~159~
or the Soviet Union.105
World government right now has already been ruled out
on this count.
2.
The powers and especially the great power must,
out
prepared to accept
a substantial narrowing in their range of free choice of policy.
about sacrificing sovereignty recognizes this necessity.
Current talk
The difficulty with
the phrase "sacrificing sovereignty" is that it seems to imply that the
sovereignty is to be handed over to some supra-national authority.
To endow a
supra-national authority with great power might make the national authorities
more apprehensive of it than each other.
It is at least conceivable that the
powers can contrive some scheme for narrowing their own freedom of action so as
to reassure each other without at the same time broadening the scope of free
action of the supra-national authority.
The powers might, for example, agree
that the bomb is not to be used at all except in the most narrowly defined circum-
stances.
This would be far different from creating a world authority which it-
self had bombs at its disposal.
3.
Any legal undertaking
.
limiting the right of states to’ produce,
possess or use atomic armaments must be self-enforcing.
Only if as the result
of the legal undertaking, a factual situation is created in which the powers are
not tempted to break the agreement would this condition be met.
An agreement
outlawing the production or use of atomic bombs would have to be accompanied by
provisions for inspection and penalties for violation to meet this test.
The
failure of belligerents in the Second World War to use poison gas tempts one to
assert that simple international agreements outlawing the use of a weapon might
be effective. The experience with poison gas, however, is not wholly reassuring 106
Gas has not proved a decisive weapon.
Had Hitler or Tojo been capable
of averting defeat by using gas, few doubt that they would have used it.
105. See Chapter IV, supra.
106. See Chapter II, supra.