Naval strategy, naval power: uses & abuses

[Fuchs]

The USN was enlarged to face the RN after 1895.
Pres. Cleveland was fed up with a cool and relaxed UK reply in a Venezuelan-British Guyana border conflict. The British knew that the U.S. had no power in the region for want of a powerful fleet.

About a decade later, the USN was still clearly inferior, but a relevant force as long as the British had to patrol many other waters (especially the North Sea with a battle fleet + Atlantic and Indian Ocean with cruisers).

The thing I don't get is that China has done very well out of America, including and especially use of the world's sea lanes courtesy of the US Navy. If it hadn't been for America, the Chinese middle class/apparatchiks would still be crawling around in the mud with the peasants.

Why mess with a good thing?

Americans and their belief in demand as driver of an economy are really funny at times. It makes no sense from a macroeconomic point of view (the U.S middle class rather has to thank the Chinese for working in part for mere promises of physical returns), but it's really amusing.

The same goes for the American belief in the importance of the USN for world-wide secured shipping on the Oceans. Pirates arise as first real threat to shipping in decades, the USN plays a tiny role in an inefficient multinational countermeasure (basically comparable to Indian efforts) and the Americans still think that it's their and only their navy that keeps global trade possible.

Many people would be surprised if they learned how much % value (not volume or mass) of global trade happens with air freight services, not maritime shipping.

[carl]

Sorry Fuchs, I don't buy that. Strengthening of the Navy had a lot of causes but the need to possibly fight the RN wasn't one of them.

[Fuchs]

It wasn't abut fighting. It was about having a big stick in great power gaming.

Few navies have ever built beautiful and impressive battleships or aircraft carriers during peacetime for risking them in battle. Such ships are meant for impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power, not for peer2peer slaughtering.

[carl]

It wasn't abut fighting. It was about having a big stick in great power gaming.

Few navies have ever built beautiful and impressive battleships or aircraft carriers during peacetime for risking them in battle. Such ships are meant for impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power, not for peer2peer slaughtering.

What good is a big stick if people aren't convinced you will use it if the need arises?

Those ships don't get risked in battle very often because big naval fights don't happen very often. When the big fights happen the ships sail into harms way.

[Fuchs]

Who says the people who count (politicians) don't believe that capital ships would be risked in battle?


By the way; capital ship employment has often been very careful.
See WWI sea battles, WW2 Mediterranean battleship employment, Battle of Midway, Russian de facto non-use of its battleships in both World Wars.

[carl]

You carefully employ all your power. It is foolish to do otherwise. It might be more helpful to look at how many of the ships that started the war were still afloat at the end.

[carl]

Many people would be surprised if they learned how much % value (not volume or mass) of global trade happens with air freight services, not maritime shipping.

That not so valuable mass and volume provides:

a. Food to eat.
b. Fuel to run the engines.
c. The raw materials to make those valuable things with.

Pretty important.