Center for American Seapower

Hudson’s Center for American Seapower aims to promote public dialogue on ebbing U.S. maritime power where today there is no such dialogue. The Center will offer intellectual arguments and detailed policy recommendations for a robust U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and a more effective U.S. Coast Guard as well as shipbuilding industrial base. The U.S. is by geography, commerce, security, and tradition a maritime nation. But Americans have become accustomed to the benefits of dominant seapower and are at risk of forgetting the national security consequences that accompany America’s continued decline in seapower.

Among other key areas of focus, the Center will:

- Examine the connection between America’s superpower status and global responsibilities and its seapower;

- Illustrate the U.S.’s indispensable role in promoting today’s international order;

- Draw on historical and current events to highlight the national security consequences for the U.S. of its eroding seapower;

- Detail and evaluate the rise of competing local and potential global maritime competitors;

- Explain the growing dependence of U.S. and allied economies on seaborne commerce; and,

- Develop alternate maritime strategies.

To address these issues, the Center will hold in-house conferences, and workshops. It will publish monographs, journal articles, and such other activities anchored in the work of distinguished naval experts and historians that articulate the intimate link between seapower and national power. The Center will be a non-partisan effort with a bi-partisan advisory board. The preservation of dominant seapower affects all Americans.

Policy Center News

January 12th, 2015

Seth Cropsey quoted in Mississippi Watchdog on the Navy’s shipbuilding issues

December 17th, 2014

Hudson Center for American Seapower (HCAS) is delighted to announce Mr. Travis Sharp as the recipient of the 2015 American Seapower Stipend. The $5000 stipend is awarded to a promising student in an accredited Ph.D. program worldwide, whose primary area of study is directly related to the strategic contributions of American seapower.

Travis Sharp is a Ph.D. student in security studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He serves as director of the Strategic Education Initiative at the school’s Center for International Security Studies (CISS) and is an adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). He holds a B.A. from the University of San Francisco and an M.P.A from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. He also serves as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

Mr. Sharp’s research will contribute to the study of conventional deterrence theory, focusing on the effectiveness of U.S. military power in dissuading rivals from provocative actions. Specifically, Mr. Sharp seeks to better understand the nature and proportion of deterrence attributable to American seapower within a concept he refers to as “silent deterrence,” or the promotion of international peace without fanfare.

Hudson received many excellent submissions from scholars around the world, and HCAS Director Seth Cropsey hopes to increase the number of stipends available in the future: “I am gratified by the depth and breadth of work ongoing in this field by a band of hardy scholars; I only wish we could have recognized more. I am committed to doing so next year.” Dr. Cropsey and HCAS Assistant Director Bryan McGrath thank all the scholars who applied for the stipend this year, and also their thesis advisers for providing valuable statements of support.

October 8th, 2014

Seth Cropsey featured in Taiwan Today meeting with Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou on national security policy

July 10th, 2014

Bryan McGrath and Seth Cropsey quoted in Information Dissemination on aircraft carriers

June 4th, 2014

Seth Cropsey quoted in World Politics Review on nuclear deterrence and Navy shipbuilding

May 23rd, 2014

Seth Cropsey quoted in International Business Times on Putin and the election in Ukraine

May 4th, 2014

Seth Cropsey quoted in El Mercurio (Chile) on the Philippines’ importance for U.S. security policy in Asia

May 1st, 2014

Seth Cropsey’s book, Mayday, reviewed in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings