School of War - Ep 88: John H. Maurer on Alfred Thayer Mahan (New Makers of Modern Strategy #10)

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

John H. Maurer, the Alfred Thayer Mahan Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy at the Naval War College and contributor to New Makers of Modern Strategy, joins the show to talk about Mahan and his relevance today. ▪️ Times      •    01:30 Introduction      •    02:06 Mahan struck from the syllabus     •    06:30 Early writings     •    09:19 Looking out at the world      •   12:17 Six elements of seapower     •    15:01 Arming for peace     •    20:35 Corbett      •    22:54 The 18th century     •   29:49 A political scientist      •    35:10 Where might one go wrong?     •   39:03 Free security     •    42:26 Who should we be reading?  Follow along on Instagram http://schoolofwar.substack.com

America's emergence onto the world stage at the turn of the 20th century had many causes, but one main outspoken theorist and advocate, Alfred Thayer Mahan. His historical analysis of the naval wars of the long 18th century, his application of an already rich body of modern writing on strategy on land to the context of the sea, and his spirited promotion of these views and broader opinions on geopolitics, made him and his ideas world famous and still studied today, in particular by those planning the emergence of another rising power, Communist China. Let's get into the details.

It is a prescription for war, this Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamous. The bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stale. We continue to face a grave situation in Iran. We shall fight on the beaches, we'll fight on the landing grounds, We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall never surrender. For maps, videos, and images, follow us on Instagram,

and also feel free to follow me on Twitter at Aaron B. McLean. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. Delighted to be joined today by Professor John Mauer, who is the Alfred Thayer-Mahan Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy, the Naval War College. He also serves as the chair of the Strategy and Policy Department there, all up in Newport, Rhode Island.

John, thank you so much for joining the show. I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me. You are the Mahan professor at the War College. You are also the contributor of the Mahan chapter in the new makers of modern strategy volume, and that is our subject of discussion for today. And I wanted to start us off actually by asking you a question about something that you mentioned right at the end of your chapter, which is that in 2021,

Mahan was dropped from the United States Navy's professional reading lists. So, one, I'm curious to know if that's still the case. And, you know, two, why do you think that was? A couple things. One, this really does get my dander up because I believe that Mahan should not have been dropped from the C&O's Chief of Naval Operations reading list. It is fundamental. Mahan's work, the influence of Sea PowerCon history and other things he wrote were so

influential and shaped opinion around the world. He was a leading figure in his time, and his works are enduring to this day. So I don't know why it was dropped. I had no input into how that reading list was made, but I was disappointed when I saw that that happened. Now, a new reading list is being put together as we speak, and I don't know whether it will be included or not. I have made my views clear that we should include some readings, genuine readings, by Mahan.

Now, as to whether that'll be done or not, I don't know. I just express an opinion. I don't have the deciding vote on that. With regard to why it is dropped, I suspect it is because Mahan's writings can be difficult to read. The influx of Sea Power upon history, which was published in 1890, started as lectures to the students at the Naval War College. And when it appears on print in the page, you have long

paragraphs that will go for over a page. And so it's not the way people, the way writings today typically look with shorter paragraphs, shorter sentences. And so it's Dickensian in some way. It's more difficult to read. And I think that that's perhaps one of the factors. Another factor, on a more positive note, is that there are a number of very good studies about Mahan that have been written by modern scholars. And so they provide something of a substitute for the original, that they try to connect to modern-day audiences by explaining Mahan's thought. But I'm sorry, the original should be read. You should start from there. And there are some good additions put out by the Naval Institute press of Mahan that are useful to read, not just only the influence

to see Power upon history, but some of his later works articles on international. relations. So Mahan should be on the C&O's reading list. So I realize I'm sort of treading in controversial terrain here, but it does put me in mind the sort of implicit anti-intellectualism, or what could be anti-intellectualism of what we are discussing, reminds me a bit of something that you describe about Mahan's own career of him. You know, he's avoiding command at sea. He's an officer who clearly prefers literary pursuits and research to command, and he's heavily criticized, right? He does not meet with much welcome for his way of looking at things. Yes, some of the Navy officers, Navy leadership at the time, thought that Rahan was trying to dodge duty at sea, that in that sense, he was not a genuine Navy officer.

