A New Environment for Navies?

Abstract

Maritime strategy has never been determined in a vacuum but always in a real world of constantly changing conditions. The works of the great naval writers like Mahan and Corbett can be seen, in fact, as a record of the way in which maritime strategy has adapted to those changes. But the extent of environmental change occasionally seemed to require something more drastic than mere adaptation; it seemed to call for some concepts to be totally discarded and others brought in to replace them. In modern conditions, the wisdom of past masters of the naval art might therefore be misleading, irrevelant or even downright dangerous, at least as a guide to present and future policy. This view has never been more widely held than it is now. Primarily it is a reaction to changes seen over the past generation or so in the political, economic, legal and technological environment of maritime strategy. The next step, therefore, must be briefly to consider these changes.