The Economics of War and Peace

Any contraction of the Cold War and ensuing attempts to “normalize” international relations raise fresh hopes for a peaceful solution of the prevailing imperialist antagonisms. For the Western world this involves new evaluations of the Bolshevik regimes and their aggressive aspirations. A new readiness to parley with the totalitarian world is then explained by a change of attitude on the part of the totalitarians. The new post-Stalinist policies would not alone, however, suffice for a real rapprochement between the East and the West. The Bolshevik quest for peaceful co-existence, interpreted as weakness, could actually strengthen Western anti-Bolshevik foreign policies. To maintain peace, it must be generally desired; and so it seems to be. Even the armaments race supposedly has no other object than safeguarding the peace of the world. The mounting stock-piles of atomic and thermonuclear weapons, the whole fantastic paraphernalia of modern war, are not to be employed in ...