t to. It will depend, firstly, on the
importance the enemy attaches to the limited object, coupled with the
nature and extent of his preoccupations elsewhere, and, secondly, it will
depend upon the natural difficulties of his lines of communication and the
extent to which we can increase those difficulties by our conduct of the
initial operations. In favourable circumstances therefore (and here lies
the great value of the limited form) we are able to control the amount of
force we shall have to encounter. The most favourable circumstances and the
only circumstances by which we ourselves can profit are such as permit the
more or less complete isolation of the object by naval action, and such
isolation can never be established until we have entirely overthrown the
enemy's naval forces.

Here, then, we enter the field of naval strategy. We can now leave behind
us the theory of war in general and, in order to pave the way to our final
conclusions, devote our attention to the theory of naval warfare in
particular.

* * * * *

PART TWO

THEORY OF NAVAL WAR

* * * * *

CHAPTER ONE

THEORY OF THE OBJECT--
COMMAND OF THE SEA

* * * * *

The object of naval warfare must always be directly or indirectly either to
secure the command of the sea or to prevent the enemy from securing it.

The second part of the proposition should be noted with special care in
order to exclude a habit of thought, which is one of the commonest sources
of error in naval speculation. That error is the very general assumption
that if one belligerent loses the command of the sea it passes at once to
the other belligerent. The most cursory study of naval history is enough to
reveal the falseness of such an assumption. It tells us that the most
common situation in naval war is that neither side has the command; that
the normal position is not a commanded sea, but an uncommanded sea. The
mere assertion, which no one denies, that the object of naval warfare is to
get command of the sea actually connotes the proposition that the command
is normally in dispute. It is this state of dispute with which naval
strategy is most nearly concerned, for when the command is lost or won pure
naval strategy comes to an end.

This truth is so obvious that it would scarcely be worth mentioning w