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Research Information

Title Of Navies and Power Transitions: Historical Lessons for the United States and China
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Type Thesis
Length 272 Pages
Area Government
Advisor Michael F. Mastanduno
Composed 2009
Summary Scholars of great power change have studied how a dominant state’s response to a potential challenger is affected by various factors, but they have failed to consider how naval development – the construction of a large and capable navy – might affect the dominant state’s perception of and policy toward a rising state. With the creation of the international system in the middle of the last millennium, the single most powerful state in such a system has concurrently possessed the world’s single most powerful navy. Given this historical relationship, this thesis asks the question: how does the development of naval power affect the dyadic relationship between the dominant state and the rising state in a power transition? Through historical analyses of Anglo-German relations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and U.S.-Soviet relations in the mid- to late 20th century, this thesis asserts that the rising state’s development of naval power qualitatively and significantly affects both the dominant state’s perception of and policy toward a rising state and that naval power is thus a missing yet significant variable in the power transition construct. Based on the findings of the historical case studies, this thesis then analyzes the contemporary U.S.-PRC dyad and examines how the naval variable could affect future relations between the United States and China.

Author Information

Name Brian Chao
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College Dartmouth
Grad Year 2009
Extended Info Not Provided