“Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis”
From the dim dawn of history down to the present upheaval in the Old World the cry of man has been peace, yet only for short periods has this ideal been realized. The life of man on earth has been a warfare—against himself, against nature, against his foes human and diabolic. Only for a moment, as it were, as the result of triumph has he secured the fruit of victory which is peace.
Peace comes from mastery, of himself, of nature, of others. Peace is the pinnacle towards which man directs his upward climb. For a moment he pauses to enjoy the fruit of his effort. Then he must again descend into the valley of travail to again slowly and painfully ascend a new and perhaps higher peak, to again establish another short period of peace.
It is the record of history, as of philosophy and religion, that only through this succession of effort, victory, and peace man advances. That race, that individual, that group which remains at peace loses its initiative, its power of self-mastery, its will to advance. At times it may be the warfare of man against man. At other times it may be the warfare of society against nature. Always it is the battle of man against himself—against his passions, his habits of weakness, sloth, avarice, luxury. As Emerson so fittingly remarked: “It is in the rugged battle of life that strength is born.” The coward who refuses to fight becomes the weakling. Whether in man, in the brute world, in nature at large, that individual who refuses to strive ceases to advance, slips backward, becomes the foe of progress, and in the ruthless law of life is replaced by that one who dares to battle, for life is to the strong, of soul as of body.
In the world where it seems that civilization is being threatened to its foundations as never before the challenge comes to the man of action, as to the thinker, to meet this crisis. The cry of a war-torn and disillusioned world is for peace, for opportunity to live, yet never before in all recorded history is there the preparation for war which is going on now. Perhaps before these lines are read the Old World and then the New may be plunged into a new maelstrom of conflict.
It is imperative that we of isolated America learn the lesson of reality taught by history and experience as well as by philosophy. We too easily draw away from reality into a realm of illusion when we come to the question of peace or war. We, as a nation, have fought more wars during our relatively brief history than any other nation with the possible exception of the mother-country—England. From the time when Columbus left the victorious Isabella at Grenada on down to our most recent efforts in Central America the discovery, settlement, unification, and development of the Americas has been one almost continuous record of war. The white race, Latin and Nordic, advanced to control of the continent only through a long succession of bloody wars against the native Indians. Both North and South America have attained relative unity and stability only after a succession of wars: first with the mother-countries, then with discordant elements within themselves. Practically every American state was involved in the World War. From the Rio Grande southward peace is imposed virtually by military dictatorship. The United States is expending more for armaments than at any time in the history of the nation outside of a major war.
The New World alone is isolated from the disorders of world adjustment by force. If civilization is to continue it must be from the Americas. And, frankly, we in the New World must recognize that only through superior strength, ultimately on the field of battle, is it possible to preserve our own independence and world civilization.
In this record of world history one fact stands out supreme. Only where sea power, in alliance with effective land power, has remained decisive has continued world peace existed. Military states such as Assyria, Persia, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and Germany have been able to attain local peace in local areas for a limited time, but never universally. Ultimately, only through sea power has world peace been attained. Only twice has such relative peace been secured: in the period of the Roman Empire under the Pax Romana of the Roman fleet and legions; and up to the World War under the Pax Britannica of the British fleet from Trafalgar to Jutland.
The reason is clear. Land power, due to the natural divisions of geography, is necessarily limited. It is necessarily local and being local cannot develop a universal civilization. Sea power, on the other hand), is relatively and then actually universal. The sea, with its extensions, permeates every part of the globe. Command of the sea both divides and localizes land power, thereby permitting concentration against weakened local units. On the other hand, sea power, flowing out from single protected states—Athens, Rome, England— is able to develop universal civilization.
This is the lesson distinctly imperative to the present world situation. With the break up of British influence based on British sea power there comes a period of local and regional states represented by Germany, Italy, France, England, Russia, and Japan. The United States and the United States alone has the isolation, the strength, and leadership to re-establish world civilization as the American Navy assumes leadership now slipping from England.
Evolution of Sea Power
Sea power goes back to the very beginning of time in legendary history. The legend of Atlantis, as told by Plato, is that of the rise and downfall of sea power. Civilization commences with sea power in the story of the Ark. Subsequent history is a record of the continued development of power at sea.
