The term ‘seablindness’ is an excuse, a poor term in which to understand a phenomenon. I know; I spent the better part of fifteen years unravelling the devaluation of the sea, maritime strategy, and navies in national agendas and defence.1 The term ‘seablindness’, although never formally quantified, was created in the 1980s. The term was given form in Britain at a time when civilian scholars and senior naval leadership still had experience from a period when nation and government were educated to understand the fundamentals of an Island nation and why the Royal Navy existed. They were faced with a situation that saw that understanding increasingly slipping away. That the creation of the term failed to provide answers can be seen in the 2020s by the fact that the situation has only continued to worsen. To some degree, debating the semantics of what the term means is far less important than understanding what was happening, how and why. It can be readily viewed that in 2024, relatively identical arguments exist to the latter 1980s, where former senior Royal Navy officers still think that this a matter of surface level public relations2 or claim that only in recent years that understanding of national maritime strategy and the Royal Navy by government officials has continued to decrease.3 This naivety is quite understandable and why the Admiralty was less than keen for naval officers—bar the most senior4—to be involved with communicating about seapower. Naval officers have other important tasks to do, such as being the very best sea professional, while civilians were tasked with communicating seapower. I explain this process through the term I created, The Art of Admiralty.5
In the 1980s, the term ‘seablindness’ was first phrased to address why, after the combination of defence policy choices—which were anti-naval—and the maritime campaign, which was the 1982 Falkland’s War, that willingness and understanding of seapower in Britain had continued to decline. Eventually, the term would take similar forms in other countries, such as the United States, Australia, and Canada, each with variations in arguments to support it. In the British context that I am addressing here,6 the term first obscured that predominately humans are ‘sea blind’ as they do not live on the sea. Humans are land-dwellers, and therefore, their existence revolves around what happens on land and, as it has always been, the business of navies takes place ‘over the horizon’. Thus, also the business of ‘ships at sea’ is not tangible for the public or decision makers, even if they are in receipt of the safety and protection it guarantees every day, right down to the till point at the grocery store or fuel entering their homes. ‘Seablindness’ was a politically neutral term to describe the failure to prioritise naval and maritime affairs, replacing negative terms such as ‘decline and fall’ used in previous decades. Terms which they in themselves had created ‘seablindness’. Therefore, this was hardly a new problem; it was more a case of moving terms around while failing to address the issue, which could only be done by understanding the roots of it all; the why or how, was all but ignored. These negative terms had been coupled with the growing perception of a ‘golden naval age’; historians portrayed seapower as purely a tool for British imperialist expansion rather than a deeper cultural understanding of the unique British phenomena that was the seapower state and its crucial role in the development of not just the British nation but also maritime strategic thought. This approach was increasingly unattractive to decision-makers anxious to avoid being caught up in sentiment for the imperial past and who were seeking to adjust to the realities of being a medium power, politically consumed by burgeoning continental European integration and linked strategic agendas—all alien to British strategic experience. Secondly, ‘seablindness’ was a failure from the start because navalists focused on quantifying seapower by the numerical strength of naval assets instead of justifying how and why it was used. It was a continentalist view of naval power—one antithetical to centuries of British experience—that was increasingly being imported by naval officers and some of those who educated them, who wanted quick-fix solutions rather than having to argue more sustained arguments based on historical evidence. This was all-too-easily linked to the ‘imperial’ navalism of the past, ensuring well-founded calls for new directions in naval procurement and national strategy were dismissed by political decision-makers who were increasingly disconnected from any understanding of the British seapower state as an integrated political, economic and cultural project, one that had evolved over the past three hundred years, engaged with a global Commonwealth, and dominated the national economy, its success and its survival. Decision-makers failed to grasp the critical role of maritime strategy and its centrality to Britain’s alliance value worldwide because, for all the voices actively moaning about the state of the navy, they were not educating the government in any argument which could overcome counter-arguments. Instead of a positive, forward-looking message embedded in a broader discussion of the country, advocates for the Royal Navy became a voice of negativity and often technical in manner, placing any understanding beyond anyone bar their colleagues. The government and public were not receptive to this as it also failed to serve the greater need to explain how the Royal Navy was a thread embedded throughout the nation, its needs and its defence. These voices have not learnt this lesson to this day.
