and the consequent multiplication of
possibilities of action constitute the only healthy soil for the
intellectual and moral strength of a vigorous nation, as is shown by
every phase of history.

The wish for culture must therefore in a healthy nation express itself
first in terms of the wish for political power, and the foremost duty of
statesmanship is to attain, safeguard, and promote this power, by force
of arms in the last resort. Thus the first and most essential duty of
every great civilized people is to prepare for war on a scale
commensurate with its political needs. Even the superiority of the enemy
cannot absolve from the performance of this requirement. On the
contrary, it must stimulate to the utmost military efforts and the most
strenuous political action in order to secure favourable conditions for
the eventuality of a decisive campaign. Mere numbers count for less than
ever in modern fighting, although they always constitute a very
important factor of the total strength. But, within certain limits,
which are laid down by the law of numbers, the true elements of
superiority under the present system of gigantic armies are seen to be
spiritual and moral strength, and larger masses will be beaten by a
small, well-led and self-devoting army. The Russo-Japanese War has
proved this once more.

Granted that the development of military strength is the first duty of
every State, since all else depends upon the possibility to assert
_power_, it does not follow that the State must spend the total of its
personal and financial resources solely on military strength in the
narrower sense of army and navy. That is neither feasible nor
profitable. The military power of a people is not exclusively determined
by these external resources; it consists, rather, in a harmonious
development of physical, spiritual, moral, financial, and military
elements of strength. The highest and most effective military system
cannot be developed except by the co-operation of all these factors. It
needs a broad and well-constructed basis in order to be effective. In
the Manchurian War at the critical moment, when the Japanese attacking
strength seemed spent, the Russian military system broke down, because
its foundation was unstable; the State had fallen into political and
moral ruin, and the very army was tainted with revolutionary ideas.

The social requirement of maintaining military efficiency, and the
political necessity for so doing,