To Rule Eurasia’s Waves: The New Great Power Competition at Sea
Geoffrey F. Gresh. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020. 363 pp. Maps. Notes. Index. $40.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Blake Herzinger, U.S. Navy Reserve
A new age of navalism has risen, and the United States is behind the power curve.
In a sweeping treatment of strategic thought and maritime affairs, Geoffrey Gresh paints a dismal portrait of a new strategic environment that has developed in a period of U.S. preoccupation with its long-running counterinsurgencies in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Competition, a recently beloved buzzword, receives the kind of analytic rigor that has been missing, and the author walks readers through the interplay between economic prosperity, great power status, and maritime power.
To Rule Eurasia’s Waves is a book for naval professionals and strategists alike. At times, the flurry of acronyms, tonnages, rates, and percentages can be daunting, but Gresh’s dedication to a comprehensive analysis makes it worth it. He illustrates, time and again, that the long-held assumption of U.S. primacy at sea is in question the world over, and opposition forces are marching (or, rather, sailing) to seize the advantage. The world that once existed is gone, and a new global order for trade is growing in its place. And this new order is not intended to accommodate U.S. interests. The economics of geopolitics, or geoeconomics, at play show a rising India, resurgent Russia, and powerful People’s Republic of China racing to create or control maritime infrastructure that will enable their respective strategic goals for the Eurasian landmass.
The author does well linking the strategic literature of the naval sphere (Mahan, Corbett, Gorshkov, and others), while acknowledging the renewed, or perhaps remembered, requirement for the naval professional to engage with strategists such as Mackinder and Spykman, whose works on the control of Eurasia surely will see a renaissance as competition increases. Gresh’s work offers new eyes on the question of Eurasia, particularly with regard to the Far North, which largely was mare incognitum for generations before but will be host to increasing competition as ice retreats.
The sheer volume of detail Gresh offers is incredible. From the European littorals awash in Chinese cash (China controls one-tenth of European port capacity) to China’s domestic maritime industry (it maintains seven of the top ten largest container ports in the world), the author brings to life the convoluted web of corporations and state-owned enterprises forming the vanguard of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Maritime Silk Road. Even for readers well versed in these endeavors, there is something to learn in To Rule Eurasia’s Waves.
In a book packed with so much detail, perhaps it is inevitable that a few inaccuracies would sneak past the copy editor. Small errors, such as the Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT) exercise being recorded by its former name Southeast Asia Cooperation Against Terrorism (the name changed in 2011), do not detract from the argument. Some more considerable factual errors do affect the narrative, such as citing China and India as members of Combined Task Forces 150 and 151 when, in fact, both nations conduct counterpiracy missions entirely independently, coordinating on occasion with Combined Maritime Forces. The only other lament might be the author’s election to limit his own recommendations to the final ten pages of this tour de force, leaving the reader wishing Gresh spent a bit more time fleshing out his excellent creative solutions.
In all, To Rule Eurasia’s Waves is an invaluable contribution to strategic thought for the naval professional. It deserves a place in naval professional military education syllabi, as well as thoughtful engagement by organizations, based on the implications of Gresh’s research. As a maritime nation, the United States cannot afford to be a bystander as global maritime trade is reorganized to its disadvantage, and this work should serve as a warning that the nation already is in dangerous waters.
Lieutenant Commander Herzinger is a U.S. Navy Reserve foreign area officer and nonresident WSD-Handa Fellow at the Pacific Forum. He became a U.S. Naval Institute Life Member in 2018. The opinions expressed are offered in his personal capacity and do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Navy or his civilian employer. You can find him on Twitter at @BDHerzinger.
UNSINKABLE: Five Men and the Indomitable Run of the USS Plunkett
James Sullivan. New York: Scribner, 2020. 390 pp. Photos. Appx. Notes. $30.
Reviewed by A. Denis Clift
The combat record of the destroyer USS Plunkett (DD-431) stands in the front ranks of heroic World War II ships and crews. Following her commissioning in mid-1940 and Atlantic neutrality patrols, she escorted convoys, participated in the North African campaign, the invasion of Sicily, the Italian campaign, the Normandy invasion, and the invasion of southern France—all punctuated by shipyard repairs and overhauls—then traveled out to the Pacific to escort postwar occupation forces, before decommissioning in 1946 and transferring to Taiwan’s Navy. During the Anzio landings, she would miraculously survive vicious, relentless attacks and bombings by more than a dozen German bombers.
