Alfred Thayer Mahan

Introduction

The United States presently is facing many situations that can be paralleled to the days of the Cold War, when U.S military leaders were met with new and frightening challenges from the Soviet Union. The U.S step up its effort to meet this national strategy issue. Due to the fall of the Soviet Union, America had enter into a peaceful stage were their power was unmatched and threats to its national security had not come into reality. Unfortunately in the 21st century the U.S has been met with a more dangerous era, as the United States now is confronted by various tough challenges that have the potential to grow even more threatening with years to come. The start of the 21st century the U.S was attack on 9/11, and that followed

the U.S invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the results of guerrilla warfare campaigns in those two countries. Weak and failed nations looking for WMD to impose devastating harm on the United States and its allies. The increasing progress made by Iran in developing its own nuclear program and its navy. China and Russia who’s growing military is among many challengers, the most similar to the U.S, is highlighting conventionally armed ballistic missiles, information warfare capabilities, anti-satellite weaponry, submarines, high-speed cruise missiles and other capabilities that could threaten the United States’ access to the global commons of space, cyber space, the air, the seas and the undersea, and possibly to US partner nations in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the existing security challenges and strategic theories.
Alfred Thayer Mahan
“The clash of interests, the angry feelings roused by conflicting attempts thus to appropriate the larger share, if not the whole, of the advantages of commerce, and of distant unsettled commercial regions, led to wars. On the other hand, wars arising from other causes have been greatly modified in their conduct and issue by the control of the sea. Therefore the history of sea power, while embracing in its broad sweep all that tends to make a people great upon the sea or by the sea, is largely a military history...” (1 Jablonsky, 1999)
Alfred Thayer Mahan was born September 27, 1840 in West Point, New York.

He is well known as an American naval officer who made a major impact on the navy in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Mahan graduated from the U.S Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., 1859 and went on to serve almost 40 years of active duty in the U.S Navy. He saw action during the Civil War, later he went on to serve on the staff of Admiral J.A.B. Dahlgren, and worked his way up to high rank. Mahan was among the first military theorist to put emphasis on the naval battle and control of the sea as a principle, rather than a secondary or less important aspect of warfare. Mahan published The Influence of Sea Power upon History in 1890. In his book he argued for the dominant importance of sea power in national historical supremacy. The book came during a time were technological advancement was improving in warships. Mahan stressed the interdependence of the military and commercial control of the sea and asserted that the control of seaborne commerce can determine the outcome of wars. Communication and concentration of a fleet were also important to naval strength. The first factor in Mahan’s argument was that the acquisition of colonies and the concomitant production and shipping that made up maritime economies was essential to a state’s prosperity and served as a motivating factor in the policies of a nation adjacent to the sea. The second factor was that history demonstrated the necessity for naval

supremacy in protecting national interests concerned with maritime economics a primary reason for the critical importance of that supremacy in wars among great powers. Finally, the third factor consisted of six “principal conditions” or elements that affected a country’s ability to develop sea power: geographical position, physical conformation (to include climate and natural resources), extent of territory, size of population, national character, and character of the government. In addition, Mahan stressed how naval strategies of the past could be used in the present. The Influence of Sea Power upon History helped America’s naval awakening.
Modern Day Sea Aggressive
The U.S must come to reality that there is now a power in Asia which can decouple us from our alliance in the Asian rim.

America is facing one of the most important geopolitical objectives since World War II and at that time it was to prevent the rise of a regional superpower on the Europe and Asia continent. The U.S must not treat China any different in this case if China is on the brink of becoming a regional superpower. The United States should rebalance their strategy in the South China Sea to answer Chinese growing power, that would not only be against China’s increasing assertiveness in the region like contested territorial and maritime space but also against China’s increasing trade and economic takeover. For the last decades the United States has shown its global power through its navy and around the world bases; there increasingly challenges through the rise of new naval power from other superpowers, making much improvement and proliferation of A2/AD capabilities, and piracy. Forces ranging from globalization to regional-power competition are motivating a number of states around the world to invest in maritime capabilities. Following the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, during which the United States moved two aircraft carriers to the Strait as a show of force after Chinese aggression, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has prioritized the development of a blue-water navy that rivals the United States’. Additionally, countries including Japan, South Korea, India,

and Russia are investing in their naval capabilities. Unfortunately, these positive steps are tempered by concerning Chinese actions with respect to the seas. Specifically, China’s assertion of exclusionary rights in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in opposition to UNCLOS treaty provisions and its territorial claims in the South China Sea heighten suspicion of Chinese intentions in the region. If other states follow suit to prevent safe, unrestricted passage of sea vessels through their EEZ (200 miles from the coastline into a bordering body of water), the openness of the commons is directly challenged and could have devastating economic results. The development and proliferation of A2/AD capabilities and other advanced military technologies to an increasing number of states presents another important challenge to U.S. power projection capabilities and security within the maritime domain. A number of states are developing sophisticated anti-ship cruise missiles and quiet diesel–electric submarines with wake-homing torpedoes that challenge the U.S. ability to operate in blue water. Improvements in China's strategic capabilities have implications beyond the Asia-Pacific region. China has had a fully functional and operating nuclear weapons infrastructure for over thirty years and is the only major nuclear power that is expanding the size of its nuclear arsenal. Furthermore, advanced military technology is enabling states with relatively weaker navies to make unexpected leaps in the development of precision-guided munitions. In the same way, Iran sees the necessity of disavowing key U.S. advantages in the global commons as critical to success in any military engagement with the United States. As a result, Iran is working to modernize and augment its arsenal of A2/AD capabilities and refine its methods to debilitate U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf. Iran has a significant mine-laying capability, which presents a threat to larger commercial and military vessels navigating the narrow passageways of the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.