Whatever we may consider the relative importance of the Atlantic and Pacific basins to our future peace and prosperity, the gravity of the problem posed by the shrinking Pacific is evident and our responsibility for its solution inescapable. For the purposes of this discussion “Pacific” will include the satellite Bering, Okhotsk, Japan, Yellow, and China Seas, and the lands within or bordering on them.
Essentially, the problem is civilian, nevertheless the naval officer in his civilian function of taxpayer and father as well as a member of the “fire and rescue party” has a definite interest.
The problem in its entirety is so vast as to defy a comprehensive statement, nevertheless a listing of some of the more important unknown quantities may serve to indicate it.
Japan.—How to render her impotent militarily without planting the seeds of World War III in fertile ground by making her economically impotent as well. What would be the effect of such economic impotence upon us?
China.—How to participate in Chinese economy with profit to us, yet acceptable to her. An awakened China is no longer subject to exploitation.
Russia.—The existence of her only all- season ports in Asia, the possibility that she might arrange a complementary economy with China, thus eliminating us to some extent from the markets of both, and her over- the-pole proximity to us make her definitely to be considered.
Netherlands East Indies.—How to prevent the setting up of another Stevenson Cartel. By agreement or by developing independence through synthetics and substitutes.
Balance of Power.—If we must resort to balance of power, how to avoid creating a Frankenstein monster.
Australia, South America, Canada.—How to set up complementary rather than competitive economy.
Transportation.—Should it be controlled or freely competitive? Air bases.
Fisheries.—How control, in open seas, the taking of migratory fish, to avoid extermination.
The solution of the problem requires the evaluation of the “x” of future behavior and development of nations and the “y” of practicable control. But “x” is not a simple quantity but a complex one with its components in geometric relation to each other.
Suppose we divide the Pacific Area into regions, chosen somewhat arbitrarily but generally related, such as:
(1) Continental Asiatic;
(2) Insular Asiatic;
(3) Australasia including Antarctica;
(4) Oceania;
(5) North America including Canada (and North Polar Region), Central America, and Mexico, but excluding the United States;
(6) South America; and
(7) The United States.
Let us change our simile and consider each of these regions placed within a balloon of influence in which gas may be generated by economic autointoxication, starvation, decay of civilization or moral decency. The heat of population pressure and internal irritation, plus inflated ego, may expand the balloon until, directly or by reflection, it and ours touch and external friction is added. An explosive mixture needs but a small spark.
The Polar Regions and Oceania are in vacuo rather than under pressure, but they must be considered in the light of possible military or commercial air bases.
The solution.—It is evident that in order to keep the regional balloon within proper bounds we must eliminate the gas-forming elements, equalize the pressure, reduce the temperature or compress by force, though this last only increases the pressure.
This involves comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis of all contributing elements within the region and their relation to each other, and cannot be effected by tracing any one “ology” through various races. Subjective study of the anthropoid ape is of an interest purely academic unless, for example, we consider his vicarious influence upon the numbers or character of peoples, due to his harboring a flea which in turn carries the germ of a virulent disease. History is of no more practical value than water over the dam unless its study, together with physical geography, biology, psychology, indicates whether or not the behavior of peoples is cyclical.
Recently, the 20th Century Fund listed upward of 120 institutions or organizations interested in Post-War Planning, but among them appeared no Lowells to speak to the Cabots, and the Pacific was of interest to the Institute of Pacific Relations alone.
The vast amount of material lying unknown except perhaps to its author, waiting cataloging, collating, and amplifying by research, is, as far as the writer knows, undisturbed by any one adequately co-ordinating agency.
Such a comprehensive regional study should be guided by enlightened self-interest, international in scope but definitely national in essence. We have seen such well-intentioned “Peace Projects” as the League of Nations and the Kellogg-Briand Pact fail, primarily because they lacked the force essential to the control of fallible and changeable self-interpreted national needs. Since, in any future international agreements, especially in the Pacific, the burden of supplying the necessary police force will be preponderantly ours, though the control would be international, we are faced with the inacceptable possibility that our own forces might be used against us. The difficulty of co-ordinating, whether units or states, increases by geometric progression. We should, then, take upon ourselves the responsibility for the maintenance of peace in the Pacific and control our own police force. As a state cannot be at peace against another state, our efforts should be beneficial to all states.
This study, which might be termed “Geopolitics in Reverse,” should be conducted by an organization whose object is:
(a) To provide for ready reference a complete and current study of the history, physical geography, geology, politico-economics, national policies, and the ethnology and psychology of the people of the nations and lands bordering the Pacific, through research and the collating and analysis of all available existing information;
(b) Based upon such study, to predict future trends of policy and economics and, considered vis-a-vis our own, to furnish material assistance in the development of commerce and transportation and ways of eliminating or reducing international friction, thereby furthering peace; and finally
(c) To establish the probable future friendly or inimical character of the nations of the Pacific and a basis for necessary omnibian (land-sea-air) strategical, tactical, and logistical study and war plans.
General Plan
(1) Collation and Research—conducted by appropriate regional groups listed heretofore. Collection and dissemination to appropriate groups of available material to be effected by the Library Staff. It is essential that groups be given all possible freedom for exhaustive research, though guidance for emphasis upon particular points may be necessary, and that possible reactions of peoples be studied from their own viewpoint as well as our own to avoid national astigmatism.
(2) Study of Interrelations—based upon the material developed under 1, a study to determine the probable inimical or friendly character of nations, possible conflict of policy or economy, either direct or reflected, and measures short of war to eliminate possible friction or to establish balance of power.
(3) Joint military consideration of the strategy, tactics, logistics, and command relations necessary to implement and enforce policies.
Personnel and Organization
(1) It is of primary importance that the directorate be independent of political control or personal control by any individual contributor to its support and not sponsored by or affiliated with any one institution. It should be preponderantly civilian. In its formative stage and subject to revision as experience dictates, the directorate should include:
A Director—a man of national reputation and international interests, of broad and sound mind, knowledge of organization, ability as a public speaker, and without political ambitions. His primary functions should be the establishment of general policy and the “promotion” of the project. He need not necessarily devote full time to this.
A Chief of Staff—a man of world-wide interests, primarily an executive and organizer, to carry out the general policies and administration and to correlate the activities of the research groups—the General Manager. The Secretariat and Directorate clerical are his direct responsibility.
A Librarian and Collator—a man or woman of inquiring mind, experience as a collator, and wide knowledge of the existence and availability of useful material.
Staff Assistants as Necessary.
Board of Trustees.
The Directorate should be located at a central point—the San Francisco area preferably—and not at any now existent institution of learning or research.
Research Groups—each composed of a group head (full time), such scientific and technical assistants as he finds necessary, and such postgraduate students or students under scholarships as may be available. Groups to be located and research conducted normally at institutions chosen for their availability of personnel and facilities and their interest.
Military Advisors—one or more officers of the Army and Navy capable of furnishing sound counsel on military matters and their place in the research and collation.
An Analytic Council—for the study of interrelations. To include members well versed in national policies, economics, and military matters, chosen if available from the directorate, trustees, research groups, and military advisors.
Financial
In order to insure the essential freedom of policy and operation referred to heretofore, funds for the support of the organization, the subsequent joint military consideration excepted, should derive from an endowment, preferably in principal subject to investment and allocation by the Directorate.
Funds for military participation should be made available by its agencies.
Now is the time to start such an organization in order to digest the available material and indicate what must be developed by the research of well-qualified men released from the armed forces.
If a shift of part of our economy to make it complementary rather than competitive is indicated, what time could be better than that of the change-over from war-time to peace-time economy?