Abstract
IT is generally agreed that the restraint of potential aggressors must be a prolegomenon to any planned reconstruction of the post-war world. History does not provide us with any comforting hopes in this connexion, but during this last German war the tempo of destruction, cruelty and misery (and also that of lying and slandering) has risen so greatly, and physical means of communication and control have developed so rapidly, that the prospect of curbing Mars, if not of slaying him, may no longer be regarded as chimerical. It is also generally agreed that the measures prescribed to this end at Versailles in 1919, and in subsequent treaties and pacts, have failed dismally. In what directions, then, shall we now look ? Having experienced the futility of pious pacts and the boomerang effects of vindictiveness, shall we now pin our faith to an effective international police force ? Shall we make ourselves overwhelmingly strong, and keep our potential enemies so abjectly weak that they cannot have recourse to war ? Or could we by some political tour de force succeed in segregating or dispersing dangerously hostile populations with the view of incorporating them in some stable, peace-abiding confederation ?
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CONTROL OF CHEMICAL AND MINERAL PRODUCTS. Nature 151, 455–457 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151455a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151455a0