90 percent by sea - Defence Academy of the United Kingdom

Application of Maritime Power’ is heavily weighted towards power from the sea. 49
Successive editions have gradually reversed this emphasis, with the current edition more
balanced between power at sea and power from the sea, commenting in its opening
paragraphs that ‘The UK is a maritime trading nation whose prosperity, stability and security
depend on the vital access provided by the sea and the maintenance of an international
system of law and free trade’. 50
However, Britain’s National Security Strategy of 2011 does
not mention the word ‘maritime’ or ‘sea’ at all. 51 The risks to trade are only implied through
‘Tier three’ risks of ‘Short to medium term disruption to international supplies of resources
(e.g. food, minerals) essential to the UK’, or ‘disruption to oil or gas supplies to the UK, or
price instability, as a result of war, accident, major political upheaval or deliberate
manipulation of supply by producers’: 52 hardly compelling. Once again, perhaps, Naval
convictions and instincts have failed to translate into political intent.
Thus the Naval narrative during the last century has had to continually adapt and evolve to
remain ‘relevant’. The RN has developed arguments as to its utility which went far beyond
the protection of convoys and the balancing of continental power. A crisis of confidence at
the start of the nuclear era in the 50s led to a refocus as ‘out of area’ enabler in the 60s and
70s; a defender of the home base and Eastern Atlantic in the 1980s; to an enabler and force
provider for Joint expeditionary operations since then. It is perhaps, therefore, unsurprising
that the Naval staff have periodically been criticised for their inability to articulate deep held
and instinctive beliefs in a manner that is relevant and persuasive politically. With the
disaggregation of trade and commerce protection as a core role, the case became inherently
difficult to argue, even more so with the technocratic, output and capability driven approach
to defence planning that has characterised the last 50 years. From the Mahanian revolution
to the end of the second world war, the ‘ways’ were a matter of choice: whether sea control
through decisive battle, Guerre de Course or Fleet in Being. But the ‘ends’ were not in
doubt: it was about sea control, to enable military and commercial activity - the protection of
your own and the disruption of the enemy’s. But with the advent of the nuclear age and
subsequently, the recession of a direct State threat to trade, the ends somehow became a
matter of choice also. Naval power and its utility also became normative, subject to fashions
in the evolution of naval thinking and more recently, constrained to find the cheapest
solution. At the turn of the last century, Mahan’s writings influenced the development of
navies and doctrinal thinking around the world, led by the principle Naval power – the RN 53 .
Since the dawn of the thermonuclear age, the USN has provided the lead to which allies
aspire and adversaries respond, with Soviet area denial capabilities a direct counter to
49 BR1806, The Fundamentals of British Maritime Doctrine (London: TSO, 1995), 81-105
50 BR1806, British Maritime Doctrine (Shrivenham: DCDC), v
51 A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The National Security Strategy (London: TSO (The Stationary Office),
2010), passim
52 Ibid, p 27
53 T124, Seapower, 15
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