| Summary/Abstract |
Maritime strategy—the application of a nation’s sea power to achieve its
political ends—can be a complicated, multilayered affair, especially for a
great power such as the United States. American maritime strategy’s complex, and
frankly esoteric, nature is exacerbated by the country’s fragmented, “stovepiped”
military and other governance structures. No single agency has the responsibility,
authority, and perspective both to develop and to execute the country’s maritime
strategy. Thus we observe the clashes between the U.S. Navy and Congress, in
which legislators override both the Navy and the Secretary of Defense, taking
control of naval shipbuilding plans.1
Recently, despite the issuance by the Navy,
Marine Corps, and Coast Guard of the strategy document Advantage at Sea,
Congresswoman Elaine G. Luria (D-VA) felt compelled to write a post calling for
a new maritime strategy of the sort the Navy developed in the 1980s.
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