Notions of Neutralities 9781498582261, 1498582265, 9781498582285, 1498582281

Table of contents :
Preface
Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin

Introduction
Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin


PART I: NEUTRALITY DISCOURSE 1

1 A Threefold Struggle over Neutrality: The American Experience in the 1930s
Stephen C. Neff

2 Changing Concepts and Understandings of Neutrality in the Cold War: The Neutral and Non-Aligned States (N+N)
Oliver Bange

3 “Neutrality, Our Most Precious Treasure, Keeps War Far Away”: Narratives of Dutch Neutrality, 1840–1940
Wim Klinkert


PART II: NEUTRALITIES AS STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS 65

4 The Forgotten History of Maritime Neutrality, 1500–1800
Leos Müller

5 The British View of Neutrality in 1872
Elizabeth Chadwick

6 Neutrality and Wartime Japan
Pascal Lottaz


PART III: NEUTRALITIES IN USE

7 “Private Neutrality”: The Bank for International Settlements
Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin

8 Neutrality as an Instrument of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1945–53
Peter Ruggenthaler

9 Neutrality: Past Lessons & Visions: Providing Peace, Security, and Justice in the Twenty-First Century
Herbert R. Reginbogin


PART IV: NEUTRALITY AS FOREIGN POLICY

10 The Vatican, World War II, and Asia: Lessons of Neutral Diplomacy
Pascal Lottaz and Florentino Rodao

11 The Evolution of Yugoslav Non-alignment: How Yugoslavia Abandoned its Opposition to Neutrality
Tvrtko Jakovina

12 Politics of Neutrality in the Post-Soviet Space: A Comparison of Concepts, Practices, and Outcomes of Neutrality in Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine 1990–2015 267 David X. Noack


Conclusion
Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin

Index

About the Contributors

Citation preview

Notions of Neutralities

Notions of Neutralities Edited by Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available ISBN 978-1-4985-8226-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-4985-8227-8 (electronic) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Prefacevii Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin Introductionix Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin PART I: NEUTRALITY DISCOURSE 1 A Threefold Struggle over Neutrality: The American Experience in the 1930s Stephen C. Neff 2 Changing Concepts and Understandings of Neutrality in the Cold War: The Neutral and Non-Aligned States (N+N) Oliver Bange 3 “Neutrality, Our Most Precious Treasure, Keeps War Far Away”: Narratives of Dutch Neutrality, 1840–1940 Wim Klinkert

1 3

29

41

PART II: NEUTRALITIES AS STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS

65

4 The Forgotten History of Maritime Neutrality, 1500–1800 Leos Müller

67

5 The British View of Neutrality in 1872 Elizabeth Chadwick

87

v

vi

Contents

6 Neutrality and Wartime Japan Pascal Lottaz PART III: NEUTRALITIES IN USE

113 135

7 “Private Neutrality”: The Bank for International Settlements137 Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin 8 Neutrality as an Instrument of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1945–53 Peter Ruggenthaler

161

9 Neutrality: Past Lessons & Visions: Providing Peace, Security, and Justice in the Twenty-First Century Herbert R. Reginbogin

185

PART IV: NEUTRALITY AS FOREIGN POLICY

213

10 The Vatican, World War II, and Asia: Lessons of Neutral Diplomacy Pascal Lottaz and Florentino Rodao

215

11 The Evolution of Yugoslav Non-alignment: How Yugoslavia Abandoned its Opposition to Neutrality Tvrtko Jakovina

239

12 Politics of Neutrality in the Post-Soviet Space: A Comparison of Concepts, Practices, and Outcomes of Neutrality in Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine 1990–2015 David X. Noack

267

Conclusion289 Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin Index297 About the Contributors

307

Preface

Most of the contributions in this volume were presented at the “2017 Neutrality Conference—Lessons from the Past and Visions for the 21st Century,” held at the University of Complutense in Madrid, Spain. It would not have been possible to gather so many different disciplinary approaches surrounding the topic of neutrality, without their scholarship and highly engaged and active participation. We owe tremendous thanks to all of them. Also, special thanks to Kenwin Maung, who did a masterful work in proofreading the manuscript and providing valuable feedback. The editors want to thank Lexington Press Lexington Books for their interest in publishing this volume. Special thanks go to Brian Hill and Eric Kuntzman, the acquisition editors, for their continued feedback and assistance. At the same time, we would like to thank each other for the dedicated collaboration and endless exchange of emails and telephone conversations between Tokyo and Washington, D.C., which turned these manuscripts into a book in a relatively short period. Pascal Lottaz dedicates this book to his parents, Susanne and Raphael, and his brother, Alexander, the family without whom his work would not have been possible. Herbert Reginbogin dedicates this book, once again to his wife, Karin, and son, Michael, both daily reminders of today and the future of tomorrow. June 2018 Pascal Lottaz and Herbert Reginbogin

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Introduction Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin

Neutrality, at its core, is the story about conflicts and maintaining peace. It is the idea that war can be constrained through good practices, laws, and moderation. It is also an ancient rule of thumb to avert the carnage, suffering, pain, and death of the battlefields and to escape the bloody horrors of war, either by the refusal to join them or—better—by the contribution to international peace and security. However, what exactly does that mean? Moreover, does it work—indeed, has it ever worked? Has not Thucydides already proven, more than two millennia ago in respect to the neutral Melians that, in the end, “the weak suffer what they must”1 and neutrality is only for the weak because the strong have the power to shape the world to their will? One thing is sure; if Thucydides was right and neutrality is a useless concept, then it is one of the most successful useless concepts in the history of international relations. It has been practiced for thousands of years—again and again—in the most varied circumstances and a wealth of different shapes, from the neutralism of the Melians to the Non-Alignment of the bloc-free states of the Cold War. In the process, it has been hailed by some and scorned by others, but it has never vanished. So, what is this “neutrality” and why is it still around? THE DIMENSIONS OF NEUTRALITY It is important to distinguish the different dimensions that neutrality has in order not to get lost in a discussion which, as will be seen, is highly diverse. On the most fundamental level, neutrality is about morals—good and evil, right and wrong, life and death. The question if it is ethically permissible to remain outside a conflict has largely to do with the way one thinks about conflict itself. If it is perceived as something all-encompassing, something that ix

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is inescapable, forcing a moral decision, either because the cause is “holy” or “just” or the adversary is “diabolic” or “criminal” then the conclusion is near that not supporting the good side is equivalent to lending support to the evil side. That is the “Just War” rationale which is itself ancient, and an “EverGreen”—just like neutrality. It is the “you-are-either-with-us-or-against-us” approach to conflicts and war. There is naturally little space for the concept of neutrality under that reasoning. However, on the other side, there is a second fundamental moral approach to war and peace which has resulted in far more conducive theoretical soil for neutrality; the codification of war—that is, International Law. In respect to conflicts, its overarching goal is the “taming of war” through the creation of rules for the behavior of belligerents and their combatants. Since Hugo Grotius’ initial steps toward a legal understanding of the rights and duties of warfare,2 there have been many philosophers and statesmen who followed the idea of creating a legal way for states to go to war with each other, while restraining the devastation of the operational side of warfare. Especially after the wreckage of the Napoleonic Wars, which left millions dead and large parts of Europe in ruins, International Law on the “Dos’ and ‘Don’ts” of legitimate belligerency was created through a network of multilateral treaties and exegetic interpretations of customary international law. Under this moral standpoint, natural law argumentation has given support to those who viewed war and peace not in ethical terms but as matters of fact. Carl von Clausewitz immortalized the approach through his famous statement that “war is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”3 Belligerency, in this conception, is the right of sovereign states but can only be lawfully exercised when keeping to the rules that international society jointly agreed upon. Attacking civilians, the use of poisonous gas, targeting of medical staff or killing Prisoners of War are, under these standards, illegal acts that no belligerent under any circumstance had the right to use. In the same vein, the “International Law approach” to warfare has provided a rich argumentative basis for those who wanted to assert the right of states to remain uninvolved when others were at war—whatever may be the reason. Much of the debate about neutrality in the past, and in this volume, rests on the fundamental premise that there is a moral and a legal space for those who choose not to take sides. Beyond the ethical justification of neutrality, there are other arguments that the concept is, in fact, an essential tool in international relations to maintain peace and stability not only within the borders of a neutral state but in the international system in general. This is where the discussion leaves the realm of morality and enters a next dimension—statecraft and geopolitics. In its essence, the issue was most pointedly expressed by Swedish politician and diplomat Gunnar Hägglöf, who, explaining the Finish Winter War against the U.S.S.R., said “[w]hen the Finish delegates met Stalin ( . . . ) the master of All Russians announced: ‘I am sorry, gentlemen, we cannot do anything

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about geography.’ Let us repeat this truism, that geography, geography in its strategic sense, is the basis of the foreign policy of a country, ( . . . ).”4 It is in this crude, almost universal meaning, that neutrality as a deliberate foreign policy choice matters to world politics because those who are committed not to serve either side in conflict take a third role, they become buffers—places that take up physical space but are not under control of either belligerent. They are thereby threats and opportunities at the same time to the purposes of all parties but in forms different from the central conflicts. They figure as pieces on the chessboard of power-strategic calculations, where they can tilt the playing field to either side—or help stabilize it through their networking capacity. It is probably the single biggest misconception about neutrality that the concept means to disengage and stay aloof of world affairs. This has never been the case, for which the chapters in this book will deliver compelling evidence. Neutrals have always and everywhere remained engaged in the international systems that they were part of, just not in their warfare. Finally, there is a discursive dimension to neutrality, which is the main issue that this book is concerned with. Neutrality is a fuzzy word. Even when confined to an International Relations context of Diplomacy and Politics (excluding technical understandings, like “Net-Neutrality”5) it still pertains to a variety of concepts depending on the time, place, international system, ideology, and even the individuals that are under consideration. Neutrality can be qualified as permanent, occasional, relative, differential, absolute, armed, ideological, political, moral, territorial, maritime, and others. Furthermore, country neutralities of Sweden, Turkmenistan, or the Vatican are not only different in comparison to each other, but they are also unlike neutrality as a national identity and different from the idea of institutionalized neutrality in International Law or the Law of the Sea. Moreover, that is again different from the neutral and non-aligned movement during the Cold War or the systemic role of neutrality during the long nineteenth century with its Great and Small Power Neutrals. According to each context, neutralities (in the plural) come with a set of interpretations that, although connected to each other, do not imply the same underlying notions. ABOUT THIS VOLUME Taking different scenes from the wars in history, the essays in this book capture a variety of concepts of neutrality. Each chapter connects to the rest of the volume by focusing on what neutrality is and how it is used in its context. At the same time, however, the authors demonstrate how vastly different their subjects can be from each other. They are, in fact, only loosely connected, despite the relatively narrow focus of the matter. One reason for that has to

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do with the field itself, but the other part comes from the context in which this work was written. It is the fruit of a collaboration of eleven authors, of whom most have met at the 2017 Neutrality Conference in Madrid. The discussions there have demonstrated the variety of research that is currently being conducted around the globe on neutrality. This volume was started to record some of the findings of the conference but, ultimately, had to answer the question how to make sense of so much variety in the field? Since an academic book without a valid purpose is nothing but intellectual hubris, this was not a triviality. The answer was to turn the challenge on its head and transform it into the purpose of the endeavour: prove the diversity of the subject. To that end, this book uses an unorthodox methodology for a volume with many historical case studies. Its chapters do not narrate the overall story chronologically—but thematically. Although a century-by-century approach about the changes of the concept of neutrality would certainly make sense, the aim of this volume is not in the first place to show the historical depth of neutrality discourse, but to showcase the breadth of the field of neutrality as a subject area. The individual contributions are therefore grouped under four subject headings that represent ways in which the neutralities can be looked at. First, neutrality discourse as a subject matter will serve as an overall introduction to the topic. Secondly, neutrality can be looked at as something that serves as a structural element in the international system or in a security architecture. Thirdly, neutrality can be a policy tool and finally, one can analyze the individual neutralities of nation states who use them as pillars of their foreign policies. These are not perfect categories that exclude each other. On the contrary, they flow into one another, over time and space. It is argued, however, that this heuristic differentiation helps to “clean up” the field by giving structure to an area of investigation that has received only little meta-theoretical attention in the past seventy decades. This said it needs to be stressed that this book is strongly empirical in its methodology. The contributions were written by historians, jurists, and political scientists who ground their analysis in the evaluation of primary and secondary sources and do not attempt to engage in theory building or hypothesis testing through social science approaches. The value of this volume lies squarely in the historical evaluation of neutralities. At its core, the goal of this endeavor is to convincingly show that not only is neutrality a diverse subject, but it is best thought of in the plural. Whenever neutrality is the topic of an investigation, the automatic response should be the question “which one?” RECENT CHANGES Despite the choice not to order chapters chronologically, time, of course, plays a major role in the shift of the understanding of what neutrality means.

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The following chapters are ample evidence that neutralities have been talked about in different ways over the past centuries. The most recent shift came with the end of World War II, when the discourse about neutrality changed profoundly, to the point that even historians today are researching neutralities before and after World War II mostly separately. Not that the “Classic-Neutrality-Crowd” and the “Cold-War-Crowd” did not get along, but they do not talk to each other a lot. There are recent publications in both areas, but their investigations tend to stay separate from one another.6 This development had the effect that during joint endeavors, as for example the mentioned conference in 2017, scholars from both sides had difficulties communicating because they were using the same words but with different connotations. With the onset of the Cold War the vocabulary changed. “Classic” approaches to neutrality from the vantage point of International Law gave way to the “bloc mentality” of the Cold War, under which neutrality was framed in a new way—alien to those who knew it from the periods before 1945, and difficult to describe because of the lack of clear conceptualizations. Suddenly, the well-defined notions of “impartiality,” or “rights and duties of neutrals,” were set aside or replaced by considerations for “non-alignment” and “ideology.” Whereas the political DNA of a nation-state used not to be a point of contestation (the difference between democracies, republics, or monarchies was not a point of reference to judge the applicability of neutrality law), the difference between capitalist and communist economic systems suddenly came to play a central role to judge “on whose side” a country was on. This led to strange juxtapositions in which traditional permanent neutrals like Switzerland or Sweden could be firmly embedded in the liberal-democratic camp of Western capitalism and still insist on the validity of their neutrality because that alluded to the older notion of the concept. On the other hand, the newly non-aligned states of Asia and Africa, who refused to label themselves according to either of the “imperialistic” ideologies, drew heavy condemnation from the United States and the U.S.S.R. for their closeness to the other camp. Neither of the super-powers trusted the practicability of “ideological neutrality.” For the United States the failed experiment with the neutralization of Cambodia and Laos,7 which both ended up with communist regimes, and for the U.S.S.R., the frustrations it drew from neutral Yugoslavia and the unwillingness of the non-aligned states to be drawn completely into its orbit, were compelling evidence for the danger of uncommitted states.8 Much of the confusion around the meanings and practices of neutralities during the Cold War period had not to do with the concepts themselves, but with a larger trend in international relations. On the one hand, the shift from a Balance of Power system of the nineteenth century to a world order built around the principles of collective self-defense which started already after World War I but came to more permanent fruition after 1945. On the other hand, the undoing of the legalization of war impacted neutrality discourse

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heavily. Whereas at the eve of World War I the terms “war,” “peace,” “belligerent,” “neutral,” “contraband,” and so on were clearly defined under the provisions of a network of bilateral and multilateral treaties—most importantly the two Hague conventions—the post–World War II world has seen the undoing of these definitions. The “War on Drugs,” and the “War on Terror” but even the term “Cold War” itself have re-shaped perceptions of what warfare meant. Of course, none of these three is a “real” war in the sense of International Law. They were metaphors that sounded better than “the struggle against drugs” or the “struggle against terrorism,” and they had the political function to “securitize” (as political scientists call it) their respective subject area. By labeling something a “war,” it becomes permissible to use military-grade violence against it, instead of approaching the issue with civilian force. Drugs and Terrorism moved from being a policing issue to be a national security threat that needed military approaches to be solved—with according military budgets. The Cold War, too, was not a war in the classic sense, but an international system, mentally framed as a war to justify warlike measures against the “enemy.”9 Under such changed descriptions it is no wonder that it was suddenly anything but clear what a “neutral policy” was, even for traditional neutrals. However, Stephen Neff’s observation in chapter one about the creation of Neutrality Law is generalizable for all periods, because the practice of neutrality (and its Cold War variant, non-alignment) clearly “emerge[d] out of practical needs and experiences, without the benefit of any underlying conceptual foundation.” Neutralities, in this sense, have always been a “learning by doing” approach, where codification and conceptualization always came after the fact itself. It is in that spirit that, on the following pages, this book tries to make sense of developments of the various neutralities ranging from the fifteenth all the way to the twenty-first century. By putting different strains of research on the neutral position together, the hope is to illuminate an area of investigation that has not yet been studied as one field. THE CONTRIBUTIONS The first section of this book focuses on aspects of the discourse on neutrality. In chapter one, Stephen Neff explains the three recurring themes in neutralist approaches over the past four hundred years and, more particularly, during the interwar period. His focus on the intellectual traditions within the three schools of thought10 that he identifies (the “Collective-Security School,” the “New-Neutrality School,” and the “Traditional Neutrality School”) sets the stage for the discussions to follow and explains under which legal viewpoints neutrality has been debated for centuries. Oliver Bange, in chapter

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two, continues the thematic overview with a focus on the situation for Cold War studies and neutralities in their most prevalent forms at the time, the “N+N States.”11 Within the context of the developments surrounding the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), his essay lays out the earlier neglect of the topic among scholars interested in the Cold War and then shows how recent trends have reversed the situation. He argues that there are still many unknown aspects about neutrals during the Cold War, especially about the difference between states that declared themselves “neutral” and those that adhered to “non-alignment.” In the next chapter, Wim Klinkert turns the clock back by a hundred years to analyze another kind of discourse; perceptions of neutrality inside the Netherlands, which used to be a stead-fast permanent neutral until the onslaught of WWII. His study about the history of intellectual thought on Dutch political neutrality in the writings of academics, politicians, poets, and soldiers considers not only the political purpose of the concept but popular perceptions as well. The second section turns to elements of neutrality that are “structuremaking” or “structure-supporting,” in international systems. Especially in the context of security architectures there are historical examples of moments when neutralities were integral parts of the way international life among states worked. This conceptualization follows in the veins of Maartje Abbenhuis, who, in her 2014 work on nineteenth-century neutrality12 has proven that the occasional neutrality of all Great Powers served the European Power of Balance system as an element of its overall stability. Leos Müller, for example, in chapter four, embarks on the journey returning to the fifteenthcentury where he finds the roots of “modern” nineteenth-century neutrality law, which, as he demonstrates, is based upon concepts of maritime law, that has been laid out in the treaties and codes of conduct that emerged around the Mediterranean sea. His argument, that formal rules of maritime neutrality preceded those of territorial neutrality is significant for the explanation of the commercial aspects of the law of neutrality which, in turn, is an important consideration for Elizabeth Chadwick in chapter five. She explains “The British View of Neutrality” in the 1870’s and how the arbitration case of the “Alabama Claims” between the U.S. and Britain was a crucial turning point in the interpretation of neutral rights. Chadwick demonstrates not only how International Law was the backbone of formal international relations, but she shows how the meaning of established neutrality laws evolved through litigation. Her analysis is a snapshot of a moment when existing law gave birth to new interpretations which strengthened the system that already was in place and gravitated around questions of what was legal during a war for those who were not part of it. The section concludes with, chapter six by Pascal Lottaz, who looks at the role of neutrals during WWII in Japan. He argues that two groups of neutrals should be distinguished: Great Powers and Small Powers.

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While the occasional neutrality of Great Power Neutrals was a determining factor for the beginning and the end of Japan’s warfare with the Allies, Japan’s connection to Small Power Neutrals was essential to the country’s diplomatic relations. That, in turn, gave the Small Power Neutrals a substantial role to play in the field of diplomacy and humanitarian services. The third section of this volume features chapters that focus on how the various neutralities were—and still are—used. Chapter seven, by Lottaz and Reginbogin, begins with the exploration of a “new” notion of neutrality, which they call “private neutrality.” After an introduction of the term, their focus is the role of the Bank for International Settlements before and during the Second World War and how the concept of it as a neutral actor can help to explain its behavior during the conflict. In chapter eight, Peter Ruggenthaler goes back to a more common understanding of neutrality during the Cold War; he examines Stalin’s concept of it and why the leader of the U.S.S.R. was never supportive of it. Stalin, to the best of his ability, tried to actively hinder neutrals from going their own “third” ways, forcing pro-Soviet courses in many of its satellites. Herbert Reginbogin, in chapter nine, concludes the section with an outlook on the twenty-first century. After a short review, he engages in the analysis of current world events, different schools of thought in U.S. Foreign Policy circles and what might be reasonably expected from some re-definitions that are going on in the way neutrality is understood today, seventy years after the end of WWII. He argues that neutrals will continue to play a role in world politics for geo-strategic reasons, to bring humanitarian services to areas of conflict and instability in different regions of the world, and for their potential as providers of a new security architecture. Finally, the last section gives attention to neutralities of individual countries. Lottaz and Rodao, in chapter ten, start with an analysis of the Vatican’s neutrality during Japan’s wartime period. They look at the diplomatic approaches of the Holy See during the 1930’s toward China and Manchukuo and explain its strategic goals toward mainland Japan during the latter’s war with the Allies. They bring to the fore the long-term thinking of the Vatican on its diplomacy and add substance to the ongoing debate about the role of the Pope during WWII. In chapter eleven, Tvrtko Jakovina picks up a topic from the previous section on the Cold War but illuminates it from the other side; he analyzes Yugoslavia’s approach first toward non-alignment as a policy to distance itself from the Soviet orbit and the western camp at the same time, and later looks at Belgrade’s discovery of the traditional neutrals in Europe and the utility it got from collaborating with them in the CSCE process. The last chapter is written by political scientist David X. Noack, who explains postsoviet approaches of former U.S.S.R republics toward neutrality. Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine have found use in the concept for their foreign policies after the dissolution of the union. All of them experimented with

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it in the last 25 years, and although Ukraine, for the moment, has given up on a neutralist stance, the other two states are still practicing their forms of neutrality. Turkmenistan even became a pro-active champion of permanent neutrality in the United Nations. Together, the twelve contributions illustrate pieces of a mosaic picture about the various neutralities and how they can be explored historically or in the context of the twenty-first century.

NOTES 1. Thucydides, ed., The History of the Peloponnesian War (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1874), 397. 2. Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, edited and translated by A.C. Campbell (Kitchener: Batoche Books, 1625). 3. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Beatrice Heuser, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1832), 28. 4. Gunnar M. Hägglöf, “A Test of Neutrality: Sweden in the Second World War,” International Affairs 36 (1960): 153. 5. “Net-neutrality” is a popular contemporary buzz-word that refers to the equal opportunity for all content providers on the internet to host their data at the same speed as everybody else. A “neutral” internet, in this sense, means that Internet Service Providers do not have the right to differentiate internet servicing speeds according to the capacity of content providers to pay for it. 6. For an overview of research on Cold War Neutrality See Oliver Bange’s chapter in this book. The most recent collections on the topic are: Heinz Gaertner, ed., Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War (USA: Lexington Books, 2017); Thomas Fischer et al., eds., “Neutrality and Nonalignment in World Politics During the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies (2016).For the literature on the “classic” concept of pre-WWII neutrality see Elizabeth Chadwick, Stephen Neff and Leos Müller in this volume. Two of the most recent book-length publications on the issue are: Kentarō Wani, Neutrality in International Law: From the Sixteenth Century to 1945 (New York: Routledge, 2017); Maartje M. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 7. Laos was officially neutralized through an international agreement in 1962 and Cambodia tried to receive the same status to escape the escalating Vietnam war. However, the approach failed keep the war from spreading into their territories. See on this: Jürg Martin Gabriel, The American Conception of Neutrality after 1941 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 191–222. 8. See on this issue the chapter by Tvrtko Jakovina and also ibid. 9. Citation about securitization (Searching for it now). 10. Neff has coined the names of the schools and the research on their historical roots ever since his first book on neutrality: Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).

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11. Neutral and Nonaligned states. 12. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbenhuis, Maartje M. An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Edited by Beatrice Heuser. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1832. Fischer, Thomas, Juhana Aunesluoma, Aryo Makko, Daniel Möckli, Erwin A Schmidl, and J. Rainio-Niemi, eds. “Neutrality and Nonalignment in World Politics During the Cold War.” Journal of Cold War Studies 18 (2016): 4–11. Gabriel, Jürg Martin. The American Conception of Neutrality after 1941. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Gaertner, Heinz, ed. Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War. USA: Lexington Books, 2017. Grotius, Hugo. On the Law of War and Peace. Edited and translated by A.C. Campbell. Kitchener: Batoche Books, 1625. Hägglöf, Gunnar M. “A Test of Neutrality: Sweden in the Second World War.” International Affairs 36 (1960): 153–167. Neff, Stephen C. The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Thucydides, ed. The History of the Peloponnesian War. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1874. Wani, Kentaro. Neutrality in International Law: From the Sixteenth Century to 1945. New York: Routledge, 2017.

Part I

NEUTRALITY DISCOURSE

Chapter 1

A Threefold Struggle over Neutrality The American Experience in the 1930s Stephen C. Neff

The interwar period is perhaps the most instructive in the history of neutrality, at least from the legal standpoint. For one thing, the establishment of the League of Nations raised the most fundamental question of all: whether neutrality could serve any purpose at all in the new age of collective security. Some persons argued forcefully that it could not. Foremost among them was the Greek scholar and diplomat Nicolas Politis. Neutrality, in his opinion, may have been suitable for a world in which war was regarded in cold “Realpolitik” terms as an accepted feature of international life but was now obsolete in the new age of international solidarity and war prevention. [T]oday [Politis pronounced] neutrality appears to be a true anachronism; being no longer in harmony with the status of the law of nations or with the economic necessities and aspirations of the nations, it is, as an institution, irrevocably doomed; it is destined to disappear.1

The new trend, held Politis, was for the nations of the world to join together in the active pursuit of international peace. In that grand cause, neutrality could only be seen as an impediment, a shirking of responsibility. For that reason, Politis held neutrality to be “more of an evil than a good, because the attitude of disinterestedness happens, things being what they are, to favour war.”2 The way forward was clear: neutrality must be “deliberately abandoned.”3 The hostility to the very idea of neutrality was so intense, that James Brierly, the prominent professor of international law at Oxford University, strenuously objected in principle to the effort by the International Law Association to undertake a codification of the law of neutrality, contending that it was a reactionary step.4 His counterpart at Cambridge University, Arnold McNair, 3

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Stephen C. Neff

agreed, finding the idea of codifying this area of law “utterly repugnant.”5 The noted French lawyer Alphonse de La Pradelle was also of this view.6 This principled opposition to neutrality did not go unchallenged. Nowhere was the debate on the subject more vigorously conducted than in the United States—a country with a long and proud history of neutrality. In both the legal academic world and the political arena, a vigorous contention took place between three competing visions of the future of neutrality. One may be termed the collective-security school. In the spirit of Politis, this group favored strengthening the collective-security machinery of the League of Nations—or alternatively some effective substitute for it—even if that meant substantially or entirely dispensing with the law of neutrality altogether. A second group may be called the traditional-neutrality school. Their primary goal was an insistence on neutrals retaining the full range of rights accorded them by the traditional law of neutrality, as it had evolved up to 1914—while at the same time insisting that neutrals must correspondingly scrupulously adhere as well to the full range of duties which that law imposed on them. Finally, there was a group sometimes known as the “new neutrality” school. Their dominant purpose was, in essence, to minimize, to the greatest extent possible, the risk of future American involvement in a general war. The story of the intellectual and political sparring between these three groups deserves to be better known than it is, if only because the competing visions are with us to the present day. The following discussion is a brief survey of the stimulating, and high-stakes debate, which raged in the United States in the 1930s. THE CONTEXT It is essential to appreciate how heavily the shadow of history fell upon these debates, in two different ways. For one thing, the American experience with neutrality in the Great War was very much on the minds of all of the participants—though (as will be seen) with greatly differing lessons being drawn from that experience. In addition, the three contending schools may be seen to match, with uncanny accuracy, a similar three-way debate which had taken place in the second half of the eighteenth century, when the law of neutrality began to be placed, for the first time, onto an explicit doctrinal basis in the emerging science of international law. The Eighteenth-Century Debate over Neutrality The law of neutrality presents the most striking example of the manner in which a body of law can emerge out of practical needs and experiences,

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without the benefit of any underlying conceptual foundation. One of the critical developments was the articulation of some basic rules about the seizure of goods at sea in time of war, set out in the Catalan “Consolato del Mare,” dating from (probably) the thirteenth century, with a printed text dating from the end of the fifteenth century. It set out what may be called a “characterof-the-cargo” rule to govern seizures. This meant that a belligerent power could seize private property belonging to nationals of its enemy, regardless of where that property was found—that is, that enemy property could be taken from neutral ships. Conversely, if an enemy merchant ship was captured and was found to be carrying some cargo belonging to nationals of a neutral state, then that neutral property could not be taken.7 In the course of time—basically from the early seventeenth century— treaty practice among the major European maritime powers made an important modification of the Consolato’s rules. With the notable exception of England, the powers generally agreed, by way of a network of bilateral treaties, that a rule of “free ships make free goods” would be adopted instead of the “character-of-the-cargo approach.”8 This meant that enemy-owned property would be safe from seizure if it were being carried on a neutral vessel. (The neutral flag would “cover” the enemy cargo, in the conventional legal parlance.) No explicit rationale was given for this new approach. It was merely stated in the treaties. There were, however, two crucial expressed exceptions to this “free ships - free goods” rule: contraband of war and blockades.9 If the enemy-owned goods that were being carried on a neutral ship consisted of materials that were to be used in the carrying on of the war (i.e., contraband of war), then those goods could be taken, though only using a judicial process. The neutral ship, with its cargo, would be taken to a port of the capturing power, where the matter would be brought before a prize court, which would adjudicate whether the goods in question actually fell into the category of contraband (e.g., arms and ammunition). If they did, the contraband goods would be confiscated (it would be “good prize” in the legal jargon). The position was much the same for cases of blockade-running by neutral ships. If a neutral ship was suspected of attempting to run a blockade, then it would be brought before a prize court. If the violation were held to be established, then the entire cargo would be a good prize, along with the ship itself. For these two key exceptions to the “free ships - free goods” rule, there was also no explicitly stated rationale. There were merely the treaty provisions. It was only in the second half of the Eighteenth Century that treatise writers began to discuss the reasons for these rules. Regarding the “free ships - free goods,” some contended that this should be regarded as a logical consequence of the foundational principle of state sovereignty. On this argument, a neutral ship (or any ship for that matter) should be seen as a piece of floating territory

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of the state whose flag it flew. Moreover, just as one state has no legal right to intrude into the territory of another without consent, so no state has a legal right to capture a vessel flying the flag of another state without that state’s consent.10 A problem with this argument was that it seemed to prove too much. It would bar a belligerent state from capturing a neutral ship even in the cases of contraband carriage and blockade-running. It was over this issue that the early doctrinal debates took place. First in the field was the Swiss publicist Emmerich de Vattel, who dealt with the matter, albeit only very briefly, in his famous treatise on “The Law of Nations” of 1758 (as the Seven Years War was raging).11 Vattel defended the right of belligerent powers to capture contraband of war from neutral ships. Furthermore, he provided an explicit rationale for that right, based on an argument of necessity,12 which is a general principle of international law, explicitly recognized in present-day international law, to the effect that a state is entitled to violate the legal rights of other states in order (in the present-day formulation) “to safeguard an essential interest” in the face of “a grave and imminent peril.”13 In the case of a state which is at war, the “essential interest” is, of course, achieving victory in the armed struggle, and the “grave and imminent peril” is the frightening prospect of defeat. This necessity theory, as it will be termed, has the neat intellectual advantage of conceding, in principle, the fundamental point that a neutral ship is equivalent to the sovereign territory of the neutral, while at the very same overriding, or trumping, that principle using a higher-level principle of necessity. The neutral trader and carrier, in this view, is facing only the loss of profit from an arms sale, plus the inconvenience of delay in the voyage; whereas the belligerent captor is, virtually by definition, fighting for its very life. The more critical interest should prevail over the less important one. Vattel’s necessity theory was very quickly contested, however, by a Danish lawyer named Martin Hübner, in a book entitled “De la saisie des bâtiments neutres” published in 1759.14 This was, incidentally, the first book devoted exclusively to neutrality issues. Hübner conceded the right of belligerents to capture contraband of war from neutral ships, but on an importantly different line of reasoning. He advanced what may be termed a code-of-conduct approach to the question. He was concerned that a necessity-based argument, such as that of Vattel, gave too much leeway to belligerents at the expense of neutrals. It gave a broad, and elastic, license to belligerents to take whatever action was necessary under the circumstances to prevent its war effort from being impeded—with neutrals simply being left with whatever was “left over.” In other words, a necessity theory, by its nature, is biased in favor of belligerent parties and against neutral ones. The true position, Hübner insisted, is that international law makes a sharp delimitation between the rights of belligerents on the one hand, and of

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neutrals on the other. Each of these parties is entitled to exercise the full range of its rights, without regard to what material effect it might have on the other. There is to be no “trespassing” by either party into the juridical territory of the other, no matter how dire an emergency might be present. There can, of course, be room for argument as to precisely what the contents of this code of conduct are—but the fundamental principle, to Hübner, is that the rules (or code of conduct) are what they are and must be scrupulously obeyed by all parties, with no special license for emergency action. It may be noted this code-of-conduct, in contrast to Vattel’s necessity theory, is not intrinsically biased towards either belligerents or neutrals. Which party fares better in this system depends critically on what the contents of the code of conduct happen to be. The content of the code, in Hübner’s view, are customary in nature, hammered out of the raw material of state practice, and of the consensus of the major maritime states, over the course of many years. Crucial evidence of the contents of the code can be gleaned from the contents of the various bilateral treaties, but only with due care because treaty rules might represent departures from the underlying customary law. However, it is that underlying customary law which will govern all situations which are not provided for by treaty rules. The third approach to the question came several years later, in 1781, from the pen of an Italian writer named Ferdinando Galiani.15 This was the first treatise to give a comprehensive study of the whole of the law of neutrality. Galiani was commissioned to undertake this historic task by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had a policy of firm neutrality in the various European wars which swirled around his small state. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that Galiani produced an oeuvre which was biased in the interest of neutral states. It may be called the community-interest approach to the law of neutrality because it sought to resolve contested questions about the law of neutrality by looking to the interest of the international community at large, rather than of the particular belligerent and neutral parties involved in a specific dispute. This view was founded on the thesis that the interests of those at peace should, as a matter of general principle, prevail over the interests of those at war. Consequently, the position should be that neutral states retain their common peacetime rights in full, even when other states go to war. The simple fact of being involved in a war should not confer any additional rights onto belligerent parties vis-à-vis neutrals. For present purposes, it will suffice to say that, in the course of the Nineteenth Century, the code-of-conduct school of thought gained the upper hand over the other two. Its definitive summation came at the very end of the Nineteenth Century, at the hand of the Swedish lawyer Richard Kleen.16 Some of its more important rules found their way into the various conventions drafted at the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907, particularly the conventions

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on Neutrality in Land War and Neutrality in Maritime War.17 Further substantial progress was made in clarifying the rules in the Declaration of London of 1909, which resolved a host of outstanding questions, many relating to those two longstanding and thorny subjects of contraband and blockade.18 Notwithstanding this impressive degree of codification, this settled law of neutrality was something of an intellectual hodge-podge. It was a highly detailed menu of rules which had evolved from centuries of state practice, but for which there was no clear guiding thread. Compromise and arbitrariness held powerful sway in effectuating a rough and ready balancing of the competing interests of belligerents and neutrals. It was this corpus of law which was in force at the commencement of the Great War in 1914 and which accordingly formed the basis of various disputes about neutrality issues which arose during that conflict.19 The debate over the lessons from that conflict formed the immediate backdrop to the disputes that erupted in the 1930s. American Neutrality in 1914–17 and its Lessons A shadow which loomed very large over the neutrality debates of the 1930s was the experience of the United States as a neutral during the Great War, in the period 1914–17. Before that, the United States had a long and proud history as a neutral power, and consequently as a resolute champion of the rights of neutrals generally. It even had the distinction of having gone to war in 1812 against a major European power to uphold its rights as a neutral during the French Revolutionary struggles of the time. History repeated itself, at least in a manner of speaking. When the United States entered the global fray in 1917, it was in direct response to the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, i.e., the policy of sinking neutral ships as well as enemy ones if they were found to be trading with the Allied powers.20 In the aftermath of the conflict, critical voices began to emerge.21 Involvement in the war was increasingly seen as having been an error on the country’s part. However, there was disagreement over what the fault had been. Some were inclined to blame special interests, whose selfish and greedy actions had dragged the country into war. In particular, suspicions were voiced against two groups: arms exporters and financiers. In a less conspiratorial vein, some alleged that the American insistence on the rigorous upholding of its rights as a neutral was at fault, and that a decision to go to war should have been made (or decided against, as the case may be) on the basis of broader questions of the country’s overall national interest, instead of on the basis of arcane legal quibbles. Adherents of this view became supporters of what would be called the “new neutrality” thesis of the 1930s. Some read the opposite lesson from the experience of 1914–17. These were persons who insisted that the problem was not that the United States

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had been too stubborn in its defense of its neutral rights, but rather that its policy had not been truly neutral at all. It had been, in reality, squarely directed in favor of the Allied side and against Germany. In particular, the United States cravenly acquiesced in British economic-warfare measures while at the same time taking stringent positions against any German infringements of its neutral rights. Also, American lending, undertaken on a massive scale, had gone virtually entirely to the Allied side.22 It was therefore hardly surprising that Germany decided to take the actions which brought the United States formally into the conflict. “We were unneutral, and we paid the cost,” was the crisp summation of one of the leading figures of this viewpoint, Edwin M. Borchard of Yale Law School.23 Adherents of this view became the proponents of what will be termed the traditionalneutrality school of thought. These debates from the Eighteenth Century and the post-1918 period formed the backdrop to the disputes that divided international lawyers in the United States during the 1930s. The Three Rival Neutralities—The Old, the “New” and the Obsolete As the danger of a second world war became ever more menacing, it is natural that American minds became increasingly concerned over what the country’s neutrality policy should be in the event of another general European war. It was generally envisaged that the United States would not actually enter such a conflict. But there the agreement stopped, and the three competing camps formed: the collective-security group, the “new neutrality” partisans and the champions of traditional neutrality. The Collective-Security School At the core of the collective-security position was the view that neutrality could still survive in the modern world, in the sense that states would still be able to refrain from participating in wars which broke out. However, neutrality should no longer be governed, as in the past, by a strict principle of impartiality. Instead, it should be integrated with the concept of good global citizenship. In the United States, the view was expressed famously by Henry Stimson, who served as secretary of state in the Hoover administration.24 He was converted to the collective-security cause by the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931 and became an active spokesman for it after leaving office in 1933. Where the legal approach to war had once been a matter of strict impartiality and legal equality between the contending parties—coupled with strict

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non-involvement and impartiality on the part of neutrals—Stimson insisted that this could no longer be so. Hereafter when two nations engage in armed conflict either one or both of them must be wrongdoers (. . .). We no longer draw a circle about them and treat them with the punctilios of the duelist’s code. Instead, we denounce them as lawbreakers.25

Among academic international lawyers, the foremost American champion of this approach was Quincy Wright, of the University of Chicago. Other proponents of this general way of thinking included Manley Hudson of Harvard Law School, Clyde Eagleton of New York University Law School, Charles G. Fenwick of Bryn Mawr College, James Shotwell of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University and Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Newton Baker, a former secretary of war and Wilsonian internationalist. Like Politis, Wright contended that traditional neutrality was only a meaningful concept in conflicts in which the belligerents were legal equals. However, we no longer live in such a world. Now, a war which occurs anywhere in the world is the concern of the world at large—as expressly stated in the Covenant of the League of Nations.26 Traditional neutrality, in Wright’s view, amounted to a shirking of the duties of good global citizenship—and even to the actual encouragement of aggression, since neutrality precluded the providing of assistance to victim countries. Far from discouraging war [Wright asserted], neutrality (. . .) has tended to encourage aggression of the strong against the weak. Far from assisting states to keep out of war, neutral rights have themselves provided the basis for disputes which have drawn non-participants into war.27

The single most conspicuous plank of the collective-security program was the idea that neutral states should be allowed—or even required—to show partiality against aggressor states and in favor of victims of aggression. Politis candidly maintained that neutral states “could (. . .) depart from the duty of impartiality” in the interest of promoting the international community’s broader goal of peace and security.28 He contended that an aggressor belligerent could have no right to complain of unneutral acts which benefitted its victim—and conversely, that neutral states could have the right to complain if the victim state and its supporters infringed their traditional neutral rights.29 Further ammunition for the collective-security advocates was provided by the adoption of the Pact of Paris (or Kellogg-Briand Pact) in 1928, in which states parties (including the United States) foreswore resort to war as

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“an instrument of national policy.”30 Although the Pact contained no explicit enforcement provisions, the thesis was advanced that any state breaching the Pact would thereby be committing a violation of international law, with the consequence, as a matter of general international law, that other parties to the agreement thereby became automatically entitled to institute sanctions (or countermeasures in present-day parlance) against it. These sanctions could take the form of the adoption of preferential policies in favor of a state that was a victim of the violation. In 1934, the Institute of International Law explicitly endorsed this position.31 In this same general vein, a research program in the 1930s based at Harvard Law School produced, in 1939, a draft Convention on the Rights and Duties of States in Case of Aggression.32 This was drawn up under the auspices of Philip C. Jessup of Columbia Law School. It pointedly refrained from even using the word “neutral,” but nonetheless provided, in essence, that nonbelligerent states would be entitled, vis-à-vis an aggressor state, to all of the rights of a neutral but would be relieved from all of the duties of neutrality. Aggressor states would, therefore, have no right to enforce blockades against neutral states or to capture and confiscate contraband of war being carried to their enemies. The “New Neutrality” Emerges Opposition to traditional neutrality was not a monopoly of the collectivesecurity advocates. A rival reform program was offered by the proponents of what was sometimes called the “new neutrality.” Its leading champion was a professor at Harvard Law School named Charles Warren. Warren’s “new neutrality” stance was unveiled at the 1933 annual meeting of the American Society of International Law33 and then expounded in fuller form the following year in an article in Foreign Affairs.34 The “new neutrality” position may be characterized, in broad terms, as a program for ensuring that a neutral state was not pulled into a war against its own national interest. The primary means for ensuring this would be to refrain from insisting on the enforcement of its full range of traditional neutral rights. A neutral state’s chief interest lay in making sure that it stayed out of war. Moreover, if some—or even most or all—of the traditional neutral rights had to be sacrificed to ensure this, then that was a price that, realistically, would have to be paid. A key consideration underlying the “new neutrality” position was the belief that, in reality, impartiality—that cornerstone principle of traditional neutrality—was an impossible goal. Even policies that were even-handed on their face would virtually never be so in their material effects, because one side would inevitably benefit from the policy more than the other. For example,

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during the Great War, belligerent warships of both sides had been allowed to enter American ports—but the policy, in practice, exclusively benefitted the Allies because German ships were bottled up in Europe by Allied blockades. By the same token, assertions of neutral rights would, in reality, affect the belligerents unequally. The point was pithily made by the prominent journalist and commentator Walter Lippmann: To assert the freedom of the seas (. . .) is to take sides against the nation which has sea power; not to assert the freedom of the seas is to take sides with the national which has sea power. In either event neutrality in any effective sense of the term has vanished.35

The more sensible policy, in Warren’s opinion, is for a neutral state to reduce all contacts with all belligerents to the greatest extent feasible. The single most important step in this direction would be a prohibition against arms sales to any belligerents once a war broke out. Warren also proposed that American nationals should be barred from traveling on ships that carried arms. The reason was that such ships were subject to being sunk (as the Lusitania had been)—and an outcry over the deaths of American nationals might be a force propelling the country towards entry into the war. The United States, in Warren’s view, should also bar armed vessels of all belligerents from entering its ports. In addition, he favored prohibiting the public flotation of loans to belligerents in the United States. He conceded, though, that private loan arrangements should be allowed to continue, as barring those would involve too great an economic sacrifice for the American economy.36 A key feature of the “new neutrality” position was an intense opposition to war profiteering on the part of neutrals. In Warren’s view, neutral states should be permitted, during the war, to continue their normal pre-war pattern and level of trade with either or both belligerents, but not to increase it. “It is better,” asserted Warren, “that our citizens should run the risk of commercial loss than that the country should be involved in a war to protect their alleged commercial rights.”37 If the country, or the government, was actually concerned over economic loss caused by the foregoing of traditional legal rights, then the rational policy would be for the government itself (i.e., the country at large) to provide that compensation, rather than for the United States to plunge into war. The “new neutrality” position won support from a number of prominent international lawyers. Among them was Herbert Briggs of Columbia Law School.38 Another supporter was James Wilford Garner of the University of Illinois.39 It also had the support of the prominent historian Charles Beard, who derided historic neutral rights as “a mere fiction,” and their defense in war-time as “a warlike measure.”40 The most prominent recruit was James

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Brown Scott, the long-serving editor of the American Journal of International Law and leading light in the American Society of International Law.41 Scott had also chaired the Neutrality Board of the Department of State during the Great War. The Traditional Neutrality School Ranged against both of these sets of plans for the modification of the law of neutrality were those who insisted on the retention, and vigorous defense, of that law as it had evolved to the eve of the Great War. The foremost spokesmen for this group were John Bassett Moore and Edwin Borchard. Moore had been a prominent professor of international law at Columbia Law School, and then a judge of the newly established World Court. Borchard was a former student and protégé of Moore. Another prominent figure in this camp was Lester H. Woolsey of American University (who was also a prominent practitioner in international law).42 Moore and Borchard were both harsh critics of the American neutrality policies of 1914–17, protesting that the United States had not been, in reality, truly neutral in the Great War. Instead, its policies had been heavily biased towards the Allied side—with the Germans thereby being, in essence, provoked into the drastic step of unrestricted submarine warfare. Borchard was fully aware of the historically contingent character of the substantive law of neutrality, of which he was so staunch a defender, candidly describing it as “a fairly definite compromise between the (. . .) conflicting and irreconcilable claims of the belligerent to stop all trade with his enemies, and of the neutral to continue freely to trade with both belligerents.” This compromise, he conceded, was “founded not on logic but on agreement.”43 But that was not seen as a weakness of the law. On the contrary, the very fact that the traditional law of neutrality was rooted in agreement, rather than in some kind of hypothetico-deductive reasoning from first principles, meant that states are not free to overthrow it at will. The law of neutrality may be essentially contractual in nature. But contracts are legally binding. They can, of course, be altered by later agreement among the parties; but until that happens, the law stands as agreed. Moore and Borchard insisted that scrupulous adherence to the law of neutrality was the best guarantee of peace—at least for the neutral state itself. Moore contended that neutrality “has always had (. . .) the highly moral and expedient object of preventing the spread of war.”44 In the same vein, Borchard lauded traditional neutrality as being humanitarian and peacepreserving because it served to limit the impact of war on third states and to enable peaceful states to carry on their lives with a minimum of disruption. For this reason, neutrality should be recognized as “one of the beneficent achievements of a long struggle with barbarism.”45

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THE SCHOOLS IN CONTENTION During the 1930s, contention raged between the partisans of these three rival schools of thought—first in the pages of scholarly journals and the conference rooms of the American Society of International Law, and then in the halls of the United States Congress. Before looking at these battles, though, it is useful to note that the three were clear and direct descendants of the three contending viewpoints that had emerged (as noted above) in the late Eighteenth Century. The Past as Present The “new neutrality” of Warren and his followers was clearly the direct descendant of Vattel’s necessity thesis. It was noted above that that thesis, in effect, gave priority to the interests of belligerents over those of neutrals, with the so-called “rights” of neutrals being, in reality, merely the residue that was left after the belligerents had taken the measures that were necessary to further their war efforts. Warren was of the same view, expressly deriding neutrality rights as “a legal fiction.”46 He frankly contended that what were commonly labelled as neutral rights were in reality merely “a concession, express or implied, on the part of the belligerent that if the neutral’s acts did not impair too seriously the belligerent’s chances of winning the war, the neutral would be allowed to do ‘business as usual.’”47 Belief in rights of neutrals, Warren insisted, was not merely misguided intellectually; it was downright dangerous as a basis for policy-making. [T]he sane policy for us [contended Warren] would be (. . .) to admit frankly that, whether or not “rights” exist in law, it is impracticable to assert them successfully during the war, and that it is impracticable to wrest admission of them from a belligerent (. . .). There is too much talk in international affairs about rights and too little about adjustments. Harping on rights leads to arrived-at position from which a nation cannot withdraw or yield; it leads to ultimatums which inevitably lead to war.48

Instead of asserting its supposed rights, neutrals should instead realistically size up their situation in each conflict as it occurs and negotiate with the belligerents over what sort of conduct will be allowed and what will not. The outcome of such negotiations will, inevitably, depend on the relative bargaining power of the parties in the particular circumstances rather than on some pre-existing, objective menu of rights and duties. Just as obviously, the collective-security standpoint was the modern-day version of Galiani’s community-interest approach. The only difference

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was that, in the inter-war period, there was an actual international institution designed to represent the interest of the international community at large—the League of Nations. But, as noted above, the collective-security approach did not actually depend on the existence or effectiveness of the League itself. The proposed Convention for the Assistance of Victims of Aggression, for example, was designed to operate outside the League framework. In all events, though the essence of the collective-security, or community-interest, position remained the same now as it had in the age of Galiani: that the welfare of the broader international community at large should prevail over the parochial rights and duties of both belligerent and neutral states. Finally, it is most apparent of all that the traditional neutrality stance of Moore and Borchard and their followers was an explicit continuation of the code-of-conduct approach to neutrality. As such, it was the most legalistic of the three, in the usual sense of that word. It held that, so long as the rules of the law of neutrality were scrupulously adhered to, in all of their detailed sinuosity, belligerents could have no ground for complaint, and neutrals need have no fear of being pulled into a conflict against their will. In this spirit, Borchard spoke out in favor of proposals for a full and systematic codification of the law of neutrality, to assist in the resolution of any future disputes that might arise in the area.49 One feature shared by all three groups was the importance of learning the lessons from the difficult experience of 1914–17. They disagreed, however, on what those lessons actually were. To the collective-security group, the lesson was that it was essential to take the utmost care to ensure that an experience like that the Great War would not recur. To that end, would-be aggressor states should not be allowed to be confident that neutral powers would carefully treat them on a par with their victims. They should be on notice that even states not actually participating in the hostilities would adopt policies favorable to their foes. To the “new neutrality” proponents, the lesson was learned was the impossibility of adopting policies whose material effects would be truly even-handed—and, by extension, the illusory nature of the very idea of rights of neutrals. Such so-called rights, when asserted, always favored one belligerent and correspondingly provoked hostility from the other. Therefore, the sensible policy was to withdraw from contact with the belligerents as much as possible. To the traditional-neutrality advocates, the lesson from 1914–17 was the importance of scrupulous and conscientious adherence to the established law of neutrality, and particularly to the core principle of the duty of impartiality. Provided that be done, no belligerent could have any right to be aggrieved—and hence could have no legal ground for taking action and forcing the neutral into the conflict.

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The Debate Rages There has seldom, if ever, been such a vigorous and lively debate among American international lawyers as occurred in the 1930s over the direction which the law of neutrality should take. The spokesmen for the three rival groups were talented polemicists who, in commenting on momentous issues of war and peace, did not hesitate to attack their opponents with gusto. At the same time, though, it will be noted that on specific issues, there was some room for accommodation of views, if only begrudgingly, between the contending factions. The first significant salvo came in 1933, with a broadside attack by Moore, in an article in Foreign Affairs, against the very concept of collective security.50 Those ideas, he grumbled, “have no visible moorings on earth or in the sky.”51 Such notions appeal only to “shallow dupes who (. . .) urge that we blindly don an imported livery of ‘world service’” in order gallantly to purge the world of wickedness. The true, if unsettling, view is that war is an inevitable and unavoidable feature of international affairs. Therefore, the sensible policy is simply to decide, as each conflict arises, whether to join in or stay out. If the decision is made to stay out, then the ready-made code of neutrality law is right there to guide all parties. Collective-security ideas—or delusions—are moralistic, utopian schemes that should play no role in the hardheaded business of international law and relations. Regarding the law of neutrality specifically, Moore asserted that claims of its obsolescence were “unsound in theory and false in fact,” holding that state practice continued to recognize the validity of the traditional law.52 Assertions that the law of neutrality no longer existed were, Moore contended, merely part and parcel of a broader campaign to align American foreign policy with the actions of the League of Nations. Borchard was of the same persuasion. He too objected to the moralistic outlook of the collective-security advocates. War, he insisted, should not be seen in terms of right and wrong. Rather, it should be seen as a disease. And the best way of dealing with a disease is to prevent it from spreading. That is precisely the valuable role that traditional neutrality played, and should continue to play. Collective security was, in his opinion, mere “doctrinaire (. . .) political theology.”53 The idea of common action against aggressors was derided by Borchard as “a kind of emotional morality which enables indignation and violence to clothe themselves in the mantle of righteousness.”54 Far from looking towards the isolation or containment of war, collective-security policies sought to involve as much of the world as possible in every conflict. “It seems impolitic,” warned Borchard, “to suggest or imply that wars will be sooner ended by converting local conflicts into wide and general wars.”55 He dismissed the Harvard Research’s draft Convention

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on the Rights and Duties of States in Case of Aggression as “an evangelical expression of moral convictions” which was “non-legal in its connotations.”56 In short, insisted Borchard, “[t]he philosophy of minding your own business has not yet been improved upon as a way to peace, sanity and tolerable life.”57 Two points about the traditional-neutrality advocates are worth noting. One is that their primary target was the collective-security school. Their opposition to the “new neutrality” group was not so fundamental. It was more of a difference about policy. So long as the “new neutrality” program envisaged even-handed treatment of belligerents in war—as it did—it was not so deeply contrary to the received law of neutrality as the collectivesecurity approach was. Abandonment of neutral rights was seen, to be sure, as a most unwise policy. But so long as it was done voluntarily by the neutral state itself, as proposed by Warren and his followers, it would not actually be an outright violation of neutrality, in the way that collective-security policies were. The second point about the traditional-neutrality school is that it may be tempting to label it as “isolationist.” This would, however, be justifiable only if one defines “isolationist” as meaning opposition to collective security. It should be appreciated that the traditional-neutrality advocates did not advocate isolationism in the sense of believing that the United States should cut itself off from the larger world. On the contrary, the traditional-neutrality people insisted on full American involvement with the world at large— merely maintaining that the rules of that involvement should be the traditional rules of international law as inherited from past centuries rather than some new-fangled and visionary rules which had never stood the test of time. The label of “isolationist” could be applied with much greater justice to those in the “new neutrality” camp because they did favor, to a significant extent, a policy of withdrawal of the United States from world affairs in the event of a general war. More than the other two schools, it was an anti-war program, designed to keep the United States safe—and isolated—in the face of war by foreign powers. The “new neutrality” was, accordingly, the most egoistic of the three contending groups. For this very reason, the “new neutrality” drew the especially strong hostility of the collective-security advocates. Wright derided it as “storm-cellar neutrality.”58 Eagleton regarded it as the worst of the three contending alternatives, condemning it as a program of “supine submission” to the wishes of belligerents, even if they are flagrant aggressors. As such, it amounts to a formula for “craven submission to the criminal.” He saw it as a contemptible proposal “that we shut ourselves up within our gates and pocket our losses and our pride.”59 In this attack, the traditional-neutrality advocates could—and did—readily join. Moore scornfully likened the “new neutrality”

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program to a turtle retiring into its shell, denouncing it as “a gopher-like policy of seclusion.”60 In certain other respects, though, the “new neutrality” and collectivesecurity supporters could find common ground. The principal manifestation of this was a shared moralistic outlook. Both were receptive to the idea that traditional neutrality had a worryingly close relationship to war profiteering. By trading in contraband of war, neutrals could fatten their bank balances while feeding, and even prolonging, the conflict. From the collective-security perspective, this amounted to flagrant bad world citizenship, to deliberate and cold-hearted abdication of the overriding duty of states to cooperate with one another to reduce armed conflict and to defeat aggression when it occurred. From the “new neutrality” standpoint, stubborn insistence on the right to continue trading with belligerents during war, under grand claims of legal right, were a formula for luring the neutral power into the struggle once those so-called “rights” came under threat—and thereby forcing the neutral country as a whole into war for the benefit of a clique of greedy profiteers. Similarly, it is readily seen that the traditional neutrality supporters and the “new neutrality” group could find much in common in a mutual hostility to the collective-security group. They were critical of the collective-security program of involving (ideally) all states of the world in continuing the operation of global policing. This idea was seen as a utopian one without any proven track record of success. On the contrary, the collective-security ideal had failed spectacularly to prevent Japan from occupying Manchuria in 1931; and in 1935–36, it would fail even more spectacularly when Italy invaded and conquered Abyssinia. The traditional neutrality and the “new neutrality” advocates both agreed that the better solution was the isolation and containment of conflict. Neutrality Law-Making Insofar as any of the three rival schools could claim victory in policy-making circles in the 1930s, it was the “new neutrality” group. It is not difficult to see why this was so. It held out a seductive promise of a practical and realistic way of ensuring that the United States would not be drawn into a future general war. In the atmosphere of the 1930s, there was a widespread feeling that participation in the First World War had been a mistake and that consequently the utmost care should be taken to avoid re-making that mistake in a future conflict. Collective security held out the worrying prospect that the country would be drawn into some never-ending global campaign against aggressors (or supposed aggressors) in faraway lands where no American national interest was really at stake. Traditional neutrality carried the risk that, in vindicating breaches of legal rights, the country would be forced into war without the

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sort of broad consideration of over-all national interest that many held to be so essential. The American political process being as it is, it is hardly surprising that the “new neutrality” program came about not at a single grand, coherent stroke, but rather in a somewhat halting and piecemeal manner. An early indication of it was the enactment of the Johnson Act in 1934 (named for its chief sponsor, Senator Hiram Johnson of California).61 This law prohibited Americans from lending to any European countries which were in default in the repayment of outstanding loans, chiefly, of course, being loans made during the Great War. Since virtually all of the borrowers were in default, the law effectively barred American lending to European states altogether—and, importantly, served notice that, in the event of another European war, the United States would not be a source of financing for it, as had been the case in the previous conflict. The single most prominent issue in the neutrality debates was the question of arms trading and the imposition of embargoes on that trading in the event of wars between other countries. On this key issue, the three camps divided with high precision. The “new neutrality” advocates favored impartial arms embargoing so that arms would stop flowing from the United States equally to both sides in the event war. The collective-security group was in favor of partial embargoes—i.e., of prohibiting the supply of arms to aggressor states, while permitting arms flows to victim countries to continue. Finally, the traditional-neutrality group opposed arms embargoes altogether, as a craven surrender of the rights of neutrals. It should be noted, though, that, for both the traditional-neutrality group and the collective-security advocates, an impartial embargo figured as a second choice. For the collective-security group, if a discriminatory embargo was not possible, then an impartial embargo affecting both sides could be accepted, as it at least had the virtue of preventing the United States from prolonging the conflict by becoming an arms supplier to one side, or even to both. The worst choice, from this standpoint, was the laissez-faire one of allowing arms trading without limit. From the traditional-neutrality standpoint, if such a laissez-faire policy was not feasible, then an impartial embargo would be the next choice, because at least that would retain adherence to the key principle of impartiality. The worst of choices, from this standpoint, would be a discriminatory embargo, which would violate the cardinal neutral duty of impartiality and thereby constitute, in Borchard’s words, “an unfriendly and hostile act of the greatest significance,” tantamount to a declaration of war against the disfavored state.62 So the concrete issue presenting itself in the 1930s in the United States was: what kind of embargo power, if any at all, should the Congress grant to the President? For advice on this question, the Department of State sought

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the advice of Warren. In August 1934, Warren duly produced a lengthy memorandum advocating a “new neutrality” approach to the matter. Its centerpiece was a recommendation that an impartial arms embargo be instituted when war broke out. President Franklin Roosevelt expressed strong interest, and the Department of State proceeded to draft legislation in accord with Warren’s plan.63 But opposition simmered within the Roosevelt administration. The Navy was strongly in favor of upholding traditional neutral rights. From the collective-security vantage-point came strong opposition from Norman Davis, a longstanding Wilsonian internationalist who later served as the American ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Conference. Davis favored a presidential power to impose partial embargoes, which would enable the United States to coordinate its policies with those of the League.64 In the Congress, however, the prevailing sentiment was in favor of a nondiscriminatory embargo policy. That this was so was hardly surprising, given the fact, noted above, that a non-discriminatory embargo was the first choice of one of the factions (the “new neutrality” group) but also the second choice of both of the others. So, as a kind of least common denominator, the odds were somewhat stacked in its favor. Accordingly, the Neutrality Act of 1935 provided that, in the event of war, the president was required to impose a mandatory arms embargo against both sides. Also, the president was given discretionary power to proclaim that American nationals who traveled on belligerent-flag vessels could only do so at their own risk.65 That this foray into the territory of the “new neutrality” was only tentative is indicated by the fact that the law was of temporary duration, expiring in February 1936.66 The chief impact of the new policy was on the conflict between Italy and Abyssinia. As luck, in combination with geopolitics, would have it, the impartial embargo that was imposed harmed Italy more than Abyssinia since only Italy could realistically have imported arms from the United States in any event. A Neutrality Act of 1936 was then enacted to replace the earlier one on its expiration. Now, however, the focus of debate had shifted to the question of exports other than armaments, with raw materials as the principal concern. On this issue, there was the same clear division among the three competing approaches. The “new neutrality” group, including Charles Warren, Walter Lippmann, and Walter Millis, favored granting the president the power to impose an impartial embargo on any and all exports. Traditional-neutrality supporters, chiefly Borchard, Moore, and Senator Johnson, opposed such a power, as did representatives from states with substantial exports. On this point, the traditional-neutrality approach prevailed, although the mandatory arms embargo was re-enacted, along with the travel-restriction authority.67 The result, therefore, was essentially simply a continuance of the 1935 law. It too had a built-in expiry date (of April 1937).

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The next Neutrality Act, of 1937, contained a new element, popularly known as “cash and carry,” which was a substitute for an embargo on noncontraband exports. Such exports would not be flatly prohibited. Instead, the president was empowered to designate a list of goods for which the belligerents would have to pay cash (i.e., loans from Americans would not be allowed), and which the belligerents would have to transport in their own vessels. The idea, then, was that the United States would function only as a sort of passive dispensary of raw materials, but could not actually facilitate either their purchase or their transport. The practical effect of the plan, it was envisaged, would be, de facto, to reduce the flow of materials to belligerents by virtue of the difficulty that the belligerents would have in coming up with the necessary cash and shipping capacity—but without imposing a de jure prohibition. This policy too was a tentative one, programmed to expire in May 1939. This cash-and-carry plan offered some modest satisfaction to both the “new neutrality” and the traditional-neutrality groups—while at the same time being deficient as well in the eyes of both. (To the collective-security advocates, it had no virtues.) It was at least a gesture in the direction of the “new neutrality,” since it was carefully designed to avoid placing the United States in the position of asserting neutral rights against belligerents. However, it stopped short of being a complete embargo. To the traditional-neutrality partisans, it had the virtue of being even-handed on its face—but also the vice of being a surrender of the traditional right to carry goods to belligerents. The cash-and-carry policy was bedeviled, however, by the consideration that virtually any neutral policy, even if even-handed on its face, would, in practice, impact upon the belligerents in differing ways. James Wilford Garner warned that cash-and-carry would “operate in practice with the grossest inequality as between the opposing belligerents.”68 In particular, it would operate in favor of a belligerent which possessed a substantial wealth of its own, plus a merchant marine, to the detriment of a poorer or landlocked state or a state without a substantial fishing fleet. More specifically, at the very time of enactment, the cash-and-carry policy would operate in favor of Japan and against China in the war which had just broken out in the Far East. In a European war, however, it would be a different story. Because of British domination of the seas and its general mercantile strength, it would be well placed to benefit from a cash-and-carry policy, at the expense of Germany. Much the same could be said of an automatic and impartial arms embargo. It appears, on its face, to be an entirely even-handed policy. However, in practice, that would not be so. A wealthy state which was planning an aggressive attack would carefully stockpile arms imported prior to the war—possessing the key advantage of controlling when the embargo would take effect. Once the war was in train, it would be too late for the victim country to follow suit.

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On this same reasoning, an apparently even-handed arms embargo would, in reality, work in favor of a belligerent which possessed a substantial domestic arms industry and against a state which did not. The Roosevelt administration took some steps to mitigate these effects. Regarding the war in the Far East—and fully aware that a cash-and-carry policy would favor Japan over China—President Roosevelt took the remarkable step, or rather non-step, of pointedly declining to proclaim the existence of a war. Consequently, the cash-and-carry policy was not applied. This step (or non-step) was actually heartening from the standpoint of the collectivesecurity supporters, who were particularly aghast that the United States might adopt a policy that blatantly favored an aggressor over a victim. However, it gives rise to doubts as to what the United States’ neutrality policy actually was.69 Collective Security in Action When the Second World War actually broke out in 1939, the result was a sharp change in US policy of neutrality in the direction of the collectivesecurity position. Since the conflict had been inaugurated by one of history’s clearest instances of aggression, there was no real pretense that the United States was actually neutral in the contest, in the traditional sense of being genuinely indifferent as to the outcome. Instead, it was “non-belligerent.” Cooperation with the Allied side was the order of the day virtually from the outset. An early sign was the altering of the neutrality legislation, in November 1939, to discard the mandatory arms embargo. It was replaced not with a discriminatory arms embargo, as the collective-security proponents would have preferred, but instead with a rough and ready substitute: a cash-and-carry policy.70 As noted above, a cash-and-carry policy operated in practice—and was fully intended to operate—in favor of France and Britain, to the detriment of Germany. As such, it was clearly directed against the aggressor state in the war. There were great misgivings as to both the wisdom and legality of taking that step, during the hostilities, on the ground that it would be obvious to all that the purpose was to enable the United States to assist the Allies. Interestingly, Jessup opposed the change.71 His collective-security mindset envisaged establishing a virtually permanent and fixed policy of favoring peace-loving states against aggressors. But to institute, such a policy on an ad hoc basis, clearly directed against a particular side in a particular war, was another matter—and a riskier one, as it would inevitably spark hostile feelings in the disfavored state. If the United States wished to take the Allied side, Jessup contended, it should do so “boldly and frankly” by entering into the war, rather than adopting so transparently thin a disguise as a neutral.

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A further important step was taken in September 1940, when the United States agreed to transfer naval destroyers to Britain in exchange for long-term leases of naval and air bases.72 Even more striking was the lend-lease program of 1941, which provided for systematic and continuing assistance to the Allied side.73 Well before its own entry into the conflict in December 1941, the United States was openly functioning as “the arsenal of democracy.” This policy of “non-belligerency,” or open favoritism towards the Allied side, was not without its critics. Foremost among them, of course, were the advocates of traditional neutrality. Led by Borchard, they denounced the American policy as amounting to a deliberate, systematic, large-scale campaign of international law-breaking. The concept of “non-belligerency,” he objected, “has no legal status. It is designed to justify breaches of neutrality or acts of war, perhaps with the hope that they will not result in a state of war.”74 In the event, the “non-belligerency” policy was brought to an abrupt end not by a snapping of German patience, as in 1917, but instead by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. For the next four years, neutrality issues were off of the American agenda. CONCLUSION It would be pleasing to report the outcome of this vigorous three-way debate over neutrality which took place in the interwar period—that is, to record either the triumph of one of the three or the superseding of all of them by the forward march of history. That is not possible. It cannot be said that any of the three achieved a knock-out blow against the other two, either at the hands of United States legislators or World Court judges. Moreover, neither has the debate been relegated to history shelves of dusty libraries, to serve as a tasty (if thin) gruel for pedants. The issues continue to be alive and in evidence—to those with eyes sufficiently trained to see—to the present day. In a certain sense, the collective-security perspective may be said to be the predominant one today, in that it has been enshrined in the UN Charter. It is most clearly evident in article 2(5) of the Charter, which requires UN member states to “refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.”75 That is to say, that in cases of UN enforcement action, in which an aggressor state has been formally identified, neutrality is not an option. The problem is that there are many cases of armed conflict in which the UN has failed to take a definite position. In such cases, neutrality remains possible. However, is the neutrality in question the traditional or the “new” variety? The answer is that it has been both. In the Iran-Iraq conflict of 1980–88, a number of countries explicitly declared themselves to be neutral—and

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insisted on respect for their rights as neutrals by the contending parties, in ways familiar from past centuries. But “new neutrality” outlook has been evident also, in its signature form of mandatory arms embargoes, which continue to attract criticism for impacting on victims as well as on aggressors. Controversy on this point was especially vigorous in the case of the Bosnian civil war of 1992–95. It has been noted that the fundamental three-fold division of view on neutrality did not arise in the 1930s. Rather, it emerged in the second half of the Eighteenth Century. The contentions of the 1930s were merely the latest twist in that earlier debate. Are the rights of neutrals (so-called) best seen as merely the residue of the normal rights of states after the belligerents have had resort to the principle of necessity? Alternatively, do those rights comprise a more or less fixed list, the transgression of which is simply unlawful? Or are those rights merely a relic or artifact of a by-gone age of anarchy, which the world is committed to ending? It is potent—if also sobering—a tribute to the three pioneers of the Eighteenth Century that we are still battling with the questions that they raised. Our present-day struggles may not be so public, or so vigorous, or so eloquent as those of the 1930s. But the problems are very much with us still. NOTES 1. Nicolas Politis, Neutrality and Peace, trans. Francis Crane (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1935), xiii. 2. Ibid., 42. 3. Ibid., 83. 4. Report of the 37th Conference of the International Law Association (London: Eastern Press, 1932), 175–177. 5. Ibid., 186. 6. Ibid., 187. 7. Stanley S. Jados, The Consulate of the Sea and Related Documents (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1975), sec. 276, 191–194. 8. Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 29–32. 9. Ibid., 32–35. 10. Ibid., 90–91. 11. Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations, or the Principles of Natural Law, trans. Charles G. Fenwick (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1916 [1758]). 12. Ibid., 272–78. See also, Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History, 45–48. 13. International Law Commission, Draft Articles on State Responsibility, art. 25, in Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its Fifty-third session, General Assembly Off. Rec., Supp. 10, 56th sess., UN Doc. A/56/10 (2001), 49.

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14. Martin Hübner, De la saisie des bâtiments neutres ou du droit qu’ont les nations belligérantes d’arrêter les navires des peuples amis (The Hague: Tome Premier, 1759). See also Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History, 48–51. 15. Ferdinando Galiani, De’ Doveri de’ Principi Neutrali verso i Principi Guerreggianti, e di Questi verso i Neutrali (Naples, 1782). See also Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History, 51–52. 16. See generally Richard Kleen, Lois et Usages de la Neutralité d’après le Droit International Conventionnel et Coutumier des Etats Civilises, 2 vols. (Paris: A. Chevalier-Marescq, 1898–1900). 17. Hague Convention V on the Rights and Duties of Neutrals in Land War, October 18, 1907, 205 C.T.S 299; and Hague Convention XIII on the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War, October 18, 1907, 205 C.T.S. 395. 18. Declaration of London, February 26, 1909, 208 C.T.S. 338. 19. See Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History, 145–65. 20. See generally Ernest R. May, The World War and American Isolation 1914– 1917 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959). 21. For a general account of these debates, see Warren I. Cohen, The American Revisionists: The Lessons of Intervention in World War I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967). 22. See Edwin Borchard and William Lage Potter, Neutrality for the United States (London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 33–44. 23. Ibid., 34. 24. See, for example, Henry L. Stimson, “Neutrality and War Prevention,” International Conciliation, no. 312 (1935): 347–357. 25. Quoted in Robert A. Divine, The Illusion of Neutrality: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Struggle over the Arms Embargo (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 19. 26. League of Nations Covenant, art. 11. 27. Quincy Wright, “Repeal of the Neutrality Act,” The American Journal of International Law 36 (1942): 409. 28. Politis, Neutrality and Peace, 47. 29. Ibid., 47–50. 30. Pact of Paris, August 27, 1928, 94 L.N.T.S. 57. 31. Briand-Kellogg Pact of Paris (August 27, 1928): Articles of Interpretation as Adopted by the Budapest Conference, 1934 (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1934). See also Hersch Lauterpacht, “The Pact of Paris and the Budapest Articles of Interpretation,” Transactions of the Grotius Society 20 (1934). 32. Draft Convention on the Rights and Duties of States in Case of Aggression, 33 (Supplement) The American Journal of International Law 827–830 (1939), with commentary 844–909. 33. Charles Warren, “What Are the Rights of Neutrals Now, in Practice?” Proceedings of the American Society of International Law 27 (1933). 34. Charles Warren, “Prepare for Neutrality,” Yale Review 24 (1935). See also Charles Warren, “Troubles of a Neutral,” Foreign Affairs 12 (1934).

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35. Walter Lippmann, “Mr Walter Lippmann’s Proposals,” Naval Review 17 (1929): 275. 36. Warren, “Troubles of a Neutral.” 37. Ibid., 391. 38. James Brown Scott, “The Neutrality of the Good Neighbor,” Proceedings of the American Society of International Law 29 (1935): 84–86. 39. Warren, “What Are the Rights of Neutrals Now, in Practice?” 148–149. 40. Charles A Beard, The Open Door at Home: A Trial Philosophy of the National Interest (New York: Macmillan, 1935), 285–286. 41. Scott, “The Neutrality of the Good Neighbor.” 42. See Lester H. Woolsey, “The Fallacies of Neutrality,” The American Journal of International Law 30 (1936). 43. Edwin M. Borchard, “Restatement of the Law of Neutrality in Maritime War,” The American Journal of International Law 22 (1928): 616. 44. John Bassett Moore, “An Appeal to Reason,” Foreign Affairs 11 (1933): 562. 45. Edwin M. Borchard, “The ‘Enforcement’ of Peace by ‘Sanctions,’” The American Journal of International Law 30 (1936): 523. 46. Warren, “Troubles of a Neutral,” 386. 47. Warren, “What Are the Rights of Neutrals Now, in Practice?” 128. 48. Warren, “Troubles of a Neutral,” 389–390. 49. Borchard, “Restatement of the Law of Neutrality in Maritime War.” 50. Moore, “An Appeal to Reason.” 51. Ibid., 551. 52. John Bassett Moore “The New Isolation,” The American Journal of International Law 27 (1933): 620. 53. Edwin M. Borchard, “Neutrality and Unneutrality,” The American Journal of International Law 32 (1938): 778. 54. Edwin M. Borchard, “The Arms Embargo and Neutrality,” The American Journal of International Law 27 (1933): 296. 55. Borchard, “Restatement of the Law of Neutrality in Maritime War,” 619. 56. Edwin M. Borchard, “The Attorney General’s Opinion on the Exchange of Destroyers for Naval Bases,” The American Journal of International Law 34 (1940): 696. 57. Edwin M. Borchard, “Sanctions v. Neutrality,” The American Journal of International Law 30 (1936): 94. 58. Wright, “Repeal of the Neutrality Act,” 15. 59. Scott, “The Neutrality of the Good Neighbor,” 131–133. 60. John Bassett Moore, “The Pending Neutrality Bill, Letter February 12, 1937,” in The Collected Papers of John Bassett Moore (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944), 84–87. 61. Act of April 13, 1934, 18 U.S. Code § 955, P.L. 73–151, 48 Stat. 574. See J. C. Vinson, “War Debts and Peace Legislation: The Johnson Act of 1934,” 50 MidAmerica (1968): 206–22. 62. Borchard, “The Arms Embargo and Neutrality,” 294. 63. Divine, The Illusion of Neutrality: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Struggle over the Arms Embargo, 70–72.

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64. Ibid., 72–74. 65. Neutrality Act, August 31, 1935, chap. 837, 49 Stat. 1081. 66. Divine, The Illusion of Neutrality: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Struggle over the Arms Embargo, 117. 67. Neutrality Act, February 29, 1936, chap. 106, 49 Stat. 1152. 68. James Wilford Garner, “The United States Neutrality Act of 1937,” The American Journal of International Law 31 (1937): 388. 69. Divine, The Illusion of Neutrality: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Struggle over the Arms Embargo, 200–219. 70. Neutrality Act, November 4, 1939, chap. 2, 54 Stat. 4. 71. New York Times, “Lifting Arms Ban Now Is Held Unlawful,” Philip C. Jessup and Charles Cheney Hyde, September 21, 1939, 17. 72. Great Britain-U.S.A., Leasing of Naval and Air Bases, September 2, 1940, 12 Charles I. Bevins, Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States (Department of State Publication 8761, 1974), 551. 73. Act of March 11, 1941, chap. 11, 55 Stat. 31. 74. Borchard, “The Attorney General’s Opinion on the Exchange of Destroyers for Naval Bases,” 697. 75. “Charter of the United Nations: And Statute of the International Court of Justice.” United Nations, 1945, 3.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Beard, Charles A. The Open Door at Home: A Trial Philosophy of the National Interest. New York: Macmillan, 1935. Borchard, Edwin M. “The Arms Embargo and Neutrality.” The American Journal of International Law 27 (1933): 293–298. ———. “The Attorney General’s Opinion on the Exchange of Destroyers for Naval Bases.” The American Journal of International Law 34 (1940): 690–697. ———. “The ‘Enforcement’ of Peace by ‘Sanctions’.” The American Journal of International Law 30 (1936): 518–525. ———. “Neutrality and Unneutrality.” The American Journal of International Law 32 (1938): 778–782. ———. “Restatement of the Law of Neutrality in Maritime War.” The American Journal of International Law 22 (1928): 614–620. ———. “Sanctions v. Neutrality.” The American Journal of International Law 30 (1936): 91–94. Borchard, Edwin, and William Lage Potter. Neutrality for the United States. London: Oxford University Press, 1937. Cohen, Warren I. The American Revisionists: The Lessons of Intervention in World War I. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. de Vattel, Emmerich. The Law of Nations, or the Principles of Natural Law. Translated by Charles G. Fenwick. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1916 [1758].

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Divine, Robert A. The Illusion of Neutrality: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Struggle over the Arms Embargo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962. Galiani, Ferdinando. De’ Doveri de’ Principi Neutrali verso i Principi Guerreggianti, e di Questi verso i Neutrali. Naples, 1782. Garner, James Wilford. “The United States Neutrality Act of 1937.” The American Journal of International Law 31 (1937): 385–397. Hübner, Martin. De la saisie des bâtiments neutres ou du droit qu’ont les nations belligérantes d’arrêter les navires des peuples amis. The Hague: Tome Premier, 1759. Jados, Stanley S. The Consulate of the Sea and Related Documents. Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1975. Kleen, Richard. Lois et Usages de la Neutralité d’après le Droit International Conventionnel et Coutumier des Etats Civilises. 2 vols. Paris: A. Chevalier-Marescq, 1898–1900. Lauterpacht, Hersch. “The Pact of Paris and the Budapest Articles of Interpretation.” Transactions of the Grotius Society 20 (1934): 178–206. Lippmann, Walter. “Mr Walter Lippmann’s Proposals.” Naval Review 17 (1929): 274–280. May, Ernest R. The World War and American Isolation 1914–1917. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959. Moore, John Bassett. “An Appeal to Reason.” Foreign Affairs 11 (1933): 547–588. ———. “The New Isolation.” The American Journal of International Law 27 (1933): 607–627. ———. “The Pending Neutrality Bill, Letter February 12, 1937.” In The Collected Papers of John Bassett Moore. Vol. 7, 85–88. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944. Neff, Stephen C. The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Politis, Nicolas. Neutrality and Peace. Translated by Francis Crane. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1935. Scott, James Brown. “The Neutrality of the Good Neighbor.” Proceedings of the American Society of International Law 29 (1935): 1–11. Stimson, Henry L. “Neutrality and War Prevention.” International Conciliation, no. 312 (1935): 347–357. Times, New York. “Lifting Arms Ban Now Is Held Unlawful.” Philip C. Jessup and Charles Cheney Hyde, September 21, 1939. Warren, Charles. “Prepare for Neutrality.” Yale Review 24 (1935): 467–478. ———. “Troubles of a Neutral.” Foreign Affairs 12 (1934): 377–394. ———. “What Are the Rights of Neutrals Now, in Practice?” Proceedings of the American Society of International Law 27 (1933): 128–134. Woolsey, Lester H. “The Fallacies of Neutrality.” The American Journal of International Law 30 (1936): 256–262. Wright, Quincy. “Repeal of the Neutrality Act.” The American Journal of International Law 36 (1942): 291–415.

Chapter 2

Changing Concepts and Understandings of Neutrality in the Cold War The Neutral and Non-Aligned States (N+N) Oliver Bange

In early 2017, a number of contributors to this volume convoked a panel at the International Studies Convention,1 discussing different meanings of neutrality over the past 200 years. The intense discussions which followed and which ultimately led to the conference in Madrid, on which this edition is based, showed how different the concepts and understandings of neutrality during the Cold War era were about those developed during the previous decades. The following contribution bears evidence to this observation, summarizing the state of research on the “Neutral and Non-aligned” (N+N) states. It is meant to trigger further thinking on the cultural, societal, and political use and usefulness of national historiographies on multilateral subjects. THE CONTEXT The story of the neutral and non-aligned states was intrinsically linked up with the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Within the CSCE framework, East and West European states from both the Warsaw Pact and NATO as well as the remaining “neutral and non-aligned” states negotiated over a kind of package deal, comprising a code of behavior in societal, economic, military, and media relations. These negotiations lasted from 1972–73 until 1975, and are widely perceived as marking the “high point of the détente era.” After all, it was at the height of these diplomatic negotiations leading up to the Helsinki Final Act of August 1975 that the N+N group was 29

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formally established in early 1974. The group consisted of Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, and Yugoslavia. In this context, it seems relevant to note that the Cold War contributors to this book by Peter Ruggenthaler, Tvrtko Jakovina, and this author—but other conference participants like Aryo Makko and Thomas Fischer as well—have written extensively on the N+N states in the so-called Helsinki Effect.2 Despite the rather wider framing of their focus (“neutrality in the Cold War”), most authors mentioned are experts on the more specific field of “neutrality in the CSCE.” Of course, this is everything but a coincidence because the role played by and the political-diplomatic leverage attributed to the N+N states are widely regarded as the peak of the influence of neutral states during the East-West conflict.3 More than ten years ago, in 2007, Thomas Fischer published an article in which he summarized the state of historiographical research on the role of neutral states in the détente era in general and in the CSCE process in particular.4 His analysis started with the claim that the N+N story had not been researched at all until then. For Fischer, it, therefore, constituted an essential desideratum for contemporary history at the time. Now, ten years later, historiography seems to have turned upside down: Thanks to researchers like Thomas Fischer, Christian Nünlist, Anna Locher, Jussi Hanhimäki, Milan Kosanovic, Philip Rosin, Benjamin Gilde, Aryo Makko, Tvrtko Jakovina, Juhana Aunesluoma, and others we now have a substantial historiography on the role, the perception, and the self-image of the N+N states in front of us.5 Much of this work has been financed or is being financed by some of the national governments involved. This is particularly true for Switzerland, Finland, and Austria. It is therefore not surprising that the publications which came out of these undertakings are full of praise for the East-West policies of each of these countries mentioned. This often amounts to a kind of hagiography of the national diplomacies and foreign policies involved. The publications have drawn our attention to heroes like Edouard Brunner of Switzerland or Richard Tötterman from Finland. Fischer fittingly describes this in a more recent publication from 2016 as a “heroic phase,”6 created by traditional diplomatic historiography. From this current state of research on the N+N states derive some critical points and desiderata: According to Benjamin Gilde, Austria was not an early proponent of Human Rights policies within the CSCE framework, but rather a late-comer. Gilde’s recent findings contradict the established public image and particularly the self-image of Austria’s political and diplomatic elite.7 However, this contrast between historical realities and the country’s projected self-image is by no way exclusive to Austria’s case. Following the research by Philip Rosin, much the same could be said about the case of Switzerland.8

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Indeed, if we take the lead provided by Fischer’s monograph and the most recent book by Aryo Makko,9 the N+N states appear to have had only one or two interests in common. They shared an overarching interest to avoid war in Europe and therefore to stabilize the security and military situation on the continent. Furthermore, their respective policies and diplomacies aimed at enhancing the national standing and national influence of each state. After all, this was and still is what diplomats do, why they admire or hate each other. Therefore, it seems fair to say that the historiographic approaches taken so far have focused almost exclusively on diplomacy and diplomats, thereby leaving out other factors and interests like economics or even policies. Furthermore, it is of interest to note that these historiographical approaches have resulted in parallel national narratives, thereby missing explanations for the multilateral East-West dynamics involved or triggered. Finally, the historical approaches taken have focused either on the major state players in the CSCE framework or on the N+N states, thereby widely ignoring the minor players within the alliances like Hungary and Czechoslovakia, or Belgium and Norway, or even Italy. OPEN QUESTIONS These observations and remarks about the current state of historiography concerning the CSCE function in general and the policies of the neutral and non-aligned states, in particular, imply several essential questions. Could neutrality be incompatible with some societal ideas and ideologies? As provocative as it may appear, there seem to be good reasons to side with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin who, according to Peter Ruggenthaler,10 argued that there could be no neutrality in such an ideological struggle. The Swiss, the Swedes, the Austrians, and even the Fins were clearly opting for liberal values and liberal societies. Within the N+N group of states, only Tito’s leadership in Yugoslavia continued to pursue a socialist model.11 This nonneutrality in terms of values (ontology)12 and societal order were even recognized implicitly in the self-imposed title of the “neutral and non-aligned”: “Non-aligned” defined states which were not members of one bloc, one alliance or the other. This, in turn, seemed to recognize that non-aligned states could also not be neutral at the same time. How much common ground did the N+N states share between non-alignment and neutrality—and did this form an important platform for political initiatives? As explained before, the common ground between the neutral and non-aligned states was not overtly large. This held true regarding policies, values, economic, and societal order and even about threat perceptions and defense issues. Consequently, the definition of national interests varied,

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and the national policies pursued differed greatly. The contributions to the post-1945 era in this book, dealing with neutrality in the Cold War all bear evidence to this effect. Nevertheless, avoiding nuclear war in Europe and enhancing the individual national status through a collective approach remained powerful incentives for the N+N states throughout this period. How much leverage did the neutral and non-aligned states possess in terms of realpolitik, when dealing with the two superpowers and their two military alliances? In response to this question, the negotiations leading up to the Helsinki Final Act13 serve as an example that holds true until this day within the CSCE’s successor institution, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The fundamental questions at the initial negotiations between 1972 and 1975 were the issue of the so-called “peaceful change of frontiers” and the “free movement of persons and ideas.” The signature of the West German governments headed by Willy Brandt and then Helmut Schmidt depended on satisfactory outcomes in both these fields. Without a “peaceful change of frontiers”-clause Germany’s reunification would have been excluded and the territorial dimensions of the Soviet sphere of influence would have been acknowledged for centuries to come.14 Without a “free movement of persons and ideas” clause societal interaction between East and West Europeans—and particularly between the Germans living on both sides of the Iron Curtain—would have been interdicted and have made the upholding of a national identity ever more difficult. However, without a West German signature the Helsinki Final Act was virtually useless to the Soviet Union and its communist leaders: Because without the adherence of the West Germans to the final document, it could not serve as an “Ersatz-peace treaty” (a proxy peace-treaty),15 recognizing at least implicitly Soviet territorial gains after the Second World War. Research conducted in the context of the CSCE history project at the University of Mannheim16 shows that these questions were dealt with outside the CSCE negotiations framework. Instead, these central issues were negotiated through a set of back-channels between the White House, the Kremlin, and the Chancellor’s Office in Bonn in late 1974 and early 1975.17 The role of the neutral and non-aligned states would thus be reduced to mere mediators in the official diplomatic sphere—as, in fact, Henry Kissinger and Leonid Brezhnev during one of their encounters almost sarcastically pointed out at the time.18 What role did economics play in the rationale of the N+N states—both individually and as a group—in dealing with the other Cold War actors in Europe? Moreover, how much was “good (diplomatic) services” triggered or perhaps even compromised by economic interests? There is a remarkable absence of historiographical research related to this question, particularly considering the sizeable body of relatively recent research on the diplomatic

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efforts conducted by the neutral and non-aligned states in these years. Exceptions to this rule are two publications by Aunesluoma and Brunner. In his article from 2008, Juhana Aunesluoma argues that the structural limits to economic détente caused by two incompatible economic systems also impacted on the course and eventual crisis of East-West détente in Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s.19 Edouard Brunner, the famed Swiss diplomat, himself argued in retrospect that he used economic interests and arguments both in Switzerland and in international negotiations to obtain support for his diplomacy.20 All of these observations inevitably lead to the final question of what meaning(s) “neutrality” assumed during the CSCE-era and the “long détente”21 between 1975 and 1990/91. In 2017, at the conference “Lessons from the Past and Visions for the 21st Century”22 in Madrid, Neville Wylie cunningly observed that “neutral societies are not necessarily societies at peace, but societies affected by war in rather specific ways.” This was certainly true throughout the East-West conflict, from the Cold War of the 1950s and early 1960s to the antagonistic cooperation of the détente years, the crisis years of East-West cooperation in the early 1980s and the intensifying “re-engagement” of the end-game in the late 1980s.23 The neutral and non-aligned states had excellent reasons for what is now widely referred to as “active neutrality.”24 The reasons were rather mundane: The “Age of Cabinet Warfare” had given way to the “Age of Total War,” meaning that war would affect everyone in the region, whether neutral or belligerent. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK Research-based historiography on the neutral and non-aligned states provides an opportunity to both demonstrate and learn essential aspects of the CSCE story and its repercussions and impact on perceptions and policies today. It shows how financing specific research can create and even help to construct public awareness and public perspectives. It displays how historical perspectives create public narratives.25 It explains how narratives of things of the past can in turn support (self-)justification and (self-)legitimation for national policies and policy-makers. Moreover, it illustrates how justification and legitimation create political and diplomatic opportunities and realities still today. The recent historiography on the role played by the N+N states during the early history of the CSCE, the insights in historical developments it offers and the political narratives imbued, is in many ways connected to the current problems facing the OSCE treaty at the moment.

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The institutional influence of the neutral states, notably Switzerland and Austria, within the OSCE today is excellent. Their established diplomatic leverage within this multilateral institution allows these smaller European states—in boxing terms—“to punch above their weight.” At least in the Russian perspective, however, real deals can only be made between real powers.26 In Moscow’s understanding, only Russia itself and the United States of America qualify as such real powers in Europe, with a German and Frenchled European Union trailing far behind. Therefore, the institutionalized OSCE-framing influenced by small and pseudo-neutral states is not considered to be in Russia’s interest. It is within this logic that Moscow—especially the Kremlin as well as the intelligence and military leadership—is calling for a complete break-up of the Helsinki system. Following official Russian announcements, the Helsinki system ought to be replaced by a “Yalta 2” system, in which two superpowers—the USA and, of course, Russia—would be able to pursue and conclude deals directly with each other, thereby determining the fate of every country in Europe without further impediments. Russia’s course and rhetoric pose the question with some urgency of what this means for the role and the weight of the neutrals within OSCE and for the meaning of neutrality itself in current times.27 If mediation by relatively small and neutral states would prove to be counterproductive to the cause (something that remains to be seen), then the mediation role might increasingly fall to medium-sized and perhaps non-neutral powers. Current history provides several examples to this effect like the role of the French and West German governments in the early 1980s or the emergence of the G4 (“Big Four in Europe,” comprising France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy) during the financial crisis in 2008.28 During the last two decades of the East-West conflict, the CSCE was characterized by a low degree of institutionalization, but “immense political effects.”29 This was the era in which the N+N states thrived in their mediating role between the antagonistic societal and military blocs, attempting both to stabilize the security situation and to civilize international relations in Europe. By the mid-1990s the political situation in Europe had changed fundamentally and so did the CSCE and the role of the neutrals. The CSCE became the highly institutionalized OSCE, tasked with the organization of the security-political cohabitation in Europe; adversaries appeared to have become partners in security, albeit with somewhat different interests that could be negotiated peacefully within the OSCE framework. While the political effects of the OSCE were thus relatively modest, its diplomatic function was highly valued. Moreover, the neutral states with their long and established experience in the mediatory diplomatic role almost naturally became key players within the institution. Over the past years, the situation has changed once again: new frictions among states and groups of states in Europe have

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emerged, while the institutional framing of OSCE has remained by and large the same. While the “old” neutrals have taken on in many respects the role of guardians of the principle of multilateralism, trying to uphold the institutional framing of OSCE as much as possible, not only Russia but also many of the new NATO member states in Central and Eastern Europe are questioning the institution’s usefulness and purpose. In a recently published book, Andrew Cottey, therefore, anticipates that the current state of power political play in Europe will keep the neutral and non-aligned states in a very close relationship with NATO (with NATO providing military security). At the same time, this relationship would remain ambiguous because it is precisely the instruments needed for this security (arms, power politics, military doctrine, etc.) which are rejected by societies in most neutral states in Europe.30 As one famous song already explains, the future might be “not ours to see,”31 but it seems fair to assume that the political challenges will eventually necessitate a re-definition of neutrality and its usefulness in the near future. NOTES 1. Panel “Changing Neutrality: New Perspectives on Norms, Strategy, and Diplomacy of Neutrality in the 19th and 20th Century,” International Studies Association (ISA) 58th Annual Convention, Baltimore, February 22–25, 2017, Baltimore/ Maryland. 2. Daniel C. Thomas, The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). 3. On terminology in general and on the contemporary usage of the “Cold War” and “East-West Conflict,” see Gottfried Niedhart, “East-West Conflict: Short Cold War and Long Détente. An Essay on Terminology and Periodization,” in The Long Détante. Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s–1980s, ed. Oliver Bange and Poul Villaume (Budapest-New York: Central European University Press, 2017), 19–30. 4. Thomas Fischer, “Die Sowjetunion, Österreich und die finnische KSZE-Initiative vom 5. Mai 1969,” in Osteuropa vom Weltkrieg bis zur Wende, ed. Wolfgang Mueller and Michael Portmann (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2007), 313–339. 5. See, for example, Thomas Fischer, Neutral Power in the CSCE—The N+N States and the Making of the Helsinki Accords 1975 (Baden-Baden: Nomos for the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, 2009), 201–221; Christian Nünlist, “Expanding the East-West Dialog Beyond the Bloc Division—The Neutrals as Negotiators and Mediators, 1969–1975,” in Origins of the European Security System—The Helsinki process revisited, 1965–1975, ed. Andreas Wenger, Vojtech Mastny, and Christian Nünlist (London/New York: Routledge, 2008); Anna Locher, “Finland: Cirsis Management and Territorial Defence,” CSS Analysis in Securtiy Policy, no. 2 (2010); Jussi M. Hanhimäki, The Rise and Fall of Détente - American Foreign Policy

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and the Transformation of the Cold War (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2013); Vladimir Bilandžić, Dittmar Dahlman, and Milan Kosanovic, eds., From Helsinki to Belgrade: The first CSCE Follow-up Meeting and the Crisis of Detente (Bonn: Bonn University Press, 2012); Philip Rosin, Die Schweiz im KSZE-Prozess 1972–1983 (Mnchen: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2014); Benjamin Gilde, Östereich im KSZE-Prozess 1969–1983 (Mnchen: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2013); Aryo Makko, Ambassadors of Realpolitik: Sweden, the CSCE, and the Cold War (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017); Tvrtko Jakovina, Treća strana Hladnog Rata [The Third Side of The Cold War] (Zagreb: Fraktura, 2011); Juhana Aunesluoma, Britain, Sweden, and the Cold War, 1945–54: Understanding Neutrality (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 6. Thomas Fischer, “A Lifeline to the Helsinki Process - The Neutral and NonAligned States and the CSCE Follow-Up Meeting in Madrid 1980–83,” in Northern Europe in the Cold War, 1965-1990 - East-West Interactions of Trade, Culture, and Security, ed. Poul Villaume, Ann-Marie Ekengren, and Rasmus Mariager (Helsinki: Alcksanteri Institute, 2016), 239–267. 7. Gilde, Östereich im KSZE-Prozess 1969–1983. 8. Rosin, Die Schweiz im KSZE-Prozess 1972–1983. 9. Makko, Ambassadors of Realpolitik: Sweden, the CSCE, and the Cold War. 10. See Ruggenthaler’s contribution in this volume. See also: Peter Ruggenthaler, “Im Schatten der Stalin-Note: Der Kreml und Kekkonens Initiative für ein neutrales Skandinavien,” Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung (2013): 91–106. See the same also in; Peter Ruggenthaler, The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin’s Foreign Policy, 1945–1953 (New York: Lexington, 2015). 11. The other noteworthy exception was of course Albania under the rule of Enver Hoxha. But Albania abstained both from the CSCE negotiations and later CSCE process as well as from participating in the N+N group. See: Bruno Nunoz-Pérez and Ahmet Özdemir, “Albanien,” in Außenpolitik im Europäischen Vergleich: Ein Handbuch der Staaten Europas von A-Z, ed. Wolfgang Tieler (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2012), 29–44, here 34. 12. See on this Herbert Reginbogin’s chapter in this volume. 13. Oliver Bange and Stephan Kieninger, “Negotiating One’s Own Demise? The GDR’s Foreign Ministry and the CSCE Negotiations,” wilsoncenter.org (2011). See: https​://ww​w.wil​sonce​nter.​org/p​ublic​ation​/nego​tiati​ng-on​es-ow​n-dem​ise-t​he-gd​rs-fo​ reign​-mini​stry-​and-t​he-cs​ce-ne​gotia​tions​. 14. See the introduction by the editors and the contribution by Gottfried Niedhart, “Peaceful Change of Frontiers as a Crucial Element in the West German Strategy of Transformation,” in Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe, ed. Oliver Bange and Gottfried Niedhart (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008), 1–22 and 39–52. 15. John J. Maresca, To Helsinki: The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1973–1975 (USA: Duke University Press, 1987), 80. See also the same in: John J. Maresca, Helsinki Revisited: A Key U.S. Negotiator’s Memoirs on the Development of the CSCE into the OSCE (Stuttgart: Ibidem Press, 2016). 16. The international history project “The CSCE and the Transformation of Europe,” funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung, was conducted at the University of

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Mannheim, Germany, between 2006 and 2009 (http://www.CSCE1975.net), headed by Gottfried Niedhart and Oliver Bange. 17. For the secret trilateral back-channel negotiations, see Niedhart, “Peaceful Change of Frontiers as a Crucial Element in the West German Strategy of Transformation.” 18. During the CSCE negotiations, the N+N states and their interests were widely neglected by the political leaders of the two superpowers (though not necessarily so by the US and Soviet delegations to the negotiations); see, for example, the innumerous conversations between Henry Kissinger and Leonid Brezhnev, cited in: Stephan Kieninger, Dynamic Détente: The United States and Europe, 1964–1975 (Loânham/ London: Lexington, 2016). 19. Juhana Aunesluoma, “Finlandisation in Reverse—The CSCE and the Rise and Fall of Economic Détente, 1968–1975,” in Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe, ed. Oliver Bange and Gottfried Niedhart (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008), 98–112. 20. Edouard Brunner, Lambris Dorés et Coulisses: Souvenirs d’un Diplomate (Geneva: Georg, 2001). 21. Oliver Bange and Poul Villaume, The Long Détente - Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s–1980s (Budapest/New York: CEU Press, 2017). 22. “Lessons from the Past and Visions for the 21st Century”—international conference at the Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales (ICEI), October 27–28, 2017, in Madrid. 23. Niedhart, “East-West Conflict: Short Cold War and Long Détente. An Essay on Terminology and Periodization,” 19–30. 24. The term “active neutrality” was first used in 1890 and describes the policies of supporting one side in a conflict without directly participating in it. The N+N and particularly the Austrian understanding of “active neutrality” during the East-West conflict defined the term instead as offering and providing facilities and meeting places for mediation between the two blocs and the two superpowers. In the Austrian reading, the country’s “permanent neutrality” was and still is a result of the Cold War, guaranteed in the treaties for Austria’s independence in 1955. After the East-West conflict, Austria proclaimed that it was pursuing a policy of an “engaged neutrality.” See the various contributions in Heinz Gaertner, ed. Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War (USA: Lexington Books, 2017). 25. Narratives describe explanations and causations in historiography. As such the term refers to well-known paradigms or constructions and not necessarily historical truths. Historical narratives are widely used throughout societies and between them for self-legitimation and identity-building, and so on. See, for example, Hayden White, “The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory,” History and Theory 23, no. 1 (1984): 1–33; William M. Foster, “The Strategic use of Historical Narratives: A Theoretical Framework,” Business History 59, no. 8 (2017): 1176–200. 26. See on this also David Noack’s chapter in this volume. 27. In December 2017, a group of contemporary historians and eye-witnesses in an OSCE-sponsored study attempted to adopt the historical lessons of mediation and

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confidence-building to the new challenges which the organization is facing today. Considering the above-mentioned political framing, the study appears somewhat aloft of political realities, but nevertheless draws attention to the potentially obstructive power of national narratives. Christian Nünlist, Juhana Aunesluoma, and Benno Zogg, eds., The Road to the Charter of Paris: Historical Narratives and Lessons for the OSCE Today (Vienna: OSCE Network, 2017). 28. See, for example, these newspaper articles: “EU Big Four in bailout row,” in: The Independent, October 2, 2008. “European leaders meet in Paris,” in: RFI, October 4, 2008. “Rescue of German bank falls through, G4 summit closes,” in: RFI, October 6, 2008. 29. Ingo Peters, “The ‘Old’ and the ‘New’ CSCE—Institutional Quality and Political Meaning,” in New Security Challenges: The Adaptation of International Institutions—Reforming the UN, NATO, EU and CSCE since 1989, ed. Ingo Peters (New York: LIT Verlag, 1996), 85–122, here 90. 30. Andrew Cottey, ed. The European Neutrals and NATO: Non-alignment, Partnership, Membership? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). 31. “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” by Doris Day. 1964.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Aunesluoma, Juhana. Britain, Sweden, and the Cold War, 1945–54: Understanding Neutrality. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ———. “Finlandisation in Reverse—The CSCE and the Rise and Fall of Economic Détente, 1968–1975.” In Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe, edited by Oliver Bange and Gottfried Niedhart, 98–122. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008. Bange, Oliver, and Kieninger, Stephan. “Negotiating One’s Own Demise? The GDR’s Foreign Ministry and the CSCE Negotiations.” wilsoncenter.org (2011). Bange, Oliver, and Villaume, Poul. The Long Détente - Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s–1980s. Budapest/New York: CEU Press, 2017. Bilandžić, Vladimir, Dahlman, Dittmar, and Kosanovic, Milan, eds. From Helsinki to Belgrade: The first CSCE Follow-up Meeting and the Crisis of Detente. Bonn: Bonn University Press, 2012. Brunner, Edouard. Lambris Dorés et Coulisses: Souvenirs d’un Diplomate. Geneva: Georg, 2001. Cottey, Andrew, ed. The European Neutrals and NATO: Non-alignment, Partnership, Membership? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Fischer, Thomas. “Die Sowjetunion, Österreich und die finnische KSZE-Initiative vom 5. Mai 1969.” In Osteuropa vom Weltkrieg bis zur Wende, edited by Wolfgang Mueller and Michael Portmann, 313–340. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2007. ———. Neutral Power in the CSCE—The N+N States and the Making of the Helsinki Accords 1975. Baden-Baden: Nomos for the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, 2009.

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———. “A Lifeline to the Helsinki Process - The Neutral and Non-Aligned States and the CSCE Follow-Up Meeting in Madrid 1980–83.” In Northern Europe in the Cold War, 1965–1990 - East-West Interactions of Trade, Culture, and Security, edited by Poul Villaume, Ann-Marie Ekengren and Rasmus Mariager, 239–267. Helsinki: Alcksanteri Institute, 2016. Foster, William M. “The Strategic use of Historical Narratives: A Theoretical Framework.” Business History 59, no. 8 (2017/11/17 2017): 1176–200. Gaertner, Heinz, ed. Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War. USA: Lexington Books, 2017. Gilde, Benjamin. Östereich im KSZE-Prozess 1969–1983. Mnchen: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2013. Hanhimäki, Jussi M. The Rise and Fall of Détente - American Foreign Policy and the Transformation of the Cold War. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2013. Jakovina, Tvrtko. Treća strana Hladnog Rata [in Croatian] [The Third Side of The Cold War]. Zagreb: Fraktura, 2011. Kieninger, Stephan. Dynamic Détente: The United States and Europe, 1964–1975. Loânham/London: Lexington, 2016. Locher, Anna. “Finland: Crisis Management and Territorial Defence.” CSS Analysis in Securtiy Policy, no. 2 (2010). http://www.css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/specialinterest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/pdfs/CSS-Analyses-68.pdf (accessed Oktober 1st, 2018). Makko, Aryo. Ambassadors of Realpolitik: Sweden, the CSCE, and the Cold War. New York: Berghahn Books, 2017. Maresca, John J. To Helsinki: The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1973–1975. USA: Duke University Press, 1987. ———. Helsinki Revisited: A Key U.S. Negotiator’s Memoirs on the Development of the CSCE into the OSCE. Stuttgart: Ibidem Press, 2016. Niedhart, Gottfried. “Peaceful Change of Frontiers as a Crucial Element in the West German Strategy of Transformation.” In Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe, edited by Oliver Bange and Gottfried Niedhart, 39–52. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008. ———. “East-West Conflict: Short Cold War and Long Détente. An Essay on Terminology and Periodization.” In The Long Détante. Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s–1980s, edited by Oliver Bange and Poul Villaume. Budapest-New York: Central European University Press, 2017. Nünlist, Christian. “Expanding the East-West Dialog Beyond the Bloc Division—The Neutrals as Negotiators and Mediators, 1969–1975.” In Origins oft he European Security System—The Helsinki process revisited, 1965–1975, edited by Andreas Wenger, Vojtech Mastny, and Christian Nünlist. London/New York: Routledge, 2008. Nünlist, Christian, Aunesluoma, Juhana, and Zogg, Benno, eds. The Road to the Charter of Paris: Historical Narratives and Lessons for the OSCE Today. Vienna: OSCE Network, 2017. Nunoz-Pérez, Bruno, and Özdemir, Ahmet. “Albanien.” In Außenpolitik im Europäischen Vergleich: Ein Handbuch der Staaten Europas von A-Z, edited by Wolfgang Tieler. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2012.

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Peters, Ingo. “The ‘Old’ and the ‘New’ CSCE—Institutional Quality and Political Meaning.” In New Security Challenges: The Adaptation of International Institutions—Reforming the UN, NATO, EU and CSCE since 1989, edited by Ingo Peters. New York: LIT Verlag, 1996. Rosin, Philip. Die Schweiz im KSZE-Prozess 1972–1983. Mnchen: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2014. Ruggenthaler, Peter. “Im Schatten der Stalin-Note: Der Kreml und Kekkonens Initiative für ein neutrales Skandinavien.” Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2013 (2013): 91–106. ———. The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin’s Foreign Policy, 1945–1953. New York: Lexington, 2015. Thomas, Daniel C. The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. White, Hayden. “The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory.” History and Theory 23, no. 1 (1984): 1–33.

Chapter 3

“Neutrality, Our Most Precious Treasure, Keeps War Far Away”1 Narratives of Dutch Neutrality, 1840–1940 Wim Klinkert

HISTORIOGRAPHY In Dutch historiography, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century neutrality are seen as a logical choice for a Small Power that on the one hand lacked both territorial ambitions and a strong army or navy and on the other depended traditionally on international trade and commerce. Joris Voorhoeve, in his 1979 PhD claims that Dutch foreign policy is ultimately based on three traditions which form the title of his book: Peace, Profits, and Principles. He traces the origins of these traditions back to the seventeenth century, the heyday of Dutch political, commercial, and maritime power, and although many far-reaching changes have occurred regarding Holland’s stand on international issues, he argues that these traditions are still clearly visible in the post–World War II Dutch foreign policy. Voorhoeve identifies the maritime-commercial tradition as the most important one. This tradition, based on the geographical position of the Netherlands as a coastal nation with extensive inland waterways, traces its origins back to medieval times. As the western provinces dominated the Dutch Republic, established in the late sixteenth century, this spirit of free enterprise became, even more, the central theme of Dutch self-image in the world. Voorhoeve states: “The Netherlands was [in the 17th and 18th century] not much more than a group of commercial cities.”2 The focus was on trade and commercialism, together with a disinterest in territorial expansion, which has continued until today. The second tradition Voorhoeve mentions is the neutralist-abstentionist tradition, which is closely related to the first. The Dutch were only interested in international power politics if it would further their commercial interests. 41

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The “most distinctly neutralist epoch”3 though was between 1839, the formal separation from Belgium, and 1940, the German invasion. On many occasions, during that period the Dutch government declared its neutrality in international conflicts, and three times it called up its armed forces to protect its neutrality: 1870, 1914–1918, and 1939–1940. The third and final tradition Voorhoeve analyzes is the internationalist-idealist tradition. He sees strong tendencies of legalism, non-militarism, moralism, and pacifism, all at least partly resulting from the Dutch abstention from power politics, its commercial leanings, and the idea that right over might is in the self-interest of small states. Especially during periods in which danger was looming, the country, being neutral, presented itself as an unselfish beacon for higher ethical standards.4 Although Voorhoeve has been criticized for reducing over four centuries of Dutch foreign policy to three traditions, he does not stand alone.5 Duco Hellema, one of the most prominent historians on Dutch foreign policy, regards free trade and neutrality as the two critical long-term interests of the Dutch state but also points to the fact that the Dutch are prepared to act forcefully to defend those interests. He denies that the Dutch are peaceful and liberal at all times, but agrees with long-term constants, a term he prefers over “traditions,” as they imply a cultural, political, and intellectual continuity. Hellema also stresses that the Dutch are mostly satisfied with maintaining the status quo.6 All in all the choice for a neutral position plays an important part in any discussion on Dutch foreign policy and the nature of the Dutch state, even for the period before 1840 and after 1940. This indicates that neutrality in the Dutch case means much more than a juridical or diplomatic stance. It is part of how the Dutch define themselves. However, strangely enough, most academicians only deal with it as an issue of foreign policy or approach it from a juridical angle. Other studies focus on specific periods as the First World War7 and 1930s, leading up to neutrality’s apparent failure to protect the country in 1940.8 In fact, Dutch neutrality is a very rich, complex, and a much more multifaceted phenomenon. To understand the meaning of neutrality in the Dutch case one also must contextualize the climate of public opinion. A study based on such a comprehensive approach surrounding neutrality does not exist for the Netherlands. This chapter will attempt the first small step. What were the notions of neutrality in the press, among intellectuals, military, parliamentarians, and pressure groups? Was neutrality perceived as something to be proud of? Was neutrality used to force the government to act? Moreover, how was it framed? By analyzing neutrality as an argument for higher defense spending or as a reason for a more open-mindedness, or even, thirdly as a nationalistic idea heroically appealing and pervasively populistic, the complexity and

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societal relevance of neutrality can be more clearly illustrated. Neutrality acted as an incentive for change, apart from formal neutrality declarations in times of international crisis. However, first, a few words are needed about the nature of Dutch neutrality. WHAT KIND OF NEUTRALITY? After the acrimonious separation of the southern and northern Netherlands in 1830–1839, the decision not to ally with any major power seemed a natural one for the Dutch. A modest, neutral stance in international politics appeared to be the best way to further their self-interest. As a result, neutrality was not controversial in any way, as long as it did not impair free political choices. The Dutch, for instance, considered internationally guaranteed neutrality, as was imposed on the new Belgian state in 1839, for that reason as highly undesirable and even dishonorable. The preeminent international lawyer J.C.C. den Beer Poortugael (1832–1913) did not even classify the Netherlands under “neutral states” in his handbook on international law. Only states like Belgium and Switzerland were in that category, others had complete sovereignty and could choose neutrality as a policy option, reinforced by a strong army.9 As staying aloof from international politics was no bone of contention, the Dutch neutral position in international affairs was discussed in the press and parliament only at times when international tensions rose. In almost all cases, the same elements were brought to the fore. The main line of argumentation was that a small state should stay away from quarreling with Great Powers as much as possible, as Great Powers were only trying to further their self-interest at the cost of the smaller ones. Especially in the nineteenth century, the sentiment was widespread that small states were a dying breed. Second, it was assumed a general European war was indeed possible, but this was seen as detrimental to the interest of small states. Thirdly, neutrality could only survive when backed up by military might.10 Army and navy were essential elements for the small states to have their neutral position respected.11 Finally, the free choice in defining neutrality, and the option to denounce it, was considered very important. Neutrality could always be abandoned in favor of an alliance if that would strengthen the Dutch position. For this option, credible armed forces again were essential. When in 1906 the idea was expressed by the Conservative Protestant member of parliament Hubert van Asch van Wijck (1867–1935) to have the major powers sign a declaration, expressing their intention always to respect Dutch neutrality, a sizable parliamentary majority and the government itself vehemently opposed this proposal as an undesirable restriction of the Dutch’s ability to freely choose the type of policy they desired.12

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NEUTRALITY AS AN ARGUMENT FOR STRONGER DEFENSE Only Paul Moeyes has written a balanced overview focusing on the politicalmilitary workings of neutrality during 1840 and 1940. This study is unique in its approach to the phenomenon and deserves more attention.13 Moeyes makes clear how during 1840 and 1940, strong armed forces were seen by politicians, military, and opinion leaders as an essential precondition for the preservation of neutrality. This line of discourse about neutrality had a catalytic influence on domestic policy. Some even augmented that the Netherland’s geographical location situated amid three major powers, played a strategically vital role within the sensitive area of the European balance of power to maintain peace in Europe. National and European interests were symbiotic.14 The Crimean War caused political tensions throughout Europe giving rise to the first appearance of the concept of armed neutrality to be publicly debated. The government used the phrase in 1854, to find parliamentary support for military budget increases. The prominent liberal politician Rudolf Thorbecke (1798–1872) added to the debate about neutrality that the government had to make it crystal clear, in words and deeds, that its neutrality was sincere and that the unconditional nature of the policy was clear. The objective was to make certain that no confusion whatsoever could exist to give neighboring major powers, or its own citizens for that matter, any reason to doubt its permanence. Furthermore, he argued, a neutral gained international sympathy and strengthened international law in general by standing firm on upholding the rules that protected neutral states and their commercial interests. In his speech, he called the Netherlands a “neutral trading power.”15 The leading Protestant politician Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801– 1876) also praised neutrality but observed that small states ultimately had no other option than to trust in their power and ability to defend themselves.16 When in 1864–1870 the Prussian-Danish and Franco-German wars brought military conflict closer to the Dutch borders, neutrality became, evermore, a topic for discussion. An interesting perspective was offered by the Arnhemsche Courant, an authoritative liberal daily, which in 1866 devoted a series of articles to neutrality. The paper argued for neutrality based on a strong military, but on the other hand also for choosing sides when that was in the overall interest of Europe. It stated that the Netherlands was a member of the European family and when it could further its own and European interests by choosing sides either with other neutrals or with a major power like Britain, it should do so.17 The Middelburgsche Courant took issue with this view and stated, more in line with earlier opinions, that Small Powers should in no way rely on major ones. Only armed neutrality and faith in one’s strength was the

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way forward.18 Nevertheless, the notion that neutrality—however preferable it was—could be replaced by an alliance did surface with certain regularity. An unnamed author in the most important military journal, Militaire Spectator, pleaded in 1870 for a Belgian-Dutch military alliance in case of a FrancoGerman war. The article was written just before the war erupted. The author saw Belgium as “our natural ally.” This military-strategic argument that the combined forces of Belgium and the Netherlands could prevent either French or German military territorial violation of the Low Countries would prove to be a recurring theme in military circles, especially in the decades preceding 1914. The author of 1870 apparently had no faith in a British intervention on behalf of the Netherlands. However, politicians always firmly rejected Belgian-Dutch military cooperation.19 The Franco-German War of 1870–1871 was hugely influential in conceiving neutrality based on a strong army as a foremost way of thinking. The mobilization of the Dutch armed forces of July–September 1870 was a wake-up call for defense modernization and enlargement of the army. Tens of millions were spent on upgrading fortress lines around the western part of the country. Also, the military pressed for a large field army, primarily to be used for safeguarding its neutrality as it could be directed toward border areas threatened by a foreign army and possible violations. Another possible Franco-German war, expected by many, would endanger Dutch territory either in the southeast (the most accessible march route of the German army toward Paris via the Dutch Meuse crossings) or the southwest (when Germany would violate Belgian neutrality, and Britain would support Belgium militarily via Antwerp). Both were complicating factors for the protection of neutrality. Fortifications did not protect these outlying areas, and even a field army would not stubbornly defend them as it very probably would mean its decimation. The field army had to delay an advance toward the Fortress Holland and remain intact, capable of defending the center of the country and strong enough to contribute military resources in a possible future alliance. An annihilated army would leave the Dutch entirely at the mercy of the major powers. In the 1880s Dutch officers published detailed studies on possible war scenarios in Western Europe that could endanger Dutch territory. Interesting to note is that some authors were very willing to consider joining Belgium or even Britain in an alliance and some explicitly mentioned that the Netherlands would automatically join the country’s opponent that violated neutral Dutch territory.20 This kind of military flexibility would contrast sharply with the government’s standpoint in both world wars. The Dutch General Staff tried to address this complicated issue by choosing as its priority a rapid mobilization of the field army in case of a European conflict, to prevent sudden, large-scale military operations by the neighboring

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major powers on Dutch territory. Next, in order, it prepared the retreat toward the center of the country. These three functions (passive deterrence—active opposition against an invader and active participation in a coalition) were very different and, for a country the size of the Netherlands, without a strong military tradition, challenging to execute. When in 1891 parliament extensively discussed the concept of a field army for the first time, the complexities of armed neutrality became crystal clear. Some members of parliament feared that a strong field army would undermine neutrality instead to protect it because it would turn the country from a military quantité négligeable into a force to be reckoned with, maybe as a possible ally, dragging it into the war it was intended to avoid. Also, arguments on army formation got intertwined with issues as defense spending, the level of military threat from the surrounding states, the system of conscription and many others, seeking a majority vote for any proposal impossible. In the end, no decision was taken. It was not until the introduction of personal conscription (1898) and substantial enlargement of the army (1901) that the field army came into existence. It was a miniature copy of the armies of Germany and France. In 1914 it numbered around 90,000 men.21 While neutrality was instrumental for a higher defense budget, it simultaneously had a very different appeal. THE DUTCH CALLING: NEUTRALITY AND INTERNATIONAL LAW After 1870 Dutch lawyers and military representatives became more active in international conferences (beginning in Brussels in 1874) and academic discussions on neutrality. Lawyers, officers, and politicians started to emphasize the pioneering role the Netherlands should take in developing international law further, protecting vulnerable small states. Apparently, this was in Dutch self-interest as well. Officers like the before mentioned Den Beer Poortugael and H.L. van Oort (1857–1935) were internationally active in incorporating the rights and duties of neutral countries in humanitarian law. They were far from being pacifists: they kept warning their audience that major powers, especially in times of crisis, would turn to might instead of right. Outside the military organization, one can find more nuanced opinions. The historian Piet Kamphuis calls the Dutch Union for Peace, established in 1871 the first pressure group on foreign affairs.22 The group was not against a strong Dutch defense, but its members wanted to work toward creating a peaceful world in which right went over might. According to them, it was the “calling” or mission of small states, removed as they were from international power politics and militarism, to take the lead. Some interesting ideas, from

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within but also from outside this Union, developed in the decades leading up to the First World War. The three most prominent champions of the idea of a leading role for small neutrals in furthering international peace were Pieter van Bemmelen (1828–1892), Tobias Asser (1838–1913), and Cornelis van Vollenhoven (1874–1933). The first champion published some articles and brochures in the late 1860s and 1870s in which he pleaded for a more transparent form of diplomacy and an international “peace union.” He expected that all countries would settle their differences through arbitration and those countries, which had the power to issue both economic and military sanctions against other countries should resort to the unilateral use of force.23 Asser, a board member of the Peace Union, was also a professor of law actively involved in commercial law cases involving international arbitration.24 His role in the formation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague brought him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1911. He also participated in both Hague Peace Conferences (1899 and 1907). Asser saw it as a duty for a small neutral state to promote international cooperation, arbitration, and international law. He certainly inspired Cornelis van Vollenhoven, who, in November 1910 published an article in the leading liberal cultural journal De Gids on “the Calling of Holland,” in which he advocated an international police force making it possible to compel states to abide by the rule of law. He suggested the Dutch armed forces should take the lead in its formation. The Dutch press, in general, praised this initiative that would bring the Netherlands again, after the Hague Peace Conferences, internationally to the fore in a very positive way.25 Van Vollenhoven himself had been very active in promoting the Peace Conferences and was busy preparing the Third Hague Conference when the First World War began. One of the issues on the agenda was an international police force.26 More utopian thinkers also felt inspired. A telling example is the plan to construct a “world capital for science, peace, and law” on the outskirts of The Hague. The physician Pieter Eijkman (1862–1914) published detailed plans and actively promoted the idea internationally. He was overtaken however by Andrew Carnegie’s (1835–1919) initiative to build a Peace Palace in The Hague, which opened in 1913. The Netherlands certainly gained international recognition for its promotion of international law, but it was neither the first nor the only country. The Scandinavian countries, for instance, shared a similar tradition as did the Russians with their initiative for the First Peace Conference and the Americans who initiated the Second. The conferences did increase the Dutch international reputation though; something the Dutch enhanced by actively promoting two of their countrymen as founding fathers of international law, Hugo de Groot (1583–1645) and Cornelis van Bijnkershoek (1673–1743).27

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Following the Peace Conferences, The Hague became the seat of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (1901) and the Permanent Court of International Justice (1922). After the First World War Dutch lawyers continued to play a prominent role internationally, but the war had a dampening effect on their missionary zeal. However, other initiatives, originating from the same line of thinking, sprang up. Shortly after 1918, the Dutch scientific community endeavored to recreate a genuinely European academic community as had existed before 1914. Considering Dutch neutrality eminently suitable for European reconciliation, famous scientists like Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928), a Nobel Prize laureate for physics, and Ernst Cohen (1869–1944), a chemist, promoted the Netherlands as an impartial guide and mediator. Some academic contacts with scientists from the Central Powers were indeed restored28 Another example is the historian Nicolas Japikse (1872–1944) who took it upon himself, following the initiative taken by Scandinavian colleagues, to research the causes of the world war from a neutral standpoint. From 1921 he presided over the Dutch committee, working in close cooperation with similar committees from other former neutral countries. Some well-researched volumes were published.29 SHIFTING OPINIONS, 1914–1918 The outbreak of World War I and the German violation of Belgian neutrality together with the atrocities that accompanied that invasion had an enormous impact on Dutch public opinion. The historian Ismee Tames has made a thorough analysis of the shifts of opinion among the leading Dutch publicists during the war years.30 She concluded that the outbreak of the war strengthened the conviction among the Dutch intelligentsia that the country was now more than ever a bulwark for upholding international law, including the laws of neutrality. Also, they emphasized typically Dutch virtues and national traits (being peaceful, balanced, and measured). From quite early on in the war though, the Netherlands began to suffer from frequent violations of its neutrality by both warring blocs, which confronted the Dutch with the harsh reality about the weakness of a small neutral state. In other words, a neutral country lacked the military leverage to make a difference, and the government could do no more than sending official protests when international law was violated by the belligerents. This cast a shadow on the high-minded ideals and principles of the pre-war years. Moreover, the emphasis on law and justice became also part of the Entente propaganda, making the particular Dutch claim less pronounced shifting Dutch public opinion to embrace national sovereignty and independence. This transformation paralleled a less

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favorable view of the neutrals by the belligerents regarding war profiteers and cowards, who denied the importance of the war aims. When in 1917 the most powerful neutral country in the world, the United States, chose sides, most Dutch commentators pointed out not only that the United States expanded the war significantly; it at the same time marginalized the role of the smaller neutrals even further, including inflicting economic damage on them. Furthermore, President Wilson claimed the moral high ground when he published his fourteen points. Tames argues that from 1917 the Dutch were more and more focused on their survival, while still hoping to play a role as mediator, but not one based on neutrality as a legal concept, but on their national character that would be perfect for reaching a balanced, moderate peace. The Dutch were able to really understand all of their neighbors, so they argued. As a result, the liberal notions of neutrality slowly faded into the background in favor of the confessional ones, stressing both the uniqueness of “Dutchness” and the skill to reach a compromise. The warring states, however, were not very interested in a Dutch mediation role. For the Dutch themselves, after four years of increasing tension, violations of their territory in the air and on the sea as well as severe economic pressure by powerful belligerent powers not to mention the outlandish accusations of war profiteering and immoral behavior, had caused neutrality to lose its shine. The government chose to rebrand its foreign policy as “independence policy,”31 suggesting a more active role in foreign affairs, but in practice, it remained averse to an alliance with any major power. There was no viable alternative for neutrality. INTERWAR YEARS: THE ARMY AS THE SAVIOR OF NEUTRALITY After 1918, a critically new element arose in the appreciation of neutrality: the supposed crucial role of the Dutch army and navy in preventing any violations of the neutral Dutch territory. On the one hand, defense spending was severely cut back during the 1920s and 1930s, on the other hand, the idea of the Dutch armed forces as saviors of the country was propagated vigorously by officers and politicians. This new element in the narrative on neutrality, mainly because the war years had shown how weak a small neutral in fact was, raises some interesting questions. Complaints that not enough was being spent on the army to make neutrality work had been abundant from 1840 right up to 1914.32 Even the Dutch General Staff itself had sighed with relief when the army remained untested in 1914 and during the following mobilization years. The army, although growing in size and equipped with some modern weaponry, had not been able to keep up with the belligerents regarding

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combat experience nor tactical and technical innovation. Criticism and doubts about the strength of the army laid the foundation for the tone of the debate for decades to come. Be that as it may, already in 1919 in Conservative and Protestant circles a direct connection between the recent successful upkeep of neutrality and the efforts of the army was being made. Even the Commanderin-Chief of 1914–1918, General Cornelis Snijders (1852–1939), who had been very critical about the army’s performance in the past, now praised the army publicly for its valuable contribution to the country’s survival. For the military now, as significant budget cuts were implemented, the very survival of the field army as a modern defense force was at stake, and that made the connection to neutrality more relevant than ever. The pro-Army activists even got help from no other than the former German Chief of Staff Helmut von Moltke the Younger (1848–1916), who through his posthumously published memoirs, declared that the Dutch army had made him change the Schlieffen Plan. Instead of crossing the Meuse River in Dutch Limburg, the most obvious and fastest marching route, he had chosen a much more complicated and risky advance via Liege (Belgium). Also, General Erich Ludendorff (1865– 1937) mentioned in his Kriegserinnerungen that the Dutch military power had been a reason for delaying the declaration of the unrestricted U-boat War.33 So, from the early 1920s onward, the successful upkeep of neutrality during the war was often attributed to the army, especially in the Protestant and Liberal-Conservative press. Although the argument was brought forward convincingly, it neither resulted in more money for the army nor in a more coherent political-military policy on neutrality. The reasons are manifold.34 First, it is necessary to look at the army itself. The Dutch war-planning changed considerably since 1919. Dutch staff officers had realized during the war that the government did not share some of their military assumptions on neutrality. For instance, it did not allow the Staff to make any preparation for the Dutch army to cooperate with another army or join an international coalition, even if the potential invader of the Dutch territory was evident. The government feared that such rapprochement to foreign armed forces if made public, might jeopardize the country’s neutral status. Nor was it prepared to side automatically with the opponents of an invading army. The government chose to implement neutrality in a very strict and legal fashion, depriving the military of time to prepare for certain scenarios that could hardly be improvised at the last moment and reinforcing the military bias that the government was slow and indecisive, even risking that the country could be invaded by two belligerents! General Snijders called this neutralité a outrance (neutrality to excess), which he firmly rejected. As the love relationship between the military leadership and the politicians was nothing else than superficial, the war experience had only dramatically widened the rift. Neutrality in a political sense and military practice had been two different things and the interwar

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years did little to change that. Before 1914 the first objective was guarding its territorial integrity as a neutral country by calling-up the conscripts as rapidly as possible, followed by spreading out the field army more or less along the borders and manning the fortresses. Second, came the planning in actually fighting an invader. After 1920 that planning was solely directed against a massive invasion of Dutch territory, either by France or, more likely, Germany. In this kind of scenario, a robust and modern field army was again, and even more than before, of crucial importance. That is why the military wanted to protect itself from too substantial budget cuts. In public, it was always said that the field army was essential for the protection of neutrality, but behind closed doors, the General Staff deemed a repetition of 1914–1918 scenario highly unlikely. This also meant the preparation for coalition warfare was considered even more urgent than during the war, but again, the government strictly forbade any such preparation as it could be seen as choosing sides and thus violating the country’s neutral stance. The military had to obey grudgingly. Second, considerations related to changing ideas about a future war. The narrative that the success of 1914 could be repeated as long as defense spending did not sink too low was firmly ingrained in the minds of the Dutch, but it was challenged by doomsday scenarios regarding the massive destruction a new war would bring. Colossal attacks by airplanes and gas bombs would, in H.G. Wells-like scenarios, eradicate society.35 Neutrality would offer no protection at all. This argumentation was in particular brought forward by proponents of national and unilateral disarmament, politically supported by the Social-Democrats and left-wing liberals, comprising about a quarter of the electorate in the 1920s. From 1923 onward its most outspoken propagandist was David van Embden (1875–1962), the liberal MP and Economics professor at Amsterdam University. Tirelessly he presented the most grueling and destructive war scenarios to the Dutch public through newspapers, radio talks, and parliamentary debates.36 An armed neutrality was in his eyes a complete waste of money and Third Hague Conference effort and, more than that, it was even criminal and self-destructive instead of a step forward to a peaceful future. The liberal political leader Henri Marchant (1869–1956) went so far as to declare in parliament that Germany might use asphyxiating gasses which would destroy Dutch public life within hours, if and when a war like that would occur, “civilization in Western Europe will be eliminated.”37 Neutrality, in fact, had stopped to be of any interest, Marchant argued, because the Dutch membership of the League of Nations had already ended the Dutch neutrality. The government fiercely denied this last contention as the Netherlands felt free to opt out when sanctions were declared.38 Until the early 1930s left-wing politicians kept repeating the uselessness of neutrality for a small state because modern war would overwhelm it rapidly

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and decisively. More conservative-minded politicians and the military might agree that war indeed became faster and more decisive from the air, but they argued that against such a threat a serious defense was possible, making neutrality still a viable option.39 All in all, the discussion on neutrality in the late 1920s and early 1930s was more polarized than ever before. Disarmament was now considered a real alternative, while the majority of the population was still in favor of neutrality. However, neutrality was thought to be more threatened than before because of a dangerous mix of the use of modern technology in war, making attacks faster and more destructive, second because of the cutbacks on defense spending and third because of the ever more unstable situation in Western Europe. This led to a very interesting development, a regional pressure group, dating from 1934 to 1936 that pleaded for a stronger defense of neutrality. However, to put this in perspective, the fears of a strategic onslaught must be looked at more closely. THE SUDDEN AND MASSIVE ATTACK On two occasions dooms-day scenarios played a part in the public discussion on the feasibility of a small country maintaining neutrality. The first time coincided with the discussion on the establishment of the field army in the late nineteenth century, the second time in the late 1930s. In many publications in the 1880s officers strongly opposed the thought that any defensive effort was useless and bound to fail. They considered this pessimism in Dutch resilience unjustified. The theme became very prominent when in 1889 the journalist and newspaper editor Henri Tindal (1852–1902) published a number of brochures and newspaper articles and wrote petitions to parliament and to the king describing a massive German attack that could overwhelm the country entirely within 24 hours, including a maritime bombardment of The Hague. In other words, the Dutch armed neutrality was a sham. The military establishment reacted indignantly, forcefully denying the charges and accusing Tindal of spreading dangerous lies. The country was safe, as long as enough was invested in creating a strong army.40 The hype blew over, but the thought of a sudden attack never vanished entirely. From early 1934 newspaper articles appeared about a secret German plan to invade Holland either as a prelude to an invasion of France or to get control of the North Sea coast. The German army would deploy vast numbers of motorized vehicles and airplanes.41 This plan had first been revealed by a German émigré in Prague and later in Paris.42 The author of the alleged plan was supposed to be Franz von Epp (1868–1947), the Nazi leader of Bavaria and propagandist for a new German colonial empire.43 These

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reports coincided with the publication of Ewald Banse’s Raum und Volk im Weltkrieg. Although the German government distanced itself from both the military plan and the book, the damage had been done, creating widespread unrest among the Dutch public. Not only did Banse, quite accurately, describe the German plans about the Dutch coast during 1914–1918, he also advised the German planners not to repeat the mistakes from that war, but to take actual possession of the Dutch coast to dominate Britain. In his eyes, Holland was, in fact, part of Germany.44 In August 1935 the story of Epp’s war plans resurfaced after publications in the French press. Apparently, the German General Staff took the plan seriously now, because Hitler himself had ordered his defense minister Werner von Blomberg (1878–1946) to study a fast, massive, motorized attack on the Netherlands. Most Dutch newspapers concluded that the Netherlands would not be able to withstand such an attack and discussing it might invite Britain and France to act pre-emptively. For the first time maps were published in the daily press, indicating possible German invasion routes.45 Similar reports on German war preparations by American journalists, like Edgar Mowrer (1892–1977) from the Chicago Daily News, lent the story added value. Mowrer had written that the calmest and most peace-loving of all European peoples—the Dutch—had become really worried indeed.46 In 1889 as in 1935 the combination of modern technology, the idea that major powers are inclined to overwhelm their small neighbors with speed and violence and the strategic vulnerability of the Netherlands, caused alarm. In 1889 it had been trains and fast moving cavalry, in 1935 it was the airplane and motorized units, in both instances, it was the German army, and the weak protection the Dutch army could provide. When the prominent liberal journal Algemeen Handelsblad analyzed the Dutch strategic situation at the end of 1934, it concluded that more than ever before the country was in the eye of those drafting war plans. Modern war was indeed a threat to neutrality. The paper concluded, not surprisingly, that the solution was a stronger Dutch defense effort and a more active foreign diplomacy, to urge its neighbors to refrain from including the Netherlands in their war plans. The Dutch should form “an oasis of rest amidst an unstable constellation,” advised the paper.47 BOTTOM-UP PRESSURE: THE COMMITTEE FOR NATIONAL SECURITY The pressure group resulting from these perceived threats to neutrality, the Committee for National Security, was the largest and most influential one in this field since the Union for Peace in the 1870s. This group not only called for

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a significant increase in Dutch defense spending, but it also wanted the Dutch defense effort to shift its focus more toward a specific part of the country, namely the southern provinces, which, it argued, would be the prime target of an invading army. The group was led by academicians, military officers, local and regional politicians and was well supported by some newspapers. What had led to its establishment? First, the reductions in the defense budget. In 1933 and 1934 these reductions had reached their valleys. Second, already in 1931, the Catholic daily De Tijd had discussed the French-Belgian defense cooperation on the one hand and the Dutch neglect to protect its territory under the alarmful heading “The Southern Netherlands trampled.”48 The newspaper claimed that the Dutch army was no longer the credible force it had been in 1914. Furthermore, the paper reminded its readers of the fact that the southern part of the Netherlands was the focal point of West European peace and security. The Dutch should deny the armies of major powers passage effectively. The alternative was a massive battle between the French and German archenemies on Dutch soil. It was the duty of the Dutch government to prevent this by creating a credible defense. Similar articles in other newspapers followed, becoming more alarming in tone as the Disarmament Conference in Geneva failed, and the Belgians fortified their eastern border, thus making war on Dutch territory more plausible.49 Dutch public opinion started to become more aware of actual threats emerging close to their border, reminding them of the last war. The press in the southern provinces produced endless articles on this theme, sometimes in quite compelling tones. The Zuidwillemsvaart, for instance, described the war to come as “an immense disaster, the end of civilization (. . .) causing Dantesque horrors.”50 The paper also pointed out that the industrial cities of the south would be particularly hard hit. It reflected a growing regional self-awareness; the very reason the Committee had its roots in that area. The southern Dutch province of Brabant, previously seen by many in The Hague as a catholic backwater, had experienced a period of rapid industrialization51 and had an innovative new university in Tilburg specializing in business studies, challenging the traditional Holland-centric orientation of the Dutch bureaucratic organization. As the university was closely tied to both the industrialists and the Catholic Party and Catholic Church, an interesting and very natural coalition emerged, further strengthened by Catholic officers. All had a direct interest in securing neutrality, not in the least the leading industries of the region, which felt unprotected. The publicity campaign of the Committee did not fall on deaf ears. It raised money from the public to strengthen air defense and organized meetings all across the country. It published brochures and pleaded its case in The Hague. It emphasized national unity and the Dutch duty to protect its neutral territory.

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Prominent politicians and generals, such as the former Commander-in-Chief Snijders, expressed their support. In April 1936 the Committee, together with some like-minded organizations, held a well-publicized two-day national conference in The Hague on the theme of Dutch defense. Prominent speakers emphasized the need to protect the entire country militarily in a credible way, to enhance awareness among the populace that neutrality required an effort by all and urged the need for the government to cooperate with private industry to achieve sufficient economic war preparations. The conference concluded voicing the opinion that a strong nationalism should fill the gap left by the failed League of Nations.52 From 1936 onwards, opinions began to shift. The government, explicitly mentioning the danger of a sudden massive, motorized, and aerial strategic attack on its territory, agreed to larger defense spending. Prime Minister Hendrikus Colijn (1869–1944) spoke in parliament in February 1936 of swarms of airplanes that threatened neutrality and stated that of all Western European countries the Netherlands was the most exposed to sudden military attacks.53 Neutrality had to be strengthened through new investments in defense. In 1937 the first budget increases became a fact, but could it ever be enough in the light of modern warfare? Moreover, a fundamental question emerged: Was, morally speaking, neutrality the right response to this imminent threat? THE MORALITY OF NEUTRALITY Does neutrality preclude making moral judgments about the behavior of major powers? This issue arose several times. The first case involved the Polish rising against the Russians in 1863. The Dutch government joined an Anglo-French appeal that the Russian government show moderation toward the Poles. In press and parliament, this was criticized as a violation of the Dutch neutral position.54 The next test came in 1899–1902 during the Boer War. Dutch public sympathy was overwhelmingly pro-Boer, but the government tried its utmost not to offend Britain and stay neutral. This passivity was unacceptable for the prominent law professor Jan de Louter (1847–1932), an important advisor to the queen and the government on international law. In newspapers and leaflets, he argued that a small neutral, as a defender of international law, had the duty to speak out against the violent British annexation of the small South African Republics. Many academics and the public at large agreed. It did not, however, influence the political course of the Dutch government. However, for De Louter neutrality meant having the duty to actively bring states to abide by international law—his was a call for activism.55

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During the First World War, the government again remained silent, also in the face of the most horrendous acts of war. It only protested formally against violations of the rights of the neutrals. This makes the one exception all the more remarkable: the formal protest against Germany’s deportations of civilians from occupied Belgium and France to work in the German weapons’ factories in violation of the German promise in 1914 not to harm the Belgium refugees, returning from the Netherlands.56 Finally, and most importantly was the Dutch attitude toward Nazi-Germany. In his analysis of the Dutch neutrality during the interwar years, the historian Rolf Schuursma names as one of the reasons for the Dutch failing to see the true nature of the neighboring Nazi regime was their narrative of how the Netherlands, through its neutrality, had escaped the horrors of the previous world war. Schuursma states that during the 1930s the Dutch had begun to believe that their cautiousness and excellence had saved them, and would do so again. This had made them more inward-looking, blind to appreciate the true nature of the German threat.57 When in 1939 the American journalist Eric Sevareid (1912–1992)58 visited the Netherlands. He described the Dutch as living in a “no man’s land, stubbornly pretending they were somewhere else (. . .) they failed to understand what the Nazis really were.” He called the Dutch “obtuse.”59 This image of an inward-looking population, trying to feel safe by using an out-dated concept of neutrality, not understanding the harshness of international politics, certainly reflects the post-1940 opinion, also within the Netherlands. However, as in 1914–1918, also in 1939–1940 neutrality had become an issue for debate among intellectuals and opinion leaders. Not all were blind to the evil power just across the borders, information on what happened in Germany was quite abundant in the Netherlands. However, would making sharp moral judgments and outspoken political choices help to prevent a war? The aforementioned Telders, still a very influential international lawyer, kept believing the Netherlands had both a calling and a duty toward the whole of Europe to stay strictly neutral. This was by then already a somewhat traditional point of view but sanctioned by many as it promised peace over war and strengthened a cherished selfimage. The prominent historian Pieter Geyl (1887–1966) disagreed, however. He found the German position ideologically so abhorrent that neutrality in his eyes could never be the answer. Geyl interpreted the rise of national-socialism as the prelude to a worldwide “Clash of the Titans,” between democracy and dictatorship. He had trouble in seeing neutrality as the moral high ground in this forthcoming struggle. Smaller democracies should not walk away from their responsibility. But he did not go as far as actively promoting a Dutch alliance with Britain, he was not yet prepared to take that step.60 Other prominent intellectuals had already, for some years, pointed out how dangerous and reprehensible National Socialism was.61

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The Dutch military was convinced a German attack was imminent, all planning was related to this scenario. However, there were fundamental differences between 1914 and 1940 in respect to questions as to how neutral countries prepare militarily for an eventual attack. The government, on the one hand, distanced itself more and more from Nazi-Germany but forbade any military cooperation with Britain and France before the war would break out. On the other hand, it was keenly aware of the country’s substantial economic dependence on Germany, and this left it with very little room to maneuver. It clung to its neutrality more desperately than ever, while critics failed to present any viable alternatives. Neutrality was framed as the only peace option, thereby taking the moral high ground and giving it heroic elements, as well as highlighting the military determination imbued with an undeniably good cause. This theme was reflected in popular culture as well. HEROIC NEUTRALITY IN POPULAR CULTURE Although this is still a largely unexplored topic, three areas of research stand out: popular theatre, radio shows, and the songs of soldiers. Henri ter Hall (1866–1944) was a very prolific theatre producer. His annual shows, almost always based on current issues, were performed all over the country after 1900. In 1915 the show was entitled In Jeopardy, and it presented aspects of daily life in a neutral country. The songs stressed the virtues of peace as well as the qualities of the Dutch, who needed to be active and vigilant to protect their precious neutrality. It presented a Dutch population, fully aware of its potential and willingness to fight for its country when attacked. Next year’s show dealt with the black market, smuggling, internment and the wonders of the cinema. Titled Stop! Stay here! Ter Hall included songs, which expressed both a longing for peace and a united, independent Holland, faithful to flag and queen. Neutrality as a heroic stance, to which a song was especially devoted in 1915, was in 1916 not explicitly mentioned. Also in 1915, the Dutch army published an official songbook. It hoped to improve the quality of songs, sung during marches and to improve morale. About half the songs were of a very patriotic nature. Only in one song was neutrality explicitly named: No trespass by the writer and former soldier Hendrik van der Mey (1842–1914) and composer and singer Hendrik van Oort (1873–1953). The song points out that, although “we are neutral and we like peace,” we will not allow our country to be used by foreign armies. The final couplet warns any invader that we will flood the country and will fight for it passionately. The minister for war, Nicolaas Bosboom (1855–1937), even personally intervened to include a very martial song, Holland Is Ours, by the popular but by many considered vulgar singer and composer Koos Speenhoff

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(1869–1945). In clear language, it expressed the Dutch willingness to take up arms in self-defense, but it did not include the word neutrality. Speenhoff did write a popular song titled Our Neutrality in which he described the kind humanitarian acts done by the Dutch, but also the lack of gratitude shown by the belligerents. The final couplet was martial in tone, indicating the Dutch could strike back with force if need be.62 It was well received in the press. Twenty-five years later the popular songs were rather similar, albeit much more numerous. In contemporary lyrics, neutrality was praised because it gave the country peace. The Dutch stood to watch at their borders; war would not harm them, they would do their duty for the fatherland and repel any intruder.63 Alex de Haas (1896–1973) one of the most prominent songwriters and comedians wrote the Neutrality March, proudly proclaiming the people’s desire and strength in defending their country. The sheer number of mobilized soldiers and popularity of the radio next to theatre shows led to an even more extensive repertoire of soldiers’ songs. The army authorities did not have to publish a revised edition of the Songbook of 1915 because the music industry for well-liked popular music had already filled that gap. Graphically, neutrality was less often represented except during 1914– 1918 when the war and the Dutch plight inspired many artists.64 When we look at more general illustrations of neutrality, the difference between 1914 and 1939 like in the songs, is slight. The neutral Netherlands is commonly represented by the Dutch Maiden, dressed as a Greek goddess holding a shield and a sword accompanied by the national flag and a lion. It is revealing that the downward pointing sword is symbolically expressing “no threat.”65 A FAREWELL TO NEUTRALITY After the German invasion of May 1940, saying farewell to neutrality was not hard. The government in exile in London decided in 1943 that in the future the Dutch interests, especially in the field of security, would be best served by an alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom.66 This conclusion was mainly based on the idea that warfare had become so expensive and was fought over such vast distances, with massive amounts of technically complicated weapons, that a small country could not play an independent role anymore.67 By taking this decision, the only meagre support given by the Allied to the Dutch in 1940 in Europe and 1942 in Asia, and the absence of any say in allied strategy during the war, all arguments that confirmed the traditional Dutch mistrust in motives of Great Powers and of outside support, seemed to be forgotten. Trusting allies was judged the most sensible course of action, the risks notwithstanding.

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After 1945, the Dutch military dependence on major powers was apparent for all to see. However, again the distrust was felt as well: giving five permanent members veto rights in the Security Council (1945) was a bitter pill to swallow for the Dutch government, as was the American opposition against Dutch military actions in their former colony Indonesia. On the other hand, the Dutch favored a continued American and British commitment to Europe, as well as a quick economic recovery in Germany. In the end, the argument that had held true for many decades had been answered: only a substantial defense effort could give the country some leeway in deciding its fate, also within an alliance. This step was finally taken in March 1948.68 Since 1940 neutrality was associated with defeatism, budget cuts, an inward-looking attitude, anti-militarism, weakness, and a lack of unity and purpose under the populace. Neutrality as the mainstay of the country’s foreign policy was discredited and dead. However, the narratives which had been part and parcel of neutrality since 1840 did not culminate with it.69 CONCLUDING REMARKS Both Voorhoeven and Hellema indicate that neutrality lies at the core of Dutch foreign policy. Both also stress that the phenomenon extends beyond the 1840–1940 period, the so-called period of political neutrality. Focusing on that century, it is evident that neutrality was much more than a rational choice made by diplomats for their own profit. Of course, many geographic and political criteria explain this choice as an obvious one for a small state. However, neutrality had an impact on many different developments. The fact is that the concept of armed neutrality justified the entire military effort, comprising about 20–25 percent of the annual budget. This meant a considerably huge burden, both financially and personally, which rests on the shoulders of the Dutch (male) population. Moreover, it was hard to objectively state what kind of defense was mostly suited for a small neutral. The Dutch choice, extensive fortifications, and a field army modeled on the German example were not, by definition, the most suitable. The complicated relationship between the Dutch government and the General Staff made this very obvious. Neutrality also led to interesting contradictions: on the one hand, it was meant to keep away as far as possible from international politics, but on the other hand, it gave rise to an idea of a higher “calling,” urging for a greater active international involvement in world affairs. Dutch efforts in the field of international law, international cooperation, and humanitarian help to victims of war all across Europa certainly are examples of involvement in world affairs, based on neutrality. A mix of self-interest and sincere humanitarianism lies at the heart of this. Politically and militarily neutrality gave rise to an

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almost paradoxical situation of abstention from power politics while the military preparations were, in the end, based on an alliance with a major power and survival through participation in an international peace conference. These two views lacked coordination, constituting a serious weakness in the Dutch concept of neutrality. Finally, it would be interesting to explore further and illustrate comparatively the role neutrality played in 1914–1918 and 1939–1940 as a national binding element and what exactly was expected of the populace. The idea was to stay outside conflicts, but neutrality did not preclude participating in war for the sake of self-defense.

NOTES 1. A line from a popular song of September 1939 Our boys at the border, our boys at the coast performed by Kees Pruis (1889–1957), words by Ferry van Delden (1892–1965), both very well-known Dutch popular artists during the interwar years. 2. J.J.C. Voorhoeve, Peace, Profits and Principles (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), 44. 3. Ibid., 47. 4. Ibid., 51. 5. Y. Kleistra, “De constantenthese in de studie van het Nederlands buitenlands beleid,” Beleid en Maatschappij 27, nr. 2 (2000): 102–109, see also J.C. Boogman, “The Netherlands in the European Scene” in Britain and the Netherlands in Europe and Asia, eds. J.S. Bromley and E.H. Kossmann (London: Macmillan, 1968) and Ph. Everts and G. Walraven, The Politics of Persuation (Aldershot: Avebury, 1989). 6. D. Hellema, Nederland in de wereld (Houten: Spectrum, 2016). 7. Wim Klinkert, Defending Neutrality (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013) and Wim Klinkert, Paul Moeyes, and Samuel Kruizinga, Nederland Neutraal (Amsterdam: Boom, 2014). 8. L. de Jong, Neutraal (Den Haag: Staatsdrukkerij, 1969), and Rolf Schuursma, Vergeefs onzijdig (Utrecht: Matrijs, 2005). 9. J.C.C. den Beer Poortugael, Oorlogs-en Neutraliteitsrecht (Den Haag: Van Cleef, 1900), 237–238. 10. The Dutch Government reacted on the Anglo-French Declaration of 29 March 1854 on the rights of trade by neutrals. 11. Proceedings of Parliament, December 23, 1840, 80; October 4, 1843, 735 and 745; March 27, 1854, 692 and March 28, 1854, 707; Algemeen Handelsblad, August 8 and September 19, 1840 and January 6, 1854; De Grondwet, January 17 and March 31, 1854; De Noord Brabander, February 9, 1854; De Nederlander, February 7, 1855 and NRC, February 16, 1855. 12. Proceedings of Parliament, December 5, 1906, 656–657. 13. Paul Moeyes, De sterke arm. De zachte hand (Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 2006).

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14. See for instance H.J. Enderlein, former Minister of War, in the monthly Vragen des Tijds (1891) 1–14 describing Dutch neutrality as a keystone of Western European security. The liberal MP Rembertus Westerhoff (1801–1874) declared that the interest of the major Powers in having the balance of power upheld was one of the best guarantees for Dutch neutrality to be respected. Proceedings of Parliament, December 15, 1855, 419. 15. Proceedings of Parliament, July 17, 1854, 1094. 16. Proceedings of Parliament, December 7, 1855, 330. 17. Arnhemsche Courant, April 14, 1866. 18. Middelburgsche Courant, April 26, 1866. 19. X, “Onze binnenlandsche verdediging te water,” Militaire Spectator (1870), 332–348. 20. W. Rooseboom, “De handhaving onzer neutraliteit in verband met de Westerschelde,” Orgaan van de Vereeniging ter beoefening van de krijgswetenschap (1878–1879): 399–461 and F.H. Boogaard, “De verdediging der Westerschelde,” De Militaire Gids (1883): 26–33 and R.A. Klerck, “De verplichting van Nederland tot handhaving zijner neutraliteit op de Westerschelde,” De Militaire Gids (1883): 1–25. W. Hoogenboom, Handhaving der gewapende onzijdigheid (’s-Gravenhage: Van Cleef, 1888) and N. Bosboom, Over de militaire maatregelen door Nederland te nemen tot het handhaven eener gewapende neutraliteit (’s-Gravenhage: Van Doorn, 1888), W.L. de Petit, “Onze hedendaagsche militaire toestand in Europa,” VBK (1890–1891): 352–414; and G., “Onze neutraliteit in Limburg,” De Militaire Gids (1893): 345–368. 21. Wim Klinkert, Het vaderland verdedigd (Den Haag: Sdu, 1992). 22. P.H. Kamphuis, Het Algemeene Nederlandsche Vredebond 1871–1901 (The Hague: Sectie Militaire Geschiedenis Koninklijke Landmacht, 1982). 23. P. van Bemmelen, Middelen tot voorkoming van oorlog (Utrecht: Beijers, 1871). 24. He started the Revue de Droit International (1869) and co-founded the Instute de Droit International (1873). 25. Henk te Velde, Gemeenschapszin en plichtsbesef (’s-Gravenhage: Sdu, 1992), 231–234. 26. Francis Boyle, Foundations of World Order (Durham/London: Duke University Press, 1999), 83–85; Maartje Abbenhuis (ed.), War, Peace and International Order? (Abingdon/London: Routledge, 2017) and C. van Vollenhoven, “Les préparatifs de la troisieme Conférence de la Paix” Revue de Droit International et de Législation Comparée (1911): 79–85. 27. Alain Wijffels, “Nederland en het einde van de belle époque,” in Nederland als voorbeeldige natie, ed. Wim van Noort (Hilversum: Verloren, 2006), 52–71 and A. Eyffinger, The 1899 Hague Peace Conference (London: Kluwer Law International, 1999). 28. G.J. Somsen, “Holland’s Calling,” in Neutrality in Twentieth Century Europe, ed. R. Lettevall (New York/London: Routledge, 2012), 45–64 and K. van Berkel, In het voetspoor van Stevin (Meppel: Boom, 1985). 29. Among others: Hajo Brugmans, De buitenlandsche politiek van het Britsche Rijk, 1870–1914 (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1926); Cornelis Snijders, De mobilisatiën bij de

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groote Europeesche mogendheden in 1914 (Leiden: Sijfhoff, 1927) and Jan Bartstra, De internationale verhoudingen, 1890–1902 (Leiden: Sijfhoff, 1928). 30. Ismee Tames, “‘War on our Minds,’ Neutrality and Identity in Dutch Public Debate during the First World War,” First World War Studies 3 (2), (October 2012): 201–216. 31. Explained in the Second Chamber of Parliament by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, December 14, 1922, 1057. 32. A telling example is how the Commander-in-Chief and prominent Staff officers voiced their distrust in the military capacities of the Dutch army in 1914 and the following years. See Klinkert, vaderland verdedigd, 335–342 and Wim Klinkert, “Verdediging van de zuidgrens, 1914–1918,” Militaire Spectator 156 (1987): 251–255. 33. Officers also referred to articles in The Army Quarterly of April 1923 and October 1925 on Dutch neutrality. 34. Klinkert, Defending Neutrality, 259–268. Among many other Proceedings of Parliament, May 27, 1926, 1183; March 1 and 2, 1927, 1566, 1592 and 1601; December 14, 1928, 1148; and December 17, 1929, 1143 and 1148. On the press and collective memory see Harmen Meek, Collectieve herinneringen aan de Eerste Wereldoorlog in Nederland, 1918–1939 (MA-thesis, Utrecht University, 2008) and Randy Breukel, De preventieve beteekenis van ons leger in den oorlog (MA-thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2015). 35. Brett Holman, The Next War in the Air (Londen/New York: Routledge, 2014). 36. Van Embden wrote a widely distributes brochure titled Nationale ontwapening of volksverdelging (Rotterdam: Van Sijn & Zonen, 1924) and gained national fame by debating with general Snijders in September 1924, broadcasted live on national Dutch radio. 37. Proceedings of Parliament, March 2, 1927, 1609 and December 12, 1929, 1054. 38. The Dutch government declared that based on resolutions by the General Assemblée (October 1921) states could never be forced to participate in sanctions based on Article 16. Remco van Diepen, Voor Volkenbond en Vrede (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1999), 59–60 39. Proceedings of Parliament, November 28, 1934, 601 and December 4, 1935, 845. 40. K. Eland, “De brochures van den heer Tindal,” Militaire Spectator (1889): 213–250. 41. De Tribune, March 8, 1934 and Nieuwe Venlosche Courant, March 9, 1934. 42. First in Die Wahrheit (Prague) later in Journal des Débats, Revue de France and l’Ordre (Paris). The source was Helmut Klotz (1894–1943). 43. The Dutch press frequently mentioned Von Epp as the likely successor of Paul von Hindenburg as President of Germany. 44. Nieuwe Tilburgsche Courant, April 11, 1934. On Banse as propagandist of Nazi German-expansionism, see a Memo by Robert Vansittart April 1934, National Archives Londen (NAL), inv. CAB 24/248. 45. Nieuwe Tilburgsche Courant and Algemeen Handelsblad, August 13, 1935. 46. NRC, February 7, 1936.

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47. Algemeen Handelsblad, November 16, 1934. 48. De Tijd, January, 24 and 29 1931. The same month the economist Willem Joost van de Woestijne (1901-) published an article in the prominent cultural monthly De Gids on the need to invest more in defense in order to protect neutrality, especially the southern provinces were exposed to foreign military activities. W.J. van de Woestijne, “Ontwapening of veiligheid,” De Gids 95 (1931) 2: 102–116. Parliament had discussed this problem in November 1933. 49. Eindhovensch Dagblad, January 21, 1931, Algemeen Handelsblad, June 30, 1933 and Limburger Koerier, August 30, 1933. 50. De Zuidwillemsvaart, November 12, 1934. 51. Most prominent was the Philips factory for light bulbs and electrical devices in Eindhoven. 52. De Tijd, April 18, 1936. 53. Proceedings of Parliament, February 13, 1936, 1314. 54. Proceedings of Parliament, May 20, 1863, 762. 55. Martin Bossenbroek, Holland op zijn breedst (Amsterdam: Bakker, 1996), 67 and 79–80. This is much in line with thinkers of International Law, like the British legal scholar Lasa Oppenheim, who argued in International Law (1906) that the neutrals have a duty to defend Internatonal Law collectively when belligerents infringe on it. 56. Loudon to the Dutch Minister in Berlin 29 November 1916, published in C. Smit, De buitenlandse politiek van Nederland 1899–1919, vol. 4 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1962), 703–706. 57. Schuursma, Vergeefs onzijdig, 190. 58. Accompanied by his Daily Express-colleague from New Zealand, Geoffrey Cox (1910–2008). 59. Eric Sevareid, Not so Wild a Dream (Colombia: University of Missouri Press, 1946), 115. 60. Schuursma, Vergeefs onzijdig, 130–133 and Peter Giesen, Land van lafaards? (Wormer: Inmerc, 2007), 107–110. 61. Most prominent among them were the writer Menno ter Braak (1902–1940), the social-democratic politician and economist Bob van Gelderen (1891–1940), the historian Johan Huizinga (1872–1945), and the social-democratic journalist Jacques de Kadt (1897–1988). 62. It was published in 1916 in a volume called Soldier’s Songs. 63. http:​//www​.lege​r1939​-1940​.nl/L​iedje​s/sta​rt_li​ed.ht​m accessed January 31, 2018. 64. Most prominent were Albert Hahn (1877–1918), Louis Raemaekers (1869– 1956), Leo Jordaan (1885–1980) and Jan Sluijters (1881–1956). 65. See for instance De Graafschapbode, June 18, 1915 and April 12, 1939. 66. These plans were made in close cooperation with the Norwegian politician Trygve Lie (1896–1968) and the Belgian Henri Spaak (1899–1972). The main Dutch architect leading the country away from neutrality was the Minister of Foreign Affairs Eelco van Kleffens (1894–1983). 67. De Tijd agreed and called it an adjustment to a harsh reality, April 29, 1947.

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68. Floribert Baudet, Het vierde wapen (Amsterdam: Boom, 2013), 43–47. 69. When in the early 1980s the Dutch population vehemently protested against new American nuclear weapons on Dutch soil, scholars interpreted this as a temporary return to neutralist tendencies. (Duco Hellema, “ het Nederlands buitenlands beleid, 1983–2008,” Jaarboek Vrede en Veiligheid (2008): 190–204.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbenhuis, Maartje. The Art of Staying Neutral. Amsterdam: AUP, 2006. Baudet, Floribert. Het vierde wapen. Amsterdam: Boom, 2013. Beer Poortugael, J.C.C. den. Oorlogs- en Neutraliteitsrecht. Den Haag: Van Cleef, 1900. Berkel, Klaas van. In het voetspoor van Stevin. Meppel: Boom, 1985. Boogman, J.C. “The Netherlands in the European Scene.” In Britain and the Netherlands in Europe and Asia, edited by J.S. Bromley and E.H. Kossmann. London: Macmillan, 1968. Bossenbroek, Martin. Holland op zijn breedst. Amsterdam: Bakker, 1996. Diepen, Remco van. Voor Volkenbond en Vrede. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1999. Eyffinger, A. The 1899 Hague Peace Conference. London: Kluwer Law International, 1999. Everts, Ph. and G. Walraven. The Politics of Persuasion. Aldershot: Avebury, 1989. Hellema, Duco. Nederland in de wereld. Houten: Spectrum, 2016. Jong, Lou de. Neutraal. Den Haag: Staatsdrukkerij, 1969. Kamphuis, Piet. Het Algemeene Nederlandsche Vredebond 1871–1901. The Hague: Sectie Militaire Geschiedenis Koninklijke Landmacht, 1982. Kleistra, Y. “De constantenthese in de studie van het Nederlands buitenlands beleid,” Beleid en Maatschappij 27, nr. 2 (2000): 102–109. Klinkert, Wim. Het vaderland verdedigd. Den Haag: Sdu, 1992. ———. Defending Neutrality. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013. ———, Paul Moeyes, and Samuel Kruizinga. Nederland neutraal. Amsterdam: Boom, 2014. Moeyes, Paul. De sterke arm. De zachte hand. Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 2006. Schuursma, Rolf. Vergeefs onzijdig. Utrecht: Matrijs, 2005. Sevareid, Eric. Not so Wild a Dream. Colombia: University of Missouri Press, 1946. Somsen, G.J. “Holland’s Calling.” In Neutrality in Twentieth-Century Europe, edited by R. Lettevall, 45–64. New York/London: Routledge, 2012. Tames, Ismee. “War on our Minds. Neutrality and Identity in Dutch Public Debate during the First World War”. First World War Studies 3, nr. 2 (October 2012): 201–216. Velde, Henk te. Gemeenschapszin en plichtsbesef. ’s-Gravenhage: Sdu, 1992. Voorhoeve, Joris. Peace, Profits, and Principles. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979. Wijffels, Alain. “Nederland en het einde van de belle époque”. In Nederland als voorbeeldige natie, edited by Wim van Noort, 53–72. Hilversum: Verloren, 2006.

Part II

NEUTRALITIES AS STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS

Chapter 4

The Forgotten History of Maritime Neutrality, 1500–18001 Leos Müller

Recent scholarship about the history of neutrality often focuses on the Second World War and Cold War periods.2 It is often portrayed as a unique feature related to national identity, significant to small and medium-sized European nations, such as Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, and Finland, which are attributed a critical stabilizing role in resolving international conflicts.3 Also, scholarship on the twentieth-century concept of neutrality4 often presumes that the origins of modern neutrality date back to the early nineteenth century, to the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), when the permanent neutralities of Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries were adopted. Fewer publications have devoted attention to neutrality related to the First World War, and the Law of Neutrality at The Hague Conferences in 1899 and 1907, and even less has been written about neutrality in the nineteenth century. Noticeable exceptions are the historians, Elizabeth Chadwick,5 Stephen Neff,6 and Maartje Abbenhuis.7 This chapter offers an alternative view. It evaluates the historical roots of contemporary notions of neutrality that predate the 1815 Congress of Vienna by many centuries. Often small European maritime nations, during thirdparty wars, used neutrality as a legal status for the sake of trading and shipping under their neutral flags, to and from belligerents, and to carry cargo for belligerents (i.e., carrying belligerent goods on neutral ships). Neutrality at sea is distinctly different from territorial neutrality (i.e., when states declare their soil as neutral ground). In early modern warfare, such declarations did not matter much. For example, when the Elector of Brandenburg in 1630 declared in the ongoing Thirty Years’ War that his state was neutral, Gustavus Adolphus dismissed the territorial neutrality as “nothing but rubbish.”8 The Catholic side behaved in the same way regarding the territorial neutrality of the Landgrave of Hesse.9 67

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THE ORIGINS OF MARITIME NEUTRALITY Maritime neutrality is related to two early modern ‘inventions”: that of international waters (the freedom of the seas), and that of international law of neutrality. The Dutch scholar Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) made important contributions to both “inventions,” as will be shown below. His legal writing, however, should not be read in isolation but has to be set into the broader contexts of the early modern expansion of shipping and trade, and the international relations of Europe. Grotius’ conceptualization was very much grounded in practical problems like seizures of vessels and cargo (booty of war, or prize taking), free trade, navigation and, of course, the conduct of war.10 Shipping and trade under neutral flag have been a part of commercial practice in the Mediterranean world since ancient times. Its rules were enshrined in Mediterranean maritime law through the so-called Consolato del Mare, as early as the 1370s.11 From there the rules were imported, adapted, and changed in national jurisdictions of northern Europe and the Atlantic world.12 Universal recognition of those rules was, however, a long process. Even during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793–1815, the British refused to acknowledge international principles of shipping and trade under Danish and Swedish neutral flags.13 By focusing on maritime neutrality between 1500 and 1800, this chapter also studies how neutrality on the high sea was understood, exploited, and contested. It aims to explain the historical context of these three pillars in which maritime neutrality between 1500 and 1800 mattered. The first apparent reason to study the early modern period is to understand its impact on contemporary neutrality. Today’s legal, diplomatic, and economic notions of the concept originated in the early modern world. If one wishes to understand the formation of neutrality law as a constituent of international law in the nineteenth century, one needs to look at the legal role of neutrality in previous centuries. Second, the discourse of early modern maritime neutrality was an essential argument in the critique of mercantilism. Neutrals exploited the freedom of the seas, and they were great advocates of free trade, even if their points of departure were not the same as that of Adam Smith. Third, the practice of maritime neutrality impacted the functioning of European and global trade in the early modern period. Neutral tonnage reduced the economic damage caused by naval warfare. Trade and shipping under neutral flags of the Dutch Republic, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, The Kingdom of Naples, and later on the young American Republic, mattered to the stability of an already worldwide trade system.14 This chapter will depict the three pillars mentioned above mainly by using the historical cases of Swedish and Danish maritime neutrality and,

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occasionally, those of other critical maritime neutrals. Regarding size, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, until the outbreak of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–1784), the Dutch Republic was the world’s dominant maritime neutral. The United States was a latecomer but, in the years of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, it was the young American nation that became the most prominent neutral as a carrier of cargo and trader in merchandise.15 Tracing the origins of early modern maritime neutrality back to the 1500s is important because of the politicization of the seas. The Iberian explorations across the world’s oceans, from Columbus, Vasco da Gama to Magellan, created a new perception of what scholars are now calling “oceanic spaces.”16 For the first time in human history, the fact that oceanic spaces made more than a half of the world’s surface became evident in the early modern period, and dominion of waterways across the vast bodies of water could be seen as the key to global trade and shipping. Iberian powers claimed rights to these spaces, thereby starting the process of their politicization. The claims were contested by other maritime nations, primarily by the English, French, and Dutch, who argued for the freedom of the seas. This debate about the characteristics of oceanic spaces as either free for every nation to navigate, or as territorial waters, is crucial in understanding the discourse about the legitimacy of shipping under neutral flag. Maritime neutrality, in principle, was viable only in international waters where (embryonic) international law applied, which was in and of itself an outcome of the politicization of oceanic spaces.17 After 1815, maritime neutrality lost its momentum because the nineteenth century was exceptionally peaceful regarding naval warfare. The major factor for that was that the British Royal Navy controlled important maritime routes. Under the Pax Britannica, the competitive advantage of neutrality at sea— the fact that they were able to ship and trade while belligerent states were not—which was so crucial for eighteenth-century maritime neutrals, disappeared. It was clearly visible in the diminished global activity of Danish and Swedish merchant marines. The small maritime neutrals became long-term volunteer neutrals. However, two nineteenth-century conflicts had important maritime contexts, impacting the development of international law of the sea: the Crimean War (1854–1856) and the American Civil War (1861–1865).18 TWO PERSPECTIVES ON NEUTRALITY AND NEUTRAL SHIPPING Maritime neutrality in the early modern period can, on the one hand, be studied as either an issue of political and legal discourse19 or as a commercial

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practice because thousands of vessels under neutral flags carried on trade and shipping in wartime. The two perspectives arise from the same sources; the men who acted as lawyers in cases of seized vessels and cargoes (prizes), also wrote legal treaties on neutral rights and natural law.20 The first two sections will look at the discursive origins of early modern neutrality, while section three will discuss commercial practices of maritime neutrality in the early modern period. A long line of military theorists, from Thucydides to Niccolo Machiavelli, have dismissed neutrality as an unrealistic policy in a world dominated by military power.21 According to this reasoning, in an armed conflict, it is always better to choose a side because proclaiming one’s neutrality does not provide any guarantee that belligerents will recognize it. Confronted with military power, proclamations of neutrality do not matter, they say. Another related argument against the legitimacy of neutrality was constructed by theorists of “just war” (Bellum justum). It stated that it was justifiable to take to arms only if the cause of the war was just, and in such a war none could stand impartial. In this meaning, neutrality was immoral and in this sense an “illegal” stance.22 Arguments of “just war” dominated the medieval discourse on warfare and they remained present during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.23 However, as the character of early modern warfare changed from religious wars to inter-state wars, arguments for just causes of war were also reexamined. Although Hugo Grotius, in his major work, De jure Belli ac Pacis (“On the Law of War and Peace,” 1625), still argued that only a just cause could legitimize warfare, he also admitted that sometimes it was difficult to determine which party of a conflict was the just one.24 This argument was incorporated in writings on international law after 1648. It became popular because the character of early modern warfare changed after the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). In the three Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652–1654, 1665–1667, 1672–1674) as well as in the French contest for hegemony on the continent around the 1700s, and in the many small belligerencies of the eighteenth century, wars between Great Powers were barely more than a means of foreign policy. Mercantilist trade wars and colonial conquests indeed were not conceptualized anymore as “just wars” at all, but as purely a race by Great Powers for economic and political superiority. This shift in perception of warfare is essential to understand why maritime neutrality became acceptable and legitimate. The second point of departure of maritime neutrality was the recognition of the freedom of trade and navigation of the seas. The post-1500 politicization of oceanic spaces entailed discursive struggles for the rights of free trade and navigation among maritime nations. While Portugal and Spain claimed their dominion of oceanic spaces, based on their mutual agreements and Papal donations, the Dutch, French, English, and others contested those claims.25

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Also, in this case, Hugo Grotius made the path-breaking theoretical contribution by providing the legal argument against the Iberian position. In his 1609 Mare liberum (“The free sea”)26 he dismissed the claims that individual powers could own oceanic spaces, arguing that the Papal donations (Papal bulls), as well as the Portuguese and Spanish treaties on this matter, not be legally binding because they were not grounded in natural law. His main line of argument as such was that oceanic spaces could not be appropriated in the same way as dry land because man does not live on the sea and cannot cultivate it either. The word sea depicts natural characteristics: fluidity, immenseness, and uninhabitable making it into something that could not be possessed and as such a space free to be used by all. Grotius did not mean that any waterway was free. Rivers, straits, fishing waters, and sheltered seas could be enclosed and dominated by a political power in the same way as dry land.27 Grotius’ Mare liberum met critique in Scotland, Portugal, Spain, and even in England. John Selden, for example, published a whole “anti-treaties” called Mare clausum.28 The critics argued that the sea could be dominated in the same way as dry land and that the dominion of the sea was not grounded in natural law but based on the same kind of historical argument as the property of land. Nevertheless, in due time, the Grotian argument got the upper hand. After 1700, the legal distinction between international and territorial waters became broadly accepted with the so-called three-mile limit mandating that national legislation reaches only three miles off the coast. This became the border of territorial waters. Everything outside that limit was considered “free” international waters.29 This new standard was crucial for the development of early modern maritime neutrality because shipping and trade under neutral flag were applicable only in the “international jurisdiction” of the free sea or—in other words—under the law of nations. Defining territorial waters (in which national jurisdiction applied) in a narrow sense of only three miles, left plenty of room for neutrals to engage in freely. In this way, Hugo Grotius’ argument for the freedom of the sea frequently entered the treatises on neutral rights of the eighteenth century.30 The same argument was used in prize courts judging the cases of seized neutral vessels and cargoes. The notion of the free sea, as well as the rights of free trade and navigation, became so directly linked to the issues of shipping and trade under a neutral flag. THE PRACTICE OF SHIPPING UNDER NEUTRAL FLAGS Naval warfare between Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Spain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and other polities was a characteristic of much of the medieval period

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in the Mediterranean. It was in this context that the practice of shipping under neutral flag evolved.31 Vessels of third, non-belligerent, parties often engaged in carrying goods of belligerents or supplying belligerents with diverse merchandise. Such shipping under neutral flag encountered some practical problems. For example, should a neutral ship with enemy cargo be treated as an enemy ship? Conversely, should neutral cargo on an enemy ship be seized in the same way as an enemy ship with enemy cargo on it? What to do with neutral vessels attempting to enter an enemy’s port? Should all these instances be treated with equal hostility? Those were not just questions of legality but practical considerations with specific implications on the course of warfare. The ruthless treatment of neutral ships, their cargoes or crews could provoke a neutral power to enter a war on the other side. Strategic considerations like these were an incentive for all seafaring nations to adhere to some universal code of conduct when it came to the treatment of neutral shipping. The Mediterranean practices thereof were embodied in the articles of the Consolato del Mare, a fourteenth-century Catalan body of maritime law.32 On the other hand, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century northern Europe, the discourse of neutral shipping concerned three issues of serious contention. The first was the so-called Dutch doctrine: “free ships make free goods,” which held that the cargo of a ship sailing under neutral flag was untouchable by an opposing belligerent, whatever the nature of the cargo. Be it that of the neutral nation itself, or that of an opposing belligerent.33 This claim used frequently by neutral states had been contested most fiercely by the British. They maintained their right to stop and search any neutral vessel, to see if it carried anything that they considered as illegal enemy goods. The second issue concerned contraband of war, which are goods useful in war. Weapons, ammunition, armors, black-powder, and other goods for use in or for the battlefield are examples thereof. Belligerents and neutrals agreed on the principal prohibition of contraband of war, but they disagreed on the definition for what should count as actual contraband. There were many goods that could be used for peaceful or belligerent purposes and which also were essential export articles of neutrals. To solve the problem, it became customary to insert such definitions into bilateral trade treaties of concerned maritime nations.34 This issue was especially important to the Nordic maritime neutrals Denmark and Sweden. Danish exports consisted of foodstuffs such as grain and Norwegian dried fish, while Sweden exported iron and naval stores (boards, tar, and pitch). All these goods could potentially be used on battlefields and were therefore contested. The third issue concerned blockades of enemy ports and coasts, during which a belligerent would issue a warning to the international community that it sought to forbid access to its enemy to starve it into submission. On the one hand, this practice was considered a reasonable tactic of war, but on the other side, neutrals claimed that blockades were only binding

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if they were effective—meaning that a belligerent had to have the military capacity to block ports and coastlines of its enemy. Belligerent states, however, maintained that only a declaration of the blockade was enough to make it illegal for neutrals to sail to its enemy’s shores.35 The sources of such provisions do not stem from any multi-lateral agreements since in the seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries no international law in the modern sense existed. The conduct of neutral trade and shipping can only be found in bilateral treaties among states. For the northern European neutrals, the essential treaties were those struck with England. The AngloSwedish Treaty of 1661, for example, included articles defining contraband of war but did not mention naval stores, which, by its absence, made Swedish exports of naval stores to the enemies of the British legal—at least regarding their bilateral relations. Similar articles concerning neutral shipping rights existed in the bilateral treaties between England and Denmark (1670) and between England and the Dutch Republic (1674). These treaties effectively defined during peacetime the legal parameters for trade and shipping under neutral flags. Eventually, however, in wartime such rules became negotiable. For example, in the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1667, a Scottish privateer seized a neutral Swedish ship, the Griffen. The cargo of the seized ship undoubtedly fell under the treaty definition of free goods (1661). The Admiralty’s prize court, however, argued that the ship carried contraband of war at an initial stage of the voyage and therefore it should be considered a good prize, despite the fact that its current cargo was not contraband of war. King Charles II confirmed the court’s decision.36 In the second half of the seventeenth century, the period of the AngloDutch and the Danish-Swedish Wars, the sides could quickly switch their status between belligerency and neutrality. While the Danes and Swedes were neutral in the three Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652–1654, 1665–1667, 1672–1674), the English (and Scots) were neutral in Swedish-Danish War 1675–1679. The Swedes and Danes were again neutral in Louis XIV’s wars with the allied Dutch and English, in 1689–1697 and 1700–1713.37 All these conflicts witnessed many seizures of neutral vessels and cargoes by belligerents, but also cautiousness imbued with a degree of willingness to negotiate the legality of seizures between belligerents and neutrals. One reason, of course, was the danger that a neutral state eventually would join the enemy. Another reason was the prospect that in another war a privateer from a belligerent country would be a neutral carrier. Early modern prize-taking (privateering) was highly regulated legitimate business, far from the crime of piracy, in which the captors/privateers followed the prize law of their respective nations. The cases of seized ships and cargoes were brought forth before the national prize courts which decided if

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the seizure was legal and judged to be a “good prize.” After the court’s decision in the cases of “good prizes,” the injured ship-owners and merchants sought compensation for losses through diplomatic channels representing their cases. Thus, the cases of seized ships often ended in diplomatic correspondences between belligerents and neutrals.38 Shipping and trade under neutral flags was a risky business, but it also was a very profitable one. When considering the numbers of seized and condemned vessels with the overall expansion of neutral shipping in wartime, in the end, profits largely exceeded the risks of seizure.39 In the eighteenth century, the intensity and scope of naval warfare expanded. After four relatively peaceful decades, between the Peace of Utrecht of 1713 and the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in 1756, followed sixty years of the Anglo-French disputes. The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), the American War of Independence (1776–1783), and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815) were to a large extent fought at sea, and this opened once again a niche for shipping and trade under neutral flags under the laws of maritime neutrality.40 As naval wars were fought in the seventeenth century, shipping under neutral flags mainly occurred in the North and Baltic Seas, and to some extent, the Mediterranean Sea. By the second half of the eighteenth century shipping business under neutral flags became a global enterprise. This mirrored the increasing significance of colonial trade in sugar and coffee from the West Indies, cotton and silk textiles, coffee, and spices from India as well as the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and China. The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War made it difficult for the French to maintain trade with their colonies. British privateers and the Royal Navy seized any enemy vessel on the way between France and its colonies. To keep commodity flowing between colonies and metropolis, the French employed neutral flags, mainly the Dutch but also the Danish. It worked in this way: French colonial products were “neutralized” in the Dutch or Danish West Indian islands (i.e., sold to neutral subjects), loaded on Dutch or Danish vessels and carried to Amsterdam or Copenhagen as neutral goods. Then the colonial products were sold and distributed in Europe. The same neutral carriers also supplied the French colonies with foodstuffs, manufactured goods, and more. In addition to this relatively new global trade and shipping under neutral flags, there was the old-fashioned neutral trade in Europe, in which neutrals supplied France with all kinds of goods.41 The British were well aware of the under-cover character of the trade under Dutch and Danish flags and contested its neutrality on the three points mentioned above: the true character of cargo, the definition of contraband of war, and through blockades. However, the neutrals defended their rights. In the Seven Years’ War, the debate on rights and duties of neutrals developed into

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an elaborate political discourse of neutrality and international law. One of the most interesting books on the subject was the work by the Danish-German lawyer Martin Hübner, De la saisie des batiments neutres (“On the seizure of neutral vessels”), published in 1759 in The Hague.42 He addressed the question of seizures of Danish ships—many taken en route between the West Indies and Europe—maintaining that the freedom of trade and shipping was grounded in natural law and based on human sociability and was, therefore, a certain human right that no nation should challenge. In this manner, Hübner criticized the British concept of neutrality rights as a purely bilateral affair, based on treaty agreements between two states. This argument, too, was part of the Enlightenment critique of mercantilism, but the perspective was different from that employed, for example, by Adam Smith.43 On the basis of the freedom of trade, Hübner refused the British assertion of the right to search neutral vessels for enemy goods or contraband of war. In his view, such a search was a corruption of the natural right to trade freely. In 1760, Hübner was employed by the Danish Embassy in London, to provide legal advice to Danish ship owners in prize cases. Hübner’s work illustrates the way in which the practice of neutral shipping and trade merged with the discourse of neutrality and neutral rights in political philosophy.44 Another example of this conflation was the First League of Armed Neutrality during the American Revolutionary War. The American Revolutionary War transpired into the Anglo-French War of 1778 when France recognized the United States and allied with the new American polity against France’s archenemy Great Britain. Ships of the northern European neutral nations—Denmark, Sweden, and the Dutch Republic—provided cargo space and goods to American rebels as well as the French. Trade and shipping under neutral flags between Europe, the West Indies, and North America boomed. In 1778–1780, the British responded as usual by seizing vessels waving the flags of neutral countries in the North Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. Neutrals attempted to coordinate their policies to defend their rights as neutrals initially but failed. However, the situation changed dramatically with the beginning of 1780 when unexpectedly another state entered the arena claiming neutrality—Russia. In comparison to the northern European neutrals, Russia was a Great Power and, unlike them, had no significant maritime interests. Its merchant fleet was small, and its foreign trade was carried out mainly on British and Dutch vessels. Also, it had no strategic interest to confront Great Britain in support of the American Revolution. Instead, Russia remained neutral but, just as the other neutrals, saw its trading rights violated by seizures of Russian vessels in the Mediterranean. Determined merely not to accept the violations asserted by military power Catherine the Great became an innovator. She asked all other neutral states to jointly form an armed league in defense of their neutrality

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at sea. For the first time, a Great Power advocated neutrality and suggested a collective action by neutral states in defense of it. In her invitation, the Russian Empress called upon the European states to acknowledge neutral rights according to the principles previously mentioned above: 1. Free ship make free goods 2. Contraband of war must be defined explicitly in an international agreement 3. Blockades of enemy ports must be effective, to be recognized by neutrals 4. Neutral rights had to be acknowledged internationally45 The First League of Armed Neutrality was formed in 1780 joined by Denmark and Sweden, and later by eight other neutrals.46 The Dutch Republic prepared to join the league at the end of 1780 but became entrenched in a war with Britain known as the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. In military terms, the league never materialized. Before a joint-neutral naval operation could set to the sea, Russia ’s priorities shifted to the south, toward the Ottoman Empire. Catherine the Great lost interest in her northern neutral league. However, the idea of an institutionalized collaboration seemed to work well for the Nordic neutrals. British seizures of Swedish and Danish vessels declined even without joint naval operations among the neutrals.47 In the years 1780–1783, the two Nordic neutral marines Denmark and Sweden experienced an unprecedented global economic boom. Danish and Swedish flags increasingly flew in the Mediterranean as well as in the West Indies and the United States while the Anglo-Dutch War absorbed the Dutch capacity to compete in this regard with neutral merchant marines like Denmark and Sweden. The two Nordic neutrals actively expanded their trading activities in India, the French colonies in the Indian Ocean (present-day Mauritius), the Dutch East Indies, and China. By the end of the war, in the mid-1780s, the Danish and Swedish had become the fourth and fifth largest merchant marines in Europe respectively.48 During the French Revolutionary Wars, the Nordic states attempted to implement the same type of collective “neutrality strategy,” which worked well for a couple of years, but the Revolutionary Wars were ultimately a different kind of conflict. The aim of the revolutionary regime was a transformation of Europe. This was a total war, and the rhetoric soon turned to the language of religious war. In such a war it became more and more difficult to stand aside as a neutral country. Between 1797 and 1800 the situation of the Nordic neutrals deteriorated. In 1800, they entered once again a defense league with Russia—the Second League of Armed Neutrality. This time the British did not wait. In Spring 1801, the Royal Navy entered the Baltic and defeated the Danish Navy in the Battle of Copenhagen. A coup d’état took place in Russia, and a new British-friendly regime dissolved the neutrality

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league. One by one, the eighteenth-century neutrals were drawn into the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars: Denmark in 1807 and Sweden in 1808–1809. In a total war, neutrality became an ever more unlikely option.49 The United States on the other side of the Atlantic was an exception. In 1793, George Washington proclaimed US neutrality during the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1794, the Jay Treaty resolved any remaining issues between the United States and Britain. Britain recognized the neutrality of the United States and treated the Atlantic neutral very beneficially by openingup for more than a decade-long expansion to come of US trade and shipping under a neutral flag. The Americans successfully replaced to a great extent the European neutrals’ trade with the West Indies and across the Atlantic, including China. Nevertheless, the United States was drawn into hostilities that led to the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain, which, however, was much less violent and less destructive than what the fate of Nordic neutrals between 1807 and 1815 entailed. CONCLUDING REMARKS Neutrality failed as a security strategy for countries like the Dutch Republic in 1780, Denmark in 1807, and Sweden in 1808, foreshadowing similar failures in the twentieth century. Denmark’s neutrality was breached first in the spring of 1940 by Nazi Germany. After 1945 the country eventually abandoned an over 200-year-old neutrality and opted for NATO membership. Neutrality of the Netherlands was also a long-term commitment, despite the conflicts with Britain in the late eighteenth century. Under almost similar circumstances, Denmark incurred eventually the same defeat through German occupation during 1940 and 1945, which led the Netherlands to terminate its long-standing status as a neutral country to join NATO. The third, and indeed the least committed of the eighteenth-century neutrals, Sweden, was able to remain unoccupied during World War II. Sweden’s “successful” wartime experience strengthened the public perception that neutrality was the best foreign policy stance for the country, which it continued, albeit under changing conceptualizations of its meaning, during the Cold War. Today, neutral policies have markedly changed toward a much more pro-collective defense posture under the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy. Recent research has shown, however, how this trend among the political elite stands in stark contrast to the perception of the public, which still overwhelmingly believes in neutrality as a unique Swedish national character. Neutrality still enjoys enormous popular support.50 Also, neutrality cannot be dismissed as a failure itself when considering how well it served the Nordic neutrals from the late seventeenth until the twentieth century, as demonstrated in this chapter.

