=Peace Strategy.= The strategy of successful war involves the strategy of peace. This has been true from the days when David with his sling-shot slew Goliath, down to the present moment. We don’t always think of it in connection with war, but back of every successful war has been preparation during peace. It may have been incidental preparation such as the training of men in fighting Indians, and in creating public sentiment favorable to an independent nation that preceded the Revolutionary War. It may, on the other hand, have been a deeply studied policy such as that of the Germans prior to the World War. They tried and generally quite successfully, to coördinate all peace activities toward the day when a war should come that would decide the future destiny of the German Empire, and it was only because of that study in peace that Germany almost single-handed was able to stand out for more than four years against the world. The Allies came near losing that war because they did not appreciate that the strategy of efficient war had to be preceded by the strategy of peace. =Chemical Warfare an Example.= Chemical warfare is a particularly good example of this fact. Prior to the World War we had acknowledged, and without any misgivings, that Germany led the world in chemistry, that it produced most of the dyes in the world, and to a large extent the medicines of the world. We felt that when American needs showed it to be advisable we could take up chemistry and chemical production and soon excel the Germans. We had not reckoned on the suddenness of war. We were just getting ready with chemicals, and that included powders and high explosives, when the war closed. And yet we had had not only eighteen months’ intensive preparation after our own entry into the World War, but also the preparation of great steel institutions and powder factories for nearly three years in manufacturing supplies for the Allies who preceded us in the war. =Coal Tar.= The World War opened the eyes of England, France and Japan as well as the United States. Each of them today is struggling to build up a great chemical industry as the very foundation of successful war. Few of us realized prior to the World War that in the black, sticky mess called coal tar from the coking of coal or the manufacture of gas from coal and oil, was stored up most of the high explosives used in war, the majority of the poison gases, a great deal of the medicines of the world, and nearly all the dyes of the world. The Germans realized it and in their control over methods of using this material, together with the great commercial plants developed to manufacture it, as well as with the trained personnel that must go with such plants, were enabled, when blockaded on land and sea, to furnish the munitions, the clothing and the food needed for four and one-half years of war.