Paul Kennedy's warning on how the Royal Navy became irrelevant during World War II -- and are we doing the same now?

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Friday, November 16, 2012 - 6:27 AM Share

OK, I have finished Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery. It has been a long time since a single book gave me so much to think and blog about.

His bottom line is that military might rests on economic power, especially in the industrial era. But he says that the British Navy could have done better in World War II.

He lists three major errors in the Royal Navy's understanding of conflict in the mid-20th century:

--They overvalued the power of battleships and underestimated the threat to surface ships presented by aircraft and submarines.

--They neglected the major naval lesson of World War I, which was that the submarine had forever altered the nature of maritime combat.

--They didn't really understand the best role for aircraft carriers, which they saw more as scouting vessels for battleships than as the striking arm of the fleet.   

The result was that during World War II the British Navy was the biggest navy in the world, so it wasn't so much weak as it was irrelevant to the tasks at hand.

This is an interesting warning to those who believe we don't really need to think as long as we are strong. I wonder if our military establishment today resembles the Royal Navy of 1938 more than we understand -- that is, big, powerful, and irrelevant. That's my scary thought for the day.

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A SERVING OFFICER

12:39 PM ET

November 16, 2012

The Rules of the Game

Tom,

The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command by Andrew Gordon was just republished this month by Naval Institute Press. It would be a nice follow-on to Rise and Fall.

 

JPWREL

12:47 PM ET

November 16, 2012

Gordon's is a wonderful book

Gordon's is a wonderful book but a bit technical in parts for those not seasoned on naval history and technology.

 

TOM RICKS

1:00 PM ET

November 16, 2012

Megadittoes

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/25/learning_from_the_past

 

BOWIEKUEHN

3:46 PM ET

November 16, 2012

Royal Navy in the Interwar Period

Andrew's work is superb. Another good read on this topic is Geoffrey Till's chapter on the development of British Carrier aviation in Murray and Millett's Military Innovation in the Interwar Period. I might also recommend Chapter 8 of my own book, Agents of Innovation (Naval Institute Press, 2008).

We are studying this period right now at CGSC in Leavenworth. We will get to the Navy lesson shortly after Thanksgiving. Here are some comments to consider after reading Tom's post above:

What I did not do in [[my book]], but I try to with the Majors, is give the sense of
the sheer challenge posed to the RN by the missions being asked of
it--protect commerce both to homeland and in and about the Empire, defend
the Empire, to include in the Far East, defend the homeland [against invasion],and of course maintain the pipeline to the cash cow in the Raj through the Med--the threat/role of Italy in all that is critical and too often forgotten. Also, the Brits suspect the entire MED
SLOC is at risk from air power. At Crete they learn they are right. Finally, in his piece Geoffrey Till perhaps says it best when he writes:
"They were not dealing with blacks and whites, but with shades of gray.”
[page 193, Murray and Millett]
best, John

 

DR. H

8:33 PM ET

November 27, 2012

Hughes: The New Navy Fighting Machine, 2009

Wayne Hughes, Professor Emeritus at the Naval Postgraduate School risked blasphemy with his 2009 report "The New Navy Fighting Machine." It highlights the dangers of large capital ships (CVNs) in the missile age, and favors more, smaller platforms armed with missiles to disapate risk. It's an interesting read.

 

NACL

5:51 PM ET

November 20, 2012

Scary thought for the day.

Yes, economic health is at the root of a nation's strength. It creates both the means to create a military and the economic interests that need to be protected by a military.

A wealthy country without the muscle to defend itself, becomes its neighbor's 19th province.

A country with a military muscle it can't afford, debilitates its civilian muscle. As John le Carre said, The Red Knight bled to death inside his armor.

Britain's navy was a function of her empire. She could not maintain her colonies and their commerce with the home country, without those warships.

Her problem, after WWI (and even before) was far less the threat of U boats and conceivably, her misuse of aircraft carriers, than her economic exhaustion from an empire that cost more than it brought in.

Is there a scary parallel to our situation today?

The US military costs around 4% of GDP. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq consumed just 3.5% of federal spending between 2001 and 2011. The countries dependent on us militarily, Europe, Japan, S Korea, Taiwan, Israel, the Gulf Arabs, are wealthy and are not a burden economically. Our heavy military spending through the Cold War proved wise and affordable. It saved us from catastrophe. We retain an impressive military that awes the world, yet gives no one cause to fear for their freedom and prosperity

What is scary about any of that?

 

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post from 2000 through 2008.

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