Holy and the Quadruple Alliances, had
vanished. The world had ceased to regard buffer states as preventives of
wars between the great nations, although at the time few believed that
any nation would ever dare to treat them as Germany since then has
treated Belgium. The balance of power still existed, but statesmen
were ever uncertain as to whether such a relation of states was really
conducive to peace or to war. A concert of the Great Powers resembling
the Quadruple Alliance sought to regulate such vexing problems as were
presented by the Balkans and China, but their concord was not loud
enough to drown the notes of discord.

The outspoken word of governments was still all for peace; their
proposals for preserving it were of two kinds. First, there was
the time-honored argument that the best preservative of peace was
preparation for war. Foremost in the avowed policies of the day, this
was urged by some who really believed it, by some who hoped for war and
intended to be ready for it, and by the cynical who did not wish for
war but thought it inevitable. The other proposal was that war could
and should be prevented by agreements to submit all differences between
nations to international tribunals for judgment. In the United States,
which had always rejected the idea of balance of power, and which only
in Asia, and to a limited degree, assented to the concert of powers, one
or the other of these two views was urged by all those who saw that
the United States had actually become a world power, that isolation no
longer existed, and that a policy of nonintervention could not keep us
permanently detached from the current of world politics.

The foremost advocates of preparedness were Theodore Roosevelt and
Admiral Mahan. It was little enough that they were able to accomplish,
but it was more than most Americans realize. The doubling of the regular
army which the Spanish War had brought about was maintained but was less
important than its improvement in organization. Elihu Root and William
H. Taft, as Secretaries of War, profiting by the lessons learned
in Cuba, established a general staff, provided for the advanced
professional training of officers, and became sufficiently acquainted
with the personnel to bring into positions of responsibility those who
deserved to hold them. The navy grew with less resistance on the part
of the public, which now was interested in observing the advance in the
rank of its fleet among the na