start. It would be a mistake to think that strategy is the decisive factor in foreign policy, but it is a factor all the same. British policy in the Middle East, for instance, would be very diff-erent-different in Greece, in Egypt, in Palestine, and at the Straits-different altogether, if our military leaders did not think it necessary to have a strategic centre somewhere there. Why do they need this strategic centre? In order to meet the Axis attacks of 1940, to be able to shift forces to Singapore against the Japanese attacks of 1941, and perhaps also to carry .out other curious projects of the spring of 1940 which (fortunately) never came off. i. sometimes think they are planning to force the Dardanelles in 1915. Generals always go on like this. The Germans did just the same. The German general staff devoted themselves between the wars to plans for fighting the campaigns of the first German war over agein; that is to say, they repeated their mistakes on a more colossal scale than before and so brought Germany to an even more catastrophic defeat. At present, we are still living in a sort of armistice period, when policy is a continuation of war; and therefore strategic considerations count a good deal. Later on, perhaps, they will count for too little. 3 Power Politics More fundamental than the ideas of diplomats or soldiers is the common stock of ideas, held alike by ministers, by members of Parliament, by writers

in newspapers and speakers on the wireless, and by what is called public opinion. We are a very old-fashioned political community and our habits of thought are very deeply ingrained; it does not make sense to discuss foreign policy without allowing for these habits even when they have become old-fashioned. Traditional British foreign policy was negative; I mean by that, it supposed that if you.prevented certain things you could get what you wanted-peace and the opportunity for economic prosperity. The two great traditional assumptions on which British policy rested-assump-tions which came to be regarded as laws of nature-were the’ Balance of Power and the supremacy of the British navy, which gave — Britain control of the seas. It was held that normally there were a number of great independent Powers in Europe who would hold each other jn check; and it was British policy to intervene only if one of these Powers -at one time France and, later, Ger-‘many-threatened to become too strong end to dominate the others. But always it was supposed that the balance could be redressed and its advantage recovered. This advantage was not merely security from direct invasion, but, quite as important, freedom to pursue imperial expansion overseas. You remember Macaulay’s phrase about winning an Empire on the Rhine; that is, France was kept too busy fighting Prussia to be able to prevent our conquest of Canada. But the control of the seas, that is, the supremacy of the British navy, was equally essential; it was that which enabled the system of the Balance of Power to show a profit. Now both these laws or assumptions, call them what you will, no longer correspond with reality. The Balance of Power in Europe has ceased to exist and, as an automatic self-regulating system, can never be restored. At the present time,’ according to many good judges-Walter Lippman, for instanceRussia could occupy all Europe as far as Calais and the Bay of Biscay; there is nothing in Europe to stop her, or even to put up more than a show of resistance. Perhaps the Russians could be expelled again later» by a new AngloAmerican coalition, but they could not

*A previous speaker in the series-Professor E. H. Carr, Professo- of Inte-rational Politics at the University College of Wales.

be resisted or expelled by any European effort. On the other hand, if the victorious Powers who were once allies withdrew and left Europe to her own devices, Germany would again dominate Europe, as she did between 1941 and 1944, within five years’ time. So much for the Balance of Power. As for British naval supremacy, the facts are very simple, though we have hardly begun to absorb their meaning. When the late war_broke out, the British and American navies were Of about the same size (ours a little larger)--something over a million tons each. During the war we lost a great many ships and built a good many; we ended with a fleet about the same size as we started. Meanwhile the Americans have increased their fleet six times over. That is the end of three hundred years of history: the American navy is six times as big as ours. There is no Balance of Power in Europe; there is no _ British naval supremacy. But that does not mean that these things have ceased to count; English people will go on thinking in these terms for a long time, and even foreigners will not abandon them altogether. It is this challenge to all our existing assumptions which justifies discussion, even controversial discussion, about foregn policy. It is often said that there ought not to be controversy on foreign affairs, that we ought to present a united front against the foreigner, at present of course against the Kremlin. I do not agree at all. In my opinion all this talk about "objective" discussion of | foreign affairs is mighty great nonsense; objective merely means swallowing the arguments of the government of the day and not saying anything that will make a Member of Parliament of limited intelligence ask indignant questions in the House of Commons. A recent Prime Minister I forget his name for the moment-said tha, to criticise his policy was "fouling our own nest," an elegant phrase. The policy we had not to foul was Munich, the policy of appeasement. Wrong Horses Or take an example further back in history, the Crimean war. Who was the more objective-Lord Palmerston and others who became the idols of public opinion for going to war to defend that great civilised Power Turkey, or John Bright who condemned the war against Russia as criminal and unnecessary, and was shouted down even in Manchester, his own constituency? Well, within 20 years, all the surviving members of the Cabinet which went to war--Gladstone, Sir John Graham, Lord John Russelltold Bright that he was right and they had been wrong. Who was more objective in 1878-Disraeli who said that the safety of the British Empire would be threatened if the Russians had control of Constantinople and who was seconded by the bellowings of the music-halls-you remember, "We don’t want to fight, but by jingo if we do. The Russians shall not have Con-stanti-nople"-was he the more objective, or was Gladstone who said we should co-operate with Russia in a common system of security in the Near East? I am not ashamed to be on the side of Bright and Gladstone, nor was Lord Salisbury, who had been Foreign Secretary under Disraeli, but who later said that he had backed the ° "wrong horse" in Turkey and who came down on the side of co-operation with Russia. No, in the best periods of our history there has always been controversy and disagreement on our foreign’ policy; and so there should be in a democratic state.

When I was thinking of these things, I came across a passage in one of Bright’s speeches, in answer to the charge of being un-English and antinational, which I should like to quote. He says: "How indeed can I, any more than any of you, be un-English and antinational? Was I not born upon the same soil? Do I not come of the same English stock? Are not my family committed irrevocably to the fortunes of this country? Is not whatever property I may have (the mill-owner touch) depending as much as yours is depending upon the good government of our common fatherland? Then how shall any man dare te say to any of his countrymen, because he happens to hold a different opinion on questions of great public policy, that therefore he is un-English, and is to be condemned as anti-national?"