Applications

Abstract

THIS book has had to explore a subject of which even the existence is controversial. The reader has been dragged through thickets of objections merely to establish that the concept of limited naval force is capable of definition, that its employment can be discerned and analysed in recent history, that the likely pattern of future developments need not exclude an expedient for which the resources and, in a lesser degree, even the doctrines are available. A vast array of conditional and dependent clauses, all in the subjunctive mood, has been piled up and now awaits, as if it were the nightmare sentence of some German pedant, significant release in the final verb. Having explained what has been done, having argued at length what might be done, it would be agreeable to reach a conclusion, whether by venturing a prediction or by hazarding some recommendation. At the very least some indication is needed of the potential utility of these ideas.

Diseases desperate grown

By desperate appliance are relieved

Or not at all

Shakespeare¹