THE PLACE OF IMAGINATION IN FOREIGN POLITICS.
WHAT are the qualities specially required by those who would rightly understand and influence our foreign policy P Without hesitation we say that imagina- tion is the quality chiefly needed. By imagination we do not mean that which is viewy, fantastic, or in the degraded sense " prophetic." What we mean by imagination is the power to enter into and under- stand the position occupied by other countries and other statesmen, the possession of a sufficient amount of the " sympathy of comprehension" to realize what their aims and aspirations are, and so to understand how to deal with them. The great danger of all who are concerned with foreign politics is " judging others by ourselves." This danger meets one at every turn. Mon will assume that other nations are in the same position, in the same stage of mental or political development, and are guided by the same motives, as is their own country. Because in certain circumstances we should do something, or refrain from doing something, they assume that other Powers which are quite differently situated and have entirely different aims will do the same—will behave, as they would say, as virtuously and as reasonably as our- selves. For example, at the present moment such persons have always on their lips such conventional questions and aflirmations as the following : " Why should we assume that the Germans are any more unfriendly to us than we are to them?" "The Germans are no doubt quite as genuinely afraid of us as we are of them." " Why should we assume Machiavellianiem in Berlin and virtuous paci- licism in London ? " " The Germans are no more anxious for war than we are," and so forth and so on. Now we venture to say that the greater part of this talk is based upon the false maxim that we ought not to assume that we are different from other people. The blunder—for we are certain it is a blunder—proceeds from lack of imagination, from want of power to put our- selves in the position of Germany. (We take the case of Germany as our example, since it is the most obvious one, but the same considerations apply to many other Powers.) We are always thinking that because we are virtuous, nobody wants any more cakes and ale. We hold that because we are satisfied with the status quo everybody else must be equally satisfied. We assume that because we hate war other people must hate it also. Because we believe the resort to arms can only be justified by the need for self-defence, we are intensely shocked at any other view of war, and insist that other nations at heart, whatever a few wicked " aristocrats " and soldiers say, mina really entertain similar views. As a matter of fact if wo have imagination enough to put ourselves in the place of Germany and to realize the German case we shall find that her attitude is absolutely and entirely different from ours, and that, whether it is a right attitude, or a moral attitude, or a wise attitude, it is, at any rate, an attitude sincerely and consistently held—not a freak of passion or unrest.
The statesman possessed of political imagination realizes, to begin with, that Germany is not, as we are, pleased with the status quo, but profoundly displeased. She feels she has enormous power, both of the military and of the com- mercial kind, and also that she is possessed of what few civilized States now possess—an increasing as well as a great population. But in spite of her tremendous power, actual and potential, she has not got what she considers the wherewithal to satisfy her great aspirations. She has not got tropical colonies, or, at any rate, not the best tropical colonies, and yet a great number of her statesmen feel that Germany can never be great without them. Next she has not got any colonial possessions which are, to use the British phrase, white men's countries—places where the over-spill of German population can live in health and vigour and bring up worthy children of the Fatherland. At present oversee, farers from Germany have to sit by other men's fires and be ruled by other men's laws. Some become Americans, some Brazilians, some sub- jects of the Argentine or Chile, while others have to live under the Union Jack, and so are lost to Germany. Germany, therefore, say her states- men—and from their point of view how can we wonder at it ?—declares that she will never be satisfied unless she has a white man's country somewhere in the world. To men in that mood hypothetical offers of tropical swamps are unavailing. Lastly, and perhaps most of all, Germany wants sea, power and its ultimate crown—the command of the sea. Madame de Steel said long ago that while thought quieted other nations it inflamed the Germans. At any rate, the Germans have dwelt upon the value of sea power long and ardently, and have come to entertain the belief that if they could, get the command of the sea they could get with it at once all they want in the way of world power and empire. They have dwelt indeed so persistently upon this matter that their military power seems sometimes to them mere dust and ashes because it is not supplemented by sea power. They feel themselves, owing to the tremendous sacrifices they have made, capable of sweeping before them any resistance offered to their power on land. In all probability they are wrong in this proud boast, but that need not concern us for the moment. All that we must realize is that they believe themselves to be possessed of this huge predominance of land power, but yet hold it to be rendered largely inoperative because they do not also possess the command of the sea.
