that is a question of the economics of war; it
is not a question of "limited war" or of "war for a limited object."
Your sole object is to bend the enemy to your will. That object is
essentially an unlimited one, or one that is limited only by the extent
of the efforts which the enemy makes to withstand you. The only sure way
of attaining this object is to destroy his armed forces. If he submits
before this is done it is he that limits the war, not you. Bacon's
unimpeachable maxim in this regard is often misinterpreted. "This much
is certain," he says, "he that commands the sea is at great liberty and
may take as much or as little of the war as he will." That is
indisputable, but its postulate is that the belligerent has secured the
command of the sea; that is, as I shall show hereafter, that he has
subdued, if not destroyed, the armed forces of the enemy afloat. Having
done that he may, in a certain sense, take as much or as little of the
war as he chooses; but he must always take as much as will compel the
enemy to come to terms.

Naval warfare is no essential part of the armed conflict between
contending States. In some cases it exercises a decisive influence on
the conduct and issue of the conflict, in others none at all or next to
none. But sea power, that is, the advantage which a nation at war
derives from its superiority at sea, may largely affect the issue of a
war, even though no naval engagements of any moment may take place. In
the Crimean War the unchallenged supremacy of England and France on the
seas alone made it possible for the Allies to invade the Crimea and
undertake the siege of Sebastopol; while the naval campaigns of the
Allies in the Baltic, although they resulted in no decisive naval
operation, yet largely contributed to the success of the Allied arms in
the Crimea by compelling Russia to keep in the north large bodies of
troops which might otherwise have turned the scale against the Allies in
the South. In the War of 1859, between France and Austria, with the
Sardinian kingdom allied to the former, the superiority of the Allies at
sea enabled considerable portions of the French army to be transported
from French to Piedmontese ports, and by threatening the flank of the
Austrian line of advance, it accelerated the concentration of the Allies
on the Ticino. It also enabled the Allies to maintain a close blockade
of the Austrian ports in the Adriatic, and might have led to an attack
from the sea