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THE BARTERING MINDSET

A Mostly Forgotten Framework for Mastering

Your Next Negotiation
BRIAN C. GUNIA

THE BARTERING MINDSET

A Mostly Forgotten Framework for
Mastering Your Next Negotiation

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS

Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2019
Rotman-UTP Publishing
Toronto Buffalo London
utorontopress.com
Printed in Canada

ISBN 978-1-4875-0096-2

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Gunia, Brian C., 1980–, author

The bartering mindset : a mostly forgotten framework for mastering your next negotiation /
Brian C. Gunia.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4875-0096-2 (hardcover)

1. Barter. 2. Negotiation – Economic aspects. I. Title.

HF1019.G86 2019 332’.54 C2018-905701-7

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing

program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the
Government of Ontario.
I dedicate this book to my two daughters, Vivian and Bridget. May the
bartering mindset help you find opportunities in the conflicts and
challenges that life inevitably presents.
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

1 The Limits of the Monetary Mindset

2 The Bartering Mindset
3 Step 1: Deeply and Broadly Define Your Needs and Offerings
4 Steps 2–3: Map Out the Full Range of Transaction Partners and the
Full Range of Their Possible Needs and Offerings
5 Step 4: Anticipate the Most Powerful Set of Partnerships across the
Market
6 Step 5: Cultivate the Most Powerful Set of Partnerships across the
Market
7 Integrating the Bartering and Monetary Mindsets
8 Objections to the Bartering Mindset
9 Conclusions and Applications

Notes

Index
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the by-product of an extended and extensive collaboration,

often with people who were no more aware of a book collaboration than I
was. In other words, its ideas originate in countless and often casual
interactions spread across my academic career, many that predated the book
and others that at least ostensibly had nothing to do with it. Accordingly,
any credit for the book’s strengths should be dispersed broadly – much
more broadly, even, than the people mentioned below. (Any blame for its
errors, in turn, should be directed squarely at me.)
In particular, I would like to acknowledge and thank my three doctoral
advisors at the Kellogg School of Management – Keith Murnighan, Jeanne
Brett, and Adam Galinsky. You collectively taught me to think big without
losing focus. Many of the ideas in this book are yours as much as mine.
In addition, I would like to thank my many negotiation students over the
years, at both Northwestern University and Johns Hopkins University. It
was your reflections on countless negotiation simulations – along with my
own difficulty in intelligibly explaining integrative negotiation to you – that
ultimately led me to the bartering mindset.
Much credit is due to my collaborators on negotiation research projects
– you know who you are! Each of you has pushed me to broaden and
deepen my own thinking about negotiation, without which I could not have
completed this project (or many others). Thank you.
In addition, several people were kind enough to talk through the book’s
specific ideas with me. Your questions, comments, and quizzical looks all
found a way into the book. A special thanks to Jeff Gish, David Loschelder,
and Roman Trötschel.
Several others were kind enough to read through the whole book and
offer their detailed comments and suggestions. These include three
anonymous reviewers, Jeanne Brett, Mona Mensmann, Amy Pei, and Tom
Allen. Each of you, in your own way, has dramatically improved the work.
Reading through it, I hope you can spot your fingerprints!
 A big and sincere thanks to University of Toronto Press and especially
Jennifer DiDomenico, who saw early promise in the work and shepherded
this first-time book author through a thicket of considerations and decisions.
Thank you for your consistent support and consistently helpful feedback.
Last but certainly not least, I’d like to thank my immediate family:
Betsy, Vivian, and Bridget; Mom, Dad, Amy, and Abby. Though we talk
about negotiations less often than the others mentioned above, we’ve
negotiated no less often – typically to everyone’s benefit. More importantly,
your constant and unwavering support have been a consistent source of
inspiration and strength. Thank you.
THE BARTERING MINDSET

A Mostly Forgotten Framework for Mastering

Your Next Negotiation
 1
THE LIMITS OF THE MONETARY MINDSET

On 9 April 2017, shortly before the departure of United Flight 3411,

passenger David Dao was forcibly dragged from his seat, up the aisle, and
off the flight by airport authorities – kicking, screaming, and bloodied.1
Other passengers captured the soon-to-be viral video on their phones,
imploring the authorities to stop their seemingly brutal treatment. As the
world watched, the backstory slowly emerged.
United had determined, after fully boarding the flight, that they needed
to put four crew members into passengers’ seats. They offered passengers
monetary incentives to take a later flight, and three accepted the offer. But
the airline needed a fourth. In the absence of any takers, they randomly
selected Dao, a doctor trying to return home. Learning of his selection, Dao
became increasingly agitated, mentioning his ailing patients and refusing to
leave the flight. From there, the situation escalated and culminated in his
forcible removal and subsequent hospitalization.
In the wake of these events, United’s troubles only multiplied. The viral
video sparked worldwide outrage and condemnation on social media,
especially on the Chinese website Weibo, where it attracted 210 million
views within two days (a major problem, considering the airline’s strategic
focus on Asia). Incensed passengers around the world called for a boycott,
and the company’s stock initially took a $1 billion hit. United’s CEO
seemed to make matters worse, first by saying they had “re-accommodated”
Dao and then by blaming the passenger for his belligerence even while
praising the company’s measured response.
The focal issue in this story was the disputed seat, not the monetary
incentives offered to passengers. Nevertheless, the story embodies what this
book will call the monetary mindset: an I-win-you-lose way of looking at
the world that originates, at least in part, in our daily monetary transactions.
United’s stance embodied the monetary mindset in that its decision-makers
saw themselves as occupying one side of an adversarial relationship with
one other party, Dao, who wanted the opposite of what they wanted. Thus
United saw no alternative to a show of force or a forced compromise on the
monetary incentives. United’s behavior and the world’s reaction reveal the
monetary mindset’s shortcomings. This book will describe a mindset that
can serve everyone better, helping us solve our own problems and meet our
own needs much more effectively: the bartering mindset. By the end of the
book, you should be able to devise a solution to the seat dispute that does
not involve anyone’s forcible removal.
But first, let’s consider the mindset we already have: Think about a
typical weekday, and count the number of times you at least implicitly use
money. How many monetary transactions do you engage in, be they with
cash, credit, or check? Maybe you buy gas in the morning, lunch at work, or
an on-demand movie at home. Maybe somebody else pays you a salary or
some other form of income. And even if you don’t engage in any explicit
monetary transactions, isn’t money all around you – in the ads on the web,
the bills in your mailbox, and the back of your mind when your kids leave
the lights on? Whether we know it or consciously consider it, money is all
around us. For most of us, monetary transactions are ubiquitous.2
And monetary transactions are ubiquitous for a good reason: they help
us satisfy our needs and thereby solve our problems. Fundamentally, we use
money to meet our unmet needs and help other people meet theirs. When
you needed fuel, sustenance, or evening entertainment, didn’t money help
you obtain them? When somebody else needed your skill set or services,
didn’t they pay you for that reason? Anytime we need something from
someone or someone needs something from us – and regardless of whether
that someone is a person or an organization – engaging in a monetary
transaction is an obvious and omnipresent way of obtaining it, albeit not the
only way.3
Even before the days of Adam Smith, the economic benefits of
monetary transactions and the surrounding monetary economy were well
established:4 buying lunch with the same resource your employer just
provided makes life easy. Indeed, monetary transactions are ubiquitous
because they allow us to solve our problems so efficiently. For example, if
we had to scrounge around for something to trade with the cafeteria
manager whenever we wanted lunch, we would undoubtedly live in a
hungrier, poorer, and less pleasant world. So the economic benefits of
monetary transactions and the surrounding monetary economy are not in
question.
Yet an economic analysis of the monetary economy says little about its
psychological effects. This book starts from the premise that the ubiquity of
monetary transactions has an adverse psychological effect: it trains us to
make a particular set of assumptions whenever we have a problem –
assumptions that essentially portray our own needs as directly opposed to
somebody else’s. Assumptions that I call the “monetary mindset.”
Satisfactory as that mindset may be for satisfying our everyday needs
efficiently, it serves us poorly when we apply it to our biggest problems and
most pressing needs. Steeped as we are in the monetary economy, though,
most of us do just that. In sum, while money is not the only way we solve
our problems, it’s such a ubiquitous and useful solution that it steeps us in a
particular mindset – a mindset that can backfire when applied to bigger and
more consequential problems: individual, organizational, and social.

