Overview

U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1970s: Selected Documents, edited by John Hattendorf, is the thirtieth in the Newport Paper monograph series and the second in a projected four volume set of authoritative documents on U.S. Navy strategy and strategic planning. The first volume in this series, U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1990s: Selected Documents, Newport Paper 27, also edited by Professor Hattendorf, appeared in September 2006. The current volume was originally intended to include documents relating to the development of the Navy's Maritime Strategy during the 1980s, but the bulk of relevant material has made it advisable to dedicate a separate volume to that period; this is due to appear shortly. A final volume will then cover documents from the 1950s and 1960s.When combined with Professor Hattendorf 's authoritative narrative of the genesis and development of the Maritime Strategy, The Evolution of the U.S. Navy's Maritime Strategy, 1977-1986, Newport Paper 19, these volumes will provide for the first time a comprehensive picture of the evolution of high-level U.S. Navy (and to some extent U.S. Marine Corps) strategic thinking over the half-century following the end of World War II. Many of the documents reprinted here were-and were intended to be-public statements. In all cases, however, these documents remain little known and mostly inaccessible, certainly outside the Navy itself. It is important to emphasize that they need to be read with careful attention to their historical and institutional contexts. They are in any case not always easy to interpret, and they differ substantially in the weight they carried at the time or later. For these reasons, we have felt it essential to present the documents accompanied by a general introductory essay that locates them in their appropriate contexts, as well as by brief commentaries on each providing additional pertinent information and attempting to assess their wider significances. This project, it is hoped, will contribute importantly not just to our understanding of our recent naval history but also to the serious study of military institutions, strategy, and planning more generally. Also, it is worth noting that this material is of more than merely historical interest. The U.S. Navy (with its sister sea services, the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard) is currently on the verge of completing a major review of its naval and maritime strategy in a new era of protracted low-intensity warfare and growing global economic interdependence. This exercise, whatever the immediate result may prove to be, has unquestionably served the valuable purpose of stimulating serious thought about fundamental strategic issues at many levels throughout the Navy. These volumes can be expected to be an important resource in a continuing process of strategic assessment and education as the Navy continues to adjust to a rapidly evolving security environment.

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