MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IN the midst of our other preoccupations United Nations Day passed unperceived ; yet even if it had coincided with a lull in our misfortunes, it could scarcely have been celebrated with any wide or deep delight. Although few persons in public life would dare openly to denounce U.N.O. as a pathetic fallacy, there cannot be many men,. women or children in this country who sincerely believe that it offers a sure shield to the threatened, or a reliable umpire in international disputes. For some years now I have declined to attend meetings in celebration of this Organisation, partly because I do not desire to make statements of doubtful validity and partly because I am saddened when matters of sombre reality are approached in a spirit of vague hope. To the sceptic there are few experience(more unpleasant than to have to sit silent while decent folk are being given , assurances which provide them with solace, and even pleasure, and which to the unbeliever are no more than worthless, or dangerous, opiates. Naturally it would be delightful in our con- dition of constant fear to be able to believe that there exists somewhere on Flushing Meadow or at Lake Success an areopagus of wise and powerful men who will, if danger threatens, intervene with promptitude and might. Naturally all those who question the substance of this fair dream, who suggest that the Security Council is divided and impotent, who remind people that the veto in fact would paralyse all rapid or effective action, and who conclude that the only hope of peace is the armed preponderance of our own coalition—naturally people who assert such dreadful things are regarded as cynical and tasteless. It is discouraging to confess that any uniqn between nations that is not cemented by compelling mutual interests is sure to snap when. danger comes. Only an identical desire for self-preservation against an identical external menace can forge links strong enough to resist such strains. These are unpleasant thoughts : but true.
* * * It is not that I take a cynical view of human nature. The cynic is a man who believes that all human motives, however they may momentarily be disguised, are selfish motives • and that man is for ever incapable of acting disinterestedly or with generous aims. I do not share this view. On the contrary, I believe that, in spite of many setbacks and returns to barbarism, the tide of human enlightenment advances century by century, and that in a thousand years from now the rulers of the world will in fact be able to gather together on Flushing Meadow and make judicious and effective decisions. It may be that, once this perfect condition of international thought and feeling has been achieved, it will be unnecessary to have any organisation at all ; and that mankind will have been so conditioned to correct behaviour that truthfulness and sagacity will come as readily to them as a cough or a sneeze. All I am saying is that such a condition has not, in this year 1951, been even approximately attained ; and that those who seek to found our foreign policy solely upon U.N.O. are either ignorant, stupid, or subject to hallucinations such as should unfit them for any responsible post. The Security Council and the Assembly provide plat- forms for discussion ; in certain cases of lesser importance they can also serve to elucidate problems and even to open paths of conciliation or agreement ; they enable several faces to be saved. But does anybody really believe that, even taken as channels for exchanging opinions, they are the best channels that can be devised?
* * * * Diplomacy is not, as some suppose, the same as foreign policy : it is the art of negotiation. All negotiation depends upon being able to discover some central point between the extreme demands of two contestants ; each side must be able to surrender a proportion of its initial claims in favour of a joint settlement. In the days of the old diplomacy these methods of adjustment were often successful. The disputants were repre- sented by professional negotiators, who knew and trusted each other, and who were accorded sufficient time and privacy to allow the negotiation to mature gradually. In the days of " open covenants openly arrived at " these advantages have been reck- lessly thrown away. It is not only that it is impossible for two sides to negotiate in a series of set speeches : it is not only that, once negotiation is conducted in public, the extremists on both sides render all compromise impossible: it is not only that the essential give-and-take of negotiation is excluded by such procedure: it is not only that no man on earth, be he as imperturbable as Sir Gladwyn Jebb himself, is at his best as negotiator when surrounded by five microphones and faced by a battery of television cameras : it is above all, perhaps, that the new diplomacy does not accord to the negotiators the time required for all difficult negotiation. The public, having been admitted to the discussion, demand quick results : in good diplomacy there can be no quick results. It seems strange to me that sensible people, when they witness these lamentable sessions upon the news-reels, do not realise immediately that such methods if continued must end in farce or in catastrophe. No committee of a seaside golf-club would survive if it con- ducted its discussions with such idiocy.
The legend that all men are born equal has, more perhaps than any other legend, led to confusion and discontent. When applied to international affairs it creates situations of grotesque unreality. To assume that Ruritania is either morally or physically the equal of the United States is to assume some- thing so fantastic as to discredit any organisation that accepts such an assumption. The effect upon Ruritania herself of these egalitarian. absurdities is an unhealthy effect: they tempt her, when summoned to Flushing Meadow, to show off. I do not therefore understand how any person can assert that United Nations provides a competent tribunal for the settlement of international controversies : even if the judges 'Were men -of divine righteousness and sagacity, they do not possess any power to execute their decisions. A small and highly vulnerable State such as Albania is able to snap its fingers at their awards. " Yes," some reader may reply, " there is much in all you say. But what alternative is there ? It may be difficult to establish the rule of law ; but the only alternative to the- rule of law is the rule of force." Such is the false dichotomy that thirty years of confused fear have contrived. Force and law are not contrasting, but complementary, aims. Force without law is anarchy : law without force is mere theoretic jurisprudence : the ideal is to unite both in the same hands. Today they are not so united. The alternative therefore is to accumulate on the side of the law as' much force as is possible. The efforts required to render the coalition of order preponderant in power entail great sacrifices: but it is wrong to allow people to escape from these harsh necessities by babbling to them about Flushing Meadow.
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For the last thirty years the school-teachers of the United States and even of this country have been teaching their pupils that the expression " balance of power " denotes something more horrible even than the slave trade. I have never under- stood this obsession. If the balance of power had been overtly and overwhelmingly on the side of the peace-desiring nations in 1914 and 1939 there would have been no war ; it was not the balance, but doubts as to its incidence and effectiveness, that led to the loss of peace. If, within the next three years, it becomes evident that the preponderance of strength rests with those who do not desire war, then again war can be avoided. But it will assuredly not be avoided if we allow ourselves to suppose that it can be exorcised by the incantations of Mr. Trygve Lie. So let us work hard together ; and not rely too much on U.N.O., U.N.E.S.C.O., W.H.O., F.A.O., I.R.O., U.P.O., E.S.C., or I.L.O.
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