A Century of British Dominance of the Mediterranean: Lessons for the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea

Few of the world’s waterways witnessed as much naval history as the Mediterranean Sea. Mariners such as ancient Greeks, Germanic Vandals, European crusaders, Barbary corsairs, and even the U.S. Navy, operated in those waters as they developed the strategy and tactics of naval warfare. In the watery sandbox of the Mediterranean, maritime states rose and fell, innovated and adapted, and conceived and refined technology that enabled the first ocean travel in human history. Legendary sailors from Odysseus to Nelson learned their trade and earned their fame in the glittering waters of the Med. For more than 100 years over the 19th and 20th centuries, the sea was dominated not by one of the many local powers, but instead by the relatively distant island nation of Great Britain.

The Mediterranean may appear a strange locus to draw the British navy’s interest. Great Britain does not border the Mediterranean, and it did not maintain a significant presence there prior to 1704. Further, the Mediterranean is encircled by great powers that vied for its control from the Middle Ages to the modern period.¹

Yet Britain prevailed, exerting near-total dominance of the sea from the Napoleonic Wars until World War II.² British naval superiority in the Mediterranean Sea bears a striking resemblance to the last half-century of U.S. presence in, and dominance of, the South China Sea. Today, more than $5 trillion in annual trade traverses the South China Sea, a staggering one-third of the global total.³ Similarly, throughout the 19th century, a massive amount of global trade—including almost half of essential commodities such as grain and cotton shipped to Europe—passed through the Mediterranean.⁴ The Royal Navy operated from independent bases in the Mediterranean, far from immediate support. Alfred Thayer Mahan noted, largely by observing the Royal Navy, that a great power required three characteristics to maintain sea power: a merchant fleet, a capable navy, and a network of naval bases—three elements in which the British Mediterranean fleet excelled.⁵ The U.S. Pacific Fleet would do well to learn from Britain’s Mediterranean successes and failures in great power projection, diplomacy, and technological innovation.

Establishing British Presence in the Mediterranean Sea

Britain established its presence in the Mediterranean in a piecemeal manner, and the importance of the region became apparent to the British slowly, over many decades. Throughout the 17th century, Great Britain began to expand its reach across the world, founding colonies in the Americas and establishing ports along the African and Indian coasts.⁶ The British soon recognized that their eastern colonies were both more valuable to the empire and more difficult to manage. Passages to India required either a dangerous journey around the Cape of Good Hope or diplomacy with the Mameluke rulers of Egypt to coordinate transit between the Mediterranean and Red Seas.⁷ In part to help facilitate this transit, Britain established its first permanent base in the Mediterranean at Gibraltar, which it captured from the Spanish in 1704, fortified, and equipped with shipyards and naval support facilities.⁸

The British Navy maintained a presence in the Mediterranean throughout the 18th century, but it was far from the dominant naval power. Spain boasted the largest Mediterranean fleet among the European great powers, with France close behind and the declining, yet still formidable, Ottoman Empire anchoring the Eastern Mediterranean.⁹ British domination would not arise until the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century.

Britain had long grasped the importance of a strong navy; it protected its home island with “wooden walls.”¹⁰ The resources Britain invested in its navy paid dividends during the wars when, unable to best Napoleon on land, the British fleet successfully repulsed France and her allies by sea. British squadrons wreaked havoc on French and Spanish trade in the Mediterranean, and major fleet engagements at the Nile, Cape St. Vincent, and crucially, Trafalgar broke the backs of the French and Spanish navies. The persistent value of Mediterranean control was not lost on British policymakers, even in the early years of the war. Member of Parliament  Sir George Dallas explained in 1801, “We are at war for Malta, Egypt, India . . . for the integrity of the British Empire.”¹¹ Britain maintained control of a distant sea over powerful local adversaries for nearly 150 years through military presence, diplomacy, and technological superiority.

Military Presence

In the immediate aftermath of its Napoleonic victory, the Royal Navy enjoyed near-complete hegemony over the world’s oceans.¹² Expanding its network of Mediterranean bases to include seven Ionian islands and the island of Malta, while still maintaining its base at Gibraltar, Britain reached deeper into the Mediterranean. With Malta as the new homeport for its fleet, the British modernized harbor facilities and dockyards in other bases to allow the fleet to operate independent of the distant home islands. Fortified, mutually supporting naval facilities allowed permanent stationing of ships close to any “crisis zone” in the important sea, and there would be many crises in the coming decades.¹³

British presence in the Mediterranean during the early 19th century proved sufficient for complete control; no other power in the region boasted a navy of any comparable strength. Britain did not rest on its laurels, however, but continued to expand its naval reach in the. In 1869, aided in large part by its control of the sea, Britain oversaw the completion of the Suez Canal, vastly reducing transit time between Europe and Asia and increasing the importance of the Mediterranean to maintain trade and communication throughout the empire.¹⁴ In 1878, Britain established a protectorate over Cyprus, and a few years later, following the Anglo-Egyptian War, Britain occupied Egypt.¹⁵ Expanding its presence across the Mediterranean guaranteed secure facilities from which to station and repair fleets and project power throughout the sea. By the1890s, the Mediterranean fleet was the largest in the Royal Navy, even larger than the home fleet.¹⁶

