Some Principles of Maritime Strategy

First published in 1911, this landmark work fundamentally reoriented how naval power is understood within the broader sweep of national strategy. Julian Stafford Corbett argued that sea control is not an end in itself but a means to an end: the protection of sea lines of communication and the denial of those same lines to an enemy. For any maritime nation, the ocean is not a battlefield but a highway, and control of maritime trade routes matters more than the destruction of enemy fleets. Corbett insisted on rigorous definitions as the antidote to muddled thinking, demanding that strategists distinguish between tactical victories and strategic objectives. Drawing on centuries of naval history, he demonstrated how naval and military operations must work in concert, with each serving the other's aims. Though written to illuminate British imperial strategy, the principles here transcended their moment. Every serious student of strategy since has had to grapple with Corbett's central insight: that naval power is always subordinate to political purpose.