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What were the specific features of early modern maritime neutrality and how do they differ from contemporary notions of neutrality? First, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries discourses of maritime neutrality were related to the origins of international law. Neutrality offered more stable and peaceful options for international relations in times of frequent warfare and unpredictability. This line of argument for the benefits of neutrality goes back to Hugo Grotius, but it was most clearly articulated in the mid-eighteenth century in the works by Martin Hübner, Emer de Vattel, and Ferdinando Galiani. Neutrality represented a peaceful and economically favorable alternative for an international order compared to one based purely on the balance of power among great nations. The idea of an international order based on neutrality became almost a reality with the First League of Armed Neutrality in 1780–1783. The nineteenth-century age of neutrals51 operated on similar principles. Nowadays, the role of neutrality and its codification under international law is neglected or even forgotten. In the early modern period, maritime neutrals fought for the rights of free trade and free navigation in international waters. In the eighteenth century, this struggle meant an articulated critique of mercantilism and regulated trade. This aspect has been largely omitted in the later history of neutrality and narratives about the breakthrough of economic liberalism and free trade. Mercantilism was concerned with international trade and the neutrals’ struggle for their rights to trade and navigate freely. In this context, neutral maritime powers like the Dutch Republic, Denmark, Sweden, and the United States were ardent free traders. No wonder that all of these countries continued to be among great advocates of free trade and are—to this day—all part of highly developed networks of regional trade agreements.52 Early modern neutrals played an important role in global trade. Neutral countries’ ships’ cargo capacity and the diverse range of shipped commodities significantly explain why global trade could expand even though much of the time between 1648 and 1815 countries were at war. Neutrals substituted for belligerent tonnage, upheld trade between colonies and homelands and they supplied goods to other neutrals and belligerents. The practice of maritime neutrality was an outcome of commercial interests, which had strengthened the maritime and commercial focus of the neutrals. It is difficult to compare the overall economic impact neutrals had between major periods of time. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, neutral rights did not entail the same economic advantages for neutral states as, say, during World War I and II, nor was the impact of neutrality the same on trade with the West and East Indies in the eighteenth century. However, it is possible to conclude that Denmark’s, Norway’s, and Sweden’s maritime neutrality is closely correlated with the countries’ disproportionate role in the twentiethcentury shipping business. Till this day, Denmark and Norway remain among the leading maritime nations of the world.

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NOTES 1. An oral version of this essay was presented at the October 2017 Neutrality Conference—Lessons from the Past and Visions for the 21st Century, Madrid. See, Leos Müller, Neutrality in World History. Themes in World History (New York: Routledge, 2018) (forthcoming) to a more complete description of the perspectives. For a long-term view of neutrality, especially from a legal perspective, see Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Juris, New York, 2000), and Stephen C. Neff, War and the Law of Nations: A General History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 2. For a state of the art review of neutrality studies on World War II (economic and foreign policy, history, political science, peace, and conflict research) see Neville Wylie, European Neutrals and Non-belligerents during the Second World War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Eric Bernard Golson, “The Economics of Neutrality: Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland in the Second World War,” (2011); Christian Leitz, Sympathy for the Devil: Neutral Europe and Nazi Germany in World War II (New York: New York University Press, 2001); Herman Amersfoort and Wim Klinkert, Small Powers in the Age of Total War, 1900–1940 (Boston: Brill, 2011).On neutrality in the Cold War see: Juhana Aunesluoma, Thomas Fischer, and Aryo Makko, “Neutrality and World Politics during the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies 18, no. 4 (2016); Heinz Gärtner, ed., Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War (USA: Lexington Books, 2017); Jürg Martin Gabriel, The American Conception of Neutrality after 1941 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgave Macmillan, 2002). 3. On national cases of modern neutrality see Mikael af Malmborg, Neutrality and State-building in Sweden (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001); Christine Agius, The Social Construction of Swedish Neutrality. Challenges to Swedish Identity and Sovereignty (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006); Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, and Ruth Wodak, eds., Neutrality in Austria (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001); Raimo Väyrynen, Stability and Change in Finnish Foreign Policy (Helsinki, 1982); and Patrick Keatinge, A Singular Stance: Irish Neutrality in the 1980s (Du blin, 1984). 4. Efraim Karsh, Neutrality and Small states (London, Routledge, 1988); Rebecka Lettevall, Geert Somsen, and Sven Widmalm, eds., Neutrality in Twentiethcentury Europe: Intersections of Science, Culture, and Politics after the First World War (New York: Routledge, 2012). 5. Elizabeth Chadwick, ed., Traditional Neutrality Revisited: Law, Theory and Case Studies, vol. 4, International Humanitarian Law Series (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2002); Elizabeth Chadwick, “The ‘Impossibility’ of Maritime Neutrality During World War I,” Netherlands International Law Review 54, no. 2 (2007); Chadwick, Elizabeth, “Gone with the War? Neutral State Responsibility and the Geneva Arbitration of 1872,” Leiden Journal of International Law 12, no. 4 (1999). 6. Stephen C. Neff, War and the Law of Nations: A General History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).

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7. Maartje M. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Maartje M. Abbenhuis and Sara Buttsworth, Restaging War in the Western World: Noncombatant Experiences, 1890Today (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Maartje M. Abbenhuis, “Too Good to be True? European Hopes for Neutrality before 1914,” in Small Powers in the Age of Total War, 1900–1940 (Boston: Brill, 2011); Maartje M. Abbenhuis, The Art of Staying Neutral: The Netherlands in the First World War, 1914–1918 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006). 8. Mikael af Malmborg, Neutrality and State-building in Sweden (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 29. 9. Ibid. 10. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History, 5–60. 11. Wilhelm G. Grewe, The Epochs of International Law, edited and translated by Michael Byers (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000). 12. See Elizabeth Chadwick’s chapter in this volume: The British View of Neutrality in 1872. See also Michael Jonathan Feakes, “Formative Influences on the Evolution of International Law: A Case Study of Territorial Waters (1550–1650)” (Ph.D., The University of Hull, 1994), 47–72. 13. Silvia Marzagalli and Leos Müller, “‘In Apparent Disagreement with all Law of Nations in the World’: Negotiating Neutrality for Shipping and Trade during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars,” International Journal of Maritime History 28, no. 1 (2016): 108–117. 14. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914, 19. 15. Silvia Marzagalli, “‘However Illegal, Extraordinary or Almost Incredible such Conduct might be’: Americans and Neutrality Issues in the Mediterranean during the French Wars,” International Journal of Maritime History 28, no. 1 (2016): 118–132; François Crouzet, “America and the Crisis of the British Imperial Economy, 1803– 1807,” in The Early Modern Atlantic Economy, ed. John McCusker and Kenneth Morgan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 278–318. 16. Elizabeth Mancke, “Oceanic Spaces and the Creation of a Global International System, 1450–1800,” in Maritime History as World History, ed. Daniel Finamore (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004); Elizabeth Mancke, “Early Modern Expansion and the Politicization of Oceanic Space,” Geographical Review 89, no. 2 (1999): 225–236. See also Feakes, “Formative Influences on the Evolution of International Law: A Case Study of Territorial Waters (1550–1650).” 17. Mancke, “Oceanic Spaces and the Creation of a Global International System, 1450–1800.” 18. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914, 66–95. See also Elizabeth Chadwick’s chapter in this Volume. 19. That is the history of thought on the content and meaning of the concept of neutrality. 20. Hugo Grotius in the Dutch Republic, and Martin Hübner in Denmark, two most outstanding authorities on maritime neutrality, may illustrate the link. 21. Richard Crawley, ed., Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War (London: J.M. Dent, 1910); Niccolò Machiavelli and William J. Connell, eds., The Prince: With Related Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016).

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22. Scholars were, however, rather quick in asserting that even under the just war doctrine abstention from belligerency was certainly justifiable when there existed a reasonable threat for self-harm in case of a “justified” intervention. See on this: Kentarō Wani, Neutrality in International Law: From the Sixteenth Century to 1945 (New York: Routledge, 2017), 26–28. 23. See Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: a General History, 10, on Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius. 24. Malmborg, Neutrality and State-building in Sweden, 28. 25. For a good review of the debate before Grotius, see the doctoral thesis of Michael Jonathan Feakes, “Formative Influences on the Evolution of International Law: A Case Study of Territorial Waters (1550–1650)” (University of Hull, 1994). 26. For reference, see: Hugo Grotius, The Free Sea, trans. Richard Hakluyt, with William Welwod’s Critique and Grotius’s Reply (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004). 27. Ibid., 29. 28. John Selden, Mare Clausum. Of the Dominion, or, Ownership of the Sea (London: William Du-Gard, 1652). There is a vast literature on Grotius’ Mare liberum and its perceptions all around Europe. On reactions by Williams Welwod, John Selden, Seraphin de Freitas, see e. g. Mónica Brito Vieira, “Mare Liberum vs. Mare Clausum: Grotius, Freitas, and Selden’s Debate on Dominion over the Seas,” Journal of the History of Ideas (2003) (3): 361–377. 29. James Kraska, Maritime Power and the Law of the Sea: Expeditionary Operations in World Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), chapter 3, 95–156. 30. Koen Stapelbroek, ed., Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System (Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 2011). 31. See for example: David S. T. Blackmore, Warfare on the Mediterranean in the Age of Sail: A History, 1571–1866 (North Carolina: McFarland, 2011). 32. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History, 12–16. In 1800, chapters of Consolato del mare relating to the prize law was translated into English. The translation undoubtedly was done in connection with the infested debate about seizures of neutral vessels (Swedish and Danish) in 1798–1800; A Translation of the Chapters CCLXXIII and CCLXXXVII of the Consolato del Mar relating to Prize Law (London, 1800) (available online). It indicates the influence of the Mediterranean prize law as late as 1800, in the time of the French Revolutionary Wars. 33. For a short analysis by a writer closer to that age see: Edward Elliott, “Freedom of Neutral Commerce,” California Law Review 3, no. 4 (1915). 34. See below bilateral trade treaties between Sweden, the Dutch Republic, Denmark and England. 35. Lance E. Davis and Stanley L. Engerman, Naval Blockades in Peace and War: An Economic History since 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 2–3. 36. Steve Murdoch, The Terror of the Seas? Scottish Maritime Warfare 1513– 1713 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 269–272. 37. For the shifts between the different wars see Birger Fahlborg, “Ett blad ur det svenska handelsflottans historia (1660–1675),” Historisk tidskrift 1923, 205–281; Werner Pursche, “Stockholms handelssjöfart och de engelska kaperierna 1652–1654,”

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Studier och handlingar rörande Stockholms historia, vol. 3, Stockholm, 1966, 112– 180; Steve Murdoch, Andrew Little and A.D.M. Forte, “Scottish Privateering, Swedish Neutrality and Prize Law in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, 1672–1674,” Forum navale 59, 2003, 37–65; Johan C. W. Thyrén, Den första väpnade neutraliteten. svensk-danska förbunden af 1690, 1691 och 1693; jämte en inledande öfversigt af Europas politiska ställning vid det stora krigets utbrott 1688–1689. 1, Lund, 1885. 38. For a study of seizures of Swedish vessels by the English/Scottish/Brittish privateers and navy in Sweden’s diplomatic correspondence (collection Diplomatica Anglica), see Steve Murdoch and Leos Müller, “Neutral före neutraliteten. Svensk sjöfart i krigens skugga ca 1650–1800,” in Angöringar. Berättelser och kunskap från havet, eds. Simon Ekström and Leos Müller (Göteborg: Makadam, 2017), 185–206. 39. Ibid. 40. Elliott, “Freedom of Neutral Commerce.” 41. On the Dutch and Danish shipping under neutrals flags in the second half of the eighteenth century, see Georg Maria Welling, The Prize of Neutrality. Trade Relations between Amsterdam and North America 1771–1817. A Study of Computational History (Groningen, 1998) (PhD thesis, available online), and many publications of the Danish historian Ole Feldbaek, e.g. Ole Feldbaek, “Eighteenth-Century Danish Neutrality. Its Diplomacy, Economics and Law,” Scandinavian Journal of History, 1983, 3–21, by the same author, Denmark and the Armed Neutrality 1800–1801. Small Power Policy in a World War (Copenhagen, 1980); see also Dan H. Andersen and Hans-Joachim Voth, “The Grapes of War: Neutrality and Mediterranean Shipping under Danish Flag, 1747–1807,” Scandinavian Economic History Review, 2000/1, 5–27. 42. Martin Hübner, De la saisie des bâtiments neutres ou du droit qu’ont les nations belligérantes d’arrêter les navires des peuples amis (The Hague: Tome Premier, 1759). 43. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Oxford, 1976) (original 1784). 44. On Martin Hübner, and his precursors and followers, Emer de Vattel and Ferdinando Galiani see: Stapelbroek, Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System; Leos Müller, “Peace: Sweden’s Neutrality and the EighteenthCentury Inter-State System,” in Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World: Provincial Cosmopolitans, ed. Göran Rydén (Farnhamn: Ashgate, 2013), 201–221. 45. The most comprehensive study of the First League of Armed Neutrality is provided in Isabel de Madariaga, Britain, Russia, and the Armed Neutrality of 1780: Sir James Harris’s Mission to St. Petersburg During the American Revolution (London: Yale University Press, 1962). For Danish and Swedish perspectives Ole Feldbaek, Dansk neutralitetspolitik under krigen 1778–1783. Studier i regeringens prioritering af politiske og økonomiske interesser (Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 1971); Leos Müller, “The League of Armed Neutrality, 1780–83,” in Strategy in the American War of Independence: A Global Approach, eds. Donald Stoker, Kenneth J. Hagan, and Michael T. McMaster (London: Routledge), 202–220. 46. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History, 71. 47. Ole Feldbæk, Dansk neutralitetspolitik under krigen 1778–1783. Studier i regeringens prioritering af politiske og økonomiske interesser. Copenhagen 1971;

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Dan H Andersen and Hans-Joachim Voth, “The Grapes of War: Neutrality and Mediterranean Shipping under Danish Flag, 1747–1807,” in Scandinavian Economic History Review, 2000/1, 5–27; For Sweden see Leos Müller, “The Forgotten Age of Swedish Shipping: The Eighteenth Century,” International Journal of Maritime History 24, no. 2 (2012): 1–18. 48. On tonnages of European merchant marines see Ruggiero Romano, “Per una valutazione della flotta mercantile europea alla fine del secolo XVIII,” in Studi in onore Amintore Fanfani, vol V, evi moderno e contemporaneo (Milan, 1962), 573–591. On the development of Nordic shipping and trade Hans C. Johansen, “Scandinavian Shipping in the late Eighteenth Century in a European Perspective,” The Economic History Review 45, no. 3 (1992): 479–493; Müller, “The Forgotten Age of Swedish Shipping: The Eighteenth Century.” A general overview of Denmark shipping in its golden age, Ole Feldbæk, Dansk søfarts historie, Storhandelens tid 1720–1814, vol. 3. Copenghagen, Gyldendal, 1997. 49. For maritime neutrality in the French Revolutionary Wars, see special Forum of the International Journal of Maritime History, February 2016, edited by Silvia Marzagalli and Leos Müller. Silvia Marzagalli and Leos Müller, “‘In Apparent Disagreement with all Law of Nations in the World’: Negotiating Neutrality for Shipping and Trade during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars,” International Journal of Maritime History (2016/1): 108–117. On the US trade and shipping under neutral flag in the Mediterranean, Silvia Marzagalli, “‘However Illegal, Extraordinary or Almost Incredible Such Conduct Might Be’: Americans and neutrality issues in the Mediterranean during the French Wars,” International Journal of Maritime History (2016/1): 118–132. 50. On public perception vs. developments in the EU level of EU member neutrals see: Karen Devine, “Neutrality and the Development of the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy: Compatible or Competing?” Cooperation and Conflict 46, no. 3 (2011). 51. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914. 52. World Trade Organization, “Participation in Regional Trade Agreements,” wto.org, Accessed: April 16, 2018, https​://ww​w.wto​.org/​engli​sh/tr​atop_​e/reg​ion_e​/ rta_​parti​cipat​ion_m​ap_e.​htm.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbenhuis, Maartje M., and Sara Buttsworth. Restaging War in the Western World: Noncombatant Experiences, 1890-Today. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Abbenhuis, Maartje M. An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. ———. The Art of Staying Neutral: The Netherlands in the First World War, 1914–1918. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006. ———. “Too Good to be True? European Hopes for Neutrality before 1914.” In Small Powers in the Age of Total War, 1900–1940. Boston: Brill, 2011. Amersfoort, Herman, and Wim Klinkert, eds. Small Powers in the Age of Total War, 1900–1940. Boston: Brill, 2011.

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Blackmore, David S.T. Warfare on the Mediterranean in the Age of Sail: A History, 1571–1866. North Carolina: McFarland, 2011. Chadwick, Elizabeth. “Gone with the War? Neutral State Responsibility and the Geneva Arbitration of 1872.” Leiden Journal of International Law 12, no. 4 (1999): 787–820. ———. “The ‘Impossibility’ of Maritime Neutrality During World War I.” Netherlands International Law Review 54, no. 2 (2007): 337–360. ———, ed. Traditional Neutrality Revisited: Law, Theory and Case Studies, Vol. 4, International Humanitarian Law Series. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2002. Crawley, Richard, ed. Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War. London: J.M. Dent, 1910. Crouzet, François. “America and the Crisis of the British Imperial Economy, 1803–1807.” In The Early Modern Atlantic Economy, edited by John McCusker and Kenneth Morgan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Davis, Lance E., and Stanley L. Engerman. Naval Blockades in Peace and War: An Economic History since 1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. de Madariaga, Isabel. Britain, Russia, and the Armed Neutrality of 1780: Sir James Harris’s Mission to St. Petersburg During the American Revolution. London: Yale University Press, 1962. Devine, Karen. “Neutrality and the Development of the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy: Compatible or Competing?” Cooperation and Conflict 46, no. 3 (2011): 334–369. Elliott, Edward. “Freedom of Neutral Commerce.” California Law Review 3, no. 4 (1915): 292–299. Feakes, Michael Jonathan. “Formative Influences on the Evolution of International Law: A Case Study of Territorial Waters (1550–1650).” Ph.D., The University of Hull, 1994. ———. Formative Influences on the Evolution of International Law: A Case Study of Territorial Waters (1550–1650). University of Hull, 1994. Feldbaek, Ole. Dansk neutralitetspolitik under krigen 1778–1783. Studier i regeringens prioritering af politiske og økonomiske interesser [in Danish]. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 1971. Fischer, Thomas, Juhana Aunesluoma, and Aryo Makko. “Neutrality and Nonalignment in World Politics during the Cold War.” Journal of Cold War Studies 18, no. 4 (Fall 2016). Gabriel, Jürg Martin. The American Conception of Neutrality after 1941. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgave Macmillan, 2002. Gärtner, Heinz, ed. Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War. USA: Lexington Books, 2017. Golson, Eric Bernard. The Economics of Neutrality: Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland in the Second World War. London: The London School of Economics and Political Science, 2011. Grewe, Wilhelm G. The Epochs of International Law. Edited and translated by Michael Byers. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000.

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Grotius, Hugo. The Free Sea, trans. Richard Hakluyt, with William Welwod’s Critique and Grotius’s Reply. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004. Hübner, Martin. De la saisie des bâtiments neutres ou du droit qu’ont les nations belligérantes d’arrêter les navires des peuples amis. The Hague: Tome Premier, 1759. Johansen, Hans C. “Scandinavian Shipping in the late Eighteenth Century in a European Perspective.” The Economic History Review 45, no. 3 (1992): 479–493. Kraska, James. Maritime Power and the Law of the Sea: Expeditionary Operations in World Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Leitz, Christian. Sympathy for the Devil: Neutral Europe and Nazi Germany in World War II. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Machiavelli, Niccolò, and William J. Connell, eds. The Prince: With Related Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016. Malmborg, Mikael af. Neutrality and State-building in Sweden. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Mancke, Elizabeth. “Early Modern Expansion and the Politicization of Oceanic Space.” Geographical Review 89, no. 2 (1999): 225–236. Mancke, Elizabeth. “European Expansion, Oceanic Space, and the Creation of a Global International System.” In Maritime History as World History, edited by Daniel Finamore. Gainesville: University Press of Florida (2004): 149–166. Marzagalli, Silvia. “‘However Illegal, Extraordinary or Almost Incredible such Conduct Might Be’: Americans and Neutrality Issues in the Mediterranean during the French Wars.” International Journal of Maritime History 28, no. 1 (February 2016): 118–132. Marzagalli, Silvia, and Leos Müller. “‘In Apparent Disagreement with all Law of Nations in the World’: Negotiating Neutrality for Shipping and Trade during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.” International Journal of Maritime History 28, no. 1 (February 2016): 108–117. Müller, Leos. “The Forgotten Age of Swedish Shipping: The Eighteenth Century.” International Journal of Maritime History 24, no. 2 (December 2012): 1–18. ———. “The League of Armed Neutrality, 1780–83.” In Strategy in the American War of Independence: A Global Approach, edited by Donald Stoker, Kenneth J. Hagan, and Michael T. McMaster, 202–220. London: Routledge, 2009. ———. “Peace: Sweden’s Neutrality and the Eighteenth-Century Inter-State System.” In Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World: Provincial Cosmopolitans, edited by Göran Rydén, 201–221. Farnhamn: Ashgate, 2013. Murdoch, Steve. The Terror of the Seas? Scottish Maritime Warfare 1513–1713. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Murdoch, Steve, and Leos Müller. “Neutral före neutraliteten. Svensk sjöfart i krigens skugga ca 1650–1800.” In Angöringar. Berättelser och kunskap från havet, edited by Simon Ekström and Leos Müller, 185–206. Göteborg: Makadam, 2017. Neff, Stephen C. The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: a General History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. ———. War and the Law of Nations: A General History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Selden, John. Mare Clausum. Of the Dominion, or, Ownership of the Sea. London: William Du-Gard, 1652.

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Stapelbroek, Koen, ed. Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 2011. Wani, Kentarō. Neutrality in International Law: From the Sixteenth Century to 1945. New York: Routledge, 2017. World Trade Organization, “Participation in Regional Trade Agreements.” wto.org. https​://ww​w.wto​.org/​engli​sh/tr​atop_​e/reg​ion_e​/rta_​parti​cipat​ion_m​ap_e.​htm. Wylie, Neville. European Neutrals and Non-belligerents during the Second World War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Chapter 5

The British View of Neutrality in 1872 Elizabeth Chadwick Quote of L. P. Hartley

In 1872, the United States (US) and Great Britain (GB) met in Geneva to arbitrate a number of claims which had arisen between them mainly during the US Civil War (1861–65), also referred to as the American Civil War (ACW).1 The main thrust of the arbitration was the issue of ships which had been built in Britain and sold to the rebellious Southern Confederacy for use during the belligerency.2 The central issue of the US claims, which were more widely known as the “Alabama claims,’ after one of the British-built ships, was whether or not GB had breached the rules of armed neutrality during the ACW.3 Armed neutrality is a practice developed over many centuries, which allows states to declare their non-involvement on the outbreak of war elsewhere. It is thus distinct from “permanent” neutrality better known today in the case of Switzerland, for example, who, along with some other small European states, was acknowledged as a permanent neutral in the Declaration of Vienna of March 20, 1815, at the end of the decades-long Napoleonic Wars. For permanent neutrals (today, also including Ireland), neutrality forms a central and permanent aspect of foreign policy. Both types of neutrality can be observed as “perfectly,” “qualified,” “benevolent,” or “differential,” depending on the facts and circumstances of each case, but a stance of armed neutrality is ad hoc, and thus temporary, lasting only so long as hostilities elsewhere. Between 1861 and 1865, such laws of neutrality may have been a fact of international life, but their precise content was not because neutrality would be first codified after the turn of the following century, mainly in the Hague Conventions V and XIII of 1907. So the US and GB had to agree on specific standards of neutrality in advance, as the “law” of their arbitration. The final rules were included in their arbitration treaty, the Treaty of Washington of May 8, 1871.4 The difficulty for GB was that the “agreed” rules in the Treaty 87

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clearly favored the US case from the outset, but Britain felt pressured to arbitrate the Alabama claims, if only for the sake of continued friendly relations. Even so, Britain never accepted that the treaty rules had reflected principles of general international law during the ACW, or of any neutral precedent, and stated so expressly.5 The ACW began after the election of Abraham Lincoln as US president in 1860, which brought specific divisive issues to a head. The war began with the Southern attack on April 12, 1861, against Fort Sumter, a Federal fort, located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The attack prompted the president to declare a maritime blockade of the entire Southern coastline, on April 19, 1861.6 Under long-standing principles of international law, the imposition of a maritime blockade is equivalent to an assertion of a state of belligerency and constitutes a legal acknowledgment of a state of war,7 so should not be confused with a mere domestic-state, municipal decree of closure, which latter does not involve the international consequences of neutrality law.8 The Southern blockade thus presented the community of nations with a de facto state of affairs under international law, and several states promptly declared neutrality, GB being the first, on May 13, 1861. The laws of armed neutrality have a long history,9 as the practice of third states declaring their neutrality on the outbreak of war elsewhere was derived from the fact of war. As more and more serious attempts to respect rules of neutrality, and to discourage as many states as possible from participating in the wars of others were made—at least, not without some personal “cause,” having occurred—the rules were extended by analogy to full-scale civil wars,10 once they reached the intensity of an international conflict. For example, the early American and French revolutions had left little doubt that such struggles could disturb international relations—including trade relations—as much as international wars, so third states relied on neutrality laws to protect their interests when presented with a de facto, large-scale civil war. In short, the law of armed neutrality was designed to protect trade rather than to prevent war, which no doubt would have been an impossible task in any event. Neutral laws sustained the markets in which to buy and sell the goods of neutral and belligerent state citizens alike, while the observance of any particular set of neutral rules was designed primarily to secure the neutral-belligerent relationship, viz-a-viz each other. Neutrality thus ensured that the belligerents enjoyed a broader choice of supply sources once war had in fact begun, and anticipating which states would remain neutral on the outbreak of war formed an essential part of war planning. In turn, a useful, collateral benefit of neutrality was that it helped to confine the spread of hostilities. Therefore, the institution of neutrality was built on such de facto flexibilities. As such, universal agreement as to the precise content of neutral rules could not have existed at the time of the ACW, thus necessitating the arbitration

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in Geneva in 1872, as is now discussed. Part 2 considers the arbitral environment, the contemporaneous standards of neutrality, relevant precedent, and state practice. Part 3 focuses on the British arbitrator’s objections to the Geneva decision, in terms of traditional standards. It is concluded that the eventual success of the US in Geneva can be attributed more to its increasing geopolitical power, and ability to demand specific standards of international behavior, than to developments in the rules of traditional neutrality. OVERVIEW OF THE LAW ARBITRATED IN GENEVA As noted above, it was acknowledged indeed by the nineteenth century that full-scale civil wars could warrant the application of rules of neutrality, by analogy, once high-intensity hostilities interfered sufficiently with third state trade and diplomatic relations. This extension of neutrality to factual situations of war further consolidated the rules into two over-arching principles: abstention and impartiality. Specifically, in exchange for continued rights of peaceful trade, and in order not to be forced to ally with one or other belligerent, neutral states from the outbreak of war elsewhere were obligated to abstain from, and to be impartial toward, the hostilities, and the belligerents. The confinement of hostilities in this way permitted trade to continue despite war to the maximum extent, preserving a more comprehensive peace.11 The logic of this system is unarguable, yet abstention and impartiality could still be “gamed,” and the belligerents thus insisted on rights of “stop and seizure” whenever it was suspected that certain neutral goods, such as munitions and other forms of “prohibited contraband,” were en route for delivery to an enemy.12 Equally clear by the mid-nineteenth century was the gradual emergence of the US as a new world force and as one capable of inflicting damage against certain British interests abroad, notably British trade,13 at least in the Western Hemisphere. Nonetheless, US post-war demands for compensation from Britain after 1865 were largely ignored by GB for nearly two years after war’s end,14 during which time GB maintained that its neutrality had not been compromised. One or the other state needed therefore to prevail, and the post-ACW compensation claims laid against GB by the US involved not only substantial amounts of money but also, practical political and legal questions regarding neutral conduct. Depending on the answers, traditional British interpretations of neutrality might or might not be impacted, but specific issues needed resolution. Matters came to a head once a number of post-war legislative amendments in both GB and the US looked set to alter the detail of their respective neutrality laws. Therefore, the “wisdom” of adjudicating the US’s financial

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claims after the ACW slowly became more obvious to GB. Moreover, Britain itself by 1870 had amended its own Neutrality Act of 1819 in a way which, remarkably, would reflect more the rules under which it would agree, albeit grudgingly, to arbitrate in Geneva. It was clear that to do otherwise risked “the exercise of force by bodies politic” for “the purpose of coercion,”15 and with it, a potential future war against the US. The Arbitration With the war over in April 1865, the Southern blockade could be lifted, which occurred on June 23 by official decree of the new US president, Andrew Johnson.16 US-GB relations were fully restored by the following October.17 Negotiations began soon after to bring GB to the arbitration table for its alleged negligence as regards neutrality during the ACW, and, in particular, US complaints regarding British shipbuilding for the Confederacy. As noted above, GB had refused for several years to take the US compensation claims seriously, but when it finally did, it remained unwilling to allow the issue to go forward of alleged British liability for damage caused during the ACW by British-built Confederate ships, though GB was undoubtedly prepared to express official regret for the damage caused. The British, too, had claims, and both parties finally agreed to air their differences in Geneva, under the 1871 Treaty of Washington.18 Overall, the “theory” of the American case rested on allegations of hostile British government “animus,” in the sense of an inclination to ignore international obligations to “affect their own course, (and) affect the action of their subordinates.”19 This angle of attack effectively warned the British that they would need to defend against specific allegations of negligence that its government had not acted with “due diligence” sufficient to preserve its relations equally with both belligerents, and that the law officers of the Crown had not correctly understood, and hence, properly interpreted, their own Foreign Enlistment Act (or “Neutrality Act”) of 1819. However, to the extent that proof of hostile “animus” might depend on a particular interpretation of individual acts which under normal circumstances would form no part of the formal duty of neutral non-discrimination,20 the British ignored such accusations as the establishment of Confederate agencies in England, the allegedly open shown to the Confederate cause by the great commercial houses of Liverpool, British personal opinion and/or public pronouncements which speculated on the improbability of preserving or re-establishing the Union, as forming no part of formal neutral duties. The US claims against the British government after the war had been roughly estimated by Senator Sumner, the then chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to be in the region of $15 million.21

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The award which was handed down formally by the five-member Tribunal on September 14, 1872, and which was substantially agreed on September 2, by a 4-1 majority vote,22 awarded a gross sum of $15,500,000 in the US’s favor.23 Double claims had been disallowed, as were any claims for “gross freights” insofar as they were in excess of “net freights.” Interest was also disallowed for the costs incurred in pursuing the Confederate cruisers, and the loss of prospective earnings, for those were simply the costs of war. Sir Alexander Cockburn, the British arbitrator, dissented and refused to sign the award, as is discussed further below.24 The “Three Rules of Washington” As noted earlier, rules of neutrality at the time may indeed have been a fact of international life, but their precise content certainly was not. The observance of any particular rules tended to reflect the cost-benefit considerations of trade during particular wars, based on such factors as the geographic location of the hostilities,25 and/or the locales of particular trade routes. As also highlighted above, GB agreed to arbitrate in Geneva in accordance with rules which it did not accept had been the appropriate standards required by general international law principles at the relevant time.26 This meant that the “mutually agreed” neutral rules in the 1871 Treaty of Washington were in fact formulated ex-post facto GB’s alleged negligence.27 The rules of neutral duty, termed the “Three Rules of Washington,” comprised the agreed rules of arbitration regarding the substantive law. They were inserted in Article Vl (l) of the Treaty, by mutual agreement,28 and were as follows: That a neutral government is bound – First, to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming, or equipping, within its jurisdiction, of any vessel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise or carry on war against a power with which it is at peace; and also to use like diligence to prevent the departure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially adapted, in whole or in part, within such jurisdiction, to warlike use.29 Secondly. Not to permit or suffer either belligerent to make use of its ports or waters as the base of naval operations against the other, or for the purpose of the renewal or augmentation of military supplies or arms, or the recruitment of men. Thirdly. To exercise due diligence in its own ports or waters, and, as to all persons within its jurisdiction, to prevent any violation of the foregoing obligations and duties.

Britain had agreed to arbitrate by these rules, but it expressly declared regarding Article VI (2) of the Treaty that

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Her Britannic Majesty has commanded her High Commissioners and Plenipotentiaries to declare that Her Majesty’s Government cannot assent to the foregoing rules as a statement of the principles of International Law which were in force at the time when the claims mentioned in Article I arose,30 but that Her Majesty’s Government, in order to evince its desire of strengthening the friendly relations between the two countries and of making satisfactory provision for the future, agrees that in deciding the questions between the two countries arising out of those claims, the Arbitrators should assume that Her Majesty’s Government had undertaken to act upon the principles set forth in these rules. And the High Contracting Parties agree to observe these rules as between themselves in future, and to bring them to the knowledge of other maritime Powers, and to invite them to accede to them.31

The tasks, therefore, of the Geneva arbitrators in 1872 included (re)interpreting the content of “due diligence,”32 as per the “Three Rules of Washington,” and assessing for purposes of compensation the many US claims against Britain.33 It was hoped that, by arbitrating, the parties would effectively coordinate their mutual conduct in such matters in the future, and future Anglo-American relations, in fact, depended on British co-operation at Geneva. “Due Diligence” and the Caroline Incident As the rules of armed neutrality during war have always required a degree of flexibility, they have been as subject to constant challenge as any other customary practice, as is reflected by the precedent of the Caroline incident of late December 1837 in regard to neutral “due diligence.” The case, of course, is far better known for its standard-setting role in establishing the requirement of necessity for the use of force in self-defense, but it is also of relevance to the notion and standards of neutral “due diligence” that would be arbitrated in Geneva of 1872. The facts themselves are relatively straightforward.34 The incident arose during a rebellion in Canada in 1837. The vessel Caroline, a small, American-owned steamer, was employed by the insurgents, among other things, to carry supplies and US volunteers from the New York side of the Niagara River to the Canadian side. US neutrality measures had been expressly invoked from the outset of unrest,35 but the Federal government claimed it lacked the legislative authority to enforce them, such responsibility remaining with the individual states, in this case, New York. The sheer length of the US-Canadian border and a New York State somewhat sympathetic with the rebels were among many factors that led ultimately to British accusations that US neutrality was proving ineffective. A series of British remonstrations regarding the Caroline’s “unneutral” service went unresolved, so the British,

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in the dead of night, crossed the river to the New York side, set the Caroline alight at her mooring, cut her loose and sent her over the Niagara Falls, killing two American citizens who were sleeping on board. The British reliance on the inherent right of self-defense, to preempt more attacks as had already been facilitated by the Caroline, had breached the inviolability of neutral territory, which is a central tenet of neutrality. It also violated US territorial integrity, breached the principle of non-intervention, destroyed private property, and “assassinated” US citizens,36 all of which led to years of diplomatic exchanges and negotiations, in which redress, including the payment of damages,37 was demanded. The British defended their actions on the basis that they were forced to deal with the Caroline’s “pirates,”38 as the neutral diligence “due” to Britain from the US as regards the Caroline had not been forthcoming. In time, the disagreements between the two countries in both cases would teach hard lessons regarding the changing conditions and expectations of neutrality, and just as the British would replace their 1819 Foreign Enlistment Act after the ACW, with a new one in 1870,39 the US also amended its neutrality laws after the Caroline incident, in March 1838.40 The new US legislation was intended to provide the Federal government with increased authority, e.g., to use its military forces to prevent neutral violations,41 and thus to enable it to demonstrate the extent of due diligence expected at the time. The new British legislation, in turn, would be intended to improve the regulation of private British commercial activities in times of war—another facet of the diligence deemed “due” by the year 1872. Therefore, in terms of its potential value as precedent in relation to due diligence, the Caroline incident did indeed help to resolve some matters, at least for the time being. Both sides effectively conceded that the long US-Canadian border, and perhaps more importantly, “circumstances,” had made it inevitable that “irregularities, violence, and conflicts should sometimes occur, equally against the will of both governments.” Moreover, they agreed that [A]ll that can be expected from either government in these cases is good faith, a sincere desire to preserve peace and do justice, the use of all proper means of prevention and that if offenses cannot, nevertheless, be always prevented, the offenders shall still be justly punished [emphasis added].42

As for the damage claims in this instance, the British “punished” no one. US reparation demands were refused on the basis that the Caroline’s owner had not “innocently employed” the steamer “as a passage vessel.”43 Similarly, the “sincere desire to preserve peace and do justice” did not resolve the more fundamental issue that had plagued US-British neutrality since the former’s independence from the latter: who policed private neutral trade, and when,

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for example, as stated bluntly, in pertinent part, by US Secretary of State Jefferson to Mr. Pinckney, Minister to England, as early as September 1793, … [W]hen two nations go to war, those who choose to live in peace retain their natural right to pursue their agriculture, manufactures, and other ordinary vocations; …; and, in short, that the war among others shall be, for them, as if it did not exist.” To these mutual rights nations had allowed one exception—that of furnishing implements of war to the belligerents, or anything whatever to a blockaded place. Implements of war destined to a belligerent were treated as contraband, and were subject to seizure and confiscation [emphasis added]. … .44

It is clear from the above that “seizure and confiscation” of contraband were the prerogatives of the belligerents. What is not clear, and would be disputed in 1872, as it was in 1793 and 1837, was the extent to which a neutral state government owed anything beyond the basic, formal duties of abstention and impartiality. The British Foreign Enlistment Act 1819 Regarding early domestic neutrality laws, both GB and the US were unusual in having dedicated statutes, for deployment as needed. On the outbreak of the ACW, GB’s neutrality proclamation of May 13, 1861, was the first issued by a third state,45 which recognized the war as a full belligerency. The proclamation “recalled” the prohibitions laid down in its Foreign Enlistment Act of July 3, 1819.46 The statute’s twelve articles were intended primarily to prohibit (1) foreign enlistment, (2) the premeditated equipping of armed ships for use against a belligerent still at peace with Britain, and (3) the reinforcement of belligerent warships in British waters without the license of the Crown. The last two prohibitions were to prove the most difficult to monitor, and are excerpted in pertinent part as follows: VII. ... [I]f any Person, within any part of the United Kingdom ... shall ... equip, furnish, fit out, or arm ... any Ship or Vessel, with intent or in order that such ship or Vessel shall be employed in the service of any foreign prince ... as a Transport or Store Ship, or with intent to cruise or commit hostilities against any Prince ... or against the Subjects or Citizens of any Prince ..., with whom Her Majesty shall not then be at War; or shall ... issue or deliver any Commission for any [such] Ship or Vessel ..., every Person so offending shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour ...; VIII . ... [I]f any Person in any part of the United Kingdom ... shall, by adding to the number of the guns of such Vessel, or by changing those on board for other guns or by the addition of any equipment for War, increase or augment ... the warlike Force of any ship or Vessel of War, or Cruiser, or other armed

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Vessel ... in the service of any Foreign prince ..., every such person so offending shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour ... [emphasis added].

Apparently, these provisions did not prohibit the private trade in armaments to the belligerents, which the government itself helped to coordinate.47 Otherwise, it was considered illegal both in the US,48 and in GB,49 for private individuals to issue loans to “rebels” fighting the government of a friendly foreign state,50 but that issue was rather obviated by GB’s proclamation and recognition of a de facto belligerency. Otherwise, to preserve and protect British neutrality against allegations of unneutral service to either belligerent, and because it wanted no involvement in belligerent prize adjudications, GB moved quickly, on June 1, 1861, to prohibit, separately, the bringing into British waters of captured vessels and cargoes by the warships and privateers of either belligerent. On the other hand, GB permitted the standard neutral practice at the time of allowing the warships of both belligerents to be admitted into British harbors on an equal footing, albeit separately.51 This, too, had dangers, however, and by January 1862, GB had instructed its Admiralty to prevent any belligerent hostilities occurring in British waters. As noted above, GB eventually modified its Foreign Enlistment Act in 1870, in such a way as to conform more or less with the rules the Geneva Arbitration would employ, but amendment did not obviate its belief that the rules were new to its domestic law, and had not formed part of the law of nations during the ACW. British Ship-Building for the Confederacy The Geneva Arbitration would be devoted mainly to Britain’s alleged negligence in permitting Confederate warships to be built in and depart from British ports. It should be recalled, however, that British neutrality law at the time only prohibited premeditated equipping of belligerent ships, and their unauthorized reinforcement in British waters, but not shipbuilding, per se.52 British shipbuilders thus were under no legal obligation to inquire as to the ultimate purpose of a ship.53 Instead, “suspect” ships sailed from British ports, and complemented or assembled their equipment, armament and manning elsewhere, even if equipment and personnel had been sourced from their ports of departure. For example, the Alabama, the subject of many claims in Geneva,54 was constructed for Confederate use in Liverpool in 1862, and equipped and armed elsewhere, on the coasts of neutral Terceira (Azores), albeit with the help of two British vessels (the Agrippina and the Bahama). The Confederate ship Florida was constructed in Liverpool under the name Orebo, allegedly

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for the Italian Government, and acquired its fighting crew, provisions, and armaments at Green Cay, again, with the help of a British vessel, the Prince Alfred. The Alexandra was released in 1863 from Liverpool with incomplete equipment. The Shenandoah departed from London under the name Sea King as an ordinary merchant ship, and was later converted into a Confederate cruiser near the island of Madeira; her crew was augmented at Melbourne (colony of Victoria).55 Nonetheless, despite numerous (and substantiated) US allegations throughout the war regarding private British ship-building and -equipping for the Confederacy, so long as ships remained in British waters,56 or were “incapable of attack and defense”57 on departure, the English courts hesitated to intervene. Meanwhile, Britain continued to insist that it investigated most “suspect” ships, and the government did not seem overly concerned with “mere peculiarities in construction,” as those could be misunderstood.58 For example, in the case of the Alabama, the English court is reported to have stated in pertinent part as follows: Because, gentlemen, I must say, it seems to me that the Alabama sailed away from Liverpool without any arms at all; merely a ship in ballast, unfurnished, unequipped, unprepared; and her arms were put in at Terceira, not a port in Her Majesty’s dominions. The Foreign Enlistment Act is no more violated by that than by any other indifferent matter that might happen about a boat of any kind whatever.59

Accusations thus flew between the two governments, regarding the British presumption of a ship’s “innocence,” prompting the US also to “presume” that British-built ships were in fact destined for the Confederacy, in breach of the Southern blockade.60 As the US considered them contraband,61 its cruisers began to search more widely for, and to seize, vessels found merely en route to Nassau and other neutral British ports. Therefore, despite the commercial profits of British shipbuilding and blockade-running that made Confederate personnel and agents so welcome in British ports, and Federal apprehensions that GB would “prematurely” recognize Confederate independence, which never happened (although it could have been conducive to wider strategic and economic considerations, such as British industrial links with Confederate cotton),62 British concerns kept the two governments in check. For example, Canadian territorial integrity was at stake, and GB regularly protested the pursuit of American deserters and the enlistment of Canadians there to serve in the Federal army. As for the “Three Rules of Washington,” the main bone of contention remained the standard of neutral due diligence expected. Specifically, the traditional standard of due diligence required of a neutral when assessing the nature of a ship was about to be upended, as is now discussed in the context of Sir Alexander Cockburn’s dissent.

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THE BRITISH VIEW OF THE DILIGENCE “DUE”—COCKBURN’S DISSENT The British declaration of neutrality was followed by France, on June 10, 1861, Spain, on June 17, The Netherlands,63 also in June, followed by Brazil, on August 1, soon joined Prussia, Denmark, Belgium, Russia, Portugal, Hawaiian Islands, Bremen, and Hamburg.64 Britain thus was not alone in insisting on its rights to promote its freedom of trade despite the hostilities of others, and when Sir Alexander Cockburn, the British arbitrator, dissented from the Geneva award of September 14, 1872, in its entirety, and refused even to sign it,65 he was in good company regarding the controversial substance of the “Three Rules of Washington,” particularly as regards “due diligence.”66 What seems at odds regarding this particular standard is that the Arbitrators did not alter the traditional rule that vessels could be built, etc., for a belligerent within neutral territory if neither commissioned directly nor made ready for immediate hostilities,67 and they did not disturb the rules permitting the private trade in armaments.68 The US also had to concede that the Second Rule of Washington applied only “to the use of a neutral port by a belligerent for the renewal or augmentation of such military supplies or arms for the naval operations referred to in the rule.”69 British liability in Geneva thus hinged on contrasting national views as to the diligence “due” to belligerents, or as the British characterized it, the “good faith and honesty” with which neutrals should observe their duties, albeit in a world on the brink of globalizing trade, multi-national ownership of ships and cargoes, and embryonic industrial warfare, all of which would effect lengthening contraband lists and make unworkable certain older neutral traditions. Neutral “Rights” of Trade Cockburn’s dissent cites copious authority throughout, and, importantly, makes an early distinction between neutral states assisting one or other belligerent in its war efforts, per se, and continuing to trade with either one. The former breaches neutrality and the latter does not. The neutral state and its subjects may continue to engage in trade, although an abstaining and impartial, neutral state does not supply either belligerent directly with war articles.70 The trade of private neutral citizens is different, as noted by Cockburn, in pertinent part, as follows: Now, the subjects of a neutral state having in time of peace the right of carrying on trade with a belligerent, on what ground of reason or justice, it may be asked, should their right of peaceful trade be taken away, and their interests, thus be

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damaged by reason of a war which they have had no share in bringing about, and in which they have no concern?71

Moreover, disturbing the trade of neutral citizens would unnecessarily entangle them in matters of state. Cockburn admits that “the rights of the peaceful neutral undergo very serious diminution,”72 but this is qualified by pointing to belligerent actions, e.g., blockading enemy ports, stopping and searching merchant ships at sea, and so on, and he promotes the more traditional view, that, in the absence of any special obligations beyond abstention and impartiality, it is generally the practical duty of the belligerents (rather than the neutral) to police private neutral trade in contraband. Neutral state citizens conducted such trade at their own risk. Moreover, belligerents could force private merchants “to submit to what was called the right of search, in order that the belligerent might satisfy himself whether goods of the enemy, or goods contraband of war intended for the enemy, were being conveyed in the neutral ships,”73 thereby alleviating the neutral state from doing so. Cockburn’s query as to the relative equities of the belligerents policing the private trade in contraband, on the one hand, was the opposite to the US position, on the other, which sought merely to shift the policing of neutrality onto the neutral. This shift would upend the flexibilities of neutrality, impose additional burdens on neutral governments, and remove risk from traders who otherwise would have accepted it. In contrast, the British attitude regarding neutral “due diligence” in 1861, as during the 1837 Caroline incident, was that everything depended on good faith and “circumstances” including the fact that neutral governments should have no unnecessary burdens thrust on them by the hostilities of others. Moreover, any applicable, neutral “rules” in place at any particular time could ultimately only be as good as each state’s ability to police and enforce its preferred position within them. Adopting this flexible approach also reinforced the contextualization of “due diligence” as a function of neutral state necessity,74 as at the time of the Caroline incident. As a final point at this juncture, Cockburn makes express the view that there could be no obligation placed on a neutral government to prevent the private trade in contraband, or, in the context of the ACW, to prevent trade with the blockaded Southern ports,75 as follows: One thing is quite clear, and must not be lost sight of: neither the trade in contraband of war nor that carried on in defiance of a blockade constitute, practically, any violation of neutrality, so far as the government of the neutral trader is concerned. Scarce any neutral government has ever attempted to prevent its subjects from carrying on such trade; no neutral government was ever held responsible, as for a breach of neutrality, for such trade carried on by its subjects. This is a point as to which there has been no difference of action among

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governments, or difference of opinion as to the duty of governments among writers on public law. It is one of those things which, on the part of its subjects, a government, according to the existing practice of nations, is not called upon to prevent. It is one of those things which the belligerent, who, in furthering his own purposes is indifferent to the loss he inflicts on the neutral, must submit to if he is unable to prevent it, and for which he is not entitled to hold the neutral state responsible [emphasis added].76

In short, it was for the belligerents to police private neutral trade, which merchants conducted at their own risk in any event. The Issue of Changing Standards In the context of the Alabama claims, the thrust of Cockburn’s dissent may seem logical enough, but the issue regarding a neutral’s so-called passive commerce was not so clear. “Passive commerce” entailed the sale to the belligerents by private neutral merchants, directly from their own markets and factories, of goods which, once transported by sea, would be deemed contraband.77 As changing practices in one context of neutrality can foreshadow alterations in other contexts, Cockburn broaches this issue. He notes that the majority of opinion viewed such commerce as perfectly lawful, but that an authoritative minority, starting with Ferdinando Galiani (1728−1787), had begun to assert limits to such direct private neutral trade, such that a neutral merchant could, in fact, find himself prohibited in his own country from selling to a belligerent any war materials that might possibly be liable to seizure as contraband. This issue of seizure as contraband, of course, sits at the crux of the Alabama claims, due no doubt to the ease with which a “perfect” attitude of impartiality can result in different, material consequences. Put another way, at what point does “equal” treatment in trade become discriminatory, however indirectly? Obviously, “equal” impartiality may favor the wealthier or more powerful belligerent, and as noted by Cockburn, disagreement on this point “has been revived in our day.”78 Arguing against this proposition were two of Galiani’s own countrymen, Giovanni Maria Lampredi (1731−1793) and Dominico Azuni (1749−1827). Lampredi, Cockburn notes, promoted the more traditional view, that neutrals may sell anything to a belligerent within the neutral territory, as, until the goods have left that territory, there is no question of “contraband” or its carriage. Even where articles were clearly potential contraband, their character as such could only be assumed once they departed neutral territory. Similarly, Azuni and some other eminent authorities in international law highlighted by Cockburn maintained generally the same doctrine.79

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Views based on such as Galiani’s were utilized by the US in Geneva, which helps to explain its attempt to demand restitution for the wartime damage caused by British-built ships during the ACW, which demands upended “due diligence” expectations, from a principle based on averting the need for belligerent necessity of self-defence or other form of self-help,80 to an independent neutral duty to reduce the ability of the lesser financially able belligerent to seek private merchants of (contraband) goods, who otherwise would be willing to accept the risks of doing so. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the British Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819, at the relevant time, put British shipbuilders under no legal obligation whatsoever to query the eventual purpose of their ships at the point of sale.81 In wrapping up this part of his dissent, Cockburn, therefore, highlighted the hypocrisy of the US position, as US practice on this point traditionally had left the policing of contraband entirely to the belligerents, rather than to commercially oriented, impartial, neutral states.82 To drive the point home, he adds: Why—unless, indeed, on account of reasons of state affecting the interests of the neutral state itself, in which case private interests must give way to those of the public—are the armorers of Birmingham or Liege, or the shipbuilders of London or Liverpool, to have their business put a stop to because one of their customers happens to be engaged in war with another state? [… .] From whatever cause it may proceed, increased demand is the legitimate advantage of the producer or the merchant, and it is by the advantage which periods of increased and more active demand bring with them that the loss arising from occasional periods of stagnation is balanced and made good [emphasis added].83

US Arguments Similar to the British Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819, the US Neutrality Acts of 1794 and 1818 did not prevent ship-building, -equipping or -arming, of ships for sale to a belligerent.84 The early US Acts were intended to curtail privateering, i.e., the fitting-out of US vessels, manned by US crews, under foreign letters of marque issued during, first, the war with France against Britain, and subsequently, on behalf of the de facto governments of the revolted Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Western Hemisphere, for use against Spanish and Portuguese commerce. As noted in Cockburn’s dissent, “building or fitting out ships of war for a belligerent had not come into question at that time at all.”85 Therefore, regarding the over-arching issue at Geneva of the due diligence allegedly owed by GB to the US during the ACW, and the quite specific issue, of whether the sale of a ship of war as a commercial transaction, could or not be a breach, per se, of neutrality, Cockburn considered the position

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adopted in the “Three Rules of Washington.” In characterizing the US case regarding due diligence as “vague,” and as promoting a standard based “not o[n] what the law is, but of what the United States Government desire it shall be understood to be,” he quotes their statement to the arbitrators: The United States understands that the diligence which is called for by the rules of the treaty of Washington is a due diligence; that is, a diligence proportioned to the magnitude of the subject and to the dignity and strength of the power which is to exercise it; a diligence which shall, by the use of active vigilance, and of all the other means in the power of the neutral, through all stages of the transaction, prevent its soil from being violated; a diligence that shall in like manner deter designing men from committing acts of war on the soil of the neutral against its will, and thus possibly dragging it into a war which it would avoid; a diligence which prompts the neutral to the most energetic measures to discover any purpose of doing the acts forbidden by its good faith as a neutral, and imposes upon it the obligation, when it receives the knowledge of an intention to commit such acts, to use all the means in its power to prevent it. No diligence short of this would be “due”; that is, commensurate with the emergency or with the magnitude of the results of negligence. Understanding the words in this sense, the United States find them identical with the measure of duty which Great Britain had previously admitted [emphasis added].86

This is an onerous standard indeed, but it is nonetheless one that makes express that obligations are to be imposed on the basis of the actual knowledge of the neutral state of a merchant’s intention to commit “unfriendly” acts, whereas the “Three Rules” only specified that neutral due diligence applied merely to prevent (indeterminate) (1) the fitting out, arming, equipping (but not construction), or departure, in or from its jurisdiction of vessels the neutral had reasonable grounds to believe were intended for the war effort, (2) use of its ports or waters to serve as operational bases for either belligerent, and (3) any violation of these rules in its own ports and waters. As can be seen, the requirement of actual knowledge is not found in the Geneva rules. In turn, had the British contingent utilized the requirement of actual rather than reasonable knowledge, and argued against the overly extensive list of allegedly “unneutral” acts, the arbitration in Geneva might have been decided differently, at least in relation to certain of the British-built ships. Be that as it may, the British position was further compounded by the US’s assertion that the diligence “due” from a neutral was to be proportioned on the neutral government’s strength, that is, that “there could be one measure of diligence for a powerful state, and another for a weak one.”87 While such proportionality might, in certain circumstances, mirror somewhat the traditional neutral flexibilities, the notional Geneva formulation of a “power multiplier” to

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determine the appropriate standard fundamentally altered neutrality’s traditional structure, from the interference of belligerents in neutral trade, to an attempt to force neutrals—particularly powerful ones—to ally indirectly with the stronger belligerent, against the neutral’s own merchants. The fact that applicable, neutral “rules” had traditionally only been as binding as each state’s ability to enforce its own preferred position within them is thus wellrepresented by the Geneva decision, as its losses in the proceedings reflect how much GB’s status as a pre-eminent maritime nation and standard-setter for rules of neutrality had begun to wane, at least in the Western Hemisphere. Otherwise, Cockburn’s published dissent enlightened the reader with a summary of what was considered the relevant heads of due diligence, relating (1) to the state of [a neutral’s] municipal law; (2) to the means possessed by it to prevent such infractions; and, (3) to the “diligence to be used in the application of such means to the end desired.”88 The law of the tribunal was structured for the reader by dividing it into prohibitive law, or, as denoted by the US, the “punitive” law, and the preventive law. He followed this with the tribunal’s consideration of the parties’ respective cases of law and fact, including point-by-point highlights of eminent authoritative opinion, both for and against, the laws of other states, a ship-by-ship analysis, and consideration of a variety of other circumstances deemed relevant. He also explained that the tribunal disagreed regarding the US attempt to base its theory of the case on an over-arching, hostile British “animus” towards the Federal government throughout the war, as they pointed instead only to relatively few failures of British ‘watchfulness.’ CONCLUSION The Geneva Arbitrators did not alter the rule that vessels could be built, etc., for a belligerent within neutral territory, if not commissioned directly by a belligerent, or if it had not departed ready for immediate hostilities. The Geneva Arbitrators also did not disturb the private neutral trade in armaments.89 What, then, did the arbitration accomplish? The putative success of the US in effectively re-writing the rules for the occasion, upended traditional neutrality, from a principle based on avoiding a belligerent necessity of selfdefense or another form of self-help. Instead, “due diligence” was to become an independent, neutral duty, capable of reducing, in material terms, the ability of the lesser financially able belligerent to acquire contraband goods from neutral private merchants, should that neutral choose to overly police its own traders for wider geopolitical reasons.90 Over 187 pages, Cockburn re-argues the British position at Geneva, in particular as regards Britain’s commercial ship-building, and so on, for the

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Southern Confederacy. Throughout the ACW, the British government did not overly intervene in its citizens’ private affairs, including their commercial activities, pursuing the attitude instead that a neutral had a right to maintain as normal a life as possible during hostilities elsewhere in which it played no part. Nonetheless, playing no part was not the same as having no interest, and GB’s “light-touch” approach to its citizens’ private commerce was beneficial to its shipbuilders, armaments manufacturers, and cotton industries, to name a few. The firm British stance nearly drew it into a direct war with the Federal government on several occasions, which was a risk both sides needed to avoid: war would have made British recognition of Confederate independence inevitable, and the geographical proximity of the US mainland to many British colonial ports would have endangered British interests. Obviously, the US’s position at Geneva was to pursue its own (financial) agenda, particularly as regards public expectations of (financial) retribution against GB, just as the American public had demanded (financial) satisfaction regarding the Caroline incident of 1837. Moreover, by 1872, the respective geopolitical position of the two countries was reversing, and arbitrating their differences in Geneva provided an excellent example of this particular power swap under the guise of the “peaceful” settlement of disputes. In conclusion, the 187-page reprint of Cockburn’s dissent, intended for public consumption, in a “Supplement” to the London Gazette of September 20, 1872, leaves a priceless account of a decisive moment in legal history which did not so much alter anything as indicate the inherent flexibility of law, and power, over time. NOTES 1. Wider claims included British ones: (1) the navigation of the St. Lawrence River; (2) fisheries’ disputes; (3) transit of goods through Maine, the lumber trade down the St. John River, and reciprocal trade between the US and the Dominion of Canada; (4) the Manitoba boundary; (5) the San Juan water boundary; (6) British claims arising from the ACW; and, (7) Canadian claims for “Fenian” raids. See, e.g., J.T. Adams, A History of the American People (London: Routledge, 1933), 141–144; J.B. Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, vol. 1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1898), 539, 540–541. 2. Initially comprising South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, soon joined by Virginia, Arkansas, and North Carolina. The states of Missouri and Kentucky were later accepted, unofficially, as members. 3. The Tribunal would examine a total of 18 such claims. 4. Text of Treaty reprinted in Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 547–553. Articles I–XI of the Treaty regarded the so-called Alabama claims.

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5. As discussed more fully in E. Chadwick, “Gone with the War? Neutral State Responsibility and the Geneva Arbitration of 1872,” in Traditional Neutrality Revisited: Law, Theory and Case Studies, ed. Elizabeth Chadwick, vol. 4, International Humanitarian Law Series (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2002), 19. 6. I.e., South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, extended on April 27 to North Carolina and Virginia. Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 594; J.H.W. Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective: The Law of Neutrality, vol. X (Leiden: Alphen aan den Rijn, 1979), 116. The blockade stretched about 2500 nautical miles, and was universal, in the sense it was impartially applied. H. Lauterpacht, ed., Oppenheim’s International Law, 7th ed., vol. II (London: Longmans, 1952), 770–771. 7. See Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 2 Black 635 (1862); The Hiawatha, 2 Black 676 (1862). 8. T.C. Chen, The International Law of Recognition (London: Stevens, 1951), 384. The blockade was characterized as being “for the purpose of collecting the revenue in the disturbed part of the country, and for the protection of the public peace, and of the lives and properties of quiet and orderly citizens,” until Congress could meet on July 4. Moore, 1, 562. 9. Consider, e.g., the Consolato del Mare, a work notionally dating from the twelfth century, but first published in 1474, in Barcelona, in Catalan. See Sergio Moratiel Villa, “The Spanish School of the New Law of Nations,” International Review of the Red Cross 32, no. 290 (2010): 424–425. 10. Fueled in part by the need to harness new military technology. I.P. Trainin, “Questions of Guerrilla Warfare in the Law of War,” The American Journal of International Law 40, no. 3 (1946): 534, 536._n. 2. See also Bernard Montague, Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War (London: Longman, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1870), 115–116. Accessed April 18, 2018, http:​//arc​hive.​org/d​etail​s/ahi​ stori​calac​co02m​oungo​og (the practice of recognizing civil war as belligerency better protects neutral trade, is more expedient in restraining the means and methods of war, confines the spread of the hostilities, and is more humane); Geoffrey Best, “The Restraint of War in Historical and Philosophical Perspective’,” in Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict: Challenges Ahead, eds. Astrid J. M. Delissen and Gerard J. Tanja (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1991), 3, 19. 11. See, e.g., Charles H. Stockton, “The Declaration of Paris,” The American Journal of International Law 14, no. 3 (1920): 357. He refers to the Crimean War (1853–56) as “in fact, a practical example of that anomaly of ‘a military war and a commercial peace’”. No lawful trade was normally conducted directly between the belligerents’ citizens without special permission. G.G. Wilson, ed., Elements of International Law: The Literal Reproduction of the Edition of 1866 by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), 358. [Hereinafter Dana]. 12. Frederick Edwin Smith, International Law, The Temple Primers (London: Dent 1900), 145. 13. The US and GB had already fought two wars against each other by the time of the ACW: the “American Revolutionary War” (1775–83), and the so-called War of 1812 (1812–15).

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14. Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 497. 15. Dana, 11, 378 n. 171, who adds: “[m]odern civilization has recognized certain modes of coercion as justifiable.” 16. Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. 17. Chen, 8, 395. (citations omitted). He adds: “this is a simple case where fact and law coincided.” See also Quincy Wright, “The American Civil War, 1861–1865,” in The International Law of Civil War, ed. Richard A. Falk (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971), 30, 86. 18. Treaty of Washington, 4. GB, the US, Brazil, Italy, and Switzerland each chose one arbitrator: Sir Alexander Cockburn (GB), Mr. C.F. Adams (US), Mr. J. Staempfli (Switz.), Baron (later Viscount) d’ltajuba (Brazil), and Count Sclopis di Salerano (It.). 19. Moore, 1, 592. 20. Ibid., 661. The duty of non-discrimination requires formal, not material, impartiality, and does not extend to neutral state expressions of sympathy with one or other belligerent. Andrea Gioia, “Neutrality and Non-Belligerency,” in International Economic Law and Armed Conflict, ed. H.H.G. Post (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1994), 81. 21. The Senator’s itemization of the damages claims is in Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 511–512. It was viewed as the basis on which the US would negotiate in future. It also set the bar for public expectations. 22. The award is printed in full in ibid., 653–659. 23. The Tribunal also allowed 6% in interest in gold. Ibid., 651. 24. “Sir Alexander Cockburn’s dissenting opinion in the Alabama Claims Arbitration of 14 September 1872” was republished by the British in a “Supplement” to the London Gazette of September 24, 1872, by the US in Foreign Relations IV, no. 2 (1872): 48, as a note to Protocol No. XXXII. Page references, below, are found at trans-lex.org, “Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington (1872), at 230 et seq.,” Accessed April 18, 2018, www.trans-lex.org/262138. See also Moore, 1, 652, 659–661. 25. Cf. the consternation surrounding Swiss neutrality and that of other neutrals during World War 2. See, e.g., Herbert R. Reginbogin, Faces of Neutrality: A Comparative Analysis of the Neutrality of Switzerland and other Neutral Nations during WW II, trans. Ulrike Seeberger and Jane Britten (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2009); Alex de Waal, “Dangers of Discretion,” London Review of Books (1999): 27; Ethel C. Phillips, “American Participation in Belligerent Commercial Controls, 1914–1917,” American Journal of International Law 27, no. 4 (1933): 675. 26. Erik J.S. Castrén, The Present Law of War and Neutrality (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1954), 505. 27. Katja L.H. Samual, “The Legal Character of Due Diligence: Standards, Obligations, or Both?” Central Asian Yearbook of International Law 1 (approximately 17,000 words, forthcoming, 2019). Section IV.A.

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28. Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 547. 29. Ibid., 542. The British objected strongly to the inclusion of ship “construction” alongside the prohibition of “fitting out, arming, or equipping” in the draft First Rule of Washington. 30. The so-called Alabama claims. 31. An earlier statement read: “[i]t being a condition of this undertaking that these obligations should in future be held to be binding internationally between the two countries.” Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 544; Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective, X, 6, 117–118; Lauterpacht, Oppenheim’s International Law, 6, 715. 32. E.g., as occurred after the Caroline incident of late December 1837, discussed below. 33. Article VII of the Treaty of Washington, specifically, “the claims of the US against GB on account of acts committed by rebel cruisers.” Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 541. 34. The account that follows is a brief synopsis by Hunter Miller (annotator, citation omitted), of the following exchange of diplomatic letters: “British-American Diplomacy: The Caroline Case,” accessed April 18, 2018, http:​//ava​lon.l​aw.ya​le.ed​ u/19t​h_cen​tury/​br-18​42d.a​sp. See also D.J. Harris, ed., Cases and Materials on International Law, 3rd ed. (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1983), 655–656. 35. Which included the Presidential Proclamation of Neutrality 1793, Neutrality Act of 1794, and Neutrality Act of 1818. See, e.g., Charles S. Hyneman, “Neutrality during the European Wars of 1792–1815: America’s Understanding of Her Obligations,” American Journal of International Law 24 (1930): 279. 36. Miller, “British-American Diplomacy: The Caroline Case,” 34, citing a note sent immediately after the incident from Mr. Forsyth, the US Secretary of State, to Mr. Fox, the British minister at Washington. 37. The US minister at London had presented a demand for reparation by May 22, 1838. 38. Miller, “British-American Diplomacy: The Caroline Case,” 34, citing the forwarding to Mr. Forsyth by Mr. Fox on February 6, 1838 of a letter received from Governor Head. Consider Efthymios Papastavridis, “The Right of Visit on the High Seas in a Theoretical Perspective: Mare Liberum versus Mare Clausum Revisited,” Leiden Journal of International Law 24, no. 1 (2011): 45–69. He discusses the transition in British national policy from relying on pirates to control the maritime environment, to the prohibition of unlawful “pirate-privateers.” See also Grosvenor Porter Lowrey, English Neutrality. Is the Alabama a British Pirate? 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: D.F. Randolph Publisher [H.B.Ashmead, printer], 1863). Republished Farmington Hills, Detroit: Thomson Gale, 1969, accessed April 18, 2018, https​://pl​ay.go​ogle.​ com/b​ooks/​reade​r?id=​UvY9A​AAAYA​AJ&pr​intse​c=fro​ntcov​er&ou​tput=​reade​r&hl=​ en&pg​= GBS.PA2. The Caroline standard of self-defense is today memorialized in Article 51 of the 1945 UN Charter. 39. 33 & 34 Vict. c.90, Royal Assent August 9, 1870.

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40. Roughly three months after the Caroline incident. 41. Act of March 10, 1838, ch 31, 5 Stat. 212. 42. Miller, “British-American Diplomacy: The Caroline Case,” 34, “Extract from note of April 24, 1841: Office of the Secretary of State to Mr. Fox’.” See also ibid., “Lord Ashburton to Mr. Webster, Washington, July 28, 1842.” 43. Ibid., citing the first report of Lord Ashburton in his dispatch of July 28, 1842 on the “settlement” of the case. 44. J.B. Moore, International Adjudications (Neutral Rights and Neutral Duties: Arbitration Under Jay Treaty (1794) Article 7) (Oxford: OUP, 1931), 17 n. 1, citing American State Papers, Foreign Relations I: 239. 45. Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective, X, 6. See Dana, 11, 439, 440 n. 208, regarding the general regulations of British ports, and special regulations for the ports in the British West Indies. 46. 59 Geo. iii. c. 69 (in force June 6, by proclamation). See Dana, 11,448, 450, 471–473. This Act was replaced by the Foreign Enlistment Act of August 9, 1870. See Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective, X, 6, 107. (citation omitted). 47. The principle allowing this practice held firm at Geneva, as no complaint was made regarding the sale of military supplies or arms in the ordinary course of business. 48. Kennet v. Chambers, 14 Howard 38 (1852). 49. De Wutz v. Hendricks, 11 State Trials 125 (1824), 9 Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 586. See also Smith, International Law, 12, 133. 50. The issue of private loans to a belligerent was less clear. Smith, International Law, 12, 133; Lauterpacht, Oppenheim’s International Law, 743, 847. 51. Known as the “24 hours rule,” a gap of 24 hours must separate the exit of two opposing belligerent ships from a neutral harbor. Castrén, The Present Law of War and Neutrality, 26, 520, 525. Further provisions concerned the requirement of leave to enter the ports of Nassau, and other Bahama Islands. Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective, X, 6, 119–120. 52. As per The Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819. 53. See Atty. Gen’l. v. Sillem and Others, 2 Hurlstone and Caldman 431 (1863); cf. The British Consul v. The Ship Mermaid, Bee’s American Admiralty Reports 69. See also Castrén, The Present Law of War and Neutrality, 26, 505. 54. Eighteen claims would become known as the Alabama claims. 55. Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective, X, 6, 118–119; Smith, International Law, 12, 137. 56. Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective, X, 6, 119. 57. Smith, International Law, 12, 137; Dana, 11, 450, 470 n. 215 (discussion of the issue of intent in this context) and 450, 474–478. 58. Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 607–608. 59. Ibid., 586. See also Dana, 11, 471 n. 218, 474–477. 60. The blockade was required to be “effective,” as per the Declaration of Paris 1856. See, e.g., H.W. Malkin, “The Inner History of the Declaration of Paris,” British

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Yearbook of International Law 8, no. 1 (1927). Britain’s attitude was that contraband carried through the blockade constituted an “enterprise( ) which Her Majesty’s Government could not undertake to prevent, and the repression of which belonged to the United States as a belligerent power.” See also D. Stick, Graveyard of the Atlantic: Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), 61. (“[s]o great was the exodus of steamers from the Clyde to blockaderunning activities that The Times, of London, said in 1863: ‘Should the demand continue at this rate, there will soon be scarcely a swift steamer left on the Clyde’”). 61. Lauterpacht, Oppenheim’s International Law, 6, 819. The general rule was that a carrying vessel deemed ignorant of the ultimate destination of the cargo could not itself be seized - only the cargo. Ibid., 785 n. 4 (citations omitted). 62. Stick notes that cotton sold for approximately eight cents per pound in Southern ports, about eighty cents in Europe, and for about one dollar in the Northern states. Stick, 60. 63. Dutch neutrality instruments for example excluded privateers from Dutch ports, prohibited privateering by Dutch nationals, and prescribed mandatory neutral duties for Dutch commerce. Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective, X, 6, 115. 64. See Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 595. Regarding the declarations, decrees, and notifications issued by other maritime powers. 65. The award is printed in full in ibid., 652, 659–661. 66. Lauterpacht, Oppenheim’s International Law, 6, 757–758, who also argues that, for purposes of international law, the accepted meaning of “due diligence” is “such diligence as can reasonably be expected when all the circumstances and conditions of the case are taken into consideration.” This standard is similar to that agreed between the US and Britain subsequent to the Caroline incident. See also the more precise Article 8 of the 1907 Hague Convention XIII, which utilizes the words “to employ the means at its disposal” rather than “to use due diligence.” 67. Smith, International Law, 12, 139; Lauterpacht, Oppenheim’s International Law, 6, 714. (A “hair-splitting” distinction). 68. See, e.g., Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective, X, 6, 116; Castrén, The Present Law of War and Neutrality, 26, 505. 69. Moore, History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party, 1, 575. 70. Cockburn’s dissent, 24, 235. 71. Ibid., 236. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid., 237. 74. As per the Caroline incident. Op. cit. 75. Cockburn’s dissent, 24, 239. 76. Ibid., 239. 77. Ibid., 241. 78. Ibid. 79. Ibid., 242.

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80. As per the Caroline incident. Op. cit. 81. To recap, the British Act only prohibited the premeditated equipping of belligerent ships, and/or their unauthorized reinforcement in British waters. 82. Citing The Santissima Trinidad, 20 US 283 (1822), 7 Wheaton 283, at 340 (Mr. Justice Story): “...[T]here is nothing in our laws, or in the law of nations, that forbids our citizens from sending armed vessels, as well as munitions of war, to foreign ports for sale. It is a commercial adventure which no nation is bound to prohibit; and which only exposes the persons engaged in it to the penalty of confiscation.” Cockburn disputes the relevance to this point of the Gran Para, 20 US 471 (1822), as argued for by the US legal team for the first time in Geneva. Cockburn’s dissent, 24, 252. Contrast Mlada Bukovansky, “American Identity and Neutral Rights from Independence to the War of 1812,” International Organizations 51 (1997): 209–243. And James Sofka, “American Neutral Rights Reappraised: Identity or Interest in the Foreign Policy of the Early Republic?” Review of International Studies 26 (2000): 599–622. 83. Cockburn’s dissent, 24, 253. 84. Ibid., 255. 85. Ibid., 256. See, e.g., Kevin Arlyck, “Plaintiffs v. Privateers: Litigation and Foreign Affairs in the Federal Courts, 1816–1822,” Law & History Review 30, no. 1 (February 2012): 245. 86. Cockburn’s dissent, 24, 261–262. 87. Ibid., 265. 88. Ibid. 89. See, e.g., Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective, X, 6, 116, 166; Castrén, The Present Law of War and Neutrality, 505. 90. Such indirect discrimination would prove particularly harmful to the Spanish Republican government during the Civil War of 1936–39. See “Declarations by the European Governments Constituting the Agreement regarding Non-Intervention in Spain,” discussed at The National Archives, “Spain at War: Spanish Civil War,” accessed April 18, 2018, http:​//www​.nati​onala​rchiv​es.go​v.uk/​cabin​etpap​ers/t​hemes​/ spai​n-at-​war.h​tm.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, J.T. A History of the American People. London: Routledge, 1933. Arlyck, Kevin. “Plaintiffs v. Privateers: Litigation and Foreign Affairs in the Federal Courts, 1816–1822.” Law & History Review 30, no. 1 (February 2012): 245−278. Best, Geoffrey. “The Restraint of War in Historical and Philosophical Perspective’.” In Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict: Challenges Ahead, edited by Astrid J.M. Delissen and Gerard J. Tanja. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1991. Bukovansky, Mlada. “American Identity and Neutral Rights from Independence to the War of 1812.” International Organizations 51 (1997): 209−243. Castrén, Erik J.S. The Present Law of War and Neutrality. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1954.

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Chadwick, Elizabeth, ed. Traditional Neutrality Revisited: Law, Theory and Case Studies, Vol. 4, International Humanitarian Law Series. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2002. Chen, T.C. The International Law of Recognition. London: Stevens, 1951. de Waal, Alex. “Dangers of Discretion.” London Review of Books 21, no. 2 (1999): 27–29. Gioia, Andrea. “Neutrality and Non-Belligerency.” In International Economic Law and Armed Conflict, edited by H.H.G. Post. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1994. Harris, D.J., ed. Cases and Materials on International Law. 3rd ed. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1983. Hyneman, Charles S. “Neutrality during the European Wars of 1792–1815: America’s Understanding of Her Obligations.” American Journal of International Law 24 (1930): 279−309. Lauterpacht, H., ed. Oppenheim’s International Law. 7th ed, Vol. II. London: Longmans, 1952. Lowrey, Grosvenor Porter. English Neutrality. Is the Alabama a British Pirate? 2nd ed. Philadelphia: D.F. Randolph Publisher (H.B. Ashmead, printer), 1863. Malkin, H.W. “The Inner History of the Declaration of Paris.” British Yearbook of International Law 8, no. 1 (1927): 1−44. Miller, Hunter, annotator. “British-American Diplomacy: The Caroline Case.” http:​// ava​lon.l​aw.ya​le.ed​u/19t​h_cen​tury/​br-18​42d.a​sp. Montague, Bernard. Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War. London: Longman, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1870. Moore, J.B. History and Digest of the International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party. Vol. 1. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1898. Papastavridis, Efthymios. “The Right of Visit on the High Seas in a Theoretical Perspective: Mare Liberum versus Mare Clausum Revisited.” Leiden Journal of International Law 24, no. 1 (2011): 45−69. Phillips, Ethel C. “American Participation in Belligerent Commercial Controls, 1914−1917.” American Journal of International Law 27, no. 4 (1933): 675−693. Reginbogin, Herbert R. Faces of Neutrality: A Comparative Analysis of the Neutrality of Switzerland and other Neutral Nations during WW II. Translated by Ulrike Seeberger and Jane Britten. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2009. Samual, Katja L.H. “The Legal Character of Due Diligence: Standards, Obligations, or Both?” Central Asian Yearbook of International Law 1 (approximately 17,000 words, forthcoming, 2019). Smith, Frederick Edwin. International Law. The Temple Primers. London: Dent 1900. Sofka, James. “American Neutral Rights Reappraised: Identity or Interest in the Foreign Policy of the Early Republic?”. Review of International Studies 26 (2000): 599−622. Stick, D. Graveyard of the Atlantic: Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952. Stockton, Charles H. “The Declaration of Paris.” The American Journal of International Law 14, no. 3 (1920): 356−368.

