Mahan On Naval Strategy: Selections From The Wr...

Mahan believed that national greatness was inextricably associated with the sea, with its commercial use in peace and its control in war; and he used history as a stock of examples to exemplify his theories, arguing that the education of naval officers should be based on a rigorous study of history. Mahan's framework derived from Jomini, and emphasized strategic locations (such as choke points, canals, and coaling stations), as well as quantifiable levels of fighting power in a fleet. Mahan also believed that in peacetime, states should increase production and shipping capacities and acquire overseas possessions, though he stressed that the number of coal fueling stations and strategic bases should be limited to avoid draining too many resources from the mother country.[15]

Mahan on Naval Strategy: Selections from the Wr...

Alfred Thayer Mahan was born on September 27, 1840 at West Point, New York, where his father was a professor of Civil and Military Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1859 and embarked on a nearly 40-year naval career seeing duty in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico against the Confederacy. He taught briefly at Annapolis, but spent most of his academic career at the newly founded Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, where he eventually served as president. He wrote twenty books during his lifetime including The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783; The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812; The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future; The Life of Nelson; and The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence. He died on December 1, 1914.

Corbett and Mahan had nearly the same job descriptions in their respective naval educational enterprises. Both taught naval history and strategy to officers, and both men became most famous for that work. However, they came to those positions from dramatically different backgrounds. Mahan was a career officer who had years of practical experience which informed but did not dictate his analysis and thinking, and Corbett was a career civilian with almost zero real experience who instead based his work on a deeply scholarly and historical methodology. When looking at the two men in depth, it appears that while they came at their shared subject from these varied and different directions they still arrived at the same conclusions.

Dennis Hart Mahan was born in New York City on April 2, 1802. He grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, and was appointed from that state to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point. As an undergraduate at West Point, Mahan taught mathematics to underclassmen. Graduating at the top of his class in 1824, he soon returned to the Academy to teach civil and military engineering from 1824 to 1871. He was a noted American military author. He is also the father of accomplished naval historian and theorist Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Professor Mahan was married to Mary Helena Okill and they raised five children. Their oldest son, Alfred Thayer, chose the U.S. Naval Academy and became a renowned naval strategist and historian. A younger son, Frederick August, graduated from West Point in 1867.

The dawn of a new colonial era under the United States. The strategic value of Puerto Rico for the United States at the end of the nineteenth century centered in economic and military interests. The island's value to US policy makers was as an outlet for excess manufactured goods, as well as a key naval station in the Caribbean. US Navy Captain Alfred T. Mahan became the leading strategist and advisor to his government during the 1880s. He joined the faculty of the US Naval War College in 1884 and became its president in 1886. Mahan formulated a strategic doctrine based on naval power as the main element of military supremacy. Thus, the strategic doctrine of the United States, until then focusing on ground warfare, was replaced by the primacy of naval power. US naval power in the hemisphere, resulting from the ascendancy of its naval technology at the time, thus became the strategic basisof US military doctrine and foreign policy during the late nineteenth century.

During 1894 the first plans for a military conflict with Spain were formulated at the US Naval War College. In 1896, a formal war plan was developed by Lieutenant William W. Kimball, a naval intelligence officer at the War College. The stated objective was to 'liberate Cuba' from Spanish rule. The main theater of operations would be the Caribbean, focusing on the Cuban and Puerto Rican coastal regions, and the conflict would involve exclusively naval operations. According to this plan, US naval power would be employed against the Spanish Navy at those points where the enemy would face an equal or superior force.

Although Spanish surrender was certain at this point, the occupation of Puerto Rico followed in an effort to secure the US presence on the island prior to the initial discussions of a peace settlement. On July 18, General Nelson A. Miles, commander of the invading forces, received orders to sail for Puerto Rico. Some 18,000 US troops with a naval escort departed for Puerto Rico from Guantánamo Bay and the east coast of the United States. They landed at Guánica Bay on July 25, immediately moving to the city of Ponce and other towns located on the southern part of the island. The US troops then proceeded north towards San Juan, Puerto Rico's capital and the main military post of Spanish forces on the island. But before they could reach San Juan, Spain agreed on August 13th to sign a peace treaty with theUnited States, putting an end to all military hostilities.

Significant published primary sources consist of annual reports of the Navy Department (for specific years) and selected published proceedings such as the Report of the Naval Court of Inquiry Upon the Destruction of the United States Battleship Maine in Havana Harbor, February 15, 1898, Together with the Testimony Taken Before the Court (U.S. Senate document 207, 55th Cong., 2d sess.) and Record of Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry in the Case of Rear-Admiral Winfield S. Schley, U.S. Navy (2 volumes, 57th Cong., 1st sess). The Register of the Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the Navy of the United States, and of the Marine Corps (for specific years) is also a fine source for information concerning the names and duty stations of the officers that staffed the navy for given years. These published documents are part of the congressional serial set and are indispensable for researching U.S. naval activities during the conflict. In many instances, testimony of officers and supporting documentation such as "extracts" from a deck log or ship movement orders are included. The Government Printing Office (GPO) published these reports and registers, and they are available at designated depository libraries throughout the United States.

