Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World's Oceans Paperback – 5 Jun. 2018

Excellent for general information. This is a very good beginning for further study in the strategic importance of our oceans. It is easy to forget how important oceanic activity is when most of us focus on land and air power. I am sure Admiral Stavridis has so much more to say to the uninitiated student of sea power. I regret not being able to attend his lectures. He writes very well, and I look forward to reading more of his books.

Admiral Stavridis's book, "Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World's Oceans", is a book well crafted piece of work. It is excellent in its delivery of understanding the role the sea in shaping world affairs from beginnings of men voyaging on open waters to today with naval forces able to project power across the globe.The author coming from a military background, and being NATO's former Supreme Allied Commander, has skills of demonstrating how the oceans have become critical in the shaping of 21st century geopolitics.The book helps in bring what might be dry subject alive, linking naval history into relevance of today and beyond.This volume of work is a must for anyone with a keen interest in history and current affairs.

I have read the first 75 pages and am giving up on this book. The version of history presented here is superficial and frequently either misleading or wrong. I abandoned my reading because my spidey-sense was constantly jangling but as justification I know I need to give concrete examples of author error even if they are mere islands in a ocean of crassness.Of the American 'opening' of Japan: "He [Commodore Perry] sailed into Tokyo Bay in July 1853 with the intent to communicate using what we would think of today as a 'soft power' approach - sensitivity to culture, avoiding a resort to military force, using economic and diplomatic levers as a first choice, and laying out a compelling geopolitical case to other actors." Horse doo-da! Placing a squadron of warships off the Japanese capital, declining to leave when asked, issuing threats of violence and training your guns on Japanese targets, as happened though unmentioned by the author, are gunboat diplomacy if not simply acts of war. What they are not is soft power or the use of economic levers.In speaking of the end of World War II: "Sadly, conflict would not disappear from the region [the Pacific rim] as the Korean War would break out several years after the end of World War II, and of course the U.S. war [!] in Vietnam would follow just over a decade later." Is he unaware of the Chinese civil war? What about the conflicts in the former French, British and Dutch colonies that lead to the creation of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia as independent nations? Do wars not count in the absence of US boots on the ground?Another piece of nonsense: "In the 1600s, there were three wars between the English and the Dutch, which did not turn out well for the Hollanders ..." While it is certainly preferable not to have wars, as a gloss this is ludicrous ... the Dutch did fine in the first, second and third Anglo-Dutch wars, the English less so. Further in 1688, there began a fourth conflict which ended with James II a guest of the French. Not only were the resources of his Kingdoms (England, Scotland and Ireland) unavailable to support James' ally Louis XIV but they were in the hands of Louis' enemy, the Dutch Stadtholder, William of Orange (William III) which was considerably to the advantage of the Dutch.In addition to the 'history' which seems to have been stuff Americans learn about their own country in school augmented by half-remembered scraps from the backs of cereal packets to cover the rest of the World, there was a goodly portion of the author's own remiscences about his time at sea. Maybe in the hands of a better writer this could have been interesting but as it was I found it off-topic and dull as dishwater to boot.

This book is short in fact and long on the opinion of the author. As the title itself claims to be of the history and geopolitics of sea power, there is a gap between the description and content from the cover on.1. China did not focus internally for five hundred years as suggested in the chapter concerning the South China Sea.2. The occupation and buildup of the Hawaiian Islands did not “vault the United States into power in the Pacific.” It was the purchase and following conquest of the Philippines Islands that led the US to build a Pacific fleet of sizeable proportions, and the launching of vessels such as the Tennessee that made the US a naval force (Andrew Lambert among other scholars states the US is not a maritime power).While the anecdotes and personal stories may be an attempt to personalise the book, they appear forced, and should perhaps have been omitted from a book that claims to be “a powerful reckoning with this vital subject.”

Not what I expected at all. As a 4 star admiral writing on geopolitics, I was expecting the book to be packed with insights on the strategic advantage of nations who have access to the sea compared to landlocked nations as well as how the US has leveraged this advantage. What I read in the first 85 pages was a superficial summary of history relating to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans that I could have gotten from any number of sources. I’m so disappointed with it, that I’ve abandoned it.