Naval Power and Warfare

Abstract

It is always difficult to decide how best to present naval power and warfare within the context of general military history. Usually they are treated as different subjects to land warfare and covered by other scholars responding to the methodology, conceptualization and historiography of a distinct subject, with its own institutional structures. This reflects the scope, importance and detailed work on naval history. It also has its limitations, not least a failure to search for comparisons, contrasts or connections with land warfare or to probe a wider context within which the relative value of naval force can be assessed. This study does not pretend to a high level of naval expertise, but seeks to include a discussion of the naval dimension, albeit one that focuses on the particular interests of this book. Global context First, it is important to consider the global context. The Western powers enjoyed an effective monopoly of long-distance naval strength, not least transoceanic, globe encircling capability. There were other naval powers, but none matched those of the West. For example, despite its enormous resources and the strength of its governmental structure, China no longer engaged in long-range naval activity as it had in the early fifteenth century. Similarly, neither Japan nor Korea matched their naval activity of the 1590s. Turkish naval power in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea was not what it had been in the sixteenth century, but it remained significant in the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean.