The Great Illusion / A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

38535

Title

The Great Illusion / A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage

Language

en

Book source

Project Gutenberg

Description max 80 words

Norman Angell challenges the belief that military power ensures national prosperity, arguing instead that modern economic interdependence makes war futile. This seminal work exposes the 'great illusion' that conquest enriches the victor, demonstrating that in a globalized economy, attacking another nation's trade inevitably harms the attacker's own interests.

Summary up to 500 words

In 'The Great Illusion,' Norman Angell dismantles the traditional justification for war, asserting that the age of territorial expansion and military conquest has effectively ended. He argues that modern civilization is built upon credit, commercial contracts, and the division of labor, creating a dense web of financial interdependence where nations rely on one another for survival. Angell demonstrates that seizing territory or wealth from an enemy is economically impossible; if a conqueror destroys an enemy's industry, they simultaneously destroy the very markets and credit systems upon which their own prosperity depends. Using the example of Germany's annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, he illustrates that the population remains the true owner of the land, and the conqueror gains no tangible wealth. He further contends that war cannot impose moral or social ideals on a defeated people, as cultural lines now cut across political borders. The book concludes that the only viable path forward is the recognition that peace is not merely a moral ideal but a practical economic necessity, urging a shift in public opinion to prioritize cooperation over armaments. Angell challenges the doctrine that a nation's prosperity is determined by its political power, showing instead that wealth in the modern world is founded upon credit and commercial contract. He establishes that it is impossible for one nation to seize the wealth or trade of another to enrich itself, even when victorious. The forces that have rendered military power economically futile have also made it useless for enforcing a nation's moral ideals. The fight for ideals can no longer take the form of a fight between nations, because the lines of division on moral questions are within the nations themselves and intersect the political frontiers. There is no modern State which is completely Catholic or Protestant, or liberal or autocratic; the moral and spiritual struggles of the modern world go on between citizens of the same State in unconscious intellectual co-operation with corresponding groups in other States. War has no longer the justification that it makes for the survival of the fittest; it involves the survival of the less fit. The idea that the struggle between nations is a part of the evolutionary law of man's advance involves a profound misreading of the biological analogy. The warlike nations do not inherit the earth; they represent the decaying human element.

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Categories

• History
• Politics