Sea Change: Strategic Consequences of the Transformation of World Shipping

Naval power has been closely associated with the protection of commercial shipping since before the time when warships protected the growth of Athens' trading empire. For four hundred years, the British empire expanded under the device "trade follows the flag." In the late nineteenth century, the American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan finally codified the relationship between merchant shipping and naval power in a way that affected and encouraged the development of the war fleets of several nations, including that of the United States. The naval protection of commercial shipping has, in its turn, traditionally been associated with the assurance of free passage through important, narrow sea lanes - "choke-points." The ability to pass freely through these points, or to deny such passage to adversaries, has long been recognized to be an important element of national power. The founder of German geopolitics, Karl Haushofer - although an army general and a landlubber - gained through his travels a deep appreciation for the strategic leverage imperial Great Britain enjoyed through its control of choke-points around the world.
The original document contains color images.