[As the date indicates, the essay was written at the time of the Revolution in Hawaii, six years before its annexation. The part of the essay preceding points out the predominant interest of the United States in the Islands owing to their control of our trade routes and naval approaches, and refers to the benefit to the world from British colonial expansion.—Editor.]
But if a plea of the world’s welfare seem suspiciously like a cloak for national self-interest, let the latter be accepted frankly as the adequate motive which it assuredly is. Let us not shrink from pitting a broad self-interest against the narrow self-interest to which some would restrict us. The demands of our three great seaboards, the Atlantic, the Gulf, and the Pacific,—each for itself, and all for the strength that comes from drawing closer the ties between them,—are calling for the extension, through the Isthmian Canal, of that broad sea common along which, and along which alone, in all the ages prosperity has moved. Land carriage, always restricted and therefore always slow, toils enviously but hopelessly behind, vainly seeking to replace and supplant the royal highway of nature’s own making. Corporate interests, vigorous in that power of concentration which is the strength of armies and of minorities, may here withstand for a while the ill-organized strivings of the multitude, only dimly conscious of its wants; yet the latter, however temporarily opposed and baffled, is sure at last, like the blind forces of nature, to overwhelm all that stand in the way of its necessary progress. So the Isthmian Canal is an inevitable part in the future of the United States; yet one that cannot be separated from other necessary incidents of a policy dependent upon it, whose details cannot be foreseen exactly. But because the precise steps that hereafter may be opportune or necessary cannot yet be foretold certainly, is not a reason the less, but a reason the more, for establishing a principle of action which may serve to guide as opportunities arise. Let us start from the fundamental truth, warranted by history, that the control of the seas, and especially along the great lines drawn by national interest or national commerce, is the chief among the merely material elements in the power and prosperity of nations. It is so because the sea is the world’s great medium of circulation. From this necessarily follows the principle that, as subsidiary to such control, it is imperative to take possession, when it can be done righteously, of such maritime positions as contribute to secure command. If this principle be adopted, there will be no hesitation about taking the positions—and they are many—upon the approaches to the Isthmus, whose interests incline them to seek us. It has its application also to the present case of Hawaii.
There is, however, one caution to be given from the military point of view, beyond the need of which the world has not yet passed. Military positions, fortified posts, by land or by sea, however strong or admirably situated, do not confer control by themselves alone. People often say that such an island or harbor will give control of such a body of water. It is an utter, deplorable, ruinous mistake. The phrase indeed may be used by some only loosely, without forgetting other implied conditions of adequate protection and adequate navies; but the confidence of our own nation in its native strength, and its indifference to the defense of its ports and the sufficiency of its fleet, give reason to fear that the full consequences of a forward step may not be weighed soberly. Napoleon, who knew better, once talked this way. “The islands of San Pietro, Corfu, and Malta,” he wrote, “will make us masters of the whole Mediterranean.” Vain boast! Within one year Corfu, in two years Malta, were rent away from the state that could not support them by its ships. Nay, more: had Bonaparte not taken the latter stronghold out of the hands of its degenerate but innocuous government, that citadel of the Mediterranean would perhaps—would probably—never have passed into those of his chief enemy. There is here also a lesson for us.
The writer has too often already discussed, directly or incidentally, the strategic situation which finds its center in Panama to repeat the same here; but one or two remarks about the Monroe doctrine may be not out of place. Accepting as probably durable the new conditions, which have so largely modified the nation’s external policy in the direction of expansion, there is in them nothing to diminish, but rather to intensify, the purpose that there shall be no intrusion of the European political system upon territory whence military effect upon the Isthmus of Panama can be readily exerted. For instance, should a change anticipated by some occur, and Holland enter the German Empire, it will be advantageous that it should even now be understood, as it then would be necessary for us to say, that our consent could not be given to Curaçao forming part of that incorporation. The Isthmus of Panama—in addition to its special importance to us as a link between our Pacific and Atlantic coasts—sums up in itself that one of the two great lines of communication between the Atlantic and the farther East which especially concerns us, and we can no more consent to such a transfer of a fortress in the Caribbean, than we would ourselves have thought of acquiring Port Mahon, in the Mediterranean, as a result of our successful war with Spain.
Consideration of interests such as these must be dispassionate upon the one side and upon the other; and a perfectly candid reception must be accorded to the views and the necessities of those with whom we thus deal. During the process of deliberation not merely must preconceptions be discarded, but sentiment itself should be laid aside, to resume its sway only after unbiassed judgment has done its work. The present question of Asia, the evolution of which has taken days rather than years, may entail among its results no change in old maxims, but it nevertheless calls for a review of them in the light of present facts. If from this no difference of attitude results, the confirmed resolve of sober second thought will in itself alone be a national gain. This new Eastern question has greatly affected the importance of communications, enhancing that of the shorter routes, reversing political and military,—as distinguished from mercantile—conditions, and bringing again into the foreground of interest the Mediterranean, thus reinvested with its ancient pre-eminence. For the same reason the Caribbean Sea, because of its effect upon the Isthmus of Panama, attains a position it has never before held, emphasizing the application to it of the Monroe doctrine. The Pacific has advanced manifold in consequence to the United States, not only as an opening market, but as a means of transit, and also because our new possessions there, by giving increased opportunities, entail correspondingly heavier burdens of national responsibility. The isthmian canals, present and to come,—Suez and Panama,—summarize and locally accentuate the essential character of these changes, of which they are at once an exponent and a factor. It will be no light matter that man shall have shifted the Strait of Magellan to the Isthmus of Panama, and the Cape of Good Hope to the head of the Mediterranean.