Both legend and history indicate that civilization started in the lower area of Mesopotamia adjacent to Suez. The Biblical tradition is that primitive man, after the flood, descended from the hill area of Armenia to the delta region of the Tigris-Euphrates valley, then much farther inland. From that area, symbolized by the Tower of Babel, mankind spread outward by land and sea to the whole earth.
The probability is that early civilization developing in the delta of the Tigris-Euphrates (Akkad-Sumer) spread eastward and westward along the water routes, eventually to Japan on the northeast and to England and the Baltic on the Northwest. This is the historic line of water route and civilization for the Old World. At any rate, by at least 1000 b.c. and perhaps much earlier, there was a thin line of local civilizations extending in the broad arc from England via the Mediterranean to Japan. By the beginning of the Christian Era this had developed into a belt of closely related civilization from Occident to Orient—Rome, Persia, India, China.
The reason is simple. A natural water route extends from England and the Baltic via the Mediterranean to Japan and Kamchatka. To the north, or inland, expends a succession of mountain ranges isolating the interior from the sea. Deserts and mountains repeat the process to the south. This leaves a belt of inhabitable area adjacent to the main sea route, with undeveloped backlands north and south. This is the belt of civilization working outward.
All subsequent history has been the record of the action and interaction of this belt of water-supported civilization in relation to the barbarian areas of Eurasia, Africa, and eventually Australia and the Americas. Civilization flowed with greater or less freedom along the water route from England to Japan, penetrating inward as permitted by the rivers, bays, and inland seas. In turn the barbarian masses of the interior broke in on this belt of civilization, disintegrating it temporarily, to establish a new type of civilization.
From the Biblical story of Noah going southward from the prediluvian sea power of the Ark to the new sea power of the Delta the whole story of history is a repetition of this action and reaction of sea and land power. Vigor is developed in the interior areas: civilization along the water routes. Civilization advances along these water routes, becomes rich and powerful, then decadent. Vigorous races from the interior—Mongolian, Semitic, Aryan— pushing downward to the belt of high civilization first attack, then conquer, and finally replace it by a new and more vigorous civilization of their own in a combination of old and new.
This is the record of history repeated over and over and over. It is now going on in our own day in the conflict between communism and fascism. From Mesopotamia civilization spread eastward to Persia, India, China, and Japan; with the subsequent successive invasions from the interior establishing the Persian, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese empires. From Mesopotamia it spread westward to Egypt, Crete, Aegean, Italy, Spain, France, England, the United States: establishing the successive Egyptian, Persian, Hellenic, Roman, Medieval, and British world empires. All civilization has flowed backward and forward from this original belt of sea power in the line from England to Japan.
It is not the purpose of this paper to trace in detail the rise of civilization in relation to sea power. That requires more time and space than can be given here. Suffice it to say that there has been a continuous and ever deepening belt of civilization along this arc, gradually penetrating outward to the interior land masses, until at present it has included virtually the whole world.
This general course of history may be divided into three eras:
Hamilic.—Extending down to the Christian Era in the West and in China and Japan to the present, including the Egyptian, Cretan, Babylonian, early Indian, and Chinese empires.
Semitic.—From around 1000 b.c. to 1000 a.d., including Assyria, Phoenicia, Carthage, the Jews, and the various Arab empires up to the Crusades, continued in Mohammedanism.
Aryan.—From around 1000 b.c. to the present, including the Persian, Hellenic, Roman, Medieval, British, and now American empires or spheres of influence.
By about 500 b.c.—with the rise of Persia, Greece, and Rome—the lead in civilization passed from the early Hamitic and Semitic civilizations to that of the Aryans and has continued in increasing measure ever since. At the beginning of the Christian Era the Roman Empire had become the dominant world state, continuing so for nearly 500 years. In the Medieval period power passed northward to the Franks, the Normans, and finally to the world dominant empire of Spain under Charles V (1556). Beginning with the Reformation leadership passed to the Baltic and North Sea, culminating in the world dominant British Empire, at the time of the World War including virtually the whole world in its influence. During the past half generation this leadership has shifted westward to the United States, eastward to Japan, and southward to Italy. The present is seeing perhaps a final stand of the non-Aryan races against the increasingly universal Aryan supremacy, as of the Latin races against Nordic leadership. World leadership, however, is definitely Aryan and Nordic.
