Alfred T. Mahan. The Interest of
America in Sea Power. Boston: Little, Brown, 1897.
Is
the United States . . . prepared to allow Germany to acquire the Dutch
stronghold of Curacao, fronting the Atlantic outlet of both the proposed canals
of Panama and Nicaragua? Is she prepared to acquiesce in any foreign power
purchasing from Haiti a naval station on the Windward Passage, through which
pass our steamer routes to the Isthmus? Would she acquiesce to a foreign
protectorate over the Sandwich Islands [Hawaii] that great central station of
the Pacific?
Whether
they will or no, Americans must now look outward. The growing production of the
country demands it. An increasing volume of public sentiment demands it. The
position of the United States, between the two Old Worlds and the two great
oceans, makes the same claim, which will soon be strengthened by the creation
of the new link joining the Atlantic and Pacific. The tendency will be
maintained and increased by the growth of the European colonies in the Pacific,
by the advancing civilization of Japan, and by the rapid peopling of our
Pacific States. . . .
Three
things are needful: First, protection of the chief harbors, by fortifications
and coast-defense ships. . . . Secondly, naval force, the arm of offensive
power, which alone enables a country to extend its influence outward. Thirdly,
no foreign state should henceforth acquire a coaling position within three
thousand miles of San Francisco. . . .