~6hj— has a monopoly of the bombs. The United States has a monopoly today, but trusts to its reputation for benignity and-—-what is more impressive--its conspicuous weariness of war to still the perturbations of other powers, special situation is bound to be short-lived, In any case, that The possibility of a recurrence of monopoly in the future would seem to be restricted to a situation in which controls for the rigorous suppression of atomic bomb production had been imposed by international agreement but had been evaded or violated by one power without the Imowledge of the others. to aggressive designs, Evasion or violation, to be sure, need not be due It might stom simply from a fear that other nations were doing likewise and a desire to be on the safc side. concealed Nevertheless, a situation of monopoly would be one of the most disastrouspaeiiie from the point of view of world peace and security, It is therefore entirely: reasonable to insist that any system for the international control on“aeoion of bomb production should include safeguards promising practically 100 per cent effectiveness, The use of secret agents to plant bombs in all the major cities of an intended victim was discussed in the previous chapter, where it was concluded that except in port cities easily acccssible to foreign ships such a mode of attack could hardly commend itself to an aggressor, Neverthcless, to the degree that such planting of bombs is reasonably possible, it suggests that one side might gain before the opening of hostilitics an enormous advantage in the deployment of its bombs, Clearly such an ascendancy would contain no absolute guarantce against rotaliation, unless the advantage in deployment were associated with a marked advantage in psychological preparation for resistance, But it is clear also that the relative position of two states concerning ability to use the atomic bomb depends not alone on the number of bombs in the possession of cach but also on a host of other conditions, including respective positions concerning deployment of the bombs and psychological preparation against attack, One of the most important of those conditions concerns the relative position 149