The foreign policy of the United States appears to have two primary political objectives: the maintenance of peace, if possible; and, if this becomes impossible, the maximization of military effort against its enemies. This duality of purpose raises a number of perplexing questions. If we could assume with Clausewitz that the making or avoidance of war simply involves a choice between means—the endbeing given—, then these questions would disappear. As it is, we have to recognize that in fact the pursuit of peace may well involve actions which tend to diminish United States military potential and that attempts to maximize military potential may well increase the possibility of war. Under these circumstances only a compromise solution seems sensible. We must consider best how peace may be maintained, but be ready to reject those methods which would leave the United States defenseless in the event that war cannot be avoided.

The idea of a European political and economic union is more popular and is being taken more seriously in the United States than in Europe. The American attitude has been well expressed in the “Declaration of Policy” of “The Foreign Assistance Act of 1948” by which Congress enacted the European Recovery Program. One section of that act reads:

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries economic thought and practice were predominantly carried on within the framework of that body of ideas which was later to be called “mercantilism.” Although there has been almost no systematic investigation of the relationship in mercantilist thought between economic and political objectives or ends in the field of foreign policy, certain stereotypes have become so prevalent that few scholars have seriously questioned or examined their validity. One of these stereotypes is that mercantilism was a “system of power,” that is, that “power” was for mercantilists the sole or overwhelmingly preponderant end of foreign policy, and that wealth, or “plenty,” was valued solely or mainly as a necessary means to attaining or retaining or exercising power. It is the purpose of this paper to examine in the light of the available evidence the validity of this interpretation of mercantilist thought and practice. Tracing the history of ideas, however, always runs to many words, and limitations of space force me to confine myself, even with respect to bibliographical references, to samples of the various types of relevant evidence. That the samples are fair ones I can only attest by my readiness in most cases to expand them indefinitely.

In Europe the zones of Soviet and non-Soviet dominant influence have, for the time being, been stabilized. Moves and counter moves have become tactical. Despite recurrent impressions to the contrary—which may, in part, be intended by our opponent—there is in Europe hardly an immediate crisis requiring immediate counteraction. Such a crisis, and such a requirement, exist, however, in Eastern Asia; and our successes in stopping the Soviet advance in Western Europe will prove illusory if we fail to contain it in the Far East.

Attempts to explain world politics in terms of the clashes of sharply defined national interests have an air of unreality. This is because of the unequal interest of groups of the population in any particular course of official action. The little known and obscure, but historically important episode with which this article deals, describes the impact of one influential private group on foreign policy, even after the President of the United States had made an official determination of policy. It also throws light on the way in which a private group can operate through and with a foreign government, whose interests are parallel to its own, to change the direction of American policy. Similarly it illustrates how a foreign government can mould its relations with the United States (or with most countries) by developing a policy with a special appeal to particularly influential groups in that country.

In the Autumn of 1946, Georgi Aleksandrov, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Moscow and Chief of the Administration of Propaganda and Agitation in the Central Committee of the Communist Party, was one of Moscow's success stories. Only thirty-eight years old, he had already reached the top rung of the academic ladder. He was, besides, a key figure in that liaison of politics and science upon which the Soviet Government leans so heavily in mobilizing the creative energies of its population for the magnification of the State. In his post as Chief of Propaganda and Agitation for the Communist Party, Aleksandrov was responsible, under Andrei Zhdanov of the Politburo, for the fanatical indoctrination of party-workers and party-members and for spreading the gospel of Marx-Leninism through the broad massesof the people. He was an active member of the editorial board of Bolshevik, long a principal intellectual weapon of the party and government. When Culture and Life was inaugurated as special organ of Zhdanov's savage campaign to purge every branch of art and learning of elements not wholly imbued with aggressive Marx-Leninism, it was foreordained that Aleksandrov should be the moving spirit in the new publication. The Academy of Social Sciences, established in 1946 as the highest agency of political instruction, began its career under his leadership.

It is a cliché of Communist propaganda to describe the opposition to the peaceful and progressive policy of the Soviet Union as consisting of Wall Street, fascists and former collaborationists, the Vatican, and the right-wing Socialist “toadies.” The general impression given is one of a monolithic and wholly malevolent alliance of all the reactionary “minorities,” bent on driving the innocent and peace-loving masses into a war against the Soviet Union and the “New Democracy.” It is hardly a betrayal of confidence to point out that the Communist is not given to making distinctions. But it is possible to disentangle at least one element of truth in this somewhat harsh judgment of the world outside. This is, that the units engaged in the present world struggle are not solely, and perhaps not even primarily, the nation-states. There is, in a sense, an “East” in the “West,” and a subdued “West” in the “East.” Ideological and political movements, whether regional or world-wide in scope, have become increasingly important bearers of foreign policy. On the most significant issues of foreign policy in the present crisis, the party affiliation of a Western European makes a greater difference than his national affiliation.