Like the British in the post-Napoleonic Mediterranean, the U.S. Navy found itself ascendant in the Pacific following World War II, surrounded by shattered but rebuilding local states. The United States moved quickly to establish and expand port facilities in Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.¹⁷ Through either direct control or partnership agreements, the Navy guaranteed its ability to project power across the Pacific, including the South China Sea, by permitting fleets there to operate independently. It is essential that the United States, like the British in the Mediterranean, ensure continued access to port facilities. Although modern American mores do not countenance the brazen seizure of territory, coordinated agreements with local governments should be established or renewed that enable and facilitate a permanent U.S. presence in the South China Sea.

Diplomatic Presence

While the Royal Navy was the largest and most powerful fleet in the Mediterranean during the 19th century, it was not the only one. In the years following the Napoleonic Wars, the great powers of the Mediterranean slowly built back their former strength.¹⁸ Alarmed at the expansion of these rival Mediterranean fleets, Britain recognized that its naval domination could not continue if it remained unaided by local allies.

In 1827, Britain intervened in the Greek War for Independence, leading ships from two other great powers, France and Russia, to defeat the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Navarino.¹⁹ As the preeminent Mediterranean power, Britain led the expedition, and its intervention ensured a favorable relationship with the newly established Kingdom of Greece. Britain later supported Italian unification—the Risorgimento—in 1861, gaining the newly unified Italy as another local ally.²⁰

Britain used its dominant presence in the Mediterranean to influence policy in the region, guaranteeing the ability to respond rapidly to developing crises. In the following decades, the British Mediterranean fleet successfully staved off a Franco-Spanish incursion into Egypt during the Near East Crisis of 1839, then defeated Russia during the Crimean War of 1853.²¹ In another demonstration of its fleet’s strength, in 1877, a British squadron prevented the Russian Navy from entering the Mediterranean by way of the Black Sea. Britain exercised its military and political might, even over the great powers geographically positioned much closer to the Mediterranean.²²

Just as Britain used its Mediterranean dominance to influence political actions in the region, the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet must perform a similar role in the South China Sea. The U.S. Navy must ensure free transit and commerce can proceed unimpeded by Chinese or Russian belligerence. It should continue freedom-of-navigation patrols that deter China from expanding its claims throughout the expanse of its “nine-dash line.” Similarly, the United States must continue to support allies that share the belief in free governance and free trade, especially Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. Where possible, the United States should establish new alliances, such as with Vietnam, and repair faltering historical ones, especially with the Philippines. U.S. naval domination of the South China Sea cannot continue unaided by local powers, but the United States will not be able to win, and keep, allies unless unequivocal support is guaranteed. Furthermore, political isolation is not an effective policy. The presence of U.S. military assets carries no weight if rival powers recognize U.S. reluctance to employ them.

19th-Century Technology

The 19th century saw the development of groundbreaking innovations that upended the traditional naval order. Long-range, armor-piercing shells made wooden fleets obsolete. For the first time in history, ships were propelled with power generated not by wind or human muscles, but instead by steam engines. When Britain’s technological lead faltered, its dominant position began to slip, and only by staying at the forefront of that innovation was Great Britain able to maintain continued domination of the Mediterranean.

Initially, Britain failed to drive much of the innovation that transformed naval technology. Although British engineers pioneered steam turbine technology, Frenchman Henri-Joseph Paixhans and American John Dahlgren revolutionized naval gunnery with the midcentury development of shells and breech-loading naval guns.²³ When the industrial revolution reduced the price of iron, it was France that constructed the first ironclad warship, La Gloire, for its Mediterranean squadron to counter the wooden ships of the British fleet.²⁴ Britain eventually recognized the shift in technology and mobilized its considerable industry in a modernization effort. Capitalizing on its position as the world’s leading coal and steel producer, the United Kingdom strove to outproduce the French, Spanish, and Russian Mediterranean and Black Sea fleets.²⁵

Innovation came not only in the form of warship technologies, but also through changes in naval tactics. At the vanguard of the push for new procedures was a group of French strategists in the Jeune École, the Young School, who argued that Britain’s massive battleships could be countered by small, fast, cheap torpedo boats.²⁶ They also pushed for development of commerce raiders—ships that could target merchant vessels while evading warships—to damage Britain’s maritime economy. In many ways, these commerce raiders were the strategic precursors to submarines. Forced to respond to the changing tactics, British shipbuilders diversified their fleets, for the first time producing “torpedo boat destroyers,” the predecessors to modern-day destroyers.²⁷ While the importance of large battleships was not diminished by the new ideas of the Jeune École, British strategists were forced to consider carefully their employment to preserve them from the threats posed by torpedo boats.

