Water is critical to trade, war, and national identity. Xenophon marched his 10,000 Greek mercenaries through Anatolia to return home while dogged by Persian forces. Upon arriving at the coast, his men smelled salt, heard waves, and began shouting ecstatically, “The sea! The sea!” Greece beat off Persia’s invasion at Salamis Bay, Japan swallowed the Pacific early in WWII, and Trafalgar not only defeated Napoleon’s last hope of dominance but also secured British naval superiority for a century which allowed the creation and endurance of the far-flung British Empire. America increased its imperial colonies as its navy also increased.
Alfred Mahan’s 1890 book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History created intense analysis of naval power in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries largely on the foundation of Mahan’s initial principles of geopolitics. Covering the interactions of trade and results of war from 1660-1783, Mahan provided a revolutionary analysis of the rise of the British Empire. Six categories promoted oceanic control: geographic position, physical conformation, extent of territory, population, character of the people, and character of the government.
British dominance of the seas resulted from expansionist efforts to control its colonies combined with a decline in competitors' strengths concluding in a dominant military, economic, and political power. From this observation, Mahan promoted US expansionist policies for the increasingly economic strength of US power. Access to foreign markets was fundamental in promoting US manufacturing abroad and need access to those markets. Access that needed on a merchant navy, a military navy, and a naval base network for trade and supplies.
In the twenty-first century, more than 90 percent of trade traverses shipping lanes. Resonating with politicians and reinforced by the Spanish-American War, annexation of Hawaii, and the Panama Canal, the United States secured refueling stations on small island bases throughout the Pacific. Despite these early American efforts to expand its naval prowess, France and Germany were the nations that most quickly took hold of the lessons of history presented by Mahan to overhaul their naval structure. World War I changed the focus and ability of these nations to contend for the world’s waves. France saw the failure of the Dardanelles invasion at Gallipoli and the effectiveness of submarine warfare as sufficient deterrents to the expansion of its navy. Germany nearly ousted Britain from its pre-eminent position as queen of the world’s oceans, but by keeping its fleets in safe harbors, Germany refused to demonstrate its new strength and lost its navy in the Treaty of Versailles.
Safety of the seas is a key feature of American naval might and projection of global soft power since freedom of travel subtly shifts nations to trade and military alliance with the dominant naval power. Though global naval law has seen a perpetual continuance over the last two centuries, permanence is the illusion of every age and empire. Because of the close ties and goals between British and American power, global law saw little change with the switch in power from one nation to the next. With British withdraw from Far East waters in 1904, Japan filled the power vacuum with a new regime, new laws, and a new approach to governance of trade routes.
Since World War II, the United States has been an unstoppable naval force despite exertions to maintain its unassailable air force and land army. Aircraft carriers and advancing technologies have maintained the power of the seas. The American navy has secured and support its private economy through safety and access to markets which makes the navy is the most important peacetime military branch of any major nation. Navies reassure allies of support, dissuade enemies from developing competition, and are cheaper and more mobile than land-based military bases which can be seen as imperial. A navy is the most cost-efficient, powerful, and maneuverable option in the projection and maintenance of power and trade.
Under America’s second president in the twenty-first century, the navy has been diminished. The reasoning behind this is to reduce public spending, but two side effects have been observed. First, reduced American global presence has been credited with the invasion of Crimea by Russia in 2014 and the establishment of man-made islands in the South China Sea.
An American defined the idea that America embraced – that naval power elevates a country’s international standing. The lesson has slowly slipped from the public mind, and self-degradation of its own strength may be a major cause of the United States economic decline. Water has always been the functional determinant of a people's wealth, and with command of the seas in the modern world, the wealth is nearly limitless.
Agatha Tyche
British dominance of the seas resulted from expansionist efforts to control its colonies combined with a decline in competitors' strengths concluding in a dominant military, economic, and political power. From this observation, Mahan promoted US expansionist policies for the increasingly economic strength of US power. Access to foreign markets was fundamental in promoting US manufacturing abroad and need access to those markets. Access that needed on a merchant navy, a military navy, and a naval base network for trade and supplies.
In the twenty-first century, more than 90 percent of trade traverses shipping lanes. Resonating with politicians and reinforced by the Spanish-American War, annexation of Hawaii, and the Panama Canal, the United States secured refueling stations on small island bases throughout the Pacific. Despite these early American efforts to expand its naval prowess, France and Germany were the nations that most quickly took hold of the lessons of history presented by Mahan to overhaul their naval structure. World War I changed the focus and ability of these nations to contend for the world’s waves. France saw the failure of the Dardanelles invasion at Gallipoli and the effectiveness of submarine warfare as sufficient deterrents to the expansion of its navy. Germany nearly ousted Britain from its pre-eminent position as queen of the world’s oceans, but by keeping its fleets in safe harbors, Germany refused to demonstrate its new strength and lost its navy in the Treaty of Versailles.
Safety of the seas is a key feature of American naval might and projection of global soft power since freedom of travel subtly shifts nations to trade and military alliance with the dominant naval power. Though global naval law has seen a perpetual continuance over the last two centuries, permanence is the illusion of every age and empire. Because of the close ties and goals between British and American power, global law saw little change with the switch in power from one nation to the next. With British withdraw from Far East waters in 1904, Japan filled the power vacuum with a new regime, new laws, and a new approach to governance of trade routes.
Since World War II, the United States has been an unstoppable naval force despite exertions to maintain its unassailable air force and land army. Aircraft carriers and advancing technologies have maintained the power of the seas. The American navy has secured and support its private economy through safety and access to markets which makes the navy is the most important peacetime military branch of any major nation. Navies reassure allies of support, dissuade enemies from developing competition, and are cheaper and more mobile than land-based military bases which can be seen as imperial. A navy is the most cost-efficient, powerful, and maneuverable option in the projection and maintenance of power and trade.
Under America’s second president in the twenty-first century, the navy has been diminished. The reasoning behind this is to reduce public spending, but two side effects have been observed. First, reduced American global presence has been credited with the invasion of Crimea by Russia in 2014 and the establishment of man-made islands in the South China Sea.
An American defined the idea that America embraced – that naval power elevates a country’s international standing. The lesson has slowly slipped from the public mind, and self-degradation of its own strength may be a major cause of the United States economic decline. Water has always been the functional determinant of a people's wealth, and with command of the seas in the modern world, the wealth is nearly limitless.
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