strategy is most nearly concerned, for when the command is lost or won pure
naval strategy comes to an end.

This truth is so obvious that it would scarcely be worth mentioning were it
not for the constant recurrence of such phrases as: "If England were to
lose command of the sea, it would be all over with her." The fallacy of the
idea is that it ignores the power of the strategical defensive. It assumes
that if in the face of some extraordinary hostile coalition or through some
extraordinary mischance we found ourselves without sufficient strength to
keep the command, we should therefore be too weak to prevent the enemy
getting it--a negation of the whole theory of war, which at least requires
further support than it ever receives.

And not only is this assumption a negation of theory; it is a negation both
of practical experience and of the expressed opinion of our greatest
masters. We ourselves have used the defensive at sea with success, as under
William the Third and in the War of American Independence, while in our
long wars with France she habitually used it in such a way that sometimes
for years, though we had a substantial preponderance, we could not get
command, and for years were unable to carry out our war plan without
serious interruption from her fleet.

So far from the defensive being a negligible factor at sea, or even the
mere pestilent heresy it is generally represented, it is of course inherent
in all war, and, as we have seen, the paramount questions of strategy both
at sea and on land turn on the relative possibilities of offensive and
defensive, and upon the relative proportions in which each should enter
into our plan of war. At sea the most powerful and aggressively-minded
belligerent can no more avoid his alternating periods of defence, which
result from inevitable arrests of offensive action, than they can be