Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World's Oceans Hardcover – June 6, 2017

Great book, Great author, he really knows the subjects, and is easy to read and understand. I recommend all his books.

I set out with what I think may be a typical view--that land armies contesting over land masses achieve dominance. Adm. Stavridis demonstrates that those land masses are substantially, and critically, affected by, and dependent upon, the vast seas that encompass them. I take that to have been his intent, as he leverages his life experience and his substantial historical study to make the case. Perhaps to attempt to offer a drone's-eye view of Earth's entire watery surface is a bit too ambitious, so there is an element of discursiveness, and I, for myself, would have appreciated an occasional glimpse of tactics. For one whose feet are firmly on terra firma, it would appear that naval assets, especially surface vessels, are "sitting ducks" and extremely vulnerable, though that seems not to be the case; I'd like to know a little more of the "why not."

Admiral Jim Stavridis is as genial, savvy, and knowledgeable a guide across the world's oceans as ever there was. His work is a tour d'horizon of the watery frontiers of the globe, and it results in tour de force of a book: a remarkable blend of history, public policy analysis, strategy, and memoir. The admiral divides the book into chapters that (naturally, but way harder than it sounds) cover the historic and strategic importance of each of the world's oceans. Without seeming to break a sweat and with a pleasant and personable tone throughout, Stavridis takes the reader on a voyage through the history, literature, and current policy and political eddies of each body of water. That is a daunting enough assignment, even for someone who served in the navy for four decades and culminated his career as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (the NATO commander.) But each chapter is made personal by the way the admiral folds in his own experiences as a naval officer, extending back to his midshipman third-class ("youngster") cruise as a seventeen year-old in 1972 as he discusses his introduction to the Pacific Ocean, and ending with his time as the four-star commander of NATO and the intricate details of Arctic Ocean policy. It is obvious -- even without knowing that the author's last book is called "The Leader's Bookshelf" -- that Admiral Stavridis is a fiendish reader, and he makes easy reference to literature from Homer to Shakespeare to Wouk to illustrate and make more accessible his equally impressive analysis of a daunting range of history, policy, and strategy standards. Admiral Stavridis concludes with a gentle but precise and wholly appropriate update of his military and literary predecessor Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose magisterial "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" (published in 1890) is of course (until now perhaps) the reigning guide to the world's oceans and geopolitical thought. I say this as a simple matter of fact that it is probable that future libraries of midshipmen and naval cadets in the world's seafaring nations will have Mahan and Stavridis on the bookshelf side-by-side. If you are interested in history, literature, biography, memoir, or the world (and you know you are), you will love this book.

Provides helpful information on the world’s oceans and large waterways. Good information for those cruising in the oceans and large waterways.

Q: What is the difference between a fairy tale and a sea story?A:A Fairy tale begins,” Once upon a time…”A sea story begins: No bull! Is was just like this…”TraditionalLarge parts of Admiral and Professor’s James Stavridis’ Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World's Oceans is a combination of sea stories and shallow recitations of history. This history is not just undergraduate level, it may have been gleaned from Naval Academy undergraduate essays. The sea stories may serve to emphasize that he is writing about places he knows firsthand, but that makes this too much of a memoir, that is less than an autobiography. All of that aside some of his analysis is very insightful, important and perhaps necessary.In particular every one of his warnings about China as the dominant, and less than friendly power Across the East, North and South China Seas has proved to be no less than prescient. And in the years since publication, China exhibits no indications of becoming less so. Likewise his warnings about Russia as a slightly less, but carefully growing threat in its many areas of geographic self-interest need to be part of America’s situational awareness. However much we celebrated the “End of History” at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Admiral is very clear sighted in sharing with us some of what he learned from being there as various aspects of 2021 geo-politics were manifesting themselves in 2017.Having addressed the major points, there are a few reef points, ( As a USNA graduate he will get the reference.) Adm. Stavridis cannot help but be very conversant with terms like the “littoral”, and “choke points’, but he misses the duty of an educator, particularly when writing to a general audience, to make clear the meaning of the terms and underlining the importance of them.littoral, broadly speaking is that part of a land mass, island or continent, that is suitable for amphibious action. A more technically accurate definition is that the littoral is where the sea comes up to the shore, rather like where the beach comes into the sea. At the time this book was being written the Navy was very concerned with adopting this term in its strategic thinking and in fact new classes of ships were built with this new point of view in mind.At the end of the book, Adm. Stavaridis acknowledges that in choosing the name Sea Power, he was taking up where Professor E B Potter’s standard text book Sea Power had ended. Both The Admiral and I read this book as part of our plebe year Naval History course. He should have more deeply considered why the Potter book was a standard text. What The Admiral might have done better with his book, would have been to give some preference to defining Sea Power, its various concepts and why a general reader will benefit from such knowledge.