| Publication |
2009.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The basic strategic problems confronting the U.S. Navy during the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s were how to move a large fleet across the Pacific, absorb or avoid Japanese attritional attacks, seize forward bases for further operations, and retain sufficient fighting strength to defeat Japan's Combined Fleet. Japanese and American policies in Asia were in conflict, and war was a possible result; the U.S. Navy planned to win by destroying Japan's navy, imposing a blockade, and forcing Japan's surrender. Details of the strategic dilemma were the focus of interwar plans, large fleet maneuvers, and complex war games at the Naval War College, in Newport, Rhode Island. By the time war arrived in 1941, the concept of an advance across the Pacific had become the subject of extensive and detailed strategic planning.
|