Navies in Northern Waters: 1721-2000

Navies in Northern Waters is a collection of articles covering the roles played by the secondary navies of north European powers and the United States within the maritime balance of power. The contributions covering the 18th and 19th centuries focus on these powers’ relations with each other as they sought to create a counterweight to the dominant naval power, Britain. The conflict of interests between the dominant and weaker powers becomes most evident in their different attitudes towards maritime law; the relationship between strategy and the evolution of the laws of war at sea is at the heart of this book. Several contributions discuss these subjects with regard to the Dutch, Danish and Swedish navies, which remained relatively weak. Others cover the French, US and Prussian (later German) navies which moved from a position of relative weakness towards one from which they challenged Britain’s supremacy. The inter-war years (1918-39) are treated from the perspectives of international disarmament efforts within the framework of collective security, and the subsequent naval rivalry in the Baltic area in the years leading up to the Second World War. For the post-1945 period, the contributions concentrate on superpower rivalry in northern waters during the Cold War, the changing aspects of security policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the particular challenges facing small coastal states policing extensive waters of increasing economic importance. Norway’s case is used to illustrate the operational challenges posed by changing missions and the extensive new tasks related to marine and seabed resource management as defined by international law.