Author: Admiral James Stavridis, USN Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0735220611 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 386
Book Description
From one of the most admired admirals of his generation—and the only admiral to serve as Supreme Allied Commander at NATO—comes a remarkable voyage through all of the world’s most important bodies of water, providing the story of naval power as a driver of human history and a crucial element in our current geopolitical path. From the time of the Greeks and the Persians clashing in the Mediterranean, sea power has determined world power. To an extent that is often underappreciated, it still does. No one understands this better than Admiral Jim Stavridis. In Sea Power, Admiral Stavridis takes us with him on a tour of the world’s oceans from the admiral’s chair, showing us how the geography of the oceans has shaped the destiny of nations, and how naval power has in a real sense made the world we live in today, and will shape the world we live in tomorrow. Not least, Sea Power is marvelous naval history, giving us fresh insight into great naval engagements from the battles of Salamis and Lepanto through to Trafalgar, the Battle of the Atlantic, and submarine conflicts of the Cold War. It is also a keen-eyed reckoning with the likely sites of our next major naval conflicts, particularly the Arctic Ocean, Eastern Mediterranean, and the South China Sea. Finally, Sea Power steps back to take a holistic view of the plagues to our oceans that are best seen that way, from piracy to pollution. When most of us look at a globe, we focus on the shape of the of the seven continents. Admiral Stavridis sees the shapes of the seven seas. After reading Sea Power, you will too. Not since Alfred Thayer Mahan’s legendary The Influence of Sea Power upon History have we had such a powerful reckoning with this vital subject.
Author: Geoffrey Till Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317219279 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 622
Book Description
This is the fourth, revised and updated, edition of Geoffrey Till's Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-first Century. The rise of the Chinese and other Asian navies, worsening quarrels over maritime jurisdiction and the United States’ maritime pivot towards the Asia-Pacific region reminds us that the sea has always been central to human development as a source of resources, and as a means of transportation, information-exchange and strategic dominion. It has provided the basis for mankind's prosperity and security, and this is even more true in the early twenty-first century, with the emergence of an increasingly globalised world trading system. Navies have always provided a way of policing, and sometimes exploiting, the system. In contemporary conditions, navies, and other forms of maritime power, are having to adapt, in order to exert the maximum power ashore in the company of others and to expand the range of their interests, activities and responsibilities. While these new tasks are developing fast, traditional ones still predominate. Deterrence remains the first duty of today’s navies, backed up by the need to ‘fight and win’ if necessary. How navies and their states balance these two imperatives will tell us a great deal about our future in this increasingly maritime century. This book investigates the consequences of all this for the developing nature, composition and functions of all the world's significant navies, and provides a guide for anyone interested in the changing and crucial role of seapower in the twenty-first century. Seapower is essential reading for all students of naval power, maritime security and naval history, and highly recommended for students of strategic studies, international security and international relations.
Author: S.G. Gorshkov Publisher: Elsevier ISBN: 1483285464 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
Admiral Gorshkov has transformed the Soviet fleet into a world sea power for the first time in Russian history. He is Russia's most brilliant naval strategist of all time. He has created the modern Soviet navy. His book examines the main components of sea power among which attention is focused on the naval fleet of the present day, capable of conducting operations and solving strategic tasks in different regions of the world's oceans, together with other branches of the armed forces and independently
Author: Andrew Lambert Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300240902 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 539
Book Description
“A fascinating geopolitical chronicle . . . A superb survey of the perennial opportunities and risks in what Herman Melville called ‘the watery part of the world.’” —The Wall Street Journal In this volume, one of the most eminent historians of our age investigates the extraordinary success of five small maritime states. Andrew Lambert, author of The Challenge: Britain Against America in the Naval War of 1812—winner of the prestigious Anderson Medal—turns his attention to Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain, examining how their identities as “seapowers” informed their actions and enabled them to achieve success disproportionate to their size. Lambert demonstrates how creating maritime identities made these states more dynamic, open, and inclusive than their lumbering continental rivals. Only when they forgot this aspect of their identity did these nations begin to decline. Recognizing that the United States and China are modern naval powers—rather than seapowers—is essential to understanding current affairs, as well as the long-term trends in world history. This volume is a highly original “big think” analysis of five states whose success—and eventual failure—is a subject of enduring interest, by a scholar at the top of his game. “An intriguing series of stories of communities thinking seriously about how to stand their own ground when outpowered, how to do so in ways that are consistent with their values, and sometimes how to negotiate the descent from being a great power when the cards just aren’t in their favor any more. These are timely questions.” —Times Higher Education Supplement “Lambert is, without a doubt, the most insightful naval historian writing today.” —The Times
