{"id":1156,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:58","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1156"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:58","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:58","slug":"50-the-need-of-military-unification-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15\/50-the-need-of-military-unification-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-50_The Need of Military Unification.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n\t\tCHAPTER <\/font><\/b>
\nXXIV<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\tThe Need of
\nMilitary Unification<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>
\nI<\/font><\/b>N
\nTHE process of centralisation by which all the powers of an organised community
\ncome to be centred in one sovereign governing body, –<\/span> the process which has been the most prominent characteristic
\nof national formations, – military necessity has played at the beginning the
\nlargest overt part. This necessity was both external and internal, –<\/span> external for the defence of the
\nnation against disruption or subjection from without, internal for its defence
\nagainst civil disruption and disorder. If a common administrative authority is
\nessential in order to bind together the constituent parts of a nation in the
\nforming, the first need and claim of that central authority is to have in its
\nhands the means to prevent mortal dissidence and violent strife that would
\nweaken or break up the organic formation. The monarchy or any other central
\nbody must effect this end partly by moral force and psychological suggestion.
\nFor it stands as the symbol of union and imposes respect for their visible and
\nconsecrated unity on the constituent parts, however strong may be their local,
\nracial, clan or class instincts of separatism. It embodies the united authority
\nof the nation entitled to impose its moral force as greater than the moral
\nright of the separate parts, even if they be something like sub-nations, and to
\ncommand their obedience. But in the last resort, since these motives may at any
\nmoment fail when revolting interests or sentiments are strong and passions run
\nhigh, the governing body must have always the greatest military force at its
\ncommand so as to over- awe the constituent elements and prevent the outbreak of
\na disruptive civil war. Or if the civil war or rebellion comes about, as can
\nalways happen when the monarchy or the government is identified closely with
\none of the parties in a quarrel or is itself the subject of dissatisfaction and
\nattack, then it must have so great a predominance of force behind it as to be
\nmorally sure of<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-453<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

victory in the conflict. This can only be secured to
\nthe best possible perfection, – it cannot be done absolutely except by an
\neffective disarmament, –<\/span> if the
\nwhole military authority is centred in the central body and the whole actual or
\npotential military force of the society subjected to its undivided control.<\/font>\u00a0<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>In the
\ntrend to the formation of the World-State, however subconscient, vague and
\nformless it may yet be, military necessity has begun to play the same large
\nvisible part. The peoples of the world already possess a loose and chaotic
\nunity of life in which none can any longer lead an isolated, independent and
\nself-dependent existence. Each feels in its culture, political tendencies and
\neconomic existence the influence and repercussion of events and movements in
\nother parts of the world. Each al- ready feels subtly or directly its separate
\nlife overshadowed by the life of the whole. Science, international commerce and
\nthe political and cultural penetration of Asia and Africa by the dominant West
\nhave been the agents of this great change. Even in this loose unacknowledged
\nand underlying unity the occurrence or the possibility of great wars has become
\na powerful element of disturbance to the whole fabric, a disturbance that may
\none day become mortal to the race. Even before the European war, the necessity
\nof avoiding or minimising a collision between one or two that might prove fatal
\nto all was keenly felt and various well-intentioned but feeble and blundering
\ndevices were tentatively introduced which had that end in view. Had any of
\nthese makeshifts been tolerably effective, the world might long have remained
\ncontent with its present very unideal conditions and the pressing need of a
\ncloser international organisation would not have enforced itself on the general
\nmind of the race. But the European collision rendered the indefinite
\ncontinuance of the old chaotic regime impossible. The necessity of avoiding any
\nrepetition of the catastrophe was for a time universally acknowledged. A means
\nof keeping international peace and of creating an authority which shall have
\nthe power to dispose of dangerous international questions and prevent what from
\nthe new point of view of human unity we may call civil war between the peoples
\nof mankind, had somehow or other to be found or created<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-454<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Various ideas were put forward with more or less
\nauthority as to the necessary conditions of international peace. The crudest of
\nthese was the foolish notion created by a one-sided propaganda, which imagined
\nthat the destruction of German militarism was the one thing needful and in
\nitself sufficient to secure the future peace of the world. The military power,
\nthe political and commercial ambitions of Germany and her acute sense of her
\nconfined geographical position and her encirclement by an un- friendly alliance
\nwere the immediate moral cause of this particular war; but the real cause lay
\nin the very nature of the inter- national situation and the psychology of
\nnational life. The chief feature of this psychology is the predominance and
\nworship of national egoism under the sacred name of patriotism. Every national
\nego, like every organic life, desires a double self- fulfilment, intensive and
\nextensive or expansive. The deepening and enriching of its culture, political
\nstrength and economic well- being within its borders is not felt to be
\nsufficient if there is not, without, an extension or expansion of its culture,
\nan increase of its political extent, dominion, power or influence and a
\nmasterful widening of its commercial exploitation of the world. This natural
\nand instinctive desire is not an abnormal moral depravity but the very instinct
\nof egoistic life; and what life at present is not egoistic? But it can be
\nsatisfied only to a very limited degree by peaceful and unaggressive means. And
\nwhere it feels itself hemmed in by obstacles that it thinks it can overcome,
\nopposed by barriers, encircled, dissatisfied with a share of possession and
\ndomination it considers disproportionate to its needs and its strength, or
\nwhere new possibilities of expansion open out to it in which only its strength
\ncan obtain for it its desirable portion, it is at once moved to the use of some
\nkind of force and can only be restrained by the amount of resistance it is
\nlikely to meet. If it has a weak opposition of unorganised or ill-organised
\npeoples to overcome, it will not hesitate; if it has the opposition of powerful
\nrivals to fear, it will pause, seek for alliances or watch for its moment.
\nGermany had not the monopoly of this expansive instinct and egoism; but its
\negoism was the best organised and least satisfied, the youngest, crudest,
\nhungriest, most self-confident and presumptuous, most satisfied with the self-<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-455<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

