I've always wondered how The Influence of Sea Power upon History became such an influential book for so many decades. Alfred Thayer Mahan was a competent but unexceptional author, and it sounds like his actual book was decent but no special work of scholarship. Somehow though Mahan became the most important naval thinker of the late 19th & 20th century.
I can understand why Mahan as so popular in Japan since the victory that elevated Japan onto the world stage (Tsushima) was a classic Mahanian "decisive battle" between capital ships. How did Mahan have so much staying power in the rest of the world though, especially after WW1? Was it a self-reinforcing circle-jerk since he was telling a bunch of battleship admirals exactly what they wanted to hear?
Much of it we can sort of say was that he was giving voice to trends which people sort of understood to be the case, and then telling those very same people about it. And a proper contextualization of the work is important.
Simply put it's a no brainier that a nation that controls the sea can see benefits from that in many respects, and that it can leverage them over an enemy that does not. That a blockade can be deadly if sufficiently strict. And that degrading the main portion of the foes fleet should be a goal to either ensure or lift said strangling of either vital tradelines or ports.
And then that a large centrally located battle fleet is the best means to back up smaller distant forces engaged in economic warfare. This prevents a defeat in detail, while also forces your enemy to concentrate if he wishes to defeat you. A few frigates are far easier to replace than a few frigates and a battle squadron for the same end result. The lead up to Trafalgar being a prime example of this doctrine. And again for The RN come 1914 with minor twists.
And that is the key aspect of Mahan's context. That it is in a world where the only real way to defeat the largest of warships is another equally large warship. Smaller ships would be outranged by her guns, lack the endurance for a long chase, and in an era of still primstive torpedoes lack the ability to do real harm even at close range.
So that the best way to bring that to a head if course was for the superior enemy to force the inferior one out to fight and be done. And for the inferior for to act the fleet in being by requiring significant resources expended against it and draw out the process till circumstances favored it.
And with destroyers, subs, and aircraft still being VERY limited platforms in even 1920 that he still had staying power is understandable. Carrier Aircraft wouldn't begin killing real "ship killing" +500lb bombs till the mid 30s for instance and torpedo bombers were still ungainly short ranged beasts. And DD and SS technology would only creep forward in an era of limited budgets. So in essence yes his doctrines held on so long because they appealed to many Navy's to explain precepts drawn from past success to build future ones on. In a world of naval combat that still held more or less fundamentally similar from 1750 to 1930.