Maritime Strategy and Sea Control ─ Theory and Practice

This book focuses on the key naval strategic objectives of obtaining and maintaining sea control.

During times of war, sea control, or the ability of combatants to enjoy naval dominance, plays a crucial role in that side’s ability to attain overall victory. This book explains and analyzes in much greater detail sea control in all its complexities, and describes the main methods of obtaining and maintaining it. Building on the views of naval classical thinkers, this book utilizes historical examples to illustrate the main methods of sea control. Each chapter focuses on a particular method, including destroying the enemy forces by a decisive action, destroying enemy forces over time-attrition, containing enemy fleet, choke point control, and capturing important enemy's positions/basing area, The aim is to provide a comprehensive theory and practice of the struggle for sea control at the operational level. It should therefore provide a guide to practitioners on how to plan and conduct operational warfare at sea.

The book will be of much interest to students of naval strategy, defence studies and security studies.

Milan Vego is Professor of Operations at the Naval War College, Rhode Island, USA, and the author of ten books including Naval Strategy and Operations in Narrow Seas (Routledge 2003), and Operational Warfare at Sea (Routledge 2008).