Any attempt at the formulation or critical review of American policies in Europe is conditioned by our historical conceptions. Whether we try to define American policy with regard to Germany, the economic recovery of Europe, or the protection of western Europe against further Russian inroads, we are consciously or unconsciously influenced by what we consider to be the “normal” organization of Europe, and are thereby led to direct our political actions as much as possible toward the restoration of the traditional order. There exists, on the other hand, a general awareness of radical changes in world politics and especially European affairs, and our practical political experiences demonstrate that we are constantly driven to adopt unprecedented measures which run counter to what we still envisage as the historical pattern of Europe.

Both India and Pakistan have made long strides toward stability since winning their freedom from British rule in 1947. What are the prospects for stability in the immediate future, and for their exerting a steadying influence throughout Southeast Asia?

Despite the disorganization and bitterness that accompanied the partition of India, the two young Dominion Governments have thwarted severe early threats to their internal security and have restrained their respective extremists from precipitating a war on the sub-continent. They have each proceeded with political reorganization of the largest populations extant—since the disintegration of China—in non-Communist Asia. Other Asian nations have tentatively accepted the leadership of India in such international issues as Indonesia. In an Asia hard-pressed to adjust to new conditions, the future roles of India and Pakistan may have critical importance.

THE recent resignations from posts of high civil authority or ceremonial rank of former military officers will no doubt allay somewhat the suspicions current a year or more ago that the military were “moving in” where they did not belong. Although the original appointment to civil posts of such men as Generals George C. Marshall and Walter B. Smith was hardly due to design on the part of the armed services, being quite easily and plausibly explained on other and quite innocuous grounds, the military departments unquestionably do have a greater influence upon high policy decisions than was true before the recent war. It is therefore time to express concern not so much that that military will move in where they do not belong, but rather that in the process of moving in where in part, at least, they do belong, their advice will reflect their imperfections not as diplomatists but as soldiers.

Throughout the ages moralists have expressed horror at the way princes and sovereign states behave toward each other. Behavior which would be considered immoral by any standard can obviously be detected in all realms of life; but nowhere does the contradiction between professed ethical principles and actual behavior appear so patent and universal as in the conduct of foreign relations. Governments spy on each other and lie to each other; they violate pledges and conduct wars, often at the cost of millions of lives and untold misery. No wonder, then, that in western democracies if not elsewhere indignation over such practices should be voiced with vehemence. In our day it frequently expresses itself in wholesale denunciations of the multi-state system on the ground that sovereign states cannot deal with each other except by the use of immoral means, derogatorily called power politics. Some draw the cynical conclusion that morality has no place in international politics, while others would have men fulfill their moral duty by substituting world government for the present immoral political system.

The tangled affairs of Indonesia, twice thrust upon the Security Council, have served as an admirable touchstone of the principles, purposes, and effectiveness of the United Nations as well as of the policies of some of its leading members. Fundamental principles of the new postwar order were at stake. The Atlantic Charter had affirmed the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they would live, and the collapse of empires before the Japanese onslaught led to the widespread conclusion that the old colonial system was dead. These doctrines found sober and modified expression not only in Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter, but also in the more general assertion of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples and of the universal application of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The rights of dependent peoples, the validity of the doctrine of self-determination, and the possibilities for peaceful change all hovered about the Security Council chamber in the course of the debates on the two Indonesian cases.

The concept of “people's democracy” has posed a real ideological dilemma for the U.S.S.R. Prior to the spring of 1948 Soviet theory was confronted with the fact that—partly because of Soviet policy itself—eastern Europe was not developing toward socialism by exactly the same pattern of violent revolutionary change which the U.S.S.R. had experienced, but in a manner more closely approximating gradual “reform.” To a very considerable extent it was in the interest of the Soviet Union to emphasize the differences between its own development and that of the “new democracies” in order to quiet national and non-Communist fears in those countries. At the same time, the U.S.S.R. apparently felt obliged to establish its own position of ideological “leadership” in eastern Europe and, simultaneously, to fit the concept of “people's democracy” into the body of orthodox Marxist-Leninist doctrine.

