Mahan on Naval Strategy: Selections from the Writings of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan

324 Pages·2015·2.44 MB·English

by  Alfred Thayer Mahan

SERIES EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION
The Classics of Sea Power series makes readily available, in uniform,
authoritative editions, the central concepts of the naval profession. These major
book-length works in the words of the masters have been chosen for their
eloquence and timelessness, and express the important themes of strategy,
operations, tactics, and theory.
With Alfred Thayer Mahan, the seventh author in the series, we come to the
man whose very name embodies the notion of sea power. Most naval officers,
however, and many historians and statesmen are acquainted with Mahan only
through the interpretations of secondary sources. So that Mahan be seen neither
as god on a pedestal, too remote, deep, and profound to be approached directly,
nor as a mere commentator of a day now 100 years past relevance, we offer
every reader the chance to drink the real man from his own cup. In particular the
reader may find for himself here the manner and extent of Mahan’s espousal of
sea power, both as it offered greatness and threatened vulnerability to a state.
One may also discover the firm, forthright, yet nuanced and correlated, way he
saw the battle fleet, command of the sea, and the safe movement of shipping as a
triad of which maritime achievement is based.
Mahan should neither be idolized nor demythologized, but the subject of
study, lest it be his ghost and not the writer himself that influences the modern
American strategist.
SERIES EDITORS
Wayne P. Hughes, Jr.
John B. Hattnedorf
Naval War College Naval Postgraduate School
Newport, Rhode Island Monterey, California
Mahan on Naval Strategy
Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry
Lenfest.
Naval Institute Press
291 Wood Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
Introduction © 1991 by the United States Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland All rights reserved. No part
of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
These writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan have been reprinted from original sources indicated on the opening
pages of each chapter.
First Naval Institute Press paperback edition published in 2015.
ISBN: 978-1-61251-819-0 (eBook) The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as
follows:
Mahan, A. T. (Alfred Thayer), 1840–1914.
Mahan on naval strategy : selections from the writings of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan / Alfred
Thayer Mahan : with an introduction by John B. Hattendorf, editor.
p. cm.—(Classics of sea power) Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Naval strategy. I. Hattendorf, John B. II. Title. III. Series V163.M19 1991
359’.03—dc20
90-25401
Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First printing Frontispiece courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive.
CONTENTS
Editor’s Introduction
Introductory
Discussion of the Elements of Sea Power
Foundations and Principles
Position, Strength, Resources
Strategic Lines
Distant Operations and Maritime Expeditions
Operations of War
Considerations Governing the Disposition of Navies
The Persian Gulf and International Relations
The Naval War College
Britain & the German Navy
The Panama Canal and the Distribution of the Fleet
Index
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
A
LFRED THAYER MAHAN made two great contributions to the
development of naval thought. First, he linked maritime and naval
activities to wider national and international issues. After his series of sea power
books, students of naval affairs were no longer satisfied with mere descriptions
of battles at sea, as they had previously been. They looked for wider implications
and interrelationships. Secondly, he laid out a series of principles for
professional naval officers to use in the formulation of naval strategy. His
adaptation and refinement of Jomini’s approach to military science marked an
intellectual revolution for navies; after reading Mahan’s works, naval officers
had found a tool with which they could develop strategic naval doctrine.
Mahan thought that his two contributions were of equal importance, each
interdependent on the other. Despite the author’s own view, scholars have paid
more attention to Mahan’s first contribution than to his second. Mahan’s ideas
on sea power have been more interesting to historians as they debated
explanations of national and international history. At the same time, naval
officers have tended to be more attracted to those concepts in Mahan’s writings
that can be readily applied to future situations. On the one hand, these
contributions seem to fall into the province of historical scholarship; on the
other, into the realm of political science. Different as these two are, they are,
however, closely tied to one another. The linking feature is Mahan’s approach to
the study of history. As Mahan wrote:
Formulated principles, however excellent, are by themselves too abstract to sustain convinced
allegiance; the reasons for them, as manifested in concrete cases, are an imperative part of the
process through which they really enter the mind and possess the will. On this account the study of
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military history lies at the foundation of all sound military conclusions and practice.
By making his dual contribution to naval thought, Mahan’s work became
part of a growing evolution of ideas, which included those of both his precursors
and successors. In the application of historical study to the development of naval
doctrine, he was clearly following the lines that Sir John Knox Laughton had
laid out in England in the 1870s. Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, the founder of
the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, transmitted to Laughton’s
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ideas to Mahan, along with Luce’s own wide approach to the study of the
highest branches of naval thought. Luce’s ideas led directly to Mahan’s initial
series of lectures at the Naval War College. In book from, these lectures
eventually appeared as The Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660–1783
(1890) and Naval Strategy Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and
Practice of Military Operations on Land (1911).
There were a number of other writers whose work complemented and
expanded Mahan’s. First, there was Vice Admiral Philip Colomb. Like Luce and
Mahan, he had also been influenced by Laughton. Colomb’s book, Naval
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Warfare: Its Ruling Principles and Practice Historically Treated appeared
simultaneously with Mahan’s first sea power book in 1890, but concentrated on
identifying various types of naval operations and their uses.
Among others who succeeded Mahan, Sir Julian Corbett had the advantage
of the pioneer work of Laughton as well as that of both Mahan and Colomb.
Additionally, he could give a deeper intellectual dimension to naval affairs by
applying Clausewitz’s philosophical approach to understanding the nature of
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warfare. Thus, Corbett went beyond Mahan, subsuming his ideas and placing
them in a wider context.
From the work of Mahan, Colomb, and Corbett onward, naval theorists have
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continued to develop and refine naval theory. In the history of this
development, Mahan stands out as the writer whose work was the first to be
widely read and appreciated. Through the many editions and translations of his
works, and through the repetitive publication of his shorter pieces, first in
newspapers, then adapted to journal articles and finally appearing as chapters in
books, Mahan’s ideas gained a currency that few, if any, other authors in naval
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affairs have achieved.
In the history of naval thought, Alfred Thayer clearly stands out as a great
figure, yet a precise understanding of his ideas has been difficult to grasp. Much
of this has been due to his large output: 20 books, 22 contributions to other
books, 5 volumes (including this one) of his work collected and edited by others,