Peace

It is uncertain whether peace will ever be possible. It is far more questionable, by the objective standard of continued social survival rather than of emotional pacifism, that peace would be desirable even if it were demonstrably attainable. The war system, for all its subjective repugnance to important sections of public opinion, has demonstrated its effectiveness since the beginning of recorded history. It has provided the basis for the development of many impressively durable civilizations. It has consistently provided unambiguous social priorities and as such is largely a known quantity. A viable system of peace, assuming that the many transitional problems can be solved, would constitute a venture into the unknown, with the inevitable risks attendant on the unforeseen, however small and however well hedged. At the present state of knowledge and reasonable inference, it is the war system that must be identified with stability, the peace system with social speculation, however justified that speculation may appear in terms of subjective moral or emotional values. Any condition of genuine total peace, however achieved, would be destabilizing and unsustainable until proved otherwise.