Empire

=== Atomic bomb and empire ===
Reves added "Postscript" to the ''Anatomy'', opening: "A few weeks after the publication of this book, the first atomic bomb exploded over the city of Hiroshima…" This new physical fact however has changed nothing in the political situation. The world empire remains inevitable and nothing else in the book would have been said differently had it been written after August 6, 1945. Not much chance we have to establish [[world government]] before the next horrible war between the two superpowers and whoever is victorious would establish the world empire.<ref>Reves 1945: pp 277-278, 287.</ref> The book sold an exceptional 800,000 copies in thirty languages, was endorsed by [[Albert Einstein]] and numerous other prominent figures, and in 1950 Reves was nominated for the [[Nobel Peace Prize]]. 

The year after the War and in the first year of the nuclear age, Einstein and British Philosopher [[Bertrand Russell]], known as prominent pacifists, outlined for the near future a perspective of world empire (world government established by force). Einstein believed that, unless world government is established by agreement, an imperial world government would come by war or wars.<ref>{{cite book| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6NoFIRmg3J4C| title = Atomic War or Peace", 1945, ''Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism'', (New York: Philosophical Library/Open Road), 2016| isbn = 978-1-4532-0459-7| last1 = Einstein| first1 = Albert| date = 27 September 2011| publisher = Open Road Media}}</ref> Russell expected a [[third World War]] to result in a world government under the empire of the United States.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=WwwAAAAAMBAJ| title = "Atomic Weapon and the Prevention of War", ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'', 2/7-8, October 1: p. 20| date = October 1946}}</ref> Three years later, another prominent pacifist, Theologian [[Reinhold Niebuhr]], generalized on the ancient Empires of Egypt, Babylon, Persia and Greece to imply for the modern world: "The analogy in present global terms would be the final unification of the world through the preponderant power of either America or Russia, whichever proved herself victorious in the final struggle."<ref>{{cite web| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=mA0AAAAAMBAJ| title = "The Illusion of World Government", ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'', 5/10: (October 1, 1949): p. 291| date = October 1949}}</ref>

Russian colleague of Russell and Neighbour, [[Georgy Fedotov]], wrote in 1945: All empires are but stages on the way to the sole Empire which must swallow all others. The only question is who will build it and on which foundations. Universal unity is the only alternative to annihilation. Unity by conference is utopian but unity by conquest by the strongest Power is not and probably the uncompleted in this War will be completed in the next. "Pax Atlantica" is the best of possible outcomes.<ref>Георгий П. Федотов, (1945). "Новое Отечество," ''Новый Град'', Нью Йорк: Издательство Чехова, 1952, p 98, 102, 107.</ref>

Originally drafted as a secret study for the [[Office of Strategic Services]] (the precursor of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]) in 1944<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://monthlyreview.org/2006/01/01/the-new-geopolitics-of-empire/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929233206/https://monthlyreview.org/2006/01/01/the-new-geopolitics-of-empire|title=Monthly Review &#124; The New Geopolitics of Empire|first=John Bellamy FosterTopics: Imperialism Political Economy|last=Stagnation|date=January 1, 2006|archive-date=September 29, 2018}}</ref> and published as a book three years later, ''The Struggle for the World...'' by [[James Burnham]] concludes: If either of the two Superpowers wins, the result would be a universal empire which in our case would also be a world empire. The historical stage for a world empire had already been set prior to and independently of the discovery of atomic weapons but these weapons make a world empire inevitable and imminent. "The atomic weapons ... will not permit the world to wait." Only a world empire can establish monopoly on atomic weapons and thus guarantee the survival of civilization. A world empire "is in fact the objective of the Third World War which, in its preliminary stages, has already began". The issue of a world empire "will be decided, and in our day. In the course of the decision, both of the present antagonists may, it is true, be destroyed, but one of them must be."<ref>James Burnham, ''Struggle for the World'', (New York: The John Day Company, 1947), pp. 33, 50, 53, 55; 134–135, 143.</ref> 

