We have destroyed a good deal of the mummery of economics--not without help; politics has become more familiar to us, we now know that a thief in office is a thief, that tariffs are not made by abstract thinkers, but by manufacturers and farmers and factory workers; we know, with some poignancy, that taxes are paid by people like ourselves and we are beginning to know that taxes are spent to keep people alive and healthy and in jobs and, to a minute extent, also to keep people cheerful, their minds alert, their spirits buoyant. The very fact that we are now _all_ critics of spending is a great advance, because it means we are all paying; when we are all critics of foreign policy it will mean that we are all signing contracts with other nations; and when we are all critics of war, it will mean that we are all fighting. As a student, I know what a layman can know about strategy; less about tactics; as a citizen I should be of greater service to my country if I knew more. What I have learned, from many sources, seems to hold together and to demonstrate one thing: behind strategy in the field is a strategy of a people in action; and victory comes to the leaders who organize and use the national forces in keeping with the national character. I have gone to several authorities to discover whether the "tactics of variety" (a "natural" in propaganda) has any counterpart in the field. I cannot pretend that it is an accepted idea; it is hardly more than a name for an attitude of mind; but I did find authority for the feeling that an American (or United Nations) strategy need not be--and must not be--the strategy of Hitler. So much the civilian can take to his bosom, for comfort. _A Variety of Strategies_ The greatest comfort to myself was in a little book published just in time to corroborate a few guesses and immensely to widen my outlook; it is called _Grand Strategy_; the authors are H.A. Sargeaunt, a specialist in poison gas and tank design, a scientist and historian; and Geoffrey West, biographer and student of politics; both British. Although there are some difficult pages and some odd conclusions, this book is a revelation--particularly it shows the connection between war and the social conditions of nations making war; in the authors' own words, "war and society condition each other"; they connect war with progress and show how each nation can develop a strategy out of its own resources. The hint we all got at school, that the French revolution is responsible for vast civilian armies, is carried into a history of the nineteenth century--and into this war.