Maritime powers dominate the planet, from the British empire of the 19th century, to the American post-World War II domination of global affairs. To a large degree their control of the globe is based on control of the seas. This book seeks to examine the strengths and weaknesses of maritime power, including specific chapters on mutiny, blockades, coalitions, piracy, expeditionary warfare, commerce raiding, and soft power operations, but with larger discussion of such sea power characteristics as sea control, sea denial, and the competition between land powers and sea powers. The conclusions will discuss how many other countries, including Russia during the Cold War and the PRC today, have or are seeking to use sea power to claim regional and then eventually global hegemony.

Some Principles of Maritime Strategy is a book by Julian Stafford Corbett. It delves into maritime theory of war and naval strategy with actual examples throughout history.

In Maritime Power and the Law of the Sea: Expeditionary Operations in World Politics, Commander James Kraska analyzes the evolving rules governing freedom of the seas and their impact on expeditionary operations in the littoral, near-shore coastal zone. Coastal state practice and international law are developing in ways that restrict naval access to the littorals and associated coastal communities and inshore regions that have become the fulcrum of world geopolitics. Consequently, the ability of naval forces to project expeditionary power throughout semi-enclosed seas, exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and along the important sea-shore interface is diminishing and, as a result, limiting strategic access and freedom of action where it is most needed. Commander Kraska describes how control of the global commons, coupled with new approaches to sea power and expeditionary force projection, has given the United States and its allies the ability to assert overwhelming sea power to nearly any area of the globe. But as the law of the sea gravitates away from a classic liberal order of the oceans, naval forces are finding it more challenging to accomplish the spectrum of maritime missions in the coastal littorals, including forward presence, power projection, deterrence, humanitarian assistance and sea control. The developing legal order of the oceans fuses diplomacy, strategy and international law to directly challenge unimpeded access to coastal areas, with profound implications for American grand strategy and world politics.

DIVThis brilliant exposition by a great strategist proposes that the key to maritime dominance lies in effective use of sea lines for communications and in denying that use to the enemy. /div

At the turn of the twentieth century, Alfred Thayer Mahan and Julian Stafford Corbett emerged as foundational thinkers on naval strategy and maritime power. Important in their lifetimes, their writings remain relevant in the contemporary environment. The significance of Corbett and Mahan to modern naval strategy seems beyond question, but too often their theories are simplified or used without a real understanding of their fundamental bases.Labeling a strategy, operation, or even a navy “Mahanian” or “Corbettian” tells very little. Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought provides an in-depth introduction and a means to stimulate discussion about the theories of Mahan and Corbett. Although there is no substitute for opening the actual writings of Mahan and Corbett, this requires time, not just to read but most importantly to understand how states exploit the sea in the strategic sense. Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought takes the reader from their grand strategic foundations of sea power and maritime strategy, through their ideas about naval warfare and strategy, to how Mahan and Corbett thought a navy should integrate with other instruments of national power, and finally, to how they thought states with powerful navies win wars. This window into naval strategy provides twenty-first-century readers an understanding of what navies can and perhaps more importantly cannot do in the international environment.

This unique book applies Sir Julian Corbett's principles of maritime strategy to establish policy based upon an approach founded on the functions of the Navy. In order to properly balance the fleet and fulfill its roles in the 21st century, the Navy must apply the principles of maritime strategy laid forth by Corbett and reorganize its policy around the enduring functions of the Navy. This paper proposes that the Navy must redefine and re-aggregate its strategic concepts of power projection, sea control and forward presence around Corbett's principles of maritime strategy in planning its future fleet. The Navy's current approach is rooted within strategic traditions rather than the principles and constants of naval warfare, strategy and policy. To achieve success in the future the Navy must found its naval policy on its functions in consonance with the principles of maritime strategy. This paper compares current naval policy to previous policy against Corbett's principles and the functions of the Navy. It will demonstrate that an efficient and adaptable naval policy must be based on principles and functions rather than the Navy's strategic concepts. Since the early 1990s the balance of naval power has been re-directed to land warfare in recognition of an expeditionary security environment, a significant change from the monolithic anti-Soviet naval policy. Change is required due to the absence of the Soviet fleet threat. History and Corbett's principles demand that functions drive naval policy rather than strategic concepts founded upon an obsolete threat. Functions are less susceptible to the radical shifts of politically charged strategic tidal changes of administrations. A functional approach enables prioritization of capabilities and results in choices that minimize risk and allow the Navy to articulate its true requirements to serve the nation's interest. The principles of maritime strategy demonstrate that the Navy must re-organize its naval policy around the functions of the Navy in order to successfully incorporate a capabilities based approach to force planning. This paper provides a functional approach model based on the functions of the Navy and Corbett's principles of maritime strategy. Contents include: Strategic Change and the Leverage of Sea Power * Problems in the Capabilities Approach to Force Planning * Challenges of Naval Policy * Roles and Strategic Concepts * Strategy and the Methods of Naval Warfare * Naval Warfare - The Enduring Methods * The Functions of the US Navy * Corbett's Theory of the Means * Consolidating the Functions of the Navy * Corbett's Theory of the Method and The Relation of Method to Means * Problems with Strategic Concepts * A Recommended Functional Approach to Naval Policy * Current Naval Policy * Conclusion