ON -u6- \ Soviet Union to an agreement to set up world government immediately is not to be expected. The advocates of full-fledged war if necessary to establish a central world machinery of coercion would tnerefore be advocating in reality a SovietAmerican war. The prospect of coercing the Soviet Union into acknowledging the authority of a world government is a grim one, Itwould involve fighting right now the very war which the advocates of world government insist can only be avoided by establishing world government, 92 If the United States did successfully mplitz" the Soviet Union or some les- ser opponent of forcible unification, it would then stand at the bar of world opinion as the only nation which had ever used the atomic bomb and as a nation which had used it in two successive wars, Our critics would frequently point to the fact that it had been used first against a rapidly collapsing foe and second against a foe whose only crime was not to yield to force majeure in the form of the bomb, At the moment of victory, the people of the world would be ill- disposed to permit the United States to run the world. In the face of an aroused and indignant world opinion, the United States government could not in its hour of victory, even if it wished, then afford to surrender its ovm sovereignty to a new world authority. attempting the unilateral regulation of world affairs. ilieequipped for such a task. It would be driven to The United States is It lacks both the professional army and the ex- perience in colonial administration. World-wide civil war is a possibility in the event of a voluntary political wification of the world. It is a near cer- tainty in the event of its forcible unification, This much remains to be said in behalf of those who favor world government right now, They are unlikely to be so successful in converting American opinion to their cause that the dangers suggested in the preceding paragraphs will ever matcrialize. 92. On the other hand, the world government advocates grasped sooner The evidence is by no means clear that such a war would be the twenty~four hour war which its advocates would promise. See Chapter IV, supra.