which are laid down by the law of numbers, the true elements of
superiority under the present system of gigantic armies are seen to be
spiritual and moral strength, and larger masses will be beaten by a
small, well-led and self-devoting army. The Russo-Japanese War has
proved this once more.

Granted that the development of military strength is the first duty of
every State, since all else depends upon the possibility to assert
_power_, it does not follow that the State must spend the total of its
personal and financial resources solely on military strength in the
narrower sense of army and navy. That is neither feasible nor
profitable. The military power of a people is not exclusively determined
by these external resources; it consists, rather, in a harmonious
development of physical, spiritual, moral, financial, and military
elements of strength. The highest and most effective military system
cannot be developed except by the co-operation of all these factors. It
needs a broad and well-constructed basis in order to be effective. In
the Manchurian War at the critical moment, when the Japanese attacking
strength seemed spent, the Russian military system broke down, because
its foundation was unstable; the State had fallen into political and
moral ruin, and the very army was tainted with revolutionary ideas.

The social requirement of maintaining military efficiency, and the
political necessity for so doing, determine the nature and degree of
warlike preparations; but it must be remembered that this standard may
be very variously estimated, according to the notion of what the State's
duties are. Thus, in Germany the most violent disputes burst out
whenever the question of the organization of the military forces is
brought up, since widely different opinions prevail about the duties of
the State and of the army.