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Trainin, I.P. “Questions of Guerrilla Warfare in the Law of War.” The American Journal of International Law 40, no. 3 (1946): 534−562. trans-lex.org, “Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington (1872), at 230 et seq.” http://www.trans-lex.org/262138. Verzijl, J.H.W. International Law in Historical Perspective: The Law of Neutrality. Vol. X. Leiden: Alphen aan den Rijn, 1979. Villa, Sergio Moratiel. “The Spanish School of the New Law of Nations.” International Review of the Red Cross 32, no. 290 (2010): 416−433. Wilson, G.G., ed. Elements of International Law: The Literal Reproduction of the Edition of 1866 by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936. Wright, Quincy. “The American Civil War, 1861−1865.” In The International Law of Civil War, edited by Richard A. Falk, 30–110. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971.

Chapter 6

Neutrality and Wartime Japan Pascal Lottaz

The role of neutrality during the War in the Pacific has been overlooked by World War II scholars and researchers of neutrality alike. Even in national historiographies of those European states that remained neutral during the entire period of the war, Japan is often nothing more than a footnote.1 The reason for the neglect is somewhat understandable; to the European neutrals, Japan was far, far away. Why worry about a belligerent that did not matter militarily nor economically when the existential threat to life and liberty was right in front of their doorsteps? The dangers that European neutrals were exposed to and the question how their neutrality helped them to escape the carnage of the battlefields has crowded-out more subtle considerations for the systemic aspects of neutrality. This chapter rectifies the situation by outlining in what ways neutrality impacted Japan and its enemies. It argues that valuable insights in multilateral aspects of the war are gained by distinguishing different types of neutralities; namely Great Power Neutrals and Small Power Neutrals. Further distinctions such as permanent, differential, and even belligerent neutrality are important to understand the many facets through which neutrality impacted the international system of warfare. In fact, focusing on the role of the neutrals during Japan’s period of violence, between the Mukden incident of 1931 and its capitulation to the Allies in September 1945, reveals some of the hidden global aspects of World War II. WHO WAS NEUTRAL AND WHEN? There are two central dimensions to neutrality in the Far East. One is the number of resources a neutral country possesses to uphold its neutrality, referred to as “power status of neutrals” and the other is the “time frame.” 113

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Starting with the latter, it is vitally important to remember that Japan’s experience of aggressive armed conflict—its wartime period—was longer than that of World War II fought on the European continent. It lasted for fourteen years between 1931 and 1945. However, not all phases of it were considered a war in the legal sense of International Law. It was, in fact, a major objective of Japanese foreign policy to claim that its occupation of Chinese territory did not amount to belligerency. The Japanese government argued that Japan’s armed forces were engaged in mere policing activities to safeguard its citizens and their legitimate interests in Shanghai and the northern territories of Manchuria.2 Japan never issued a formal declaration of war and utilized this argument to claim that the usual provisions for belligerency did not apply. Although the League of Nations harshly condemned the Japanese actions, the ambiguously applied use of terminology successfully shaped to a certain degree the international perception of events. Infamous expressions were frequently used by Western diplomats and newspapers to describe the situation in Manchuria as “a war in all but name” or a “war in disguise.”3 The international community accepted that the lack of a declaration of war made the situation into something different than a “real” war, which impacted permanent neutrals like Sweden and Switzerland. It precluded them from issuing declarations of neutrality or being considered as neutrals-by-default due to their non-involvement.4 In fact, they, together with Spain and Czechoslovakia, were the most outspoken critiques of Japanese actions in China. They even carried out league sanctions against Japan under an international status which the Swiss called “differential neutrality”—meaning carrying out economic sanctions mandated by the league, but no military actions.5 This had the effect that there was no “neutral behavior” to speak of during the initial stage of Japan’s wartime period. There was simply nothing to be neutral toward, and the actions of the states with foreign policies of permanent neutrality (Switzerland and Sweden) did not look different from the actions of others. For Small Power Neutrals, the situation with Japan changed only after December 7, 1941, when it entered the next phase of its wartime aggressions with the attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequent official declaration of war on the United States and Great Britain. The second aspect is the “power status” of the countries under consideration. Neutrals can be grouped into two categories: Great Powers and Small Powers. “Great Powers” refers to states with large military and economic potential, whereas “Small Powers” are sovereign nations without the possibility to dominate their continental or maritime neighbors. The well known European neutrals, like Sweden and Switzerland, belonged to the second group. They were the perpetual neutrals who asserted their neutral foreign policies long before the conflict had begun. Although nominally equal in the family of sovereign nations, they were often treated differently in highly

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formal diplomacy. Great Powers, for example, did not maintain diplomatic relations at an ambassadorial level with Small Powers. They were restricted to the exchange of Ministers Plenipotentiary, the rank bellow ambassador. Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal were Small Powers in this sense, with their permanent missions in Tokyo headed by diplomats of the rank of Minister. The other two European states who remained outside the global conflict, the Irish Free State, and the Vatican, were also Small Powers but did not maintain official diplomatic relations with Japan.6 A third category of “middle powers” could be added at this point to call attention to the special status of the former Empires of Portugal and Spain. During World War II, the Portuguese still ruled over strategically important colonial possessions like the Azores, Portuguese Timor or Macau which all became relevant for the war efforts of the Allied and Axis powers.7 Spain had already been stripped of its last important colony, the Philippines, during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Generalissimo Francisco Franco harbored dreams of renewed imperial grandeur nevertheless, leading him after his victory in Spain’s Civil War (1936−1939) to announce his accession to the Anti-Comintern Pact between Italy, Japan, and Germany on April 7, 1939 as well as to agree on a Spanish war entry on the side of Hitler during a secret meeting with the Führer at the French-Spanish border in Hendaye on October 23, 1940.8 Since the fortunes of war took a turn against Germany, with Italy getting stuck in its campaigns in Greece and Egypt, Britain enforcing its war machinery and in view of Spain’s considerable economic dependence on the United States, which—although still neutral—was in clear support of the British side, Franco did not honor his word and kept Spain out of official warfare for the entire time of the war.9 These episodes, as well as Franco’s (in)famous “blue division” of Spanish volunteers that fought alongside the Germans and Italians against the Soviet Union, raise legitimate questions about Spanish neutrality. However, diplomatically, Spain and Portugal were always able to uphold their neutral status in order to maintain political ties with both sides of the war. This was, as will be seen, the most outstanding feature of the relations between Small and Medium neutral Powers and Japan. It is for this reason why they can be lumped together. However, to ruminate only about neutral “Small Powers” would be telling only half of the story. GREAT POWER NEUTRALS—THE GAME CHANGERS The other part was played by the large and powerful states who started out as neutrals regarding certain parts of the global conflict but then abandoned their neutrality to go to war. It is easily forgotten that, among many others, the United States, the USSR, and even Japan itself declared neutrality at the

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outbreak of World War II in Europe. Just consider for example the words of US president Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 3, 1939, to glimpse the degree of legalism with which the situation had been understood by many of the “Great Powers”: At this moment there is being prepared a proclamation of American neutrality. This would have been done even if there had been no neutrality statute on the books, for this proclamation is in accordance with international law and in accordance with American policy. This will be followed by a proclamation required by the existing Neutrality Act. And I trust that in the days to come our neutrality can be made a true neutrality.10

Whether or not Roosevelt meant these words or if he was just swimming with the political tide of his days is a subject of lively debates.11 Neutrality had been official US foreign policy for more than a hundred years, mainly to keep the country out of wars across the Atlantic.12 Not even the short twoyear intermezzo of US participation in World War I was reason enough to have the US Senate abandon neutrality for good. On the contrary, the newly forged neutrality acts of the 1930s, to which Roosevelt alludes above, worked to the opposite effect. They made neutrality the law of the land again.13 The situation had changed only slightly with the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese war on July 7, 1937. The Marco Polo Bridge incident lead to full-scale warfare between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China. There as well Roosevelt would have been under the obligation to invoke the provisions of the Second Neutrality Act, cutting both sides off from access to US arms. But the lack of a declaration of war allowed Roosevelt to circumvent the provisions and continue shipping weapons through third parties to China.14 Doubtlessly, the United States had a highly ambivalent opinion of its neutrality. However, the belief in its utility was one of the most important reasons that the United States joined the Allied forces only two years after the German attack on Poland. Only the quasi-separate conflict with Japan bombed the North Americans once and for all out of their neutrality. Until today the United States has not returned to it and the period of its non-involvement in foreign wars is presently most commonly referred to as “isolationism” and not “neutrality”—a clear sign of the change in public perception that neutrality underwent.15 This chapter cannot consider all of Japan’s own neutralities such as during the Spanish Civil War of 1936—1939 or the first two years of World War II. But one critical case of Japanese neutrality needs to be discussed— the Soviet Union (USSR). Moscow’s efforts to strike a non-aggression pact with Tokyo goes back to 1926, but were repeatedly declined by the Japanese. In 1933, having established a firm grip over its puppet state of Manchukuo,

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the Japanese military started preparations for a future war with the USSR, but the unsuccessful campaigns against China and the slow development of Manchukuo’s economy soon precluded an all-out military campaign. Nevertheless, armed conflicts at the Manchukuo-USSR border increased the following years with clashes between the Japanese and Soviet armies which again only lacked a declaration to be called a war. At the battles of Nomonhan (Khalkhin Gol) alone more than 20,000 men died on both sides. In fall and winter 1939 the public debate in Japan began shifting toward considering negotiations and the normalization of relations with the Soviet Union. To Japanese strategists, the time seemed right to refocus its armed forces to the South instead of battles with the Soviets. The heavy defeat at Nomonhan opened the eyes of the militarists in the government to the real strength of the Red Army and the benefits of a diplomatic solution to the Soviet question. That goal was reached through a treaty signed on June 9, 1940.16 Only a month later the Japanese side approached Stalin for the first time to propose an arrangement that would bind the USSR to peaceful coexistence with their empire. Interestingly, Shigenori Togo, Japan’s ambassador to Moscow, proposed not an agreement of non-aggression, but one of neutrality. It is not clear what the reasons were behind his proposal because a neutrality agreement, is weaker than a non-aggression pact. Most importantly, it would not have fulfilled one of Japan’s main goals, which was to stop the USSR from further exporting weapons to China. Neutrals were not prohibited under International Law to restrict their weapon sales to belligerents. Stalin only reluctantly accepted to start negotiations. Togo’s successor, Yoshitsugu Tatekawa, presented him with a modified version of a treaty text in late October 1940. This time it was a non-aggression pact, to which Stalin, however, did not want to commit the USSR. In April 1941, Foreign Minister Matsuoka, while coming back from a meeting with Hitler and Mussolini and aware of the high likelihood that a German-Soviet war might start soon, in a cunning diplomatic stunt, negotiated the agreement to an end. He conceded that a neutrality pact would be sufficient to Japan as proof of the Soviet’s amicable intentions toward Japan and he received in return concessions on territorial questions as well as an implicit recognition of Manchukuo by the USSR. The pact was signed on April 13, 1941. Two months later, Germany broke its pact of non-aggression with Stalin by invading the Soviet Union. Italy soon followed suit by sending more than 200’000 troops to aid the Germans. Japan, on the other hand, did not join the war with its European Allies. The Soviet Union, consequently, also remained neutral toward Japan’s war with the United States and the other Allies after Pearl Harbor. Diplomatically, the USSR had become to Tokyo a neutral like Spain, Sweden or Switzerland, with the difference being that from the Soviets, Japan had the promise in writing. This had an impact on the strategic thinking of the

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politicians and diplomats in Tokyo. The Soviet Union was on par with other neutral states, which was clearly reflected in reports of the time, as for example through the news of the first anniversary of the neutrality pact. On April 13, 1942, Togo, who by then had become foreign minister, invited not only the representative of the USSR, Ambassador Malik, for a festive lunch but with him the other ministers of the countries that were still neutral in the conflict. Malik reported back to Moscow that it was clear that this event was meant to demonstrate Japanese “neutralness” toward the USSR.17 The Japanese government and the media proactively lumped the USSR together with other neutrals time and again as to reinforce that impression. Even in spring 1944, the Mainichi Shinbun, as a matter of fact, still included Ambassador Malik in a list of neutral representatives during a similar event at the residence of Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu. A picture of Malik standing next to the Swiss and the Swedish Ministers again underscored the Soviet Union’s neutrality toward the Japanese audience of the newspaper. The photograph was published under the heading “Foreign Minister invites diplomatic corps of neutral countries to banquet.”18 Although mutual suspicions never vanished, the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact remained in force for almost the entire time of World War II. Only on the last days of the war did Stalin break the agreement, declaring war on Japan. Only then the political leadership of Japan realized that the pact which officially was valid for another year had lost its power. Signs of the imminent disaster were plentiful. The Japanese navy attaché in Stockholm, Makoto Onodera, had learned about the secret protocol at the Yalta conference (February 4–11, 1945) in which Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war with Japan within three months, but this information never reached the highest ranks of the Japanese government.19 Similarly, Yoshikazu Fujimura, another navy attaché in Switzerland had sent a telegram with the same warning to his headquarters in Tokyo, but it was equally ignored.20 Until the very end, Japanese officials in the government, the Army, the Navy and even the Emperor himself pinned their hopes on a negotiated peace agreement with the United States through the mediation of the neutral Soviets.21 The Emperor even sent former prime minister Konoe as his special envoy to the USSR with the explicit request for the Government in Moscow to work as a mediator for a peace agreement between the United States, Great Britain, and Japan. In return, the Japanese government was willing to make a full concession to the USSR regarding the status of Manchukuo (which they offered to neutralize), fishing rights and all other Soviet interests. It is known today that the official Japanese efforts to negotiate a settlement with the Soviets reached the highest ranks not only of Moscow but of all three Allies. At the Potsdam conference on July 28, Stalin informed Truman and Attlee about the Japanese approaches. He read to them the written statement

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of Japan’s latest ambassador to the USSR, Naotake Sato, containing clarifications on Konoe’s proposal. After the information was circulated, Stalin himself suggested to the other two leaders not to react to the proposal at all. Truman and Attlee agreed.22 For Stalin, this was a tactic to keep the Japanese waiting for Moscow’s help while preparing for war to reap gains from the imminent end of the war. To Truman and Attlee their decision was in line with previous demands and the conviction that nothing short of an unconditional Japanese surrender was acceptable. Back in Moscow, Ambassador Sato was kept in the dark about these plans. The impossibility of receiving help from the USSR must have been evident to him. On July 30, he cabled to Foreign Minister Togo, that there was “no chance whatever” to persuade the Soviets to help end the war through their good office. Still, Togo replied that “in spite of your views, you are to carry out your instructions. (. . .) endeavor to obtain the good offices of the Soviet Union in ending the war short of unconditional surrender.”23 It was a hopeless attempt. On August 9, 1945, the day the second atomic bomb eradicated Nagasaki, Stalin declared war on the Empire of Japan. Twenty-four hours later, the Japanese government cabled to the Swiss, its protecting power, that it accepted the Potsdam declaration, starting the negotiations for unconditional surrender which was completed on August 15. Soviet neutrality in this regard was a critical factor in the decision-making process of the Japanese institutions that oversaw the country’s war efforts. One is tempted to imagine that the war might have ended differently had Onodera or Fujimura’s telegrams reached the cabinet level, or had Stalin straightforwardly denied Japan’s requests for mediation. Had the hopelessness of the “Soviet Option” been known, many Japanese leaders might not have put their faith in the big neutral to the west.24 SMALL POWER NEUTRALS—DIPLOMATIC SERVICE PROVIDERS OF LAST RESORT The above discussion shows how the neutrality of Great Powers in the east mattered for strategic reasons. That of small states, on the other hand, mattered for practical purposes. When fighting in Europe broke out in 1939, traditional neutrals like Sweden and Switzerland (but also the United States and others) were asked by Germany, France, Great Britain, and the other belligerents to represent their interests in the respective enemy countries. In accordance with the Geneva Convention of 1929, the neutrals became the so-called protecting Powers.25 They took care of the embassies, legations, and consulates of the belligerents in enemy countries, organized the repatriation of diplomats and civilians, cared for prisoners of war (POW) and

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assure communication between the belligerents by serving as go-betweens for transmission of telegrams or by negotiating in the name of their client states. As mentioned previously, Japan’s war-like situation with China did not trigger any such diplomatic services of protecting Power. No neutral represented China in Japan or vice versa. However, when Hitler’s invasion of Poland started the belligerency in Europe, the neutrals were asked for their mediating diplomatic services. For the first two years, protecting Power mandates were relatively few and spread over different neutrals. The Japanese attack on the United States changed that drastically. Whereas Switzerland used to represent the interest of only a hand full of belligerents, the number jumped to several dozen mandates after Pearl Harbor.26 The report of the Swiss government in 1941 about the work of the newly created Section of Foreign Interests at the Foreign Ministry holds that “It is no exaggeration to say that the work of the section has increased tenfold because of the assumption of numerous new representations, especially because they include almost all Great Powers. The work to be accomplished by the section was considerable already before December 1941, but it will be much more extensive in the year to come.”27 It was not only the entrance of new belligerents into World War II which caused the increase but the loss of the United States as a neutral which managed many mandates as a protecting Power especially for the British and the French. All of them went to the Swiss after December 7, 1941.28 After Switzerland, Sweden and Spain were the second and third largest protecting Powers of World War II.29 Being a protecting Power is a multilateral affair because each belligerent is free to choose a neutral of its liking to protect its interests on enemy soil (to which the enemy has to agree of course). This means that not always the same neutral was the go-between for both belligerents. In fact, many times in World War II belligerents chose different neutrals to represent them. The following two maps show the delicate network of protecting Power mandates this created for the case of Japan.30 The first map (Figure 6.1) indicates which neutral (shown as country flags) represented Japanese interests in which of its enemy nations or their colonial territories as of mid-1942.31 Japan had asked Spain for its services in most of the Americas, including the United States. A noticeable exception was the island of Hawaii. There the Spanish did not operate a consulate but because more than 400’000 ethnic Japanese were living on the territory, and due to the size and importance of the defunct Japanese consulate there, Tokyo was keen on finding a neutral representative who would dutifully look after their well-being. Sweden was the one to help out. Similarly, the Swedes also represented Japan’s interests in the Netherlands, South Africa, Ceylon, East-India, and Burma. The Swiss on the other hand were asked to function as Japan’s protecting Power in Great Britain and most of its current or former territories, including Singapore

Figure 6.1  Representation of Japanese Interests in Enemy Countries & Territories (as of Mid-1942). Source: Pascal Lottaz. World Map of 1942 produced by: Wikimedia Commons, Blankmap-World-WWII.png (commons.wikimedia.org: Wikimedia Foundation, 2014). ©Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Country flag graphics produced by: Freepik, Country Flags (flaticon.com: Graphic Resources S.L., 2017). ©Flaticon Basic License Franco Spain coat of arms produced by: Wikimedia Commons, Coat of Arms of Spain (1945-1977).svg (commons.wikimedia.org: Wikimedia Foundation, 2015). ©Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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Figure 6.2  Representation of Foreign Interests in Japan (as of Mid-1942). Source:. Pascal Lottaz. World Map of 1942 produced by: Wikimedia Commons, Blankmap-World-WWII.png (commons.wikimedia.org: Wikimedia Foundation, 2014). ©Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Country flag graphics produced by: Freepik, Country Flags (flaticon.com: Graphic Resources S.L., 2017). ©Flaticon Basic License Franco Spain coat of arms produced by: Wikimedia Commons, Coat of Arms of Spain (1945-1977).svg (commons.wikimedia.org: Wikimedia Foundation, 2015). ©Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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before its fall to Japanese troops in February 1942. These three neutrals did the bulk of Japanese representations. The only others who held a few mandates for the Japanese were Portugal, Argentina, and Turkey. On the other hand, the mirror image of the first map are the countries whose interests the neutrals protected in Japan. The second map (Figure 6.2) depicts the situation for mid-1942 again. Both maps are only approximate snapshots of a highly volatile moment. Mandates of protecting Power were newly assumed, surrendered or changed from one neutral to another over the whole period of the War in the Pacific. They cannot be explained in detail here. Comparing the two graphics, however, reveals noteworthy aspects of Small Power Neutral engagement with Japan. Most obviously, Japan’s preference for Spain as its representative in the United States was not reciprocated by the Americans. Except for Paraguay, all American countries that had declared war on the empire (or severed relations) chose either Switzerland or Sweden as their protecting Power demonstrating their lack of trust in Spanish neutrality. Whereas the democratically elected Republic of Spain (1931–1939) had been a poster child of liberal internationalism at the League of Nations, Franco’s government that came to power in 1939, after a bloody three-year civil war, was a fascist dictatorship much like those of Hitler and Mussolini. Little wonder that American democracies and republics did not put much faith in Madrid’s intentions. In fact, although the US government accepted Japan’s choice of Spain as its protecting Power in Washington, the State Department sent a confidential request to the Swiss Foreign Ministry on January 18, 1942, asking Berne to prepare also for the representation of US interests in Spain because the chances of a war with Franco seemed likely.32 Secondly, there is an ominous lack of representations in East and Southeast Asia. Although Great Britain and the United States, by diplomatic norms, accepted the representation of Japanese interests in their colonies and territories, Japan did not reciprocate. It only recognized protecting Powers on the mainland. Neither in the colonies of Formosa (Taiwan) or Korea nor the occupied territories of China (most importantly Shanghai) or former enemy colonies (Hong Kong, Singapore, Batavia, etc.) did Japan recognize the authority of neutral powers to represent their client states. The Japanese Foreign Ministry justified these steps by arguing that all these territories were active military “operation zones” and therefore excluded from the traditional considerations of diplomacy. Nevertheless, the Swiss were allowed to at least unofficially protect their client’s interests there. In terms of humanitarian assistance, it did make a small difference even if the full scale of an officially recognized protecting Power could not be fulfilled.33

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On the other hand, the maps do not reveal the most important change over time; by late spring 1945, Spain withdrew its support for Japan completely, including its protecting Power mandates and ruptured relations with the empire. Japan’s representations on the American continent subsequently changed from Spain to Switzerland and Sweden. That episode and its implications are worth studying more closely. Japan chose Spain as its protecting Power in the Americas for the same reason that the United States did not trust it. The militaristic leadership of Tokyo judged that Franco was the better neutral choice for them because Madrid’s nationalist government would probably extend more favors to Japan than any other neutral. After all, a benevolent diplomatic collaboration between Francoist Spain and Japan had a successful history. In 1937, by way of Spanish diplomats in Tokyo who had switched sides, the two struck a symbolic deal in which Japan recognized Franco’s Junta in Burgos as the legitimate government over the embattled republic in Madrid. In return, Franco recognized Manchukuo as an independent nation-state.34 Four years later, choosing Spain as its representative in the Americas seemed again to pay off for Japan. Franco’s diplomats did not only fulfill their protecting Power mandates dutifully; they willingly agreed to go far beyond that by providing the Japanese with spies. The “To-Network” produced intelligence for Tokyo, organized by a Spaniard, Angel Alcazar de Velasco. His main contact was the Japanese minister in Madrid, Yakichiro Suma, who sent all of Velasco’s reports on US activities back to Tokyo. Velasco used a network of informants. Some of them were stationed in Dakar and Australia with Spanish diplomatic passports, but most spies were active in the United States where up to twenty people were engaged in the intelligence gathering for the Japanese. The efforts were, however, largely useless because of the carelessness of the Japanese. Suma telegraphed all the findings with details about the spies’ missions and their real names back to Tokyo in a military code that had been cracked by the Americans since before the war had even started. The Spanish network was therefore easily dismantled once the US counter-intelligence judged that the information became too accurate to be allowed to proceed.35 The uncovering was a major diplomatic disaster for Spain, and the United States used the case to exert pressure to stop Spain from any further support for the Axis. However, Franco did not abandon Japan over this issue alone. The change in Spanish attitude toward Japan was a slow reversal of its former policies that went hand in hand with the decline of the Axis’ powers in the war. Franco had decided to shift his bets to the victory of the Allies and lump Japan together with the threat of communism which he perceived as the most dangerous development of the whole global struggle. Once it was clear that Japan was not on the winning side of the war, he started arguing that an Asian race should not win this contest for global supremacy.36 In this new

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environment, two incidents were particularly impactful on the rapid scaling back of Japanese-Spanish relations. One was a congratulatory note sent in October 1943 by the Spanish Foreign Ministry to the short-lived Japanese puppet government of José Laurel. The note was, by any standards, “a diplomatic blunder,”37 because it was a seemingly unfriendly act of a neutral state against the interests of the United States which had been administrating the Philippines before the Japanese invasion. The United States again jumped at the opportunity to exert pressure on Spain to end its support for the Axis. The second incident followed in February 1945 when the Japanese Army, trying to hold the city of Manila against the incoming counter-invasion by General MacArthur’s troops killed over 200 Spaniards. Diplomats and civilians alike were murdered, many of them while in hiding in the Spanish consulate. The Japanese government tried to calm the nerves in Spain by offering monetary compensation, but Franco did not agree. He used the bloodbath to break all ties with Japan in April 1945 finally.38 Japan thereby lost one of its three key diplomatic service providers for the time of the war. To replace the vital diplomatic line of communication with the United States and to guarantee the continuous protection of Japanese POW and civilians, the Japanese government approached the other neutrals for their help. Lucky for them, Sweden and Switzerland both were willing to fill the void. Four mandates went to the Swedes, the rest to the Swiss, including the important representation of Japan in the United States. This willingness of Switzerland is particularly interesting because, in contrast to Sweden, who did not lose any citizens in the Japanese occupied territories, the Swiss had several cases, including the death of twenty of its people in Manila, where their citizens came to harm. In addition to that the Swiss minister to Japan, Camille Gorgé, had been sending to his government repeated complaints about his mis-treatment by the Japanese. On the one hand, he and his staff of over fifty people were responsible for the protection of the vast majority of enemy interests in the Japanese Empire. Among others were the very intensive care for US and British interests. Additionally, the Swiss legation collaborated closely with the representatives of the Red Cross to support their humanitarian work with prisoners of war. However, since summer 1944 the legation had been evacuated from Tokyo to a mountain village, Karuizawa, in the Nagano mountains. Gorgé traveled every week back to Tokyo to fulfill his duties, but in early 1945 the Japanese Foreign Ministry forbid free travel, confining diplomats to Karuizawa. They also forbade further visits of POW camps or communication with civilian internees. Gorgé concluded that the intention was to hide any war-related issues, in particular, damages to the capital, from the eyes of the diplomats. The military police were constantly afraid of diplomats spying for the enemy—in light of Japan’s intelligence services mentioned above, actually a warranted fear. However, for Gorgé the

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situation amounted to quasi-imprisonment that made his work as protecting Power nearly impossible.39 Not that the Swiss had not tried to exert pressure on Japan when, in fact, the federal government issued demands that Japan had to improve Gorgé’s conditions and that it expected apologies and reparations for the Manila incident (but it never went as far as to threaten the breakup of diplomatic relations). The Japanese government subsequently did apologize for the deaths in Manila, offering a compensation payment of one million Swiss Francs.40 That was all it took to convince the Swiss. Although Gorgé’s working conditions did not improve to his satisfaction, the Federal Council thought of it as mandatory to yield to Japan’s wishes after the Manila affair had been resolved. This raises the question why the Swiss and the Swedish governments were, even at the end of the war, keen on helping the Japanese? Like Spain, they could have cut all ties for good without fearing negative repercussions. After all, the war in Europe was over, and Japan was nearing its collapse. However, the overarching foreign policies of both of them were not aligned with such a move. Sweden and Switzerland were heavily export-oriented economies, whose welfare depended mostly on the capacity to maintain beneficial relations around the world for the import of vital goods and the export of its surplus production. Access to foreign markets for current and future trade had top priority even during times of global warfare. Nowhere is this more clearly stated than in the annual report of the Swiss Legation. Gorgé had recommended several times to start the evacuation of his legation and the roughly 130 Swiss civilians living in Japan. He always received the same reply: The Department [of Foreign Interests] has, however, repeatedly clarified its standpoint that the voluntary abandonment of previously cumbersomely gained positions should be avoided in view of the time after the war. It is preferable to patiently and bravely wait for the arrival of more favorable times.41

The Swiss regarded it as vital to maintaining amicable relations with Japan under any circumstance not because of the current situation but for the future of its trade relations. The Swedish Minister, Widar Bagge, similarly thought in summer 1941 that “total evacuation (. . .) seems excluded considering the financial interests of the companies.”42 Accordingly, he helped Swedish companies to survive the war as far as possible, even functioning as a go-between for commercial negotiations with the Ministry of Finance under who most Japanese trades had been quasi-nationalized. What was clear to the Small Power Neutrals was that the war between Japan and its enemies would not last forever and that for the sake of future relations the current situation had to be waited out. The bargain was a simple one; diplomatic services of last resort in return for friendly trade relations. If not now, then at least potentially in the

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future. Their neutrality was, after all, supposed to guarantee the continuation of normal relations with every side of the war and thereby serve their interests just as in times of global peace. CONCLUSION When discussing neutrality during World War II, it is imperative to distinguish between Great and Small Power Neutrals as well as to consider the different stages of the war. Many of the most powerful belligerents like the United States, the USSR, and Japan started out as neutrals toward the initial stages of the conflict and became belligerents only later on. Regarding Japan’s war with the United States, the most exceptional role was played by the Soviet Union which was a belligerent and neutral at the same time—fighting in Europe but neutral in the Pacific. This unique role was not just a minor detail of history but detrimental to Tokyo’s military strategic thinking. Great Power Neutrals tipped the war in one or the other direction by giving up their neutrality. Small Power Neutrals like Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, on the other hand, had no such influence. Their role in the Pacific was that of diplomatic service providers of last resort—not mediating but interfacing belligerents. Both sides chose the neutrals that, at the outset of the war, seemed the most reliable for their own purposes. Sweden and Switzerland proofed to be mostly impartial, whereas Francoist Spain first tilted toward supporting Japan beyond the scope of lawful neutral acts but then shifted its favors to the Allied powers as the fortunes of war changed, withdrawing even its legal, diplomatic support for Tokyo. In the end, only the Swiss and the Swedes remained to act as protecting Powers for Japan, which they fulfilled dutifully in return for the prospects of future trade relations with all belligerents. This perspective on World War II in the east proves not only that neutrality was more than a foreign policy for powerless states but also that its application went beyond purposes of national survival. Neutrality was a foreign policy option for all states, large or small and was used strategically by all of them. NOTES 1. Take, for example the Swiss historian Edgar Bonjour, who wrote the closest thing to an “official” version of Swiss World WarII historiography. In his Magnus Opus of 820 pages, Japan is referenced on only five pages. See, Edgar Bonjour, Geschichte der Schweizerischen Neutralität: Vier Jahrhunderte Eidgenössischer Aussenpolitik (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1965). Wilhelm M. Carlgren, the Swedish

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authority on the subject, provides six pages of space in his book mentioning Japan. See, Wilhelm M. Carlgren, Swedish Foreign Policy during the Second World War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977). For none of the European neutrals there exists a comprehensive analysis of their bilateral relations with Japan, with the noticeable exception of Spain. Florentino Rodao is the only one who wrote a detailed study of the war years. See, Florentino Rodao, Franco y el Imperio Japonés, (Barcelona: Plaza & Janés, 2002). Beyond that, the only remaining book-length studies are on Sweden for the years leading up to 1939 by Ingemar Ottosson and a study on the neutrality pact between Soviet Russia and Japan by Boris Slavinsky. See, Ingemar Ottosson, Handel under Protest: Sverige och Japan på väg mot andra Världskriget 1931−1939 (Lund: Sekel, 2010); Boris Slavinsky, The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact: A Diplomatic History, 1941−1945, trans. Geoffrey Jukes (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004). For the other neutrals, whether permanent or not, no profound research on the World WarII relations with Japan exist beyond occasional master thesis such as Sébastien Nanchen, “Relations diplomatiques et économique entre la Suisse et le Japon durant la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale,” in Handbuch Schweiz-Japan = Manuel des relations nippo-suisses: Diplomatie und Politik, Wirtschaft und Geschichte, Wissenschaft und Kultur, ed. Patrick Ziltener (Zürich, 2010); Luc Humbert, “Les relations diplomatiques entre la Suisse et le Japon durant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale—La Légation et la colonie helvétiques dans l’Empire du Soleil Levant” (Unpublished Master Thesis, University of Fribourg, 1998). 2. The speech by the head of the Japanese delegation in Geneva, Y. Matsuoka provides insight into the justification for Japan’s occupation of Shanghai and the northern territories of Manchuria. See, League of Nations Official Journal, “Records of the Special Session of the Assembly: Convened in virtue of Article 15 of the Covenant at the Request of the Chinese Government,” (Geneva, 1932), 28−32. 3. Especially Japan’s small state adversaries at the League of Nation like Sweden criticized Japan often in this language, but also representatives of the UK used the term in the Lytton Report and even Japanese diplomats like Toshikazu Kase described Japanese actions on Mainland Japan as such. See: Comment of O. Unden in ibid., III: 38., Comment of M. Yen in “Records of the Special Session of the Assembly: Convened in Virtue of Article 15 of the Covenant at the Request of the Chinese Government,” (Geneva, 1932), 13, and the final verdict of the Lytton report: Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer-Lytton and League of Nations, “Appeal by the Chinese Government. Supplementary Documents to the Report of the Commission of Enquiry,” (Geneva: League of Nations Publications, 1932), 138, Toshikazu Kase, Journey to the Missouri (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), 17. See also: Ingemar Ottosson, “Trade under Protest: Sweden, Japan and the East Asian crisis in the 1930s,” Center for International Research on the Japanese Economy, 2. 4. Neutrality in the sense of International Law does not require a state to issue a formal declaration. Any third party to a conflict automatically becomes a neutral if it is not allied to one of the belligerents by default. See, Lassa F.L. Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise—War and Neutrality, vol. II (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912), § 307. Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General

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History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000); Kentaro Wani, Neutrality in International Law: From the Sixteenth Century to 1945 (New York: Routledge, 2017), 5. 5. Hans J. Morgenthau, “The End of Switzerland’s Differential Neutrality,” The American Journal of International Law 32 (1938). 6. Japan, however, kept close contact with the Vatican through a diplomatic representative there. See on this: Gerhard Krebs, Japan im Pazifischen Krieg Herrschaftssystem, politische Willensbildung und Friedenssuche (München: Iudicium-Verl, 2010), 226. 7. On Macau’s neutrality see: John Pownall Reeves et al., The Lone Flag: Memoir of the British Consul in Macao during World War II (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015). For an overview of the strategic importance of Portuguese Timor see: Ken’ichi Goto, Tensions of Empire: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, Ohio University Research in International Studies—Southeast Asia series (Singapore: NUS Press, 2003), 33−38. 8. Gerhard Krebs, “Japanese-Spanish Relations, 1936−1945,” The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 3 (1988): 27−28. 9. Ibid., 28−29. On Franco’s reasons against joining the war on the Axis side see also Norman J. W. Goda, “Franco’s Bid for Empire: Spain, Germany, and the Western Mediterranean in World War II,” Mediterranean Historical Review 13, no. 1−2 (1998). 10. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fireside Chat, ed. Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project (1939). 11. Brooke L. Blower, “From Isolation to Neutrality: A New Framework for Understanding American Political Culture, 1919−1941,” Diplomatic History 38 (2014): 3. 12. Mark W. Janis, America and the Law of Nations 1776−1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 38. 13. T. Paterson et al., eds., American Foreign Relations: A History: Since 1895, vol. 2 (New York: Cengage Learning, 2009), 134−135. 14. Roland Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance: American Isolationism, Internationalism, and Europe, 1901−1950 (Greenwood Press, 1991), 72−74. 15. Blower, “From Isolation to Neutrality: A New Framework for Understanding American Political Culture, 1919−1941.” 16. Slavinsky, The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact: A Diplomatic History, 1941−1945, 13−19. 17. Ibid., 89. 18. Yomiuri Shimbun, “Foreign Minister Invites Diplomatic Corps of Neutral Countries to Banquet,” March 12, 1944, 2. 19. Yuriko Onodera, An den Gestaden der Ostsee: Onodera Makoto als japanischer Heeresattaché in Riga und Stockholm: (1936—–1938, 1940—–1945), ed. Gerhard Krebs, trans. Mareile Onodera Ryuji Onodera (Tōkyo: OAG, 1999), 168. 20. Gerhard Krebs, “Operation Super Sunrise? Japanese-United States Peace Feelers in Switzerland, 1945,” The Journal of Military History 69 (2005): 1095. 21. Krebs, Japan im Pazifischen Krieg Herrschaftssystem, politische Willensbildung und Friedenssuche, 709; Pacific War Research Society, Japan’s Longest Day (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2002), 18−19.

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22. Slavinsky, The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact: A Diplomatic History, 1941−1945, 172−174. 23. Pacific War Research Society, Japan’s Longest Day, 18. 24. Part of this section has previously been made accessible online as part of a 2016 academic conference in Copenhagen: “When East meets West: The Second World War in Global Perspective.” See: Pascal Lottaz, “The Role of Neutrality in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War,” Second World War Research Group (2017), https​://de​fence​indep​th.co​/2017​/11/2​7/the​-role​-of-n​eutra​lity-​in-th​e-pac​ific-​ theat​re-of​-the-​secon​d-wor​ld-wa​r/. 25. The institution of protecting power is a diplomatic concept that was formed in the mid-19th century and codified in the 1929 Geneva Convention. It refers to a neutral state which lends its diplomatic services—the so-called Good Offices—to represent and protect the interests of the client state on the soil of its adversary once relations between them have been cut-off or, worse, the state of war has been declared. See, Charles Henn, “The Origins and Early Development of the Idea of Protecting Power” (University of Cambridge, 1986); Geoffrey Berridge, Embassies in Armed Conflict (New York: Continuum, 2012). 26. The best source for a detailed overview of Switzerland’s Protecting Power mandates is the final report of the Section of Foreign Interests which is fully published online. See, Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland, Rechenschaftsbericht der Abteilung fuer Fremde Interessen des Eidgenoessischen Politischen Departementes für die Zeit von September 1939 bis Anfang 1946, 1946. 27. Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv Online-Amtsdruckschriften, Bericht des Schweizerischen Bundesrates an die Bundesversammlung über seine Geschäftsführung im Jahre 1941, 1942. (Source in German, translated by author). 28. Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland, Rechenschaftsbericht der Abteilung fuer Fremde Interessen des Eidgenoessischen Politischen Departementes für die Zeit von September 1939 bis Anfang 1946.?? Should some of the words be not capitalized such as der fuer (do you have umlaut on your computer key or can you find one.? 29. Ibid., Annex. 30. The maps are based on a comparison of Japanese, Swiss, Spanish and Swedish sources. Most importantly the following two sources: Ichirou Oota, ed., Nihon Gaikoushi 24—Daitoua Sensou: Sendyi Gaikou, vol. 24, Nihon Gaikoushi (Kajima Heiwa Kenkyuujo, 1971), 20−28; Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland, Rechenschaftsbericht der Abteilung fuer Fremde Interessen des Eidgenoessischen Politischen Departementes für die Zeit von September 1939 bis Anfang 1946. 31. World Map of 1942 produced by: Wikimedia Commons, Blankmap-WorldWorld WarII.png (commons.wikimedia.org: Wikimedia Foundation, 2014). Country flag graphics produced by: Freepik, Country Flags (flaticon.com: Graphic Resources S.L., 2017). Franco Spain coat of arms produced by: Wikimedia Commons, Coat of Arms of Spain (1945−1977).svg (commons.wikimedia.org: Wikimedia Foundation, 2015). 32. Letter Purry to Pilet-Golaz, dated January 19, 1942. In: Swiss Federal Archive, Notenwechsel mit der USA—Gesandschaft betreffend die Uebernahme von USA— Interessen durch die Schweiz, 1941−1945.

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33. Swiss Federal Archive, “Geschäftsbericht der Schweizerischen Gesandtschaft in Japan für das Jahr 1942,” 1942. 34. Pascal Lottaz, “Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan,” New Global Studies 11, no. 2 (2017). 35. More on the Spanish spy networks in: Krebs, “Japanese-Spanish Relations, 1936−1945”; Rodao, Franco y el Imperio Japonés. 36. “Relaciones Hispano-Japonesas, 1937−1945” (Doctoral Thesis, Universidad Compultense de Madrid, 1993), 429−437. 37. J. W. Cortada, “Spain and the Second World War,” Journal of Contemporary History 5 (1970): 69. 38. Rodao, “Relaciones Hispano-Japonesas, 1937−1945,” 437−461. 39. Lottaz, “Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan,” 97−98. 40. Telegram Stucki to Gorgé, dated May 4, 1945. In: Swiss Federal Archive, Vertretung Japanischer Interessen durch die Schweiz, 1941—–1945. 41. Swiss Federal Archive, “Geschäftsbericht der Schweizerischen Gesandtschaft in Japan für das Jahr 1942.” Original in German, translated by author. 42. Telegram Bagge to KUD, dated September 5, 1941. In: Riksarkivet, Avgående Chiffertelegram, 1933−1942.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Berridge, Geoffrey. Embassies in Armed Conflict. New York: Continuum, 2012. Blower, Brooke L. “From Isolation to Neutrality: A New Framework for Understanding American Political Culture, 1919−1941.” Diplomatic History 38 (2014): 345−376. Bonjour, Edgar. Geschichte der Schweizerischen Neutralität: Vier Jahrhunderte Eidgenössischer Aussenpolitik. Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1965. Bulwer-Lytton, Victor Alexander George Robert, and League of Nations. Appeal by the Chinese Government. Supplementary Documents to the Report of the Commission of Enquiry. Geneva: League of Nations Publications, 1932. Carlgren, Wilhelm M. Swedish Foreign Policy during the Second World War. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977. Cortada, J.W. “Spain and the Second World War.” Journal of Contemporary History 5 (1970): 65−75. Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland. “Rechenschaftsbericht der Abteilung fuer Fremde Interessen des Eidgenoessischen Politischen Departementes für die Zeit von September 1939 bis Anfang 1946.” DDS, 1946. Freepik. Country Flags. flaticon.com: Graphic Resources S.L., 2017. Goda, Norman J.W. “Franco’s Bid for Empire: Spain, Germany, and the Western Mediterranean in World War II.” Mediterranean Historical Review 13, no. 1−2 (1998): 168−194. Goto, Ken’ichi. Tensions of Empire: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Colonial and Postcolonial World. Ohio University Research in International Studies—Southeast Asia series. Singapore: NUS Press, 2003.

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Henn, Charles. “The Origins and Early Development of the Idea of Protecting Power.” University of Cambridge, 1986. Humbert, Luc. “Les relations diplomatiques entre la Suisse et le Japon durant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale—La Légation et la colonie helvétiques dans l’Empire du Soleil Levant.” Unpublished Master Thesis, University of Fribourg, 1998. Janis, Mark W. America and the Law of Nations 1776−1939. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Kase, Toshikazu. Journey to the Missouri. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950. Krebs, Gerhard. Japan im Pazifischen Krieg Herrschaftssystem, politische Willensbildung und Friedenssuche. München: Iudicium-Verl, 2010. ———. “Japanese-Spanish Relations, 1936−1945.” The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 3 (1988): 21−52. ———. “Operation Super Sunrise? Japanese-United States Peace Feelers in Switzerland, 1945.” The Journal of Military History 69 (2005): 1081−1120. League of Nations Official Journal. “Records of the Special Session of the Assembly: Convened in Virtue of Article 15 of the Covenant at the Request of the Chinese Government” (Vol. I-III). Geneva, 1932. Lottaz, Pascal. “The Role of Neutrality in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War.” Second World War Research Group (2017). https​://de​fence​indep​th.co​/2017​ /11/2​7/the​-role​-of-n​eutra​lity-​in-th​e-pac​ific-​theat​re-of​-the-​secon​d-wor​ld-wa​r/. ———. “Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan.” New Global Studies 11, no. 2 (2017): 85−100. Morgenthau, Hans J. “The End of Switzerland’s Differential Neutrality.” The American Journal of International Law 32 (1938): 558−562. Nanchen, Sébastien. “Relations diplomatiques et économique entre la Suisse et le Japon durant la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale.” In Handbuch Schweiz-Japan = Manuel des relations nippo-suisses: Diplomatie und Politik, Wirtschaft und Geschichte, Wissenschaft und Kultur, edited by Patrick Ziltener, 575–596. Zürich: Chronos, 2010. Neff, Stephen C. The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Onodera, Yuriko. An den Gestaden der Ostsee: Onodera Makoto als japanischer Heeresattaché in Riga und Stockholm: (1936–1938, 1940–1945) [in German]. Translated by Mareile Onodera Ryuji Onodera. Edited by Gerhard Krebs. Tōkyo: OAG, 1999. Oota, Ichirou, ed. Nihon Gaikoushi 24—Daitoua Sensou: Sendyi Gaikou. Edited by Ichirou Oota Vol. 24. Nihon Gaikoushi: Kajima Heiwa Kenkyuujo, 1971. Oppenheim, Lassa F.L. International Law: A Treatise—War and Neutrality. Vol. II. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912. Ottosson, Ingemar. Handel under Protest: Sverige och Japan på väg mot andra Världskriget 1931−1939 [in Swedish]. Lund: Sekel, 2010. ———. “Trade under Protest: Sweden, Japan and the East Asian crisis in the 1930s.” Center for International Research on the Japanese Economy (2012) http://www. cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/workshops/history/history_paper2012/history0521.pdf. Pacific War Research Society. Japan’s Longest Day. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2002.

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Paterson, T., J.G. Clifford, S.J. Maddock, D. Kisatsky, and K. Hagan, eds. American Foreign Relations: A History: Since 1895, Vol. 2. New York: Cengage Learning, 2009. Powaski, Roland. Toward an Entangling Alliance: American Isolationism, Internationalism, and Europe, 1901−1950. Greenwood Press, 1991. Reeves, John Pownall, Colin Day, Richard Garrett, and David Calthorpe. The Lone Flag: Memoir of the British Consul in Macao during World War II [in English]. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015. Riksarkivet, Beskickningsarkiv Tokyo, SE/RA/230/230033.2/E2/1, “Avgående Chiffertelegram”, 1933–1942. Rodao, Florentino. Franco y el Imperio Japonés. Barcelona: Plaza & Janés, 2002. ———. “Relaciones Hispano-Japonesas, 1937−1945.” Doctoral Thesis, Universidad Compultense de Madrid, 1993. Roosevelt, Franklin D. Fireside Chat. The American Presidency Project. Edited by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, 1939. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/ index.php?pid=15801 Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv Online-Amtsdruckschriften. “Bericht des Schweizerischen Bundesrates an die Bundesversammlung über seine Geschäftsführung im Jahre 1941.” 1942. Slavinsky, Boris. The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact: A Diplomatic History, 1941−1945. Translated by Geoffrey Jukes. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. Swiss Federal Archive. “Geschäftsbericht der Schweizerischen Gesandtschaft in Japan für das Jahr 1942.” 1942. ———. “Notenwechsel mit der USA—Gesandschaft betreffend die Uebernahme von USA—Interessen durch die Schweiz.” 1941−1945. ———. “Vertretung Japanischer Interessen durch die Schweiz.” 1941–1945. Wani, Kentaro. Neutrality in International Law: From the Sixteenth Century to 1945. New York: Routledge, 2017. Wikimedia Commons. Blankmap-World-World WarII.png. commons.wikimedia.org: Wikimedia Foundation, 2014. ———. Coat of Arms of Spain (1945−1977).svg. commons.wikimedia.org: Wikimedia Foundation, 2015. Yomiuri Shimbun. “Foreign Minister Invites Diplomatic Corps of Neutral Countries to Banquet.” March 12, 1944, 2.

Part III

NEUTRALITIES IN USE

Chapter 7

“Private Neutrality” The Bank for International Settlements Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was founded in 1930 by representatives of central and private banks, it is a private international financial organization, but by virtue of a 1936 multilateral agreement of sixteen governments, it also enjoys treaty rights that make its assets and business practices inviolable. Located in Basel, Switzerland, it benefited during World War II from Swiss neutrality but was itself not subject to Swiss law. It (in)famously continued business throughout World War II with all belligerents (and the neutrals), dealing with the Central Banks of the French, the British, the Italians, the Germans, the Americans, Japanese, and all other member banks of its unique structure. It also employed officers from these countries for the entire time of the war, all of them working under the same roof, while their countrymen were busy killing each other on the battlefields. How was that possible? There are serious authors1 and conspiracy theorists2 who retreat to the simplistic assertion that the greed of the business elite was the driving factor behind an institution set to profit from total war. This chapter, on the other hand, argues that much of the mystery is dispelled when understanding the BIS as a late-conceived relic of nineteenth-century legal & business practice. At the beginning of an era dominated by global business cartels, the BIS represented the first worldwide financial organization in private hands, able to serve the international financial systems and the world economy as a whole. It was similar in many respects to the aim of cartels regarding attempting to directly monopolize world finance and economies to avoid a breakdown of the world capitalistic system. In conjunction with a contemporary legal thought on International Law of War, Peace, and Neutrality,3 the BIS during World War II embodied an era that until the end of World War II cherished economic stability above anything else. The chapter proposes to use a new term, “private neutrality” 137

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as terminology to disentangle some of the current misconceptions about the BIS’ behavior during World War II and to serve as a new multilevel framework to understand its actions. THE NOTION OF “PRIVATE NEUTRALITY” Firstly, it needs to be stressed that the proposed term “private neutrality” is not in any way an established or previously used concept. In fact, to many scholars of neutrality, it will make little sense. As should be clear from the chapters of S. Neff, E. Chadwick, and L. Müller in this volume, the classic definition of neutrality pertains to a legalistic understanding under the provisions of International Law, minted mainly during the long nineteenth century.4 In this understanding, neutral individuals and organizations are citizens of neutral states, which is not the same as being neutral themselves. International Law does not apply to natural or legal persons. L.F.L Oppenheim in his magnum opus on Peace, War and Neutrality made this crystal clear: “As International Law is a law between States only and exclusively, neutrality is an attitude of impartiality on the part of States, and not on the part of individuals.”5 It is for example not considered a breach of neutrality if a neutral citizen voluntarily joins the battles of a third-party war, as long as that person is not part of the neutral’s armed forces. Neutral states are not responsible for the acts of their citizens if they commit them outside their borders. The individuals simply lose the right to remain unharmed.6 Therefore, under International Law, “private neutrality” makes no sense, has no status and cannot be approached intelligently. The 400 years of legal scholarly work since Hugo Grotius do not apply to this notion of neutrality.7 However, there is still something to be gained by heuristically8 approaching the BIS from a perspective of neutrality. First, existing historiographic work already anachronistically slaps an undefined notion of “neutrality” on the bank. The best example of that is the BIS itself. Its homepage calls the bank’s stance during World War II one of “neutrality”9 even though the bank’s management at the time did not use that word to describe its wartime operations, as will be shown below. However, most historians who researched the BIS implicitly agree to this view that the bank had tried to be “neutral”—or, as they often argue, had tried to hide behind the excuse of being neutral.10 Secondly—and despite the above criticism—although the BIS was itself not a sovereign nation-state, framing it as something that still shared important traits with neutral countries, can help to explain the mystery of how a private organization could be engaged with all parties of the war, without

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using tropes of greed and conspiracy. “Private neutrality” can help to understand the BIS, not as an exceptional case of war profiteering, but as a normal phenomenon of well-established business practices. ORIGINS OF THE BIS Founded in 1929/30 through three international conferences in Paris, Baden-Baden, and The Hague, the BIS was conceived not in the first place to serve as a Bank but to de-politicize the poisonous controversies around German reparation payments, mandated by the 1918 Peace Treaty of Versailles. The BIS should administer the settlement of German reparations under the so-called “Young Plan.”11 It was believed that a private institution under multilateral stewardship of central bank governors (not politicians), including the Reichsbank of defeated Germany, would serve the purpose of facilitating reparation payments better than the 120 men strong technical Bureau of the Agent General for Reparations in Berlin that had been created by the winners of the war but was ultimately deemed an instrument of the victors over the vanquished to implement the “shameful reparations” (Reparationsschande), as the Germans called them. Not governed by either one state, nor by the League of Nations, the BIS was hoped to be as apolitical as possibly conceivable.12 The idea was to give the sensitive job to a non-partisan and non-state actor who would oversee the technical aspects of payments neutrally.13 However, already before its actual inception at the Baden-Baden conference, the top representatives of central and commercial banks of the seven founding members (Germany, France, Britain, Belgium Italy, Japan, and the United States), under the leadership of the governor of the Bank of England, M.C. Norman, added a second purpose to the organization. It should also become a “Central Bank for Central Banks,” to facilitate international debt settlement by serving as a universally trusted financial intermediary. Central Banks would hold accounts at the BIS that could be used to clear obligations with other central banks. It was a vision of international financial cooperation that had been in the making for decades,14 as discussed in more detail below. The dream of a universal spreadsheet—so to speak—on which assets and liabilities of member central banks could be cleared against each other, became a reality in April 1930, when the first unofficial meeting of the Board of Directors took place in Basel, Switzerland. The choice of Basel for the BIS headquarters was no accident. With all founding members opposing the idea of one of their rivals being the home to such a prestigious institution, only a Small Power that could be

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trusted to fulfill the duties it signed up for was acceptable. Switzerland’s Zürich and Basel were the only choices that were ever seriously discussed at the Baden-Baden meeting. Journalist and author Gian Trepp described Switzerland’s certain credibility as a “permanent neutral” as the “conditio sine qua non” in choosing the country to host the headquarters of the BIS.15 No country except for a permanent neutral could serve as the seat of this institution. The moment for the implementation of the new bank could not have been much timelier—or dramatic. The hitherto most significant international financial crisis had started only half a year earlier during the Black Tuesday stock market crash. With the global economy in a downturn, unseen during times of peace, company and individual bankruptcies spread throughout the developed world with unemployment rates in the west doubling and tripling over the course of a year. Large sums of investments were wiped out.16 Germany, already troubled by the reparation payments it was obligated to pay, under the Treaty of Versailles, came into an utterly impossible situation to service its debt. Although disputed by the French, the monetary crisis was widely accepted requiring emergency measures in which US president Herbert Hoover brought an end to German payments by the declaration of a moratorium in 1931. On September 17, a “Standstill Agreement” on all war-debt payments was negotiated through representatives of private banks in Germany and banks of other countries.17 The BIS thereby lost only a year after its creation its primary purpose. From then on it would only work to serve its central bank members as their clearing house. The unique positions of this new institution allowed it to continue its work throughout the 1930s and the entirety of World War II. This is where considerations about the BIS as a neutral actor become most interesting. On the one hand, the bank was incorporated on neutral ground in Switzerland where employees of all belligerent states worked together during the entire time of the war, even under the directorship of a national of one of the war’s major powers, the US citizen Thomas McKittrick (1940−1946). The bank remained scrupulously in contact with both sides of the war, continuing its business, which included paying dividends to its shareholders—the central banks of Allied and Axis powers alike. On the other hand, it is also true that much of the institution’s operational activities relied on the international status of Switzerland as a permanently neutral country. Would that not mean that the BIS was only a “second hand” neutral? Neutral by virtue of its geographical location? Not quite. In understanding the uniqueness of the BIS and how it could count as a neutral institution independent of Switzerland, it is necessary to examine its organizational structure and the legal provisions under which it operated.

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INDEPENDENT AND READY FOR WAR By virtue of gaining its body corporate through a treaty agreement,18 the BIS is an International Organization, albeit with a special character, because it was founded by central banks (and a US banking group19) which, like the Bank of England, were mostly still private institutions at that time.20 The BIS is best called an “International Bank,”21 operating outside the realm of national political decision making, as will be explained below. The seats of the Board of Directors was distributed by the following proportional scheme: • 3 Seats: Germany, France • 2 Seats: England, Italy, Belgium • 1 Seat: Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland The United States was not on the board because President Hoover did not approve of the Federal Reserve System’s participation. However, that did not preclude its bankers from collaborating in their private capacities. The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Gates W. Garrah, resigned his position in 1930 to become the first president of the BIS together with another US American as his vice president.22 Keeping the BIS outside direct political control was a major concern of the founding members, who themselves were bankers and economists, not politicians.23 The constituent charter24 of the BIS only allowed for changes to the statutes25 through majority decisions of the board—meaning that no outside intervention through a renewed conference would be able to intervene in its structure. Furthermore, most board members were given their position ex-officio by being named presidents or vice-presidents of their home country’s central bank. Additionally, the founding fathers of the BIS made sure that even its neutral host country had no regulatory power over it. The bank was incorporated in Switzerland, but not under its laws. The Swiss federal government was asked to guarantee a special status to the BIS that reflected the stipulations in its statues, of which many were incompatible with Swiss law. Gian Trepp identified four key differences between the BIS structure and a regular Swiss stock corporation: First, the shareholder assembly is subject to the board of directors (not the other way around). Secondly, the voting rights of shares are not tied to the possession thereof—meaning that the value of shares can be sold without giving away voting rights.26 Third, external auditing is not mandatory. Fourth, Swiss courts have no jurisdiction over the BIS.27 The country’s parliamentarians voted the BIS-bill into law in February 1930. Although this did not grant the bank extraterritoriality, as was the case of foreign embassies and the League of Nations, the exemption from national law (it goes without saying that they include a complete tax-exemption) guaranteed an almost absolute freedom for its operations.

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The set-up of the BIS was that of an actor who would be able to run its business unimpeded by national considerations. More importantly, though, provisions for its functioning even during the war were written right into the BIS charter under Article 10: The bank, its property and assets and all deposits and other funds entrusted to it shall be immune in time of peace and in time of war from any measure such as expropriation, requisition, seizure, confiscation, prohibition or restriction of gold or currency export or import, and any other similar measures.28

Not only does the article provide for the security of BIS assets during war, but it promises the unhindered continuation of the bank’s core business; executing transactions, including physical transfers of gold—the backbone of the contemporary financial system that still was gravitating around the gold standard. The BIS made it crystal clear that any changes in the international system would not affect it. War or peace did not matter because Article 10 provided for the bank to continue its operations. This was, without doubt, a very formidable provision—but it gets even better. Since Article 10 is only a statutory proclamation of the fundamental principles of the bank, convened between central bank governors, it had no force under International Law. After all, central banks were not governments. Article 10 had no treaty character—until 1936 that is. On July 30 that year, the governments of sixteen leading nations29 signed the “Protocol regarding the immunities of the Bank for International Settlements,” which had the only purpose of codifying Article 10 into a multilateral state treaty.30 Interestingly, the list of signatories includes and lacks important governments of both blocks of the future war. While Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan (among others) signed the protocol, the United States and Germany did not.31 However, the degree of freedom that some of the most significant governments of the world were willing to guarantee the BIS is genuinely astounding. Nothing less than the inviolability of its operations even in the event of war among them. It was another victory for the BIS directorate with the goal to immunize the institution from external political influences. The bank was, in other words, prepared from the very beginning to assure its operations under any circumstances, including war. THE MIND-SET OF A BYGONE ERA The bank’s independence from political influence and its preparedness for war have inspired conspiracy theorists and serious commentators alike to argue that greed was a leading motive of the founding central bankers and a

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desire to govern over international finance under any circumstance, allowing them to benefit from peace as much as from war. Together with the wellstudied history of BIS transactions of looted gold for Nazi-Germany and the occupied territories, they helped forge an image of the BIS as the Nazi-Bank, financing the Third Reich.32 It is, however, important to remember that most of the founding bankers were men who grew up in the latter part of the nineteenth century. They were in their 30s and 40s33 when the First World War broke out and had themselves witnessed the end of the Concert of Europe; the Balance of Power system that inherently ran on the assumption that small, local wars were inevitable and that warfare could be legalized and humanized through the institution of International Law.34 Article 10 of the BIS statutes are enshrined by a state treaty bearing witness to these older ideas of war as a natural occurrence during which the international order would continue to exist for all those who were not at war—the neutrals, that is. The war-immunity clause in the BIS statutes does, in this sense, resemble the legal thought of late nineteenthcentury International Law with its provisions for neutral states to continue business as usual with all belligerents. The parallels of the organizational character of the BIS with nineteenthcentury practices does not end there. It was also very much in line with standard practices of the international business community which was still structured in a way that was mostly outlawed soon after 1945—international business cartels. Three examples of international cartels shall be briefly reviewed here to be paralleled with the BIS, which was not a cartel itself, but whose structure, nevertheless, reflected the ideals of a globally acting provider of stability. CARTELS AND THE IDEOLOGY OF STABILITY During the time of “Economic Détente,” right after World War I, there existed quasi-external economic organizations that had the power of middlesized countries called “cartels.” They operated under the premise that companies should be able to work globally together using a cartel organization as an “orderly marketing tool” to control competition and regulate price structure and production output. Monopolistic companies had existed for many centuries, in some cases even serving as a replacement of the nationstate under the logic of conquest and imperialism35—as through the British and Dutch East and West India Companies. Cartels reached their apex as an economic model at the turn of the twentieth century. In Europe and the US economists seriously debated the damage of “ruinous competition” from the 1880s onward36 and although the Anti-Trust laws were established in

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that period, many economic sectors were exempted because of a widely held belief that some industries cannot operate efficiently under competition.37 In Continental Europe (Germany,38 France,39 Italy40), Britain41, and Japan42, anti-trust legislation was weak, or non-existent, but even in the United States the Sherman Act of 1890 was to supposedly hinder monopolistic structures, World War I related legislation (the Webb-Act) exempted the export industry from these regulations,43 allowing international cartels to bloom in the interwar period.44 The destruction of World War I added to the impetus that the national interest of rebuilding Europe was best served not by competition but collaboration.45 In consequence, the interwar period was, without doubt, the Eldorado of cartels. Economic historians assume that between 30 and 50 percent46 of world trade was under the influence of cartel structures. British trade alone was dominated to about a third by cartels, and they almost entirely controlled some sectors, as, the export of iron and steel was done by over 70 percent under the auspices of the corresponding cartel.47 The sophistication with which these organizations managed and controlled output and price levels in their markets were astounding. Performance monitoring, potential contractual punishments of offending participants, preventive actions against new entrants and voluntary restrictions among domestic producers were undertaken for the sake of guaranteeing profit margins to cartel participants. Even more, arrangements with foreign competitors were made to maintain the overall market structure. The compartmentalization and cartelization of world markets resulted thereof, with national cartels having the “right” to exploit their home markets while guaranteeing foreign competitors a share of the profits as compensation for foregone profits. An extraordinarily vibrant example was the international steel cartel that operated between 1933−1939. One of its mechanisms to ensure supply (and thereby price) stability was the allotment of quotas up to which each national cartel had the right to export to the markets of other cartels. In order to guarantee an equal cross-country distribution of cartel profits, it was also agreed that members which did not meet the quota would be compensated for their foregone profits. Since in 1938 and 1939, the steelmakers of Germany were producing almost exclusively for the need of national rearmament and did not meet their allotted export quota, foreign producers (British, French, etc.) compensated them for foregone profits on British and other European markets, effectively supporting Germany’s rearmament industry.48 Another example is the international chemical cartel that came into existence through an agreement on February 26, 1932, between Continental Dyestuff Cartel and the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). It covered all countries of the world except for the United States.49 There were two cartel blocks called the “Continental Group” and the “English Group.” The Continental Group had already been constituted in April 1929 to achieve mutual

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benefits. They consisted of three members: I. G. Farben headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the Swiss members made up of the large chemical companies, Ciba, Geigy, Sandoz, and seven French companies, the so-called CMC (Centrale des Matières Colorantes). The member of the other side—the English Group—was Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. (ICI) headquartered in London.50 The jointly concluded agreements did not just include the signatories and their successors, but also referred to all manufacturers and distribution/sales organizations involved in dyestuffs, which, at the time of signing the agreement, was owned or controlled by them. Every type of possibility was covered by the rules of the agreement. There were ten members on the “Board of Directors,” which managed the cartels. Two members represented the “English Group.” The French side had also two while the Germans and the Swiss had each three representatives. Due to the large German investments in Swiss firms and close working relations, I.G. Farben had considerable influence over them. Headquarters of the cartel was Amsterdam, Holland. To assure justice would prevail, a court of arbitration was created whose purpose was to impose penalties or fines against insubordinate members of the cartel. Yet it was never called upon in the 1930s.51 The jurisdiction of the court extended to include all members of the cartel except decisions made by the “Board of Directors.” Everything was completely well under control. In order that the cartel could function, it was absolutely and unconditionally necessary that everyone was prepared to keep the terms and conditions of the agreement secret—especially from the customers. The control of the chemical industry in Europe and the United States was practically watertight.52 DuPont controlled the market in the United States, Imperial Chemical Industries dominated to a large extent the British Empire and I.G. Farben had indisputable dominance in Europe. For the United States, only the existence of Anti-Trust laws prevented the spreading of that global cartel to its entire chemical industry. Still the managers on the executive floors of American DuPont, Imperial Chemical Industries, and I.G. Farben had enough predominant influence in the major markets of the world to earn at least between 15 and 20 percent each year.53 In short, the economic and financial relationships of British, American, and German key industries and banks before and during World War II had as its highest commandment “Business as Usual.” This priority was unwavering and political developments were disregarded. The only goal in mind was to preserve or, in fact, continue to expand business operations before, during and after the war. Despite the “exclusive” character that these cartel organizations invoke, it is important to recognize that the spirit under which they were operated was one of collaboration. That is especially true for the case of international cartels. The prominent British industrialist, financier, and politician Alfred Mond,54 in 1927, put it as follows:

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The problems of the world have become so difficult, so complex, so burdensome on those who have the responsibility of leadership, that the spirit that used to permeate commerce when I was a young man—that every man in your own line of business was an enemy to be treated with great ferocity—has given way to a desire for co-operation and discussion. (. . .) Getting together and considering how to move in step seems to me to be one of the few methods by which progress is going to be achieved. It is very largely fear and ignorance, want of knowledge and terror inspired by rumour, which cause [sic] much of our economic troubles. Financial panics, cut-throat competition, frantic efforts to depress the level of wages or to lengthen hours are frequently the result, not of any particular greed or vice, but of pure ignorance and terror on the part of one lot of producers as to what is happening somewhere else. If everybody can be assured of a fairly similar level, everybody, on the whole, would agree to go forward in what I might call an advanced direction, with a much freer and a much happier conscience.55

Mond and other men of his stature were not cut-throat capitalists in the modern sense. The capitalism they subscribed to was the home-grown type and their moral flaws included the shameful exploitation of the peoples in colonies and occupied territories that went hand in hand with the blunt racism of the day. At the same time, however, they also believed in the power of collective bargaining—for the working class as well as for the industrialists who were to bargain as an industry with their counterparts abroad, for the goal of securing economic prosperity for the entire sector.56 Cartelists of the interwar period were, in this sense, a special breed of capitalists, much concerned with questions of how to enforce collaboration (if necessary by pure brutality, as in the case of colonies and strike-breaking) across classes, sectors and geographical boundaries. That is what unites them with the bankers of their age, who were equally concerned with the global collaboration of finance to stabilize the capitalist system. In the same year as Mond wrote the above lines, central banks of the world agreed in Washington “not to interfere with each other’s gold reserve without each other’s consent.”57 The goal of this was to stabilize the gold standard and secure the prosperity of all economies who depended on it. The culmination of the collaborative effort was the previously discussed creation of the BIS. To one of its primary founding fathers, Montagu Norman, the governor of the Bank of England, it “was to provide opportunity for personal contact between heads of central banks, (. . .). It was also to provide the means of the codification of rules of co-operation, and to enforce a certain discipline among central banks.”58 Therefore, to reduce the founding of the BIS only to its role as the heir of the Dawes and Young plan for repatriations would leave out considerations for this essential component of the bank. The European condition and the role of cooperation at any cost have

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always been on the mind of the men who were responsible for its inception. For instance, already in 1924, Norman tried to convince his colleague of the Swedish Riksbank of the necessity of collaboration: [T]he danger of a collapse in Central Europe is still present and there is no one of us in Europe who would not wish to prevent such a disaster. The politicians do not appear to be able to settle this problem at the present time and I submit that it is, therefore, the duty of Central Banks to join now together and maintain as far as possible the economic position of Central Europe until such time as agreement and reconstruction is possible [sic].59

In other words, even before the BIS existed, the central bankers of the interwar period were cooperating for the sake of stability with—politely speaking—a high degree of skepticism toward the ability of politics to achieve the goal.60 They saw their role as the providers of much-needed stability despite the destructive role politics could play. The previously discussed organizational structure and the legal provisions that the BIS founders established for the bank were the logical conclusions of that rationale. The BIS was immunized from politics not primarily for the sake of profiteering from misery but to avert it through the provision of an institution that would allow for financial and economic cooperation even in times of global economic instability. Under these considerations, it is no surprise that the BIS, once it was established and politically fit for operation, continued its work even when the world was headed for another international political calamity. What is surprising though is the way in which the bank organized its continuous effort to serve its purpose of capitalist cooperation in times of war. As an international institution, it had to serve all stakeholders, and as such there was a need for what historians nowadays call the banks “neutrality.” THE SO-CALLED STATEMENT OF NEUTRALITY By late 1936, the BIS was literally prepared for war—legally and ideologically. No wonder that the bank continued its activities when Nazi-Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. However, notwithstanding Article 10, the “business as usual” approach was qualified in several important ways. Highly aware of its delicate position, the BIS directorate took measures not to offend either side of what undoubtedly might become a prolonged war amongst its members. First, meetings of the board of directors were suspended for the time of hostilities. It was deemed inappropriate to provide for official meeting ground for the presidents of enemy central banks.61 More importantly, however, on December 18, 1939, the executive board under its

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Dutch president Wilhelm Beyen circulated to the member banks a “Code of Conduct” which the BIS was determined to impose on itself. “The position enjoyed by the Bank for International Settlements,” it reads, “does in fact demand that it should only carry out operations which are above reproach both from the point of view of belligerents and neutrals.”62 Although the document does not itself make use of the word “neutrality” to define the bank’s status, the BIS official homepage today (as of 2018) refers to it as its “declaration of neutral conduct,” saying that through it, the bank “decided to maintain its banking services to assist central banks and to fulfil the bank’s own obligations so far as was consistent with neutrality.”63 It is questionable whether Beyen would have agreed to call his letter a “statement of neutrality.” On the first and the second page, he uses the term to address neutral countries. He seems to have had an accurate understanding of the term and its implications under International Law, which, as described above, can only refer to countries, not corporations. However, most historians agree with the contemporary BIS assessment, referring to the statement as the core of its “neutrality.”64 In any event, it is a document of central importance which is why its three provisions deserve close study. They read as follows: 1. The B.I.S. will abstain from any transaction the result of which would be to carry out, directly or indirectly, for the account of the central bank (or other institution) of a belligerent country, a financial operation on the market or in the currency of another country with which the former is in a state of war at the time of such transaction. 2. The B.I.S. will abstain: a. from disposing of its assets on the market of a belligerent country for the purpose of making or facilitating any payment to or on behalf of another country with which the former is at war; b. from holding in its own name for the account of the central bank (or other institution) of a belligerent country gold under earmark or other assets on the market of another country with which the former country is at war. 3. The B.I.S will take all suitable measures and will, in particular, demand from its correspondents appropriate statements in order to satisfy itself before any transaction is carried out that such transaction does not fall directly or indirectly within the categories indicated above.65 In essence, article one and article two mean that the BIS refused to engage in settlements between belligerents. The BIS would not sell British Pounds to Germany in exchange for German Reichsmark (or gold) and vice versa. It would similarly refrain from helping to make payments (in any currency or other assets) for belligerents on their enemy territory. Article 3 was a guarantee that the BIS would try to hold its member banks accountable to

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that principle. That the BIS looks at peace, war and the enemy status of each country is interesting. It means that the bank only rejected to give enemies a settlement mechanism through its gates but did not oppose fulfilling its functions within the respective blocks and toward neutral countries. Allied Nations could use the BIS for settlement, Axis countries could use the BIS for the same, and neutral countries could use it just as before but under the condition not to work as a facilitators for inter-belligerent transactions. This arrangement was communicated to all belligerent parties and was well understood, especially in the political circles on both sides that wanted to maintain the structure of international finance, in view of the time after the war. On October 13, 1942, Sir Kingsley Wood, British Chancellor of the Exchequer defended the BIS in front of the House of Commons, saying that “the bank is so situated that no transaction has taken or can take place under the present arrangements which confer any economic or financial advantage on a belligerent nation to the detriment of another. (. . .) Association with the bank brings no economical or financial advantage to the enemy.”66 In the end, neither the Bank of England, nor the Reichsbank or any other national bank quit their membership in the BIS. At least two implications follow from this; firstly, Beyen and his staff interpreted the bank’s neutrality negatively. Abstaining from being a financial intermediary for enemies was the goal. This stands in contrast to another potential interpretation of neutrality as being allowed to continue serving all sides according to their wishes. The BIS tried to proactively forestall any allegations of violating “trading with the enemy” laws which different countries would probably adopt during the course of the war based on the events of World War I.67 Secondly, however, the BIS interpretation of its neutrality shows that the bank never thought of it as a duty to abstain from transactions for belligerents in general. Belligerents that were allied with each other were, of course, allowed to use BIS services just as before. In this sense, every belligerent had equal rights with similar restrictions regarding the bank’s services. It is reasonable to call this a “neutral” stance in the sense that it resembled the way in which neutral countries were, under International Law, allowed to interact economically in a nondiscriminatory, impartial manner with all belligerent parties to the war and with all other neutrals freely.68 The predicament for neutral states, not to help either side militarily was of course never an issue for the BIS because it neither had a territory of its own nor armed forces that could have been involved in any sort of military schemes. Facilitating trade on both sides, but not between them, leans closely on the understanding of a neutral as an involved but impartial actor. Just like neutral countries, the BIS did not think of its role as one that necessitated its withdrawal from international interaction once the state of war had been declared between two belligerents. In his book on the financial history

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of the BIS, historian Yago Kazuhiko quotes statements of several BIS staff members who pointed out that the bank was functional and would continue to serve its member central banks, even if their states were at war.69 Abstention from financial intermediation was never the goal of the bank’s neutrality; it was only meant to forestall inter-enemy settlements. The policy remained in force during the entire period of the war and was initially backed-up by the appointment of a bank president from a neutral country; the US citizen Thomas McKittrick (appointed in 1940).70 The Presidency of the BIS had, in fact, always been held by citizens of neutral countries.71 McKittrick was the first president who “transformed” from a neutral to a belligerent citizen when war between his home country and the Axis broke out, following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. However, McKittrick remained loyal to his duties at the BIS and kept enforcing its “neutral” stance,72 which earned him fierce criticism from some of his compatriots, like US Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, who desired nothing more than the liquidation of the BIS because of its collaboration with Nazi-Germany.73 To McKittrick it was clear that the BIS would continue its mandate according to its own standards of neutral behavior, enabling transnational financial settlements within the respective blocks of the war. Numerous sources show that McKittrick thought of his own position as one that required a neutral attitude.74 He maintained that position even during an interview with the weekly “Times” magazine during the high time of the war in June 1943.75 Documents in Swiss archives show that he also took an active interest in understanding the neutrality of his host country. For example, he discussed with his lawyer and friend, Dr. Walter Schiess, the justification under International Law for Switzerland’s war material exports which, in 1943, went almost exclusively to Axis powers. Schiess consulted for this question the Swiss authorities because he had “the impression that it [was] important that the president of the Bank for International Settlements [was] precisely and properly informed”76 about Switzerland’s legal position on its neutrality.77 Regarding the BIS, it is no exaggeration to say that its legal provisions as well as the mind-set of its officers revolved around the central question how to maintain the banks position as a neutral institution. This fostered “the character [of the BIS as] a supra-national unit without moral or ethical constrains, because sovereign Nations had conferred rights to it, which it could exercise (. . .) only subject to its own statutory rules, laid out by its founders.”78 CONCLUSION The above discussion considered the history and structure of the BIS, arguing that they paralleled the structures of nineteenth-century legal and

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business practices and that the “classical” concept of neutrality as impartiality during war can be a useful framework to analyze also a private actor like the BIS during World War II—despite the obvious anachronism in the approach. In fact, looking at the BIS as an institution that was explicitly set up to survive anything, from economic hick-ups to total war, helps to dispel some myths about world banking conspiracies. The BIS was simply founded and operated under the premise that politics changes, but international business must go on for the sake of global cooperation that every nation depended upon. This resembles the mind-set under which cartels flourished in the interwar period and the legal thought that codified neutrality into International Law. The latter was a process that had been going on for several centuries79 but culminated in the Hague Treaties of 1899 and 1907 and the London Declaration of Naval Warfare of 1909.80 The founding fathers of the BIS were the children of that age and the international banking elite of their day. It is not surprising that the BIS attempted to emulate common practices to manage potential financial and economic fallouts as those following World War I or the Great Depression and others in the decades to come. Its aim was to contribute to world stability (and not a controlled world) by means of legal and business practices that would fall out of fashion after World War II. NOTES 1. Adam LeBor, Tower of Basel—The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013). See also older literature like H.H. Quigley who says that the founders of the BIS wanted “nothing less than to create a world system of financial control, in private hands, able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.” Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope. A History of the World in Our Time (New York: MacMillan, 1966), 324. See also: Antony C. Sutton, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler (San Pedro: GSG & Associates Publishers, 1976), 28; Henry H. Schloss, The Bank for International Settlements: An Experiment in Central Bank Cooperation (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1958). 2. Unknown Author, “The Monetary Superstate Exists Since 1930—Its Called BIS(Bank For International Settlements),” expandourmind.com, Accessed: April 28, 2018, http:​//exp​andou​rmind​.com/​2017/​07/11​/mone​tary-​super​state​-exis​ts-si​nce-1​ 930-c​alled​-bisb​ank-i​ntern​ation​al-se​ttlem​ents-​2017-​07-11​/; NewsNotShownonTV, “BIS—Secret History of Bank of International Settlements Switzerland,” Accessed: April 28, 2018, https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=q1N​d4IBb​wQ4&t​=735s​. 3. Lassa F.L. Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise—Peace, vol. I (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912); International law: A Treatise—War and neutrality, vol. II (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912).

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4. See on this also: Maartje M. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Stephen C. Neff, War and the Law of Nations: A General History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Kentarō Wani, Neutrality in international law: from the sixteenth century to 1945 (New York: Routledge, 2017). 5. Oppenheim, International law: A Treatise—War and neutrality, II, para. 296. 6. Ibid., paras. 88, 322. 7. Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, edited and translated by A.C. Campbell (Kitchener: Batoche Books, 1625). 8. “Heuristic” means, in the words of Nicolas Taleb, an imperfect but “simplified rule of thumb.” A heuristic can help approach a subject when no other previously tested and systematized method exists. The rule of thumb proposed to approach “private neutrality”: is the following: If somebody calls it neutral, analyze it as a neutral. On the heuristic method see: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder (New York: Random House, 2012). 9. Bank for International Settlements, Circular Letter to Central Banks having Business Relations with the Bank for International Settlements, 1939. https​://ww​w.bis​ .org/​about​/hist​ory_2​ww2.h​tm. 10. LeBor, Tower of Basel—The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World. Chapter 6. 11. Hence the institution’s name: “Settlements” does not refer to the clearing of commercial debt but to the final settlement of German war reparations. 12. Gian Trepp, Bankgeschäfte mit dem Feind: die Bank für Internationalen Zahlungsausgleich im Zweiten Weltkrie: von Hitlers Europabank zum Instrument des Marshallplans (München: Rotpunktverl, 1997), 12–17. 13. Operationally, what was needed was a simplification as to how the role of reparations kept the world economically stable. Germany paid reparations to Great Britain, who, in turn repaid US wartime loans and the United States would loan money to Germany to finance its obligations – it was a carousel. 14. Kazuhiko Yago, The Financial History of the Bank for International Settlements (New York: Routledge, 2013), 2–4. 15. Personal Communication with Gian Trepp, 2017. 16. Eric Rauchway, Great Depression & the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2008). 17. Roger Auboin, “The Bank for International Settlements 1930–55,” in Essays in International Finance (Princeton, 1955), 9–10. 18. “Convention Respecting the Bank for International Settlements,” signed at The Hague on January 20, 1930. https​://ww​w.bis​.org/​about​/conv​entio​n-en.​pdf. See also: League of Nations. Treaty Series. Publication of Treaties and International Engagements registered with the Secretariat of the League of Nations. Vol. CIV. 1930, 441−471. https​://tr​eatie​s.un.​org/d​oc/Pu​blica​tion/​UNTS/​LON/V​olume​%2010​4/ v10​4.pdf​. 19. Including Messrs. J.P. Morgan & Company, The First National Bank, and Bank of Chicago.

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20. The Bank of England was nationalized only in 1946. Ugolini Stefano, The Evolution of Central Banking: Theory and History (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 189. 21. Auboin, “The Bank for International Settlements 1930–55,” 2. 22. Trepp, Bankgeschäfte mit dem Feind: die Bank für Internationalen Zahlungsausgleich im Zweiten Weltkrie: von Hitlers Europabank zum Instrument des Marshallplans, 18. 23. Especiall Montagu Norman was an ardent proponent of cutting out political intervention in questions of economic stability. See: György Péteri, “Central Bank Diplomacy: Montagu Norman and Central Europe’s Monetary Reconstruction after World War I,” Contemporary European History 1, no. 3 (1992). 24. Bank for International Settlements, “Constituent Charter,” (BIS, 1930). 25. “Statutes (of January 20, 1930; text as amended on November 7, 2016),” (BIS, 1930). 26. The most significant aspect about this arrangement was that shares could be sold to private entities, who would then benefit from their appreciation economically, but voting rights were only exercisable by the central banks. 27. Trepp, Bankgeschäfte mit dem Feind: die Bank für Internationalen Zahlungsausgleich im Zweiten Weltkrie: von Hitlers Europabank zum Instrument des Marshallplans, 19. 28. Bank for International Settlements, “Constituent Charter.” 29. Belgium, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Switzerland, Yugoslavia. 30. Bank for International Settlements, “Protocol regarding the immunities of the Bank for International Settlements,” (BIS, 1936). 31. Neither was the Soviet Union, but neither was its central bank a part of the BIS in the first place. 32. See for example: James Calvin Baker, The Bank for International Settlements: Evolution and Evaluation (Westport: Quorum Books, 2002); Christian Leitz, Nazi Germany and Neutral Europe during the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000); Jean Ziegler, The Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998); Mark Aarons and John Loftus, Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss Banks (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998); Tom Bower, Blood Money: The Swiss, the Nazis and the looted Billions (London: Macmillan, 1997); Isabelle Vincent, Hitler’s Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, and the Pursuit of Justice (New York: William Morrow, 1997). 33. Montagu Norman, the president of the Bank of England was born in 1871, his German counterpart Hajalmar Schacht in 1877 and the first BIS president, Gates W. Garrah in 1863. 34. Maartje Abbenhuis proofed extensively how nineteenth-century International Law was, to a great part, build around ensuring that neutrals, especially large neutrals like Great Britain, Russia or the United States, could continue trade while some European states were at war with each other. See: Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914.

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35. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 332–336. 36. See for example: Alfred Mond, “International Cartels,” Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs 6, no. 5 (1927); Eliot Jones, “Is Competition in Industry Ruinous,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 34, no. 3 (1920); Ira Woods Howerth, “Competition, Natural and Industrial,” International Journal of Ethics 22, no. 4 (1912); Victor S. Yarros, “The Trust Problem Restudied,” American Journal of Sociology 8, no. 1 (1902); Osborne Howes, “Government Monopoly vs. Private Competition,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2, no. 3 (1888): 357−358. 37. The primary argument being that certain sectors like telegraphic communication, train line operations but also iron, steel and coal production was too costly in terms of initial investments needed to allow competitors to reap benefits later by entering the market at a later point. See for this argument for example George Kennan, “War-Time Reflections on the Sherman Anti-Trust Law,” The North American Review 206, no. 745 (1917); Felix H. Levy, “A Contrast between the Anti-Trust Laws of Foreign Countries and of the United States,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 147 (1930). 38. William Conrad Kessler, “The New German Cartel Legislation: July 15, 1933,” The American Economic Review 24, no. 3 (1934). 39. Levy, “A Contrast between the Anti-Trust Laws of Foreign Countries and of the United States,” 128. 40. Fausto R. Pitigliani, “The Development of Italian Cartels Under Fascism,” Journal of Political Economy 48, no. 3 (1940). 41. Levy, “A Contrast between the Anti-Trust Laws of Foreign Countries and of the United States,” 128. 42. M. Matsuo, “The Control of Industry in Japan,” Far Eastern Survey 4, no. 14 (1935). 43. Walter B. Palmer, “American Industries and Foreign Trade Following the War,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 83 (1919): 131−132. See also a legal overview in F.E. Koch, “Cartels as Instruments of International Economic Organization. Public and Private Legal Aspects of International Cartels,” The Modern Law Review 8, no. 3 (1945). 44. C.D. Edwards, from the Department of Justice estimated in 1944 that out of 179 international cartels known to his department 109 included US American companies. See: Corwin D. Edwards, “International Cartels as Obstacles to International Trade,” The American Economic Review 34, no. 1 (1944): 330–331. 45. Especially the efficiency of German cartels inspired admiration in economists on all sides of the war. See for example: William Notz, “The Cartels in War Time,” Journal of Political Economy 23, no. 10 (1915); Mond, “International Cartels,” 268−269. 46. D. H. MacGregor, “Rationalisation of Industry,” The Economic Journal 37, no. 148 (1927); William Notz, “Recent Developments in Foreign Anti-Trust Legislation,” The Yale Law Journal 34, no. 2 (1924). See also: Michael A. Utton, Cartels and Economic Collusion: The Persistence of Corporate Conspiracies (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011), 32. 47. Utton, Cartels and Economic Collusion: The Persistence of Corporate Conspiracies, 32.