James Sullivan captures the Plunkett’s exploits and more in Unsinkable. Thinking back to former President Harry S. Truman’s observation that the only thing new in the world is the history you have not read, the only thing newer comes in writings that peel back histories to remarkable new levels of detail. Sullivan has interviewed crew members still alive, as well as crew families and friends, and mined logs, diaries, photos, and National Archives holdings to highlight the Plunkett’s exploits through five members of her crew:
• Commander Edward J. Burke, ship’s commanding officer
• Lieutenant Kenneth B. Brown, gunnery officer
• Lieutenant John P. Simpson, first lieutenant and leader in damage control parties
• Watertender Third Class James D. Feltz, repair parties and fire room during general quarters
• Watertender Third Class John J. Gallagher, manning one of the 20-mm guns during general quarters
Readers live a bit of each of their lives from childhood—their interests, aspirations, wiles, and lives on board and ashore while serving on board the Plunkett—from All-American Naval Academy football captain, now skipper Burke, to Simpson being denied transfer orders to the Pacific by Burke, who needed his damage-control skills, to Watertender Feltz in Casablanca, searching for and finding his Army brother.
From the Battle of Anzio:
Eddie Burke had parried two glide bombs, one torpedo, and now the bomb drops were on him like hail, falling between twenty yards and two hundred. . . . Ken Brown brought down the first plane at the twelve-minute mark.
Looking through a little window in the floor of his Junkers Ju-88, a Luftwaffe pilot maneuvered the Plunkett into position, released his payload, a stick of five bombs, each weighing 550 pounds, the fourth exploding twenty yards off the starboard stern, blowing off the ship’s port screw. The fifth fell directly on the 1.1-inch gun mount and exploded with a flash that illuminated the vessel in a stark, apocalyptic snapshot. In the director, the explosion registered as a thump, more felt than heard, that was not obvious to Ken Brown. He had no idea what it felt like to have a 550-pound bomb hit and then explode in the bowels of your ship.
Gallagher’s gun tub, 15 yards from the 1.1-inch mount, was spared the full thrust of the explosion by the back of the deckhouse. . . . The blast drove him into his shoulder braces. Shrapnel flailed his backside like a whip with a dozen tips. . . . Burke rendered his ship like a fighter on the ropes, who rises, between each of his opponent’s failed hooks and jabs, to counter hard. . . . At two-thirty [the next afternoon], a patrol craft sortied out of Palermo to escort the ship into harbor. Four allied aircraft minded the airspace, peeling away repeatedly to double back on the little ship below, a gesture that was partly a matter of security but mostly, perhaps, a matter of honor. . . . “He fought his ship so heroically,” the Navy later said of Burke’s command performance at Anzio. . . . They got him in the end, but not all of him, and not so badly that Plunkett wasn’t going to come back one day for another round, and then another, before it was all done.
Late naval historian and author James Hornfischer has written about destroyers and destroyermen, including his best-selling The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, which the Naval Institute Press’s Dead Reckoning imprint will soon publish in a new, graphic-novel edition. In a recent exchange shortly before his passing, Hornfischer, who was this work’s literary agent, observed, “What Sullivan has achieved in Unsinkable is remarkable, technically sound, emotionally deep and compulsively readable. I don’t know a better ship’s history.”
I agree.
Mr. Clift is the U.S. Naval Institute’s vice president for planning and operations and president emeritus of the National Intelligence University.
How to Think Like an Officer: Lessons in Learning and Leadership for Soldiers and Civilians
Colonel Reed Bonadonna, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired). Guilford, CT: Stackpole Books, 2020. 221 pp. Notes. Biblio. Index. $29.95.
Reviewed by Commander Nicholas Hoffmann, U.S. Navy
An insightful and deeply thought-provoking work, Reed Bonadonna’s new book, How to Think Like an Officer, is a welcome addition to a military leader’s bookshelf. A Marine with both active-duty and reserve experience, Bonadonna also is a career educator, and his work brings together both facets of his professional life. In addition to offering timely advice on leadership relevant to both new and seasoned officers, he also focuses on the tools needed to be a leader, from suggested books to read to ways to structure one’s thought processes. This added depth makes How to Think Like an Officer different from most leadership books, as it pulls lessons and examples from across the liberal arts and deep in history instead of focusing on the recent past or purely military examples.
Following this twofold structure, Bonadonna divides his book into two parts, titled, respectively, “Thinking and Learning” and “Thought and Action.” The first half of the book covers basic concepts—how to think and what to read, in addition to common pitfalls and barriers to clear, decisive thought. Widely read himself, Bonadonna recommends officers draw leadership lessons from more than just their required professional reading or “standard” references, to include not-so-obvious sources such as historical fiction, classic literature, poetry, and drama. He illustrates his points with examples from military history, holding up George C. Marshall as a model staff officer, and using World War I “trench poets” such as Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, and Wilfred Owen to illustrate how officers can be artists as well as warfighters.
Moving into “Thought and Action,” the second half of the book discusses how to implement the thought processes and techniques Bonadonna details in the first half of one’s professional life as a military officer. While much of this section stresses the importance of the fundamentals—personal organization, understanding the tactical, operational, and strategic aspects of military operations, among others—Bonadonna once again goes deeper with a chapter on the officer as visionary. Here, he encourages officers to look beyond the basics and to be introspective, imaginative, and reflective in their personal and professional lives—and even to dare to dream. He concludes the book by stressing his overarching point that military officers should also be intellectuals. This emphasis on intellectuality in the officer corps is more important now than ever, with the growing complexity of modern, multidimensional conflict and the place of war as one outcome on a continuum of strategic options.
Bonadonna focuses his work specifically on the officer corps, since, as he points out early in the book, officers are called to be both leaders and professionals. Still, How to Think Like an Officer is a valuable reference for many who do not hold commissioned rank for its deep, multidisciplinary focus on how to approach leadership from an intellectual perspective. Those aspiring to commissioned service, long-serving professional noncommissioned officers, and individuals working alongside the military in both the public and private sectors will benefit from this book and the recommendations it gives for the well-rounded military professional.
How to Think Like an Officer is a book whose time has come. While the importance of a solid technical background in modern military organizations is continually emphasized and given priority, the importance of professional military leaders having a grounding in the liberal arts is equally as critical and is a key takeaway of this new book.
Commander Hoffmann is a career surface warfare officer who has served in a variety of ships and afloat staffs. He currently is the requirements and experimentation officer at Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center Sea Combat Division.
Military Strategy: A Global History
Jeremy Black. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020. 306 pp. Notes. Biblio. Index. $35.
Reviewed by Major Chris Buckham, Royal Canadian Air Force (Retired)
Jeremy Black is world renowned as one of the most prolific authors of history today, with more than100 books to his credit and a litany of board appointments for a number of well respected journals and magazines. His most recent work on military strategy was awaited with great anticipation.
Black notes in his introduction that while strategy has become a byword in government, industry, military, and academia in the modern day, its core focus and intent has been lost and diluted. His intent in writing this book is to present a perspective on how strategy has been employed throughout history and to bring to the fore non-Eurocentric ideas on the application of strategy. Readers will be struck by the audacity and breadth of the endeavor.
It should be noted that this book is not for the faint of heart or a novice strategy reader. There is an assumption of a fairly advanced baseline understanding of history and the key participants who are referenced in the book. In addition, the work is quite dense and heavy and requires a more advanced vocabulary than would be expected in a traditional contemporary work.
Appreciating that the thesis of the book was going to present significant challenges in execution, Black introduces his subject well, laying the groundwork for the detailed analysis to follow. Unfortunately, evidence of overreach rapidly makes itself known in the following chapters. While references to Indian, Chinese, Ottoman, and Japanese rulers and cultures are made, these are only skimmed without a depth of analysis that would enable them to act as a foil to Western dogma. Thus it is, for example, that the Chinese Kangxi Emperor, whom the author compares to Julius Caesar or Napoleon, is not given any depth of comment or mention of how he enacted his strategy in an environment so different from the West. With each chapter, further emphasis is placed on the roles and approaches of traditional Western powers such as the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany. In addition, while the role of nonoperational influencers of strategy (such as logistics, technology, and demographics) are mentioned, they are not included within the more detailed exploration of strategy presented.
