When discussing today’s geopolitical competition between the United States and China, analysts often reference the Cold War. Yet the intellectual foundations of the modern struggle were laid more than a century ago by a little-known American naval officer named Alfred Thayer Mahan.
Most people have never heard of him. Yet his ideas helped shape the rise of the United States as a global power, influenced the strategic thinking of Imperial Japan, guided British maritime policy, and continue to influence military planners in Washington and Beijing today.
In many ways, Mahan was one of the architects of the modern globalized world.
The Theory That Changed Nations
In 1890, Mahan published The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, a book arguing that the world’s great powers were not determined solely by armies, natural resources, or population. Instead, he believed that nations capable of controlling global trade routes and maritime chokepoints would dominate international affairs.
His argument was simple.
Commerce creates wealth. Wealth creates power. Power depends on secure transportation networks.
In the nineteenth century, those networks were oceans.
Mahan identified several strategic locations that could determine the balance of power. Control the sea lanes connecting Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and a nation could shape global commerce. Lose those routes, and economic decline would follow.
The theory was revolutionary. Presidents, admirals, and kings around the world became students of Mahan’s work.
Among them was Theodore Roosevelt.
From Theory to American Power
Before becoming President, Roosevelt was an avid reader of Mahan’s writings. He embraced the idea that the United States could not remain isolated if it wanted to become a leading global power.
The result was a dramatic expansion of American naval capabilities.
The construction of the Panama Canal, the growth of the U.S. Navy, and America’s increasing involvement in international affairs were all influenced by Mahan’s vision.
For the first time, the United States began thinking of itself not merely as a continental power but as a global one.
The twentieth century largely validated Mahan’s theory.
The British Empire maintained dominance through naval supremacy. The United States emerged from World War II as the world’s leading power thanks in part to its ability to secure global shipping lanes. International trade flourished under American maritime protection.
What Mahan understood more than a century ago was that economic influence and security are inseparable.
Why China Read the Same Book
Fast forward to the twenty-first century.
China’s rise has often been viewed through the lens of manufacturing, technology, or population growth. Yet beneath these factors lies a distinctly Mahanian strategy.
China imports enormous quantities of energy and exports vast amounts of manufactured goods. These flows depend on maritime routes stretching from the Persian Gulf through the Indian Ocean and into the South China Sea.
Beijing recognizes the vulnerability.
Nearly all of China’s trade passes through narrow chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca. Any disruption could have significant economic consequences.
As a result, China has spent the past two decades investing heavily in naval modernization, overseas port infrastructure, and strategic influence across key maritime corridors.
The Belt and Road Initiative is often described as an economic development project. It is also a geopolitical project designed to secure transportation networks and reduce strategic vulnerability.
In many respects, China is applying the same logic Mahan described in 1890.
The New Chokepoints
What makes today’s geopolitical environment unique is that control of the seas alone is no longer sufficient.
The world’s strategic chokepoints have expanded beyond geography.
Semiconductor supply chains, undersea internet cables, satellite networks, rare earth minerals, and artificial intelligence infrastructure now function as critical arteries of global power.
Taiwan’s importance is not simply geographic. It sits at the center of advanced semiconductor production.
SpaceX’s satellite constellation has demonstrated how private infrastructure can influence military operations.
Undersea fiber-optic cables carry the vast majority of global internet traffic, making them as strategically important today as maritime shipping lanes were in Mahan’s era.
The principle remains unchanged.
Control the networks that connect the global economy, and you gain influence over the international system.
The Return of Great Power Competition
For much of the post-Cold War era, globalization was viewed primarily as an economic phenomenon. Supply chains expanded, trade increased, and many believed geopolitical rivalry had become secondary.
That assumption is rapidly disappearing.
The United States and China are now competing across trade, technology, energy, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and strategic infrastructure.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlighted the continued importance of logistics and industrial capacity.
Conflicts in the Red Sea have demonstrated how vulnerable global shipping remains.
Even discussions around Greenland, Arctic shipping routes, and critical mineral access reflect the same underlying reality that Mahan identified more than a century ago.
Power belongs to those who control the systems that connect the world.
The Lesson for 2026
Alfred Thayer Mahan died in 1914, before the First World War transformed the global order. Yet his central insight remains remarkably relevant.
Great powers are not defined solely by military strength. They are defined by their ability to secure the networks that enable commerce, communication, and influence.
In the nineteenth century those networks were shipping lanes.
In the twentieth century they became global trade routes.
In the twenty-first century they include satellites, semiconductors, data infrastructure, energy corridors, and artificial intelligence.
Technology has changed.
Human competition has not.
Understanding the geopolitical tensions of 2026 may require looking less at the headlines and more at the ideas of a naval officer who understood, long before anyone else, that the future belongs to those who control the connections between nations.