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48. Ibid., 34. 49. Verena Schroeter, Die Deutsche Industrie auf dem Weltmarkt 1929 bis 1933 (Frankfurt/Main1984), 297. 50. Ibid., 298. See also Arthur Schellenberger, Die Geschichte des I.G.-FarbenKonzerns. Bedeutung und Rolle eines Grossunternehmens (Cologne, 1998), 40. 51. Ibid., 299–Compare 298. 52. Verena Schroeter, Deutsche Industrie auf dem Weltmarkt 1929–1933. Frankfurt/Main, 1984, 295−313. 53. United States Congress, Senate Hearing before a Subcommittee on Military Affairs. “Economic and Political Aspects of International Cartels” Report Pursuant to 107, Part 78th Congress 2nd Session, Washington, 1944, 1–77. 54. Mond, Alfred Moritz. 1868–1 otr 930. First Baron of Melchett. First Commissioner of Works 1916–1921, Minister of Health 1921–1922, Director of “Brunner Mond & Company,” Managing Director “Mond Nickel Company.” 55. Mond, “International Cartels,” 268–269. 56. In the passage right after the above quote, Mond explains how the problem of striking coal-miners a year earlier should not have been resolved by the use of strike breakers but by rallying together the British coal industry to collectively bargain with the German coal cartel to increase prices on the British market instead of lowering wages for miners. 57. Paul Enzig, Montagu Norman: A Study in Financial Statesmanship (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, 1932), 90. 58. Ibid., 97. 59. Letter Norman to Moll, March 29, 1924. Cited in: Péteri, “Central Bank Diplomacy: Montagu Norman and Central Europe’s Monetary Reconstruction after World War I,” 241. 60. Ibid., 235–241. 61. Trading with the enemy acts, which were legislated in most belligerent jurisdictions, would have made this also an issue. 62. Bank for International Settlements, Circular Letter to Central Banks having Business Relations with the Bank for International Settlements. 63. “BIS history—the BIS and the Second World War (1939–48),” BIS, Accessed: March 23, 2018, https​://ww​w.bis​.org/​about​/hist​ory_2​ww2.h​tm. 64. Yago, The Financial History of the Bank for International Settlements, 77−79; LeBor, Tower of Basel—The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World. Chapter 6; Baker, The Bank for International Settlements: Evolution and Evaluation, 199−200; Trepp, Bankgeschäfte mit dem Feind: die Bank für Internationalen Zahlungsausgleich im Zweiten Weltkrie: von Hitlers Europabank zum Instrument des Marshallplans, 43; Auboin, “The Bank for International Settlements 1930–55.” 65. Bank for International Settlements, Circular Letter to Central Banks having Business Relations with the Bank for International Settlements. 66. Kingsley Wood to the House of Commons on October 13, 1942. As cited in: Walther Hofer and Herbert Reginbogin, Hitler, der Westen und die Schweiz 1936−1945 (Zürich: NZZ libro, 2001), 487.

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67. This is a hypothesis following from the above interpretation. Concrete evidence for this motive have yet to be found. 68. On the rights and duties of neutral states see as a primary source: Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise—War and Neutrality, II. And the most important secondary source: Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000). 69. Yago, The Financial History of the Bank for International Settlements, 79−81. 70. The United States ended its long-term neutrality of 150 years only when it became a belligerent of World War II in December 1941 after Pearl Harbor. 71. 1930−1933 by G.W. McGarrah (US), 1933−1935 by Leon Fraser (US), 1935−1937 by L.J.A. Trip (Dutch), 1937−1940 by J.W. Beyen (Dutch). 72. Historian Jason Weixelbaum even argues that “McKittrick’s brand of neutrality would be more properly described as loyalty to the BIS itself.” See on this his excellent blog: Jason Weixelbaum, “The Contradiction of Neutrality and International Finance: The Presidency of Thomas H. McKittrick at the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland 1940−46,” Accessed: June 4, 2018, https://jasonweixelbaum.wordpress.com/. 73. Trepp, Bankgeschäfte mit dem Feind: die Bank für Internationalen Zahlungsausgleich im Zweiten Weltkrie: von Hitlers Europabank zum Instrument des Marshallplans, 8, 116−117, 138−140. 74. Weixelbaum, “The Contradiction of Neutrality and International Finance: The Presidency of Thomas H. McKittrick at the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland 1940−46.” 75. “Banking: Mr. McKittrick of Basel.” Time, June 7, 1943. On McKittrick’s selfimage see: ibid. 76. Letter of Dr. Walter Schiess to legation councilor Dr. Jean F. Wagnière, dated June 22, 1943. In: Swiss National Archives CH-BAR, E2001D#1000/1552#3607*, B.51.14.21.11, “Ausführen von Kriegsmaterial, Deutschland,” 1941−1943. For the entire exchange see also the doctoral thesis of Pascal Lottaz, “Neutral States and Wartime Japan: The Diplomacy & Foreign Policy of Sweden, Spain and Switzerland toward the Empire” (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, 2018), Chapter one—Definitions. 77. The reply he received was highly legalistic. J.F. Wagnière, legation councilor at the Foreign Ministry replied that weapon exports were explicitly allowed under The Hague conventions and that it was no fault of Switzerland that, in 1943, only trade with Axis countries was logistically feasible. 78. Hofer and Reginbogin, Hitler, der Westen und die Schweiz 1936−1945, 489. 79. See Elizabeth Cahdwick’s chapter in this volume. 80. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815−1914, 238−247.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Aarons, Mark, and John Loftus. Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss Banks. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998.

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Abbenhuis, Maartje M. An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815−1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Agius, Christine, and Karen Devine. “Neutrality: A Really Dead Concept? A Reprise.” Cooperation and Conflict 46 (2011): 265−282. Auboin, Roger. “The Bank for International Settlements 1930−55.” In Essays in International Finance, edited by Gardner Patterson, 1–49. Princeton: Princeton University, 1955. Author, Unknown.“The Monetary Superstate Exists Since 1930 – Its Called BIS (Bank For International Settlements).” expandourmind.com, http:​//exp​andou​rmind​ .com/​2017/​07/11​/mone​tary-​super​state​-exis​ts-si​nce-1​930-c​alled​-bisb​ank-i​ntern​ ation​al-se​ttlem​ents-​2017-​07-11​/. Baker, James Calvin. The Bank for International Settlements: Evolution and Evaluation. Westport: Quorum Books, 2002. Bank for International Settlements. “BIS History—the BIS and the Second World War (1939−48).” BIS, https​://ww​w.bis​.org/​about​/hist​ory_2​ww2.h​tm. ———. “Circular Letter to Central Banks having Business Relations with the Bank for International Settlements.” BIS, 1939. ———. “Constituent Charter.” BIS, 1930. ———. “Protocol Regarding the Immunities of the Bank for International Settlements.” BIS, 1936. ———. “Statutes (of 20 January 1930; text as amended on 7 November 2016).” BIS, 1930. Bower, Tom. Blood Money: The Swiss, the Nazis and the looted Billions. London: Macmillan, 1997. Edwards, Corwin D. “International Cartels as Obstacles to International Trade.” The American Economic Review 34, no. 1 (1944): 330−339. Enzig, Paul. Montagu Norman: A Study in Financial Statesmanship. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, 1932. Grotius, Hugo. On the Law of War and Peace. Edited and translated by A.C. Campbell. Kitchener. Batoche Books, 1625. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. Hofer, Walther, and Herbert Reginbogin. Hitler, der Westen und die Schweiz 1936−1945 [in German]. Zürich: NZZ libro, 2001. Howerth, Ira Woods. “Competition, Natural and Industrial.” International Journal of Ethics 22, no. 4 (1912): 399−419. Howes, Osborne. “Government Monopoly vs. Private Competition.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2, no. 3 (1888): 353−361. Jessup, Philip C. Neutrality: Its History, Economics and Law: Today and Tomorrow. 4 vols. Vol. 4. New York: Columbia University Press, 1936. Jones, Eliot. “Is Competition in Industry Ruinous.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 34, no. 3 (1920): 473−519. Kennan, George. “War-Time Reflections on the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.” The North American Review 206, no. 745 (1917): 866−878.

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Kessler, William Conrad. “The New German Cartel Legislation: July 15, 1933.” The American Economic Review 24, no. 3 (1934): 477−482. Koch, F.E. “Cartels as Instruments of International Economic Organization. Public and Private Legal Aspects of International Cartels.” The Modern Law Review 8, no. 3 (1945): 130−148. LeBor, Adam. Tower of Basel – The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World. New York: PublicAffairs, 2013. Leitz, Christian. Nazi Germany and Neutral Europe during the Second World War. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Levy, Felix H. “A Contrast between the Anti-Trust Laws of Foreign Countries and of the United States.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 147 (1930): 125−137. Lottaz, Pascal. “Neutral States and Wartime Japan: The Diplomacy & Foreign Policy of Sweden, Spain and Switzerland toward the Empire.” National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, 2018. MacGregor, D.H. “Rationalisation of Industry.” The Economic Journal 37, no. 148 (1927): 521−550. Matsuo, M. “The Control of Industry in Japan.” Far Eastern Survey 4, no. 14 (1935): 105−109. Mond, Alfred. “International Cartels.” Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs 6, no. 5 (1927): 265−283. Neff, Stephen C. The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. ———. War and the Law of Nations: A General History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. NewsNotShownonTV, Youtube.com. “BIS—Secret History of Bank of International Settlements Switzerland.” https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=q1N​d4IBb​wQ4&t​ =735s​. Notz, William. “The Cartels in War Time.” Journal of Political Economy 23, no. 10 (1915): 990−993. ———. “Recent Developments in Foreign Anti-Trust Legislation.” The Yale Law Journal 34, no. 2 (1924): 159−174. Oppenheim, Lassa F.L. International Law: A Treatise – Peace. Vol. I. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912. ———. International law: A Treatise – War and Neutrality. Vol. II. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912. Palmer, Walter B. “American Industries and Foreign Trade Following the War.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 83 (1919): 118−132. Péteri, György. “Central Bank Diplomacy: Montagu Norman and Central Europe’s Monetary Reconstruction after World War I.” Contemporary European History 1, no. 3 (1992): 233−258. Pitigliani, Fausto R. “The Development of Italian Cartels Under Fascism.” Journal of Political Economy 48, no. 3 (1940): 375−400.

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Quigley, Carroll. Tragedy and Hope. A History of the World in Our Time. New York: MacMillan, 1966. Rauchway, Eric. Great Depression & the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2008. Schloss, Henry H. The Bank for International Settlements: An Experiment in Central Bank Cooperation. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1958. Schroeter, Verena. Die Deutsche Industrie auf dem Weltmarkt 1929 bis 1933. Frankfurt/Main, 1984. Stefano, Ugolini. The Evolution of Central Banking: Theory and History. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Sutton, Antony C. Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. San Pedro: GSG & Associates Publishers, 1976. Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder [in English]. New York: Random House, 2012. Trepp, Gian. Bankgeschäfte mit dem Feind: die Bank für Internationalen Zahlungsausgleich im Zweiten Weltkrie: von Hitlers Europabank zum Instrument des Marshallplans [in German]. München: Rotpunktverl, 1997. ———. Personal Communication in Spring, 2017. Utton, Michael A. Cartels and Economic Collusion: The Persistence of Corporate Conspiracies. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011. Vincent, Isabelle. Hitler’s Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, and the Pursuit of Justice. New York: William Morrow, 1997. Wani, Kentarō. Neutrality in International Law: From the Sixteenth Century to 1945. New York: Routledge, 2017. Weixelbaum, Jason, Online. “The Contradiction of Neutrality and International Finance: The Presidency of Thomas H. McKittrick at the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland 1940−46.” https://jasonweixelbaum.wordpress. com/. Yago, Kazuhiko. The Financial History of the Bank for International Settlements. New York: Routledge, 2013. Yarros, Victor S. “The Trust Problem Restudied.” American Journal of Sociology 8, no. 1 (1902): 58−74. Ziegler, Jean. The Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998.

Chapter 8

Neutrality as an Instrument of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1945−53 Peter Ruggenthaler

To Stalin’s lifetime, the Soviet Union had to cope with a number of initiatives related to neutrality and/or neutralization. In 1946 the United States put forward the Byrnes Plan, which aimed to neutralize Germany through demilitarization. In 1947/48 the Swedes lobbied for Norway and Denmark to join them in embracing neutrality and in 1951 the Soviet Union itself undertook several neutrality initiatives in the Middle East. In 1952 it was the Finnish Prime Minister’s turn to press for neutrality from all Nordic states. This was followed by the Soviet proposal of a neutral Germany. That proposal coincided with the Western powers’ proposal to evacuate Allied troops from Austria. The term “neutrality” and “neutralization” in this chapter refer to what has been discussed earlier in the book as “permanent neutrality.” I.e. a country’s foreign policy of maintaining a neutral stance even at times of peace, by abstaining from joining military alliances or creating military dependencies on other states. However, no precise definition on “neutrality”, “neutralization” and “nonalignment” is possible, as Gerald Stourzh says correctly: One the major difficulties of getting to grips with the meaning of terms and phrases such as “neutrality” or “a neutral attitude toward” is due to the fact that concretizations of neutrality always include a wide array of possibilities, commitments with an international law dimension (again of considerable variety) and foreign policy guidelines without such commitments. The only common denominator is the principle refusal to join military blocs.”1 In a similar way Jussi Hanhimäki points out, that “no agreed-upon definition of neutrality exists.” In his studies he defines neutrality for the early Cold War in a broader way (than the “traditional meaning of neutrality at the time of war”), i.e. “a particular country’s official policy of noninterference and impartiality in the ideological, economic, and military struggles between East and West after World War II.2 161

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Neutrality, in the sense of a principled refusal to join military blocs, “military neutrality” in other words, can therefore be said to be largely in the eye of the beholder. Finland is an excellent case in point. It shows how complex an affair defining neutrality is and how self-perception may be drastically at odds with outside perception.3 Neutrality, which Austria’s politicians from 1955 on understood as “permanent neutrality,” was practised only by Switzerland and Sweden, the two countries that were to serve Austria as models for the future. Even Finland, which wanted to be seen as a neutral country from 1948 and openly declared itself one in 1955 (“the long process of Finland’s neutralization”),4 was used after 1955 by Austria’s politicians as a negative example because of the country’s ties to the U.S.S.R. Their unwillingness to regard Finland as neutral in the “full sense of the word” was not far removed from their ultimately selfish motives in warning Washington of Austria’s “Finlandisation.”5 From Washington’s point of view, “the neutrals were considered a sort of first line of defence during the first decade after the war.”6 Generally speaking, the role of neutrality in East-West relations in Europe continues to be one of the great desiderata of Cold War research, being, as Jussi Hanhimäki has put it, decidedly “one of the less researched issues of the Cold War.“7 What did neutrality look like when seen from Moscow in the early stages of the Cold War? Did the Soviet leadership believe in the possibility of creating a buffer zone of genuinely neutral countries, including, most notably, Germany? The claim that they did is not yet a thing of the past.8 This article draws on Soviet files and the existing secondary literature for an analysis of these “initiatives.” Was it part of Stalin’s planning to create a neutral cordon sanitaire around the Soviet Union? Alternatively, were these initiatives based on a dual strategy that pursued entirely different goals? MOSCOW AND THE BYRNES PLAN FOR GERMANY The Byrnes Plan, whose conception dates to the spring of 1945, aimed first for a 25-year and, in its second version, for a 40-year period during which Germany would remain demilitarized and was studied carefully by Moscow. The Soviet experts commissioned by the Politburo to analyze the American plan for potential pitfalls, unanimously concluded that it was directed against the interests of the Soviet Union. According to Marshall Zhukov: “The Americans would like to end the occupation of Germany as soon as possible and remove the armed forces of the USSR from Germany. They would then demand a withdrawal of our troops from Poland, and finally from the Balkans.”9

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At the Paris Conference of Foreign Ministers in 1946, the Americans aimed above all to sound out Stalin’s strategic thinking regarding the German question. Could he be moved to abandon the “spheres of influence” strategy?10 Molotov’s insistence on a complete overhaul of the Byrnes Plan and the appearance of the Soviet Union in the role of self-appointed guardian of German unity made the Americans and the British realize that the last thing Stalin was interested in was concordance on the German question. The Western powers’ attempts to put the Austrian question on the agenda of the Paris Conference of Foreign Ministers aimed to force the Soviet side to show its hand. Molotov could not but slam the door on talks about Austria shut: “The USSR will leave its troops stationed in Austria as long as it is entitled to do so.”11 To the Soviets, this was sufficient to justify their military presence in Romania and Hungary and precluded any agreement on the German question. After Paris, the Western powers finally concluded that this position was non-negotiable. The Byrnes Plan and the consolidation of the US and British occupation zone of Germany (unified as a “Bizone”) entailed a double-edged challenge for the Soviets: if they accepted the Plan, they would have to scrap the policy of the “spheres of influence”; if they rejected it, a consolidation of the West’s defense strategy was the most likely consequence.12 In the lead-up to the second phase of the Paris Conference of Foreign Ministers, the Politburo staked out a new course for its Soviet German policy and cast it in the form of a “Holy Writ.” Its sacrosanctity, like that of the Potsdam Agreement, was to become the basis for the “legend” of the Soviet Union as the guarantor of Germany’s unity, a legend that was subsequently ”deeply internalized by the Soviet Union’s diplomats and politicians.”13 It shares at least one characteristic with all of Stalin’s political goals: those “in charge of their realization had no say in defining these goals, and a significant number were not even aware of what these goals were.”14 Only Stalin’s innermost circle was privy to his real intentions. This arrangement invariably resulted in a vast number of people left out of the loop. Many Politburo resolutions such as the “Holy Writ” were devised primarily for internal consumption, but not exclusively so. Molotov shared unedited sections of the latter with the participants in the Paris Conference. Concealed in its verbiage and promotion of Germany’s unity was the announcement of a separate development concerning the Soviet Occupation Zone. If the USSR’s public proclamations on its German policy could be taken at face value, one would be forced to assume that the Kremlin was busy setting the scene for German unity within the new borders. This, of course, was not the case. The Soviet leadership was, in fact, playing for time to put the finishing touches on the establishment of Socialism and the dictatorship of the party and to make the process irreversible—at least for the foreseeable future. The Byrnes Plan did nothing to make the Soviets warm-up to a peace treaty

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with Germany—despite the impression Molotov created in Paris. This did not prevent Moscow from acting as a fervent advocate of a soon-to-be-concluded treaty on the world stage. To make sure the United States and Great Britain did not call its bluff, Moscow spiked its offer with conditions which it knew to be unacceptable to the Western powers. The point of the exercise was to put them on the spot and lay the responsibility for Germany’s emerging division firmly at the doorsteps of the West. The Conference of Foreign Ministers in Moscow in early 1947 was the scene of the last attempt by the Western powers to settle down to serious negotiations with the USSR on the German question. Stalin refused to budge. The spate of Western concessions in the new Byrnes Plan did not make it any more palatable to the dictator than its earlier version. The Americans and the British concluded at last that an agreement with the Soviets concerning Germany was beyond their reach.15 Developments in Germany after 1945 were among the chief causes of the rising East-West tensions, and the division of Germany was, in the last resort, the result of the differences in the major powers’ interests in the early stages of the Cold War. In the Soviet understanding of the German question, there was no longer any role for result-oriented communication. NEUTRALITY FOR AUSTRIA UNDER STALIN? A similar consideration applies to the Austrian question. There is not a single piece of evidence suggesting that Stalin contemplated the evacuation of Soviet troops from Austria at any time in the years immediately after the war.16 From 1947 the four powers were locked in negotiations on the restoration of Austria’s sovereignty.17 The Allies’ Moscow Declaration (October 1943) called Austria the first victim of Hitler’s aggression while at the same time stressing Austria’s co-responsibility for the war.18 This made Austria a special case. In the version proclaimed by the Allies, Austria, being Hitler’s first victim, was no enemy, which is, of course, the reason why the treaty concluded in 1955 was a State Treaty rather than a peace treaty. In 1945 Austria was occupied and divided into four zones, but this is where the parallel with Germany ends. As opposed to Germany, the USSR ensured Austria’s integrity as a state by installing, at a time before the fall of Vienna, a provisional government under Karl Renner. It was privileged on a scale unparalleled elsewhere by being granted a great deal of internal latitude and allowed in November 1945 to hold free elections, in all of Austria and not just the Soviet occupation zone. Whether this was intended to serve as a trial run for a similar development in Germany remains unclear. The privileges specifically granted to Austria were also

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supposed to make the Austrians feel more comfortable with the idea of an existence separate from Germany. The question of Trieste and Yugoslavia’s territorial claims to regions in Austria’s south, which were endorsed by Stalin, if half-heartedly and only until he finally broke with Tito in 1948, led to the Cold War rearing its head for the first time in 1945. Tensions were exacerbated when Stalin not only preempted the Western powers by unilaterally installing Renner’s Provisional Government but tried to palm off the move on the West as the autochthonous establishment of a Popular Front government and a purely Austrian affair. In addition to this, his dilatory tactics delayed Western military access to Vienna and to Berlin and the transfer of Styria to the British. These and other conflicts were a clear indication of how fragile the anti-Hitler coalition was even as early as 1945. To fully appreciate how vitally significant their military presence in Austria was to the Soviets right from the beginning of the Cold War one needs to bear in mind above all that it was required to justify the stationing of the Red Army in Hungary and Romania. Its presence here seemed as indispensable for the long-term implementation of the Soviet system and rule as in the German-Soviet zone. “This small country [i.e., Austria] [...] remained a pawn in the Cold War. […] The presence of Soviet troops in Austria and communications with them via Hungary and Czechoslovakia represented an important flank in a future war, either against West Germany or against Tito’s Yugoslavia.”19 This early conclusion by Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov has been wholly vindicated by the Soviet documents that have become accessible so far. Austrian neutrality was simply not in Moscow’s interest at this stage. The watchword was to keep up the uncertain status of the occupied country for as long as possible or at least for as long as it took to achieve the consolidation of the Eastern Bloc. The military significance of the Soviet occupation of a part of Austria first manifests itself in the files of April 1945 when the realization dawned upon the Moscow Foreign Ministry that it was the precondition for the continued presence of the Red Army in South East Europe. Even though documentation continues to be patchy, the foreign policy documents relating to Soviet Austrian policy that have come to light to date indicate that this factor determined Stalin’s view of Austria. In 1947 Foreign Minister Molotov tried to give comfort to the Hungarian Communist leader Mátyás Rákosi by assuring him that the Soviet troops would not be evacuated from Hungary any time soon and that the conclusion of any Austrian State Treaty was not yet in sight.20 In late 1949 Stalin deliberately scuttled the State Treaty negotiations in order not to jeopardize the legitimacy of the Red Army’s presence in Hungary and Romania.21 An additional motive for Stalin’s adherence to this line, as is apparent from the Politburo files, was his determination not to accommodate Tito.

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To understand this, one has bear in mind that Stalin interpreted the Western powers’ readiness to evacuate Austria in the context of the support they gave to Tito.22 The Stalin-Tito rupture had far-reaching consequences for the Soviet Union’s policies toward Central and Southeastern Europe.23 Stalin used the split as a pretext for launching major purges and show trials in Eastern Europe, getting rid of leaders who might deviate even in the slightest from Moscow’s wishes. Hence, the East European countries became tied even more rigidly than before to the Soviet Union. Even if Stalin did not believe that Yugoslavia would seek to join NATO, he was well aware in the final year of his life that Yugoslavia had begun receiving weapons from the United States and a few other Western countries. Also, Stalin was aware Yugoslavia had established contacts with Western intelligence agencies and had begun preparations with Greece and Turkey (both of which became NATO members in February 1952) for a possible Balkan Pact, which would indirectly link Yugoslavia with NATO. Hence, Stalin may have feared that rather than just being “non-aligned,” Yugoslavia would tilt increasingly toward the West.24 After the war, Belgrade pressed territorial claims against Austria, for which it had secured the backing of its ally, the Soviet Union. For the USSR, these claims served the purpose of impeding progress in negotiations on the Austrian State Treaty. The Soviet Union not only lacked the will to conclude such a treaty but it was determined in the first phase of the Cold War to prolong the occupation of Austria’s east. After the collapse of the State Treaty negotiations the KPÖ, Austria’s Communist party began to lobby for Austrian neutrality.25 This may have involved directives from Moscow, but if it did, they have left no trace in the files. There are in fact indications that point in the opposite direction: at least internally the Soviet Foreign Ministry discouraged such deliberations, without actually interfering with what the KPÖ was doing. The KPÖ’s agitation fitted in quite well with the guidelines the Kremlin peddled for public consumption. The Communists’ publicized commitment for neutrality led to their unpopularity rubbing off on the idea itself. The fear was prevalent that neutrality was but the top end of a slippery slope that would lead the country, once it had set foot on it, into the same kind of quandary that already plagued the neighboring people’s democracies. This is the explanation for the “long road” to the State Treaty, which Stalin’s death did not make any shorter.26 It was first also necessary for Austria’s politicians to make neutrality palatable to the Austrians. It was not in the Soviet Union’s interest to divide up Austria, presumably for geopolitical considerations as well as prevent another Anschluss of the country—or parts thereof—with Germany. When—at the instigation of

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the Yugoslavs—the Austrian Communist Partyʼs (KPÖ) leadership promulgated a tactic that favored carving up Austria, they received (in early 1948) a dressing-down in Moscow.27 In the fall of 1950, the Soviet Union denied its support to striking workers, thereby reducing the hopes entertained by KPÖ segments for grabbing power in a coup. It is hardly surprising that the Soviet occupying forces refrained from playing any role in the planning and the realization of the so-called “October putsch” as those events were opposed to Soviet interests. They endangered the status quo and the delicate equilibrium that characterized Austria’s occupation by Eastern and Western forces. In the Soviet Union’s foreign policy, the Austrian question was always “overshadowed by the German question” for the simple reason that any Soviet concessions to the West in Austria were bound to stoke expectations in Germany. It was above all the population of the SOZ/GDR which were keeping a close eye on what the USSR was up to in Austria. The evacuation of Soviet troops from Austria would invariably have revived their hopes of getting rid of the Communist party dictatorship, thereby destabilizing the Soviet sponsored SED regime. The occupation of Eastern Austria was therefore closely linked in Moscow’s view to the consolidation of Soviet power not only in Central and Eastern Europe but also in East Germany. It was crucial for the Sovietization of these countries and could not be lifted until that process had run its course. A SCANDINAVIAN “NORDIC DEFENSE UNION”? After the demise of the Byrnes Plan, Moscow saw itself confronted with another neutralization initiative. In reaction to the increasingly threatening Cold War scenario, Sweden proposed a “Nordic Defense Union.” The Soviet Foreign Ministry suspected “reactionary intentions” to be behind the Union, inspired by the new hegemonic powers, the United States and Great Britain, and aimed at creating another anti-Soviet bloc.28 The motivation for Sweden in acceding to such a plan, as the Kremlin saw it, was to create a counterweight to the Soviet influence on Finland. However, experience had shown that the neutrality of a “Scandinavian bloc centering on Sweden” had only ever existed on paper. Overriding the advice of its Foreign Ministry to exert pressure on intra-Scandinavian negotiations, the Soviet leadership decided to bide its time and to confine itself to the role of observer. In the lead-up to the meeting of the foreign ministers of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in the fall of 1948, Stockholm reassured Moscow that there were no plans in the pipeline to join the Western alliance as long as there were no new and unforeseen developments.29 The Soviet Union was, therefore, able to adhere to its

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hands-off policy. When it became clear that the Scandinavian negotiations would lead nowhere, Moscow had at least salvaged a minimum of influence in Northern Europe. Finland remained under the Soviet tutelage and Sweden continued to be “neutral,” while Norway and Denmark remained anchored in the Western “sphere of influence,” a position which had always been taken for granted in Soviet blueprints for a post-war Europe. The Kremlin had nevertheless failed to make the most of the situation that existed before the foundation of NATO. What prevented Stalin from changing the geostrategic constellation in Northern Europe to the Soviet Union’s advantage was his distrust of neutrality and non-alignment, which would have been thoroughly viable options in Scandinavia. Two developments, however, pushed Norway into the arms of NATO; firstly, false rumors that the Soviet Union was about to impose a treaty of mutual assistance on it and secondly, the Communist coup in Prague. Soviet influence on Oslo was minimal, and the Soviet Union’s Norwegian policy was passive and cautious, as Norway was always considered to belong to the Western sphere of influence.30 Roughly the same applied to Denmark, where all the leverage the Soviets had ever had came to an end when they evacuated their troops from Bornholm. Sweden’s policy of neutrality continued to be a source of misgivings, but at this stage, Moscow found some comfort in the assessment that Sweden’s Social Democratic government was the lesser of two evils. Maksim Korobochkin puts it neatly when he says that “Soviet policy makers, who realized that their influence in Sweden was limited, preferred to be inactive, rather than engage in counterproductive actions that could only make the situation worse and jeopardize the USSR’s security interests.”31 During this phase, Stalin pressed ahead to exert pressure on Finland to bring the Finns to the negotiating table and sign a Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance or—better still—to get them to propose such a treaty on their own accord. The treaty was to “guarantee a U-turn on Finland’s part toward a rapprochement with the USSR.” In the end, Finland agreed to enter into negotiations, giving the Soviets some consolation. However, the dilatory tactics of Finnish President Paasikivi opened up a great deal of maneuvering space for the Finns, translating the whole process into a “tactical defeat” for the Kremlin.32 Paasikivi was careful not to be seen to as to rebuff Stalin and continued to show interest in the Soviet “offers” while playing for time. Moreover, time was on the Finnish side. In the lead-up to the negotiations, in March 1948, Paasikivi made it quite clear to Moscow that Helsinki would only accept a limited agreement. Parliament was opposed to a military treaty. Finland’s priority was to keep its distance from the conflict between the major powers. In contrast to the year before when Moscow was “ready to use all means available to secure Finland’s non-participation in the Paris conference on the Marshall Plan,”33 the country was now in a better position to fend for

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itself. The “years of danger” of a Communist takeover seemed to be drawing to a close. To the surprise of the Finns, the Soviets were willing to enter into real negotiations and not to impose their dictate on them as they had done with their East European satellite states. To Finnish eyes, this was enough to base assumptions on a cautious neutralization policy. While the policy imposed something of a straightjacket on Finland during Stalin’s lifetime, the country did achieve its primary objective of not having to take sides in the East-West divide. NEUTRALITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST? In 1951 the Kremlin resorted for the first time to the concept of neutrality as an instrument of foreign policy. On 3 February 1951, the Soviet ambassador in Teheran was told to contact the Iranian Prime Minister, Hajiali Razmara.34 Using trade talks as a pretext and having steered the conversation toward the topic of neutrality, the ambassador was to let the Prime Minister know that “a proposal of neutral status advanced by Iran would meet with a positive echo in Moscow.” The Soviet ambassador was to do his utmost to avoid the impression that Moscow set great store in Iran’s neutrality.35 This incident shows that the Soviet Union took a dim and exclusively utilitarian view of neutrality in its dealings with Iran. The Soviet Union obviously used neutrality in this case as a means of countering the West’s rising influence on Iran.36 While the background of the Soviet initiative still needs further clarification, it seems evident that Moscow had little to lose when it held out the “carrot” of neutrality to Iran, while the very idea of Iranian neutrality was anathema to the United States, dependent as it was on Iranian and Middle East crude. Returning from Teheran in March 1951, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, George C. McGhee, stopped off in Baghdad to announce that Iran “had fortunately dropped the idea of wanting to be neutral.” On his way to Damascus he added that a policy of neutrality was off limits to anyone confronted with the choice between “aggression and the defense of freedom.” The states of South Asia and the Middle East that McGhee had visited in February and March had conducted debates on a neutralistic policy that had now become completely irrelevant.37 No government leader in the twelve states he had visited, McGhee informed the Foreign Office in London, had shown “any real respect or philosophical attachment for the neutralistic policy expounded by [India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal] Nehru, but to the contrary had a realistic appreciation of the significance of the East-West struggle.”38 Iran was a special case and especially tricky for the West. In the assessment of the National Security Council, it was American assistance for the Korean people that had initially led the Iranian leadership to take up a pro-Western

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position. Subsequent Soviet overtures “started a trend towards Iran’s reversion to its historical policy of playing one power off against the other and maintaining a precarious neutrality.”39 Reverses in Korea made “many Iranians doubtful of the United States’ ability to render effective assistance, a feeling not lessened by Iran’s proximity to the Soviet Union.”40 The Korean War made the West cast the Soviet Union in the role of an expansionist superpower. Acting out the role the Soviet Union’s doppelganger in this respect, the United States saw great danger attached to neutralist tendencies, all the more since it was inconceivable for them not to be the product of the Soviet Union. Washington considered it imperative to suppress such tendencies. “The loss of another free country to communist domination”41 would have called the credibility of the United States, the bulwark of the free world, seriously into question. Future developments anticipated by the NSC included one in which Teheran “adopts a policy of “neutrality” in the “cold war” and seeks a modus vivendi with the Soviet Union,”42 a prospect that set alarm bells ringing in the Oval Office. “Accepting without counter-action Iran’s reversion to an attitude of neutrality […] would probably result in eventual loss of Iran.”43 Nehru’s policy of neutrality was another source of concern for Washington in 1951. Neutrality was seen as “a danger to India’s existence”; it had to be combated as being, in the last analysis, “favorable to the Soviet Union.” Even if the West assumed that “Nehru at heart realizes that India’s interests lie in close association with the UK, US, and the non-communist countries”—in other words: that even an outwardly neutral India would effectively remain in the Western camp—this view was counterbalanced by the “danger that other governments in Asia may be persuaded by the validity of ‘neutralism’.” Smaller countries were more likely to prove vulnerable “to subversion or attack. […] We believe it should be our purpose to convince Nehru […] that collective security is best calculated to give [him] what he seeks.”44 Meanwhile, the Kremlin had realized how much harm its neutralist propaganda was capable of inflicting on the Western powers’ bloc formation and on their capability of drawing other countries into their camp. NEUTRALITY FOR SCANDINAVIA? In early 1951 the Kremlin became active in Scandinavia. The Soviet ambassador to Stockholm encouraged the Swedes (and the Finns) to woo the Norwegians and the Danes into a withdrawal from NATO.45 Even though a neutral Northern Europe was just about the last thing Moscow was aiming for, its neutralist propaganda led to the resurrection of plans for a Nordic Union that had been laid to rest years before. Kekkonen was briefed by the

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Swedes. Although amenable to the topic of neutrality per se, he and Paasikivi were realistic enough not to be taken in by the Soviet Union’s tactical posturing. They also saw a silver lining attached to this particular cloud and were determined to turn it to their advantage. The Finnish leaders were in no doubt that the realization of “Nordic neutrality” would have involved a revision of the 1948 Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance, which they knew Stalin would never agree to. Nor were they in any doubt that luring Norway and Denmark away from NATO was an impossible task—and an effective precondition for Soviet agreement to any of their other aims. Kekkonen, proceeding with the utmost caution, had the draft of his “Pajama Pocket Speech” vetted by the Soviet ambassador to Helsinki.46 He was perfectly aware that this speech had the potential of branding him as Stalin’s “cat’s paw.” His speech was carefully designed to leave it unclear whether he saw a place for Finland in a Scandinavian neutral bloc. He was equally non-committal on the revision of the Soviet-Finnish treaty that would have been the logical consequence if Norway, Denmark, and Iceland really had left NATO. Far from believing that he could single-handedly bring about a geopolitical reorientation in Northern Europe, he used his speech, among other things, as an attack on his domestic adversaries, the Social Democrats, and the Communists. Having been left out of the loop by Moscow, the Communists, in particular, felt completely wrong-footed by Kekkonen’s speech. To make matters even worse for them, they had no alternative but to continue to support the government’s foreign policy, as they had in any case been obliged to do so on Moscow’s orders since early 1951. The fact that his speech47 succeeded in taking the propaganda wind out of the Social Democrats’ sails, itself no small gratification for the bourgeois Kekkonen, did hold out the prospect to the Communists of an exploitable rift within the government. When the Communists sought a recommendation from Moscow about the attitude they should adopt toward “Nordic neutrality,” they received no answer.48 The Kremlin’s internal script provided for the Finnish (and also for the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian) Communists to remain inactive on matters concerning neutrality. The official explanation for this was that the time was not yet ripe for a full-scale campaign and that the Communists must avoid creating the impression that left-wing circles were the exclusive beneficiaries of Kekkonen’s speech. The truth was that neutrality had disappeared from the topical agenda. The Americans were the principal reason for this: they were no longer prepared to enter into any public discussion on the topic. What Kekkonen ultimately achieved with his “Pajama Pocket Speech” was a westward shift on the part of Finland without any open criticism of the Soviet Union.49 Furthermore, the talk about nordic neutrality came with another positive aspect for Moscow; it allowed the Finnish Communists, who

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had appeared to be in terminal decline, to align their policies more closely with the bourgeois government regarding the most crucial question of all; Finland’s relationship with the USSR. After this, the Kremlin undertook no further steps to advance the cause of Nordic neutrality. Such as it was, it became part of the standard repertoire of foreign policy. Neutrality for Scandinavia was held up as a prize to be claimed by countries willing to turn their backs on NATO, a stance that was continued by Khrushchev after Stalin’s death.50 Unlike Khrushchev, however, Stalin was not interested in the creation of neutral twilight zones. The Soviet leadership preferred consolidating the status quo in Northern Europe to creating a North European neutral zone as a bulwark against NATO. This is illustrated very well by the intransigent attitude Moscow adopted following the downing of two Swedish planes in mid-1952. After the first plane had been shot down after crossing a 15-mile maritime boundary, the Soviet Air Force received orders to attack only within—internationally recognized—12-mile maritime boundaries.51 In its dealings with Sweden over the incidents the Kremlin resorted to the very worst kind of big-stick policy: Might is right. The Soviet Union had pinned itself into a corner in its Northern Europe policy and left itself few if any options. In what remained in Stalin’s lifetime, the Soviet Union was unable to make any move to appease Stockholm. The status quo in the north was now cast in stone. A NEUTRAL, UNIFIED GERMANY? On March 10, 1952, a few weeks after Kekkonen’s “Pajama Pocket Speech” and against the backdrop of West Germany’s rapidly progressing integration with the West, the Kremlin handed the ambassadors of the Western powers in Moscow identical notes and the “Proposal for a German Peace Treaty.” This Soviet “offer” was to provide the basis for Germany as a neutral, “re-united state.” The controversy among historians whether this first “Stalin Note”— there were three more to come—was to be taken at face value or a mere ploy and whether German reunification could really have been in Stalin’s interest is now several decades old.52 The Soviet leadership’s documents show that the process culminating in March 1952 in the Stalin Note began a year earlier. The proposal for Germany’s neutralization first surfaces in Soviet documents in February 1951: On February 14, the Head of the Soviet Control Commission, General Vasilii Chuikov and his Political Adviser, Vladimir Semenov, informed Moscow of SED Secretary General Walter Ulbricht’s stated conviction that the Americans were on track for a remilitarization of West Germany. Andrei Vyshinskii reacted by submitting to Vyacheslav Molotov, the member of the

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Politburo in charge of foreign policy, a proposal to harness the German neutralist movement to the purposes of the USSR, “because it had the potential to impede the realization of Anglo-American plans for Germany’s remilitarization.”53 Ulbricht had proposed, Vyshinskii said, that the SED should refrain from opposing the advocates of Germany’s neutralization and should instead “make common cause with them in organizing the struggle against remilitarization and West Germany’s accession to the North Atlantic Pact.”54 In Ulbricht’s view, it was highly desirable for “the Soviet Union itself to put forward some sort of proposal for Germany’s neutralization, with the aim of unmasking the American warmongers.”55 As the East Germans saw it, dangling the carrot of neutrality in front of the West Germans would significantly increase alienation with the policies of the United States and the Adenauer government. For Vyshinskii it was a foregone conclusion that the United States, Great Britain, and France would be opposed to the concept of German neutrality, regardless of the context in which it was framed.56 Further deliberations at the Foreign Ministry and the Politburo undertaken in close concert with the SED leadership and under Stalin’s watchful eyes resulted in an appeal by GDR government to the government in Bonn and the four powers to speed up the conclusion of the long overdue peace treaty with Germany. As this development unfolded, the Soviet intelligence networks kept the Kremlin up to date on every step the Western Allies were taking. In internal Soviet documents, there are no signs whatever that Moscow had any serious intention of convincing the West of the alleged benefits of a neutral Germany. A propaganda maneuver from its first conception, the “Stalin-Note” also had concrete goals: The “struggle against remilitarization” and stoking the discontent of segments of German society with the Adenauer government appear as red threads in the Soviet leadership’s internal documents. Underpinning the Kremlin’s verbiage of strategic propaganda were solid goals: the construction of socialism in the GDR and the continued absorption of the GDR into the Eastern Bloc. Keeping the world’s attention focused on the olive branch of German neutrality that it offered so conspicuously, the Kremlin managed to finish sealing the borders of the GDR and sell this to the world as a logical countermeasure to the West’s integration of the FRG. The visible expression of this development was Stalin’s directive of May 1952 mandating the fortification of the demarcation line separating East and West Germany. The construction of Socialism in the GDR was implemented independently of the Western powers’ reaction to the Stalin Note, whose effects—and whose intentions—were strictly confined to propaganda. On the evidence of the sources, it is evident that the originator of the concept behind the Stalin Note and the entire German policy put into practice by the Kremlin in 1951−1952 was Ulbricht. He realized that Washington

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could not be stopped in its remilitarization of West Germany and he used this insight to shore up his power. This is of course not to say that the SED was now a partner on equal footing with Moscow. In all of this, Ulbricht had an additionally hidden agenda. His suggestion to Moscow to make an offer of neutralization doubled as an attempt to saddle Moscow—and Stalin himself—with co-responsibility for the KPD’s unsuccessful policy for which Ulbricht himself was primarily to blame. He was trying to get rid of the mantle of sole responsibility for the KPD that Stalin had conferred on him. Early March 1952 appeared to be ideal timing for the climax of the strategy that had been an entire year in the making. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko now told Stalin that by launching an offer of Germany’s neutralization the Soviet Union had an opportunity to “make life for the three powers and the Bonn government awkward.”57 On top of this, it was advisable in Gromyko’s view to preempt the imminent signing of the “General Treaty,” the Western powers’ separate peace treaty with West Germany. The view supported by some historians that Stalin only decided in favor of sealing off the demarcation line and creating a national army in the GDR when it became clear that the Western powers had rejected his “option of Germany’s neutralization”—as put forward in the first Stalin Note of March 10—is no longer tenable.58 As early as January 1952 Molotov expressed surprise that the demarcation line was guarded by (East) German rather than by Soviet troops. Nor is it defensible to see the creation of national armed forces in the GDR as a reaction to West Germany’s rearmament and Western integration. It was the result of long-term planning and was realized with great caution under the Kremlin’s auspices. All steps in the absorption of the GDR into the Eastern Bloc were stage-managed to appear as measures to counter the Federal Republic’s integration with the West. Insufficient access to the sources misled historians into assuming that Stalin had “surprised” the SED leadership in Moscow in early April 1952 with the request to devote their energy to the creation of national armed forces in the GDR. This question was a crucial point on the agenda the SED leadership had come to Moscow to discuss with Stalin. The plans for their trip to Moscow had been finalized months earlier as part of the preparations for the 2nd Party Conference of the SED. The construction of Socialism in the GDR was already ongoing. The thesis that Stalin’s consent required intense lobbying by the East German comrades and was granted only after the Western powers had refused to negotiate about Germany belongs to the realm of legend.59 The “Abbreviated Treaty,” forwarded by the Western powers on March 13, 1952, allegedly proposed a resumption of the State Treaty negotiations with the aim of evacuating all troops from Austria. It was intimately connected to the German question and seen as a pure propaganda maneuver by the Western powers. Stalin’s “offer” on Germany anticipated by three days

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the Western powers’ delivery of their notes on the Austrian question, a case of complete happenstance since Stalin was unaware of the West’s initiative at the time. Even though the MGB knew that a Western initiative was in the pipeline, an analysis of the reports has shown that the Head of the MGB failed to pass on this information to Molotov and Stalin.60 Therefore the West’s propaganda gambit did not influence the timing of the delivery of the Stalin Note. The close connection that existed between the Kremlin’s Austrian and German policies shows especially clearly that the Stalin Note of March 10, 1952 and the Soviet “offer” of a peace treaty for Germany, linked to the supposedly tempting prospect of the united country’s neutrality in the East-West divide, were not made in good faith. Austria provided an opportunity for the Kremlin to demonstrate its goodwill for the German question. The fact that this opportunity was not taken up was remarked upon again and again by observers at the time. Stalin, however, was not in a position in early 1952 to “release” Austria. On no account was any initiative on Austria to become a precedent for Germany and, as Vyshinskii told Stalin, it must “not distract attention from the German question.”61 The option of Austria’s neutralization did not arise until after the GDR’s consolidation. It was only after the division of Germany had become “permanent” that the road opened up for Austria to adopt neutral status, equally permanent. It has been assumed that the death of Stalin was an indispensable prerequisite for Austrian neutrality, but this was not the case. Dividing up Austria was never an option for Moscow. It would result in all likelihood, as the Soviets feared, especially after the foundation of NATO, have led to the annexation of Austria’s western parts by West Germany and consequently to West Germany’s strengthening,62 which was anathema to the Soviets. The analysis of Soviet leadership documents allows us to subscribe wholeheartedly to the conclusion that the consolidation of the GDR (and therefore the German two-state solution) was the inevitable basis for the conclusion of the Austrian State Treaty and for the withdrawal of the Allied troops as a consequence. Thereby the conclusions which were reached earlier on by Jussi Hanhimäki are confirmed He stated, that “it only became possible to settle the Austrian question after the division of Germany had been secured when West Germany had joined NATO, and East Germany had become a member of the Warsaw Pact.”63 The “Stalin Note” aimed to achieve several objectives. A neutral Germany was definitely not one of them. On the basis of an extensive study of the Soviet sources capable of shedding light on the prehistory of the Stalin Note, the thesis that the GDR leadership was informed about the “Stalin Note” only on the eve of its presentation has become just as untenable as the thesis that the decision in favor of the construction of Socialism in the GDR was contingent on the Western powers’ refusal to resume negotiations on Germany.

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The Kremlin and East Berlin emerged from the “Battle of Notes” with what is called in German a “Persil”—(Cleanliness)—certificate that enabled them to shrug off responsibility for the division of Germany for the entire duration of the Cold War. This “Battle of Notes” in 1952, which marked the climax of the neutrality debate of the early Cold War, was not an attempt to break the Cold War deadlock. It was a significant effort on the part of the Soviet Union to stabilize its own system and the Eastern Bloc. As East and West battled it out in the propaganda arena, the Soviet leadership sought to shore up its claim to being a peacemaker, damaged as it had been by the outbreak of the Korean War. Stalin showed not the slightest inclination to allow the Western powers any say in how the SOZ was run. After the Soviet leadership decision in 1951 that the Federal Republic’s rearmament called for retaliation by creating “national armed forces” in the GDR, all their proposals were aimed at discrediting Adenauer’s government in the eyes of the people and generally stoking discontent. The result of this policy was the Stalin Note of 1952, which was designed to tempt the Germans with the prospect of a neutral, reunited Germany. Moscow’s overriding goal was to ringfence the Soviet sphere of influence, including the SOZ. A neutral non-aligned Germany was never truly part of the Soviet plans. CONCLUSION The view Stalin took of neutrality was never other than negative. As he— and Molotov, his alter ego in many respects—saw it, genuine neutrality was incompatible with political reality. Sweden in World War II was a case in point: for all its ostensible neutrality, it was, to the Soviets, nothing other than an “enemy sympathizer.” By prioritizing the installation of Soviet-friendly regimes at its periphery, the Soviet Union tried to prevent these states from going their own “third” way, which, as the Soviets saw it, could not but result in their—renewed—rapprochement with the Soviet Union’s enemies and in turning them into a military deployment zone for those enemies in any future war. Lest it be forgotten that Stalin had himself first-hand experience as a neutral, promising Japan to remain outside its war with the United States during WWII but ultimately betraying his own word—a topic explored by Pascal Lottaz in this volume. In Stalin’s uncompromisingly Manichean thinking, there were two camps to choose between, “Imperialism” and “Socialism.” Even if Stalin occasionally greyed this black-and-white view to a certain extent, the relationship between the two camps tended in his eyes to be one of implacable hostility. The abyss separating them left no space for other options. There could be no

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“neutral” or “non-aligned” states. What Stalin did was to use “neutrality-talk” as a tool in his foreign policy kit, with the primary aim, as has been shown in this chapter, to camouflage his dual-track foreign policy. NOTES 1. Gerald Stourzh, Um Einheit und Freiheit: Staatsvertrag, Neutralität und das Ende der Ost-West-Besetzung Österreichs 1945–1955 (Graz: Böhlau Verlag, 2005). 2. Jussi M. Hanhimäki, Containing Coexistence. America, Russia, and the “Finnish Solution.” 1945–1956 (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1997), XVIII and XIX. 3. Agilolf Keßelring, Die Nordatlantische Allianz und Finnland 1949 bis 1961. Perzeptionsmuster und Politik im Kalten Krieg. Entstehung und Probleme des Atlantischen Bündnisses (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2009). 4. Hanhimäki, Containing Coexistence. America, Russia, and the “Finnish Solution.” 1945–1956, XIX. 5. Peter Ruggenthaler, “On the Significance of Austrian Neutrality for Soviet Foreign Policy under Nikita S. Khrushchev,” in The Vienna Summit and its Importance in International History, eds. Günter Bischof, Stefan Karner, and Barbara Stelzl-Marx (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014), 329–348. See also: Peter Ruggenthaler and Harald Knoll, “Nikita Chruščev und Österreich. Die österreichische Neutralität als Instrument der sowjetischen Außenpolitik,” in Der Wiener Gipfel 1961: Kennedy—Chruschtschow, ed. Stefan Karner (Innsbuck: Studienverlag, 2011), 759–807; Martin Kofler, Kennedy und Österreich. Neutralität im Kalten Krieg (Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2003). 6. Jussi M. Hanhimäki, “The First Line of Defence or a Springboard for Disintegration? European Neutrals in American Foreign and Security Policy, 1945–61,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 7, no. 2 (1996): 378–403, here 380. 7. Jussi M. Hanhimäki, “The Lure of Neutrality: Finland and the Cold War,” in The Cold War after Stalin’s Death. A Missed Opportunity for Peace? ed S. Klaus Larres and Kenneth Osgood (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), 257–276. 8. Melvyn P. Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind. The United States, the Soviet Union and the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2007), 54–55; Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Wars. From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 348; John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know. Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 127; Wilfried Loth, “Die Entstehung der “Stalin-Note.” Dokumente aus Moskauer Archiven,” Schriftenreihe Vierteljahresheft für Zeitgeschichte 84 (2002): 19–115; Wilfried Loth, Die Sowjetunion und die deutsche Frage. Studien zur sowjetischen Deutschlandpolitik von Stalin bis Chruschtschow (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007); Wilfried Loth, Stalin’s Unwanted Child: The Soviet Union, the German Question, and the Founding of the GDR (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997). 9. V. Molotov to Stalin, 8 June 1946, in Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii (AVP RF), f. 06, op. 8, p. 60, d. 1010, ll. 1–11, reprinted in Jochen P.

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Laufer and Georgij P. Kynin, eds., Die UdSSR und die deutsche Frage 1941–1948, vol. 2 (Duncker & Humblot, 2012), 487–496, 488 and 492. See also V. O. Pechatnov, Ot Soyuza—k Kholodnoi voine. Sovetsko-amerikanskie otnosheniya v 1944–1947gg (Moscow: MGIMO-Universitet, 2006), 144–145. Cited in an abbreviated form in Vladimir Pechatnov, “The Allies are Pressing on You to Break Your Will…” Foreign Policy Correspondence Between Stalin and Molotov and Other Politburo Members, September 1945–December 1946.” CWIHP. Working Paper No. 26 (Washington, DC, 1999), 18. In 1946, the Americans had launched an—unsuccessful—attempt to force the Soviets to evacuate at least Hungary and Romania by pressing for the speedy conclusion of a treaty with Austria. The presence of the Red Army in Austria was used by the Soviet Union to justify the occupation of those countries: it was a vital factor to guarantee an unbroken supply line to the troops in Austria. See Peter Ruggenthaler, The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin’s Foreign Policy, 1945–1953 (New York: Lexington, 2015), 100–108. 10. Rolf Steininger, Deutsche Geschichte. Darstellung und Dokumente in vier Bänden (Frankfurt/M: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002), 247. While the Soviet intentions at the Paris CFM are of necessity left out, the goals of the Americans are set out with admirable clarity in Mihály Fülöp, The Unfinished Peace. The Council of Foreign Ministers and the Hungarian Peace Treaty of 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 179–187. 11. Record of the meeting between V. Molotov and J. Byrnes, 5 May 1946, in AVP RF, f. 06, op. 8, p. 1, d. 8, ll. 29–34, reprinted in Laufer and Kynin, Die UdSSR und die deutsche Frage 1941–1948, 378–382. The American notes are much shorter (FRUS, Diplomatic Papers, 1946, Vol. II: Council of Foreign Ministers, 247–249.) and contain no reference to the agreement on German disarmament and other issues. 12. Hanns Jürgen Küsters, Der Integrationsfriede. Viermächte-Verhandlungen über die Friedensregelung mit Deutschland 1945–1990 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2000), 278. 13. Jochen P. Laufer, “Der Friedensvertrag mit Deutschland als Problem der sowjetischen Außenpolitik. Die Stalin-Note vom 10. März 1952 im Lichte neuer Quellen,” VJHZG, no. 1 (2004): 99–118, here 111. 14. Ibid., “Stalin, Dimitrov und der Aufruf der KPD vom 11 June 1945. Deutschland und die Pax Sovietica,” Deutschlandarchiv (2009): 810–820, here 811. 15. For more details see Ruggenthaler, The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin’s Foreign Policy, 1945–1953, 66. 16. For more details see ibid., 100–108. See also Wolfgang Mueller, “Anstelle des Staatsvertrages: Die UdSSR und das Zweite Kontrollabkommen 1946,” in Die Gunst des Augenblicks: Neuere Forschungen zu Staatsvertrag und Neutralität, eds. Manfried Rauchensteiner and Robert Kriechbaumer (Vienna: Böhlau, 2005), 291–320. 17. Stourzh, Um Einheit und Freiheit: Staatsvertrag, Neutralität und das Ende der Ost-West-Besetzung Österreichs 1945–1955. 18. Stefan Karner and Alexander Tschubarjan, eds., Die Moskauer Deklaration 1943. “Österreich wieder herstellen” (Vienna/Munich: Böhlau, 2015). 19. Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War. From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 157–158.

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Khrushchev used the conclusion of the Austrian State Treaty to defend his “peace policy” against Molotov in the plenary session in July 1955. He alluded also to the military significance of the occupation of eastern Austria under Stalin: “Then what are you achieving by having our troops sit in Vienna? If you stand for war, then it would be correct to stay in Austria. It is a beach-head [platsdarm], and only a fool would give up such a beach-head if he planned to make war now. If [you are] not for war, then we have to leave.” See CWIHP, Bulletin No. 10 (Washington, DC, March 1998), 34–43, here 42–43. Nikita Khrushchev at the plenum of the CC, CPSU to Molotov, 12 July 1955, in Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Noveishei Istorii (RGANI), f. 2, op. 1, d. 176. Vojtech Mastny, “Die NATO im sowjetischen Denken und Handeln 1949 bis 1956,” in Konfrontationsmuster des Kalten Krieges 1946 bis 1956. Entstehen und Probleme des Atlantischen Bündnisses bis 1956, eds. Vojtech Mastny and Gustav Schmidt (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003), 383–471, here 440. 20. Record of a meeting between V. Molotov and M. Rákosi, 29 April 1947, in Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsialʼno-Politicheskoi Istorii (RGASPI), f. 82, op. 2, d. 1151, ll. 71–93, here l. 75. The conversation is mentioned in Wladislaw Subok [Vladislav Zubok] and Konstantin Pleshakow, Der Kreml im Kalten Krieg. Von 1945 bis zur Kubakrise (Hildesheim: Claassen, 1997), 149, and reprinted in T. V. Volokitina et al., eds., Vostochnaya Evropa v dokumentakh rossiiskikh arkhivov. 1944–1953gg. Tom I 1944–1948gg (Moscow: Sibirskii khronograf, 1997), 615, Doc. 209. 21. For more details see Ruggenthaler, The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin’s Foreign Policy, 230–235. 22. Ibid. 23. On the Tito-Stalin rupture see Mark Kramer, “Stalin, the Split with Yugoslavia, and Soviet-East European Efforts to Reassert Control, 1948–1953,” in Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain. The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989, eds. Mark Kramer and Vít Smetana (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014), 99–123. 24. See for example “On the Economic and Military Ties Linking the Tito Clique to the United States and England,” V. Grigor’yan to V. Molotov, 14 April 1952, in RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 1377, ll. 175–181. 25. Stourzh, Um Einheit und Freiheit: Staatsvertrag, Neutralität und das Ende der Ost-West-Besetzung Österreichs 1945–1955, 267–268. 26. Ibid. for an overview. 27. Peter Ruggenthaler, “Warum Österreich nicht sowjetisiert wurde: Sowjetische Österreich-Politik 1945 bis 1953/55,” in Die Rote Armee in Österreich. Sowjetische Besatzung 1945–1955. Beiträge, eds. Stefan Karner and Barbara Stelzl-Marx (Graz: Oldenbourg, 2005), 649–726, here 671–673; Wolfgang Müller, Die sowjetische Besatzung in Österreich 1945–1955 und ihre politische Mission (Vienna: Böhlau, 2005). 28. Maxim Korobochkin, “Soviet Views on Sweden’s Neutrality and Foreign Policy, 1945–50,” in Peaceful Coexistence? Soviet Union and Sweden in the Khrushchev Era, ed. Helene Carlbäck, Alexey Komarov, and Karl Molin (Moscow: Vers’mir, 2010), 81–112, here 101; A. A. Komarov, “SSSR i Skandinavskii oboronitel’nyi

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soyuz (1948–1949),” in O. V. Chernysheva, ed., Severnaya Evropa. Problemy istorii, Vol. 4 (Moscow: Nauka, 2003), 90–101, here 91. 29. Ibid., 106. On the earlier period see Johan Matz, Sweden, the USSR and the early Cold War 1944–47: declassified encrypted cables shed new light on Soviett diplomatic reporting about Sweden in the aftermath of World War II, in Cold War History 15/1, 27–48. 30. Maxim Korobochkin, “Politika SSSR v otnoshenii Finlyandii i Norvegii. 1947–1953,” in O. V. Chernysheva, ed., Severnaya Evropa. Problemy istorii, Vol. 3 (Moscow: Nauka, 1999), 233–249, here 247. 31. Korobochkin, “Soviet Views on Sweden’s Neutrality and Foreign Policy, 1945–50,” 112. 32. Kimmo Rentola, “1948: Which Way Finland?” Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismus-Forschung (1998): 99–124. 33. Maxim Korobochkin, “Soviet Policy Toward Finland and Norway, 1947– 1949,” Scandinavian Journal of History 20, no. 3 (1995): 185–207, here 191. 34. Politburo resolution Pr. 80 (181-op.) “Question of the Foreign Ministry,” 3 February 1951, in RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 45, ll. 123, 159. 35. Ibid. 36. Džamil’ Gasanly [Jamil Hasanli], SSSR–Iran: Azerbaidzhanskii krizis i nachalo kholodnoi voiny (1941–1946gg.) (Moscow: Geroi Otechestva, 2006), 479–480. 37. Report by S. Bazarov, Deputy Head of the Middle East Desk of the Soviet Foreign Ministry on “McGhee’s proclamations regarding the neutrality of countries in the Middle East,” 27 April 1951, in RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 1220, ll. 133–134. 38. Memorandum of Informal United States-United Kingdom Discussions, in Connection with the visit to London of the Honorable George C. McGhee, April 2–3, 1951, 10 April 1951, reprinted in FRUS, Diplomatic Papers, 1951. The Near East and Africa, 356–361. 39. Study prepared by the Staff of the National Security Council, o. D., reprinted in FRUS, Diplomatic Papers, 1952–1954. Iran, 11–21. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid., 11. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., 16. 44. Paper prepared in the Bureau of Near East, South Asian, and African Affairs, 30 August 1951, reprinted in FRUS, Diplomatic Papers, 1951. India, 2172–2174. 45. Oleg Ken, Aleksandr Rupasov and Lennart Samuel’son, Shvetsiya v politike Moskvy 1930–1950-e gody (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2005), 395. 46. A. Gromyko to V. Molotov, 9 January 1952, in RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 1340, l. 183; copies forwarded to G. Malenkov, A. Mikoyan, N. Bulganin and N. Khrushchev. 47. Text in Tuomas Vilkuna, ed., Neutrality: The Finnish Position. Speeches by Dr. Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland (London: Heinemann, 1970), 53–56. 48. Ruggenthaler, The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin’s Foreign Policy, 1945– 1953, 289. 49. Hanhimäki, “The Lure of Neutrality: Finland and the Cold War,” 261.

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50. For the Soviet attempts to re-invent the Baltic as a “Sea of Peace” see also Mastny, Die NATO im sowjetischen Denken und Handeln 1949 bis 1956, 455. For Khrushchev’s propaganda concerning Swedish and Austrian neutrality as a model for (primarily smallish) NATO countries see Peter Ruggenthaler and Harald Knoll, “Nikita Chruščev und Österreich. Die österreichische Neutralität als Instrument der sowjetischen Außenpolitik,” in Stefan Karner et al., eds., Der Wiener Gipfel 1961. Kennedy—Chruschtschow (Innsbruck et al.: Studienverlag, 2011), 759–807. 51. Ruggenthaler, The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin’s Foreign Policy, 271–273. 52. For the Historians’ Dispute on the Stalin Note see Peter Ruggenthaler, “The 1952 Stalin Note on German Unification. The Ongoing Debate,” Journal of Cold War Studies 13, no. 4 (2011): 172–212; Jürgen Zarusky, “Die historische Debatte über die Stalin-Note im Lichte sowjetischer Quellen,” in Nikolaus Lobkowicz, Leonid Luks, Alexei Rybakov and Andreas Umland, eds., Die deutsche Frage im Ost-West-Geflecht—zum 20. Jahrestag der Öffnung der Berliner Mauer. Forum für osteuropäische Ideen-und Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 1 (Cologne et al.: Böhlau, 2010), 13–29; Zarusky, ed., Die Stalin-Note vom 10. März 1952; Loth, Die Sowjetunion und die deutsche Frage. 53. A. Vyshinskii to V. Molotov, February 18, 1951, in RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 1182, ll. 40–48. For more Soviet documents on the Stalin note see Peter Ruggenthaler, ed., Stalins großer Bluff. Die Geschichte der Stalin-Note in Dokumenten der sowjetischen Führung. Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 95 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007). 54. A. Vyshinskii to V. Molotov, February 18, 1951, in RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 1182, ll. 40–48. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid. 57. RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 1170, ll. 48–52. 58. For more details see Ruggenthaler, “The 1952 Stalin Note on German Unification. The Ongoing Debate,” here 177–199. 59. Ibid. 60. For more details see Peter Ruggenthaler, ed., A New Perspective from Moscow Archives: Austria and the Stalin Notes of 1952, vol. XVI, The Changing Austrian Voter Contemporary Austrian Studies (New Brunswick, 2008), 199–227. 61. A. Vyshinskii to Stalin, May 12, 1952, in RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 1115, l. 110. 62. In an analysis presented to Molotov, Zorin showed how the United States’ goal in the Balkans was the “consolidation of an anti-Soviet deployment area in the Mediterranean regions” and would not exclude the possibility of this strategy extending to Italy and Austria. V. Zorin’s report to V. Molotov, Stalin, all members of the Committee of Eight and to M. Suslov, A. Vyshinskii, V. Grigor’yan, A. Bogomolov and G. Pushkin, June 5, 1952, in RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 1043, l. 198. Cf. also the claim in the KI report to Stalin of August 23, 1952 that the United States was considering the conclusion of a separate treaty with Austria and the integration of the country into NATO. Zubok, Soviet Intelligence and the Cold War, 458. The Soviet High Commissioner in Austria, Vladimir Sviridov, found nothing in 1952 in neutralization scenarios for Austria to recommend them from a Soviet point of view. Neutralization

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was liable not only to lead to the country’s orientation toward the West, which was already in full swing anyhow, but ultimately to its military integration into NATO. In Sviridov’s opinion, the Americans advocated a merger of Western Austria and Bavaria, which would strengthen both West Germany and the position of the United States in Europe: “American military circles are convinced that an active use of Austria for war aims would involve the country’s division and the merging of its western provinces with Bavaria.” Report on the work of the Soviet Element of the Allied Commission and the USSR’s political representation in Austria in 1952, Vienna, 29 February 1953, V. Sviridov and S. Kudryavtsev to the CC, VKP(b), c/o A. Smirnov, in RGASPI, f. 17, op. 137, d. 918, ll. 74–201, here l. 104. 63. Hanhimäki, “The First Line of Defence or a Springboard for Disintegration? European Neutrals in American Foreign and Security Policy, 1945–61,” 390.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Fülöp, Mihály. The Unfinished Peace. The Council of Foreign Ministers and the Hungarian Peace Treaty of 1947. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know. Rethinking Cold War History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Hanhimäki, Jussi M. Containing Coexistence. America, Russia, and the “Finnish Solution.” 1945−1956. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1997. ———. “The First Line of Defence or a Springboard for Disintegration? European Neutrals in American Foreign and Security Policy, 1945–61.” Diplomacy & Statecraft 7, no. 2 (1996/07/01 1996): 378−403. ———. “The Lure of Neutrality: Finland and the Cold War.” In The Cold War after Stalin’s Death. A Missed Opportunity for Peace? edited by Klaus Larres and Kenneth Osgood, 257–276. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006. Karner, Stefan, and Alexander Tschubarjan, eds. Die Moskauer Deklaration 1943. “Österreich wieder herstellen”. Vienna/Munich: Böhlau, 2015. Keßelring, Agilolf. Die Nordatlantische Allianz und Finnland 1949 bis 1961. Perzeptionsmuster und Politik im Kalten Krieg. Entstehung und Probleme des Atlantischen Bündnisses. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2009. Kofler, Martin. Kennedy und Österreich. Neutralität im Kalten Krieg. Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2003. Korobochkin, Maxim. “Soviet policy toward Finland and Norway, 1947–1949.” Scandinavian Journal of History 20, no. 3 (1995): 185−207. ———. “Soviet Views on Sweden’s Neutrality and Foreign Policy, 1945–50.” In Peaceful Coexistence? Soviet Union and Sweden in the Khrushchev Era, edited by Helene Carlbäck, Alexey Komarov, and Karl Molin, 81–112. Moscow: Vers’mir, 2010. Kramer, Mark. “Stalin, the Split with Yugoslavia, and Soviet-East European Efforts to Reassert Control, 1948−1953.” In Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain. The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989, edited by Mark Kramer and Vít Smetana, 99–124. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014.

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Küsters, Hanns Jürgen. Der Integrationsfriede. Viermächte-Verhandlungen über die Friedensregelung mit Deutschland 1945–1990. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2000. Laufer, Jochen P. “Der Friedensvertrag mit Deutschland als Problem der sowjetischen Außenpolitik. Die Stalin-Note vom 10. März 1952 im Lichte neuer Quellen.” VJHZG, no. 1 (2004): 99−18. ———. “Stalin, Dimitrov und der Aufruf der KPD vom 11 June 1945. Deutschland und die Pax Sovietica.” Deutschlandarchiv (2009): 810−820. Laufer, Jochen P., and Georgij P. Kynin, eds. Die UdSSR und die deutsche Frage 1941–1948, Vol. 2. Duncker & Humblot, 2012. Leffler, Melvyn P. For the Soul of Mankind. The United States, the Soviet Union and the Cold War. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007. Loth, Wilfried. “Die Entstehung der “Stalin-Note.” Dokumente aus Moskauer Archiven.” Schriftenreihe Vierteljahresheft für Zeitgeschichte 84 (2002): 19−115. ———. Die Sowjetunion und die deutsche Frage. Studien zur sowjetischen Deutschlandpolitik von Stalin bis Chruschtschow. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007. ———. Stalin’s Unwanted Child: The Soviet Union, the German Question, and the Founding of the GDR. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997. Mastny, Vojtech. “Die NATO im sowjetischen Denken und Handeln 1949 bis 1956.” In Konfrontationsmuster des Kalten Krieges 1946 bis 1956. Entstehen und Probleme des Atlantischen Bündnisses bis 1956, edited by Vojtech Mastny and Gustav Schmidt. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003. Mueller, Wolfgang. “Anstelle des Staatsvertrages: Die UdSSR und das Zweite Kontrollabkommen 1946.” In Die Gunst des Augenblicks: Neuere Forschungen zu Staatsvertrag und Neutralität, edited by Manfried Rauchensteiner and Robert Kriechbaumer. Vienna: Böhlau, 2005. Müller, Wolfgang. Die sowjetische Besatzung in Österreich 1945–1955 und ihre politische Mission. Vienna: Böhlau, 2005. Pechatnov, V.O. Ot Soyuza – k Kholodnoi voine. Sovetsko-amerikanskie otnosheniya v 1944–1947gg. Moscow: MGIMO-Universitet, 2006. Rentola, Kimmo. “1948: Which Way Finland?”. Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismus-Forschung 6 (1998): 99−124. Roberts, Geoffrey. Stalin’s Wars. From World War to Cold War, 1939−1953. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Ruggenthaler, Peter. “The 1952 Stalin Note on German Unification. The Ongoing Debate.” Journal of Cold War Studies 13, no. 4 (2011): 172−212. ———. The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin’s Foreign Policy, 1945−1953. New York: Lexington, 2015. ———, ed. A New Perspective from Moscow Archives: Austria and the Stalin Notes of 1952. Edited by Günter Bischof and Fritz Plasser, Vol. XVI. New Brunswick: The Changing Austrian Voter Contemporary Austrian Studies, 2008. ———. “On the Significance of Austrian Neutrality for Soviet Foreign Policy under Nikita S. Khrushchev.” In The Vienna Summit and its Importance in International History, edited by Günter Bischof, Stefan Karner, and Barbara Stelzl-Marx, 329–348. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014.

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———. “Warum Österreich nicht sowjetisiert wurde: Sowjetische Österreich-Politik 1945 bis 1953/55.” In Die Rote Armee in Österreich. Sowjetische Besatzung 1945–1955. Beiträge, edited by Stefan Karner and Barbara Stelzl-Marx, 102–140. Graz: Oldenbourg, 2005. Ruggenthaler, Peter, and Harald Knoll. “Nikita Chruščev und Österreich. Die österreichische Neutralität als Instrument der sowjetischen Außenpolitik.” In Der Wiener Gipfel 1961: Kennedy – Chruschtschow, edited by Stefan Karner. Innsbuck: Studienverlag, 2011. Steininger, Rolf. Deutsche Geschichte. Darstellung und Dokumente in vier Bänden. Frankfurt/M: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002. Stourzh, Gerald. Um Einheit und Freiheit: Staatsvertrag, Neutralität und das Ende der Ost-West-Besetzung Österreichs 1945–1955. Graz: Böhlau Verlag, 2005. Vilkuna, Tuomas, ed. Neutrality: The Finnish Position. Speeches by Dr. Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland. London: Heinemann, 1970. Zubok, Vladislav, and Constantine Pleshakov. Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War. From Stalin to Khrushchev. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Chapter 9

Neutrality Past Lessons & Visions: Providing Peace, Security, and Justice in the Twenty-First Century Herbert R. Reginbogin

This chapter embarks to analyze the vital role of neutrality between two divergent views of a Kantian world society. They are the perspectives of “solidarism” and “pluralism,” which are both mainly about the role of the state and its interactions with international society.1 The aim is to pave a road in reducing the geopolitical tensions between Russia and the West. The chapter argues that new security architectures should be proposed involving a reconceptualization of “permanent neutrality” to help expand a codex of practice ending the differentiation between domestic and international armed conflicts. Permanent neutrality is most importantly a modern invention. It is rooted in a national understanding of identity, which is within itself anchored in faith (religion), freedom, and foreign policy. Faith can be the observation of religious rituals and traditions demonstrating the freedom of individual conscience all a part of the private sphere when practiced at home. This has little effect on the world. That is unless the practices of religion and individual conscience spill over into public life with them expressing their values about public policies and injustice, which has led to some of the tremendous moral campaigns such as the anti-slavery, the peace movement, and the human rights movement.2 On the other hand, the public expression of individual conscience can cause religious communities and authorities to insist that laws be rewritten to insist that others beliefs and practices be limited if not completely suppressed trampling on religious freedom and individual conscience. The interdependence of faith and freedom generate values reflected in a “permanent neutral’s foreign policy providing not only humanitarian services but also becoming part of a security architecture their 185

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institutions transform becoming providers of security, peace, and justice in the 21st century and opening spaces for greater humanity and tolerance for others. INTRODUCTION Over twenty-five years have passed since the end of the Cold War. There is no longer a bipolar international order. Instead, the world is witnessing an increasingly globalized deepening of multilateralism within a multipolar distribution of military and economic power. Scientific advances in artificial intelligence, internet, 3-D printing and other innovations are challenging economic and social organizations. World affairs are no longer a matter of special arrangements by a few powerful nations. Managing domestic problems will require solutions and cooperation from within as well as outside national borders. Still, the international community remains defiant of achieving universal peace. Instead, some commentators have argued, the world unexpectedly finds itself in a Second Cold War.3 It is both familiar and different; Russia is no longer a superpower but continues to hold a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council. It possesses substantial nuclear and conventional weapons capacity and is prepared to implement such capabilities to challenge adversaries and protect allies. On the other side, in the Pacific, China has signaled that its military intends to project power beyond China’s immediate periphery (the South and East China Seas), into the open ocean, in the pursuit of “national rejuvenation” even by the use of force. Its aim is to counter what Chinese leaders see as U.S.-led efforts to check China’s rise.4 Tensions between the American Eagle and the Chinese Dragon have risen. Consequently, U.S.-Sino relations are at a critical stage of being derailed into an adversarial global conflict because of a few rocks and islands in the corners of the Asia-Pacific region. In this context, how would the China of Xi Jinping, the USA of the Trump Administration and the international community in general perceive, for example, Taiwan as a “permanent neutral” providing “security, peace, and justice in the region?”5 What if it was part of an East-Asian security architecture that included the two Korean states which assumed the same status of neutrality as part of an agreement to denuclearize the peninsula? These questions are not hypothetical; local stakeholders are actively exploring them.6 New permanent neutrals in the region would avoid entanglement in the political and military disputes among Great Powers, just as traditional permanent neutrals have demonstrated in two world wars and a prolonged Cold War, during which their position was one of military impartiality, vested with a respectable place in geostrategic thinking, and part of the institution of international law.

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In light of its juristic connection as a model for conflict prevention and containment, several questions arise. Could the creation of a security architecture of Eastern European countries that adopt the status of permanent neutrality function as a buffer zone between NATO and Russia?7 Furthermore, could this provide a setting for American and Russian reconciliation to the extent of putting differences between solidarism and pluralism aside to enter into a new phase from a perspective of a Kantian world society? Until now, the meaning of neutrality has been convoluted through the scholarly debates about the rights and obligations of neutrals in general, blurring the meaningfulness of the concept in which neutrality and especially “permanent” neutrality engages conflicts under international law. Often neutral states were depicted as small compared to the USA when it carried the banner of neutrality. Permanent neutrals have often been categorized as “vulnerable” and “weak” in a material and geopolitical context by realist International Relations (IR) literature.8 Christine Agius and Karen Devine point out that the nature of “Security Studies” as a US-oriented, policy-driven sub-discipline before the end of bipolarity is perhaps a key reason why neutrality is strikingly absent as an appropriate and relevant subject of academic interest. In the post-war era, the dominant realist—rationalist focus was firmly on conflict and alliance-formation. Liberal internationalism’s preference for collective security and lesser concern with territorial sovereignty meant that realism was the only dominant theory to have something to say about neutral states. In this vein, much of the literature produced during the Cold War on neutral states focused on how these states could survive in the international system, and the sort of strategies they could adapt to do so, such as adapting to or influencing greater powers, while noting the novel positions and opportunities small states occupy and have at their disposal, even if this was limited.9

The stereotype of the small and powerless neutral does not even correspond to much of the actual historical examples for Small Powers (let to speak of Great Power Neutrals). To the contrary, some neutrals and especially those adopting the status of permanent neutrality were militarily armed to defend their sovereignty fiercely. Many neutrals—just like other countries—used geopolitics to strengthen their deterring power. Switzerland and Sweden during WWII, for example, provided transit for belligerent goods (and, in the case of Sweden, sometimes troops) which they threatened to render impossible by the destruction of their own infrastructure, in case of an invasion. There was a potential toll to pay for those violating the sovereignty of such neutrals. After the Cold War neutrality was given more consideration. Although it was perceived as outdated, it quickly made a comeback as a vehicle in the arenas

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of international relations, particularly for conflict management and conflict resolution, or even—as will be argued in this chapter—for the possibility that they might offer an alternative to the confrontational politics of major Powers. At the moment the state of world affairs and potential for escalation of tensions among the Great Powers is alarming. Can “permanent neutrality” with the three pillars of faith, freedom, and foreign policy reduce the tensions between the USA and Russia also reconciling America’s differences with China to provide security, peace, and justice in the 21st century? The answer is as manifold and multilayered as the concept of neutrality itself, ranging from historical perspectives to contemporary considerations, for it to become a provider of a new security architecture as an institution in the service of peace. PERCEPTION OF NEUTRALITY FROM THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY UNTIL 1945 As evident from other chapters in this book,10 all neutral European countries (permanent or occasional), throughout their century-long history, have demonstrated a vital interest in international law and their place in geopolitical security architectures. After the decades-long Napoleonic Wars of the nineteenth century, Europe’s smaller states were granted by the major European powers a significant role in keeping the general peace as part of a stabilization mechanism known as the European “balance of power” strategy.11 Indeed, the major European powers issued a juristic guarantee for the practice of neutrality to Switzerland, assuring the integrity and inviolability of its territory.12 In exchange, Switzerland would adhere to the principles of impartiality during times of war and peace, based on the understanding that it would not join any form of mutual defense agreement.13 The context of that development was the nineteenth-century, during which wars were considered legal, rational and even reasonable by the international community as part of the established law of the sovereign prerogative for all nations—without any value judgments attached. War and neutrality were justified by a simple cost-benefit calculation and all nations prepared for it.14 Under this logic, Carl von Clausewitz coined the famous phrase “war is the continuation of politics by other means.”15 Neutrality, in this context, was neither less nor more than another foreign policy instrument available to states. The British diplomatic historian A.J.P. Taylor portrayed the situation between 1848−1914 as “no one state has ever been strong enough to eat up all the rest, and the mutual jealousy of the Great Powers has preserved even the small states, which could not have preserved themselves.”16 A neutral stance toward conflict in the nineteenth-century by the Europeans was neither particularly noble nor held

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to be ethically reprehensible. Historian Brooke L. Bower writes in contrast that “[i]n the nineteenth century, Americans saw neutrality as a proper, moral way to safeguard liberty at home, while international law designated it as a legitimate, even admirable stance to adopt (…).”17 By the early twentieth century, a body of law had emerged through various treaty agreements like the second Hague Conference of 1907 that regulated the duties and responsibilities of belligerents and neutrals during land and maritime warfare. The treaties provided the parameters for the conduct of hostilities that had evolved over the past centuries into neutrality becoming a foreign policy for some countries. The USA welcomed the adopted conventions specifying the rights of neutrality by underscoring their pledge to uphold the principle of “freedom of the seas” under international law in the spirit of free trade. By the outbreak of World War I, neutrality was a deeply rooted and well-respected concept of international and customary law. Still, the notion of neutrality was infiltrated by a diverse range of neutrality conceptions resulting in a terminological chaos as states attempted to establish intermediate forms between neutrality and belligerency, such as non-belligerency18 and non-alignment.19 There are in general two types of neutrality. One type in which a country is neutral toward one conflict but, at the same time, belligerent toward another conflict referred to as relative neutrality based on the Hague Conventions V and XIII, and international customary law.20 The U.S.S.R. during WWII is an example thereof.21 The other type, permanent neutrality, gained its recognition through international customary law dating back to the turn of the nineteenth-century at the Congress of Vienna, where the Great Powers recognized that particular status for the case of Switzerland. The major attributes of permanent neutrality are, on the one hand, the negative duty (as mentioned above) that a state commit itself to refraining from military alliances already during times of peace, but, on the other hand, the positive scope of diplomatic possibilities regarding, for example, “good offices” of protecting the interests of warring states, and humanitarian services during armed conflicts.22 In the twentieth century, the USA officially curtailed its status of neutrality after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) and Hitler’s subsequent declaration of war (December 10, 1941). Following World War II, it negated any support for the extra-legal character of war with the rise of international organizations within a new liberal world order. Smaller permanent neutral countries like Switzerland or Sweden were actively supportive of free trade in securing the rights of passage of goods along land routes to serve their internal needs and survival. Free trade contributed to making both neutral countries centers of international finance through which Hitler attempted to weaponize the capital markets of the USA to finance his war in Europe.23 This led to the criticism on Switzerland and a handful of other WWII neutrals

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for their selfish and immoral practice of purchasing and selling stolen Nazi gold to finance the Third Reich’s war economy.24 The security blanket codified by international law was respected by belligerents as long as it was to their advantage, which allowed U.S. and Swiss businesses and financial institutions to exploit the international situation of armed conflict by using the label of neutrality. Businesses saw the opportunity to make a profit while other countries like Sweden, the U.S., and Switzerland viewed their actions as conditions for survival without moral ramifications. This, however, backfired later when they were criticized as profit-mongers. Neutrals like Switzerland confronted such accusations of by referring to their simultaneous achievements within the sector of humanitarian aid and by pointing out the U.S.’ own bending of American neutrality laws to aid the European Allies through their lend-lease program.25 NEUTRALITY AND THE COLD WAR After World War II, European, American and Japanese narratives evolved in stark contrast to the plight and atrocities that had happened. Today they portray a growing seventy-year-old international liberal world order of Western societies experiencing an exclusively linear progression of shared values and aspirations for democracy, tolerance, participatory governance, and the defense of human rights.26 European neutrals like Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Irland, and Austria continued to adopt and adapt the status of neutrality as part of their foreign policy arrangements declaring their preparedness to support non-military enforcement measures directed against countries in violation of the United Nations Charter or, in the case of the EU, to provide humanitarian aid limited by military engagement.27 The Central European neutrals, except for Switzerland, have joined the European Union and established within the NATO framework partnerships dealing with crisis management, cooperative security, and similar services. At the same time, newly sovereign European countries like Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine assumed the status of neutrality after the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.28 During the division of Europe and the Cold War, however, the threat of a nuclear holocaust was acute and led to a reassessment of the “just war” doctrine.29 “In this age which boasts about atomic power, it no longer makes sense to maintain that war is a fit instrument with which to repair the violation of justice.”30 The words of Pope John the XIII were a modern rebuke of Clauswitz’ dictum about the “normality” of war for the settlement of interstate conflict. The absolute weapon would lead to the absolute catastrophe, it was feared, and the only escape could be universal peace. Neither of the

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two happened. Humanity did not blow itself into a nuclear Armageddon, nor was world peace attained. Local “traditional” warfare remained a fact of the international community and therefore the umbrella of neutrality kept providing to the Cold War period, as it did to the nineteenth century,31 opportunities for international trade and global economic stability to a measurable extent.32 Also, it offered geostrategic concessions to potential belligerents’ direct interests for an international equilibrium. Switzerland and Austria, for example, served as the “neutral separators” between East and West during the Cold War. The same holds true for Sweden, referred to as the “Nordic Balance” in the same period.33 Also Finland and the non-aligned Yugoslavia formed with the other three European neutrals including Bulgaria (chosen a policy of total isolation from the world) military buffer zones in the East-West divide, diffusing the tension between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Through an active diplomatic and political role, they made proposals and mediated between the two superpowers as part of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE now called after the Cold War the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe OSCE) in Helsinki.34 Thereby they provided some stability in the East-West relations in a bi-polar world. As part of détente, the non-binding Helsinki Accord of 1975 recognized the inviolability of the postWorld War II frontiers in Europe and respected human rights and fundamental freedoms of people and ideas while cooperating on economic, scientific, humanitarian, and other issues of mutual concern. It was the surprisingly active role (considering their size and political weight) that some neutral and non-aligned countries played in submitting proposals at the CSCE, which led to a profound impact on security in Europe ever since 1975.35 Until the end of the Cold War, the neutral countries fought for a continuing détente within the framework of CSCE, while mediating and providing their “good offices” to protect the interests of states at conflict with each other.36 By the mid-1990s the strategic and political rationale for neutrality changed. The Soviet Union had dissolved in late 1991 and NATO’s Eastern Enlargement called upon neutrals to provide security by playing a more active role in delivering European and transatlantic security in neighboring regions. Criticism on neutrality became vocal regarding its relevancy in a peaceful world without an East-West conflict.37 It was declared obsolete. Neutrals confronted such accusations again by pointing out this time that their foreign policies did not evade conflict but engaged with them constructively through active participation in international security issues with numerous mandates and functions that they performed in the area of humanitarian assistance and mediation.38 Within the changed political situation in Europe, four permanently neutrals (Ireland, Sweden, Austria and Finland) had joined the European Union and, except for Ireland, established within the NATO framework joint crisis management schemes and cooperative security plans, closely

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resembling the services provided by other NATO members. The non-aligned Yugoslavia had broken-up and the new states of Slovenia and Croatia joined NATO as well. Russia perceives such partnerships by neutral countries as part of NATO’s advance to the East which poses a threat to Russia’s near and abroad policy of upholding “spheres of influence.”39 NEUTRALITY AND THE DIVERGENT VIEWS OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY INTERNATIONAL WORLD ORDER In the twenty-five years since the end of the Cold War, new values have emerged in an international world order to which war was not a viable instrument of national policy. Collective security became even more essential and economic interdependence in a multilateral globalized economic system further challenged the traditional role of permanent neutrality. In the process, the concept of neutrality has become more of a banner for humanitarian services than for national or international security.40 However, part of the international community is vehemently opposed to allowing international help for humanitarian purposes from the international community (which includes permanently neutral countries) to limit injuries of civilians as asymmetric armed conflicts rage. They argue that such events are internal affairs only. Although a relatively new phenomenon, the arguments behind them were captured already in the “Grotian Conception of International Society,” which Hedley Bull published in 1966 as part of a collection of papers titled “Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics.”41 There, he depicts a debate about two divergent views on the role of the state and international society, concerned with human rights and humanitarian law and their enforcement. Both are integral parts to permanent neutral countries’ delivery of humanitarian services. By the end of the Cold War, these views were referred to in the English School of International Relations as pluralism and solidarism. They captured, in fact, the diverging views about the international world order between Russia and the USA in the context of a Great Power rivalry and the crisis of the liberal world order related to security, peace, and justice in the twenty-first century. Pluralism is the conception that international law is part of international society and human rights issues are an internal matter of a sovereign country unless they include hideous crimes such as genocide, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity. It depicts the international community as a sensible association of states respecting some limitations on how each may pursue their interests, based on the principles and practices of international law. Thus, pluralism advocates a society of coexistence based on the values of

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equal sovereignty, territorial integrity, and non-intervention. Solidarism, on the other hand, is a staunch critique of such practices, as it holds human rights and humanitarianism to include normative values of global political justice, individual security, and peace. In other words, solidarism views the universal human right concept as an agent in transforming the normative foundations of international society. In the same vein, it has been argued from a solidarist standpoint, that neutrality demonstrates the capacity to “further advance international norms (…) [and is] particularly well suited to contributing to norm development in highly sovereignty-sensitive areas.”42 The conceived interconnections of human rights law as being distinct from the international humanitarian law is supported by pluralist scholars, whereby proponents of solidarism regard the latter as a subset of the former. Solidarists emphasize a Kantian or liberal understanding of international relations and international society. In the case of the USA, the novelty of pluralism was the view that international law had taken on a fundamentally changed role, culminating in the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, which was perceived as a potential threat to U.S. policymakers, because of the courts power to criminally prosecute even their wartime decisions.43 To this day, the U.S. has not recognized the ICC. The Head of the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University, Christian Reus-Smit, underscores that for solidarists, “international society…is starting to exhibit—characteristics of a ‘purposive association’”44 setting standards to evaluate the legitimacy of states and regimes. They believe “there is some consensus about the substantive moral purposes which the whole society of States has a duty to uphold.”45 For example, the whole society of states has “reached an agreement about a range of moral principles such as individual human rights, minority rights, responsibility for nature, and duties to other species, which they believe they should promote together,”46 as part of a securitized public policy.47 Drawing on these principles, Barry Buzan argues, that the individual is the fundamental unit of security48—in the sense of human security, meaning protection against “hunger, epidemics, and oppression (…) protection from sudden and painful physical and psychological cuts into daily life,”49—“capturing the total interplay amongst states and non-state actors carrying the sense that all the actors in the system are conscious of their interconnectedness and share some important values,”50 promoting together a securitized public policy and laying claim that civilizations share the universal secular aspirations depending on how religious leaders practice tolerance towards others. In this conjunction, Samuel P. Huntington’s, Clash of Civilization-thesis calls upon analyzing the lessons of history to recognize the dangers to global stability and the threats to the international liberal world order. Huntington highlights the very different conflicting interpretations about the conduct and goals of international society as endorsed by pluralism and solidarism.

