inclinations would exert far different influence on regional maritime security than
would a sea power that adhered to Corbett or kindred theorists.
Chapter Summaries
This volume brings together essays examining the phenomenon of sea power in
Asia from a variety of functional and country perspectives. It is useful to briefly
explain the structure and logic of the book. The first three chapters of the volume
are designed to supply a historical backdrop to contemporary Asian maritime
affairs. Thus, this first section is essentially chronological, tracing the dominant
Asian sea powers of the past. The book begins with an overview of China’s role
in shaping the Asian maritime order since antiquity, providing a baseline for
analyzing Chinese maritime ambitions and capabilities today. This is followed
by a study of Great Britain’s strategic retreat from the Pacific theater during the
interwar period. It offers lessons on how a great naval power can adjust to an
environment undergoing rapid changes and stresses as multiple maritime states
rise simultaneously. This section ends with a chapter on U.S. maritime strategy
from the late nineteenth century to the present day. This narrative of America’s
quest for maritime power in Asia underscores the elusiveness of a stable strategy
in a region that has been repeatedly convulsed by unexpected and sudden strategic
transitions.
The second part of the volume contains five chapters on national/regional case
studies involving China, India, Japan, and Southeast Asia. The first chapter on
China conducts a thorough net assessment of the Chinese navy. The second is
an analysis of China’s oil tanker fleet. The intent of this pairing is to highlight
both the military and the commercial/economic nature of Beijing’s turn to the
seas. The India chapter that follows illustrates how another regional power
aspires to assert maritime influence in its immediate environment and possibly
beyond. The possibility that New Delhi might cast its eyes beyond the Indian
Ocean hints tantalizingly at the potential for Sino-Indian maritime interactions
and friction. Japan is in many ways a beneficiary of American maritime domi-
nance since the end of World War II. The final chapter, consequently, is designed
to gauge how states with a high stake in the current maritime status quo will
respond as they confront the unprecedented, virtually simultaneous entry of
two Asian powers into the aquatic domain. The following summarizes the major
intellectual contributions of each chapter.
To begin with, John C. Perry introduces some basic concepts for assessing
nautical affairs and provides a sweeping historical overview of China’s maritime
experience. Perry starts by proposing that coastal states enjoy inherent advantages
derived from geographic location that continental powers do not. Specifically, the
seas provide a medium by which a coastal state can reach key access points
around the globe. Yet Perry is at pains to show that geography is not destiny.
Introduction 9