Of the needs of Great Britain, British officers should be the best judge, although even there there is divergence of opinion; but to his own countrymen the author would say that our experience has shown that adequate protection of a frontier, by permanent works judiciously planned, conduces to the energetic prosecution of offensive war.
"Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles"
Alfred T. Mahan
At the same time, however, that attention is thus called to the inevitable and far-reaching effect of such antecedent neglects, shown in directions where men would not ordinarily have expected them, it is necessary to check exaggeration of coast defence, in extent or in degree, by remarking that in any true conception of war, fortification, defence, inland and sea-coast alike, is of value merely in so far as it conduces to offensive operations.
"Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles"
Alfred T. Mahan
Good is whatever conduces to the increase of my power,-evil is whatever tends to diminish it!
"Prophets of Dissent Essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy"
Otto Heller