Book Reviews : The Limits of Foreign Policy: The West, The League and the Far- Eastern Crisis of 1931-1933. Christopher Thorne. Macmillan (Student Editions) £2.50

Date01 April 1976
Published date01 April 1976
DOI10.1177/004711787600500311
Subject MatterArticles
1049
to
what
has
become
a
standard
work,
Professor
Nicholas
takes
account
of
the
admission
to
UN
membership
of
Communist
China
and
the
two
Germanies,
the
changing
relationships
between
the
super
powers,
the
latest
crises
in
Asia
and
the
Middle
East,
and
the
new
patterns
in
global
economic
relationships.
His
very
readable
and
able
introductory
text
is
well
up
to
the
very
high
standards
of
the
earlier
editions.
Sydney
Bailey
is
concerned
with
a
much
narrower
canvass
than
Professor
Nicholas
- namely,
the
procedural
rules
governing
the
opera-
tions
of
the
Security
Council.
He
looks
at
the
Council’s
institutional
framework,
the
various
rules
relating
to
its
meetings,
personnel,
debates
and
decisions,
its
relations
with
the
other
major
UN
organs,
and
the
Council’s
own
subsidiary
organs.
A
final
chapter
examines
whether
new
rules
or
new
policies
by
UN
member
states
will
improve
the
Council’s
working.
Professor
Bailey
emphasises
that
new
rules
alone
will
achieve
little
or
nothing
without
changes
in
national
policies
and
attitudes.
A
useful
feature
of
the
book
is
that
Professor
Bailey
reproduces
relevant
excerpts
from
the
UN
Charter
together
with
the
Council’s
provisional
rules
of
procedure
(Professor
Nicholas
reproduces
the
whole
UN
Charter
in
his
Appendix).
Both
Professors
Bailey
and
Nicholas
are
to
be
congratulated
on
offering
books
which
will
be
essential
reading
for
students
of
International
Relations
and
International
Organisations.
Ken
Twitchett
The
Limits
of
Foreign
Policy:
The
West,
The
League
and
the
Far-
Eastern
Crisis
of
1931-1933.
Christopher
Thorne.
Macmillan
(Student
Editions)
£2.50.
Mr.
Thorne
has
written
an
excellent
and
detailed
account
of
the
Manchurian
crisis,
set
against
a
penetrating
analysis
of
the
complicated
factors
influencing
major
foreign
policy decisions;
not
least
amongst
them
being
a
failure
to
understand
the
essentially
different
political
and
cultural
motivation
of
your
opposite
number
often
coupled
with,
as
the
author
says,
a
vague
optimism
that
the
points
at
issue
can
be
resolved
largely
because
of
&dquo;an
implicit
projection
of
one’s
own
idealized
pattern
of
reactions
and
rationality&dquo;
on
to
the
other
party.
The
situation
in
1931-1933
was
further
complicated
by
the
need
for
the
British
and
the
United
States
Governments
to
present
their
policy
in
the
most
favourable
light
for
the
benefit
of
both
their
domestic
public
opinion
and
that
of
Geneva,
and
the
difficulty
of
balancing
the
require-
ments
of
national
self-preservation
with
the
longer
term
dictates
of
international
morality
and
stability.
Both
Governments,
moreover,
&dquo;failed
to
remave - or
even
to
discern
in
some
instances
-
the
marked
degree
of
incoherence
which
existed,
for
example,
between
political
and
com-
mercial,
and
political
and
strategic,
aspects
of
their
policies&dquo;.
This,
it
might
be
said,
is
an
even
more
marked
feature
of
the
foreign
policy
of
the
major
powers
in
1976,
than
it
was
in
1931-3.
As
has
been
well
remarked
&dquo;It
is
a
pity
that
when
God
endowed
man
with
limited
intelli-
gence
he
also
endowed
him
with
unlimited
stupidity&dquo;.
The
book
is
in
three
parts.
Part
I
describes
the
development
of
the
crisis,
the
problems,
policies
and
the
outstanding
personalities
who
played
the
leading
roles;
it
examines
the
economic
and
military
forces
involved
and
then
surveys
Western
policies
and
attitudes
up
to
and
following
the
Washington
Conference
of
1921.
The
crisis
itself
forms
the
subject
of
Part
II
and
Part
III
is
concerned
with
a
discussion
of
its
significance
both
at
the
time
and
as
a
harbinger
of
World
War
II.
On
the
whole,
the
conclusion
would
appear
to
be
that
since
the
assumption
on
which
the
League
of
Nations
was
based
was,
in
itself,
invalid
if
the
structure
should
come
under
stress,
the
Manchurian
episode
merely
served
to
bring
out
into
the
open
what
was
already
well
known
to
these
Govern-
ments,
who
were
founder
members
of
the
League.
To
that
extent,
but
to
that
extent
only,
it
might
be
said
to
have
contributed
to
growing
international
tension
during
the
inter-war
period.
This
is
a
most
valuable
and
enlightening
study.

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