September 13, 2013

Finest Hour 104, Autumn 1999

Page 25

BY RICHARD M. LANGWORTH


THE rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by the U.S. Senate resulted in a stampede for Churchill quotes. Within hours of the Senate vote Finest Hour had a call from the White House asking us to cite Churchill’s famous, private remark during frustration over U.S. recalcitrance in some wartime enterprise: “Americans can always be counted upon to do the right thing, after all other possibilities have been exhausted.” Had we found the citation, we were assured we would have heard it on the evening news. Treaty opponents didn’t have to ask us; they merely referred to Churchill’s speeches during the late 1930s.

A similar flutter rustled through British politics in the late Twenties and early Thirties over a plethora of treaties to restrict armaments. What was different was the wave of vituperation that followed the 1999 decision. CTBT opponents accused sponsors of placing the nation’s safety in danger—as if anyone consciously wished that—while sponsors accused opponents of isolationism—though many pro-treaty senators had voted in the past against Desert Storm, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In Churchill’s time, hot words were exchanged across the House of Commons floor over disarmament treaties; but one reads little about outrageous or hypocritical accusations made afterward at press conferences. It would have been more befitting “The Great Republic” for claimants to have recognized that each side held honorable views and valid arguments.

This writer believes that the senators did the world a favor, while failing to explain themselves. Instead they “look[ed] at their shoes, muttering about procedural matters and complaining about the attacks on them,” as one editorial put it, failing “to explain unapologetically to the public why the CTBT was harmful to American interests (and ultimately, of course, to world interests).”

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“World interests” were well represented. Heads of government in Europe, Canada, and countries on the Pacific rim urged American acceptance. With all respect, it is the United States on which the hard choice will fall in any nuclear confrontation. In the Twenties and Thirties Great Britain was the superpower; and Churchill insisted on Britain making her own decisions: “I am afraid,” he said in 1932, “that a large part of the object of every country is to throw the blame for an impending failure upon some other country while willing, if possible, to win the Nobel Peace Prize for itself.”

Britain, he held, as the carrier of the major burden in a European war, could not disarm because “the expectation of general disarmament upon a great scale has failed; the hope of one nation being able to disarm its rival has been frustrated by the very stout and stubborn resistance which every nation makes to that process.” Disregarding Churchill, Britain disarmed anyway. What followed is well known.

The Senate testimony of former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick summarized some points Churchill had made, and it is interesting to contrast their words. Americans take treaties seriously, Kirkpatrick said, but not everybody does—particularly nations paranoid about security or convinced they are under threat. “I am very doubtful whether there is any use in pressing national disarmament,” Churchill said in March 1933, “to a point where nations think their safety is compromised, while the quarrels which divide them and which lead to their armaments and their fears are still unadjusted.”

The credibility of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, she continued, may ironically be even more important now, since the “nuclear family” is growing, yet real peace has not been assured. “When you have peace you will have disarmament,” Churchill said in July 1934. “But there has been during these years a steady deterioration in the relations between different countries and a rapid increase in armaments that has gone on in spite of the endless flow of oratory, of well-meaning sentiments, of perorations, and of banquets. Europe will be secure when nations no longer feel themselves in danger, as many of them do now. Then the pressure and the burden of armaments will fall away automatically.”

The quality of a nuclear arsenal, Kirkpatrick went on, rests on its being tested to ensure that it works. Its maintenance is expensive; but what is the alternative? “The cause of disarmament will not be attained by mush, slush and gush,” wrote Churchill in May 1932. “It will be advanced steadily by the harassing expense of fleets and armies, and by the growth of confidence in a long peace. It will be achieved only when in a favourable atmosphere half a dozen great men, with as many first class powers at their back, are able to lift world affairs out to their present increasing confusion.” We are still awaiting the arrival of “half a dozen great men” (and women). Let us hope the supply is not exhausted.

