Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/300

 tactically by a great and steady increase of the weapon radius. The tactical area is expanding as the strategical one relatively contracts. It has gone from inches to feet, from feet to yards, from yards to miles. Today it averages three to four miles or more; but this seems nothing in the 12,000 mile half-circumference of the world, which is the maximum available limit. Yet as to-day's fighting range is 30,000 times the original maximum range and the present range can only be multiplied by less than 3,000 to reach absolute finality, it may be said that no weapon of the future can be more inconceivable to us than ours of to-day would have been to the earliest aquatic fighters.

The strategical area was once less than a hundred miles. It did not exceed a few hundreds for nearly two thousand years. Then it went up rapidly till it covered the world. Its contraction has been brought about by speed and endurance making different points relatively nearer than they were. The increase of tactical radius for which men seek eternally is producing this. We may assume then that radius will go on increasing. Eventually—unless wars cease first—it must reach near its limit either some form of vessel with a speed which almost annihilates time for practical purpose or a weapon of practically unlimited range. Neither of these radii limits is appreciably near as yet, nor can we properly conceive of their being so. But the cycle can be perceived: also the end of it—the expansion of radius till there is no more