Author: Sam Willis Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393248836 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 672
Book Description
A fascinating naval perspective on one of the greatest of all historical conundrums: How did thirteen isolated colonies, which in 1775 began a war with Britain without a navy or an army, win their independence from the greatest naval and military power on earth? The American Revolution involved a naval war of immense scope and variety, including no fewer than twenty-two navies fighting on five oceans—to say nothing of rivers and lakes. In no other war were so many large-scale fleet battles fought, one of which was the most strategically significant naval battle in all of British, French, and American history. Simultaneous naval campaigns were fought in the English Channel, the North and Mid-Atlantic, the Mediterranean, off South Africa, in the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean, the Pacific, the North Sea and, of course, off the eastern seaboard of America. Not until the Second World War would any nation actively fight in so many different theaters. In The Struggle for Sea Power, Sam Willis traces every key military event in the path to American independence from a naval perspective, and he also brings this important viewpoint to bear on economic, political, and social developments that were fundamental to the success of the Revolution. In doing so Willis offers valuable new insights into American, British, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Russian history. This unique account of the American Revolution gives us a new understanding of the influence of sea power upon history, of the American path to independence, and of the rise and fall of the British Empire.
Author: Thomas B Buell Publisher: Naval Institute Press ISBN: 1612512100 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 658
Book Description
A comprehensive biography of the most powerful naval officer in the history of the United States who was the controversial architect of the American victory in the Pacific. Someone once asked Admiral Ernest J. King if it was he who said, ""When they get in trouble they send for the sonsabitches."" He replied that he was not -—but that he would have said it if he had thought of it. Although never accused of having a warm personality, Ernest J. King commanded the respect of everyone familiar with his work. His is one of the great American naval careers, his place in history forever secured by a remarkable contribution to the Allied victory in the Second World War. ""Lord how I need him,"" wrote Navy Secretary Frank Knox on December 23, 1941, the day he summoned King to take control of the Navy at its lowest point, the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Raised in a stern Calvinist home in Lorain, Ohio, Ernest King grew interested in a naval career after reading an article in a boys' magazine. After graduating from Annapolis fourth in his class (1901), King's early career was ""rather ordinary"" according to biographer Robert W. Love. But in 1909, at the end of a stint as a drillmaster at the Naval Academy, King distinguished himself by writing an influential essay entitled, ""Organization on Board Ship."" King performed well in a number of commands between 1914 and 1923, when he began a three-year stint as commander of the submarine base at New London, Connecticut. In 1926 his career took an important turn: he completed the shortened flight course at Pensacola, and from that point on, he would see aviation as the decisive element in naval warfare. This conviction deepened when he served as assistant bureau chief under Rear Admiral William Moffett, widely considered the father of American naval aviation. King's career received another boost when he ably commanded his first aircraft carrier, the Lexington, in the early 1930s. But as his prospects for advancement increased, so did his reputation as a difficult character. "He was meaner than hell," commented one junior officer, reflecting the general opinion that King was as much despised as he was respected. This didn't seem to bother him, though. Love observed that he "seemed almost to pride himself on the fact that he had earned his rank solely on his merits as a professional naval officer, rather than as a result of the friendship of others." In the spring of 1939, the sixty-year-old King coveted the job of Chief of Naval Operations. But his personality and decided lack of political skill or tact led President Roosevelt to pass him over in favor of Admiral Harold Stark. Seemingly banished to duty on the General Board in Washington, King's career was resurrected by the war that soon started in Europe. When Stark grew dissatisfied with the commander of his Atlantic Squadron, he looked to King, who took over in December, 1940. With his slogan ""do all that we can with what we have,"" King ably managed the undeclared war with Germany's U-boats. Although his command was limited to the Atlantic, it brought him to Washington frequently and he stayed abreast of developments in the Pacific. The morning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stark called him to Washington; soon after he was running the Navy -—first as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, soon adding the title Chief of Naval Operations, making him the first man to combine both jobs. In the early months of 1942, King's strategic brilliance earned him the complete confidence of President Roosevelt. When none of the British or American war planners even dared to think of going on the offensive in the Pacific in 1942-43, King successfully lobbied to do just that. "No fighter ever won his fight by covering up -—merely fending off the other fellow's blows," he wrote. "The winner hits and keeps on hitting even though he has to be able to take some stiff blows in order to keep on hitting." It's easy to see why even those who despised Ernest King were glad he was on their side.
