War to root out war is the cry of the pacifists today.

It is undoubtedly
paradoxical to say that peace can be established by war. But there are
people of utmost importance in the world who believe in this. General
McArthur was one of those modern heroes who felt inspired to wage war to
root out war. Churchill was another man who thought in the same strain.
Until recently the attitude of Russia also was very much like this. But since
the days of Khrushchev, the Russian attitude has considerably toned down.
At any rate, the idea of war-preparedness has taken possession of the
minds of the nations of the world and at the present moment there is a mad
race and mighty scramble going on for the building up of armaments. But
the idea is not new.

A study of the earliest literature of the world shows us that mankind has
always felt the necessity of maintaining preparedness against evil forces of
the world. The idea was present in the primitive time and was the earliest
incentive to man for making of weapons, for defense and offence against
the animals and against the savages. With the passage of time, the sense
of preparedness resulting from the instinct of self-preservation took a
moral, religious and spiritual form. It was enjoined by religion that a vigilant
preparedness must always be maintained against the temptations of flesh.
It was preparedness against the Adam in man upon whom religion had
proclaimed an all out war. Thus, man’s preparedness for war was against
the moral evil in him. Through the ages the idea became so consolidated
that it was considered heroic to wage ceaseless war against sin and moral
evil within and without. In Indian philosophy, wars were considered to be
the enemy of man. It was man’s religious duty to wage relentless war
against the domination of the mind and the senses. Rama and Krishna
were the types of such heroes exalted and glorified in ancient Indian epic
poetry. In the Vedic and the epic ages the art of war had reached such
perfection that it had become the main subject of education. It was
regarded as the bulwark of civilization. With the social and political decline
of the Hindus after the Mahabharata, the art of war became decadent, but
the idea of war preparedness against the forces of evil persistently
survived. The history of Chittore and of the Rajputs as a whole is fully
illustrative of the idea. It exists even today in the minds of the people but it
flared up in Rana Pratap, in Shivaji, in Guru Gobind Singh and among the
Sikhs generally and the revolutionary party in India that sought to wrest
freedom from the Britishers by force. Lala Lajpat Rai, Bhagat Singh and
other young martyrs and youthful patriots of India were the votaries of the
idea of war-preparedness.
In the West the same was the case. The local people always kept
themselves ready to face the invaders. The militant civilization of Rome
was always vigilant against foreign powers. When Christianity came into
the field, it insisted upon the people always to be waging a war against the
mechanizations of Satan. Earlier, Socrates and Plato had taught young
men to wrestle with their passions. Socrates once told about himself that he
was a man full of most evil tendencies, but by waging a constant war
against them and remaining ever prepared to face any challenges of evil,
he managed to keep himself pure and noble. Philosophy was his greatest
armour. As religion gave place to nationalism, the idea was transformed
into a political idea. If the nations and kings are to live in peace, they must
be very strong and always ready to fight as was the with England right from
the times of Queen Elizabeth to 1945. The principle of the balance of power
was only an extended application of the idea of war preparedness. When
George Washington uttered these words, he meant that national military
strength is the bulwark of the liberties of the nation, the surest guarantee of
peace. His reason was that politics even before the publication of
Machiavelli’s, The Prince had emphatically been so since it was a matter of
physical strength. Might is right or the Darwinian principle of natural
selection, through a hard universal struggle for existence, is the rule with
the nations. The stronger would survive. Napoleon also believed in the
same principle. In fact, every successful general believes in the same
principle. Nobody will dare threaten a nation if it is not safe to touch her as
a mastiff. It must not be forgotten that Washington emphasized that war-
preparedness is one of the most effective means of preserving peace. He
does not say that it is the only effective means. People who had blindly
advocated war in the interest of peace have ignored this important aspect.
Washington believed that there are several effective means of preserving
peace, though war-preparedness is the easiest, most direct, popular and
rightly intelligible and convincing. In our times Bertrand Russell has
definitely made out a case on behalf of scientific war-preparedness of the
highest order for the preservation of civilization. History perhaps is not yet
in a position to endorse this view because of the world is not sufficiently old
to enable history and historian to reach some conclusion. With the opening
of the atomic age, science has just started on its youthful phase and
unless some decisive event takes place, it will not be possible to make any
conclusive statement. The two world wars, however, support the view.
Peace could not be preserved because as against Germany, the other
nations were the least prepared for war. In fact, surprise and swiftness
have entered into the technique of war, necessitating vigilance and
constant war-preparedness as the essential elements of preserving peace.

Mahatma Gandhi is, however, opposed to the idea of war. Like Wordsworth
and the Buddha, he also believes that evil can never be the foundation of
good. The edifice of good is always built upon the positive foundations of
love and sympathy. Hence, it is a perverted logic to think that violence can
root out violence or war can eradicate war. War will only engender war and
violence will only embitter the springs of humanity. According to Mahatma
Gandhi, the most effective means of preserving peace is the will to remain
peaceful and loving in spite of the gravest provocations that can be
imagined by man. There may be other means as well such as cultural,
social, scientific and diplomatic. The perfect development of any of these,
or the harmony of all of these, may lead to the preservation of peace.
Today the peace of the world is threatened. But America thinks that since
the World War II came to an end, that post-war peace has been preserved
and will continue to be preserved with the help of Atomic Bomb, which is a
tangible preparedness for war. But Professor Joan and others would not be
inclined to accept this view. On the contrary, the preparedness has caused
a wide suspicion and a great race for armaments. When the volcano
erupts, it will means the end of humanity. Their view is, therefore, that,
according to the Gandhian idea, all violence in thought, word and acting
should be eradicated. The whole world should be treated as a single unit
brought together by scientific inventions, economic necessity and political
exigencies. There must be federation, not only of world States but of world
economies, and all world political ideologies. This positive move towards
peace coupled with the universal will to preserve peace can only prove
most effective in preserving peace and not in any national preparedness for
war.

Washington’s is an innocent adage. It is a piece of old wisdom. Since his