I don’t know if the Europeans would have called the US a serious military power until WW1, or WW2 to be sure. Yes, we’d mobilized a large army, but it was busy and we hadn’t grown the Navy to the same extent.
I mean, by the end of the US Civil War, the US Navy was one of the most powerful in the world. Didn’t last, because we didn’t see the point in keeping the expense beyond the war, but my point was primarily that the Union during the Civil War wasn’t some backwater that could be toppled by an expeditionary force.
The US Navy had some 700 warships by the end of the Civil War, which was about the size of the British Navy, if memory serves. While the British navy almost definitely had more large ships, 700 is a sizable force no matter how you slice it, short of them all being a guy in a canoe with a punt gun.
I mean, by the end of the US Civil War, the US Navy was one of the most powerful in the world. Didn’t last, because we didn’t see the point in keeping the expense beyond the war, but my point was primarily that the Union during the Civil War wasn’t some backwater that could be toppled by an expeditionary force.
Sounds a little fishy (ha!) but I’ll take your word for it, I haven’t even read Mahan.
The US Navy had some 700 warships by the end of the Civil War, which was about the size of the British Navy, if memory serves. While the British navy almost definitely had more large ships, 700 is a sizable force no matter how you slice it, short of them all being a guy in a canoe with a punt gun.
I haven’t either tbf, lol