This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
In today’s high-tech U.S. Navy—below, the Aegis guided-missile destroyer Barry (DDG-52) makes her first transit of the Suez Canal—advice from the days of sail may seem hopelessly outdated. But Mahan’s writings still can offer insights on such current topics as decentralizing decision making, identifying potential foes, and selecting platforms for the surface fleet.
It is enticing for an aspiring naval officer to dismiss the writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan as outdated. In an era of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, reconnaissance satellites, and laser-guided munitions, Mahan’s lessons from the age of sail may seem inapplicable. His ardent advocacy of a battleship-intensive fleet, with its attendant need for supporting overseas possessions- sions and bases, may seem curiously out of place in today’s world military and political environment. There are, however, other lessons on the nature of war and politics that remain as useful today as when they were first written roughly a century ago.
A historian and the son of a professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Mahan accorded the study of military history a preeminent place in his formula for success.
A study of the military history of the past ... is enjoined by great military leaders as essential to [the formation of] correct ideas and to the skillful conduct of war in the future.1
In preparing his notes for his Naval War College lectures, which later became The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, Mahan studied the land and sea campaigns of Hannibal in the Punic Wars, Frederick the Great in the Seven Years War, and Napoleon in the infamous wars that bear his name. He sought to discover the common threads that ran through these victories, hoping to find universal tenets that could be applied to contemporary strategy. Only through a deep study of history, he claimed, could an officer emulate the successes and avoid the failures of his predecessors:
The battles of the past succeeded or failed ... in conformity with the principles of war; and the seaman who carefully studies the causes of success or failure will not only detect and gradually assimilate these principles, but will also acquire increased aptitude in applying them to the tactical use of the ships and weapons of his own day.2
Mahan differentiated between the timeless principles of war and fleeting tactics, which are tied to the technology of the day. A worthy officer must be a flexible master of both: a technician in tactical control of his modem weapon system, as well as a scholar who understands his role as part of a larger, functioning whole.
Because tactics are tied to technology, they must always be changing. Lest the modern naval officer think that today’s rapidly evolving mechanization and computerization is a unique phenomenon, he should contemplate the era in which Mahan wrote. The 19th century witnessed the end of sail—the primary means of propulsion that had driven warships since the dawn of time—and the harnessing of steam power. New rifling techniques and the perfection of the explosive shell led to ever-expanding ranges and unparalleled accuracy for naval guns, giving rise to an unceasing need for new tactics. This same condition of rapidly evolving technology marks all navies today.
According to Mahan, those naval organizations that adhere to outdated modes of operation are doomed to failure. Intellectual and organizational sluggishness prevent new weapons from being exploited to their fullest capacity:
[CJhanges of tactics [take] place after changes in weapons, which necessarily is the case, but . . . the interval between such changes has been unduly long. . . . History shows that it is vain to hope that military men generally will be at the pains to [constantly adopt new tactics], but the one who does will go into battle with a great advantage.3
Mahan felt that navies must continuously promote new doctrine; however, they should not blindly adhere to it and endanger freedom of spirit. In other words, a military organization is faced with a perpetual dilemma. On one hand, new advances in technology demand revised tactics. On the other hand, a navy cannot—after the eventual creation of these tactics—impose inflexible dogma on its officers and sailors. A service must balance standardized modes of operation with the need for independent action and decision making. According to Mahan, war unfolds in unexpected ways, presenting the naval leader with an infinitely complex web of options that no tactics manual could ever completely address:
[T]he conduct of war is an art, having its spring in the mind of man, dealing with very various circumstances, admitting certain principles; but, beyond that, manifold in its manifestations, according to the genius of the artist and the temper of the materials with which he is dealing. To such an effort dogmatic prescription is unsuited; the best of rules, when applied to it, cannot be rigid, but must have that free play which distinguishes a principle from a mere rule.4
This idea is closely intertwined with the concept of decentralized decision making. Does today’s naval officer give subordinates the latitude to make decisions, to depart from rules and doctrine when circumstances dictate? Despite the best-laid plans, at some point a subordinate will face an unforeseen situation and have to make a decision. Will he have the self-confidence and the experience to reach a correct decision? Today’s naval officer must from the beginning encourage the development of decision-making skills in his subordinates, to prepare them for future unforeseen conditions.
