and
skill of its forces are measurably greater than those of a probable
antagonist, no country and no alliance is apt to provoke war with
a nation whose armed forces are superior in number of units of
personnel and material; unless, of course, the nation is markedly
inferior in morale and skill, as the Persians were to the legions
of Alexander.

It is often insisted that superadequacy in armed force tends to
war instead of peace, by inducing a country to make war itself;
that the very principles which deter a weak country from attacking
a strong country tend to make a strong country attack a weak one.
There is some truth in this, of course, and history shows many
cases of strong countries deliberately attacking weak ones for the
purpose of conquest.

Analysis of wars, however, in which strong countries have done
this, shows that as a rule, the "strong" country was one which was
strong in a military sense only; and that the "weak" country was
a country which was weak only militarily, but which was potentially
strong in that it was possessed of wealth in land and goods. Most
of the great conquests of history were made by such "strong" over
such "weak" countries. Such were notably those wars by which Persia,
Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Spain gained their pre-eminence;
and such were the wars by which they later fell. Such were the
wars of Ghenghis Khan, Tamerlane, Mahomet, and Napoleon; such were
the wars by which most tribes grew to be great nations, and by
which as nations they subsequently fell. No greater cause of war
has ever existed than a disproportion between countries or tribes
of such a character that one was rich and weak, while the other
was strong and poor. Nations are much like individuals--and not
very good individuals. Highwaymen who are poor and strong organize
and drill for the purpose of attacking people who are rich and
weak; and while one would shrink from declaring that nations which
are poor and strong do the same, it may nevertheless be stated
that they have often been accused of doing so, and that some wars
are explainable on that ground and on none other.

The wars of Caesar in Gaul and Britain do not seem to fall in this
category, and yet they really do; for Rome was poor in Julius Caesar's
day; and while Gaul and Britain were not rich in goods, they were
rich in land, and Rome craved land.

Of course, there have been wars which were not due to deliberate
attacks by poor and strong co