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Modernist. Raymond Leslie Buell, onetime head of the Foreign Policy Association, does not oversimplify or resort to rhetoric. A seasoned student of World affairs, he has lately acquired, as editor of FORTUNE'S Round Tables, a firm grasp of domestic, economic and social problems. His book is a methodical 457-page study of the U. S. and the whole modern world. Finally he arrives at a detailed program. If Charles Beard's merit is irony, Buell's is intellectual thoroughness.
Against Beard's caution on the "limited nature of American powers," Buell argues that "this country can dominate the situation." He cites figures on U. S. wealth, industry, consumption, and the appealing figure that the U. S. "has 153 inanimate slaves (foot pounds of man energy per eight-hour day) per capita in comparison with 17 for the world average, 41 for Britain, 35 for France, and 27 for Germany. . . ." The U. S. has rapidly become the greatest "power" in the world, he says, and should shoulder responsibility equal to its power.
Against Beard's deprecation of U. S. foreign trade, Buell quotes figures to show that imports (rubber, tungsten, etc.) from Asia and the East Indies are "essential" to U. S. economy, that exports of U. S. mass production industries (e.g., typewriters) account for a high percentage of important U. S. production. With respect to foreign investments, he points out that in 1938 they brought a high average of interest.
These points are merely minor steps in Buell's main thesis, to which he marshals a mass of evidence: that in the modern world U. S. economy cannot be self-sufficient, nor in a totalitarian world can it be anything but totalitarian; that therefore the U. S. can afford neither a long European war nor the defeat of the democracies.
He argues that not even military isolation is still possible. "The extent of the [U. S.] military commitments . . . which the U. S. has almost silently accepted is not yet appreciated by the public." Buell's analysis of these commitments (annual cost now $2,200,000,000) is extraordinarily complete. Sample fact of "hemisphere defense": Washington is no farther from Prague than from Rio de Janeiro. Buell shows that though the Good Neighbor policy and U. S. pledges to Canada may seem simple continentalism in the Beard sense, they are actually world commitments in the modern world at war.
"In the course of the next two years," Buell believes, "America should be able to bring about a just peace in Europe, if it exercises its powers wisely." His program for mediation would avoid the error of Woodrow Wilson by requiring that the Allies agree with the U. S. on a world settlement beforehand. For getting in training for the grand event he suggests: 1) better intramural cooperation between Congress and the State Department, perhaps through a joint Congressional committee or the appearance of the Secretary of State before the Senate for full dress debates; 2) wartime economic measures including lower tariffs, restraint of plant expansion, bonuses instead of wage increases in industry.
If, when the time comes, Germany or other opposing powers refuse to accept U. S. mediation, Buell would have the U. S. resort to "limited intervention": i.e., grants-in-aid to the Allies, naval and air force action.