The correlative of these new conditions is the comparative isolation, and the dwindled consequence, of the southern extremes of Africa and America, which now lie far apart from the changed direction imposed upon the world’s policies. The regions there situated will have small effect upon the great lines of travel, and must derive such importance as may remain to them from their intrinsic productive value. Does there, then, remain sound reason of national interest for pressing the Monroe doctrine to the extent of guaranteeing our support to American states which love us not, and whose geographical position, south of the valley of the Amazon, lies outside of effective influence upon the American isthmus? Does the disposition to do so arise from sound policy, or from sentiment, or from mere habit? And, if from either, do the facts justify retaining a burden of responsibility which may embarrass our effective action in fields of greater national consequence—just as South Africa may prove a drain upon Great Britain’s necessary force about Suez? In short, while the principles upon which the Monroe doctrine reposes are not only unimpaired, but fortified, by recent changes, is it not possible that the application of them may require modification, intensifying their force in one quarter, diminishing it in another?
Not the least striking and important of the conditions brought about by the two contemporary events—the downfall of the Spanish colonial empire and the precipitation of the crisis in eastern Asia—has been the drawing closer together of the two great English-speaking nationalities. Despite recalcitrant objections here and there by unwilling elements on both sides, the fact remains concrete and apparent, endued with essential life, and consequent inevitable growth, by virtue of a clearly recognized community of interest, present and future. It is no mere sentimental phase, though sentiment, long quietly growing, had sufficiently matured to contribute its powerful influence at the opportune moment; but here, as ever, there was first the material,—identity of interest,—and not till afterwards the spiritual,—reciprocity of feeling,—aroused to mutual recognition by the causes and motives of the Spanish war. That war, and the occurrences attendant, proclaimed emphatically that the two countries, in their ideals of duty to the suffering and oppressed, stood together, indeed, but in comparative isolation from the sympathies of the rest of the world.[108]
The significance of this fact has been accentuated by the precision with which in the United States the preponderance of intelligence has discerned, and amid many superficially confusing details has kept in mind, as the reasonable guide to its sympathies, that the war in the Transvaal is simply a belated revival of the issue on which our own Revolution was fought, viz., that when representation is denied, taxation is violent oppression. The principle is common to Great Britain and to us, woven into the web of all her history, despite the momentary aberration which led to our revolt. The twofold incident—the two wars and the sympathies aroused, because in both each nation recognized community of principle and of ideals—indicates another great approximation to the unity of mankind; which will arrive in good time, but which is not to be hurried by force or by the impatience of dreamers. The outcome of the civil war in the United States, the unification of Italy, the new German Empire, the growing strength of the idea of Imperial Federation in Great Britain, all illustrate the tendency of humanity to aggregate into greater groups, which in the instances cited have resulted in political combination more or less formal and clearly defined. To the impulse and establishment of each of these steps in advance, war has played a principal part. War it was which preserved our Union. War it was which completed the political unity of Italy, and brought the Germans into that accord of sentiment and of recognized interest upon which rest the foundations and the continuance of their empire. War it is which has but now quickened the spirit of sympathy between Great Britain and her colonies, and given to Imperial Federation an acceleration into concrete action which could not otherwise have been imparted; and it needed the stress of war, the threat of outside interference with a sister nation in its mission of benevolence, to quicken into positive action the sympathy of Great Britain with the United States, and to dispose the latter to welcome gladly and to return cordially the invaluable support thus offered.
War is assuredly a very great evil; not the greatest, but among the greatest which afflict humanity. Yet let it be recognized at this moment, when the word “Arbitration” has hold of popular imagination, more perhaps by the melody of its associations,—like the “Mesopotamia” of the preacher,—than by virtue of a reasonable consideration of both sides of the question, of which it represents only one, that within two years two wars have arisen, the righteous object of either of which has been unattainable by milder methods. When the United States went to war with Spain, four hundred thousand of the latter’s colonial subjects had lost their lives by the slow misery of starvation, inflicted by a measure—Reconcentration—which was intended, but had proved inadequate, to suppress an insurrection incited by centuries of oppression and by repeated broken pledges. The justification of that war rests upon our right to interfere on grounds of simple humanity, and upon the demonstrated inability of Spain to rule her distant colonies by methods unharmful to the governed. It was impossible to accept renewed promises, not necessarily through distrust of their honesty, but because political incapacity to give just and good administration had been proved by repeated failures.
The justification of Great Britain’s war with the Transvaal rests upon a like right of interference—to relieve oppression—and upon the broad general principle for which our colonial ancestors fought the mother-country over a century ago, that “taxation without representation is tyranny.” Great Britain, indeed, did not demand the franchise for her misgoverned subjects, domiciled abroad; she only suggested it as a means whereby they might, in return for producing nine tenths of the revenue, obtain fair treatment from the state which was denying it to them. But be it remembered, not only that a cardinal principle upon which English and American liberty rests was being violated, but that at the time when the foreigners were encouraged to enter the Transvaal franchise was attainable by law in five years, while before the five years had expired the law was changed, and the privilege withdrawn by ex post facto act.
