Page 190 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

American Naval Power. 171

our people ; but to do so, whatever the steps
taken in any particular case, will bring us into
new political relations and may entail serious
disputes with other states. In maintaining the
justest policy, the most reasonable influence,
one of the political elements, long dominant,
and still one of the most essential, is military
strength — in the broad sense of the word
" military," which includes naval as well — not
merely potential, which our own is, but organ-
ized and developed, which our own as yet is
not. We wisely quote Washington's warning
against entangling alliances, but too readily
forget his teaching about preparation for war.
The progress of the world from age to age, in
its ever-changing manifestations, is a great
political drama, possessing a unity, doubtless,
in its general development, but in which, as
act follows act, one situation alone can engage,
at one time, the attention of the actors. Of
this drama war is simply a violent and tumult-
uous political incident. A navy, therefore,
whose primary sphere of action is war, is, in the
last analysis and from the least misleading
point of view, a political factor of the utmost
importance in international affairs, one more