Cliches of Anti-Pacifism

I always interpreted the first cliche a little differently. You seem to be interpreting it as preparing for war will cause peace. I always believed it meant the only way to achieve peace was to defeat your enemies.

Also, according to your interpretation, you seem to assume that the only reason to build up your army is in an attempt to achieve peace. There are many reasons to build up an army, the examples you cite aren’t doing it for peace as you say. But that doesn’t mean other nations won’t be successful. Don’t you believe that the United States military power has precluded other attacks? Do you think if the United States were exactly the same over the past 60 years but with no military, we would have been involved in fewer wars?

In your first example, you’re grouping like with unlike. “The world would be a more peaceful place if North Korea disarmed” doesn’t show that “The world would be a more peaceful place if South Korea disarmed.” It’s South Korea that needs to prepare for war because it wants peace. North Korea doesn’t want peace. Kim’s working model is Ceaucescu’s Romania. Thieu’s Vietnam is the South’s working model. If the South disarmed they’d be suffering from Kim’s ongoing war against the people he rules, just as the Northerners suffer today.

I don’t want to live under Cuban, Chinese or even Mexican law. It isn’t just a worry of perishing or suffering from the warfare, I’m worried about living in a conquered country after the war.

Also, arguing from the military spending list is a serious problem of partial equilibrium analysis. If the rich free countries gave up their militaries that would seriously change the incentives of military spending of the un-free ones.

The problem with pacifism is that it can’t deal with someone who is determined to be violent. Asserting that it could easily have prevented WWI doesn’t get away from that problem.

Agreed, pacifism if the first best option but it cannot deal with someone who wants to harm you or those you care about.

Or as Kenny Rodgers said:

“I promised you, dad, not to do the things you’ve done.
I walk away from trouble when I can.
Now please don’t think I’m weak, I didn’t turn the other cheek,
And papa, I sure hope you understand:
Sometimes you gotta fight when you’re a man”.

http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/rogers-kenny/coward-of-the-county-8513.html

Bryan, are you familiar with the work of L.F. Richardson (another pacifist) on the mathematics of war? Both Arms and Insecurity, and Statistics of Deadly Quarrels have some interesting insights into the causes of war.

What kept Switzerland out of both WWs?

1. you are not really what most people think of when they hear Pacifist because you are willing to fight if directly attached.

2. I doubt that China is ahead of the UK, France, Germany and Japan.

Hundreds of years of history support the claim that peace is only a Nash equilibrium when there’s a credible threat of retaliation for a deviation.

According to wiki,

“A major manoeuvre commanded in 1912 by Ulrich Wille, a reputed Germanophile, convinced visiting European heads of state, in particular Kaiser Wilhelm II, of the efficacy and determination of Swiss defences.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Switzerland#History

“If you want peace, prepare for war.” This claim is obviously overstated … How about Hitler’s rearmament? Was the Soviet Union preparing for peace by spending 15-20% of its GDP on the Red Army? No on all three counts. The truth is that preparation for war often causes war by frightening and provoking other countries.

You seem to be confusing “If you want war, preparing for war works” with “If you want peace, preparing for war doesn’t work”.

Your logic usually is a lot better than that.

“Those who beat their swords into plowshares, will plow for those who don’t.” In earlier centuries, this was usually true…

Earlier centuries like the 20th. Do you really think human nature has changed so much since the 1940s, when the Czechs and Poles were forced to plow others, and the Koreans and Chinese, etc., since the post-war Soviet grab for Berlin, or the 1970s when the North Vietnamese got the South plowing for them? Etc, etc. How long ago was all that in the time scale of evolution?

Take a look at this list of military spending by country. The U.S. naturally leads the pack, but is any sensible person worried that the U.S. will invade their country in order to take their stuff? … most Americans think it would be wrong, so it’s not going to happen.

Let’s put aside the number of times the USA has already invaded other countries to take their stuff (Mexico, etc.), and how great a guarantee steadfast, never-wavering public opinion provides against such action in the future (German public opinion was solidly against starting a war all the way until the Wehrmacht’s march into Warsaw).

