In plato's Theaetetus Socrates develops the character of the philosopher, the man of knowledge, in contrast to the atheoretical, practical man.* He endeavors to demonstrate the distinctive qualities of the philosopher by emphasizing his peculiar attitude towards the political sphere.

First, the philosopher has no political ambitions, and he does not care about what is going on in the political sphere.

From the end of the religious wars to the First World War, the modern state system was kept together by the intellectual and moral tradition of the Western world. That tradition imposed moral and legal limitations on the struggle for power on the international in a certatin measure, maintained order in the international community and secured the independence of its individual members. What is left of this heritage today? What kind of consensus unites the nations of the world in the period following the Second World War?

The conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union has prevented the United Nations from becoming the international government of the great powers which the Charter intended it to be. That conflict has paralyzed the Security Council as an agency of international government. In the few instances when it has been able to act as an agency of international government, it has been able to do so either, as in the beginning of the Korean War, by the accidental and temporary absence of the Soviet Union or, as on the Indonesian issue, by a fortuitous and exceptional coincidence of interests.

It is impossible to state with assurance what the policy of the Carter administration is with regard to civil defense. As in so many other fields of policy, the policy of the Carter administration with regard to civil defense is contradictory in different respects. Successive statements of the same officials contradict each other. The statements of different officials contradict each other Official statements are contradicted by the actual policy pursued. The realities of the situation militate against the policy announced.

For the purpose of clarifying the issue let us assume that the administration is committed to a greatly expanded civil defense effort over several years, meaning primarily the evacuation of the bulk of the civilian population from the cities. Such a policy is, according to the New York Times, “farcical” on several grounds.

Détente is one of those concepts that perhaps only a theologian is qualified to discuss, because it is a general, abstract concept that can mean anything to anybody. Indeed, the main attraction of the concept lies in this generality and abstractness. Obviously, you cannot come out against detente and in favor of bigger and better tensions. No more than you can come out against peace and in favor of war. Or in favor of hatred and against the brotherhood of man. Thus we are dealing with a concept that in itself is perfectly meaningless. It means nothing to say that there is détente between the United States and the Soviet Union without going down the list of points of tension and asking yourself what has happened with those tensions because of a so-called détente.

It is, of course, trivial to say that the foreign policy of the United States is not only in a political and military crisis — and financial crisis you might add — but also in a moral crisis. This moral crisis has particular significance for the United States. Take, by way of contrast, the moral crises through which Soviet foreign policy has passed since the end of the second world war. Take, for instance, the moral crisis which it faced in consequence of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and the moral crisis it is still facing by virtue of its invasion of Czechoslovakia last year. Obviously those crises considerably decreased the prestige and influence of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has emerged from tbose crises as something different from what it was before. For the Soviet Union today can no longer claim to be the fatherland of socialism, the disinterested vanguard of the international proletariat.

Three historic patterns can be discerned in the relations America has established with the outside world. America has offered itself as a model to the world, it has entered the world as a missionary, and it has confronted the world as a crusader. In recent years a fourth pattern has been added: America bestrides the world as an imperial power with global responsibilities. In the Spring of 1965, when I endeavored to define this new pattern of American foreign policy under the heading of “globalism,” a national newspaper refused to print my article with the explanation that there was no such tiling. In the meantime the ideologues of the Johnson Administration, such as Professors Brzezinski and Rostow, have confirmed my view. They have proclaimed “the American decade,” “a decade of opportunity and responsibility for the United States.”

The nuclear age has ushered in a novel period of history, as distinct from the age that preceded it as the modern age has been from the Middle Ages or the Middle Ages have been from antiquity. Yet while our conditions of life have drastically changed under the impact of the nuclear age, we still live in our thoughts and act through our institutions in an age that has passed. There exists, then, a gap between what we think about our social, political, and philosophic problems and the objective conditions which the nuclear age has created.

This contradiction between our modes of thought and action, belonging to an age that has passed, and the objective conditions of our existence has engendered four paradoxes in our nuclear strategy: the commitment to the use of force, nuclear or otherwise, paralyzed by the fear of having to use it; the search for a nuclear strategy which would avoid the predictable consequences of nuclear war; the pursuit of a nuclear armaments race joined with attempts to stop it; the pursuit of an alliance policy which the availability of nuclear weapons has rendered obsolete. All these paradoxes result from the contrast between traditional attitudes and the possibility of nuclear war and from the fruitless attempts to reconcile the two.

A police force, domestic or international, must meet two requirements: it must be reliable, and it must be effective. While obviously it cannot be effective if it is not reliable, it can be reliable without being effective, and it is for this reason that the two prerequisites must be distinguished. A police force, in order to be reliable, must be loyal to the political authorities and share their conceptions of law and justice. A police force, in order to be effective, must stand in a certain relation of power to that fraction of the population which is likely to call forth police action by breaking the law.

Of the seeming and real innovations which the modern age has introduced into the practice of foreign policy, none has proven more baffling to both understanding and action than foreign aid. The very assumption that foreign aid is an instrument of foreign policy is a subject of controversy. For, on the one hand, the opinion is widely held that foreign aid is an end in itself, carrying its own justification, both transcending, and independent of, foreign policy. In this view, foreign aid is the fulfillment of an obligation of the few rich nations toward the many poor ones. On the other hand, many see no justification for a policy of foreign aid at all. They look at it as a gigantic boon-doggle, a wasteful and indefensible operation which serves neither the interests of the United States nor those of the recipient nations.