Toward a New Maritime Strategy examines the evolution of American naval thinking in the post-Cold War era. It recounts the development of the U.S. Navy's key strategic documents from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the release in 2007 of the U.S. Navy's maritime strategy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower. This penetrating intellectual history critically analyzes the Navy's ideas and recounts how they interacted with those that govern U.S. strategy to shape the course of U.S. naval strategy.

The book explains how the Navy arrived at its current strategic outlook and why it took nearly two decades to develop a new maritime strategy. Haynes criticizes the Navy's leaders for their narrow worldview and failure to understand the virtues and contributions of American sea power, particularly in an era of globalization. This provocative study tests institutional wisdom and will surely provoke debate in the Navy, the Pentagon, and U.S. and international naval and defense circles.

Review

"For those readers, and they should include as many folks as possible in government and security circles, who have wondered about whether the Navy has a 'strategy problem' or not, a topic of much recent debate, this book will address their curiosity. It also has much to offer those with broad interest in how institutions change, see themselves, and try to reconcile their institutional identities within the context of a national strategy, or even grand strategy--especially those interested in how the United States fits into the overall picture of the global system and why it remains an essential leaders and "system manager." This book is also recommended to the officers of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), if not already on their lists--as radical and unconventional as that might sound coming from the keyboard of a former US Navy officer. Knowing one's counterparts can be as useful for advancing peace and understanding as it is in 'knowing one's enemy' for the darker purposes of war."--Naval Historical Foundation

"Toward a New Maritime Strategy is a masterful look at how our Navy thinks about, and creates, strategy. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in naval and maritime affairs, or the development of military strategy more broadly, both in uniform and civilian clothes. Frankly, it should be on every officer and national security professional's reading list because, as the strategist Adm. J.C. Wylie wrote: 'Strategy is everyone's business.' Yes, even maritime strategy."--WarOntheRocks.com

"Haynes has written an insightful and penetrating history with many lessons identified. …it will be of great interest to defense leaders, students and thinkers, as the relevance and parallels are clear. In his final comment Haynes states that while the US Navy alone cannot conceive and execute a maritime strategy in a changing era of globalization, it does not relieve it of the requirement to exercise strategic leadership."--Australian Naval Institute

"Few if any of these scholarly explorations have come close to touching upon the actual impetus, evolution, and bureaucratic calcification that make such pathology an almost indelible part of a service's culture and identity. Haynes' study of the Navy's Staff (Office of the Chief of Naval Operations [OPNAV]), the evolution and structuring of its various bases of power, and their ability to compete for influence alongside the other institutional bases of power within the Navy all marks the book as an original approach to understanding how military services as institutions formulate their own identity and how that identity shapes service policy and planning. Scholars interested in exploring concepts like 'strategic culture' within the framework of a specific service would do well to read and emulate Haynes's approach."--Journal of Strategic Studies

"This crisp and authoritative review is written by an insider, but one who is prepared to criticize. Coinciding with the issue of a new version of the 'Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,' this book will strike many as controversial. For that reason alone, this is a 'must-read' for anyone seriously interested in the world's maritime future, as well as its past."--Geoffrey Till, author of Seapower: A Guide for the 21st Century

"In Toward a New Maritime Strategy, Capt. Peter Haynes' meticulously researched study of American naval strategy in the post-Cold War era, the reader is drawn behind the scenes of the Navy and Marine Corps' Pentagon staffs to see the battle lines of intellectual thought. Haynes manages to untangle the complicated thicket of maritime strategy over three decades and render it historically coherent and indeed fascinating."--Adm. James Stavridis, USN (Ret.), Dean, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, 2009-13; author of The Accidental Admiral: A Sailor Takes Command at NATO

"In this meticulously researched book, Capt. Haynes dissects the process and products of naval strategic thinking from the end of the Cold War to the present. Towards a Maritime Strategy is a penetrating but lively 'deep dive' as the Navy adapted to the shifting strategic context which culminated with the publication of the 2007 edition of the Maritime Strategy. Readers will come to understand the bureaucratic, political and personality issues inherent to the formulation of strategy in the maritime services in this era of strategic adjustment. As a scarred participant of these debates, I can confirm the author has accurately captured the tenor and substance of the arguments in the distinctive evolution in American naval strategy. Highly recommended for students and scholars of U.S. military theory and strategy."--Dr. Frank Hoffman, Senior Research Fellow, National Defense University

"An authoritative, extremely clear evaluation of the search for an answer to the high-stakes question, 'What's the Navy for?' Haynes' unique study, rich in drama and insight and elegantly written, leaves us with lessons all around. A brilliant and immediately relevant book."--George W. Baer, former chairman, Department of Strategy and Policy and Alfred Thayer Mahan Chair of Maritime Strategy, U.S. Naval War College; author of One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The U.S. Navy 1890-1990

"In this finely crafted history, Peter Haynes identifies the institutional constraints that shape the Navy's strategy-making process. He shows how organizational culture, an overwhelming focus on operational considerations, and the impact of the Goldwater-Nichols reforms limit the Navy's ability to adjust to a changing international setting. Toward a New Maritime Strategy not only describes the Navy's strategic products since the end of the Cold War, it also explains how Navy culture shapes successive visions of future strategy."--James J. Wirtz, co-editor of Strategy in the Contemporary World

"This book is of outstanding importance. Haynes argues convincingly for a real revival of thought and action for an American global maritime strategy. This will make for uncomfortable reading to many, but read it they must. It is criticism, but of a constructive and fundamentally friendly kind."--Colin S. Gray, professor emeritus of strategic studies at the University of Reading; author of The Future of Strategy