Seablindness. Seth Cropsey
© 2017 by Seth Cropsey
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FIRST AMERICAN EDITION
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Cropsey, Seth, author.
Title: Seablindness: how political neglect is choking American seapower and what to do about it / by Seth Cropsey.
Other titles: How political neglect is choking American seapower and what to do about it
Description: New York: Encounter Books, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017006242 (print) | LCCN 2017024026 (ebook) | ISBN 9781594039164 (Ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sea-power—United States. | United States—Military policy. | United States—Strategic aspects. | Security, International. | Naval strategy.
Classification: LCC VA58.4 (ebook) | LCC VA58.4 .C76 2017 (print) | DDC 359/.030973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017006242
PRODUCED BY WILSTED & TAYLOR PUBLISHING SERVICES
Copy editor Nancy Evans
Designer Nancy Koerner
Proofreader Melody Lacina
Indexer Robert Swanson
For Mihaela and Gabriel Ethan Cropsey,
whose loving support made this book possible.
CONTENTS
China Tests U.S. Seapower in the West Pacific
How Defense Cuts and the “Sequester” Came to Be
They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Wait
The United States, bounded on three of its five sides by the seas, is a maritime state. We depend on safe transit over the Earth’s watery surface for a large portion of our commerce. We depend on the same freedom of maneuver upon the seas for our ability to communicate with allies, to project power as we did at Normandy in 1944, to prevent crises from reaching our shores, and to block enemies from using the oceans to their advantage. I hope that the observations in this discussion about the importance of seapower to a maritime state will endure.
What I hope will not endure is the dangerous condition of depleted seapower that existed as an administration elected in 2008 transferred power to the one that Americans chose in 2016. This account is in large measure a picture of