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Mahan saw the big picture a century ago and articulated a case for sea power. Clearly, the health of the nation’s economy and the commitment (or lack thereof) to invest its resources in naval forces will determine if the United States will remain a great sea power. We need another Mahan.
Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, published in 1890, spelled out the basic requirements for achieving national sea Power and established the tenets for employing that sea Power in a unified strategic doctrine. Much has changed since 1890. The grand battlefleet of Mahan’s day has given Way to the newer technologies of submarine warfare, air Warfare, and missile warfare, all with the potential for nuclear exchange. Nevertheless, some of the Mahanian Precepts for national greatness ring true today. We need to revisit Mahan’s theories in light of the world’s changing geopolitical structure and fashion a new naval strategy that will project the balance of power into the 21st century. This is the only way we can determine the force structure necessary to carry out the strategy.
Mahan’s Theories
Mahan’s fundamental thesis was that sea power was a Prerequisite for national greatness. Writing at the height °f the Victorian era, he was strongly influenced by the British rise to world dominance. As an island nation, Great Britain was almost totally dependent on controlling the scalanes for its wealth and resources. The British paradigm led to the conclusion that sea power was both necessary and sufficient for world-class greatness.
Mahan identified six key reasons for Britain’s rise in Power: geographical position, physical conformation, ex-
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I tent of territory, size of population, national
•■■■r I character, and character of government.1
These six factors may be condensed into I two subgroups: fixed geographical assets 9 and variable sociological assets. The first subgroup is comprised of the location and resources of the state (i.e., proximity to other nations, access to the sea, availability of harbors). The second subgroup relates basically to the balance of the people and the government of the state. Mahan emphasized that the most important element for sea power was “the tendency to trade, involving of necessity the production of something to trade with. . . .”2 In his view, the government must be an extension of and a focal point for the character of its population and must effectively implement policies to establish and nurture the three basic links of sea power: production, shipping, and markets. In peacetime, this means favoring industry that lends itself to financial gain from commercial shipping; in wartime, it means providing an armed navy with adequate reserves and suitable naval stations to protect the nation’s sea-lanes, while threatening those of the enemy. Mahan’s final observation was that the United States had achieved high levels of industrial production, but had failed to develop either shipping or markets.
Mahan went on to prescribe the composition and employment of the world-class navy needed to protect the sea-lanes. It was this so-called war-fighting doctrine that had such a strong influence on the expansion-oriented world powers in the late 19th century. This doctrine was based on two principles: first, that a sea power must have a navy large enough and diverse enough to overwhelm its potential adversaries in a given theater of operations. Its second principle was reliance on concentration of force, supporting the first principle in establishing the means by which local dominance could be achieved to bring . . matters to an issue as soon as possible upon the broad sea, with the certainty that the power which achieves military preponderance there will win in the end.”3
These two principles were supplemented by three corollaries: the effectiveness of the naval blockade in economic strangulation of an adversary, the effectiveness of commerce raiding, and the importance of naval shore facilities for global logistical support.4
In order to assess fully the 21st century meaning of sea power, however, it is necessary to review the current state of naval affairs.
The New World Order
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the successful conclusion of the internationalized war in the Persian Gulf are evidence of an emerging new world order. This new order is still in transition, with little likelihood for stability in the near term. One thing is certain, however. The Soviet “Evil Empire” will never be the same. We need a new strategy based on a new paradigm.
Evaluating the implications of Mahan’s theories in the new world order requires an understanding of future strategic concerns. The following are ones of which we can be fairly certain:
► The relationship between the United States and the countries of Europe, including Russia and however many new republics emerge, will continue to develop.
► High-technology weapons will become more important—as credible deterrents and as a prerequisite of power.
► The spread of high-technology weapons will contribute to instability, as regional military powers challenge the status quo to achieve territorial gain or political influence. >■ The U.S. military budget will continue to decline.
► The Pacific Rim and the Middle East will take on more importance—as markets, sources of raw materials, and sites of potential conflicts.
► Economic competition will increase as developing regional economic powers penetrate existing markets and vie for limited resources of energy and raw materials.
