Reinhold Niebuhr

American Hegemony and the Prospects for Peace

The problems of a tolerable and enduring peace under the circumstances of tentative peace through balance of terror are political. The contest of power is between two blocs, each built around a hegemonic nation of imperial tech nological, economic, and military strength. Democracy may be a necessity of justice, but the authoritarian oligarchy of the Soviet Union changed a backward and feudal Russia into a technically competent modern state, a material revolution which the poorer nations of the world desire for themselves. Democracy is not uniformly relevant everywhere; depending upon cultural and economic variables, compounds of democracy and dictatorship are inevitable. The United States must learn the difference between reversible nondemocratic regimes and regimes irreversible because theirs is a fanatic communism. Although of imperial size and strength, the United States has a strong tradition of anti-imperialism, attributing imperialism to monarchy. The Soviet Union uses the charge of imperialism as a weapon against the West, attributing imperialism to capitalism. The creative aspects of imperialism are not ap preciated by either side. In terms of peace, some decisions are not for either the United States or the Soviet Union, the heg emonic nations, to make. Unpredicted and unpredictable emergencies arise in the course of history. One can only affirm that the defense of an open society is not futile and that the burden of the defense will ennoble rather than corrupt the culture that bears it.—Ed.

A Protest Against a Dilemma's Two Horns

Both our idealists and our realists conceive patterns which are too logical for the tortuous course of human history. They both persist in confronting us with two horns of a dilemma and beg us to choose between them. All idealistic schemes of world peace insist that we must either achieve world government or resign ourselves to an inevitable war; we must find some way of reaching an understanding with the Russians or face the consequences of a world war. Our realists are convinced that neither world government nor a pragmatic understanding with the Russians is an attainable goal. They are therefore tempted to grasp the second horn of the dilemma. They accept the fact of an inevitable war. From the idea of an inevitable war it is only a short logical step to the concept of a preventive war. For if we must inevitably fight the Russians, why should we not have the right to choose the most opportune time for joining the issue?

Scheurlen, Paul. Die Sekten der Gegenwart und neuere Weltanschauungsgebilde . Stuttgart: Quell-Verlag, 1930:

MICHELS, ROBERT. Der Patriotismus . Pp. viii, 269. Munich: Duncker u. Humblot, 1929. This volume by the distinguished sociologist now of the University of Perugia, Italy, is a collection of sociological studies on the theme, perhaps above all others, upon which the author is uniquely prepared to speak. Thoroughly steeped in the languages and cultures of Western Europe, trained in history and economics, productive in general social theory, Professor Michels can approach the phenomenon of patriotism with an almost unrivaled depth of formal and informal experience. The four chapters of the present book deal respectively with the myth of the fatherland, the relation between love of fatherland and