Evening star., 1954-10-15
Wdr, Peace and Ineyitobiiity

War, Peace and InevitubiIity
It is as balm to the mind and spirit,
In an age afflicted with all too many calarn-
ity-howlers to hear as impressive voice
as Arnold Toynbees speak out aff1rmatively
and enthusiastically about the future of men
and nations.
The bleak fashion of the hour, of
course, is to brood over the possibility-if
not the probability that the world is drift
ing willy-nilly, and FAST toward time when
1t will literally wipe itself out in total war
with nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.
However, although practically everything is
conceivable in an existence full of innumer-
able uncertainties, such catastrophe is
far from being as inevitable as some pessi-
what may really be inevitable is not an
atomic hydrogen doomsday, but an endur-
ing peace, permanent peace.
At any rate, Professor Toynbee, the re-
nowned British historian who has studied
the past far more profoundly than most OF
his contemporaries, Is one of those who
take decidedly hopeful view of the future.
Thus, as he has just told press conference
in London, MANS choice between life and
death lies in mans own hands. Personally
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are going to fight third world war. be-
lieve we are going to stand the strain OF
having to live through a long period OF
nerve-racking missionary warfare with
an undramatic ending"-warfare confined
chiefly to contest in which the two giants
among nations, the United States and the
Soviet Union, will maneuver ideologlcally,
economically and militarily against each
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ance of power offering adequate security to
both.
This may be an over-wishful assess
ment of what is to be expected in tomor-
rows world But Professor Toynbee has ad-
vanced a very persuasive argument In sup
port of it, For the truth is, as he has said,
that extraordinary and decisive events"
have taken place during the last decade or
so. One of these, obviously, has been the
"annihilation of distance" by things like
supersonic jet planes and guided missiles.
Another has been the invention of A
weapons and the hydrogen bomb-mass-
destruction instruments that have added
such an utterly new and absolutely revolu-
tionary dimension to the black art of war
fare that warfare itself now appears to be
too mad and too futile project for any
ing to the Toynbee thesis, it is inevitable
that the control of atomic energy shall pass
sooner rather than later into the hands
of some single world authority"
In Professor Toynbee's judgment, "Th1s
is bound to happen because it is the
only condition on which man can go on
living on the face of this shrunken and ex-
plosive planet. And I think man has very
strong will to survive"-Russian man as
we'll as American man or man anywhere. In
short, "the different divisions of the human
race"-having been brought suddenly
within pointblank range of each other with
atomic weapons in their hands s"-muSt rec
ognize that they are in an unprecedented
new epoch and feel a great and driving COM
pulsion to get along peaceably together Test
otherwise, in war, they destroy themselves
in an all-engulfing cataclysm.
Perhaps Mr., Toynbee is excessively OPP
timiStic, but notwithstanding that there
is as much sanity in Moscow as in Wash
ington-his view makes at least as much
sense as that of the Jeremiahs. Indeed, it
makes more sense. In any event, in the kind
of world we have, peace should be inevitable
if men and their governments are rational.