Peter Swartz’s Republic of Letters: Recent Works on the U.S. Navy and Strategy

Abstract

This essay aims to function on two levels. The first examines how Peter Swartz prompted a scholarly discussion about U.S. Navy strategy from a diverse group—both intellectually and internationally—of young scholars. For the authors examined here, Swartz served as mentor and a literal source for the doctoral dissertations written by them. The second line of effort seeks to generalize about what maritime strategy signified, identifying themes prevalent in these works to better understand what using the sea, and naval power, meant. In that light this “Republic of Letters” also shows what maritime thought can mean in the future. As Swartz himself has written, the prime purpose for creating American naval power is to provide options for U.S. presidents.2 Allowing for national distinctions in leadership, the same applies to all naval powers. To sharpen his point in the form of a question, what solutions did the Navy (as a “means”) offer to solve national and international problems (the “ends”)? The three works considered here were completed as dissertations between 2010 and 2016. The authors, and their published works as used here with dates of completion, are: