Organized force alone enables the quiet and the weak to go about their business and to sleep securely in their beds, safe from the violent without or within.

Whether they will or not, Americans must now begin to look outward. The growing production of the country demands it.

The history of sea power is largely, though by no means solely, a narrative of contests between nations, of mutual rivalries, of violence frequently culminating in war. The profound influence of sea commerce upon the...