righteous brutality of its desires. The breaking of
\nGerman militarism might ease for a moment the intensity of the many- headed
\ncommercial wrestle but it cannot, by the removal of a dangerous and restless
\ncompetitor, end it. So long as any kind of militarism survives, so long as
\nfields of political or commercial aggrandisement are there and so long as
\nnational egoisms live and are held sacred and there is no final check on their
\ninherent instinct of expansion, war will be always a possibility and almost a
\nnecessity of the life of the human peoples.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Another
\nidea put forward with great authorities behind it was a league of free and
\ndemocratic nations which would keep the peace by pressure or by the use of
\nforce if need be. If less crude, the solution is not for that any more
\nsatisfactory than the other. It is an old idea, the idea Metternich put into
\npractice after the overthrow of Napoleon; only in place of a Holy Alliance of
\nmonarchs to maintain peace and monarchical order and keep down democracy, it
\nwas proposed to have a league of free – and imperial- peoples to enforce
\ndemocracy and to maintain peace. One thing is perfectly sure that the new
\nleague would go the way of the old; it would break up as soon as the interests
\nand ambitions of the constituent Powers became sufficiently disunited or a new
\nsituation arose such as was created by the violent resurgence of oppressed
\ndemocracy in 1848 or such as would be created by the inevitable future duel
\nbetween the young Titan, Socialism, and the old Olympian gods of a bourgeois-
\ndemocratic world. That conflict was already outlining its formidable shadow in
\nrevolutionary Russia, has now taken a body and cannot be very long delayed
\nthroughout Europe. For the war and its after consequences momentarily suspended
\nbut it may very well turn out to have really precipitated the advent and
\naccentuated its force. One cause or the other or both together would bring a
\ncertain dissolution. No voluntary league can be permanent in its nature. The
\nideas which supported it, change; the interests which made it possible and
\neffective become fatally modified or obsolete.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The supposition is that democracies
\nwill be less ready to go to war than monarchies; but this is true only within a
\ncertain measure. What are called democracies are bourgeois States in<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-456<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

the form either of a constitutional monarchy or a
\nmiddle-class republic. But everywhere the middle class has taken over with
\ncertain modifications the diplomatic habits, foreign policies and international
\nideas of the monarchical or aristocratic governments which preceded them.1<\/sup> 
\nThis continuity seems to have been. a natural law of the mentality of the
\nruling class. In Germany it was the aristocratic and the capitalist class
\ncombined that constituted the Pan-German party with its exaggerated and almost
\n‘insane ambition. In the new Russia the bourgeoisie during its brief rule
\nrejected the political ideas of the Czardom in internal affairs and helped to
\noverturn autocracy, but preserved its ideas in external affairs minus the
\nGerman influence and stood for the expansion of Russia and the possession of
\nConstantinople. Certainly, there is an important difference. The monarchical or
\naristocratic State is political in its mentality and seeks first of all
\nterritorial aggrandisement and political predominance or hegemony<\/span> among the nations, commercial
\naims are only a secondary preoccupation attendant on the other. In the
\nbourgeois State there is a reverse order, for it has its eye chiefly on the
\npossession of markets, the command of new fields of wealth, the formation or
\nconquest of colonies or dependencies which can be commercially and industrially
\nexploited and on political aggrandisement only as a means for this more
\ncherished object. More- over, the monarchical or aristocratic statesman turned
\nto war as almost his first expedient. As soon as he was dissatisfied with the
\nresponse to his diplomacy, he grasped at the sword or the rifle. The bourgeois
\nstatesman hesitates, calculates, gives a longer rope to diplomacy, tries to
\ngain his ends by bargainings, arrangements, peaceful pressure, demonstrations of
\npower. In the end he is ready to resort to war, but only when these expedients
\nhave failed him and only if the end seems commensurate with the means and the
\ngreat speculation of war promises a very strong chance of success and solid
\nprofit. But on the other hand, the bourgeois democratic State has developed a
\nstupendous military organisation of which the most powerful monarchs and
\naristocracies could not dream. And if this tends to delay the<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1
\n\t\t<\/font><\/sup>So
\nalso has Socialist Russia taken over from the Czars these ideas and habits with
\nvery little or no modification.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-457<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

