Page 321 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. 299

Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Potentially,
though not actually, they lend control of the
Mona and Anegada Passages, exactly as King-
ston and Santiago do of the Windward.
For, granting that the Isthmus is in the Car-
ibbean the predominant interest, commercial,
and therefore concerning the whole world, but
also military, and so far possessing peculiar
concern for those nations whose territories lie
on both oceans, which it now severs and will
one day unite — of which nations the United
States is the most prominent— granting this,
and it follows that entrance to the Caribbean,
and transit across the Caribbean to the Isthmus,
are two prime essentials to the enjoyment of
the advantages of the latter. Therefore, in
case of war, control of these two things be-
comes a military object not second to the Isth-
mus itself, access to which depends upon them
;
and in their bearing upon these two things
the various positions that are passed under
consideration must be viewed — individually
first, and afterwards collectively.
The first process of individual consideration
the writer has asked the reader to take on
faith ; neither time nor space permits its elab-