The fact that the European nations, more accustomed to the tragic vicissitudes of history, still have a measure of misgiving about our (America's) leadership in the world community is due to the fear that our "technocratic" tendency to equate master of nature with the master of history could tempt us to lose patience with the tortuous course of history. We might be driven to hysteria by its inevitable frustrations. We might be tempted to bring the whole of modern history to a tragic conclusion by one final and mighty effort to overcome its frustrations. The political term for such an effort is "preventive war."
Reinhold Neihbuhr wrote those words in 1952.