By the way, Mahan took that criticism and agreed with it that Navy officers should be at sea, but he also believed that there were important times when they should be studying the profession of arms. and the higher up the ranks you go, the more you should be challenged in thinking about wider aspects of war, like why wars occur, how the best deploy your forces to deter war or to achieve victory at war. And that can't be learned at sea. There has to be some intellectual capital that is made into, given to officers by study. And in that, Mahan was supported by the founder of the Naval War College, Stephen B. Luce. Stephen B. Luce was a great naval hero of the American Civil War in favor of making sure that Navy officers had the intellectual equipment to be able to think about these higher levels of war.

Let's talk a bit about Mahan's career and how he comes to be a writer. He serves as a young officer, very, very new officer in the Civil War, correct? And then his first book is an operational history of sorts of naval war in the West? It is. Already he was marked as something of an intellectual in that he wrote an article about Navy education at Annapolis, but he also wrote a book about the American Civil War in the West, as you said, what we would call the Brownwater Navy, the operations of the Navy on the Mississippi, but also close in blockade duty on the Gulf Coast. The book is called Gulf and inland waters. And so Mahan's book is there as a more detailed operational, tactical look at naval operations during the war. So he did experience war firsthand, the American Civil War.

He had already made a name for himself as being a writer on naval affairs. And of course, what was known to people at the time was that he was the son of Dennis Hart Mahan, who was a famous professor in educating American officers at West Point, the Military Academy, not only in engineering, but also in what we would call tactics and operations. So he was already earmarked in some way, marked as being an intellectual type, a teacher, because of his father's great reputation at West Point. And do you, I confess I have not read the Civil War book, when you look at it, do you see more in the way of continuity and groundwork for the more

strategic research that follows, or is it really just sort of two different levels of warfare, two different kinds of inquiry, and they're a bit separate? It's somewhat different, and it is a different level of war, focused more on tactics, operations, but there is strategy there in his books on the influence of sea power and history where he deals with strategy. He also tends to deal with tactics as well at those books. So one of the things that makes Mahan's work, major works of history so important, is that he looks at all the levels of war, naval warfare, maritime strategy, larger grand strategy as well, and political outcomes. So his books really are great work of synthesis in looking at different levels of war and also looking at the strategic

effects of operations. I think one of the reasons why we should read Manhattan today is that highlights that if the strategy is flawed, no matter how successful the operations and tactics might be, you won't get the full strategic effects that you want. And so that's a very timely lesson for us today to always remember that your operations and tactics have to be in sync with some larger strategic purpose, which in turn leads to some larger, let's call a political or power outcome that benefits a country's security. What leads to the turn in Mahan's work to thinking about strategy and to his great and most famous book, which has this very, very grand title. Well, he understood that in looking at the rise and fall of great powers, and that's what he

was concerned about. He looked at the international system of the day, and like many Americans who looked out on the world, they saw the United States as a rising power in world affairs. The United States at this time was taking off economically, recovering from the Civil War. Its industry and technology were growing rapidly. And he saw that the United States had become a great power in world affairs. Despite our geographical distance from Europe, we were a powerful country. And around the same time that Mahana's writing, his books The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, You have the great Colombian exhibition taking place in Chicago at which Frederick Jackson

Turner writes his famous article about the closing of the frontier. The United States at the Colombian exhibition in Chicago was holding a world's fair in which they're highlighting American technology and industry and agriculture. And so there's an awakening among Americans that the United States now is a great power. its industry is on par with Great Britain, which had been the workshop of the world in the 19th century. So now the United States has a larger role to play in the world. What would that role be? And so Mahan was very much interested in international affairs and these trends in international affairs. And so that was driving his interest in strategy. What type of force structure forces should the United States have for this larger role in world affairs?

And how should those forces be used? And in particular, he saw the United States because of our geographical position. And Mahan highlighted geography as being a critical element of a country's power, its position in the world. He saw the United States as being a large continental island state with two oceans on either side, Atlantic and Pacific. And so he believed that the United States had to have a powerful Navy to accompany its larger industrial technological power. So the larger trends in world affairs in economics, international economics, also the recovery of the U.S. from the Civil War, these factors were driving Mahan's influence in strategy. And in addition to what you just laid out in sort of the one of the main takeaways, which is just the navalism, or the importance of navies to Mahan.

