Maritime Order

One of Mead’s main themes is that Anglo-American strategy during the past several centuries has focused on the development of maritime order. In this perspective, the world is single, but divided into different theaters: “The theaters are all linked by the sea, and whoever controls the sea can choose the architecture that shapes the world. The primary ambition of Anglo-American power is not dominance in a particular theater; it is to dominate the structure that shapes the conditions within which the actors in each of the world’s theater’s live.” Sometimes, Britain and America have dominated particular theaters. Some theaters can be ignored, but in others they have been wiling to “accept a balance of power in key theaters.” Policy in an individual theater is only a means to an end, and the overall end is “control of the system that binds them all together.”

Sea power is thus “more than a navy. It is more than control of strategic trade routes. It means using the mobility of the seas to build a global system resting on economic links as well as on military strength. It means using the strategic flexibility of an offshore power, protected to some degree from the rivalries and hostilities of land powers surrounded by powerful neighbors, to build power strategies that other countries cannot counter. It means using command of the seas to plant colonies whose wealth and success reinforce the mother country. It means developing a global system that is relatively easy to establish and which, once developed, proves extremely difficult to dislodge.”