Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/158



should be our American attitude toward military preparation? The average hard-headed, practical American will perhaps say that if war has grown so deadly, it is all the more reason why we should prepare to defend ourselves. Without defence, we stand in peril of general extinction; with defence, we may avert war at least for a time, may soften the blow when it comes. Let us prepare then, says the American citizen, not for conquest, or “fulfilment of national aspirations” but for defence.

Yes, provided only that we can, in this age of confusions and complexities, keep our military preparations defensive. And that is extremely difficult. Indeed, when you come to thorough defensive preparation, a hundred per cent efficient, it becomes perhaps impossible. The term “defence” needs defining; it has hitherto been used as a most effective hypocrisy of militarism. Keeping our coasts and borders against an invading enemy is pure defence; no one disputes that. But in the modern world a nation is not confined to its own political borders. The American mining engineer developing a lode