Do Treaties Matter?

[Colmc54]

I've just watched the BBC's WW1 re-visitation 2 part documentary concerning whether the UK should have entered into WW1. Tomorrow night we will have experience the full force of the anti-involvement argument.

In another BBC series Jeremy Paxman confirmed that at the start of the war we were locked into defence treaties obliging all signatories to join in if any of the signatories were invaded, in this case by Germany.

We are now members of NATO (I assume that we all know what the acronym stands for).

The only way we could have avoided both World Wars would have been to default on our treaties.

If that is acceptable what kind of a world could we live in today? Or should I say what kind of a world would we live in today? Nuclear wasteland perhaps, or would we be now speaking German, not English, and perhaps always bumping into a glass ceiling, no not only as today of sexism and ageism, but of German dominance?

International defence treaties mean so much the survival of nations that depend on them.

Give them the finger when you so choose and aren't you on your own in the end?

[LazyGun]

You could probably offer all sorts of alternate futures as a hypothesis, but there is no means to plausibly verify any of them.

Yes, Treaties and Treaty obligations are important; but mostly you could view the situation prior the WW1 as a sort of real world "Game of Thrones; 3 empires rules by monarchies, with vassal states circling in their respective orbits, jockeying for position and pre-eminence and for the protection ( in Britain's case) or expansion of their empires and their political, military and economic power.

And relationships with other nation states is precisely why you should be very careful before not honouring your treaty commitments; increasingly we live in a global village, with economic interdependency and going it alone could be very harmful.

[LazyGun]

Odd way to look at things. Since English and England is derived from a Germanic tribe, the Angles, you could argue that we were a german outpost ruled for a time by the French. During the period in history where William the Conqueror was gadding about, the language of the court, business and upper class was French, with the lower classes speaking english. As norman influence waned, english regained some ascendency, but the language adopted much french influence.

Not quite sure what you mean by Germans being swatted, either. The days where military might was the primary method of establishing influence, nowadays it is economic might, backstopped by military alliances. And Germany is unquestioningly the economic powerhouse on the european continent. Even if they wanted to, I cannot see any military adventures generated from Germany, so in what way do you imagine they will be "swatted"?

[Colmc54]

Sorry I didn't presume to go that far back in time. There are massive reasons, not the least of which was Albert Einstein's annus mirabolis of 1905, that the enlightenment was continuing across the globe.

Lazy gun you confuse honouring treaties with signing them in the first place. I guess we'll have to watch tomorrow night for the BBC's dubious opinions on that matter.

We are no longer a global super-power as we were back then. Still I feel that we should honour our treaty obligations at whatever cost. The world is still not ready for John Lennon's utopian vision, much as it grieves me, that he sung out in 'Imagine'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRhq-yO1KN8&feature=kp

[LazyGun]

"Lazy gun you confuse honouring treaties with signing them in the first place. I guess we'll have to watch tomorrow night for the BBC's dubious opinions on that matte"

I am? How?

[Colmc54]

Sorry LazyGun, because of the lateness of the hour I seem to have skipped over the 'not' in the 3rd paragraph. Reading it again I agree with what you wrote.

I imagine tonight's anti-involvement programme will focus on what the legitimacy of the treaties were that obliged Britain to declare war when the Germans swept into Belgium and then France.

I wouldn't be surprised if your Game of Thrones analogy will get a mention.