Walter Lippmann
The New York Times
October 13, 2013
Sept. 26, 1931 — Mahatma Gandhi’s arrival in the western world coincides with proposals from many quarters for a holiday in armaments. Since the saintliness of Gandhi includes an uncanny instinct for sincerity, he will not make the error of thinking that the current agitation is a sign that the western nations are about to embrace the doctrine of non-violence.The essence of Gandhi’s faith is that a people should disarm itself regardless of others. In the western world this faith, though it has sanctified authority behind it, has been rejected by all governments and by the great majority of all peoples. When the western world talks about disarmament it does not mean disarmament. It means the limitation of armaments by international treaty.
The distinction is important, for otherwise men are likely to ascribe the moral significance of the sort of thing Gandhi represents to some carefully arranged bargain about whether cruisers shall carry eight-inch guns or six-inch guns. This is confusing. Our western method of attempting to limit armaments has nothing to do with the moral disarmament of which Gandhi is the greatest living apostle. Conceivably, it might lead to that some day, but in this day and generation the nations of the western world have no thought of renouncing their own physical strength or of relying patiently on the ultimate goodness of man. The objects which the West is pursuing are to save money, to stabilize existing political relations and to increase the sense of political security among peoples who do not trust one another.
The proposal for a holiday of some sort has the support of Italy, and presumably of Great Britain and the United States. The first thing to be noted about this proposal is that it does not amount to very much. The figures published recently by the navy department show that not one of the five naval powers is building up to the tonnage allotted to it by the naval treaties. It is certain that none of them will come anywhere near appropriating the money this next winter to carry out the permitted program. The deficits in government budgets exist in spite of the very small amount of construction since the London naval conference, and they cannot be cured appreciably by a total suspension of new construction.
My purpose in pointing this out is not to advocate an armament program for this winter. My own belief is that the change in world relations since the London conference of April, 1930, fully justifies the American Government in virtually suspending new construction. For our relative strength has increased so enormously that we can afford to look with perfect equanimity on the fact that we haven’t the exact quota of cruisers which we were allotted at London. Whatever else may happen to us just now, we are not going to be attacked and we are not going to be diplomatically coerced by the troubled powers of Europe or Asia.
The real objection to agitating for an internationally-agreed holiday is that it will divert the nations from the business of making peace in the world. For while all the powers are actually taking a considerable holiday, getting them to agree to it in a treaty at this moment of confusion is a very different thing.
The effort to make a new temporary agreement is not worth the trouble it would provoke. For the present there can be no serious competition in armaments because the would-be competitors cannot afford it. For the future, the road to limitation and reduction lies through the solution of major issues which now divide the nations and through the development of effective world organization to deal with issues before they become insoluble. This is an unpalatable thesis for many Americans who want peace but no responsibility. Our own Government has for ten years shared this view, and refusing to take a hand in the work of making a peaceful world, has protested that armaments could be reduced without concerted effort to establish and maintain peace.
It has been a noble experiment, but at the end of the decade the world is as disorderly, as rancid with fear, as profoundly unsettled and insecure as it was when we decided to be rich, safe, and contented all by ourselves.
