With Australia, including the Northern Territory, populated and defended, the strategical position of the British Empire on the Asiatic flank of the Pacific Ocean could be organised on a sound basis. An Imperial Fleet, contributed to by the Mother Country, by Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and the Crown Colonies, having a rallying point at Singapore, could hold the Indian Ocean (which is to the Pacific what the Mediterranean is to the Atlantic) as a "British lake," and this powerful naval force would straddle the centre of the western littoral of the ocean, keeping secure the British communities in the south from the Asiatic communities in the north, and ready to respond to a call from Canada. On the western, as on the eastern flank, there is present all the "raw material" for Fleets and armies—great supplies of coal, oil, timber, metals, fecund fishing grounds, and enormous areas of agricultural and pastoral territory.
When the strategical position of the United States in the Pacific comes to be examined, it is found to be for the moment one full of anxiety. The Power which may, five years hence, have undisputed hegemony of the ocean, holds a difficult position there to-day. The map will show that if the United States had had no expansion ideas at all, in the Pacific or elsewhere, national safety demanded that she should stretch out her arm to take in the Hawaiian Islands. This group, if held by an enemy, would be as a sword pointed to the heart of the Pacific States of the Republic: but held by the United States it is a buckler against any enemy from south or west. A foe approaching the United States Pacific coast would inevitably seek to occupy first the Hawaiian Islands and use them as a base: and just as surely would not dare to pass those islands leaving there an American Fleet. With Honolulu Harbour strongly fortified and sheltering a Fleet of any real fighting strength, the Pacific coast of the United States is safe from invasion by sea (invasion by land from Canada hardly needs to be considered; nor from Mexico). At the present time Honolulu is in the process of being fortified rather than is fortified: and a powerful American Fleet awaits the completion of the Panama Canal before it can enter the Pacific without leaving the Atlantic coast of the Republic unduly exposed.
The Philippine Islands, too, are a source of anxiety rather than of strength at present. When the Panama Canal has been completed and Honolulu fortified, and the Philippines mark the terminal point of an American Fleet patrol, their strategical weight will count in the other scale, for they will then give the American Power a strong vedette post in the waters of a possible enemy. Any attack from the Pacific on the United States would in prudence have to be preceded by the reduction of the Philippines, or at least their close investment. Yet the temporary loss of the group would inflict no great disadvantage on the American plan of campaign. Thus the enemy could not afford to leave the Philippines alone, and yet would gain no decisive advantage from the sacrifices necessary to secure them. In the case of a war in which the United States was acting on the offensive against an Asiatic Power, the Philippines would be of great value as an advanced base.
The ultimate strategical position of the United States in the Pacific cannot be forecasted until there is a clearer indication of how far she proposes to carry a policy of overseas expansion. But in the near future it can be seen that she will keep on the high seas one great Fleet, its central rallying point being probably Cuba, with the Galapagos Islands, San Francisco, Honolulu and Manila as the Pacific bases. At present the Galapagos belong to Ecuador, and Ecuador does not seem disposed to "lease" them to the United States. But that difficulty will probably be overcome, since the United States must have an advance guard to protect the Panama Canal on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic side. Viewed from a purely defensive standpoint, such a strategical position is sound and courageous. If offensive action is contemplated, on the Asiatic mainland for example, a military force far greater than that existing to-day in the United States must be created.
Japan has consolidated a sound strategical position by the annexation of Corea, Russian naval power having ceased to exist in the Pacific. Japan now holds the Sea of Japan as her own Narrow Water. The possibility of a hostile China making a sea attack can be viewed without dread, for naturally and artificially the Japanese naval position is very strong. Holding the Sea of Japan as securely as she does, Japan may also consider that her land frontier on the mainland is more accessible to her bases than to the bases of any possible enemy.
Russia has been harshly criticised for the conception of naval strategy which gave her one Fleet in the Baltic, another in the Black Sea, and a third in the Pacific. But she was forced by her geographical position into a "straggle" policy. It is extremely unlikely that she will now adopt the policy, recommended to her in some quarters, of concentrating naval strength in the Pacific: though, should the Entente with Great Britain develop into an actual triple alliance between Great Britain, France and Russia, that concentration is just possible. It would have an important effect on the strategical position in the Pacific: but is too unlikely a contingency to call for any discussion. The same may be said in regard to any possibility of a great development of power in the Pacific by Germany or France.
The interest of the strategical position in the Pacific thus centres in the rivalry, or friendly emulation, between the United States and the British Empire. Without any very clear indications of a conscious purpose, the British Empire has blundered into a strategical position which is rich in possibilities of strength and has but two glaring weaknesses, the absence of a Mid-Pacific fortress and the emptiness of the Northern Territory of Australia. With a very clear idea of what she is about, the United States has prepared for a thoroughly scientific siege of the Pacific, but she has not the same wealth of natural material as has the British Empire.