The Monetary Mindset

A mindset is a way of seeing the world. It’s how we think, not what we
think.5 More formally, a mindset is “a psychological orientation that affects
the selection, encoding, and retrieval of information; as a result, mindsets
drive evaluations, actions, and responses.”6 As this definition suggests,
mindsets matter because they color the way we see the world around us –
how we evaluate our situations, as well as how we act within or respond to
them. In general, individuals can adopt mindsets repeatedly (using similar
patterns of thinking across many situations)7 or temporarily (adopting
particular patterns of thinking in particular situations).8
The idea that money can at least temporarily put us into a particular
mindset is well established in psychology.9 For example, physical contact
with or subliminal exposure to money (versus neutral objects) inclines
people to think about themselves as relatively more independent or even
self-interested, which can help them try harder and persist longer on
challenging independent tasks. But it also makes them less caring, warm,
and generous, and it inclines them to cheat and steal. Similar effects emerge
across many cultures and in children as young as three, who cannot even
consciously comprehend the purpose of money.10 Consistent with these
findings, people who presumably consider money and monetary
transactions often – economics majors – tend to anticipate self-interested
behavior from others and act in a relatively self-interested fashion
themselves.11 This last finding is particularly notable, as it suggests money
can activate a chronic and not just a temporary mode of thinking.
Temporary or repeated exposure to money and related concepts, it seems,
tends to make people self-focused and potentially unethical.
In addition, exposure to money changes the way that people think about
solving problems, both individual and societal. In particular, money elicits
“a market-pricing orientation” toward the world,12 in which people endorse
competition among self-interested actors as the appropriate way of solving
individual and societal problems.13 Rather than supporting the more
collaborative, cooperative, and egalitarian approaches to problem-solving
that they might adopt in a family or community setting, people exposed to
money tend to support free-market competition among self-interested
parties, even if it results in inequality.
In other words, exposure to money leads people to apply the relatively
competitive, self-interested lens associated with monetary transactions to a
much broader set of problems – even problems that don’t explicitly involve
money. Expanding on this research, the current book suggests that our
chronic and daily experience with monetary transactions trains us to see
most of our own problems through a monetary lens. Repeated exposure to
money, in other words, trains us to adopt a specific mindset when solving
problems in coordination with other people. In particular, whenever we
need something from someone else, I suggest we tend to make five
assumptions, which are fully appropriate for monetary transactions and
collectively constitute the monetary mindset:

1 I will be on one side of a transaction (for example, the buyer or seller).

2 I will interact with one party (for example, the seller or buyer).
3 I want one thing (for example, a low price), and they want the
opposite (for example, a high price).
4 The only way for me to get a better deal is for the other party to get a
worse deal.
5 I can avoid conflict by compromising.
 Most of us never consider these assumptions consciously, much less
verbalize them. Yet they’re consistent with the psychological research
above, painting a competitive and individualistic picture of people and their
social surroundings. In addition, a little reflection verifies that most of us
readily adopt the five assumptions when satisfying our everyday needs.
Think back to a recent gas purchase. When filling your car, weren’t you
obviously operating as a buyer, not a seller? And weren’t you obviously
dealing with just one seller, a particular station? And wasn’t it obvious that
you’d prefer a low price and they’d prefer a high price – and that a better
price for you would mean a worse price for the station, making it necessary
to compromise on the posted price? Knowingly or not, you were using the
monetary mindset.
And the monetary mindset efficiently resolved your need for gas.
Indeed, for most of our everyday needs – gas, lunch, or a movie – there’s no
reason to think differently. The potential upside of somehow negotiating a
better deal is negligible. Put on your bargaining hat, and you might find a
way to save a whopping fifty cents on gas, for example. But the potential
downside is sizable, since you’ll probably waste much more than fifty
cents’ worth of time devising and executing the optimal negotiation
strategy. For most of our everyday needs, we gain less by negotiating the
best possible deal than we lose by spending time devising and executing the
best possible strategy. So satisfying our everyday needs through the
monetary mindset makes good economic sense.
Yet a little reflection reveals that most of us don’t restrict the monetary
mindset to our mundane problems and everyday needs. Our daily
experience with money leads us to apply the mindset to much bigger
problems and more important needs: a car to consume the gas, a raise to
buy the lunch, or a home to host the on-demand movie, for example.
Encountering these critical needs less often, few of us know exactly how to
approach them – which assumptions to make. Absent any priors, and seeing
that many of these big and important needs also involve money, chances are
we apply the monetary mindset we know so well.
Consider or imagine a recent car purchase. In making the purchase,
wasn’t it obvious that you were acting as the buyer, not the seller? And also
that there was just one party on the other side, a particular salesperson? And
that he or she wanted a high price (preferably the sticker price), whereas
you’d prefer something lower? And that only one of you could win this
particular battle, necessitating some sort of compromise? I’ve certainly
made those assumptions myself. If you have too, you’ve been using the
monetary mindset to satisfy a very important need.
Unfortunately, none of the five assumptions was particularly accurate.
You were not just on one side of the table, but both: you were probably
selling your trade-in, or at least a lot of hard-earned money. You didn’t have
one counterpart, but many: all of the other dealers in town and on the web,
as well as anyone else selling his or her car. And while you and this
particular salesperson probably had opposing preferences on price, both of
you probably cared about other issues too (for example, features, financing
plan, future business). Chances are, your preferences on all of the issues
were not completely opposed; an agreement on some of them (for example,
a sunroof) might have benefitted you both, or at least benefitted one of you
more than it hurt the other. That being the case, a compromise in the sense
that most people use it – meeting in the middle on a single issue like price –
was neither necessary nor desirable. You could’ve probably devised a trade-
off to make you both happier, making a simple compromise on price
suboptimal. Rather than splitting the difference on price, for example, you
might’ve paid a bit more for the beloved sunroof (or the salesperson
might’ve accepted a bit less in exchange for dealer financing, etc.). Neither
your assumption about the need to compromise nor the other four
assumptions were particularly accurate or helpful.
Indeed, applied to your need for a car, the five assumptions of the
monetary mindset were just plain harmful. Having made them, the likely
outcome was a low price for your trade-in, a high price for your new car, a
suboptimal set of features, and the absence of a desirable financing plan or
discount. In short: an unhappy outcome, and an unhappy customer. The
monetary mindset wasn’t particularly helpful – it actually burned you (both)
badly.14 In this way, the monetary mindset produces poor solutions to many
of our problems, costing everyone dearly. But why, when the same mindset
was so accurate for our everyday needs like a tank of gas?
Well, technically, it wasn’t so accurate for that need either. Going back
to your fuel fill-up, you were technically doing more than buying gas. From
the station’s perspective, you were also potentially “selling” your future
business and referrals. Your community probably features at least a few gas
stations, after all, and this one would probably prefer a steady stream of
future fill-ups at their pumps to an additional fifty cents right now. So might
you. Accordingly, a discussion about the station’s loyalty program could’ve
saved you money right now in exchange for future business – which is more
like a trade-off than a compromise. So the five assumptions of the monetary
mindset weren’t really right for this everyday need either. It just wasn’t
worth your time and brain cells to consider them more deeply.
In other words, it didn’t really matter whether you got the best possible
deal on gas. But the bigger the need, the more you stand to gain from a
great deal – and lose from a bad one. The extra few hours and brain cells
spent devising and executing an optimal car-buying strategy, for example,
will probably cost you far less than the massive savings obtained. For our
biggest and most important needs, it’s well worth our time to consider our
mindset carefully. Unfortunately, the confluence of our daily monetary
transactions with the fact that our biggest problems tend to involve money
causes most of us – myself included – to mindlessly apply the monetary
mindset.
The problem gets more serious still when we realize that the monetary
mindset is hardly restricted to our personal problems. It also surfaces in
some of our most serious organizational and political problems. Most
businesspeople can easily recall a situation when they couldn’t get a
colleague to cooperate. Can you? Is it possible your uncooperative
counterpart (or even you) was making one or more of the monetary
mindset’s five assumptions – perhaps assuming you wanted the opposite of
the one thing someone else did, without asking? The United Airlines story
at the start of the chapter, the collapse of mortgage-backed securities, the
wasteland of underperforming mergers and acquisitions, the seeming
deterioration in customer service across industries: look hard enough, and I
think you’ll see traces of the monetary mindset in all of these diverse and
multiply determined examples. In particular, I think you’ll see many people
assuming that many problems involve two parties with strictly opposed
preferences – one winner and one loser. The monetary mindset – a
competitive, fixed-pie way of seeing the world – infuses our organizational
lives, in addition to our personal ones.
And, as anyone who pays attention to politics can tell you, it infuses our
political lives too. Consider the impasse between Mexican President
Enrique Peña Nieto and U.S. President Donald Trump over the financing of
a border wall.15 Mr Trump was elected on the back of a promise that
Mexico would pay for the construction of a border wall, a claim that Mr
Peña Nieto flatly rejected when Mr Trump took office. In retrospect, it
seems clear that each man saw himself as occupying one side of a conflict
with one other party who wanted the opposite of the one thing he wanted
(assumptions 1–3). Mr Trump wanted Mr Nieto to pay; Mr Nieto wanted
just the opposite. In addition, unless one of them found a way to win the
battle at the other’s expense, it seems clear they would eventually have to
compromise, if only to avoid an overt conflict (assumptions 4–5).
But in reality, both parties had many demands other than financing for a
wall, in addition to many other potential enticements to offer – from trade,
to law enforcement, to immigration policy (opposing assumption 1). Both
were implicitly negotiating with many parties – Mr Trump with Mexican
legislators, the American public, and the states involved in a border wall,
and Mr Peña Nieto with the U.S. Congress, Mexican public, and Mexicans
residing in the United States, for example (opposing assumption 2). While
the parties’ preferences on wall financing were probably opposed, they had
a common interest in many issues, such as maintaining robust trade
(opposing assumption 3). Had either party introduced these issues into the
discussion, both would’ve realized that neither had to “win” at the other’s
expense (opposing assumption 4), or else compromise on a mutually
dissatisfactory compromise involving the wall (opposing assumption 5).
Rather, both might’ve made progress on multiple issues of vital importance
to both countries. The monetary mindset was alive and well in this
important political problem. And unfortunately it’s just one of countless
examples.
In sum, we as individuals, managers and leaders, and members of the
body politic don’t use the monetary mindset just to satisfy our everyday
needs. We use it to satisfy needs that are much too big and important for it
to handle. As a result, we either bear the costs of poor solutions ourselves or
battle the people around us in an unpleasant attempt to offload the costs
onto them. Across the personal, organizational, or political spheres, then, it
should come as no surprise that we see such a proliferation of dissention,
distrust, and discord – ultimately leaving many of our most important needs
unsatisfied and problems unresolved. Nor should it surprise us that the
problems that are solved hinge on tenuous and tentative compromises,
reflecting so little of the creativity otherwise brimming across our societies
– and usually leaving all sides unhappy. Nice as the word sounds,
compromise is not the ideal in our most important negotiations – it’s a
disappointing waystation on the road between conflict and real solutions, a
solution that ultimately makes no one happy.16
Pick a major political issue in any nation over the last ten years: chances
are, it’s still festering or at least teetering on the brink of a tenuous
compromise. Watch any cable news channel: chances are, you’ll see
seething dissatisfaction with our social and political stalemates. To be sure,
these issues have numerous and manifold causes – too many to enumerate
or even count, let alone cover in a single book. But take a close look at any
of these issues and I bet you’ll see traces of the monetary mindset –
especially the idea that we and our preferences are always opposed to our
monolithic opponents and theirs. So appropriate for our everyday needs, the
monetary mindset is simply unequipped to satisfy our most important needs
as individuals, managers or leaders, and members of the body politic.

The Monetary Mindset in Negotiation

So maybe you’re convinced that the monetary mindset is unhelpful for

solving our biggest problems and meeting our most important needs. But
why? What is it about the mindset that results in suboptimal outcomes? The
answer involves negotiation.
Whether we realize it or not, any situation in which we need someone
else’s cooperation to satisfy our needs is actually a negotiation.17 Whether
it’s fuel, food, or a new car we need – and whether we think we’re
“negotiating” or not – most of us negotiate every day, several times a day.
One of the fundamental contentions of this book, though, is that the
monetary mindset prompts an unproductive set of negotiation behaviors.
And while these behaviors have trivial consequences for everyday problems
like the lack of fuel or food, they have tremendous consequences for big
and important problems like the lack of a car. In short, the monetary
mindset fails us by prompting us to negotiate poorly, and poor negotiation
behaviors have especially serious consequences for big problems.
Understanding this issue requires a brief journey into the intriguing world
of negotiation research.
 The last fifty years or more have seen a groundswell of negotiation
research. From the beginning, this research has emphasized that people can
engage in two fundamentally different types of negotiation behaviors:
distributive behaviors and integrative behaviors. Distributive behaviors are
competitive maneuvers like making the first offer, engaging in persuasion,
and cultivating a strong alternative. Integrative behaviors are cooperative
maneuvers like building trust, exchanging information, and focusing on
interests instead of positions.18
Distributive and integrative behaviors rest on very different
assumptions, represent very different approaches, and have very different
purposes. People engage in distributive behaviors because they assume that
they and their counterpart are both seeking to claim the largest possible
portion of a single, fixed resource (that is, a “pie”) like money. In other
words, they assume that the resources under discussion cannot change and
simply need to be divided, suggesting that their primary interest consists of
getting a better deal at the other party’s expense.19 So they act distributively
to claim the biggest possible slice of the fixed pie for themselves. And it
often works: people who make the first offer, for example, consistently
obtain a larger slice of the pie, that is, a final price that benefits themselves
more than their counterparts.20
Conversely, people engage in integrative behaviors because they suspect
the pie is smaller than it could be – that the parties could identify more,
mutually beneficial resources to divide if they tried. In other words, they
assume that the resources under consideration need to be grown in addition
to divided, meaning that they and their counterpart have some interests in
common – or at least not entirely in conflict.21 So they act integratively to
maximize the size of the pie before anyone takes a slice. Far from naive
altruism, integrative behaviors reflect enlightened self-interest, as even a
small slice of a big pie is often bigger than a big slice of a small pie. Indeed,
in the absence of integrative behaviors, the pie is often so small that the
parties can’t find a viable deal at all. And integrative behaviors tend to
work: negotiators who make the effort to build trust, for example, tend to
initiate an information exchange that breaks impasses and generates a
bigger profit for both sides.22
 Neither set of negotiation behaviors is sufficient on its own. Negotiators
need to engage in both distributive and integrative behaviors to succeed.23
Yet engaging in both sets of behaviors is far from easy, as each makes the
other more difficult, and people often find distributive behaviors too
tempting to resist. If their counterpart acts distributively (for instance, by
making an aggressive first offer), many people react distributively just to
protect themselves; as one example, they might make an aggressive
counteroffer. And if their counterpart acts integratively (for instance, by
sharing information), many people act distributively out of temptation; as
one example, they might use shared information against the other party in
an aggressive counteroffer. This situation creates a “negotiator’s dilemma,”
in which both negotiators spiral toward distributive behavior, even though
both would benefit from additional integrative behavior.24 The result is a
proliferation of distributive behaviors and disappointing outcomes.
Against this backdrop, more than fifty years of negotiation research and
writing have consistently urged negotiators to go beyond their distributive
impulses by engaging in much more integrative behavior.25 Indeed, the
overwhelming majority of articles have concluded that distributive
behaviors, though necessary and appealing, are completely inadequate for
achieving advantageous outcomes. For example, the foundational book on
negotiations – Getting to Yes – along with the decades of research it
inspired have been making that point persuasively since the 1980s.
Unfortunately, as the 2013 Forbes article “Negotiators Still Aren’t Getting
to Yes” argued, “It didn’t work.”26 In other words, decades of
encouragement to act more integratively have not changed the fact that
most negotiators still rely much more heavily on distributive behaviors,
achieving consistently poor outcomes. In particular, individuals do not
necessarily transfer integrative negotiation skills from negotiation courses
into the real world,27 the assumptions underlying distributive negotiation
have clearly persisted into twenty-first century negotiations,28 and conflicts
in business, politics, and international relations are hardly abating.
But why? Why does the world continue to find integrative negotiation
so difficult?
This book offers one reason. The mindset that people chronically adopt
because of their routine reliance on money – the monetary mindset –
strongly inclines them toward distributive behaviors, as indicated by
evidence presented in the next chapter and throughout. Looking back at the
five assumptions of the monetary mindset, you’ll see that they line up
nicely with the assumptions that promote distributive negotiation behavior.
The monetary mindset paints a competitive, adversarial, fixed-pie view of
the world: a view that it’s “my way or your way,” that two negotiators’
interests are strictly opposed, that whatever’s good for one is bad for the
other. And this view stimulates distributive negotiation behavior. Given the
ubiquity of money and thus the ubiquity of the monetary mindset, it should
surprise no one that distributive negotiation continues to hold such appeal.
Thankfully, distributive negotiation is harmless enough for our everyday
needs, where the benefits of optimal negotiation strategies are low. When
used to satisfy our biggest and most important needs, however, the
monetary mindset and its associated implications for negotiation hold dire
repercussions. Individuals envision themselves on one side of a transaction,
opposing one other party who wants the opposite of the one thing they
want. They act competitively if not aggressively, trying to win if they can
but compromise, disappointingly, if they must. In other words, they see
themselves as combatants seeking to claim the biggest possible portion of a
fixed pie, not collaborators seeking to maximize everyone’s interests at the
same time. Fifty years or more of negotiation research have labelled this
approach “distributive” and shown that it doesn’t really work, at least not
on its own. And when the stakes are high, the consequences are dire.
So what kind of mindset might support integrative behaviors?
Unfortunately, most of us just don’t have one. And that’s just the problem.
That’s why Getting to Yes and the research it inspired “didn’t work,”
according to Forbes – why even the best negotiation courses or the most
successful negotiation experiences still don’t result in much sustained
integrative behavior in the real world. That’s why most of us, myself
included, still find it extremely hard to act integratively in most
negotiations. Absent a mindset that supports integrative behavior, we fall
back on the mindset we have – the monetary mindset – along with all of the
distributive behaviors it stimulates. In short, the monetary mindset fails us
for our biggest problems and most important needs because it strongly
inclines us toward an insufficient and often counterproductive set of
distributive negotiation behaviors. The negotiation behaviors we really need
to display – integrative behaviors – require a very different mindset, and
most of us just don’t have one. Figure 1.1 illustrates the situation.

