We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.
Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.
The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.
The study of history lies at the foundation of all sound military conclusions and practice.
Organized force alone enables the quiet and the weak to go about their business and to sleep securely in their beds, safe from the violent without or within.
The surer of himself an admiral is, the finer the tactical development of his fleet, the better his captains, the more reluctant must he necessarily be to enter into a melee with equal forces, in which all these advantages will be thrown away, chance reign supreme, and his fleet be place on terms of equality with an assemblage of ships which have never before acted together.
In our victory over Japan, airpower was unquestionably decisive. That the planned invasion of the Japanese Home islands was unnecessary is clear evidence that airpower has evolved into a force in war co-equal with land and sea power, decisive in its own right and worthy of the faith of its prophets.
The common sense of the word (navy) as we use it today refers to a permanent fighting service made up of ships designed for war, manned by professionals and supported by an adminsistrative and technical infrastructure. A navy in this sense is only one possible method of making war at sea, and by some way the most difficult and the most recent. There have in the past been, and to some extent still are, many other ways of generating sea power.
But sea power has never led to despotism. The nations that have enjoyed sea power even for a brief period-Athens, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, England, the United States-are those that have preserved freedom for themselves and have given it to others. Of the despotism to which unrestrained military power leads we have plenty of examples from Alexander to Mao.
No big modern war has been won without preponderant sea power; and, conversely, very few rebellions of maritime provinces have succeeded without acquiring sea power.
Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.
Poseidon’s trident was also all over the place, since Peter the Great wanted to stress Russia’s sea power. I especially like the trident on top of an obelisk -- what a great Egyptian/Greek mix up!
All wars will be settled by sea power.
or simply:
