In the late 19th century, the United States benefitted from the historical/geopolitical writings of U.S. Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan. In twenty books and hundreds of articles and essays, Mahan urged our political and military leaders to focus on sea power in its broadest sense as a means of national defense and commercial prosperity. Today, as China challenges U.S. command of the seas, we would benefit from a 21st century Mahan to point the way to maintaining our naval superiority and economic well-being before it is too late.
A recent Pentagon report notes that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) intends to surpass U.S. submarine strength and equal U.S. aircraft carrier numbers in ten years. In that same time period, China plans to deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in numbers that will effectively erase America’s current nuclear advantage. A 2025 congressional report noted that by 2030, China will have 435 warships versus 294 for the United States. That report concluded that the PLAN’s modernization efforts have “substantially reduced the U.S. [naval power] advantage,” and that if current trends continue, “China might eventually draw even with or surpass the United States in overall naval capability.” China’s shipbuilding capacity is 230 times that of the United States. In the South China Sea, the report says, China may already have surpassed the U.S. in naval capabilities, which does not bode well for Taiwan.
But the implications of these two reports extend far beyond Taiwan. Since 1945, the United States has been the unchallenged mistress of the seas and oceans. Mahan described the world’s oceans as a “wide common” in his 1890 classic The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660-1783. Mahan followed-up that seminal work with his two-volume The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire (1892). In those two books and in numerous essays, Mahan showed that superior sea power was a necessary component for global influence and strategic reach in the modern world. What’s more, Mahan understood that for island powers, such as Great Britain and the United States, superior sea power was necessary for economic growth, commercial influence, and victory in time of war.
In the 1890s, the world’s leading naval power was Great Britain, but it was soon to be challenged by Imperial Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II, who abandoned Bismarck’s maintenance of a stable European balance of power in favor of German hegemony in Europe and greater influence abroad. In the late 1890s and early 1900s, Germany embarked on a naval buildup designed to challenge Britain’s command of the sea. As Robert Massie explained in his book about Germany’s sea power challenge to Great Britain titled Dreadnought, “Kaiser Wilhelm II wished his country, already the strongest in Europe, to advance beyond its Continental predominance to world power.” It was this sea power challenge along with ill-fated alliance diplomacy, Massie believed, that transformed regional European crises into the global conflagration of the First World War.
Massie had the benefit of hindsight in the writing of Dreadnought. Mahan saw it all coming as early as 1898 in his book The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future. German leaders, Mahan wrote, “want a big navy” and “seek to extend their influence to establish their positions, and to knit them together” so they “may play a mighty part in the world’s history.” Mahan saw this as not only a challenge to Great Britain, but also to the United States. Mahan suggested that Germany might attempt to extend its influence into Latin America, in violation of the Monroe Doctrine.
In 1902, in an essay titled “The Persian Gulf and International Relations,” Mahan wrote that the “German empire is restlessly intent, not only upon economical and maritime development . . . but also upon self-assertive aggression with a view to territorial aggrandizement in more than one part of the world.” Mahan expressed the fear that Germany was gaining on Britain in both economic and commercial matters, and that this development could upset the European balance of power.
Mahan’s most prescient analysis of the implications of Germany’s naval challenge to Great Britain appeared in 1910 in The Interest of America in International Conditions. Mahan examined the rapid and steady growth of German naval power from 1875 to 1910, as well as growing sentiment in Germany for a strong navy. The naval rivalry between Germany and Britain, Mahan wrote, “is the danger point, not only of European politics, but of world politics as well.” Robert Massie later noted that Germany’s challenge to British naval supremacy posed an existential threat to Britain and its empire—potentially undoing what Britain had achieved at Trafalgar and maintained thereafter.
World War II was America’s Trafalgar moment—the event that made the United States the new mistress of the seas and oceans. During the Cold War, the Soviet challenge at sea never seriously threatened U.S. naval predominance. Our unchallenged maritime power enabled the United States to become an economic and military superpower. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. Navy has controlled the global commons and supported a globe-wide trading network that has benefitted most of the world. It is a naval predominance that Mahan foresaw and would recommend continuing. It is a naval predominance, however, that current trends threaten to undermine.
The United States has 21st century Mahans who understand the nature of China’s sea power challenge and the need for the U.S. to maintain naval supremacy. James Holmes of the Naval War College and Toshi Yoshihara of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments are two intellectual disciples of Mahan whose counsel and advice should be heeded by the Trump administration. Holmes and Yoshihara have noted, however, that China, too, has sea power enthusiasts who study and admire Mahan.
President Trump and Secretary of War Hegseth appear to grasp the implications of China’s sea power challenge. The president recently announced that the Navy will develop a new class of battleships for the 21st century. Trump foresees a new “golden fleet” of advanced warships, which Navy Secretary John Phelan notes are “desperate[ly] need[ed].” They are desperately needed because of China’s sea power challenge. In the 21st century, like the 20th century, victory in war and “peace through strength” require U.S. naval supremacy.
Francis P. Sempa writes on geopolitics.
