Changes in naval power and seaborne trade in postwar Asian waters

Summary

ABSTRACT.The Cold War, the arrival of nuclear weapons and the decline of European empires were among the factors which made Asian waters unstable and dangerous. Western navies faced few real enemies at sea until the growth of the Soviet navy in the 1970s, but were heavily involved in supporting war on land. By the end of the century local navies, merchant and fishing fleets were growing fast. The booming Pacific economies depend heavily on the sea, and are vulnerable to any interruption of trade.

RÉSUMÉ.La guerre froide, l'arrivée des armes nucléaires et le déclin des empires européens firent partie des facteurs qui rendirent les eaux asiatiques instables et dangereuses. Les marines occidentales n'eurent que peu de réels adversaires en mer jusqu'à l'expansion de la marine soviétique dans les années 1970, mais furent lourdement engagées en renfort des combats au sol. Vers la fin du siècle, les marines locales ainsi que les flottes marchandes et de pêche se développèrent rapidement. Les économies florissantes du Pacifique s'appuient aujourd'hui lourdement sur la mer et sont vulnérables à la moindre interruption commerciale.

INTRODUCTION

In 1947 the US Navy's Admiral Chester Nimitz produced a report that dramatically proclaimed that the Second World War, especially in the Pacific, had been won essentially by seapower.1 Its successful outcome seemed to demonstrate that the traditional strategic verities enunciated by the likes of Mahan and Corbett were as true, and as critical, now as they had ever been. The capacity to control the sea had led apparently inexorably to the capacity to control the land. This seemed particularly to apply to the waters of the Indo-Pacific region. Given the eventual triumph of Western seapower, it seemed reasonable to conclude that with the war now over, things would go back to normal.

Almost immediately, though, these comforting conclusions were challenged by a number of radical developments. Most dramatically, the concept and shape of war seemed to be transformed by the consequences of the technological advances made during the Second World War. The arrival of atomic and nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, for example, produced what the Soviet Navy's Admiral Sergei Gorshkov called “the atomic shock”.