Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Military Technology, Professionalization, War, Scientism, Engineering, Anthropology, Race

    Argues that America must 'have a permanent establishment where officers devote themselves entirely to the military profession' in order to 'keep pace with the rapid and unceasing improvements of modern military science' (294), and reflects that 'never before has technical science played so great a part in war, and never before was thorough scientific knowledge of the art of war, in all its branches, so necessary to insure success' (295). Advises that America will need to maintain a large army to defend the 'neutrality' of the 'best possible water route[s] between our Atlantic and Pacific coasts' when the 'inevitable construction of the Nicaragua Canal is undertaken' and 'Should the Panama Canal ever be completed'. Also contends that a military force will be required in the West 'until the frontiersman can regard the Indian as a fellow-citizen, or at least as a human being, instead of a murderous savage more akin to a wild beast than a man'. (296)