Search -
The Problem of Asia and Its Effect upon International Policies
The Problem of Asia and Its Effect upon International Policies Author:A. T. Mahan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: States have been by long habit indifferent to the subject of external policies. They have been so not only as the result of our particular circumstances of isola... more »tion, but by deliberate intention, inherited from a day when such abstinence was better justified than now, and depended upon a well-known, though misunderstood, warning of Washington against entangling alliances. Under changed conditions of the world, from the influence of which we cannot escape, it is imperative to arouse to the necessity of conscious effort, in order to recognize and to understand broad external problems, not merely as matters of general information or of speculative interest, but as questions in which we ourselves have, or may have, the gravest direct concern, as affecting ourselves or our children. It is by such long views that is developed the readiness of decision, in unexpected conjunctures of international politics, which corresponds to presence of mind in common life ; for ordinarily presence of mind means preparedness of mind, through previous reflection upon possible contingencies. The need of such readiness — of sustained apprehension of actual and of probable future conditions — receives the clearest demonstration from our recent experience. What more sudden or less expected, what, in a word, more illustrative of a short view resulting in decisive action, taken at a moment's notice, can be adduced than that a war begun with Spain about Cuba should result in tendering us the position of an Asiatic Power, with the consequent responsibilities and opportunities ? Evidently a mind prepared by deliberation upon contemporary occurrences and tendencies is no mean equipment for prompt decision in such a case. It is in no wise a disconnected incident that the United States has been suddenly drawn ou...« less