In the world of the mid-twentieth century, dictation by any one power is impossible and wholesale agreement to federate is Utopian. We must therefore look for any possible agreement only on a retail basis, and this is a task for diplomatists. The choice is not whether to engage in diplomacy but how best to do so; that is, what tools to use in what combination. And how to make these tools as sharp and as precise as possible.

In the adjustment of disputes between state members of a multiple sovereignty system (that is, between states which cannot ordinarily coerce each other except at the risk of war), there are several broad avenues through which in theory at least the difficulty may be adjusted.