Introduction to Revised Edition

Abstract

WHEN published in 1971 this book was the first to analyse the continuing political applications of limited naval force in the twentieth century. It examined the record of the fifty years from 1919 to 1969 to support the thesis that the use or threat of limited naval force, otherwise than as an act of war, still remained one of the techniques employed by governments to secure advantage or to avert loss in their international relations. As a pioneering essay in a somewhat restricted field the book has since been accorded the sincerest form of flattery by many more accomplished students of naval affairs. They have amplified, elaborated, modified and, on occasion, contested its arguments.¹ If the word is not too presumptuous for so minor a branch of a sub-discipline, the book founded a school.