Corbett and the political case for naval power

Corbett often restated naval fundamentals for politicians who had come to take maritime power for granted. Britain's long possession of naval strength made it easy to forget the effort required to sustain it. The United States faced a similar problem when trying to rebuild after treaty constraints in the late 1930s. In this interpretation, War Plan Orange owed more to Corbett's reasoning than to the simplified image of Mahan as an advocate of decisive battle. Such plans helped make the political case for capabilities as well as prepare for war. Both writers addressed a broader mixture of maritime questions than that simplified distinction suggests.