Alfred Thayer Mahan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Page 1 of 4

Make a donation to Wikipedia and give the gift of knowledge! Alfred Thayer Mahan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alfred Thayer Mahan (September 27, 1840December 1, 1914) was a United States Navy officer, geostrategist, and educator. His ideas on the importance of sea power influenced navies around the world, and helped prompt naval buildups before World War I. Several ships were named USS Mahan, including the lead vessel of a class of destroyers. His research into naval history led to his most important work, The Influence of Seapower Upon History,1660-1783, published in 1890.

Alfred Thayer Mahan September 27, 1840 December 1, 1914

Contents

1 Early life and service 2 Naval War College and writings 3 Strategic views and influence 4 Later career 5 Honors 6 Works 7 Notes 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

Place of birth Allegiance Rank

West Point, New York United States of America Captain Rear Admiral (post retirement) USS Chicago

Commands held

Early life and service

Born at West Point, New York to Dennis Hart Mahan (a professor at the United States Military Academy) and Mary Helena Mahan, he attended Saint James School, an Episcopalian college preparatory academy in western Maryland. He then studied at Columbia for two years where he was a member of the Philolexian Society debating club and then, against his parents' wishes, transferred to the Naval Academy, where he graduated second in his class in 1859. Commissioned as a Lieutenant in 1861, Mahan served the Union in the American Civil War as an officer on Congress, Pocahontas, and James Adger, and as an instructor at the Naval Academy. In 1865 he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander, and then to Commander (1872), and Captain (1885). Despite his success in the Navy, his skills in actual command of a ship were not exemplary, and a number of vessels under his command were involved in collisions, with both moving and stationary objects. Despite his affection for old square-rigged vessels, he did not like smoky, noisy steamships of his times and he tried to avoid active sea duty.[1] On the other hand, the books he wrote ashore made him arguably the most influential naval historian.

Naval War College and writings

In 1885, he was appointed lecturer in naval history and tactics at the Naval War College. Before entering on his duties, College President Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce pointed Mahan in the direction of writing his future studies on the influence of sea power. For his first year on the faculty, he remained at his home in New York City researching and writing his lectures. Upon completion of this research period, he was to succeed Luce as president of the Naval War College from June 22, 1886 to January 12, 1889 and again from July 22, 1892 to May 10, 1893 [1]. Whilst there in 1887 he met and befriended a young visiting lecturer named Theodore Roosevelt, who would later become president of the United States. During this period Mahan organized his Naval War College lectures into his most influential books, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 16601783, and The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan

18/06/2008

Alfred Thayer Mahan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Page 2 of 4

17931812, published 1890 and 1892, respectively. Upon being published, Mahan struck up a friendship with pioneering British naval historian Sir John Knox Laughton, the pair maintaining this relationship through correspondence and visits when Mahan was in London. Mahan was later described as a 'disciple' of Laughton, although the two men were always at pains to distinguish between each other's line of work, Laughton seeing Mahan as a theorist while Mahan called Laughton 'the historian'.[2]

Strategic views and influence

Mahan believed that control of seaborne commerce was critical to domination in war. If one combatant could manage to deny the use of the sea to the other, the others' economy would inevitably collapse, leading to victory. Ironically, however, a Mahanian fleet was not made up mostly of commerce raiders. This was because commerce raiders could not establish command of the sea, while a fleet of battleships and other heavily armed warships could. The Mahanian objective was to build a fleet capable of destroying the enemy's main force in a single decisive battle. After this victory was won, it would be easy to enforce a blockade against enemy merchants and hunt down their remaining lighter vessels, since with their heavy assets gone, the enemy would be incapable of rebuilding. For the weaker combatant, meanwhile, the goal was to delay such a climactic battle for as long as possible. While their fleet still posed any threat, the enemy could not risk splitting their forces to close off trade routes. This led to the strategy of a fleet in being, a naval force kept deliberately in port to threaten rather than act. Mahan's views were shaped by the contests between France and England in the 18th century, where British naval superiority had eventually won out over France, consistently preventing a French invasion or a successful blockade (see Napoleonic war, especially Battle of Trafalgar and Continental System). To a modern reader his emphasis on sea-borne commerce may seem commonplace, but the notion was much more radical in Mahan's time, especially in a nation entirely obsessed with landward expansion to the west. On the other hand, Mahan's focus on sea power as the crucial factor behind the rise of Britain neglected the well-documented role of other means (diplomacy and land armies) and Mahan's theories could not explain success of non-maritime empires, such as Bismarck's Germany.[3] After the Civil War, the United States Navy initially opposed replacing its sailing vessels with more advanced steam-powered engines for ideological reasons. However, Mahan argued that only a fleet of armored battleships may be decisive in a modern war. According to his idea of one decisive battle, he also opposed any attempts to divide a fleet. Mahan's work encouraged a technological upgrade by convincing those opposed that naval knowledge and tactics remained as necessary as ever, but that domination of the seas dictated that the speed and predictability of steam-powered engines could not be sacrificed. His books were received with great acclaim, and closely studied in Britain and Germany, influencing their buildup of forces in the years prior to World War I. Mahan's influence sowed the seeds for events such as the naval portion of the Spanish-American War and the battles of Tsushima, Jutland and the Atlantic. His work also influenced the doctrines of every major navy in the interwar period. Mahan was translated and extensively read in Japan,[4] and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) used Influence as a textbook. This strongly affected IJN conduct in the Pacific War, with emphasis on "decisive battle", even at the expense of trade protection. Ironically, Mahan's premise that a reserve force being incapable to recover after initial overwhelming defeat was refuted by the US Navy's own recovery after Pearl Harbor. The IJN pursuit of the "decisive battle" was carried out to such an extent that it contributed to Japan's defeat in 1945.[5][6] And Mahanian doctrine of a decisive battle fought between fleets of battleships became obsolete by the development of submarines and aircraft carriers.[7] Nevertheless, Mahan's concept of sea power went beyond sheer naval superiority. He argued that states should benefit from periods of peace to build their production and shipping capacities and they should acquire overseas possessions, either in the form of colonies or privileged access to foreign markets.[8] However, he also stressed that the number of coaling stations and strategic naval bases should be small enough not to drain too many resources from the mother country.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan

