{"id":3151,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3151"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","slug":"26-the-need-of-military-unification-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-ideal-of-human-unity\/26-the-need-of-military-unification-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-26_The Need of Military Unification.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\n
\nCHAPTER XIV <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE NEED OF MILITARY UNIFICATION<\/b><\/font>
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nI<\/font>N<\/font>
\nTHE<\/font> process of centralisation by which all the powers
\nof an organised community come to be centred in one governing
\nbody\u2014the process which has been the most prominent characteristic of national formations,\u2014military necessity has played at
\nthe beginning the largest overt part. This necessity was both
\nexternal and internal,\u2014external for the defence of the nation
\nagainst disruption or subjection from without, internal for its defence against
\ncivil disruption and disorder. If a common administrative authority is essential in order to bind together the
\nconstituent parts of a nation in the forming, the first need and
\nclaim of that central authority is to have in its hands the means
\nto prevent mortal dissidence and violent strife that would
\nweaken or break up the organic formation. The monarchy or
\nany other central body must effect this end partly by moral force
\nand psychological suggestion. For it stands as the symbol of union
\nand imposes respect for their visible and consecrated unity on
\nthe constituent parts, however strong may be their local, racial,
\nclan or class instincts of separatism. It embodies the united
\nauthority of the nation entitled to impose its moral force as
\ngreater than the moral right of the separate parts, even if they
\nbe something like sub-nations, and to command their obedience. But in the last resort, since these motives may at any moment
\nrail when revolting interests or sentiments are strong and passions run high, the governing body must have always the greatest
\nMilitary force at its command so as to overawe the constituent <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-217 <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nelements and prevent the outbreak of a disruptive civil war. Or
\nif the civil war or rebellion comes about, as can always happen
\nwhen the monarchy or the government is identified closely -with
\none of the parties in a quarrel or is itself the subject of dissatisfaction and attack, then it must have so great a predominance of
\nforce behind it as to be morally sure of victory in the conflict.
\nThis can only be secured to the best possible perfection,\u2014it cannot be done absolutely except by an effective disarmament,\u2014if
\nthe whole military authority is centred in the central body and
\nthe whole actual or potential military force of the society subjected to its undivided control. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn the trend to the formation of the World-State, however
\nsubconscient, vague and formless it may yet be, military necessity has begun to play the same large visible part. The peoples
\nof the world already possess a loose and chaotic unity of life, in
\nwhich none can any longer lead an isolated, independent and
\nself-dependent existence. Each feels in its culture, political tendencies, and economic existence the influence and repercussion
\nof events and movements in other parts of the world. Each already feels subtly or directly its separate life overshadowed by
\nthe life of the whole. Science, international commerce and the
\npolitical and cultural penetration of Asia and Africa by the dominant West have been the agents of this great change. Even in
\nthis loose unacknowledged and underlying unity the occurrence
\nor the possibility of great wars has become a powerful element of
\ndisturbance to the whole fabric, a disturbance that might one day
\nbecome mortal to the race. Even before the European war, the
\nnecessity of avoiding or minimising a collision between one or
\ntwo that might prove fatal to all was keenly felt and various
\nwell-intentioned but feeble and blundering devices were tentatively introduced which had that end in view. Had any of these
\nmakeshifts been tolerably effective, the world might long have
\nremained content with its present very unideal conditions and
\nthe pressing need of a closer international organisation would
\nnot have enforced itself on the general mind of the race. But the
\nEuropean collision rendered the indefinite continuance of the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-218 <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

old chaotic regime impossible. The necessity of avoiding any repetition of the catastrophe was for a time universally acknowledged. A means of keeping international peace and of creating
\nan authority which shall have the power to dispose of dangerous
\ninternational questions and prevent what from the new point of
\nview 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

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nVarious ideas were put forward with more or less authority
\nas to the necessary conditions of international peace. The crudest
\nof these was the foolish notion created by a one-sided propaganda, which imagined that the destruction of German militarism
\nwas the one thing needful and in itself sufficient to secure the
\nfuture peace of the world. The military power, the political and
\ncommercial ambitions of Germany and her acute sense of her
\nconfined geographical position and her encirclement by an unfriendly alliance were the immediate moral cause of this particular war; but the real cause lay in the very nature of the
\ninternational situation and the psychology of national life. The
\nchief feature of this psychology is the predominance and worship of national egoism under the sacred name of patriotism.
