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The Dilemmas of US Maritime Supremacy in the Early Cold War

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 28; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01402390500088270

1743-937X

Jakub J. Grygiel,

Maritime Security and History

Abstract After World War II, the US Navy confronted the challenge of adapting to dramatically altered geopolitical circumstances. Moscow did not have an ocean-going fleet, and early Cold War strategy was dominated by the salient position of nuclear strategic bombing – a mission thought to be outside the purview of the navy. Traditional roles, such as protecting sea lines of communication and supporting ground forces ashore, quickly proved indispensable. However, the navy eventually also succeeded in fielding dramatic technological and institutional innovations, for example, the strategic missile submarine, which enabled the US to successfully leverage maritime power against the continental power of the USSR. Keywords: U.S. NavyMaritime Supremacyasymmetrical warfare Notes Samuel Huntington, ‘National Policy and the Transoceanic Navy’, Naval Institute Proceedings 80/5 (May 1954) p.484. ‘Directly or indirectly, naval policy reflects the strategic environment of the country it defends. Thus, the real explanation for “naval” policy is found in foreign, economic and political circumstance’. Eric Grove and Geoffrey Till, ‘Anglo-American Maritime Strategy in the Ear of Massive Retaliation, 1945–60’, in John Hattendorf and Robert Jordan (eds), Maritime Strategy and the Balance of Power (New York: St Martin's Press 1989) p.272. On the trade off, see for instance, J.W. Fulbright, Old Myths and New Realities (New York: Random House 1964) pp.109–11 and passim. On the dangers of a standing force, see The Federalist Papers (New York: Bantam Books 1982) No. 24 (pp.116–20), No. 41 (p.205). Incidentally, the fear of a garrisoning military moved Hamilton to encourage the development of a navy as the first line of defense. (‘When a nation has become so powerful by sea, that it can protect its dock-yards by its fleets, this supersedes the necessity of garrisons for that purpose’, No. 24, p.120.) As Harry Truman put it in his memoirs, ‘once hostilities are over, Americans are as spontaneous and as headlong in their eagerness to return to civilian life’ as they are to fight their enemies. Harry Truman, Memoirs (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1955–56) Vol. I, p.506. On the pressures to demobilize quickly and extensively, see also R. Alton Lee, ‘The Army “Mutiny” of 1946’, The Journal of American History 53/3 (Dec. 1996) pp.555–71. On the secrecy of the navy and its resulting inability to make a public case for maintaining a high level of mobilization, see George Baer, One Hundred Years of Sea Power (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 1994) p.278. For another example of the navy's poor public relations skills during the feud with the US Air Force in 1949, see Paul Hammond, ‘Super Carriers and B-36 Bombers: Appropriations, Strategy and Politics’, in Harold Stein (ed.), American Civil-Military Decisions (Birmingham, AL: University of Alabama Press 1963) p.491. For instance, in July 1945 Washington was already worrying about the potential threat Moscow posed to the Eurasian balance of power. But it is only in March 1947 that in a speech to the US Congress President Truman publicly stated the extent of the Soviet threat and the resulting strategic objectives of the US. In fact, although it was clear that the USSR would have come out of the war more powerful than what was left of the other European powers, it was hoped that the US would have played a role of a mediator between Moscow and London. A hostile posture by the US, according to some American intelligence estimates, would have strengthened Moscow's imperialist policies. See John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace (New York: Oxford University Press 1987) p.27 and passim; Michael Palmer, Origins of the Maritime Strategy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 1990) pp.16–18; Melvyn Leffler, The Specter of Communism (New York: Hill and Wang 1994) p.51; Gottfried Niedhart, ‘Problems and Approaches to a New Peace Order up to 1946’, in R. Ahmann, A. M. Birke and M. Howard (eds), The Quest for Stability (New York: Oxford University Press 1993) pp.365–78. Furthermore, among some Western leaders (certainly not including