THE FAILURE OF DUMBARTON OAKS
The Failure Of Dumbarton Oaks (From the London Tribune) THE application of percentages is always a tricky business. When it was announced that 90 per cent agreement had been reached by the Three...
...When then will the threat of war arise...
...But if one of the Three is the aggressor it is not agreed that the obligation rests on the remaining two to discipline it...
...Draw her teeth by all means, but do not let us deceive ourselves that world peace is necessarily assured thereby...
...The time has come to associate the smaller Powers in these discussions, and so introduce new elements into a situation which appears to have now exhausted its possibilities within the narrower framework of the Three Power negotiations...
...It was.accepted that the obligations of enforcing the maintenance of world peace would fall in a special sense on the three Great Powers, America, Russia, and Britain...
...What nonsense this makes of those shrieking demagogues who are trying to pretend that all danger of war is removed once Germany's teeth are drawn...
...This would fragment the World Security Council at the outset, and it would, like the League of Nations, become merely a cover for power politics...
...Obviously from one of the Three themselves...
...This is obviously a hitch of the first importance...
...In the actual context of the world situation after the war, what does it mean ? - It must be obvious that no nation or even combination of nations would be mad enough to take on the Three Great Powers acting in concert...
...The fear of aggression from Germany will have been removed, and presumably Japan will also have been reduced to military impotence...
...Furthermore, it is unlikely that one of them would engage in hostile acts without associating one or more of the smaller powers with it...
...The use of quantitative measurements for qualitative values is once more proved fallacious, for it now transpires that the 10 per cent disagreement is hardly less vital than the 90 per cent of accord...
...It appears these have agreed on the need to act in concert to discipline any other nation which commits, or threatens to commit an act of aggression...
...When it was announced that 90 per cent agreement had been reached by the Three Big Powers at Dumbarton Oaks on problems of world security we knew there was a catch in it somewhere...
...This failure to agree is tragic, but we must not regard it as final...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 47
