From Sea to Shining Sea

[Valin]

Washington Free Beacon

REVIEW: ‘The Blue Age’ by Gregg Easterbrook

Jack Beyrer

September 5, 2021

President Theodore Roosevelt believed America’s future was on the high seas.

"Preparation for war is the surest guaranty for peace," Roosevelt, then just an assistant secretary of the Navy, told listeners at an 1897 speech at the Naval War College. "It is idle to talk of such a nation ever being led into a course of wanton aggression or conflict with military powers by the possession of a sufficient navy."

A decade later, the president dispatched the world’s most formidable fleet of warships around the world, effectively paving the road to American global leadership for the century to come.

Now the entire world prospers from waterways patrolled by the United States Navy: "a global force for good," as it used to fittingly call itself during the early 2010s. But a lack of awareness and interest from the American people in naval affairs and an adversary on the horizon with an intent to subvert American world order could end an age of commerce and prosperity that has, quite literally, lifted all boats. Gregg Easterbrook’s The Blue Age gets halfway to the core of this issue: It intuitively understands what’s good about this American age of seafaring, but cannot fathom its principal challenge.

(Snip)

If the mission remains global but the threat environment worsens, then surely Easterbrook would agree we can’t possibly expect our sailors to do more with less. Former Indo-Pacific Command chief Admiral Phil Davidson says that China wants to invade Taiwan in the next six years. If conflict were to happen right now, simulations show America losing, in no small part due to the rough shape of the fleet. If the Blue Age is this important, then Easterbrook would have done well to consider these concerns. To Provide and Maintain a Navy by former Navy captain Jerry Hendrix is one such title which fills this gap.

To understand why the Navy matters to global peace, The Blue Age is a great place to start. But, if one wants to take President Roosevelt’s advice and keep the peace, they would be best served dropping anchor elsewhere.

The Blue Age: How the US Navy Created Global Prosperity—And Why We’re in Danger of Losing It
by Gregg Easterbrook
PublicAffairs, 304 pp., $30

[SDwaters]

The US Navy isn't the organization I retired from.

Read the report on the USS John McCain collision at sea.

https://news.usni.org/2017/11/01/uss-fitzgerald-uss-john-s-mccain-collision-report

Somewhere in the last 20 years, training and competence have taken a back seat to careerism and political correctness.

[Valin]

@SDwaters

 

Thing is the US Military is and always has been a reflection of American society. You keep reading about Honor Code Violation at the various academies, and have to ask for everyone found how many haven't? We got some Work to do.