![]() 3 On opposite sides of the Atlantic, both the British and the Americans were initially reluctant to engage in an all-out naval conflict. ![]() 2 As the political crisis between Britain and her American colonies grew into an open rebellion in 17, the Royal Navy was the superior naval power in the world, although at this point the French Navy had potential superiority in its unmanned ships in reserve at Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort, with additional Spanish ships-of-the-line that might come available in a Franco-Spanish alliance. ![]() Without an established and well-organized state bureaucracy, the process of creating a navy in America was a slow and hesitant one. Over two hundred and forty years, the American Navy has viewed the Royal Navy as rebellious colonies, as a minor-power navy fighting a superpower navy, as a role-model, as a peer-competitor, and then as its closest ally as a great power navy. The view from the United States of America is but one among many, but it presents a changing kaleidoscope of viewpoints. Outside Britain there is a wide spectrum of viewpoints from which to view the Royal Navy. While a navy is a national creation that fully reflects its parentage, a navy also exists within the much broader and very different context of world affairs-the arena of competing powers and national interests that has deadly enemies as well as neutrals, friends, and allies. At its most obvious, a navy is an expression of a nation’s power, but at the same time it is a microcosm of a nation, representing its industrial and technological capacities as well as reflecting the nature, character, and spirit of its people and its institutions.
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