Francis P. Sempa
There was a time in the late 19th-early 20th centuries that the navies of all the great powers paid homage to the writings of American naval historian and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who had dutifully served aboard Union ships during the American Civil War but whose fame and lasting influence derived from his books and articles written between 1880 and 1914. Much of what Mahan wrote about is, of course, dated and not relevant to 21st century naval warfare. But Mahan was more than a historian of naval warfare. He was also a geopolitical theorist whose global worldview remains relevant to 21st century world politics.
The key to Mahan’s worldview was geography. He understood that geography provided nations with opportunities and constraints and, therefore, greatly impacted a nation’s national security interests. Mahan understood that the United States, like Great Britain, is effectively an insular power with lengthy seaboards along the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Caribbean Sea, and no continental rivals. He also understood that sea power in its broadest sense is essential to U.S. security and prosperity because of our geographic location.
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