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He says “economic modernization and social change throughout the world are separating people from longstanding local identities. They also weaken the nation-state as a source of identity. In much of the world, religion has moved in to fill this gap alongside freedom and foreign policy, often in the form of movements [found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism] that are labeled ‘fundamentalist.’”51 Huntington references George Weigel’s works. One is called “Un-secularization of the World,” which “is one of the dominant social facts of life in the late twentieth century.”52 The other work is about the revival of religion, “la revanche de Dieu,” which, as Gilles Kepel refers to it, “provides a basis for identity and commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations.”53 This shows how notions of faith, freedom and foreign policy are becoming an essential part of the toolkit to handle different interpretations of the events twenty-five years ago. THE WORLD ISSUES AS WE KNOW THEM TODAY Industrialized democratic societies today are experiencing the plight of a fragmented liberal world order in which the rivalry between autocracies and democracies is on the rise, intolerance and racism are growing, autocratic and fascist styled governance are increasing, and defending human rights is, at times, a thing of the past.54 The Great Recession of 2008, coupled with the accelerated technological advancements that have led to changes in the economic structure of developed nations, have also caused enormous uncertainties and loss of jobs for large numbers of people who used to earn middle-class incomes in traditional industries.55 In the second decade of the twenty-first century, the antagonism between Russia and the USA is so high that some are referring to it as the Second Cold War.56 Some parts of Western society are beginning to grapple with the operative logic of hypocrisy about the laws of war and justice in the last half century and in the new millennium to find a framework for universal peace at a time of global anxiety about “an identity split that separates a minority from the ethnic, religious, or ideological majority, and a wealth gap that pits the rich against the rest of society.”57 Political debates are held overlooking the urgency to find new ways to govern the world with the rise of ultra-nationalism, illiberal populist democracy, authoritarianism, and the fragmentation of the liberal world order. As civil war rages in Syria displacing millions of its citizens in need of humanitarian aid, the world community watches on without humanitarian intervention as compared to the events at the turn of the century due, ironically to the quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq, which had soured much of the Western public on such undertakings. During the British House of Commons’ stormy debate on August 29, 2013, about humanitarian intervention in Syria to halt further

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chemical weapon massacres by President Bashar al-Assad, “the then [British] leader of the opposition Ed Miliband boasted that he could prove intervention wrong by just one word: Iraq!”58 Still, now, Iraq symbolizes the horrors and failures interventionism can produce, while “Syria” stands for what suffering non-intervention can lead to; millions of refugees and tens of thousands of deaths due to a civil war. The crusade for humanity is at a standstill as ontological security is on the rise reaffirming one’s self-identity by drawing closer to any collective perceived as being able to reduce uncertainty and existential anxieties.59 Religion and nationalism imbued with the legacy of history are the initial responses to such insecurity by populists and ultranationalists to give rationale to perverted oppressive policies and intolerance contrary to the prescribed role of faith, freedom, and foreign policy to usher tolerance for others. For some, there are bright lights at the end of the tunnel regarding more job opportunity, low unemployment, and robust U.S. capital market performance, but at what expense of the environment and future generations by withdrawing regulations to protect it?60 Many states in the Middle East are currently dissolved into sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite sects within Muslim majority states. On the other hand, Iran cleared the roadmap having a corridor under its control extending from the Persian Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea attempting to dominate the Middle East. Ethnic-nationalist rivalries and religious militias are financed by major regional powers backing different groups in civil wars overlooking the human carnage and failing to live up to the standards—may they be religious or secular—they set for themselves. The turmoil has caused massive migrations and led some countries to become failed states and others as flagships providing humanitarian aid. A power vacuum has emerged with Iranians, Turks, Saudis, Kurds, Russians, Israelis, and Americans engaged in combat operations to determine who will shape the Arab world while European nationalist is succeeding in spreading a feeling of siege by Jihadist terrorism. Great Power geopolitics has returned with China’s rise, aggressively claiming historical rights to the coastal waters in the South and East China Seas, and Russia’s return military enlargement with the annexation of Crimea, meddling in armed conflicts in Eastern Ukraine, intervention in Syria, and cyber-attacks against the West.61 The clock has been turned back, and the world remains defiant of a security architecture to underscore a policy for universal peace. Alternatively, a new opportunity has emerged to accelerate the role of international humanitarian law and services through “permanent neutrality” to reduce geopolitical rivalries among major powers and address the issues of world politics today by providing a security architecture aimed in providing security, peace, and justice in the twenty-first century. However, the question is how faith,

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freedom and foreign policy through an international security architecture with permanent neutrality’at its core can challenge the Wilsonian hypocrisy of just wars and the Schmittischen perception of humanity as a pretense for nothing else than a political tool for imperialist expansion?62 WILSON AND SCHMITT—THE TESTING GROUND FOR FAITH, FREEDOM, AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS In his “just war”-address on the Conditions of Peace on January 8, 1918 U.S. President Woodrow Wilson asserted that this “final war [World War I] for human liberty” had its only justification in upholding “the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak.”63 Despite Wilson loathing imperialism and a deep-seated belief in liberal democracy and self-determination, he resorted to military action in Latin America just as his predecessors had four years earlier. In 1914 he deployed American troops to Mexico during the civil war situation occupying the country by force. The same occurred in Haiti in 1915 and the Dominican Republic in 1916, when Wilson eventually sent in American troops to occupy the islands to preserve its dominance in the region.64 Northwestern professor Peter Ludlow pointed out that Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt’s perception of humanity had no realm of existence in the absolute “successful prosecution of warfare”65 against an enemy that would be demonized. “Stripped of all legal rights, of whatever nature,”66 Schmitt protracted such an enemy other than human but rather an “outsider, something different and alien”67 vested without reservation by the executive or, in Carl Schmitt’s case, the Fuehrer. Neutrality, to Schmitt, was no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world or the annihilation of the enemy was considered. Norms of international humanitarian law respecting armed conflict were nothing but a romantic illusion associated with an age of chivalry to him. “They are ‘unrealistic’ as applied to modern ideological warfare against an enemy not constrained by notions of a nation-state, adopting terrorist methods and fighting with irregular formations that hardly equate to traditional armies.”68 Schmitt’s real enmity was, however, directed toward the partisan aggressor (non-combatants but armed civil resistance). According to Schmitt, the way partisans fought irregularly for their causes, disadvantaged traditional armies to the point that facing fighters without uniforms, “the regular army reacts with violent reprisals, summary executions, the destruction of private property—even entire villages—and regards all these actions as fair punishment against deceit and treachery,”69 and for Schmitt, irregular fighters were

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indeed real criminals. Indeed, a true Nazi patriot violating all principles of international humanitarian law. It is difficult to imagine that liberalism, especially of the kind derived by Wilsonian internationalism, and vehemently criticized by Carl Schmitt, might hold the political answers to fix the current world problems.70 These two men attracted the intellectual left and right through their writings to which their supporters and critics grapple with the operative logic of hypocrisy about the laws of war and justice. NEUTRALITY—NEW NORMS—NEW SECURITY ARCHITECTURE The principles and meanings of the law of neutrality prevailed as one of the fundamental concepts of the law of armed conflict and the use of force.71 Over the span of two centuries of raging wars, there were profound changes in the law of neutrality as the type of wars increasingly shifted to mainly asymmetric conflicts, forged within nation-states instead of interstate matters.72 The traditional issues of war and peace were dealt with by international law, which did not apply to domestic types of conflicts, unless they led to such gruesome, repugnant crimes as ethnic cleansing, genocide, or crimes against humanity, embraced by the supporters of pluralism. Until now provisions of international law apply to the relationship between belligerents and neutrals in the event of an international conflict. International customary law and the various Declarations and Conventions of 1899 and 1907, as well as Chapter VII of the UN Charter, limit intervention militarily to a rogue nation for violating international law. In interstate conflicts, countries adopting neutrality stand apart by refusing to take sides. In this manner hostilities are confined allowing for global trade to continue through neutral countries despite the maximum war efforts of belligerent states.73 Also, neutral countries offer services by imbuing international humanitarian principles in their roles as mediators and arbitrators, including peacebuilding and the provision of their “good offices.” Overall, neutrals have the capacity “to further advance international norms in highly contested areas of international relations”74 and they are “particularly well suited to contributing to norm development in highly sovereignty-sensitive areas.”75 The economic prosperity and political transformations since the end of the Cold War embody the increased importance of justice and democratization in political life. The end of the Cold War unleashed dreams and hopes as well as the frustration that hampered international law and litigation to right the wrongs of the unfinished business of World War II (Restitution Era),76 redress the wrongs of colonialism, slavery, apartheid and other human

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rights violations of the past.77 International ad-hoc tribunals, commissions and a permanent International Criminal Court (2002) were founded to obtain the call for justice through the rule of law and morality. The neutrals were pressured for legitimation as the West called for unity in international relations and humanitarian intervention when it came to calamities like the Gulf Wars78 or the war in Kosovo (1999). The same is true for the moment when NATO expanded its role as the intervening power beyond the UN, EU, and OSCE in the cases of Afghanistan and Libya. Neutrality is depicted as reprehensible, unethical, and sinful in the face of conflicts fought in the name of morality and the “responsibility to protect.”79 After 9/11 U.S. President George W. Bush announced that the USA would make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbored them and that it would treat any nation that gave shelter terrorists as a hostile regime. The Joint Resolution of Congress authorized force against states that plan, condone, commit or aid terrorist attacks or assist terrorist organizations. “You’re either with us or against us” was the president’s slogan.80 At the time, his “war on terror” used “enhanced interrogation tactics”—a euphemism for inhumane treatments of prisoners like water-boarding and other forms of torture. They exhibited a blatant disregard for the Geneva Conventions. Also, the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance programs were all parts of a military strategy to fight a “just war” against non-combatants mimicking the writing of Carl Schmitt. For example, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, John Yoo, who along with his colleagues, were legal advisor to the president, wrote torture memos contriving legal arguments to legitimize Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture. To people of such convictions, neutrality was immoral and, in a sense, illegal because no one could stand impartial in the face of evil. They dismissed any respect for human rights and international humanitarian law, themselves embodying the dichotomy of humanitarianism and justice (the ideology of a just war—concepts that are) divergent by design. Still, neutrality continued to assert itself as an active provider of security and advocate for morality in its role as a facilitator in mediation, arbitration, and peacebuilding imbued with the “good offices” embodied by international humanitarian law in limiting the suffering and destructiveness of warfare to the extent possible.81 In the past 70 years, the framework for neutrality has changed radically. The growing recognition of the laws of crimes against humanity since the Nuremberg Trials notable for the prosecution of prominent members of Nazi Germany, who planned, carried out, or otherwise participated in the Holocaust and other war crimes, was a turning point between classical and contemporary international law. The Genocide Convention was ratified in 1951 and together with international customary law crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing became a hallmark to uphold a minimum moral standard which

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led to the understanding all nations would together intervene in the affairs of another sovereign country if it were found to violate such crimes. These practices evolved to a global political commitment in 2005 by the United Nations to protect all populations from mass atrocity, a principle known as the Right to Protect (R2P),82 which represents a critical new concept of human security that emerged as expressed by Barry Buzan.83 The strengthening of collective responsibility to protect civilians influenced the perception of some neutrals about their moral responsibility, in stark contrast to cases like Switzerland during the Second World War. Despite knowing that Nazi-Germany was a murderous, totalitarian regime, committed to the annihilation of whole peoples not only beyond but within German borders, the Swiss maintained the standpoint toward the Allies that it could not stop economic activities with the Germans because it could not treat any of the belligerent parties differently, according to the duty of neutral impartiality. It was a highly contested legalistic argument for formal neutrality.84 Undoubtedly, had Switzerland not returned from differential neutrality to absolute (or integral) neutrality in 1938, due to the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations, then “the assurance of her willingness to pursue on occasion a policy of differential economic neutrality, “benevolent” in its nature, towards Covenant-defenders [League of Nations] in their solidary action against Covenant-breakers,”85 would have resolved the moral standoff with the West in 1945. Moral standards continued to be something of the past and even more so when only a few years later, following the end of the Second World War, the Cold War brought about a resurrection of neutrality as part of the new Balance of Power in Europe. It drew the West’s attention toward the dangers of communism to the point that the moral crusade of World War II and the unforgettable moral revulsion at the killing of civilians, destruction of democracy, and the horrors of the Holocaust were almost forgotten.86 Forty years later, when the post-Cold War period resulted in a unipolar world, more attention was again devoted to questions of morality. Switzerland, like other neutrals, felt compelled to declare its preparedness to support non-military enforcement measures directed against countries in violation of the United Nations Charter such as Iraq’s aggression toward Kuwait in 1990 or, in the case of the EU, to provide humanitarian aid but limited to non-military engagements.87 On the other side of the Atlantic, Americans have traditionally been great supporters of humanitarian rules and the adoption of conventions to prohibit torture and protect civilians against violence as embodied in the instructions called “Lieber Code,” authored by the German-American legal scholar and political philosopher Franz Lieber and signed by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War on April 24, 1863. The rules represent instructions for the Generals of the United States Army (General Order № 100),88 dictating how soldiers should conduct themselves in wartime.

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It ruled out torture to extract confessions, described the rights and duties of prisoners of war and their capturing forces, and detailed the handling of the state of war, which made it one of the precursor documents to The Hague Convention of 1899. It would, after World War II, provide part of the legal foundation for the trials of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg and passages of it can be found even in the Geneva Convention of 1949. However, the advocacy and engineering of international law since the Nuremberg Trials has created “a parallel universe in which justice bracketed (even if temporarily) for the sake of reducing human suffering.”89 The engineers abandoned too often their deepest convictions of justice when engaged in war. HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION—PERMANENT NEUTRALITY “There is no legal definition of humanitarian intervention in international law. Humanitarian intervention is generally defined as an armed intervention by a state, or group of states, or an international organization into another state’s territory, without the agreement of that state, to address a humanitarian disaster, mainly caused by severe, large-scale human rights violations such as genocide, crimes of aggression, and crimes against humanity.”90 Since 1945 illustrations of military intervention to halt mass killings have been plentiful. In East Pakistan, atrocities committed against those who were calling for Bangladesh’s independence prompted India to intervene, causing a war with Pakistan. In the case of Ugandan President Idi Armin, 300,000 Ugandans had been brutally killed, and thousands were displaced between 1978 and 1979 before Tanzania invaded the country.91 Often remembered are also NATO’s invasions of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia), Afghanistan and Iraq that initiated a tempestuous phase of history with the collapse of local state structures, corruption, and ethnic or sectarian conflicts. In the case of the 2011 UN resolution that mandated a NATO intervention in Libya, at first nonmilitary means were used to end the ongoing humanitarian crisis, but lethal force was deployed when Muammar al-Qaddafi threatened to slaughter his own people in rebel-held Benghazi. The intervention did forestall a massacre, but also brought down Qaddafi’s 42-year-long dictatorship, adding Libya to the list of failed states since the Arab Spring. Man-made local humanitarian catastrophes have subjected international organizations, states, and legal scholars to evaluate the concept of humanitarian interventions by military means to prevent human rights violations.92 Legal guidelines to govern the use of humanitarian intervention as an international policy tool, acceptable to the views of both Solidarism and Pluralism are still pending. In this conjunction, the role of permanent neutral

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countries could play a unique role to help deter the abuse of humanitarian interventions for ulterior motives by nations who might be tempted to exaggerate conditions on the ground to justify the use of military force. Well established and trusted permanent neutrals might be capable of determining the needed instances of humanitarian interventions through the legal use of force impartially. Given the nature of hypocrisy in international politics, the international community needs resources to test the legality and legitimacy of military intervention. A primary challenge in this regard is the access for fact-finding missions to all territories of the world not barred by arguments of the humanitarian crisis being purely internal matters of sovereign countries. Permanent neutrals might, for these purposes, be prime candidates to fulfill the role of impartial judges within the scope of a new security architecture in which a series of permanent neutrals along a geographical corridor will play a significant role as a buffer between Great Powers. CONCLUSION: PERMANENT NEUTRALITY AS AN INSTITUTION OF PEACE FOR THIS CENTURY Due to the turn of events since 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea, Russian support for violent secessionist groups in eastern Ukraine continuing, and the increasing Chinese expansionist policies in the South and East China Seas, the security architecture debate has expanded from Eastern Europe to include East Asia. The international debate about permanent neutrality—a concept that had been practically forgotten by the international public for the past few decades—made an exciting comeback to the Western public political debate by two U.S. policy advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger.93 As Russia’s confrontational political and military posture continued to raddle the Euro-Atlantic community’s fear of a Russian invasion of the new frontline countries in Eastern Europe, new security architectures with permanent neutrality having a central role are coming alive. Research Director Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute for Foreign Policy programs writes in his book “Beyond NATO: A new security architecture for Eastern Europe” about involving countries ranging from Europe’s north-east down to south-east, including Finland and Sweden, Ukraine and Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan as well as Cyprus, Serbia, and the Balkan states to create a “neutral belt” between NATO and Russia. The deepening of interdependence among these states and the pooling of sovereignty as a bloc of neutrals could substantially reduce the sense of threat for Russia and NATO. A neutral block of Eastern European states would establish a geographical end of NATO’s eastern expansion and reduce Russia’s perception of a threat. Each of the neutral countries would be able to choose political and

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economic institutions to the east or west as they wish but without any military alliances, much like Moldova or Turkmenistan, for example, have already been practicing for the past two decades.94 The freedom for decision making of the neutrals would thereby not be impeded, since the principle of complete sovereignty and independence is also inherent to the UN Charter. Anything short of this would invite a return to Great Power politics of the nineteenth and early twentieth century and their hegemonic wars.95 As to East Asia, the same model for a security architecture could be applicable. Taiwan and a unified Korea could embrace a concept of an Eastern neutral zone. Those are the most likely candidates at the moment for geopolitical reasons. Viewing South East Asia in the medium term, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, the three communist states, might find it pragmatic to “merge” their engagement in China’s One Belt One Road initiative and from China’s perspective find security along its southern front. However, recent Chinese reclamations of land in the East and the South China Sea are instead provoking the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam to seek a closer relationship with the U.S. American grand strategy today is focused on a military security aimed at establishing a virtually impregnable defensive line (in a conventional military sense) in the Western Pacific running from Japan through Taiwan and to the Philippines. Beijing’s challenge will be to take advantage of this window of opportunity to consolidate its early twenty-first century version of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere peacefully as Chinese President Xi Jinping offered a five-year plan for China’s progress at the Communist Party Congress in Beijing in 2017, in which Chinese economic and military superiority was soon to come, and as a new rising Asian power, would protect the region and replace declining Western influence similar to Japanese expansion in the 1930s. With the adoption of permanent neutrality, a foreign policy of international humanitarian law and services will broadly emerge as more states adopt the status and start providing humanitarian services to protect civilians during time of armed conflicts. With the freedom to be part of a changing world society embedded in humanity, faith, freedom, the foreign policy of permanent neutrality will play a more significant role in international relations. International customary law will challenge the bar set by sovereignty referring to asymmetric armed conflicts as a matter of internal domestic affairs, allowing for more humanitarian assistance to protect civilians’ ethnic-sectarian identity, the human right of survival, and prevention of harm from bodily injury during times of armed conflicts. A new security architecture will emerge as a model to reduce tensions between the USA and Russia and trim down rivalry in U.S.-Sino relations through the reconceptualization of permanent neutrality as an institution and provider for peace, security, and justice in the twenty-first century.

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NOTES 1. Hedley Bull, “The Grotian Conception of International Society,” in Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics, eds. herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight (London: Allen & Unwin, 1966). 2. Michael Barnett, “Religion and the Liberal International Order,” in Faith, Freedom, and Foreign Policy: Challenges for the Transatlantic Community, eds. Michael Barnett et al. (Washington, DC: Transatlantic Academy, 2015), 28. 3. Project Syndicate. “Cold War II.” Haas, Richard N., February 23, 2018. https://www.projectsyndicate.org 4. Sami Dogru and Herbert Reginbogin, “Rethinking East Mediterranean Security: Powers, Allies & International Law,” Touro Law Review 33, no. 3 (2017). See on this also the Chinese Military Strategy white paper in: USNI News, Document: China’s Military Strategy. May 26, 2015. News.​usni.​org/2​015/0​5/26/​docum​ent-c​ hinas​-mili​tary-​strat​egy. 5. Lung-chu Chen, The U.S.-Taiwan-China Relationship in International Law and Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 259–260. The political movement that Chen mentions “Peace and Neutrality for Taiwan Alliance,” spearheaded by former vice-president Annette Lu, organized a conference in Taipei on March 3 and 4 with the name “Peace in East Asia and the Neutrality of Taiwan.” As of 2018, the movement is continuing their efforts to make neutrality an official state policy. 6. Ibid. Annette Lu envisions a South East Asian “neutral corridor” ranging from Japan over the Koreas, down to Taiwan and the Philippines to function as a buffer zone between the United States and China (personal communication with Annette Lu). That vision was expressed also on the conference booklet which painted the four nations in a purple color to contrast with the rest of Asia Pacific. 7. Michael O’Hanlon, Beyond NATO: A New Security Architecture for Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2017). 8. See for example how neutrality is described in Archie W. Simpson, “Realism, Small States and Neutrality,” in Realism in Practice: An Appraisal, eds. Davide Orsi, J.R. Augustin, and Max Nurnus (Bristol: E-International Relations Publishing, 2018). 9. Christine Agius and Karen Devine, “Neutrality: A Really Dead Concept? A Reprise,” Cooperation and Conflict 46 (2011): 272. 10. See the chapters of Steve Neff, Elizabeth Chadwick, Leos Müller and Pascal Lottaz in this volume. 11. Robert Gilpin, “Theory of Hegemonic War,” in The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars. Cambridge University Press, eds. Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 32–33. 12. “Acte d’Accession, en Date de Zurich, le 27 Mai 1815, de la Confédération Suisse, a la declaration des Puissances Réunies au Congrés de Vienne, en date du 20 Mars 1815,” in Actes du Congrès de Vienne: Publiés d’apres un des originaux dépausé aux archives du Département des Affaires Étrangères. Paris: L’imrimerie Royale, 1816. https​://ca​talog​.hath​itrus​t.org​/Reco​rd/00​06073​26.

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13. Balbone W. Graham, “Neutralization as a Movement in International Law,” American Journal of International Law 21 (1927): 79–94. 14. Herbert R. Reginbogin, Faces of Neutrality: A Comparative Analysis of the Neutrality of Switzerland and other Neutral Nations during WW II, trans. Ulrike Seeberger and Jane Britten (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2009), 25. 15. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Beatrice Heuser, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1832). 16. Alan John Percivale Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), XIX. 17. Brooke L. Blower, “From Isolation to Neutrality: A New Framework for Understanding American Political Culture, 1919–1941,” Diplomatic History 38 (2014): 364. 18. A non-belligerent state differs from a neutral one in that it may support certain belligerents in a war but is not directly involved in military operations. 19. The Movement advocates a middle course for states in the developing world between the Western and Eastern Blocs during the Cold War. 20. The Hague Convention (V) – 1907 – Concerning the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, (Washington, DC, 1915) at https​://ar​chive​.org/​detai​ls/ha​gueco​ nvent​ionv0​0inte​and The Hague Convention (XIII) – 1907 - Concerning the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, (Washington, DC, 1915) at https​://ar​chive​.org/​detai​ls/ha​gueco​nvent​ionx0​0inte​ 21. See Pascal Lottaz’ chapter in this volume. 22. For a discussion of “Good Offices” or the “Protecting Power” functions of neutral states see for example: Geoff Berridge, Embassies in armed conflict (New York; London: Continuum, 2012). See also: Charles Henn, “The Origins and Early Development of the Idea of Protecting Power” (University of Cambridge, 1986). 23. Herbert Reginbogin, “The United States Financial Market during World War II,” in Financial Markets of Neutral Countries in World War II, eds. Robert U. Vogler, et al. (Zurich: NZZ Verlag, 2011), 323–373; Walther Hofer and Herbert Reginbogin, Hitler, der Westen und die Schweiz 1936–1945 (Zürich: NZZ libro, 2001), 593–614. 24. Stuard E, Eizenstat, “Eizenstat Report: US and Allied Efforts to Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany during World War 2, Preliminary Report.” Washington, DC, 1997. http:​//www​.swis​sbank​claim​s.com​/docu​ ments​/doc_​5_eiz​ensta​t_rep​ort.p​df. 25. Arthur L. Funk, “American Wartime Relations with Neutral European States: The Case of the United States and Switzerland,” in Les Etats neutres européens et la Seconde Guerre mondiale (Neuchâtel 1985), 283. 26. Narratives of the so-called “developing world” exhibit markedly different perceptions, as for example the positive connotation of ‘nationalism’ which in their case is connoted with the liberation from the yoke of colonization, as opposed to a driver for WWII calamities and genocides, as in Europe. Jan Eckel, “Human Rights and Decolonization: New Perspectives and Open Question,” Humanity Journal (2010):

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1–2. http:​//hum​anity​journ​al.or​g/iss​ue-1/​human​-righ​ts-an​d-dec​oloni​zatio​n-new​-pers​ pecti​ves-a​nd-op​en-qu​estio​ns/. 27. Mafred Rotter, “Modelle der Neutralitaet in Europa,” Oesterreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 8, no. 6 (1979): 287–298; Paul Luif, “Neutralitaet – Neutralismus – Blockfreiheit,” Oesterreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 8, no. 3: 270–271. 28. See David Noack’s chapter in this volume. 29. Gregory M. Reichberg and Henrik Syse (eds.), Religion, War, and Ethics: A Sourcebook of Textual Traditions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 103; See Michael Walzer, Just und Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977). 30. Pope John XIII, Pacem in Terris: Encyclical on Establishing Universal Peace in Trith, Justice, Charity, and Liberty (Vatican: Paulist Press, 1963). 31. See Elizabeth Chadwick’ chapter in this volume. She describes how states already in the 19th century would remain neutral on the outbreak of war forming an essential part of war planning and had the additional collateral benefit to confine the spread of hostilities and allow global trade to continue. The institution of neutrality was built on such de facto flexibility even at times of total war. 32. See for example the description of how the Non-Aligned Movement tried to reshape the global economic order in Philip S. Golub, “From the New International Economic Order to the G20: How the ‘Global South’ is Restructuring World Capitalism from within,” Third World Quarterly 34, no. 6 (2013). 33. Laurent Goetschel, “The Essence of Neutrality,” in Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, ed. Heinz Gaertner (Lanham: Lexington, 2017), 104. 34. See John J. Maresca, To Helsinki: The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Defense of Communism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). CSCE negotiations opened-up with thirty-five foreign ministers meeting in Helsinki on July 3–7, 1973 to include almost all European states including the Soviet Union plus the USA and Canada except for Albania, Andorra, and Spain. 35. Ibid. 36. Switzerland, for example, represented the interests of the USA in Cuba until the recent normalization of interests in 2014. 37. Günther Bächler, Beitreten oder Trittbrettfahren? Die Zukunft der Neutralität in Europa (Chur: Ruegger, 1994). 38. See Laurent Goetschel, “Are Neutral States Middle Powers?” in Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, ed. Heinz Gaertner (Lanham: Lexington, 2017). 39. Appel Hilary, “The “Near-Abroad” Factor: Why Putin Stands Firm over Ukraine,” The National Interest (2014). http:​//nat​ional​inter​est.o​rg/fe​ature​/the-​near-​ abroa​d-fac​tor-w​hy-pu​tin-s​tands​-firm​-over​-uk raine-10517. 40. Studies on this issue are lacking, but there is a clear tendency among the general public in the U.S., Europe and Japan to associate neutralism with pacifism and humanitarian organizations like the ICRC or Doctors without Borders. 41. Bull, “The Grotian Conception of International Society.”

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42. Laurent Goetschel, “Are Neutral States Middle Powers?” in Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, ed. Heinz Gaertner (Lanham: Lexington, 2017), 106. 43. Philippe Sands, Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules from FDR’s Atlantic Charter to George W. Bush’s Illegal War (London: Penguin Publishing Group, 2005). 44. Christian Reus-Smit, “Society, Power, and Ethics,” in The Politics of International Law, ed. Christian Reus-Smit (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 45. Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community: Ethical Foundation of the Post-Westphalian Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 166–167. 46. Ibid. 47. Steve Smith, “The Contested Concept of Security,” in Critical Security Studies and World Politics, ed. Ken Booth (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005), 32. 48. See Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1983). 49. Heinz Gaertner, “Introduction: Engaged Neutrality,” in Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, ed. Heinz Gaertner (Lanham: Lexington, 2017), 1. 50. Barry Buzan, From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 64. 51. Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?,” Foreign Affairs (2003). 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Larry Diamond, “Democracy in Decline: How Washington Can Reverse the Tide,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2016 at https​://ww​w.for​eigna​ffair​s.com​/arti​ cles/​world​/2016​-06-1​3/dem​ocrac​y-dec​line;​ de, “The Problem with Populism,” The Guardian, February 17, 2015, at https​://ww​w.the​guard​ian.c​om/co​mment​isfre​e/201​ 5/feb​/17/p​roble​m-pop​ulism​-syri​za-po​demos​-dark​-side​-euro​pe; See, Cas Mudde, On Extremism and Democracy (New York: Routledge, 2016) The European election outcomes in 2017 demonstrated in the Netherlands, France, and Germany the momentum of populism’s capacity to attract left-wing or right-wing support determined by whom they exclude and the accompanying nationalist, sectarian or socialist ideology. In general, they are rebelling against what is perceived as an oppressive and constraining international order. These actions are giving momentum to political authoritarianism gaining ground in Austria, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States. 55. Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2016), 154–155. 56. Project Syndicate, “Cold War II,” Haas, Richard N., February 23, 2018. https://www.projectsyndicate.org. 57. Social Europe, “The Double Threat To Liberal Democracy,” Dani Rodrik, February 19, 2018. https​://ww​w.soc​ialeu​rope.​eu/do​uble-​threa​t-lib​eral-​democ​racy.​

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58. Gatestone Institute, “Iraqi Election Opens New Chapter,” Amir Taheri, May 20, 2018. https​://ww​w.gat​eston​einst​itute​.org/​12332​/iraq​i-ele​ction​. 59. Catarina Kinnvall, “Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security,” Political Psychology 25, no. 5 (2004): 741–767; Liliane Stadler, “The Persistence of Neutrality in Post-Cold War Europe,” in Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, ed. Heinz Gaertner (Lanham: Lexington, 2017), 73–102. 60. James E. McCarthy, “Clean Air Act Issues in the 115th Congress: In Brief,” Congressional Research Service, May 1, 2018 at http:​//www​.fas.​org/s​gp/cr​s/mis​c/ R44​744.p​df. 61. The Diplomat, “Western Vs. Authoritarian Capitalism,” John Lee, The Diplomat, January 18, 2009. https​://th​edipl​omat.​com/2​009/0​6/wes​tern-​vs-au​thori​taria​n-cap​ itali​sm. 62. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1976), 54. 63. Woodrow Wilson’s, “Fourteen Points,” January 8, 1918, http:​//web​.ics.​purdu​ e.edu​/~wgg​ray/T​eachi​ng/Hi​s300/​Hando​uts/F​ourte​en_Po​ints.​pdf. 64. Congressional Record, 63rd Cong., 2d sess., April 20, 1914, vol. 51, pt. 4, 6925. As cited in: David Emory Shi and George Brown Tindall, “America and The Great War, 1914–1920,” in America: A Narrative History, Chapter 22 (W.W. Norton & Co). https​://ww​w.wwn​orton​.com/​colle​ge/hi​story​/amer​ica10​_cp/c​h/22/​docum​ents.​ aspx;​Roland Axtmann, “Humanity or Enmity? Carl Schmitt on International Politics,” International Politics 44, no. 5 (2007): 534. 65. Washington Blog, “If We Refuse to Be Terrorized, We Win and the Terrorists Lose,” Peter Ludlow, June 7, 2014. http:​//was​hingt​onsbl​og.co​m/201​4/06/​refus​ e-ter​roriz​ed-wi​n-ter​roris​ts-lo​se.ht​ml; See on this topic also Carl Schmitt’s works on: “Der Begriff des Politischen” (1927), “Frieden oder Pazifismus” (1933) and “Totaler Feind, totaler Krieg, totaler Staat” (1937). 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid. 69. Carl Schmitt, Theorie des Partisanen (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot [1963], 1975), 39. “Je straffer eine reguläre Armee diszipliniert ist, je korrekter sie Militär und Zivil unterscheidet und nur den univorformierten Gegner als Feind betrachtet, um so empfindlicher und nervöser wird sie, wenn sich auf der anderen Seite auch nicht uniformierte Zivilbevölkerung am Kampf beteiligt. Das Militär reagiert dann mit harten Repressalien, Erschießungen, Geiselnahmen und Zerstörung von Ortschaften und hält das für gerechte Notwehr gegen Hinterlist und Heimtücke. Je mehr man den regulären, uniformierten Gegner als Feind respektiert und ihn auch im blutigsten Kampf nicht mit einem Verbrecher verwechselt, um so erbitterter wird der irreguläre Kämpfer als Verbrecher behandelt. Das alles ergibt sich von selbst aus der Logik des klassischen, europäischen Kriegsrecht, das Militär und Zivil, Kombattanten und Nicht-Kombattanten unterscheidet, und das die seltene moralische Kraft aufbringt, den Feind nicht als solchen für einen Verbrecher zu erklären.”

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70. Law and Liberty, “Carl Schmitt, Between Banality and Catholicism,” Stephen Turner, November 20, 2015. http:​//www​.libe​rtyla​wsite​.org/​liber​ty-fo​rum/c​arl-s​chmit​ t-bet​ween-​banal​ity-a​nd-ca​tholi​cism.​ 71. Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 191–218.  72. Jack S. Levy, Causes of War (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 186–204. 73. See, for example, Elizabeth Chadwick’s chapter in this volume. 74. Goetschel, “The Essence of Neutrality,” 106. 75. Ibid. See also: Laurent Goetschel, “Neutrals as Brokers of Peacebuilding Ideas,” Cooperation and Conflict 46, no. 3 (2011): 312–333; Laurent Goetschel, “Are Neutral States Middle Powers?”; Laurent Goetschel, “Bound to be Peaceful? The Changing Approach to Western European Small States to Peace,” Swiss Political Science Review 19, no. 3 (2013). 76. In the 1990s some 22 government commissions were created to investigate their country’s role during World War II including the USA to redress the injustices of the past and closure to the horrific events of the World War II Era. 77. Herbert Reginbogin, “Litigating Genocide of the Past,” International and Comparative Law Review 32, no. 1 (2010). 78. Dietrich Schindler, “Probleme des humanitären Völkerrechts und der Neutralität im Golfkonflikt 1990/91,” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für internationales und europäisches Recht 1 (1991): 3–23. 79. Anne Orford, “Moral Internationalism and the Responsibility to Protect,” European Journal of International Law 24, no. 1 (2013): 100. See also: Michael Gehler, Finis Neutralitaet? Historische and politische Aspekte im europaeischen Vergleich: Irland, Finnland, Schweden, Schweiz und Oesterriech (Bonn: Zentrum fuer Europaeische Integrationsforschung, 2001), 99–100. 80. Slogan used by President Bush, Jr. to persuade others to choose sides in a conflict which does not afford the luxury of neutrality. Perhaps the most significant German international law scholar of the era between the two world wars. Schmitt was a member of the Nazi Party but never arrested by the Allies for war crimes. He was obsessed with what he viewed as the inherent weakness of liberal democracy. He considered liberalism, particularly as manifested in the Weimar Constitution, to be inadequate to the task of protecting state and society menaced by the great evil of Communism. This led him to ridicule international humanitarian law in a tone and with words almost identical to those employed by John Yoo and several of his colleagues advising President George Bush Jr. about the use of torture. 81. Michael Gehler, “Different Roads to the European Union: Neutral States and Integration 1945–1995,” in The Convergence of Diversity: The European Model, eds. Adrian-Ciprian Paun and Dragos Paun (Cluj: Cluj University Press, 2014). 82. Susan Breau, The Responsibility to Protect in International Law: An Emerging Paradigm Shift (Oxford: Routledge, 2016). 83. See, Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1983); Barry Buzan, From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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84. Hofer and Reginbogin, Hitler, der Westen und die Schweiz 1936–1945, 625–626. 85. Graham, “Neutralization as a Movement in International Law,” 94. 86. Dietrich Schindler, “Neutrality and Morality: Developments in Switzerland and the International Community,” International and Comparative Law Review 14, no. 1 (1988): 155; Detlev F. Vagts, “The Traditional Legal Concept of Neutrality in a Changing Environment,” American University International Law Review 14 (1998): 2. 87. Rotter, “Modelle der Neutralitaet in Europa,” 287–298; Luif, “Neutralitaet Neutralismus - Blockfreiheit,” 270–271. Switzerland was unlike other neutral countries not a full member of the United Nations until 2002, but felt politically and morally compelled to take part in the UN Security Council economic sanctions against Iraq in 1990. 88. Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field, Prepared by Francis Lieber, LL.D. and Revised by a Board of Officers (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1863) at https​://ar​chive​.org/​detai​ls/go​verna​rmies​00uni​trich​ 89. John Fabian Witt, Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History (New York: Free Press, 2012), 7–8. 90. Asian C. Udoh, “When is Humanitarian Intervention Legal?” 33-Mar L.A. Law 44, March 2010; Holzgrefe J.L. and Robert O. Keohane, Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 91. Ibid. 92. Ibid. 93. J. Rainio-Niemi, “Cold War Neutrality in Europe. Lessons to be Learned?” in Engaged Neutrality. An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, ed. Heinz Gaertner (Lanham: Lexington, 2017), 15. 94. See David Noack’s chapter in this volume. 95. O’Hanlon, Beyond NATO: A New Security Architecture for Eastern Europe, 65–66.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Agius, Christine, and Karen Devine. “Neutrality: A Really Dead Concept? A Reprise.” Cooperation and Conflict 46 (2011): 265−282. Axtmann, Roland. “Humanity or Enmity? Carl Schmitt on International Politics.” International Politics 44, no. 5 (September 2007): 531−551. Bächler, Günther. Beitreten oder Trittbrettfahren? Die Zukunft der Neutralität in Europa. Chur: Ruegger, 1994. Barnett, Michael. “Religion and the Liberal International Order.” In Faith, Freedom, and Foreign Policy: Challenges for the Transatlantic Community, edited by Michael Barnett, Clifford Bob, Nora Fisher Onar, Anne Jenichen, Michael Leigh, and Lucian N. Leustean. Washington, DC: Transatlantic Academy, 2015. Berridge, Geoff. Embassies in Armed Conflict. New York; London: Continuum, 2012.

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Blower, Brooke L. “From Isolation to Neutrality: A New Framework for Understanding American Political Culture, 1919−1941.” Diplomatic History 38 (2014): 345−376. Bull, Hedley. “The Grotian Conception of International Society.” In Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics, edited by Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight, 41–65. London: Allen & Unwin, 1966. Buzan, Barry. From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ———. People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations. Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1983. Chen, Lung-chu. The U.S.-Taiwan-China Relationship in International Law and Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Edited by Beatrice Heuser. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1832. Dogru, Sami, and Herbert Reginbogin. “Rethinking East Mediterranean Security: Powers, Allies & International Law.” Touro Law Review 33, no. 3 (2017): 827–905. Eckel, Jan. “Human Rights and Decolonization: New Perspectives and Open Question.” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development 1, no. 1 (Fall 2010): 111–135. Gaertner, Heinz. “Introduction: Engaged Neutrality.” In Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, edited by Heinz Gaertner, 1–14. Lanham: Lexington, 2017. Gehler, Michael. “Different Roads to the European Union: Neutral States and Integration 1945−1995.” In The Convergence of Diversity: The European Model, edited by Adrian-Ciprian Paun and Dragos Paun. Cluj: Cluj University Press, 2014. ———. Finis Neutralitaet? Historische and politische Aspekte im europaeischen Vergleich: Irland, Finnland, Schweden, Schweiz und Oesterriech. Bonn: Zentrum fuer Europaeische Integrationsforschung, 2001. Gilpin, Robert. “Theory of Hegemonic War.” In The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars. Cambridge University Press, edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Goetschel, Laurent. “Are Neutral States Middle Powers?”. In Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, edited by Heinz Gaertner, 103–120. Lanham: Lexington, 2017. ———. “Bound to be Peaceful? The Changing Approach to Western European Small States to Peace.” Swiss Political Science Review 19, no. 3 (2013): 259−278. ———. “The Essence of Neutrality.” In Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, edited by Heinz Gaertner. Lanham: Lexington, 2017. ———. “Neutrals as Brokers of Peacebuilding Ideas.” Cooperation and Conflict 46, no. 3 (2011): 312−333. Golub, Philip S. “From the New International Economic Order to the G20: How the ‘Global South’ is Restructuring World Capitalism from within.” Third World Quarterly 34, no. 6 (2013): 1000−1015. Graham, Balbone W. “Neutralization as a Movement in International Law.” American Journal of International Law 21 (January 1927): 79−94.

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Henn, Charles. “The Origins and Early Development of the Idea of Protecting Power.” University of Cambridge, 1986. Hofer, Walther, and Herbert Reginbogin. Hitler, der Westen und die Schweiz 1936−1945 [in German]. Zürich: NZZ libro, 2001. Huntington, Samuel. “The Clash of Civilizations?”. Foreign Affairs 72, (Summer 2003): 22–49. Holzgrefe, J.L., and Robert O. Keohane. Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Kinnvall, Catarina. “Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security.” Political Psychology 25, no. 5 (2004): 741−767. Linklater, Andrew. The Transformation of Political Community: Ethical Foundation of the Post-Westphalian Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Luif, Paul. “Neutralitaet – Neutralismus – Blockfreiheit.” Oesterreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 8, no. 3: 269−285. Maresca, John J. To Helsinki: The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Defense of Communism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Neff, Stephen C. The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. O’Hanlon, Michael. Beyond NATO: A New Security Architecture for Eastern Europe [in English]. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2017. Orford, Anne. “Moral Internationalism and the Responsibility to Protect.” European Journal of International Law 24, no. 1 (2013): 83−108. Pope John XIII. Pacem in Terris: Encyclical on Establishing Universal Peace in Trith, Justice, Charity, and Liberty. Vatican: Paulist Press, 1963. Rainio-Niemi, J. “Cold War Neutrality in Europe. Lessons to be Learned?”. In Engaged Neutrality. An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, edited by Heinz Gaertner, 15–36. Lanham: Lexington, 2017. Reginbogin, Herbert. “Litigating Genocide of the Past.” International and Comparative Law Review 32, no. 1 (2010): 83–94. ———. “The United States Financial Market during World War II.” In Financial Markets of Neutral Countries in World War II, edited by Robert U. Vogler, Jörg Baumberger, Herbert Reginbogin, and Jürg Spiller, 323–364. Zurich: NZZ Verlag, 2011. Reginbogin, Herbert R. Faces of Neutrality: A Comparative Analysis of the Neutrality of Switzerland and other Neutral Nations during WW II. Translated by Ulrike Seeberger and Jane Britten. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2009. Reus-Smit, Christian. “Society, Power, and Ethics.” In The Politics of International Law, edited by Christian Reus-Smit, 272–290. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Rotter, Mafred. “Modelle der Neutralitaet in Europa.” Oesterreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 8, no. 6 (1979): 287−296. Schindler, Dietrich. “Neutrality and Morality: Developments in Switzerland and the International Community.” International and Comparative Law Review 14, no. 1 (1988): 155–170. ———. “Probleme des humanitären Völkerrechts und der Neutralität im Golfkonflikt 1990/91.” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für internationales und europäisches Recht 1 (1991): 3−23.

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Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1976. Simpson, Archie W. “Realism, Small States and Neutrality.” In Realism in Practice: An Appraisal, edited by Davide Orsi, J.R. Augustin, and Max Nurnus. Bristol: E-International Relations Publishing, 2018. Smith, Steve. “The Contested Concept of Security.” In Critical Security Studies and World Politics, edited by Ken Booth, 27–62. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005. Stadler, Liliane. “The Persistence of Neutrality in Post-Cold War Europe.” In Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, edited by Heinz Gaertner, 73–102. Lanham: Lexington, 2017. Taylor, Alan John Percivale. The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848−1918. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954. Vagts, Detlev F. “The Traditional Legal Concept of Neutrality in a Changing Environment.” American University International Law Review 14 (1998): 83–102. Witt, John Fabian. Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History. New York: Free Press, 2012.

Part IV

NEUTRALITY AS FOREIGN POLICY

Chapter 10

The Vatican, World War II, and Asia Lessons of Neutral Diplomacy Pascal Lottaz and Florentino Rodao

The Vatican is a tiny city-state inside the Italian capital of Rome. Since 1929 it was entirely sovereign under international law thanks to the Lateran Treaties signed with the Kingdom of Italy.1 The Vatican’s unique geographic location, the nature of its political system as a Theocracy and claims about moral, clerical and legal rights over hundreds of millions of Catholics across the globe, set it apart from other neutral European micro-states during World War II like Lichtenstein, San-Mariano, Monaco or Andorra. Furthermore, the Vatican, in contrast to other states of its size, had a well-established and relatively sizeable diplomatic network across the globe. This chapter will consider the lessons that can be drawn from the Vatican’s diplomatic interactions with the furthest belligerent country from the Vatican: The Empire of Japan. Much of recent controversies since the turn of the millennium focus on moral debates about the Vatican’s responsibilities for the atrocities against the European Jewry, anchoring the analysis about its neutrality in the context of the survival of the state. This has led to two developments. First, the legal meaning of “neutrality” during World War II, has been confounded with ill-defined moral conceptions of it. Secondly, they have “crowded-out” considerations for more subtle questions of Vatican diplomacy. The following pages will first outline the infamous moral controversy about Pope Pius XII and discuss the general situation of the Vatican’s neutrality in the 1930s. The chapter will then proceed to the Vatican’s approach toward Asia and an analysis of its relations with the Japanese Empire. This will render insights about the Holy See’s usage of neutrality as a foreign policy tool during the international system of World War II. The chapter draws on a wealth of secondary and primary sources. There exist already two short pieces in English on Vatican-Japanese diplomatic history during World War II,2 and one comprehensively researched, 800-page 215

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doctoral-thesis-turned-monograph in French by Olivier Sibre.3 However, the two English articles were published before the moral controversy around Pius XII emerged and could not make use of some of the more recently declassified materials in US archives. Sibre’s study, on the other hand, does not put the findings into the context of Vatican neutrality (Anglo-Saxon moral debate about Pius XII). These considerations warrant an evaluation of Vatican neutrality through the lens of its diplomacy toward Asia. THE PIUS WAR, MORAL CONFLAGRATIONS OF NEUTRALITY, AND ASIA Academic research about the calamities surrounding the Vatican’s role during World War II was mainly unspectacular—until 1999. In that year, a book on Pius XII, “Hitler’s Pope,”4 was published which started a controversy that is with us until today. The debate has even received a catchy name; the “Pius War.”5 It circles around the question of whether (or to what degree) Pius XII, was complicit in the horrific atrocities against Jews and other minorities that the fascist regimes carried out? Did Eugenio Pacelli, alias Pope Pius XII, as of March 2, 1939, and the Vatican condone the murders through their silence and passivity or, even worse, did they support it by lending legitimacy to the regimes of Germany and Italy because of their own anti-Semitism? The main proponents6 of the thesis, as well as their opponents,7 have been highly outspoken, with advocates on both sides calling each other “liars,” “revisionists” or “apologists.”8 After a swath of publications, commentator Joseph Button declared the debate over already in 2004.9 It was not. The quarrel of interpretations has resurfaced in more academic publications10 and public entertainment, too.11 In this decade, the discussion has become less heated and more nuanced with commentator’s like Frank Coppa arguing that Pius XII “was not ‘Hitler’s Pope’ but rather sought to avoid becoming the prime enemy of this satanic figure.”12 Although the defenders of Pius XII include even outspoken Jewish authors like Rabbi David Dalin,13 and despite their more or less convincing rectification of Pacelli’s image, the issue remains hot. What Bottum remarked already in 2004 is still true today; “the defenders of Pius XII won every major battle. Along the way, they also lost the war.”14 In other words, the popular image of the Vatican during World War II is tarnished—maybe forever. Not unlike the debate about Swiss and Swedish neutraltiy during World War II, which immediately triggers the urge to speak about looted gold and business collaboration with the Third Reich, discussions about the Vatican and its role in the war will probably for a long time be held under the moral light of Pius XII’s conduct toward the persecuted.

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At least for the recent past, the focus on the silence of the pope persists. The questions of the Vatican’s neutrality, which is the topic of this chapter, has taken place under this overall framework. Geoffrey Robertson, for example, in a 2012 academic debate pointed out how neutrality played a role in the narrative of those who see the Vatican at fault for not speaking out against the Holocaust by quoting Elie Wiesel. The 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner “said this message to all of that persuasion who dare not speak out against great evil; he said ‘Take sides! Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victims. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.’ and this is a truth that applies to the silence of Pope Pius the XII in face of the most heinous crime against humanity every committed, even when it was taking place under his very windows.”15 John Cornwell’s “Hitler’s Pope” prompted the controversy but referred to neutrality only little and in an ambiguous way. The passages that quote historical figures use “neutrality” in the context of international law16—as a status and a policy during third-party belligerency—while his statements about it are purely moralistic. When talking about the events of early 1939, he says for example that “on Good Friday, Mussolini had invaded Albania in a move aimed at strengthening Italian power and forestalling potential German threats to the Balkans. Pacelli uttered neither a word of protest nor of support. Was this a token of strict neutrality?”17 The same is true for a statement in which Cornwell talks about how others perceived the Pope as “morally impotent”: “The Pope intended, Sargent reflected, to maintain a middle course between the democracies and the Fascist and Nazi dictatorships. Pacelli’s motive, he recorded, was to secure a role as mediator at the appropriate moment. In other words, there was an element of self-seeking hubris in Pacelli’s neutrality.” Other authors, especially those on the more cautious side, have not gone into similar conflagrations of the Vatican’s political neutrality with moral questions. These texts tend to point out that neutrality was first and foremost a policy for the Vatican to remain outside an armed conflict to which its flock of Catholics was a part of both sides and protect them as far as possible.18 There is, in fact, no doubt that the Vatican’s own conception of neutrality before and during World War II was the classic nineteenth-century understanding19 of it as impartiality and the legal duties thereof.20 Those notions go back well before World War I and were rooted in the political and diplomatic approaches of Pacelli’s predecessors, Pius XI and especially Benedict XV, the World War I pope. Having served the Catholic Church evers since 1899, Pacelli’s experience with neutraltiy as an impartial attitude toward belligerents dates to the same time. It was formed and tested in his high-ranking “Foreign Service” experiences as a Papal Nuncio to Germany during and after the war and his position as Cardinal Secretary of State from 1930 until

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his election as Pope in 1939.21 He was closely involved in the creation of the Lateran Pacts of 1929, which not only granted the Vatican’s sovereignty under international law but simultaneously functioned as the instrument of its neutralization through Article 24: In regard to the sovereignty appertaining to it also in the international realm, the Holy See declares that it desires to remain and will remain outside of any temporal rivalries between other States and the international congresses called to settle such matters, unless the contending parties make a mutual appeal to its mission of peace; it reserves to itself in any case the right to exercise its moral and spiritual power. Consequently, Vatican City will always and in every case be considered neutral and inviolable territory.22

It is telling that this article, which is the legal backbone of the Vatican’s perpetual neutrality, in the same breath, explicitly establishes the principle that “moral and spiritual power” was distinct from political power and that only the latter was touched by the Holy See’s pledge of neutrality. In other words, the Vatican had made sure that the duty to remain neutral would not be interpreted by its treaty partner Italy as to extend into the moral realm. Neutrality was a purely legal affair, and although there are some considerations for which the Vatican’s right to call itself a neutral could be disputed, that would amount to legalistic hairsplitting.23 Much like Switzerland or Sweden, the Vatican was a well-established neutral when World War II began with a proven track-record thereof. The conflagration of the Vatican’s legal status as a neutral with perceived moral duties is neither a new phenomenon nor is it restricted to considerations about Nazi Germany only. Allegations of collusion with “the wrong side” have been made during World War II and later by both sides of the conflict. Consequently, a discussion about the Vatican’s relations with the Japanese Empire is helpful because it illuminates the foreign policy of the Holy See and its usage of neutrality during World War II outside the realm of Nazi atrocities.

THE VATICAN AND THE JAPANESE EMPIRE Whereas many western nations initiated diplomatic contact with Japan shortly after its forced opening in 185324 (many of the “unequal treaties” were concluded in the late 1850’s and throughout the 1860’s), the first official contact by the Vatican was initiated only in 1885.25 Diverging interests had to do with the relatively slow and late approach: Most European and American nations sought contact with Japan for the sake of trading benefits. The Vatican, on the

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other hand, had a different foreign policy objective—Christianization—and that was carried out for the Holy See even without its direct intervention. France, Portugal, and Spain had historically protected and furthered the cause of Catholicism in their colonies. For the case of China, for example, France carried out a “protectorate” for the Vatican over its missionaries. The Holy See had, therefore, no urgent need to expand its own diplomatic efforts eastward.26 That changed only with the pontificate of Leo XIII who, in 1885, simultaneously approached China and Japan by way of letters to their emperors, suggesting official relations between the Vatican and their empires.27 Although the Japanese side unofficially agreed to the Pope’s proposal, the written answer took three years and was ambiguous in its intentions. In the end, no embassies were established, and relations remained indirect through the help of an Apostolic Delegate, in Tokyo and the help of third powers.28 There were moments, however, when those traditions became an impediment to official diplomatic contacts between the Vatican and Asian nations. Fearing it would lose in diplomatic leverage if it gave up its function as protector of Catholic missionaries in China, France repeatedly stood in the way of the establishment of direct diplomatic contact between the Vatican and the middle kingdom.29 Equally, the United States was impeding the Vatican’s cause of Catholic Christianization when it ousted Catholic Spain in 1898 from the Philippines, the colonial territory with the largest Christian population in all of Asia and Catholicism’s stronghold there. In short, although the Vatican had made overtures to several Asian nations and colonial territories, it did not succeed in building up its own, proper diplomacy. It had to continuously rely on the good Christian will of other powers to further its causes. That, however, meant forfeiting the prestige of official diplomatic recognition—which was not a minor issue, considering the embattled legal status of the Vatican in the late nineteenth century.30 By the 1930s the Vatican’s hopes for direct diplomatic ties with Asian countries and the growth of Catholicism there increased again. There were reasonable prospects for several colonial states to gain their independence within the next decades and thereby change local policies that were an impediment to Vatican diplomacy. Especially with the independence of the Philippines expected to be achieved within a decade, and more nations to follow, the chances for direct contact between the Vatican and the new nations seemed good.31 Also ideologically, the Vatican was not badly received by officials in Meiji-Japan, as historian Iacobelli noted; “Catholicism enjoyed a better position among other [Christian] denominations owing to its condition of being a highly hierarchical religion where the principles of discipline and unity among its members suited the spirit of this Asian empire better. (. . .) Protestant denominations were seen as divisional and less truthful.”32 In conjunction with the relatively liberal religious laws in Meiji-Japan, there

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were no formidable challenges to Catholic missionaries. The first serious and notoriously enduring issue for Vatican diplomacy in Asia only emerged when Japan altered the status quo of the regional international relations. Relations with Manchukuo After the Japanese Army attacked Chinese military locations around the railway station of Mukden on September 18, 1931, and captured the entire city within a day, their forces continued an unprecedented military expansion into North-Eastern China, splitting the territory known in the West as Manchuria from the rest of the Chinese mainland. Within five months the Japanese organized local politicians to declare the territories independence from the rest of China and by September 1932 Japan was the first country to officially recognize the newly formed “Manchukuo” state as a sovereign entity. Manchukuo was by any standards a Japanese vassal state under a puppet government that would not have been able to exist had it not been for Japanese forces in the territory.33 The events led to an outcry in China about the unjustified violation of its territorial integrity and sovereignty. Within days the Chinese took the matter to the League of Nations in Geneva which, by December, organized a special session to deal exclusively with an incident that many have called “a war in all but name.”34 The league organized an independent fact-finding mission, calling for all parties to halt the violence and refused to recognize any changes to the status quo ante. By early 1933 the League issued a resolution condemning Japan for its illegal acts, prompting the latter to solemnly walk out of the League, being the first country to quit its membership in the young international organization. For the fourteen years that Manchukuo existed, it was a chief objective of Japan’s foreign policy to gain recognition for its vassal state by other nations. The Vatican was drawn into the dispute because of its unofficial diplomatic ties with both nations (also in China an Apostolic Delegate was present), its missionaries and the flocks of Catholics in all territories. Lu Zhengxiang, former Chinese foreign minister and high-ranking diplomat who happened to be also a Catholic priest wrote to Pope Pius XI the day after the Japanese intrusion to Manchuria that “[i]f the pacifying voice of your Holiness can be heard by the two parties, the whole world and future generations will be grateful for it.”35 Furthermore, Lu proposed mediation by the Holy See and convinced W.W. Yen,36 China’s Ambassador to the League of Nations to also reach out to the Vatican for its condemnation of Japanese actions on February 6, 1932. It was Pacelli who answered both telegrams with sympathy but rejected their requests to take sides or even mediate in the ongoing conflict.37 Only two weeks later, Pacelli was contacted by Manchukuo’s Ambassador

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to Japan, General Ting and with that began an extended period of something that can only be described as a diplomatic balancing act with errors and misunderstandings; the nomination of August Gaspais, the apostolic vicar of Jilin as a “representative” of the Catholic Church to Manchukuo. On the one hand, Japanese propaganda used to claim that Gaspasi’s mandate amounted to Manchukuo’s diplomatic recognition by the Holy See, and so do some contemporary commentators, but the situation was anything but clear. The debate was especially delicate to the pontificate of Pius XII because Eugenio Pacelli, when still Cardinal, became State Secretary, the highest-ranking Vatican diplomat (after the Pope), in 1930 already.38 The leadership of the Vatican was, of course, aware of the delicacy of the situation; even though Manchukuo was a fait-accompli with Chinese authorities having no influence over it at all and Catholic missionaries as well as their congregations living in a state under de facto Japanese control, sending a diplomat to Manchukuo would have meant defiance to the Vatican’s own principle to not recognize border changes during times of hostilities39 and defiance of the League of Nations.40 Also, the situation of Catholics in Manchukuo was not bad as reports from the orders on Manchuria attested. Freedom of religion was not curtailed, and the performance of the apostolic missions was satisfying.41 Why therefore would the Vatican risk a diplomatic fallout? The confusing part about the Gaspais is twofold; the different actors involved in the nomination and the status of his mandate. Firstly, there were at least three different authorities that had something to do with his nomination; Pope Pius XI, the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli and the Prefect of the Propaganda Congregation,42 Cardinal Fumasoni-Biondi. Cardinal Fumasoni was, in fact, the former Apostolic Delegate to Tokyo and known as a “Japanophile.”43 After several hesitations, Fumasoni decided to give Gaspais the instruction to commence discussions with Manchukuo’s authorities as a representative of the Catholic orders there.44 That is where the second ambiguity comes in; what did Gaspais “representation” mean? In Vatican diplomacy, the highest diplomatic rank which necessarily goes along with a de jure recognition of another government is that of a “Nuncio,” which is the equivalent of an Ambassador. Not even Tokyo or Beijing was on that diplomatic level with the Holy See, so that was completely and utterly out of question. Their representatives were Apostolic Delegates, a semi-diplomatic position45 comparable to that of a Chargé d’Affaires that comes, however, without accreditation but with a diplomatic passport. The question, therefore, was whether Gaspais had the status of an Apostolic Delegate or not, since that would imply a tacit de facto recognition of Manchukuo’s government. Since the official nomination as an Apostolic Delegate would have had to run through Cardinal Pacelli’s office, which it did not, Gaspais cannot be viewed as an official diplomat of the Vatican, at least for the year 1934. Also,

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Fumasoni made it clear that Gaspais’ mandate was to serve as the liaison office of the local Catholic orders with the Manchukuo Government to further the cause of its missionary work, and not to negotiate in with the Government of Manchukuo in the name of the Vatican itself.46 On the other hand, Cardinal Fumasoni was under no illusions; he did not give Gaspais direct instructions for his work but sent him to Japan to meet with the Apostolic Delegate to Tokyo, Paolo Marella. From him, Gaspais received directions for his mission and a Japanese interpreter who would serve in the negotiations with the Manchukuo authorities.47 This fact alone speaks volumes about the clarity and pragmatism with which Marella understood the work of his compatriot in Manchukuo. All negotiations of actual importance would take place in Japanese, not Chinese. After the State Secretariat acknowledged the reception of a telegram from the Manchukuo government, announcing the enthronement of its Emperor (Puyi) and the return of Gaspais to Manchukuo, Japanese media took advantage of the situation, announcing in several articles that the Vatican had recognized the new state. That was when Pacelli realized that interpretations of the Vatican’s acts might have gotten out of control and needed correction. On June 7, Cardinal Fumasoni was received by Pius XI, and it was decided that all future Manchukuo affairs would also pass through the State Secretariat. Pius XI was of the opinion that although it was good to have a liaison officer in Manchukuo, he should not have been chosen directly by the Prefect of the Propaganda Congregation, Fumasoni, but would have better been selected as a “spokesperson” for the local orders among the order members themselves.48 From then on and for the next few years, the State Secretariat tried to exercise more caution with its actions, refraining from giving the impression that Gaspais was an Apostolic Delegate. Manchukuo and Japanese officials, however, took the liberty of interpreting him as such repeatedly and Gaspais who, according to his own reports, felt honored by the warm, cordial receptions he received in Hsinking, the new capital, failed to correct them. Consequently, there are numerous documents from the Japanese side which point to Gaspasi’s role as a representative of the Vatican, instead of talking about him as the representative of Manchukuo’s Catholic missions.49 In retrospect, Sibre concludes, a mix of cordial feelings to Japan by Fumasoni and Marella as well as the political organization of the Vatican’s institutions and the naïve approach by Gaspais toward his mandate led to a situation in which, for years, Japanese and Manchukuo authorities were able to use their relations with the Vatican propagandistically, claiming that the Holy See had recognized Manchukuo’s sovereignty when that, in fact, had never formally happened, neither de jure nor de facto. Until 1939 the Vatican was interested in keeping a strategic ambiguity toward the status of Manchukuo since its primary interest was good relations

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for its missionaries in the area, while not offending the League of Nations. It is also evident, however, that with the demise of the latter the Propaganda Congregation and the State Secretariat felt less restrained than before. In 1937, after Germany had extended its de jure recognition of Manchukuo and Francoist Spain was on the way to do the same,50 funds were made available to build a residence for the unofficial representative (Gaspais) in Hsinking, decorations were bestowed mutually on the highest officials of the Vatican and Manchukuo and, on September 10, 1938, Pope Pius XI and the State Secretariat (Pacelli) received the Extraordinary Manchu Ambassador who was traveling to Italy in full state honors. It was the strongest sign yet for the Vatican’s recognition of Manchukuo. At the same time, however, it must be mentioned that the State Secretariat gave up an idea that had circulated to create a missionary district for Manchukuo, separate from the rest of China. Officially, the Chinese and Manchukuo orders still belonged together.51 Despite all the cordial exchanges, the Vatican, officially, remained uncommitted. Considering Cardinal Pacelli’s long involvement in the affair, it comes as no surprise that there were no fundamental shifts in the Vatican’s approach toward Manchukuo when he was elected to succeed Pius XI in 1939. Pacelli, now Pius XII together with the new Cardinal Secretary of State, Luigi Maglione and Cardinal Fumasoni kept deliberating whether or not Gaspais should be officially named “Apostolic Delegate” to Manchukuo but came to no conclusion until the end of the war. Only in 1946, after the puppet state had been dismantled for good and the question had lost all relevance, Pacelli finally indicated in a private letter to his faithful compatriot Gaspais that he had been considering him as the “representative of the missions and the de facto Apostolic Delegate.”52 Whether these were but encouraging words for his Catholic brother at the eve of retirement, or Pacelli’s real stance in the Gaspais affairs, will remain his secret. Relations with Japan The second issue that deserves close attention is the way the Vatican treated Japan proper. As noted above, the Holy See had been stationing an Apostolic Delegate, in Tokyo for a long time and there was of course no question about the recognition of Japan in the same sense as there was for Manchukuo. The issue in the case of Japan was to which degree diplomatic relations between the Empire and the Vatican should exist? After all, it had been a goal of the Hole See ever since its first outreach sixty years earlier to have Ambassadorial level relations, which would have meant either upgrading the Apostolic Delegate’s status to that of a Papal Nuncio, receiving a permanent Japanese ambassador to the Vatican—or both. The point of such an exchange

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had almost been reached in 1922 when, after the departure of Monsignor Fumasoni-Biondi from Tokyo, Mario Giardini became the new Apostolic Delegate. The change induced a renewed interest of the Japanese court in the Vatican. Giardini was received by the Prince Regnant Hirohito—the man to be crowned Emperor four years later—and honored with state decorations. Also, the Foreign Ministry took advantage of the momentum, proposing full diplomatic ties with the Vatican through a permanent mission. The plan had almost succeeded, had not Buddhist opposition in the parliament managed to sink the budget proposal.53 In 1924/5 a second attempt to elevate relations, this time only by naming Giardini a Papal Nuncio, which would not require a budget, was initiated by the Japanese government but again narrowly failed to overcome bureaucratic technicalities that Buddhists raised to block the advance. Both times the Holy See had given its approval the plans beforehand.54 There were a few more overtures from both sides on the question in the 1920’s and 1930’s, mainly initiated by the Japanese Foreign Ministry, the Vatican’s secretariat of state or privately by their diplomats who felt strongly about working toward official relations but without producing a permanent outcome. It was not a tragedy for the Vatican to remain with the status quo because, after all, for practical purposes, the current arrangement had worked fine for decades. Not only was the Apostolic Delegate in Tokyo able to access the highest ranks of the Japanese government to communicate in the name of the Vatican and see after the protection of the Catholic missions in the country, but also Japanese dignitaries regularly passed through the Vatican when in Europe.55 It was therefore no novelty when in 1940, a year after Cardinal Pacelli was crowned Pius XII, the Japanese side became active again on the question of diplomatic relations. First unofficial feelers were extended to the Holy See in the summer of that year and, in January 1941, Yosuke Matsuoka, the diplomat who took Japan out of the League of Nations and by now had become its foreign minister, expressed himself the renewed hopes for official diplomatic relations with the Vatican to the current Apostolic Delegate in Tokyo, Monsignor Marella.56 Matsuoka was himself a Christian—a protestant—and although he was not a devoted believer in the Gospel, he understood well the usefulness of organized faith and the potential positive influence a close relationship with the Vatican would have on the perception of Japan, especially of Catholic countries in the Americas.57 Above all, Matsuoka was a highly gifted diplomat orchestrating not only the Tripartite Pact, but he was also the man who convinced Stalin to sign a neutrality pact with Japan, a detrimental factor in its later war efforts.58 The Japanese Foreign Ministry’s overtures to closer diplomatic ties with the Vatican have to be understood in this context of Matsuoka’s diplomatic offensives to embed Japan in a network of Allies and Neutrals who, in their own ways, would benefit the cause of Japan.

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The Vatican was a small neutral figure, but Matsuoka recognized it had what Adrian Hyde-Price calls the potential to “punch above its weight.”59 In this case, Matsuoka hoped for the Vatican’s influence with the US American Catholics to restrain US policies that countered Japan’s expansionism in Asia and the Pacific. Historian David Alvarez who studied the Vatican’s records that chronicle an encounter in early 1941 between Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione, and Matsuoka during a visit to its allies Germany and Italy, holds that Matsuoka was even asking for the Vatican’s help in securing the peace in Asia by convincing Roosevelt to end US support for the Chiang Kai-shek’s resistance in the Sino-Japanese war. Maglione was understandably skeptical of the prospects for any such endeavor, considering the limited influence the Holy See had over US foreign policy.60 It is unclear if Matsuoka truly believed that an official political approach by Pius XII toward Roosevelt could have any effects on the latter’s approach toward Asia. If that were the case, this would throw a new light on Matsuoka because it would show a more desperate attitude toward the avoidance of war by him than he is currently known for. However, it is more likely that the meeting with Maglione was part of the foreign minister’s overtures to the Holy See in preparations for closer relations—a form of diplomatic flattery. On the other hand, however, there were reasons for caution on the matter; just as with the case of Manchukuo, Japanese approaches toward the Vatican were definitely not the fruit of admiration for the pontiff or the well-being of the Christian church in Japan, but rooted in the opportunistic interest to use the Vatican propagandistically and, as Matsuoka had hinted, for its strong diplomatic ties with Japan’s adversaries. Marella was well aware of these circumstances and communicated them clearly to the State Secretariat.61 With the outbreak of the War in the Pacific on December 7, 1941, and the rapidly ensuing military expansion of Japan into South-East Asia, the strategic calculations on all sides changed distinctly. The State Secretariat, which had been worried about the increase of hostilities against its missionaries by Japanese Army and Police personnel, was now confronted with a situation in which suddenly not hundreds of thousands of Catholics were under the control of Japan, but millions. Especially the imminent fall of the Philippines in Spring 1942 threatened to subjugate the largest Christian nation in the Pacific to the goodwill of Japanese authorities. Under these political prospects and in a decade old tradition, the State Secretariat and Pius XII had no incentive to object when, in late January 1942, the Holy See was approached first by the counselor of the Japanese Embassy in Rome and a few days later through a telegram by Marella, that the Japanese Foreign Ministry again wished to elevate relations to official diplomatic status by sending its own “extraordinary envoy” to the Vatican. On January

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31, the State Secretariat replied that it was pleased with the request, and although it would hope for a reciprocal exchange of emissaries (i.e. the elevation of Marella to the status of a Papal Nuncio), this was not a condition, as long as Japan intended to send a permanent diplomat to the Vatican. Within three days Marella confirmed that this was indeed the wishes of the Japanese and the agreement had been made.62 Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione and Pius XII were well aware how this late policy success of theirs could be interpreted by the Allies who had been at war with Japan for two months by the time when the agreement was finalized in early February 1942. Maglione, in fact, informed both, the English representative and the American Chargé d’Affaires that Japan would be sending a permanent diplomat soon. As was to be expected, they were both less than thrilled by the news. The British answered in writing: His Holiness’ acquiescence at this moment in the appointment of a Japanese Representative to the Holy See has caused a most unfavorable impression on His Majesty’s government who find it difficult to reconcile the decision with the frequent Vatican professions deploring the extension of the war.63

As is evident from these lines, the British almost immediately interpreted the extension of diplomatic relations to Japan at this point not as a success of a long-held Vatican foreign policy goal, but as a deplorable act of acquiescence to Japan’s war-mongering. The US State Department (correctly) understood that this act granted another diplomatic victory to Japan in the propaganda war64 and Undersecretary of State, Summer Welles, expressed his strongest feelings of dissatisfaction to the Papal representative in Washington. President Roosevelt himself got involved in the diplomatic fallout of the affair when he expressed his “disbelief” in the decision of Pius XII to support Japan’s wartime diplomacy.65 The United States and the British both did not take into consideration that the Vatican had de facto diplomatic relations with Japan proper for many decades through the Apostolic Delegates in Tokyo and that the current step was merely an improvement of existing relations to the Vatican, not an entirely new arrangement or the condoning of Japanese aggressions. Pius XII himself replied to the protest from Washington, explaining that the protection of Catholics in the Japanese occupied territories now had the greatest importance to the Holy See and that political considerations did not motivate the decision.66 However, these letters did not alter the feeling of indignation that Britain and the United States expressed. They both had a war to fight in which their own side was so evidently the just side that any move to the contrary could not possibly be greeted with anything less than outrage. Charles Gallagher sums the Allies’ feelings up most succinctly:

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Pope Pius XII was lining up the Holy See on the wrong side of the wartime equation. “We have supreme confidence in victory because we know that we are right,” Hurley announced in a speech over NBC exactly one month earlier. Even the Soviet Union was “on the right side in this war of good against evil.” Yet the Vatican was about to establish diplomatic relations with imperial Japan.67

The Allied outrage, although not taking into account the position of the Vatican, is understandable in their own perspective. What is interesting, however, is that the Japanese side, although satisfied with the potentially improved diplomatic situation, was not even seeking for the greatest possible impact propagandistically. Not only did the Foreign Ministry reject the State Secretary’s suggestion to elevate the position of Marella to that of a Papal Nuncio, but Tokyo also tried to be careful with its choice of a diplomat to the Vatican. It did not, in fact, appoint an ambassador to the Vatican but only an “Extraordinary Representative.” The designation was, ironically, modeled after the special arrangement the United States had with the Vatican through its “Extraordinary Representative” Myron Taylor.68 The Japanese Foreign Ministry named Ken Harada, Legation Secretary first class at the Japanese legation in Switzerland as the designated representative.69 Japan was, in other words, cautious not to make the new relationship “too cordial,” probably for fear of unwanted side effects like the stronger influence of the Vatican over Catholics in Japan, which was, after all, something that the current policies of the Empire wanted to curtail rather than further. Such subtleties were lost on the United States and the British who could not (or did not want to) interpret the Vatican’s decision as anything but an act against their interests. The State Secretariat was surprised since even its explanations that to protect Catholics in Asia, relations with Japan were even more important now (because Japan controlled large parts of the Pacific region) did not help to defuse tensions with the Allies. However, there was certainly also no going back on the decision. Instead, Pius XII and Cardinal Maglione concluded that a strategy of open communication about the affair was the best way forward. They instructed their diplomats around the world to explain the Papal decision proactively to their host governments and to inform the general public through the Vatican’s radio and newspaper outlets.70 A chance to mend fences with the Allies presented itself within a few days because the Chinese government in Chungking, against which Japan was still fighting a bitter war, seized on the opportunity to also improve its relations with the Vatican.71 By the end of March 1942, the Chinese, supported by the United States, requested to send a diplomatic delegate to the Vatican. The Allies hoped to turn Japan’s propaganda stunt thereby against itself because Japan did not recognize the Chungking government, arguing that only a collaborationist Chinese Government in Nanking was the official

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representative of the Chinese state. The Chungking and US plan succeeded because Pius XII, in accordance with the Vatican’s objectives, was in fact glad for the offer because it would mean even more direct contact to a belligerent party for the sake of his missions in Asia.72 When the news broke in April, it was this time the Japanese who protested strongly. Marella advised the State Secretariat against any recognition of a Chungking representative, since this might severely influence the opinion of Japanese officials against the Catholic Church. After the first storm of protest was over, Cardinal Maglione sent, almost ironically, a similar sounding note to Tokyo, explaining, as he did to the United States and Great Britain, that requests from friendly governments could not be rejected and that the purpose of the recognition was for the sake of Catholics in the territories in question, not for political considerations in which the Vatican was impartial.73 Was it not for the grave circumstances, the constant back and forth over the indignation of all belligerents has an almost comical character and it is unclear whether the Vatican was the beneficiary or the sufferer of the developments. In this regard, there exists a fascinating account of the Japanese side, voiced by representative Ken Harada. He sent his first political report back to Tokyo on May 27, 1942, via telegram. It is highly relevant not only because it depicts Harada’s perception of the Vatican’s diplomacy, but it also gives insight into the major policy goals that the Japanese sought to achieve. The note is here reproduced almost in its entire length: 1. The Vatican, in view of the spiritual power which it exercises over the Catholics scattered throughout all countries of the world, is in a position where it does not dare to compromise its moral authority by taking sides in this present world situation. Since the outbreak of the war the Vatican has exercised the most scrupulous care to maintain its position of neutrality. Therefore, that there is a tendency for the Vatican not to lightly adopt its attitude to the present situation cannot be gainsaid. The German and Italian Ambassadors are not attempting to appreciate this tendency and that complicates matters. (…) [2.] 74 It goes without saying that the Vatican wields tremendous influence in Catholic countries (including the South American countries). The German government’s anti-Catholic attitude has tended to create an anti-Axis sentiment in South America. Recently the Italian Government requested the Pope to use his influence to dispel this feeling but the Pope declined (Prunas75 told me this). In view of the Vatican’s policy of strict neutrality and ultra-conservatism it is difficult to conjecture to what extent it may be using its influence in a political way. Furthermore, in regard to the problem of a representative from Chungking the influence that the public opinion of the Catholics within the United States exercises on the Vatican

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is tremendous and hence relations between America and the Vatican are worthy of notice. 2. The establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the Japanese Empire and the Vatican at this time was a matter of great satisfaction to the Vatican. This fact has been brought home to me over and again since my arrival here. At the time I presented my credentials the Pope granted me a private interview and expressed his satisfaction over my appointment. In fact my reception at the Vatican was so warm that it aroused the jealousy of Britain and America, it was rumored. On the other hand it is rumored in foreign diplomatic circles here that the Vatican is the gainer in this establishment of relations between the Vatican and Japan. 3. Summing it all up I would say that we should not concentrate our attention wholly upon immediate benefits to be reaped from this relationship with the Vatican but should strive to “impress” the Vatican with our impartial attitude as you stated in your #157 to Vichy. If, in our Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, we do the best we can to cooperate with the Vatican in our relations to Catholic policy, we shall find it to be most advantageous later on when we wish to use the Vatican to accomplish our own ends.76 The telegram represents an astounding proof to the effectiveness of the Vatican’s approach to shape perceptions. Its declared policy of neutrality, together with the very clear goals for which it first invited Harada as a representative, shaped the latter’s own approach toward his government to argue for the good treatment of Catholics in the countries Japan occupied. Pope Pius XII, in other words, managed to pull Harada into his boat and have him support the prime cause for which relations were established. It furthermore attests that, contrary to what Marella in Tokyo believed, at least Japan’s diplomats understood very well the field of forces in which the Vatican had to operate and that its policy of neutrality meant not to align its diplomacy with goals of either side of the conflict, but seek the fulfillment of its own objectives. Naturally, Harada had to follow the orders of his government and, even after this report, tried to convince Pius XII and State Secretary Maglione not to receive a representative from Chungking. He failed. In January 1943, the Vatican received a Chinese Minister Plenipotentiary as representative of the Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist government.77 Neither did Harada succeed in convincing the Holy See to accept (in yet another twist) a representative from Nanking or Manchukuo. This was the place were Pius XII drew a line. No governments formed during hostilities would be recognized de jure before their status had not been confirmed through international treaties.78 Neutral or not, the Vatican would not step over its own diplomatic red lines.

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CONCLUSION In 1943 Japan’s initial victories in the Pacific War started to turn sour. Its military situation deteriorated on all fronts, culminating in Allied attacks on its homeland, the Atomic Bombs and the entry of the USSR into the war, prompting Japan’s unconditional surrender within a week. Japanese hopes that the Vatican (or other neutrals) could help to broker a negotiated Peace Agreement never materialized, and once General MacArthur began the occupation of Japan, all diplomatic channels were ordered to seize operations. After only four years, the Vatican lost its diplomatic relations with Japan again because the latter was not sovereign anymore. Equally, Manchukuo became a thing of the past. The above discusion about the Vatican’s diplomacy toward wartime Japan reveals a few important aspects for the evaluation of Pius XII and his policy of neutrality. Firstly, the accreditation of Ken Harada was not meant as an unfriendly act against Allied powers or the condoning of Japanese aggression. It lay fairly and squarely within the interests that the Vatican had been trying to achieve for more than sixty years. On the contrary, from the Vatican’s perspective, it would have been a surprise had Pius XII let this opportunity slip away to have closer relations with Tokyo. It also made sense regarding the Vatican’s own understanding of its neutrality as impartiality toward political developments of belligerent nations. Bowing to either US or Japanese wishes not to extend its diplomatic recognition to the opposing belligerent in the war would have meant accepting the political values and, ultimately, the policy of either of the two belligerents. Besides that, the interpretation that the Vatican established diplomatic relations with Japan (or China) is itself dubious in the light of the fact that Apostolic Delegates had been stationed there for many decades before. The question was not if the Vatican recognized these parties—only how closely it wished to bind itself to them. Secondly, the Manchukuo question presents itself in an entirely different light as it did not play out in the context of the Pacific War, during which the Holy See clearly rejected all advances for more recognition. For Manchukuo, the question is if the Vatican let itself be instrumentalized for Japan’s illegitimate nation-building project? On the one hand, there are indications for such a conclusion, but on the other, the debate whether the Vatican had in fact recognized Manchukuo or not is one of degree—not yes or no. De jure, Pius XI and his Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli, never extended any form of recognition to Manchukuo. Even regarding de facto recognition, the Vatican tried to avoid any official statements. For the sake of its influence over the missionary work in the Manchurian territory, Monsignor Gaspais was ordered to function as a liaison officer, but his status was kept even below that of an Apostolic Delegate, rendering guesses about the Vatican’s

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position ambiguous at best. The whole affair had little to do with the Vatican’s neutrality under international law, much more with it as a sovereign state, unless one interprets neutrality in a moral sense—which Pius XI and Cardinal Pacelli did not. Both instances point toward a remarkable consistency in Vatican diplomacy toward Asia, spanning over the lifetime of several popes. Regarding the debates of the “Pius War,” they seem to indicate that at least for the Pacific Theater, one cannot talk of Pacelli as having lined-up on the “wrong side of history,” but merely on its own side. Finally, for the Vatican’s notion of neutrality during World War II, it is safe to stay that neutrality to Pacelli meant, above all, political impartiality, and nothing more. NOTES 1. The Lateran Treaty was part of a bundle of bilateral agreements between the Vatican and fascist-controlled Kingdom of Italy. They established Vatican City as an independent and sovereign territory with no historical claims to the older Papal State that seized to exist with the secular unification of Italy in the nineteenth century. See on this: Peter C. Kent, The Pope and the Duce: The International Impact of the Lateran Agreements (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981). 2. The older and more comprehensive study is a journal article by David J. Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” The Historian 40, no. 3 (1978). The other secondary source is a short, five-page sub-chapter in Pierre Blet, Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican, trans. Lawrence J. Johnson (New York: Paulist Press, 1999), 127–132. 3. Olivier Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952) [The Holy See and the Far East (China, Korea, Japan): From Leo XIII to Pius XII (1880–1952)] (Roma: École Française de Rome, 2012). For his research on the Vatican’s relationship with Manchukuo, on which this chapter relies on, Sibre is himself the beneficiary of extensive primary sources gathered by Giovanni Coco who wrote an extensive volume on the subject: Giovanni Coco, Santa Sede e Manchukuò (Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2006). 4. John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2000). 5. See, for example, the Prologue of Robert Ventresca, Soldier of Christ the Life of Pope Pius XII (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013). And for a short book review about some developments in the recent past see Martin Menke, “The ‘Pius Wars’: Review of Besier, Gerhard,the Holy See and Hitler’s Germany,” H-Net Reviews (2010). 6. The publications are too numerous to mention them all, but the main books critical of the pope and the Vatican (apart from Cornwell) are: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair (New York: Random House, 2002); James Carroll, Constantine’s

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Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); Susan Zuccotti, Under His very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000); Michael Phayer, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000). 7. The most outstanding two publications defending Pius XII and the Vatican are, in order of their appearance: David G. Dalin, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2005); Ronald J. Rychlak, Hitler, the War and the Pope (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 2000). Other important responses to the critics include: Righteous Gentiles: How Pius XII and the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews from the Nazis (Dallas: Spence Publishing, 2005); Joseph Bottum and David G. Dalin, The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2004). 8. There is an interesting public talk by Professor Ronald Rychlak, the academic who has come out as the main defender of Pope Pius XII against the attacks by Cornwell and others in which he also explains how even the book cover of Cornwell’s US book edition is shamefully misleading: Ronald Rychlak, “Hitler, the War, & the Pope,” YouTube video, 1:23:47, posted by “Sensus Fidelium,” April 6, 2016, youtube. com/watch?v=uFIJIw3VxF8. 9. Joseph Bottum, “The End of the Pius Wars,” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (2004): 18. 10. Mark Riebling, Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War against Hitler (New York: Basic Books, 2015); Ventresca, Soldier of Christ the Life of Pope Pius XII. 11. In 2010 a two-episode miniseries of 200 minutes total runtime was produced, starting James Cromwell as Pope Pius XII. See: Christian Duguay, Pius XII: Under the Roman Sky (Italy: Lux vide, Rai Fiction & EOS entertainment, 2010). 12. Frank J. Coppa, “Pope Pius XII: From the Diplomacy of Impartiality to the Silence of the Holocaust,” Journal of Church and State 55, no. 2 (2013): 299. 13. Dalin, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis; “Pius XII and the Jews,” The Weekly Standard, February 26, 2001; Bottum and Dalin, The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII. 14. Bottum, “The End of the Pius Wars,” 18. 15. Intelligence Squared, “Hitler’s Pope: Pius XII did too little too save the Jews from the Holocaust,” Youtube Video, 1:33:54, posted by “iqsquared,” November 16, 2012. youtube.com/watch?v=gHr0M7C_o3E Quote from minute 24–25. 16. See the following passages: Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, 284, 291. 17. Ibid., 223. 18. John F. Pollard, “The Papacy in Two World Wars: Benedict XV and Pius XII Compared,” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 2, no. 3 (2001). See also the introduction of Charles R. Gallagher, Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). 19. On nineteenth-century neutrality, see: Maartje M. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 20. Coppa, “Pope Pius XII: From the Diplomacy of Impartiality to the Silence of the Holocaust.”

