Roosevelt on national survival and neutral rights

Theodore Roosevelt begins by arguing that opposing peoples can each have a defensible position from their own standpoint. A nation fighting for survival may damage neutral interests while pursuing its main enemy. A neutral state cannot be expected to accept that injury merely because it arises from someone else's war. He places the Anglo-American conflict within Britain's prolonged struggle against France, while accepting that both European belligerents sometimes disregarded neutral rights without adequate justification.