The next year, world historian [[Crane Brinton]] similarly supposed that the bomb may in the hands of a very skillful and lucky nation prove to be the weapon that permits that nation to unify the world by imperial conquest, to do what Napoleon and Hitler failed to do. Combined with other "wonders of science," it would permit a quick and easy conquest of the world.<ref>Brinton, Crane, (1948). ''From Many, One: The Process of Political Integration, the Problem of World Government'', (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1971), pp 88-89, 94.</ref> In 1951, [[Hans Morgenthau]] concluded that the "best" outcome of World War III would be world empire:
{{Blockquote|
Today war has become an instrument of universal destruction, an instrument that destroys the victor and the vanquished ... At worst, victor and loser would be undistinguishable under the leveling impact of such a catastrophe ... At best, the destruction on one side would not be quite as great as on the other; the victor would be somewhat better off than the loser and would establish, with the aid of modern technology, his domination over the world.<ref>''In Defense of the National Interest: A Critical Examination of American Foreign Policy'', (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), p 58.</ref>}}
Expert on earlier civilizations, Toynbee, further developed the subject of World War III leading to world empire:
{{Blockquote|
The outcome of the Third World War ... seemed likely to be the imposition of an ecumenical peace of the Roman kind by the victor whose victory would leave him with a monopoly on the control of atomic energy in his grasp ... This denouement was foreshadowed, not only by present facts, but by historical precedents, since, in the histories of other civilizations, the time of troubles had been apt to culminate in the delivery of a knock-out blow resulting in the establishment of a universal state ...<ref>''[[A Study of History]]'', (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), vol. IX, p. 524.</ref>}}
The year this volume of [[A Study of History]] was published, US Secretary of State [[John Foster Dulles]] announced "[[Massive retaliation|a knock-out blow]]" as an official doctrine, a detailed [[Single Integrated Operational Plan|Plan]] was elaborated and ''[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]'' magazine mapped the design.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.fulltable.com/vts/f/fortune/xf/34.jpg|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312072919/https://www.fulltable.com/vts/f/fortune/xf/34.jpg|title=Max Gschwind, "Massive Retaliatory Power", map, ''Fortune'', 51, May 1954: p. 105|archive-date=March 12, 2017}}</ref> Section VIII, "Atomic Armaments", of the famous National Security Council Report 68 ([[NSC 68]]), approved by President Harry Truman in 1951, uses the term "blow" 17 times, mostly preceded by such adjectives as "powerful", "overwhelming", or "crippling". Another term applied by the strategists was "Sunday punch".<ref>[[Michio Kaku]], & Daniel Axelrod,<!--- not the redirect to the botanist ---> ''To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon Secret War Plans'', (Boston: South End Press, 1987), p. 195.</ref>

A pupil of Toynbee, [[William H. McNeill (historian)|William McNeill]], associated with the case of ancient China, which "put a quietus upon the disorders of the [[warring states]] by erecting an imperial bureaucratic structure ... The warring states of the Twentieth century seem headed for a similar resolution of their conflicts."<ref>''[[The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community]]'', (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), p. 807.</ref> The ancient "resolution" McNeill evoked was one of the most sweeping universal conquests in world history, performed by [[Qin's wars of unification|Qin]] in 230–221 BC. Chinese classic [[Sima Qian]] (d. 86 BC) described the event (6:234): "Qin raised troops on a grand scale" and "the whole world celebrated a great bacchanal". [[Herman Kahn]] of the [[RAND Corporation]] criticized an assembled group of [[Strategic Air Command|SAC]] officers for their war plan ([[Single Integrated Operational Plan|SIOP]]-62). He did not use the term [[bacchanalia|bacchanal]] but he coined on the occasion an associating word: "Gentlemen, you do not have a war plan. You have a ''war orgasm''!"<ref>Emphasis added, cited in [[Fred Kaplan (journalist)|Fred Kaplan]], ''The Wizards of Armageddon''. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991, pp. 223, https://books.google.fr/books?id=RSwVBgAAQBAJ&printsec=copyright&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=gentlemen&f=false.</ref> History did not completely repeat itself but it passed close.