The Influence of Sea Power upon History

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The Influence of Sea Power upon History
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History.jpg
Title page of the twelfth edition.
Author Alfred Thayer Mahan
Country United States
Language English
Subject Military history
Genre Non-fiction
Published 1890 (Little, Brown and Co.)
OCLC 2553178

The Influence of Sea Power Upon History: 1660–1783 is a history of naval warfare published in 1890 by Alfred Thayer Mahan. It details the role of sea power during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and discusses the various factors needed to support and achieve sea power, with emphasis on having the largest and most powerful fleet. Scholars consider it the single most influential book in naval strategy. Its policies were quickly adopted by most major navies,[1][2][3][4] ultimately causing the World War I naval arms race.


Mahan formulated his concept of sea power while reading a history book in Lima, Peru.[5][6]

The book was published by Mahan while president of the US Naval War College, and was a culmination of his ideas regarding naval warfare.

Mahan began the book with an examination of what factors lead to a supremacy of the seas, especially how Great Britain was able to rise to its near dominance. He identifies such features as geography, population, and government, and expands the definition of sea power as comprising a strong navy and commercial fleet. Mahan also promotes the belief that any army would succumb to a strong naval blockade.[7] Recently scholars have called attention to his role as significant in the growth of American overseas possessions, the rise of the new American navy, and the adoption of the strategic principles upon which it operated.[8]

The book then goes on to describe a series of European and American wars and how naval power was used in each.

Impact on naval thought[edit]

Timeliness contributed no small part to the widespread acceptance and resultant influence of Mahan's views. Although his history was relatively thin (he relied on secondary sources), the vigorous style and clear theory won widespread acceptance of navalists across the world.[9] Sea power supported the new colonialism which Europe and Japan were imposing on Africa and Asia. Given the very rapid technological changes underway in propulsion (from coal to oil, from reciprocating engines to steam turbines), ordnance (with better fire directors, and new high explosives) and armor (hardened steel), the emergence of new craft such as destroyers and submarines, and the development of radio, Mahan's emphasis on the capital ship and the command of the sea came at an opportune moment.[10]

Mahan was initially introduced to the German navy by the strategist Ludwig Borckenhagen, in a series of influential papers. Subsequently his name became a household word in the German navy, as Kaiser William II ordered his officers to read Mahan, and Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930) used Mahan's reputation to finance a powerful surface fleet. His ideas decisively shaped Japanese naval doctrine, especially in the fleet actions of World War II.[11]

Between 1890 and 1915, Mahan and British admiral Jackie Fisher (1841–1920) faced the problem of how to dominate home waters and distant seas with naval forces not strong enough to do both. Mahan argued for a universal principle of concentration of powerful ships in home waters and minimized strength in distant seas, while Fisher reversed Mahan by utilizing technological change to propose submarines for defense of home waters and mobile battle cruisers for protection of distant imperial interests.[12]

The French at first adopted Mahan's theories. French naval doctrine in 1914 was dominated by Mahan's theory of sea power and therefore geared toward winning decisive battles and gaining mastery of the seas. But the course of World War I changed ideas about the place of the navy, as the refusal of the German fleet to engage in a decisive battle, the Dardanelles expedition of 1915, the development of submarine warfare, and the organization of convoys all showed the navy's new role in combined operations with the army.[13]

The navy's part in securing victory was not fully understood by French public opinion in 1918, but a synthesis of old and new ideas arose from the lessons of the war, especially by admiral Raoul Castex (1878–1968), from 1927 to 1935, who synthesized in his five-volume Théories Stratégiques the classical and materialist schools of naval theory. He reversed Mahan's theory that command of the sea precedes maritime communications and foresaw the enlarged roles of aircraft and submarines in naval warfare. Castex enlarged strategic theory to include nonmilitary factors (policy, geography, coalitions, public opinion, and constraints) and internal factors (economy of force, offense and defense, communications, operational plans, morale, and command) to conceive a general strategy to attain final victory.[14]

Mahan's strategic theories continue to be influential into the 20th century, especially in the newly emerging naval powers India and China.[15][16][17]

Although Mahan's influence on foreign powers has been widely recognized, only in recent decades have scholars called attention to his role as significant in the growth of American overseas possessions, the rise of the new American navy, and the adoption of the strategic principles upon which it operated.[18][19]

He died in Washington a few months after the outbreak of World War I.


  1. ^ Seager, Robert (1977). Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and his Letters. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. p. 2. ISBN 0-87021-359-8. 
  2. ^ Harding, Richard (2006). Naval History 1680–1850. Burlington: Ashgate. p. 224. ISBN 0-7546-2532-X. 
  3. ^ Downs, Robert B. (2004). Books That Changed the World (Rev. ed.). New York: Signet Classic. p. 302. ISBN 0-451-52928-6. 
  4. ^ Wimmel, Kenneth (1998). Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet: American Seapower Comes of Age. Washington: Brassey's. p. 44. ISBN 1-57488-153-1. 
  5. ^ Turk, Richard W. (1987). The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan. New York: Greenwood Press. p. 10. ISBN 0-313-25644-6. 
  6. ^ Ferreiro, Larrie D. (2008). "Mahan and the 'English Club' of Lima, Peru: The Genesis of The Influence of Sea Power upon History". The Journal of Military History 72 (3): 901–906. doi:10.1353/jmh.0.0046. 
  7. ^ Crowl, 1986
  8. ^ Zimmerman, 2002
  9. ^ St. John, 1971
  10. ^ Patrick J. Kelly, "Militarism in a Global Age: Naval Ambitions in Germany and the United States before World War I." German History (2013) 312 pp: 259-260.
  11. ^ Asada, Sadao (2006). From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-042-8. 
  12. ^ Sumida, Jon Tetsuro (2006). "Geography, Technology, and British Naval Strategy in the Dreadnought Era". Naval War College Review 59 (3): 89–102. ISSN 0028-1484. 
  13. ^ Crowl, 1986
  14. ^ Motte, Martin (1996). "L'epreuve des Faits: ou la Pensee Navale Française face a la Grande Guerre". Revue Historique Des Armées 1996 (2): 97–106. ISSN 0035-3299. 
  15. ^ David Scott, "India's 'grand strategy' for the Indian Ocean: Mahanian visions." Asia-Pacific Review (2006) 13#2 pp: 97-129.
  16. ^ Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes. "Can China Defend a “Core Interest” in the South China Sea?." The Washington Quarterly (2011) 34#2 pp: 45-59.
  17. ^ Alessio Patalano and James Manicom, "Rising Tides: Seapower and Regional Security in Northeast Asia." Journal of Strategic Studies (2014) 37#3 pp: 335-344.
  18. ^ Peter J. Hugill, "The American Challenge to British Hegemony, 1861–1947," Geographical Review (2009) 99#3 pp: 403-425.
  19. ^ Zimmerman, 2002


  • Apt, Benjamin. "Mahan's Forebears: The Debate over Maritime Strategy, 1868-1883." Naval War College Review (Summer 1997). Online. Naval War College. September 24, 2004
  • Asada, Sadao. From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States (2006)
  • Crowl, Philip A. "Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Naval Historian" in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986)
  • Downs, Robert B. Books that Changed the World, New American Library: New York, NY, 1983. ISBN 0-451-52928-6
  • St. John, Ronald B. "European Naval Expansion and Mahan, 1889-1906." Naval War College Review 1971 23(7): 74-83. Issn: 0028-1484. Argues that key Europeans were already set to expand their navies and that Mahan crystallized their ideas and generate broad support.
  • Shulman, Mark Russell. "The Influence of Mahan upon Sea Power." Reviews in American History 1991 19(4): 522-527. in Jstor
  • Shulman, Mark Russell. Navalism and the Emergence of American Sea Powers, 1882-1893 (1995)
  • Zimmermann, Warren. First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power. (2002). 562 pp., chapter on Mahan

External links[edit]