If the record of history be studied more closely it is seen that the advance of every important empire or civilization has depended upon sea power. The extent of every important state has depended upon its ability to utilize the sea. Strictly land powers, such as Assyria, Persia, the Arabs, Franks, Turks, and Mongols—as Russia today—were blocked when they failed to develop sea power (e.g., Persia at Salamis) and fell back into dependence on the sea powers. States associated with sea power, as Egypt, Crete, Babylon, Athens, Carthage, Rome, Italy, Holland, England, and modern Japan, extended their influence. An apparent exception, China, has actually been a major sea power in its area both along the sea and through the extensive system of inland rivers and canals.
During recorded history of around 5,000 years only two states have approached world influence—Rome and England. The Roman Republic advanced to world leadership when it turned to the sea in the First Punic War, conquered Sicily, and associated the Roman fleet with the legions. To an extent far too little understood the universal Roman Empire was dependent even more upon sea than upon land power. It continued powerful until Constantine transferred the seat of government to Constantinople with resulting decay of its universal sea power. The record of British sea power has been made clear to every student of history in Mahan’s masterful studies.
It is a most significant fact that the modern era of world communications and world civilization has come only when British sea power had pushed eastward past Gibraltar, Sicily, and Suez to the Orient—completing the historic water route from England to Japan. In effect the Entente of the World War was this belt of civilization against the actual or potential interior land masses exterior to it.
Present world conditions are a continuation of this development. British civilization, resting upon British sea power controlling the sea route from England to Japan, reached its height just prior to the World War in the Anglo-Japanese alliance, defeating Russia and for a short time virtually subordinating the whole of the Old World to British influence. Present regional developments of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan—replacing the previous virtual world Pax Britannica— are traceable, directly to the failure of England to maintain sea supremacy at the Dardanelles and Jutland.
Sea power is the necessary foundation of civilization. When sea power flows freely through the natural sea routes world peace and civilization are possible. When this flow is interrupted, then civilization is disorganized and war follows. The only relatively stable periods of world civilization—those of Rome and England—were dependent upon the supremacy of Roman and British sea power. In both instances Weakening of sea power led directly to a Period of world war; first local, then regional, ultimately universal.
The reason for the dependence of civilization and peace upon sea power is axiomatic. Only when communication is free along the trade routes can civilization continue. This flow of communications must be protected by sea power, naval and mercantile. When a state such as England or Rome establishes supremacy at sea then relative peace and civilization follow. When this supremacy is lost communications are interrupted, peace is destroyed, civilization is localized, and a divided World turns to war in necessary selfprotection.
The only alternative to another period of world anarchy, as in the Dark Ages following the decay of Roman sea power, is the establishment of some dominant World sea power in succession to that of England.
Geography of Sea Power and World Peace
The inhabitable globe is divided into two main land masses united and yet separated by the water masses; the New World centering at the Panama isthmus canal; the Old World centering on the water route from England via the Mediterranean to Japan.
The pivotal line of world geography is along the line of the Panama-Gibraltar-Suez-Aden-Singapore naval bases, dividing the land masses into northern and southern blocs, subdivided again into Old and New World blocs. The natural water areas divide the world into five continental land masses: North and South America in the New World; Eurasia, Africa, and Australia in the Old World. Each of these divisions, with the possible exception of Australia, is moderately self-sufficient.
The historic line of world development has been outward from the Suez junction; westward via the Mediterranean and Gibraltar to the New World at Panama; eastward via the Red Sea and Singapore to the Pacific and then on to Panama. However, with the development of the New World the real center of world geography has moved from Suez to Panama. At this single point is concentrated the entire power of the New World in easy approach via water to all the main areas of the globe. It has the strength of a single position against divided local areas.
Historically, peace came to the Old World with first Roman and then British control of the Mediterranean. Limited peace existed in the New World with Spanish control of Panama and more universally with the rise of American control. Because of geographical conditions no point in the Old World gives geographical predominance. However, development of American control of Panama does give such predominance in actual unification of the New World and potential preponderance in the Old World.
- The New World, geographically, consists of two superimposed triangles, both pointing southward, united at Panama and supported by the Florida-West Indies chain at this junction. The backbone of the land mass is the mountain ridge extending from Alaska to the Horn, with both land masses narrowing to the continental divide at Panama. On the Pacific side there is only a narrow coastal plain between mountains and sea. On the Atlantic side the land masses broaden out to the broad humps of North and South America, with secondary mountain ranges parallel to the coast.
