ailed to secure.

II. ATTACK AND DEFENCE OF TRADE

The base idea of the attack and defence of trade may be summed up in the
old adage, "Where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered
together." The most fertile areas always attracted the strongest attack,
and therefore required the strongest defence; and between the fertile and
the infertile areas it was possible to draw a line which for strategical
purposes was definite and constant. The fertile areas were the terminals of
departure and destination where trade tends to be crowded, and in a
secondary degree the focal points where, owing to the conformation of the
land, trade tends to converge. The infertile areas were the great routes
which passed through the focal points and connected the terminal areas.
Consequently attack on commerce tends to take one of two forms. It may be
terminal or it may be pelagic, terminal attack being the more profitable,
but demanding the greater force and risk, and pelagic attack being the more
uncertain, but involving less force and risk.

These considerations lead us directly to the paradox which underlies the
unbroken failure of our enemies to exercise decisive pressure upon us by
operations against our trade. It is that where attack is most to be feared,
there defence is easiest. A plan of war which has the destruction of trade
for its primary object implies in the party using it an inferiority at sea.
Had he superiority, his object would be to convert that superiority to a
working command by battle or blockade. Except, therefore, in the rare cases
where the opposed forces are equal, we must assume that the belligerent who
makes commerce destruction his primary object will have to deal with a
superior fleet. Now, it is true that the difficulty of defending trade lies
mainly in the extent of sea it covers. But, on the other hand, the areas in
which it tends to congregate, and in which alone it is seriously
vulnerable, are few and narrow, and can be easily occupied if we are in
superior force. Beyond those areas effective occupation is impossible, but
so also is effective attack. Hence the controlling fact of war on commerce,
that facility of attack means facility of defence.

Beside this fundamental principle we must place another that is scarcely
less important. Owing to the general common nature of sea communications,
attack and defence of trade are so intimately connected that the one
operation is almost indistinguishable