Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/24

Rh and obliged to defend itself and to safeguard its interest by all available means.

Regarded in its broader aspects there are two conceptions of diplomacy which are quite antagonistic and which have divided thinkers since the time of Machiavelli and Grotius. These two great minds may indeed be considered as typifying the two tendencies and expressing them in themselves and through the sentiments which their thought and writings have engendered in their successors.

We have the conception of diplomacy as working out a complex system of state action, balancing and counterbalancing forces and material resources and giving direction to the innermost purposes of the state. It is probable that all professional diplomats are more or less enchanted by this ideal. Up to the great war, Bismarck was generally considered the ablest master of diplomacy, and his action seemed to supply short-cuts for historical forces to work out their natural aims. Nationalism was the word of the day and the creation of the German national state, foreordained as it seemed by the laws of history, was accelerated by the masterful action of the great diplomat. But we are now able to see wherein lay the limitations of this method as applied by