IT is not the least of the sins of the current East-West conflict that its hypnotic influence has seduced our attention away from a number of other problems some of which are at least as likely to determine the future of mankind as that conflict itself. Among these problems one which stands out as of indisputably central importance is the future development of the many millions of peoples who remain in a colonial status or have recently emerged from it into a precarious independence. To these peoples there must be assimilated others—notably the Chinese—who, although they have never come under explicit colonial rule, are in the same general position of emerging suddenly from an ancient world into the complex modernities which are essentially the creation of Western Europe and its descendants overseas. From another aspect these are all peoples who in modern times have been the object of the policies and activities of more dynamic states and peoples and who are now vigorously asserting the right to become masters of their own destiny. At the least they demand the right to be let alone to shape their own societies according to their own conceptions of the good life, with such non-imperialistic aid as they may be able to secure; and, beyond this, they seek to play an active role in the shaping of the world at large on equal terms with the peoples to whom they have been subject and inferior. The internal cohesion, structure, and advancement of these peoples, the attitudes which they come to develop, the power which they may achieve, and the goals toward which they direct this power, are matters which may well prove to be the most crucial issues of future decades and even centuries.