15-30 (16 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/45236517 About this issue See also: Dingman, Japan and Mahan in The Influence of History on Mahan: The Proceedings of a Conference Marking the Centenary of Alfred Thayer Mahans The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, ed. 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). Alfred T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, 1890 Von der rmischen Geschichte und seinen Untersuchungen zum 17. und 18. Less intuitively, poor soil and climate often encourage Sea Power because domestic inadequacies force commercial interests abroad in search of resources and profits. From time to time, he wrote, the superstructure of tactics has to be altered or wholly torn down; but the old foundations of strategy so far remain, as though laid upon a rock.[78] The strategic principles of concentration, decisive engagement, control of communications, and offensive action all translated from the Age of Sail, while specific tactics required revision as a result of technical advances. A.T. Mahan, Naval Strategy Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land, (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company, 1911). Mahana product of his timestakes for granted that nations have innate and often racialized characteristics. Naval War College professors Toshi Yoshihara and James Holmes have examined the writings of contemporary Chinese military thinkers and strategists in this regard in their important work, Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century: The Turn to Mahan. [8] Walter Herrick, The American Naval Revolution (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967). This study will then examine each of the following elements of national power in light of Mahan's six principal conditions: - Sea Power (The combination of military strength afloat and peaceful commerce through shipping) in the 21st century. This was a profound geopolitical insight based on an understanding of the impact of geography on history. Sea Power explains victory throughout. [I]t is scarcely desirable, Mahan wrote, that so vast a proportion of mankind as the Chinese constitute should be animated by but one spirit and moved as a single man. Mahan knew that Western science and technology would at some point be globalized and wrote that under such circumstances it is difficult to contemplate with equanimity such a vast mass as the four hundred millions of China concentrated into one effective political organization, equipped with modern appliances, and cooped within a territory already narrow for it.. Work on the long-planned Muse-Kyaukphyu line is once again inching forward, but construction is likely many years off. The merchant marine performs the dual functions of economic trade and military logistics, as well as providing income and jobs, spreading Communism, collecting military intelligence, and helping to right the balance of payments. The book brought Mahan fame in his lifetime and ever since. These works brought Mahan world renown. Methodologically, his interest in applied history has imitators across the academy. Mahan on Naval Warfare: Selections from the Writings of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, ed. Influence in this respect is as much a warning to the United States of what happens when continental states neglect to build Sea Power. Rodger, Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1659-1815 (New York: Norton, 2005). [37] Therein lay the origins of British prosperity and influence, as Mahans historical research hoped to demonstrate. Russias historical preparation of its people has left the majority with a penchant for shoddy workmanship and with little knowledge of advanced technology. Admiral John Jellicoes turn away from the retreating German High Seas Fleet would have been an acute disappointment for the offensively minded Mahan.[87]. referred to by Turner. Mahans prescience did not end there, however. One hundred years later, the insights of the American strategist continue to have extraordinary relevance today. He identified several narrow passages or strategic "chokepoints," the control of which contributed to Great Britain's command of the seas. the President, Visits by Foreign Heads secured a safe source of raw materials for US industry. It could result in greatness or retreat from the worlds oceans, friendship friction with other nations, and dictate the style of national development for centuries to come. [13] In fact, technological advances in the 20th century rendered many of his conclusions suspect or at least out of step with weapons like submarines and aircraft. Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986). Volume 1 of 2. For suspicion of Commerce Raiding, see: Mahan, Influence, 288. [14] German[ edit] Markets in the 1890s, purchasing Alaska in The irony was chiefly with respect to the gap between growing U.S. economic power and the comparative weakness of the USN. Consider the March 2021 grounding of the M/V Ever Given in the Suez Canal. domestically, and he argued that the United States should seek new markets Relations, World Wide Diplomatic Archives At base, Mahan is a historian of Sea Power in a broad political and grand strategic sense. Tactics were conditioned by changing types of naval armaments. Even before Halford Mackinder's 1904 article "The Geographical Pivot of History," Mahan was contemplating a great fight between offshore sea powers and continental land empires. As new technologies like the railroad knit together states and empires in Central Europe and Asia, the Columbian Epoch of European maritime imperialism would soon end and primacy would revert to the historical norm of continental power achieved via control of the Eurasian heartland, such as with Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and the like. Continue with Recommended Cookies. This has resulted in the notion that military power deployed at or from the sea is the key component of a state's sea power. Mahan, armed with his faith in Sea Power as a determinative factor in history, was well prepared to catch the growing wave of navalist sentiment in the United States. Like France, the Soviet Union is potentially strong, but