Under the Protocol, precisely the same legal situation as to the blockade of Russia exists as under the Covenant and the same conclusions would follow. However, the probability of such a blockade under the Protocol, without an actual state of war resulting, is much less than under the Covenant. The Protocol provides definitely for military sanctions and it can hardly be doubted, as a matter of reality, that if the sanctions of the Protocol commenced to be applied to a State in or out of the League and that State resisted, the result would be war as between that resisting State and at least those of the Members of the League, like Great Britain, that were taking a real part in the application of the sanctions. And, as pointed out above, the legal situation is much clearer in the case of war than in the case of this economic and financial boycott of the Covenant. It would be much "easier"[7] to go to war than it would be to apply the economic and financial sanctions alone. The world has gotten more or less used, in a legal sense, to the legalities and illegalities of war; but there are no precedents as to the corresponding situations[8] in such a {93} blockade as has been suggested; and it is, above all, custom and general agreement that make international law. I may sum up my views on this point as follows: If under either the Covenant or the Protocol, the economic sanctions were applied either against a Member of the League or a non-Member of the League and the application of these sanctions did not result in war, the United States legally could, and very likely would, contend that any resulting blockade was not applicable to the United States and the commerce and intercourse of her residents; and this view would be accepted by the Members of the League as being legally sound; and the result of course would be that the practical effect of any such blockade would be very much weakened. However, if the application of the sanctions either of the Covenant or of the Protocol resulted in war between the State against which the sanctions were applied and the States applying them, the United States could not object to that state of war, although of course it would have its rights as a neutral in such a war as in any other war and these neutral rights would not be affected by any provision of either the Covenant or the Protocol.