ABSTRACT
Our statesmen want peace in very much the same sense that they want a fine day for a picnic. It is a good thing if it comes along, although nobody believes one can really have a policy about it. A special form of superstition to which the international system is particularly subject might be called “overlearning.” The actual occurrence of a somewhat improbable event always leads to a great overestimation of its probability. The cowboy theory is the theory that people are divided into good guys and bad guys, and that the business of a revolution is to get the bad guys out and the good guys in. A good revolution is one in which the good guys beat up the bad guys and a bad revolution is one in which the bad guys beat up the good guys.
