The question then arises as to the Imperial Powers whose dynastic enterprise is primarily to be hedged against by such a league. Reflection will show that if the league is to effect any appreciable part of its purpose, these Powers will also be included in the league, or at least in its jurisdiction. A pacific league not including these Powers, or not extending its jurisdiction and surveillance to them and their conduct, would come to the same thing as a coalition of nations in two hostile groups, the one standing on the defensive against the warlike machinations of the other, and both groups bidding for the favor of those minor Powers whose traditions and current aspirations run to national (dynastic) aggrandizement by way of political intrigue. It would come to a more articulate and accentuated form of that balance of power that has latterly gone bankrupt in Europe, with the most corrupt and unreliable petty monarchies of eastern Europe vested with a casting vote; and it would also involve a system of competitive armaments of the same general character as what has also shown itself bankrupt. It would, in other words, mean a virtual return to the _status quo ante_, but with an overt recognition of its provisional character, and with the lines of division more sharply drawn. That is to say, it would amount to reinstating the situation which the projected league is intended to avert. It is evidently contained in the premises that the projected league must be all-inclusive, at least as regards its jurisdiction and surveillance. The argument will return to this point presently. The purpose of the projected league is peace and security, commonly spoken of under patriotic preconceptions as "national" peace and security. This will have to mean a competent enforcement of peace, on such a footing of overmastering force at the disposal of the associated pacific nations as to make security a matter of ordinary routine. It is true, the more genial spokesmen of the project are given to the view that what is to come of it all is a comity of neutral nations, amicably adjusting their own relations among themselves in a spirit of peace and good-will. But this view is over-sanguine, in that it overlooks the point that into this prospective comity of nations Imperial Germany (and Imperial Japan) fit like a drunken savage with a machine gun. It also overlooks the patent fatality that these two are bound to come into a coalition at the next turn, with whatever outside and subsidiary resources they can draw on; provided only that a reasonable opening for further enterprise presents itself. The league, in other terms, must be in a position to enforce peace by overmastering force, and to anticipate any move at cross purposes with the security of the pacific nations.