How would Mahan approach today's naval affairs?

How would Mahan approach contemporary naval affairs and public debate?

Armstrong expects Mahan to recognize China's maritime rise and persistent sea blindness while finding modern technology unfamiliar. His ideas can help frame strategic questions when their historical context is preserved.

Mahan's nineteenth-century experience has to remain part of any comparison with contemporary naval affairs. Historical study can improve the questions naval professionals ask without supplying a checklist of decisions. China's growing maritime power and public unfamiliarity with the sea provide two parallels with Mahan's writing. Modern technology would be much less familiar, although his interest in aviation, submarines, and wireless telegraphy complicates the image of a thinker hostile to technical change. The distinction between changing tactics and broader strategic decisions explains why an imperfect technological forecast does not by itself dispose of a strategic argument.