powerful a navy is that she is so situated geographically that,
without a powerful navy to protect her trade, the people would
starve.

While this statement may be true, the inference usually drawn is
fallacious: the inference that if Great Britain were not so situated,
she would not have so great a navy.

Why would she not? It is certain that that "tight little island"
has attained a world-wide power, and a wealth per capita greater
than those of any other country; that her power and wealth, as
compared with her home area, are so much greater than those of
any other country as to stagger the understanding; that she could
not have done what she has done without her navy; that she has
never hesitated to use her navy to assist her trade, and yet that
she has never used her navy to keep her people from starving.

In fact, the insistence on the anti-starvation theory is absurd.
Has any country ever fought until the people as a mass were starving?
Has starving anything to do with the matter? Does not a nation
give up fighting just as soon as it sees that further fighting
would do more harm than good? A general or an admiral, in charge
of a detached force, must fight sometimes even at tremendous loss
and after all hope of local success has fled, in order to hold a
position, the long holding of which is essential to the success
of the whole strategic plan; but what country keeps up a war until
its people are about to starve? Did Spain do so in our last war? Did
Russia fear that Japan would force the people of her vast territory
into starvation?