Napoleon said truly at St. Helena that in the last resort what rendered all his conquests useless was the fact that whenever he got to a piece of water that would float a cock-boat he found the British there ready and able to bring his great designs to the ground. This may have been an exaggeration, but undoubtedly it fretted him beyond endurance and forced his policy into the direction of that struggle with Russia which ended in his ruin. He must, he felt, destroy the State which held the sea power which checked his plans for the hegemony of the world. But he could not check the power of Britain without a universal boycott of the mistress of the seas, and when it came to the point Russia would not join in the boycott. Therefore Russia must be crushed in order to crush Britain. The governing caste in Germany feels no doubt very much in the same way. But for Britain and her sea power Germany's huge military force would, they believe, give her the hegemony of the world, and give it her, as the Germans sincerely desire, without war and by peace- ful persuasion. As we have said, all seems dust and ashes to Germany because she has not also the command of the sea. Therefore she must try to get the command of the sea. And here we may say in parenthesis that German statesmen get into difficulties similar to those of our statesmen through a similar want of political imagination. They have not imagination enough to put themselves into our shoes and to see that we cannot give up the command of the sea, or, to put it in another way, that'we cannot allow any Power to acquire a greater Navy than ours without what is equivalent to national extinction. Instead, they think that we shall be sensible enough to give up the trident of the sea when we realize how determined Germany is to take it from us, and how disagreeable for us must be the struggle with a Power whose population will soon be double our own and to whose commercial development it seems impossible to put any bounds. In other words, German statesmen have not imagination enough to realize that
in the matter of sea power we have got our backs to the wall.
We might prolong our list almost indefinitely to show how different is Germany's attitude from ours, but one more point must be noted. It is the different attitude of German statesmen towards war. If we use our imagina- tions here we shall find that whereas we look upon war always as something only to be contemplated in the very last resort, and as the final means of defending ourselves from attack, but never as a means of attack, the Germans regard war and the threat of war as an instrument of policy. They entirely refuse to consider war as something so terrible
that its use must never be contemplated except for defence. On the contrary, they are taught by their chief political thinkers to regard war as a lever which can be legitimately used to obtain the fulfilment of German ambitions. The rattling of the sabre is to them a most legitimate diplo- matic move, and can, they think, be defended by the fact that the threat of war and the willingness to go to war for apparently unimportant matters often prevent war, or, rather, that drifting which ends in collision. Here, again, the German statesmen, we are convinced, have not, as a rule, sufficient imagination to understand our point
of view. They merely consider us hypocrites when our view of war is put forth. No sane man, they hold, can consider that war is only a matter of self-defence. The idea of a nation using military power to take what it
wants seems to them entirely natural.
Before we leave the subject with which we have been dealing we desire to express with all the clearness we can that in trying to put forward the German case, both as regards the status quo and as regards the use of war, we are not attempting to judge Germany or the righteousness of her attitude. All we want to do is to try to induce students of foreign politics to approach the question by understand- ing the German point of view. If they do they will cease to live in that fool's paradise which is the great danger of
Powers in our position—Powers full fed and therefore pacific, as the Germans would probably say. No doubt we
should all like to rest on our laurels, to digest what we have got, and to sleep the sleep of repletion, but unfortu- nately such pleasant siestas are not for us. If we take the trouble to use our imagination to understand the German point of view, we shall realize why this is so, and, further, that it is ridiculous for us to meet this very disagree- able fact by talking nonsense and saying that it is a cruel and wicked thing to accuse the Germans of being worse than ourselves. We accuse the Germans of nothing of the kind. We do not think them wicked, and they certainly do not think themselves wicked, in refusing to ratify the status quo and in regarding war and the threat of war as a legitimate instrument of policy,
and the sooner we clear our minds of such cant the better.
What we have got to do is to look the facts in the face and understand the German case. Further, when we have understood it we must not call the Germans names or call ourselves names because we have found out a disagree- able fact. We must juake those preparations which are required by the situation. ion. To maintain our sea power
demands great sacrifices on our part ; but those sacrifices are, after all, not half so great
unsuccessful war. And we may-lsasayasoftthheemsawciiitflhuseesrtaufinatyn that if those sacrifices are only sufficient they are practi- cally sure to prevent war. If we only make our naval strength adequate we shall stimulate the imaginative quality in the Germans sufficiently to make them realize our point of view, namely, that if we allow any Power to gain or even to challenge with any hope of success our command of the sea we shall-have committed political suicide. Once make the Germans understand this necessity—we can only do so by vigilant preparation—and they will recognize that our attitude is one which must be respected.
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