ll understood by military men.
Jamaica, by its situation, flanks the route from Cuba to the Isthmus,
as indeed it does all routes from the Atlantic and the Gulf to that
point; but, as a military entity, it is completely overshadowed by the
larger island, which it so conspicuously confronts. If, as has just
been said, it by situation intercepts the access of Cuba to the
Isthmus, it is itself cut off by its huge neighbor from secure
communication with the North American Continent, now as always the
chief natural source of supplies for the West Indies, which do not
produce the great staples of life. With the United States friendly or
neutral, in a case of war, there can be no comparison between the
advantages of Cuba, conferred by its situation and its size, and those
of Jamaica, which, by these qualities of its rival, is effectually cut
off from that source of supplies. Nor is the disadvantage of Jamaica
less marked with reference to communication with other quarters than
the United States--with Halifax, with Bermuda, with Europe. Its
distance from these points, and from Santa Lucia, where the resources
of Europe may be said to focus for it, makes its situation one of
extreme isolation; a condition emphasized by the fact that both
Bermuda and Santa Lucia are themselves dependent upon outside sources
for anything they may send to Jamaica. At all these points, coal, the
great factor of modern naval war, must be stored and the supply
maintained. They do not produce it. The mere size of Cuba, the amount
of population which it has, or ought to have, the number of its
seaports, the extent of the industries possible to it, tend naturally
to an accumulation of resources such as great mercantile communities
always entail. These, combined with its nearness to the United States,
and its other advantages of situation, make Cuba a position that can
have no military rival among the islands of the world, except Ireland.
With a friendly United States, isolation is impossible to Cuba.

The aim of any discussion such as this should be to narrow down, by a
gradual elimination, the various factors to be considered, in order
that the decisive ones, remaining, may become conspicuously visible.
The trees being thus thinned out, the features of the strategic
landscape can appear. The primary processes in the present case have
been carried out before seeking the attention of the reader, to whom
the first approximations have been presented under t