These are Britain, France, Germany, and the United States
of America. Less certainly equal to the effort are Italy, Japan, Russia,
and Austria. These eight powers are the only powers _capable of warfare
under modern conditions._ Five are already Allies and one is incurably
pacific. There is no other power or people in the world that can go to
war now without the consent and connivance of these great powers. If
we consider their alliances, we may count it that the matter rests now
between two groups of Allies and one neutral power. So that while on
the one hand the development of modern warfare of which the Tank is the
present symbol opens a prospect of limitless senseless destruction, it
opens on the other hand a prospect of organised world control. This
Tank development must ultimately bring the need of a real permanent
settlement within the compass of the meanest of diplomatic
intelligences. A peace that will restore competitive armaments has now
become a less desirable prospect for everyone than a continuation of the
war. Things were bad enough before, when the land forces were still in
a primitive phase of infantry, cavalry and artillery, and when the only
real race to develop monsters and destructors was for sea power. But the
race for sea power before 1914 was mere child's play to the breeding
of engineering monstrosities for land warfare that must now follow any
indeterminate peace settlement.
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