International Pact to Outlaw War

[Dynoman]

Back in 1928 the United States and other nations, particularly of Europe, were reeling from WWI and saw the vast devastation that war brought to the lives and the economies of the participant nations. Some internationalist wanted to make the 'War to End All Wars' a real idea and not just a notion. One of these men was Andrew Carnegie. He created the International Endowment for Peace and promoted an international law that would outlaw war.

To that end the US initiated the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. The plan would be that each nation could maintain its own national defense and that the law would forbid aggressive military acts across another nations border. If such an infraction occurred the collective military forces of the world would descend down upon the aggressor and destroy their military forces. Economic and trade sanctions, and other political instruments could also be used to bring the warring power back into the fold.

The pact was signed on August 27, 1928 by France, USA, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Unfortunately, the pact was broken by the Japanese during their invasion of Manchuria in 1931, despite the fact that they had signed the agreement.

The League of Nations and the US, weary from war and in the midst of an economic depression, did not want to go to war over a non-signatory member. Of course the rest is history.

However, in an alternate world, what if the US and other signatory nations had seen the Japanese invasion as a precedent to enforce the international law. Australia, New Zealand, India, and the US could launch the offensive, while European partners, who were still licking their wounds from WWI, would develop their military production capacity to send weapons to the front.

What would have made the Kellogg-Briand Pact a stronger tool in international politics? How would the force structure look for an international defense force? Would there have been any military technologies that could have forced the hand of aggressors more readily?

 

[Avimimus]

It would be interesting - mainly because a strong enforcement of the pact (e.g. is most powers contributed some troops) would reinforce its legitimacy and the idea that cross-national warfare could be banned. It would have influenced an entire generation in their political thoughts.

Obviously, the next step would've been to propose a ban on arms trafficking (in order to prevent proxy wars).

Furthermore, if it actually expanded in the number of signatories, and was implemented - it could be a fairly powerful defence pact. One could see it also acting as a military alliance and allowing reduced spending on arms amongst signatories (leading to an overall tendency to de-escalation). That said, there are a lot of people who think their interests (political, financial, or cultural) can be served by warfare - and there was a lot of cultural inertia. But even partial success would have had interesting effects on international discourse.

The other big issue I can think of: Who is the aggressor? Such a pact would only work if people were willing to forgo pre-emptive strikes, border-spat style retaliations - signatories could only clearly prove that they were the defensive victims (as opposed to the treaty violators) if they chose to fight on their own soil! This almost seems plausible post-WWI trench warfare. However, it is rather dubious after the development of nuclear weapons made aerial bombardment more devastating - after all, it is likely that a major reason for the offensive stance of the Soviet Union in Europe was that their tank formations would be much less likely to be hit with nuclear weapons on West German soil than on East German soil...

Of course, there were discussions about banning military aircraft above a certain size during the same period (Stanley Baldwin mentioned such discussions in the past tense in his 1932 speech "A Fear for the Future"). However, pseudo-civilian aircraft could be used to get around this (as happened with German in the 1930s) and there is the issue of rockets...

 

[Dynoman]

Avimimus, those are excellent points. I would think that a pre-emptive strike would be treated as a provocation of war despite the declaration of war (without combat) from a belligerent nation. Their sabre rattling attempts to scare another nation into submission would be met by negotiated treaties, international court decisions, or a deployment of international forces to stand guard over the defending nation. These are the same actions that the World Court and the United Nations employ. Unfortunately, there is no whole world consensus on outlawing war.

Nuclear standoffs of course, raises the stakes and compresses the time for a response. One recourse is to place the belligerent nation on notice that an attack with these weapons would result in a full retaliatory strike against them (recalling nuclear MAD theory). This concept has been the basis of US nuclear deterrence for 70 years.

One of the problems I find with an international law banning war is that, ultimately, international factions align themselves due to ideological, social, economic, religious, and others reasons, creating powerful national unions that could counter an international peace force. We saw the same divide during the Cold War between Capitalist and Communist. Those two factions organized themselves to create NATO and Warsaw Pact force structures to combat one another for world dominance.

IFAIK the only way to ultimately 'erase' the barriers (ideological, social, etc.) between countries, is to heavily integrate the world's population or to have extreme assimilation and empathy through social media, transportation, tourism, trade, international business partnering, etc. All things that are beginning to happen. Through war-forced migration, international trade, and internet and communication access, the world is becoming 'smaller' and safer since WWII.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/29/canada-election-security-safe_n_8039394.html

http://io9.gizmodo.com/this-animated-data-visualization-of-world-war-ii-fatali-1709065880

 

[Bill Walker]

One of the major limits to any such pact is that only currently functioning governments are signees. Remember, today's rebel is tomorrow 's head of state. They may arrive at this position with a history of hatred for neighbour states that may have supportted the old regime. Signing such a treaty will never remove the possability of a future war with a state that didn't exist when the treaty was signed.

I agree that global integration of economies and cultures will be much more effective at preventing wars.

 

[Dynoman]

Bill, I agree that a treaty will never be able to fully stop the start of a war by a rebel group bent on the overthrow of its country or its neighbor. The challenge would be to confront the rebel group without getting embroiled in the civil conflict (i.e. supporting the national government at odds with its people may create opposition to the international force and inflame the civil war). Cross border alliances between rebels and other nations also increases the complexity of the international response.

Ultimately, to outlaw war a global consensus must be developed. Changing the mindset of peoples around the world to view war as an anachronism that should be abolished and replaced with negotiated settlements. This would possibly require some sort of 'world view epiphany' in order for change to come. Unfortunately, this may only come, IMO, at the end of a highly visible and catastrophic event (e.g. nuclear/biological war, large meteorite impact, another world war, etc.).