outbreak of large wars, it tends too to make their final
\nadvent sure and their proportions enormous and nowadays incalculable and
\nimmeasurable.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>There was a
\nstrong suggestion at the time that a more truly democratic and therefore a more
\npeaceful spirit and more thoroughly democratic institutions would reign after
\nthe restoration of peace by the triumph of the liberal nations. One rule of the
\nnew international situation was to be the right of nations to dispose of their
\nown destinies and to be governed only by their free consent. The latter
\ncondition is impossible of immediate fulfilment except in Europe, and even for
\nEurope the principle is not really recognised in its total meaning or put into
\nentire practice. If it were capable of universal application, if the existing
\nrelations of peoples and the psychology of nations could be so altered as to
\nestablish it as a working principle, one of the most fertile causes of war and
\nrevolution would be removed, but all causes would not disappear. The greater
\ndemocratisation of the European peoples affords no sure guarantee. Certainly,
\ndemocracy of a certain kind, democracy reposing for its natural constitution on
\nindividual liberty would be likely to be indisposed to war except in moments of
\ngreat and universal excitement. War demands a violent concentration of all the
\nforces, a spirit of submission, a suspension of free-will, free action and of
\nthe right of criticism which is alien to the true democratic instinct. But the
\ndemocracies of the future are likely to be strongly concentrated governments in
\nwhich the principle of liberty is subordinated to the efficient life of the
\ncommunity by some form of State Socialism. A democratic State of that kind
\nmight well have even a greater power for war, might be able to put forward a
\nmore violently concentrated military organisation in the event of hostilities
\nthan even the bourgeois democracies and it is not at all certain that it would
\nbe less tempted to use its means and power. Socialism has been international
\nand pacific in its tendencies, because the necessity of preparation for war is
\nfavourable to the rule of the upper classes and because war itself is used in
\nthe interests of the governments and the capitalists; the ideas and classes it
\nrepresents are at present depressed and do not grow by the uses or share
\nvisibly in the profits of war.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-458<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

What will happen when they have hold of the government and
\nits temptations and opportunities has to be seen but can easily be forecast.
\nThe possession of power is the great test of all idealisms and as yet there
\nhave been none religious or secular which have withstood it or escaped
\ndiminution and corruption.<\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/font><\/span>To rely upon the common consent of
\nconflicting national egoisms for the preservation of peace between the nations is
\nto rely upon a logical contradiction. A practical improbability which, if we
\ncan judge by reason and experience, amounts to an impossibility, can hardly be
\na sound foundation for the building of the future. A League of Peace can only
\nprevent armed strife for a time. A system of enforced arbitration, even with
\nthe threat of a large armed combination against the offender, may minimise the
\nchance of war and may absolutely forbid it to the smaller or weaker nations;
\nbut a great nation which sees a chance of making itself the centre of a strong
\ncombination of peoples interested in upsetting the settled order of things for
\ntheir own benefit, might always choose to take the risks of the adventure in
\nthe hope of snatching advantages which in its estimation out- weighed the
\nrisks.1<\/sup> Moreover, in times of great
\nupheaval and movement when large ideas, enormous interests and inflamed
\npassions divide the peoples of the world, the whole system would be likely to
\nbreak to pieces and the very elements of its efficacy would cease to exist. Any
\ntentative and imperfect device would be bound before long to disclose its
\ninefficacy and the attempt at a deliberate organisation of international life
\nwould have to be abandoned and the work left to be wrought out confusedly by
\nthe force of events. The creation of a real, efficient and powerful authority
\nwhich would stand for the general sense and the general power of mankind in its
\ncollective life and spirit and would be something more than a bundle of
\nvigorously separate States loosely tied together by the frail bond of a
\nviolable moral agreement is the only effective step possible on this path.
\nWhether such an authority can really be created by agreement, whether it must
\nnot rather create itself partly by the growth<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1
\n\t\t<\/font><\/sup>
\n\t\tThe subsequent history of the League of Nations, which had not been
\n\t\tformed at the time of writing, has amply proved the inefficacy of these
\n\t\tdevices<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-459<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

