Peace​—Will It Come by Disarmament?

“IT IS the greatest mistake to mix up disarmament with peace,” said Winston Churchill five years before the nations plunged into the second world war. “When you have peace you will have disarmament,” he added.

What a paradox! Who is going to risk disarming until peace is ensured? But how can there be real peace while weapons are stockpiled for war? It is a situation from which politicians have never found a way out.

Winston Churchill made his statement in 1934, following the windup of the Disarmament Conference convened by the League of Nations just two years earlier. The purpose of this conference, which had taken 12 years to prepare, was to prevent the rearming of Europe. People around the earth still vividly remembered the horrific slaughter of some nine million combatants during World War I, in addition to millions more wounded and a huge number of civilian casualties. Yet, disarmament never materialized. Why?

Efforts to Disarm

A policy of disarmament can be enforced but rarely effectively. For example, under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Germany was disarmed with “adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.” This was in harmony with one of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson’s proposals, later incorporated in Article 8 of the covenant of the League of Nations. But when Hitler came to power, he soon flouted the policy.

Was the United Nations more successful in establishing a sound foundation for disarmament following the second world war? No, but its lack of success was not for want of determined effort. With nuclear weapons of mass destruction now being available, though, disarmament was an issue of great urgency. “The previous contention that armaments races were economically inexpedient and led inevitably to war,” says The New Encyclopædia Britannica, “was replaced by the argument that the future use of nuclear weapons in quantity threatened civilization itself.”

A 12-nation Disarmament Commission was set up in 1952 to thwart the developing East/​West arms race. It failed to make headway, and eventually the two great powers further polarized their opposing camps. Various other agreements and treaties have been made up to the present time. Yet, the climate of mutual distrust has not permitted the complete abolition of all weapons of war. That, says The New Encyclopædia Britannica, is something “advocated by utopian thinkers.”

Counting the Cost

To disarm or not to disarm​—what costs are involved? Costs are not always reckoned in money. Employment in weapons-related industries is also of prime consideration. In many lands tax monies are used to purchase armaments, the making of which stimulates employment. So disarmament might lead to unemployment. That is why countries with heavy commitments to defense budgets shudder at the thought of complete disarmament. Such thinking is a nightmare for them rather than a Utopian dream.

Yet, we cannot ignore the vast sums of money involved in running the war machine. It is estimated that 10 percent of the value of the world’s total production is being spent on armaments. How much is that? Actual figures vary with inflation, but think of consuming £1 million ($1.54 million, U.S.) in this way every minute of the day! What priorities would you choose if you had that amount at your disposal? Famine relief? Health care? Child welfare? Ecological restoration? There is so much that could be done!

Take, for example, the “tanks to tractors” program recently announced in the U.S.S.R., where some arms factories are being changed to produce 200 types of “advanced equipment for the agro-industrial sector.” Why is that agricultural equipment desperately needed? Because, according to Britain’s Farming News, “only a third of fruit and vegetables grown on state farms reach the consumer, the rest being left to rot in the fields or perish at transit points and storehouses.”

As commendable as producing tractors instead of tanks may be, it makes headlines because it is so unusual. Moreover, its effect on total arms production is minuscule. Countless hundreds of millions of pounds, rubles, and dollars continue to be spent on armaments in a world in which “men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth,” just as Jesus Christ foretold. How can such fear be dissipated? Is complete disarmament to remain just a dream? If not, what is needed to bring it about?​—Luke 21:26.