In the use of warfare as a means of settling international disputes, there is a certain self-perpetuating mechanism. Thus the First World War, itself the result of complex disputes, alliances and misunderstandings, led to an unjust settlement, by means of the Treaty of Versailles, which left Germany dismembered, whole populations disturbed and disrupted, and Austria particularly in an unstable economic condition, with the city of Vienna shorn of the country areas needed to support a town population. It is perhaps no accident that Adolf Hitler was an Austrian. Granted the cruelty and nationalist megalomania of the Nazi Party, one has also to grant that the Nazis’ desire for a reversal of the decisions of the Treaty of Versailles had a considerable measure of justice. I have always strongly doubted whether Nazism would have ever existed, or at least whether it could have gained popular support, without the terrible post-war economic disruption and the extreme and unjust effects of the Treaty of Versailles.

Again, as a direct result of the Yalta Agreement, made while the Second World War was still in progress, Europe was divided like a loaf between Russia and the other Allies. Only by the most prudent and careful diplomacy have the two blocs avoided a Third World War; and it could still flare up. It is necessary for the Catholic pacifist to think consistently in an international way, as our Popes have tried to do, among the maledictions of the nationalists. It is not enough to say simply – ‘War is terrible; I don’t like it. I won’t fight in a war . . .’. Within the limits of our reading and observation and understanding, page 164 we have to examine the record of history in an objective way; for, as Pope John said, history can be our teacher.

There are several arguments for the use of warfare as a means of settling international disputes, which we have to be able to meet and examine on their merits. The most common is an argument from fear – ‘If we don’t get in first and stop them, the X-ists will be over here to wipe us out and enslave us . . .’. This is frequently used in relation to the Vietnam War. Now, it is not an argument which a Catholic may justly use or support; for a war of aggression or intervention to prevent possible future aggression by other nations cannot be called defensive. It is in fact the common argument used by aggressors; no doubt sincerely enough, since all human beings are prone to fear. It ignores and sets aside the many possible ways of reaching varying degrees of agreement without warfare. If, for example, the non-Communist nations, instead of a military invasion of Russia after the 1917 Revolution and military support for the Kuo Min Tang during the Chinese Revolution (both of them in the event disastrously unsuccessful) had stood back and offered economic aid and social contact to the emerging Communist Governments, I have no doubt that those Governments would have learned to live at peace with us and would have regarded us in a wholly different light. The German view of the English Quakers was deeply positive, because as soon as the First World War was over, the Quakers were in Germany distributing food to the starving and clothes to the actually or metaphorically naked. But the Quakers are a small and pacifist minority. We should notice that the most recent encyclical of Pope Paul, on the developing nations, advocates most vehemently precisely this positive approach.

Another argument is the one that imputes a settled and impenetrable malice to one’s potential enemies. It is true that such malice may exist; and a Catholic, mindful of the Fall of Man, cannot take a shallowly optimistic view of all human motives. Our problem, however, is to diminish it, particularly when it is present (as it sometimes may be) in one’s own heart. One may occasionally meet demonic people; but the fable that there are demonic nations has to be thrown out the door, for it is contrary to the doctrine that man is made in the image of God. The horrifying atrocities and massacres of our age have without exception been made possible by a vast and illicit growth of the power of modern bureaucracies, served in certain instances by sadists or moral weaklings. We cannot exempt ourselves from the possibility of the same danger. And the best corrective is to clip the power of the State in our own countries.

Another argument is the quiet one, apparently rational and moderate and humane – ‘Basically I’m a man of peace myself. I’d rather play a game of golf any day than go and fight. I’ve got no anti-Asian feeling; and if the Commos would leave us alone, I’d be glad to leave them alone. But – ’. This argument is plausibly matter-of-fact and realist; but the realism is actually spurious. The page 165 person concerned has made two grave mistakes – he has accepted that the view of world politics expressed in the newspapers of his own country is a just and well-informed one; and that his Government, being his Government, must be just – this is the mistake of nationalism – and he has assumed that the proper alternative to warfare is to go and play a game of golf, not to work for peace, not to pray for peace, not to exercise his soul and body with works of mercy, not to develop an intelligent view of modern issues. A Catholic is obliged to be more realistic than that.