Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
land.” The strength of his argument lay as much in its originality as in its comprehensive-
ness.
6
Mahan begins his epic with the assertion that “a peaceful, gain-loving nation is not far-
sighted, and far-sightedness is needed for adequate military preparation, especially in these
days.” Mahan is neither a warmonger nor is he championing despotism. In fact, as he points
out, it was because of despotism and “fierce avarice” that neither Spain nor Portugal, des-
pite being great sea powers, were in the final analysis great nations. Nonetheless, “Whether
a democratic government will have the foresight, the keen sensitiveness to national posi-
tion,” necessary to deter adversaries is “an open question.” For the friendly foreign ports
that are found the world over do not always endure, he tells us. Not only are nations at
peace in general ignorant of the tragedy that comes from not cultivating a tragic sensibility,
but their historians are specifically ignorant of the sea, ignorant of the vast expanses of the
earth that exert so much influence on the dry-land regions, and contribute to their security
and prosperity. Thus, it is urgent, he warns, to write about the history of naval war: particu-
larly because the principles of such war have remained constant, despite the technological
advances from oared galley to steamship (and to nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and sub-
marines in our day). Mahan illustrates this by a land-bound army analogy:
When the march on foot was replaced by carrying troops in coaches, when the
latter in turn gave place to railroads, the scale of distances was increased, or, if
you will, the scale of time diminished; but the principles which dictated the point
at which the army should be concentrated, the direction in which it should move,
the part of the enemy's position which it should assail, the protection of commu-
nications, were not altered.
7
Mahan embraces the period from 1660, when the sailing ship era “had fairly begun,” to
1783, the end of the American Revolution. He notes that George Washington partly attrib-
uted America's victory in its war for independence to France's control of the seas—even
as decades earlier France had lost the Seven Years' War partly because of its neglect of
sea power. Yet Mahan's panoramic commentary on naval tactics, as well as his illustrations
about the criticality of the sea in human history, range much further back. It was the Ro-
man control of the water that forced Hannibal “to that long, perilous march through Gaul
in which more than half his veteran troops wasted away. Throughout the war, the [Roman]
legions passed by water, unmolested and unwearied, between Spain, which was Hannibal's
base, and Italy.” Mahan points out that there were no great sea battles in the Second Pu-
nic War, because Rome's mastery of the Mediterranean was a deciding factor in Carthage's
defeat. If the Mediterranean Sea were a flat desert, Mahan writes, and the land were the
mountains rising off the desert floor, a dominant navy is the force capable of traveling back
and forth across the desert from one mountain range to another at will. This was the case
