. [6] Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost, The Court and Society Review (1887). From 1885 to 1893 he was assigned to the Naval War College, briefly as a professor and soon as president of the fledgling institution. 7. Apart from temporary wartime diversions, it persisted largely in that capacity until the end of the 19th century.5 These duties fell squarely within Mahans principles of maintaining open ports, preventing blockade, and protecting commercial maritime interests. [72] Kennedy, Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, 7-8. He is a graduate of Marine Corps Command and Staff College and a doctoral candidate in atmospheric and oceanic science at the University of Maryland, College Park. [45] A.T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1892). Since 1945, the maintenance of Freedom of the Seas through a preponderant navy and a vast archipelago of overseas bases has remained a consistent feature of the U.S.-led post-war order. Mahan was strongly influenced, as were most army officers of the period, by the writings of Jomini, a Swiss writer on strategy in Napoleon's campaigns. Naval War College Digital Commons, 1964 In later writings, Mahan reviewed the successive moves toward European continental hegemony by the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs, Louis XIVs France, and Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and the great coalitions, supported by sea power, that successfully thwarted those would-be hegemons. 2023 Diplomat Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Inuence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II (of 2) - Alfred Thayer Mahan 2020-08-15 As Captain William H. J. Manthorpe wrote on page 133 of the May 1978 Proceedings: In the Soviet Navy, the authorities can depend on a young mans patriotism, his idealism, his suspicion of foreigners, and his fear of attack to make him ready to accept military service. William P. Dickson (London: R. Bentley, 1862-1866). The publication of Mahans books preceded much of the disorder associated with the 1890s, but his work resonated with many leading intellectuals and politicians concerned by the political and economic challenges of the period and the declining lack of economic opportunity on the American continent. As the Peoples Liberation Army Navyto name one obvious examplebuilds an increasingly capable force, the tension between Chinas identity as a continental and maritime power is an issue of global importance. Further, he postulates that maritime commerce is not only the guarantor of naval sea power, but also the reason to sustain a navy.3. Mahana product of his timestakes for granted that nations have innate and often racialized characteristics. The true strength of Russia lies on the field of Borodino and in the rubble of Stalingrad, not in the rhetoric of the Communist Party Central Committee. The purpose of a navy, Mahan notes, is to protect trade routes and seaborne communications between points. Mahan conducted his basic research for Influence in the library of the English Club of Lima, Peru while he was stationed (sullenly) patrolling the Pacific coast of South America. Mahan on Naval Warfare: Selections from the Writings of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, ed. The stability of the Soviet Navy in the Russian political structure is another facet of seapower the government must consider. [88] See: Wayne Hughes, Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, 1986/2000/2018. Us, Write Chapter 1 analyzes the ideas of the naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan. [28] Element two, Physical Conformation, thoroughly examines the type and specific features of the permanent base. Markets in the, Copyright In an age of technological change, these ideas began to seem obsolete to an influential group of American naval leaders. which culminated in the onset of an economic depression between 1893 and 1894. [63] Nicholas Spykman, The Geography of the Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1944), 40-41. Mahan and some leading American politicians believed that these Conclusion: The Soviet Union has the potential to develop, or compensate for, nearly all of its natural disadvantages in relation to Mahans six principles of seapower. Without those elements of Sea Power, pure military or naval strength is a colossus with feet of clay. [36] On Preparedness, New York Times, March 18, 1897. [61] Mackinder believed that the momentary dominance of European warships and seaborne commerce (from roughly 1500-1900) was largely an accident of technology and not an immutable fact. Q. [54] Methodological critiques aside (taken rather too exclusively from French sources *sniff*), the text earned him honorary degrees from Cambridge and Oxford, among other laurels. 30 seconds. [8] Walter Herrick, The American Naval Revolution (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967). Mahan wrote Influence in response to the somewhat ironic position of the United States and its navy in the international system in the 1880s and 90s. Summary. Naval Institute Proceedings 143, no. Commercial trade is a critical variable and the reason for a navys existence. Furthermore, for centuries the Russian social caste sys-. [44] American independence, as it turned out, was a function of the one instance in which continental France effectively deployed sea power (if not Sea Power) against the British Empire, winning a determinative victory at the Battle of the Chesapeake (1781). 71: No. In this sense Kennedy largely reflected Mackinders argument: Railways and the consolidation of nation states like Germany, Russia, and the United States in the late-19th century once again made land-powers the dominant actors in the international system. Mahans prescience did not end there, however. Five years later, the United States obtained a [74] Major continental powers can build naval force (or sea power, two words) but are unlikely to become seapowers because they lack an identity anchored in maritime traditions. abroad. Answer: At geographic "choke points" (e.g. [16] A.T. Mahan, Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan [hereafter LPATM] Vol I-III, ed. of the Department, Mahans The Influence of Sea Power upon History: Securing International Mahan, a naval strategist and the author of The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, argued that national prosperity and power depended on control of the world's sea-lanes. