A Sea Control Revolution?

In recent years, there has been a quiet revolution in maritime strategy that has seen navies increasingly expected to exert greater levels of control over more of the world’s oceans, more of the time.

Drawing on work from my recent article in Comparative Strategy , I show how — for many countries — growing areas of the world’s seas and oceans now have considerable economic significance, and value in terms of sovereignty and identity. This newfound value has generated the demand for a new form of sea control, which is radically different from that set out in classical maritime strategy. Sea control is the foundational concept in traditional maritime strategy, but it is remarkably limited in scope. The expectation has always been that even the most powerful of states will only be able to achieve it “ in limited areas for limited periods of time .” Furthermore, it only really exists in wartime, as that is the only time when you can exclude another state from being able to use the seas. Within traditional maritime strategy, these limitations on the concept of sea control mattered little because the sea itself had no value. The seas were seen as a global commons which could not be owned or occupied. The sole purpose of sea control was to facilitate use — or deny it to an adversary. In Julian Corbett’s words, “ command of the sea is only a means to an end. It never has been, and never can be, the end itself .” The use of the seas was framed through the lens of maritime communications, and by that, classical maritime strategists meant ships . To use the seas, you only ever needed sufficient control to sail a ship over a specific bit of ocean at any given time. The Malta convoys in World War II provide an excellent example of this. The Mediterranean was a highly contested theatre, and the convoys relied on the British being able to achieve a moving bubble in which they had sufficient sea control to provide a reasonable level of protection.

Key points

• Drawing on work from my recent article in Comparative Strategy , I show how — for many countries — growing areas of the world’s seas and oceans now have considerable economic significance, and value…
• This newfound value has generated the demand for a new form of sea control, which is radically different from that set out in classical maritime strategy.
• Sea control is the foundational concept in traditional maritime strategy, but it is remarkably limited in scope.
• The expectation has always been that even the most powerful of states will only be able to achieve it “ in limited areas for limited periods of time .” Furthermore, it only really exists in wartime…
• Within traditional maritime strategy, these limitations on the concept of sea control mattered little because the sea itself had no value.