President Donald Trump has begun his second term with two bold peace initiatives. First, to negotiate an end to the Russia – Ukraine war, and America’s open checkbook in support of Ukraine’s military and civilian budget. And second, to negotiate an agreement with the
Russians and the Red Chinese to reduce military expenditures by half.
The President’s unerring sense of the mood of the American people – that Americans have tired of the vast sums of their money, and lives of their loved ones, spent on endless and unwon wars – certainly captures the political moment.
What’s more, the establishment military leadership and its associated defense – national security complex have squandered much of their public credibility and goodwill by throwing themselves wholeheartedly into Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, transgender ideology and other unpopular Cultural Marxist causes.
American voters seem ready for a change in how we maintain our national security and Donald Trump has boldly provided them with one.
One hundred years ago we saw a similar convergence of American public sentiment and world events, and it is worth reviewing how events unfolded then to instruct our actions today.
The Western democratic countries, and particularly the American people, came out of World War I sickened by the slaughter, outraged by the burden of the war debt, and resolved to avoid any more foreign entanglements and wars.
Idealistic business leaders, such as Edward William Bok, campaigned for America to lead efforts to achieve world peace. Bok created the American Peace Award because he thought the American government was not doing enough to promote world peace. The award offered a $100,000 prize to the person submitting "the best practicable plan by which the United States may co-operate with other nations for the achievement and preservation of world peace."
The first half of the prize was awarded upon the selection of the plan by a jury, and the remainder upon acceptance by the United States Senate or showing "sufficient popular support". The 1924 American Peace Award received plans from thousands of applicants, however, on January 8, 1924, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported, "Bok Peace Plan Given a Subzero Senate Welcome.”*
But that may have been because the United States government was already working on its own peace plans.
In 1921 the United States convened the Washington Naval Conference, arguably the first international disarmament conference, to limit the naval arms race and to work out security agreements in the Pacific area.
In a proposal that presaged President Trump’s bold suggestion that the United States, Russia and Red China half their military spending, U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes opened the Conference with a proposal to scrap almost 1.9 million tons of warships belonging to the great powers. This bold disarmament proposal astonished the assembled delegates, but it was ultimately enacted in a modified form.
The Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty, which was signed by the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy on February 6, 1922, and a number of other international agreements grew out of the Washington Naval Conference.
Less than a decade later the Japanese, having been treated as a second-class power in the allocation of capital ships, demanded equality with the United States and Great Britain. When the Western powers refused to renegotiate the treaty, the Japanese gave notice they renounced the limits in the treaty and the arms race recommenced in earnest. The United States was left far behind as the Japanese quickly built the world’s two largest battleships and what was, at the beginning of World War II, the world’s most effective aircraft carrier force with which they attacked Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Dutch East India, Singapore, Ceylon and Australia.
Several years after the Washington Naval Conference, French Minister of Foreign Affairs Aristide Briand published an open letter in April of 1927 containing a proposal for a peace pact as a bilateral agreement between the United States and France to outlaw war between them.
According to Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations, “Though the suggestion had the enthusiastic support of some members of the American peace movement, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge and Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg were less eager than Briand to enter into a bilateral arrangement. They worried that the agreement against war could be interpreted as a bilateral alliance and require the United States to intervene if France was ever threatened. To avoid this, they suggested that the two nations take the lead in inviting all nations to join them in outlawing war.”
On August 27, 1928, fifteen nations met in Paris and signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Signatories included France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy and Japan. Later, an additional forty-seven nations followed suit, so the pact was eventually signed by most of the established nations in the world. The U.S. Senate ratified the agreement by a vote of 85–1, though it did so only after making reservations to note that U.S. participation did not limit its right to self-defense or require it to act against signatories breaking the agreement.
Sometimes called the Pact of Paris for the city in which it was signed, the pact was one of many international efforts to prevent another World War, but it had little effect in stopping the rising militarism of the 1930s or preventing World War II. Indeed, through the Mukden Incident in China it was effectively abrogated by Japan just three years after it was signed.
Between World War I and World War II the world’s democratically elected leaders, and leading figures in civil society, strove to guarantee peace between nations by building international consensus and signing international agreements.
However, these agreements all failed when challenged by totalitarian governments that were not bound by democratic processes. When dictators, such as Adolf Hitler, at the head of command economies chose to pursue war, no paper treaty could restrain them.
Ultimately, what the failure of the interwar peace and arms control treaties demonstrates is that the only American policy that has prevented a general war and preserved peace over the long term is what Ronald Reagan called “Peace through Strength.” And central to the success of that strategy was the restraint to deploy our strength only when our civilization, borders and citizens were threatened.
We applaud President Trump for his apparent return to restraint in engaging in foreign military adventures, but only by displaying strength and demonstrating the resolve to protect and defend our civilization, borders and citizens can the peace be maintained in a world where dictators at the head of command economies are our most potent enemies.
George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com and is a veteran of over 300 political campaigns. A member of American MENSA, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for then-Congressman Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for retired Rep. Mac Thornberry, former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
* The prize was awarded in February 1924 to Dr. Charles Herbert Levermore, who was secretary of the World's Court League, the League of Nations Union, and the New York Peace Society, and former president of Adelphi College. Levermore's plan suggested the United States adhere to the Permanent Court of International Justice and should extend its cooperation with the League of Nations, the United States not being a member of the League.
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But didn't the president just threaten Europe if they did not double their defense spending? I am getting conflicting messages? Or is that the point? More confusion and chaos?
The Ukraine-Russia war can be ended by allowing Russia to keep all (or nearly all) they've conquered. This is the best that can be done in a situation where Ukraine hasn't the resources to drive Russian troops out of Ukraine -- and neither Europe or the US are going to provide such resources.
The idea of a mutual halving of military spending between Russia, China and the US is nonsense. No arms control agreement has ever worked. Even if they agree to it, most participants will not comply -- and no sovereign nation would submit to the the sort of scrutiny it would take to verify that they comply.