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of obtaining the consent of the people to the burdens that go alongwith the blessings it confers upon its favored groups and regions.Powerful resistance to it will always be active, and the effectivemeans of combating this resistance will have to be found. Inevitably,having surrendered to militarism as an economic device, we will dowhat other countries have done: we will keep alive the fears of ourpeople of the aggressive ambitions of other countries and we willourselves embark upon imperialistic enterprises of our own.Two words have come into extensive use since the present warbegan. One is "isolationism"; the other is "internationalism." Curiouslyinternationalism has come to be a synonym for interventionism.Intervention was a word used to describe the policy of thosewho insisted that America should intervene in the European war.There were many lifelong and sincere internationalists—men whowere warm supporters of the League of Nations or similar plans forworld co-operation—who were opposed to American entry into thewar. The two words represent wholly different ideas.Imperialism, too, has come to describe a kind of internationalism,so that one who opposes it is scornfully called an isolationist. Imperialismis an institution under which one nation asserts the right toseize the land or at least to control the government or resources ofanother people. It is an assertion of stark, bold aggression. It is,of course, international in the sense that the aggressor nation crossesits own borders and enters the boundaries of another nation andwhat results is an international clash—a clash between two nations.It is international in the sense that war is international. An imperialistnation, therefore, is one which acquires interests as a resultof its aggression in territories outside of its own boundaries. Theseinterests by their very nature bring the aggressor nation into clashwith other nations across whose aggressive ambitions it cuts. Wehave clashes between Germany and England and France and Japanover their respective aggressive ambitions in Asia. We have clashesbetween Germany and Russia over their respective ambitions in theBalkans; between Italy and France over their hostile objectives innorthern Africa, and so on. This is internationalism in a sense, inthat all the activities of an aggressor are on the international stage.But it is a malignant internationalism.213

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