\nEvery national ego, like every organic life, desires a double self-fulfilment, intensive and extensive or expansive. The deepening
\nand enriching of its culture, political strength and economic-well-being within its borders is not felt to be sufficient if there is
\nnot, without, an extension or expansion of its culture, an increase of its political extent, dominion, power or influence and a
\nmasterful widening of its commercial exploitation of the world.
\nThis natural and instinctive desire is not an abnormal moral
\ndepravity but the very instinct of egoistic life; and what life at
\npresent is not egoistic? But it can be satisfied only to a very limited degree by peaceful and unaggressive means. And where it
\nfeels itself hemmed in by obstacles that it thinks it can overcome,
\nopposed by barriers, encircled, dissatisfied with a share of possession and domination it considers disproportionate to its needs
\nand its strength, or where new possibilities of expansion open
\nout to it in which only its strength can obtain for it its desirable <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-219 <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nportion, it is at once moved to the use of some kind of force and
\ncan only be restrained by the amount of resistance it is likely to
\nmeet. If it has a weak opposition of unorganised or ill-organised
\npeoples to overcome, it will not hesitate; if it has the opposition
\nof powerful rivals to fear, it will pause, seek for alliance or watch
\nfor its moment. Germany had not the monopoly of this expansive
\ninstinct and egoism; but its egoism was the best organised and
\nleast satisfied, the youngest, crudest, hungriest, most self-confident and presumptuous, most satisfied with the self-righteous
\nbrutality of its desires. The breaking of German militarism might
\nease for a moment the intensity of the many-headed commercial
\nwrestle but it cannot, by the removal of a dangerous and restless
\ncompetitor, end it. So long as any kind of militarism survives, so
\nlong as fields of political or commercial aggrandisement are there,
\nand so long as national egoisms live and are held sacred and there
\nis no final check on their inherent instinct of expansion, war
\nwill be always a possibility and almost a necessity of the life of
\nthe human peoples. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAnother idea put forward with great authority behind it
\nwas a league of free and democratic nations which would keep
\nthe peace by pressure or by the use of force if need be. If less
\ncrude, the solution is not for that any more satisfactory than the
\nother. It is an old idea, the idea Metternich put into practice
\nafter the overthrow of Napoleon; only in place of a Holy Alliance of monarchs to maintain peace and monarchical order and
\nkeep down democracy, it was proposed to have a league of free\u2014and imperial\u2014peoples to enforce democracy and to maintain
\npeace. One thing is perfectly sure that the new league would
\ngo 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 situation arose such as was created by the violent
\nresurgence of oppressed democracy in 1848 or such as would be
\ncreated by the inevitable future duel between the young Titan,
\nSocialism, and the old Olympian gods of a bourgeois-democratic
\nworld. That conflict was already outlining its formidable shadow
\nin revolutionary Russia, has now taken a body and cannot be <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-220 <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nvery long delayed throughout Europe. For the war and its after
\nconsequences momentarily suspended\u2014but it may very well mm
\nout to have really precipitated\u2014the advent and accentuated its
\nforce. One cause or the other or both together would bring a certain dissolution. No voluntary league can be permanent in its
\nnature. The ideas which supported it, change; the interests
\nwhich made it possible and effective become fatally modified
\n<\/b>or
\n<\/b>obsolete. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe supposition is that democracies will be less ready to go
\nto war than monarchies; but this is true only within a certain
\nmeasure. What are called democracies are bourgeois States in the
\nform either of a constitutional monarchy or a middle-class republic. But everywhere the middle class has taken over with certain
\nmodifications the diplomatic habits, foreign policies and international ideas of the monarchical or aristocratic governments
\nwhich preceded them.* This continuity seems to have been a
\nnatural law of the mentality of the ruling class. In Germany it
\nwas the aristocratic and the capitalist class combined that constituted the Pan-German party with its exaggerated and almost
\ninsane ambition. In the new Russia the bourgeoisie during its
\nbrief rule rejected the political ideas of the Czardom in internal
\naffairs and helped to overturn autocracy; but preserved its ideas
\nin external affairs minus the German influence and stood for the
\nexpansion of Russia and the possession of Constantinople. 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 among the nations, commercial aims are only a secondary
\npreoccupation attendant on the other. In the bourgeois State
\nthere is a reverse order, for it has its eye chiefly on the possession
\nof markets, the command of new fields of wealth, the formation
\nor conquest of colonies or dependencies which can be commercially and industrially exploited, and on political aggrandisement
\nonly as a means for this more cherished object. Moreover the <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* So also has Socialist Russia taken over from the Czars these ideas and
\nhabits with very little or no modification. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-221 <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nmonarchical or aristocratic statesman turned to war as almost his
\nfirst expedient. As soon as he was dissatisfied with the response
