"[T]he two most important and intractable problems were to make the Covenant an efficient instrument for the preservation of peace and to bring about disarmament. Although this was not generally perceived at the time, these aims were contradictory. In order that the Covenant should be made effective it was necessary that sanctions, and in the last resort force, should be used against the aggressor. Men deluded themselves by speaking of collective security. What aggressor nation, they asked, could resist the united might of fifty nations? But they overlooked the elementary truth that zero plus zero still equals zero. In 1925...the only members of the League who possessed significant military forces were England and France... Consequently the whole burden of enforcing the Covenant rested on the[ir] shoulders... This meant that the general staffs of these two countries were faced with more extended military commitments than they had ever known in the days when their sole task was to protect the national interest. The answer should have been to make a proportionate increase in the British and French military establishments. Instead they were told that collective security diminished the extent of their commitments and that in consequence it would be safe to embark on a massive programme of disarmament. Never in our history has there been a more flagrant case of muddled thinking and self-deception."