d if it is to be permanent, cannot be
achieved by any vindictive policy. From the moment they enter the
peace congress the belligerents cease to be belligerents, and become
allies in a sacred cause--the reconstruction of the world. From the
moment the Central Powers are admitted to cross the threshold of the
Temple of Peace they are readmitted to the community of nations, and
they are admitted on equal terms.

7. A permanent peace excludes the very idea of any future economic
war. We must prevent the Central Powers from entering into any
offensive or defensive economic alliance. We must repudiate the
sinister delusion of a "Mittel Europa" which is haunting the diseased
brains of the Pan-Germanists. On the other hand, we must repudiate any
offensive or defensive economic alliance between the Allied Powers.
The terms of peace must be engraved on clean white marble.

8. If a permanent peace is to be attained we must remove the deeper
causes which brought about the catastrophe. The Central Powers are
immediately and directly responsible for the greatest crime of
history, and they will bear the penalty for generations to come. They
planned the war and forced it on Europe. But the megalomania of the
Teutons has only been one of the contributory causes. The war could
never have taken place but for the universally prevailing and
universally accepted immorality of European foreign policy, which is
writ large in Morocco and Persia, in China and Asia Minor.

9. The principle of nationality, however legitimate in the case of
oppressed nationalities, is not a sufficient foundation for the new
European order. The principle of nationality, which in the case of
small nations leads to the vindication of freedom, on the contrary, in
the case of great Powers, leads to an aggressive imperialism. The
international principle must therefore take the place of the national
principle. Federalism and solidarity must take the place of tribal
rivalry and national isolation.

10. Any permanent peace settlement must involve the unreserved
acceptance of a new political philosophy and the practice of a new
political system. No peace is possible through the old methods of a
balance of power, of alliances and counter-alliances, of assurance and
reassurance treaties. Any balance of power is unstable and precarious
and can only be maintained by a competition of armaments. The
distinction between offensive and defensive alliances is essentially
unreal.