This book explores alternative systems and strategies for global security by which the conflicts between nations can be carried on, and ultimately resolved, without recourse to war, examining system changes some of which may take many years to enact.

Introduction -- Conquering War: The Next Step in Human Evolution -- The United Nations and Six Alternative Approaches to Global Security -- Introduction to Part One: Beyond the Balance of Power -- The United Nations: A Tool Neglected -- A World Peacekeeping Federation: The Clark-Sohn Plan -- Minimum Deterrence: How Little Is Enough? -- Qualitative Disarmament: Eliminating the War-making Capability of Nations -- Nonprovocative Defense: Protection Without Threat -- Civilian-based Defense: The Strength of Bare Hands and Stubbornness -- Strategic Defense: Armor or Apocalypse? -- Keeping the Peace: Issues Common to All Approaches -- Verification: Substituting Information for Weapons -- Bringing Law to Bear on Governments -- Economic Conversion: Making Peace More Profitable than War -- Prospects for Transformation -- Toward a Common Security System: A Proposal -- The Peril and the Promise -- Appendix