Churchill, Truman and Acheson), there was a deeply ingrained fascination with Stalin. As Navy Secretary James Forrestal observed on 2 Sept. 1944, critics of Stalin were called fascists and imperialists, ‘while if Uncle Joe suggests that he needs the Baltic Provinces, half of Poland, all of Bessarabia, and access to the Mediterranean, all hands agree that he is a fine, frank, candid, and generally delightful fellow’. James Forrestal (ed.), Walter Mills, The Forrestal Diaries (New York: The Viking Press 1951) p.14. On Operation ‘Magic Carpet’, see Vincent Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy (Chapel Hill, NC : The University of North Carolina Press 1962) pp.214–15; Alton Lee (note 4) pp.560–63. Robert Love, History of the U.S. Navy, 1942–1991 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992), pp. 291–2; Baer (note 5), p.278; Stephen Howart, To Shining Sea (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press 1999) p.476; Dean Allard, ‘An Era of Transition, 1945–1953’, in Kenneth Hagan (ed.), In Peace and War (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1978) p.292. By comparison, the manpower of the army was cut from a high of 12 million in May 1945 to three million in July 1946 and 1.6 million a year later. Total defense expenditures went from $81.6 billion in FY 1945 to $13.1 billion in 1947. See John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (New York: Oxford University Press 1982) p.23. Jeffrey Barlow, Revolt of the Admirals (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy 1994) p.21. Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York: St Martin's Press 1981) pp.22–4. Bernard Brodie, ‘New Tactics in Naval Warfare’, Foreign Affairs (Jan. 1946) p.223. Quoted in Aaron Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2000) p.37. Vincent Davis, The Admirals Lobby (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press 1967) p.196. See also Lloyd J. Graybar, ‘Bikini Revisited’, Military Affairs 44/3 (Oct. 1980) pp.118–23. Quoted in Barlow (note 9) pp.71–2. Barlow (note 9) p.21. Even though during World War II the British and US navies often failed to maintain good relations, nobody, including Stalin, expected them to be rivals. For an episode of US–British squabbling during the planning of ‘Overlord’, see Robert W. Love, ‘Fighting a Global War’, in Hagan (note 8) p.281. In late 1945 Stalin was certain that Britain and the US would continue their cooperation after the war, although at the same they would be unwilling to fight against the USSR. In a conversation with the Polish Communist leader Wladyslaw Gomulka, Stalin said: ‘Do not believe in divergences between the English and the Americans. They are closely connected to each other… I am completely certain that there will be no war, it is rubbish. They are not capable of waging war against us. Their armies have been disarmed by agitation for peace and will not raise their weapons against us. Not atomic bombs, but armies decide the war’. In Andrzej Werblan, ‘New Evidence on Poland in the Early Cold War: The Conversation between Wladyslaw Gomulka and Josef Stalin on 14 November 1945’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin in issue II, Winter 1998, p.136. In 1945 James Forrestal argued that the navy was needed in case a potential enemy arose again. During Congressional hearings, he said ‘our enemies have no navies now, but perhaps they will get them sometime in the future’. In Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy (note 7) p.187. For instance, the British Defence Committee saw no Soviet fleet threatening Britain after World War II. See Grove and Till (note 2) p.275. Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World 1962) p.182. I am indebted to David Yost for directing me to this quotation. James Forrestal at the hearings before the Select Committee on Post-war Military Policy, 78th Congress, 2nd Session, 1944, quoted in Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy (note 7) p.165. Adm. Robert Carney in 1947 argued that since World War I the navy planned a massive engagement against the enemy's fleet, and ‘tactical proficiency and service in the closely-knit tactical fleet became a prime requisite of qualification for promotion, and there a tendency to brush aside, as too academic, such things as planning, studying amphibious warfare and the lowly business of supply and re-supply of overseas forces. We had a one-battle Navy, and in no sense of