All choice takes place in a world of fact, what philosophers call “hard stubborn fact.” In foreign affairs the facts are of extraordinary dimension, macroscopic in size, infinitely diverse and complex. Centuries of historic tradition, encrusted popular attitudes, diverse levels of civilization, diverse potentialities and rates of economic and political development are apt to be involved. Facts impose limitations upon policy, just as the fact of the money in one's pocketbook imposes limits upon what one can buy. It was his acute awareness of the factual limitations on policy that led Bismarck to define politics as the “art of the possible.“

There is need for a fresh look at some basic European policies which most of the Western Powers have, until recently, agreed on. Most utterances by Western statesmen, most comments in print and on the air have assumed, for instance, that the reunification’ of Germany and British entry into the Common Market would further the interests of the West. On these two focal issues the attentive public has, in general, heard only one side of the case. The principal reason is obvious. Dissent obtains fewer outlets when opinion media and policymakers see eye to eye.