The US nuclear arsenal is the greatest “arm for peace” exercise in history, dwarfing all others. It contained the “monster” Stalin at his 1945 limit, kept the cold war cold until it ended, and now has the world 65 years and counting without a major war between powers and none in sight — none even barely imaginable. (Who’d fight?) How long has it been since the world has gone so long without a major war between powers?

Now imagine if after WWII we had instead gone the pacifist route of disarming, telling the Japanese “Just don’t do it again, or else!” and leaving the Japanese to defend themselves against the Soviets and all the regional Asian good friends they had recently made by rearming with nuke-armed aircraft carriers and submarines and the like … with Uncle Joe at the same time not concerned with our response to anything he might want to do in Europe, after gobbling up Berlin for starters. Would the world have been a more peaceful place?

Mehtinks you misunderestimate the peace dividend of the “nukes for peace”-enforced Pax Americana.

“Pacifism didn’t work with Hitler.” True enough. But then again, nothing worked with Hitler. The man was a monster.

The German army was prepared to pull a coup against Hitler if he gave the order to invade Czechoslovakia — which, unlike Poland, was well armed and could defend itself — rather than face a suicidal war that couldn’t be won against the West. Instead, the West sold the Czechs out for “peace in our time”, gave it to him. Hitler told his generals that the West was too cowardly to fight over either Czechosolvakia or Poland. After the Czech experience they concluded, “he’s right, he knows more about politics than we do”, and swung to his side. Next stop Warsaw.

One thing that *wasn’t tried* against Hitler was deterrance through strength. If it had been, even if Hitler was such a madman as to launch a war anyhow, in spite of his generals against a much stronger West, the result would have been much, much, better for a strongly prepared West. Even as it was, the German army had to abandon the French frontier to invade Poland and the German generals believed the French army could have rolled right into Berlin … if they hadn’t been French.

If the French and British had just kept their solemn promise to defend the Czechs, had prepared to do it and followed through, WWII as we know it wouldn’t have happened. Libertarians believe in the obligation to keep major contractual promises. Is this trumped by the pacifist imperative?

“military preparation frequently has the perverse effect of making countries less safe. Discovering the conditions under which this occurs takes a lot more than a one-liner.

True, and neither should Clausewitz’s “The best defense is to be very strong” be dismissed at all glibly or with cliches.

Another anti-pacifist cliche:

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you’

-Trotsky

I’m sorry. I’m with most of the others on this. If citing the evil doers of Stalin, N. Korea and Hitler are examples of the folly of preparing for war, then Bryan is either failing logic or willfully misreading the quotes he tries to refute.

In a world where there are evildoers, it always makes sense to prepare for war. This is exactly the collective action problem. As an economist, I’m surprised he treats the way out of a prisoner’s dilemma by assuming both just behave nicely. HA! This is especially amusing if we DON’T treat all nations symmetrically and recognize that some nations are clearly worse than others and will unilaterally arm no matter what you do.

I mean, does he really believe that Stalin would NOT have armed if ALL of Western Europe had been Caplanian pacifists?

That he resists this logic is the best argument I’ve seen against pacifists.

@Alex J.

It’s South Korea that needs to prepare for war because it wants peace. North Korea doesn’t want peace.

I think this is a mistaken dichotomy. I think it’s fair to say that nearly all countries, including empires want peace. But their desire for peace is conditional on being in control.

George W. Bush described the United States as a country that has sought peace, and I think he is right. What separates the US from most other countries is that the US demands global hegemony as its conditions for peace.

From your link:
1 United States $663,255,000,000 4.3% of GDP
24 Iran $9,174,000,000b 2.7% of GDP

North Korea was missing, but I found this:
North Korea $5.0 billion FY02

OK, so forget about Hitler – apparently that’s a cliche.

And leave aside any pre-modern warlords like Alexander, Caesar, Attila or Genghis Khan. Let’s stick to the modern world.

