The Association

In this short survey of Robert Conquest's Reflections on a Ravaged Century I've concentrated only on those sections of it which to me seem particularly topical now, in 2004 - the book contains a great deal of other fascinating material: for example, the analysis of the origins and the creation of the Soviet Union, and the way in which it developed into a "ghastly historical aberration" ('Into the Soviet Morass'), and the study of deterrence in the Cold War ('Missiles and Mindsets: the Cold War Continues').

In the previous post, I considered Conquest's view of contemporary European political structures, the "Europe" Idea, and the European Union, as manifestations of essentially backward-looking thinking that has little relevance to the modern world. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of his argument is his assertion, at the end of the "Europe" chapter, that "in a larger perspective, a uniting of Europe is only tolerable within a uniting of the civilized world - and eventually of the whole world." In the book's final chapter, 'A More Fruitful Unity (The Oceanic Perspective)', the author makes the case for a realignment and reorganization of the political arrangements of a Western culture that "still faces a dangerous period. The forces of peace and progress are still in disarray. Yet all attempts to produce anything like a united will among the free nations have been at best partial or local successes, often not even that."

Again, it needs to be noted that this chapter, like the rest of the book, was published some two years before the events of 9/11, and so the reader must make the necessary mental and intellectual adjustments in order to follow the thread of the argument in all its dimensions. However, the main thrust of the debate seems clear, and unaffected by the passage of time and concomitant events. Writing in 1999, the author believes that "the European Union is not proving to be the factor of strength expected by some. NATO, even at its best, is inadequate to coordinate the political will of our nations, and is anyhow too limited in geographical scope to face planetary challenges." Some kind of regrouping is called for, and may indeed by urgently required: "the very disintegration we see is producing an urge for action to create greater and more reliable forms of union."

Conquest points to a decline in "the truly international attitude" in both America and Europe, and an increase in local nationalisms - bodies such as the EU, GATT, the UN, the Commonwealth and so on are seen to be "faded, exhausted, fallen from their original promise and inspiration." For a long time, the author continues, the United States was the world's main supporter of the United Nations and its agencies, finding in them the most satisfactory outlet for the kind of internationalist idealism that made possible the reconstruction of postwar Europe and the programmes of aid to the underdeveloped world. Yet as the century wore on, it became increasingly clear that the UN was becoming hijacked by illiberal and even totalitarian forces, and there was a growing American awareness "that too strong a devotion to the United Nations encourages acceptance of majority decisions by dubious regimes of a type indefensible in principle." The treatment of the state of Israel at the hands of the international body might be taken as one glaring example of what Conquest is talking about.

Being British, Conquest likes to consider Britain's place in the postwar world, and for him, as for many Britons, the Commonwealth still has "something of the vague idealistic appeal which the idea of the United Nations has for many Americans." He sees it for what it essentially is - a loose cultural and to some extent economic association, many of whose components belong to the traditions of the West. His reflections on Britain's post-imperial development make interesting reading:

When I was young, London was still "the great city that hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth," if you want to put it that way. In the period since the British divested themselves of empire, they have stuck for one reason or another to horizons narrow not merely politically but also perhaps morally, though a European assimilation would narrow them further still. At any rate, the energy and experience of the British people now have little in the way of credible outlets in the politics of a world to which they clearly have a contribution to make.

But Britain has never been or tried to be one of the two "great powers". A former permanent head of the Foreign Office (himself a Catholic Southern Irishman) put it to me soon after the war, when Britain still held a quarter of the world, that she had never been one of the leading military powers and had always resisted aggression as part of an alliance. Nowadays even the alliances seem inadequate.

It is natural for non-Britons to think that empire, and later loss of empire, dominated British attitudes. However, empire at its highest only sporadically (and decreasingly) engaged or interested most of the population. Nor was British self-confidence, and even sense of superiority, greatly affected by the end of empire, (and internal problems were incomparably more crucial to a vast majority.) Nor had it ever been the case that the main concerns of British foreign policy were about the old empire. The Pax Britannica which covered much of the world was peripheral; the battles that engaged the whole population and threatened the survivors were fought in the surrounding seas, in the air above, and on the landmass that starts little more than twenty miles south of Dover. And it is on that front that America's greatest problems, too, have been faced - and the world's.

Nor, Conquest argues convincingly, has the Continent of Europe ceased to be a source of bureaucracy and the worship of bureaucracy, of "rejection of the Anglo-American concept of law and liberty," of protectionism, anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and other illiberal and authoritarian tendencies. So there is no reason for Britain to become merged - as many American political figures, both Democrat and Republican, have recommended - in "what can only be described as an insular Europe."

In the search for a better alternative, Conquest's gaze turns to a grouping that would be more in keeping with the Anglo-American cultural, legal and political tradition: what he calls an "Association", comprised of the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, together with Australia and New Zealand - "and, it is to be hoped, Ireland, the nations of the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean, perhaps others." He points to the fact that within the West, it is above all the English-speaking community which has "over the centuries maintained the middle way between anarchy and despotism - a balance which has failed in most of the rest of the world. Conquest directs our attention to the fact that "in World War II those areas of Europe and Asia that were... liberated, and not turned over to a later despotism, were liberated in the European case largely by the combined arms of the United States, Britain and Canada; in the Asian case largely by the combined arms of the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Conquest believes that in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, a "special relationship" still exists between Britain and the U.S.:

There are, indeed, misunderstandings; there are those in each country concerned to exacerbate these. But at a profounder level, the word "foreigner" is never used in Britain of an American (and, in the United States, even at the Vietnam nadir of disillusion and isolationism, Gallup polls showed Britain as the only overseas country to which a majority of Americans would still send troops for defense against "Communist-backed forces"). Meanwhile, Britons emigrate to California rather than Calabria, to Vancouver rather than Valencia.

The rest of the chapter is largely concerned with elaborating the author's vision of what the new Association would look like. The author believes, it would relieve the United States of the burden of undertaking "the enormously preponderant role in the West's foreign and military arrangements and responsibilities which has fallen to it since the war:

A unity with the other countries of the same tradition would both ease the American task and spread some of the American responsibility. Countries that have, however unintendingly, relied on the Americans, and themselves been inadequately faced with either the responsibilities or the decisions of world power, should be brought into the central processes.

In the face of such an Association, bodies of an artificial and enforced nature such as the European Union would soon find themselves marginalized and mostly irrelevant in the context of world affairs.

Above all, Conquest sees the formation and development of the new international body as a process of evolution - "not something that can be undertaken in an abstract way:

Those like H.G. Wells, who simply advocated a World State, seemed to imagine that the mere concept was so obviously demanded by progress and efficiency that intelligent people everywhere would accept it and then, in one way or another, impose it....

The struggle for a greater "Oceanic" Association would not need to imply any weakening of the ties with the less powerful European and other allies, Conquest believes. The Association would simply exist in order to strengthen the alliances between the world's democratic states - and instead of being a "solution" to the world's problems, it would be rather a direction, headed towards the goal outlined by President Kennedy in a message to Congress in 1962, when he spoke of his conviction that

Our basic goal remains the same: a peaceful world community of free and independent states - free to choose their own future and their own system, as long as it does not threaten the freedom of others.

In some future postings, I would like to examine Conquest's proposals and conclusions in the light of what has happened in the world since September 11, 2001, and consider to what degree, if any, they have been invalidated by it - my own belief is that they have not, and have on the contrary been strengthened by it, but this will take some time and effort to demonstrate.