Renewed plans for an Atlantic bastion show the value and danger of institutional memory. The Battle of Britain offers a parallel example: its memory remains a familiar argument for Royal Air Force funding and fighter-based air defence. British discussion can compress the Battle of the Atlantic into corvettes escorting convoys against U-boats. Black Swan-class sloops, fleet carriers, capital ships, cruisers, intelligence, mines, aircraft, surface raiders, and smaller attack craft all belonged to the wider campaign. German efforts in the First World War included airships, torpedo boats, and battlecruisers as well as submarines. Both world wars presented threats across that range of capabilities. A force designed only around the most familiar part of that memory risks overlooking the other threats that shaped the campaign.
Notable Point · 27:55-33:59
Battle of the Atlantic memory can narrow threat thinking
The Atlantic example warns that remembering convoy battles only as submarine hunting can hide the wider mix of mines, aircraft, raiders, escorts, and intelligence.