Led by Alfred Thayer Mahan Simulacrum
About this course
A thirty-minute working session with the Alfred Thayer Mahan Simulacrum on naval blockades — the form of warfare Mahan considered the decisive use of sea power. The course is built around a real blockade you bring to the session: a historical operation you want to analyse, a current scenario you are following, or a hypothetical you are constructing.
Mahan's 1890 framework — the great highway, the six elements of sea power, the commerce triangle, the chokepoints he called the keys to the world — produces a sharp diagnostic for any naval interdiction operation. Three sub-units take you from the strategic question (why blockade?) to the form question (close or distant?) to a worked case applying the framework to the situation of your choosing.
The 2026 dual blockade in and around the Strait of Hormuz — Iran's mining and IRGC interception of the strait answered by the United States Navy's counter-blockade of Iranian ports since 13 April — sits ready as the worked case if you arrive without one. It is unusually rich Mahanian material: chokepoint warfare, the commerce-raiding fallacy played out by an asymmetric force, fleet-in-being problems on both sides, and a configuration in which neither power yet holds decisive command of the sea.
This course pairs naturally with BUS 1900 (Strategy as Position with Sun Tzu) on decisive engagement, and stands as a useful prelude to Corbett's Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, which is the obvious British counterpoint to Mahan's American framework.
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Led by Alfred Thayer Mahan Simulacrum
The question
A working session built around a blockade you bring to the simulacrum — historical (the Royal Navy's 1914–1918 North Sea blockade of Germany, Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan, the 1962 Cuban quarantine), current (the 2026 dual blockade in and around the Strait of Hormuz), or hypothetical. The first sub-unit refuses to start case work until you have named what specifically the blockade is designed to deny — fleet movement, commerce, or both — and whether your side has command of the sea or faces a fleet-in-being problem from a residual or asymmetric force. The second decides between close and distant blockade against three trade-offs: proximity-of-effect, sustainability, and vulnerability to mines, missiles, drones, and swarm boats. The third applies the Mahanian framework to your case in a written paragraph that the simulacrum critiques.
Outcome
You leave with a Mahanian diagnostic of one specific blockade — historical, current, or hypothetical — naming the form, the commerce-triangle relationship on both sides, the command-of-the-sea situation, and what would constitute structural success versus mere harassment. (Naval strategic diagnostic)
Sub-units