re, are not, never have been, and never can
be permanent. If history, even quite recent history, has any meaning at
all, the next ten or fifteen or twenty years will be bound to see among
these tan combatants now in the field rearrangements and permutations
out of which the crushed and suppressed Germany that is to follow the
war--a Germany which will embrace, nevertheless, a hundred million of
the same race, highly efficient, highly educated, trained for
co-ordination and common action--will be bound sooner or later to find
her chance.

If America should by any catastrophe join Britain or any other nation
for the purpose of maintaining a "balance of power" in the world, then
indeed would her last state be worse than her first. The essential vice
of the balance of power is that it is based upon a fundamentally false
assumption as to the real relationship of nations and as to the function
and nature of force in human affairs. The limits of the present article
preclude any analysis of most of the monstrous fallacies, but a hint
can be given of one or two.

First, of course, if you could get such a thing as a real "balance of
power"--two parties confronting one another with about equal forces--you
would probably get a situation most favorable to war. Neither being
manifestly inferior to the other, neither would be disposed to yield;
each being manifestly as good as the other, would feel in "honor" bound
to make no concession. If a power quite obviously superior to its rival
makes concessions the world may give it credit for magnanimity in
yielding, but otherwise it would always be in the position of being
compelled to vindicate its courage. Our notions of honor and valor being
what they are, no situation could be created more likely to bring about
deadlocks and precipitate fights. All the elements are there for
bringing about that position in which the only course left is "to fight
it out."

The assumption underlying the whole theory of the balance of power is
that predominant military power in a nation will necessarily--or at
least probably--be exercised against its weaker neighbors to their
disadvantage. Thus Britain has acted on the assumption that if one power
dominated the Continent, British independence, more truly perhaps
British predominance in the world would be threatened.

Now, how has a society of individuals--the community within the
frontiers of a nation--met this difficulty which now confronts the
socie