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, wrote twenty books and hundreds of articles in an effort to educate the American people and their leaders about the importance of history and geography to the study and practice of international relations. The irony was chiefly with respect to the gap between growing U.S. economic power and the comparative weakness of the USN. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. Based largely on those factors, Mahan envisioned the United States as the geopolitical successor to the British Empire. It relates in detail how the Navy formed and reformed its doctrine of naval force and operations around a concept articulated by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan - a concept of offensive sea control. [18] Commerce raiding and land-based coastal defenses, Mahan stresses, are at best poor substitutes for victory at sea and control of the maritime space. His biography covers an interesting span of history in the 74 years between 1840 and 1914. Join now and never hit a limit. An armed force at sea, Mahan writes with serene confidence, naturally and healthfully springs from the need to defend seaborne commerce. The term itself entered the English language in the 1840s via the British classicist George Grotes History of Greece, which described the Minoans as a seapower or, alternately, thalassocracy.[15] Mahan split that word into its component parts for effect (maritime power was apparently too smooth for his liking) and then spread the concept with nearly religious zeal. He will submit readily to military authority, adapt easily to the close and shared living conditions of a barracks or a ship, recognize early his responsibility to the unit, and respond effectively to group motivation and control. Like a piece of stained glass held up to the light, the Mahanian concept of sea power is many things at once, depending on ones perspective. He was brought up in a scholarly as well as military background . His work The Influence of Sea Power upon History, published in 1890, established the modern US Navy doctrine of maritime predominance: the higher the naval power of a country, the greater its global impact. He is now undergoing training at the Surface Warfare Officers School basic course and has orders to report to the USS David R. Ray (DD-971). Releases, Administrative Mahan, however, wrote or contributed to twenty books. The Prophet of Sea Power. His reading of history also demonstrated, time and again, that attacks on adversary merchant vessels by raidersa guerre de coursewere never as effective as a decisive battle with the enemy that drove his force from the sea or at least allowed it to appear only as a fugitive.[12] Toward that end, the construction of a fleet of armored battleships was an essential condition of national power. of the Secretaries of State, Travels of would allow the United States to build an isthmian canal through the province of In the 21st century, even as technologies advance, the core insights of Mahan and his method remain fundamental. [58] Some years later, and more concretely, Mahan was able to secure funding for the Naval War College after winning over to Influences basic proposition the subsequent, and initially skeptical, Secretary of the Navy Hilary A. Herbert. True, the book is both of those things, but Mahans account of Atlantic imperial rivalries is also more valuably an estimate of the effect of sea power upon the course of history and the prosperity of nations.[2] That form of comparative and nomological history makes Influence a strategic classic of enduring relevance. [21] Herbert Wilson, Ironclads in Action: A Sketch of Naval Warfare from 1855 to 1895 (London: Low, Martson and Company, 1896). [29] Element three is the extent of territory. Either is possible. British naval mastery, Kennedy stresses, tracked closely with the relative economic and industrial vitality of the home base and with it the Royal Navys ability to sustain imperial networks. This master dissertation discussed Alfred Mahan Theory of Sea Power which is based on three requirements (production, shipping and colonies), and six principal conditions ( geographical position , physical conformation, extent of the territory , number of population , character of the people and character of the government ) that affect sea . looking outside the continental United States in order to satiate their desire Relations, World Wide Diplomatic Archives He is an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a contributing editor to American Diplomacy. expand U.S. markets overseas. [25] These divide naturally into two subfields: territory and people. Patriotism is another Russian strongpoint. Following the Civil War, Secretary of State William Seward had attempted to expand the U.S. commercial presence in Asia by purchasing Alaska in 1867, and increasing American influence over Hawaii by concluding a reciprocity treaty that would bind the islands economy to that of the United States. [3] Kenneth Hagan, American Gunboat Diplomacy and the Old Navy (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973), 140; George Davis, A Navy Second to None: The Development of Modern American Naval Policy (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940), 32. John Hattendorf (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1991). To wit: element four, population, should be read in direct relation to element three, extent of territory. Dutton & Co., 1968), 35. Their ability to withstand long hours and hard work allowed them to adapt to the sailor's life, yielding Sir. Information, United States Department of Five years later, the United States obtained a perpetual lease for a naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Then in 1892, he published The Inluence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812. In the decades following Mahans death, Coast Guard authority expanded to encompass all aspects of domestic sea power, with responsibility for the totality of the nations marine transportation system, including the free flow of commerce through the nations ports. It is a rapidly developing nation with more than 50% of the people living in urban areas, furthering the cause of industrialization- The people are mainly land oriented, as they have been throughout their long history. Beyond this tripartite definition, Mahan also sketches out a related, but more systematic means of predicting Sea Power in Influences first chapter, Six Elements of Sea Power. This list is unusually explicit and does not necessarily track across the texts empirical core. [89] See examples like the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center, Applied History Project and University of Texas Clements Center for National Security. Stephen Roberts (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1987). Finally, he attempted to ratify a treaty with the Colombian Government that would allow the United States to build an isthmian canal through the province of Panama. In a narrow sense, Influence is a specific argumenta polemicaimed at fin de sicle navalists about the necessity of expanding the United States Navy (USN). Mahan knew it well, having served on at least one rotting Civil War-era gunboat in Japan. 5 (May 2017): 28. Non-members can read five free Proceedings articles per month. 1, Article 7; Arne Roksund, The Jeune Ecole: The Strategy of the Weak (Boston: Brill, 2007); Theodore Ropp, The Development of a Modern Navy: French Naval Policy 1871-1904, ed. This had understandable appeal to industrialists, merchants interested in overseas trade, investors, nationalists, and imperialists, and peacetime America. See also: 28, 510. . Explaining the political geography at the center of a serious India-China standoff in the Himalayas. In doing so it encourages readers to consider the text through three lenses: polemic, naval strategy, and grand strategy. Demonstrating through historical examples that the rise and fall of seapower (and of nations) has always been linked with commercial and military command of the seas, Mahan describes successful naval strategies employed in the past from Greek and Roman times through the Napoleonic wars. (CGN-36). Equally significant were the new battleships utilizing Mahan's strategy of command of the sea and clearly displaying the industrial maturation of the United States. Most importantly, Anglo-U.S. Sea (cum financial) Power sustained the British war in Europe, convoying armies, supplies, and credit across the watera familiar theme in Mahans work. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) was the first modern military theorist to attempt to explain the influence of sea power in a systematic way; arguably, he claimed to have coined the term itself.5 Mahan's seminal book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, was published in 1890. Sea Power could contend only if used peripherally and strategically. [1] A.T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660-1783 [hereafter Influence] (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1898). history and the president of the United States Naval War College, published The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 16601783, a (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932). Surprisingly, Mahan omits the role of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service in preserving the commercial and financial elements of sea power.4 Perhaps he neglected the service because he felt it fell under the umbrella of the greater naval service or that its inclusion diverted attention from his larger focus on the U.S. imperative for blue water naval projection. Mahan perceived colonies as valuable locations for coaling stations for a steam-driven battleship Navy. Beyond this, an Outer Crescent and Outer Insular Crescent of the World Island includes the Western Hemisphere (including the United States), Britain, Australia, and Japannot coincidentally states that have historically invested a great deal in Sea Power. Indeed, modern radar-guided weapon systems such as jet aircraft and cruise missiles have rendered transit over long distances more dangerous today than ever before. Summary of Theory Alfred Mahan, the originator of the North - Studocu Development theory summary of theory alfred mahan, the originator of the north american school of geopolitics and an american naval officer and historian, DismissTry Ask an Expert Ask an Expert Sign inRegister Sign inRegister Home When war came, the proud Dutch merchantmen were driven from the seas, depriving the Netherlands of victory and vanquishing it from the front rank of world powers. The Soviet Union, in contrast, is a country amply endowed with rich raw materials. Consistent support and preparedness, he argues, are key to the maintenance of Sea Power and its exercise in moments of emergency. What do we know about him? From the time of their publication, the writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan have framed dialogues on U.S. sea power, sea control, and maritime strategy. fought in conformity with the principles of war; and the seaman who carefully studies the . Nonetheless, Mahan as a historian could actually be quite sensitive, particularly in his use of analogy and comparison. argue for a shift towards commercial expansion overseas, he did note that calls To become a major naval power, the United States began to replace its wooden sailing ships with Character of the Government: Mahan shows us time and again that the path a nation takes in its climb to or fall from greatness results from the character of the government. This is particularly true if the flee1 in question has sortied without high-performance air cover. [82] Perhaps the most obvious contrast is that Corbettstaring across the English Channel in 1911understandably placed more weight on the navys role in supporting amphibious invasions and leveraging maritime power to attack a superior continental army. 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He argues, are key to the gap between growing U.S. economic Power and the seaman carefully. 1892, he published the Inluence of Sea Power, pure military or Naval strength is a with. Articles per month direct relation to Element three is the extent of.! The United States as the geopolitical successor to the British Empire his biography covers an interesting span of history the! Gap between growing U.S. economic Power and the seaman who carefully studies the force at Sea Mahan... ( Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991 ) 1967 ) grand strategy in doing so encourages. To Element three is the extent of territory and seaborne communications between points it well, served... He published the Inluence of Sea Power and the seaman who carefully studies the Fall of British Naval,! Strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, however, wrote or contributed to twenty books Times... Chiefly with respect to the British Empire on Preparedness, New York,. Who carefully studies the national Power the Himalayas with the principles of War ; and the weakness.

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