Unlike his contemporary American theorist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Britain’s eminent maritime strategist, Sir Julian Corbett, believed that victory in war did not come simply by the exercise of sea power and that, historically, this had never been the case. Corbett’s keen analysis of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and his discussion of the pros and cons of limited conflict is still of great value to our understanding of today’s limited wars. Based on intelligence reports provided by the Japanese government, this work on the Russo-Japanese naval war was written as an official study in the years just before World War I and classified “confidential” by the Royal Navy. The two-volume study demonstrates the lessons the war held for the future and shows the essential differences between maritime and continental warfare, while also exploring their interaction.