Figure 1.1 Mindsets and Negotiation Behaviors

The Bartering Mindset

We need a better mindset. Our most important personal, professional, and

political problems depend on it. They demand a more productive way of
thinking about the world – a complementary way of understanding our
problems that makes integrative negotiation behaviors at least possible, if
not probable. Since the monetary mindset comes, at least in part, from our
chronic monetary transactions, we need to look elsewhere – that is, to a
different type of economic transaction. In particular, we need to take a
closer look at bartering: a form of economic exchange in which people
directly trade the goods or services they have for the goods or services they
need.29
Where in the world (quite literally) does bartering occur – or did it?
Bartering certainly still occurs in certain corners of the modern world. The
rise of the “sharing economy,”30 for example, has created a variety of
opportunities for people around the world to exchange their goods or
services directly through couch sharing, food swapping, and time banking.
Consider the Couchsurfing website,31 which allows people to sleep on
strangers’ couches but also strongly encourages them to share their own
couches later. Similarly, participants at food swapping events make and
trade food through bilateral exchanges. Most interestingly, time-banking
services allow members to directly or indirectly exchange their time. So a
contractor might perform five hours of home repair for an accountant. The
accountant could then “repay” the time by preparing the contractor’s taxes –
or someone else’s. If the latter, then the time bank would owe the contractor
five hours of another party’s time.
Bartering also persists in a variety of other circumstances that have little
to do with the sharing economy.32 For example, some individuals or
businesses barter today to reduce their tax bills or circumvent trade
restrictions (sometimes on questionable legal grounds). In addition,
businesses often barter as part of their cross-border transactions, frequently
at the insistence of foreign governments, while governments often barter
with each other, particularly when exchanging defense technologies. And
bartering still flourishes among individuals who lack cash – for instance, in
developing economies or countries with unstable currencies and/or
recessionary conditions; recent examples include Spain, Greece, and
Argentina. Most familiar to many people is the bartering that still occurs in
family or community settings, even in developed Western economies.
We’ve all bartered by agreeing to help a friend move in exchange for a
subsequent six-pack, for example, and our kids barter almost automatically
when they exchange their Christmas presents with siblings. Particularly in
close-knit and/or rural corners of the developed economies, community
members may barter routinely within the confines of the community – for
example, by shoveling a neighbor’s snow now in explicit or implicit
anticipation of the neighbor mowing their lawn occasionally in the summer.
Bartering is far from dead to the modern world.
And yet, as implied by the subtitle of this book, it’s far from the norm
either. Most people buying this book necessarily live in a modern monetary
economy. And in modern monetary economies, most people necessarily
engage in far fewer bartering than monetary transactions daily, and far
fewer bartering transactions than their ancestors did in the distant past.33
Indeed, while bartering was once the predominant form of economic
exchange around the world,34 only a relatively small number of
geographically isolated groups like the Lhomi of Nepal appear to use
bartering as their primary mode of economic exchange today.35 In sum,
bartering as a predominant form of economic exchange was much more
prevalent in the past (hence my predominant use of the past tense). And it’s
in that sense that bartering is “mostly forgotten” today.
The historical trend away from bartering, along with the economic
benefits of the monetary economy, have long led economists and
commentators to regard bartering economies as “primitive.”36 An 1894
book on money, for example, introduced bartering by saying, “Before the
appearance of money in the world, exchanges of commodities were made in
a very crude way.”37 A more recent article indicated that barter is
“associated with a marginal, primitive world defined by the absence of such
things as money.”38 And a recent book indicated, “Before money there was
barter, a slow and uncertain method of exchange. One party might not want
what the other offers, or the offers may not have equivalent values. Money,
however, is a reliably valuable, divisible, and portable form of wealth.”39
Accurate as this economic portrayal of bartering may be, it says little
about the psychology of bartering. In contrast to the “primitive” hypothesis,
the confluence of anthropological, psychological, and negotiation evidence
underlying this book suggests that the difficulties of bartering economies
actually required their inhabitants to use a highly sophisticated mindset to
satisfy their needs: the bartering mindset. Economically primitive as
bartering may be, I hope you’ll walk away understanding that it rests on
remarkably sophisticated psychology.
The idea that the psychology of bartering differs markedly has
precedent: anthropologists like Caroline Humphrey have noted that “barter
… is radically different from the monetary mentality.”40 In addition, the
psychological research on money that I’ve described often contrasts the
effects of handling money with the effects of handling objects like those
traded in a bartering economy (for example, buttons). It shows that people
who handle objects often feel more connected, interdependent, and
egalitarian, displaying more warmth and generosity.41 This evidence hints
at the idea that bartering may lead people to think differently.
 Still we know little about what the differences might be or how they
might relate to any of our modern problems and associated negotiations.
This book seeks to uncover the features of the bartering mindset, arguing
that it’s not just different from the monetary mindset – it’s better for the
purpose of engaging in integrative negotiation behaviors. Since most of us
barter so irregularly, I portray the bartering mindset as mostly forgotten.
Since most of us still barter on occasion, though, I also portray it as mostly
(rather than completely) forgotten. And it’s a good thing we haven’t
forgotten it completely, as we’ll need to remember the psychology of
bartering to understand and apply it to the modern, monetary world.

Objectives and Non-Objectives of This Book

Let me be as clear as possible on what this book is trying to do – and not

do. Starting with its non-objectives, this book will not encourage you to
barter more! Nor will it teach you how to barter more effectively. Why?
First, several popular primers (for example, No Cash? No Problem!)42
already do both; one even offers ninety-three “inside secrets” on bartering.
Second, since you’re reading the current book, you probably live in a
modern monetary economy. And whether you like it or not, many of your
most important problems and pressing needs probably still involve money.
Thus, I don’t see a purely bartering-based approach, bereft of any monetary
considerations, as particularly realistic – or helpful.
So this book will not try to inject more bartering activities into the
monetary world. Just as important, it will not try to inject more money into
the bartering world. The fact that you helped your friend move for a six-
pack, that your kids exchanged their Christmas presents, or that you
ploughed your neighbor’s driveway – all without the expectation of money
– is fully appropriate in the associated family or community settings. To ask
your friend, your kids, or your neighbor to pull out their wallets would be
downright inappropriate.
So what will the book actually do? Its primary purpose is to help you
master your modern negotiations, many of which inevitably involve money.
I will not encourage you to spend your negotiations bartering. But I will
encourage and meticulously train you to apply the bartering mindset – the
way that people in the full-blown bartering economies of the past
prototypically thought about their problems – to your modern negotiations,
even the ones involving money. By the end of the book, you should be fully
equipped to master your modern negotiations by remembering a mostly
forgotten mindset. Put differently, you’ll find yourself starting to devise
better solutions to big problems like United’s seat dilemma, your own need
for a new car, and even the Mexican-U.S. border wall dispute – solutions
that don’t involve everyone walking away in dissatisfaction or disgust. By
the end of the book, I hope you’ll agree that our predecessors’ way of
thinking is just as relevant for the modern world – and potentially even
more useful than our own monetary mindsets.
In sum, this book seeks to resurrect the bartering mindset for the
modern reader, reminding you of its essential features and training you to
use it in your modern negotiations. Ultimately, the message is simple: An
“old” way of thinking can help us master our “new” and often money-laden
negotiations. Or, put differently: bartering offers a better metaphor for
negotiation than money. Through numerous practical examples and
exercises, the book will immerse you in the bartering mindset, helping you
to translate it for the monetary world. By the end I think you’ll find yourself
equipped to engage in a diverse set of integrative negotiation behaviors –
some new, some known. Indeed, if the book succeeds, you’ll see yourself
using numerous new strategies that improve your negotiation outcomes. At
the end of the process, though, you’ll also find yourself deploying some of
the same integrative negotiation behaviors that books like Getting to Yes
and numerous negotiation articles have recommended. The key difference?
You’ll actually have the right mindset to use them. In other words, your new
mentality should allow you to display those behaviors in practice, not just
in theory, effectively replacing the unhelpful question mark in figure 1.1
with the bartering mindset. My sincere hope, then, is that Forbes may
someday update their 2013 article about Getting to Yes with another article
indicating that “thanks to the bartering mindset, it did work.”

