Military changes affected by acquiring the Phillipines

Abstract

Introduction: Possibly there is no other question now confronting our statesmen, that assumes such an unsolvable indetermined aspect, as that of “Expansion” and its effect on our military organization. The United States is unskilled in provincial rule. She has ever shunned aggressive warfare, while conquest is certainly beyond her well tried spheres of action. Her military force has ever been held to the minimum necessary for home defense. She now has adopted provincialism, without special preparation for the defense of the Province. She has planted the “Stars and Stripes” some ten thousand miles from home, without strengthening our defensive force for its protection. Where our flag goes, be the ethics what it may, our armies must go to protect. That our martial strength must be increased, is an obvious fact; but the manner of its increase and disposal of its newly organized forces are problems as yet unsolved. In treating this subject, the theories of the best tacticians, who have published articles within recent date, will be used as a back-ground. To these men the writer acknowledges his indebtedness. The reader is asked to accept only what seems logically deducted from the correlation of these theories, bearing in mind the fact that tacticians are at this date slow to publish their ideas or make conjectures on a subject that is effected by so many external forces as that of “Expansion” or extending territory.