THE ALLURE OF SEA POWER - The Revenge of Geography - page 86

subtle and asymmetric. There is little talk here of conventional sea and land battles. The
growing naval power of China is not even mentioned. The spirit of “collective security”
is everywhere. “No one nation has the resources required to provide safety … throughout
the entire maritime domain.” And in this maritime domain, the document indicates that the
Western Pacific and Indian oceans will be the first among equals in strategic importance. 14
And so the Rimland of Eurasia and the larger World-Promontory (the seaboard of the
World-Island), to use the phraseology of Spykman and Mackinder, will have two military
realities, it seems. On the one hand, there will be the U.S. Navy, with its declining but still
dominant fleet, patrolling, in the spirit of Corbett, in concert with its local allies from Africa
to Northeast Asia, in order to keep the seas safe for commerce. On the other hand, there
will be the assertion of rising power by China primarily, and India secondarily, each armed
with their Mahanian proclivities. Precisely because the Chinese have welcomed this Amer-
ican icon of imperialist ambition, the U.S. Navy will not be able to escape entirely from
his spirit. For the eternal struggle of power politics goes on, as much as we might want to
escape from it. “To argue that expansion is inherently misguided,” writes the University of
Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer, “implies that all great powers over the past
350 years have failed to comprehend how the international system works. This is an im-
plausible argument on its face.” And as Mearsheimer goes on, “Since the security benefits
of hegemony are enormous” in an anarchic system in which there is no world hegemon,
“powerful states will invariably be tempted to emulate the United States and try to domin-
ate their region of the world.” 15 So far as his reputation goes, Mahan's best days may lie
ahead.
With a Eurasian littoral increasingly crowded with warships in order to accommodate
the ambitions of the Chinese, Indians, and others alongside the U.S., even as an ever more
practical polar route cuts distances between Eurasia and North America, worldwide hege-
monic struggles may only quicken in speed and intensity. Thus, we now need to explore
the features of a closed geographic system.