What are the other important elements of his teaching? I realize this is an impossible question to ask somebody to address briefly when you've spent a good chunk of your career thinking about these things. But what are the takeaways? He identified six elements of seat power. And in later writings, he would identify other factors as well. But the basics are this, that geography is important, a country's geography, where its position is in the world,

Is it an island state like Britain or Japan, or is it a continental power that has to devote more resources to its army than what it can to its navy, where the security of the country depends on the army rather than navy? Whereas an island state, the security of the country will depend most heavily on its navy rather than its army. So geographical position in the world is important. Geography is important, too, as well for development. does it have harbors that are suitable for trade, commercial purposes, and also as naval bases? In addition, geography is important as how do rivers and waterways connect with the interior of a country? Does it have rivers that promote trade and commerce as well? In Britain's case, the River Thames is very important.

Britain, too, has major ports for trade. The United States, too, the Mississippi, other major waterways, could promote development, trade, access to coast, and then to the wider world. So geography is an important factor in determining a country's commitment to international trade, to its sea power. Another factor that he thought was important was looking at demographics of the people. Are the people of a country? Are they accustomed to working on the sea?

Are they involved in trade? Are they involved in fisheries? So looking at demographics, how important is trade to a people's prosperity, their well-being? And another factor that he looked at was governments. Did governments work to promote industry commerce? Did they work to promote a Navy? So he saw these factors working together, geography, demographics, and also government policy as working together to try to promote a country.

countries standing in the world to promote international trade, hence promote wealth, promote then power, the ability to achieve effects in the international system. Talk a bit, if you would, about this emphasis that he places, in addition to placing an emphasis on navies as a critical part of national power, this emphasis on strategy over tactics and then this sort of related idea that what you do in peacetime matters as much as, you know, how you fight battles in a war. Yes, he was a big proponent of the ancient Roman adage that if you want peace, you have to prepare for war. He believed that the way that the United States would be able to protect itself in the world, to deter attacks on the Western Hemisphere, to deter any attacks on

American trade, that you had to have a strong navy. He was not bashful in being a propagandist in this way, both in his earlier writings like the influence of sea power upon history from the 1890s, down to his death at 1914, he's always calling for a strong, powerful navy. As he said, the Navy is the first line of defense for the United States, and hence should be emphasized that rather than have a weak Navy that enables an adversary to come and attack your coastline, By having a strong navy, you keep the fight away from your coastline. You're able to project power to create geographic space, to defend your country out at sea rather than along its coastlines.

So Mahan called for a stronger U.S. Navy as being the first line of defense for the United States. We had an episode recently on the show about Jominee. And Mahan, when he starts to talk about trade routes and the highways of the sea, It seems reminiscent of lines of operation. When he talks about concentration and the importance of the offense, that obviously seems to be an echo of Jomene. Talk about Jomene's influence on Mahan, and I guess this was important to his father as well

and how it plays out in his thinking about war specifically. Yes, Dennis Hartmane, Alfred Thayer's dad, was a big proponent of studying Jomene and popularized it for American officers attending the military academy. And so Alfred Thayer Mahan was very familiar with Jarmaday, as was Stephen B. Luce. Luce, in fact, in setting up the War College, looked at Mahan and said, you will be our Jamin. You will write the works, teach us how to think about operations and also strategy.

Try to, if you will, take Jaminé and take him to see. How can you adapt the thought of Jaminé so that it is relevant for. for naval warfare. And so that's what Mahan tried to do. He was a close reader of Jamin, and as you said, Jammany highlighted lines of communication. Well, Mahan translates that into the maritime environment by thinking about the maritime environment being a great common

and that the purpose of naval strategy is to achieve dominance and overbearing power, he said, on that common, where the side that has that overbearing power can do what it was. once on the sea while denying, denying to other countries the ability to use the sea, either for economic purpose or for military purposes. So Mahan was very much a close student of Jaminé. One interesting facet about Mahan is that at the beginning of the 20th century, he was told that he should also read Klausovitz because Mahan's contemporary Sir Julian Corbett, the British naval theorist, was a

adapting Klausvitz and applying it to maritime strategy. Mahan tried to read Klausvitz, and we have a letter from Mahan to an associate where he says, I'm trying to read Klauswitz, but I can't make any sense of it. I have to stick to Jaminet, who's much clearer than Klausovitz. Well, for crying out loud, don't tell your students about this. They'll throw up their hands completely, if even Mahan can't understand Klaus Fitz. No, I actually highlight this for the students. and say, if you're having trouble with Klausvitz, you're a good company, Mahan. But unlike

Mahan, don't put it down and say, I give up. You have to struggle with Klausvitz and just keep going. Don't give up on him. Well, this has become not entirely intentionally, but it's become a theme of some of some recent episodes we've had on the show. So let's, let's linger here. So what is it that Corbett is getting from Klaus Fitz and the, if you like Klaus Fitz, Corbett Axis, what does that have to say about naval power as compared to the Jomene-Mahan axis. What is the disagreement here? Corbett himself will tell you that over 90% of what he has to say in the sense of principles, a maritime strategy, Hallowage War at Sea, that 90% of the time he agrees with Mahan, that most of the time the center of gravity is to go after the enemy's naval forces and

defeat it, where Corbett is a bit different from Mahan. Mahan, as you mentioned earlier, is very offensive-minded, go on the offensive, try to blockade the enemy, naval forces in their ports, be more aggressive and take higher risk. Corbett is more willing to think of fighting on the high seas as in a defensive way, that you don't always want to take high risks with your fleet. Instead, the main purpose is to defend and control lines of communication, sea lines of communication at sea. So there is some difference there. Corbett can be seen as being more defensive in orientation in his thoughts about how to control the maritime comment. Mahan is a bit more aggressive in that way.

In another way that they're different is that Corbett very much latches on to Klausvitz's ideas of limited wars, wars fought to achieve territory. And so Corbett looks to what we would call joint operations to be able to isolate some choice piece of territory and seize it, and that by seizing that territory, you'll enhance your power. One of the great examples he used was Canada during the Seven Years' War. Britain with its Navy was able to isolate Canada from the French. The French couldn't reinforce the French forces in North America. Britain was also able to then deploy armies to North America and conquer Canada. And hence, take that choice piece of territory from France. So he highlights more the idea of wars fought for limited aims, wars fought for

territory, how navies can be used to isolate these choice pieces of territory to seize them from an adversary. So that's important to Corbett. Mahan, on the other hand, doesn't use this, Klaus Vitzian, if you will, or met distinction of limited and unlimited wars. Instead, for him, a successful outcome to a war is, did you emerge from a war as a stronger sea power than what you went in? In other words, was your position in the world stronger with regard to controlling trade, controlling naval bases, ports around the world, and having a navy stronger than your adversary? So he had a somewhat different perspective on what victory means in war. So there are differences, but there's a lot of overlap. In a Venn diagram, it's 90% overlap. It's kind of fascinating to reflect on the differences

between the two men because they're both serious historians actually of the same period, right? They're both very interested in the 18th century, sort of long 18th century, you know, taking into the second half of the 17th century in the Napoleonic Wars. And they're both coming to such different, well, I should say they're both coming to importantly different conclusions, even if 90%, let's say, overlaps, but the 10% is important. What is it in the 18th century that Mahan is focusing on such that he comes by his views about decisiveness and concentration and offense and so forth? The 19th century looks relatively peaceful in comparison to the 18th century, the long 18th century. And so what Mahan is.

is writing about, and for that matter, Corbett, they're reaching back to the 18th century because that was the period of general great power wars, beginning in the 1680s, and then going down to 1815 in Waterloo. Over that period of time, Britain and France fought seven wars against each other. And so both Corbett, Corbett goes back to the earlier wars against Spain, Britain, England, against Spain. But they're looking to the 18th century because in that long contest, protracted great power, rivalry, Britain emerged triumphant out of those seven wars. Of the seven wars, Britain either got a draw or won in six of the seven. The only one of those wars that Britain came out a loser was the War of American Independence,

where France sided with the Americans and the United States became an independent country, seceding from the British Empire. So both of them are looking back to an earlier time of great power rivalries in which navies play an important role. Now, there were great wars in the 19th century, the wars of German unification, the Crimean War, also major conflicts in China. But what fascinated both Mahan and Corbett was that the 18th century perhaps would provide a better guide to the contests of the 20th century rather than the 19th century would. So they both foresaw greater conflict in the 20th century, again, because changing power balances in the world. The rise of the United States is a great power. The rise of Germany is a great power. The rise of Japan is a great power.

Mahan was also fearful of Russian expansion in Asia. So both Corbett and Mahan feared that the 20th century would come to resemble more the 18th century. It would be a period of protracted great power rivalries resulting in war. So they wanted to draw lessons from that earlier period of time to think about the strategic contours, the international contours of the 20th century. And in that sense, they were both right. The 20th century first half was a very violent century of great power contests in which one country, the United States, emerged out of those conflicts as the leading world state in much the same way that Britain emerged from the 18th century conflicts as the leading world state. When we look at the First World War specifically, I mean, I'm tempted to ask the blunt question,

well, who was more right, Mahan or Corbett for sticking with the first part of the 20th century, but maybe a fairer version of the question would be in which ways were each of them right, in which ways did they turn out to be wrong? Like, who has the balance of the argument with the evidence that they then live? I suppose Mahan dies very, very early on in the war. Corbett lives through. Mahan passed away in December of 1914. He saw the outbreak of the war.

