notes to pages 57–68 175
long- range bombers, cruise missiles, unmanned drones, surface vessels, subma-
rines, and helicopter carriers.
- According to the official websites of the US Navy and the US Air Force, a
Super Hornet costs $ 57 million, while the F- 15 Eagle costs $ 29. 9 million and the
F- 16 Fighting Falcon between $ 14. 6 million and $ 18. 8 million (depending on the
model). See http://www.af.mil and http://www.navy.mil. - German naval ambitions did not disappear with the dismantling of the great
imperial navy. In 1934 Admiral Erich Raeder, Hitler’s naval commander, an-
nounced, “The scale of a nation’s world status is identical with the scale of its sea
power.” Hitler did not have much appreciation for sea power and used to refer to
the imperial navy as an insignificant “parade piece.” However, Raeder’s advocacy
proved effective, and before the outbreak of the Second World War, the German
navy reached Tirpitz’s standard of 66 percent of the British naval force (Herwig
1991 , 73 ). - Most observers expected the two opposing battle fleets to play a decisive role
in the war. One of the only public prewar critiques of the battleship came from
Admiral Sir Percy Scott, who in a controversial letter to the Times, in June 1914 ,
suggested that the British strategy should rely on a large air force, submarines, and
a fleet of destroyers instead of a large surface fleet (Kennedy 1983 b, 54 ). - Kagan ( 1997 ) holds a similar view regarding the questionable utility of the
great German navy in World War I: “Though it played a major role in causing the
war, it took no significant part in the fighting and never did Germany any practical
good.” - Consequently, it may be the case that gunboats are an example of weap-
onry that operates better in peacetime, as a political instrument, than during con-
flict as an instrument of war. Because wars are relatively rare, actors may procure
gunboats not for war fighting but as instruments of diplomacy. If this is the case,
this role reversal is an extreme manifestation of the evolution of status symbols,
where consumption is increasingly detached from its original utilitarian rationale,
and spirals of exaggeration distort useful objects into showpieces of conspicuous
consumption. - Luttwak argues that the difficulties in assessing naval power stem from the
limited naval experience of most international actors. Countries with little or no
naval capabilities are likely to have insufficient knowledge on naval matters. They
are therefore likely to rely on form rather than substance (Luttwak 1974 , 16 ). How-
ever, this does not explain why Britain, a country with an unsurpassable naval
tradition, would so easily fall prey to such miscalculations. The dangers of over-
emphasizing cruisers at the expense of a more diversified and capable navy were
well known to the British. In fact, this line of argument was prominent in the work
of influential British strategist Sir Julian S. Corbett (Hunt 1989 , 128 ). - This list of independent variables closely corresponds to Mahan’s conceptu-
alization of the elements of sea power. When studying sea power, it is impossible