142 NAVAL STATIONS AND NAVAL BASES. 
tegic assumption. One should not leave his business affairs entirely in the hands 
of anyone else if it can be avoided. Fortunately we already possess the necessary 
positions to secure the approaches to the Caribbean against all comers, and all we 
need is the sagacity to add to the strategical positions the necessary strength, re- 
sources, and mobile defenses to make them good. We have the tactical defenses of 
the Panama Canal itself well under way and well understood; and we have Guan- 
tanamo ‘“‘on the mainland,” dominating Jamaica, and the Windward Passage; but 
we have over and beyond all Culebra Island, the neutralizer of Bermuda and the 
British West Indies positions—the ideal outlying strategical base—situated 20 
miles east of Porto Rico and 20 miles west of the Danish island of St. Thomas. For 
the price we could possibly purchase the Danish West Indies we could make them 
useless strategically to anyone else by spending the money on Culebra, only 20 miles 
distant from St. Thomas. 
Almost every drawback that may be glibly cited against Culebra as our great 
naval base for our fleet in the Atlantic is really an advantage. For instance, it is 
usually argued that the island and its harbor are too small, whereas, if anything, 
the island is too large, and the harbor could be even smaller before it would cease 
to be ideal. Of course it is out of the question to expect to find a ready-made naval 
base, and we are in luck to have all the treasures we have. ‘There is above all no 
question of Culebra versus Guantanamo, because the latter merely supplements the 
former. There may be a Culebra without Guantanamo, but no Guantanamo with- 
out a Culebra, because Guantanamo is on the undefended mainland, and, with 
Culebra securely held, it would be on the flank of an attacking expeditionary force 
operating against Guantanamo. As Mahan points out in his “Naval Strategy” :— 
“Tn short, as to the Caribbean and the Isthmus of Panama, Guantanamo and Culebra 
can become to the United States what Gibraltar and Malta are to the interests of 
Great Britain in the Mediterranean and at Suez, with the advantage to us that they 
are nearer our home ports than those positions are to Great Britain.” While states- 
men abroad sleep with his books under their pillows, and do not sleep well on that 
account, the writings of the late Admiral Mahan are not so fully appreciated in 
our own country. 
The Panama Canal defenses, although lacking considerable in gun installation, 
mobile troops and secret service protection, present the ideal of position, strength 
and resources, in that it is hardly conceivable that an enemy would be strong enough 
to operate against it in both oceans at the same time, and we may easily maintain 
uninterrupted communications by Wea of either the Atlantic or the Pacific, wien: 
ever, at the time, is not under the enemy’s control. 
On the Pacific coast we recognize the importance of two home bases, one on 
San Francisco Bay and the other on Puget Sound, and so it remains to consider the 
question of outlying and advance bases in the strategy of the Pacific. In his splen- 
did book on “Naval Strategy” Mahan says:— 
“Through the Caribbean Sea lie the approaches to the Isthmus of Panama, the 
place where the Monroe Doctrine focuses. The Caribbean still remains important, 