Mahan at this point saw Germany as a greater danger to the United States than Britain. Britain in the 19th century essentially supported the United States in most ways. In fact, the British Navy in many ways was the Navy that protected the Western Hemisphere. So it's often called the Age of Free Security, something of a misnomer. But it does capture something that British, interests in the world and American interests in the world didn't collide that much. And so Mahansall, Britain has a satiated power, if anything, a declining power, and that the United States had to play a larger role in buttressing an international system in which Britain was the leader,

but a declining leader. Germany, he feared, especially after 1909, when the German naval challenge became very clear by a German acceleration of their naval construction, of battle And so Mahan became very outspoken in wanting to see the United States line itself with Britain against Germany. So in the First World War, he wanted to, when the war began, he made clear in an interview that American security was tied up with the victory of Britain in this war. And for that, President Widrow Wilson ordered his secretaries of the Army and Navy to instruct officers, both serving and retired, that they were to remain neutral in their thoughts and in their

publications. And Mahan resented this greatly because Mahan liked to write articles on world affairs and strategic affairs. And now he was being told that he couldn't write on these things. So he was very upset about that in his closing months of his life. With regard to who better understood, they both do a great job of understanding the power dynamic, in the world and also naval affairs as well. So I can't say that one is better than the other, both provide great insights into the war. I would say that Corbett didn't understand as well as he ought to just how difficult it is to conduct expeditionary warfare, that the Canada model of the Seven Years' War would be more difficult to apply in the First World War,

evidence of that for Dardanelles Gallipoli campaign, where the British are trying to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war by a combined and joint operation, as we would call it, and it fails miserably. Corbett was also in favor of an offensive in the North Sea to get British naval forces into the Baltic. That would probably have been a disaster had they tried that. And in fact, runs counter to much of Corbett's thought about offensive defense balance. They're He's much more offensive-minded than I think he ought to have been. So both writers, Mahan and Corbett, all for a great deal of insight into not only the First World War, but also fighting in the Second World War. So we have this sort of fascinating debate between Corbett and Mahan and, you know, with both men making excellent points and also agreeing about a great deal.

There's another vein of criticism of Mahan more on his geopolitical thought, I think, than his military thought, where to me, at least, I was revealing my own prejudices. I find that Mahan decisively has the upper hand in the debate, and his critics are at times quite risible. But this is, of course, folks like Norman Angel or Charles Beard, you cite them in your chapter. Talk about Angel and the great illusion and this line of criticism of Mahan. Mahan, it should be remembered. We think of him primarily as a historian today, and he was a famous historian in his time. He was president of the American Historical Association, for example. You can't have a higher honor as a historian as that. He received honorary degrees from major universities, and also, of course, we've talked about how he wrote for those in the profession of arms about strategy, military operations, naval operations. But one thing that I I wanted to highlight in the chapter was that Mahan was also a political scientist in the sense that he studied international relations and wrote about it. And he has a great deal to say

about international relations in his time. And so in that sense, Mahan is very much part of the controversies of that time about world affairs. And as I mentioned earlier, he sees the rising German challenge as a dangerous one. Before that, he was at the turn of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century, he was worried about Russian expansion in Asia. And so he was warning American readers about the danger of a Russia that comes to dominate the Eurasian landmass, and later Germany, gaining hegemity in Europe, and then hence being stronger and able to project its power more globally. So in this, Mahan very much prefigures people like Nicholas Speakman and also George Kennan. In fact, when you read what Mahan wrote in his famous articles turned into a book Problems of Asia,

you see very much Kennan's containment strategy being offered there. In that work, Mahan called for an alliance of Britain, Japan, Germany, and the United States to contain Russian expansion in the Middle East. And then through South Asia to the Far East, to Asia and the Pacific. So Mahan's views on geopolitics have an enduring value down to our own time. When we look today at the Asino-Russian, on Tant, if you will, that Mahan was deeply troubled by that potential connection of Russia dominating the Eurasian landmass. Today we're more fearful of China dominating the Eurasian landmass.

So there's a great deal of geopolitics there in Mahan. And I concur with you completely that Mahan, I think, gets the better of the debate. One other note, with regard to Norman Angel, Norman Angel criticized Mahan because he saw Mahan as being someone who was promoting armaments and hence international rivalries, what we would call security dilemmas, and that those security dilemmas at arms races only result in war. And so Mahan took that opposite view, which is if you want to avoid war, you have to be strong enough to deter it. So there is a fundamental clash there between Norman Angel and Mahan. And they both took on each other.

Again, it's a measure of both these great writers, Norman Angel of Mahan, how they engaged in debate with each other about how best to avoid great power of war. Yeah, I would have thought that the onset of the First World War would have essentially settled that debate. but it seems to me the essential lines of the debate are alive and well with us today. I mean, Norman Angel quite rightly said, hey, the world is globalized. We're interconnected. Why should Germany and Britain fight each other? They're each other's best customers.

You know, you don't kill your customers. That's not smart. People should promote what we would call globalization, interdependence of trade, finance, movements of people. All of these things have a pacifying. effect that would actually best deter war is for leaders to realize that if they wreck the system, this globalized interconnected world, they're not going to be winners. They're going to come out much the poorer for it. And so in that sense, Angel's writings have a great deal of value.

And again, a important streak of liberal thought through the 20th century. It's not that Angel is wrong. I mean, everybody did get impoverished from fighting the First World War. But where Angel is amiss, is that some states turn out to be aggressive states, the Mahan prescription, that if you want to stop Germany from reaching out to try to dominate Europe, gain a hegemony in Europe, you had better deter Germany's leaders by having a strong army and a strong navy. So they both capture some insight about international affairs, but I would say on balance Mahan gets the nod,

because he understands that an aggressive state is going to have to be confronted by adequate military naval power to deter them. So it's been observed in plenty of places that the Chinese geopolitical moment in 2023 bears some comparison to the American geopolitical moment during the period in which Mahan is writing and thinking about global and military affairs. It's also been observed. You talk about it in your chapter that the Chinese are reading Mahan, that he's an important an author for them these days. So my question for you is not only what are they learning from

Mahan, which in some ways implicitly we've been talking about the entire episode, but in 2023, you know, where might one go wrong in reading Mahan? Where might one go wrong in comparing the situation today with the situation at the close of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century for the United States versus, you know, the Western Pacific in the present? That is a fascinating question. And channeling my age. inner Mahan to think about how he would look at the world today. He would be deeply concerned by the connection, the untan alignment between Russia and China. He would see that as a major geopolitical challenge to the United States today. He would also, in looking at China, see a rising power

that has revisionist aims, that the best way to stop war, great power war, is to have a strong forward-deployed presence of naval forces. Now, today, of course, we would go beyond naval to think about air and ground and the rest. He would also call for coalition as well, because that's what he did in Problem of Asia, where he called for Germany, Japan, Britain, and the United States to work together to prevent a Russian domination of China at the beginning of the 20th century. So he would also look and call for coalitions as well. Now, with regard to Mahan's reception in China, it's pretty clear that Mahan is popular for several reasons. One is that Mahan is seen as offering something of a blueprint, a strategic blueprint for a rising power in world affairs, that the

United States tried to enhance its strategic depth by taking over forward-deployed areas to protect itself islands off the coast. In this case, it means Hawaii and Guam prizes, the Philippines too prizes that come about after the Spanish-American War. So he sees the China sees today Mahan as offering guidance of how you protect yourself by being able to have these island an outposts that protect your territory. So that's one thing that Chinese writers write about. But in a more fundamental way, Mahan's influence on them is also about the larger question of rising great powers in the world, that as countries get more powerful in their industry, technology, the armed forces that they put the sea or in the field, that they also have

greater ambitions in the world. And so the greater power country has, the greater it wants to change the international system more to its liking. And so for China, it is that Mahan offers something of a blueprint of way of thinking about international affairs today. And the United States, I mean, Chinese leaders, to their credit, look to history to try to draw some lessons. And so one country rising great power to study is the United States. The other country they want to study, of course, is the Soviet Union and how that fell apart. You want to avoid what happened to the Soviet Union. So the Chinese leaders and in their educational system look and study these past wars

to try to glean lessons to guide them today. It seems to me that they have come up with a durable, at least in the medium term, answer to how to avoid the fate of the Soviet Union. I'm curious to know how they are going to solve the conundrum that to me seems naturally to occur when you seriously try to compare the United States at the end of the 19th century or Mahan's analysis for that matter to their own present day situation, namely to use the term you used earlier in our recording, where are they going to get their free security from? You know, that's an enormously significant factor in the American consolidation of power in the Caribbean and the Pacific, you know, you name it. That plus a distracted Europe. I don't think the Chinese enjoy a similar advantage today. When you think of it, China has benefited so much from, let's call it, the free security that the United States has provided since the end of the Cold War in economic development. And perhaps it is a mistake on China's part to try to change too dramatically the system from which it has benefited.