Author: Seth Cropsey Publisher: Encounter Books ISBN: 159403916X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 247
Book Description
The challenges to American security in the Western Pacific, the seas that surround Europe, and the Persian Gulf are growing. At the same time, U.S. military commanders seek more naval forces to protect America's interest in the safe transit of American goods, deterrence in a proliferating world, and the defense of our key allies. At the same time U.S. defense budgets are shrinking. American seapower has not been as small as it is today since before World War I. Unless reversed, U.S. seapower will continue its decline into the indefinite future as politicians ignore the widening gulf between the cost of modernizing and expanding American seapower, and the resources devoted to this most strategic arm of the nation's defense. Seablindness explains the dilemma. It looks at the consequences of neglect including the effect of increased deployments on families, global scenarios set in the immediate future, the views of America's most knowledgeable military officers, the anxious reactions of U.S. allies, and hard facts to show how a lack of political will is dismantling the nation's global reach and with it, our position as the world's great power.
Author: George W. Baer Publisher: Stanford University Press ISBN: 9780804727945 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 572
Book Description
A navy is a state's main instrument of maritime force. What it should do, what doctrine it holds, what ships it deploys, and how it fights are determined by practical political and military choices in relation to national needs. Choices are made according to the state's goals, perceived threat, maritime opportunity, technological capabilities, practical experience, and, not the least, the way the sea service defines itself and its way of war. This book is a history of the modern U.S. Navy. It explains how the Navy, in the century after 1890, was formed and reformed in the interaction of purpose, experience, and doctrine.
Author: Ryan D. Martinson Publisher: China Maritime Studies ISBN: 9781935352648 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 102
Book Description
This monograph examines China's approach to using sea power to defend and advance its maritime claims in the East China Sea and South China Sea. This approach, which Chinese strategists sometimes called "echelon defense," involves the use of non-military instruments of sea power--especially maritime law enforcement forces--to vie with other states for control over disputed maritime space. These non-military forces operate on the first line (or echelon) of China's expanding frontier. Behind them, on the second line, China employs naval forces to deter foreign leaders from using force, thereby compelling them to compete on China's own terms. The echelon defense approach allows China to gradually achieve its objectives without risking a conflict or giving other great powers such as the United States sufficient grounds to intervene. Since 2006, when this approach was pioneered, it has enabled China to expand its influence and control in maritime East Asia. But it has also harmed China's relations with its neighbors and other great powers. Discover more products: Other products produced by the United States Navy, Naval War College (USNWC) can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/naval-war-college-nwc Maritime resources collection here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/maritime-transportation-shipping Resources relating to China can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/china
Author: Eric Grove Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1000371042 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 297
Book Description
This book, first published in 1990, presents a fundamental reassessment of maritime strategy. It analyses the lessons of twentieth-century naval warfare and examines in detail the changing face of naval warfare, both in terms of the weapons used and the platforms from which they are launched and controlled. It looks at the evolving uses of the seas, both economic and military, and sets sea power against the developing world environment, political, legal and economic, discussing those factors that stimulate nations to exert power at sea and those that limit their naval capabilities. It also develops a theoretical framework for future thinking about maritime strategy and forces, revises and updates Mahan’s classical analysis of the foundations of sea power, and discusses thinking about naval tasks.
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Author: Admiral James Stavridis, USN
Author: Geoffrey Till
Author: S.G. Gorshkov
Author: Andrew Lambert
Author: Sam Willis
Author: Thomas B Buell
Author: Seth Cropsey
Author: George W. Baer
Author: Ryan D. Martinson
Author: Eric Grove