the word did we have a campaign-Navy or a major-war Navy. Technically, we could have given a good account of ourselves in any single action. But we were wholly unprepared materially and spiritually for a long-drawn-out struggle’. Quoted in Davis, The Admirals Lobby (note 13) p.184 and passim. Brodie, ‘New Tactics in Naval Warfare’ (note 11) p.223. See also, Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy (note 7) p.18. For a brief description of the Soviet submarine force in light of post-1991 documents, see Sean Maloney, Securing Command of the Sea (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 1995) Appendix 1, pp.205–7. Owen R. Cote, Jr., The Third Battle, Naval War College Newport Papers, No. 16 (2003) pp.16–18. Donald W. White, ‘The Nature of World Power in American History: An Evaluation at the End of World War II’, Diplomatic History 11/3 (Summer 1987) pp.181–202. On this question, see also Grove and Till (note 2) pp.288–9. A reasonable argument can be made that Russia had maritime aspirations, starting from Peter the Great. However, Russia never developed a powerful ocean-going fleet (and when it did, it was easily defeated in 1905) in large measure because of its strategic requirement to defend long land borders. A navy did little to protect the vast Russian, and later Soviet, empire. Russia faced probably only two threats that did not originate on its immediate borders: Britain (albeit through its imperial outposts in India and the Middle East) in the late nineteenth century and Japan at the beginning of the twentieth century. See also John LeDonne, The Russian Empire and the World (New York: Oxford University Press 1997). Furthermore, as it will be described later in the paper, in the early Cold War, the main Soviet threat was a land invasion of Western Europe and the Middle East with very limited naval support. See for instance, Steven Ross, American War Plans, 1945–1950 (New York: Garland Publishing 1988) pp.6–7. Glen Alden Smith, Soviet Foreign Trade (New York: Praeger 1973) pp.17, 221. For a similar view shared by people close to the US Navy, see also Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy (note 7) p.165. For instance, in one of the NSC 48 documents it was stated that Asia was important because of its natural resources – but as a source for the US, not the Soviet Union. ‘Petroleum, coming from Indonesia including Borneo, while not essential to meet Russian domestic requirements, is one of the most important strategic materials in the region’. NSC48/1, ‘The position of the United States with Respect to Asia’, 23 Dec. 1949, in Thomas Etzold and John L. Gaddis (eds), Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press 1978) p.263. For George Kennan's articles on containment, see ‘Moscow Embassy Telegram #511: “The Long Telegram”’, 22 Feb. 1946, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, VI, pp.696–709; Mr X, ‘The Source of Soviet Conduct’, Foreign Affairs (July 1947) pp.566–82. The full text of Truman's speech to the Congress can be found at < http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/trudoc.htm > . The first declassified text of NSC-68 was published in the Naval War College Review XXVII/6 (May/June 1975) pp.51–108. John Lewis Gaddis, ‘The American Conception of National Security and the Beginnings of the Cold War, 1945–48: Comments’, The American Historical Review 89/2 (April 1984) p.384. The American public consistently supported military aid to Western Europe and a tough US policy toward the USSR. See Benjamin Page and Robert Shapiro, The Rational Public (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 1992) pp.200–202. See also John Lewis Gaddis, Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2004) p.69 and passim. See Friedberg (note 12) pp.35–40; Gaddis, The Long Peace (note 6) pp.22–3; Hans Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest (New York: Alfred Knopf 1951) p.10. Gaddis, The Long Peace (note 6) p.24. Similarly, in Nov. 1948, NSC 20/4 stated that ‘Soviet domination of the potential power of Eurasia, whether achieved by armed aggression or by political and subversive means, would be strategically and politically unacceptable to the United States’. In Etzold and Gaddis (note 31) p.208. Nicholas Spykman conceptualized this new security challenge in the early 1940s. The US had to focus on the Rimland, the edges of Eurasia, which were threatened by a power located in the ‘Heartland’ (the Soviet Union). This