German Military Power Since Versailles

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THE question of disarmament occupies the center of the political stage. Nearly a hundred and fifty years have gone by since Immanuel Kant wrote his philosophical essay "On Eternal Peace." In addition to uttering other maxims about safeguarding international peace, he demanded the abolition of standing armies on the score that they constitute a perpetual menace of war against other nations. Since Kant's days numerous and gigantic wars have shaken the world. Tentative attempts to safeguard international peace by political conventions were undertaken at The Hague in 1899 and in 1907; but they were fruitless. Not until the World War had exacted its sacrifice of millions of human lives, besides destroying the economic relations of the nations of the earth, did statesmen feel a moral incentive to transform Kant's philosophical ideas into a practical political instrument. And still the ideal of a system of international peace, as President Wilson conceived it, remains unfulfilled. The warlike complications in eastern Asia have shown only too plainly that the League of Nations is devoid of any real authority. The Kellogg Pact was designed to outlaw war and stiffen the moral obligation of all nations to settle their quarrels not by resort to arms, but by arbitration. The regrettable fact remains that by tradition politics is not dependent on moral considerations...