Of course, this is so obvious as to seem hardly worth declaring; and yet some people hesitate even to admit it, and thereby they assume a passive condition of moral cowardice; for they know that a strong force has always overcome a weaker force that opposed it in war; and that it always will do so, until force ceases to be force.  They know that force is that which moves, or tends to move, matter; and that the greater the force, the more surely it will move matter, or anything that opposes it.

If, however, we establish naval bases near our valuable commercial and strategic ports, both on our coast and in the Caribbean, and if we fortify them so that an enemy could not take them quickly, the condition of the enemy fleet will be much less happy; because it will have to remain out on the ocean, where fuelling and repairing are very difficult, and where it will be exposed, day and night, especially at night, to attack by destroyers and submarines; and in case necessity demands the occasional division of the force, it must beware of attacks on the separated portions of the fleet.  The condition of a large fleet under way on an enemy’s coast is one requiring much patience and endurance, and one in which the number of vessels is liable to be continuously reduced by the guerilla warfare of the defenders.

In the case of our attempting offensive operations against the distant coast of an enemy, we would be in the same position as a foreign enemy would be in when attacking our coast, in that our chances of success would be excellent if our fleet were considerably superior to the defending fleet in fighting power, and in the number and strength of scouts, and if the enemy coast possessed numerous undefended bays and islands which we could seize as bases.  But even if the superiority of our fleet in fighting power and scouts was considerably greater than the enemy’s our ultimate success would be doubtful, if the enemy’s coast and islands were so protected by guns and mines and submarines that we could not get a base near the scene of operations.  It is true that the British were able to maintain blockades of the French coast during many weary months without any base nearer than England—­a place far away to ships whose only motive power was sails; but destroyers and submarines and mines did not then exist, and these agencies are much more valuable to the defender than to the blockader who has no base at hand.

Our operations without a base on a distant enemy coast would be apt to degenerate into warding off a continual series of more or less minor attacks by the minor craft of the defender.  The commander of our fleet would be constrained to keep his fighting force pretty close together, thus restricting his initiative; lest the entire enemy fleet catch a detached part out of supporting distance of the main body, and annihilate it with little loss to themselves.  We could probably shut off most of the enemy’s sea-borne commerce; and the war would become one of endurance between our fleet, on the one hand, and the economic forces and the morale of the enemy country on the other hand.