Although the Royal Navy remained one of the world’s most successful armed forces, few understood that this status reflected the long-term commitment of a unique seapower state, not mere military professionalism. Britain needed a world-class navy, in quality, if not quantity, because it remained a medium power and an island dominated by global trade and capital flows. Perspectives and discussions on the uses of a navy had also shifted to a narrower kinetic calculation, which left it no more than equal to the other services, a narrowly military notion, rather than one situated within a larger maritime concept of national policy. It was politically convenient to deflect calls for naval and maritime strategic investment as ‘imperialist’ when many historians linked the term ‘golden age’ to imperialism instead of rebuilding the fundamental narrative of how and why seapower is essential to national security, defence and the goals of the nation at home and abroad. In the end, this was the perfect storm, which, coupled with a unified defence ministry rather than specific service ministries, meant that resistance to anti-maritime views depended on the dwindling number of seapower advocates, often retired military personnel or academics7 and less so the broader public that had their attention directed elsewhere.
Arguably, they achieved little; never in the history of the Royal Navy had it depended on naval officers to communicate its role. Nor did they have the time or inclination to network with the declining number of civilians and dwindling number of academics who were openly advocating for better discourse over the Royal Navy than what was on offer—often by the media—again, something still not solved today.
In the past, having the ‘intellectual machinery’ in place to be aware that educating on seapower was a constant task led by civilians to educate others about the sea and navy. Subsequently, it freed naval officers to be the best sea professionals. This was how Britain ended up with the best naval officers like Lord Nelson and quality trained ratings, which ultimately led the Royal Navy to become the successful force that it was. This was also because Britain had no choice regarding its national defence strategy, where officers had to be freed to focus on that task, for failure at sea meant doom for the nation. At the same time, civilians ensured that the Government, Parliament and the public were educated about the Naval Service and why Britain had no choice but to have a maritime strategy. The fact that anti-maritime and anti-naval voices after 1964 could even present to the government the illusion of choice other than maritime strategy should have been something squashed at inception if there was an active naval and maritime system to counter such ridiculous and unfounded claims.8 In brief terms, this spawned the problem that such matters, like aircraft carriers, were up for debate when they should never have been a matter of discussion. Instead, the debate about the Royal Navy and defence policy became a conversation controlled by those who knew little about the navy and even less about strategy. The ability and skill to influence this debate evaporated over the second half of the 20th century as naval policy decisions and support for civilians to study the navy and maritime strategy took effect. It became a matter of being unable to unreason people not reasoned into something in the first place for the system to educate them in the first place had been devalued and devalued often on purpose by those who did not understand seapower. That such active anti-naval and anti-maritime strategic voices could run free in an Island nation demonstrates the complete collapse of naval messaging and that it is a matter far beyond just public relations. It exemplifies fears coming true over ‘if future decision-makers would understand seapower’ which had driven how the navy was organised from the 1500s to early 1960s in the first place.
A helpful analogy to think about this further is to return to Lord Nelson. Had he survived the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and the end of the Napoleonic Wars, he would have become First Lord of the Admiralty rather than First Sea Lord.9 This position would have enabled his ‘celebrity status’ to be coupled with communicating the role of the Royal Navy and seapower. If he was First Sea Lord, as any officer of the Crown, there are civil-military relations matters to consider, therefore neutering what could be said. Just as in the past, the decisions made today about defence are ultimately political ones made by civilians. That so often the media criticise the military for decision-making when many of their powers were stripped from them between the 1950s and 1980s just demonstrates the wider disconnect in the understanding of Britain’s defence organisation. If Lord Nelson were here today, he would be much encouraged by the service personnel who followed in his footsteps. He, too, believed in questioning past values and making up his own mind. His victory at Trafalgar stemmed from his abandonment of battle tactics and breaking with tradition to do something new; similarly, he spent his life improving the conditions of his men, questioning accepted values and seeking better and fair solutions. But Lord Nelson was no fool, for he knew where the jeopardy for national defence lay: with government and Parliament. He was able to distinguish between the good and the bad, and he clung to the values of patriotism, honour and duty, instilling the same in his men, such as they went to battle with pride where they knew they only had to focus on delivering the world’s best navy. The education and message of what they were doing to public and why they had to do it to that way to government was left to the Admiralty and civilians. Nelson taught that one can serve country and yet not surrender one’s ideals while adding to a vision of peace and a better world. It was the satisfaction of doing something about it where honour and reward could be found by taking pride in the profession of arms.
