To any but those consumed with warrior lust, it must make sense to ask, as we asked in Chapter 3: “when, if ever, is it right to go to war?” In the broadest interpretation of morality, this is a moral question, since, as noted earlier, those who look solely to national interest, even national aggrandisement, or to the balance of power will invoke moral or ethical concepts in the course of answering it. They have, they will declare, as leaders of their people (or even as politicians) an obligation to pursue the national interest, since that is what they have been entrusted to do. The national or imperial interest so pursued will produce a certain sort of global harmony, or at least betterment; the resort to political violence in sober pursuit of the national interest eliminates the dangerous consequences of moralistic motivations driving nations either to complacent inaction or to ideological warfare; the balance of power is a recipe for stability and a certain type of peace.