Elleman, Bruce A.

Paine, S. C. M.

Swartz, Peter M.

English

U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons

Naval War College ReviewVolume 66Number 4 Autumn Article 122013Naval Power and Expeditionary Warfare:Peripheral Campaigns and New Theatres of NavalWarfarePeter M. SwartzBruce A. EllemanS. C. M. PaineFollow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-reviewThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contactrepository.inquiries@usnwc.edu.Recommended CitationSwartz, Peter M.; Elleman, Bruce A.; and Paine, S. C. M. (2013) "Naval Power and Expeditionary Warfare: Peripheral Campaigns andNew Theatres of Naval Warfare," Naval War College Review: Vol. 66 : No. 4 , Article 12.Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol66/iss4/12 1 4 2  Nava l  Wa r  C o l l e g e  r e v I e Welleman, bruce a., and s. C. M. Paine, eds. na-val Power and expeditionary warfare: Peripheral campaigns and new Theatres of naval warfare. Cass series. New york: routledge, 2011. 256pp. $180the eminent naval historian david rosenberg once advised this reviewer that serious readers of good naval his-tory can expect one of three outcomes: they will be entertained; they will be informed; or they will be empowered. the fortunate readers of this timely book will fall into all three categories. but above all, they will be empowered.this book is a compendium of thir-teen case studies of various wars and campaigns by some of the most distin-guished naval historians and analysts in the United states, the United Kingdom, and australia. the case studies are short, readable, and often exciting. some of the events are well known, others less so. so the book will certainly entertain.It also will certainly inform. andrew lambert’s tale of the royal Navy’s White sea campaign of 1854 contributes enormously to our understanding of the nineteenth century’s great global mari-time war against russia—misnamed the Crimean War. (that real-world event was a key progenitor of admiral Mahan’s formulation of a construct for a counter-russian war in “the Problem of asia” [1900] and of the concepts that underlay the reagan administration’s Maritime strategy of the 1980s.) Coeditor s. C. M. Paine provides a fascinating analysis of Japanese military and naval strat-egy during World War II, making the point that peripheral and expeditionary campaigns are not necessarily panaceas but can even prove disastrous. later in the volume, david stevens reminds us of the details of one of those campaigns, in New guinea—a campaign that while peripheral to the great powers was central to australia, a country whose military past must become much more familiar to us as our focus shifts to the asia-Pacific. bruce elleman’s quick de-scription of China’s 1974 naval expedi-tion to the Paracels should be required reading for anyone scanning today’s headlines. other chapters explore legal issues in expeditionary campaigns and shed fresh light on the Peninsular War, gallipoli, Mesopotamia, guadalcanal, Korea, Malaya, the falklands, Iraq, and the war on terror. John Hattendorf  contributes a short but perceptive foreword, a perfect scene setter.However, where the book truly excels is as a vehicle of empowerment. In both their analytical and well-argued intro-duction and conclusion, elleman and Paine propound a thesis that there are insights to be gained from considering naval expeditionary operations in pe-ripheral areas as constituting a discrete subset of military operations and that those insights can be compounded by comparing and contrasting the thirteen cases under scrutiny. they are correct. However, it will be the rare reader who will buy completely into their char-acterization of the coherence of their concept, and an even rarer one who will not pause to think about the rationale they present for including these specific case studies. (examples would be Peter Jones’s discussion of the 2003 maritime campaign in Iraq and John reeves’s treatment of the war on terror.) It can be difficult to view, as the editors do, the re-lationship between the Pearl Harbor raid and the sino-Japanese War in the same 1Swartz et al.: Naval Power and Expeditionary Warfare: Peripheral Campaigns and NPublished by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2013 b o o K  r e v I e Ws  1 4 3light as that between the 1982 battle for the falklands/Malvinas and the Cold War, or that between the U.s. Navy’s contribution to operations eNdUrINg freedoM and IraQI freedoM and the global war on terror. their analo-gies sometimes appear forced and their syntheses sometimes, well, stretched.but far more important is the expan-sion in thinking that this book is sure to engender. for all the debates with the editors and authors that will arise in readers’ minds as they turn the pages, previously unthought-of concepts and insights are bound to emerge as well. Peripheral naval campaigns can win a war or waste valuable resources in profitless undertakings. this book explains how and why this has hap-pened, and it yields insights for future planning. No serious reader who actively engages with the arguments that the editors present and the examples that they provide will finish this provoca-tive book without a greatly enlarged understanding of the past, present, and potential uses and limitations of naval power. as we enter a new era of military and naval operations, that understand-ing can empower us indeed, especially the policy makers, staff officers, and analysts who support those operations.this, of course, is not the first time that Professors elleman and Paine have done something like this. this book follows at least two similar earlier efforts, a volume on naval blockades and sea power and one on naval coalition warfare. like those compendiums, naval Power and expeditionary warfare seeks to get its arms around a topic vital for naval policy and strategy today by looking to the past for data and concepts. like those earlier volumes, it definitely succeeds. all in all, this is an important book for naval historians, strategists, and operators to engage with, learn from, and ponder.Peter M. sWartZ cna Strategic Studies, alexandria, virginiaKoistinen, Paul a. C. State of war: The Political economy of american warfare 1945–2011. law-rence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 2012. 313pp. $39.95the last volume of Paul Koistinen’s five-volume study of the political economy of american warfare from the nation’s colonial period of the seventeenth century to the present day, this new book analyzes U.s. foreign policy and national defense from the end of World War II to the present. In it Koistinen studies the decisions and actions that led to the development of the current U.s. national security system and what was termed by dwight d. eisenhower the “military-industrial complex” (MIC). this study includes a comprehensive historical examination of the rela-tionships among american political, economic, and military institutions and of the combined effects of U.s. policy decisions. It is an assessment of the ac-tions and decisions made by important institutions in the U.s. national-security establishment. Koistinen devotes a chapter each to the presidency, Con-gress, the military, the defense industry, the scientific community, and think tanks in a consistently organized and chronological assessment of key foreign and domestic events, government poli-cies, and institutional actions. the last two chapters synthesize government actions and policies, with their result-ing impacts on the national economy. 2Naval War College Review, Vol. 66 [2013], No. 4, Art. 12https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol66/iss4/12

Naval Power and Expeditionary Warfare: Peripheral Campaigns and New Theatres of Naval Warfare

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Naval Power and Expeditionary Warfare: Peripheral Campaigns and New Theatres of Naval Warfare

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