For most of the latter half of the 19th century, Britain failed to drive technological innovation, instead reacting to threats posed by rising great powers’ navies. Britain finally seized the initiative in the drive for naval technology with the launching of HMS Dreadnought in 1906, which rendered the rest of the world’s navies all but obsolete. Whereas previously the French sought naval parity with British Mediterranean forces, after the launch of Dreadnought, France recognized its inability to compete and turned instead to countering the vessels of the smaller Mediterranean powers’ fleets.²⁸ Once again, British naval dominance in the Mediterranean forced political change and concessions from a rival great power.

Just as the Royal Navy responded to developing technologies throughout the 19th century, the modern U.S. Navy finds itself at a crossroads of technological innovation. Development of artificial intelligence (AI), lasers, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) threaten to upend the traditional naval order of the past century. The United States must remain at the forefront of technological change, driving (rather than being driven by) innovation. Even more important, the United States must remain open to implementing these new technologies. The ability of U.S. carrier-based aircraft to project power across the world should not preclude experimentation with unmanned aircraft. Likewise, the traditional success of steam catapults on board aircraft carriers must not prevent research with such technologies as the USS Gerald R. Ford’s (CVN-78) electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS). Growing pains are expected, and necessary, but technological stagnation is an even greater threat to the Navy. Likewise, the threat to capital ships posed by small, fast vessels such as the torpedo boats of the Jeune École persist into the present and necessitate continued consideration of fleet composition and defense measures for carriers. The British Mediterranean squadron could not rely on its wooden walls forever, nor can the U.S. Pacific Fleet continue to rely on 20th-century technology well into the 21st.

Decline of the British Mediterranean

Beginning with an administration change in 1885, Great Britain started to distance itself from the rest of the world. From a dominant position across the world’s oceans, and with secure possessions across the globe, British policymakers fancied themselves above the squabbles of the rest of the world. Retreating into a “splendid isolation” for two decades, Britain avoided intervention in foreign conflicts or alliances with other great powers.²⁹ During Britain’s period of nonintervention, Germany was free to continue its rise in Europe, shoring up its own continental alliances and beginning its naval buildup. As 20th-century Britain finally stirred from its lethargy, its subsequent rush to counter the German naval threat and alliance network escalated tensions in Europe. Forced into a naval arms race with the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea, Britain pulled resources away from the Mediterranean, diminishing its ability to project power.

When France and Italy escalated tensions over their colonization of North Africa in 1912, Britain found its Mediterranean presence so eroded that it could not intervene.³⁰ While it remained militarily on par with any Mediterranean rival, Britain also found itself diplomatically isolated; Britain was excluded from the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy in 1882, and the Franco-Russian alliance of 1894.³¹ When rising nations faced this power vacuum and lack of leadership of a dominant power, tension and arms races ensued. The British Mediterranean fleet of World War I, while more powerful than any rival, suffered embarrassing setbacks such as the escape of the German cruisers Goeben and Breslau early in the war and the debacle of Gallipoli two years later.³² Britain would not regain domination of the Mediterranean until World War II, and it held that position only briefly after the cessation of hostilities.

Lessons for the United States Navy

Historians coined the term Pax Britannica to describe the 19th and early 20th centuries, in large part because of the overwhelming global superiority of the Royal Navy. Relative stability on the seas meant free trade flourished across the world. While Britain reaped the lion’s share of the benefits of maritime control, all oceangoing states profited from stability and peace. Likewise, some historians call the last 80 years the Pax Americana, a peace ushered in by the post–World War II dominance of U.S. military power, coupled with U.S. policy generally not averse to wielding that power. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States oversaw a unipolar world order largely absent of great power conflict.

For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the United States faces a major great power challenger as China flexes its muscles. Seeking hegemony over the South China Sea, China builds its military, threatens U.S. partners, and constructs artificial islands from which to project air and naval power. China also seeks to lead the development of new technology—commercial and military—and brazenly challenges global norms on intellectual property and human rights.

The U.S. response to China’s rise has thus far been haphazard and uncoordinated. Poorly trained crews of Seventh Fleet ships collide with commercial vessels.³³ Inconsistent policies leave allies in South Korea, Taiwan, and other crucial states uncertain of U.S. commitment to defense, permanent bases, and trade.³⁴ Inability or unwillingness to hold China accountable for its abuses only emboldens its actions. The South China Sea today, like the Mediterranean in years past, stands apart as one of the most important waterways in the world; one where U.S. presence and commitment must be unequivocal.

The Mediterranean Sea of the 19th century was one of the world’s major maritime arteries ringed with its own great powers geographically positioned to dominate the sea themselves. Yet, for more than a century the United Kingdom maintained firm control. Through a combination of military presence, astute diplomacy, and technological innovation, Great Britain weathered myriad crises and exerted influence to maintain an order favorable to its policy of free trade and maritime commerce. When it failed to maintain that order, the world descended into the chaotic 20th century and Britain slipped onto the periphery of global power. In recent decades, the United States has mirrored some of Britain’s greatest successes in the Mediterranean as it established its own order in the new center of gravity of international relations—the South China Sea. Britain’s mistakes are now the Unites States’ to recognize and reject.