Another form of warfare is the relative burden of armaments. This may be called slow combustion, in contrast to the open flame of war. Now if there is no joint limitation—as at present—the most long-sighted and powerful nation stands to win at this game; the result is the same as if actual war were in progress, but the terrors and destruction of war are avoided. But if there be a joint limitation of armament—as some hope may be established—it must be on such a basis that no one state is left in a condition of clear superiority to another, otherwise it would tie the inferior state to be in a permanently inferior condition. And the qualities which will win will be subterfuge, evasion, and bad faith; whichever state contrives to be better prepared than another behind the agreement will stand to win when the war does come. In the unlimited condition the qualities win which are those best for mankind in all other respects; in the limited condition the qualities will win which are worst for mankind otherwise. The real fact is that great armaments are like great states, a needful condition of the new speed of communication. When it took two or three months to move an army from central Europe to England, we had two or three months to prepare; when it takes only two or three days we must be always prepared. No one can put the clock back, and steam is the end of small armaments. Within a generation of quick transport being started, big armaments were found needful, and will never cease to be needful. Great permanent combinations of states are the only line of relief under the new conditions, which bind mankind for ever in the future. Let us look now at direct war. What are the qualities which tell for success, looking to the wars of recent times with which we are familiar? In the brains of the army the main qualities have been (1) Foresight; (2) Combining power; (3) Honesty; (4) Imagination; (5) Skill; and in the muscle of the army (6) Physique; (7) Industry; (8) Tenacity. In short, success in war requires precisely the same qualities as success in peace. Even if the cause is bad, yet it is the best man all round that wins. In each case recently the winner has been the better power for future civilisation. War then may be defined as the concentration into a year of the same results which would take place by economic causes within perhaps a generation or a century. So far as violent changes are undesirable—as we have noticed before—so far war is undesirable. But on the purely humanitarian view it may be better to flee before one's enemies for three months than have three years' famine; it may be better to kill 100,000 in a brief campaign than starve a million during a whole generation by bad trade owing to slow economic changes. War strikes the imagination and impresses the thoughtless with its horror, but a starving peace may be a far more painful process.