cept our own.
The very difficulties of the problem, the very scope and greatness
of it, the fact that national failure or national success will
hinge on the way we solve it, will call into action the profoundest
minds in all the nation. We shall realize that, more than any other
problem before the country, this problem is urgent; because in no
other problem have we so much lost time to make up for, and in
no other work of the government are we so far behind the great
nations that we may have to contend against.

Great Britain was startled into a correct estimate of the situation
ten years ago, and at once directed perhaps the best of her ability
to meet it. Certain it is that no other department of the British
Government is in such good condition as the navy; in no other department
has the problem been so thoroughly understood, and so conscientiously
worked out, or the success been so triumphant.

The underlying reason for this is not so much the individual courage
and ability of the officers and men, or even their skill in handling
their ships and squadrons, as the fact that Great Britain has followed
a definite naval policy; so that the British nation has had a perfectly
clear realization of what it wishes the navy to do, and the navy
has had a perfectly clear realization of how to do it.

The United States has not yet made a correct estimate of the naval
situation; she has not yet reached the point that Great Britain
reached ten years ago. Great Britain apprehended the danger, and
took action before it was too late. Shall the United States take
action now or wait until it is too late?

PART II

NAVAL STRATEGY

CHAPTER VII

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

Strategy is difficult of definition; but though many definitions
have been made, and though they do not agree together very well,
yet all agree that strategy is concerned with the preparation of
military forces for war and for operating them in war--while tactics
is the immediate instrument for handling them in battle. Strategy
thinks out a situation beforehand, and decides what preparations
as to material, personnel, and operations should be made.

Many books have been written on strategy, meaning strategy as applied
to armies, but very few books have been written on naval strategy.
The obvious reasons are that armies in the past have been much
larger and more important than navies; that naval men have only
recently had the appliances on board ship for