What problem most troubled Albert Einstein?
- The mystery of space-time?
- The properties of energy?
- Quantum uncertainty?
Nope. It was "international organization".
[THREAD]
Most people today are not familiar with Einstein's lifelong pacifism
ias.edu/ideas/2015/gho…
But that wasn't the case during his lifetime.
His pacifism was so well known that a political cartoon was made when he issued statements calling for a united front against growing Nazi militarism.
Perhaps the clearest example of him calling for military prepardness was his letter (actually written by Leo Szilard) to President Roosevelt encouraging him to start a US nuclear program...before the Nazis could acquire a nuclear bomb.
In a latter interview for Newsweek Magazine, Einstein expressed regret over the letter: "had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing."
This regret fed into his calls for a new way of organizing world politics.
He thought the newly established United Nations was a promising step...but it wasn't enough.
This is most clearly and forcefully expressed in his 1947 "Open letter to the General Assembly of the United Nations"
He opens by lamenting that the progress of technology has not made the world more secure. It's actually made the world less secure. He is, of course, referring to the development and use of the Atom bomb
For Einstein, the solution is not more "tech". There must be a political solution:
"Because of our inability to solve the problem of international organization, it has actually contributed to the dangers which threaten peace and the very existence of mankind."
In a phrase, Einstein perfectly captured a core focus, maybe THE focus, of international relations scholarship: the problem of international organization.
But as Einstein's above quote indicates, this is a difficult problem to solve. He saw no progress being made towards lasting peace (with the emerging Cold War)...
...no progress towards nuclear energy control (indeed, it seemed the world was poised for the opposite)...
...and a lack of post-war economic reconstruction (the "Marshall Plan" wouldn't be passed until the next year).
He didn't blame the United Nations for this lack of progress. After all, "no international organization can be stronger than the constitutional powers given it."
In the case of the UN, the UN Security Council was explicitly designed to NOT limit the control of the major powers
Instead, he saw the UN as a "transitional system" towards the final goal, "the establishment of a supranational authority vested with sufficient legislative and executive powers to keep the peace."
In other words, a true world government.
He recognized that this would require a complete rethinking of the "traditional concept of sovereignty".
press.princeton.edu/books/paperbac…
Specifically, something had to change to make it so that armaments were no longer viewed as vital to an individual nation's security: until ALL could be secure, none could be secure.
He wrote, "Security is indivisible."
Side note: I always wondered if he chose that phrase to directly contrast with the source of nuclear power -- dividing atoms 🤔
Einstein was so serious about this solution, that he advocated, in the pages of @TheAtlantic, that the US give up its nuclear weapons...and give them to the United Nations.
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
He wrote, "I believe that the United Nations should have the atomic bomb when it is supplied with its own armed forces and weapons. But it too should have the bomb for the sole purpose of deterring an aggressor or rebellious nations from making an atomic attack."
I'm not saying that Einstein was advocating using the threaten nuclear annihilation to keep the peace, but he also was not NOT calling for that.
Hence, you can see how this was a difficult problem for Einstein.
As I've shared before (especially in the #KeepRealismReal threads) many others during that time thought about (and were stumped by) the problem of world government.
At the end of his 1947 letter, the only answer that Einstein could give for the problem of reorganizing international organization (via world government) was a tautology:
"The only real step toward world government is world
Government itself."
Einstein's struggle to solve "the problem of international organization" underscores the title of a favorite @EuroJournIR paper:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13…
Don't get me wrong: quantum physics is "spooky" and thinking about space-time is 🤯.
But neither presents nearly as difficult/frustrating/impossible of a problem as international organization.
[END]
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