This is the age of revolutions. No longer are they the domain of the theorizer or the peripheral plotter. They have moved into the center of the average man's daily thought. They are on everybody's mind and in every newspaper's headline.

No continent is exempted. The whole of Europe is in upheaval. Her political parties are aligned in the name of, or in opposition to, revolution. China's four decades of civil war, India's final attainment of independence, the awakening nationalism of the Near East and South Eastern Asia spell not only the end of historical empires, but also call into action socio-revolutionary forces that break the frame of established society. Even those areas that are not engulfed by revolution are confronted with its threat. Fascism and National Socialism, though they proved in the test of history to be mere pseudo-revolts, were nourished by grievances of modern society that are not overcome by military defeat and—as long as they remain unanswered—still represent a challenge to our democratic world.

Twice within 25 years, in 1919 and again in 1944–5, the idea of the balance of power hasbeen pronounced dead, and twice it has arisen from its seeming demise soon after such funereal exercises. Foremost among the obituaries were those of American statesmen, like Woodrow Wilson and Cordell Hull. When the latter returned from conferences in Moscow in the autumn of 1943, he stated, as if he were the true heir of Wilsonism, that “as the provisionsof the fournations declarations are carried into effect, there will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for balance of power, or any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past, the nations strove to safeguard their security.”

In judging a boundary from a geographer's point of view many physical as well as human aspects come under consideration. Stress has shifted from one aspect of the problem to another according to the particular bias of the times.

At the time of the Paris peace conferences, geographers shared the general opinion that the linguistic factor should receive the greatest consideration in determining boundaries between national states. Language was regarded as the best criterion for drawing boundaries which would recognize what was called at that date “the right of self-determination.” It was a new factor in diplomatic negotiations. Shift of emphasis from physical features to cultural characteristics as bases for boundary lines reflected the popular swing toward self-determination.

Wishes have been the fathers to many thoughts, but wishes alone have never sired an effective international organization. It is only when the desirable and the possible have been brought into some sort of relation with each other that plans for international organization have ever had any chance of succeeding. This statement is of course a truism; anything which succeeds must have been possible. Can one, however, make any statements about the limits of what is possible without waiting for the historical record to complete itself? In the field of international organization failure to undertake this task has resulted in many cruel disappointments, and unfounded optimism has given way to uninformed cynicism. It is therefore of some interest to consider some of the ways in which the stubborn facts of international life condition the range of choice within which men of good will may hope to act successfully.

In the past fifteen years Canada has emerged from the position of a somewhat obstreperous exponent of isolationism and Canadian nationalism to become a leading middle power. This rapid rise to international importance has brought in its train many significant developments in Canada. Few are more interesting than the process by which Canadian foreign policy is presently being made, for its examination throws some light on the substance of Canadian foreign policy and provides the student of comparative politics with an important example of the planning of foreign policy under a Cabinet form of government. It also shows some of the problems and possibilities of a rapidly developed governmental organization.

During recent years there has been a noticeable rise in the production of, and interest in, a relatively new kind of analysis of political behavior. Anthropologists had become increasingly concerned with describing and explaining the entire way of life of the non-literate societies they were studying. Some of them came to believe that cultural anthropology should return to home, i.e., that the methods of observation and recording, and also the theories which they had developed on so-called primitive material should be applied to our own society and other large and complex groups. At the same time, psychologists and psychiatrists had become increasingly interested in describing and explaining the entire way of life, subjective and behavioral, of the individuals they were studying. They tended to be particularly interested, on the one hand, in the broad varieties of human nature (“character types” and “defense mechanisms”) and, on the other, in the unique structure of each case. But some of them came to be interested in ascertaining the psychological regularities, if any, in large groups. The confluence of these two developments in the human sciences led to the emergence of what we may call psycho-cultural analyses of social events.

The 38th parallel in Korea marks a critical segment of the ‘international frontier’ between the two worlds into which our one globe seems to be dividing. South of the line is the American-sponsored and U. N.-approved Korean Republic. North of the parallel is the Soviet-backed Korean Peoples” Republic. Both of these governments claim jurisdiction over all of Korea. Both seem to follow the most extreme aspects of the political philosophies of their backers. Thus Korea, a long-unified nation, has, on its liberation from Japan, been split by a purely geodetic line. This line is found on maps but is not evident in the geographic landscape. One may well wonder about the choice of such a line, its geographic character and its present and future function.