Strategy declares, however, that a coast guard may be needed a very short time after war breaks out; and that the vessels and the men, with all the necessary equipment and all the necessary organization and training, should be put into actual operation beforehand.
Not only the fleet, however, but all the bureaus and offices of the Navy Department, all the navy-yards, and an the radio stations, recruiting stations, hydrographic offices, training stations, and agencies for securing information from foreign countries, will have to pass instantly from a peace basis to a war basis.

To do these things quickly and correctly many preliminaries must be arranged; but if the General Staff prepares good plans beforehand, arranges measures which will insure that the plans shall be promptly carried out, and holds a few mobilization drills to test them, the various bureaus and offices in the department can do the rest.

If the fires have all been lighted, the engine gotten ready, and the boilers filled in time, the engineer may open the throttle confidently, when the critical time arrives, for the engine will surely do its part.
But if the proper plans have not been made and executed, the sudden outbreak of war, in which any country becomes involved with a powerful naval country, will create confusion on a scale larger than any that the world has ever seen, and compared with which pandemonium would be a Quaker meeting.

A realization of facts will come to that country, and especially to the naval authorities, that will overwhelm them with the consciousness of their inability to meet the crisis marching toward them with swift but unhurried tread--confident, determined, unescapable.

Fear of national danger and the sense of shame, hopelessness and helplessness will combine to produce psychological effects so keen that even panic will be possible.
Officers in high places at sea and on shore will send telegrams of inquiry and suggestion; civilians in public and private station will do the same.