In 1933, the last effective year of the Versailles-League of Nations system, the world's armies numbered 7,000,000 men, its navies totaled 3,000,000 tons, its military planes were 14,000, and $4,000,000,000 was spent to keep the men and machines of war. Pacifists considered these figures pretty horrible. As it turns out they were small potatoes.
In 1938, the year of Munich, armies had increased to 10,000,000 men, naval tonnage had jumped to 8,000,000, military planes had possibly trebled in number and $17,000,000,000 went slithering down the gullet of the hungry god of war-to-be. This year, with Russia leading the Big Parade (U. S. S. R. war budget for 1939 is $8,000,000,000), these figures are again skyrocketing.
The only reason that so much of the world's hard-earned wealth is poured down an uneconomic rathole is that men expect and fear the coming of a Second World War. That expectation and fear is the greatest political force in the world today. Horror of the war itself makes mankind recoil towards peace, but the probable nature of the war and the fear of its outcome drive men to prepare for it.
What is the prospect of the war—not in terms of human, political or economic suffering—but in terms of its military factors from which all other consequences will spring? No man can write its history beforehand. Yet an outline for its history has already been laid down in the armies and the armaments of Europe.
Great Unknowns. That outline is not yet definitive because there are several big imponderables. It is not known for certain who may fight whom; in stacking up the armed forces of the world against each other it is not certain for example whether Japan is to be counted as one of the Axis powers, or because of her involvement in China she may remain neutral ; it is equally uncertain whether Russia may belong to the Democratic front or be a neutral; it is even uncertain whether the U. S. will be a neutral or a member of the Democratic front.
If the nations which may be lined up against each other can be guessed, it is possible to make a reasonably accurate estimate of their fighting strength in men, guns, ships, planes. But such an estimate though quantitatively correct may be in total error from the qualitative standpoint.
Quality oftener than not outweighs quantity in war — the best soldiers, the best guns, the best ships, the best planes mean more than mere big numbers.
Not least of the unknowns are the imponderables of strategy and tactics. Wars are fought by human beings as well as by machines, and, as Napoleon suggested, an army of lions that is led by a lamb can be beaten by an army of lambs under the leadership of a lion. Failure of leadership lost the World War for Germany at the outset when a timid High Command failed to keep the strength of its right wing up to the plan of Alfred von Schlieffen on the famed swing through Belgium. Conversely, the Japanese capitalized on brilliant chance-taking when they sent an army to the Asiatic mainland in 1904 with out first bothering to clear out the Russian Navy.
Three Big Facts. In contrast with the great imponderables are the undisputed facts: