12/31/2023 0 Comments Alfred thayer mahan childrenHe drew a comparison between Hawai’i and the Western European States: Germany, France, et cetera created a defensive bulwark between the Chinese and the United States should they attempt to cross the European and Asian continents by land, and that the use of Hawai’i as a naval staging point served a similar purpose, utilizing the open expanses of the Pacific Ocean as a bulwark, instead of land. In Mahan’s perspective, Hawai’i served as a bulwark against Chinese expansion across the Pacific Ocean. 8 He pointed out that sea lines of communication (SLOC) and shipping routes naturally focussed upon Honolulu as a staging point for the trans-Pacific voyage, and that Pearl Harbor was a naturally impregnable harbour, perfect for a naval base. While the Hawaiian Islands were isolated from any nearby continental landmasses, Mahan illustrated the value the islands held as a stopover point for American vessels seeking to reach the Philippines or San Francisco from either side of the Pacific Ocean in 1893. 7 This would become a preoccupation of his spanning several years. As early as 22 January 1886, Mahan was considering the role “… military ports in various parts of the world …” would have in maritime theory, and in particular the maritime strategies of the United States across the oceans of the world. 4 Mahanian Maritime Theory Pertaining to the Value of Hawai’i (1892-1895)Īlfred Thayer Mahan, one of the United States’ most renowned naval theoreticians, argued that Hawai’i’s central location between the American mainland and the Asian-Pacific theatre made it desirable both as an operational launching point and as a defensible fall-back position, and Theodore Roosevelt 5 and his advisory clique 6 fought ardently for Hawaiian annexation. While cited sources span this period, the key years for consideration are 1908-1910, the period during which the United States Navy was formalising its doctrines on the use of Hawai’i within American maritime strategic theory. The second falls between 18, the period immediately following the United States of America’s annexation of Hawai’i this latter period covers the administrations of Presidents McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt. The first lies between 18, the period during which Mahan was developing his initial strategic appraisals of Hawai’i. I examine the issue of Hawaiian military value assessment in two blocks of time. This essay focuses on the Mahanian interpretation of the military value of Hawai’i rather than the political aspects of the annexation process (including the various motivations behind the annexation campaign run by Theodore Roosevelt and his supporters). Hawai’i, as an island, a current state, and as the source of some of the United States’ greatest cultural treasures, brought economic and cultural expansion to the nation but as valuable as it is in these respects, it was very keenly perceived as a military asset from the outset. Whatever the incidental benefits the annexation of Hawai’i brought to the United States, the primary value the Hawaiian archipelago held for the nation was military-strategic. “It is not too much to say that Captain Mahan was doing for Naval Science what Jomini did for Military Science.” “… ithout some such governmental care as is implied by an organized institution, it is vain to hope for the development of the art of naval war.” Theodore Roosevelt and Domestic Perceptions of the Annexation of Hawai’i – The Short StoryĬandidate (Civilian), Master of Arts in War Studies Mahanian Maritime Theory Pertaining to the Value of Hawai’i (1892-1895)
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