One World Versus an Iron Curtain World

Abstract

T HE desire of western Europe and particularly the Anglo-Saxon world to transform these troublesome postwar years into a period of peace on earth has produced the concept of one world as the solution of solutions to the problems of mankind. But we must be extremely careful to recognize that this concept carries implications which for the most part can be fitted only into the Anglo-Saxon type of mentality. If we are to generalize, one world means to most Americans (and possibly to Englishmen also) a sort of world superstate controlled by an international police force which would cope with all power problems. Such a force would be directed by principles of emanating from a world organization which would come to decisions through discussion and the majority vote, all states being at all times willing to subordinate their particular welfare and needs to the general welfare. The basic theories involved in this reasoning are that war is a very unwelcome but an occasionally necessary break in the normal condition of peace; that all the peoples of the world will benefit by this scheme of collective security, which can be coupled with the ideals of the Anglo-Saxon type of democracy and justice for all; and that the world can be educated for one world by agreeing on these few fundamental principles. It is generally agreed that world government is the only alternative to world destruction. The goal, therefore, is seldom debated as an end in itself; strangely enough, however, the possibility of reaching it under existing conditions, in spite of its desirability, seems to recede further and further from the international horizon.