Organization of This Book

Let’s walk through the organization of the book so you know what to
expect. To immerse you in the bartering mindset, chapter 2 will define
bartering and walk you through a thought experiment about a man named
Keith living in an idealized bartering economy, as portrayed by a
combination of anthropological research and economic theory. This process
will reveal the five key assumptions of the bartering mindset, which
contrast sharply with the five assumptions of the monetary mindset. Finally,
chapter 2 will link the assumptions of the bartering mindset to a five-step
process you can follow to translate that mindset for, and apply it to, the
modern world.
Using an extended example about a struggling small business, chapters
3–6 will then walk you through the five-step process in detail, offering a
tangible template to help you satisfy the needs in your own life. Chapter 7
will round out our discussion about applying the bartering mindset by
addressing a critical detail: how to integrate it with the monetary mindset
that comes so naturally – and that will certainly come naturally to your
negotiation counterparts. Chapter 8 will then seek to answer some important
questions that you might still have about the bartering mindset – nagging
issues that might prevent you from embracing it completely. Chapter 9
concludes with a brief summary and set of scenarios intended to test your
knowledge of the bartering mindset, reveal its immediate relevance, and
help you start applying it right away.
A couple of important notes before commencing the journey. First, to
get the most out of this book, I would encourage you to actively engage
with the exercises and examples. For example, chapters 1–7 end with a
mini-case about job negotiations; to benefit from this book (and your next
job negotiation), I would suggest you actively engage with the example,
especially by answering the questions I pose. In addition, in the chapters
using the extended example about the struggling small business (3–7), I
would ask you to imagine yourself as the protagonist, making the same
kinds of choices he or she must make along the way. Doing so will not only
make the book a lot more fun; it will also train you to implement the
mindset. In sum, tempting as it might be to skip portions of the book or
passively consume it, I would encourage you to be an active consumer. The
more active your engagement with the bartering mindset, the more
complete your immersion in a new way of thinking – and the more
thoroughly you’ll be able to deploy it in the modern world.
Will it be worth your time? Persist through the book, and I think it will.
By the end you’ll be better able to engage in integrative negotiation – and
thus better able to satisfy your biggest needs and solve your most important
problems. In the process, and as a side benefit, you’ll also learn to do some
things that many negotiation books tend to gloss over: methodically prepare
for your negotiations, manage multiparty negotiations, creatively engage
with the world to find value where there was none, and treat negotiation as
a proactive form of problem-solving.
In sum, I know you’ll find the book useful. And I suspect you’ll realize
in the process that, as economically primitive as bartering may be, the
bartering mindset is anything but. As a direct result I think you’ll leave with
both the desire and the ability to make that mindset your primary approach
for satisfying your most important needs – becoming a master negotiator by
deploying a mostly forgotten mindset.

Summary of Key Points from This Chapter

1 In the modern monetary economy, most of us engage in frequent

monetary transactions to satisfy our needs and solve our problems.
2 Our chronic monetary transactions immerse us in a monetary mindset,
which we apply to many of our problems.
3 But when the stakes are high, the monetary mindset produces poor
outcomes, exacerbating personal, organizational, and political
problems.
4 That is because the satisfaction of high-stakes needs requires
negotiation, and the monetary mindset encourages purely
distributive negotiation behaviors, which are insufficient and often
counterproductive.
5 Bartering activities and the bartering mindset that permeates them can
prepare us to engage in the integrative behaviors necessary for
success in modern negotiations.

Exercise: Job Negotiation and the Monetary Mindset

This and the following six chapters conclude with a mini-exercise that will
help you move beyond the monetary mindset and master the bartering
mindset in your own life. A few notes before commencing the journey. The
example concerns your current job and especially your perceived need for a
salary bump. Given the direct focus on money, this may seem like a strange
setting to explore the bartering mindset. But since the goal is applying the
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mahan on
naval warfare
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: Mahan on naval warfare

Selections from the writing of Rear Admiral Alfred T.
Mahan

Author: A. T. Mahan

Editor: Allan F. Westcott

Release date: December 14, 2023 [eBook #72412]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Little, Brown, 1890

Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file
was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAHAN ON

NAVAL WARFARE ***
Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is
granted to the public domain.
MAHAN ON NAVAL WARFARE
 The Writings of

Rear Admiral ALFRED T. MAHAN

The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783.

The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and
Empire, 1793–1812. 2 vols.
Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812. 2 vols.
The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future.
The Life of Nelson, the Embodiment of the Sea Power of
Great Britain. 2 vols.
Types of Naval Officers.
Retrospect and Prospect.
Lessons of the War with Spain, and other Articles.
The Problem of Asia, and Its Effect upon International
Policies.
Some Neglected Aspects of War.
Naval Administration and Warfare.
The Interest of America in International Conditions.
Naval Strategy.
The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American
Independence.
The Harvest Within.
Rear Admiral Alfred T. Mahan, U.S.N.
 MAHAN ON NAVAL WARFARE

SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF REAR

ADMIRAL ALFRED T. MAHAN

EDITED BY
ALLAN WESTCOTT, Ph.D.
INSTRUCTOR, UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY

WITH MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1918
Copyright, 1890, 1892, 1897, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1905, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1911,
By A. T. Mahan.

Copyright, 1918,
By Ellen Lyle Mahan.
All rights reserved
 ALFRED THAYER MAHAN

In his volume of reminiscences, “From Sail to Steam,” Rear Admiral

Mahan gives us his father’s opinion and his own later judgment
regarding his choice of the navy as a life work. “My father told me he
thought me less fit for a military than for a civil profession, having
watched me carefully. I think myself now that he was right; for
though I have no cause to complain of unsuccess, I believe I should
have done better elsewhere.”[1]
The father, Dennis Hart Mahan, was a graduate of West Point, in
later life a distinguished professor of engineering at the Military
Academy, and thus well qualified to weigh his son’s character and the
requirements of a military career. The verdict of both father and son,
moreover, may appear borne out by the fact that, while the name of
Mahan is more widely known to-day than that of any other American
naval officer, his fame rests, not on his achievements as a ship or
fleet commander, but as a great naval historian and student of naval
warfare.
Whatever the apparent wisdom of the choice at the time, it was in
the event fortunate both for himself and for the naval profession. His
long and varied service as an officer afloat and ashore gave him an
invaluable background for the study of naval history and
international affairs. On the other hand, his writings have brought
home to every maritime nation the importance of sea power, and
have stimulated in his own profession an interest in naval history
and naval science which has helped to keep it abreast the progress of
the age. This direct bearing of his professional experience upon his
writings adds significance to the details of his life in the navy.
Alfred Thayer Mahan entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis,
Maryland, September 30, 1856. Born at West Point, September 27,
1840, he was at the time of his entrance but three days above sixteen.
Like many another candidate for the navy, he solicited his own
appointment, obtaining it finally through the influence of Jefferson
Davis, who had studied under his father at West Point, and was at
this time Secretary of War. Having attended Columbia College for
two years preceding, the boy was permitted—by a concession of
which this is believed to be the only instance in the annals of the
Academy—to omit the first year’s work and enter with the
“Youngster” class, or “class of ’55 date,” according to the
nomenclature then used. Up to the year 1851 the midshipmen’s
course had consisted of five years at sea followed by one at the
Academy. Mahan entered in the autumn after the graduation of the
last class under the old scheme; and it was to the more mature, “sea-
going” character of former classes that he attributes the total absence
of hazing in his day. The practice was “not so much reprobated as
ignored.” It came in later, when the Academy was moved to Newport
during the Civil War, and “new ideals were evolved by a mass of
schoolboys, severed from those elder associates with the influence of
whom no professors nor officers can vie.”[2]
In the dusty files of Academy registers for that period one may
read the names of boys famous in later years. George Dewey was a
class ahead of Mahan; Schley and Sampson were respectively one
class and two classes behind. On graduation, Dewey stood fifth in a
class of fifteen; Mahan second in a class of twenty, with a record
apparently very close to the leader’s; and Sampson stood first. In his
last year the future historian was first in seamanship, physics,
political science, and moral science, third in naval tactics and
gunnery, fourth in “steam engine,” and fifth in astronomy and
navigation. The year before he had excelled in physics, rhetoric, and
Spanish. The details are noteworthy chiefly as they show the subjects
of the old-time curriculum, in which so-called practical branches
were less predominant than they are to-day. Of Mahan’s class, which
numbered forty-nine at the time of entrance, twenty-nine had
dropped back or resigned before the end of the course.
After a cruise in South American waters in the old frigate
Congress, Mahan at once received his commission as lieutenant,
August 31, 1861, and soon afterward an appointment as second in
command of the steam corvette Pocahontas, then in the Potomac
flotilla. It illustrates the rapid promotion of those war-time days that
each member of his class received similar advancement in the first
year of the war. In the Pocahontas he came under fire in the attack
on Port Royal, and afterward spent many weary months in blockade
duty, first in the Pocahontas off the south Atlantic coast, and later in
the Seminole off Sabine Pass, Texas. This latter station, Mahan
remarks, “was a jumping-off place, the end of nowhere.” “Day after
day we lay inactive—roll, roll.” The monotony was broken by a
pleasant eight months at the Naval Academy in Newport and a
“practice cruise” to England in the Macedonian; and in the last year
of the war he saw more varied service on the staff of Rear Admiral
Dahlgren, again on the Atlantic coast blockade.
Commissioned lieutenant commander in 1865, Mahan passed the
ensuing twenty years in the customary routine of alternate sea and
shore duty. In 1867–1869, a long cruise in the steam frigate Iroquois
to Japan, via Guadeloupe, Rio, Cape Town, Madagascar, Aden, and
Bombay, gave opportunity, unusual even in the navy, to see the
world, and brought him to Kobe in time to witness the opening of
new treaty ports and the last days of medieval Japan.
In 1885, when he had reached the rank of captain and was forty-
five years of age, he had yet had little opportunity to display the
distinctive talents which were to win him permanent fame. Partly,
perhaps, in consequence of a book by his pen entitled “The Gulf and
Inland Waters” and published two years before, but more likely as a
result of the shrewd estimate which naval officers form regarding
their fellows in the service, he was requested at this time to give a
series of lectures on naval history and tactics at the Naval War
College, then just established at Newport, Rhode Island. His
acceptance of this duty marks a turning point in his career.
The call reached him in the Wachusett off the west coast of South
America. It was nearly two years later, in August, 1886, when he took
up his residence at the college, succeeding Rear Admiral Luce as
president. A change of political administration in the meantime had
brought about a less favorable policy toward this new departure in
naval education, with the result that, to quote Mahan again, the
college “was reefed close down, looking out for squalls at any
moment from any quarter,” for the next four or five years. It bears
evidence to his tact and tenacity, and it was not the least of his
accomplishments for the navy, that he piloted the institution safely
through this crucial period, with scant appropriations or none at all,
in the face of a hostile Secretary of the Navy and a lukewarm service.
After seven years devoted chiefly to the War College, Mahan went
to sea for the last time as commander of the cruiser Chicago in the
European squadron. At this time “The Influence of Sea Power upon
History” had already been published, and the volume on the French
Revolution and Empire was nearly ready for the press. Upon
requesting postponement of sea duty until its completion, he was
informed by his superior in the Bureau of Navigation that it was “not
the business of a naval officer to write books.” The remark was
narrow, for the naval or any other profession would soon stagnate
without the stimulus of free discussion and study, which finds its
best outlet through the press; and it showed slight recognition of the
immense value to the navy and the nation of Mahan’s writings. Still it
was well for the author that he made this last cruise—his only
experience with a ship of the new fleet. If the importance of his first
book was not realized at home—and it is stated that he had great
difficulty in finding a publisher—it was fully recognized abroad. His
arrival in England was taken as an opportunity to pay a national
tribute of appreciation, of which the degrees conferred by both
Oxford and Cambridge were but one expression. There is a slightly
humorous aspect to the competition of American universities to
award similar honors upon his return.
Retiring in 1896 after forty years of service, he was recalled to act
as a member of the Naval War Board from May 9, 1898, until the
close of the War with Spain. His fellow members were Rear Admiral
Montgomery Sicard and Captain A. S. Crowninshield. This board
practically controlled the naval strategy of the war. Of its
deliberations and the relative influence of its members we have no
record; but the naval dispositions were effective, and, aside from the
location of the “Flying Squadron” at Hampton Roads as a concession
to the fears of coast cities, they are fully approved by Mahan in his
writings.
His choice a year later as one of the American delegates to the first
Peace Conference at The Hague was eminently fitting in view of his
thorough knowledge of international relations and the rules
governing naval warfare. In determining the attitude of the American
delegation, he took a strong stand against any agreement that would
contract our freedom of action with regard to the Monroe Doctrine,
and against immunity of private property at sea. The arguments
against this latter policy he afterward stated effectively in print[3] and
in a memorandum to the Navy Department. With the fulfillment of
this duty, his public services, aside from his work as a writer, came to
a close.
In the navy, as in other walks of life, an incompatibility is often
assumed—and often unjustly—between mastery of theory and skill in
practice, between the thoughtful student and the capable man of
action; and there is no denying that among his contemporaries this
assumption was current with regard to Mahan. While a conclusion is
difficult in such a matter, the case may well rest on the following
statement by a friend and fellow officer: “Duty, in whatever form it
came, was sacred. Invariably he gave to its performance the best that
was in him. That he distinguished himself pre-eminently on
shipboard cannot be claimed. Luck or circumstances denied him the
opportunity of doing things heroic, and his modesty those purely
spectacular. As a subordinate or as captain of a single ship, what he
did was well done. No further proof of his qualities in this respect is
needed than the fact that, at the outbreak of the Civil War, when
finishing his midshipman’s cruise, he was asked by a shipmate, an
officer who expected a command, to go with him as ‘first lieutenant.’
To his colleagues of the old navy this invitation was the highest form
of professional approval. The fates decreed that the wider field
should not be his wherein, as commander-in-chief of a fleet in war
