Evening star., 1943-04-21
Allied Armies Viewed
As World Police
Maj. Eliot Sees Bosis'
For Enforcing Peace
Already in Being
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.

By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.
wonder If all the 80 Senators who
told the Associated Press they were op-
posed to an American commitment to
the maintenance of peace through the
use Of an international police force, had
the same idea of such force as Senator
Taft, Republican, of Ohio, apparently
held when he commented that 1t would
be as easy for an international police
force to bomb New York as Berlin.
1t seems very likely that this is so, and
may we'll account for many of the oppos-
ing votes. AS Senator Vandenberg, Re-
publican, OF Michigan, put it, Postwar
cooperation in international sanctions.
to make it impossible for military
aggression again to curse the world" is
one thing, but it is quite another If we
are to be committed to "an integrated
international constabulary in permanent
worldwide activity
think 1t is of the first Importance that
this problem of international police should
be clarified so that we shall all know
exactly what We are talking about. and,
more important, what we are not talking
about. There has been altogether too
much loose thinking and loose writing on
the subject. Not IN our time and not, in
all probability, in our children's time,
will the world see what Senator Vanden-
berg calls IAN integrated international
constabulary" composed of International
lied individuals without any national
loyalties or Affiliations, impartially po-
licing the world and striking down the
powers Of evil wherever they raise their
ugly heads.
The difficulty about the idea is to find
the race of impartial super men who are
to compose this police force. Unfortu-
nately armed forces OF any kind have to
be composed Of human beings and the
human beings we have now all belong to
one nation or another with strong feel
lngs for the lands of their respective
births. To be really effective. any such
internationalized police force would have
to be composed of robots and directed by
angels, and we have neither robots nor
Angels dVallaDle Tor the 1Ob
But we do have human beings and we
have some pretty sensible human beings,
both in this country and in the other
United Nations. Most of those human
beings are very thoroughly aware that
neither in the world community nor in
any other community can peace be pre-
served except by the controlled use of
force In the hands of a law biding ma
1ority, and under a system of checks and
balances which prevents that force from
being turned to the subversion of the
liberties which it is designed to protect.
When this war Is over there will exist
In various parts Of the world interna-
tional armed forces composed of units
belonging to the armies. navies and air
forces of the various United Nations
principally. those Of the United States,
the British Commonwealth, Russia.
China and possibly reconstructed
France. These forces. in the various
theaters Of operation. will be serving to a
very large extent under international
command, as is the case today in North
Africa and In the Southwest Pacific.
Ai'tS Will NC uSlIlS oliS hIOiIPI : WeGD-
ons and supplies; they will be controlled
and administered by staffs composed of
officers Of varying nationalities.
These forces will not be disbanded the
moment that hostilities cease They NAV
be vastly reduced in numbers as the
necessity for their remaining under arms
In full strength diminishes, but for a
long time ~ will no
considerable military establishments on
loot for the maintenance of order, the
control OF the defeated enemy and the
protection of lines of communication.
In other words when this war is over,
we shall have actually in being an in
ternational police force. and we shall
have also some sort of political and
military international ARRANGEMENTS for
the higher direction OF that police force
These things will be because they are
essential ingredients of victory; indeed
we have the beginning of them now. 1t
seems to me that it is upon these foun-
dations that we should attempt to build
cannot believe that it is very far cry
from the conditions which will actually
exist when the war is over to conditions
under which the United Nations might
come to an agreement and find the in
struments for the maintenance of peace
in the world for a considerable period
to come.
The problem is far more one of build
ing up mutual confidence and good will
amongst the peoples Of the United Ma
tions, than 1t is one of defining the pre-
else organization of the armed forces
which are to be used to keep the peace
Once the peoples of the United Nations
can find common basis for working to-
gether to that end, they will not lack the