The Mahan Doctrine

Podcast Transcript

In 1890, an obscure professor at the US Naval War College published a book that at first seemed fairly innocuous.

However, it turned out his book found an audience. An extremely powerful audience.

Its success led to further research, which in turn ushered in a revolution in naval warfare, which influenced the world’s great powers for over a century.

Learn more about the Mahan Doctrine and how it influenced 20th-century warfare on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Alfred Thayer Mahan was an unlikely person to lead a revolution in warfare.

Born in 1840 to a family steeped in military tradition, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1859 and served with modest distinction during the Civil War.

His career was unremarkable until 1885, when he was appointed to lecture on naval history and tactics at the newly established Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

It was in preparing his lectures that Mahan experienced his intellectual breakthrough. Studying the Anglo-French conflicts of the 17th and 18th centuries, he discerned patterns that previous historians had overlooked.

In 1890, he published these insights in “The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783,” a book that would become one of the most influential on military strategy ever written.

Mahan’s central thesis was deceptively simple: nations that controlled the seas controlled their destinies. But his argument was far more sophisticated than mere naval cheerleading.

He identified six fundamental conditions affecting sea power:

geographical position
coastal geography, including natural harbors and resources
extent of territory
population size
national character
the character of government.

A nation possessing favorable conditions in these areas, he argued, was positioned to achieve maritime dominance.

The doctrine rested on several key principles.

First, command of the sea was not about controlling every ocean but about defeating the enemy’s battle fleet in decisive engagements, thereby achieving the freedom to use sea lanes while denying them to adversaries.

Second, commerce and naval power were inseparable; a thriving merchant marine provided both wealth and trained seamen for wartime service.

Third, nations needed overseas bases and coaling stations to project power globally.

Fourth, a powerful battleship fleet concentrated for decisive action was superior to a dispersed fleet of cruisers focused on commerce raiding.

Mahan developed these ideas further in subsequent works, including “The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812“, published in 1892, and numerous other essays.

For the United States, he advocated for a large, modern navy built around capital ships, a canal across Central America to facilitate fleet movement, overseas bases in the Caribbean and Pacific, and an assertive foreign policy to protect and expand American commercial interests.

Mahan’s theories found their most immediate and enthusiastic audience in his own country. The United States in the 1890s was emerging from post-Civil War introspection and isolation, and was looking outward with growing ambition. Mahan’s work provided intellectual justification for expansion at precisely the moment American leaders were contemplating it.

His influence on Theodore Roosevelt cannot be overstated. Roosevelt reviewed “The Influence of Sea Power” enthusiastically, and the two men became friends and correspondents.

When Roosevelt served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1897 to 1898, he pushed for naval expansion based directly on Mahan’s principles.

As president from 1901 to 1909, Roosevelt oversaw the construction of the “Great White Fleet,” transforming the U.S. Navy from a coastal defense force into a world-class battle fleet.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 seemed to vindicate Mahan’s theories perfectly. Admiral Dewey’s decisive victory at Manila Bay and the destruction of the Spanish fleet at Santiago demonstrated the value of concentrated naval power in achieving swift strategic results.

The war’s outcome brought the United States overseas territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, creating the colonial infrastructure Mahan had advocated.

The construction of the Panama Canal, completed in 1914, was another Mahanian project realized. Mahan had long argued that such a canal was essential for American naval strategy, allowing the fleet to move rapidly between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Roosevelt made it a centerpiece of his presidency, engineering Panamanian independence from Colombia when negotiations stalled, then securing perpetual control of the Canal Zone.

American naval construction in the early 20th century closely followed Mahan’s prescription. The U.S. built increasingly powerful battleships, established bases throughout the Caribbean and Pacific, and organized its fleet for decisive battle. By World War I, the United States possessed the world’s third-largest navy.

Although the United States adopted the Mahan Doctrine, it was initially more celebrated in Britain than in America.

The Royal Navy had practiced many of Mahan’s principles for centuries without articulating them so systematically. Mahan provided historical validation for Britain’s maritime supremacy and intellectual ammunition against those who questioned naval expenditure.

British naval officers and politicians embraced Mahan with fervor. The book became required reading at the Royal Naval College. Political leaders from both parties cited Mahan in parliamentary debates about naval estimates. The doctrine reinforced Britain’s commitment to the “two-power standard,” maintaining a fleet larger than the next two navies combined.

Admiral Sir John Fisher, First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910, revolutionized the Royal Navy along lines that both followed and departed from Mahan. The HMS Dreadnought, launched in 1906, embodied Mahan’s preference for concentrated firepower in capital ships.

But Fisher also advocated for submarines and developed the battle cruiser concept, showing more flexibility than strict Mahanian orthodoxy might suggest.

A battlecruiser was a type of early 20th-century warship built with battleship-sized guns and speed prioritized over armor, intended to outrun anything that could outgun it and outgun anything that could catch it.

The British also faced a challenge Mahan had not fully addressed: how to maintain sea control against new technologies. Mines, torpedoes, and eventually submarines threatened the decisive fleet engagement Mahan envisioned.

The Battle of Jutland in 1916, the largest surface engagement of World War I, demonstrated both the validity and limitations of Mahan’s theories. Britain maintained strategic sea control, but the anticipated decisive Trafalgar-like victory never materialized.

Germany’s embrace of Mahan was enthusiastic and ultimately disastrous. Kaiser Wilhelm II read Mahan’s work and reportedly kept a copy on his nightstand. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, Secretary of State for the Navy from 1897 to 1916, used Mahanian arguments to justify the massive fleet expansion that would fundamentally alter European geopolitics.

