IT IS, IN A WAY, rather absurd to ask whether there is going to
be another general war, a Third World War. The Third World
War began, we saw, in the Spring of 1944, and has thus already been
going on for several years. Already, thousands, even tens of thou-
sands, of men have been killed in this war--in China and Iran and
Yugoslavia and Trieste and Germany and elsewhere. Among those
killed have been armed soldiers of the United States.

We know, however, that something different is usually meant by
the question. When we speak of syphilis, we do not have in mind
the passing annoyance of a small sore. When most people ask about
the ` Third World War, they are thinking, of course, not of small
skirmishes and incidents here and there, or even rather extensive
battles in the less developed nations, but of fighting and destruction
on a mass and general scale. We may note that there is a superficial-
ity in this way of thinking. Between the small sore and the dread
organic degeneration, though they may be widely separated in time
and in idea, the lurking spirochetes provide a most intimate causal
link. Nevertheless, let us re-state the problem, and ask whether there
will be a new war in the more total sense.

No future event is inevitable, and we therefore cannot say that a
new full-scale war is certain to come. It is conceivable, possible, that
it should not. We are compelled to recognize, however, if we wish
to face the evidence, that a new war in the full sense, and in a com-
paratively short time, is very probable. It is on the whole probable,
though not in each case equally so, no matter what deliberate policies
are followed by the United States or by the other nations. The living
germs are present in the blood; and political science has not yet
devised its miracle drugs.

The evidence, a good deal of it, may be found distributed through
the pages of this book. We know in general that civilized men have
always fought many and frequent wars. We know of nothing to

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