# Admiral Mahan — The Great Illusion character guide

> Admiral Mahan in The Great Illusion by Norman Angell.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Mahan

**First appearance:** 0003-the-great-illusion

## Snapshot

Naval strategist whose doctrine of interest, markets, and sea power Angell treats as the intellectual engine of the war illusion.

## Who they are

Mahan supplies the realist creed that nations act only from interest and that commercial rivalry must end in control and force. Angell quotes him at length, then presses the counterargument that economic interdependence has quietly rewritten what interest itself means. Their exchange matters because it frames the book's central question: whether the logic of power politics still describes the world it claims to explain.

## In the story

### [The Great Illusion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se/chapters/the-great-illusion)

Referenced as a military strategist whose views on national power are being challenged by the author's economic argument.

### [The Axioms of Modern Statecraft](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se/chapters/ii-the-axioms-of-modern-statecraft)

Quoted as an Anglo-Saxon authority summarizing the view that moral force is not sufficient and that nations must seek to control markets by preponderant force.

### [The Great Illusion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se/chapters/iii-the-great-illusion)

Cited as an authority who argues that armaments are part of the industrial struggle, a claim contradicted by the prosperity of small states.

### [The Psychological Case for War](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se/chapters/i-the-psychological-case-for-war)

Cited as a critic who makes a similar moral and psychological case for the causes of war.

### [The Psychological Case for Peace](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se/chapters/ii-the-psychological-case-for-peace)

Quoted for his 1912 criticism of Angell's economic case for peace, and for his earlier 1908 statement that nations act from self-interest, highlighting a contradiction.

### [I: The Relation of Defence to Aggression](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se/chapters/i-the-relation-of-defence-to-aggression)

Cited as a critic who misunderstands the relation of defence to aggression, using the Napoleonic era as a counterexample.

### [IV: Methods](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se/chapters/iv-methods)

Mentioned as an example of those who learnedly advance theories about the advantages of conquest.

### [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se/chapters/endnotes)

Cited for his article 'The Place of Power in International Relations' in the North American Review.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se/characters/mahan
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_great_illusion_se/characters