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THE RISE OF EMPIRES: AN ANALYSIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF ATHENIAN, BRITISH, AND US NAVAL POWER EDMUND HURTY
Abstract This paper investigates the motivation for three maritime empires—Athens, Britain, and the United States—to initially develop and then maintain relative naval supremacy, as well as the dynamic between their na-
val forces and the land armies they opposed. The central finding is that the motivations were the same in all three cases: each developed naval power in response to an acute, major military threat and then maintained their naval power in peacetime due to the advantages that empire conferred. Secondly, it finds that the historical trend thus far has been for naval forces to have increased importance relative to land forces. ________________________________
PATRICK HENRY COLLEGE
