The inference inevitably is that the isolation which has meant so much to the United States, and still means so much, cannot persist in its present form.  Its geographical position will always have a profound influence on the strategic situation of the United States in respect to the European Powers.  It should always emancipate the United States from merely European complications.  But, while the American nation should never seek a positive place in an exclusively European system, Europe, the United States, Japan, and China must all eventually take their respective places in a world system.  While such a system is still so remote that it merely shows dimly through the obscurity of the future, its manifest desirability brings with it certain definite but contingent obligations in addition to the general obligation of comprehensive and thorough-going national efficiency.  It brings with it the obligation of interfering under certain possible circumstances in what may at first appear to be a purely European complication; and this specific obligation would be the result of the general obligation of a democratic nation to make its foreign policy serve the cause of international peace.  Hitherto, the American preference and desire for peace has constituted the chief justification for its isolation.  At some future time the same purpose, just in so far as it is sincere and rational, may demand intervention.  The American responsibility in this respect is similar to that of any peace-preferring European Power.  If it wants peace, it must be spiritually and physically prepared to fight for it.  Peace will prevail in international relations, just as order prevails within a nation, because of the righteous use of superior force—­because the power which makes for pacific organization is stronger than the power which makes for a warlike organization.  It looks as if at some future time the power of the United States might well be sufficient, when thrown into the balance, to tip the scales in favor of a comparatively pacific settlement of international complications.  Under such conditions a policy of neutrality would be a policy of irresponsibility and unwisdom.

The notion of American intervention in a European conflict, carrying with it either the chance or the necessity of war, would at present be received with pious horror by the great majority of Americans.  Non-interference in European affairs is conceived, not as a policy dependent upon certain conditions, but as absolute law—­derived from the sacred writings.  If the issue should be raised in the near future, the American people would be certain to shirk it; and they would, perhaps, have some reason for a failure to understand their obligation, because the course of European political development has not as yet been such as to raise the question in a decisive form.  All one can say as to the existing situation is that there are certain Powers which have very much more to lose than they have to gain by war.  These