How to Grow a Navy: The Development of Maritime Power

This  book examines the large but neglected topic of the development of  maritime power from both an historical and a contemporary point of view.

Navies  have never been more important than they are now, in a century  becoming, as widely expected, increasingly and profoundly maritime. The  growing competition between China and Russia with the United States and  its allies and partners around the world is essentially sea-based. The  sea is also central to the world's globalised trading system and to its  environmental health. Most current crises are either sea-based or have a  critical maritime element to them. What happens at sea will help shape  our future. Against that background, this book uses both history and  contemporary events to analyse how maritime power and naval strength has  been, and is being, developed. In a reader-friendly way, it seeks to  show what has worked and what has not, and to uncover the recurring  patterns in maritime and naval development which explain past, present  and future success - and failure. It reflects on the historical  experience of all navies, but in particular it poses the question of  whether China is following the same pattern of naval development  illustrated by Britain at the start of the 18th century, which led to  two centuries of naval dominance.

This  book will be of much interest to students of maritime power, naval  studies, and strategic studies, as well as to naval professionals around  the world.