In each of these wars one of the two nations which speak the English tongue has taken a part, and in each the one engaged has had outspoken sympathy from the other, and from the other alone. The fact has been less evident in the Transvaal war, partly because the issue has been less clear, or less clearly put, chiefly because many foreign-born citizens of the United States still carry with them the prepossessions of their birthplace, rather than those which should arise from perception of their country’s interest.
Nevertheless, the foundations stand sure. We have begun to know each other, in community of interest and of traditions, in ideals of equality and of law. As the realization of this spreads, the two states, in their various communities, will more and more closely draw together in the unity of spirit, and all the surer that they eschew the bondage of the letter of alliance.
The occidentalization of Japan, in methods although not in national spirit,—which changes much more slowly,—has been fully demonstrated to an astonished world by the war of 1894 with China. It is one of the incidents of the closing nineteenth century. To this achievement in the military sphere, in the practice of war which Napoleon called the science of barbarians, must be added the development of civil institutions that has resulted in the concession to Japan of all international dignity and privilege; and consequently of a control over the administration of justice among foreigners within her borders, not heretofore obtained by any other Oriental State. It has thus become evident that the weight of Japan in the international balances depends not upon the quality of her achievement, which has been shown to be excellent, but upon the gross amount of her power. Moreover, while in wealth and population, with the resources dependent upon them, she may be deficient,—though rapidly growing,—her geographical position relatively to the Eastern center of interest, and her advantage of insularity, go far to compensate such defect. These confer upon her as a factor in the Eastern problem an influence resembling in kind, if not equaling in degree, that which Great Britain has held and still holds in the international relations centering around Europe, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean.
Yet the change in Japan, significant as it is and influential upon the great problem of the Pacific and Asia, is less remarkable and less important than that which has occurred in the United States. If in the Orient a nation may be said to have been born in a day, even so the event is less sudden and less revolutionary than the conversion of spirit and of ideals—the new birth—which has come over our own country. In this are evident a rapidity and a thoroughness which bespeak impulse from an external source rather than any conscious set process of deliberation, of self-determination within, such as has been that of Japan in her recognition and adoption of material improvements forced upon her attention in other peoples. No man or group of men can pretend to have guided and governed our people in the adoption of a new policy, the acceptance of which has been rather instinctive—I would prefer to say inspired—than reasoned. There is just this difference between Japan and ourselves, the two most changed of peoples within the last half-century. She has adopted other methods; we have received another purpose. The one conversion is material, the other spiritual. When we talk about expansion we are in the realm of ideas. The material addition of expansion—the acreage, if I may so say—is trivial compared with our previous possessions, or with the annexations by European states within a few years. The material profit otherwise, the national gain to us, is at best doubtful. What the nation has gained in expansion is a regenerating idea, an uplifting of the heart, a seed of future beneficent activity, a going out of self into the world to communicate the gift it has so bountifully received.
[The preceding pages of the essay explain the dependence of the “Open Door” policy on an international balance of power in the Pacific, and the modification of this balance owing to the growth of the German Navy and the increasing European tension.—Editor.]
The result is to leave the two chief Pacific nations, the United States and Japan, whose are the only two great navies that have coastlines on that ocean, to represent there the balance of power. This is the best security for international peace; because it represents, not a bargain, but a fact, readily ascertainable. Those two navies are more easily able than any other to maintain there a concentration of force; and it may even be questioned whether sound military policy may not make the Pacific rather than the Atlantic the station for the United States battle fleet. For the balance of naval power in Europe, which compels the retention of the British and German fleets in the North Sea, protects the Atlantic coast of the United States,—and the Monroe Doctrine,—to a degree to which nothing in Pacific conditions corresponds. Under existing circumstances, neither Germany nor Great Britain can afford, even did they desire, to infringe the external policy of the United States represented in the Monroe Doctrine.
With Japan in the Pacific, and in her attitude towards the Open Door, the case is very different from that of European or American Powers. Her nearness to China, Manchuria, Korea, gives the natural commercial advantages that short and rapid transportation always confers. Labor with her is still cheap, another advantage in open competition; but the very fact of these near natural markets, and her interest in them, cannot but breed that sense of proprietorship which, in dealing with ill-organized states, easily glides into the attempt at political control that ultimately means control by force. Hence the frequent reports, true or untrue, that such advantage is sought and accomplished. Whether true or not, these illustrate what nations continually seek, when opportunity offers or can be made. This is in strict line with that which we call Protection; but with the difference that Protection is exercised within the sphere commonly recognized as legitimate, either by International Law or by the policy of competing states. The mingled weakness and perverseness of Chinese negotiators invite such attempt, and endanger the Open Door; give rise to continual suspicion that undue influence resting upon force is affecting equality of treatment, or is establishing a basis for inequality in the future. There can be no question that the general recent attitude of Russia and Japan, however laudably meant, does arouse such suspicions.
