The immense aggregate numbers resident elsewhere in the United States cannot be transfered thither to meet an emergency, nor contribute effectively to remedy this insufficiency; neither can a land force on the defensive protect, if the way of the sea is open.
In such opposition of smaller numbers against larger, nowhere do organisation and development count as much as in navies.

Nowhere so well as on the sea can a general numerical inferiority be compensated by specific numerical superiority, resulting from the correspondence between the force employed and the nature of the ground.

It follows strictly, by logic and by inference, that by no other means can safety be insured as economically and as efficiently.

Indeed, in matters of national security, economy and efficiency are equivalent terms.

The question of the Pacific is probably the greatest world problem of the twentieth century, in which no great country is so largely and directly interested as is the United States.