“The basis for On Contested Shores has been under construction since before the Commandant released the planning guidance. As career Marine officers, who spent very little time at sea, the editors have long been concerned that the Marine Corps was becoming too landcentric, heavily reflecting the characteristics of a second land army. This has been true since 1991, when the Marine Corps participated in a land campaign in Iraq, and especially since 2001, when it participated in three land campaigns: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. To fight these battles, the Marine Corps became heavier, upgraded equipment, and generally focused on counterinsurgency tactics vice amphibious warfare. While the Marine Corps always steps up to fight alongside the U.S. Army, its purpose is naval campaigns fought alongside the U.S. Navy. This book is in part a way to help figure out how to regain and maintain the skills necessary for maritime operations.”
This 2020 collection of 23 essays by military practitioners and scholars addresses wartime amphibious operations. The treatment includes both military/naval science and military history beginning with a 1555 example and ranging to the near future. As the flow of the essays moves from history and scholarship to current events, the picture that emerges in that category is troubling. America's concentration on conflicts in the Mideast over the past decades has degraded, if not erased, our readiness and some of our capabilities to provide global security for ourselves and to help other democracies.
The essays build on the increasing complexity of amphibious operations. The familiar World War II examples of the Allied landings in Normandy and on numerous Pacific islands held by the enemy involved three domains: air, land and sea. Integrating operations in these three domains was complicated. Today, military planners and operators must incorporate the additional domains of space, with it's crucial satellites, and cyber, with it's vast electronic threats and connections. The essays discuss the tremendous advances in military technology that now allow nations to defend themselves through use of anti-access and area denial techniques and weapons.
Readers, probably military specialists and buffs, will find much to consider in this stimulating collection. Recommended.
An excellent compilation of littoral warfare analyses, evaluations and assessments. Some great historical narratives as well as very well considered contemporary articles on the present and future of amphibious warfare.