Did we neglect Sea Control in the counter-insurgency era defence reviews?

Why do nations maintain maritime forces? A simple explanation is that “navies exist to assure access to markets and to influence events on land for political ends.”1Sadler, B D (2023) US Naval Power in the 21st Century: A New Strategy for Facing the Chinese and Russian Threat (USNI Press). Historically, the most prosperous nations have been those that engaged in extensive international trade and had naval forces which were capable of protecting their commercial interests.2Jones, B D (2021) To Rule the Waves: How Control of the World’s Oceans Shapes the Fate of the Superpowers (Scribner). So wh…