The Interest of America in International Conditions

Alfred Thayer Mahan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780765805256
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351480789
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Four years before the outbreak of the First World War, Alfred Thayer Mahan, the world famous naval historian and strategist, warned of the approaching conflict in The Interest of America in International Conditions. Mahan's geo-historical approach compared Imperial Germany's early twentieth-century quest for hegemony to previous attempts by Napoleon's France, Louis XIV's France, and the Austrian and Spanish Hapsburgs to upset the European balance of power. Each previous bid for hegemony brought forth a coalition of powers that restored the balance of power. Mahan foresaw in the early twentieth century that a new coalition of powers, including Britain, France, Russia, and the United States, would be needed to prevent German domination of the continent.

1
The Origin and Character of Present International Groupings in Europe

In all countries, the tendency of the general population is to concentrate attention upon those questions which are commonly called domestic. The individual man’s immediate neighborhood, the state, territory, or province, where he lives, the particular needs of the region in which his interests lie, have with him a prominence upon which it is needless to insist, and which is both natural and proper. The familiar phrase, “local self-government,” represented to American thought by the rights of the States and by the tradition of the town meeting, conveys to our minds, and there maintains, the necessary recognition that those immediately upon the spot, and conversant with conditions by actual daily contact, are best fitted to control and administer the affairs of the local community. The State governments, the various municipalities, the subdivisions into towns and villages, are outward visible signs of this conviction; which with most of us, however, reflects a simple tradition, not our own reasoned apprehension and knowledge.

A due recognition of this general truth, which intrusts the immediate locality with the functions of local administration, lies at the foundation of successful working institutions. But at a very early period of our national history, before independence was achieved, in measure even before it had been declared—that is, during the colonial period—it was seen that much more than local self-government was needed, if the results at which such government aimed were to be attained effectually. The habit of mind bred by acquaintance with such a system only, which did not look outward, upon other communities, except with a jealous prepossession notoriously common in the inter-relations of the thirteen colonies, militated distinctly, not only against the advantage of all, the common advantage, but also against the advantage of each. The necessity was seen of formal inter-colonial relations, corresponding in character to inter-national relations, although pregnant of a still closer tie.

The epithet “provincial,” by its associations more applicable to Europe than to America, nevertheless, by its implication of narrowness, befits the prejudices and conduct which notoriously characterized our early history, colonial, state, and sectional, up to the War of Secession. The harm of provincialism, of provincial habits of thought and act, is not that they reflect the conditions of the province, or section; for in so far they are beneficial. It is that they exclude a proportioned sense of the relations of other communities to one’s own. In this, a metropolis may be as hopelessly provincial as the remotest corner of the country, and with less excuse. Wall Street is perhaps provincial, despite its numerous outlying interests.

The same line of thought applies to the inter-relations of the greater community, that of nations. The first concern of each member of this is doubtless its own internal affairs, the ordering of its own house. There is nothing that the individual, whether man, or community, or nation, can contribute to the general welfare of greater value than the soundness of his or its own principles and life. But a realization of this truth which stops short there, neglecting to consider and to appreciate the conditions and necessary tendencies of other men, or of other members of the international community, is provincial in the worst sense.

An apt illustration of the usual indifference of our American public to international conditions, except for brief moments when some circumstance out of the usual course threatens to involve ourselves, or traverses some of our accepted notions, is to be found in the stationary condition of the organization of the Department of State between the close of the War of Secession and the end of the War with Spain. The impetus given to international relations by the later war, alike in its immediate antecedents and in its consequences, is obvious even to a casual consideration; but the requirement for development has been little appreciated, outside of the Government circles directly involved in the additional labor entailed, or by the very few and for the most part silent persons who interest themselves in such matters. The public attitude still holds good which a shrewd old member of Congress is said to have expressed in his advice to one newly elected: to avoid service upon a fancy committee like that of Foreign Affairs, if he wished to retain his hold upon his constituents, because they cared nothing about international questions.

It is curious to remember that this attitude of international indifference was less marked among Americans in the colonial period, when the several colonies were in the strictest sense provinces, than it afterwards became; perhaps even less than it now is, with all our advantages of steam and telegraph, of daily information from the four quarters of the globe. The reason, of course, is not far to seek, either of the earlier interest, or of the later indifference. The American of the ante-revolutionary period was directly connected with Europe, economically as well as politically, to a greater degree, relatively to that period of development, than he is now. He was affected not only by the relations of his community to European states, but also, and very closely, by the relations of those states to one another; precisely as the whole European family of to-day undergoes a tremor when a shock occurs in any one of its more unstable commonwealths. Rumors of European wars disquieted the American colonist; the outbreak of war involved him as a participant. To use a graphic expression of Macaulay’s, concerning the great Frederick’s seizure of Silesia—“The evils produced were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown. In order that he might rob a neighbor whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America.”

Rare and scanty as communications then were, they were characterized by the deliberateness and fullness of the letter writer, not pressed to catch a mail; while the reader had time more closely to discern and appreciate the determining conditions of affairs, because his attention was less distracted by a daily succession of numerous insignificant items. The contrast between such comprehension and the foreign-news columns of most American newspapers of to-day is that between a telegram and the domestic correspondence of near relations. Few things are more significant, or suggestive, than the space and character of the information concerning foreign complications to be found in American dailies, and that given by their British contemporaries. This reflects the difference of interest in readers; between those who, like our colonial forefathers, felt themselves directly interested, and those who, like most among ourselves, believe the United States only remotely concerned in events, unless they touch us immediately.

There was much to originate the existing attitude of mind, and there is still much to perpetuate it; though it may be believed that it has now become an anachronism. Speedily after our War of Independence came the French Revolution and the wars ensuing from it. The new nation found itself at once in a network of successive embarrassments, arising from engagements with France contracted in the past. Upon this followed a variety of vexatious incidents resulting from the maritime war between that country and Great Britain. Hence sprang Washington’s fervent warning against entangling alliances, and a most earnest desire on the part of his successors in the Presidency to keep free from involvement in European quarrels. Events seconded this wish. The extension of our territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to the Gulf of Mexico, by the acquisition of Louisiana and the Floridas, in 1803 and 1821, gave to our boundaries precision of definition by natural features, thus avoiding contentions inherent in artificial demarcation; while the revolt of Spanish America eliminated European localized contact with the new republic, except on the side of Canada.

Coincident with these realized conditions came the Monroe Doctrine, in the early twenties of the last century. The leading purpose of this was to exclude European intrusion from this hemisphere, and thus to accomplish the wish to avoid entanglements, whether of alliance or dispute. Experience of centuries had demonstrated that disturbance in America was sure to arise from European conflicts, and to be colored by them, when European possession existed. To prevent the extension of such a cause, by new acquisitions or by exchanges between European Powers, was the essential spirit of the Doctrine; and although the maintenance of it has been fruitful of contentions, it doubtless has contributed markedly to the end in view. It also fixed and intensified the repulsion to association with European policies, hardening into a prepossession still operative, and which perhaps has become unreasoning, and obstructive, as prejudice always is; preventing a clear vision of the tendencies shown by the present evident unrest in the state of the world. Conservatism is a fundamental and admirable ingredient in national policy; but like the Constitution, the great exponent and guardian of the conservative forces, there must be found in national ideals a certain elasticity, and capacity for progress. No degree of conservatism will prevent changes external to one’s self; and if the man or nation cannot find adaptation to the times, even that which seems to be held most firmly may be lost.

The origin of American aloofness from questions of European policy, as well in interest as in act, is thus to be found in incidents of our early history, already briefly noticed. It is needless to comment, beyond mere mention, upon the fact that this indifference was fostered and perpetuated by the internal sectional difficulties consequent upon the disputes about slavery. From the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine to the end of the War of Secession the nation was occupied almost exclusively in endeavoring to keep its house in order, and to settle national self-government upon solid foundations. This entire period, of over a generation, was spent in attempting the problem of maintaining unity—the essence of national vigor— by reconciling the irreconcilable. In any country, particularly in one as extensive as ours, divergence of interests between sections must give rise to oppositions which may be called sectional; but in our experience no such divergence has been virulent and menacing, as was that which confronted with each other two systems of labor, radically hostile in spirit as in form, and modifying, not only industrial and economical conditions, but the mental and moral characteristics of the communities affected. To our present subject this situation is of interest chiefly as contributing to explain the persistent alienation of national thought from international relations. The nation did not possess the conditions of external effectiveness. Internally sick, only partially developed, immature, it had not the strength; while, preoccupied with the symptoms of its malady, it had no attention to spare for remote external events.

Yet, inasmuch as this portion of our national progress is in essential characteristics only a repetition of other history, though differing in the particular causes, it is well that the stage thus differentiated by its peculiar features from that which preceded and from that which followed—from the present in which we are now living—be viewed in its analogies to other historical periods. States are made up of human beings; and hence there is in their experience a certain inevitableness of tendency which needs to be observed, if only to avoid, or to modify in action. Slavery has not been the only cause that has divided nations sectionally. Sectional division has arisen from differences of religion, and from differences of race. In Germany the line of division was between north and south; the south Roman Catholic, the north Protestant. The issue was a political disintegration of the entire territory which has been remedied only in our own day— subsequent to the War of Secession. In France the general line of demarcation was again East and West; the strength of Protestantism was in the south. In these two nations, the religious feature was not the sole cause of internal dissensions, but it alone was distinctly sectional, and in virtue of this local concentration it was the most powerful, the most persistent, the longest to survive.

The instructive feature for us to note is that while this internal dissension lasted the international relation of the nations concerned was that of being acted upon by other people; in short, defensive. Spain, unified in spirit by the perpetual religious wars with the Moors, and consolidated in territory by their expulsion, and by the marriage of Castile with Aragon, was then the united nation which found itself able to impress its policy upon foreign communities. Were its aims good or bad, it was in a position to enforce them; to carry on vigorous external action wherever its particular interests, or its more general views, disposed it to interfere. For over a century, therefore, Spain was the dominant power in Europe; because united, while Germany and France were rent asunder by internal divisions, and Great Britain was still politically a divided island, England against Scotland. In general outline, whatever the particular manifestation from time to time, all these stood on the defensive, internationally, against Spain, for over a century.

France was the first to extricate herself from her internal difficulties. The nations of western Europe were in one respect happier than ourselves, to whom slavery has bequeathed a still unsolved racial question, mainly sectional in its distribution, but intensified by fundamental distinctions. While not without sectional characteristics, they possessed elements of homogeneousness which lent themselves to national consolidation. To recall the events which led to the concentration of national power in France is not in point here. The fact alone concerns us, that, under the successive administrations of Henry IV, Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louis XIV, consolidation and concentration were effected; while during the process, and consequent upon its completion, there developed and was sustained a powerful external policy which, like that of Spain, whose it supplanted, made itself felt, as by a necessary law of being, in all the international relations of the day. To France there belonged the attribute, which we now see so often named in current writing, called the hegemony of Europe; one accompaniment of which was the subversion of the preponderance previously exerted by the Empire of Spain.

The propriety of the policy and measures which under these circumstances marked the conduct of France is less to our modern purpose, as observers of contemporary events, than is the reaction provoked. An overweening power, which by its varied influence trammeled and affected the internal and international relations of all other states, incited a general alliance among the nations of Europe to withstand the progress of a predominance which already threatened and, if unchecked, might accomplish the dependence of the whole of Europe upon a single state. This was the manifestation of a tendency analogous to that by which Nature herself restores conditions after a disturbance; a movement towards an equilibrium among the members of the European family, then the entire world of civilization, as we understand that term. It was a spontaneous effort of self-preservation, among numerous scattered communities, directed against a single concentrated highly organized oppressor; and, despite the inherent feebleness of alliances and coalitions, it effected its purpose. Louis XIV was dragged down from the height of his power. A century later, under Napoleon, a similar preponderance was attained by France; but the gigantic fabric erected by him was overthrown also by the same process of combined resistance.

