This book adopts an innovative new approach to examine the role of maritime power and the utility of navies. It uses a number of case studies based upon key Royal Navy operations in the twentieth century to draw out enduring principles about maritime power and to examine the strengths and limitations of maritime forces as instruments of national policy.
Individual chapters focus on campaigns and operations from both World Wars and a series of post-1945 crises and conflicts from the Palestine Patrol in the 1940s to Royal Navy operations in support of British policy in the 1990s. Each case...

This book breaks new ground as the first full account of the role of amphibious warfare in British strategy between VE Day and the Anglo-French assault on Suez in 1956. Ian Speller analyses the development of postwar strategic planning and the manner in which this influenced the nature of Britain's armed forces in the 1940s and 1950s. By detailing the development of equipment, doctrine and the role of the Royal Marines he sheds new light on the military response to a succession of overseas crises.