time, he could have exhibited the mastery he surely possessed of that
art with which his name will forever be indissolubly linked.”[4]
From the same source may be taken a passage of more intimate
portrayal. “In person Mahan was tall, spare, erect, with blue eyes,
fair complexion, hair and beard originally sandy. He respected the
body as the temple of his soul, and he paid it the homage of
abstemious living, of outdoor games and abundant exercise. In
manner he was modest to excess, dignified, courteous. Reticent in
speech with people in general, those who enjoyed the rare privilege
of his intimacy knew him to be possessed of a keen sense of humor
and a fund of delightful anecdotes. To such friends he was a most
charming companion, so different from the grave, self-contained
philosopher he appeared to the rest and less favored of his
acquaintance. His home life was ideal.”
The lectures delivered at the Naval War College were the basis of
“The Influence of Sea Power upon History.” The author tells us how
the central idea came to him in the library of the English Club at
Lima, Peru, while reading Momsen’s “History of Rome.” “It suddenly
struck me ... how different things might have been could Hannibal
have invaded Italy by sea, as the Romans often had Africa, instead of
by the long land route.” A year later, when he returned to the United
States, the plan of the lectures was already formed: “I would
investigate coincidently the general history and the naval history of
the past two centuries with a view to demonstrating the influence of
the events of the one upon the other.” Written between May and
September of 1886, and delivered as lectures during the next four
years, the book was carefully revised before its publication in the
spring of 1890.
This book exerted at the time, and has continued to exert, a
widespread influence; and while its author’s reputation has been
increased by his later writings, it remains his best known and
greatest work. One reason for this is that it states his fundamental
teaching, and in a form easy to grasp. The preface and the first
chapter, which cover but eighty-nine pages, survey rapidly the rise
and decline of great sea powers and the national characteristics
affecting maritime development. The rest of the book, treating in
detail the period between 1660 and 1783, reinforces the conclusions
already stated.
Timeliness also contributed to its success. The book furnished
authoritative guidance in a period of transition and new departures
in international affairs. For nearly twenty years, under Bismarck,
Germany had been consolidating the empire established in 1871.
When William II ascended the throne in 1888, the ambitions of both
ruler and nation were already turned toward colonial expansion and
world power. A German Admiralty separate from the War Office was
established in 1889; Heligoland was secured a year later; the Kiel
Canal was nearing completion. In England, the Naval Defense Act of
1889 provided an increase of seventy ships during the next four
years. The rivals against whom she measured her naval strength were
still France and Russia. In the United States, Congress in 1890
authorized three battleships, the first vessels of this class to be added
to the American navy. During the following ten years the rivalry of
nations was chiefly in commercial and colonial aggrandisement,
marked by the final downfall of Spain’s colonial empire and a greatly
increased importance attached to control of the sea.
For the nations taking part in this expansion, Mahan was a kind of
gospel, furnishing texts for every discussion of naval policy. “After
his first book,” says a French writer, “and especially from 1895 on,
Mahan supplied the sound basis for all thought on naval and
maritime affairs; it was seen clearly that sea power was the principle
which, adhered to or departed from, would determine whether
empires should stand or fall.”[5]
To Great Britain in particular the book came as a timely analysis of
the means by which she had grown in wealth and dominion. This was
indeed no discovery. Nearly three centuries earlier Francis Bacon
had written, “To be master of the sea is an abridgment [epitome] of
monarchy ... he that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may
take as much and as little of the war as he will.”[6] Before and after
Bacon, England had acted upon this principle. But it remained for
Mahan to give the thesis full expression, to demonstrate it by
concrete illustration, and to apply it to modern conditions. “For the
first time,” writes the British naval historian, Sir Julian Corbett,
“naval history was placed on a philosophical basis. From the mass of
facts which had hitherto done duty for naval history, broad
generalizations were possible. The ears of statesmen and publicists
were opened, and a new note began to sound in world politics.
Regarded as a political pamphlet in the higher sense—for that is how
the famous book is best characterized—it has few equals in the
sudden and far-reaching effect it produced on political thought and
action.”[7]
Germany was not slow to take to heart this interpretation of the
vital dependence of world empire on sea power. The Kaiser read the
book, annotated its pages, and placed copies in every ship of the
German fleet.[8] It was soon translated not only into German but into
French, Japanese, Russian, Italian, and Spanish. This and later
works by the same author were perhaps most diligently studied by
officers of the Japanese navy, then rising rapidly to the strength
manifested in the Russian war. “As far as known to myself,” writes
Mahan, “more of my works have been done into Japanese than into
any other one tongue.”[9] The debt of all students of naval warfare is
well expressed by a noted Italian officer and writer,—“Mahan, who is
the great teacher of us all.”[10]
What has been said of “The Influence of Sea Power upon History”
applies in varying degrees to the sixteen historical works and
collections of essays which appeared in the ensuing twenty-five
years. While extending the field covered by the earlier book, they
maintained in general its high qualities. The most important of these,
“The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and
Empire,” covers the period from 1793 to 1812. This and the studies of
the American Revolution and the War of 1812 form with his first
book a continuous historical series from 1660 to 1815. The “Life of
Nelson” and “Life of Farragut” are standard professional biographies
of these two commanders, who, if we accept Mahan’s opinion, rank
respectively first and second among naval leaders. The best of his
thought on contemporary naval warfare is gathered up in his “Naval
Strategy,” published in 1911. Based on lectures first delivered in 1887,
and afterward frequently expanded and modified to meet changing
conditions, this book, while invaluable to the professional student,
lacks something of the continuity and clearness of structure of the
historical works.
The authoritativeness of these writings, it may be repeated, was
strengthened by the author’s technical equipment and long years of
practical experience. Moreover, as Mr. Roosevelt has said, “Mahan
was the only great naval writer who also possessed the mind of a
statesman of the first class.”[11] His concern always was not merely
with the facts of history but with the “logic of events” and their
lessons for to-day.
Following his retirement, Admiral Mahan wrote more frequently
and freely on problems of the present and future. Of the subjects
treated, some were distinctly professional—the speed and size of
battleships, the size, composition, and disposition of fleets,
modifications in the international codes affecting naval warfare,
naval events in contemporary wars. Others entered the wider field of
world politics, voicing the author’s sincere belief in American
colonial expansion and active participation in world affairs, in the
need of a navy sufficient to make our influence felt, in the limitations
as well as the usefulness of arbitration, in the continuance of force as
an important factor in international relations.
In such discussions, he wrote without the slightest trace of
jingoism or sensation mongering; and it would be a fanatic advocate
of immediate disarmament and universal arbitration who would
deny the steadying and beneficent effect of his opposition, with its
grip on realities and steadfast respect for truth. Whatever he wrote
was not only backed by firm conviction but inspired by the highest
ideals.
His style naturally varied somewhat with the audience and the
theme. His historical writings have been justly described as
burdened with qualifications, and marked by a laborious fullness of
statement, which strains the attention, while it adds weight and
dignity to the presentation. This in general is true of the histories;
but there are many passages in these where the subject inspires him
to genuine eloquence. In the “Life of Nelson” and “Types of Naval
Officers” there is little of the defect mentioned, and there are few
more entertaining volumes of naval reminiscence than “From Sail to
Steam.” “The besetting anxiety of my soul,” writes the author
himself, “was to be exact and lucid. I might not succeed, but my wish
was indisputable. To be accurate in facts and correct in conclusions,
both as to application and expression, dominated all other
motives.”[12] One might dispense with reams of “fine writing” for a
page of prose guided by these standards.
On December 1, 1914, Rear Admiral Mahan died suddenly of heart
failure. A month before, he had left his home at Quogue, Long Island,
and come to Washington to pursue investigations for a history of
American expansion and its bearing on sea power. His death,
occurring four months after the outbreak of hostilities in Europe,
was perhaps hastened by constant study of the diplomatic and
military events of the war, the approach of which he had clearly
foreseen, as well as America’s vital interest in the Allied cause. It was
unfortunate that his political and professional wisdom should have
been lost at that time.
His work, however, was largely accomplished. By his influence on
both public and professional opinion, by prevision and warm
advocacy, he had done much to further the execution of many
important naval and national policies. Among such may be
mentioned the peace-time concentration of fleets in preparation for
war, the abandonment of a strictly defensive naval policy, the
systematic study of professional problems, the strengthening of our
position in the Caribbean, the fortification of Panama. “His interest,”
writes Mr. Roosevelt, “was in the larger side of his subjects; he was
more concerned with the strategy than with the tactics of both naval
war and statesmanship.” In this larger field his writings will retain a
value little affected by the lapse of time.

Allan Westcott.

United States Naval Academy,

June, 1918.