Sea Power and the American Interest: From the Civil War to the Great War

392 pages

Prof Andrew Lambert

Kings College, London

How did the United States develop into a global naval power between 1865 and 1918? Washington-based defence correspondent Morton traces the evolution of American strategic power as a response to emerging economic interests in the western hemisphere, and competition with rival commercial empires from Cuba and Brazil to Manila and China, that challenged the United States as it evolved into a global power. The essentially defensive strategic portfolio of the pre-1861 Republic, a cruiser navy, supported by a few battleships, relying on licensed combatants, or ‘privateers’ and an extensive network of coastal fortresses for security ceased to be adequate as the post-Civil War nation industrialised, and radically improved internal communications. The explosive growth of steel-making, driven by transcontinental railways, coincided with a turn away from the sea, leaving foreign ships to carry American exports, largely agricultural surpluses. Steel producers soon identified a modern Navy as a major consumer; Krupp armour was vastly more profitable than basic steel rails. Little wonder they supported the Navy League, or that the new ‘Steel Navy’ was deployed to secure markets in South America.

Steel, transport, oil and banking, the key resources for growth, shaped a dynamic economy and new political alignments. The men who made this transformation were part of a wider intellectual world that included Alfred T Mahan and Theodore Roosevelt, one shaped by elite Ivy League Universities, which even provided the USA with many presidents, notably Woodrow Wilson, the former President of Princeton. Much of this expansion took place under Republican leadership, but Wilson’s 1912-20 Democratic Party oversaw an increase in the role of the state, and the use of the Navy to secure control of markets. The failure to develop a modern ocean-going commercial shipping industry left American exports dependent on foreign tonnage, a dependence that was cruelly exposed in 1914, when a world war diverted tonnage and increased insurance rates, restricting export capacity. This shortage impacted big supporters of Wilson’s government, the Southern Cotton Growers Association and the Chicago Meat Packers – impacting American neutrality policy.

Morton’s larger take-away is the synergy of economic, industrial and strategic concerns in the shaping of national policy. American thinkers, including the economically literate Mahan, ensured business interests and political actors recognised strategic issues. Human connections forged in New York clubs, reinforced by a sophisticated and lively print media, turned Mahanian sea power into an American assumption. The US Navy rose to prominence by protecting US economic interests at sea and beyond. Those arguments need to be revisited, not least in this country, to ensure the vital connection between maritime security, global shipping and national prosperity is front and centre when defence funding comes under review.