Then again, the American possession, the Hawaiian Islands, are predominantly Japanese in labor population; a condition which, as the outcome of little more than a generation, warrants the jealousy of Japanese immigration on the part of the Pacific coast. Finally, the population of that coast is relatively scanty, and its communications with the East, though rapid for express trains, are slow for the immense traffic of men and stores which war implies and requires. That is, the power of the country east of the Rocky Mountains has far to go, and with poor conveyance, in order to reinforce the Western Coast; the exact opposite of our advantage of rapid maritime access to the Panama Canal. In the absence of the fleet, invasion may be easy. Harm may be retrieved in measure by the arrival of the fleet later; but under present world conditions the Pacific coast seems incomparably the more exposed of the three great divisions of the American shore line—the Atlantic, the Gulf, and the Pacific.
The prototype of modern Germany is to be found rather in the Roman Empire, to which in a certain sense the present German Empire may be said to be—if not heir—at least historically affiliated. The Holy Roman Empire merged into that somewhat extenuated figment attached to the Austrian Hapsburgs, which finally deceased at the opening of the nineteenth century; but the idea itself survived, and was influential in determining the form and name which the existing powerful Germanic unity has assumed. To this unity the national German character contributes an element not unlike that of antiquity, in the subordination of the individual to the state. As a matter of national characteristic, this differs radically from the more modern conception of the freedom and rights of the individual, exemplified chiefly in England and the United States. It is possible to accept the latter as the superior ideal, as a higher stage of advance, as ultimately more fruitful of political progress, yet at the same time to recognize the great immediate advantage of the massed action which subordinates the interests of the individual, sinks the unit in the whole, in order to promote the interests of the community. It may be noted incidentally, without further insistence just here, that the Japanese Empire, which in a different field from the German is manifesting the same restless need for self-assertion and expansion, comes to its present with the same inheritance from its past, of the submergence of the individual in the mass. It was equally the characteristic of Sparta among the city states of ancient Greece, and gave to her among them the preponderance she for a time possessed. As an exhibition of social development, it is generally anterior and inferior to that in which the rights of the individual are more fully recognized; but as an element of mere force, whether in economics or in international policies, it is superior.
The two contrasted conceptions, the claims of the individual and the claims of the state, are familiar to all students of history. The two undoubtedly must coexist everywhere, and have to be reconciled; but the nature of the adjustment, in the clear predominance of the one or the other, constitutes a difference which in effect upon the particular community is fundamental. In international relations, between states representing the opposing ideas, it reproduces the contrast between the simple discipline of an army and the complicated disseminated activities of the people, industrial, agricultural, and commercial. It repeats the struggle of the many minor mercantile firms against a single great combination. In either field, whatever the ultimate issue,—and in the end the many will prevail,—the immediate result is that preponderant concentrated force has its way for a period which may thus be one of great and needless distress; and it not only has its way, but it takes its way, because, whatever progress the world has made, the stage has not been reached when men or states willingly subordinate their own interests to even a reasonable regard for that of others. It is not necessary to indulge in pessimistic apprehension, or to deny that there is a real progress of the moral forces lumped under the name of “public opinion.” This unquestionably tells for much more than it once did; but still the old predatory instinct, that he should take who has the power, survives, in industry and commerce, as well as in war, and moral force is not sufficient to determine issues unless supported by physical. Governments are corporations, and corporations have not souls. Governments moreover are trustees, not principals; and as such must put first the lawful interests of their wards, their own people.
It matters little what may be the particular intentions now cherished by the German government. The fact upon which the contemporary world needs to fasten its attention is that it is confronted by the simple existence of a power such as is that of the German Empire; reinforced necessarily by that of Austria-Hungary, because, whatever her internal troubles and external ambitions, Austria is bound to Germany by nearness, by inferior power, and by interests, partly common to the two states, as surely as the moon is bound to the earth and with it constitutes a single group in the planetary system. Over against this stands for the moment a number of states, Russia, Italy, France, Great Britain. The recent action of Russia has demonstrated her international weakness, the internal causes of which are evident even to the most careless observer. Italy still belongs to the Triple Alliance, of which Germany and Austria are the other members; but the inclination of Italy towards England, springing from past sympathies, and as a state necessarily naval, because partly insular, partly peninsular, is known, as is also her recent drawing towards France as compared with former estrangement. Also, in the Balkan regions and in the Adriatic Sea there is more than divergence between the interest of Italy and the ambitions of Austria,—supported by Germany,—as shown in the late annexations and their antecedents. An Austrian journal, which fore-shadowed the annexations with singular acumen, has written recently,[112] “We most urgently need a fleet so strong that it can rule the Northern Adriatic basin,”—in which lies the Italian Venice, as well as the Austrian Trieste,—“support the operations of our land army, protect our chief commercial ports against hostile maritime undertakings, and prevent us from being throttled at the Strait of Otranto. To do this, the fleet must at least attain the approximate strength of our probable enemy. If we lag behind in developing our naval programme, Italy will so outrun us that we can never overtake her. Here more than elsewhere to stand still is to recede; but to recede would be to renounce the historical mission of Austria.” The Austrian Dreadnoughts are proceeding, and the above throws an interesting side light upon the equipoise of the Triple Alliance. In the Algeciras Conference, concerning the affairs of Morocco, Italy did not sustain Germany; Austria only did so.
Analyzing thus the present international relations of Europe, we find on the one side the recently constituted Triple Entente, France, Great Britain, and Russia; on the other the Triple Alliance, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy, of thirty years’ standing. The sympathies of Italy, as distinguished from the pressure of conditions upon her, and from her formal association, are doubtful; and the essentials of the situation seem to be summed up in the Triple Entente opposed by the two mid-Europe military monarchies.
