They tend to prefer weak neighbors and have often assumed responsibility for their neighbors’ foreign policies. Typically, they try to prevent the rise-or seek the dismemberment-of bordering powers. Land powers, however, seek security by accumulating spheres of influence and exclusion zones, often in concentric rings around their borders. The effectiveness of this access will determine the nature of her foreign policy.” 5 In other words, U.S. He emphasized oceans as access both for oneself and for one’s enemies, and ships as the main conduit: “The United States will have to depend on her sea power communications across the Atlantic and Pacific to give her access to the Old World. citizen from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, finished his most famous work, The Geography of the Peace, in 1943 while Nazis occupied his homeland. Each must prioritize spending on naval versus ground forces accordingly. They are the UK and the US and Japan.” 4 In other words, maritime powers can defend themselves primarily by sea, whereas continental powers cannot. Satō highlighted the first fundamental discriminator between maritime and continental powers: “Among the Powers in the World, there are only three countries that can defend themselves primarily with navies. Vice Admiral Satō Tetsutarō, president of Imperial Japan’s Naval War College, published the 1908 History of Imperial Defense, making him among Japan’s most influential naval officers. Scotland Forever! depicts the charge of the Royal Scots Greys during the 1815 battle.
Through that dominance, it created wealth and, therefore, the ability to endure a protracted war while attrition wore down the wealth-destroying continental power. The United Kingdom and its allies were victorious at Waterloo because Britain dodged the continental enemy’s primary strength-its army-and leveraged its own: naval dominance. Whereas those that be strongest by land are many times in great straits.” 3 Corbett, quotes Britain’s great philosopher, scientist, lawyer, and statesman, Sir Francis Bacon: “e that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will. Britain’s preeminent maritime theorist, Sir Julian S.
Much earlier, Britain by necessity had developed a maritime security paradigm suited to its island geography and neighboring large continental foes. maritime metamorphosis when he made the case for investment in a blue-water navy that became the mantra of navalists worldwide.
Mahan ushered in the second phase of the U.S. It ended in an 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, the same year Alfred Thayer Mahan published his seminal book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660–1783, grounded in an understanding that commerce had become the currency of power. Army completed America’s longest war: the conquest of the west, which its original inhabitants fought to retain their lands. The Monroe Doctrine, this period’s most famous foreign policy proclamation, was a classic continental, sphere-of-influence, “stay out of my exclusive zone” warning to European powers. The United States unsuccessfully invaded Canada twice (1775, 1812) negotiated treaties with the British and Spanish empires (straightening the northern border in 1818 and gaining Florida in 1819) cut large checks for the central and western United States (the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon Bonaparte and the 1867 purchase of Alaska and points south from Tsar Alexander II) and fought Mexico for Texas and the Southwest (the Mexican-American War, 1846–48). conquest of much of North America defined the continental phase. Navy has played a key role in the transition. 2Īs the 19th century gave way to the 20th, the United States began its transition from a continental to a maritime security paradigm and, after World War II, became champion of a maritime world order as the result of a three-phase transformation. In 2020, an article from the Center for International Maritime Security suggested a 66-70-80-90-99 rule, highlighting that 66 percent of global wealth comes from or near the sea 70 percent of the globe is oceanic 80 percent of its population is coastal 90 percent of goods arrive by sea and 99 percent of international digital traffic goes by submarine cable. 1 The old system destroyed wealth the new one creates it, as the statistics show. The incoming global maritime order focuses on compounding wealth by minimizing transaction costs, while the outgoing order of competing continental empires focused on pounding each other. Since the Industrial Revolution, the currency of international power has shifted from land to commerce.