The question of the Chinese off-shore islands is not, for the time being, a central issue. But this situation is not likely to last; the theatre of operations is quickly shifting from the Mediterranean to the Pacific and back, from Formosa to North Africa. Is this still the Cold War, is it the Third World War asjkmes Burnham calls it, or a new era of permanent conflicts, taking place in One World where three billion people are just too jnany to coexist?

Whichever it is, die West must fight it on two fronts: on the wide world scene and, simultaneously, against those whose Utopian frame of mind, and consequent blindness to the realities of power, block the way of elementary realism.

The government of Pnompenh has suddenly decided to break diplomatic relations with that of Bangkok. This gesture concludes a long quarrel which had scarcely broken out during the period of the French protectorate of Cambodia.

Siam, now Thailand, used to consider Cambodia a vassal state, and for a long time all the diplomatic latitude that was allowed the Kings of Cambodia by their two powerful neighbors, the Emperor of Annam and the King of Siam, was the privilege of acknowledging themselves, in turn, as proteges of the one in order to fight the other.