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Early-Modern war absorbed large material resources, including manpower, warships, guns, ammunition and supplies, but there was one key element of warfare that was quite immaterial: information. This article analyses Spanish naval intelligence and deals with the production, collection, and management of information within and through the navy. To examine this complex issue this paper will focus on the Spanish naval intelligence system during the American Revolutionary War (1776–83). By the 1770s and the 1780s the Spanish navy had developed and improved an efficient framework that provided decisive information for the mobilisation of its naval forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eighteenth-century naval ships were impressive infrastructures, but subjected to extraordinary strain. To assist with their "voyage repairs," the Royal Navy gradually established numerous overseas bases, displaying the power, reach, and ruthless logistical efficiency of the British state. This article, however, is concerned with what happened where no such bases (yet) existed, in parts of the world falling in between areas of direct British administration, control, or influence. The specific restrictions imposed by technology and infrastructures have been studied by historians interested in naval strategy, but they can also help to reframe national narratives of power or observe the transnational interactions surrounding access to knowledge and resources. This paper discusses the material, cultural, and diplomatic constraints that could appear when vessels, and especially "discovery ships," sailed in strange waters or sought technical assistance in allied ports. I argue that the "mortification" of some commanders at their vessels' unfitness for service was an important – and often neglected – element on the palette of emotions undergone by voyagers, capturing their strong sense of ultimate material powerlessness. Such frustration even became embedded in imperial cartography, as shown by the case study of Matthew Flinders. This perspective highlights the limits of naval technology, complicating imperialistic "success stories" and better reintegrating the navy into the history of maritime travel and transportation, from which it is often singled out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of the battleship in naval strategy, challenging the contention that they were obsolete before the end of World War II, using the D-Day landings of June 1944 as its focus. It argues that battleships played two indispensable roles. First, they countered the threat from enemy capital ships, both to achieve command of the sea and to protect the invasion fleet. Second, they provided fire support both for the initial assault and also thereafter in defending the bridgehead and assisting the Allied advance, thereby contributing to the collapse of the German strategy for defence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 14 and 15 January 1942, a German and Italian maritime strategy conference occurred in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in order to coordinate a joint plan of action for the ongoing conduct of naval warfare. Drawing upon extensive exploration in German and Italian archives, this article challenges coventional wisdom and argues that coordination improved as a consequence of the meeting and that strategic realities, not a lack of intent to coordinate the two nations’ naval efforts, robbed the conference of its ability to create war-changing decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following article explores the significance of two British military expeditions deployed to the ancient Sudanese port city of Suakin on the Red Sea coast in 1884 and 1885. Although the British government claimed the expeditions were organized to support Egyptian forces in Sudan during the Mahdist revolt, the evidence suggests instead that the intervention was orchestrated as part of a wider effort to seize all Egyptian ports in the Red Sea to prevent them from falling into French hands. This move came as Britain began increasingly to rely on the imperial sea lanes to support its status as a global power in the late nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a commonplace that the Royal Navy entered the Great War intending to strangle the German economy through a strategy of blockade. This was not so. Prior to 1912 blockade was mainly seen as a means of attaining operational intelligence; economic warfare was secondary. For legal reasons blockade had to be abandoned in 1912. Thereafter, only contraband control remained as a means of waging economic warfare, and this was seen purely as a way of luring the Germans to battle. In 1914 the Royal Navy had no grand strategy, a fact that explains its hesitant performance in the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to China’s military modernization and growing anti-access/area denial capabilities, the US military has adopted an “Air Sea Battle” (ASB) concept entailing extensive strikes on the Chinese mainland. ASB has been embraced at the Pentagon and increasingly affects procurement decisions. Critics argue that ASB creates grave escalation risks and may incite an expensive arms race. Less discussed, but also of serious concern, is that ASB was adopted with little to no civilian oversight, in a case of “structural inattention.” This failure of civil–military relations derives from institutional factors such as the nature and composition of the White House staff, as well as from the administration’s pragmatic rather than strategic approach to China. It has also been facilitated by “subterranean factors” including the interests of influential military contractors and the military’s own inclination toward conventional warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have argued that, between 1912 and 1914, Britain’s naval leadership projected a so-called ‘intermediate blockade’, a line of vessels strung across the mid-North Sea. This strategy has been widely criticized as impractical and unrealistic. However, this article demonstrates that the Admiralty never projected such an approach. Rather, the naval leadership intended to adopt a system of mid-North Sea patrols during this period. By misunderstanding Admiralty policy before 1914, historians have been unable to ascertain that these patrols were resurrected in late 1914 and played an important part in the Royal Navy’s wartime strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has been experiencing major transformation in its naval strategy and capacity. Starting off in the late 1980s with rapid naval modernisation, China’s naval operation gradually shifts from the overwhelming ‘near seas’ to the more challenging ‘far seas’. This task is not an easy one. Whilst in the ‘near seas’ China has been enjoying relatively naval superiority, naval operations in the ‘far seas’ is more demanding. Assessing China’s naval capability in three areas of naval forces, naval activities and presence, and overseas naval bases throws a light on the discrepancy between actual capability and intention. Three reasons lend explanation for the hurdles China faces in implementing the ‘far-seas operations’. First, China is preoccupied with the geopolitical struggle in the ‘near seas’, namely, Taiwan, Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute in East China Sea, and the South China Sea dispute. Second, China is confronted with the ‘Malacca dilemma’ that shoves it to rethink its naval ambition. Third, the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) already has two major players, the United States and India, with which China has to struggle to pursue its interests. The three reasons combined with lack of naval capability to accommodate an effective ‘far-seas operations’ are accountable for China’s confined strategy in the IOR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows how Sir John Fisher, together with Edward VII, sought to use Britain’s naval strength as a tool of deterrence against Germany. By highlighting the Royal Navy’s strength and German vulnerability, they tried to convince policymakers in Berlin that war was not in German interests. This attitude underpinned much of Fisher’s naval policy and helps to explain some of his more extreme statements and actions, which have been the source of certain contradictions within the current historiography. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In order to cope with current security challenges, such as regional conflicts, humanitarian disasters or terrorist threats, European states in the post-Cold War era make important use of naval forces within a complex multilateral framework. However, the issues relating to European navies have rarely been tackled in the literature on multilateral military cooperation. Therefore this article aims to fill the gap by studying the nature of the European post-Cold War multilateral naval framework, and taking it as a case study to illustrate the current issues facing multinational military cooperation. To do so, the article focuses on the wider Mediterranean region, since most of the security challenges identified by the Europeans are now localized in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early nineteenth-century Admiralty there was little policy-making, policy-makers were few and the word 'policy' was scarcely ever used. At least in peacetime, economy was the default principle of action. Only by a century later had something approximating the modern pattern emerged. The growth from the 1880s of better internal Admiralty financial control was an important causal factor. It sponsored the development of a bureaucratic organization concerned with financial policy-making, anticipating here the similar development in the planning of naval strategy and construction. Moreover, it encouraged Admiralty civil servants to involve themselves in wider matters of policy. Also relevant are attempts made by the Treasury, principally between the two world wars, to enforce more external financial controls, though these were against the background of fundamental defence problems that themselves greatly aided the concentration of minds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the effectiveness of the decision of a Board of Admiralty to form a naval war staff as a response to the disconnection between structure and strategy in the Royal Navy. In order to follow the rapid changes and growth in naval technology, the Royal Navy established numerous departments and created proper positions for sea lords, such as a political head, one to plan strategies and tactics and one to handle materials. Difficulties were faced in selecting suitable officers to fill the positions because many officers felt overloaded with administrative duties, and thought that they lacked the sufficient training to handle the new responsibilities. The author offers several lessons and suggestions for an effective administrative reorganization.

