Lieutenant Suarez’s analysis of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s thinking on maritime economic warfare is acute. He gives Mahan proper credit for his understanding of the implications of globalization and the potential of sea power to achieve decisive effects in a new economic paradigm. Suarez also clarifies the point—likewise raised by Nick Lambert—that, however much Mahan advocated the need for decisive victory at sea, he always understood that a successful fleet action was a means and not an end. Dominance at sea allowed domination of the enemy’s trade.
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1. Julian S. Corbett Naval Operations, vol. I, To the Battle of the Falklands December 1914 (London: Longmans Green, 1920), 179.
2. Julian S. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988), 269.
3. Julian S. Corbett Naval Operations, vol. II, 132.
4. “Since men live upon the land and not upon the sea, great issues between nations at war have always been decided—except in the rarest cases—either by what your army can do against your enemy’s territory and national life or else by the fear of what the fleet makes it possible for your army to do.” Corbett, Some Principles, 16.
5. Stephen M. Carmel, “Globalization, Security, and Economic Well-Being,” Naval War College Review 66, no. 1 (Winter 2013): 45.
