The Value of Universal Military Training in Maintaining Peace

Abstract

It was thus logical that the fundamental assumption of the Atlantic Charter and the Dumbarton Oaks Charter should rest on the doctrine that law in our day must be supported by force, and that the same principle has been retained in the United Nations Charter, with the result that the negation of the pacifist doctrine and reliance upon force are continued as the underlying basis of the newly created international organization. The retention of this assumption is not only implied in the provisions of the United Nations Charter but also in the existence and continuance of the military understanding between the Big Five (the United States, Great Britain, Soviet Russia, China, and France) as the dominating force of the Security Council.' Force, however, is not the only prop of the new international structure. Article VIII of the Atlantic Charter promised a day when spiritual means even more than force would support international law. But that day is still in the distant future. Under the United Nations Charter, the Security Council has a definite responsibility to restrain the aggressor by force. This is not, however, the entire story. Simultaneously, the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council have the function of removing by international agreements the causes of war and aggression. If the latter organs have failed in their task before the military understanding of the Big Three or the Big Five finally disintegrates, the world will be confronted with another global conflict.