What does A.T. Mahan have to do with Operation Iraqi Freedom? Actually, rather a lot, and in more than one way. Not only are some of his teachings surprisingly relevant now, but the times he lived in -- which formed the backdrop to his professional growth -- are in key ways reminiscent of the practical challenges the U.S. Armed Forces are working to deal with today. This two-part article will address these issues.

First, more about the person himself: Mahan was a man of contradictions. Career Navy, he hated and feared the sea. He much preferred shore assignments, and always lobbied unsubtly for more of the same. His main loves, besides his family and his God, were thinking, teaching, and writing. He was in these latter roles instrumental to keeping the Naval War College alive in the early years after its founding in the mid-1880s -- when many naval officers thought their proper role was commanding ships, not sitting in classrooms or reading books. Mahan succeeded in this internecine Navy political struggle, by proving the importance of studying prior history as an indispensable way to prepare for and win any future war. In fact, he served for several years as the Naval War College’s president. “The Influence of Seapower Upon History, 1660-1783” (still available today from Dover Publications), began as the write-up of a series of lectures Mahan gave at the college. Less well known are two sequels he wrote, each in two volumes, called “The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire,” and then “The Influence of Sea Power in Its Relation to the War of 1812.” In total these books and volumes amount to about two thousand pages -- I’m almost half way through them myself!

Mahan, who above all else was a professional writer until the day he died, also wrote biographies. I’ve read and heartily recommend his “Admiral Farragut” and “The Life of Nelson.” Both are as vivid and exciting as any nautical novel set in those same periods. And biographies have been written by others about Mahan. I strongly suggest Robert Seager II’s “Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters,” published by the Naval Institute Press in 1977. Though not exactly light reading, Seager brings Mahan and his special genius to life in a marvelous way.

To cut to the chase, the lasting legacies of Mahan as taken within the context of his epoch are, in my view, positive ones:

1. That the American military can indeed reinvent itself to triumph during changing geopolitical times -- if put under sufficient pressure and given inspiring leadership.

2. That we can master emerging technologies, and with effort develop the tactics and training that those who wear the uniform need to harness the gadgets as winning weapons against new and strange but deadly enemies.

3. That if we garble or forget the lessons of history, and then suffer the inevitable cost, we can when forced to by events relearn those lessons and then fight smarter than ever before.

It’s well known that the size and budget of America’s armed forces are cyclical. They tend to peak during times of war, and then plunge quickly when peace is achieved. What looking back as far as Mahan’s era shows is that the U.S. military is subject to other broad cycles as well: Periodic technical revolutions, and occasional massive clashes of arms that offer a mixed bag of aftermaths -- victories, imperialism, as well as doldrums and quagmires. A.T. Mahan lived through all of those things.

He joined the Navy as an acting midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1856. He served in the Civil War, on the Union side, though he never saw combat. After the war, the United States Navy went into a long period of infamous decline. Material readiness plummeted, morale was terrible, and people of all rates and ranks with invaluable skills and experience fled the Navy in droves for better civilian employment. Banks panics and recessions didn’t help military funding; recruiting was problematic against the allure of “Go West, young man.” It got so bad that a group of loyal yet dissenting naval officers chose to take concerted action: The United States Naval Institute was created in 1873, to provide its members with a forum for the free exchange of their intellectual capital. Slowly, very slowly, the Navy began its own rebirth. It took decades, and the process was not without pain.

Mahan’s own teachings, and his unabashed admonishments to his peers, were crucial parts of the end of the doldrums and the success of the rebirth. Mahan articulated clearly what a modern Navy was really for: to influence events on land around the globe. He also insisted that new technology be embraced, yet not be worshipped as a secular end in itself. What mattered most were people -- their guts, their hearts, their brains, their resolve. Such innovations as steam propulsion by screws, all-metal hulls, turreted big naval rifles, electricity, and searchlights enabling night gunnery, all were there to serve a broader purpose. That purpose was to create superior warships, in a fleet whose commanders wouldn’t shirk from battle, and whose crews would actively take risks in order to inflict greater loss on an enemy. Naval combat as fought in the Spanish-American War (1898) bore very little resemblance to any conflict the U.S. Navy was ever involved in previously. Without the foundation laid by the U.S. Naval Institute, the Naval War College, and the work of Mahan, our Navy might have been clueless in every strategic and tactical respect throughout that war. Instead, at one stroke, for better or for worse America became a world power.

Proceeding from the specific to the general, I’ll offer here, to wrap up Part 1, the following things we can learn from Mahan and his times, and from the long stretch of years and armed conflicts that intervene between then and now. Each of these should resonate as your own mind considers Iraq:

1. America has faced tough challenges before, some of which threatened our very survival, but we were able to get our act together by daring to change ourselves -- with new institutions, new understanding of the past, new organizational approaches, new views of our place in the world, and new weapon systems.

2. Doldrums and quagmires recur, much as booms and busts recur in the private sector, but relentless drive tempered by judicious book smarts have never failed to raise us out of the mud and the blood, and heal the grief and despair.

3. Waves of technical innovation periodically will crash against old ways of perceiving and acting, and sometimes the technical progress in its pace and magnitude may even seem fragmented and frightening, but ultimately we’ll master these new tools and use them to be more nimble and effective on the latest battlefield -- or to deter another battle or a war.

4. Any major nation with long seacoasts dares not turn its back on the sea. To gaze too deeply inward, and withdraw from sometimes-painful foreign entanglements, invites creeping mediocrity and eventual disaster on every front: economically, diplomatically, culturally, and militarily.

In the second half of this essay, we’ll look at some of what’s going right and what’s going wrong in Iraq. We’ll see how certain universal principles of combat -- which Mahan derived from mistakes made in the Napoleonic Wars and in his own day -- when neglected can make us drift off course into confusion and controversy. We’ll show how, by reminding ourselves of these principles, the present transformation of our military can move forward with better focus and dispatch, and also gain wider domestic public confidence and support. Alfred Thayer Mahan indeed has left us all with quite a lot to think about.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com