* ENDS AND MEANS
No country can be really well prepared for modern war
unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly
trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.)
I have said that a country which proposes to make use
of modern war as an instrument of policy must possess a
highly centralized, all-powerful executive. But, conversely,
a country which possesses a highly centralized, all-powerful
executive is more likely to wage war than a country where
power is decentralized and the population genuinely governs
itself. There are several reasons for this. Dictatorships are
rarely secure. Whenever a tyrant feels that his popularity
is waning, he is tempted to exploit nationalistic passion in
order to consolidate his own position. Pogroms and
treason trials are the ordinary devices by means of which
a dictator revives the flagging enthusiasm of his people.
When these fail, he may be driven to war. Nor must we
forget that the more absolute the ruler, the more com-
pletely does he tend to associate his own personal prestige
with the prestige of the nation he rules. *DEtat c'est
moi9 is an illusion to which kings, dictators and even
such minor members of the ruling clique as bureaucrats
and diplomats succumb with a fatal facility. For the
victims of this illusion, a loss of-national'prestige is a
blow to their private vanity, a national victory is a per-
sonal triumph. Extreme centralization of power creates
opportunities for individuals to believe that the state is
themselves. To make or to threaten war becomes, for
the tyrant, a method of self-assertion. The state is made
the instrument of an individual's manias of persecution
and grandeur. Thus we see that extreme centralization of
ptower is not only necessary if war is to be waged success-
fully; it is also a contributory cause of war.
In existing circumstances the ruling classes of every
nation feel that they must prepare for war. This means
that there will be a general tendency to increase the power