NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY 237

consider. national policy not only with respect to possible thermonu-
clear weapons, but also with respect to fission weapons—viewed in the
light of the probable fission bomb capability and the possible thermo-
nuclear bomb capability of the Soviet Union. The moral, psychological,
and political questions involved in this problem would need. to be taken
into account and be given due weight. The outcome of this reexamina-
tion would have a.crucial bearing on the further question as to whether
there should be a revision in the nature of the agreements, including
the international control of atomic energy, which ¥ we e have been seeking
to reach with the U.S.S.R.” ee | |

» ANALYSIS ©
_ 1. BACKGROUND OF THE ‘PRESENT CRISIS |

"Within the past thirty-five. years ; the world has experienced two
elobal wars of tremendous violence. It has witnessed two revolutions—
the Russian and the Chinese—of extreme scope and intensity. It has
also seen the collapse of five empires—the Ottoman, the Austro-
Hungarian, German, Italian and Japanese—and the drastic: decline
of two major imperial systems, the British and the French. During
the span of one generation, the international distribution of power has
been fundamentally altered. For several centuries it had proved im-
possible for any one nation to gain such preponderant strength that a
coalition of other nations could not in time: face it with greater
strength. The international scene was marked by recurring: periods
of violence and: war, but a system of sovereign and independent states
was maintained, over which no state was able to achieve hegemony.

Iwo complex sets of factors have now basically altered this his-
torical . distribution of power. First, the defeat of Germany and
Ji apan and the decline of the British and French F Empires have inter-
acted with the development of the United States and the Soviet Union
in such a way that power has increasingly gravitated to these two
centers. Second, the Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants | to
hegemony, i is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own,
and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world:
Conflict has, therefore, become endemic and is waged, on the part of
the Soviet Union, by violent or non-violent methods in accordance
with the dictates of expediency. With the development of increasingly
terrifying weapons of mass destruction, every individual faces the
ever-present possibility of annihilation should the conflict, enter the
phaseoftotal war. =

On the one hand, the people of the world yearn for relief from the
anxiety arising from the risk of atomic war. On the other hand, any
substantial further extension of the area under the domination of the
Kremlin would raise the possibility that, no . coalition adequate to