The War of the Rebellion is instructive because it shows how two earnest peoples, each believing themselves right, can be forced, by the very sincerity of their convictions, to wage war against each other; and because it shows how unpreparedness for war, with its accompanying ignorance of the best way in which to wage it, causes undue duration of a war and therefore needless suffering.  If the North had not closed its eyes so resolutely to the fact of the coming struggle, it would have noted beforehand that the main weakness of the Confederacy lay in its dependence on revenue from cotton and its inability to provide a navy that could prevent a blockade of its coasts; and the North would have early instituted a blockade so tight that the Confederacy would have been forced to yield much sooner than it did.  The North would have made naval operations the main effort, instead of the auxiliary effort; and would have substituted for much of the protracted and bloody warfare of the land the quickly decisive and comparatively merciful warfare of the sea.

In the Spanish War the friction between the United States and Spain was altogether about Cuba.  No serious thought of the invasion of either country was entertained, no invasion was attempted, and the only land engagements were some minor engagements in Cuba and the Philippines.  The critical operations were purely naval.  In the first of these, Commodore Dewey’s squadron destroyed the entire Far Eastern squadron of the Spanish in Manila Bay; in the second, Admiral Sampson’s squadron destroyed the entire Atlantic squadron of the Spanish near Santiago de Cuba.  The two naval victories compelled Spain to make terms of peace practically as the United States wished.  Attention is invited to the fact that this war was not a war of conquest, was not a war of aggression, was not a war of invasion, was not a war carried on by either side for any base purpose; but was in its intention and its results for the benefit of mankind.

The Russo-Japanese War was due to conflicting national policies.  While each side accused the other of selfish ends, it is not apparent to a disinterested observer that either was unduly selfish in its policy, or was doing more than every country ought to advance the interests and promote the welfare of its people.  Russia naturally had a great deal of interest in Manchuria, and felt that she had a right to expand through the uncivilized regions of Manchuria, especially since she needed a satisfactory outlet to the sea.  In other words, the interests of Russia were in the line of its expanding to the eastward.  But Japan’s interests were precisely the reverse of Russia’s—­that is, Japan’s interests demanded that Russia should not do those things that Russia wanted to do.  Japan felt that Russia’s movement toward the East was bringing her entirely too close to Japan.  Russia was too powerful a country, and too aggressive, to be trusted so close.  Japan had the same feeling