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Page 33
The creation of material for war, under modern conditions, requires a
length of time which does not permit the postponement of it to the
hour of impending hostilities. To put into the water a first-class
battle-ship, fully armored, within a year after the laying of her
keel, as has been done latterly in England, is justly considered an
extraordinary exhibition of the nation's resources for naval
shipbuilding; and there yet remained to be done the placing of her
battery, and many other matters of principal detail essential to her
readiness for sea. This time certainly would not be less for
ourselves, doing our utmost.
War is simply a political movement, though violent and exceptional in
its character. However sudden the occasion from which it arises, it
results from antecedent conditions, the general tendency of which
should be manifest long before to the statesmen of a nation, and to at
least the reflective portion of the people. In such anticipation, such
forethought, as in the affairs of common life, lies the best hope of
the best solution,--peace by ordinary diplomatic action; peace by
timely agreement, while men's heads are cool, and the crisis of fever
has not been reached by the inflammatory utterances of an unscrupulous
press, to which agitated public apprehension means increase of
circulation. But while the maintenance of peace by sagacious prevision
is the laurel of the statesman, which, in failing to achieve except by
force, he takes from his own brow and gives to the warrior, it is none
the less a necessary part of his official competence to recognize that
in public disputes, as in private, there is not uncommonly on both
sides an element of right, real or really believed, which prevents
either party from yielding, and that it is better for men to fight
than, for the sake of peace, to refuse to support their convictions of
justice. How deplorable the war between the North and South! but more
deplorable by far had it been that either had flinched from the
maintenance of what it believed to be fundamental right. On questions
of merely material interest men may yield; on matters of principle
they may be honestly in the wrong; but a conviction of right, even
though mistaken, if yielded without contention, entails a
deterioration of character, except in the presence of force
demonstrably irresistible--and sometimes even then. Death before
dishonor is a phrase which at times has been abused infamously, but it
none the less contains a vital truth.
To provide a force adequate to maintain the nation's cause, and to
insure its readiness for immediate action in case of necessity, are
the responsibility of the government of a state, in its legislative
and executive functions. Such a force is a necessary outcome of the
political conditions which affect, or, as can be foreseen, probably
may affect, the international relations of the country. Its existence
at all and its size are, or should be, the reflection of the national
consciousness that in this, that, or the other direction lie clear
national interests--for which each generation is responsible to
futurity--or national duties, equally clear from the mere fact that
the matter lies at the door, like Lazarus at the rich man's gate. The
question of when or how action shall be taken which may result in
hostilities, is indeed a momentous one, having regard to the dire
evils of war; but it is the question of a moment, of the last moment
to which can be postponed a final determination of such tremendous
consequence. To this determination preparation for war has only this
relation: that it should be adequate to the utmost demand that then
can be made upon it, and, if possible, so imposing that it will
prevent war ensuing, upon the firm presentation of demands which the
nation believes to be just. Such a conception, so stated, implies no
more than defence,--defence of the nation's rights or of the nation's
duties, although such defence may take the shape of aggressive action,
the only safe course in war.
Logically, therefore, a nation which proposes to provide itself with a
naval or military organization adequate to its needs, must begin by
considering, not what is the largest army or navy in the world, with
the view of rivalling it, but what there is in the political status of
the world, including not only the material interests but the temper of
nations, which involves a reasonable, even though remote, prospect of
difficulties which may prove insoluble except by war. The matter,
primarily, is political in character. It is not until this political
determination has been reached that the data for even stating the
military problem are in hand; for here, as always, the military arm
waits upon and is subservient to the political interests and civil
power of the state.
It is not the most probable of dangers, but the most formidable, that
must be selected as measuring the degree of military precaution to be
embodied in the military preparations thenceforth to be maintained.
The lesser is contained in the greater; if equal to the most that can
be apprehended reasonably, the country can view with quiet eye the
existence of more imminent, but less dangerous complications. Nor
should it be denied that in estimating danger there should be a
certain sobriety of imagination, equally removed from undue confidence
and from exaggerated fears. Napoleon's caution to his marshals not to
make a picture to themselves--not to give too loose rein to fancy as
to what the enemy might do, regardless of the limitations to which
military movements are subject--applies to antecedent calculations,
like those which we are considering now, as really as to the
operations of the campaign. When British writers, realizing the
absolute dependence of their own country upon the sea, insist that the
British navy must exceed the two most formidable of its possible
opponents, they advance an argument which is worthy at least of
serious debate; but when the two is raised to three, they assume
conditions which are barely possible, but lie too far without the
limits of probability to affect practical action.
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