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21. Pollard, “The Papacy in Two World Wars: Benedict XV and Pius XII Compared”; Coppa, “Pope Pius XII: From the Diplomacy of Impartiality to the Silence of the Holocaust.” 22. Vatican City State, “Treaty between the Holy See and Italy,” in Laws of Vatican City State (Rome, 1929). Article 24. www.v​atica​nstat​e.va/​conte​nt/da​m/vat​ icans​tate/​docum​enti/​leggi​-e-de​creti​/Norm​ative​-Pena​li-e-​Ammin​istra​tive/​Later​anTre​ aty.p​df. 23. The Vatican, for example, does not fulfill the criteria for a fully sovereign nation under the Montevideo Treaty, and the tiny military force of the Swiss Guard seems tantamount to the acceptance of a foreign military on neutral soil. 24. On Mathew Perry’s forced opening of Japan and the aftermath of it see: Mark Ravina, To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan’s Meiji Restoration in World History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). 25. On other European nations and their first contacts with Japan see: Florentino Rodao, “Relaciones Hispano-Japonesas, 1937–1945” (Doctoral Thesis, Universidad Compultense de Madrid, 1993); Pascal Lottaz, “Neutral States and Wartime Japan: The Diplomacy & Foreign Policy of Sweden, Spain and Switzerland toward the Empire” (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, 2018). 26. In the middle of the nineteenth century the Vatican was in any event preoccupied with the problems that the Italian unification posed in regard to its international status. 27. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 15–23. 28. Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” 508–509. 29. Ibid., 508. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 23–52. 30. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 59. 31. Florentino Rodao, Franquistas sin Franco: Una Historia alternativa de la Guerra Civil Española desde Filipinas (Granada: Comares, 2012), 54–56. 32. Pedro Iacobelli, “The Vatican’s Shift of Its Missionary Policy in the Twentieth Century: The Mission of the Augustinian Fathers of the Assumption in Manchuria,” Asian Cultural Studies 36 (2010): 102. 33. The Japanese version of the events that lead to the creation of Manchukuo is fascinating for its Euphemisms: “[T]he Japanese Army (. . .) was forced to protect the railroad after Chinese troops attempted to blow it up. This led, during the following day, to a complete disintegration of the existent Chinese government. (. . .) Many officials, high and low, disappeared overnight, so that the Japanese Army had to take control to avoid complete anarchy. But the Japanese authorities immediately made it known that they had no intention of assuming governmental authority in Manchuria and they called upon local Chinese to organize themselves and to take over the responsibility of maintaining order.” Source: Japanese Chamber of Commerce of New York. “Manchukuo; the Founding of the New State in Manchuria,” (1933), 3. https​://hd​l.han​dle.n​et/20​27/md​p.390​15019​34442​6. 34. See for example: Comment of O. Unden in League of Nations Official Journal, “Records of the Special Session of the Assembly: Convened in virtue of Article 15

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of the Covenant at the Request of the Chinese Government,” (1932), 38, Comment of M. Yen in “Records of the Special Session of the Assembly: Convened in Virtue of Article 15 of the Covenant at the Request of the Chinese Government,” (Geneva, 1932), 13, and the final verdict of the Lytton Report: Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer-Lytton and League of Nations, “Appeal by the Chinese Government. Supplementary Documents to the Report of the Commission of Enquiry,” (Geneva: League of Nations Publications, 1932), 138. 35. Lu Zhengxiang to Pope Pius XI. Quoted in: Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’ExtrêmeOrient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 584. (Source in French, translated by P. Lottaz). 36. Weiching Williams Yen, also known as Yan Huiqing. 37. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 584–585. 38. Ibid., 583. 39. Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” 518. 40. However, the Vatican was not a member of the League of Nations due to its strong commitments to secular values. 41. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 586. 42. The official name was “Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith” and can be thought of as something like a “Ministry of Missionary Affairs” of the Vatican since it represents the political department of the Vatican that is charged with the task of overseeing the functioning of all missionary work in non-Christian countries. It has vast powers to deal with foreign affairs of missionary character and was renamed in 1967 the “Congregation for Evangelization of Peoples.” 43. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 587. 44. Ibid., 589. 45. Geoffrey Berridge and Lorna Lloyd, The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Diplomacy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 10. 46. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 589. 47. Ibid., 591–592. 48. Ibid., 594–595. 49. Ibid., 595–600. 50. On Franco’s “recognition bargain” see: Rodao, “Relaciones Hispano-Japonesas, 1937–1945,” 160–180; Florentino Rodao, “Japan and the Axis, 1937–8: Recognition of the Franco Regime and Manchukuo,” Journal of Contemporary History 44, no. 3 (2009); Pascal Lottaz, “Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan,” New Global Studies 11, no. 2 (2017). 51. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 603. 52. Ibid., 606.

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53. Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” 509; Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 115–121. 54. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 521–523. 55. Ibid., 123–129. 56. Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” 509. 57. David John Lu, Agony of Choice: Matsuoka Yōsuke and the Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1880–1946 (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2002), 7; Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” 509. 58. See Pascal Lottaz’ chapter in this volume. 59. Adrian Hyde-Price, “Geopolitics and the Concept of Neutrality in Contemporary Europe,” in Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, ed. Heinz Gaertner (Lanham: Lexington, 2017), 129. 60. Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” 510. 61. Ibid., 511. 62. Blet, Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican, 127–128. {Sibre, 2012@127–129}. 63. Note from British Minister to the Vatican, D’Arcy Osborne to Cardinal of the State Secretariat Maglione, dated February 23, 1942. As cited in: ibid., 128–129. 64. See on this also {Alvarez, 1978 #1084@512–514}. 65. Blet, Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican, 130. 66. Ibid. 67. Gallagher, Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII, 135–136. 68. Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” 512. 69. Sibre (153) says that Harada was a Counselor at the Embassy in France but Alvarez (517) claims he was accredited to Switzerland. Also in the Swiss Archives, Harada figures as Legation Secretary of first rank. See dossier: E2001D#1000/1551#1179* Harada, Ken, 1. Sekretär (1939). Swiss​-arch​ives.​ch/de​tail.​aspx?​ID=16​81552​. 70. Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” 515. 71. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 153–155. 72. Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” 517. 73. Blet, Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican, 131; Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 154–160. 74. Numbering omitted in the original telegram. 75. Renato Prunas, Minister Plenipotentiary, Second Class (as of 1939) and General Director for transoceanic affairs at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 76. National Archives and Records Administration—Record group-457. Entry9006UD. Bx. 1, Magic Summaries 2 Jun. 1942. “Report from the Japanese Representative at the Vatican, May 27, 1942.”

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77. Sibre, La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880–1952), 160. 78. Alvarez, “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941–1943,” 518.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbenhuis, Maartje M. An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815−1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Alvarez, David J. “The Vatican and the War in the Far East, 1941−1943.” The Historian 40, no. 3 (1978): 508. Berridge, Geoffrey, and Lorna Lloyd. The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Diplomacy. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. doi:10.1057/9781137017611. Blet, Pierre. Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican. Translated by Lawrence J. Johnson. New York: Paulist Press, 1999. Bottum, Joseph. “The End of the Pius Wars.” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (2004). Bottum, Joseph, and David G. Dalin. The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2004. Bulwer-Lytton, Victor Alexander George Robert, and League of Nations. Appeal by the Chinese Government. Supplementary Documents to the Report of the Commission of Enquiry. Geneva: League of Nations Publications, 1932. Carroll, James. Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Coco, Giovanni. Santa Sede e Manchukuò. Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2006. Coppa, Frank J. “Pope Pius XII: From the Diplomacy of Impartiality to the Silence of the Holocaust.” Journal of Church and State 55, no. 2 (2013): 286−306. Cornwell, John. Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII. New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2000. Dalin, David G. The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis. Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2005. ———. “Pius XII and the Jews.” The Weekly Standard, February 26, 2001. Duguay, Christian. Pius XII: Under the Roman Sky. 200 minutes. Italy: Lux vide, Rai Fiction & EOS entertainment, 2010. Gallagher, Charles R. Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair. New York: Random House, 2002. Hyde-Price, Adrian. “Geopolitics and the Concept of Neutrality in Contemporary Europe.” In Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War, edited by Heinz Gaertner. Lanham: Lexington, 2017. Iacobelli, Pedro. “The Vatican’s Shift of Its Missionary Policy in the Twentieth Century: The Mission of the Augustinian Fathers of the Assumption in Manchuria.” Asian Cultural Studies 36 (Marach 2010): 91−104.

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Kent, Peter C. The Pope and the Duce: The International Impact of the Lateran Agreements. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981. League of Nations Official Journal. “Records of the Special Session of the Assembly: Convened in Virtue of Article 15 of the Covenant at the Request of the Chinese Government.” Geneva, 1932. Lottaz, Pascal. “Neutral States and Wartime Japan: The Diplomacy & Foreign Policy of Sweden, Spain and Switzerland toward the Empire.” National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, 2018. ———. “Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan.” New Global Studies 11, no. 2 (2017): 85−100. Lu, David John. Agony of Choice: Matsuoka Yōsuke and the Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1880−1946. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2002. Menke, Martin. “The ‘Pius Wars’: Review of Besier, Gerhard, e Holy See and Hitler’s Germany.” H-Net Reviews, February, 2010. Phayer, Michael. The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930−1965. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Pollard, John F. “The Papacy in Two World Wars: Benedict XV and Pius XII Compared.” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 2, no. 3 (2001): 83−96. Ravina, Mark. To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan’s Meiji Restoration in World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Riebling, Mark. Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War against Hitler. New York: Basic Books, 2015. Rodao, Florentino. Franquistas sin Franco: Una Historia alternativa de la Guerra Civil Española desde Filipinas [in Spanish]. Granada: Comares, 2012. ———. “Japan and the Axis, 1937–8: Recognition of the Franco Regime and Manchukuo.” Journal of Contemporary History 44, no. 3 (2009/07/01 2009): 431−447. ———. “Relaciones Hispano-Japonesas, 1937−1945.” Doctoral Thesis, Universidad Compultense de Madrid, 1993. Rychlak, Ronald J. Hitler, the War and the Pope. Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 2000. ———. Righteous Gentiles: How Pius XII and the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews from the Nazis. Dallas: Spence Publishing, 2005. Sibre, Olivier. La Saint-Siège et l’Extrême-Orient (Chine, Corée, Japon): De Léon XIII à Pie XII (1880−1952) [in French] [The Holy See and the Far East (China, Korea, Japan): From Leo XIII to Pius XII (1880−1952)]. Roma: École Française de Rome, 2012. Ventresca, Robert. Soldier of Christ the Life of Pope Pius XII. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013. Zuccotti, Susan. Under His very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.

Chapter 11

The Evolution of Yugoslav Non-alignment How Yugoslavia Abandoned its Opposition to Neutrality Tvrtko Jakovina

THE CONTEXT: THE ROLE OF BELLIGERENCY IN SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE1 After Belgrade was liberated from the Wehrmacht in autumn 1944, and the marshal of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, the leader of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and prime minister of the government2 moved into the home of the exiled royal family, Yugoslavia became one of the first countries to experience the Cold War. Two opposing ideologies in Yugoslavia were already in conflict during the war because the years of violence had fundamentally transformed the state. By eliminating the prewar elite, the Nazi war machine had effectively prepared the terrain for Tito’s communists to assume power easily.3 The new elites allied the country with the Soviet Union so strongly that Yugoslavia’s revolutionary and aggressive spirit—its ideological onesidedness—was more conspicuous than any other independent communist government in Eastern Europe. Tito led the army to victory, liberating the country and enlarging its territory for the most part with Yugoslav forces alone, although the Red Army briefly entered Serbian territory to support the Yugoslavs. Tito’s political confidants were in power in Albania, while Yugoslav units had entered the territory of Austria and finally taken back that part of the eastern Adriatic coast occupied by Italy in 1921. For Tito and his political allies, it was the end of a long struggle; almost four years of war followed many years of banned activity in the Communist Party. These experiences not only hardened the Yugoslav leaders but convinced them even more of the importance and 239

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correctness of Marxist ideology. Ever after 1944, the Yugoslav government based its legitimacy on the victory in the partisan war. The fact that Tito— the leader of the powerful People’s Army—was the winner of Yugoslavia’s struggle in World War II came to play an essential role in the life of the state for the rest of its existence. Pacifism, on the other hand, was never part of the state’s official ideology and did not even correspond with its promoted national values. The fighting spirit of the Hajduk rebels, the people’s resistance to the Ottomans in past centuries, the construction of national myths about the Turks, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Venetians (Italians), and in general, all narratives of the Yugoslav struggle against foreign aggressors, were nurtured in national mythology and only grew stronger during World War II.4 A series of political decisions made already during the war and well into the first few years of peace kept Yugoslavia firmly embedded in southeastern Europe during the Cold War nurtured by a feeling of being threatened by the West. First, there was the fact that partisan units had penetrated the borders of Austria and Italy during the war. Then there was the assistance given to the Greek guerrillas, the downing of an American airplane above Slovenia, and the sending of two brigades of the Yugoslav People’s Army into Albania in 1948 as well as the signing of the Balkan pact with the Bulgarians in 1947. In this sense, not much was happening in the early post-war years to encourage the creation of neutralist ideas. The civil war in Yugoslavia that took place during the overall calamities of the Second World War led to a massive number of casualties and atrocities that did not create an atmosphere of peace in post-1944 Yugoslavia. Instead, these experiences strengthened the feeling that peace had to be fought for, and that those who died for their country were the most sacred and should be celebrated forever. While the Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote to his first ambassador in China, Krishna Menon, concerning India’s stance in the emerging Cold War that “We must be friendly to both and yet not join either,” Yugoslavia was then reaping the greatest fruits of its wartime/military alliance with the Soviet Union.5 A dramatic change to Yugoslavia’s worldview occurred in 1948 when the USSR expelled it from the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) but thanks to Yugoslavia’s resistance and Western support, Tito’s Government was able to establish Yugoslavia as the first European socialist state, independent of the USSR.6 In the beginning, however, Belgrade found itself in a political wilderness. Yugoslavia was no longer the most self-confident state in Eastern Europe, nor could it continue to serve as the seat of the Cominform or appeal to the outside world as the country that wanted to be ahead of the Soviet Union regarding the Marxist transformation of society. Overnight it had been turned into a marginal European state surrounded by BRIGAMA7— “troubles”—that appeared like enemies from north to south. Alone in this

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new situation, entering into another armed conflict was practically unthinkable despite a military machine that had remained strong.8 A change in its foreign policy was the result of that reasoning but the fact that Yugoslavia backed down from supporting the Greek guerrillas, actively opposed Stalin’s USSR, and soon turned to the West for aid did not mean that it had given up on the ideology that Tito and his followers advocated. So, on February 22, 1950, and despite warnings from the West, Yugoslavia announced that it would recognize the Ho Chi Minh government, only to be severely attacked by the Vietnamese regime just a few days later because of Tito’s conflict with Stalin.9 Indonesia postponed the exchange of ambassadors with Belgrade for fear of unnecessarily upsetting Moscow.10 However, Yugoslavia’s consistent stance was the reason why its policies could be realized later on, proving that Yugoslavia, despite its dependency on the West, did not follow Washington regarding every policy. YUGOSLAVIA’S DISCOVERY OF ASIAN ALLIES The army and the culture of war remained essential to Yugoslavia’s internal coherence, except that now the independence that the Yugoslav partisans and the narrative of resistance against Stalin and his proponents within Yugoslavia, became additional factors to the state’s self-image. What could be called “the Yugoslav Road to Socialism,” had partially existed even before 1948 but in the 1950s it had to be formed, or else the regime would fall.11 Many on the international scene failed to notice the change in Belgrade at the time. The conflict between the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Camp transformed into something unique. In this respect, Yugoslavia had something in common with the countries of Asia, and later, with those of Africa; the narrative of a fight for freedom that held a central place in its pantheon of national ideas. In Asia, freedom meant a change of rule, the replacement of the colonizers—“their”—rule with “our” own rule, “their ideals” with “our ideals,” and that soon became what Tito did, as well.12 Since the early 1950s, the fighting spirit of the Yugoslav revolutionary elite was directed not only towards preserving the revolutionary order for which they had fought so hard, but also towards freedom, and towards the search for other countries that, like Yugoslavia, found themselves in the space between the blocs. Milovan Đilas, one of Tito’s closest confidants who later became the first Yugoslav dissident, sharply criticizing his former mentor’s totalitarianism, traveled to Burma and India in 1953 while he still belonged to the inner circle of Yugoslavia’s communist leadership to attend the First Asian Socialist Conference in Rangoon (Burma). The KPY was, in fact, the only Communist

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Party at the conference, the rest were socialist parties. Đilas’ article published in the monthly Nova Misao (New Thought) was one of the first texts that introduced to the Yugoslav public the—until then—endlessly distant world.13 We too, like the nations of Asia—but differently and more deeply because we were more developed—were very much shaken up and shaken down in the Second World War. We too stepped out onto the world stage. Of course, with just a small material role, but those few unrehearsed original sentences that we attempt to say to the directors of the world drama actually get heard, no matter how much they silenced us. We really stepped out into the world—outside of the small Balkan circle and somewhat beyond in Europe, and our eyes are wide open. They see everything, and that mere looking is magnificent, larger and more beautiful than anything in our history.14

Đilas praised the unique character of Yugoslavia, its originality, and its independence, but also noted that Asian nations were moving in the same direction. In another publication, Đilas wrote the following: And Gandhi and Nehru and the socialists of Burma and China and Indochina and Indonesia—these are all stages and elements of the incessant movement of the nations of Asia, in different forms, towards a new life. If there is any kind of uprising over there, and democracy wins, it won’t be a classic bourgeois European type of democracy, if for no other reason, because extra profit from the colonies always went into European democracies, which cannot be the case here. And the fact that despotism of various types can have fertile ground in Asia is not only the fault of the backwardness of those nations, but also due to the imperialist, colonialist, and selfish policies of the Western powers. Russia as well, to be clear. Even Russia’s “socialist” and “anti-colonialist” sun, lethally wounded by a Yugoslavian arrow, has also begun to set on the bloody battlefields of Korea. No one expected honey cakes from the old imperial sinners, but everyone shudders before the new sinner and his offerings. Now the U.S.S.R. has stopped being a secret [sinner], after Korea’s bloody practical experiences and Yugoslavia’s even bloodier moral experiences.15

That was not the first visit made by a high-ranking Yugoslav, or even Montenegrin, politician to India and Burma. In 1948 Radovan Zogović and Vladimir Dedijer had already attended the Second Congress of the Communist Party of India. On that occasion, they criticized the Indian communists because they did not speak out against Nehru, a typical bourgeois, and because they were not connecting with Mao Zedong or the Indonesians.16 The changes of 1948 in Europe had also created a new interpretation of the Indian reality. The Croatian partisan and prewar communist Josip Đerđa, a diplomat with a difficult personality but extremely original ideas, was the first Yugoslav

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ambassador to India, where he became an essential part of discussions about the geopolitical places of the two nations. “Active coexistence” and “neutralism,” policies that were promoted in Delhi, were not reminiscent of Switzerland; rather, they opened the possibility of active states that did not want to be in the East or in the West. A similar proposal was that of the Slovene Jože Vilfan, the second Yugoslavian ambassador in India. British Labor Party politician, Aneurin Bevan, suggested to the Yugoslavs that they ally themselves with the Indians.17 India was socialist, anti-colonial, had an economy that was planned to a great extent, and did not belong to either of the two blocs. The Indians, just like the Indonesians, thought that the struggle between the two ideologies was just a smokescreen put up to avoid talking about the real problems of humankind and that the conflict between the two ideologies was merely a conflict between two European philosophical views.18 The idea of creating a group of states that were against the Cold War, the dichotomy of the two blocs, was an Indian policy in which Yugoslavia immediately recognized elements that were common to both countries. Afterward, Nehru’s sister and president of the UN General Assembly, Vijaya Pandit, went to Yugoslavia in June 1954 and invited Tito to visit the Subcontinent.19 In the same year, Tito became the first European statesman to go to India and Burma after their independence, and he did so as a friend, as one of them, earning himself and Yugoslavia unseen popularity.20 Upon receiving an Honorary Doctoral Degree of Law from Rangoon University, Tito delivered a speech there in January 1955 about economics and other inequalities. He held that differences must not be a reason for belligerency and war; rather, the solution, according to him lay in the principle of coexistence. Upon this model, an international community should be organized to secure peace in the world. However, he was also of the opinion that principles did not amount to neutralism at all; since neutralism in essence could not mean anything other than fleeing from the scene of the battle for peace, while co-existence, as we understand it, means the most active battle for peace and international cooperation. Political co-existence means actively advocating for a peaceful solution, through negotiation, of all international problems, even those which are the most complex and the most acute, those which are the main source of international tension.21

The bottom line of Tito’s approach in 1955 was that differences between individual states must not be obstacles to cooperation or reasons for conflict. He stressed the importance of the United Nations, the refusal to join an ideological or military bloc, and his striving for coexistence. To him, there was no alternative to this activity, “for mutual extermination can certainly not be considered an alternative.”22 The blocs cause reactions; non-participation in

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the blocs is a “positive, active, and constructive” policy that leads to peace. Only within a “general, progressive movement” could India and Yugoslavia affirm their “open, sincere policy of strengthening peace, smoothing out international disputes, and mobilizing progressive forces.”23 What Yugoslavia recognized in India was not neutralism or neutrality, but a call to active engagement. Tito’s visit to Rangoon was the “first serious [public relations] victory of Yugoslavian socialism over the Cominform.”24 The trip connected the theory and practice of Yugoslavian socialism and the philosophy and reality of India and Burma with the fight for peace. Tito had established a synthesis of Asian and European energy and thereby found a way to tame the power of colonial masses, as some European observers were saying.25 In fact, what happened was that, by choosing his own meaning of neutrality in relation to the demanded subordination to the USSR by the Soviets,26 Tito, previously a sworn Stalinist, had become much closer with many in the emerging “Third World,” who were open toward Moscow. Also Tito himself did not walk away from the Marxist ideology but he now interpreted it differently. From such contradictions, one can draw a synthesis of common worldviews, which were expressed, for example, by Nehru who said that “I do not believe in the communist or the anti-communist approach” or the statements by Egypt’s president Nasser about “[t]he game of power politics in which small nations can be used as tools must be stopped.”27 It was never a problem to them that they accused their own national communists of neglecting national interests and violating human rights, while maintaining excellent relations with Tito’s communist Yugoslavia.28 Thus, in 1966, Indira Gandhi, then prime minister of India, said the following during the visit of her Yugoslavian colleague, Petar Stambolić: We have an abhorrence of dogmatism and fanaticism. President Tito, rebel and revolutionary, showed that great ideologies and principles cannot be dogmatically interpreted. He advanced the idea of friendship without alignment. Like India, Yugoslavia also refused to belong to any military bloc ( . . . ). The idea of non-alignment and peaceful co-existence have served the world well. They have reduced tensions and promoted friendship.29

Yugoslavia’s fight against the blocs was stronger when allied ideologically to a large country, and India was huge.30 On the other hand, the FNRY was not a threatening influence on Indian or Burmese foreign-policy strategy. Yugoslavia was too small and too far away. Besides, there was always the possibility that Tito might turn to the type of economic reform philosophy that he saw in India. US diplomats explained that Tito would show the Indians that there was no benefit from an alliance with Stalin, but that there

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was always a possibility of subversion. The US General Consul in Bombay, William T. Turner, reported that both countries were pathologically sensitive to external pressure on their political decisions, whether it was real or imagined.31 Nasser’s view, for example, was that every country should choose their friends on their own. From his position, Moscow had not done anything against Egypt, but many others had.32 Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, on the other hand, came into conflict with the communists in 1948, when he put down an uprising in Madiun. He had always liked the Soviets, but he was not a communist himself. Their standpoints reflected that Asian countries that had freed themselves of one overlord did not search for another. “Do you want to be dominated by the Communists? No, but neither do we want to be dominated by you,” Sukarno said to the Americans “Mendayung Antara dua Karang—Rowing between two reefs” was the motto of Jakarta, but it was also the motto of many other states in Asia, and later on, in Africa.33 The Soviets, especially after Nikita Khrushchev began to visit Third World countries, never missed the opportunity to stress that they were determined “to combat imperialism, war, and aggression, colonialism, and neo-colonialism,” all in the name of “peace, international independence, and social progress.” The Soviet Union at least verbally supported the “anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and anti-racist orientation” of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).34

THE FIGHT FOR NEUTRALISM—THE FIGHT AGAINST NEUTRALISM In the west, John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State (1953–1959), was the greatest critic of neutrality. He was not even emotionally capable of understanding the lack of enthusiasm for clear alignment among countries of the Third World with either Washington or Moscow.35 He was not the first such person in the State Department; Harry Truman had affirmed in 1950 that “Nehru has sold us down the Hudson” and Alvin Bentley said that he thought “Tito and Nehru are engaged in a contest to see who can hew more closely to the Communist line without actually becoming a satellite of Moscow.”36 Also Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, but most forcefully Republicans like Dwight D. Eisenhower and Dulles, had divided the world into friends and enemies.37 When Dulles asked Nehru if he was with them or against the United States, Nehru just replied, “Yes.” Dulles considered every neutrality to be a project of the Kremlin.38 As “immoral and shortsighted” he branded those countries that intended to extract themselves from the conflict that was growing steadily hotter. To him, “neutralism was a dirty word”39 which had

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“increasingly become an obsolete conception and except under very exceptional circumstances”40 and was just not acceptable. Conservative circles in the United States went even further. They often criticized the State Department for favoring the Yugoslav regime that betrayed them because it did not move far enough toward the West. In their conception, Yugoslavia, by adopting a neutralist stance, had made a step in the right direction but did not come close enough. On the other and, in the cases of Egypt, Indonesia, and India, there was no excuse for neutralism, because those countries indeed were not communist. As a result, the United States toughened its relations with the Third World, not understanding the nativist or nationalist, the anti-colonial instinct of these states, which was only in some places superficially “red.”41 India, Egypt, Iran—these were not socialist countries, and their governments were not like the one in Yugoslavia. Dulles had no problem with a neutral Sweden, and—despite his rhetoric— he had no problem with a “neutral” Yugoslavia either. Yugoslav diplomats considered Dulles their best friend in Washington, just as they later came to look upon the Republican establishment as their friends. Dulles would simply reward every move away from the Soviet Union because he considered them again for the United States.42 To him, Yugoslavian neutralism was useful, because it was directed against the USSR, which made the FNRY “America’s communist ally.”43 Sukarno famously said that “America likes you only if you’re on the side she selects. If you don’t go along with her totally, you’re automatically considered to have entered the Soviet bloc.”44 However, it was too much to expect Yugoslavia to undergo a complete transformation; it simply was not a realistic goal. When Nikita Khrushchev arrived for his historic visit to Yugoslavia in May 1955 (a trip during which he made no stop in any of the Warsaw Pact countries), US diplomats in Belgrade came to the following conclusion: While previously the Yugoslavs had at least talked in intelligence terms regarding our common potential adversaries, particularly the satellites, to do so under the new circumstances would be “not in conformity” with the Yugoslav policy of “coexistence” and “anti-blocism.” (. . .) The Yugoslavs do not, as we might otherwise have hoped, give us full support in the UN, but neither do they support the disruptive gambits of the Soviets which are obviously built on propaganda motives alone. Probably one of the more constructive aspects of the YU position, in this area of the conjuncture of our mutual interest, is their continued and even enthusiastic support of the use of the UN as the instrument for the settlement of international problems. In this area the YU principle is clearly in opposition to that of the Soviet Union. As all small nations, they oppose the “Great Power” solution of world problems [emphasis added].45

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The policy of Yugoslavia to make itself a neutral state between the two blocs intensified after the Khrushchev visit. Intelligence-wise, this meant the termination of exchange of information with the United States Air Force on the USSR and its satellites. The Neutrals—The Yugoslavs, who have a hard time understanding that Yugoslavia is not a Great Power, reached well beyond their area of immediate interest during 1955. Tito returned from his trip to Burma and India early in the year brimming over with enthusiasm for his concept of non-alignment with blocs. At the end of the year he was off again, this time to Africa, to visit Haile Selassie and Nasser. If Tito were only satisfying his desire to escape the drab Yugoslav winter on these trips, we would not give a second thought to them. But, despite his repeated denials that he is interested in forming a third bloc (the no-bloc bloc), we wonder if what he is working for is not a string of neutral states stretching from Finland to Yugoslavia and then on east. This would help explain the Yugoslav position on Germany, as well as Tito’s strong dislike of the Baghdad Pact. If this were his idea, one question of immediate interest that arises is whether he conceives of Greek membership in this group, or whether he finds it more useful to use Greece to maintain his tie to NATO. We believe that at the moment, the latter is the case. This need not mean, however, that, should a neutralist government come into power in Greece, the Yugoslavs would necessarily discourage it from feeding at both troughs.46

The Indians, like the Americans, did not consider the comparison and connection of Yugoslavia and India to be altogether credible. In the summer of 1957, India’s ambassador to Belgrade wrote in an analysis about local politics that, in its relations with the West, Yugoslavia “would like to pursue a constant path founded upon the principles of non-intervention and friendly cooperation.”47 The West, again, assessed everything in terms of the principle of who is with us and who is against us, “a doctrine of which we in India have long and bitter experience in our relations with the west.” The ambassador also wrote: Politically, the role that Yugoslavia would like to play is that which India plays in Asia and in an increasing measure on the world stage. But there are important differences. Whereas India is an immense country with obvious geographic and other advantages, and has no ideological or doctrinal pre-conceptions, the position of Yugoslavia is very different. Yugoslavia is a small country, in the shadow of the Soviet Union and in a particularly sensitive area of Europe.48

On one hand, the Indian ambassador was overly ambitious when referring to his own country. India was large, but the country’s great influence in Asia, which Nehru believed it had, was completely lost after its war with China in

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1962. Yugoslavia, on the other hand, did really become one of the driving forces of an entirely new political grouping, after some of Tito’s ambitions were hampered by outside factors. The Bandung Conference of 1955, for example, did not allow for Yugoslavia’s active participation (only as an observer state), because it was neither an Asian nor an African country.49 Furthermore, the possibility for Yugoslavia to influence conditions in the Communist Bloc was smashed by the Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956 and Tito’s decision not to attend the Conference of Communist Parties in Moscow a year later. In the summer of 1956, however, conditions for Yugoslav leadership in the global Non-Aligned Movement improved. There was a meeting of the “Big Three of Non-alignment”—as Nehru, Egypt’s president Nasser, and Tito were called—and in 1960, a meeting of the “Big Five of Non-alignment”50 at the Yugoslav mission in New York City.51 It was obvious that there was a convergence of interests and policies of different countries, but also how much the FNRY had become dominant throughout the initiative. On the other hand, Yugoslavia alone was not important enough to spark the global initiative. therefore, the policy of close ties with important states—above all with India—became the basis of Tito’s non-alignment strategy. Therefore, it was important to bring New Delhi to Belgrade in 1961, when the First Conference of the NAM was organized, but Nehru remained uncommitted to the idea in the beginning. “It is important that Nehru comes. His wavering (at least for the public) pulls along both Burma and Ceylon,”52 wrote Bogdan Crnobrnja, the head of Tito’s Cabinet, in early July 1961. For several more days, it looked as if Nehru would not show up in Belgrade,53 so the lobbying continued through the summer. In the end, Nehru was swayed to go to Belgrade in 1961, and subsequent Indian prime ministers after him attended following conferences as well. Despite India’s defeat in the 1962 war with China, in the NAM, India was the largest and, together with the very active Yugoslavia, the most influential state. The idea of neutralism, which they saw as describing the behavior of some Asian countries and the FNRY in the 1950s, began to turn into the concept of non-alignment. At the beginning of the speech given by the host of the First NAM Conference in September 1961, Tito, for example, talked about its members in a particular fashion. He used words like: “non-engaged countries,” or “states that do not belong to any bloc,” “countries that stand outside of [bloc] groupings.”54 They were, in his conception not “connected by interests or by conceptions or by any other kind of dependence or policy for any of these blocs.” Such states were, to Tito, not neutral and he suspected them of harboring negative attitudes toward neutralist countries like his. To the American ambassador in Belgrade—the famed George Kennan— in 1961, it was clear that the doctrine of Marxism was strong in Belgrade, and that no one would let go of it. In a letter to Elim O’Shaughnessy at the

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US Embassy in Belgrade at the end of July 1960, he wrote that the ideology of Marxism was the firm ground on which the Yugoslavs stood. If they were to abandon that point, they would be closer to the West, but they would violate the legitimacy of the regime and Tito’s legitimacy. If, on the other hand, Marxism were interpreted too dogmatically, then the entire break with the Soviet Union would be inexplicable. Any kind of turn towards Moscow “would constitute an implicit admission of the incorrectness of the course hitherto pursued,” and such a discussion would necessarily lead to the destruction of Tito’s authority.55 Kennan wrote: In Stalin’s day the Yugoslav intermediate position between the two worlds could be justified on grounds of simple necessity. (…) Since Stalin’s death, the rationale of the Yugoslav position has come to rest much more on the relaxation of tensions, on the prevalence of a state of relatively peaceful coexistence between the two worlds, and particularly on the trend away from bipolarity, in the direction of a more complex, multipolar arrangement of international life.

With the demand during the Cold War that countries clearly choose a side, the Yugoslav position became unsustainable, Kennan maintained, especially if Belgrade had decided then to “choose for the East. (…) It will do this because of the magic power of doctrine.”56 From an ideological perspective on international relations, Yugoslavia became more flexible and more willing to tolerate differences. The nonaligned nations remained of crucial importance in Yugoslav foreign policy and, for a long time, made Yugoslavia important in international relations. What appeared to George Kennan in 1960 as unambiguous dedication to Marxism became much more neutral by the end of the 1960s. For example, Ivo Vejvoda, the Yugoslav ambassador to Paris since 1967, was sent there to dissolve French doubts about Yugoslavia’s advocacy of non-alignment and decolonization. The French understood this policy as anti-French and anti-Francophone.57 According to Vejvoda’s own assertion, he “persuaded” De Gaulle to enter the Movement: Tito is independent in the East; you are here independent of the West Bloc. Therefore, you and Tito have the same political conception. In addition, France, as a developed country, would have enormous influence among the non-aligned, it would be one of the main supports of movement.“58 The French president replied that, in the event of a war between the East and the West, France would always be with the West. “Where would Yugoslavia be?” he asked. The ambassador replied that Yugoslavia would stand next to the one who is attacked and against the aggressor.59 Within the Movement, and even at the international level, Yugoslavia was far more democratic than it ever was in internal affairs. Yugoslavia’s opening up to the ideas of non-alignment was, in a certain sense, an anticipation

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of the globalization of the world and the relocation of its center of attention away from the Old Continent. The path to non-alignment was only possible after the FNRY had normalized relations with both blocs, or rather, once its relations with Moscow had improved. Similarly, one of the incentives for restoring the relationship between the Holy See and Yugoslavia was that it would make Belgrade more acceptable, above all, to Catholic Third World countries, especially those in Latin America.60 By the early 1970s, the movement had even begun to correspond with the ideas of the New Left in the West. Care for the working class ceased to be important, while the struggle against colonialism and racism and various emancipation movements moved to the forefront of the political agenda.61 THE DISCOVERY OF NEUTRAL STATES When the Czechoslovakian “Prague Spring”—a movement with which many Yugoslavs deeply sympathized—was put down in August 1968 by Warsaw Pact forces, there was consternation in Belgrade. The general atmosphere turned angry and boiled over in the form of anti-Soviet demonstrations in the streets. The USSR, in turn, began to talk about Yugoslavia in harsher terms, and Tito was attacked with words reminiscent of the Stalin period.62 Force and dictatorship, neo-Stalinism, false statistics—all of this were coming out of Moscow again. The Soviet state newspaper “Pravda” criticized the nonalignment of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) as a policy that was “turning against Yugoslavia’s own interests.“63 The SFRY thereby entered another phase of cooling relations with the East, but, at the same time, one of disappointment with the behavior of some of its fellow non-aligned states. After 1964, the movement had already gone into a crisis, primarily because of events in Indonesia, Ghana, Egypt, and Nigeria, so that, in the SFRY, issues that had never been opened before were addressed. Upon the intercession of Yugoslavia, the Movement began to assemble once again. A programmatic article in the semi-official journal Međunarodna Politika [International politics] indicated that the view in Belgrade of neutral countries was changing. Ranko Petković, a prominent journalist, reiterated the standard Yugoslav criticism of those who wanted to see the NAM solely as a gathering place for former colonies, not as a philosophy of all developing countries. “Traditional” neutral Western and developed states also felt that the non-aligned nations were incompatible with Western civilization or were even a Trojan Horse of Communism. This was unfounded because the ideas of non-alignment were global. In the European constellation, the principles of non-alignment were cherished by the Swiss, the Austrians, the Swedes, and the Finns, wrote Petković, showing that the legal and political

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differences between the non-aligned and neutral states of Europe “de facto do not exist.”64 The crisis of 1968, however, showed that there were several differences between some non-aligned states and Belgrade.65 It needs to be stressed at this point that to Petković and his contemporaries, the “Neutrals” and the “Non-aligned” were not the same category of neutral countries. The latter was, as just discussed, largely the fruit of decolonization, whereas the former pertains to the “classic” neutrals whose legitimacy rested on the principles of international law of the centuries before.66 Neutralists (as opposed to the non-aligned) were better at preserving coexistence, independence, and equality; they condemned the use of force and aggressive interference by third countries and advocated disarmament. Non-aligned principles were neither Western nor Eastern, but simply generally humanist, and that was what Yugoslavia aspired with its policy too. Neutral states were no longer passive, were no longer advocates of the equidistance of both blocs. They were, in fact, often more active than the non-aligned and loudly advocated for peace and security and cooperation between the two blocs.67 In the United States there was no doubt that “non-alignment would almost certainly be perpetuated”68 in Yugoslavia, according to an analysis by State Department experts at the RAND Corporation. “It may emphasize evenhanded balancing between East and West. Or it may emphasize a leaning towards the West.”69 That was what the United States wanted; non-alignment that leaned toward the West would not upset the Soviets, and it would not lead to tensions on the continent. Yugoslavia did not interrupt, or even weaken its connections with the NAM. Some of its member states even argued that the entire Non-Aligned Movement should strive to become more “traditionally” neutral in the way Switzerland or Austria were practicing neutrality. The representative of the Ivory Coast, for example, was a proponent of this view in 1979. He held that only by arranging mutual relations between the NAM states that resembled the relations of the individual Swiss cantons can NAM independence from the blocs be achieved. “Only such a neutrality can ensure that we remain out of the way of the blocs, outside of the rivalry, the confrontation of the Great Powers.”70 This view was supported only by Niger, and regarding its lofty ambitions might seem some wheat unrealistic and overly ambitious—perhaps even comical—but it showed a change of view within the NAM. During detente, the NAM countries went through a crisis that primarily reflected the efforts of some of the radical countries to make a “strategic reserve” of the socialist camp and limit the NAM to three continents.71 The SFRY—through decisive diplomatic action at the most critical moment during the Sixth NAM Conference in Havana in 1979—succeeded in preventing this from happening, and the Movement remained faithful to its original principles of non-alignment. In the same year, Tito stressed to Italian

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president Sandro Pertini that, in the efforts to prevent the said shift in NAM, a significant contribution was made by “the positive activity of non-aligned European countries, and in Havana there were ten European NAM member states or observer states present,”72 which were mostly small and neutral states.73 To Tito, this was an important new link between the neutral and nonaligned states, which had a catalytic effect, being the reason for more intense cooperation in Europe. The next step in Yugoslavia’s rapprochement to the “traditional” neutrals was made during the opening of the negotiations that led to the Helsinki Accords of 1975 and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). They were the reason why Yugoslavia became receptive to ideas and cooperation with the neutralists in Europe. Always ambitious and somewhat isolated at the very beginning of the negotiations, Yusogslav diplomats noted similarities between the neutral countries and Yugoslavia with regard to security and, in the end, for Belgrade, everything was a question of pragmatism.74 When it became clear that the neutral states had experience in the politics of mediation and that the East and the USSR accepted them, the diplomats saw an opportunity in the neutrals to provide support for Yugoslavia’s initiatives. They shared views on disarmament, the visions for a new economic order, and appearance at conferences. After the conclusion of Helsinki 1975, the Yugoslav political jargon included a sentence about “the need for full engagement in order to ensure the consistent and versatile application of the Final Act of Helsinki and the importance of incorporating military aspects and disarmament in Europe.”75 Some neutral states immediately embraced the initiative of closer cooperation; others, like Switzerland, have long debated whether to participate at all in the process.76 Thus, in the wake of the CSCE negotiations, during a ten-year process, in meetings of the European states, the United States, the USSR, and Canada before and during Helsinki, as well as through meetings in Belgrade, Madrid, Vienna, Berlin, and so on, a group of nine “European dwarfs” was formed, the Neutral and Non-aligned Countries (NNC)—besides Switzerland it consisted of Austria, Sweden, Finland, Yugoslavia, Lichtenstein, San Marino, Malta, and Cyprus. The states were “a power of certain influence” in the work of CSCE.77 The formation of the NNC was loose in the beginning. During the visit of the Yugoslav Federal Foreign Secretary, Josip Vrhovac, to Austria in October 1979, he stressed that during the April meeting of the NNC in Lichtenstein, it would be necessary to act constructively and actively so that the neutral and non-aligned states would not vote for both sides during the Madrid Conference of the CSCE in 1980, but that they appeared with one voice on their own view of European problems.78 The first real NNC meeting at ministerial level was agreed at a preparatory meeting in Belgrade in July 1982. It was initiated with the goal was to

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re-launch the dormant Madrid meeting of the CSCE. There, countries of the two blocks were divided which resulted in a stalemate of the conference. The situation, however, became a chance for mediation by the NNC. Yugoslavia was an ardent supporter of that strategy for two reasons closely linked to its policies in the NAM; it was demonstrating the vitality of non-alignment for global diplomacy as well as stressing the importance of European countries in the Movement. The ministerial meeting in Stockholm took place on August 30, 1982. It was called by the Swedish minister Ola Ullsten, who raised the status of the meetings of representatives of the NNC. Until then, the meetings were regular during the conferences in Madrid, later in Vienna, but always on the level of the experts or ambassadors. From now onwards, the foreign ministers were meeting as well. It was precisely the action of Austria, Yugoslavia, and Sweden that solved the blockade in Madrid, pointing out that relations in Europe do not have to be just between blocs. Mirko Ostojić, deputy secretary of foreign affairs of the SFRY, assessed the conference in Stockholm as an affirmation of the influence of the NNC, while Yugoslav minister Lazar Mojsov, considered the gathering of ministers of the NNC to be historically important. At the time when Yugoslavia began to appear together with European neutralists, Cuban foreign minister Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, NAM chairman in 1982, clearly stated, “We absolutely do not believe in neutralism.” Although his message was primarily directed to the West and to America (besides Yugoslavia), it demonstrates the difference between Havana and Belgrade in terms of worldview and within the non-aligned nations. Belgrade saw itself as the center of the movement, while the Cubans were radicals. At the height of the “Second Cold War”—after the Geneva Conference on Intercontinentalmissiles and Euro-missiles and the Vienna Conference on Conventional Armed Forces were suspended in 1984, the CSCE remained for a period the only framework for disarmament negotiations. Therefore, before the meeting in Stockholm on January 17, 1984, a meeting of the NNC was held in Cyprus to inform Europe that there was no more time to wait.79 In that situation, especially when the “Palmer Commission” announced the idea of a “non-atomic belt” in Central Europe, questions about “the stability of Swedish neutrality” were asked by countries in the West. The Soviet Union was now supporting such ideas, apparently recognizing that the Western bloc was divided over them. In this context, a Soviet journalist, diplomat, and politician, Valentin Falin uttered the following mocking imagery of US perceptions: Neutral stains on the map of Europe ruin the landscape because they break up the fronts, an unbroken line of confrontation that Washington’s neo-conservatives strive to maintain. They, the neutralists, are the potential holders of “rotten” compromises, a combination of different interests in a mixed mosaic of

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existence. Generally speaking, without them, as well as the non-aligned nations, things are more comfortable and easier. Under the conditions of war, it is understood that such inconveniences are ignored based on the principle of “freedom knows no boundaries,” and accordingly, the “fight for freedom” should have no borders. The United States had already practiced this in 1958, when their military aircraft flying from their bases in the Federal Republic of Germany to the Middle East found it unnecessary to go a roundabout way and flew directly through Austrian airspace. Without asking, of course. Explaining themselves after the fact, they mumbled something about a “misunderstanding.”

Falin criticized the behavior of the United States toward countries that it never completely considered neutral, but which increasingly showed signs of uneasiness about “protection” being forced upon them by Washington. He said the Soviet Union posed no danger, of course, but he also indicated that the rejection of US protection caused anxiety in America. The discussion about neutral and non-aligned states (and about neutrality in general) now touched upon Yugoslavia in good company, on the right side, stronger than in the fifties, and it strengthened the country’s credentials of non-alignment among the members of the Movement. Internationalization was one of the permanent characteristics of Yugoslav politics: the active pursuit of diplomatic relations with high visibility throughout the world. Belgrade’s rapid rapprochement with Austria and Switzerland also facilitated the resolution of minor issues in the relations with those countries.80 As Peter Jankowitsch, Austrian foreign minister (1986–1987), later stated, Austria and Yugoslavia were a “classic example” of how multilateral relations help improve bilateral relations, according to the model of “neighborhood policy in the broad sense.”81 Furthermore, as these neutral countries were members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), close cooperation was considered to be helpful for economic cooperation as well. Towards the very end of the Cold War, in 1989, the Swiss proposed the establishment of a fund for Yugoslav development which, however, failed.82 Neutrality and non-alignment were discussed more and more frequently during the 1980s. This is certainly the case for Yugoslavia, as exemplified by statements of many politicians and diplomats who wrote and spoke about the NNC in official gazettes and journals like the Međunarodna Politika [International politics], saying that the group was a catalyst for the relations of the two blocs.83 In general, every issue of Međunarodna Politika during the eighties problematized neutral and non-aligned countries, and Yugoslav political scientists of that period often wrote about the topic, too. Peter Jankowitsch wrote in this semi-official journal that the NNC could not find support in any bloc, so they sought ways to cooperate with everyone.84 Austrian Chancellor Fred Sinowatz visited Yugoslavia, with whom cooperation

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was continuously improving, with the specific intention of extending cooperation in the NNC group. On the one hand, this strengthened bilateral relations, but it also strengthened the security network on the European continent in general.85 The transformation of the NNC into a factor for stability was also recognized at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, where a conference on stability and the changing values of neutral states was organized in late 1986. It was (at least in the perception of the Yugoslav media) the first US conference which theoretically and practically talked about NNC. Among those who spoke at the meeting were Paavo Väryrynen, the deputy prime minister of Finland, and Rozanne L. Ridgway, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs.86 The NNC never formalized their status, but during conferences, the group would hold meetings at least once a week. In total, seven ministerial meetings were held. In October 1986, at an NNC meeting on the Brijuni islands, the group planned their joint appearance at the fourth round of the Vienna CSCE meeting. In light of changes in Moscow and the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev and with the background of the ecological disaster in Chernobyl, the need for close cooperation between European countries had become even clearer. Yugoslav Federal Secretary of Foreign Affairs Raif Dizdarević described the NNC as states that had a “bridging” role within the CSCE. They were for cooperation—not confrontation. The NNC were, for example, the only group of countries that was strongly supporting all three “baskets” of Helsinki,87 whereas the communist block was primarily concerned with disarmament and the capitalist block was mainly interested in the third basket of human rights.88 Commentators in Yugoslavia described the NNC as a group of countries that wanted to remain independent and outside of the blocs, which, in fact, was the main connection between them and reducing the gap between the blocs was what everyone needed.89 As always, many in the East and West remained skeptical or ironic about the NNC. Referring to a document that had been proposed and then became a point on the daily agenda platform all thirty-five OSCE90 states (the successor organization of the CSCE), US Representative Warren Zimmermann, for example, said in 1986 sarcastically that “never before had an obviously significant and constructive role been played by neutral and non-aligned countries.91 At the end of September 1987, articles appeared in the Yugoslav media conjecturing that it might be time to include non-aligned and neutral states in the European Economic Community (EEC). The neutral countries had already heard this and the obstacles were not great. After all, the EEC was not a political group, although entering such an organization in some way anticipated their position in the event of a future conflict. Ranko Petković, who was the author of a long article in the most influential Yugoslav political magazine of that time, Danas, did not question what the EEC wanted; rather,

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he requested that, if Europe became more independent of the blocs, then the political obstacles to cooperation even between Belgrade and Brussels should be lifted.92 The seventh meeting of NNC foreign ministers was held on Yugoslavia’s initiative in Valetta, Malta, in early March 1990. Europe had quite different concerns then: Germany was unifying, the Cold War was coming to an end, and the question of multiparty elections was being considered. The creation of a more permanent structure of the NNC was now more important to Yugoslavia than to any Western neutral state.93 It would have given the group a clearer political profile due to a unified view of security, a common understanding of human rights and freedoms, as well as economic order. Even at a meeting in Vaduz, Lichtenstein, in mid-May 1991, when the division between the blocs had already ceased, the prevailing opinion was that the NNC had to stay connected within the CSCE and that the reasons for joint action still applied. The last Yugoslav federal secretary, Budimir Lončar, stressed that in the new world without blocs, small states would still be able to affirm their positions. On that occasion, in the middle of the breakup of Yugoslavia, no one officially mentioned the crisis that was occurring at that very moment. They were all inquiring informally, however, and Lončar demanded that Yugoslavia should be accepted into EFTA so that it could access the organization’s funds, which could help in bringing an end to the crisis.94 This was one of the last-ditch efforts to save the lost state which, since 1989, had presided over the NAM. However, foreign policy cannot control internal events, which was true also for the case of the disintegrating SFRY. THE END OF THE NNC Yugoslavia’s non-aligned policy emerged out of necessity and the ambition of a country that thought better of itself than it objectively should have. Yugoslavia recognized ideas that had been created somewhere else, observing the similarities between its position and those of distant Asian states, adopted and amplified those ideas, turning them into global policy. Yugoslavia’s discovery of the possibilities of cooperation with neutral states was also a consequence of pragmatic and independent politics, which aspired more than just searching for allies and support. Yugoslavia was the only continental European non-aligned state which, however, by formally joining the NAM, pulled in two more European nations, the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Cyprus. Yugoslavia proved the real significance of nonaligned global politics and strengthened its position within the Movement. Its struggle for always consisted of showing the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which has the ideas of the NAM were common also to

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some European countries. A similar message had to be communicated to the West and since the 1970s, the NNC had become the lever to do this; to show that non-alignment had brought Yugoslavia into the company of some of the most developed and most respected European countries, but also to show to the NAM that precisely because of its non-alignment, Yugoslavia had an essential role in that society of the CSCE. Both times, Yugoslavia’s diplomacy was flexible, and its chosen paths were relatively profitable and successful, but only as long as the parameters of the Cold War were in place. In a world that was dramatically changing, when paradigms shifted in the late 1980s, without internal reforms, the SFRY could not respond to the changes in Europe. Policies that had been in the making for decades—non-alignment, socialism, neutralism—simply crumbled. A country that had found itself in the Cold War between the two blocs knew how to use its position under those conditions but the disintegration of the blocdivide also disrupted Yugoslavia’s foreign policy, which attempted in vain to influence the transformation of the state from within, in an effort to prevent the country from falling apart into a bloody conflict. Retrospectively, Yugoslav non-alignment has always been under suspicion for its actual intentions, and for its non-commitment. In the 1950s, the United States considered neutralism to be dishonest and was usually critical of any position that was insufficiently opposed to the USSR—except when that position represented a departure from pro-Soviet politics. Thus, the question was always how much influence each actor had. Would the Indians adapt to the Yugoslavs, or vice versa? Would the West’s influence over Belgrade win out, or would Yugoslavia’s influence spread? For the West, this was negative politics. At the very end of the Cold War, such questions were asked again, but more often in a derivative form: How quickly will the Western model infiltrate Yugoslavia? The reverse was no longer realistic. Although the motives of entering the NNC and insisting on cooperation with the neutral states were pragmatic and partly motivated by ambition, it was all in all, a positive policy. Precisely because it was non-aligned, Yugoslavia entered the company of the most prominent and wealthy countries of Europe. This was a way to effectively reject the criticisms of non-alignment as a policy that was allegedly pulling Yugoslavia away from Europe, which some claimed during the eighties. In this regard, the NNC group had a positive effect on the SFRY which was reflected not only in the quicker resolution of bilateral issues with the Austrians and the Swiss. Interestingly, however, the fact that some of the neutral countries were most demanding on the issue of human rights and cooperation was the reason why some of Yugoslavia’s politicians displayed hesitation and doubt toward the neutralist approach. With the “real” West (the United States.), it was easier to negotiate; but with Sweden, there was no room for compromise on human rights. As Kosovo was

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becoming the main problem for the SFRY in the 1980s, the third Basket of the CSCE (human rights) became particularly significant.95 Yugoslavia’s ambition in foreign relations never weakened. The country often wanted to see itself as a “bridge-state” between Europe and the Third World. At the end of the Cold War, because of the possibility of introducing pluralism, human rights, a market economy, and democracy, Yugoslavia should have become a model for the “non-Western” world in the period to come. When the Ninth Summit of the Non-Aligned Nations was launched in Belgrade in September 1989, it was expected that the “global dimension” of processes that were only “apparently European” (namely, the role of the NNC within the framework of the CSCE) would be affirmed. The CSCE was a democratic multilateral effort with global reach, said Yugoslav diplomats.96 Yugoslavia could ensure that “Europe happened to the NAM,” which allowed it to support the Third World on the one hand and the rest of the world in general, emphasizing the global role it aspired in the process. Finally, in Belgrade, for the first time in the history of the movement, a special meeting of the NAM Chair and guest nations was held. Finland had requested guest status in 1961 already but by 1989 more than twenty countries had received guest status and those which had enjoyed it the longest were many of the European neutrals: San Marino, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland as well as the Vatican.97 Thus, a globally significant role might well have been played by that country which disappeared in the terrible conflict of the early 1990s. Instead of one, there are now seven internationally recognized states that are neither neutral nor non-aligned but, instead, are countries with cultures of war and conflict. Only Serbia has declared an elusive form of “military” neutrality which, however, has nothing to do with the former non-aligned or neutral approach under Tito. It only means that Serbia is not seeking to join NATO, as the other SFRY successor states do.98 Of the two largest, Serbia and Croatia, it is often said that the former lives as if the 1990s had never happened, while the latter, (which won the war) cannot leave the 1990s behind. Basically, there is no connection at all between their politics and the politics of the Cold War period. NOTES 1. This chapter uses Primary and Secondary sources. All referenced newspaper articles were obtained from the Croatian State Archive, “Hrvatski Državni Arhiv,” abbreviated HDA and from the Newspaper Archive “Vjesnikova Novinska Dokumentacija,” abbreviated VND. A list of utilized newspapers is provided at the end of the article.

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2. His government was created by the proclamation of the Anti-Fascist Council of the People’s Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ—the partisan parliament) in Jajce, Bosnia, on November 29, 1943. 3. Keith Lowe, The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us (UK: Viking, 2017), 7; Jan Gross, “War as Revolution,” in The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe, 1944–1949, eds. Norman Naimark and Gibianskii Leonid (Seattle: Westview Press, 1997), 16–40. 4. Jože Pirjevec, Tito i Drugovi (Zagreb: Mozaik knjiga, 2012); Tvrtko Jakovina, Američki komunistički saveznik. Hrvati, Titova Jugoslavija i Sjedinjene Amerike Države 1945–1955 (Zagreb: Srednja Europa/Profil, 2003); Slavko Goldstein and Ivo Goldstein, Tito (Zagreb: Profil, 2015). Recent overviews include works by Sabrine P. Ramet (Seattle), and Trondheim and Jean Marie Calic (Munich); among the older works, always consult Dennison Rusinow. On nationalism in school textbooks until 1914, see Charles Jelavich, South Slav Nationalism: Textbooks and Yugoslav Union before 1914 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990). 5. Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (New York: Harper Perennial, 2008), 162–164. 6. Vladimir Unkovski-Korica, The Economic Struggle for Power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: From World War II to Non-alignment (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016), 67. 7. The acronym “BRIGMA” literally means “troubles” in the Slavic languages. It is formed of the names of Yugoslavia’s neighbors: Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Greece, Albania, Hungary [Mađarska], and Austria. 8. Goldstein and Goldstein, Tito, 549; Jakovina, Američki komunistički saveznik. Hrvati, Titova Jugoslavija i Sjedinjene Amerike Države 1945–1955, 259–283. 9. Vladimir Dedijer, Novi prilozi za biografiju Josipa Broza Tita (Zagreb: Mladost, 1980), 670; Goldstein and Goldstein, Tito, 549. 10. Dragan Bogetić and Ljubodrag Dimić, Beogradska Konferencija Nesvrstanih Zemalja 1.-6. Septembra 1961.: Prilog Istoriji Trećeg Sveta (Beograd: Zavod za Udžbenike, 2013). 11. Unkovski-Korica, The Economic Struggle for Power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: From World War II to Non-alignment, 69. 12. Lowe, The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us, 285. 13. Aleksa Đilas, “Hronologija života i rada Milovana Đilasa,” Djelo Milovana Đilasa Crnogorska Akademija Nauka i Umjetnosti 64, no. 23 (2003): 227. 14. Milovan Đilas, “Istočno Nebo,” Nova Misao, Mesečni Časopis 10 (1953): 524. 15. Ibid., 549–550. 16. Pirjevec, Tito i Drugovi, 401. 17. Ibid. 18. Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (London: Allen Lane, 2017), 423; Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, 165–166. 19. Pirjevec, Tito i Drugovi, 403; Goldstein and Goldstein, Tito, 637.

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20. Jakovina, Američki komunistički saveznik. Hrvati, Titova Jugoslavija i Sjedinjene Amerike Države 1945–1955, 491–494; Pirjevec, Tito i Drugovi, 404; Westad, The Cold War: A World History, 433. 21. Josip Broz Tito, Govor na Rangunskom univerzitetu: Govor u Puli (Zagreb: Tiskara Univerzum, 1955), 8. 22. Ibid., 9. 23. Stanislav Stojanović, “Titov Doprinos Nastanku Ideje i Razvoju Politike Nesvrstanosti,” in Tito–Nesvrstanost–Savremenost, Zbornik Radova sa Međunarodnog Naučnog Skupa, Održanog od 15. do 17.12.1986. Godine na Brionima (Beograd: Memorijalni Centar Josip Broz Tito, 1988), 57–64. 24. Pirjevec, Tito i Drugovi, 404. 25. Ibid. 26. John Lewis Gaddis, We now know. Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 48–49; Unkovski-Korica, The Economic Struggle for Power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: From World War II to Non-alignment, 72–75; Jakovina, Američki komunistički saveznik. Hrvati, Titova Jugoslavija i Sjedinjene Amerike Države 1945–1955, 243–253. The Tito–Stalin Split was in many ways one of the key episodes not only in the history of Yugoslavia and the communist states but for the Cold War in general. Without understanding it, one cannot understand the history of the Cold War or that of communism—or even that of Europe. 27. Stephen Kinzer, The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War (New York: Times Books, 2013), 203. 28. Westad, The Cold War: A World History, 425. 29. National Archives of India (NAI), Prime Minister’s Speech at a Dinner in Honour of Mr. Petar Stambolić, Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, March 10–17, 1966 (New Delhi: NAI), Europe E; Ministry of External Affairs. 30. Pirjevec, Tito i Drugovi, 405. 31. National Archives and Record Administration (NARA), RG 59, Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of Yugoslavia 1950–1051, Decimal File 768, Files 11/11–151 to 34/4–654; Reel no. 6, 768.11/12–2954 (College Park, Maryland: NARA). 32. Amir Muhaeremi, Indija: Temeljne postavke vanjske politike (Zagreb: Meandar Media, 2015), 37. 33. Kinzer, The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, 219; Lowe, The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us, 285–287. 34. Andrei Gromyko, Lenin and the Soviet Peace Policy: Articles and Speeches 1944–1980 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1980), 338. 35. Kinzer, The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, 128, 186, 218; Richard Goold-Adams, John Foster Dulles: A Reappraisal (New York: Van Rees Press, 1962), 252–253. 36. H.W. Brands, The Specter of Neutralism. The United State and the Emergence of the Third World, 1947–1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 198. 37. Westad, The Cold War: A World History, 426; Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, 166. See also the newspaper article

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in Danas, 6.1.1987: “Washington o Evropskim NN Zemljama,” Inoslav Bešker (HDA, VNA). 38. Kinzer, The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, 203. 39. J.F. Dulles as cited in: ibid., 186. 40. J.F. Dulles as cited in: Jürg Martin Gabriel, The American Conception of Neutrality after 1941 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 175. 41. Richard Bissell, Deputy Director of Plans at the CIA, favored the view that the United States should let former colonial states embrace “neutralism” but Dulles would not follow this approach, proactively searching for any evidence that confirmed his biased view about those who were not officially with the United States. See on this Kinzer, The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, 322. 42. Tvrtko Jakovina, Socijalizam na Američkoj Pšenici (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 2002), 67. 43. Goold-Adams, John Foster Dulles: A Reappraisal, 253. 44. Kinzer, The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, 218. 45. NARA, RG59, LOT 66 D 487 PPS Office Files 56, American Embassy Belgrade, Februrary 14, 1956, F789997-0668; Main Trends of 1955 (Robert G. Hooker, Conselor of Embassy). 46. Ibid. 47. NAI, File no. F9(39)57—Europe E. Ministry of External Affairs, Reports form the Embassy of India, Belgrade on Yugoslava and the 29th June Resolution of the Soviet Plenum; Yugoslavia in a Changing World, 27th November 1957. 48. Ibid. 49. There are several historians who mention Tito and Bandung in the same breath although, at the conference itself, Tito was not there. It is not illogical, actually, to think Tito had attended since both, Bandung and Tito became synonymous for the Non-Aligned Movement. See for example: John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment a Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 126; We Now Know. Rethinking Cold War History, 170; Eric Hobsbawn, Doba Extrema. Istorija Kratkog Dvadeseog Veka 1914–1980 (Beograd: Dereta), 272. 50. Nasser (Egypt), Nehru (India), Nkrumah (Ghana), Sokarno (Indonesia) and Tito. 51. Tvrtko Jakovina, Treća Strana Hladnog Rata (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 2013), 40; Goldstein and Goldstein, Tito, 639. 52. Bogdan Crnobrnja, Neočekivana promjena. Kako je stvoren pokret nesvrstanih. Dnevnički zapisi Bogdana Crnobrnje iz 1961 (Beograd: Muzej Istorije Jugoslavije i Stanko Crnobmja, 2016), 58. 53. Ibid., 66, 70, 84. 54. Primary sources in: Govori Predsjednika Tita. Dokumenti Konferencije (Beograd: Kultura, 1961), 19–47. See also: Bogetić and Dimić, Beogradska Konferencija Nesvrstanih Zemalja 1.-6. Septembra 1961.: Prilog Istoriji Trećeg Sveta, 444–456.

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55. NARA, RG59, General Records of the Department of State, Central Decimal File 1960–1963, From 768.00/9-160 to 768.00/1-162. Box 1927. American Embassy Belgrade, September 1, 1960, 768.00/9-160. 56. Ibid. 57. Gojko Berić, Zbogom dvadeseto stoljeće. Sjećanja Ive Vejvode (Zagreb: Profil International, 2013), 152–152. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid., 135–137. 61. Tony Judt, Reappraisals. Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century (New York: Penguin, 2009), 280. 62. Tvrtko Jakovina, “Tito, The Bloc-Free Movement and the Prague Spring,” in The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968: Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series, eds. Günter Bischof, Stefan Karner, and Peter Ruggenthaler (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010). 63. VUS, Agresivnost neostaljnizma, Zagreb, 25.9.1068, br.856 (Božidar Novak). FNRJ je 1963. preimenovana u SFRJ, Socijalističku Federativnu Republiku Jugoslaviju. 64. Ranko Petković, “Principi Nesvrstanosti u Evropi,” Međunarodna Politika (1969). 65. Ibid. 66. See on this point Steven Neff, Elizabeth Chadwick and Leos Müller in this volume. 67. Ljumbomir Radovanović, Vanblokovske Zemlje: Politika Neangažovanih Zemalja: Vanblokovske Zemlje na Beogradskoj Konferenciji (Beograd: Kultura), 10–11; Vukadinović, “Novi Sadržaj Finske Neutralnosti,” Međunarodna Poltika, no. 473: 13–14. 68. Primary sources in: RAND Co; Communist Political Succession, A. Ross Johnson and Arnold L. Horelick; June 1972. 69. Ibid. 70. Bojana Tadić, Osobenosti i Dileme Nesvrstanosti (Beograd: Izdavački Centar Komunist, 1982), 17–18. 71. Asia, Africa and South America. See Jakovina, Treća Strana Hladnog Rata. 72. Primary sources in: JV, SSIP, I. uprava Br.455301, 28.10.1979, Information about the visit by Italian Republic Representative Sandra Pertinia to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from October 11–14, 1979. 73. The only full members of the European continent were Cyprus and Yugoslavia. 74. Source: Interview with Razgovor s dr. Vladimirom Bilandžićem, Mach 25, 2018. Between 1986 and 1991 Bilandžić served as a member of the Yugoslav delegation at the CSCE conferences in Vienna. He had participated in the CSCE conferences and meetings in Geneva, Belgrade, Madrid, Stockholm and Paris. 75. See the newspaper articles in Vjesnik, 30.8.1982 “Počeo sastanak NN zemalja” and 1.9.1982 “Poziv na Detant.” See also the newspaper article by Davor Šošić in Borba, 31.8.1982 “Neophodan povratak stvarnom detantu” (HAD, VNA). 76. See the newspaper article in Tanjug, Europaische Rundschau, Beč, br.3/86, 4.11.1988 “Uloga neutralnih i nesvrstanih u procesu KEEB-sa” by Ursulo Posch (HDA, VNA).

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77. Mirko Ostojić, Zapisi iz Diplomatije (Sarajevo: Nišro, 1989), 16. 78. Primary sources in: JV, SSIP, I. uprava, Br.455367, 23.10.1979, Report on the friendly visit of Federal Secretary for Foreign Affairs J. Vrhovc Austria from October 17–20, 1979. 79. See the newspaper articles in Borba, 3.5.1986 “Evropa ne smije da čeka,” (HDA, VNA); Borba, 30.8.1986 “Politika ekspres,” (HDA, VNA). 80. Ibid. Later, Yugoslavia entered the five-state Alps Adriatic Alliance Working Community developed in similar fashion as the NNC group. The cooperation of the NNC countries, at least those in central Europe, helped with these foreign-policy initiatives of the SFRY. 81. See the newspaper article in Tanjug, Europaische Rundschau, Beč, br.3/86, 4.11.1988 “Uloga neutralnih i nesvrstanih u procesu KEEB-sa” by Ursulo Posch (HDA, VNA). 82. Primary source in: BL, SSIP, Economic Sector, July 18, 1989, Cooperation with EFTA and proposal for further activities towards EFTA states. 83. Articles were published in Međunarodna Politika with comments of people like Peter Jankowitsch, Austrian diplomat (first in the function of secretary of international relations of the Socialist Party), Finnish foreign minister Ahti Karjalainen, the head of the Swiss delegation in Madrid, E. Bruner, Finnish delegate Richard Müller, and Austrian Wolfgang Strasser. 84. Peter Janković, “Neutralnost i Nesvrstanost,” Međunarodna Politika (1985). 85. Ostojić, Zapisi iz Diplomatije, 148–149. 86. See the newspaper article in Danas, 6.1.1987 “Washington o Evropskim NN-Zemljama,” (HDA, VNA). See also: Vukadinović, “Novi Sadržaj Finske Neutralnosti”; Ksenija Klarić, “Okrugli Stol o Neutralnim i Nesvrstanim Zemljama,” Međunarodna Politika: 30–31. 87. The three areas of agreement in the Helsinki Accords. 88. See the newspaper article by Hido Bišćević in Vjesnik, 24.10.1986 “Novi most Između Blokova,” (HDA, VNA). 89. See the newspaper article by I. Žiško in Oslobođenje, 26.10.1986 “Reakcija na Polarizaciju Svijeta,” (HDA, VNA). 90. Organization for Security and and Co-operation in Europe. 91. See the newspaper article by Burkhard Bishoff in Die Presse, 8.10.1986, (no title) (HDA, VNA). 92. Ranko Petković, “Marš na Europsku zajednicu. Sazrijeva li vrijeme za uključivanje neutralnih i nesvrtanih zemalja u EEZ?” Danas, September 15, 1987 (HDA, VNA). 93. Primary sources in: BL, SSIP, Cabinet of Federal Secretary, Meeting of Foreign Ministers of NNC countries in Malta, March 1 and 2, 1990. Institutionalization of Cooperation of NNC countries; Talking Points. 94. See newspaper articles in Slobodna Dalmacija, 18.5.1991 “Svi bi povoljnije mjesto u Evropi,” (HDA, VNA); Večernje Novosti, 18.5.1991 “Može li nam pomoći EFTA?” (HDA, VNA); Večernje Novosti, 18.5.1991 “I potreba i prostor za daljnjim delovanjem Večernje novosti,” (HDA, VNA); Večernje Novosti, 18.5.1991 “Nove strukture bezbednosti,” (HDA, VNA).

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95. Diplomat Vladimir Bilandžić represented the SFRY at the OSCE from 1986 to 1990. Personal communication with author on March 25, 2018. 96. Ignac Golob, “KEBSS i Udeo Neutralnih i Nesvrstanih Zemalja,” Međunarodna Politika, no. 915: 1–3. 97. Živojin Jazić, Moj pogled na diplomatiju: 1957–2005 (Beograd: Čigoja Štampa, Institut za Međunarodnu Politiku i Privredu), 91–92. 98. See for example: Filip Ejdus, “Serbia’s Military Neutrality: Origins, Effects and Challenges,” Croatian International Relations Review 20, no. 71 (2014).

NEWSPAPER REFERENCES Borba, Daily, Belgrade. Danas, Weekly, Zagreb. Oslobođenje, Daily, Sarajevo. Slobodna Dalmacija, Daily, Split. Vjesnik, Daily, Zagreb. Večernje Novosti, Daily, Belgrade. VUS (Vijesnik u Srijedu), Weekly, Zagreb. TANJUG (Telegrafska Agencija Nove Jugoslavije), Information Bulletin.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Berić, Gojko. Zbogom dvadeseto stoljeće. Sjećanja Ive Vejvode. Zagreb: Profil International, 2013. Bogetić, Dragan, and Ljubodrag Dimić. Beogradska Konferencija Nesvrstanih Zemalja 1.-6. Septembra 1961.: Prilog Istoriji Trećeg Sveta. Beograd: Zavod za Udžbenike, 2013. Brands, H.W. The Specter of Neutralism. The United State and the Emergence of the Third World, 1947–1960. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Crnobrnja, Bogdan. Neočekivana promjena. Kako je stvoren pokret nesvrstanih. Dnevnički zapisi Bogdana Crnobrnje iz 1961. Beograd: Muzej Istorije Jugoslavije i Stanko Crnobmja, 2016. Dedijer, Vladimir. Novi prilozi za biografiju Josipa Broza Tita. Zagreb: Mladost, 1980. Đilas, Aleksa. “Hronologija života i rada Milovana Đilasa.” Djelo Milovana Đilasa Crnogorska Akademija Nauka i Umjetnosti 64, no. 23 (2003). Đilas, Milovan. “Istočno Nebo.” Nova Misao, Mesečni Časopis 10 (October 1953). Ejdus, Filip. “Serbia’s Military Neutrality: Origins, Effects and Challenges.” Croatian International Relations Review 20, no. 71 (2014): 43–69. Gabriel, Jürg Martin. The American Conception of Neutrality after 1941. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment a Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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———. We now know. Rethinking Cold War History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Goldstein, Slavko, and Ivo Goldstein. Tito. Zagreb: Profil, 2015. Golob, Ignac. “KEBSS i Udeo Neutralnih i Nesvrstanih Zemalja.” Međunarodna Politika, no. 915 (1988): 1–3. Goold-Adams, Richard. John Foster Dulles: A Reappraisal. New York: Van Rees Press, 1962. Gromyko, Andrei. Lenin and the Soviet Peace Policy: Articles and Speeches 1944–1980. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1980. Gross, Jan. “War as Revolution.” In The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe, 1944–1949, edited by Norman Naimark and Gibianskii Leonid, 17–34. Seattle: Westview Press, 1997. Guha, Ramachandra. India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008. Hobsbawn, Eric. Doba Extrema. Istorija Kratkog Dvadeseog Veka 1914–1980. Beograd: Dereta, 2009. Jakovina, Tvrtko. Američki komunistički saveznik. Hrvati, Titova Jugoslavija i Sjedinjene Amerike Države 1945–1955. Zagreb: Srednja Europa/Profil, 2003, 397–418. ———. Socijalizam na Američkoj Pšenici. Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 2002. ———. “Tito, The Bloc-Free Movement and the Prague Spring.” In The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968: Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series, edited by Günter Bischof, Stefan Karner, and Peter Ruggenthaler. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010. ———. Treća Strana Hladnog Rata. Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 2013. Janković, Peter. “Neutralnost i Nesvrstanost.” Međunarodna Politika (January 1, 1985). Jazić, Živojin. Moj pogled na diplomatiju: 1957–2005. Beograd: Čigoja Štampa, Institut za Međunarodnu Politiku i Privredu, 2010. Jelavich, Charles. South Slav Nationalism: Textbooks and Yugoslav Union before 1914. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990. Judt, Tony. Reappraisals. Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century. New York: Penguin, 2009. Kinzer, Stephen. The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War. New York: Times Books, 2013. Klarić, Ksenija. “Okrugli Stol o Neutralnim i Nesvrstanim Zemljama.” Međunarodna Politika (December 18, 1983): 30–32. Lowe, Keith. The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us. UK: Viking, 2017. Muhaeremi, Amir. Indija: Temeljne postavke vanjske politike. Zagreb: Meandar Media, 2015. Ostojić, Mirko. Zapisi iz Diplomatije. Sarajevo: Nišro, 1989. Petković, Ranko. “Principi Nesvrstanosti u Evropi.” Međunarodna Politika (March 3, 1969). Pirjevec, Jože. Tito i Drugovi. Zagreb: Mozaik knjiga, 2012. Radovanović, Ljumbomir. Vanblokovske Zemlje: Politika Neangažovanih Zemalja: Vanblokovske Zemlje na Beogradskoj Konferenciji. Beograd: Kultura, 1961.

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Stojanović, Stanislav “Titov Doprinos Nastanku Ideje i Razvoju Politike Nesvrstanosti.” In Tito–Nesvrstanost–Savremenost, Zbornik Radova sa Međunarodnog Naučnog Skupa, Održanog od 15. do 17.12.1986. Godine na Brionima. Beograd: Memorijalni Centar Josip Broz Tito, 1988. Tadić, Bojana. Osobenosti i Dileme Nesvrstanosti. Beograd: Izdavački Centar Komunist, 1982. Tito, Josip Broz. Govor na Rangunskom univerzitetu: Govor u Puli. Zagreb: Tiskara Univerzum, 1955. Unkovski-Korica, Vladimir. The Economic Struggle for Power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: From World War II to Non-alignment. London: I.B. Tauris, 2016. Vukadinović, Radovan. “Novi Sadržaj Finske Neutralnosti.” Međunarodna Poltika, no. 473 (1969): 157–198. Westad, Odd Arne. The Cold War: A World History. London: Allen Lane, 2017.

Chapter 12

Politics of Neutrality in the Post-Soviet Space A Comparison of Concepts, Practices, and Outcomes of Neutrality in Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine 1990–2015 David X. Noack

This chapter offers a detailed discourse and a comparative case study about the neutralities of three states in the post-Soviet Era; Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine. It builds on the research of Cold War scholars in this volume to continue the narrative about neutrality in Eastern Europe and shows how, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, three newcomers to the international community used and developed neutrality in their formative years as a discourse (internally) and foreign policy (externally). The study begins with a brief discussion about how the concept of neutrality was utilized by politicians in the U.S.S.R. until its final demise. It then describes how, in the aftermath, three nations attempted to manage their political future, utilizing neutrality. In summary, a brief conclusion portrays what can be learned from the approaches taken by Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine to adopt the status of neutrality. This research is a step in better understanding the domestic challenges endured by these countries following the end of the Cold War and offers a roadmap for the more in-depth study of post-soviet neutral states. THE U.S.S.R AND NEUTRALITY The official Soviet approach towards neutral countries, and accompanying political and juridical discussions about the underlying concept shifted several 267

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times since the beginning of the October Revolution in 1917. Lenin did not consider neutrality as a justifiable option in international relations.1 From the 1920s until 1940s, neutrality in Soviet academic and political discourses did not play a significant role,2 although the Soviets applied a neutralist approach to Japan in the course of the Pacific War.3 Immediately after World War Two, Soviet scholars, on the one hand, denied compatibility of neutrality with the Charter of the United Nations and while Stalin was not keen on neutrality after 1945, Soviet politicians, on the other hand, proposed it as a foreign policy option for Iran in 1951. After the failure of this diplomatic offensive in the Middle East, the Soviet government also proposed neutrality for Germany in the so-called “Stalin Notes,” which, however, according to the historian Peter Ruggenthaler, were only bluffs to consolidate the Soviet influence in Eastern Europe.4 Not all historians share that opinion, however, and the historiographic discussion about the sincerity of the “Stalin Notes” continues.5 The Soviet position on neutrality changed fundamentally during the 1950s when neutrality experienced a revival.6 Scholars started to discuss several types, among them permanent/perpetual, ad hoc, benevolent, and active/ positive neutrality.7 A few years later, however, with the beginning of the coexistence policy of Stalin’s successors, scholars’ perceptions of neutral countries shifted again.8 They viewed neutrality as “more progressive than capitalism but less progressive than socialism.”9 However, in the 1970s, its importance to Soviet foreign policy vanished. Moscow instead supported the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) equating “permanent neutrality” with a policy of nonalignment.10 With the Belavezha Accords in December 1991, the Soviet Union effectively ceased to exist. This was marked by the joint proclamation of intent by Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk, and Stanislav Shushkevich—then presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus respectively—to found the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Around the same time, the elites of four successor states decided to adopt neutrality to their respective country’s foreign policies: Belarus (1990), Moldova (1994), Ukraine (1990), and Turkmenistan (1992). Already in the early 1990s, however, Ukrainian membership in the post-Soviet CIS proved difficult because Nationalist President Kravchuk refused to sign the alliance’s charter since it had a political character. According to his vision, the CIS was supposed to be only an economic association, but with the so-called Council of Ministers of Defense11 as part of the CIS operational structure, the organization gained a military dimension.12 As a result, Ukrainian politicians signed several economic CIS treaties, but not the charter itself,13 which led to the de-facto associate membership that Ukraine has until today. Despite Kravchuk’s reservations about the political character, the CIS has become mostly an economic association because the military vector of the association became marginal already during the mid-1990s.

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Ukraine was not alone on its path to neutrality. In 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Belarus declared that the country would become a neutral and non-nuclear state—this article was even included in its 1994 constitution.14 In the same year, Belarus effectively renounced the politics of neutrality when the pro-Russian politician, Alexander Lukashenko, was elected president on a platform of reintegration with Russia. Although that did not occur, Belarus has been a close political, economic, and military ally to Moscow until this day—despite recurring political skirmishes between both countries. As a part of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, for example, both states have a unified air-defense system. Due to this de facto renunciation of neutrality, Belarus is not part of this study. In June 1992, Turkmenistan also took the path of neutrality. During a meeting of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) President Niyazov, an autocratic ruler, announced that his country intended to adopt a doctrine of so-called Positive Neutrality.15 The fourth permanent neutral post-Soviet country was a latecomer: The parliament of the SouthEastern European Republic of Moldova adopted neutrality by including it into the new constitution in the early summer of 1994.16 MOLDOVA’S PATH OF NEUTRALITY 1994–2015: CONCEPTS, PRACTICES, AND OUTCOMES In 1992, the Transnistria War between Russian-speaking Slavic separatists and the pro-Romania leaning central government in Chișinău ended with a peace agreement between the Moldovan government and the Transnistrian separatists. As part of the agreement, Russian troops remained in the separatist republic, and a trilateral peacekeeping force of the warring sides and Russian soldiers was established—the Joint Control Commission (Объединенная ко нтрольная комиссия, ОКК). This force has maintained peace in the border zone between Transnistria and the territory which remains under control of the Moldovan government until today. In the aftermath of the war, the Moldovan radicals’ influence waned. The so-called Unionists, favored the re-integration into Romania, which had included the whole of Bessarabia (Moldova, the today-Ukrainian Bujak, and Hertza regions) after the First and during the Second World War (1918–1940, 1941–1944).17 With the radicals drastically losing influence after the lost war, the pragmatic Agrarian Party won the parliamentary elections in February 1994. Their social base was the agro-industrial elite of the former Soviet state class in Moldova. Adjusting to the economic realities of the country, the new political leaders changed Moldova’s foreign policy orientation. In April 1994, the CIS charter was ratified, making Moldova the last post-Soviet country to join the political and economic alliance.