18/06/2008

Alfred Thayer Mahan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Page 3 of 4

Later career
Between 1889 and 1892 Mahan was engaged in special service for the Bureau of Navigation, and in 1893 he was appointed to command the powerful new protected cruiser Chicago on a visit to Europe, where he was received and feted. He returned to lecture at the War College and then, in 1896, he retired from active service, returning briefly to duty in 1898 to consult on naval strategy for the Spanish-American War. Mahan continued to write voluminously and received honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, and McGill. In 1902 Mahan invented the term "Middle East", which he used in the article "The Persian Gulf and International Relations", published in September in the National Review.[3] He became Rear Admiral in 1906 by an act of Congress promoting all retired captains who had served in the Civil War. At the outbreak of World War I, he initially engaged in the cause of Great Britain, but an order of President Woodrow Wilson prohibited all active and retired officers to publish comments on the war. Mahan died of heart failure on December 1, 1914.

Honors
The United States Naval Academy has Mahan Hall named in his honor.

Works

The Gulf and Inland Waters (1883) The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 16601783 (1890) The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 17931812 (1892) Admiral Farragut (1892) The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain (1897) Volume 1 Volume 2 The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future (1897) Lessons of the War with Spain, and Other Articles (1899) Captain Alfred T. The Problem of Asia and Its Effect Upon International Policies (1900) Mahan Story of the War in South Africa 1899-1900 (1900) Types of Naval Officers Drawn from the History of the British Navy (1901) Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812 (1905) Naval Administration and Warfare: Some General Principles, with Other Essays (1908) The Harvest Within: Thoughts on the Life of the Christian (1909) Naval Strategy: Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land (1911) Armaments and Arbitration; or, The Place of Force in the International Relations of States (1912) The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence (1913) The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1805 (abridged ed, 1980)

Notes
1. ^ Paret, Peter (1986). Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 445. 2. ^ Knight, Roger (2000) The Foundations of Naval History: John Knox Laughton, the Royal Navy and the Historical Profession, Review of book by Professor Andrew Lambert in the Institute for Historical Research's Reviews in History series. (London: Institute for Historical Research) http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/knight.html - URL last accessed 3 April 2007 3. ^ Adelson, Roger. London and the Invention of the Middle East: Money, Power, and War, 1902-1922. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-300-06094-7 p. 22-23

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan

18/06/2008

Alfred Thayer Mahan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Page 4 of 4

See also

United States Navy Portal

References

Charles Carlisle Taylor, The Life of Admiral Mahan, 1920, London. William E. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, reprinted 1981) W. D. Puleston, Mahan: The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939) Robert Seager, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1977) John B. Hattendorf and Lynn C. Hattendorf, comps. Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan (1986) Philip A. Crowl, "Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Naval Historian" in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) Eugene L. Rasor, English/British Naval History to 1815. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004,, pp. 43-44. John B. Hattendorf, Mahan on Naval Strategy: selections from the writings of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1991) Benjamin Apt, "Mahan's Forebears: The Debate over Maritime Strategy, 1868-1883." Naval War College Review (Summer 1997). Online. Naval War College. 24 September 2004. Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Inventing grand strategy and teaching command: the classic works of Alfred Thayer Mahan reconsidered (1997) Biographical article Works by Alfred Thayer Mahan at Project Gutenberg

External links

Past Presidents of the Naval War College - from the Naval War College website

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan" Categories: 1840 births | 1914 deaths | American historians | Geopoliticians | Historians of the United States | Irish-Americans in the military | American naval historians | People from New York | United States Naval Academy graduates | United States Navy admirals | Presidents of the Naval War College | Columbia University alumni | Naval War College faculty | American military writers

This page was last modified on 10 June 2008, at 14:54. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan

18/06/2008