Alfred Thayer Mahan and American Geopolitics: The Conservatism and Realism of an Imperialist

Abstract

Debate about the goals of American foreign policy at the end of the twentieth century, especially that thread differentiating “conservative” from “neoconservative” perspectives, might profit by revisiting the debate over American expansion at the end of the nineteenth century. “I am an imperialist,” Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan once remarked, “simply because I am not isolationist.” This paper explores the connection between Mahan's defense of imperialism-often couched in terms of national interest and balance of power- and the norms of American power in world politics. The will-to-power behind American expansion and involvement, a formidable pillar in Mahan's realism, coexisted (often uneasily) with the affirmation of national purpose, a less formidable but still important part of Mahan's idealism. Mahan's strong conservative inclinations in politics were matched by a willingness to employ the tools of realism-particularly traditional diplomatic methods-as a way to uphold historic national goals and moral vision in American foreign policy. Far from seeing an irremediable conflict between the counsels of realism and limited moral gains in foreign policy, Mahan understood that governments are not immune from certain overall constraints. Seldom if ever could American actions abroad be defended by arguing solely for the maintenance or increase of national power.

Notes

1. Quoted in J. C. Bradford (ed.), Admirals of the New Steel Navy (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 1990) p. 42.

2. H. J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1951) p. 120.

3. W. A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State (New York: Houghton Mifflin 1997) p. 104.

4. P. Karsten, The Naval Aristocracy: The Golden Age of Annapolis and the Emergence of Modern American Navalism (New York: Free Press 1972) pp. 341–342. See also R. W. Turk, The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (New York: Greenwood Press 1987) p. 1.

5. C. Krauthammer, Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute Press 2004) p. 2.

6. Ibid. p. 18.

7. P. J. Buchanan, ‘America's Next War,’ The American Cause (23 August 2004, 03 October 2005), http://www.theamericancause.org/patamericasnextwar.htm.

8. P. J. Bechanan, ‘The Stillborn Empire,’ The American Conservative (14 March 2005, 03 October 2005), http://amconmag.com/2005_03_14/buchanan.html.

9. D. Gilmour, The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), pp. 120–21.

10. G. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press 1981) p. 6.

11. R. H. Ferrell, American Diplomacy, a History (3^rd ed.) (New York: Norton 1975) p. 318.

12. R. Seager II, Alfred Thayer Mahan, the Man and His Letters (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 1977) p. 14.

13. By the time Mahan reached Callao, the war was in its fifth and final year. Chile was the clear victor and was demanding the nitrate rich desert region between the two countries. When Peru sued for peace, the US government offered to assist with negotiations through its minister in Lima. See also W. Zimmerman, First Great Triumph, How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2002) pp. 86–87.

14. Seager (note 12) pp. 140–41.

15. Ibid.

16. Seager (note 12) pp. 146–47.

17. C. C. Taylor, The Life of Admiral Mahan, Naval Philosophy (London: John Murray 1920) pp. 179–180.

18. A. T. Mahan, Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan, eds. Robert Seager II and Doris D. Maguire (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1975), I: 625.

19. Ibid p. 277.

20. Zimmerman (note 13) pp. 88–89.

21. W. D. Puleston, Mahan: The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, U.S.N. (New Haven: Yale University Press 1939) pp. 68–70. See also A. T. Mahan, From Sail to Stearn (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1907), pp. 276–77.

22. Seager (note 12) p. 146.

23. Livezey (note 10) p. 42. See also J. Tetsuro Sumida, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press 1997) p. 23.

24. J. Hillen and M. P. Noonan, ‘The Geopolitics of NATO Enlargement,’ Parameters 28 (Autumn 1998) pp. 21–34.

25. F. Ratzel, Anthropogeographie (2^nd ed.) (Stuttgart, Germany: J. Engelhorn 1899) Part I, p. 2. On the evolution of geopolitics, see R. J. Johnston, Geography and State: An Essay in Political Geography (New York: St. Martin's Press 1982) pp. 1–28, 120–187; J. R. V. Prescott, Political Geography (New York: St. Martin's Press 1972); H. Sprout and M. Sprout, The Ecological Perspective on Human Affairs with Special Reference to International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1965); P. F. Diehl, ‘Geography and War: A Review and Assessment of Empirical Literature,’ International Interactions 17 (1991) pp. 11–27; L. Febvre, A Geographical Introduction to History (New York: Knopf 1925) pp. 358–368; P. W. J. Vidal de la Blache, Principles of Human Geography, E. de Martonne (ed.) (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1926); O. H. K. Spate, ‘How Determined Is Possibilism,’ Geographical Studies 4 (1957) pp. 3–8; S. B. Cohen, Geography and Politics in a Divided World (2^nd ed.) (New York: Oxford University Press 1973).

26. M. I. Glassner, Political Geography (New York: John Wiley & Sons 1993) p. 224.

27. For a discussion of the German Academy, see D. H. Norton, ‘Karl Haushofer and the Germany Academy, 1925–1945,’ Central European History I (March 1958) p. 82.

28. R. Strausz-Hupé, Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons 1942).

29. G. R. Sloan, Geopolitics in United States Strategic Policy, 1890–1987 (Brighton, UK: Wheatshaf Books 1988); Hillen and Noonan (note 24) pp. 21–34.

30. Glassner (note 26) p. 226.

31. Quincy Wright, The Study of International Relations (New York: Appleton Century-Crofts, 1955), p. 343.

32. “Prejudice and incomprehension of Mahan's naval pedagogical sophistication, according to Sumida, combined with the problems posed by the length, complexity, and difficulty of his writing, led the authors of the standard monographs to misrepresent the analytical substance of his writing.” See Sumida (note 23) p. 4.