Today, the more militarized approach that China takes in the world meets some countervailing forces and power, not just the United States, but also Japan, Australia, India, other countries that see China as being too aggressive in the world. And again, Mahan would argue that in coalitions, the United States is going to be able to harness a great deal of countervailing power against China, much in the same way. that Germany's more aggressive foreign policy and international stance in the early part of the 20th century ended up forming a coalitions against it, that China's future is very much in the hands of China's leaders. And the more aggressive they're going to be, the more likely they are

to only make those coalitions stronger. I don't see countries backing away from this, Even though we have an incredible debate today in the United States about the U.S. role in the world, on one hand, the restrainers and on the other, those that want to try to maintain the American global system as it came about after the Cold War, that even in that debate, so far it hasn't tipped in favor of a more isolationist approach for the U.S. So, again, as long as the U.S. is willing to be a coalition leader, I think you're going to find strong allies in anything that China does. So I'm with you in thinking that China can only make things worse for itself rather than better by a more aggressive foreign policy stance.

One last question for you, sir. And the simplest version of this question is I'm asking you for a reading recommendation, but there's something more complicated on my mind, which I may struggle to express. But I'm with you. I believe in the study of the classics, whether in strategy or in any other field, we should be reading Mahan, Corbett, et cetera. But there's something, when I look at these authors, there's something about me that's almost nostalgic about their projects. You know, these men who spend, you know, have a sort of relatively leisurely approach to looking at centuries that preceded them from which they write these interesting analyses

and derive these principles, which they then seek to apply and pretty plausibly do apply to the present day, maybe with blind spots that high-level debates can tease out, you know, In 2023, just the pace of change is so rapid, you know, whether it's, you know, developments of the 20th century, air power, avid nuclear weapons, et cetera, you know, today, space, cyber, it seems to me to be an obvious challenge for anyone to sit down and attempt to do the same thing. Let's look at the long 20th century and figure out what war in the 21st century will look like. I'm curious to know if you think that there's anyone who is engaged in that project in a serious way who has even a faint chance of achieving the kind of clarity that a

Corbett or Mahan did 100 or so years ago. Who should we be reading? That's a good question. I mean, I would start off by saying, Remakers of Modern Strategy, the new edition that Hal Brands has put together because he assembled quite a crew of some of the leading thinkers today. And what you talk about technology and the rest is well represented there in some of the articles. And I, again, I, I, Again, I think you have to highlight how technology does change the operating environment for forces, but it also has larger strategic and international implications as well. And so I think the makers book, the new makers volume, addresses that.

So that would be my starting point. One thing that needs to be taken into account is that Mahan, while they look to history, He was very clear and also saying that technology changes around the tactical and operational environment a great deal. And he lived in a time of great technological change. He was born in 1840 at a time when it's sailing ships, not even steamships, it's sailing ships or the backbone of a navy. And by the time he died, you have dreadnought, submarines, the whole panoply of aircraft of new

weaponry there. And so while he himself increasingly over time stopped writing about and didn't keep up with technological change and new weaponry, he nonetheless would be the first to tell you that these new technologies have strategic impact and effect. So it is important to address this fundamental question of how do new technologies change things. I don't know what Mahan would make of nuclear weapons. I mean, nuclear weapons are weapons that could be employed at sea. During the Cold War, the Soviet naval forces had nuclear weapons aboard their ships. So nuclear weapons could be used in any number of scenarios at sea. How would that change around some of the more fundamental concepts like concentration

of force that Mahan was an advocate of? So the technology is important. Mahan would say it's very important for thinking through the larger strategic problems. But I would say start with makers of modern strategy, the authors in that volume, and then look at their works and what they write. That would be the starting point. John Maurer, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy at the Naval War College, sir. It's been a totally fascinating conversation. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.

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