Prior to the 20th century, before the widespread use of the wireless radio, civilian naval leaders had to trust their admirals, who in turn had to trust their subordinates, because ships sailed for weeks on end without contact from home. Necessity dictated decentralized decision making. Mahan would marvel at today’s satellite communications, with which a commander-in-chief may speak directly to the actors in a theater thousands of miles away, while at the same time watching a real-time surface plot of the action. Unfortunately, this advance also brings with it a perilous temptation for a commander to withhold decision-making authority instead of relinquishing it to subordinates, who might best adapt tactics to local conditions.
It is natural for a commander to want to reserve important decisions for himself, not wanting to risk a subordinate’s mistake. But, according to Mahan, risk and warfare are perpetual partners:
Much military criticism consists simply in condemning risks which have resulted in failure. One of the first things a student of war needs to lay to heart is Napoleon’s saying, “War cannot be made without running risks.”5
Mahan probably would find curious the reluctance of our military leaders after the Vietnam War to risk even low levels of U.S. casualties. This aversion to risk inten-
sified the traditional U.S. approach to warfare: to draw upon its rich resources to overwhelm its opponents, trading firepower for casualties.6 Today, the U.S. military— especially the Navy, upon whose shoulders heavy logistic transport falls—must be capable on short notice of transporting massive numbers of highly trained soldiers and high-technology weaponry around the globe. By overwhelming its adversaries with manpower, might, and materiel, the United States guarantees victory. The U.S. strategy of war relies upon it.
This concept of war carries with it a different risk. One of the lessons that future opponents gleaned from the 1991 Gulf War was the need to strike the United States quickly, hard and deep, before it can mobilize its massive logistics base. By hastily inflicting casualties above a certain threshold, an opponent may strike the United States in its Achilles’ heel—high American casualties— and possibly thwart a response. If the United States is unwilling to accept the risk of high casualties, it limits the circumstances in which it will use force, as suggested by the U.S. withdrawals from Lebanon in 1982 and from Somalia in 1993.
Mahan probably would not find it surprising that nations other than the United States may benefit most from the lessons of the Gulf War, as he believed that losers are forced to correct their military shortcomings while winners are not:
It is from the records of the beaten side that we are most surely able to draw instruction .... defeat cries aloud for explanation; whereas success, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. . . . The man who has failed will of his own motion bring out all that extenuates failure.
. . . The victor is asked few questions; and if conscious of mistakes he need not reveal them.7
If winners become complacent while losers confront their deficiencies, as Mahan hints, then the United States risks preparing to refight its last war. Will it plan for a conflict substantially different from the clash with Iraq? Will the United States have a six-month prelude in which to transport its logistics base? Will U.S. air assets have access to well-developed and nearby staging facilities? According to Mahan’s line of thinking, potential adversaries will have learned their lessons and will not provide this country with the advantages it enjoyed in the Persian Gulf confrontation. Has the United States learned its lessons from the Gulf War?
An even larger question is whether the U.S. military is perpetually watchful of world economic developments, which may provide clues about potential adversaries. The traditional U.S. reliance on a massive preponderance of high-technology firepower depends upon an efficient U.S. economy that can accommodate military defense and fulfill private needs simultaneously. The recent collapse of the Soviet Union highlights the
importance of economic productivity to long-term military viability: a nation that diverts excessive resources to its military while forsaking its consumer sector may not survive. If the United States loses its economic edge, it may not be able to mobilize its industry and populace to stagger an adversary. Conversely, an enterprising, visionary nation can transform economic power into military power, as the United States’ experience in two world wars suggests.
