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Before we get into who made this theory and how it shaped the world, let's first discuss what it actually is
Basic Definition: Control over the oceans and other water ways allows control over transportation of goods, trade, and trasportation of people an information, so to control these you need a large navy to control the water.
Created during the late 1800s to explain British Naval dominence and being a global superpower and used to guide the US into the same position.
The creator of the sea power theory is Alfred Thayer Mahan, an american who lived in the latter half of the 19th century.
Alfred Thayer Mahan was born in September 27th 1840 in West Point New York. He was the son of a professor at the United States Military Academy and went on to do the same thing as his father in the Naval Academy. In 1890, he wrote the book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660-1783, which explained how the United Kingdom came to rule the waves, and eventually, 25% of all land on Earth. It also paved the way for America to also control the seas and global maritime trade and war as a whole.
Before his death in December 1st 1914, he helped the US Navy rise to be the unpredicdented ruler of the seas. Lightly brushing off the fact that he help form the largest and most powerful navy the world has ever seen by orders of magnitude, he also predicted Germany's defeat due to France and Britain easily being able to blockade the German ports and their far more numerous dreadnoughts and screen ships.
Of course this theory was based off of previous large fleets and changed the future doctrines of many nations which altered the course of history in many drastic and extensive ways.
The Spanish Empire in the 1600s to 1700s controlled most of the Americas and it's resources. It did this by having a large navy with lots of large ships where it could intimidate any other state who tried to rebel by putting the Armada on display to intimidate rivals and pirates which allowed them to control most of the carribean and all of modern latin america plus even more. What led to the downfall of the Spanish Empire was the when the British Empire used more manueverable ships with lighter yet stronger guns to destroy the Spanish Armada in a single night off the coast of France.
The British Empire was the largest empire in the world and most powerful state in the world for over a century. The relatively small island Great Britain managed this via its navy. The Royal Navy defeated the largest navy before it, the Spanish Armada, and from then was one of the best, but mostly the best, navies on the planet. It controlled all of the linchpins of trade such at the Suez Canal, The Cape of Good Hope, Gibralter, the entire Deccan Peninsula, and much much more. And given that all it's rivals often had a much smaller navy, land borders to protect, and could easily be cut off from the rest of the world by sea, it was able to destroy its enemies and expand rapidly to become the Empire that the sun never set on.
The United States is currently the world's only global superpower, and this is due to its navy. It has the ability to knock on the front doors of anyone with the navy and either intimidate or obstruct any trade in the region by sea or air. This is why the US has policed the oceans since 1945 with next to no resistance that could feasibly stop it so the US does what ever is in its own and its allies best interests. Other nations nations that wish to be a super power all lack the ability to not only exert a similar level of power and force as the US navy does but lacks the abilty to even rival the US navy in naval warfare. Thus the united states is the dominent superpower of the world due to the strength and reach of its navy.
Duignan, Brian. “Alfred Thayer Mahan.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 20 July 1998, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Thayer-Mahan.
United States of America “Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History: Securing International Markets in the 1890s.” U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, 2009, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/mahan#:~:text=Mahan%20argued%20that%20British%20control,%2C%20political%2C%20and%20economic%20power.
Grove, Eric. “Sea Power.” Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Oxford University, 1 Mar. 2010, https://oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-294.