Page 324 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

302 Strategic Features of the Gulf of
exist such positions of exceptional strength, —

Gibraltar and some others in the former case,
Havana and no other in the latter. The
Caribbean, on the contrary, is enclosed on its
eastern side by a chain of small islands, the
passages between which, although practically
not wider than the Strait of Gibraltar, are so
numerous that entrance to the sea on that side
may be said correctly to extend over a stretch
of near 400 miles. The islands, it is true, are
so many positions, some better, some worse,
from which military effort to control entrance
can be exerted; but their number prevents
that concentration and that certainty of effect
which are possible to adequate force resting
upon Gibraltar or Havana.
On the northern side of the sea the case is
quite different. From the western end of
Cuba to the eastern end of Puerto Rico ex-
tends a barrier of land for 1200 miles— as
against 400 on the east — broken only by two
straits, each fifty miles wide, from side to side
of which a steamer of but moderate power can
pass in three or four hours. These natural
conditions, governing the approach to the Isth-
mus, reproduce as nearly as possible the stra-