In the waning years of this century—after U.S. involvement and leadership in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War—it is difficult to imagine the disdain with which many of Mahan’s contemporaries viewed U.S. entanglement in world affairs. For the majority of the previous century, the United States heeded George Washington’s 1797 warning to avoid involvement in foreign alliances. Mahan, however, exhorted the maturing nation to abandon its traditional island mentality, proclaiming that it must pay close attention to the world situation. The United States, he said, will forever be affected by the development and the behavior of states across the oceans:
[T]he Balance of Power, may at any time, and unexpectedly, touch us closely. Therefore we are under the necessity of carefully watching the swaying of that balance, the oscillations of which are as continuous as those of at pendulum, though not as regular.8
To an unparalleled degree, as the new millennium approaches, the growth of free world trade will sway the bal- ance-of-power pendulum. Today’s undeveloped nation may become tomorrow’s economic and military rival. This march toward free trade mandates that nations specialize in the production of goods in which they have comparative advantage, increasing global efficiency and total production. Such specialization brings along with it a loss of national autonomy and, some say, national security, for nations must depend upon others for critical inputs of production. The efficiency of capital markets and free trade also empowers lesser-developed nations that
traditionally have not shared the United States’ views toward human rights and democracy.
Just as leaders of the previous century were enjoined to concern themselves with the European balance of power, leaders today must look at the economic growth of nations around the world to determine potential threats. The U.S. advantage in industrial might eventually may be threatened by other nations that can produce more efficiently. The typical U.S. approach to war—throwing technology and tons of materiel and firepower into battle—ultimately is linked to the United States’ superior economic efficiency. Despite this nation’s manifold natural resources and its ability to combine capital and manpower to produce technologically advanced weaponry, several nations are stirring that could threaten our economic hegemony in the world marketplace and thus endanger our ability to fight our preferred style of war. China, with 1.2 billion people, and India, with 900 million, both have outlooks that differ from our Western, individual-centered conception of society, and m the next century, they may eclipse our economic performance. These nations certainly could be potential future foes. We must heed Mahan’s advice to watch the balance of power carefully.
At first glance, the military ramifications of international economics may seem far from the underlying principles of Mahan’s works, but economic concepts pervade his writings. From the earliest times, senior naval leaders have made economic decisions that have affected the readiness of their fleets and set up their forces for success (or failure) at sea. One economics example from Mahan’s writings deals with the ongoing, critical selection of platforms in the composition of the fleet—specifically, whether a navy should produce a few high-technology ships or a greater number of primitive ships. Along this line, Mahan addressed the efficacy of produc- lng many copies of one all-purpose ship, which a navy could produce relatively cheaply, and between which it could easily transfer trained personnel:
[With regard] to ship design, you cannot have everything. If you attempt it, you will lose everything; by
which I mean that in no one quality will your vessel
be as efficient as if you had concentrated purpose on • . . one.9
This passage seems particularly germane today, as the United States struggles to design its post-Cold War Navy. Jt must balance economies of scale in the production of tts combatant ships with the need for varied sizes and configurations to meet different situations around the globe.
Currently, the U.S. Navy is building its surface fleet around the $1 billion Arleigh Burke (DDG-51)-class destroyer, which features a panoply of weapons, from the Aegis weapon system to advanced antiair, antisurface, and antisubmarine capabilities to helicopters in its later blocks.
At least one prominent analyst thinks that in cramming all these capabilities into one costly ship, the Navy has sacrificed the production of a larger number of smaller frigates.10 Another naval specialist, a member of the Chief of Naval Operations’ Executive Panel, explained, “We cannot throw the same mix of assets at wildly different crises. Some situations demand more; some demand less. But if all we have are destroyers and cruisers . . . both at approximately 10,000 tons—then we have robbed the fleet commanders of valuable cost-effective options.”11 This give and take in resource allocation is a fundamental part of all military procurement decisions, and it will certainly continue in the future just as it existed during Mahan’s era.
