Retrospect and prospect; studies in international relations, naval and political

Front matter

WORKS BY

CAPTAIN A. T. MAHAN

^x

Preface

IN their main features, the following essays are in direct sequence to those of the author's previous volumes, "The Interest of America in Sea Power," and " The Problem of Asia." The title article, Retrospect and Prospect, in its scope serves as a connecting link between the present and their predecessors ; indicating the continuity of interest and gradual development of the several subjects dealt with. As the future has passed into the present, it has brought with it the unfolding of inevitable policy, evolving fresh problems, that are in essence only new phases of a steady progression, which in its course is making history.

As has hitherto usually been the case, the articles in this book for the most part have been written, not of the author's own initiative, but in response to the request of editors. Such significance as may attach to this is due to the fact that the work consequently indicates, not vi Preface

the trend of a single mind, but the outlook of those whose business is to study the current of events, to watch the tide of popular interest and feeling, and thus to provide for readers information or discussion upon matters toward which general curiosity is seen to be turning. It is perfectly consistent with the general tendency thus avouched, and even illustrative of it, that the series, if it may be called such in virtue of a consecutiveness rather essential than formal, has led out from considerations narrowly American, with which the papers began, into the broad field of world policies; for thither our nation also is indisputably and irresistibly moving.

Herein lies whatever of lasting value or interest may attach to the subjects treated, or the treatment given. In retrospect, and from this point of view, it now seems a kind of happy forecast that the first of the long succession, written over twelve years ago, began with the words, " Indications are not wanting of an approaching change in the thoughts and policy of Americans as to their relations with the world outside their own borders." * The presage has been fulfilled, far beyond any consciousness then possible to the writer.

1 Interest of America in Sea Power, p. 3.

Preface vii

I desire to return my cordial thanks, for the permission here to reprint, to the several proprietors and editors of the periodicals in which the articles first appeared. I owe to them not only the recognition of their courtesy in this respect, but the further acknowledgment that, save for their intervention, probably no single one would have been undertaken. The name of each magazine, with the date of publication, is attached to the title in the Table of Contents. The dates at the head of the articles show the time of writing.

A. T. MAHAN.

September, 1902.

CONTENTS i

Page Retrospect and Prospect 3

By Courtesy of The World's Work, February, 1902

II Conditions Determining the Naval Expansion of

the United States 39

By Courtesy of Leslie's Weekly, October, 2, 1902 III

The Influence of the South African War upon

the Prestige of the British Empire ... 57

By Courtesy of The National Review, December, 1901

IV

By Courtesy of The National Review and the International Monthly, May, 1902

V

Considerations Governing the Disposition of i 0t s'

Navies 139

By Courtesy of The National Review, July, 1902 x Contents