ABSTRACT
After the liberal century, in which the very idea of wars of supremacy had been forgotten, the world is again entangled in the deadly challenges delivered by great powers to other great powers. There is, therefore, a profound difference between these two nationalist philosophies, the one inclusive in its tendency, the other exclusive. Collectivism moves towards autarchy, the totalitarian states towards isolation. Under fascism, the proletariat becomes imperialist and imperialism becomes proletarian. In any event, the dominant fact in the contemporary world is the return of the European and Asiatic great powers to the conception of total war. The post-war system of collective security was devised by British and American publicists and statesmen acting on the preconceptions of the nineteenth century. The system of collective security envisaged an order in which privileges would be steadily reduced, in which the question of who had the ultimate power would become less and less important.
