Planning for War at Sea: 400 Years of Great Power Competition
400 pages
Dr James Bosbotinis
Planning for War at Sea is an important and timely volume, focusing as it does on the subject of naval planning, in particular the consequences of when that planning has been flawed. As Paul Kennedy sets out in the Introduction, “…many admiralties and their planners have entered into war only to find that things were going awry: their strategic assumptions were flawed, there was ‘something wrong’ with their ships…logistics were inadequate, intelligence was badly wrong, and political leaders were either too rash or too timid.” In this book, drawing on presentations originally prepared for a 2022 conference held under the auspices of Yale University’s International Security Studies and the Hattendorf Historical Center at the US Naval War College, an august group of contributors – including Martin S Alexander, Sebastian Bruns, Andrew Erickson, Norman Friedman, John Hattendorf, and Geoffrey Till – examine 15 case studies of where naval strategic planning has either not met expectations or assumptions, or are subject to much debate.
Planning for War at Sea takes a necessarily broad look at the development of maritime strategy, with case studies ranging from the 17th century (the First Anglo-Dutch War), through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, and the prospects for the US and Chinese navies in the coming decades. Although covering such subjects as the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the French Revolution, the First World War, French naval strategy in the inter-war period, British strategic planning in the Second World War, Japanese and US thinking on a Pacific conflict, and US adaptation during the Pacific War, the focus on the development of strategy, leadership, planning, innovation and adaptation, threat assessments, and resources as common themes serves to highlight the enduring importance of good planning and the consequences of failing in that regard.
Two of the chapters cover a subject that was fortunately not tested in combat: the US Maritime Strategy of the 1980s. Ryan Peeks’ chapter on the Maritime Strategy also highlights another key factor, that is, crafting a strategy to suit the navy’s own thinking on the war it wanted to prepare for: “With the Maritime Strategy, the Navy made a positive case for the type of war it wanted to fight (offensive, global) and an implicit case for the type of war and enemy (limited, regional) that it wanted to avoid.” Notably, as Peeks discusses, the US Navy was confronted in the Tanker War with the type of conflict it wished to avoid, and did not pay sufficient attention to, for example, the Iranian mine warfare threat. Conversely, Peeks’ also notes that “Pacific Fleet’s Admiral James ‘Ace’ Lyons, went in the other direction, seeking to apply to Iran operational concepts intended for all-out war with the Soviets.”
Across its 15 chapters and the supporting Introduction and Conclusion, Planning for War at Sea provides a sophisticated and though-provoking examination of naval strategic planning. As Kennedy and Wilson suggest, “Whether it was simply avoiding the mistakes of the last war or, more ambitiously, deploying a cutting-edge, disruptive technology like submarines or aircraft to fight the next war in a new way, navies are apt to convince themselves that they have the right plan in place.” In Planning for War at Sea, the contributors ably highlight the value of historical study in providing experience, lessons and questions to be asked when thinking about the contemporary and prospective. For all those with an academic or professional interest in the development of strategy, Planning for War at Sea is highly recommended.