it has four seas to defend. He concludes that Influence is not so much history as it is a naked warning to the United States about the cautionary example of continental France and the need to build a navy. Information, United States Department of No book has had greater effect on the composition of and justification for industrial navies than Alfred Thayer Mahans 1890 The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783. Sea Power as an organizing principle or even a grand strategy stems from a more holistic calculation of economic and geographic factors as well as contingent political choices. In the 1890s, Mahans ideas resonated with leading politicians, including A. Friedman, Command of the LittoralsInsights from Mahan, The Strategy Bridge, 10 October 2017; and David Ramassinii, Too Small to Answer the Call, U.S. Physical Conformation and Extent of Territory: Mahans discussion of the importance of the physical conformation and the extent of territory of a state is concerned with the number and position of seaports, the climate of the land, the extent of the coastline, the total population per area, and the degree of i" ternal development. Love of country, however, is quite distinct from love of any one form of government. Exacerbating matters, he originally wrote the text as a series of lectures at the War College. Consistent support and preparedness, he argues, are key to the maintenance of Sea Power and its exercise in moments of emergency. As he stressed, the safety and independence of [the United States] can be preserved only by a foreign policy that will make it impossible for the Eurasian landmass to harbor an overwhelmingly dominant power in Europe and the Far East.[64] Though critical of what he called the extraordinary Anglo-Saxon predilection for thinking that only naval warfare is important, Spykman agreed that a pillar of this balancing act was sufficient maritime power to sustain relations on either end of Eurasia. Naval Institute Proceedings 147, no. Britain and the Netherlands are nearly totally dependent on foreign trade; hence, the severing of the international commercial arteries by an enemy during Wartime would mean national disaster. cOMPRAR. In The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, Mahan reviewed the role of sea power in the emergence and growth of the British Empire. [19] A.T. Mahan, The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1897). From 1885 to 1893 he was assigned to the Naval War College, briefly as a professor and soon as president of the fledgling institution. First, Mahan looked for strategic points of convergence and concentration. Mahan does refer to revenue cutters in histories of the War of 1812, primarily discussing their combat actions. Empire, 17931812. A German navy, supreme by the fall of Great Britain, he warned, with a supreme German army able to spare readily a large expeditionary force for over-sea operations, is one of the possibilities of the future. The rivalry between Germany and Great Britain to-day, he continued, is the danger point, not only of European politics but of world politics as well. It remained so for 35 years. An armed force at sea, Mahan writes with serene confidence, naturally and healthfully springs from the need to defend seaborne commerce. Today, as nations increasingly deploy their coast guards to assert sovereignty, the role of coast guards within Mahans conceptions of maritime powernamely, to maintain a nations access to the global commons and thereby bolster its domestic shipping capabilitywarrants further examination. This brings us to Mahans most vital characteristic. The author, Alfred Thayer Mahan, was a United States Naval officer and the son of the esteemed West Point professor Dennis Hart Mahan. [48] Mahan, From Sail to Steam, 277; Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, tr. [16] As what Margaret Sprout called an Evangelist of Sea Power, he was remarkably successful: The Mahanian phrase has been appropriated by all the other branches of the armed services with varying degrees of fidelity (land power, air power, and surely space power is not too far off in the future). Answer: It cannot win wars, e.g., the C.S.S. Sea power describesanation's ability to Mahan on Naval Strategy is a compilation of Mahan's works including The Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660 - 1783 and his lectures at the US Naval War College. for Us, Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century: The Turn to Mahan, Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century, Americas Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics, and War. The city-state's economic mandarins are signaling a return to normalcy after the waning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Best Sellers . [7] In doing so these navalists spurred on what one historian has called the American Naval Revolution: the radical re-making of the U.S. Navy and with it the entry of the United States into the ranks of the North Atlantic maritime powers as an empire among empires, in 1898.[8]. Naval Institute Proceedings 143, no. For a modern sailor he is technically underdeveloped, crude, and haphazard in his work. The course which the Soviet Union sails at sea will be derived from within the vast, complicated machinations of the political system. [89] Selling sea power in peacetime is still a priority for the seapower community.[90] Mahans insights into the nature of power and geography are likewise keen. Search for jobs related to Mahan six principles of sea power or hire on the world's largest freelancing marketplace with 22m+ jobs. 89 ] Selling Sea Power, 1890 Von der rmischen Geschichte und seinen Untersuchungen zum 17. und 18 from... Of his timestakes for granted that nations have innate and often racialized characteristics be., NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986 ) the nature of Power and its exercise in moments of.... Consistent support and preparedness, he argues, are key to the States! Of geography on history the nature of Power and geography are likewise keen consistent and. Are likewise keen when continental States neglect to build Sea Power and its exercise in of. 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