Since the water courses all flow downward from the mountains to the sea they all eventually center at Panama. Thus, from the Isthmus water routes penetrate the land masses interior to the mountains: the Hudson, St. Lawrence-Great Lakes, Mississippi, and coastal systems for North America; the Magdalena, Orinoco, Amazon, San Francisco, and Plata for South America. The Pacific coastal plain is easily accessible from the sea, with deep indentations in the Colorado, San Francisco Bay, and Columbia waterways. Sea power, based on Panama, penetrates practically all of the Americas from this single strategic point.
At the north the land mass flares out to contact the Old World via the Greenland- Iceland chain to Scandinavia and the Alaska-Aleutian chain to Asia, providing limited contact between the Old and New Worlds; otherwise the land masses are separated by the wide oceans.
A few island bases dominate the Americas: Newfoundland, Bermuda, Bahamas, West Indies, Falklands on the Atlantic; The Galapagos and Hawaii groups on the Pacific. Control of these islands controls the approach to the main coastal areas of the New World.
The New World is a self-sufficient continental land mass centering at Panama, with easy lines of water communications to all of its parts, controlled by the outlying island bases.
- The Old World.—Whereas the New World centers at a single point, Panama, with water communications to all interior areas, the Old World is divided and subdivided into largely self-sufficient local areas. Water communications are mainly exterior to the land mass, with limited passages inward. Moreover, such passages as do exist are interrupted by narrow straits controlled by the adjacent land.
The primary strategic factor of the Old World is the water route from England to Japan via Suez, with extensions inward in the Baltic and Okhotsk seas. England and Japan form controlling island groups respectively to the northwest and northeast, with the southern base in the Mediterranean and its extensions of the Black and Red Seas. This is the main geographical factor in Old World civilization.
The secondary geographical factor is that of the mountain ranges extending at various distances from the sea route from Kamchatka on the northeast via the Himalayas to the Alps and Vosges on the northwest. This leaves a narrow coastal belt in a series of pockets adjacent to the main water route, while the interior land mass from Lake Baikal westward is isolated from the sea except at the English Channel and is partly broken by the Ural and Carpathian mountains. Racial migrations can flow freely in the interior from Lake Baikal to the Channel, but are checked as they seek to reach the coastal area of high civilization. The coastal area of high civilization, also, can penetrate only slowly and with difficulty into the interior.
The resultant of this geographical situation is the alternation of civilization and barbarism. Successive coastal empires have risen along the water routes only to fall from invasion by the barbarians of the interior. Only slowly and with difficulty has civilization been able either to become universal along these water routes or to penetrate deeply into the interior land masses.
A secondary line of communication exists around Africa via Cape of Good Hope, from which limited penetration is possible into the interior of the African land mass. However, only one area, that of the Union of South Africa, is feasible for white settlement. During the past century there has been an increasing penetration of Africa in the way of colonial or semicolonial settlements.
The development of modern means of transportation is opening up a third alternative line via the Arctic. It is probable hat another generation will see this as a feasible seasonal and perhaps all year route for certain types of communication. However, this is matter for the future as he northern route is still of limited value.
The main line of communication in the Old World, now as in the past, is the route via the Mediterranean. This has been the traditional line of civilization and continues so for the immediate future. It is the only feasible continuous line across the Old World connecting the Atlantic and Pacific, the Occident and Orient.
However, whereas water communications from Panama flow inward and outward freely from a single point, the basic Old World water route is made up of a number of separate water basins connected by narrow passages controlled by the adjacent land positions. This creates a succession of basins: Baltic, North Sea, Atlantic, Mediterranean, Black Sea, Red Sea, Indian Ocean, China-Yellow-Japan seas, Okhotsk. Dividing these basins are the straits of Denmark, British Channel, Gibraltar, Sicily, Dardanelles, Suez, Bab el Mandeb, Singapore, Formosa, Tsushima, Sakhalin. Communication is free only when all these passages are controlled by a single state. This has existed only once in a limited way with British sea power up to the World War. Otherwise the main water route is divided into local or regional areas each cut off from the other by land-controlled straits.
From none of these regional and separated basins is there a deep penetration inward to the interior land mass. The only partial exception is that of the Russian rivers from the Baltic and Black Sea. Passage inward is difficult and limited via the Rhine, Danube, Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, Yangtze, Hwang, Amur. The land mass of Eurasia-Africa is controlled but not penetrated by a sea power.
