If from the social standpoint no sacrifice can be considered too great which promotes the maintenance of national military efficiency, the increase in these sacrifices due to political conditions must be willingly and cheerfully borne, in consideration of the object thereby to be gained.

This object--of which each individual must be conscious--if conceived in the true spirit of statesmanship, comprises the conditions which are decisive for the political and moral future of the State as well as for the livelihood of each individual citizen.
A civilization which has a value of its own, and thus forms a vital factor in the development of mankind, can only flourish where all the healthy and stimulating capacities of a nation find ample scope in international competition.

This is also an essential condition for the unhindered and vigorous exercise of individual activities.

Where the natural capacity for growth is permanently checked by external circumstances, nation and State are stunted and individual growth is set back.
Increasing political power and the consequent multiplication of possibilities of action constitute the only healthy soil for the intellectual and moral strength of a vigorous nation, as is shown by every phase of history.
The wish for culture must therefore in a healthy nation express itself first in terms of the wish for political power, and the foremost duty of statesmanship is to attain, safeguard, and promote this power, by force of arms in the last resort.

Thus the first and most essential duty of every great civilized people is to prepare for war on a scale commensurate with its political needs.