Students and practitioners of international politics are at present in a strange predicament. Complex though their problems have been in the past, there was then at least some certainty about the “givens,” the basic structure and the basic phenomena of international relations. Today one is neither here nor there. On the one hand, for instance, one is assured—or at least tempted to accept assurance—that for all practical purposes a nuclear stalemate rules out major war as a major means of policy today and in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, one has an uncanny sense of the practicability of the unabated arms race, and a doubt whether reliance can be placed solely on the deterrent purpose of all this preparation. We are no longer sure about the functions of war and peace, nor do we know how to define the national interest and what its defense requires under present conditions. As a matter of fact, the meaning and function of the basic protective unit, the “sovereign” nation-state itself, have become doubtful.

New weapons, and the new strategies and tactics which they make possible, alter the conduct of wars.† But they may also induce changes in the conduct—warlike or peaceful—of international affairs. This happens for either or both of two quite different kinds of reason. First and least importantly, a new weapon may tilt the balance in favor of those nations pre-eminent in the skill to use or the resources to produce it. Second and more profoundly, it may cause the major contending Powers to adopt new or radically extended strategies, calling in their turn for a complete reassessment of national interests, and of the value of resources, alliances, and conventional armaments.

The rapid drive of formerly colonial and dependent countries toward independent nationhood has gone hand in hand, over the last decade, with a thorough reorientation in the discipline of comparative politics. In Southeast Asia, on the Indian subcontinent, in the Near East—everywhere, the Western powers have surrendered their former positions of imperial domination. Even in Africa, once the dark continent of colonialism, fully half the population now has emerged to self-government. In all, a score of new nations has joined the roll of sovereign states, and their global importance is attested daily by far-flung programs of economic assistance, by the gradual shift of the cold-war front from Europe to Asia and Africa, and by the recent redistribution of voting power in the United Nations.

A Review of the political situation in post-Stalin Russia may well begin with a reflection on its historical uniqueness. Stalin, who sponsored the “Russia first” theme in Soviet propaganda, established a real and momentous “first” for Russia by his own death. Never before had a totalitarian dictator of one of the world powers died, or been put to death, before his totalitarian system collapsed, or came near collapse, in war. Hitler and Mussolini, who lived long enough to bring down their systems in ruins, furnish no parallel.