Page 182 - The Interest of America in Sea Power Present and Future
P. 182
American Naval Power. 163
In all these questions we have a stake, re-
luctantly it may be, but necessarily, for our
evident interests are involved, in some in-
stances directly, in others by very probable
implication. Under existing conditions, the
opinion that we can keep clear indefinitely
of embarrassing problems is hardly tenable;
while war between two foreign states, which in
the uncertainties of the international situation
throughout the world may break out at any
time, will increase greatly the occasions of pos-
sible collision with the belligerent countries,
and the consequent perplexities of our states-
men seeking to avoid entanglement and to
maintain neutrality.
Although peace is not only the avowed but
for the most part the actual desire of Euro-
pean governments, they profess no such aver-
sion to distant political enterprises and colonial
acquisitions as we by tradition have learned to
do. On the contrary, their committal to such
divergent enlargements of the national activ-
ities and influence is one of the most pregnant
facts of our time, the more so that their course
is marked in the case of each state by a per-
sistence of the same national traits that char-
