The Panama Canal and Sea Power in the Pacific

2022 ◽  
pp. 229-254
Author(s):  
Alfred Thayer Mahan
Keyword(s):  
Panama Canal ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Sea Power

The legacy of Admiral von Tirpitz: a geopolitical understanding of China's naval buildup through sea-denial strategies

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Paolo Pizzolo
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Power Projection ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
Sea Power ◽  
Military Development ◽  
Maritime Strategy

Abstract As manifest challenger of the United States (US)-led international order, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has inaugurated a revisionist strategy that encompasses a multifaceted spectrum of initiatives, including an ambitious naval military build-up. History has shown that revisionist and challenging powers tend to defy the established order through arm races. US Admiral Mahan and German Admiral Tirpitz theorized two different approaches to naval strategy, the former focusing on global maritime hegemony and the latter on regional counterbalance based on risk theory. This article attempts at explaining the puzzle of China's naval buildup through the lenses of geopolitics, adding a geopolitical dimension to the current debate. It suggests that the PRC's naval military development does not follow a Mahanian global maritime strategy aimed at challenging the US primacy worldwide, but rather a Tirpitzian regional approach focused on counterbalancing the US presence within the scope of China's sea power projection, that is, the Pacific region. To substantiate this hypothesis, the study compares diachronically contemporary Chinese naval arm race with Wilhelmine Germany's High Seas Fleet. The findings underscore that, in maritime terms, China's revisionism vis-à-vis the US somewhat resembles that of Imperial Germany vis-à-vis Imperial Britain, both aiming at regional counterbalance and anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) tactics rather than global maritime counterhegemony. Although Chinese sea power is still far from posing a serious threat to that of the US and its allies, an unrestrained continuation of Beijing's naval buildup could encourage arms races and direct confrontation due to regional security dilemmas.

California

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-11
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Panama Canal ◽  
Pacific World ◽  
Naval Power ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
International Exposition ◽  
Global Affairs

San Francisco’s 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal, symbolized California’s desire for preeminence in Pacific trade and naval power. The expected reopening of an enlarged Panama Canal in 2015 is causing shippers, ports, and military strategists to reassess how the Golden State should adapt to the ever-growing importance of the Pacific world in global affairs. Such ongoing and future adaptations to the enlarged Panama Canal will continue to underscore and augment California’s perennially close ties to the Pacific world.

The Panama Canal and the transoceanic dispersal of marine invertebrates: Evaluation of the introduced amphipod Paracaprella pusilla Mayer, 1890 in the Pacific Ocean

2014 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 204-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Macarena Ros ◽  
Gail V. Ashton ◽  
Mariana B. Lacerda ◽  
James T. Carlton ◽  
Maite Vázquez-Luis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
Marine Invertebrates ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Transoceanic Dispersal

First record of Litarachna caribica (Acari, Pontarachnidae) from the Pacific coast of Panama

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Pešić ◽  
Tapas Chatterjee ◽  
Nikolaos V. Schizas
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Coast ◽  
First Record ◽  
Central American ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
Southern Caribbean ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
First Time

We documented the existence of a population of the southern Caribbean pontarachnid miteLitarachna caribicafor the first time on the Pacific coast of Panama. Based on morphological observations, this is the first record of a pontarachnid mite with a trans-isthmian distribution, which can be explained by either modern biological dispersal or historical vicariance hypotheses.Litarachna caribicahad either passed through the Panama Canal, successfully colonizing the opposite coast, or previously continuously distributed populations had become disjunct after the rise of the Central American land.

scholarly journals Enviromental DNA (eDNA) reveals potential for interoceanic fish invasions across the Panama Canal

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lennart Schreiber ◽  
Gustavo Castellanos-Galindo ◽  
Mark Torchin ◽  
Karina Chavarria ◽  
Silke Laakmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Marine Fish ◽  
New Records ◽  
Fish Fauna ◽  
Environmental Dna ◽  
Diversity Indices ◽  
Molecular Data ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
Marine Fish Species ◽  
Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit ◽  
The Pacific

Interoceanic canals can facilitate biological invasions as they connect the world’s oceans and dissolve dispersal barriers between bioregions. As a consequence, multiple opportunities for biotic exchange arise and the resulting establishment of migrant species often causes adverse ecological and economic impacts. The Panama Canal is a key region for biotic exchange as it connects the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in Central America. In this study, we used two complementary methods (environmental DNA (eDNA) and gillnetting) to survey fish communities in this unique waterway. Using COI (cytochrome oxidase subunit I) metabarcoding, we detected a total of 142 taxa, including evidence for the presence of sixteen Atlantic and eight Pacific marine fish inside different sections of the Canal. Of these, ten are potentially new records of marine taxa detected in the freshwater segment of the Canal. Molecular data did not capture all species caught with gillnets, but generally provided a more complete image of the fish fauna. Diversity indices based on eDNA surveys revealed significant differences across different sections of the Canal reflecting in part the prevailing environmental conditions. The observed increase in the presence of marine fish species in the Canal indicates a growing potential for interoceanic exchange of fishes across the Isthmus. Monitoring using eDNA is a rapid and efficient way to assess potential changes in the fishes of this important waterway.

scholarly journals Taxonomic study of Hoplias microlepis (Günther, 1864), a trans-Andean species of trahiras (Ostariophysi: Characiformes: Erythrinidae)

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
George M. T. Mattox ◽  
Alessandro G. Bifi ◽  
Osvaldo T. Oyakawa
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Species Group ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
Nominal Species ◽  
Taxonomic Study ◽  
Canal Zone ◽  
Hoplias Malabaricus ◽  
Neotropical Fishes ◽  
The Pacific

The Hoplias malabaricus species group represents one of the most complexes taxonomical problems in the systematics of Neotropical fishes, including specimens widely distributed in most drainages of South America and part of Central America with great variation or overlap of putative diagnostic characters. The large number of nominal species, many of which without known type material, renders the problem more complicated. Currently, at least three nominal species can be included in the Hopliasmalabaricusspecies group based on the form of the medial margins of dentaries and presence of tooth plates on the tongue: Hoplias malabaricus, H. teres, and H. microlepis, the latter representing the only exclusively trans-Andean known species of the genus. We present herein a taxonomic study of Hoplias microlepis based on examination of syntypes and recently collected specimens, including a redescription of the species. Hoplias microlepisoccurs in the Pacific drainages of Panama and Southwestern Costa Rica, in addition to the río Guayas basin in Ecuador and the region near its mouth (río Tumbes, Northwestern Peru). Records of the species on the Atlantic coast of Panama are restricted to the Canal Zone, suggesting dispersal through the Panama Canal. We also designate lectotype and paralectotypes.

Inner Asian Frontiers: Chinese and Russian Margins of Expansion

1947 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Owen Lattimore
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Sea Power ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
The Way

The American tradition emphasizes the importance of sea power, especially the great age of sea power which began with Columbus and led first to the expansion of Spain and Portugal and then to the empire building of England, Holland, and France, and the development of North America. In America itself we are also familiar with the epic march across the continent to the Pacific, and the way in which the expanding frontier shaped, or at least strongly influenced, our society and our institutions, as expounded by Turner. Even our continental history, however, was initiated by the crossing of the Atlantic; and from then on even our period of most active continental expansion was never free of the influences and effects of sea power, sea-borne commerce, the investment of European capital, and acceleration of population growth by the immigration of Europeans.

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