Page 175 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

156 The Future in Relation to

mian canal for the freest and most copious
intercourse between her two ocean seaboards.
In the elasticity and flexibleness with which
the dogma thus has accommodated itself to
varying conditions, rather than in the strict
wording of the original statement, is to be seen
the essential characteristic of a living principle
— the recognition, namely, that not merely the
interests of individual citizens, but the interests
of the United States as a nation, are bound up
with regions beyond the sea, not part of our
own political domain, in which therefore, under
some imaginable circumstances, we may be
forced to take action.
It is important to recognize this, for it will
help clear away the error from a somewhat
misleading statement frequently made, — that
the United States needs a navy for defence
only, adding often, explanatorily, for the de-
fence of our own coasts. Now in a certain
sense we all want a navy for defence only. It
is to be hoped that the United States will
never seek war except for the defence of her
rights, her obligations, or her necessary inter-
ests. In that sense our policy may always be
defensive only, although it may compel us at