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The military interventions initiated by Israel, the United Kingdom, and France in Egypt and by the Soviet Union in Hungary, during October and November, 1956, have different historical backgrounds and different political purposes. They may have been politically connected with one another, and in any case they were connected by the fact that they occurred at the same time and were all dealt with by the United Nations. It is the purpose of this article to examine the legal justification for these interventions with only the minimum historical background necessary for that purpose. The criteria for aggression which the writer developed in the July, 1956, number of this Journal will be assumed and for their justification the reader is referred to that article.

Students of congressional-executive relations have long recognized the weakness of legislative oversight of the Executive, and in few areas of public policy has this weakness been more pronounced than in national defense. A recent and significant change in this relationship was made when the 86th Congress in 1959 imposed upon a reluctant executive and military establishment a major innovation in the established processes of making defense policy. The innovation was deliberately intended to alter the balance in executive-congressional controls over some strategic decisions, and was in the form of a new requirement for legislative authorization of the principal weapons programs of the military services.

During the past four years several Middle Eastern countries have experienced governmental changes in which the army took an active part. In Syria and Egypt the army deliberately intervened to overthrow discredited regimes and to depose the heads of state. In Lebanon and Iraq the heads of state, themselves alarmed by an intense struggle among rival political parties, invited the army to intervene in order to maintain order. In Lebanon the army refused to crush the opposition, acting only as a caretaker; in Iraq the army agreed to support authority against disorder and the effect of its intervention cannot yet be foreseen.This control of government by the military is indicative both of serious defects in democratic processes in the Middle East and of the eagerness with which Middle Eastern leaders seek high political office. In Western democratic countries, traditions have developed which tend to keep the army isolated from domestic politics, although military advice has often been sought on foreign policy, and persons whose careers have been in the military service are not infrequently elected, or appointed, to high political positions. This is a quite different matter, however, from the military's choosing to occupy high political office through the weapons of its own profession.

In order to understand the policy of the United States towards China it is necessary to go back to die Chinese civil war. It is at this point that the confusion over 'the real issue obscured the thinking and frustrated the policies of the United States. When it became obvious that the Nationalist régime was unable to cope with the revolutionary situation even if supported by American arms and advice, only two courses, which General Wedemeyer's report of 1947 clearly envisaged, were logically open to American policy. One was military intervention on such a scale as to be sufficient not only to crush the Communist armies but also to keep discontent permanently in check. Military intervention of this kind would have entailed military and political commitments of incalculable magnitude. This course of action was rejected by the framers of the United States' foreign policy on the advice, among others, of the then-Secretary of State, George Marshall.

In an "interim appraisal" of Peking's interest in Laos, which appeared inThe China Quarterlylast autumn, I expressed the view that China's security would be better served by the creation of a neutral buffer state in Laos than by the imposition of a Communist one, which would tempt the United States to intervene. Though we are here, of course, in the realm of reasoned speculation, recent events have seemed to confirm both halves of this proposition. That the Chinese Communists believe a neutral Laos would be the best way of getting the Americans out is suggested by their readiness to accept some of the more controversial provisions for Laotian neutrality that were agreed on July 23 at the Geneva International Conference on Laos. That the danger, from Peking's point of view, of an American military intervention is a real one was shown in May when the United States decided to strengthen its force in Thailand. Various other developments, however, suggest that the Chinese are taking an increasingly direct interest in Laos.

From its 921st through its 923d meetings the Security Council considered the complaint of the government of Cuba that the United States was planning direct military intervention in Cuba.Mr. Wadsworth, the representative of the United States and the first speaker, deplored the fact that because of continued provocation over nearly a two-year period the United States had been forced to break diplomatic relations with Cuba, and denied as false propaganda the Cuban charges that the United States was contemplating a military attack on Cuba. Mr. Roa, the Cuban representative, stated in his opening remarks that Cuba considered the Security Council the proper organ before which to bring its case, and that his country opposed any effort to transfer the examination of its claim to the Council of the Organization of American States. He charged, inter alia: 1) that United States materials had been air-lifted to counter-revolutionary groups in the Cuban mountains; 2) that United States Embassy officials had been engaged in espionage and in conspiracy with counterrevolutionary elements; 3) that false and harmful propaganda against Cuba was being broadcast from the United States, with the support of the United States government; 4) that mercenaries were being trained at Guantanamo Naval Base, with a view to launching a number of small military expeditions against different points of the island; and 5) that destroyers had been placed on the alert in Key West, ninety miles from Cuba. The ultimate objective of these movements, Mr. Roa added, was a military invasion of his country.

Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary: The Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary, at its last meeting, June 7, 1957, adopted its report to the General Assembly. The committee, composed of representatives of Australia, Ceylon, Denmark, Tunisia, and Uruguay, had been appointed by the General Assembly at its second emergency special session to provide information regarding the situation created by Soviet intervention in the internal affairs of Hungary as well as the developments relating to the Assembly's recommendations on this subject. The report, based on available documentation and the testimony of in witnesses, dealt with a brief history of the Hungarian uprising, the movement as seen by the Soviet Union and by the government of Janos Kadar, the Soviet military intervention and its political background, the effects of the use or threat of use of force on the political independence of Hungary, and specific acts violating other rights of the Hungarian people. The committee believed that the uprising in October and November 1956 had been a spontaneous, improvised national movement, stemming from resentments caused by longstanding grievances, particularly against the inferior status of Hungary in relation to the Soviet Union. The thesis put forth by the Soviet Union and the Kadar government that the uprising had been fomented by Hungarian reactionary circles and strengthened by western "imperialists" was unacceptable to the committee, which felt that the movement had been led by students, workers, soldiers and intellectuals, who had demanded, inter alia, that democratic socialism should be the basis of the Hungarian political structure and that such social achievements as land reform should be safeguarded. Reporting that Soviet authorities had taken steps as early as October 20 to make armed intervention possible, the committee felt that it could not say whether the Soviets had anticipated the occurrence. It stressed, however, that the Warsaw Treaty did not provide for Soviet armed intervention to dictate political developments within any signatory's frontiers.

The 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion is now almost universally considered to be "one of those rare politico-military events—a perfect failure." One of the conclusions usually derived from that affair is the general inadvisability of direct United States intervention in the internal affairs of other nations to bring about desired changes in their domestic political structures. Almost simultaneously, however, the United States was doing just that in the Dominican Republic with a considerable degree of success, indicating that the lessons of the Cuban experience should not be overdrawn.

Often as foreign policy may be the subject of partisan discussion in modern democracies, important international commitments are usually made only with support, or the expectation of support, from the great bulk of the political community. This has surely been the ordinary American and British pattern, labeled bi-partisan, non-partisan, or extra-partisan. We assume that political support extending well beyond the ranks of the party in office is essential for a successful foreign policy, and especially for a substantial military venture. Even the American decision to defend South Korea, while it was necessarily made by the Democratic administration before any apparent political consensus and while it eventually involved the United States in an unpopular war, was never in itself a partisan policy which Republicans as a group refused to support. The one outstanding recent instance of a truly partisan foreign policy is Britain's Suez action of 1956. As the significant deviant case, it provides useful insights into the process by which an alternative to the usual bi-partisan arrangement is developed and conducted. Specific questions concern the making of the Suez intervention decision, the nature of parliamentary support for this decision, the role of party loyalty in maintaining such support, and the significance of partisan opposition.

Because of serious dissension within Arab policy-making groups, the Arab League reportedly made attempts to straighten out the differences between Haj Amin el-Husseini, the exiled Mufti of Jerusalem, and King Abdullah of Trans jordan regarding military procedure in the proposed Palestine invasion. On January 15, 1948 Assad Dagher Bey, Chief of the press section of the Arab League, announced that regular armies of the Arab countries were planning to occupy all of Palestine as soon as the British withdrew, and he further stated that intervention by an international police force or any large body of foreign troops would be considered as an unfriendly act by the Arab states. At this same press conference it was disclosed that the Arab governments had sent notes to the United States and Great Britain informing them that the Arab League had decided to give all possible aid to the Arabs of Palestine. Up to that time, the League, while encouraging action against the establishment of a Jewish state, had taken no official recognition of the guerrilla warfare; it had been reported, however, that Fawzi el-Kawukji, commander of the Arab People's Army in Syria, was pressing for more active assistance from the members of the Arab League. Shortly thereafter, on January 23, it was announced that he had crossed the border into Palestine from Syria to carry out a reorganization of Arab forces.