In addition to these global changes, the Persian Gulf War provides the naval strategist with valuable lessons concerning power projection and force composition. However, we must keep in mind that Desert Shield/Storm was a unique situation. Considering that there were five months of uninterrupted in-country preparatory time, a technologically inferior enemy, a compliant and adjacent ally, an almost-total consensus in the international community, and a ready force in Europe for deployment, the 100-hour blitzkrieg is hardly surprising.5 The next war will not be so easy. The budget crisis makes it tempting to look on the Gulf War’s success as adequate rationale for deep military cuts—particularly in naval and marine forces that took a backseat to the air and land campaigns. This is both wrong-headed and dangerous in the increasingly volatile multipolar world. Sea power is still the most vital element in keeping the peace during these regional crises. The lessons we should learn are that high technology works, rapid deployment of joint forces is the key to success, intelligence is vital, and United Nations approbation is necessary for continued logistical support.
It is against this backdrop that the relevance of Mahan s theories must be validated.
Mahan Revisited
Mahan’s basic thesis—that sea power was the key prerequisite for national greatness—is of questionable value today. Sea power is still necessary, but it is not enough in itself. It is also necessary to have a balance of a sound economic policy, a stable and responsive government, a high-technology industrial base, and a military
force with integrated ground, air, sea, and space offensive and defensive capabilities.
Mahan’s three geophysical attributes for naval greatness also have little value today. It is still necessary to have access to the sea and adequate harbor facilities, but it is far more important to have a broad manufacturing capability. On the other hand, Mahan’s three socioeconomic attributes retain their utility; the character of the population and the character of the government in support of seafaring enterprise determine the extent of support ultimately granted to a naval sea-lane protective force. The expense of a modern navy with worldwide power-projection capability can only be borne by a government committed to the sea as an instrument of foreign policy and economics.
Mahan’s fleet composition theories have also become virtually irrelevant, for the global navy is no longer a bat- | tleship navy but rather a complex mixture of ships and weapons, each maintained in number and quality commensurate with the complex nature of the threat. There must be an air-defense capability to counter missiles and bombs, an antisubmarine capability to counter the subsurface threat, and a space capability to launch and maintain communication and surveillance satellites to monitor the threat. And a nuclear capability is essential. The commerce raider that Mahan dismissed as irrelevant is a key element of the balanced fleet in the form of the stealthy modern nuclear submarine.
Mahan’s fleet-employment theories, however, are still relevant. The ability to concentrate forces to drive the enemy from the sea is as significant today as it was in 1890. Command of the sea by controlling the sea lines of communication remains the primary objective of naval strategy. The importance of logistical support at remote sites is still a fundamental requirement. The naval blockade is still effective against a relatively small regional power such as Iraq.
Command of the sea is not a simple proposition in a complex, high-technology, and multithreat environment. Many modem naval strategists view it as an impossibility, believing instead that temporary, local sea control is the best we can achieve. According to Vice Admiral Stans- field Turner, sea control means “denying an enemy the right to use some seas at some times; and asserting our own right to use some seas at some time.”6 The proliferation of advanced weaponry in many different nations 1 lends credence to the notion that limited sea control and limited war are the practical applications of Mahan’s principle of absolute sea control and total war.
In addition, the introduction of nuclear weapons redefined the concept of war. Limited war is essentially the only option short of mutual annihilation—and the proliferation of expanding regional powers has increased its , likelihood. When limited, regional wars that persist with- j out resolution may require the continuous maritime presence of a great power to prevent escalation.
Ways to deal with limited war are of primary concern in the current debate regarding the U.S. Navy force composition for the 1990s and beyond. Naval forces must be able to meet the threat. We need aircraft carriers to project ,
The bottom line is that we must make a rational choice between guns and butter. We must do something more than just reduce what we now have, for even that is stretched to the limit.
air power, submarines for surveillance and for rapid, stealthy forward deployment, and surface ships to patrol the sealanes.
A fleet must be dispersed as widely as possible, with provisions for rapid concentration as the need arises.
