Attack on Maritime Trade - Tapa dura

Admiral Mahan, a hundred years ago, published his "The Influence of Seapower on History". Seapower was conceived primarily as the influence navies had over maritime trade, and Mahan believed that it was decisive in international affairs. Since then hundreds of historians and social scientists have written about episodes in the history of economic warfare, making it possible to reach more sophisticated judgements. The First World War saw the most highly developed effort ever made to use naval forces, and bureaucratic control, to deny supplies to the enemy, Germany. Anglo-American relations between the wars were never easy so long as it was believed that naval power conferred world power. In the Second World War, however, British strategy focussed on the need to ensure supply, and German attacks on British marine communications were primarily useful as a brake on British offensive operations. This book reviews the motives for attack on maritime trade over five centuries, and assesses the strategic utility of that form of naval action. Mahan was as much wrong as right.