OCEAN SCIENCES AND NATIONAL SECURITY 11 



of the international scene in the latter decades of the last century — 

 Britain's supremacy on the sea and the strength of its empire. Mahan 

 explained this phenomenon in terms of the impact of seapower: 

 "Production, with the necessity of exchangmg products, shipping, 

 whereby the exchange is carried on, and colonies, which facilitate and 

 enlarge the operations of shipping and tend to protect it by multiplying 

 pomts of safety" are the three things in which "is to be found the key 

 to much of the history, as well as the policy, of nations bordering 

 upon the sea." From these premises Mahan showed how the geogra- 

 phical positions, physical conformation, extent of territory, number of 

 population, character of the people, and the character of the govern- 

 ment all m concert determined how nations responded to the challenge 

 of seapower. To his analysis, for example, a geographic situation that 

 avoids the need for land defense or extension is preferable. Therefore 

 Britam, an island group, had an advantage over France and Holland. 

 The United States occupied somewhat the same position relative to 

 Eurasian powers. Inspired in part by Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt 

 sent the "Great White Fleet" on a round-the-world cruise, effectively 

 utilizing the "show of the Flag" to dramatize the true status of the 

 United States as a great power. Part of the drive for an Isthmian 

 canal also derived from Mahan 's observations of the grave con- 

 sequences of a split naval force as in the case of France with its 

 Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets. 



Although the revival of the Navy started before the Spanish- 

 American War, that conflict suddenly thrust the United States into 

 possession of land overseas and generated an entire complex of 

 new functions: construction of coaling bases on the wa}^ to outlying 

 possessions; development of shipyards, armour plate works, and 

 ordnance plants; hydrographic surveying of unfamiliar ocean areas; 

 and the growth of an ideology to explam and orient ah the new activi- 

 ties. Development of ideologies is not an American specialty. 

 Rough-and-ready pragmatic formulations are more in the American 

 style. To some extent, Mahan provided an intellectual foundation. 

 But the American position vis-a-vis the oceans was largely in terms of 

 defense, narrowly construed. The United States was a continental 

 island, as it were, that could only be eft'ectively attacked by aggressors 

 coming over the oceans. The Navy, our "front line of defense," 

 was to be second to none. With the rise of Japanese seapower, that 

 meant a two-ocean navy. 



Our World War I experiences underlined something very well under- 

 stood by Mahan: merchant tonnage in being was necessary to take 

 advantage of the logistical flexibility provided by waterborne trans- 

 portation. Federal policy smce then has led to a revival of the 

 merchant marine. During World War II, the significance of merchant 

 tonnage was again underlined. Today the widespread use of "flags 

 of convenience" obscures the heavy national dependence on a merchant 

 fleet for peacetime use as well as a standby resource during war. 



The positive influence of merchant shipping as a commercial and 

 military entity in the strength of nations is matched by its negative 

 qualities — viflnerability. This became manifestly clear in the First 

 World War when German U-boats destroyed more than 5,000 ships 

 for a total of over 11 million tons of shipping. In World War II, 

 combat strategy once again depended upon vital oceanborue cargo 

 from the United States. The annual vohmie in 1941 of 26 million 



