GP/141; harkens back to Mahan, on the meaning of naval power. John Keegan has written on that too –one thing that sticks in memory is the enormous gap between the amount of resources needed to bring to bear a given set of military power at sea vs on land. He used Nelson’s fleet at Trafalger to make some stunning comparisons between the cost of the ships and crews vs the cost of horse, mules, oxen, forage and handlers, to’ve moved the same guns the same distance on land. Also, the sea being a hostile environment immune to permanent settlement, how the last ship afloat owns freedom and mastery of the whole sea. It’d be a safe bet that if a hostile power ever sought to intimidate USA into a withdrawal from some sea area, it’ll be by a surprise attack on one of our carriers –not a la Yamamoto 1941, but –taking advantage of modern weapon lethality –thru some “rogue accident” immediately followed by intense diplomacy aimed at covering our president’s rear as he pulls USN back toward home ports “in order to defuse tensions”. The sailors newly in davy jones’ locker will upset him as much as the Fort Hood soldiers did yesterday –not too much, not that big a deal in the larger scheme of “bringing fundamental change to America”.