Nevertheless, Black does present a series of excellent insights into how strategy should be considered and applied based on his historical review. He postulates that theory is fine (in theory); however, all the books and works related to the theoretical application of strategy need to be understood against the context of strategy as dynamic and changing. There is no “one size fits all” model when it comes to appreciating how to apply a strategy to a given circumstance; strategic aims and goals of states change with the passage of time. He makes the observations, with examples, that constraints (what must be done) and restraints (what must not be done) influence the strategic vision of a state. Moreover, things such as what constitutes a victory for a state (e.g., the Yom Kippur War of 1973), what is acceptable behavior in the execution of war, and what represents the element undertaking the execution of strategy (e.g., the War on Terror) are not fixed. These aspects differ with time, perspective, and expectations of the actors involved.
The author sums up his work with a comprehensive bibliography and footnotes section. Overall, this is a valiant attempt at a comprehensive study of the practice of strategy throughout history, which, while it contains some very valuable analysis and discussion, was really doomed to fall short of the aggressive outcome the author set for himself.
Major Buckham is a retired Royal Canadian Air Force logistics officer. He is an avid reader, historian, and book reviewer. He maintains a blog of his reviews at themilitaryreviewer.blogspot.com.
The Saddest Words: William Faulkner’s Civil War
Michael Gorra. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020. 433 pp. Notes. Index. $20.
Reviewed by Captain Bill Bray, U.S. Navy (Retired)
The year 2020 is one most will want to forget. But, amid all the strife and suffering, last year did remind us that a nation’s peoples neither forget the most searing episodes in their history nor ever completely agree on what they mean, never mind what exactly happened. During last summer’s nationwide social justice protests, we found ourselves, yet again, debating the legacy of the Civil War and how we should remember Confederate generals.
The worst conflict in U.S. history is always with us. Each succeeding generation believes the war is the long-dead past, but it remains, lurking in the American collective unconscious for years until, every so often, it leaps back into our lives, forcing us to confront it, and ourselves, yet again. With impeccable timing, into the 2020 version of this national recurrence steps Michael Gorra with a masterful achievement—an intricate blend of Civil War history, biography, and literary criticism.
William Faulkner knew the past of his people well, but as an artist he was most interested in how they thought about the past, and how the past always lives in the present and determines the future. Past, present, and future are not neatly distinguished in the human mind, and Faulkner’s greatest achievement—the one that makes him perhaps the greatest writer in American letters—is how he demonstrates this narratively. In a 1956 interview with Jean Stein for The Paris Review, Faulkner remarked:
The fact that I have moved my characters around in time successfully . . . proves to me my own theory that time is a fluid condition which has no existence except in the momentary avatars of individual people. There is no such thing as “was”—only “is.” If “was” existed, there would be no grief or sorrow.
Faulkner’s readers do not observe streams of consciousness. They swim in them.
Faulkner rarely recounts Civil War scenes in his oeuvre, yet the war is always there, its traumas swirling just beneath the surface of both scenery and dialogue. Most of Faulkner’s characters know the Civil War only as a fragmented labyrinth of memories and myths passed down to them. They feel the past as their truth, while acknowledging, as Quentin Compson does in Absalom, Absalom!, that they do not fully understand their own history. Gorra samples from many of Faulkner’s intertwining Yoknapatawpha County stories that form the heart of his life’s work, but none more so than from the Sutpen family history in Absalom, Absalom!
Readers of The Sound and the Fury (1929) know that Quentin kills himself on 2 June 1910, following his freshman year at Harvard. In Absalom, Absalom! (1936), we begin the year prior, in 1909, with Quentin tortured in discovering who he is, a terrifying self-awareness that coheres as he searches for the truth about Thomas Sutpen and his son Henry—specifically why Henry murders his half-brother Charles Bon at the end of the war. Quentin Compson is not just from, but rather is the past—an incarnation of the pathos of a region defeated and desperate for the balm of Lost Cause mythology. He bears the burdens of the racial divide that intensified following the failure of Reconstruction and the rarely acknowledged secret of Southern plantation heritage that would became the cardinal sin in the Jim Crow South, miscegenation.
Absalom, Absalom! appeared the same year Margaret Mitchell published Gone With the Wind, for which she would win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Mitchell presented a highly romanticized, white-washed Civil War history to a still deeply racist country, and Americans loved it. William Faulkner, notwithstanding his many personal flaws and contradictions regarding race, was the far more courageous writer in never ceasing to search, through his literature, for what the Civil War really means for who we are and where we are going. As his character Gavin Stevens, the lawyer in Requiem for a Nun (1951), remarks, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Last year showed us, again, how true that is.
Captain Bray is a retired naval intelligence officer and the deputy editor-in-chief of Proceedings.
