96
PARTISAN REVIEW
centers of population cannot unfortunately be dismissed as too im–
probable or too terrible to be seriously considered; what can and
should be said is that even such a global disaster would be unlikely
to make much difference to the basic cleavage running through the
present international society. There is something grotesque about the
notion that either the Western world or the Russo-Chinese bloc can
be conclusively defeated and disarmed, let alone occupied or "lib–
erated." But even if such a consummation were possible, neither the
Communist movement nor the forces upholding the Western way
of life would disappear. Least of all would the problem of organizing
the world society have been solved. At bottom each side still believes
that there can and should be one center instead of two, though
neither is at present willing to take the risk of putting the issue to
the ultimate test. What the real development of the cold war suggests
is, on the contrary, that the world is irremediably split into two
political halves and that this cleavage will continue in the foreseeable
future.
It
does not follow that a third world war is therefore improb–
able; what does seem to follow is that it would be meaningless.
This conclusion is today being challenged by a powerful school
of thought which to all intents and purposes favors an all-out atomic
war (whether "preventive" or camouflaged to look like defense against
"Communist aggression") as the solution to all the world's ills. And
doubtless there are similar tendencies on the other side of the Iron
Curtain. It is against this background that one has to judge the
current wave of "neutralism" in both Europe and Asia: a movement
more powerful under the surface than above it. Those who hope
and believe that their own particular nation or community can stand
aside from the military conflict whose imminence they fear, would
admit that this attitude really amounts to acceptance of the worst
as being likely to happen. Neutralism in fact, insofar as it is more
than a simple desire to escape destruction, discloses a belief that there
is no
via media
between peace and global catastrophe. It is a way of
indicating that the world must either be wholly at peace or wholly
at war. But is this true? Is it not rather probable that we are moving
into a twilight zone of "neither peace nor war," in which the "cold
war" and "co-existence" will increasingly appear to be merely two
sides of the same medal?
Let us assume that either the Korean or the Indo-Chinese con-
