It is pure charity to call the political dealings of those officials stupidity instead of treason,

Two degrees of political stupidity are to be found in diplomacy. The first is short-range: lack of political skill, inability to carry on any negotiations successfully and to recognise short-term advantages. The second is long-range: lack of political far-sightedness, ignorance of deeper power-currents and the Ponderables of the Becoming. These two kinds of political stupidity stand in the same relation to each other as the Military stands to the Political.

The Military is the weapon and the servant of the Political. Only disaster can come of military thought dominating political thought. “Win the War!”

can never be an expression of Politics, for Politics is concerned with identifying the power-currents, choosing the Enemy, and weighing in relation to the national interest all happenings, inner and outer, accord-ing to how the war develops. To elevate the slogan “Win the War!” to the rank of policy, as America did during the Second World War, is the equivalent of saying that there is nothing political about the war. Military thought is simply not political thought. The permanent ambition of all military thought is to win a military victory; the corresponding ambition of all political thought is to win more power. That may or may not be implicit in a policy that seems to desire military victory at whatever cost, for one can probably adduce just as many historical examples of politi-cal and military victory occurring separately as of both coinciding neu-trally. Likewise, if short-range political thinking constantly prevails over the long-range in the policy decisions of a state, the only possible result is that state’s political extinction. No matter how skillfully executed its political manoeuvres, if a state has ignored the larger power-currents in puzzling out its policy, it will suffer a political defeat.

All these explanations and definitions apply only to real political units, for the microscopic destinies of such dwarfish “states” as San Marino, Monaco, and Belgium are completely determined by the Destinies of the true political units, the Great Powers, as the diplomatic concert of the 19th century liked to call them.

The Polish officials of 1939 were politically stupid in the first sense.
Their country encircled by two Great Powers that had just concluded a non-aggression pact, they nonetheless chose to enter upon a war that would mean for it direct, permanent political extinction in the least desirable form: occupation and partition. Actually, it is pure charity to call the political dealings of those officials stupidity instead of treason, for shortly after the beginning of the War, they disappeared, going abroad to live on the capital they were able to amass owing to their policy.

Treason and political stupidity are closely related to each other. In The Proclamation o f London it is stated: “Treason is nothing but incapacity when it becomes resolute.” As used here, the word “treason” refers to treasonous conduct on the part of individuals. An individual may be able to better his personal-economic circumstances through an act of treason, 14 but no group, no class, no organic stratum within a country is ever able to better the power-position of the country through a large-scale act of treason.

In this sense, all treason is political stupidity.

The English officials of 1939 were politically stupid in the second sense in that they completely failed to identify the larger power-currents and likewise totally lacked statesmanlike feeling for the Definition of Enemy: The Enemy is the state that one can defeat and thereby gain more power. * Thus military victory over an opponent whose defeat proves so costly that one must take in the bargain a greater loss of power elsewhere must be called political defeat.

These English officials approached diplomatic preparations for the Second World War according to the old tried and true methods. They attempted to isolate Germany, concluding wherever possible war-alliances with Germany’s neighbours (the “Peace Front”). They counted on American aid, trusting in the Washington regime’s assurances that it would be able to lead America to war-despite the geopolitical position of America, despite the unanimous opposition of the American people, despite the conflict between intervention and the national interests of America, and finally, despite the fundamental spiritual indifference of Americans towards even a victorious war against Europe.

The question they failed to ask was: What is the final political aim? Or in other words: How will England’s power be increased through a victorious American war against Germany? Had they asked this question, it would have been obvious to them that, since England could not win this war alone, any extension of power derived from a defeat of Germany would be for the benefit of America, or some other power. The result of their failure to ask this question was England’s total defeat.

The suicide-policy of the English regime in 1939-it was continued throughout the War-has various roots, and the ultimate explanation of it will keep scholars and archivists busy. The essential facts are already well-known.

First, political stupidity alone is not to blame: Some members of the government consciously and deliberately pursued a policy that was not pro-English, only anti-German. Second, some members of this regime were not officially part of the government, indeed, not even part of the English organism. Third, and most importantly, with Joseph Chamberlain the rich political tradition of England had been laid to rest. The succeeding statesmen were of lesser calibre; class-warriors, like Lloyd George and MacDonald; pure egotists, capable of representing any alien interest, like Churchill and Eden; even obsessed psychopaths, like Duff Cooper.

Thomas Hardy did well to introduce the Spirit of Irony into his Napoleonic drama, The Dynasts, in which the paradoxical and the ironic make up the favourite conversation of Clio. How ridiculous in retrospect now seem the efforts of those officials in London during the period from 1939 to 1941:

They sought to drag America into the War! In reality, the War was from beginning to end a creation of the Washington regime. If it ended in victory, victory could mean only an increase in power for that regime, or some other political unit, but in no case for England. The English nation was impressed into the War as a vassal that had been made to believe it was acting independently, and it emerged from the War with every characteristic of a colony. Only the definitive, legalistic formulation was wanting. Those at the head of the London regime who were honest, if also stupid, schemed to use America for their purposes. And precisely because of their scheming, they were used to forward the ambitions of the Washington regime.

from the book Yockey Francis Parker - The enemy of Europe