The series of chapters which he devotes to foreign policy is in fact a defence of welt-politik. It is a defence which is necessary; for welt-politik meant in his eyes the building of the German Fleet, and the German Fleet, with its avowed challenge to the secular policy of Great Britain, meant the estrangement of England and Germany, and as has now been made clear to all, the estrangement from England meant the almost complete isolation of Germany in Europe.