However, in the course of his studies, he discovered that ‘control of the sea was a historic factor which had never been systematically appreciated and expounded.’ Concurrently, his own analysis of the factors pertaining to sea power as an instrument of national power resulted in the transformation of his own thinking. It is a matter of record that, prior to his call from Admiral Luce, Mahan held views that in latter-day parlance would be termed isolationist: that the United States should avoid expansion into overseas territories that the United States should not incur heavy naval expenditure, not only to save money but also to minimize the undue military influence in the governmental processes and that the Navy’s wartime functions should be limited to commerce raiding and coastal defense. His summons to Mahan to lecture at this institution on the art of war and naval history signaled Mahan’s emergence from obscurity to a position in the forefront of the expositors of strategic thought. One of Admiral Luce’s accomplishments in his crusade was the establishment of the Naval War College. Luce, who in the early 1880’s no longer accepted with equanimity the idea of a Navy aimlessly adrift. At this point in his career, Mahan had managed to impress his intellectual capacity upon Rear Admiral Stephen B.
It was perhaps inevitable that, in the wake of the Civil War, the country’s energies and attention were directed to the settlement and development of its vast continental domain and the Navy at this time found itself in a rather poor state with neither motivation nor money adequately to span the transition from sail to steam and on to the other technological advances.
As a line officer, Mahan pursued for about twenty-five years a rather routine career in standard billets. After a year at Columbia, his son obtained entry into the Naval Academy, where he graduated just prior to the Civil War. Alfred Thayer Mahan was born in 1840 at West Point, his father, Dennis Mahan, was an instructor in engineering and military science at the Military Academy.
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