Little has changed since Lord Nelson’s day, just as historian and philosopher of seapower and maritime strategy Sir Julian Corbett (1854-1922) had educated national realities for defence strategy to government by 1911. Corbett used the ‘machinery’ of Admiralty and network of civilians to communicate the role of the navy and how the nation had masterfully used its army and navy together, considering the geographical, geopolitical and geostrategic realities an island always finds itself in, one of scarce finances and resources, dependent on resources delivered to it by sea. Today, Britain remains an island nation; it needs to be able to first and foremost defend the global lifelines of goods and resources across the seas on which Britain and civilisation as we know it are dependent upon, free from the aggression that is human nature in all generations, for disputes over resources are the quickest way to war and conflict. Lord Nelson gave his life, as countless other sailors and military personnel did in the centuries after so that his country might be safe and sealines remain open, for he believed there could be no finer calling than in the service of those who have business upon the seas and which influence what happens on and over land. They could only do that if free from the politics of Whitehall and a Whitehall educated to the fundamentals of national strategy.
For terms like ‘seablindness’ to exist, it can only be seen as a complete failure where things once known and understood yesterday are not known today. After decades of scholarship and supposed ‘education’, how can it be that warnings of the recent past have come to fruition? Why are the fundamental tenants of seapower, naval power or maritime strategy—questions solved by great historians like Corbett—seemingly not understood today in many quarters, particularly by some who should know better or claim they do ‘get it’? What have some been doing all these years, if still government and the public have to ask: ‘What is the navy for?” These are the questions worth exploring and debating and I have sought to resolve. But nor can we turn a blind-eye that the generations of today and tomorrow have less contact with the sea, navy and maritime aspects of the world than ever before: they travel by land or air, do business and communicate by cyberspace, ignorant to the efforts at sea to make all of this infrastructure and our very civilisation work.
The question that matters today about the future of navies is: what is the benchmark of the successful use of a navy? One can argue that nations get the defence (insurance) they pay for, so have navies executed the tasks set by the government? Yes. But do Government’s know how best to use seapower and their navies to maximise power influence and to achieve their goals? No. This is the trend since the post-1960s that matters, one that has aided and abetted a collapse in an understanding of navies, seapower and maritime-led national strategy.
From that research one fact is clear to me, that repeating the same tactics since the 1980s, which have delivered little, is a sign of not only failing to understand the problem but akin to madness to continue in this manner. Some have argued Lord Nelson would have been ‘all over’ social media to advertise the Royal Navy yet this ignores the fact that the organisation of how modern defence works would never permit such an individual to flourish today. The task of educating and to be able to answer the questions high-level decision-makers are asking is beyond simple public relations such as the day-to-day operations of a warship, but explaining why national strategy has these assets in the first place. That tackling seablindness remains seen by many in such a narrow form of public relations would frustrate those who set out in the 1980s to solve the problem. The root cause of ‘seablindness’, is that the ability, tools and methods of educating about seapower and maritime strategy to Parliament, Government and at the Ministry of Defence have been destroyed. This is the fundamental problem, so bemoaning why the public and government ‘do not get seapower’ means little and demonstrates how unserious some are when, so few understand the issue or want to acknowledge how deep the problem goes.
James WE Smith “Deconstructing the Seapower State: Britain, America and Defence Unification 1945-1964,” PhD thesis., (King’s College London, 2021). https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.849793
“One US Navy captain shows how our armed services could fix their recruiting problems.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/23/us-uk-armed-forces-navy-ships-social-media-twitter-online/
“I’m dismayed by the shortfalls of our Navy.”https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/13/dismayed-by-shortfalls-of-our-navy/
Navy and Admiralty Board level.
Seablindness is also a term the civilian sector uses, this article focuses on the naval element.
In the second half of the 20th century, British academics have been embroiled in debates and arguments between them over not just the methodology but the manner of seapower, maritime strategy, the future Royal Navy and naval power. Two schools, Lambert and Till have rose to prominence after the 1980s.
There was prior to the creation of the Ministry of Defence, aka the Admiralty, see ‘Art of Admiralty’.
The title and appointment of ‘First Naval Lord’ was retitled ‘First Sea Lord’ in 1904. In short, the most senior uniformed naval officer of the Royal Navy. If history is not written for the current audience (aka the times the paper is written) and to ‘things’ that the audience is familiar and can connect with, what is being communicated can be lost. Lord Nelson’s appointment would have been political one in which to free him from the constraints of civil-military relations that came with wearing a uniform, also it is unlikely that HM Gov would have risked public opinion by not appointing him to this position considering his reputation, a reputation which should he have survived the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, would have been, that he had ‘saved the nation’. He also knew where he was best placed and where he had the most power and influence considering the social construct of the period.