Another illustration was that of the Russians in the war of 1904; the practical disadvantages under which the Russian fleet operated at Tsushima were too great to be balanced by the advantage of the attack; especially as the situation was such that the Japanese were able to foretell with enough accuracy for practical purposes the place where the attack would be delivered, and the time.
Operations on the sea, like operations on the land, consist in opposing force to force, in making thrusts and making parries.
If two men or two ships contend in a duel, or if two parallel columns--say of ten ships each--are drawn up abreast each other, the result will depend mainly on the hitting and enduring powers of the combatants; the conditions of the "stand-up fight" are realized, and there is little opportunity for strategy to exert itself.
But if any country--say the United States--finds herself involved in war with--say a powerful naval Power or Powers of Europe, and the realization of the fact comes with the suddenness that characterized the coming of war in August, 1914, and we hear the same day that a fleet of battleships, battle cruisers, destroyers, submarines, aircraft, and auxiliaries has left the enemy's country, followed by a fleet of transports carrying troops--there will be immediate need for strategy of the most skilful kind; and this need will continue until either the United States or her enemy has been made to acknowledge herself beaten, and to sue for peace.
As such a war will be mainly naval, and as naval wars are characterized by great concentration of force, by each side getting practically all its naval force into the contest, by each side staking its all on the issue of perhaps a single battle (as the Russians and Japanese did at Tsushima) one fleet or the other will be practically annihilated, and its country will be exposed naked to the enemy.
The first effort on hearing of the departure of the hostile fleet will be, of course, to get our fleet out to sea, reinforced as much as practicable, by our reserve ships; and to get the coast-guard on their patrol stations.

As we should not know the destination of the enemy, we should either have to assume a destination and send our fleet to that place (leaving the other places undefended) or else send our fleet out to sea to some position from which it would despatch scouts in different directions to intercept the enemy, in order that our fleet might meet it and prevent its farther advance.
Of course, the latter procedure could not be carried out reasonably, unless we had a great enough number of trained scouts to make the interception of the enemy fleet probable; because otherwise the probabilities would be that an enemy having the battle cruisers and scouts that European navies have, would succeed in evading our fleet and landing a force upon our shores; and it could not be carried out reasonably either, if we knew that our fleet was markedly inferior to the coming fleet; because to send out our fleet to meet a much more powerful one in actual battle would be to commit national suicide by the most expeditious method.
In case the departure of the enemy fleet occurred in the stormy months of the winter, we might feel warranted in guessing that its immediate destination was the Caribbean; yet if our fleet were in the Caribbean at the time, and if our coast lacked shore defenses as at present, we might argue that the enemy would take the opportunity to make a direct descent upon our coast, seize a base--say on the eastern end of Long Island--and march directly on New York.

It would be very difficult to plan the development of a line of scouts in such a way that the scouts would intercept an attack directed at some unknown point between Boston and the West Indies, perhaps in the southern part of the West Indies--say Margarita Island.
In fact, it would be impossible; with the result that, unless we intercepted it by simple good luck, the enemy would succeed in landing a force on our eastern coast, or else in the seizing of a base in the West Indies or the southern part of the Caribbean Sea.
Either one of these acts, successfully performed by an enemy, would give him an advantage; that is, it would make his position relatively to ours better than it was before.

It would have the same effect, therefore, as winning a battle; in fact it would constitute the winning of a battle--not a physical battle but a strategic battle.
It may be objected that, unless we knew our fleet to be more powerful it would be wiser and more comfortable for all concerned to withdraw our ships to the shelter of their bases, and let the enemy do his worst--on the theory that he could not do anything else so ruinous to us as to sink our fleet.
There is of course considerable reasonableness in this point of view; and strategy declares the unwisdom of engaging in battles that are sure to be lost.

It must be remembered, however, that the coming fleet will operate at a considerable strategic disadvantage, owing to the necessity for guarding the "train" of auxiliary ships that will come with it, holding fuel and supplies of various kinds; that this handicap will offset a considerable advantage in offensive strength; and that the handicap will be still greater if the enemy fleet have near it a flotilla of transports carrying troops.