Archival research takes time and patience. Both staff and scholars have compared it to detective work. It is important to remember that this kind of research is a layered process, going from the general to the specific. One of the best strategies for archival research is to know and understand the secondary sources relating to a topic before consulting primary documents. Checking footnotes and bibliographies cited by other authors and specialists in the field may help individuals open doors into the world of archival research. The "Suggested Readings" list contains several excellent secondary works concerning U.S. naval operations during the Spanish-American War written in the past thirty years.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JAMES N. MATTIS: Thank you, Admiral Harley, distinguished guests, those of you who took time to attend today. You're most welcome here. A very significant day, I would say, for our forces and for those of our allies and our partners, on this beautiful, sunny, picture-perfect day.(Laughter.)I say that with no tongue in cheek, since any day outside Washington, D.C. is sunny for me.(Laughter.)I believe it --(APPLAUSE)-- it probably adds seven years to my life to be with you today.But -- and, for you mothers there who have got young ones who are yelling out a little bit, please stay in your seats. Whatever your little ones say can only add to the intellectual content of my remarks. (Laughter.)So no problem at all. Those little ones are a reminder of why we do what we do here at the Naval War College. And I would also tell you --(APPLAUSE)Yeah. They really are, aren't they?But congratulations to all of you graduates on your achievements here today, and to the families that stood by you as you burned the midnight oil here, in a school known for its intellectual rigor.I would tell you that, having tried unsuccessfully several times in my career to make the cut to attend one of the schools, I felt, to say the least, a little bit humbled when I got the invitation, and surprised.I attribute that to the professional courtesy of your -- of your president here, because I owe him a lot, and, in the naval service, we do not forget the debt that we owe to our shipmates. So thank you, Admiral, for inviting me up here. You helped to get me out of every jam that I got us into. (Laughter.)But it is an honor to be with you because I couldn't make the cut, so, obviously, I come here with a certain amount of envy of those of you who got the benefit of this great education up here.And I would just tell you that we expect that, if you turn to a fresh page in your lives, that you're at the top of your mental, physical and spiritual game. You've had a year to refresh, to learn from each other and a superb faculty. And I think your education will continue even after you leave here, along the lines of what we just hear our chaplain pray for: that we continue to go forward and meet these challenges that surely await us.Admiral Stephen Luce, when he founded the college on this rocky shore so many years ago -- I think it was about 134 years ago -- he wanted a lighthouse for leaders, a lighthouse where they could exchange ideas and broaden their perspectives and thus illuminate the path ahead for generations to come. And we saw it start immediately, certainly with then (kept ?) and Alfred Thayer Mahan's lectures on sea-power that served as the foundation for maritime strategy and shaping naval thought for decades and decades to come.Captain Charles Stockton -- he came here. He added to that legacy when he developed the first code for international law for naval operations, which became the basis for our modern law of naval warfare and, certainly, when we saw this campus exercise its intellectual prowess, helping to develop the Rainbow Plans of the 1930s and preparing its students for the challenges to come.That's what you get when you testify too often in front of Congress, by the way. (Laughter.)But, in the words of Admiral Chester Nimitz -- he said nothing he encountered in the Pacific during the war was either strange or unexpected, for this campus had prepared him well. I'm very confident -- thank you very much. (Laughter.)If this was vodka, it would be a lot better speech. (Laughter.)(APPLAUSE)But I'm not supposed to glamorize alcohol anymore, so, young folks, you ignore what I just said. (Laughter.)I am confident that you're going to carry forward that legacy of what those officers found here or brought to this school as you take your intellectual firepower forward and tackle the security problems of our time, because we are witnessing a world awash in change, as former Secretary of State George Schultz described it, a world beset by the reemergence of great power competition. And we define the categories of challenges in the following way: urgency and power and will -- political will.First, on urgency, we see it epitomized by the North Korea situation, as well as by the threat from violent extremist organizations, two very, very different challenges that have our ongoing attention. Certainly, President Trump's historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un proves, and I quote here, "The past does not have to define the future," unquote.But, while a possible new avenue to peace now exists with North Korea, we remain vigilant regarding pursuit of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. And, meanwhile, half a world away and despite our international coalition's significant success against ISIS' geographic caliphate, extremist organizations continue to sow hatred in the Mideast and murder innocents around the world, from Europe and Africa, to south Asia and the Sulu Sea. It is the urgency of this fight that compels us all to act decisively against terrorism, denying terrorists the safe haven they seek. And we carry out this counterterrorism campaign by, with and through our allies and partners, with over 70 nations united the -- in the Defeat ISIS campaign, and 41 nations united under NATO's flag to defeat terrorism in Afghanistan.The second category of competition is military power, and we see the Russian Federation as