|
Introduction
The report which follows summarizes the results of a two-and-a-half-year
study of the broad problems to be anticipated in the event of a general transformation of American
society to a condition lacking its most critical current characteristics:
its capability and readiness to make war when doing so is
judged necessary or desirable by its political leadership.
Our work has been predicated on the belief that some kind of
general peace may soon be negotiable.
The de facto admission of Communist
China into the United Nations
now appears to be only a few years away at most. It has become increasingly
manifest that conflicts of American national interest with those of China and the Soviet Union are susceptible of political solution, despite the
superficial contraindications of the current Vietnam war, of the threats of
an attack on China, and of the necessarily hostile tenor of day-to-day
foreign policy statements.
It is also obvious that differences involving other nations can
be readily resolved by the three great powers whenever they arrive at a
stable peace among themselves. It is not necessary, for the purposes of our
study, to assume that a general detente of this sort will come about - and
we make no such argument - but only that it may.
It is surely no exaggeration to say that a condition of general world peace
would lead to changes in the social structures of the nations of the world
of unparalleled and revolutionary magnitude. The economic impact of
general disarmament, to name only the most obvious consequence of peace, would revise the production and
distribution patterns of the globe to a degree that would make the changes
of the past fifty years seem insignificant.
Political, sociological, cultural, and ecological changes would
be equally far-reaching. What has motivated our study of these
contingencies has been the growing sense of thoughtful men in and out of
government that the world is totally
unprepared to meet the demands of such a situation.
We had originally planned, when our study was initiated, to address
ourselves to these two broad questions and their components:
What can be expected if peace
comes? What should we be prepared to do about it?
But as our investigation proceeded it became apparent that
certain other questions had to be faced.
· What,
for instance, are the real functions of war in modern societies, beyond the
ostensible ones of defending and advancing the "national
interests" of nations?
· In
the absence of war, what other institutions exist or might be devised to
fulfill these functions?
· Granting
that a "peaceful" settlement of disputes is within the range of
current international relationships, is the abolition of war, in the broad
sense, really possible?
· If
so, is it necessarily desirable, in terms of social stability?
· If
not, what can be done to improve the operation of our social system in
respect to its war-readiness?
The word peace, as we
have used it in the following pages, describes a permanent, or
quasi-permanent, condition entirely free from the national exercise, or
contemplation, of any form of the organized social violence, or threat of
violence, generally known as war.
It implies total and general disarmament. It is not used to
describe the more familiar condition of "cold war," "armed
peace, " or other mere respite, long or short, from armed
conflict. Nor is it used simply as a synonym for the political settlement
of international differences.
The magnitude of modern means of mass destruction and the speed
of modern communications require the unqualified working definition given
above; only a generation ago such an absolute description would have seemed
utopian rather than pragmatic. Today, any modification of this definition
would render it almost worthless for our purpose.
By the same standard, we have used the word war to apply interchangeably to conventional ("hot") war, to the general condition of war preparation or war
readiness, and to the general "war
system." The sense intended is made clear in context.
The first section of our Report
deals with its scope and with the assumptions on which our study was based.
The second considers the effects of disarmament on the economy, the subject
of most peace research to date. The third takes up so-called
"disarmament scenarios" which have been proposed.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth examine the nonmilitary functions
of war and the problems they raise for a viable transition to peace; here
will be found some indications of the true dimensions of the problem, not
previously coordinated in any other study.
In the seventh section we summarize our findings, and in the
eighth we set forth our recommendations for what we believe to be a
practical and necessary course of action.
Back to Contents
|
No comments:
Post a Comment