![]() First, Mahan no longer dominates maritime strategy in the West - meaning that Beijing shouldn't be overly worried about the goals of U.S. To discourage Beijing from taking the ruinous path trodden by the Kaiser's Germany, Washington should make three points. Disciples of Mahan might opt to build against the American "threat." How Chinese naval officers think about maritime strategy today will mold China's navy and the strategy it pursues later. China's burgeoning economy has already begun furnishing the resources Beijing needs to build a potent navy, much as rapid economic growth sustained the Kaiser's naval ambitions. ![]() And, while China's merchant fleet has surged in numbers-dozens of new shipyards are under construction - its navy remains weak. It will remain on its best behavior during the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Preoccupied with economic development, China will refrain from doing anything that might endanger the free flow of oil and raw materials. For now it makes little difference how Chinese strategists interpret Mahan. By contrast, battleships were tethered to their fuel supplies and could not operate far from Germany.īritain could hardly view the German battle fleet as anything other than a mortal threat.Ĭonsider the parallels. If Imperial Germany wanted to assure access to its African and Asian holdings, it could have built large numbers of long-range, lightly armed cruisers suitable for guarding the sea lanes. Britain and Germany had long maintained cordial relations, and their maritime interests were largely in accord. The naval arms race that ensued was eminently avoidable. Having decided to build battleships, Berlin worked backwards, devising a naval strategy aimed at Britain-an island nation, reliant on seaborne commerce, that could not lightly cede its mastery over the seas. The trouble for Germany was that Great Britain's Royal Navy stood astride the "narrow seas" connecting the northern German seaports with the Atlantic Ocean, and thus with the modest empire acquired during the 1880s and 1890s. "It is on board all my ships and constantly quoted by my captains and officers." "I am just now not reading but devouring Captain Mahan's book and am trying to learn it by heart," declared the Kaiser on one occasion. Influential Germans such as Kaiser Wilhelm II, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz and a host of "fleet professors" in German universities seized on the elements of Mahanian theory that justified the construction of a powerful battle fleet.
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