To the imagination of statesmen, these beneficent achievements consecrated the means by which they had been effected, viz.: a concert of action among states, framed to resist such oppression as had been recently experienced on the part successively of Spain and of France. Upon observers of international politics had been produced an impression, closely analogous to that made upon the people of England, at about the same time, by the burden of Cromwell’s rule by means of a standing army. The concentration of military force within Great Britain, as an instrument of government, dominating all interests and all other elements of popular self expression, reflected on a smaller scale the condition of international relations when the physical force of a single state, by its concentration of energy, predominated over the disseminated and often conflicting wills of the remainder of the group. The means of counteraction, beginning in alliances, was formulated into the familiar expression, “Balance of Power,” the opposite of preponderance; a conception which, while it anteceded the birth of the phrase itself, continued for three centuries to influence decisively the actions of statesmen. The distinguished English historian, Bishop Stubbs, has written: “The Balance of Power, however defined, that is, whatever the Powers between which it is necessary to maintain an equilibrium, such that the weaker should not be crushed by the stronger, is the principle which gives unity to the plot of modern European history. It is the foremost idea of the three centuries, 1500–1800. Whatever the drama, this is the key to the plot.” In the course of time the conception received an elaboration which it was thought would assure its effectiveness as a preserver of the status quo, of equilibrium and of peace. This process of formulation resembled the elaboration which of late years has been dealing with International Arbitration as a means to an end; indeed to the same end, of peace, by coöperation on an established basis of international equity.

Artificial arrangements such as these are effective only in so far as they take account of, and correspond to, the contemporary qualities of human nature; to its virtues, defects, passions, interests. The remark applies equally to Balance of Power and to schemes of Arbitration. Underlying them all is a raw material, which cannot be worked into a finished product possessing characteristics not found in the material itself. In the great settlement following the downfall of Napoleon, it was thought that by territorial distributions there could be constituted an effective equilibrium, or balance, among the five great Powers; while the integrity of the lesser states, as then determined, would be secured by a basis of guarantees. Attempts to violate such conditions would be the business of everybody, as had been consciously the case during the previous century concerning the stipulations of Utrecht in 1713; the last universal settlement prior to that of 1815. Ascendencies, such as the world had seen, were to be stopped in their beginnings; not allowed, as with Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV, and Napoleon, to grow into a colossus, overshadowing the continent. Thus the Balance of Power endorsed international Intervention upon recognized occasion.

The scheme practically assumed that equilibrium of power and assurance of quiet, if realized, gave also equality of conditions and opportunity; otherwise, however adroit the momentary adjustment, how could contentment be permanent? and without contentment how expect men to be quiet? The assumption is much like one which should maintain that, give all men an equal degree of physical strength, they start fair on the race of life. We know from experience that equalities much more extensive in scope result speedily in inequalities, due to individual capacities, mental, moral, or artificial; and that from these inequalities spring social and economical dissatisfaction and dissension. The status quo of Europe in 1815 was not merely one of a balance of regularized power, artificially constituted. There were among the different states, upon the equilibrium of which the scheme depended, varying stages of political, social, and industrial development; varying conceptions of right; varying degrees of wealth and opportunity. These speedily, and progressively, as time advanced, would give rise to national dissatisfactions, whence in due order follow national ambitions and disputes. The subsequent history of Europe to to-day is the record of these strivings; of their workings and results, based upon and conforming to the raw material of human nature swayed by interest and sentiment.

With the overthrow of Louis XIV the predominance in Europe had passed to Great Britain. This was almost unnoted at the time, but increasingly demonstrated by the events of the eighteenth century, and clearly recognizable in 1815. The new condition, however, was essentially different from that of its predecessors; and was so understood, though perhaps not formally analyzed by contemporaries. The power of Great Britain was not that of predominance, strictly so called. She never had the military strength, as for a time Philip II, Louis XIV, and Napoleon had, to make her successfully aggressive against a continent determined on resistance. Her predominance was that of a determinative factor, resembling a third party in politics; of a make-weight, which casts the balance from one side to the other. Her ability to do this lay in the defensive strength of her insular position, which had enabled her to concentrate attention upon industrial enterprises and commerce; secured from the disturbances of war, which are most grievous when the national territory is open to invasion. This immunity began with the union of England and Scotland under one crown, in 1603; consummated by the full political union, with a single parliament, in 1707, six years before the Treaty of Utrecht. Again an internal union, of provinces politically s...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• 1 The Origin and Character of Present International Groupings in Europe
• 2 The Present Predominance of Germany in Europe—Its Foundations and Tendencies
• 3 Relations between the East and the West
• 4 The Open Door
• Index