Neutralization and the Balance of Power

Since the outbreak of the Korean War, the free world has made erratic but continuous progress in its effort to achieve military parity with the Communist bloc. Success in this enterprise and the realization of a “situation of strength†would bring to the fore the problem of serious negotiations with Soviet Russia. Several analysts, including Winston Churchill, have already made strong pleas for reviving the “lost art†of diplomacy as a means of obtaining some settlement of the Cold War.Speaking in a somewhat different military context, before the U.S.S.R. developed the atomic bomb but prior to the Western rearmament effort, Churchill observed:We may be absolutely sure that the present situation cannot last…. It is not only here in Europe that there are these iron curtains, and point s of actual collision… I believe it right to say that the best chance of avoiding war is … to bring matters to a head with the Soviet Government, and, by formal diplomatic processes, with all their privacy and gravity, to arrive at a lasting settlement.