In 1892, Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan, a lecturer at the Naval War College, published his opus, The Influence of Sea Power upon History. The work made him famous. More importantly, it showed the rest of the world that the United States was committed to using naval muscle to claim its place among the world’s great powers.

For Mahan, the history of sea power was largely “a narrative of contests between nations, of mutual rivalries, of violence frequently culminating in war.” In order to “secure to one's own people a disproportionate share,” Mahan wrote, “every effort was made to exclude others, either by the peaceful legislative methods of monopoly or prohibitory regulations, or, when these failed, by direct violence.”

America’s earliest political leaders understood that the fortunes of the young republic were tied to the sea, even if some of them — most notably Thomas Jefferson — didn’t admit that until much later.

For nearly 200 years, the relationship between American power, American industry, and the U.S. Navy has been understood as vital to maintaining American economic prosperity and preserving the United States's preeminent place among great powers. Former President Theodore Roosevelt inaugurated an era of U.S. naval power at a time when the Royal Navy and the Imperial German Navy battled for supremacy on the high seas.

Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet sailed around the world from 1907 to 1909, and while the United States did not have the raw number of ships compared to Britain or Germany, it was clear to anyone paying attention that the U.S. Navy would be a force to be reckoned with in the new 20th century. Even as the United States joined the rest of the world in the post-World War I Washington Treaty limiting the creation of battleships, the United States ensured that it would be allowed to maintain parity with the largest navy in the world at the time, the Royal Navy.

Two world wars confirmed bullish attitudes about the U.S. Navy. In the aftermath of World War II and the industrial buildup that accompanied the war effort, the U.S. Navy became the largest in the world and assumed the lion’s share of the responsibility for keeping global seas open for commerce and trade in the wake of the collapse of the British Empire.

Today, former Navy officer and writer Jerry Hendrix warns Americans that they’ve taken the freedom of the seas for granted. He argues that China's rise should prompt the United States to recommit to being the world’s premier sea power.

“Very few Americans — or, for that matter, very few people on the planet — can remember a time when freedom of the seas was in question,” Hendrix noted. “But for most of human history, there was no such guarantee. Pirates, predatory states, and the fleets of great powers did as they pleased.”

Indeed, modern economies rely on this freedom of the seas for successful trade. Yet, the United States has lost its ability, and apparently its will, to make the hard choices necessary to keep its navy powerful enough to reinforce this. China has spent billions of dollars building military ships and a massive merchant marine.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday explained that the nation simply doesn’t have enough operable shipyards. Since the Cold War, the United States has gone from 30 operable shipyards to seven.

For its part, China’s navy eclipsed the United States’s in raw tonnage in 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down. While the U.S. Navy can undoubtedly boast of better ships and better sailors, raw tonnage matters. Sam Tangredi, a U.S. Naval War College professor, warns that if history is any guide, the navy with the most ships wins — even over more skilled seamen with more technologically advanced ships.

Past presidents and policymakers set aside political differences to strengthen the U.S. Navy. Former President James Madison’s Republican convictions made him leery of a large navy, but in the aftermath of the War of 1812, he set aside his qualms and advocated enlarging the Navy. In the years preceding the Civil War, Democrats from the South advocated bolstering the Navy even as politicians from their region saw it as a Northern-dominated institution. At the beginning of the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt pushed for a greater Navy to maintain the United States’ economic prowess.

Throughout its history, the U.S. Navy has acted as a relatively responsible force for maintaining the freedom of the seas — not merely for itself but also its trading partners and allies. Unless Americans would prefer China rule the seas, the United States should maintain its naval superiority.

Miles Smith IV is an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College.