The result of this geographical situation, historically as at present, is to divide the Old World into two opposing areas: the area of High Civilization along the main water route; the area of Low Civilization of the interior; with barriers of mountain, desert, and climate separating the two. The areas of both high and low civilization, moreover, are again subdivided into regional pockets communicating only with difficulty with other regional pockets.
Where the New World has been opened up to settlement and civilization within a few generations, almost as many thousands of years have left the Old World divided and subdivided. Whereas rapid settlement permitted uniformity of development in the New World, regional subdivision has developed deeply rooted local and regional pockets in the Old World. Only a terrific upheaval, wiping out these regional differences, can break down these pockets and unite the continents.
Thus the geographical situation of the Old World is such that no single state, however powerful, can dominate the land mass, and only with difficulty, as with England, influence it. Universal peace has been and is possible only for short periods. The natural elements of conflict make continued friction seemingly inevitable until air power establishes a universal means of communication independent of sea and land. Not until this comes can the Old World hope to secure a period of universal peace and a common civilization.
- Old and New Worlds.—The previous discussion has shown that Panama provides a natural strategic center for the New World from which efficient water communications radiate to all important areas. In the Old World no single point dominates the land mass, which is broken up into regional and local pockets, the nearest approach to a historical unity being in the Mediterranean basin. Geographically, the New World is organized for unity; the Old World for division.
This explains the present and past world situations. Spanish and now American control of Panama establishes relative peace in the New World. Only for short times, as with the Roman and British empires, is even regional peace possible in the Old World. It is the situation of a united New World versus a disunited Old World.
Up to 1776 the New World was dominated by the Old World. From the Declaration of Independence onward not only has the New World become increasingly independent but it has also exerted increasing influence upon the older area. The geographical situation tends to accelerate this influence. As the United States in control of Panama effects increasing unity in the New World it becomes increasingly able to exert a pacifying effect upon the world at large. The situation is that of a powerful, relatively united, and self-sufficient democracy exerting pressure from a single strategic point against greater but divided and insufficient world areas.
The conclusion, geographically, is that world peace can develop only in so far as the United States, working outward from Panama, is able to exert a pressure for peace upon the divided Old World areas. Left to itself the Old World tends naturally and geographically to war. Peace, in so far as it comes, must come from the influence of the New World co-operating with local or regional groups in the Old World. This influence depends upon the effectiveness of American sea power.
Resultants of Geography and History
The historical and geographical line of civilization is that of the water route from England via the Mediterranean to Japan, pushing outward along the lines of communications. At the close of the fifteenth century this advance jumped across the Atlantic to control of the strategic center of the New World at Panama. Since then the New World has exerted an increasing influence upon world affairs.
The practical resultant of this situation is that as the United States advanced to world leadership through control of Panama it is able to exert an increasingly effective influence for world peace. Initially this may have to be exerted through war to break down the isolation of local pockets. Ultimately, however, it both can and must be exerted to develop peace and unity out of division.
The basic strategic consideration is the ability of an increasingly world dominant sea power in control of the strategic center of world influence at Panama, hence of the Old as of the New World, to exert such pressure upon the Old World as will compel settlement of disputes and permit free movement of ideas and goods over the natural trade routes of the world. This was accomplished in a limited way in the Roman Empire; to a much greater extent in the British Empire; now, potentially for the United States through American sea power.
As sea power has advanced from the coastal galley to the ship of the line and now through the steamship to Diesel drive there has come a corresponding adjustment in its influence. The galley, limited to coastal communications, could control only a narrow coastal strip in the sea power of Egypt, Crete, Persia, Athens, Carthage, and Rome. The ship of the line, pushing out into the oceans, could control a much larger area impracticable to the galley. The steamship and now the Diesel development open possibilities of world unification.
The Roman Empire, built up on the coordination of galley and legion, included only the coastal plain adjacent to the Mediterranean and its extensions. The British Empire and sphere of influence, built on the ship of the line and continued through the steamship, influenced practically all world areas within reach of the sea; breaking down, however, in contact with the interior land mass of Eurasia in Germany and Russia. American influence spends upon the utilization of the new possibilities of the internal-combustion engine in land, sea, and air means of transportation and communication.
The Roman galley broke down as effective sea power when it encountered the difficult seas to the north and east of the Mediterranean. British sea power broke down when modern armaments gave control to the adjacent land powers of the narrow passages of the Danish and British Straits, Gibraltar, the Dardanelles—and now Sicily, Suez, and Bab el Mandeb with reference to Italy. If the United States is to establish world peace it must develop a new type of sea power.
This is now taking place in the transition from the steam-driven battleship and supporting cruisers and destroyers to the newer type of internal-combustion engined ships, particularly submarines and aircraft. The World War showed the inability of steam-driven craft, naval or mercantile, to actively use the water areas in the face of the newer type. Only through the pressure of land power was Germany forced to surrender the submarine. Now, the infernal-combustion engine offers possibilities of a revolution as drastic as the transition from galley to ship of the line and then to the steamship.
This requires adjustment of sea power to technical engineering, as also to geographical and political conditions in a co-ordination of sea, land, and air power. The shift from the Mediterranean to Panama requires a corresponding technical adjustment.
The World War showed the impossibility of defending the main water routes against an able naval state resorting to modern warfare. The Italian and Italian-Spanish developments have shown the ability of a land power (military-air) adjacent to narrow strategic passages to control these and thereby cut vital lines of communication. England lost the war at the Dardanelles and world leadership at Jutland due to inability to make adjustment to modern warfare. The British Empire is now facing disintegration because of Italian mastery of Gibraltar, the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Suez, and Bab el Mandeb (Ethiopia).
Sea power today cannot insure communications in time of war, certainly not past narrow straits and possibly not on the high seas. Temporarily, sea power is forced to yield to land and local air power. The effect is to virtually paralyze all water communications except within easily protected inland or coastal areas protected by land power.
This has a staggering effect on world conditions. No nation not economically self-sufficient can hope to successfully engage in war. Modern air warfare has placed the capitals and industries of all major powers, except the United States and limited areas of Russia, within striking distance of their opponents. The result is potential universal destruction in case of continued warfare. Modern warfare depends upon modern industry; industry depends on communications and factories; yet both communications and factories are subject to quick destruction in case of war—paralyzing warfare.
The United States alone is an exception to this universal situation. This nation is self-sufficient for a considerable period of time and protected from attack by the Navy. The New World, in support of the United States, is completely self-sufficient and impregnable to almost any type of attack. The United States and the New World remain intact in the face of potential world destruction.
The American fleet, based upon the Panama Canal and operating from a selfsufficient continental base, has it within its power in case of war to paralyze the trade routes of the world while protecting the New World from major attack. In case of a world upheaval or the necessity of intervention American sea power can isolate and then influence the local or regional areas of the Old World through its sea power concentrated strategically at Panama. Under this pressure—peacefully if possible, by war if necessary—the United States can compel peace as under President Wilson.
The New World under American leadership, as emphasized by President Roosevelt’s South American trip, is relatively united, self-sufficient, and able to concentrate decisive though inferior naval force at the strategic points. The Old World is divided into opposing and historically antagonistic states. There is no practical possibility of an effective Old World union against this country.
This means that American sea power, centered at Panama, is not merely the defender of American policies but is actually enforcer of world peace. What Rome did in the ancient world and England in later times up to Dardanelles and Jutland, this country must do for the future. The only alternative is world anarchy. American intervention in 1917 destroyed the Central Powers and precipitated world upheaval. American withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1920 precipitated the world economic crisis. American refusal to support sanctions against Italy in 1936 permitted the rise to world leadership of fascism and virtual disintegration of British world leadership. American action, positive or negative, determines world peace—for weal or for woe.
The question arises, therefore, how can American sea power be made effective for peace without involving greater action than this nation will face?
The answer is relatively simple. Modern instruments of warfare, positively and negatively, have placed within American hands the means to effectively enforce world peace at a comparatively low cost in national effort. The secret lies in world geography, as explained previously, in relation to American isolation and institutions.
The United States alone is self-sufficient for some months at least—a time sufficient to establish American leadership in the New World and make the American sphere of influence definitely and fully self-sufficient. This establishes this nation as a self-sufficient democracy able to take its time to effect the transition from peace to war. The fleet, so long as it is based strategically on Panama, can protect this self-sufficiency.
