Doug Lambert

This week in history, we recall the August 27th, 1928 signing of the treaty making war illegal: The Kellogg-Briand Pact. That treaty, still considered to be in effect on this very day, officially outlawed war!

The website U-S-History.com tells us, “Relations between the United States and France had cooled in the aftermath of World War I. A number of issues had driven the former allies apart, including: residual tensions from hard bargaining and perceived double-dealing at Versailles; the continuing effort of the U.S. to collect the full amount of war debts incurred by hard-pressed France; the embarrassment felt by France because of being assigned a lesser naval role at the Washington Conference (1921);and the recent failure, regretted by both nations, of the Geneva Conference (1927).”

“An effort was made by French foreign minister Aristide Briand to warm-up relations between the two former allies. Columbia University professor James T. Shotwell met with Briand in France and suggested that a bilateral treaty be negotiated that would outlaw war between the two nations. Briand seized this idea and presented it in an open letter to the American people.”

Go figure — even then the French acted as senseless as they do today… and college professors too! The U-S-History.com article continues: “The Coolidge government, at least initially, was not interested in having its hand forced in diplomatic matters and offered no response. A few weeks later, Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler sounded the same theme in a letter published in The New York Times. The press in New York and elsewhere began a drumbeat calling for the ‘outlawry of war.’” Even a lifetime ago, the news media and their ideological comrades in academia espoused silly, utopian notions that failed often failed to account for reality.

Then, as now, the “big media” onslaught became too much to simply ignore, despite the idea being so seemingly silly on its face. “Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg was lukewarm to the idea, but at least gave formal recognition to Briand’s proposal. Meanwhile, public sentiment continued to build. A leader in this effort was Senator William E. Borah of Idaho, who secured the support of the National Grange; its petitions supporting the proposed agreement contained more than two million signatures and increased the pressure on the government. Kellogg began to see advantages in such an agreement, but insisted that the concept be expanded to encompass many nations.” Of course he did. Two million signatures? In the Twenties, this must have been viewed as no small thing.

With that era’s version of “big media” combining with the networked organizations of the day whipping such large numbers of people into an organized frenzy all in favor of a certain specific goal, the Senate found itself faced with one of the early forerunners of the many modern special interest movements that have become so numerous and successful in today’s modern world. And then, as now, the politicians were no match — they caved.

Thus we were left with the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a treaty adopted by America that “provided for outlawing war as an ‘an instrument of national policy.’” It wasn’t all bad, however, because, as U-S-History reports, the pact had several dubious flaws or loopholes: “No enforcement mechanism was provided for changing the behavior of warring signatories. The agreement was interpreted by most of the signatories to permit “defensive” war. No expiration date was provided. No provision existed for amending the agreement was included.” And yet, “despite these shortcomings, the pact was signed in August 1928 by 15 nations. In the following months, more than 60 countries joined in this renunciation of war.”

The lack of an enforcement mechanism in the pact is amazingly similar to the end result of most UN resolutions and Democrat proposals we see today. Empty words, devoid of any real consequences, that ultimately only bind those who generally are “the good guys” (us) anyway. It’s the same as a lock you might find on a flimsy gate or door that only keeps the honest person honest. As we know from our history, when the proverbial crap hit the fan in Europe in the late Thirties, the Kellogg- Briand Pact wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

U-S-History.com concludes: “Events of the 1930s demonstrated the total inability of treaties to halt expansionist nations from making war on their neighbors, proving the skeptics to have been correct. Most damaging perhaps for the United States was that the Kellogg-Briand Pact may have induced some in positions of authority to delay action in the face of aggression, hoping in vain that the terms of the agreement would be honored.”

On his website, Dennis Kucinich writes, “The Cold War belief that peace comes through strength is as obsolete as the Edsel. In an interconnected world of trading partners afloat with nuclear weapons, war is unthinkable. The Europeans have turned away from the catastrophic wars of the last century which took over 100-million lives to embrace a new understanding of diplomacy and dialogue as well as a new understanding of patriotism. So must the United States. The world depends on it.” I’ll bet that’s what guys like him were saying in the Twenties, too. The Edsel came out in the late Fifties. Based on the history recounted above, Kucinich’s ideas were obsolete nearly three decades before the Edsel was ever even heard of…

(Doug Lambert’s column appears Thursdays. He has an opinion on almost everything. For more, visit online at www.granitegrok.com and www.gilfordgrok.com. Hear him on the radio Saturdays from 11 to 1 on 1490AM, WEMJ.)