America’s Rise as a Pacific Power: Theory
Although U.S. naval and merchant vessels were sailing Asian waters by the
1830s, American maritime strategy inAsia only gained character at the turn
of the twentieth century, after the writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan gained
popularity. The latter half of the nineteenth century saw the beginning of U.S.
power projection across the Pacific, as acquisition of an Asian colonial empire
led Americans to believe in a strategic requirement for a navy able to achieve mari-
time supremacy.
Mahanian doctrine could also be cited as justification for that colonial empire,
the voyage of the Great White Fleet, and the construction of the battleship navy
that occurred prior to and during World War I. Mahan’s theories continued to
provide the basis for U.S. maritime strategy in Asia throughout the first half of
thetwentiethcentury.ThisstrategyquicklycametobesubsumedunderWar
Plan Orange, the plan for possible war with Japan. While Plan Orange under-
went numerous refinements from 1902 to1941, its central concept—that the
U.S. battle fleet would deploy across the Pacific, en route to a climactic battle
with its Japanese counterpart—remained constant.
Ironically, Japan’s naval theorists followed the same line of thought, and both
the American and the Japanese navies instituted maritime strategies during
the interwar years that owed much to Mahan’s maritime theories.^7 In fact, he
influenced naval and political leaders throughout the world, including those in
Germany, Great Britain, and Russia. Mahan was a naval officer who fought in
theAmericanCivilWar,buthemadehismarkasoneofthefirstprofessors
assigned to the new Naval War College in the late 1880s.
The College was established under the leadership of Commodore Stephen
B. Luce, who aimed to apply ‘‘modern scientific methods’’ to the study of naval
warfare, to ‘‘derive fundamental principles of warfare of general application on
land or sea,’’ and to study and teach ‘‘the evolution of strategic principles based
on naval engagements of the past.’’ This idea of constructing American naval
strategy based on both theory and practical experience has remained in force
for more than a century, during which the U.S. Navy has become the most over-
whelming maritime force in history.
Mahan’s theorizing was based largely on his review of the history of Britain’s
Royal Navy, particularly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His
most important contribution to maritime strategic thought at the time seemed
to be that no nation could be a great, global power without deploying powerful
merchant marine and naval forces. Mahan highlighted the victory of Admiral
Horatio Nelson over a combined French and Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in 1805
as the ideal of how to employ naval forces to safeguard vital national interests.
Despite that emphasis, Mahan’s view was built on a concept of global maritime
trade. He identified six characteristics as necessary for a nation to become a mari-
time power:50 Asia Looks Seaward