In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Journal of Military History 68.2 (2004) 667-668



[Access article in PDF]
Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century. By Geoffrey Till. Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass, 2003. ISBN 0-7146-8436-8. Maps. Figures. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 430. $27.95.

In an important book he published some twenty years ago, Geoffrey Till stated that "sea power" was "probably the most obscure concept in the whole lexicon of maritime strategy." To elucidate it, he examined the concept historically, then applied its features to an analysis of contemporary maritime strategies. Till concluded: "Perhaps not surprisingly, there are considerable similarities between the purposes of sea power then and now; rather less expectedly useful analogies can often be drawn between its methods too." [Maritime Strategy and the Nuclear Age, 2nd ed., pp. 12, 258]. Interpreting "sea power" through the dual lenses of history and the planning needs of the present gives us in this new book Till's analysis of the broad utility of the concept of "sea power," from his central perspective as Dean of Academic Studies at the U.K. Joint Services Command and Staff College and head of the Defence Studies Department, which is part of the War Studies Group of King's College, London. Till also is the editor of the Cass series of original works on "Naval Policy and History," of which Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century is the 23rd volume.

Here Till expands his analysis through a taxonomy of sea power. He establishes essential categories, and defines and illustrates them. He assesses [End Page 667] classic and recent doctrines of naval warfare, the purposes of sea control, and the limits and potential of naval power. He notes the attributes of the sea: It may be a resource, a medium of transportation and exchange, a place to establish or contest dominion. He states the constituents of sea power—people, geography, technology, economy—and discusses each in terms of efforts to exploit them by naval and maritime strategies, by cooperation or combat. Much of the book examines forms of naval coercion. But at its heart the book is a prescriptive argument for a cooperative framework of ocean governance, and as such, a vision for the twenty-first century.

Till is no dreamer. Good order at sea must be sustained by interests expressed through political decisions backed by naval force. Defense of any system, sea power itself, depends ultimately on political will. There are "intimate, two-way linkages between good order at sea and good order on land."

Till pays attention to jurisprudence and claims of sovereignty, for instance in his discussion of Selden's seventeenth-century justification of a "closed sea" against Grotius's Mare Liberum. (A reader interested in further analysis of this important argument might care to consult Monica Brito Vieria, "Mare Liberum vs. Mare Clausum: Grotius, Freitas, and Selden's Debate for Dominion over the Seas," Journal of the History of Ideas 64[July 2003].) With EEZs, UNCLOS, and other claims of closure, "the high seas have shrunk to only about 64% of the world's total sea area." What Mahan called a "wide commons" is increasingly fenced. As Till says, at present "maritime geography, rather than military power is seen as the main criterion for deciding who owns what bit of sea."

This is an excellent book. It is rich in history, but Till does not steer by history's wake. The sea, and sea power, contain independent, and changing, variables. His strong analyses read forward and backward: any historian interested in naval strategy will learn much from this reliable guide to the past as well as to the urgent present concerns of our naval and oceanic futures. Till wrote in another book, "We are, it seems, slowly coming to our senses about the sea" (Seapower at the Millennium, ed. Till, p. 16). He here moves us a large step closer to understanding what sea power entails today.



George Baer
Naval War College
Newport, Rhode Island


...

pdf

Share