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Soon after that, the parliament adopted the first Moldovan constitution. Article 11 proclaimed the permanent neutrality of the Republic of Moldova and stipulated that the country not permit the presence of foreign armed forces on its territory18—a contradiction to the peace agreement under which Russian troops have remained in Transnistria until today, mentioned above. Additionally, Moldovan President Mircea Snegur (himself a former Kolkhoz director) highlighted his country’s policy of neutrality at the signing ceremony of Moldova’s membership in NATO’s ’Partnership for Peace’ programme. The head of state pointed out that Moldova did not belong to the military structures of the CIS, and chose not to consider an eventual NATO membership.19 In 1995, the National Security Concept and the Military Doctrine of the Republic of Moldova were adopted, which both referring to “permanent neutrality” as stipulated in the constitution, considering it a cornerstone for the security and military policy of Moldova.20 The country consequently did not join the CIS Joint Air Defense System (Объединённая система ПВО государств-участников СНГ, ОС ПВО СНГ), when it was created in the same year, and continued to abstain from military structures of the Commonwealth of Independent States, only participating in some forums as an “Observer State.” Since the advent of Moldova’s independence, economic issues dominated domestic politics. In the 1990s, the country’s economy experienced a dramatic downturn, which in 2001 led to a landslide victory for the Communist Party (PCRM) in the elections after ten years of capitalist experimentation. Paradoxically, the communists stabilized the capitalist model, and the two terms under PCRM party chief Vladimir Voronin (in office 2001–2009) led to the emergence of an oligarchic system. Concerning foreign policy, the PCRM-led governments pursued a pro-Moscow course in the beginning (2000–2002) but, after a sharp turn, sought to join the European Union, while still declining NATO membership (2003–2007). In the end, the government again turned to Moscow (2008/2009). During this zig-zag-course, several attempts were made to find a solution for the separatist conflict in Eastern Moldova. The “frozen conflict” had repeatedly been close to a resolution in 2001, 2006 and 2008. In all these cases, Moldovan neutrality was a pillar of the conflict solution proposals. The most renowned one was suggested by Dmitry Kozak, the Russian deputy head of the presidential administration in the early 2000s. As part of the “’Kozak Memorandum,’ Moldova would have become an ‘asymmetric federation’ including the two federal states of Gagauzia and Transnistria. This federation was to be a “neutral demilitarized state” (Федерация является нейтральным демилитаризованным государством).21 Also in 2006, the proposed agreement for the conflict resolution included a Russian guarantee for Moldovan neutrality for 40 or 50 years, and two years later, a meeting of high-level Moldovan and Russian

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representatives concluded that a settlement to the Transnistria conflict would only be found within the framework of Moldovan neutrality.22 In the end, none of the three proposals became a reality due to domestic reasons23 and— in some cases—foreign interference.24 Regarding Moldova’s military, some of the potential solutions to the internal conflict would have included a complete demilitarization of the country— which, nevertheless, would have been a dramatic development. Moldova has only a small armed force that military experts do not perceive as being very effective,25 and its troops are rarely deployed abroad. Since the early 2000s, about 8 to 10 soldiers and officers regularly participate in United Nations peacekeeping missions. Additionally, Moldovan troops joined NATO missions like SFOR (“Stabilisation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina”) and KFOR (“Kosovo Force”). One of the largest troop deployments abroad was in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq War. About 20 military personnel were deployed in post-Saddam Iraq during the 2000s.26 Generally speaking, Moldova plays only a minor role in international peacekeeping efforts. Today, the final decision of Eastern or Western orientation of the Republic of Moldova remains ambivalent.27 On the one hand, the country joined the Commonwealth of Independent States Free Trade Area in 2011, but on the other hand, is associated with the European Union since 2014. The Transnistria issue is still not resolved. Russian troops remain in the conflict zone, and the country is a member of the CIS but not of the European Union or the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The current government under the informal control of oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc is striving for integration into the EU, while the President—Igor Dodon of the pro-Russian Socialist Party (PSRM)—pleads for full membership in the EEU. Dodon spurred his favored option by signing a declaration that led to the EEU granting Moldova observer status in 2017. The legal question, whether Dodon had the constitutional competence to do so, remains unresolved. Almost none of the mainstream political forces are pleading for the abandonment of neutrality. The only exception is the far-right Liberal Party, which favors Moldova excluding Transnistria and joining Romania and thereby the EU and NATO. However, all the significant parties define neutrality differently: Some see it as compatible with a possible EU membership and some only with a possible EEU membership.28 All in all, Moldova is in a state that could be called “contractually unsecured neutrality.” The country is neither a member of the Non-Aligned Movement nor any military pact—in the East or the West. It has no armaments industry, only small armed forces, and participates marginally in international peacekeeping efforts. The Republic joined the CIS but none of the organization’s military structures. Even though its neutrality is not internationally recognized as permanent neutrality, the discourse about it is well established in the

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national political sphere, with none of the powerful domestic political forces opposing the concept. Meanwhile, the country has also intensive economic and political relations with countries in the east and west. TURKMENISTAN’S “POSITIVE NEUTRALITY” AND ISOLATION 1992–2015 Turkmenistan chose a different path to neutrality. In 1985 Saparmurat Niyazov became the First Secretary of the Turkmen Communist Party and, simultaneously, the strongman of Turkmen politics. He stayed in this position until the mid-2000s. In the early years of his tenure as Communist Party chief, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR) was considered to be one of the most traditionalist political leadership among USSR member republics. When, in 1991, traditionalist politicians hoping to restore Soviet authority tried to seize power in Moscow, Niyazov failed to condemn the so-called “August coup,” signaling his tacit consent to a forceful restoration of centralized Soviet Power in Moscow. In the following months, he opposed any measures that were seen as leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.29 Nevertheless, the parliament of Turkmenistan declared independence from the Soviet Union in October 1991. Niyazov then became president of independent Turkmenistan. Seven months later, representatives of Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan signed the Collective Security Treaty (Договор о Коллективной Безопасности, ДКБ) in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. Turkmenistan did not join that alliance of six post-Soviet states, and the Turkmen government even went as far as to reject it in public statements.30 Despite its decision not to join the multilateral defense treaty, Turkmenistan signed a bilateral defense agreement with the Russian government in June 1992. In it, Russia encouraged Turkmenistan to create its own armed forces and place them together with Russian armed forces under joint command.31 Thus, their co-operation went even further than the Collective Security Treaty Organization. As a result, both governments worked together closely in the following years to design the structure of the emerging Armed Forces of Turkmenistan.32 That, however, would not last long. In parallel to this bilateral construction of a Russian-Turkmen Army, Niyazov announced that his country wanted to adopt a doctrine of so-called “Positive Neutrality.” This variation of permanent neutrality is a vaguely defined concept which, some authors argued, was used by Niyazov mostly as a tool for nation-building, i.e. for domestic reasons.33 In September 1993, Niyazov traveled to Brussels and asked the NATO General Secretary, Manfred Wörner, for NATO support in crafting the new

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direction of Turkmenistan’s foreign policy. After preliminary discussions in Western Europe and North America about a possible NATO expansion into Central Eastern Europe in 1994–1995, the Turkmen foreign minister Boris Shikhmuradov said that his country was seeking international recognition of its permanent neutrality and that it would not join any bloc but would aim, rather, to create a strong army. Interestingly, the foreign minister also declared that this would be achieved “with Ukrainian assistance.”34 Nonetheless, a bloc of neutral countries within the post-Soviet space did not emerge. Throughout 1995, Niyazov and his foreign minister lobbied for international recognition of Turkmenistan’s new foreign policy orientation. Leading politicians traveled to several countries—from Germany to Bangladesh, and the Turkmen foreign minister participated in the 11th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in the Colombian port city of Cartagena in October 1995. During this summit, Turkmenistan joined the global organization, then consisting of over 100 member states.35 It could be argued that the country actively pursued a policy of non-alignment similar to that discussed in Soviet academic discourse in the 1970s and 1980s. The crowning achievement of these lobbying efforts came when the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) recognized Turkmenistan as a permanently neutral state in December 1995.36 The resolution was the first of its kind in the United Nation’s history—and remains the last to this day. The UNGA resolution records Turkmenistan’s pledge to promote peace, security, and good-neighborly relations in the region, and calls on UN member countries to respect the country’s neutrality, independence, and territorial integrity.37 Later, the UN resolution text was included in the country’s constitution.38 Since then, in the name of permanent neutrality, Turkmenistan has limited its participation in international institutions and refused to join several regional development programs led by the UN. The country only participates in the UN Special Program for the Economies of Central Asia.39 Turkmenistan’s course of neutrality turned out to be more a path to isolation in the international sphere. In fact, adherence to principles of neutrality started to develop into a bizarre cult. The day of the UNGA resolution’s passing, December 12, was declared a public holiday with the name “Neutrality Day.”40 In 1997, Turkmenistan’s flag was altered: an olive wreath was added as a symbol of neutrality. A 95-meter high structure with the name “Neutrality Monument,” featuring a 12-meter high golden statue of Niyazov was erected in the nation’s capital in 1998.41 In this regard, permanent neutrality became a justification for a personality cult and an isolationist path that had already been pursued since the country’s independence. It is not without irony that the UNGA in 2017 declared December 12 the “international day of neutrality,” recalling the mentioned resolution on Turkmen neutrality of 1995.42

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In 1997, Turkmenistan also withdrew from the CIS Joint Air Defense System. Neutrality was pushed to the extremes in both the domestic and the international spheres. In the field of international relations, this meant searching for good-neighborly relations—whatever the conditions under the neighbor’s regime. Turkmen-Russian relations worsened in the late 1990s because the government in Ashgabat established relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban government. Even though Turkmenistan did not officially recognize the Taliban, leaders of both countries established cordial (unofficial) relations. In 1999, Turkmenistan was the first country to sign an international treaty with the so-called “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”43 The same year, the Turkmen government opposed the United Nations Security Council’s decision to impose sanctions on the Taliban regime for support of terrorist activities.44 In February 2001, the Turkmen foreign minister claimed that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan posed no threat and that the Taliban maintained stability and discipline in the country, built streets and made Afghanistan governable.45 This position isolated Turkmenistan within the United Nations. When NATO operations began against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, Western troops were deployed or traveled via Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. This meant that every post-Soviet Central Asian state, with the lone exception of Turkmenistan, was involved in the international efforts to remove the Taliban regime. The Turkmen government maintained its neutral stance not only in the face of repeated Russian offers to co-operate more closely, but it also held this position in response to Western plans to travel through post-Soviet Central Asia to Afghanistan. Turkmenistan’s hardline stance towards permanent neutrality changed after Niyazov’s death in February 2007, when his former dentist Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow became the new president of Turkmenistan.46 According to United States diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, the new head of state, in his inauguration speech, “promised citizens that he would continue Niyazov’s “permanent, positive neutrality” policy while also expanding relations with other countries in a way that would benefit Turkmenistan.”47 Nevertheless, Berdimuhamedow slowly began to alter Turkmenistan’s foreign policy. A new, softer line on permanent neutrality led to the first stationing of foreign troops in the country since the end of the Soviet Union. In 2008, the government allowed the permanent presence of U.S. troops on its soil. NATO soldiers operated logistics for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation in Afghanistan. However, a United States State Department spokesman told journalists that the U.S. Defense Department did not want U.S. diplomats to discuss the issue of U.S. bases in Turkmenistan publicly.48 Like neighboring Uzbekistan, the Turkmen government

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might have been keen to hide the presence of foreign troops from its own population. After more than 15 years of propaganda in the name of “Positive Neutrality,” the American troop presence might have been disturbing for the Turkmens. In the years following, Turkmenistan became a member of NATO’s Northern Distribution Network, which ended with the completion of NATO’s ISAF mission in 2015.49 On the other hand, there are also signs that nothing fundamentally changed in Turkmenistan’s approach toward permanent neutrality. For example, while Moldova participates in international peacekeeping efforts in a limited capacity and Ukraine is a very active member of United Nations missions, Turkmenistan’s armed forces were never deployed abroad. In 2008, the new president Berdimuhamedow announced that his country would be willing to participate in international peacekeeping activities.50 However, like Moldova, Turkmenistan’s military is not considered to be well funded or equipped51 and, until now, nothing has changed; Turkmenistan continues its course of non-participation in international military operations. In light of the above discussion, it is fair to say that since Turkmenistan declared its independence, the government fostered a firm understanding of the country’s permanent neutrality, which was only slightly softened after the death of the country’s first dictator. The factors that allowed the Turkmen government to maintain the foreign policy which it calls “Positive Neutrality” were—and still are—political, economic and demographic reasons. Turkmenistan has an economy that is highly dependent on oil and gas exports. China and Turkey are the main export partners. Additionally, half of the labor force is employed in the agricultural sector. The economy has not been reformed since Soviet times and is heavily state-centralized. Additionally, in stark contrast to other ex-Soviet republics, there is no Russian minority at all in the country and Russian is not even taught in Turkmen schools throughout the country.52 At the end of this period, the situation in Turkmenistan remained in flux. In 2015, reports surfaced that the Turkmen government had invited Russian and Uzbek troops to protect the Afghan-Turkmen border. These reports, however, were officially denied.53 On the other side, the same year, Nikolay Bordyuzha, Secretary General of the CSTO, complained that his organization has “practically no working relationship with […] Turkmenistan, although from our side there have been repeated proposals to cooperate.”54 In conclusion, although the Turkmen government has softened its hardline stance on the meaning of its permanent neutrality, there has not been a policy shift towards membership in any political or military alliances. Today, among all post-Soviet states, Turkmenistan is the country least influenced by Russia, and it remains outside any international political blocs. The country is not even an observer to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which unites

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all other Central Asian states, China, Russia, India, and Pakistan. Turkmen officials have also shown no interest in joining the Eurasian Economic Union. The policy of neutrality is strictly pursued. UKRAINE’S NEUTRALITY 1990–2014 In contrast to the Turkmen experience, the course of Ukrainian neutrality changed drastically on several occasions. In July 1990, when the country was still a part of the Soviet Union, its parliament passed the so-called ’Declaration of Sovereignty,’ which specified that the country “declares its intention of becoming a permanently neutral state.” Also, Ukraine strived for a non-nuclear status outside of the USSR.55 Permanent neutrality was subsequently enshrined in the first Ukrainian constitution, which meant that a two-thirds majority would be required to change this new pillar of Ukrainian foreign policy.56 Therefore, in 1992, Ukraine did not join when representatives from six former Soviet Union countries signed the Collective Security Treaty in Tashkent. Ukrainian politicians stated that their country could not participate in this military alliance due to its neutrality.57 Two years later, the Budapest Memorandum led the way to Ukraine’s nuclear disarmament, after it had inherited the world’s third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons with the dissolution of the USSR. Thanks to American, British, and Russian guarantees, a mechanism was found to rid Ukraine of its nuclear burden and lay the foundations for its neutral, non-nuclear path.58 In September 1995, Russian president Boris Yeltsin warned that with a possible NATO expansion into Central Eastern Europe, Russia might be forced to create a ’new military bloc’ of CIS states. In a reaction to this, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Hennady Udovenko expressed concerns that Ukraine would become a buffer state between an enlarged NATO (possibly including Poland) and Russia. The conservative politician said that Ukraine would stay out of any military alliance but cooperate with NATO in the “Partnership for Peace” program. In the same year, the CIS states, including Turkmenistan and Ukraine, created the CIS Joint Air Defense System.59 Two Ukrainian radar stations became part of it until 2008; one in the westernmost region of Transcarpathia (Carpathian Ruthenia) and the other in Sevastopol, on the Crimean Peninsula. Interestingly, the installations were leased to Russia but staffed by Ukrainian personnel.60 Ukraine apparently wanted to avoid the impression of being part of an international military force. This example shows that considerations for Ukrainian permanent neutrality played a role in the formulation of its foreign policy, but the foreign policy approach was not treated as dogmatically as in Turkmenistan. Institutionally, the year 1996 marked a watershed moment in the history of Ukraine’s permanent neutrality. First, in the new Ukrainian constitution of

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1996, the parliamentary lawmakers did not include provisions of neutrality at all—in contrast to the neighboring Republic of Moldova.61 The new constitution, the last adopted by a post-Soviet state, only explicitly prohibited the presence of foreign military bases in the country. However, at the same time, in September of that year, the country became an observer state in the NonAligned Movement.62, 63 These ambiguous developments demonstrate the difficulties that the concept of neutrality faced in Ukraine’s internal political process. Generally speaking, the idea of permanent neutrality was not commonly accepted by the political and military elite in the 1990s. For example, military officers often avoided the word “neutrality” by using other terms as, for instance, “pozablokovist” (“позаблоковість”), meaning “block-free.”64 The Communist Party was even more strongly opposed to establishing Ukraine as a permanently neutral state. It was the major political force that wanted to abandon the idea because they preferred military integration with Russia.65 The fact that the president’s primary rival party—whose candidate won 38.8 percent in the second round of the Ukrainian presidential election in 199966—opposed neutrality, shows what little support neutrality had in the Ukrainian population and among its political elite. While continuing a neutrality policy and opposing military re-integration with Russia, the political leadership of Leonid Kuchma (in office 1994–2005) also pursued a course of integration with the West. In 1996, Kuchma said that Ukraine might become a NATO member state in the distant future, the first time the idea had been voiced in the country.67 One year after that, the Ukrainian government signed the far-reaching NATO-Ukraine charter. The Ukrainian socialists and communists, interpreting this as a policy shift away from neutrality, called for President Kuchma’s impeachment and proposed several anti-NATO bills in parliament. Responding to this, the foreign minister pointed out that Ukraine’s neutrality did not preclude strengthening the country’s security through partnership with NATO.68 The double-standard was striking; on the one hand, neutrality was allegedly the reason to not cooperate on military issues with Russia, while, on the other hand, so-called “partnership relations” with NATO seemed possible. In the same year, the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet, based in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, was partitioned between Ukraine and Russia. The continued presence of Russian troops contradicted the Ukrainian ’Declaration of Sovereignty,’ the recently adopted constitution and basic interpretations of permanent neutrality but was accepted by the self-declared ’pragmatic’ political leadership of Leonid Kuchma. The situation remained complicated and somewhat paradoxical. What these developments show is that the neutrality discourse remained highly politicized throughout the 1990s.

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In 2002, Ukrainian politicians actively discussed NATO membership for the first time. The westward shift was bolstered by significant military cooperation that positioned Ukraine within the so-called ’New Europe,’ as United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had implied.69 In March 2003, Ukrainian troops joined the British-American effort to conquer Iraq. After the defeat of the Baathist regime, Ukrainian troops were deployed in Kut in South Central Iraq. Ukraine contributed the 8th largest troop contingent to the so-called Multi-National Force – Iraq.70 That same year, the Ukrainian Rada (the parliament) passed a new law on national security. The legislation codified the dual-goal of Ukrainian membership in both the EU and NATO as foreign policy objectives.71 They were accelerated immediately after the “Orange Revolution,” a second run-off election that came after intense domestic and international pressure. After the change of government, the petit-bourgeois and neo-liberal politician Viktor Yushchenko became President in early 2005. The EU and NATO were never even mentioned in his election program.72 However, immediately after taking office, he enforced a drastic pro-NATO course. In the very first year of his term, Yushchenko and NATO General Secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer signed an agreement that they would pursue a course towards UkrainianNATO membership. This was the de facto end of official Ukrainian permanent neutrality policy—for the first time. While pursuing a pro-Western course and trying to bring Ukraine closer to NATO, Yushchenko enforced an emphatic anti-Russian policy in Crimea. In the domestic sphere, the “orange” conservative and liberal politicians pursued a policy of Ukrainization—especially in cultural and educational policies.73 After the beginning of 2008’s Six Day War in the Caucasus, President Yushchenko imposed greater restrictions on the movement of the Russian Black Sea fleet in Ukrainian territorial waters.74 Also, Yushchenko called the Russian troop presence on the Crimean Peninsula a “destabilizing factor,” and supplies of armaments were blocked by Ukrainian authorities.75 The policy of the “Orange” politicians implied that they wanted to end Russian military presence on their country’s soil. Once they found themselves in the opposition after 2005, Yanukovych and his Party of Regions shifted to a staunch anti-NATO stance, even though Kuchma and Yanukovych had pursued a course of step-by-step political rapprochement towards NATO in the earlier period when they were in power.76 In 2006, fierce anti-NATO protests by small pro-Russian parties on the Crimean Peninsula received wide national and international media coverage. In the course of the ’Feodosiya Crisis,’ Russian lawmakers proposed re-integrating the Crimean Peninsula into Russia and the parliament of the Black Sea peninsula—even though it lacked the legislative powers to enforce its decision—declared Crimea to be a “NATO-free zone.”77 The local Party

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of Regions branch supported the anti-NATO stance in the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea, the local parliament.78 United States troops had to be recalled, and a planned joint maneuver with Ukrainian forces was called off. The following year, the head of the Party of Regions called for a nation-wide referendum on the country’s neutrality.79 The Party of Regions adhered to neutrality, but only in defiance of the radical pro-Western course of ’Orange’ politicians like Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko. The neutrality discourse resurged, but the approach to international relations was still not commonly accepted in Ukrainian national politics. Ukraine’s economy experienced a dramatic downturn with the advent of the global financial crisis. From September 2008 to September 2009, its currency, the Hryvna, lost about 80% of its value against the U.S. Dollar. Wages declined sharply, industrial output dramatically decreased, and the state budget shrank. Taxes for the general population were raised and state properties privatized.80 Due to the economic and social downturn, radical pro-Western politicians and what can be called their “policy of post-neutrality” lost support among the Ukrainian population and the idea of permanent neutrality, in consequence, experienced a revival. On a ticket of “pragmatic policy approaches,” Victor Yanukovych won the presidential elections in 2010. He appointed a government that had the support of the Socialists, the Communists and his own party. When shortly afterward the new Deputy Prime-Minister Volodymyr Semynozhenko said that the Ukrainians wanted their state to become a part of the Union State of Belarus and Russia—which would have meant an end to neutrality—he was immediately sacked.81 Several months after the government’s inauguration, the parliament adopted a law on the ’Fundamentals of Domestic and Foreign Policy’ that dropped the goal of seeking Ukrainian NATO membership. The revived discourse about neutrality led to a change in official policy. Also, in the same year, the new government ratified a treaty that extended the Russian troop presence on the Crimean Peninsula until 2043.82 Even though the Party of Regions wanted to preserve Ukraine’s permanent neutrality nominally, it accepted the continuing Russian troop presence on its own soil which contradicted the basic predicaments of permanent neutrality, the Ukrainian ’Declaration of Sovereignty’ and the constitution—just like Kuchma’s policy did in the 1990s. The policy shift back to permanent neutrality did not last long. After President Yanukovych had refused to sign an association agreement with the European Union in late 2013, student protests started in Kiev. Supported by Western politicians, oppositional politicians weighed in. In February 2014, protesters and armed militiamen of the fascist UNA-UNSO group stormed the parliament. Conservative, liberal and neo-fascist politicians elected the pro-Western neoliberal prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. After this coup

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d’état, President Yanukovych sent a letter to the Russian government asking for troops to restore the constitutional order of Ukraine.83 Shortly afterward, so-called little green men—most likely Russian special forces (SpezNas)— appeared on the Crimean Peninsula. The special Russian troops intervened, however, not to restore Ukrainian constitutional order and Yanukovych’s presidency, but to provide support for a local Crimean referendum which then led to the separation of the peninsula and Crimea joining the Russian Federation.84 Later that same year, due to those events Ukraine’s parliament voted to abandon the country’s permanently neutral status and to set a course for a possible NATO membership. According to the lawmaker’s arguments, permanent neutrality had left Ukraine vulnerable to “external aggression and pressure.” While considerations for neutrality always had a hard stance in Ukrainian politics, the time of Ukrainian neutrality policy had finally ended. However, since then the discourse has survived, and sometimes politicians in Ukraine have called for a Ukrainian return to neutrality. In 2015 for example, the political leaders of the separatist so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics proposed that the Ukrainian constitution be amended with the sentence: “Ukraine does not join military blocs or alliances, maintains neutrality, [and] refrains from participating in military activities beyond its territory.”85 The latter part would mean an end to active Ukrainian participation in United Nations peacekeeping efforts. Ukrainian troops currently participate in UN and NATO missions in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Not only the separatist forces in the East but also the largest opposition party “Opposition Bloc” (“Опозиційний блок”), composed of many of former Party of Regions politicians, called for a return to neutrality in 2017.86 Official neutrality policy has experienced several up- and downturns in official Ukrainian policy from 1990 until 2015. The neutrality discourse over two and a half decades has a highly political character and until today remains a political topic in the country. In the beginning, anti-Russian nationalists used neutrality policy as a way to separate their country from Russia and later so-called pro-Russian politicians and true neutralists used neutrality as a tool to block a proWestern course. The neutrality discourse continues even after the official end of the neutrality policy—but only in opposition to the current pro-Western mainstream. CONCLUSION This chapter shows that the neutrality of Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine evolved in three distinctive ways. There are no currents or general trends of the post-Soviet neutral countries. In the domestic sphere, Ukraine

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evolved into an oligarchic system with a relatively free press and mostly free elections during the 1990s. During the 2000s, Moldova changed into a similar system. In Turkmenistan, meanwhile, a small former Communist party elite build a highly authoritarian system “similar to that of North Korea.”87 No implications on domestic politics can be drawn from the choice of neutrality and non-alignment as a foreign policy stance by state elites.88 In the international arena, there are no general trends, neither. While Ukraine and Turkmenistan left the CIS because of its military component, Moldova remained but stayed out of military agreements. On an institutional level, Turkmenistan joined the Non-Aligned Movement, and Ukraine became an observer state—but not the Republic of Moldova. The latter also was never part of the CIS Joint Air Defense System, while Ukraine and Turkmenistan were members in the beginning but later withdrew. Only Ukraine found a separate joint air defense solution with Russia. Often, neutrality discourse was an excuse for the diminishing influence of external players, in the above cases, those were Russia and Romania. None of the three governments strived for a common approach to post-Soviet neutralism. A ’League of Neutrals’ of Eastern European and Central Asian countries was never discussed. In Turkmenistan, the hardline ’positive neutrality’ was combined with an isolationist stance and an authoritarian system. In Ukraine, permanent neutrality was first established as an anti-Russian stance and later abandoned in favor of a pro-NATO attitude. In Moldova, the final path of the country is not yet decided—the Transnistria issue remains unresolved, Russian troops are still in the conflict zone, and the country is a member of the CIS but not of the EU or EEU. Interestingly, permanent neutrality is generally accepted in the Moldovan political sphere—in contrast to Ukraine, where it is not. While in Turkmenistan permanent neutrality was a path towards sovereignty, in Ukraine the non-bloc status was abandoned in favor of a pro-NATO attitude because the political mainstream in Kiev felt that the neutral status threatened the country’s sovereignty. In contrast, permanent neutrality is well established in Moldova, and the country remains sovereign. Although the final status of Transnistria is not resolved, neutrality remains a pillar of all conflict resolution proposals in Moldova. In any of the countries, detailed concepts of neutrality were discussed in public. Only Turkmenistan searched for international recognition of its status as a permanently neutral country. Besides that, there were no commonly accepted conditions that the neutral countries had to meet. All in all, talk about neutrality was often more an excuse than a concept and the reasons for the three countries’ striving for independence can be found among their economic, cultural and demographic interests.

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NOTES 1. Wolfgang Mueller, “The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies 18, no. 4 (2016): 150. 2. Ibid., 151. 3. See Pascal Lottaz’s chapter in this book. 4. See Peter Ruggenthaler’s chapter in this book. 5. Wilfried Loth, “Die USA und die Stalin-Note vom 10. März 1952,” Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift 76, no. 1 (2017): 126–132. 6. Mueller, “The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War,” 151. 7. Heinz Fiedler, Der sowjetische Neutralitätsbegriff in Theorie und Praxis— Ein Beitrag zum Problem des Disengagement (Cologne: Verlag für Politik und Wirtschaft, 1959), 83–90. 8. Ibid., 84. 9. Mueller, “The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War,” 151. 10. Ibid., 169. 11. The council was meant as a forum for possible cooperation. However, since the mid-1990s the regional cooperation is very limited. See: Hooman Peimani, Conflict and Security in Central Asia and the Caucasus (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 297. 12. The Council of Ministers of Defense was established with the CIS charter and dealt with the coordination of the military cooperation of all CIS member states. Since 1994 Ukraine participated in the council meetings as an observer. See: Taras Kuzio, Ukraine under Kuchma: Political Reform, Economic Transformation and Security Policy in Independent Ukraine (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997), 186. 13. Eric A. Miller, To Balance Or Not to Balance: Alignment Theory and the Commonwealth of Independent States (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), 142. 14. Constitution of Belarus (1994) Section I, Article 18. www.c​onsti​tutep​rojec​ t.org​/cons​titut​ion/B​elaru​s_200​4.pdf​. The parliament of Ukraine passed a similar declaration. 15. Luca Anceschi, Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy: Positive Neutrality and the Consolidation of the Turkmen Regime (Routledge: London/New York, 2008), 23. 16. Constitution of Moldova (1994), Article 11 and 141. 17. Years during which Bessarabia was part of Romania. 18. Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, accessed May 11, 2018 at http:​// www​.cons​tcour​t.md/​publi​c/fil​es/fi​le/Ac​tele%​20Cur​tii/a​cte_e​n/MDA​_Cons​titut​ion_ E​N.pdf​ 19. Trevor Waters, “The Republic of Moldova—Armed Forces and Military Doctrine,” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 11, no. 2 (1998): 81. 20. Ion Marandici, “Moldova’s Neutrality—What is at Stake?” European Integration Studies Centre (Lithuania) and Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (2007). Accessed March 30, 2018, https​://pa​pers.​ssrn.​com/s​ol3/p​apers​.cfm?​abstr​act_i​ d=126​2561.​ 21. ““Меморандум Козака”: Российский план объединения Молдовы и Приднестровья,” Regnum, undated, accessed March 12, 2018, https://regnum.ru/ news/458547.html.

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22. “Moldovans, Russians Agree to Neutrality Language as Basis for Transnistria Settlement (08CHISINAU107_a),” Wikileaks, accessed March 30, 2018, wikil​eaks.​ org/p​lusd/​cable​s/08C​HISIN​AU107​_a.ht​ml. 23. Since the mid-2000s, the political elite in Chisinau has lost interested in the conflict resolution. Kamil Całus, The Unfinished State – 25 Years of Independent Moldova (Warsaw: Centre for Eastern Studies, 2016), 76. 24. In 2003, the United States Ambassador Heather M. Hodges interfered in order to prevent the solution. Hannes Hofbauer, “Transnistrien: Niemandsland Am Dnjestr – Europas inexistente Republik an der Schnittstelle zwischen Ost und West,” in Mitten in Europa: Politische Reiseberichte aus Bosnien-Herzegowina, Belarus, der Ukraine, Transnistrien/Moldawien und Albanien, ed. Hannes Hofbauer (Vienna: Promedia Verlag, 2006), 146/147. 25. Dumitru Minzarari, “Moldovan Armed Forces Train for Hybrid Warfare the Wrong Way,” Eurasian Daily Monitor 11, no. 194 (The Jamestown Foundation, 2014), accessed March 21, 2018, https​://ja​mesto​wn.or​g/pro​gram/​moldo​van-a​rmed-​ force​s-tra​in-fo​r-hyb​rid-w​arfar​e-the​-wron​g-way​/. 26. “Moldova Will Send a New Contingent of Military Men to Iraq,” Moldova. ORG, accessed March 21, 2018, http:​//www​.mold​ova.o​rg/en​/mold​ova-w​ill-s​end-a​ -new-​conti​ngent​-of-m​ilita​ry-me​n-to-​iraq-​13378​1-eng​/. 27. David X. Noack, “Wahlen in Moldawien: Entscheidung zwischen Ost und West verschoben,” WeltTrends 22, no. 102 (April 2015): 4–7. 28. The Socialist Party (PSRM) for example on the one hand strongly advocates neutrality in its party program and even excludes maneuvers with NATO countries. On the other hand, the PSRM pledges for joining the EEU rapidly. See: “Программа ПСРМ,” PSRM, accessed May 10, 2018, http:​//soc​ialis​tii.m​d/des​pre-p​artid​/prog​ ramul​-psrm​/?lan​g=ru.​ 29. Anceschi, Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy, 33. 30. In 2002, this framework became the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO—Организация Договора о коллективной безопасности, ОДКБ), and is until today a military block with headquarters in Moscow. 31. Coit D. Blacker, “Emerging States and Military Legacies in the Former Soviet Union,” in Global Engagement—Cooperation and Security in the 21st Century, ed. Janne E. Nolan (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1994), 369. 32. Ibid., 373. 33. Anceschi, Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy, 55. 34. “Reactions to Yeltsin’s “New Bloc” Warning,” Monitor 1, no. 93 (The Jamestown Foundation, 1995), accessed March 6, 2018, http:​//jam​estow​n.org​/prog​ram/r​ eacti​ons-t​o-yel​tsins​-new-​bloc-​warni​ng/#!​. 35. Azerbaijan, Belarus, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are the only post-Soviet member states of the NAM. 36. General Assembly Resolution 50/80, Maintenance of International Security: A Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan, A/RES/50/80 (12 December 1995), available from undocs.org/A/RES/50/80. 37. “UN Confirms Turkmenistan’s Permanent Neutrality,” Monitor 1, no. 154 (The Jamestown Foundation: 1995), accessed March 6, 2018, http:​//jam​estow​n.org​/ prog​ram/u​n-con​firms​-turk​menis​tans-​perma​nent-​neutr​ality​/.

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38. Central Asia expert Eric W. Sievers published an unofficial translation of Turkmenistan’s initial constitution before the change was implemented: “Constitution of Turkmenistan,” University of Texas, accessed April 30, 2018, http://www.uta.edu/ cpsees/TURKCON.htm. 39. Sebastien Peyrouse, Turkmenistan—Strategies of Power, Dilemmas of Development (London/New York: Routledge, 2008), 207. 40. Anceschi, Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy, 57/58. 41. The monument was demolished in 2010. 42. General Assembly Resolution 71/275, International Day of Neutrality, A/ RES/71/275 (13 February 2017), available from undocs.org/A/RES/71/275. 43. Yelena Symonchuk, Regionaler Sicherheitskomplex Zentralasien: Analyse der innerstaatlichen und intra-regionalen Sicherheitsdynamiken (Springer: Wiesbaden, 2016), 81. 44. Vladimir Milov, “Ups and Downs of the Russia–Turkmenistan Relationship,” in Russian Energy Security and Foreign Policy, eds. Adrian Dellecker and Thomas Gomart (London: Routledge, 2011), 91. 45. Constanze Fröhlich, Krisenherd Afghanistan: Eine Analyse der regionalen sicherheitspolitischen Auswirkungen, 1979–2004 (Freiburg i. Br.: Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institut, 2005), 118. 46. Abel Polese, Donnacha Ó Beacháin, and Slavomír Horák, “Strategies of Legitimation in Central Asia: Regime Durability in Turkmenistan,” Contemporary Politics 23, no. 4 (2017): 434–436. 47. “Turkmenistan’s Evolving Face of Neutrality (07ASHGABAT1149_a),” Wikileaks, accessed March 31, 2018, wikil​eaks.​org/p​lusd/​cable​s/07A​SHGAB​AT114​ 9_a.h​tml. 48. Deirdre Tynan, “Turkmenistan: Ashgabat Hosts U.S. Military Refuelling (sic.), Resupply Operations,” eurasianet, July 7, 2009, accessed March 31, 2018, https​://eu​rasia​net.o​rg/s/​turkm​enist​an-as​hgaba​t-hos​ts-us​-mili​tary-​refue​lling​-resu​pply-​ opera​tions​. 49. Catherine Putz, “Ukraine’s Geopolitical Spillover Officially Makes it to Afghanistan,” The Diplomat, May 20, 2015, accessed March 31, 2018, https​ :// th​edipl​omat.​com/2​015/0​5/ukr​aines​-geop​oliti​cal-s​pillo​ver-o​ffici​ally-​makes​-it-t​o-afg​ hanis​tan/.​ 50. Ibid. 51. Vitaly Gelfgat, “Central Asian States Matching Military Means to Strategic Ends,” Connections 13, no. 3 (Summer 2014): 14. 52. “The Use of Russian Language in Education to be Reduced in Turkmenistan,” Chronicles of Turkmenistan, accessed May 16, 2018, July 2, 2014, en.hr​onika​ tm.co​m/201​4/07/​the-u​se-of​-russ​ian-l​angua​ge-in​-educ​ation​-to-b​e-red​uced-​in-tu​rkmen​ istan​/. 53. “СМИ: На туркмено-афганской границе появились пограничники Узбе кистана и военные специалисты из России,” Ислам в СНГ, accessed March 31, 2018, March 26, 2015, http://islamsng.com/tkm/news/8868. 54. Joshua Kucera, “Russia Frustrated By Refusal Of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan To Cooperate On Security,” eurasianet, March 19, 2015, https​://eu​rasia​net.o​rg/s/​russi​ a-fru​strat​ed-by​-refu​sal-o​f-uzb​ekist​an-tu​rkmen​istan​-to-c​ooper​ate-o​n-sec​urity​.

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55. “Declaration on State Sovereignty of Ukraine,” The Ukrainian Weekly, July 22, 1990, http:​//www​.ukrw​eekly​.com/​old/a​rchiv​e/199​0/299​002.s​html.​ 56. In the early 1990s, the constitution was an amended version of the Ukrainian SSR’s constitution. www.j​ustic​e.gov​/.../​eoir/​legac​y/201​3/11/​08/co​nstit​ution​_14.p​df. 57. Nikolai A. Kulinich, “Ukraine’s Russian Dilemma and Europe’s Evolving Geography,” in Ukraine—The Search for a National Identity, eds. Sharon L. Wolchik and Vladimir A. Zviglianich (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), 101. 58. Rob Portman, “Unrest in Ukraine Threatens World Peace,” Politico Magazine, January 26, 2015, https​://ww​w.pol​itico​.com/​magaz​ine/s​tory/​2015/​01/un​rest-​in-uk​ raine​-thre​atens​-worl​d-pea​ce-11​4614.​ 59. Victor Chudowsky, “The Limits of Realism: Ukrainian Policy toward the CIS,” in Ukrainian Foreign and Security Policy—Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives, eds. Jennifer D.P. Moroney, Taras Kuzio, and Kikhail Molchanov (Westport: Praeger, 2002), 27. 60. With Crimea and Sevastopol returning to Russia in 2014 there were reports that the Sevastopol Radar Station would be modernized and re-opened by the Russian military in 2018. “РЛС “Днепр” в Севастополе заступит на боевое дежурство в 2016 году,” RIA Novosti, October 10, 2014, https​://ri​a.ru/​defen​se_sa​fety/​20141​004/1​ 02689​6992.​html.​ 61. Mariana Budjeryn, “The Reality and Myth of Ukrainian Neutrality,” World Affairs, undated, accessed March 31, 2018, http:​//www​.worl​daffa​irsjo​urnal​.org/​artic​ le/my​th-uk​raini​an-ne​utral​ity. 62. Bohdan Nahaylo, The Ukrainian Resurgence (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1999). 63. Remarkably, Belarus became a full member in 1998—and is still today the only European NAM member state. Ukraine’s observer status ended in 2014. 64. Kulinich, “Ukraine’s Russian Dilemma and Europe’s Evolving Geography,” 101. 65. Kuzio, Ukraine under Kuchma, 190. 66. Thomas F. Klobucar, Arthur H. Miller, and Gwyn Erb, “The 1999 Ukrainian Presidential Election: Personalities, Ideology, Partisanship, and the Economy,” Slavic Review 61, no. 2 (2002): 315–344. 67. Peter Gowan, The Global Gamble: Washington’s Faustian Bid for World Dominance (London: Verso, 1999), 302. 68. “The Fortnight In Review,” Prism 3, no. 12 (The Jamestown Foundation, 1997), accessed March 30, 2018, https​://ja​mesto​wn.or​g/pro​gram/​the-f​ortni​ght-i​n-rev​ iew-1​01/#!​. 69. Christine S. Sing, “The Ideological Construction of European Identities—A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Linguistic Representation of the Old vs. New Europe Debate,” in Critical Discourse Studies in Context and Cognition, ed. Christopher J. Hart (Amsterdam und Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011), 159. 70. Interestingly, the Ukrainian troops were withdrawn by an “Orange” government in 2008. Crimean Tartar politicians, which often supported Ukrainian nationalists, opposed Ukrainian deployment in predominantly Muslim Iraq. 71. The electoral bloc “For a United Ukraine!” (“За Єдину Україну!”), dominated by the Party of Regions (“Партія регіонів”) with their electoral base in Central, Eastern and Southern Ukraine, had just won the parliamentary elections. Then-prime

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minister Victor Yanukovych – a member of the Party of Regions and Kuchma’s protégé – also voted for the new national security law. 72. Taras Kuzio, “Viktor Yushchenko’s Foreign Policy Agenda,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 6, no. 230 (The Jamestown Foundation, 2009), accessed March 30, 2018, https​://ja​mesto​wn.or​g/pro​gram/​vikto​r-yus​hchen​kos-f​oreig​n-pol​icy-a​genda​/. 73. Pierre Heumann, “Ukraine: Steiniger Weg in die Nato,” Handelsblatt, September 11, 2008, http:​//www​.hand​elsbl​att.c​om/ar​chiv/​im-la​nd-de​r-zwe​i-her​zen-u​krain​ e-ste​inige​r-weg​-in-d​ie-na​to/30​19672​-all.​html.​ 74. Askold Krushelnycky, “Fears that Crimea Could be Next Flashpoint for Conflict with Russia,” Radio Free Europe Radio Library, August 24, 2008, https​://ww​ w.rfe​rl.or​g/a/C​rimea​_Flas​hpoin​t_For​_Conf​l ict_​With_​Russi​a/119​3380.​html.​ 75. David X. Noack, Die Ukraine-Krise 2013/2014—Versuch einer historischen, politökonomischen und geopolitischen Erklärung (Dresden: Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitspolitik, 2014), 26. 76. Taras Kuzio, Ukraine—Democratization, Corruption, and the New Russian Imperialism (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2015), 447. 77. Tomasz Konicz, “Vom Kosovo zur Krim?” junge Welt, June 1, 2006, https​:// ww​w.jun​gewel​t.de/​artik​el/68​098.v​om-ko​sovo-​zur-k​rim.h​tml. 78. Kuzio, “Viktor Yushchenko’s Foreign Policy Agenda.” 79. “Ukraine: Nato, Russian Language Issues Enter Election Fray (07KYIV2417_a),” Wikileaks, accessed March 30, 2018, wikil​eaks.​org/p​lusd/​cable​ s/07K​YIV24​17_a.​html.​ 80. Hannes Hofbauer, “Im Griff des IWF,” junge Welt, October 22, 2009, https​:// ww​w.jun​gewel​t.de/​artik​el/13​3391.​im-gr​iff-d​es-iw​f.htm​l. 81. Winfried Schneider-Deters, Die Ukraine: Machtvakuum zwischen Russland und der Europäischen Union (Berlin: Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, 2012), 397. 82. Janusz Bugajski, Georgian Lessons—Conflicting Russian and Western Interests in the Wider Europe (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2010), 53. 83. “Yanukovych Asked Putin to Use Troops in Ukraine before Publication of Letter at UN—Turchynov,” Interfax-Ukraine, February 16, 2018, http:​//en.​inter​fax.c​ om.ua​/news​/gene​ral/4​85605​.html​. 84. NATO member countries still regard Crimea as illegally annexed by Russia as of 2018. 85. Vladimir Socor, “Donetsk, Luhansk Propose Amendments to Ukraine’s Constitution,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 12, no. 93 (The Jamestown Foundation, 2015), accessed March 21, 2018, https​://ja​mesto​wn.or​g/pro​gram/​donet​sk-lu​hansk​-prop​ose-a​ mendm​ents-​to-uk​raine​s-con​stitu​tion/​. 86. “Opposition Bloc Calls for Ukraine’s Neutral Status,” Interfax-Ukraine, June 8, 2017, http:​//en.​inter​fax.c​om.ua​/news​/gene​ral/4​27230​.html​. 87. Eugheniy Zhovtis, “Democratisation and Human Rights in Central Asia: Problems, Development Prospects and the Role of the International Community,” CEPS Policy Brief, no 134 (Brussels: Center for European Policy Studies, 2007), accessed May 10, 2018, www.ceps.eu/system/files/book/1516.pdf. 88. For a discussion of this possibility see Oliver Bange’s chapter in this book.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Anceschi, Luca. Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy: Positive Neutrality and the Consolidation of the Turkmen Regime. London/New York: Routledge, 2008. Blacker, Coit D. “Emerging States and Military Legacies in the Former Soviet Union.” In Global Engagement—Cooperation and Security in the 21st Century, edited by Janne E. Nolan, 353–390. Washington, DC: Brookings, 1994. Bugajski, Janusz. Georgian Lessons—Conflicting Russian and Western Interests in the Wider Europe. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2010. Całus, Kamil. The Unfinished State—25 Years of Independent Moldova. Warsaw: Centre for Eastern Studies, 2016. Chudowsky, Victor. “The Limits of Realism: Ukrainian Policy toward the CIS.” In Ukrainian Foreign and Security Policy – Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Jennifer D.P. Moroney, Taras Kuzio, and Mikhail Molchanov, 11–35. Westport: Praeger, 2002. Fiedler, Heinz. Der sowjetische Neutralitätsbegriff in Theorie und Praxis – Ein Beitrag zum Problem des Disengagement. Cologne: Verlag für Politik und Wirtschaft, 1959. Fröhlich, Constanze. Krisenherd Afghanistan: Eine Analyse der regionalen sicherheitspolitischen Auswirkungen, 1979–2004. Freiburg i. Br.: Arnold-BergstraesserInstitut, 2005. Gelfgat, Vitaly. “Central Asian States Matching Military Means to Strategic Ends.” Connections 13, no. 3 (Summer 2014): 1–20. Gowan, Peter. The Global Gamble: Washington’s Faustian Bid for World Dominance. London: Verso, 1999. Hofbauer, Hannes. “Transnistrien: Niemandsland Am Dnjestr—Europas inexistente Republik an der Schnittstelle zwischen Ost und West.” In Mitten in Europa: Politische Reiseberichte aus Bosnien-Herzegowina, Belarus, der Ukraine, Transnistrien/Moldawien und Albanien, edited by Hannes Hofbauer, 129–169. Vienna: Promedia Verlag, 2006. Klobucar, Thomas F., Arthur H. Miller, and Gwyn Erb. “The 1999 Ukrainian Presidential Election: Personalities, Ideology, Partisanship, and the Economy.” Slavic Review 61, no. 2 (2002): 315–344. https://doi.org/10.2307/2697120. Kulinich, Nikolai A. “Ukraine‘s Russian Dilemma and Europe’s Evolving Geography.” In Ukraine – The Search for a National Identity, edited by Sharon L. Wolchik and Vladimir A. Zviglianich, 95–106. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Kuzio, Taras. Ukraine under Kuchma: Political Reform, Economic Transformation and Security Policy in Independent Ukraine. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997. ––––––. Ukraine – Democratization, Corruption, and the New Russian Imperialism. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2015. Loth, Wilfried. “Die USA und die Stalin-Note vom 10. März 1952.” Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift 76, no. 1 (2017): 126–132. https://doi.org/10.1515/ mgzs-2017-0162.

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Miller, Eric A. To Balance or Not to Balance: Alignment Theory and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2006. Milov, Vladimir. “Ups and Downs of the Russia–Turkmenistan Relationship.” In Russian Energy Security and Foreign Policy, edited by Adrian Dellecker and Thomas Gomart, 89–106. London: Routledge, 2011. Mueller, Wolfgang. “The USSR and Permanent Neutrality in the Cold War.” Journal of Cold War Studies 18, no. 4 (Fall 2016): 148–179. https://doi.org/10.1162/ JCWS_a_00683. Nahaylo, Bohdan. The Ukrainian Resurgence. London: C. Hurst & Co., 1999. Noack, David X. Die Ukraine-Krise 2013/2014 – Versuch einer historischen, politökonomischen und geopolitischen Erklärung. Dresden: Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitspolitik, 2014. ––––––. “Wahlen in Moldawien: Entscheidung zwischen Ost und West verschoben.” WeltTrends 22, no. 102 (April 2015): 4–7. Peimani, Hooman. Conflict and Security in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009. Peyrouse, Sebastien. Turkmenistan – Strategies of Power, Dilemmas of Development. London/New York: Routledge, 2008. Polese, Abel, Donnacha Ó Beacháin, and Slavomír Horák. “Strategies of legitimation in Central Asia: Regime Durability in Turkmenistan.” Contemporary Politics 23, no. 4 (2017): 427–445. https​://do​i.org​/10.1​080/1​35697​75.20​17.13​31391​. Schneider-Deters, Winfried. Die Ukraine: Machtvakuum zwischen Russland und der Europäischen Union. Berlin: Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, 2012. Sing, Christine S. “The Ideological Construction of European Identities—A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Linguistic Representation of the Old vs. New Europe Debate.” In Critical Discourse Studies in Context and Cognition, edited by Christopher J. Hart, 181–210. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011. Symonchuk, Yelena. Regionaler Sicherheitskomplex Zentralasien: Analyse der innerstaatlichen und intra-regionalen Sicherheitsdynamiken. Springer: Wiesbaden, 2016. The Ukrainian Weekly. “Declaration on State Sovereignty of Ukraine.” Accessed April 30, 2018. http:​//www​.ukrw​eekly​.com/​old/a​rchiv​e/199​0/299​002.s​html.​ Waters, Trevor. “The Republic of Moldova – Armed Forces and Military Doctrine.” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 11, no. 2 (1998): 80–97. https​://do​i.org​/10.1​ 080/1​35180​49808​43034​1. Zhovtis, Eugheniy. Democratisation and Human Rights in Central Asia: Problems, Development Prospects and the Role of the International Community. CEPS Policy Brief, no 134. Brussels: Center for European Policy Studies, 2007.

Conclusion Pascal Lottaz and Herbert R. Reginbogin

After twelve chapters, a short résumé is in place to draw some conclusions about the learning outcomes of this endeavor that gravitated around a simple question: What is this much-praised and much-condemned concept called ‘neutrality” and why it is still in use today? First of all, this book presents various forms of neutrality combined with a wide range of foreign policies which are not the same concepts. The non-alignment of Yugoslavia was a very different kind of neutrality from the permanent neutralities of Switzerland and Sweden or the way that the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) interpreted its private neutral duties (and rights). That, again, had only little to do with the legal understanding of neutrality as a law between states that governed over the neutral conduct of the British toward the United States during its Civil War, and which they later litigated about in Geneva. To explore these different “Notions of Neutralities,” the chapters in this volume are presented in four categories, which, on the one hand, give a non-chronological structure to the book and, on the other hand, attempt to provide answers to the above questions about what neutrality is. The following are four possible ways to look at neutralities: 1. Neutrality as a discourse about morality and feasibility 2. Neutralities as structural elements in international systems and security architectures 3. Neutralitites as useful and pragmatic tools for the conduct of international relations 4. Neutrality as a foreign policy

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NEUTRALITY AS A DISCOURSE ABOUT MORALITY AND FEASIBILITY All chapters—and the first section in particular—portray different understandings of neutrality which have been continuously shaped and molded. Scholars since Thucydides (and Hugo Grotius later) have been debating the validity of the neutral standpoint, its practicability, political, and moral ramifications. The terms of the debate and the external geopolitical conditions might have changed throughout the centuries, but the main philosophical currents have not, as Stephen Neff has shown convincingly in chapter 1.1 On the other hand, since the practice of neutrality always predated the theorizing of its implications, the meanings of neutrality were affected by many more approaches other than just scholarly thinkers. Wim Klinkert, in chapter 3,2 for example, showed the many cultural and political influences on the discourse of permanent neutrality in the Netherlands. The Alabama Claims of chapter 5,3 on the other hand, are a perfect example of how the meaning and understanding of neutrality during the nineteenth century was often determined in international forums (in an arbitration court in this case). There are, furthermore, law-making treaties which define neutrality as well as unilateral proclamations. On the philosophical level, questions of neutrality have always been tied to the idea of impartiality and how much or how little of it was necessary. They go hand in hand with constant re-evaluations about the morality of neutrality. The refusal of neutrals to pick a side can, on the one hand, be interpreted as a lack of character and morals, or on the other hand, as a practical strategy to maintain legitimate interests. Both blocs criticized Yugoslavia for not supporting capitalism—or communism—in their struggle for a “just” world order, the BIS was loathed by the US Treasury for dealing with a genocidal dictatorship, and the Vatican was blamed for legitimizing another Axis aggressor (Japan) at the worst possible moment. Simultaneously those actors can also be viewed as defending their interests toward all parties, which meant not picking a side. After all, from the perspective of the neutrals, their relationship with the belligerents (or the blocs) did not change. When the US Civil War broke out, the relationship of British merchants with businesses on both sides of the divide remained what they were before the war. When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, his ally, Japan, was under no obligation to help Nazi-Germany because their alliance was only binding in case of an attack from an aggressor, the relationship between the USSR and Japan was therefore not affected and they remained neutral toward each other until the final days of World War II. The same is true for the Vatican; when the War in the Pacific broke out, the Holy See was, of course, worried about Japan fighting aggressively against the Allied powers and conquering Asia, but nothing

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inherently changed in their bilateral relations. When the pope was approached only a month later by the Japanese side for closer diplomatic relations, there was no justifiable bilateral reason to reject that offer which had been a foreign policy goal of the Vatican for decades. Whether these instances of neutrality should be judged in moral terms or not is a question of perspective, not “absolute truth.” NEUTRALITY AS A STRUCTURAL ELEMENT IN INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS AND SECURITY ARCHITECTURES Neutrality can give structure to an international environment and provide a vital element to security architectures. The most convincing proof of that is the highly elaborated law of neutrality which evolved in the nineteenth century and was an essential part in stabilizing the European Balance of Power system. The rules and parameters of that law were highly detailed. Most often they revolved around questions of maritime neutrality, and they were negotiated continuously not only through treaties but also juristically in arbitration courts, as Elizabeth Chadwick has proven at length in chapter 5. States did not go through the pains of these arbitration courts because of altruistic reasons of justice, but because they wanted to salvage their trade relations with other nations and because neutral-belligerent trade mattered as much to the belligerents as it did to the neutrals.4 That role was not even new, it goes back centuries, as chapter 4, by Leos Müller, demonstrates.5 However, the formal codification of neutrality progressed only relatively slow. That is also nothing new, since neutral practice, as chapter 1 pointed out, always predated the formalization of it. Once that took place it was an international movement that gave birth to the law of neutrality. However, there are even more ways in which neutralities impact international structures. The mere existence of neutral powers changes security calculations. The United States, for example, was highly suspicious toward non-aligned nations that it perceived as countries that should stay in its orbit of the Cold War divide, but Washington also supported Belgrade in its own attempt to escape Soviet influence through the same tactic because to the United States, a step away from the enemy was a step in the right direction. At the same time, strategists on both sides of the Cold War were anything but enthusiastic about the non-aligned states. They constantly blamed them for moving too close to the other side and derided them for their choice not to join their camp, as shown by Peter Ruggenthaler in chapter 86 and Tvrtko Jakovina in chapter 11.7 The non-aligned states tried to form a geopolitical force outside what they saw as neo-colonial attempts of European and North American states for the assertion of their power. They used different multilateral tactics to do

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so, like the Non-Aligned Movement or through collaboration at the CSCE, as discussed by Oliver Bange in chapter 2.8 The evaluation of these approaches yet await thorough analysis, but the present study shows that the NAM was a factor that figured in the calculations of the Cold War strategists. It tried to remain outside the blocs but it was not outside the international system. On the contrary, the NAM had a place in the security calculations of both blocs, just as the major “traditional” European permanent neutrals (Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, and Finland) had—albeit differently. Besides the Cold War, Pascal Lottaz, in chapter 69 showed that even during the hottest faces of war, during the height of World War II, neutral states had a structural role to play, even if it was neither big nor decisive. Small Power Neutrals were the diplomatic service providers of last resort, offering their global diplomatic network to belligerents for the moments when they wanted to be in nonviolent contact with each other. Beyond that, they also took care of humanitarian issues, on all sides providing at least some relief to the unfortunate individuals trapped in some of the most unimaginably horrific circumstances. By the nature of war, those were roles that only neutrals could play. It cannot be called “mediation,” it rather was a form of “interfacing” belligerents for the interests of all parties involved. NEUTRALITY AS A USEFUL TOOL This leads to the next learning outcome, which partially answers one of the initial questions: Neutrality is still practiced today because it is—and always has been—useful. States, as we have seen, chose to be neutral in certain conflicts because they expected to gain something from it. The prospect that it would enable them to achieve their goals during times of war and peace is the motivation behind the conscious decision to be neutral. Yugoslavia, Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, the United States, the USSR, Switzerland, Indonesia—even the BIS, but many more, too—sat in the same boat, at one time or another, because of an external environment that made them opt for neutrality to achieve their ends. The objectives themselves varied. Yugoslavia wanted to stay clear of the Soviet orbit in the Cold War dynamic without joining the capitalist camp, while also building its prestige in international relations. Britain wanted to benefit its maritime empire, that rested on the freedom of the seas so that its merchants could reach all corners of the world, whether those were involved in a war or not. The USSR wanted to keep its back free in case of a war with Hitler. The Dutch needed a credible foreign policy that would allow them to exist among its great neighbors and the Vatican simply wanted access to its Roman Catholic parishes around the globe. The list of reasons goes on and on, but there always was a clear motivation.

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Under this perspective, neutrality is a tool. It is an instrument of foreign policy and a strategy to achieve something. What that “something” was depended on the time, the place, and the circumstances but there always was an ulterior motive for actors to make use of neutrality. What unites the above approaches toward international relations is the desire of the involved actors to remain engaged in world affairs but outside ongoing conflicts with which they did not identify. One of the most significant contemporary misconceptions about neutrality is that it was only a foreign policy for small and powerless nations that disengaged from global affairs to remain unharmed during international conflicts. The opposite is the case. Neutrality as a foreign policy tool was an option for Great and Small Powers alike to remain engaged with the world at large and all belligerent parties of specific conflicts. The different neutralities of these actors enabled them to remain active in adverse situation and to further their foreign policy goals. Whenever the point came where that was not the case anymore, these actors shed their neutrality, throwing away the tool when it became more of a burden than a help, seeking the realization of their goals by other means—by alliances or direct belligerency, usually. NEUTRALITY AS A FOREIGN POLICY Finally, the last and most traditional way to view neutralities is to analyze the foreign policies of individual countries. This aspect is inseparable from the usefulness of neutrality but reveals even more strongly the national differences between neutralist approaches. Herbert Reginbogin, Pascal Lottaz, Florentino Rodao, and Tvrtko Jakovina showed in chapters 10,10 1111 and 12,12 that there were not only distinctive rationales for countries to adopt neutral foreign policies, but different ways to implement them too. Turkmenistan, despite its authoritarian political system, has been seeking international recognition for its neutrality through the United Nations, whereas for Moldova and Ukraine debated the policy mainly internally. Moldova, in contrast to Turkmenistan, also lives with the fact that there are Russian troops stationed on its territory as part of the trilateral Joint Control Commission. According to a strict reading of the law of neutrality, that should not be acceptable to a permanent neutral. However, since the political situation in the country necessitates the arrangement, Moldova accepts the contradiction. During World War II, the Vatican tried to implement a neutrality that rested on the premise that it treated all belligerents according to the same standards, leading to outrage in the United States when it established official diplomatic relations with Japan right after Pearl Harbor but also infuriating Tokyo when, soon thereafter, it received an envoy from Japan’s enemy, Chunking China. Similarly, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland offered their diplomatic services

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equally to all belligerents. In the end, the choice was up to the belligerents. Of the three, only Spain gave up its mandates for Japan toward the end of the war, mainly due to political reasons, the other two neutrals maintained their foreign policy approaches consistently. These examples are only loosely connected to each other, but they demonstrate the same thing; the way neutrals make use of their neutralities is largely up to themselves. There are different ways of “playing” the neutral card and there has always been considerable leeway for the actual implementation of neutral foreign policies. NEUTRALITY WILL REMAIN Moving into the still obscure years of the twenty-first century (where we lack the benefit of hindsight), in chapter 12 David Noack showed that neutrality has not lost its appeal. Although only one of the successor states of Yugoslavia has opted for some form of a “military neutral” solution, three former Soviet republics experimented with it, and at least two of them are practicing forms of permanent neutrality today, Turkmenistan is even proactively championing its form in the multilateral forum of the United Nations. Taiwan, too, is currently thinking out loud about the possibilities of a neutralist approach to its international relations and scholars in the East and the West are considering the geopolitical implications for neutralities in Europe and Asia, as discussed by Herbert Reginbogin in chapter 9.13 To sum it up, the state of neutrality in the late 2010s is as follows: On the one hand, there is a well-defined but dormant body of neutrality law available for reactivation at any time. The bilateral and multilateral treaties that shaped the law of neutrality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have fallen out of fashion but have never been revoked. The traditional law of neutrality is there, even if it is not receiving much attention at the moment. There stands nothing in the way, however, for the international community to go back and continue working on it—in case it should ever again be thought of as something that might solve a problem. On the other hand, there are traditional and new neutrals today that practice permanent neutrality as important pillars of their foreign policies. Some of them are part of supranational structures, like the EU in the case of Ireland, Austria, Sweden, and Finland, some are not, like Switzerland, and some are engaged in a web of agreements with the east and the west like Turkmenistan and Moldova. There are states on continents that have not been included in this study, like Costa Rica and Ghana that also refer to neutrality in their foreign policies and there are arguments for the return to a more systematic approach toward the neutralization of entire geographic strips to separate the Great Power centers of this century.14 In this context, it might also

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matter that the next decades will probably see the emergence of a multipolar world—regarding military power and ideology—with China and Russia resurgent, and not the unipolar “end of history” that some have predicted at the end of the Cold War.15 A third aspect to consider regarding the development of neutrality today is that private and public perceptions about it have evolved toward an understanding of it as a pacifist and humanitarian concept. That is another notion, which, as we have seen, has little to do with the historical roots of maritime and territorial neutrality but contemporary stereotypes have been shaped by perceptions of neutral countries who also remained surprisingly peaceful during the conflicts of the past century. Indeed, those are biased observations, but they might, nevertheless, have discursive power to shape future concepts of it, just as the discussions in the Netherlands shaped the Dutch approach toward neutrality 200 years ago. These last points are only observations and assumptions, but for the proactive pursuit of peace, they might be worth studying more closely. In the end, neutrality has never been about disengagement from world affairs. On the contrary, neutrals always and everywhere have been highly involved in the diplomacy, politics, economics, and humanitarian aspects of their regions and the globe. Neutrals have been consumers and providers of peace. The way forward is open, but if the past millennia are any indication, the chances are that neutralities, in one form or another, will still be with us even in the twenty-second century. The question is how productive these future neutralities will be for the neutrals themselves and the international community at large. In the end, strategies of neutrality are not a guarantor of peace but one of several tools that might help achieve it. How the tool works is up to each generation as they go through their redefinitions of their notions of neutralities. NOTES 1. Stephen C. Neff, “A Three-fold Struggle over Neutrality: The American Experience in the 1930s.” 2. Wim Klinkert, “Neutrality, Our Most Precious Treasure, Keeps War Far Away.” Narratives of Dutch Neutrality, 1840–1940. 3. Elizabeth Chadwick, “The British View of Neutrality in 1872.” 4. This point has been made most convincingly by Maartje M. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 5. Leos Müller, “The Forgotten History of Maritime Neutrality, 1500–1800.”

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6. Peter Ruggenthaler, “Neutrality as an Instrument of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1945–53.” 7. Tvrtko Jakovina, “The Evolution of Yugoslav Non-alignment: How Yugoslavia Abandoned its Opposition to Neutrality.” 8. Oliver Bange, “Changing Concepts and Understandings of Neutrality in the Cold War: The Neutral and Non-Aligned States (N+N).” 9. Pascal Lottaz, “Neutrality and Wartime Japan.” 10. Pascal Lottaz and Florentino Rodao, “The Vatican, WWII, and Asia: Lessons of Neutral Diplomacy.” 11. Tvrtko Jakovina, “The Evolution of Yugoslav Non-alignment: How Yugoslavia Abandoned its Opposition to Neutrality.” 12. David Noack, “Politics of Neutrality in the Post-Soviet Space: A Comparison of Concepts, Practices, and Outcomes of Neutrality in Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine 1990–2015.” 13. Herbert Reginbogin, “Neutrality: Past Lessons & Visions: Providing Peace, Security, and Justice in the 21st Century.” 14. Michael O’Hanlon, Beyond NATO: A New Security Architecture for Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2017). 15. Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National Interest, no. 16 (1989).

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbenhuis, Maartje M. An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Fukuyama, Francis. “The End of History?” The National Interest, no. 16 (1989): 3–18. O’Hanlon, Michael. Beyond NATO: A New Security Architecture for Eastern Europe [in English]. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2017.

Index

Note: Italic page numbers refer to figures and page numbers followed by “n” refer to endnotes. Abbenhuis, M., xv, 67 “Abbreviated Treaty,” 174 ACW. See American Civil War Afghanistan: International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation in, 274; “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” 274; Taliban in, 274 Agius, C., 187 agreements, 9, 11, 13, 99, 144, 145; bilateral, 231n1; bilateral defense, 272; for conflict resolution, 270; military, 281; multi-lateral, 73, 137; mutual, 70, 91; mutual defense, 188; neutrality, 117; of non-aggression, 117; peace, 118, 230, 269, 270; Potsdam Agreement, 163; regional trade, 78; Soviet, 171; “Standstill Agreement,” 140; treaty, 75, 141, 189; universal, 88–9 “Alabama claims,” 87, 88, 99 al-Assad, B., 195 Algemeen Handelsblad, 53 Allies’ Moscow Declaration (October 1943), 164

Alvarez, D., 225 American Civil War (ACW), 69, 87, 88, 90, 98, 100, 103 American Neutrality (1914–17), 8–9 American Revolutionary War, 75 American Society of International Law, 14 Anglo-Dutch War, 69, 70, 73, 76 Anglo-Swedish Treaty of 1661, 73 anti-Axis sentiment, in South America, 228 anti-Catholic attitude, 228 anti-Russian nationalists, 280 anti-Semitism, 216 anti-treaties, 71 Anti-Trust laws, 145 armed neutrality, 87, 88 Armin, I., 200 army, as savior of neutrality, 49–52 Arnhemsche Courant, 44 Asser, T., 47 attack, sudden and massive, 52–3 “August coup,” 272 Aunesluoma, J., 33 Austria: “Finlandisation,” 162; KPÖ’s agitation, 166; military presence 297

298

in, 165; neutrality, under Stalin, 164–7; Red Army in, 178; Soviet troops from, 164, 165, 167; Stalin’s view of, 165; State Treaty, 164–6; territory of, 239 Azuni, D., 99 Baden-Baden conference, 139, 140 Bagge, W., 126 Baker, N., 10 “balance of power” strategy, 188 Bandung Conference of 1955, 248 Bange, O., xiv, 29, 292 Bank for International Settlements (BIS), 137, 289; cartels and the ideology of stability, 143–7; independent and ready for war, 141–2; mind-set of a Bygone era, 142–3; notion of “private neutrality,” 138–9; origins of, 139–40; statement of neutrality, 147–50 “Battle of Notes” (1952), 176 Beard, C., 12 Belgian-Dutch military alliance, 45 Belgian neutrality, German violation of, 48 Bentley, A., 245 Bevan, A., 243 bilateral agreements, 231n1 bilateral defense agreements, 272 bilateral treaties, 5, 7, 72, 73, 294 BIS. See Bank for International Settlements Boer War, 55 Borchard, E.M., 9, 13, 19, 20, 23 Bosboom, N., 57 Bosnian civil war of 1992–95, 24 Bower, B.L., 189 Brandt, W., 32 Brierly, J., 3 BRIGAMA, 240 Britain: alleged negligence, 95; Dutch alliance with, 56; military cooperation, 57; naval destroyers to, 23

Index

British: declaration of neutrality, 97; diligence “due,” 97–102; Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819, 94–5, 100; interpretations of neutrality, 89; Labor Party, 243; legislation, 93; liability, 90; liability in Geneva, 97; neutrality in 1872, 87–103; Royal Navy, 69, 74; ship-building for the confederacy, 95–6 Brunner, E., 30, 33 Brzezinski, Z., 201 Bull, H., 192 Bush, G.W., 198 Butler, N.M., 10 Button, J., 216 Buzan, B., 193, 199 Byrnes Plan: Germany, 162–4; United States, 161 Carnegie, A., 47 cash-and-carry policy, 21, 22 Catholicism, 219 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 198 Chadwick, E., xv, 67, 87, 138, 291 “character of-the-cargo” rule, 5 Chuikov, V., 172 CIS Joint Air Defense System, 274, 276, 281 Civil War, 289; Syria, 194; Yugoslavia, 240 Cockburn, A., Sir, 96; issue of changing standards, 99–100; neutral “rights” of trade, 97–9; US Arguments, 100–2 Cohen, E., 48 Cold War, ix, xi, xiii, xiv, xv, 32, 77, 161, 162, 166, 176, 186, 192, 197, 199, 239, 240, 243, 249, 256, 257, 291, 292, 295; neutrality and, 187–8, 190–2 collective-security: in action, 22–3; group, 19; program, 10; school, 9–11 Collective Security Treaty: organization, 272; in Tashkent, 276

Index

community-interest approach, 7 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), xv, 29, 33, 34, 191, 252, 269 Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), 67 Consolato del Mare, 68 Consolato’s rules, 5 “contractually unsecured neutrality,” 271 Coppa, F., 216 Cornwell, J., 217 Crimean War, 44, 69 CSCE. See Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

299

enlightenment critique of mercantilism, 75 ethnic-nationalist rivalries and religious militias, 195 Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), 271 Europe: Balance of Power in, 199, 291; belligerency in, 120; European Economic Community (EEC), 255; European Free Trade Association (EFTA), 254; neutral trade in, 74; nuclear war in, 32; peace in, 34; post-war, 168; Red Army in, 165; security-political cohabitation in, 34; World War II in, 116, 191

Dalin, R.D., 216 Danish-Swedish War, 73 Davis, N., 20 Dedijer, V., 242 de Groot, H., 47 de Haas, A., 58 De jure Belli ac Pacis, 70 de La Pradelle, A., 4 de Louter, J., 55 democratic societies, industrialized, 194 Ðerða, J., 242 de Vattel, E., 6, 78; necessity theory, 6, 7 Devine, K., 187 differential neutrality, 114 Ðilas, M., 241, 242 Dulles, J.F., 245 Dutch: defense, 55; foreign policy, 41; military power, 50, 57; neutrality, 42, 43; political neutrality, xv; public sympathy, 55 Dutch armed forces, 47, 49; July– September 1870, 45; mobilization of, 45

Farben, I.G., 145 far-right Liberal Party, 271 Fenwick, C.G., 10 “Feodosiya Crisis,” 278 Finish Winter War, x Finland: neutralization, 162; in Scandinavian neutral bloc, 171; Soviet influence on, 167 First League of Armed Neutrality, 76 Fischer, T., 30 Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819, 90 foreign policy: of international humanitarian law and services, 202; neutrality as, 293–4; permanent neutral, 185–6; Soviet Union, 167 Franco-German War of 1870–1871, 45 “free ships-free goods” rule, 5 French Revolutionary War, 69, 76 Fujimura, Y., 118 Fumasoni, C., 223 ’Fundamentals of Domestic and Foreign Policy’, 279

Eagleton, C., 10 “Economic Détente,” 143 EEU. See Eurasian Economic Union Eijkman, P., 47 Eisenhower, D.D., 245

Galiani, F., 7, 78, 99 Gallagher, C., 226 Garner, J.W., 21 Garrah, G.W., 141 Gaspais, M., 230–1

300

Index

GDR: armed forces in, 174; government, 173; leadership, 175; “national armed forces” in, 176; national army in, 174; socialism in, 173, 174 Geneva: British liability in, 97; Geneva Arbitrators, 102; Geneva Convention of 1949, 200; law arbitrated in, 89–97 Genocide Convention, 198 German-Soviet war, 117 Germany: Byrnes Plan (1946), 162–4; demilitarization, 161; neutrality, 172–6; “Proposal for a German Peace Treaty,” 172; Soviets warm-up to peace treaty with, 163–4; State Treaty negotiations, 174; USSR’s public proclamations, 163; violation of Belgian neutrality, 48 Geyl, P., 56 Gilde, B., 30 Gorgé, C., 125–6 Great Depression, 151 Great Power, 114, 116, 188, 195; neutrality of, 115–19 Great Recession of 2008, 194 Great War, 4, 8, 12, 13 Gromyko, A., 174 “Grotian Conception of International Society,” 192 Grotius, H., x, 68, 70–1, 78, 138 Hägglöf, G., 12 Hague Conference of 1907, 189 Hague Convention of 1899, 200 Hague Treaties of 1899 and 1907, 151 Hajduk rebels, 240 Hanhimäki, J., 161, 162 Harada, K., 228, 230 Hellema, D., 42, 59 Helsinki Effect, 30 Helsinki Final Act, 29–30, 32 heroic neutrality, in popular culture, 57–8 Hitler, 53, 115, 117, 123, 164, 189

Ho Chi Minh government, 241 Holy See, 219, 221, 223, 224; pledge of neutrality, 218 “Holy Writ,” 163 Hoover, H., 140, 141 Hübner, M., 6, 75, 78 humanitarian intervention, permanent neutrality, 200–1 Huntington, S.P., 193 Iacobelli, P., 219 ICC. See International Criminal Court Indira Gandhi, 244 industrialized democratic societies, 194 Institute of International Law, 11 International Criminal Court (ICC), 193, 198 international humanitarian law, 193, 196 internationalism, liberal, 187 International Law, x, xiv, 3, 88, 138, 142, 143, 197; legal sense of, 114; neutrality and, 46–8; Switzerland, 150 International Law of War, 137 international politics, nature of hypocrisy in, 201 International Relations context of Diplomacy and Politics, xi International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 274 international systems, neutrality as structural element in, 291–2 international treaties, 229 ISAF. See International Security Assistance Force Jakovina, T., 30, 239 Jankowitsch, P., 254 Japan: diplomatic contact with, 218; diplomatic relations with, 115; foreign interests in, 122, 123; interests in enemy countries & territories, 120, 121; political leadership, 118; public debate in, 117; wartime diplomacy, 226 Japikse, N., 48

Index

Jawaharlal Nehru, 169, 170, 242, 245 Jessup , P.C., 11 John, Pope, 190 Johnson, A., 90 Johnson Act in 1934, 19 Joint Control Commission, 269, 293 Joint Resolution of Congress, 198 Kamphuis, P., 46 Kazuhiko, Y., 150 Kekkonen, U., 170, 171; “Pajama Pocket Speech,” 171, 172 Kennan, G., 248, 249 Kepel, G., 194 KFOR. See Kosovo Force Khrushchev, N., 245, 246 Kissinger, H., 32, 201 Kleen, R., 7 Klinkert, W., xv, 41, 290 Korean War, 170, 176 Kosovo Force (KFOR), 271 Kravchuk, L., 268 Kuchma, L., 277 laissez-faire policy, 19 Lampredi, G.M., 99 Laos, xviin9 Lateran Pacts of 1929, 218 Lateran Treaty, 231n1 Laurel, J., 125 law arbitrated in Geneva, 89–97; arbitration, 90–1; British Foreign Enlistment Act 1819, 94–5; British Ship-Building for the Confederacy, 95–6; “due diligence” and Caroline incident, 92–4; “Three Rules of Washington,” 91–2 law-making neutrality, 18–22 law-making treaties, 290 League of Nations, 3, 4, 114 legal treaties, 70 liberal internationalism, 187 Libya, NATO intervention in, 200 Lieber, F., 199 Lincoln, A., 88, 199

301

Lippmann, W., 12, 20 Lonèar, B., 256 Lorentz, H., 48 Lottaz, P., ix, xv, xvi, 113, 137, 215, 289 Ludendorff, E., 50 Ludlow, P., 196 Lukashenko, A., 269 Lu Zhengxiang, 220 Machiavelli, N., 70 Maglione, L., 223 Mainichi Shinbun, 118 Makko, A., 30, 31 Marchant, H., 51 Mare liberum, 71 maritime neutrality, 69–70; departure of, 70; origins of, 68–9 Marshall Plan, 168 Marxism, 249 McGhee, G.C., 169 McKittrick, T., 140, 150 McNair, A., 3–4 Medunarodna Politika, 254 Menon, Krishna, 240 mercantilism, 78; enlightenment critique of, 75 mercantilist trade war, 70 Middelburgsche Courant, 44 Militaire Spectator, 45 military agreements, 281 “military neutrality,” 162 Millis, W., 20 Moeyes, P., 44 Mojsov, L., 253 Moldova: military, 271; path of neutrality (1994–2015), 269–72; Republic of Moldova, 271 Molotov, V., 172 Mond, A., 145, 146 Moore, J.B., 13, 20 Morgenthau, H., 150 Mowrer, E., 53 Müller, L., xv, 67, 138, 291 multi-lateral agreements, 73, 137 multilateral treaties, 294

302

Index

mutual agreements, 70, 91 mutual defense agreements, 188 NAM. See Non-Aligned Movement Napoleonic War, x, 69, 77, 87, 188 national armed forces, in GDR, 176 national security, committee for, 53–5 National Security Council, 169 NATO, 168, 191, 192, 277, 278; intervention in Libya, 200; operations, 274 natural law argumentation, x Nazi regime, 56 Nazi war, 239 necessity theory, 6, 7 Neff, S.C., xiv, 3, 67, 138, 290 net-neutrality, xviin7 Neutral and Non-aligned Countries (NNC), 252, 256–8 “Neutral and Non-aligned” (N+N) states, 29–33 neutral flags, 71–7 neutralism, fight and fight against, 245–50 neutrality: as argument for stronger defense, 44–6; army as savior of, 49–52; British declaration of, 97; and Cold War, 190–2; criticism on, 191; dimensions of, ix–xi, 113–14; discourse, xii–xiv; as discourse about morality and feasibility, 290–1; and divergent views of twentyfirst century international world order, 192–4; eighteenth-century debate over, 4–8; farewell to, 58–9; as foreign policy, 293–4; of Great Powers, 119; Holy See’s pledge of, 218; and international law, 46–8; in Land War, 8; lawmaking, 18–22; law of, 4; in Maritime War, 8; in Middle East, 169–70; moral conflagrations of, 216–18; morality of, 55–7; “new neutrality” emerges, 11–13; new security architecture, 197–9;

perception of, from nineteenthcentury until 1945, 188–90; perspectives on, 69–71; policy, 9, 280; for Scandinavia, 170–2; as structural element in international systems, 291–2; Three Rival Neutralities, 9; as useful tool, 292–3; US policy of, 22; USSR and, 267–9 Neutrality Act, 90; Act of 1935, 20; Act of 1936, 20; Act of 1937, 21 Neutrality Law, xiv, 88 neutrality school: “new neutrality” school, 4; traditional, 13 neutral shipping, 69–71; practice of, 71–7 neutral states, discovery of, 250–6 Niyazov, S., 269, 272, 273 NNC. See Neutral and Non-aligned Countries N+N states. See “Neutral and Nonaligned” states Noack, D.X., xvi, 267 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), 245 “non-belligerency” policy, 23 Norwegian policy, Soviet Union, 168 “Notions of Neutralities,” 289 nuclear war, in Europe, 32 Nuncio, P., 217 “October putsch,” 166 October Revolution (1917), 268 O’Hanlon, M., 201 Oppenheim, L.F.L., 138 “Orange Revolution,” 278 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 32, 34, 35, 191 O’Shaughnessy, E., 248–9 Ostojiæ, M., 253 Paasikivi, 168 Pacelli, E., 216 Pacific War, 230, 268 pacifism, 240 Pact of Paris, 10–11

Index

“Pajama Pocket Speech” (Kekkonen), 171, 172 “Palmer Commission,” 253 PCRM party, 270 peace agreements, 118, 230, 269, 270 permanent neutrality, 188, 195; foreign policy, 185–6; humanitarian intervention, 200–1; as institution of peace for century, 201–2; reconceptualization of, 185; Sweden, 162, 289; Switzerland, 67, 87, 162, 189, 289, 292 Pertini, S., 252 Petkoviæ, R., 250, 255 Pius War, 231 Pius XI, 217 Pius XII, 216, 226 Pleshakov, C., 165 pluralism, 185, 192, 193, 200 political debates, 194 popular culture, heroic neutrality in, 57–8 positive neutrality, 269, 275; Turkmenistan (1992–2015), 272–6 Potsdam Agreement, 163 prisoners of war (POW), x, 119 private neutrality, xvi; notion of, 138–9 “Proposal for a German Peace Treaty,” 172 pro-Russian Socialist Party (PSRM), 271 Rákosi, M., 165 RAND Corporation, 251 Razmara, H., 169 Red Army: Austria, 178; Europe, 165; Hungary, 165; Romania, 165; South East Europe, 165; Yugoslavia, 239 Reginbogin, H.R., ix, xvi, xvi, 137, 185, 289, 294 regional trade agreements, 78 Renner, K., 164, 165 Republic of Spain (1931–1939), 123

303

Right to Protect (R2P), 199 rival reform program, 11 Robertson, G., 217 Rodao, F., xvi, 215 Rodriguez, C.R., 253 Roosevelt, F., 20, 22, 116, 226 Rosin, P., 30 Ruggenthaler, P., xvi, 30, 31, 161, 268, 291 Russian-Turkmen Army, 272 Scandinavia: neutrality for, 170–2; “Nordic Defense Union,” 167–9 Schiess, W. Dr., 150 Schmitt, C., 196–8 schools in contention: debate rages, 16–18; past as present, 14–15 Schuursma, R., 56 Scott, J. B., 12–13 Second Cold War, 186, 194 Second Hague Peace Conference (1907), 7 Second Neutrality Act, 116 security architectures, 291–2 Security Council, 59; United Nations, 186 Semenov, V., 172 Semynozhenko, V., 279 Sevareid, E., 56 SFRY. See Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 275–6 Sherman Act of 1890, US, 144 shifting opinions, 1914–1918, 48–9 Shikhmuradov, B., 273 Shotwell, J., 10 Sibre, O., 216 Sino-Japanese war, 116 Sinowatz, F., 254 Smith, A., 68, 75 Snegur, M., 270 Snijders, C., 50 socialism, 173, 174

304

Index

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), 250 solidarism, 185, 193, 200 South America, anti-Axis sentiment in, 228 Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, 118 Soviet Occupation Zone, 163 Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), 272 Soviet Union: agreements, 171; diplomats and politicians, 163; foreign policy, 167; leadership, 163; neutrality initiatives, 161; Norwegian policy, 168; warm-up to peace treaty with Germany, 163–4 Spain: Civil War (1936–1939), 115; diplomatic disaster for, 124 Spanish, Civil War of 1936–1939, 116 Speenhoff, K., 57, 58 SSR. See Soviet Socialist Republic Stalin, J., 31, 175–6, 241; neutrality for Austria under, 164–7 “Standstill Agreement,” 140 Stimson, H., 9, 10 Stourzh, G., 161 Sumter, F., 88 Sweden: export-oriented economies, 126; exports, 72; First League of Armed Neutrality, 76; global economic boom, 76; maritime neutrality, 78; Napoleonic Wars, 77; neutralities of, xi; neutrality policy, 168; “Nordic Defense Union,” 167–9; permanent neutrality, 162, 289; Social Democratic government, 168; World War II, 176, 187 Switzerland: export-oriented economies, 126; International Law, 150; neutral ground in, 140; permanent neutrality, 67, 87, 162, 189, 289, 292; World War II, 137, 187, 199 Syria: civil war in, 194; humanitarian intervention in, 194–5

Taliban, in Afghanistan, 274 Tames, I., 48 Tashkent, Collective Security Treaty in, 276 Taylor, A.J.P., 188 Taylor, M., 227 ter Hall, H., 57 Thorbecke, R., 44 Thucydides, 290 Tindal, H., 52 Tito, J.B., 239–41, 243, 244, 247, 249 traditional neutrality, 10, 18–19; opposition to, 11; school, 4, 13; supporters, 20 Transnistria War, 269 treaties, 189, 291; “Abbreviated Treaty,” 174; agreement, 141; Anglo-Swedish Treaty of 1661, 73; for Austria’s independence in 1955, 37; Austria State Treaty, 164–6; Collective Security Treaty in Tashkent, 276; Collective Security Treaty Organization, 272; economic CIS, 268; essential, 73; Lateran, 215, 231n1; law-making, 290; on neutral rights of the eighteenth century, 71; Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance (1948), 171 Trepp, G., 140 Trojan Horse of Communism, 250 Truman, H., 245 Turkmenistan: neutralities of, xi; “positive neutrality” and isolation 1992–2015, 272–6 Turner, W.T., 245 Tymoshenko, Y., 279 Ukraine: “Declaration of Sovereignty,” 277; neutrality (1990–2014), 276–80 Ulbricht, W., 172 unequal treaties, 218 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), 273

Index

United Nations Security Council, 186 United States: and Adenauer government, 173; Air Force, 247; Allied forces, 116; Byrnes Plan (1946), 161; Civil War, 87, 289; neutral power, 8; policy of neutrality, 22 USSR, 116–18, 230, 240, 241, 247; and neutrality, 267–9; public proclamations, Germany, 163 van Bemmelen, P., 47 van Bijnkershoek, C., 47 van der Mey, H., 57 van Embden, D., 51 van Oort, H.L., 46 van Prinsterer, G.G., 44 van Vollenhoven, C., 47 Vatican: diplomatic interactions, 215; Lateran Treaties, 215; neutralities of, xi; perpetual neutrality, 218; World War II, 216 Vatican and Japanese empire, 218–20; relations with Japan, 223–9; relations with Manchukuo, 220–3 Vijaya Pandit, 243 von Clausewitz, C., x, 188 von Epp, F., 52 von Moltke, H., 50 Voorhoeve, J., 41, 42, 59 Voronin, V., 270 Vrhovac, J., 252 Vyshinskii, A., 172 war: American Civil War (ACW), 69, 87, 88, 90, 98, 100, 103; American Revolutionary War, 75; Anglo-Dutch War, 69, 70, 73, 76; Boer War, 55; Bosnian civil war of 1992–95, 24; Civil War, 194, 240, 289; Cold War, ix, xi, xiii, xiv, xv, 32, 77, 161, 162, 166, 176, 186, 187–8, 190–2, 197, 199, 239, 240, 243, 249, 256, 257, 291, 292, 295; Crimean

305

War, 44, 69; Danish-Swedish War, 73; European war, 9; Finish Winter War, x; Franco-German War of 1870–1871, 45; French Revolutionary War, 69, 76; German-Soviet war, 117; Great War, 4, 8, 12, 13; International Law of War, 137; Korean War, 170, 176; mercantilist trade war, 70; Napoleonic War, x, 69, 87, 188; Nazi war, 239; Pacific War, 230, 268; Pius War, 231; Prisoners of War, x; prisoners of war, 119; Second Cold War, 186, 194; Sino-Japanese war, 116; Transnistria War, 269; US Civil War (1861–65), 87; World War I, 143, 144, 151; World War II, 137, 138, 176, 187, 189, 199, 218, 240, 269 Warren, C., 11, 12, 20 Warsaw Pact forces, 250 Webb-Act, 144 Weigel, G., 194 Wiesel, E., 217 Wilford, J., 12 Wilson (President), 49 Wilson, W., 196 Wood, K., Sir, 149 Woolsey, L.H., 13 World War I, 143, 144, 151 World War II, 137, 138, 189, 199, 218, 240, 269; Europe, 116, 191; Sweden, 176, 187; Switzerland, 137, 187, 199; Vatican, 216 Wörner, M., 272–3 Wright, Q., 10 Wylie, N., 33 Xi Jinping, 202 Yanukovych, V., 279, 280 Yatsenyuk, A., 279 Yeltsin, B., 276 Yen, W.W., 220

306

Yoo, J., 198 Yugoslavia: civil war in, 240; communist leadership, 241; Communist Party, 239–42; discovery of Asian allies, 241–5; Federal People’s Republic, 241; ideologies in, 239; Red Army, 239

Index

Yushchenko, V., 278, 279 Zhukov, M., 162 Zogoviæ, R., 242 Zubok, V., 165 Zuidwillemsvaart, 54

About the Contributors

Stephen C. Neff has been based at the University of Edinburgh School of Law, in the United Kingdom, since 1983, where he is currently the Professor of War and Peace. He is a specialist in the history of international law in general, including the law of neutrality as a specialty. He is the author of The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (2000). He is also the author of War and the Law of Nations: A General History (2005) and Justice Among Nations: A History of International Law (2014). Oliver Bange studied Political Science, Economic History, and Contemporary History at the RWTH in Aachen (1983–1989). He received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1995 and has since held various academic positions, including lecturer at Nomos Publishing, editor at the journal Media Monitor International, researcher at the project “Ostpolitik und Détente” and coordinator of “CSCE and the Transformation of Europe.” He is currently lecturing at the University of Mannheim. Wim Klinkert holds the chair for Modern Military History at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda and is professor of Military History at the University of Amsterdam. His publications focus on Dutch military history between 1870 and 1945 and include (co-edited with Herman Amersfoort) Small Powers in the Age of Total War, 1900–1940 (2011) and Defending Neutrality, The Netherlands Prepares for War, 1900–1925 (2013). Leos Müller (b. 1962) is professor of History and director of the Centre for Maritime Studies at Stockholm University. His publications include Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce: The Swedish Consular Service and Long-distance Shipping, 1720–1815 (2004) and most recently, Persistent Piracy: Maritime 307

308

About the Contributors

Violence and State-Formation in Global Historical Perspective, co-edited with Stefan Eklöf Amirell (2014), in addition to numerous articles and chapters. His upcoming book Neutrality in World History will be published in Routledge’s Themes in World History (2018). Elizabeth Chadwick has been a reader by research at Nottingham Trent University since 2007, to which the title “associate professor” was added in 2017. Her main research interests lie in the fields of armed neutrality, the international humanitarian law of armed conflict, the self-determination of “peoples,” and legal aspects of international terrorism law. Among her recent publications, she is the author of “National Liberation in the Context of Post- and Non-Colonial Struggles for Self-Determination” in The Oxford Handbook of The Use of Force in International Law, ed. Marc Weller (2015), 841–58 (available as “National Liberation, Revolution, and SelfDetermination,” http://ssrn.com/abstract=2283836); “Neutrality” in Oxford Bibliographies in International Law, ed. Tony Carty (2014), “Neutrality revisited” in Routledge Handbook of the Law of Armed Conflict, eds. Rain Liivoja and Tim McCormack (2016), 455–73, and “Terrorism and Selfdetermination” in Research Handbook on Terrorism and International Law, ed. Ben Saul (2014), 298–314. She has also written Self-Determination in the Post-9/11 Era (New York: Routledge Research in International Law, vol. 4, 2011). Pascal Lottaz, born 1985 in Fribourg, Switzerland, is a Ph.D. candidate at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (Tokyo), where he is writing his dissertation on Neutral States and Wartime Japan. He is also adjunct professor at Temple University (Japan Campus) for Contemporary European Politics and the author of Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan (New Global Studies, 2017). Doz. Mag. Dr. Peter Ruggenthaler, born 1976, Studied History and Slavic Studies. Deputy director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences, Graz, Austria. Member of the Russian-Austrian Historians’ Commission (since 2008). Coordinator of several international research projects on Soviet history and neutrality in the Cold War. Author or editor of more than 20 books. His publications include The Concept of Neutrality in Stalin´s Foreign Policy, 1945–53 (2015) and Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 (Co-editor, 2010). Dr. Herbert Reginbogin, professor of International Relations and International Law, has been a faculty member at several universities on both sides of

About the Contributors

309

the Atlantic. He has taught at Touro Law School (New York), the European University of Lefke (Cyprus), Bogazici University (Turkey), Cag University (Turkey), Potsdam University (Germany), and Kehl University am Rhein (Germany), in addition to guest lecturing at other institutions of higher learning around the world. After spending more than two decades teaching, Prof. Reginbogin is currently completing research on American foreign policy and national security issues related to human and energy security, religious identity, freedom, and foreign policy impacting international law. He specializes in U.S. public policy; political, economic, and security issues facing Europe; the Middle East; and East Asia. Throughout his career, Dr. Reginbogin has written and edited several books and publications on a broad range of topics including neutrality from a historical and contemporary perspective. Over many years, Prof. Reginbogin has worked on several litigation cases; energy security issues in the Eastern Mediterranean, EU, and the USA; international maritime law; international refugee issues; the destabilization of the international world order; new international security architectures; and kleptocracy. Ph.D. Certification from Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, New York, Licentiatus Philosophiae from the University of Bern, and B.A. from Whittier College. Florentino Rodao holds PhDs from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1993) and the University of Tokyo (2007). Associate professor in Contemporary History at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, his latest research stay was at the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley (2016). Dr. Rodao is the author of Franco and the Japanese Empire: Images and Propaganda in Times of War (Barcelona: Plaza & Janés, 2002), translated into Japanese『フランコと大日本帝国 』 (Tokyo: Shobusha 晶文, 2012). Tvrtko Jakovina is professor at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. He is the author of Socialism on the American Grain; The American Communist Ally: Croats, Tito’s Yugoslavia and the United States 1945–1955; The Third Side of The Cold War and many more. Jakovina is also lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy in Zagreb and guest-lecturer at Istituto per l’Europa centro-orientale e balcanica, University of Bologna. Previously, he was visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. He taught at the University of Split and is currently teaching several courses in different Ph.D. programs at the University of Zagreb (departments of History, Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology and at the Faculty of Political Sciences). Jakovina has given lectures at different universities in Poland, Finland, Slovakia, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, USA, Indoensia, China, and others.

310

About the Contributors

In 2010 Jakovina became member of the Council for Foreign Policy and International Relations of the Croatian President Ivo Josipović. He is vicepresident of the Croatian Fulbright Alumini Association, member of the Board of the Croatian-American Association, and Management Board president of the Center for Democracy and Law “Miko Tripalo”; and member of several editorial boards. He regularly contributes to daily and weekly newspapers and from 2013 to 2016 he was anchor of Croatian Television show Third History. David X. Noack (born 1988) is a Ph.D. candidate at Mannheim University. His research focuses on Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the 20th century. Publications: Slowakei: Der mühsame Weg nach Westen [Slovakia: The Tedious Path Towards the West] (Vienna: Promedia 2012) and Die Ukraine-Krise 2013/2014: Versuch einer historischen, politökonomischen und geopolitischen Erklärung [The Ukrainian Crisis 2013/2014: An Attempt to Explain the Historical, Political-Economic and Geopolitical Causes] (Dresden: Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitspolitik, 2014).