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ABSTRACT.Although unified modern India was a product of British sea power, it inherited a weak awareness of the sea and gained independence with few warships or merchant ships of its own. Growth was initially modest, but by the 1970s Indian governments were becoming aware of the risks of not controlling the Indian Ocean. Only the economic liberalization of 1991 revealed India's potential gains from world trade, and much of that still remains unrealised.
RÉSUMÉ.Bien que son unification fût le produit du pouvoir maritime britannique, l'Inde moderne n'hérita que d'une faible connaissance de la mer et gagna son indépendance avec peu de navires de guerres ou vaisseaux marchands lui appartenant. Sa croissance fut au départ modeste mais dans les années 1970, les gouvernements indiens commencèrent à prendre conscience des risques générés par le non-contrôle de l'océan indien. Seule la libéralisation économique de 1991 révéla les bénéfices potentiels que l'Inde pouvait tirer du commerce international, lesquels restent pour la plupart encore aujourd'hui irréalisés.
India has strong maritime traditions, but it is not a nation with a maritime outlook. This is the result in part of geography and in part of its history. It is a simple strategic reality that India, although a peninsula, has land borders that are twice the length of its coast. Equally significant is that relations with Pakistan have been tense, when not overtly hostile, over the entire period since partition and independence in 1947, while an undeclared war was fought with China on the disputed northern border in 1962, over a boundary that has yet to be agreed in 2015. Relations with other neighbours on land, such as Nepal and Bangladesh, have been somewhat less fractious, but never entirely comfortable.
And it is a simple historical fact that “India” as an entity is the result much more of its domination by the British than of its pre-colonial past, and that diversity marked – and continues to mark – the Indian maritime domain as much as that of the land. The sub-continent, made up of a patchwork of competing states, fell to the British as much through the latter's successful division of local rivals as through outright conquest. This was just as true at sea. Later proponents of Indian sea power were quick to point out that such a lack of Indian unity benefited the intruders much more than their undoubted technological superiority.
The relationship of naval historians with the contemporary navy is a discussion we need to have. Arguably, it is part of a wider question as to the relationship which naval historians should have to allthe services. Past conversations about the interactions between the military and historians have too often been conducted within a context that relates much more to the concerns of the army than the navy, and for that reason the dialogue has been limited and incomplete. Indeed, much of the paradigm of what is described as ‘Professional Military Education’ (PME) is that of a combat arm officer of the army. Naval historians may not always have been sufficiently active in making military (that is, land warfare) historians aware of the wider dimensions of the PME problem – although John Hattendorf 's quiet voice has been one of the most effective in attempting to restore the balance. It is also true, however, that naval officers have not been particularly successful in making their voices heard within what passes for inter-service discourse on PME matters.
There is more to do. There is much within the PME debate that is relevant to the navy, but also much that is left out. Far too much of PME and the role of history within it is about the management and direction of conflict on land and the relationships between policy makers and military leaders, rather than the wider problems associated with the management and direction of organisations and of technology in peace as well as war. There is something here of C.P. Snow's ‘Two Cultures’ because it may be partly driven by an aversion, however unconscious, to the complexities of technology in favour of the emotional satisfactions of human relationships. But if you are going to understand navies, you have to cover both – and more.
There are other contemporary problems with the naval profession with which historians may be able to help. They relate not only to naval form, but naval function. In many ways, they are the same problems being faced by other complex organisations in the contemporary world, but the nature of navies and the difficulty, to use modern management terms, of assessing their outputs makes their challenges even greater.
This book presents a wide range of new research on many aspects of naval strategy in the early modern and modern periods. Among the themes covered are the problems of naval manpower, the nature of naval leadership and naval officers, intelligence, naval training and education, and strategic thinking and planning. The book is notable for giving extensive consideration to navies other than those ofBritain, its empire and the United States. It explores a number of fascinating subjects including how financial difficulties frustrated the attempts by Louis XIV's ministers to build a strong navy; how the absence of centralised power in the Dutch Republic had important consequences for Dutch naval power; how Hitler's relationship with his admirals severely affected German naval strategy during the Second World War; and many more besides. The book is a Festschrift in honour of John B. Hattendorf, for more than thirty years Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the US Naval War College and an influential figure in naval affairs worldwide.
N.A.M. Rodger is Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.
J. Ross Dancy is Assistant Professor of Military History at Sam Houston State University.
Benjamin Darnell is a D.Phil. candidate at New College, Oxford.
Evan Wilson is Caird Senior Research Fellow at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
Contributors: Tim Benbow, Peter John Brobst, Jaap R. Bruijn, Olivier Chaline, J. Ross Dancy, Benjamin Darnell, James Goldrick, Agustín Guimerá, Paul Kennedy, Keizo Kitagawa, Roger Knight, Andrew D. Lambert, George C. Peden, Carla Rahn Phillips, Werner Rahn, Paul M. Ramsey, Duncan Redford, N.A.M. Rodger, Jakob Seerup, Matthew S. Seligmann, Geoffrey Till, Evan Wilson
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