The anti-militarist who disparages our reliance upon 'force' is almost as remote from reality, for all society as we know it in practice, or have ever known it, does rely a great deal upon the instrument of 'force,' upon restraint and coercion. We have seen where the competition in arming among European nations has led us. But it may be argued: suppose you were greatly to reduce all round, cut in half, say, the military equipment of Europe, would the power for mutual destruction be sensibly reduced, the security of Europe sensibly greater? 'Adequacy' and 'destructiveness' of armament are strictly relative terms. A country with a couple of battleships has overwhelming naval armament if its opponent has none. A dozen machine-guns or a score of rifles against thousands of unarmed people may be more destructive of life than a hundred times that quantity of material facing forces similarly armed. (Fifty rifles at Amritsar accounted for two thousand killed and wounded, without a single casualty on the side of the troops.) Wars once started, instruments of destruction can be rapidly improvised, as we know. And this will be truer still when we have progressed from poison gas to disease germs, as we almost certainly shall. The first confusion is this:-- The issue is made to appear as between the 'spiritual' and the 'material'; as between material force, battleships, guns, armies on the one side as one method, and 'spiritual' factors, persuasion, moral goodness on the other side, as the contrary method. 'Force v. Faith,' as some evangelical writer has put it. The debate between the Nationalist and the Internationalist is usually vitiated at the outset by an assumption which, though generally common to the two parties, is not only unproven, but flatly contrary to the weight of evidence. The assumption is that the military Nationalist, basing his policy upon material force--a preponderant navy, a great army, superior artillery--can dispense with the element of trust, contract, treaty.