How We Achieved Naval Supremacy—And How We Could Lose It - Washington Free Beacon

Paul Kennedy and Ian Marshall created an engaging and interesting work about the most consequential event of the 20th century. Marshall’s art is one of this book’s many delights. World War II is a natural source of triumphalism, but there is a hidden warning within Victory at Sea. China’s navy already possesses more ships than ours does, and the Navy’s proposed budget will shrink the fleet even further. The current plan is to compensate for China’s greater numbers and production with technology and élan. The Japanese tried that too. They lost.Kennedy originally planned to write the foreword and accompanying text for his friend’s collection of naval paintings, but Marshall’s passing made Kennedy set aside other projects to return to World War II. The two pair nicely: Marshall’s meticulously detailed paintings illustrate Kennedy’s point that, although the production statistics tell part of the war’s story, "the deficit in all deterministic explanations—the substructure alters, therefore the superstructure is changed—is that they lack human agency."