Condition of the World Today: The brief survey of the international organisations given above reveals the condition of the world today. It shows that our world has become a small and highly interdependent world. Many forces and factors have knit it into One-world of humanity, linked by ever-growing ties of industry, arts, science and culture. They have generated feelings of world unity, and cooperation which are bringing various nations and States together and promoting international relations and friendship. On the other hand, the world today is also torn by powerful forces of mutual hatred and discord among the nations, divided as they are by differences of culture, religion, national sovereignty and ideology.
Terrible weapons of mass destruction threaten to destroy the world and wipe out the human race. The burden of rearmament has become unbearable for the nations today, partly because of the tremendous cost of the modern nuclear and non-nuclear weapons and the huge war-budget of the modern States and partly because money and capital which are required for economic, cultural and educational development plans, are wasted in senseless arms race between the States preparing for their small and big wars, especially the “third world war”. Mankind is, indeed, on the horns of a dilemma.
It is threatened to be destroyed not only by the “hot war” and its nuclear weapons of mass destruction but also in times of peace due to its huge war-budgets and high cost of war-preparation, which is a colossal waste of human resources in men and materials; They also cause poverty and misery all over the world. So the world today has reached a stage where the very thought of preparing for a war has become a burden and a disaster. Hence the need is to stop arms race and disarm the nations of the world which are now armed to the teeth.
From this condition of the world today three problems emerge. They are: firstly, the need for collective security; secondly, the problem of disarmament; and thirdly, the question of world-govemment or world-State.
Collective Security
In modern times, the danger of clash of arms has increased manifold, because the contacts between nations have increased, as the world has become small. Every State is surrounded by several enemies around it, far and near. But at the same time war has become so expensive and so wasteful that no single State can fight it unaided. It is, therefore, increasingly felt that all or several States should pool their resources and armaments together to defend one and all.
Such a scheme is called collective security. It is a system of treaties and agreements by which the national security and territorial integrity of each country is guaranteed by other allied countries. The best form of collective security is when all States will join together to defend each one. Peace is said to be indivisible. Two or more nations cannot be allowed to fight each other without endangering the peace and security of all others. But as this ideal of collective security on the global scale is not practicable, collective security on a lesser scale is suggested in the form of regional security pacts of some countries.
The principle of universal collective security was first embodied in the Covenant of the League of Nations. But it did not work properly due to the narrow-minded interests of the Great Powers, like Great Britain, France and the emergence of aggressive dictatorships in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Japan. When the United Nations Organisation was set up in 1945, the principle of collective security was embodied in its Charter too. The Security Council is made the agency of ensuring collective security of the nations of the world. It requires the acceptance by individual countries of collective decisions and their willingness to carry out these decisions, if necessary, by military action.
But the scheme of collective security is the subject to one condition, namely, the principle of unanimity of the five Great Powers (U.K., U.S.A., USSR, France and China), popularly called the “veto”. If any one of these Great Powers votes against the majority decision of the Security Council to take action against an aggressor, it will not be carried out. The question can then be referred to the General Assembly, where the Veto’ docs not obtain.
Owing to the defective operation of the universal collective security in the United Nations Security Council, collective security schemes on a restricted scale have been adopted by some States. They are called regional security schemes and alliances. A regional security scheme is an attempt of the like-minded nations and States to establish a regional security system for their own interest and areas. It is on the pattern of limited collective security schemes that the NATO alliance of the Western Powers, the Warsaw Pact of the Communist countries of Eastern Europe came into being to maintain and promote their influence and interests and control other-parts of the world. With the changes in Easton Europe, the Warsaw Pact has become weak. Hence question is raised: should the NATO alliance be maintained? Only future developments can answer the question.
Disarmament
Arms and weapons of war have greatly multiplied in number and kinds in the present times. These are the old weapons, like the guns and rifles, bombs and bullets, called the conventional weapons. They kill only one or a few individuals at a time. On the other hand, there are the new weapons of mass destruction, like the atom and hydrogen bombs, rockets and missiles, capability of destroying whole cities, provinces and even nations at a single blow.
