Theories of international relations

Events through most of the century cast doubts upon both theories. In 1914, Britain had ruled the waves for a century, but it did not rule the world; in dealing with its powerful neighbors across the English Channel it was just one Great Power among several. In that year, a balance of power that operated for a century with relatively little war, and no general coalition war, broke down; two great coalition wars followed in a generation. At the end of the Second World War, Mahan's theory and Mackinder's were poised in a sense directly against one another; the US ruled the waves and the USSR ruled the heartland. Nearly half a century of uneasy bipolar equilibrium followed, ending abruptly in the years around 1990 when the Soviet Union disintegrated -- not from defeat in the global struggle, but from internal collapse.

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one. An insular maritime power need not be an island in the literal sense. Athens was not an island, but its leaders provided it with a powerful wall system connecting it to its seaport, rendering it an island in strategic terms, as Pericles stated explicitly (Thucydides, 1972, p. 122). The strategy failed in part because of a factor that could not be predicted: crowded behind the walls at the outset of the Pelopponesian War, the Athenians, including Pericles himself, were decimated by plague. Carthage was likewise a strategic island, isolated in North Africa with only tribal neighbors (Warmington, 1969, pp. 55-82). For Carthage the maritime strategy failed when it went to war with Rome. In a world of city-states Rome was a superpower that controlled almost all of Italy, and however many fleets the Romans lost, they always had the resources to build one more (Warmington, 1969, p. 185). In a later age, Venice succeeded for centuries as an insular maritime power (Lane, 1973, 22ff); it was reduced to minor status only with the rise of national states that, like Rome against Carthage, could mobilize resources on an entirely larger scale. Portugul briefly flourished as a maritime power, but it was not an island in any sense
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Gulf War, Warsaw Pact, Athens Britain, Royal Navy, Mahan's British, Spain Netherlands, United Nations, North Africa, Soviet Union, Nevertheless Britain, maritime power, insular maritime, insular maritime power, land forces, coalition partners, maritime strategy, continental allies, cold war, maritime powers, persian gulf, gulf war, persian gulf war, island strategic terms, maritime power island, insular maritime powers,
Approximate Word count = 2156
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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