Russia has suddenly discovered that a corrupt bureaucracy is incapable of a national organization as efficient as modern military and political competition requires.

It was desirable in the interest of the Austrians, the Hungarians, and the Russians, that these weaknesses should be exposed; and if the Christian states of the West ever become so organized that their weaknesses are concealed until their consequences become irremediable, Western civilization itself will be on the road to decline.

The Atlantic Ocean will, in the long run, fail to offer the United States any security from the application of the same searching standards.

Its democratic institutions must be justified, not merely by the prosperity which they bestow upon its own citizens, but by its ability to meet the standards of efficiency imposed by other nations.
Its standing as a nation is determined precisely by its ability to conquer and to hold a dignified and important place in the society of nations.
The inference inevitably is that the isolation which has meant so much to the United States, and still means so much, cannot persist in its present form.

Its geographical position will always have a profound influence on the strategic situation of the United States in respect to the European Powers.