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War and Peace

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Today is the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The Kellogg-Briand Pact is one of those international treaties, like the Treaty of Utrecht or the Diet of Worms, that all high school students learn about at one point or another, but only a social studies teacher is able to consistently identify.

Signed by 60 nations on August 27, 1928 in Paris, the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war. Specifically, the pact outlawed “war as an instrument of national policy.” Never repealed, Kellogg-Briand is still binding international law today.

Since Kellogg-Briand made war illegal, however, just about every country in the world has been at war (many multiple times), and several hundred million people have been killed in wars. One hundred twenty million in China and Russia alone. According to the monument on the south side of the St. Francois County Courthouse, our county has lost at least one man in each of America’s post-1928 wars. (The Observer wishes our income tax laws were as toothless as the Kellogg-Briand Pact).

As the Observer has said in the past, words, including words in laws, are not as important as ideals and institutions. For example, no free people has ever made war on another free people. (The border between the United States and Canada is the longest demilitarized border in world history). Thus, constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and democratically elected governments are plainly more important to world peace than international treaties and laws.

If we examine the behavior of totalitarian states, we again see that words don’t mean much. The Munich Agreement, wherein Hitler promised to make no further territorial demands in Europe, was less than a year old when Germany invaded Poland. And the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was less than two years old when Hitler invaded Russia. Words, whether in the form of diplomacy, dialogue, treaties, or laws, mean nothing to zealots, dictators, and warmakers.

In short, history teaches that free democracies do not make war on other free peoples, and military force must be maintained to deter the rest. And so it is that history will smile on those politicians who favor freedom coupled with military strength over politicians who espouse words, laws, and diplomacy.

But only if we elect them.

The Settlement Observer is a resident of Farmington.

 

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