would have guaranteed the preservation not only of Western Europe and East Asia as independent centers of power, but would also lock the core of Eurasia. Paraphrasing the famous dictum of Mackinder, Spykman submitted that ‘who controls the rimland rules Eurasia; who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world’. Nicholas Spykman, The Geography of the Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co 1944) p.43. Bernard Brodie, A Guide to Naval Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1944) p.4. George Baer, ‘Parameters of Power: The US Navy in the Twentieth Century’, in N.A.M. Rodger, Naval Power in the Twentieth Century (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 1996) p.5. James Forrestal, then Secretary of Defense, worried in his diaries that Europe was very difficult to defend. ‘If all Europe lies flat while the Russian mob tramps over it’, he wrote on 18 March 1948, ‘we will then be faced with a war under difficult circumstances, and with a very good chance of losing it’. Forrestal, The Forrestal Diaries (note 6) p.395. Melvyn P. Leffler, ‘Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War: The United States, Turkey, and NATO, 1945–1952’, The Journal of American History 71/4 (March 1985) pp.814, 820. In fact, some considered also Britain, and American air bases there, too vulnerable to a Soviet air attack. Even if Britain succeeded in preserving its independence in case of a conflict with the USSR, the belief was that bases on the British islands would have been effectively ‘neutralized’ by Soviet airpower and therefore made useless. See Marc Trachtenberg, ‘A “Wasting Asset”’, International Security 13/3 (Winter 1988/89) p.23. On the vulnerability of American forward bases to Soviet nuclear strikes in the early 1950s, see also Albert Wohlstetter, ‘The Delicate Balance of Terror’, Foreign Affairs 37/2 (Jan. 1959) pp.211–34. Maloney (note 24) p.91. See March Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1999) pp.36–8. Leffler, ‘Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War’ (note 42) p.811; Ross (note 28) pp.25–6. The threat to use nuclear weapons was implicit until 1953, but it was always assumed that the US would use them in case of a war with the Soviets. The NATO Strategic Concept of 1949 states that the Allies would ‘carry out strategic bombing promptly by all means possible with all types of weapons, without exception. This is primarily a US responsibility assisted as practicable by other nations’. The Strategic Concept for the Defence of the North Atlantic Area, D.C. 6/1, 1 Dec. 1949 < http://www.nato.int/docu/stratdoc/eng/a491201a.pdf > . See also Gaddis, The Long Peace (note 6) p.105. See Ross (note 28) p.148. At the beginning of the Korean War on 25 June 1950, only 37 per cent of the navy's major combatants, which included only one fast carrier, were in the Pacific theater. See Marc Bernstein, ‘The US Navy on the Eve of the Korean War’, Naval Aviation News 82/4 (May/June 2000) p.17. ‘Strategic Guidance for Industrial Mobilization Planning’, JCS 1725/1, 1 May 1947, in Etzold and Gaddis (note 31) p.310. NSC 48/1, 23 Dec. 1949, in Etzold and Gaddis (note 31) p.264. See also Melvyn Leffler, ‘The American Conception of National Security and the Beginnings of the Cold War, 1945–48’, American Historical Review 89 (1984) p.351; Gaddis, The Long Peace (note 6) pp.72–103; Ross (note 28) p.42. Baer, p.322 (see note 5). Parts quoted in Barlow (note 9) p.54. See also Hammond (note 5) p.472. The entire text of Nimitz's speech can be found at < http://www.history.navy.mil/library/special/employ_naval_forces.htm >. Baer, p.337 (see note 5). Forrestal, The Forrestal Diaries (note 6) pp.392–3. In fact, the tensions between the air force and the navy continued well after the Key West agreement. Only a few months after the Key West meeting, Forrestal had to call a new meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, to discuss again the issue of nuclear weapons for the navy. See Dean Allard, ‘Interservice Differences in the United States, 1945–1950: A Naval Perspective’, Airpower Journal 3 (Winter 1989) pp.75–7. See David Alan Rosenberg, ‘The Origins of Overkill’, International Security 7/4 (Spring 1983) p.30. Ibid. pp.30–1. Karl Lautenschläger, ‘Technology and the Evolution of Naval Warfare’, International Security 8/2 (Autumn 1983) p.36. This rapid development of nuclear capabilities of the navy was accompanied by an overall drastic increase