of ideas, but still more by the shock of forces, is a
\nquestion to which the future alone can answer.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>An authority
\nof this nature would have to command the psychological assent of mankind,
\nexercise a moral force upon the nations greater than that of their own national
\nauthority and compel more readily their obedience under all normal
\ncircumstances. It would have not only to be a symbol and a centre of the unity
\nof the race but make itself constantly serviceable to the world by assuring the
\neffective maintenance and development of large common interests and benefits
\nwhich would out- weigh all separate national interests and satisfy entirely the
\nsense of need that had brought it into existence. It must help more and more to
\nfix the growing sense of a common humanity and a common life in which the sharp
\ndivisions which separate country from country, race from race, colour from
\ncolour, continent from continent would gradually lose their force and undergo a
\nprogressive effacement. Given these conditions, it would develop a moral
\nauthority which would enable it to pursue with less and less opposition and
\nfriction the unification of mankind. The nature of the psychological assent it
\nsecured from the beginning would depend largely on its constitution and
\ncharacter and would in its turn determine both the nature and power of the
\nmoral authority it could exercise on the earth’s peoples. If its constitution
\nand character were such as to conciliate the sentiment and interest in its
\nmaintenance the active support of all or most of the different sections of
\nmankind or at least those whose sentiment and support counted powerfully and to
\nrepresent the leading political, social, cultural ideas and interests of the
\ntime, it would have the maximum of psychological assent and moral authority and
\nits way would be comparatively smooth. If defective in these respects, it would
\nhave to make up the deficiency by a greater concentration and show of military
\nforce at its back and by extraordinary and striking services to the general
\nlife, culture and development of the human race such as assured for the Roman
\nimperial authority the long and general assent of the Mediterranean and Western
\npeoples to the subjection and the obliteration of their national existence.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But in
\neither case the possession and concentration of<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-460<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

military power would be for long the first condition of
\nits security, and the effectiveness of its own control and this possession
\nwould have to be, as soon as possible, a sole possession. , It is difficult at
\npresent to foresee the consent of the nations of the world to their own total
\ndisarmament. For so long as strong national egoisms of any kind remained and
\nalong with them mutual distrust, the nations would not sacrifice their
\npossession of an armed force on which they could rely for self-defence if their
\ninterests or at least those that they considered essential to their prosperity
\nand their existence, came to be threatened. Any distrust of the assured
\nimpartiality of the international government would operate in the same
\ndirection. Yet such a disarmament would be essential to the assured cessation
\nof war – in the absence of some great and radical psychological and moral
\nchange. If national armies exist, the possibility, even the certainty of war
\nwill exist along with them. However small they might be made in times of peace,
\nand international authority, even with a military force of its own behind it,
\nwould be in the position of the feudal king never quite sure of his effective
\ncontrol over his vassals. The international authority must hold under its
\ncommand the sole trained military force in the world for the policing of the
\nnations and also – otherwise the monopoly would be ineffective –<\/span> the sole disposal of the means of
\nmanufacturing arms and implements of war. National and private munition
\nfactories and arms factories must disappear. National armies must become like
\nthe old baronial armies a memory of past and dead ages.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This
\nconsummation would mark definitely the creation of a World-State in place of
\nthe present international conditions.
\nFor it can be brought into truly effective existence only if the international
\nauthority became, not merely the arbiter of disputes, but the source of law and
\nthe final power behind their execution. For the execution of its decrees
\nagainst recalcitrant countries or classes, for the prevention of all kinds of
\nstrife not merely political but commercial, industrial and others or at least
\nof their decision by any other ways than a peaceful resort to law and
\narbitration, for the suppression of any attempt at violent change and
\nrevolution, the Wodd-State, even at its<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-461<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

strongest, would still need the concentration of all
\nforce in its own hands. While man remains what he is, force, in spite of all
\nidealisms and generous pacific hopes, must remain the ultimate arbiter and
\ngovernor of his life, and its possessor the real ruler. Force may veil its
\ncrude presence at ordinary times and take only mild and civilised forms, –<\/span> mild in comparison, for are not the
\njail and the executioner still the two great pillars of the social order? –<\/span> but it is there silently upholding
\nthe specious appearances of our civilisation and ready to intervene, when- ever
\ncalled upon, in the workings of the fairer but still feebler gods of the social
\ncosmos. Diffused force fulfils the free workings of Nature and is the servant
\nof life but also of discord and struggle; concentrated, it becomes the
\nguarantee of organisation and the bond of order.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>Page-462<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XXIV The Need of Military Unification   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IN THE process of centralisation by which all the powers of an organised community come to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","wpcat-25-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}