The Old World is necessarily divided into regional and competing groups- Germany controls the Kiel Canal and indirectly the Danish Straits. England controls the Channel and indirectly the Norwegian Straits. Italy controls the Mediterranean and Red Sea from Gibraltar to Bab el Mandeb. The British Empire controls the Indian Ocean based on South Africa, Australia, India. Japan controls the western Pacific except for British influence at Singapore and Australia and American influence at Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, and China.
None of these areas is economically selfsufficient in the face of a prolonged war. Closing of exports from the New World stops essentials such as cotton, surplus oil, lumber, nitrates, and surplus foodstuffs. An all-American embargo can go a long way to limit if not avert a prolonged Old World war. Support by the British Dominions—Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, India—greatly strengthens this pressure.
This influence thrown to one side or the other in a prolonged conflict is sufficient, as in the World War, to effect a decision.
Behind a peaceful embargo lies the threat of the American fleet. The scouting fleet, supported by the battle force, thrown upon the trade routes of the world can paralyze all sea-borne commerce. The lesson of France in the French wars, of the Revolution, and 1812, of Germany in the World War, shows the effectiveness of commerce destruction by an able naval state from a continental base. If supported by battle force this effect, as Mahan shows, is decisive.
This situation applies immediately to existing construction. The World War showed the power of American shipyards emergency work. Under war conditions he scouting fleet—cruisers, seagoing destroyers, submarines, carriers—could be turned out on a quantity basis sufficient to drive home the effect of the present routing force. American war construction has tremendous possibilities.
Beyond present types of construction lies the power of American engineering skill to utilize modern technical developments based upon the internal-combustion engine and modern science. The United States already possesses by odds the largest seagoing air force in the world, and can be indefinitely supported by wartime construction. The Diesel engine, with fuel economy, permits American cruising craft to cover the world, supplied by the largest oil reserves in existence. Developments in radio control and other technical lines offer possibilities for American inventive skill continuing the influence of the clipper ship, monitor, torpedo, submarine, airplane, and aircraft carrier. The past has amply demonstrated the possibilities of American ingenuity when burned from peace to war.
The United States, taking its time behind the protection of the fleet, can develop an effective war machine expressed through sea power able, if necessary, to enforce peace against a divided Old World.
American democracy, as exemplified by the leadership of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, and the Roosevelts, is not of the type to subject the world by force as with the Roman and British imperial oligarchies. Rather, the American ideal is that of a quiet penetration of American influence persuading acceptance by its merits, as in the increasing preponderance of American institutions from 1776 to 1936 without foreign intervention except to preserve essential American interests as in 1898 and 1917. Only when the peaceful pursuit of these interests is interfered with by force has this nation resorted to force.
The challenge today of American sea power is not that of a ruthless militarism which would subordinate to itself unwilling races and exploit them in the interest of a greedy plutocracy. That phase of American expansion, weak as it was, has been stamped out by the reaction of the American public in the elections of 1930, 1932, 1934, and 1936. If this nation ever does again turn to war it will be only because the American people are forced into it to protect American and world rights, as in 1917.
The issue at stake is not that of an expanding American imperialism against a resisting Old World civilization but rather the necessity of American democracy, as in 1917-1918, interfering to protect the basic rights of American and world civilization against the exploitation of unscrupulous dictators or oligarchies enslaving both their own and adjacent peoples to their autocratic rule. As in the wars of 1776 and 1812 against England, of 1898 against Spain, of 1917 against Germany, American intervention in war has been to protect the vital interests of the opposing nation against the reactionary influence of a ruling oligarchy destroying the traditions of its own past. It is not for imperialism but for civilization America has fought.
The situation must be faced frankly and squarely that geographical - conditions make Old World unity impossible. For a short time, as with the Roman or British empires, a powerful sea power supported by military strength, can enforce limited peace in a limited area. However, sooner or later the forces of disintegration interrupt this work and force a new series of wars.
The geographical situation is that American sea power based upon control of Panama not merely unites the New World under American leadership but also provides the only possible source of world peace and unity. It provides such peace and stability within the New World as American leadership considers necessary. It is able to interfere in the Old World from a strategic center at strategic points and times.
The initial effort, necessarily, must be destructive. Before peace and unity can be established the discordant elements must be broken down—by force if there is no other alternative. Much if not most of this destruction comes from within the Old World itself, as in the World War. Only at the decisive time need this nation intervene and then, as in that action, with relatively minor effort.
