Oil and Paper

And more oil, or the money to buy it with, is promised to those who have no oil by those who don't have it either. Is Europe going bankrupt because it cannot pay OPEC's prices? Build a "safety net" of special drawing rights and other paper. Is the Third World starving because it cannot afford oil-based fertilizer? Sign more paper treaties, print more paper money; perhaps the problems will go away. Shuffle papers. Buy time. Appease.

By his actions, and sometimes by his words, Kissinger makes it clear that he can see no third alternative to either nuclear holocaust or gradual surrender. Nor does he seem to understand that you cannot make treaties with those who have no incentive to keep them.

In democracies, politicians cannot usually get away with much more dishonesty than is inevitable and generally accepted in the noble business of politics. Autocratic rulers face no such difficulties in tearing up a solemnly signed contract; they need additional inducements to keep them to their word. In both economic and political matters, the oil sheiks have demonstrated that truth all too often.

As with oil, so with the other grandiose international treaties now in the works - nuclear safeguards, environmental warfare, the Law of the Seas. Here, too, history teaches abundantly how autocrats value the sanctity of such agreements. One of many examples:

The Hague Convention of 1899, a forerunner of the Geneva Conventions, drew up rules to "humanize" warfare. It was signed by all great powers, including Imperial Germany. Later the archives revealed what Kaiser Wilhelm II had scribbled on his copy of the treaty even before it was signed: "I consent to all this nonsense only because [of political reasons]. In practice, however, I shall rely on God and my sharp sword. Und ich scheisse on all their decisions."