Tirpitz’s “Risk Theory” was essentially Mahanian doctrine adapted to Germany’s position. He argued that Germany needed a battle fleet large enough that Britain would not risk engaging it, even if Britain would likely win, because the damage sustained would leave Britain vulnerable to third powers. This fleet would give Germany diplomatic leverage and protect its growing overseas commerce.

The plan backfired catastrophically. Rather than intimidating Britain into accommodation, German naval expansion drove Britain into alliances with France and Russia.

The naval race consumed resources Germany might have used to strengthen its army while failing to achieve its strategic objective. When war came in 1914, the German High Seas Fleet remained largely bottled up in port, unable to challenge British command of the sea effectively.

The German experience revealed a limitation in Mahan’s framework: he had analyzed how maritime powers achieved dominance but provided less guidance for continental powers seeking to challenge established naval superiority.

Germany discovered that building a Mahanian fleet without the geographical advantages, colonial infrastructure, or maritime commercial base of an established sea power was a recipe for strategic failure.

Japan’s adoption of Mahan’s principles was perhaps the most thorough and consequential outside the United States. “The Influence of Sea Power” was translated into Japanese in 1896 and became immensely influential among Japanese naval officers and political leaders.

Japan’s situation seemed tailor-made for Mahanian strategy. As an island nation dependent on imports and seeking to expand its influence in Asia, Japan needed naval power to achieve its ambitions.

The Japanese Navy studied Mahan intensively and modeled itself on the Royal Navy, which Mahan had celebrated.

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 provided stunning validation of Mahanian principles in Asian waters. The Japanese annihilation of the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905 was precisely the decisive fleet engagement Mahan had theorized about.

Japan’s victory, achieved through superior training, tactical skill, and concentration of force, demonstrated that an Asian power applying Mahanian doctrine could defeat a European empire.

Japanese naval strategy throughout the early 20th century remained fundamentally Mahanian. Japan developed a powerful battleship fleet, established bases throughout the Pacific, and planned for a decisive engagement with its likely adversary, the United States.

The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which limited battleship construction, was viewed by Japanese naval officers through a Mahanian lens as an attempt to prevent Japan from achieving the 70% ratio to the U.S. Navy they believed necessary for competitive strength.

Interestingly, Japan’s ultimate challenge to American power in World War II began with a carrier-based air attack on Pearl Harbor, representing a technological evolution beyond Mahan’s battleship-centric vision.

Yet the underlying strategic logic remained Mahanian: achieve decisive superiority at the war’s outset to secure control of vital sea lanes and resource areas.

The war’s outcome, with American naval power progressively strangling Japan’s island economy, vindicated Mahan’s core insight about maritime vulnerability.

Not all nations embraced Mahan’s doctrine enthusiastically. France and Russia, both possessing significant navies but fundamentally continental powers, found Mahan’s theories less applicable to their strategic circumstances.

French naval theorists like Admiral Raoul Castex engaged critically with Mahan. While acknowledging his contributions, Castex argued that Mahan overemphasized decisive battle and undervalued commerce raiding and what the French called “guerre de course.”

For France, which could never match British naval power and faced threats on land from Germany, a pure Mahanian strategy was impractical. French naval policy remained divided between battle fleet advocates and those favoring submarines and cruisers for commerce warfare.

Russia’s relationship with Mahanian doctrine was complex and ultimately tragic. Russian naval officers studied Mahan, and some advocated for a powerful fleet.

However, Russia’s vast land borders and limited ice-free ports made naval power secondary to land forces. The destruction of Russia’s Pacific and Baltic fleets in the Russo-Japanese War demonstrated the risks of pursuing naval power without the supporting conditions Mahan had identified as necessary.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet naval strategy evolved into something quite distinct from Mahan. While Stalin briefly pursued a large surface fleet in the late 1930s, Soviet doctrine generally emphasized submarines, coastal defense, and naval aviation rather than command of the seas through battle fleet supremacy.

The Cold War saw Mahan’s theories adapted to new circumstances. American naval strategy emphasized carrier battle groups and nuclear-powered submarines, technologies Mahan never imagined, yet the underlying concept of controlling seas to project power remained Mahanian.

Soviet attempts to challenge American naval dominance were essentially efforts to overcome American Mahanian advantages.

China’s naval expansion in the 21st century has been explicitly compared to Mahanian sea power theory. Chinese strategists study Mahan intensively, and China’s naval expansion, artificial island bases in the South China Sea, development of blue water capabilities, and attention to controlling maritime trade routes align with Mahan’s principles.

India studies Mahan as it builds a modern navy to influence the Indian Ocean.

The “String of Pearls” strategy of ports across the Indian Ocean mirrors Mahan’s emphasis on coaling stations and naval bases.

Critics argue that Mahan overemphasized naval power at the expense of other instruments of national power, that his focus on decisive battle was always somewhat romanticized, and that technological change has undermined many of his specific prescriptions.

His work is also criticized for providing intellectual cover for imperialism and aggressive foreign policies.

Nevertheless, Mahan’s core insights retain remarkable power. Maritime commerce remains the lifeblood of the global economy, with over 80% of world trade by volume traveling by sea.

Nations still compete for influence over strategic waterways. Naval power remains essential for projecting force and protecting interests far from home. The ability to control or deny use of the seas continues to confer strategic advantages.

The Mahan Doctrine has shaped military thinking through two world wars, the Cold War, and many other conflicts. While most people have never heard of Alfred Thayer Mahan, his ideas have helped shaped the world for over 125 years.