Robert D. Kaplan
Alfred Thayer Mahan, a 19th-century naval officer and pre-eminent military strategist, believed his young country was destined to be great because of its Navy. Toward the end of his service, Mahan, then a U.S. Navy captain, wrote a landmark book about the age of sailing ships. Read avidly by kings, prime ministers and presidents — including Theodore Roosevelt, Kaiser Wilhelm II and the young Winston Churchill — the book posited the idea of a free world anchored by American sea power.
Mahan believed America needed a large number of ships to fight decisive battles and to keep sea lanes open and international commerce flowing. This vision, which was both humanitarian and self-serving, soon came to pass, starting with the Spanish-American War of 1898, which Mahan avidly supported. After World War II, the U.S. Navy possessed some 7,000 vessels that went on to dominate the oceans for the next half century. The United States, with its blessed geography fronting two oceans, had embarked upon its imperial destiny, with the naval power to back up its values.
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