the nation closest to us in nuclear parity, and proven willing to use conventional and irregular power in violation of international norms.For the first time since World War II, Russia has been the nation that has redrawn international borders by force of arms in Georgia and Ukraine, while pursuing veto authority over their neighbors' diplomatic, economic and security decisions. Putin seeks to shatter NATO. He aims to diminish the appeal of the Western democratic model and attempts to undermine America's moral authority. His actions are designed not to challenge our arms, at this point, but to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals.The third category is that of political will, and that is a potential rivalry, with China harboring long-term designs to rewrite the existing global order. The Ming Dynasty appears to be their model, albeit in a more muscular manner, demanding other nations become tribute states, kowtowing to Beijing; espousing One Belt, One Road, when this diverse world has many belts and many roads; and attempting to replicate on the international stage their authoritarian domestic model, militarizing South China Sea features while using predatory economics of piling massive debt on others.After World War II, our Greatest Generation, in collaboration with our allies and partners, built the open international order that has benefited global prosperity. It's unrealistic to believe, today, that China will not seek to replicate its internal authoritarian model elsewhere, as it expands globally.China has benefited enormously from the open international order, but it had no say in drafting it. Today, how we engage with China and how the Chinese choose to collaborate by it dictates to the world that it will provide the roadmap for our future relationship.In response to these competitive challenges of urgency, power and will, this last January, our Department of Defense released its first National Defense Strategy in over a decade, and this filled a vacuum, one of strategy-free actions. To protect America's experiment in democracy, our National Defense Strategy has three lines of effort.First, we are building a more lethal force. Our adversaries must know -- work with our diplomats and within the international order, for, if you threaten our experiment in democracy, it will be your longest and worst day.Second, we are strengthening our military alliances and building new partnerships, for history is clear: nations with allies thrive. Every allied and partner-nation officer here today brings value.The third line of effort is we are reforming and modernizing the Department of Defense for greater performance, accountability and affordability, ensuring that we earn the trust of Congress and the American people. We have an obligation to spend wisely every tax dollar entrusted to us, while adapting our department to tomorrow's security challenges. And this is to preclude us from being dominant, yet irrelevant, because we didn't adapt in the tradition of the Naval War College in the interwar years.In support of these lines of institution, lines -- excuse me, these lines of effort, this institution has embraced the ever-changing character of warfare, updating your curriculum to reflect the strategic environment of today and, more importantly, of tomorrow. If we are to uphold a rules-based order for the international community, one beneficial to all, military leaders must embrace the ethos of a fighting admiral, as defined by William Toohey, describing an approach to warfighting in all domains. "A fighting admiral is the ultimate embodiment of an adroit leader possessing an eagerness to close with the enemy, an unflappable ability to execute operations in the heat and confusion of battle, and the power to instill a fighting spirit in those under their command."After the year here, we expect you to be at the top of your game mentally, physically and spiritually, and to work to maintain that standard throughout the rest of your career. You now have the credentials to measure up in the crucible of combat, and your character must do the rest.Your education here has prepared you well to integrate Naval, joint and coalition campaigns across all domains: air, land, sea and, now, the contested warfighting domains of outer space and cyberspace. We are counting on you graduates to live and breathe this fighting admiral ethos, regardless of your rank or position, branch of service or nationality. Don't shy away from the hard problems and even tougher solutions by saying that something is above your pay grade. Your nations and services did not invest a precious year of the finest education possible for you to take a timid view of your leadership responsibility. Keep your wits about you. Keep your grace under fire, your civility with subordinates, inspiring those you lead with humility and intellectual rigor in reconciling war's grim realities with your political leaders' aspirations.As you take your next steps, put into action our line of effort of strengthening our alliances and partnerships using your initiative, remembering that not all the good ideas come from the nation with the most aircraft carriers.Down in Washington, D.C., four statues stand in Lafayette Square, overlooking the White House, and they are there as reminder. These are statues of men who hailed from France, Poland and Prussia, and they came -- and I quote here from one of the monuments -- "to offer their swords to the American colonies, serving as fellow laborers in the cause for liberty during our Revolutionary War."These four men -- Lafayette, Rochambeau, Kosciuszko and von Steuben, serve as reminders, just as this War College student body does today, that America does not stand alone. No single nation resolves security challenges in this world. For all the times that I was privileged to fight for America, I never fought in a solely American formation as a U.S. Marine. And seldom, if ever, will you, in your future leadership roles -- shall find yourself carrying out your -- your mission without communication and collaboration across national lines, for your ability to build trust and harmon