~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.