33. Ibid. p. 24. For an overview of Mahan's reading of Jomini in the 1880s, see Seager, Alfred Thayer Mahan (note 12) pp. 164–73. See also Mahan, From Sail to Steam (note 21) p. 283.

34. Mahan, From Sail to Steam (note 21) pp. 278, 282–83; Livezey (note 10) p. 44.

35. Sumida claims that Mahan's outlook was identical to that of Clausewitz about things that were central to each other's thought. He might be “a Jominian by casual confession” although he was, in substance, “whether by direct or indirect inheritance or coincidence, a Clausewitzian.” Sumida (note 23) pp. 113–14.

36. Ibid. pp. 17–18.

37. The following comparison between Mahan's expansionism and seventeenth century mercantilism draws heavily on LaFeber's analysis. See W. LaFeber, ‘A Note on the Mercantilistic Imperialism of Alfred Thayer Mahan,’ The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 48 (March 1962) pp. 674–85.

38. A. T. Mahan, ‘The United States Looking Outward,’ Atlantic Monthly 66 (December 1890) p. 817.

39. Ibid.

40. A. T. Mahan, Retrospect and Prospect: Studies in International Relations, Naval, and Political (London: Sampson Low, Marston 1902) pp. 19–22.

41. Mahan, From Sail to Steam (note 21) pp. 324–25. For a revealing discussion of Mahan's emphasis on individual liberty and moral obligation, see Livezey (note 10) pp. 258–62.

42. Ibid.

43. While acknowledging that industrial efficiency led to the creation of a strong navy, LaFeber points out that this reverses Mahan's priorities. “He did not define a battleship navy as his ultimate objective, nor did he want to create a navy merely for the sake of doing so [and] … he did not seek military power for military power's sake.” LaFeber (note 37) pp. 676–77.

44. A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1890), pp. 28, 70, 83–84.

45. Ibid. p. 87–88. See also LaFeber (note 37) p. 679.

46. Livezey (note 10) p. 266.

47. One can also detect some slight equivocation in Mahan's prognosis about future colonising by Americans. He could still imagine an opportunity – “if there be in the future any fields calling for colonization” – whereby his countrymen would bring to the task “all their inherited aptitude for self-government and independent growth.” Ibid. pp. 57–58.

48. Quoted in LaFeber (note 37) p. 683.

49. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History (note 44) p. 33. See also A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company 1898) pp. 99–100.

50. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power (note 49) p. 39.

51. Ibid. pp. 48–49.

52. Quoted in Livezey (note 10) p. 201.

53. Ibid. p. 204. See also A. T. Mahan, Lessons of the War with Spain and Other Articles (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company 1899) pp. 301–308.

54. Seager (note 12) p. 584.

55. Ibid.

56. G. S. Graham, Politics of Naval Supremacy: Studies in British Maritime Ascendancy (Cambridge: CUP, 1965) p. 5. See also B. M. Gough, ‘Influence of History on Mahan,’ in (ed.), J. B. Hattendorf The Influence of History on Mahan: The Proceedings of a Conference Marking the Centenary of Alfred Thayer Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press 1991) p. 8.

57. K. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley 1979) p. 11.

58. A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in International Conditions, (Bostonp: Little, Brown, and Company 1918) p. 81.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid. pp. 23–26.

61. Ibid. p. 89.

62. Maurer, ‘Mahan on World Politics and Strategy: The Approach of the First World War, 1904–1914, in The Influence of History of Mahan: The Proceedings of a Conference Marking the Centenary of Alfred Thayer Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783, ed. John B. Hattendorf (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1991), p. 159.

63. Mahan, The Interest of America in International Conditions (note 58) p. 166.

64. Ibid. pp. 124, 144.

65. Quoted in Seager (note 12) p. 337.

66. Against the more pacific and altruistic-minded of the American delegation, Mahan saw in the conference (the “Czar's Peace Picnic”) a thinly disguised Russian motive (with Russia falling behind in the arms race) to have other powers disarm down to Russia's level. See ibid. p. 409.

67. Quoted in Livezey (note 10) p. 270. Seager (note 12) pp. 409–410.

68. Seager (note 12) p. 411.

69. Ibid. p. 413.

70. Ibid. pp. 413–14.

71. Ibid.

72. A. T. Mahan, Armaments and Arbitration (New York: Harper & Brothers 1912) pp. 12, 39.

73. Livezey (note 10) p. 271. See also Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future (note 49).

74. A. T. Mahan, Sea Power in its Relation to the War of 1812 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company 1905) p. viii.

75. Zimmerman (note 13) p. 121.

76. Sumida (note 23) p. 77.

77. A. T. Mahan, The Harvest Within: Thoughts on the Life of a Christian (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company 1910) p. 24.

78. Quoted in Zimmerman (note 13) p. 121.

79. Mahan, The Harvest Within (note 77) p. 180.

80. Mahan, Armaments and Arbitration (note 72) pp. 126, 153–54.

81. Quoted in Livezey (note 10) p. 285.

82. Mahan, Retrospect and Prospect (note 40) pp. 143–144. See also Sumida (note 23) pp. 92–93.

83. Mahan, Armaments and Arbitration (note 72) pp. 110–111.

84. Ibid. p. 125.

85. Ibid. p. 78.

86. Sir Herbert Butterfield quoted in K. W. Thompson, Ethics, Functionalism, and Power in International Politics (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 1981) p. 20.