[The intervening pages show that exposure on their land frontiers would weaken the aid that could be given Great Britain by her allies in continental Europe.—Editor.]
These conclusions, if reasonable, not only emphasize the paramount importance in world politics of the British navy, but they show also that there are only two naval states which can afford to help Great Britain with naval force, because they alone have no land frontiers which march with those of Germany. These states are Japan and the United States. In looking to the future, it becomes for them a question whether it will be to their interest, whether they can afford, to exchange the naval supremacy of Great Britain for that of Germany; for this alternative may arise. Those two states and Germany cannot, as matters now stand, touch one another, except on the open sea; whereas the character of the British Empire is such that it has everywhere sea frontiers, is everywhere assailable where local naval superiority does not exist, as for instance in Australia, and other Eastern possessions. The United States has upon Great Britain the further check of Canada, open to land attack.
A German navy, supreme by the fall of Great Britain, with a supreme German army able to spare readily a large expeditionary force for over-sea operations, is one of the possibilities of the future. Great Britain for long periods, in the Seven Years War and Napoleonic struggle, 1756–1815, has been able to do, and has done, just this; not because she has had a supreme army, but because, thanks to her insular situation, her naval supremacy covered effectually both the home positions and the expedition. The future ability of Germany thus to act is emphasized to the point of probability by the budgetary difficulties of Great Britain, by the general disorganization of Russia, and by the arrest of population in France. Though vastly the richer nation, the people of Great Britain, for the very reason of greater wealth long enjoyed, are not habituated to the economical endurance of the German; nor can the habits of individual liberty in England or America accept, unless under duress, the heavy yoke of organization, of regulation of individual action, which constitutes the power of Germany among modern states.
The rivalry between Germany and Great Britain to-day is the danger point, not only of European politics, but of world politics as well.
Every war has two aspects, the defensive and the offensive, to each of which there is a corresponding factor of activity. There is something to gain, the offensive; there is something to lose, the defensive. The ears of men, especially of the uninstructed, are more readily and sympathetically open to the demands of the latter. It appeals to the conservatism which is dominant in the well-to-do, and to the widespread timidity which hesitates to take any risk for the sake of a probable though uncertain gain. The sentiment is entirely respectable in itself, and more than respectable when its power is exercised against breach of the peace for other than the gravest motives—for any mere lucre of gain. But its limitations must be understood. A sound defensive scheme, sustaining the bases of the national force, is the foundation upon which war rests; but who lays a foundation without intending a superstructure? The offensive element in warfare is the superstructure, the end and aim for which the defensive exists, and apart from which it is to all purposes of war worse than useless. When war has been accepted as necessary, success means nothing short of victory; and victory must be sought by offensive measures, and by them only can be ensured. “Being in, bear it, that the opposer may be ware of thee.” No mere defensive attitude or action avails to such end. Whatever the particular mode of offensive action adopted, whether it be direct military attack, or the national exhaustion of the opponent by cutting off the sources of national well-being, whatsoever method may be chosen, offense, injury, weakening of the foe, to annihilation if need be, must be the guiding purpose of the belligerent. Success will certainly attend him who drives his adversary into the position of the defensive and keeps him there.
Offense therefore dominates, but it does not exclude. The necessity for defense remains obligatory, though subordinate. The two are complementary. It is only in the reversal of rôles, by which priority of importance is assigned to the defensive, that ultimate defeat is involved. Nor is this all. Though opposed in idea and separable in method of action, circumstances not infrequently have permitted the union of the two in a single general plan of campaign, which protects at the same time that it attacks. “Fitz James’s blade was sword and shield.” Of this the system of blockades by the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars was a marked example. Thrust up against the ports of France, and lining her coasts, they covered—shielded—the operations of their own commerce and cruisers in every sea; while at the same time, crossing swords, as it were, with the fleets within, ever on guard, ready to attack, should the enemy give an opening by quitting the shelter of his ports, they frustrated his efforts at a combination of his squadrons by which alone he could hope to reverse conditions. All this was defensive; but the same operation cut the sinews of the enemy’s power by depriving him of sea-borne commerce, and promoted the reduction of his colonies. Both these were measures of offense; and both, it may be added, were directed upon the national communications, the sources of national well-being. The means was one, the effect twofold....
[It is shown that, in the case of insular states, offense and defense are often closely combined, home security depending on control of the sea assured by offensive action of the national fleet.—Editor.]
An insular state, which alone can be purely maritime, therefore contemplates war from a position of antecedent probable superiority from the twofold concentration of its policy; defense and offense being closely identified, and energy, if exerted judiciously, being fixed upon the increase of naval force to the clear subordination of that more narrowly styled military. The conditions tend to minimize the division of effort between offensive and defensive, purpose, and, by greater comparative development of the fleet, to supply a larger margin of disposable numbers in order to constitute a mobile superiority at a particular point of the general field. Such a decisive local superiority at the critical point of action is the chief end of the military art, alike in tactics and strategy. Hence it is clear that an insular state, if attentive to the conditions that should dictate its policy, is inevitably led to possess a superiority in that particular kind of force, the mobility of which enables it most readily to project its power to the more distant quarters of the earth, and also to change its point of application at will with unequalled rapidity.
