ABSTRACT
Whatever comes out of any disarmament conference is determined by the instructions to the delegates emanating from their home governments. Those instructions reflect the perceptions of the world which those governments possess. And the vast majority of these are not ready for total and complete disarmament. Will Pakistan, for example, be ready to disarm unless her neightbour to the East disarms? And is India willing to disarm if it is likely to result in the revolt and secession of ethnic minorities from Bengal in the East to Kashmir in the West? Will the Soviet Union disarm in view of the restiveness of the Soviet Bloc in Eastern Europe? I do not think so. The time is not ripe, and any real hope that total and complete disarmament will come out of such a conference is a delusion, and in a sense a cruel hoax.
