The scientific problem presented by attempted serious study of a U.S.-Soviet war is therefore very difficult indeed. It is really a problem involving three clusters of moving bodies. The first cluster will be the American people, their behavior, and their institutions; the second cluster, the Russians and allied peoples, their behavior and their institutions; the third cluster, the changing methods of communication existing between them. It can be said even now, simply by referring to the character of the American people and their past history, that if the Communist leaders of the USSR start a general war, the end of that war is sure (under sets of words and ideas which have yet to be developed in the future) to involve the reconciliation of the inhabitants of the USA with the Russian people. In other words, USA_{v} and USSR_{v} can and must have certain relationships with each other, preeminent among which are attempts at undoing war damage, at political and cultural reconciliation, and the undertaking of the rebuilding of a world which both these great peoples can support with enthusiasm and _hope_.[61] USA_{v} and USSR_{v} are imaginable. USA_{1} and USSR_{1} for the day preceding the outbreak of war, or, alternatively, the day on which the war occurs, will be known elements. American science in many fields can help U.S. mass communications and therewith help our armed forces if we learn how to ascertain how the Soviet leadership changes, how Soviet élite groups change, and how the Soviet population changes during the course of the war. We must not only be able to guess what is happening to them physically, but must try to appreciate and to understand what is happening to them psychologically and semantically. This is an immense task. It is by no means certain that our research and development facilities can give us an adequate research program to handle the problem. This much can be said: if the Americans understand the Russians before the war and during the war, it will be the first time that a nation has kept its enemy in wide-awake sight. The usual process in the past has been the acceptance of a few exaggerated stereotypes of the national characteristics of the potential enemy, the ascription of every possible kind of infamy and inhuman characteristic to the enemy during the war, and the redefinition of the enemy as a friend after the war. It would be strange and wonderful if the U.S. Government and the U.S. propagandists (or conceivably as much as a large minority of the U.S. population) could learn how to fight the USSR in order to _help_ the Russians escape from a tyranny which has already hurt them much more than it has hurt us.