The recruit who begins his service to-day requires a year's training to become a useful soldier.
With the hasty training of substitute reservists and such expedients, we merely deceive ourselves as to the necessity of serious preparations.

We must not regard the present only, but provide for the future.
The same argument applies to the political conditions.

The man who makes the bulk of the preparations for war dependent on the shifting changes of the politics of the day, who wishes to slacken off in the work of arming because no clouds in the political horizon suggest the necessity of greater efforts, acts contrary to all real statesmanship, and is sinning against his country.
The moment does not decide; the great political aspirations, oppositions, and tensions, which are based on the nature of things--these turn the scale.
When King William at the beginning of the sixties of the last century undertook the reorganization of the Prussian army, no political tension existed.

The crisis of 1859 had just subsided.

But the King had perceived that the Prussian armament was insufficient to meet the requirements of the future.