The general considerations that have been advanced concern all the great European nations, in so far as they look outside their own continent, and to maritime expansion, for the extension of national influence and power; but the effect upon the action of each differs necessarily according to their several conditions. The problem of sea-defense, for instance, relates primarily to the protection of the national commerce everywhere, and specifically as it draws near the home ports; serious attack upon the coast, or upon the ports themselves, being a secondary consideration, because little likely to befall a nation able to extend its power far enough to sea to protect its merchant ships. From this point of view the position of Germany is embarrassed at once by the fact that she has, as regards the world at large, but one coast-line. To and from this all her sea commerce must go; either passing the English Channel, flanked for three hundred miles by France on the one side and England on the other, or else going north about by the Orkneys, a most inconvenient circuit, and obtaining but imperfect shelter from recourse to this deflected route. Holland, in her ancient wars with England, when the two were fairly matched in point of numbers, had dire experience of this false position, though her navy was little inferior in numbers to that of her opponent. This is another exemplification of the truth that distance is a factor equivalent to a certain number of ships. Sea-defense for Germany, in case of war with France or England, means established naval predominance at least in the North Sea; nor can it be considered complete unless extended through the Channel and as far as Great Britain will have to project hers into the Atlantic. This is Germany’s initial disadvantage of position, to be overcome only by adequate superiority of numbers; and it receives little compensation from the security of her Baltic trade, and the facility for closing that sea to her enemies. In fact, Great Britain, whose North Sea trade is but one-fourth of her total, lies to Germany as Ireland does to Great Britain, flanking both routes to the Atlantic; but the great development of the British sea-coast, its numerous ports and ample internal communications, strengthen that element of sea-defense which consists in abundant access to harbors of refuge.
For the Baltic Powers, which comprise all the maritime States east of Germany, the commercial drawback of the Orkney route is a little less than for Hamburg and Bremen, in that the exit from the Baltic is nearly equidistant from the north and south extremities of England; nevertheless the excess in distance over the Channel route remains very considerable. The initial naval disadvantage is in no wise diminished. For all the communities east of the Straits of Dover it remains true that in war commerce is paralyzed, and all the resultant consequences of impaired national strength entailed, unless decisive control of the North Sea is established. That effected, there is security for commerce by the northern passage; but this alone is mere defense. Offense, exerted anywhere on the globe, requires a surplusage of force, over that required to hold the North Sea, sufficient to extend and maintain itself west of the British Islands. In case of war with either of the Channel Powers, this means, as between the two opponents, that the eastern belligerent has to guard a long line of communications, and maintain distant positions, against an antagonist resting on a central position, with interior lines, able to strike at choice at either wing of the enemy’s extended front. The relation which the English Channel, with its branch the Irish Sea, bears to the North Sea and the Atlantic—that of an interior position—is the same which the Mediterranean bears to the Atlantic and the Indian Sea; nor is it merely fanciful to trace in the passage round the north of Scotland an analogy to that by the Cape of Good Hope. It is a reproduction in miniature. The conditions are similar, the scale different. What the one is to a war whose scene is the north of Europe, the other is to operations by European Powers in Eastern Asia.
To protract such a situation is intolerable to the purse and morale of the belligerent who has the disadvantage of position. This of course leads us straight back to the fundamental principles of all naval war, namely, that defense is ensured only by offense, and that the one decisive objective of the offensive is the enemy’s organized force, his battle fleet. Therefore, in the event of a war between one of the Channel Powers, and one or more of those to the eastward, the control of the North Sea must be at once decided. For the eastern State it is a matter of obvious immediate necessity, of commercial self-preservation. For the western State the offensive motive is equally imperative; but for Great Britain there is defensive need as well. Her Empire imposes such a development of naval force as makes it economically impracticable to maintain an army as large as those of the Continent. Security against invasion depends therefore upon the fleet. Postponing more distant interests, she must here concentrate an indisputable superiority. It is, however, inconceivable that against any one Power Great Britain should not be able here to exert from the first a preponderance which would effectually cover all her remoter possessions. Only an economical decadence, which would of itself destroy her position among nations, could bring her so to forego the initial advantage she has, in the fact that for her offense and defense meet and are fulfilled in one factor, the command of the sea. History has conclusively demonstrated the inability of a state with even a single continental frontier to compete in naval development with one that is insular, although of smaller population and resources. A coalition of Powers may indeed affect the balance. As a rule, however, a single state against a coalition holds the interior position, the concentrated force; and while calculation should rightly take account of possibilities, it should beware of permitting imagination too free sway in presenting its pictures. Were the eastern Powers to combine they might prevent Great Britain’s use of the North Sea for the safe passage of her merchant shipping; but even so she would but lose commercially the whole of a trade, the greater part of which disappears by the mere fact of war. Invasion is not possible, unless her fleet can be wholly disabled from appearing in that sea. From her geographical position, she still holds her gates open to the outer world, which maintains three fourths of her commerce in peace.
