(1) "Hardly worth mentioning"! So that is how Clausewitz regards International Law, Clausewitz to whom in Germany "our most famous victors on the more modern battlefields owe their spiritual training," and on whom "everybody who to-day either makes or teaches modern war bases himself, even if he is not conscious of it." And we must regard nearly every foreign statesman as, consciously or unconsciously, a disciple of Clausewitz. It is, therefore, high time that we should cease to pin our faith on International Law, or think that it can in any way protect us, if we neglect strongly to protect ourselves. Power and expediency are the only rules that the practical politicians of foreign countries recognize, and the only question they ask themselves is, "Have we got sufficient power to do this," and if so, "Is it expedient to do it?"
(2) Treaties, too, what reliance can we place upon them for any length of time? None whatever. For treaties are only considered binding as long as the interests of _both_ contracting parties remain the same. Directly circumstances change, and they change constantly, the most solemn treaties are torn up, as Russia tore up the Treaty of Paris, or as Austria tore up the Treaty of Berlin. All history is full of torn-up treaties. And as it has been so it will be. The European waste-paper basket is the place to which all treaties eventually find their way, and a thing which can any day be thrown into a waste-paper basket is, indeed, a poor thing on which to hang our national safety. Only in ourselves can we trust. Therefore no treaties at present existing should be allowed in any way to alter or lessen our preparations to enable us to fight _alone_ when necessary.
(3) It cannot be too often repeated, or too much insisted on, that the success or failure of a State policy is dependent upon the amount of armed force behind it. For upon the amount of armed force behind a policy depends the greater or less amount of resistance, of friction, which that policy will meet with on the part of other nations. The prestige of a nation depends upon the general belief in its strength. The less its prestige, the more it will be checked and foiled by its rivals, till at last perhaps it is goaded into a war which would have been prevented if its prestige, or armed force, had been greater. On the other hand, the greater its prestige, its armed force, the more reasonable and inclined to a fair compromise are its rivals found. So that the greater the prestige, the armed force, of our nation is, the more likely is it that all our negotiations will be settled by peaceful compromise, and the longer we shall enjoy peace.