The CTBT was unverifiable, Ambassador Kirkpatrick concluded, since it is impossible to detect the particular type of nuclear tests as likely to be undertaken by rogue states run by madmen. This danger was foreseen by Churchill much earlier, when the nuclear age had already dawned, in March 1955, just before he resigned as Prime Minister: “It may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation….I must make one admission, and any admission is formidable. The [nuclear] deterrent does not cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hitler when he found himself in his final dug-out. That is a blank. Happily, we may find methods of protecting ourselves, if we were all agreed, against that.” Was he suggesting an anti-ballistic missile defense, long proposed in the United States and now being tested in Russia? Of course not: that was indeed a blank in 1955. But his proviso, “if we were all agreed,” recalls the notion of President Reagan fifteen years ago to share an ABM defense with the Soviet Union.

Granted, in the 1930s Churchill was speaking about conventional disarmament, not international agreements to limit the development, testing, production and deployment of H-bombs. But his philosophy remains applicable. While his remarks cannot be used to establish whether he would support or propose a particular modern treaty, we may nevertheless derive from them some general guidelines.

1) Churchill held it unreasonable to expect nations to abide by treaties prohibiting certain weapons while the reasons for which they developed or desired those weapons remain unaddressed. (“I am very doubtful whether there is any use in pressing national disarmament to a point where nations think their safety is compromised while the quarrels which divide them and which lead to their armaments and their fears are still unadjusted.”)

2) The apocalyptic nature of nuclear weapons was in Churchill’s view a deterrent to war. Their sheer terror may well exercise restraining influence over future nuclear powers, provided that the superpower’s arsenal remains credible. (“It may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival die twin brother of annihilation.”)

3) Even apocalyptic weapons may not deter lunatics or dictators, against whom other defenses may be necessary. (“Happily, we may find methods of protecting ourselves, if we were all agreed, against that.”)

4) Churchill believed in principle over political expediency. Pro-CTBT politicians announced solemnly that 75 or 80 percent of the public favored it, as if that relieved them of their duty, which has always begun with “providing for the common defense.” (In 1936, arguing for rearmament in the face of Nazi Germany, Churchill said: “I would endure with patience the roar of exultation that would go up when I was proved wrong, because it would lift a load off my heart and the hearts of many Members. What does it matter who gets exposed or discomfited? If the country is safe, who cares for individual politicians, in or out of office?”)

But “treaty” is a warm and fuzzy word. On its face it signifies the cessation of hostilities, agreement among the nations, the dawn of peace. One recalls the fulsome praise of the Versailles Treaty. Churchill preferred to analyze treaties on their merits, and believed that absent security, a treaty may only succeed in making war more likely. To his constituents in 1928, he related a “Disarmament Fable” which summarizes his philosophy over banning certain weapons, but not others, without providing for the general security essential if disarmament is to work:

CHURCHILL’S DISARMAMENT FABLE

ONCE upon a time all the animals in the Zoo decided that they would disarm, and they arranged to have a conference to settle the matter. So the Rhinoceros said when he opened the proceedings that the use of teeth was barbarous and horrible and ought to be strictly prohibited by general consent. Horns, which were mainly defensive weapons, would, of course, have to be allowed. The Buffalo, the Stag, the Porcupine, and even the little Hedgehog all said they would vote with the Rhino, but the Lion and the Tiger took a different view. They defended teeth and even claws, which they described as honourable weapons of immemorial antiquity. The Panther, the Leopard, the Puma, and the whole tribe of small cats all supported the Lion and the Tiger.

“Then the Bear spoke. He proposed that both teeth and horns should be banned and never used again for fighting by any animal. It would be quite enough if animals were allowed to give each other a good hug when they quarreled. No one could object to that. It was so fraternal, and that would be a great step towards peace. However, all the other animals were very offended with the Bear, and the Turkey fell into a perfect panic.

“The discussion got so hot and angry, and all those animals began thinking so much about horns and teeth and hugging when they argued about the peaceful intentions that had brought them together that they began to look at one another in a very nasty way. Luckily the keepers were able to calm them down and persuade them to go back quietly to their cages, and they began to feel quite friendly with one another again.” 


“English-Speaking Peoples” is a periodic opinion series on themes of interest to the English-Speaking Community Churchill loved. Comment pro and con is always welcomed.

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