r those of its adversary (which correspond
to the communications of armies operating ashore). These have greatly
increased in importance strategically with the increased dependence of
modern fleets on a regular supply of coals, stores, ammunition, &c.

(2) The communications of an army operating from an advanced oversea
base, that is, communication between the advanced and the main base.

(3) Trade Routes, that is, the communications upon which depend the
national resources and the supply of the main bases, as well as the
"lateral" or connecting communications between various parts of
belligerents' possessions.

In Land Strategy the great majority of problems are problems of
communication. Maritime Strategy has never been regarded as hinging on
communications, but probably it does so, as will appear from a
consideration of Maritime Communications, and the extent to which they are
the main preoccupation of naval operations; that is to say, all problems of
Naval Strategy can be reduced to terms of "passage and communication," and
this is probably the best method of solving them.

* * * * *

PART TWO

NAVAL STRATEGY CONSIDERED AS A
QUESTION OF PASSAGE AND
COMMUNICATION

NAVAL STRATEGY DEFINED

By "Naval Strategy" we mean the art of conducting the major operations of
the fleet. Such operations have for their object "passage and
communication"; that is, the fleet is mainly occupied in guarding our own
communications and seizing those of the enemy.

We say the aim of Naval Strategy is to get command of the sea. This means
something quite different from the military idea of occupying territory,
for the sea cannot be the subject of political dominion or ownership. We
cannot subsist upon it (like an army on conquered territory), nor can we
exclude neutrals from it. The value of the sea in the political system of
the world is as a means of communication between States and parts of
States. Therefore the "command of the sea" means the control of
communications in which the belligerents are adversely concerned. The
command of the sea can never be, like the conquest of territory, the
ulterior object of a war, unless it be a purely maritime war, as were
approximately our wars with the Dutch in the 17th century, but it may be a
primary or immediate object, and even the ulterior object of particular
operations.

History shows that the actual functions of the