in the number of atomic bombs in US possession. In 1948 the US had about 50 bombs, while in 1953 it had at least 1,000, and 18,000 by the end of the Eisenhower administration (1961). David Alan Rosenberg, ‘Reality and Responsibility: Power and Process in the Making of United States Nuclear Strategy, 1945–68’, Journal of Strategic Studies 9/1 (March 1986) p.39. To some degree, the end of the navy-army cooperation was due to the different technical requirements. The army preferred a liquid-fuel missile, while the navy favored a solid-fuel. On the technical difficulties of developing a submarine-launched missile, see Wyndham Miles, ‘The Polaris’, Technology and Culture 4/4 (Autumn 1963) pp.478–89. It should be noted here that some navy leaders were not interested in strategic nuclear bombing, and preferred that the SLBM be used for strictly tactical purposes (that is, directly affecting Soviet capacity to conduct naval operations), including an ‘attack at source’ that will be described later in the paper. On the debate about the Polaris missile, see also Graham Spinard, ‘Why the U.S. Navy Went for Hard-target Counterforce in Trident II’, International Security 15/2 (Fall 1990) pp.150–3. Quoted in Rosenberg, ‘Origins of Overkill’ (note 57) p.56. The Polaris A1 had a range of approximately 1,000 nautical miles, while the A2 could strike at 1,500 nautical miles. The Polaris A3, which went into service in 1964, had a range of 2,500 nautical miles. The estimates are from the Federation of American Scientists website, < http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/index.html > . See also, Rosenberg, ‘Origins of Overkill’ (note 57) pp.52–3; Baer, pp.352–9 (see note 5). In 1949, for instance, the Joint Planning Staff was worried that the US Air Force devoted too many resources to strategic bombing inside the Soviet Union, and not enough to slowing a potential offensive of the Red Army in Europe and the Middle East. See Maloney (note 24) p.87. James Paulsen, ‘The Air Force Wasn't Even Close’, Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute 126/7 (July 2000) pp.72–7. Quoted in Barlow (note 9) p.247. On the debate on limited war, see also Freedman (note 10) pp.106–10. In fact, a 1,700-mile range allowed navy planes to reach all targets in the Soviet Union. See map in Barlow (note 9) pp.118–9. Also see Baer (note 5) pp.308, 334. For the technical features of the AJ-1 Savage, see < http://www.boeing.com/history/bna/ajsavage.htm > . In the 1950 Crosspiece/Galloper war plans, the US Navy was assigned a more offensive role, and was expected to contribute to a strategic bombing campaign. ‘This was a definite departure from earlier plans and seems to have reflected the projected ability of the US Navy to conduct sustained atomic operations from aircraft carriers with the P2VC Neptune interim carrier-based bomber and the AJ-1 and AJ-2 Savage aircraft’. Maloney (note 24) p.91. See Barlow (note 9) pp.131–45, 182–8. Baer (note 5) p.335. See also David A. Rosenberg, ‘American Postwar Air Doctrine and Organization: The Navy Experience’, in Alfred Hurley and Robert Ehrhart (eds), Air Power and Warfare (Washington, DC: United States Air Force Academy 1979) pp.259–60. In Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy (note 7) pp.159–60. Baer (note 5) p.347. See also Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy (note 7) pp.334–5; Ross (note 28) p.33; Palmer (note 6) pp.21–3, 26. Floyd D. Kennedy, ‘The Creation of the Cold War Navy, 1953–1962’, in Hagan (note 8) p.306. Dean Allard, ‘An Era of Transition, 1945–1953’, in Kenneth Hagan, ed. In Peace and War (Westport, CT; Greenwrod Press, 1978). p.301. The centrality of the Mediterranean in NATO war planning was to a degree a result of British lobbying in favor of defending its links with the Middle East and India. US planners considered the Mediterranean vital to protect the North African base area from where a strategic bombing campaign would have been launched against a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. See Maloney (note 24) pp.90–1; Baer, p.316. Grove and Till (note 2) pp.286–7. Moreover, the navy used the regional seas, and the Mediterranean in particular, to preposition forces ready to intervene in case of a local conflict. For instance, the Sixth Fleet based in the Mediterranean needed only 13 hours to send US Marines to Lebanon in 1958. See Baer, pp.362–3. On the differences between the US and British approaches to ASW, see Maloney (note 24) p.157. Baer (note 5) p.348. Maloney (note 24) p.64; Palmer (note 6) pp.24–7. Barlow (note 9) pp.115–16. The Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that US carrier forces ‘will destroy enemy naval forces and shipping, attack naval bases, attack airfields threatening control of the seas, support amphibious forces and support the mining offensive’. JCS 1800/166 (7 Sept. 1951) in Grove and Till (note 2) p.283. Arguably, an ‘attack-at-source’ was part of strategic bombing. The targets of such an attack included industrial areas related to shipbuilding, which were considered ‘strategic’ because they affected the ‘Soviets’ long-term ability to wage war’. Moreover, until 1952, there was no distinction between a tactical and a strategic nuclear bomb (Mark IV). See Maloney (note 24) pp.158–9. Davis, The Admirals Lobby (note 13) p.209. Also, for use of navies in peacetime, see John Hattendorf, ‘Recent Thinking on the Theory of Naval Strategy’, in Hattendorf (note 2) pp.149–52; James Cable, Gunboat Diplomacy (New York: St Martin's Press 1971). FRUS, 1946, Vol. VII, pp.822–3. See, for instance, Jack Levy, ‘Organizational Routines and the Causes of War’, International Studies Quarterly 30/2 (June 1986) pp.193–222. It is interesting to note that the navy went through a similar period of adjustment in the 1939–41 period, when the Nazi expansion in Europe forced it to change its geographic focus from the Pacific to the Atlantic. See Gerald Wheeler, ‘The United States Navy and War in the Pacific’, World Affairs Quarterly (Oct. 1959) pp.220–22. Potentially, terrorist organizations can threaten the safe passage of ships, especially near the coast or through strategic straits. But until now the terrorist threat against sea lanes has been limited to a few episodes (e.g., the bombing of USS Cole in 2000 or of the French oil tanker off the Yemeni coast in 2002). See for instance, Philip Andrews-Speed, Xuanli Liao and Roland Dannreuther, ‘The Strategic Implications of China's Energy Needs’, Adelphi Papers, No. 346 (London: IISS 2002). For instance, in 1991 it reached an agreement with the then Soviet Union, demarcating about 98 per cent of their common border, erasing some potential sources of conflict. In 1996–97 Beijing signed military agreements with Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrghistan and Tajikistan that Russians officials described as ‘non-aggression treaties’. And since 2002, China has developed stronger relationships with these countries as part of a counterterrorist strategy. See Annual Report on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China, FY04 Report to Congress on PRC Military Power, 29 May 2004, pp.14–15. Available at < www.dod.gov/pubs/d20040528PRC.pdf > . For China's effort to stabilize its land borders, see also Aaron L. Friedberg, ‘11 September and the Future of Sino-American Relations’, Survival 44/1 (Spring 2002) pp.40–41; Sheldon W. Simon, ‘Is There a U.S. Strategy for East Asia?’, Contemporary Southeast Asia 21/3 (Dec. 1999) p.329. On the differences in the geographies of Europe and East Asia, see Aaron L. Friedberg, ‘Will Europe's Past Be Asia's Future?’, Survival 42/3 (Autumn 2000) pp.154–5. Because of these differences, a more apt historical analogy to the US-China relationship could be the Anglo-German clash in the late nineteenth century. A maritime power (Britain) had to confront a land power with growing maritime aspirations and capabilities (Germany). The rise of the German navy presented a direct threat to British maritime supremacy. Instead, the early Cold War may be closer to the conflict between Britain and Napoleon, especially after the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. France, the main threat to Britain, was a land power with very limited maritime aspirations and capabilities. The British strategy relied on a blockade of the French empire by sea, but the ultimate defeat had to be achieved on land (Waterloo). For other historical analogies of a conflict between a seapower and a land power, see Norman Friedman, Seapower as Strategy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 2001) pp.113–29 and 208–18. See, for instance, Michael J. Barron, ‘China's Strategic Modernization: The Russian Connection’, Parameters, Winter 2001–02, pp.72–86; Mark A. Stokes, China's Strategic Modernization: Implications for the United States (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army Strategic Studies Institute 1999).