Page 313 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

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Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. 291

trial, can be so against raiding. What is meant
is that they can be protected with much less
effort than they can be attacked ; that the raid-
ers — the offence — must be much more nu-
merous and active than the defence, because
much farther from their base ; and that the
question of such raiding would depend conse-
quently upon the force Great Britain could
spare from other scenes of war, for it is not
likely that Spain would fight her single-handed.
It is quite possible that under such condi-
tions advantage of position would more than
counterbalance a small disadvantage in local
force. " War," said Napoleon, " is a business
of positions ; " by which that master of light-
ning-like rapidity of movement assuredly did
not mean that it was a business of getting into
a position and sticking there. It is in the
utilization of position by mobile force that
war is determined, just as the effect of a chess-
man depends upon both its individual value
and its relative position. While, therefore, in
the combination of the two factors, force and
position, force is intrinsically the more valu-
able, it is always possible that great advantage
of position may outweigh small advantage of