530 PROSPECTS OF THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION
tion of the peace was the current disparity between the two Powers'
respective military resources.

In an age in which the sinews of war were technological and organiza-
tional experience and ability commanding man-power and non-human
raw materials in quantities sufficient to ensure a full investment of the
fund of human skill, the United States possessed in A.D. 1952 a
superiority, in potential military strength, not only over the Soviet
Union and her satellites, but over the whole World outside the United
States' own frontiers;1 and, though this present American superiority
might, as has been noted,2 be diminished, or even eventually converted
into an inferiority, if the Russians were ever to succeed in fully develop-
ing the latent resources of the Soviet Union and in gaining effective
control over the developed and latent resources of the rest of the Old
World, the United States' present superiority seemed likely to last as
far into the future as it was possible to see ahead, since the fund of
skill which was the key to industrial power was, in the nature of things,
an asset that it would take the Russians much longer to build up than
material resources that could be converted into military strength only
to the extent to which the skill to exploit them was forthcoming.3

On this showing, the present disparity between the United States
and the Soviet Union in potential military strength seemed likely to
endure. Yet it would have been rash to jump, on this account, to the
conclusion that the Soviet Union would be willing or able in all circum-
stances to refrain from challenging her rival's decisively superior
potential strength; for the competition between Rome and Parthia for
paramountcy over Armenia after the detente of 23-20 B.C., and the com-
petition between Athens and the Peloponnesian Confederacy for the
accession of Corcyra after the peace settlement of 445 B.C., were warn-
ings that, in any society that was partitioned politically between two
Powers, and two only, a Balance of Power, even when this had been
deliberately established by overt or tacit agreement, was in constant
danger of being upset, even against the parties' will, by their falling
into an involuntary yet unavoidable competition for the allegiance of
forces, hitherto neutral, whose added -weight might be expected to give
the scales a decisive inclination to one side or the other—whichever of the
two sides should succeed in securing this accession of strength for itself.

third world war could not be averted by a saving combination of the spiritual forces of
wisdom, good will, and, above all, forbearance.

^Professor William McNeill comments: 'United States superiority is less than
statistics of steel production would suggest, since, in the United States, more effort and
material has to be devoted to civilian consumption, and more of military man-power
and supply to services, than is required in the Soviet Union, where the lowness of the
people's standard of living and the hardihood of their spirit makes them able to live and
fight on a much smaller allowance of comforts and amenities than is demanded by
Americans.' , 2 On pp. 488-9, above.

a 'Les atouts actuels de 1'Europe ne paraissent pas reposer sur des necessity physiques,
mais sur un acquis historique qta ne peut lui echapper que par une Evolution prolong^
et sur les qualites morales et intellectuelles de ses populations. Notre civilisation sur-
industrialis6e ne peut avoir d'autres centres que 1'Europe et les fitats-Unis, tant que les
autres regions n'ont pas atteintle m6me degre de surindustrialisation, done de technique,
de capitalisation, de standard de vie; les courants ne peuvent done Stre de"tourne"s que
tres insensiblement* (Dupriez, L. H.: Les Mouvements ficonomiques G6ndraux (Louvain
1947, University Pyess, 2 vols.)> vol. i, p. 380).