Alfred Mahan

Alfred Thayer Mahan , more known under the name of Alfred Mahan or that of Alfred T. Mahan , born the September 27th 1840 with West Point (State of New York), dead on February 1st 1914), was a Historien and naval Stratège American.

Wire of the famous professor of tactic to West Point Refusals Mahan Binder, it is useful in the US Navy during the American Civil War puit becomes president of the Naval War College of Newport (Rhode Island).

Mahan is especially recognized for its influence on the maritime doctrines of the the United States. Its work The Influences Sea Power upon History off, 1660-1783 (1890) was most influential of its time as regards military strategy and foreign politics. Mahan insisted on the need for the United States for developing a marine powerful.

In 1902, he becomes president of the Américan Historical Association and withdraws Rear-admiral in 1906.

It is him which employed in 1902, for the first time, in an article of the National Review, published with London, the term of the Middle East .

Theories of Mahan

In his books, the admiral Mahan tried to explain from which the size came from the British Empire. He affirmed to find of it the answer in acquisition by Great Britain of maritime supremacy. The British had succeeded in securing at the same time a prosperous foreign trade which enriched them, a Merchant navy flourishing to carry out this trade, a powerful navy to take care of the defense of the merchant ships everywhere in the world, a series of maritime bases where the ships could be supplied or be repaired, and finally an empire which provided the raw materials necessary to industry and constituted a market of consumption for the end products. These five elements appeared in Mahan at the same time complementary and essential to ensure the power and prosperity. Without them, the nations remain late in the walk of civilization. The Americans were to thus learn the lesson from it.

Mahan realized perfectly that it was not possible to compete at once with the British. The acquisition of colonies was only the last stage to be considered in this process: the US government was initially to acquire a fleet of war likely to control the oceans around the United States. Then, it had to prevent possible enemies from having access to certain strategic sites near the zones to defend. Lastly, it was to occupy of the positions on the maritime main roads of the sphere.

It did not recommend the annexation of any territory: it was not in favor of the acquisition of Guam, of the Filipino , any island in the west of the Hawaii. In the the Caribbean, it was poorly interested by Cuba, Haiti or Puerto Rico, strongly populated islands. He preferred the acquisition of Hawaii and the one of the the Danish Western Indies, the control of the zone of a transoceanic channel and the hiring of a port in Central America or South.

Influence of Mahan

The importance of Mahan comes especially especially from the influence which he exerted on men placed well to lay down the American foreign politics and, particularly, on Benjamin Tracy, secretary with the Navy, which proposed a vast plan of naval construction in 1889, Henry Cabot Lodge, Member of the Commission of the navy to the Chambre of the representatives of 1889 to 1893 then with the Sénat of the United States as from 1895, finally and especially, Theodore Roosevelt which became Assistant Secretary navy in March 1897. Lodge, for example, declared with the Senate, on March 2nd, 1895, that no nation could be really large without being a naval power and that without the possession of the islands Hawaii - key of the Pacific Ocean - it was useless to undertake the construction of a transoceanic channel (the future Canal of Panamá). As for Theodore Roosevelt, he wrote in 1882, just at his exit of Harvard a book on the Guerre of 1812 in which he adopted the sights of Mahan completely.

In 1890, Naval Policy Board (the Council of maritime policy), named by Benjamin Tracy, affirmed the need for the United States for having a powerful fleet not only for its coastal defenses but to protect its trade route. The recommendations of the council were not entirely followed but one directed oneself nevertheless, with the Naval Act of 1890 and the coastal construction of Cuirassé S able to go in open sea towards a more ambitious policy. In 1898, at the time of the War Spanish-American, the US Navy counted 5 battleships. In 1900, it became third of the world and in 1908, it will be the second.

quotations

" A crushing defeat or an inferiority marked in the presence of the enemy fleet is equivalent one and the other to a complete dislocation of all the system of the colonies or zones of influence, whatever the place of this défaite."

" The maritime power is due initially to the trade and this one follows the most advantageous roads; the military power always followed the trade to help it to progress and for the protéger."

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