The external activities of Europe, noted a dozen years ago and before, have now to a certain extent been again superseded by rivalries within Europe itself. Those rivalries, however, are the result of their previous external activities, and in the last analysis they depend upon German commercial development. This has stimulated the German Empire to a prodigious naval programme, which affects the whole of Europe and may affect the United States. In 1897 I summed up two conspicuous European conditions as being the equilibrium then existing between France and Germany, with their respective allies, and the withdrawal of Great Britain from active association with the affairs of the Continent. At that date the Triple Alliance, Austria, Germany, Italy, stood against the Dual Alliance, France and Russia; Great Britain apart from both, but with elements of antagonism against Russia and France, and not against the German monarchies or Italy. These antagonisms arose wholly from conditions external to Europe,—in India against Russia, and in Africa against France. Later, the paralysis of Russia, through her defeat by Japan, and through her internal troubles, left France alone for a time; during which Germany, thus assured against land attack, was better able to devote much money to the fleet, as the protector of her growing commerce. The results have been a projected huge German navy, and a German altercation with France relative to Moroccan affairs; incidents which have aroused Great Britain to a sense of naval danger, and have propelled her to the understandings—whatever they amount to—with France and Russia, which we now know as the Triple Entente. In short, Great Britain has abandoned the isolation of twenty years ago, stands joined to the Dual Alliance, and it becomes a Triple Entente.
To the United States this means that Great Britain, once our chief opponent in matters covered by the Monroe Doctrine, but later by the logic of events drawn to recede from that opposition, so that she practically backed us against Europe in 1898, and subsequently conceded the Panama arrangement known as the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, cannot at present count for as much as she did in naval questions throughout the world. It means to the United States and to Japan that Great Britain has too much at stake at home to side with the one or the other, granting she so wished, except as bound by treaty, which implies reciprocal obligations. Between her and Japan such specific obligations exist. They do not in the case of the United States; and the question whether the two countries are disposed to support one another, and, if so, to what extent, or what the attitude of Great Britain would be in case of difficulty between Japan and the United States, are questions directly affecting naval strategy.[116]
Great Britain does indeed for the moment hold Germany so far in check that the German Empire also can do no more than look after its European interests; but should a naval disaster befall Great Britain, leaving Germany master of the naval situation, the world would see again a predominant fleet backed by a predominant army, and that in the hands, not of a state satiated with colonial possessions, as Great Britain is, but of one whose late entry into world conditions leaves her without any such possessions at all of any great value. The habit of mind is narrow which fails to see that a navy such as Germany is now building will be efficacious for other ends than those immediately proposed. The existence of such a fleet is a constant factor in contemporary politics; the part which it shall play depending upon circumstances not always to be foreseen. Although the colonial ambitions of Germany are held in abeyance for the moment, the wish cannot but exist to expand her territory by foreign acquisitions, to establish external bases for the support of commercial or political interests, to build up such kindred communities as now help to constitute the British Empire, homes for emigrants, markets for industries, sources of supplies of raw materials, needed by those industries.
All such conditions and ambitions are incidents with which Strategy, comprehensively considered, has to deal. By the successive enunciations of the Monroe Doctrine the United States stands committed to the position that no particle of American soil shall pass into the hands of a non-American State other than the present possessor. No successful war between foreign states, no purchase, no exchange, no merger, such as the not impossible one of Holland with Germany, is allowed as valid cause for such transfer. This is a very large contract; the only guarantee of which is an adequate navy, however the term “adequate” be defined. Adequacy often depends not only upon existing balances of power, such, for instance, as that by which the British and German navies now affect one another, which for the moment secures the observance of the Doctrine. Account must be taken also of evident policies which threaten to disturb such balances, such as the official announcement by Germany of her purpose to create a “fleet of such strength that, even for the mightiest naval power, a war with Germany would involve such risks as to jeopardize its own supremacy.” This means, at least, that Great Britain hereafter shall not venture, as in 1898, to back the United States against European interference; nor to support France in Morocco; nor to carry out as against Germany her alliance with Japan. It is a matter of very distinct consequence in naval strategy that Great Britain, after years of contention with the United States, essentially opposed to the claims of the Monroe Doctrine, should at last have come to substantial coincidence with the American point of view, even though she is not committed to a formal announcement to that effect.[117] Such relations between states are primarily the concern of the statesman, a matter of international policies; but they are also among the data which the strategist, naval as well as land, has to consider, because they are among the elements which determine the constitution and size of the national fleet.
I here quote with approval a statement of the French Captain Darrieus:
“Among the complex problems to which the idea of strategy gives rise there is none more important than that of the constitution of the fleet; and every project which takes no account of the foreign relations of a great nation, nor of the material limit fixed by its resources, rests upon a weak and unstable base.”
I repeat also the quotation from Von der Goltz: “We must have a national strategy, a national tactics.” I cannot too entirely repudiate any casual word of mine, reflecting the tone which once was so traditional in the navy that it might be called professional,—that “political questions belong rather to the statesman than to the military man.” I find these words in my old lectures, but I very soon learned better, from my best military friend, Jomini; and I believe that no printed book of mine endorses the opinion that external politics are of no professional concern to military men.
It was in accordance with this changed opinion that in 1895, and again in 1897, I summed up European conditions as I conceived them to be; pointing out that the distinguishing feature at that time was substantial equilibrium on the Continent, constituting what is called the Balance of Power; and, in connection with the calm thus resulting, an immense colonizing movement, in which substantially all the great Powers were concerned. This I indicated as worthy of the notice of naval strategists, because there were parts of the American continents which for various reasons might attract upon themselves this movement, in disregard of the Monroe Doctrine.