They are the nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons of mass destruction, threatening to wipe out the whole humanity from the face of the earth. The increasing armament of both conventional and unclear weapons has become one of the most important and the most difficult problems of the world today. Economically and financially armament has become an unbearable burden, and militarily a terrible danger of total destruction.
Its solution is disarmament. But the term disarmament is itself difficult to define, for it means differently to different peoples. It has at least three meanings. Firstly, it means the reduction of armament and armed forces of the various States of the world. Secondly, it means a control over armament in order to regulate the production of war-weapons and thus check the war-preparation of the various States. Thirdly, it means the complete and universal renunciation of all weapons of war and the total disbandment of all kinds of armed forces, -air, naval, military and space.
Historically speaking, the question of disarmament was first put before the world in 1918 at the end of the First World War. At that time it only meant the reduction of armament Many unsuccessful attempts were made between 1918 and 1939 to reach international agreement on the limitation of armament. But they ended in failure due to the reluctance of U.K., France, U.S.A., Japan and other Great Powers to endanger their imperialist interests, occupation of territories of other nations, colonies established elsewhere and possessions by reducing their armed forces and armament.
After the Second World War, the disarmament question assumed still greater and more urgent proportions due to the invention of atomic and hydrogen bombs and more recently by that of the inter-continental rockets and missiles and the yet little-known poison and germ weapons of the biological and chemical warfare. That is the reason why Article 26 of the United Nations Charter provides that the Security Council should draw up plans for the regulation of armament.
For this purpose, the United Nations set up in 1946 the Atomic Energy Commission for the elimination of the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes and in 1947 the Commission for Conventional Armament, “for the general regulation and reduction of armaments and armed forces.” But little progress was made in these Commissions. However, in 1951, the two Commissions were merged into the United Nations Disarmament Commission.
In fact, the question of disarmament has now become more complicated than that of mere regulation of armament. Disarmament now means not only the reduction of armament but the need for international control, supervision and inspection of such reduction of weapons. Nevertheless, no agreement except the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1971 has hitherto been entered into between the Western and Soviet bloc countries. They differ on such questions as the immediate prohibition of the production and test of nuclear weapons, the nature of international supervision and inspection, the phasing of the reduction of armed forces, etc. new variant to the meanings of disarmament is the demand for total and universal disarmament.
It means total and universal disarmament and destruction of all weapons of war, both conventional and nuclear and the total disbandment of all armed forces, leaving only police force for internal security and defence of the individual States. But such proposals are not acceptable to the Super Powers. Moreover, there is no guarantee that all nations of the world would be ready to surrender all their arms and armed forces.
Indeed, the question of disarmament is not so easy solution as it seems. It is not merely a problem of throwing the weapons of war into the sea or disbanding the armies, navies and air forces of the world. It is a question closely related to the questions of the national economies of the States, their national security and defence, and the protection and defence of the national interests, and advantages, military and other bases in foreign lands and the spheres of influences and military alliances. Furthermore, disarmament is also a problem pregnant with great social and economic consequences.
What would the nations do with the immense amounts of money which they now spend on their war-budgets”? Indeed, the national prosperity and economy of great States e.g., U.S.A., U.S.S.R, and others depends upon the huge armament factories and plants which provide employment to millions of workers, technicians, engineers and scientists and great profits to the armament manufacturers.
Where would the workers and scientists go and where from the profits come if there is a sudden total and universal disarmament? Should there be not a phased disarmament so that these millions might be absorbed in the national economy in a gradual manner? Apparently any scheme of disarmament must be gradual and phased so that it may not disrupt the national economy of the States and may not throw the world economy out of gear. But a slow and phased disarmament has its own dangers. The danger is that one or more slowly disarming States may at any moment stop the process of disarmament and start rearming once again and launch the world into an armament race once more and thereby again raise the spectre of the third world war. One solution of these dangers and difficulties is to establish a world-State.