Sea power is the effective means whereby this can be done. Sea power does not destroy liberty at home, nor abroad, because it can influence, not dominate, any given area. It supports but does not destroy reason, as with military power. Sea power is the most efficient way whereby a single powerful state, strategically located, can exert its influence on locally divided states. Modern technical developments have given to the United States such possibilities as existed previously for the Roman and British empires in a program of world democracy along American traditions of the past.
Conclusions
In a world of increasing disorder leading to another world conflict the United States alone stands unaffected and secure. By a decisive succession of popular votes the American people have definitely accepted both the policies and the personality of Franklin Roosevelt. The United States alone of all the nations of the won is united by popular decision behind an effective leader.
This influence can be exerted in a decisive way. Domestic problems are in process of solution. Economic recovery is definitely on the way. Principles have been decided by the elections of 1930, 1932, 1934, and 1936. Details, however difficult, can be worked out through constitutional or legislative means. The United States, having adjusted itself in principle and increasingly in practice to the logical implications of the Declaration of Independence, is free to extend that influence to the world as under Jefferson, Polk, and Wilson.
United at home in a rapid recovery from depression, the nation under its popularly elected President is in a position to exert its natural influence in world affairs. This leadership continues the historical development of American institutions in a logical working out of American influence based upon natural geographical conditions. It can be both effective and decisive.
As in 1914-1918, the United States, ultimately, must intervene in world policies to avoid world anarchy in the breakdown of civilization. That ultimate action being inevitable, both nation and leadership should prepare for this action. In a democracy it is necessary that there be time for mental and spiritual as well as material preparation. The World War showed the danger of mental unpreparedness facing the cost and horrors of modern warfare. Spiritual preparedness is needed today even more than material preparedness, however great.
The conclusions of this paper are based upon the accepted facts of history and geography. The geographical configuration of the Old World is such that a line of civilization has developed via the water routes in a belt of varying width from England to Japan via the Mediterranean. To the north and south of this area of high civilization lie areas of actual or comparative low civilization. The areas of both high and low civilization are divided and subdivided into pockets. Consequently, the Old World necessarily is forced into continued conflict. In opposition to this position is the geographical and historical unity of the New World based upon Panama.
The inference is clear. Old World influence upon the New World came to a shift in the Revolutionary period following the Declaration of Independence—for both Latin and Anglo-Saxon America. Since then American influence in increasing measure has flowed outward and backward upon the Old World. With the increasing control by the United States upon Panama this influence becomes increasingly effective. It was positive in the war period; negative in the reaction from that undertaking; it is again becoming positive.
As a result of American intervention in the World War and of American failure to develop the results of this intervention the Old World is drawing rapidly towards a new and far more terrible conflict. There is no basis of stabilization. The British Empire, checked at the Dardanelles and Jutland, is disintegrating under fascist pressure. Geographical and historical conditions make the replacement of England by any single state a virtual impossibility. The alternative to world anarchy leading to a succession of increasingly bloody wars is American intervention, negatively at first in enforced neutrality; ultimately positively in definite naval action.
History has shown that not only is naval action the most economical of all military actions but also the most effective. Land power at tremendous cost has gained limited victories, only to see the fruit pass away before sea power. On the other hand, the victories of sea power have persisted, as with Greece, Rome, and England, long after the fleet which established this power passed away.
That is the challenge of the present. Without universal sea power it is impossible to establish world peace. British sea power, like that of Athens, Rome, Venice, Spain, and Holland, is passing into the discard. Unless that of this country replace it in world leadership a new Dark Age is certain—nor could this country escape.
Modern technical developments, both on land and at sea as in air force, have placed in the hands of the American fleet an effective supremacy at sea hitherto undreamed of. In Panama the United States possesses the strategic position in world geography. So long as the fleet controls the Canal not merely the United States but the New World remains a united, peaceful, and self-sufficient area. United and self-sufficient in the New World, American influence can be exerted, potentially or actually, to paralyze the trade routes of the world. It is within the power of the American fleet to paralyze, localize, and eventually destroy all world communications and therewith all Old World strength—military as well as economic and political.
The alternative, then, which this country offers to increasing world disorganization and increasing threat of war is American leadership in a continuation of American democracy increasingly world-wide since 1776. Democracy finds expression in effective sea power at the strategic center of world influence at Panama. Will it be used for peace or anarchy?
Upon American sea power depends the peace of the world.