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Maritime Strategy and the Nuclear Age pp 140–162Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Exercise of Command

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Abstract

The ability to mount or defeat operations against the shore is one of the two main ways in which command is exercised and the sea used. This form of sea use suffers from the absence of a consistent vocabulary in maritime strategy. Competing words and definitions jostle with each other to attract support: amphibious warfare, combined operations, land-sea operations, the projection of power ashore, overseas raids and invasions, attacks on territory from the sea. These all have strengths and weaknesses, but none have won universal acclaim. Probably in this case, though, the consequence is not so bad as it is with ‘sea power’ or ‘the command of the sea’. Even though the name is in dispute, there is broad agreement about what it stands for. Like Shakespeare’s rose, it smells the same, more or less, whatever we call it.

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Notes

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Authors
  1. Geoffrey Till
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© 1982 Geoffrey Till

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Till, G. (1982). The Exercise of Command. In: Maritime Strategy and the Nuclear Age. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04500-6_6

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