committed to a formal announcement to that effect.[117] Such relations between states are primarily the concern of the statesman, a matter of international policies; but they are also among the data which the strategist, naval as well as land, has to consider, because they are among the elements which determine the constitution and size of the national fleet. I here quote with approval a statement of the French Captain Darrieus: “Among the complex problems to which the idea of strategy gives rise there is none more important than that of the constitution of the fleet; and every project which takes no account of the foreign relations of a great nation, nor of the material limit fixed by its resources, rests upon a weak and unstable base.” I repeat also the quotation from Von der Goltz: “We must have a _national_ strategy, a _national_ tactics.” I cannot too entirely repudiate any casual word of mine, reflecting the tone which once was so traditional in the navy that it might be called professional,—that “political questions belong rather to the statesman than to the military man.” I find these words in my old lectures, but I very soon learned better, from my best military friend, Jomini; and I believe that no printed book of mine endorses the opinion that external politics are of no professional concern to military men. It was in accordance with this changed opinion that in 1895, and again in 1897, I summed up European conditions as I conceived them to be; pointing out that the distinguishing feature at that time was substantial equilibrium on the Continent, constituting what is called the Balance of Power; and, in connection with the calm thus resulting, an immense colonizing movement, in which substantially all the great Powers were concerned. This I indicated as worthy of the notice of naval strategists, because there were parts of the American continents which for various reasons might attract upon themselves this movement, in disregard of the Monroe Doctrine.