The first step, therefore, in providing for the expansion of the navy for war, is to estimate the situation correctly.  The greatest difficulty in doing this arises from a species of moral cowardice, which tempts a man to underestimate its dangers, and therefore the means required to meet them. Probably no single cause of defeat in war has been so pregnant with disaster as this failure to make a sufficiently grave estimate of the situation.  Sometimes the failure seems due more to carelessness than to cowardice; Napoleon’s disastrous underestimate of the difficulties of his projected Russian campaign seems more due to carelessness than to cowardice; but this may be due to a difficulty of associating cowardice with Napoleon.  But is it not equally difficult to associate carelessness with Napoleon?  What professional calculator, what lawyer’s clerk was ever more careful than Napoleon was, when dealing with problems of war?  Who was ever more attentive to details, who more industrious, who more untiring?  And yet Napoleon’s plans for his Russian campaign were inadequate to an amazing degree, and the inadequacy was the cause of his disaster.  But whether the cause was carelessness or moral cowardice on his part, the fact remains that he did not estimate the situation with sufficient care, and make due plans to meet it.

This unwillingness to look a difficult situation in the face one can see frequently in daily life.  Great difficulties seem to appall some people.  They hate so much to believe a disaster possible, they fear so much to let themselves or others realize that a danger is impending, they are so afraid that other people will think them “nervous,” and they shrink so from recommending measures that would cause great exertions or great expenditures, that they are very prone to believe and say that there is no especial danger, and that whatever danger there may be, can be obviated by measures that are easy and cheap to carry out.

If we yield to this feeling, we are guilty of moral cowardice, and we vitiate all the results of all our labors.  We must make a correct estimate of the situation—­or rather we must estimate the situation to be as grave as it is—­or our preparations will be of no avail.  If we estimate the situation too gravely, we may spend more money and time on our preparations than is quite needed, and our preparations may be more than adequate.  It may be that the preparations which Prussia made before 1870 for war with France were more than adequate.  In fact, it looks as if they were, in view of the extreme quickness with which she conquered France.  But does any military writer condemn Prussia for having made assurance too sure?

The Value of Superadequate Preparation.—­No, on the contrary.  The very reasons that make adequate preparation valuable make superadequate preparation even more valuable.  The reason is very clear, as is shown by the table on page 284 illustrating the progressive wasting of fighting forces, which the writer published in the U.  S. Naval Institute in an essay called “American Naval Policy,” in April, 1905.[*]