Read the following passage and then choose the most appropriate answer to the proposed iten.

Wars – can’t people live without them?

War is an ancient institution which has existed for thousands of years. Is it possible to persuade the human people to live without war? Wars were always wicked and usually foolish, but in the past people managed to live with them. Modern ingenuity has changed this. Either Man will abolish war, or war will abolish Man. For the present, it is nuclear weapons that cause the gravest danger, but bacteriological or chemical weapons may, before long, offer an even greater threat. If we are able to abolish nuclear weapons, our work will not be over. It will never be over until we have succeeded in abolishing war. To do this, we need to persuade mankind to have a different point of view as far as international questions are concerned, not as contests of force, in which the victory goes to the side which is most skilful in massacre, but by arbitration in accordance with agreed principles of law .It is not easy to change old mental habits, but this is what must be attempted.

There are some people who believe that the adoption of this or that ideology would prevent war. I believe this is a profound error. All ideologies are based upon dogmatic assertions which are, at best, doubtful, and at worst, totally false.Their adherents believe in them so fanatically that they are willing to go to war in support of them.

The movement of world opinion during the past years has been increased and it has become a commonplace that nuclear war must be avoided. Of course very difficult problems remain in the international sphere, but the spirit in which they are being approached is a better one than it used to be some years ago. It has begun to be thought, even by the powerful men who decide whether we shall live or die, that negotiations should reach agreements even if both sides do not find these agreements wholly satisfactory. It has begun to be understood that the important conflict nowadays is not between East and West or between the powerful countries and the weak ones, but between Man and the H-bomb.

Adapted from Politics and Ideologies by Bertrand Russell