The author criticizes the article by John Williams, "U.S. Navy Missions and Force Structure: A Critical Reappraisal," that appeared in the Summer 1981 edition of "Armed Forces and Society." He claims Williams' article is based on an inaccurate premise which ignores U.S. naval strategy, confusing definitions and arriving at false conclusions. The author maintains that maritime superiority requires the U.S. and its allies to defeat or neutralize the Soviet Navy, even in its home waters.

The article reports that Jericho has fallen after the Australian troops entered it in February 21, 1918 under the rule of general Edmund Allenby. After a brief fighting, the Turks were driven away from Jericho, a strategic position which gave the British control of the Dead Sea and access to the rich lands east of the sea and extended the British line right across Palestine.

The article offers world news briefs. The Zeppelin raids over the east coast of England and Scotland resulted in a considerable loss of life. The new British budget is based on the predicted continuance of the war. A discussion regarding the submarine policy in Berlin resulted in the adoption of an agreement on Germany's sea warfare strategy.

The article discusses the author's view on the war council at Paris, France attended by cabinet officers. The participation of these people is a proof that the need for advanced and combined action in the war is determined by the British and French governments. However, it is stressed that the situation is not precisely a conflict of action but regarded as a failure to favor for best military and naval strategy. The act of Allies as one Power in operations is considered crucial.