Fifty Essays (George Orwell) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

'peace that is no peace'.

The atomic bomb may complete the process by robbing the exploited classes and peoples of all power to revolt,

More and more obviously the surface of the earth is being parceled off into three great empires

In that case we are back where we were before, the only difference being that power is concentrated in still fewer hands and that the outlook for subject peoples and oppressed classes is still more hopeless.

But suppose—and really this the likeliest development—that the surviving great nations make a tacit agreement never to use the atomic bomb against one another? Suppose they only use it, or the threat of it, against people who are unable to retaliate?

in 1939, there were only five states capable of waging war on the grand scale, and now there are only three—ultimately, perhaps, only two

and the industrialised country as against the backward one

But thereafter every development in military technique has favoured the State as against the individual

fight for their independence, sometimes with success

Its combination of qualities made possible the success