U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1970s. Selected Documents

Abstract

Abstract : U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1970s: Selected Documents is the second in a projected four volume set of authoritative documents on U.S. Navy strategy and strategic planning. The first volume in this series, U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1990s: Selected Documents, Newport Paper 27, also edited by Professor Hattendorf, appeared in September 2006. The current volume was originally intended to include documents relating to the development of the Navy's Maritime Strategy during the 1980s, but the bulk of relevant material has made it advisable to dedicate a separate volume to that period. A final volume will then cover documents from the 1950s and 1960s. When combined with Professor Hattendorf's authoritative narrative of the genesis and development of the Maritime Strategy, The Evolution of the U.S. Navy's Maritime Strategy, 1977-1986, Newport Paper 19, these volumes will provide for the first time a comprehensive picture of the evolution of high-level U.S. Navy (and to some extent U.S. Marine Corps) strategic thinking over the half-century following the end of World War II. Within the broad context of the multiple layers of change and development that were taking place within the U.S. Navy during the 1970s, the five documents selected for this volume represent the key statements of strategic and doctrinal thinking within the service. These five documents are very different in approach, style, and purpose; nevertheless, they all document gradual and consistent development of one very significant thread in American naval thinking during the Cold War.