Carl von Clausewitz<\/a>. On the relationship between war and politics he echoed Clausewitz: \u201cMilitary action must still be regarded only as a manifestation of policy. It must never supersede policy. The policy is always the object; war is only the means by which we obtain the object, and the means must always keep the end in view.\u201d \u00a0 <\/p>\nIn defining essential differences between the respective physical operating environments of land and sea, however, Corbett departed from Clausewitz on key points, particularly the importance of concentration and the decisive battle. Control and security of communications, for example, is far more difficult at sea. Communications on land are largely limited to known roads, rail lines and rivers and channelized by mountains, forests and other no-go terrain. Predicting communications and movement on a vast, flat ocean is an entirely different matter. \u201cAt sea the communications are, for the most part, common to both belligerents,\u201d Corbett noted, \u201cwhereas ashore each possess his own on his own territory.\u201d Thus, he concluded, only relative command of the sea was possible at any given place and time. \u00a0 <\/p>\n
Corbett departed from both Mahan\u2019s and Clausewitz\u2019s argument for the primacy of destroying the enemy\u2019s main force. Rather, the British strategist argued, controlling the lines of communications, both friendly and enemy, should be the main objective of naval warfare. Two ways to do that were through naval blockade or by capturing or sinking enemy warships and merchant ships. Corbett\u2019s departure from the decisive battle principle prompted pushback from many of the Royal Navy\u2019s more traditional admirals. Yet he enjoyed the backing of reform-minded First Sea Lord and Admiral of the Fleet Sir John \u201cJacky\u201d Fisher. \u00a0 <\/p>\n
In 1911 Corbett published Some Principles of Maritime Strategy<\/em>. He wrote during a period of sweeping technological changes. Steam had already replaced wind and sail as the fleet\u2019s primary motive power; steel hulls had replaced wooden ones; and naval guns were acquiring greater range, accuracy and hitting power. While there was no way Corbett could have foreseen certain technologies, he knew change was imminent and ongoing. That\u2019s why he called his book Some Principles<\/em>, rather than The Principles<\/em>. His intent was to produce a living document to or from which future generations of naval thinkers could add or subtract. \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/p>\nLessons <\/h2>\n
Determine the mutual relations of your army and navy in a plan of war.<\/strong> Only when this is done can one develop a plan for the fleet to best execute its assigned mission. <\/p>\nOffense and defense are not mutually exclusive.<\/strong> All war and every form of it must include contingencies for both. <\/p>\nThe object of naval warfare is the control of communications.<\/strong> Naval operations in both world wars proved Corbett right. <\/p>\nThe most pressing problem to solve is not how to increase the power of a fleet for attack, but how to defend it. <\/strong>Though Corbett wrote long before the advent of naval aviation, this remains the central difficulty of the aircraft carrier.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n[ad_2]
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[ad_1] British naval historian and geostrategist Sir Julian Corbett (1854\u20131922) was a contemporary of renowned American naval strategist Rear Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840\u20131914). Unlike<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":206189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343793,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206188\/revisions\/343793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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