But superadequateness of preparation has a value greater than in merely insuring victory with minimum loss to ourselves, in case war comes, because it exerts the most potent of all influences in preventing war, since it warns an enemy against attacking.  At the present day, the laws of victory and defeat are so well understood, and the miseries resulting from defeat are so thoroughly realized, that no civilized country will voluntarily go to war, except for extraneous reasons, if it realizes that the chances of success are small.  And as the cumulative consequences of defeats are also realized, and as no country is apt to assume that the morale and skill of its forces are measurably greater than those of a probable antagonist, no country and no alliance is apt to provoke war with a nation whose armed forces are superior in number of units of personnel and material; unless, of course, the nation is markedly inferior in morale and skill, as the Persians were to the legions of Alexander.

It is often insisted that superadequacy in armed force tends to war instead of peace, by inducing a country to make war itself; that the very principles which deter a weak country from attacking a strong country tend to make a strong country attack a weak one.  There is some truth in this, of course, and history shows many cases of strong countries deliberately attacking weak ones for the purpose of conquest.

Analysis of wars, however, in which strong countries have done this, shows that as a rule, the “strong” country was one which was strong in a military sense only; and that the “weak” country was a country which was weak only militarily, but which was potentially strong in that it was possessed of wealth in land and goods.  Most of the great conquests of history were made by such “strong” over such “weak” countries.  Such were notably those wars by which Persia, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Spain gained their pre-eminence; and such were the wars by which they later fell.  Such were the wars of Ghenghis Khan, Tamerlane, Mahomet, and Napoleon; such were the wars by which most tribes grew to be great nations, and by which as nations they subsequently fell.  No greater cause of war has ever existed than a disproportion between countries or tribes of such a character that one was rich and weak, while the other was strong and poor.  Nations are much like individuals—­and not very good individuals.  Highwaymen who are poor and strong organize and drill for the purpose of attacking people who are rich and weak; and while one would shrink from declaring that nations which are poor and strong do the same, it may nevertheless be stated that they have often been accused of doing so, and that some wars are explainable on that ground and on none other.

The wars of Caesar in Gaul and Britain do not seem to fall in this category, and yet they really do; for Rome was poor in Julius Caesar’s day; and while Gaul and Britain were not rich in goods, they were rich in land, and Rome craved land.