In addition to controversial resource allocation, Mahan identified another universal principle of the U.S. Navy: its operation within an irrational political environment. A U.S. military officer who aspires to leadership of his service must master the art and principles of Washington politics, as well as the art and principles of war. As Mahan pointed out more than a century ago, threats to the efficient attainment of a service’s goals come not only from adversarial nations, but also from the politicians within its own government. Mahan’s contemporaries suffered from the pervasive “pork barrel” phenomenon to as great a degree as naval officials do today:
[A] senator of the United States, who has earned much
approval in some quarters by persistent opposition to
naval development, was among the most clamorous for the assignment of naval force to the local defense of his own State, which was in no possible danger.12
This passage could have been torn from the pages of a modem U.S. newspaper, addressing congressional opposition to the recommendations of the Base Realignment
and Closure committees. Congressmen and senators fight zealously to attract and retain military facilities within their domains; the Navy must fight just as tenaciously in its efforts to pare its overhead base structure to meet the needs of a reduced force.
Mahan believed, as many naval analysts do today, that overhead base structure is wasteful. Every navy must decide whether its limited resources should be spent on ships or on domestically popular support bases. Although referring here to overseas facilities, Mahan highlights the need to keep support facilities at an absolute minimum:
[I]f the number of such posts be so great that their garrisons swallow up the whole army of the state, it is evident that either some of them must be abandoned or the enemy’s army be left unopposed.13
His writings suggest that management of the military in a free society takes place in a politically charged environment. In a representative government, this always will be the case. Important naval decisions will be made by politicians whose interests may lay outside the best interests of the service. The principle to be learned is that the U.S. Navy must be led by officers as skillful in navigating the minefields of Washington, D.C., as they are skillful in sailing the perilous waters of the world.
Alfred Thayer Mahan’s writings offer timeless insights into the art of war, the methods of mastering it, and the economic and political environment in which it operates. His teachings on the need for domination of the world’s lines of communication through decisive naval engagement will be debated by enthusiasts for centuries. Some of his principles transcend the realm of purely naval matters and penetrate domestic and international politics. They are undoubtedly relevant to today’s naval officer. The great historian and theoretician enjoined the aspiring naval practitioner to widen his perspectives, to further his individual career and increase his effectiveness by understanding the larger political and historical stage upon which naval leaders operate:
[Mjaster, and keep track of, the great current events in history contemporary with yourself. Appreciate their meaning. Your own profession, on its military side, calls of course for your first and closest attention; but you all will have time enough to read military history, appreciating its teachings, and you can also keep abreast of international relations, to such an extent that when you reach positions of prime responsibility, your glance—your coup d’oeil, to repeat the French idiom— will quickly take in the whole picture of your country’s interests in any emergency, whether that be pressing or remote. . . . The sphere of the navy is international solely. It is this which allies it so closely to that of the statesman. Aim to be yourselves statesmen as well as seamen. The biography and history of our profession will give you glorious names who have been both.14
‘Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1890), p. 1.
2Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, p. 9.
'Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, pp. 9-10.
“Alfred Thayer Mahan, Naval Strategy: Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), pp. 299-300.
’Mahan, Naval Strategy, p. 232.
“Andrew Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 17.
7Mahan, Naval Strategy, pp. 383-384.
"Mahan, Naval Strategy, p. 103.
9Mahan, Naval Strategy, p. 44.
‘“James L. George, “Needed: A Flexible Frigate,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 1994, p. 95.
"Reuven Leopold, “The Next U.S. Warship Design,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 1994, p. 51.
12Mahan, Naval Strategy, p. 151.
‘'Mahan, Naval Strategy, p. 149.
‘“Mahan, Naval Strategy, p. 21.
Lieutenant Maoris, a naval aviator, is a Philip Merrill Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He reports in September to Commander U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, in Bahrain.