Image: The U.S. Navy battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48) firing on the Japanese fleet during the Battle of Surigao Strait, 24-25 October 1944. Public domain.
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James Holmes, first holder of the Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and blogger at The Naval Diplomat (https://navaldiplomat.com/), discusses: America Smashed Imperial Japan’s Navy at Leyte Gulf: What Lessons Can China Learn?
Strategists in China make a habit of engrossing themselves in history. Betimes ideology tinges the findings they coax from the historical record, as one might expect from citizens of a communist regime—or indeed from human beings, full stop. Yet politics seldom invalidates their analyses of workmanlike topics in tactics, operations, or strategy. These, after all, involve the mechanics of how the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will help Chinese Communist Party (CCP) magnates fulfill their political purposes. Inquiries into martial subjects are mostly apolitical since they cover the how, not the why, and thus are safe for free-range thinkers to explore. For example, PLA analysts seemingly have little trouble setting aside their natural skepticism toward Alfred Thayer Mahan and other Western strategic theorists. They afford Mahan & Co. respect and draw guidance from them despite their entanglement with the imperial legacy that so affronts patriotic Chinese. . . .
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