Page 303 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. 281

from East to West, from the days of the first
discoverers and throughout all subsequent cen-
turies, though fluctuating in degree from age to
age ; but when it shall be pierced by a canal, it
will present a maritime centre analogous to the
mouth of the Mississippi. They will differ in
this, that in the latter case the converging
water routes on one side are interior to a great
state whose resources they bear, whereas the
roads which on either side converge upon the
Isthmus lie wholly upon the ocean, the common
possession of all nations. Control of the lat-
ter, therefore, rests either upon local control
of the Isthmus itself, or, indirectly, upon con-

trol of its approaches, or upon a distinctly pre-
ponderant navy. In naval questions the latter
is always the dominant factor, exactly as on
land the mobile army— the army in the field
— must dominate the question of fortresses,
-
unless war is to be impotent.
We have thus the two centres round which
revolve all the military study of the Caribbean
Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The two sheets
of water, taken together, control or affect the
approaches on one side to these two supreme
centres of commercial, and therefore of political