The Legacy of Mahan for the 21st Century

Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity characterize the environment of the 21st Century and thus a National Security Strategy for the United States can be difficult to develop and implement. Using history as a model, one finds that the British Empire faced a situation similar to the United States' current environment at the turn of the 19th century. They had a far-flung empire with global economic ties that relied heavily on seaborne commerce. They had a large standing navy with a smaller but highly professional army. They had a diplomatic corps that was proficient at rapidly building and developing coalitions that when combined with the military was very capable of meeting the diverse challenges that faced them at the time. The United States faces a similar environment today with the rise of China as a global power and the struggle with the Global War on Terror. Thomas Barnett deftly divides today's world into the Functioning Core or just Core (those parts of the world that are actively integrating their national economies into a global economy and that adhere to globalization's emerging security rule set) and the Non-Integrating Gap or just Gap (regions of the world that are largely disconnected from the global economy and the rule sets that define its stability). Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan based his seminal treatise, "The Influence of Seapower Upon History, 1660-1783," on the maritime power coupled with the diplomatic skill that the British wielded so effectively to build their vast empire. While it is difficult to develop an in-depth understanding of a strategist in such a short timeframe, the author believes that Thomas Barnett's Core/Gap analysis is useful to describe the current global environment. Then one can use Rear Admiral Mahan's Sea Power strategy, whose legacy is the current Naval Strategy SEA POWER 21 with the Sea Base pillar as the main enabler, as a roadmap to achieve the goals of the National Security Strategy.