How well did pacifism work against Tojo’s Japan, Mao, Stalin post-WWII when he suppressed the Baltic states, Pol Pot or Ho Chi Minh? How well did the pacifistic “Prague Spring” movement of 1968 fare against the Soviet invasion?

When someone is determined to kill you and take your stuff, does pacifism work?

You could have added a fourth quote:

‘Only the dead have seen the end of war’ (George Santayana)

The willingness to go to war to advance or protect one’s perceived interests is an inherent part of human nature.

The American Civil War is the best proof of that idea that I can think of. The British had shown it was possible to abolish slavery without bloodshed (more or less) but the US proved to be politically incapable of pulling off a similar feat, despite having the best system of government ever devised for avoiding war, let alone a civil war. One might add that it was also the bloodiest war the US has ever fought.

“…is any sensible person worried that the U.S. will invade their country in order to take their stuff?”

My perception is that this is indeed a strongly felt anxiety in much of the world. And change “country” to “home” and you’ll find many Americans saying “yes, that worries me!”

The Left worries about the U.S. government abroad but not at home; the Right worries about the U.S. government at home but not abroad.

“The German army was prepared to pull a coup against Hitler if he gave the order to invade Czechoslovakia”

Jim, it seems that this isn’t actually correct. Although they were building fortification as fast as they could, a lot of it was not ready … I cannot speak how the german army felt about fighting czech republic, however if they did, the Czechs would have very likely lost …

Fighting alone the Czechs certainly would have lost, which is why they didn’t fight after the French and British served them up at Munich. But there’s more to it than that.

The Czechs were much better armed and prepared than the Poles, the German military was much weaker in 1938 than 1939, and in 1939 than 1940. In real life the reason for the initial “phony war” on the German side was that its military was both exhausted and misplaced after the Polish fight, they couldn’t fight in the West.

If the Germans had invaded the expectation was the fight would be a real one for a couple of months. At the end the German military would have been much weaker than after the Polish fight, Poland would be mobilized with plenty of notice ahead of it, the French and British would be mobilized on the German unprotected rear, and who knows what Uncle Joe would be doing to exploit the situation to his enemy’s cost?

The German generals saw that situation as disastrous and were preparing to take steps to avert it. But Hitler told them the West wouldn’t fight for either the Czechs or Poland. After the Munich serve-up Hitler made the deal with Stalin and the generals concluded “this guy knows what he’s doing” and signed onto his agenda. On to Warsaw and the rest is history.

This is why Churchill and those like him were so apoplectic about Munich. It wasn’t merely appeasement and an immoral sell out of the Czechs (plus the delivery of the Skoda arms works and major Czech military resources) to the Nazis — in terms of pure international power-politics calculated self-interest it was a horrible blunder.

Does any sensible person — even the nuttiest neocon — believe that the Halliburton presidency would have chosen to invade Iraq if Iraq didn’t have oil?

Absolutely. The argument that the war was fought over oil never made an ounce of sense to me. In the first place, if Bush wanted to “enrich his oil buddies” as everybody on the left-wing blogs seems to think, a far simpler and less costly route would have been to lift the stupid sanctions against Iraq. He would come out as a hero for free trade, a “political genius” for splitting Iraq off from various assorted Islamofascist peeps, and not shed a drop of blood or risk his entire political career on successfully convincing the country to go to war and to stick with that war when things got hairy.

But was never out to enrich his oil buddies, he was out to topple the Iraqi government which he believed posed a serious military threat to the US.

I don’t think we should have invaded but it doesn’t make me see mustache-twirling plutocratic conspiracies behind every move.

The point is to have control over the flow of oil, not necessarily its price. Oil companies want the price to be high, consumers want it to be low, but both want it to keep flowing, and the US wants to be in control of that flow.

Again, that makes no sense. If “control over the flow of oil” was the goal, then Bush and Co. could have made oil drilling and whatnot far less restricted by the government here in the US. That would have been a much cheaper way to give Bush’s “oil buddies” control over the flow of a major source of oil. Why plunder abroad when you can plunder at home for less cost?