inimical influence to a country's commerce and welfare which that
hostile force exerts, any more than palliatives can cure dyspepsia.
Every intelligent physician knows that the only way to cure a disease
is to remove its cause; and every intelligent military or naval man
knows that history teaches that the only way in which a country
can defend itself successfully against an enemy is to defeat the
armed force of that enemy--be it a force of soldiers on the land, or
a force of war-ships on the sea. In naval parlance, "our objective
is the enemy's fleet."

If the duty of a navy be merely to prevent the actual invasion
of its country's coasts, a great mistake has been made by Great
Britain, France, and other countries in spending so much money
on their navies, and in giving so much attention to the education
and training of their officers and enlisted men. To prevent actual
invasion would be comparatively an easy task, one that could be
performed by rows of forts along the coast, supplemented by mines
and submarines. If that is the only kind of defense required, navies
are hardly needed. The army in each country could man the forts
and operate the mines, and a special corps of the army could even
operate the submarines, which (if their only office is to prevent
actual invasion) need hardly leave the "three-mile limit" that
skirts the coasts. If the people of any country do not care to have
dealings outside; if the nation is willing to be in the position
of a man who is safe so long as he stays in the house, but is afraid
to go outdoors, the problem of national defense is easy.

But if the people desire to prevent interference with what our
Constitution calls "the general welfare," the problem becomes
exceedingly complex and exceedingly grave--more complex and grave