Download or read book The Problem of Disarmament in British Foreign Policy in the Inter-war Years (with Special Reference to the Period 1932-1934). written by Charles Quaker-Dokubo and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The issue of disarmament is the problem of the effective management of power within international society. Force cannot be removed as a factor in international relations, but it can be controlled. And a disarmament convention - an agreement to limit and perhaps reduce national armaments - can serve this control by stabilising the configuration of world power. The obstacles to the negotiation of a disarmament agreement are political rather than technical, and at the World Disarmament Conference of 1932-4, the main issue was the reconciliation of French and German claims. Germany, disarmed by the Peace Treaty of 1919 demanded "equality of rights" with other nations, while France demanded additional security guarantees before she could agree to limit her arms. The reconciliation of French and German claims was in Britain's interests because her security depended, in part at least, on a stable and peaceful continent. Yet the British Government followed a policy that was not conducive to a reconciliation. British Ministers refused to offer France security guarantees to compensate for the inevitable increase in German power accompanying a grant of equality of rights and this refusal was the major factor leading to the breakdown of the Disarmament Conference in 1934. The main reason for the refusal was that British Ministers subscribed to the putative existence of an international 'harmony of interests'. They assumed that each state had a common interest in peace and that this common interest was compatible with the pursuit of national interest, and they therefore hoped that international problems could be settled without recourse to force or threat of force. This is a delusion. 'Harmony of interest' was a very self-serving doctrine. It permitted Britain to exert a large measure of influence on the continent with very few commitments and at little cost, allowing the Government to concentrate on defending Britain's more immediate interest - the security of the Empire and the protection of her trade routes. The various disarmament schemes put forward by the Government at Geneva were based almost solely on Britain's immediate interests and made little attempt at trying to reconcile the interests of France and Germany - the main problem facing the Disarmament Conference.