\nto his diplomacy, he grasped at the sword or the rifle. The bourgeois statesman hesitates, calculates, gives a longer rope to diplomacy, tries to gain his ends by bargainings, arrangements,
\npeaceful pressure, demonstrations of power. In the end he is
\nready to resort to war, but only when these expedients have
\nfailed him and only if the end seems commensurate with the
\nmeans and the great speculation of war promises a very strong
\nchance of success and solid profit. But on the other hand, the
\nbourgeois democratic State has developed a stupendous military
\norganisation of which the most powerful monarchs and aristocracies could not dream. And if this tends to delay the outbreak of
\nlarge wars, it tends too to make their final advent and their proportions enormous and nowadays incalculable and immeasurable. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThere was a strong suggestion at the time that a more truly
\ndemocratic and therefore a more peaceful spirit and more thoroughly democratic institutions would reign after the restoration
\nof peace by the triumph of the liberal nations. One rule of the
\nnew international situation was to be the right of nations to
\ndispose of their own destinies and to be governed only by their
\nfree consent. The latter condition is impossible of immediate
\nfulfilment except in Europe, and even for Europe the principle
\nis not really recognised in its total meaning or put into entire
\npractice. If it were capable of universal application, if the existing relations of peoples and the psychology of nations could be
\nso altered as to establish it as a working principle, one of the most
\nfertile causes of war and revolution would be removed, but all
\ncauses would not disappear. The greater democratisation of the
\nEuropean peoples affords no sure guarantee. Certainly, democracy of a certain kind, democracy reposing for its natural constitution on individual liberty would be likely to be indisposed to
\nwar except in moments of great and universal excitement. War
\ndemands a violent concentration of all the forces, a spirit or <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-222 <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nsubmission, a suspension of free will, free action and of the right
\nof criticism which is alien to the true democratic instinct. But
\nthe democracies of the future are likely to be strongly concentrated governments in which the principle of liberty is subordinated to the efficient life of the community by some form of
\nState socialism. A democratic state of that kind might well have
\neven a greater power for war, might be able to put forward a more
\nviolently concentrated military organisation in event of hostilities than even the bourgeois democracies; and it is not at all
\ncertain that it would be less tempted to use its means and power.
\nSocialism has been international and pacific in its tendencies,
\nbecause the necessity of preparation for war is favourable to the
\nrule of the upper classes and because war itself is used in the
\ninterests of the governments and the capitalists; the ideas and
\nclasses it represents are at present depressed and do not grow by
\nthe uses or share visibly in the profits of war. What will happen
\nwhen they have hold of the government and its temptations and
\nopportunities has to be seen but can easily be forecast. The 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
\nescaped diminution and corruption. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nTo rely upon the common consent of conflicting national
\negoisms for the preservation of peace between the nations is
\nto rely upon a logical contradiction. A practical improbability
\nwhich, if we can judge by reason and experience amounts to an
\nimpossibility, can hardly be a sound foundation for the building
\nof the future. A League of Peace can only prevent armed strife
\nfor a time. A system of enforced arbitration even with the threat
\nof a large armed combination against the offender may minimise
\nthe chance of war and may absolutely forbid it to the smaller or
\nweaker nations; but a great nation which sees a chance of making
\nitself the centre of a strong combination of peoples interested in
\nupsetting the settled order of things for their own benefit, might
\nalways choose to take the risks of the adventure in the hope of
\nsnatching advantages which in its estimation outweighed the <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-223 <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nrisks.* Moreover, in times of great upheaval and movement,
\nwhen large ideas, enormous interests and inflamed passions divide the peoples of the world, the whole system would be likely
\nto break to pieces and the very elements of its efficacy would
\ncease to exist. Any tentative and imperfect device would be
\nbound before long to disclose its inefficacy, and the attempt at a
\ndeliberate organisation of international life would have to be
\nabandoned and the work left to be wrought out confusedly by
\nthe force of events. The creation of a real, efficient and powerful
\nauthority which would stand for the general sense and the general power of mankind in its collective life and spirit and would
\nbe something more than a bundle of vigourously separate States
\nloosely tied together by the frail bond of a violable moral agreement is the only effective step possible on this path. Whether
\nsuch an authority can really be created by agreement, whether
\nit must not rather create itself partly by the growth of ideas,
\nbut still more by the shock of forces, is a question to which
\nthe future alone can answer. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nAn authority of this nature would have to command the
\npsychological assent of mankind, exercise a moral force upon the
\nnations greater than that of their own national authority and
\ncompel more readily their obedience under all normal circumstances. It would have not only to be a symbol and a centre of
\nthe unity of the race, but make itself constantly serviceable to
\nthe world by assuring the effective maintenance and development of large common interests and benefits which would outweigh all separate national interests and satisfy entirely the
\nsense of the need that had brought it into existence. It must help
\nmore and more to fix the growing sense of a common humanity
\nand a common life in which the sharp divisions which separate
\ncountry from country, race from race, colour from colour, continent from continent would gradually lose their force and
\nundergo a progressive effacement. Given these conditions, it
\nwould develop a moral authority which would enable it to pursue<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* The subsequent history of the League of Nations which had not been
\nformed at the time of writing has amply proved the inefficacy of these devices<\/font>. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-224 <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwith less and less opposition and friction the unification of
\nmankind. The nature of the psychological assent it secured from
\nthe beginning would depend largely on its constitution and character and would, in its turn, determine both the nature and power
\nof the moral authority it could exercise on the earth’s peoples. If
\nits constitution and character were such as to conciliate the sentiment and interest in its maintenance the active support of all or
\nmost of the different sections of mankind or at least those whose
\nsentiment and support counted powerfully and to represent the
\nleading political, social, cultural ideas and interests of the time,
\nit would have the maximum of psychological assent and moral
\nauthority and its way would be comparatively smooth. If defective in these respects, it would have to make up the deficiency by
\na greater concentration and show of military force at its back
\nand by extraordinary and striking services to the general life, culture and development of the human race such as assured for
\nthe Roman Imperial authority the long and general assent of the
\nMediterranean and Western peoples to the subjection and the
\nobliteration of their national existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut in either case the possession and concentration of military power would be for long the first condition of its security
\nand the effectiveness of its own control and this possession
\nwould have to be, as soon as possible, a sole possession. It is
\ndifficult at present to foresee the consent of the nations of the
\nworld to their own total disarmament. For so long as strong national egoisms of any kind remained and along with them mutual
\ndistrust, the nations would not sacrifice their possession of an
\narmed force on which they could rely for self-defence if their
\ninterests or at least those that they considered essential to their
\nprosperity and their existence, came to be threatened. Any distrust of the assured impartiality of the international government
\nWould operate in the same direction. Yet such a disarmament
\nWould be essential to the assured cessation of war\u2014in the absence of some great and radical psychological and moral change.
\nIf national armies exist, the possibility, even the certainty of war
\nwill exist along with them. However small they might be made <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-225 <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nin times of peace, an international authority, even with a military force of its own behind it, would be in the position of the
\nfeudal king never quite sure of his effective control over his
\nvassals. The international authority must hold under its command the sole trained military force in the world for the policing
\nof the nations and also\u2014otherwise the monopoly would be ineffective\u2014the sole disposal of the means of manufacturing arms
\nand implements of war. National and private munition factories
\nand arms factories must disappear. National armies must become
\nlike the old baronial armies a memory of past and dead ages. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis consummation would mark definitely the creation of a
\nWorld-State in place of the present international conditions. For
\nit can be brought into truly effective existence only if the international authority became, not merely the arbiter of disputes
\nbut the source of law and the final power behind their execution.
\nFor the execution of its decrees against recalcitrant countries or
\nclasses, for the prevention of all kinds of strife not merely political but commercial, industrial and others or at least of their
\ndecision by any other ways than a peaceful resort to law and
\narbitration, for the suppression of any attempt at violent change
\nand revolution the World-State, even at its strongest, would still
\nneed the concentration of all force in its own hands. While man
\nremains what he is, force in spite of all idealisms and generous
\npacific hopes must remain the ultimate arbiter and governor of
\nhis life and its possessor the real ruler. Force may veil its crude
\npresence at ordinary times and take only mild and civilised
\nforms,\u2014mild in comparison, for are not the jail and the executioner still the two great pillars of the social order?\u2014but it is there
\nsilently upholding the specious appearances of our civilisation
\nand ready to intervene, whenever called upon, in the workings
\nof the fairer but still feebler gods of the social cosmos. Diffused
\nforce fulfils the free workings of Nature and is the servant of lire
\nbut also of discord and struggle; concentrated, it becomes the
\nguarantee of organisation and the bond of order. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-226 <\/font>
\n<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XIV   THE NEED OF MILITARY UNIFICATION   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":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-ideal-of-human-unity","wpcat-63-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3151","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=3151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}