Military History will explore Upton’s philosophy in a future issue. But just as significant as their actual ideas was the fact that they were military men, and that they would make their mark not only in the United States but also on the world’s stage. What they proposed would influence American military strategy and tactics for decades to follow. Stunningly ambitious, industrious, prolific, disciplined, patriotic, observant and innovative, they were also jealous, intolerant, tone-deaf, neurasthenic and religious to the point of priggishness. Both were endowed with all the virtues and the limitations of their age. Much of the debate over just how the United States would grow up and take its proper place in the greater world revolved around a pair of extraordinary American thinkers: Colonel Emory Upton, from the Army, and Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, from the Navy. It could no longer depend upon its usual brilliant amateurism in all matters military, nor could it rely upon the kindness of strangers to protect American commerce and interests around the world. A United States that spanned a continent and boasted the world’s largest economy by the 1880s could no longer live in splendid isolation. At the same time, as America grew, so did its interactions with the rest of the world. Right up until World War II we also remained suspicious that a large, permanent and professional military might serve primarily as the enforcing arm of such a government. ![]() This has been especially true for Americans: As a people, we have long been suspicious of big government, particularly the federal government, even when we’ve accepted it. Its very nature-an absolute command structure, in which decisions are not put to a vote but ordered the settling of all issues ultimately by force of arms the limitation of individual rights each soldier must accept- cuts against the grain of a free society. ![]() Dependent upon the popular will, they breed loyalty and devotion.Īnd yet the idea of a large standing military raises the hackles of a democracy. They encourage innovation, self-reliance and free thought, while also allowing some leeway for error and defeat. In 1890 Alfred Thayer Mahan published a book that transformed naval theory-and unleashed the world’s great fleets.ĭemocracies are good at war for many of the same reasons they are good at capitalism and at the enhancement of the human spirit.
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