Whether they can ever be brought to such a renunciation will depend, of course, on the conception of their national interest which the more important Latin-American states will reach.

As long as any one of them cherishes objects which can only be realized by war, the international situation in the Western hemisphere will remain similar to that of Europe.

An actual or latent aggressiveness on the part of any one nation inevitably provokes its neighbors into a defiant and suspicious temper.

It is too soon to predict whether the economic and political development of the Latin-Americans during the next generation will make for a warlike or a peaceful international organization; but considering the political geography of South America and the manifest economic interests of the several states, it does not look as if any one of them had as much to gain from a militant organization as it had from a condition of comparative international security.
The domestic condition of some of the Latin-American states presents a serious obstacle to the creation of a stable American international system.

Such a system presupposes a condition of domestic peace.