WHAT SHOULD WE FIGHT FOR ?
Under Thirty Page
By W. ARMSTRONG
[The writer, who is 23, has just taken Greats at Oxford] PEACE, liberty, democracy, a new world order, England ; they all come readily to the lips and look well on banners. Englishmen at least might agree that the list contains things " worth fighting for " : but can that phrase possibly be literal ? It must be a metaphor, since the " things " are abstractions ; and it seems to me a dangerous one, since it is taken from a kind of fighting that no longer exists. So I must first ask two questions : " In what sense can liberty, democracy and the like be fought for.? " and : " In what sense can the procedure of modern warfare be described as fighting for ' anything ? "
- Most people will agree that political liberty cannot be imposed by force ; but many think that just as slavery can be forcibly imposed and preserved, so liberty can be forcibly removed. This latter notion has received great impetus from the rise of the dictators ; they appear to give evidence that storm-troops and a propaganda department can between them change the outlook of a nation and impose on it a political philosophy, almost against its will. Hence the fear that what has happened to Germany might happen to Eng- land ; hence the notion of " an outsider in danger of im- posing an alien scheme of values." Presumably Mr. Singleton was thinking in this expression of Hitler, sending over his warplanes to Nazify England ; and his fear is salutary enough if it strengthens our hold on democracy. But it should -do .that by producing in us a determination, not to repel an invader who would enslave us, but to make ourselves worthy to be free ; for it is still true that peoples get the rulers and radio programmes they deserve.
We have heard much of the will of one man to dominate ; we must reckon equally with the will of the people to obey. The dictifors were put in position not so much by force as by the temper and condition of their people ; and for that the " war to end war " is to blame, and the bitter treaty that followed it. Terrorism and education may hold an autocrat in place ; but we are concerned with what would bring Fascism to England, not what would keep it there once brought. I do not think conquest will bring it ; if the dictators fought us, it would be for • concrete advantage, territory and raw materials, and not to spread their doctrines, though it might suit both sides to pretend otherwise. Eng- land defeated might become Fascist ; if that were simply by decree from Berlin, it would not last long. But more prob- ably our political system would be the expression of our reaction to defeat ; and the reaction of this people to a great defeat is something nobody knows.
I might seem to be denying the possibility of revolutionary wars ; and I mean to do so in so far as I think that the revolu- tion proper is always over the night before the war begins, bloodlessly, in the mind of the revolutionaries. Then war may follow, as the removal of what have become anomalies ; and if the revolution, as is usual, is premature, then so much the more bitter is the war. But the actual change in thought that is the revolution does not come about by war at all. Mr.
Singleton half admits this. He does not see himself fighting " to impose the English political philosophy and social values on someone else." He thinks of England as in a state of peaceful transition to something better, but menaced with interruptions ; he would fight to keep out the interrupters. But war, for whatever reason it was started, would be the biggest interruption of all.
What sort of an interruption it would be, it is; easy to see in outline, though the precise result is disputable. We used to be told that the next general war, would inevitably bring general chaos ; the nations of the world were so inierdepen- dent that damage to one would be damage to all, while modern weapons were so deadly that the damage would be irretriev- able. We do not hear that so much now. Apparently, however upheld by argument, it was a view produced by fear of the Fascist Powers ; now that fear is passing, since by this time there has been Spain, where Madrid still holds out, China, where Japan seems likely to strain herself to breaking point, and Czechoslovakia, where so far the Nazi squib has proved somewhat damp. So we have a crop of knowledgeable articles, showing how little Italy can afford to begin a war, how ill-provided with raw materials even' Germany is, and what a weak link in the Fascist chain is Japan. Meanwhile the growth of ersatz means we shall feel the less any loss of trade war may bring, and on our side the rearmament programme goes on, while A.R.P. posters appear on a hundred hoardings. In this optimistic atmosphere the question " What should we fight for ? " sounds perfectly sensible, because it has begun to look as though we should get it.
But should we ? I doubt it. Whether or not modern methods of war will bring the collapse of civilisation, it seems to me certain that they will bring something far different from the hopes of any antagonist, something quite unforeseeable. War today is at once much more and much less than an " instrument of foreign policy " ; it is a forcing-house of new opinions, a destroyer of social institutions and shatterer of economic systems, an inventor of new diseases. As a weapon in the hands of statesmen it is useless, for what it will do car never be calculated ; but as an experience through which a people may pass it can shape the political ideas of a century. If we fought a war now, in alliance with France and Russia, I believe we should, in the language of the strategists, " win " ; but when. the last shot was fired I do not think that either we or our enemies would be recognisable.
For what, then, should we fight ? For fear, love, money, for anything, it does not matter what ; the result will be the same sea-change. It is as if we, with the other nations, were delegates to a conference, each with a switch at his elbow to fire a mine, which might blow the whole lot to glory ; just how large it is, or under whose chair it is, we do not quite know, but we may be certain that if a switch is touched, none will come out unscathed. In these circumstances we must confer and co-operate as best we may ; and if we wish our opinions to carry weight, we must keep our switch in order and our finger on it, so long as we cannot get everyone to dismantle the whole apparatus. Since the whole scheme would collapse if one party thought he had good chances of surviving the explosion, we should give no one cause to think that. Meanwhile we should be prepared to fight to back our views, but only as literally a last resort, remembering that to do so is to admit that discussion, reason and every human hope have failed ; what we use now is simply the last bullet in the spy's revolver, kept for himself.
Shoot, if you must. Much evil will come of it, and some good ; perhaps in the end more good than evil. A century from now the Chinese war and the Spanish may be seen as shocks of awakening, bringing in a new creative era for those peoples. The human spirit has before now shown this power of responding to evil with renewed effort ; to war's new diseases men have replied with new and more powerful methods of cure. Could we predict our response, we might voluntarily submit to the scourge ; but as yet we do not know enough about ourselves. Until we do, war can never be rational. Fight if you are a mystic or a gambler, but not if you are an engineer. The plans you need have not yet been prepared.
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