Finally, commerce and finance have become central to foreign policy. The global economy depends on the sea for survival. The sealanes are the arterial avenues for the lifeblood of goods and services that sustain nations. A naval strategy that stipulates sea-lane freedom of movement as an absolute prerequisite is a strategy that supports continued economic growth and prosperity. The current position of the U.S. Navy as the guardian of the seas and the maintainer of open sea lines of communication is both logical and laudable in this regard. The drawback of this unflinching commitment is that the expense of maintaining a navy of adequate size and quality to police the global sea-lanes is not compensated for by the trade it engenders. We have the production and markets (albeit to a lesser extent), but we do not have the shipping. Too many of our economic competitors use the open sealanes without the maritime ante of a covering naval force, because they assume we will continue our presence.
The United States can no longer afford to police the World for the benefit of other economic superpowers—to °ur own economic detriment. We must devise a force structure that is both economically viable and strategically sound. We must continue to view the former Soviet Union as a threat since it is still the only current political entity capable of mounting a credible nuclear attack. Another identifiable threat is the modern weaponry in the hands °f nationalistic Third World regional powers.
Given these threats, what would a latter-day Mahan propose as the conditions required for greatness? What are the Prerequisites for sea power? As the world has become economically interdependent, commerce and industry have become both necessary and sufficient for the achievement of the goal of national wealth and greatness. The ability to maintain a global military force depends on economic Preeminence, implying that the factors for greatness are economic. The new Mahan might suggest these six:
^ Economic Position-. The economic infrastructure of a nation, including availability of capital, labor, and resources, and the technology to develop them totally ^ Resource Position: The availability of natural resources and the ability to transport them to state-of-the-art high- technology processing factories
^ Demographics: The availability and mobility of qualified factory workers and technical support personnel ^ Education: The capability to create a high-technology Workforce needed for globally competitive products ^ Business Enterprise: The ability of managers to compete in the international economy through innovative product design and aggressive marketing ^ Government: A government with sound political tradi- hons of a free market orientation fostering competition in
products and services and supportive of a military force to keep sea and air lanes open Where does the military fit into the new world economic power’s priorities for resource allocation? Clearly, a strictly defensive military role would be untenable for the truly great world power, as someone must keep the sea-lanes open. The fact that we provide this service to Japan and Germany as they dominate the world’s markets is not coincidental. It would be foolhardy to suggest, however, that the United States could revert to defensive isolation and continue as a superpower in the global economy. The interdependence of Europe, Asia, the Americas, and eventually Africa demands that free trade must continue. The collapse of any one major economy would have severe repercussions on the rest. A compromise is necessary; we cannot afford to continue with the status quo.
Conclusion
Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers should be required reading for all political, military, and business decisionmakers involved in the strategic and force structure debates, as it is essentially Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power Upon History revisited for the 21st century. Kennedy’s basic argument is that great powers have fallen primarily because . . major shifts in the world’s military-power balances have followed alterations in the productive balances.”7
In the United States today there is an imbalance between what is considered mandatory for greatness in the military sector and what is mandatory for our greatness in the economic sector, and without the latter, we can ill afford the former. We have been paying for the imbalance by importing so much foreign capital that we are now the world’s greatest debtor nation. The bottom line is that we must make a rational choice between guns and butter. We must do something more than just reduce what we now have, for even that is stretched to the limit. The Old World strategy must give way to the new.
The United States is still a great power, but the lessons of history indicate that it won’t be for long if it continues down its present path. A new Mahanian paradigm needs to be established with The Influence of History on Sea Power as a starting point. We need another Mahan.
'Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1890), p. 25.
Tbid., p. 46.
Tbid., p. 369.
Tbid., p. 119.
'Robert F. Dunn, “After the Storm,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings,” June 1991,
pp. 60-61.
hStansfield Turner, “Missions of the U.S. Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings,” December 1974, pp. 18-20.
7Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987), p. 439.
Commander Needham is currently assigned to PMS-350 as part of the Sea wolf program. He holds a master’s degree from Central Michigan University and an engineer’s degree from MIT.