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

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), 18401914.

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

359.03dc20

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

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 Jominis approach to military science marked an intellectual revolution for navies; after reading Mahans 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 authors own view, scholars have paid more attention to Mahans first contribution than to his second. Mahans 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 Mahans 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 Mahans 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 military history lies at the foundation of all sound military conclusions and practice.

By making his dual contribution to naval thought, Mahans 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 Laughtons ideas to Mahan, along with Luces own wide approach to the study of the highest branches of naval thought. Luces ideas led directly to Mahans initial series of lectures at the Naval War College. In book from, these lectures eventually appeared as