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288 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 11 / 2018 This, however, is not the main lesson to be deduced from his writings. Mahan is a dialectical author and this is immediately apparent. For example, having important cities at the mouths of navigable rivers, with well-endowed ports, is an enormous advantage from a geostrategic point of view. Cases such as London, Lisbon or New York (on the Thames, the Tagus21 and the Hudson, respectively) are emblematic. One cannot refrain from looking back with longing at the golden age of Seville, on the Guadalquivir. Nevertheless, he warns us that where a power’s strongest point is located, therein also lies its weakest point, in the sense that it constitutes an object of seduction for the adversary: a useful piece of information for other areas of war, although the specific examples he refers to are naval. To cite but one example: the two-week incursion of the Dutch navy on the Thames, in 1667, which caused considerable mayhem and constituted a warning to the British. Accordingly, Mahan invites military planners to shield such vantage points, to ensure against them being turned into disadvantages. The lesson to be learnt from Mahan is meaningful: we must assume that where our greatest advantage lies will also be our greatest vulnerability22. In this vein, Mahan alludes to the tasks that remain to be carried out by the US before it is in a position to become a true global power. Geography is favourable, but he also suggests that it is not everything. Hence his lament, in August 1890, when he affirms that «the United States is woefully unready, not only in fact but in purpose, to assert in the Caribbean and Central America a weight of influence proportioned to the extent of her interests»23. And he ratifies that statement at a later date (July 1894) when he claims «The difficulty is that the United States, as a nation, does not realize or admit as yet that it has any strong interest in the sea», given the erroneous belief —he adds— that «our ambitions should be limited by the three seas that wash our eastern, western, and southern coasts»24. In view of what we have seen so far, and despite these last references, which serve as a bridge to the next section of this article, it cannot be said that Mahan has abandoned the temptation of determinism. States that are not in either of the two privileged situations described above would be left out of the fight for global power or, at least, would have to bear a heavy burden in geographical terms. However, as we will see in the following sections, having certain geographic advantages is not everything. It 21  The Tagus is navigable by boats and shallow-draft barges in many of its sections. But that navigability could have been significantly increased if any of the projects long since in existence, at least since the era of Philip II, had been executed. As a general criterion, the non-exploitation of these possibilities is questioned by Mahan. 22  This concern is recurrent in other texts by the same author, as can be seen in his reflections on the defence of ports in MAHAN, 1897, op. cit., p. 32. 23  MAHAN, Alfred. The Interest of America in Sea Power. Colombia National University, 1897, p. 14. 24  Idem, p. 62. Note that Mahan criticises the fact that seas and oceans are conceived as frontiers instead of being regarded as global motorways. http://revista.ieee.es

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