whole, and
bring the war to a formal close.

In cases where, instead of contiguous frontiers, the combatants are
separated by the sea, the aerial struggle will probably be preceded or
accompanied by a struggle for the command of the sea. Of this warfare
there have been many forecasts. In this, as in all the warfare of the
coming time, imaginative foresight, a perpetual alteration of tactics, a
perpetual production of unanticipated devices, will count enormously.
Other things being equal, victory will rest with the force mentally most
active. What type of ship may chance to be prevalent when the great
naval war comes is hard guessing, but I incline to think that the naval
architects of the ablest peoples will concentrate more and more upon
speed and upon range and penetration, and, above all, upon precision of
fire. I seem to see a light type of ironclad, armoured thickly only over
its engines and magazines, murderously equipped, and with a ram--as
alert and deadly as a striking snake. In the battles of the open she
will have little to fear from the slow fumbling treacheries of the
submarine, she will take as little heed of the chance of a torpedo as a
barefooted man in battle does of the chance of a fallen dagger in his
path. Unless I know nothing of my own blood, the English and Americans
will prefer to catch their enemies in ugly weather or at night, and then
they will fight to ram. The struggle on the high seas between any two
naval powers (except, perhaps, the English and American, who have both
quite unparalleled opportunities for coaling) will not last more than a
week or so. One or other force will be destroyed at sea, driven into its
ports and blockaded there, or cut off from its supply of coal (or other
force-generator), and hunted down to fight or surrender. An inferior
fleet that tries to keep elusively at sea will always find a superior
fleet between itself and coal, and will either have to fight at once or
be shot into surrender as it lies helpless on the water. Some
commerce-destroying enterprise on the part of the loser may go on, but I
think the possibilities of that sort of thing are greatly exaggerated.
The world grows smaller and smaller, the telegraph and telephone go
everywhere, wireless telegraphy opens wider and wider possibilities to
the imagination, and how the commerce-destroyer is to go on for long
without being marked down, headed off, cut off from coal, and forced to
fight or surrender, I d