The old-fashioned--that is to say nineteenth-century--plan of competitive defensive armament and a balance of powers has been tried, and it has not proved to be a success, even so early in the twentieth century.

This plan offers a substitute (_Ersatz_) for peace; but even as such it has become impracticable.

The modern, or rather the current late-modern, state of the industrial arts does not tolerate it.

Technological knowledge has thrown the advantage in military affairs definitively to the offensive, particularly to the offensive that is prepared beforehand with the suitable appliances and with men ready matured in that rigorous and protracted training by which alone they can become competent to make warlike use of these suitable appliances provided by the modern technology.

At the same time, and by grace of the same advance in technology, any well-designed offensive can effectually reach any given community, in spite of distance or of other natural obstacles.