Since then the scene has shifted greatly, the distinctive feature of the change being the growth of Germany in industrial, commercial, and naval power,—all three; while at the same time maintaining her military pre-eminence, although that has been somewhat qualified by the improvement of the French army, just as the growth of the German navy has qualified British superiority at sea. Coincident with this German development has been the decline of Russia, owing to causes generally understood; the stationariness of France in population, while Germany has increased fifty per cent; and the very close drawing together of Germany and Austria, for reasons of much more controlling power than the mere treaty which binds them. The result is that to-day central Europe, that is, Austria and Germany, form a substantially united body, extending from water to water, from North Sea to Adriatic, wielding a military power against which, on the land, no combination in Europe can stand. The Balance of Power no longer exists; that is, if my estimate is correct of the conditions and dispersion which characterize the other nations relatively to this central mass.
This situation, coinciding with British trade jealousies of the new German industries, and with the German naval programme, have forced Great Britain out of the isolation which the Balance of Power permitted her. Her ententes are an attempt to correct the disturbance of the balance; but, while they tend in that direction, they are not adequate to the full result desired. The balance remains uneven; and consequently European attention is concentrated upon European conditions, instead of upon the colonizing movements of twenty years ago. Germany even has formally disavowed such colonizing ambitions, by the mouth of her ambassador to the United States, confirmed by her minister of foreign affairs, although a dozen years ago they were conspicuous. Concerning these colonizing movements, indeed, it might be said that they have reached a moment of quiet, of equilibrium, while internally Europe is essentially disquieted, as various incidents have shown.
The important point to us here is the growing power of the German Empire, in which the efficiency of the State as an organic body is so greatly superior to that of Great Britain, and may prove to be to that of the United States. The two English-speaking countries have wealth vastly superior, each separately, to that of Germany; much more if acting together. But in neither is the efficiency of the Government for handling the resources comparable to that of Germany; and there is no apparent chance or recognized inducement for them to work together, as Germany and Austria now work in Europe. The consequence is that Germany may deal with each in succession much more effectively than either is now willing to consider; Europe being powerless to affect the issue so long as Austria stands by Germany, as she thoroughly understands that she has every motive to do.
It is this line of reasoning which shows the power of the German navy to be a matter of prime importance to the United States. The power to control Germany does not exist in Europe, except in the British navy; and if social and political conditions in Great Britain develop as they now promise, the British navy will probably decline in relative strength, so that it will not venture to withstand the German on any broad lines of policy, but only in the narrowest sense of immediate British interests. Even this condition may disappear, for it seems as if the national life of Great Britain were waning at the same time that that of Germany is waxing. The truth is, Germany, by traditions of two centuries, inherits now a system of state control, not only highly developed but with a people accustomed to it,—a great element of force; and this at the time when control of the individual by the community—that is, by the state—is increasingly the note of the times. Germany has in this matter a large start. Japan has much the same.
When it is remembered that the United States, like Great Britain and like Japan, can be approached only by sea, we can scarcely fail to see that upon the sea primarily must be found our power to secure our own borders and to sustain our external policy, of which at the present moment there are two principal elements; namely, the Monroe Doctrine and the Open Door. Of the Monroe Doctrine President Taft, in his first message to Congress, has said that it has advanced sensibly towards general acceptance; and that maintenance of its positions in the future need cause less anxiety than it has in the past. Admitting this, and disregarding the fact that the respect conceded to it by Europe depends in part at least upon European rivalries modifying European ability to intervene,—a condition which may change as suddenly as has the power of Russia within the decade,—it remains obvious that the policy of the Open Door requires naval power quite as really and little less directly than the Monroe Doctrine. For the scene of the Open Door contention is the Pacific; the gateway to the Pacific for the United States is the Isthmus; the communications to the Isthmus are by way of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The interest of that maritime region therefore is even greater now than it was when I first undertook the strategic study of it, over twenty years ago. Its importance to the Monroe Doctrine and to general commercial interests remains, even if modified.
At the date of my first attempt to make this study of the Caribbean, and to formulate certain principles relative to Naval Strategy, there scarcely could be said to exist any defined public consciousness of European and American interest in sea power, and in the methods of its application which form the study of Strategy. The most striking illustration of this insensibility to the sea was to be found in Bismarck, who in a constructive sense was the greatest European statesman of that day. After the war with France and the acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine, he spoke of Germany as a state satiated with territorial expansion. In the matter of external policy she had reached the limits of his ambitions for her; and his mind thenceforth was set on internal development, which should harmonize the body politic and ensure Germany the unity and power which he had won for her. His scheme of external relations did not stretch beyond Europe. He was then too old to change to different conceptions, although he did not neglect to follow the demand of the people as their industry and commerce developed.
The contrast between the condition of indifference to the sea which he illustrated and that which now exists is striking; and the German Empire, which owes to him above all men its modern greatness, offers the most conspicuous illustration of the change. The new great navies of the world since 1887 are the German, the Japanese, and the American. Every state in Europe is now awake to the fact that the immediate coming interests of the world, which are therefore its own national interest, must be in the other continents. Europe in its relatively settled conditions offers really the base of operations for enterprises and decisive events, the scene of which will be in countries where political or economical backwardness must give place to advances which will be almost revolutionary in kind. This can scarcely be accomplished without unsettlements, the composing of which will depend upon force. Such force by a European state—with the single exception of Russia, and possibly, in a less degree, of Austria—can be exerted only through a navy.