When fleet operations become strategic

Gorshkov separates the effect of an individual engagement from the strategic effect of a campaign. He argues that most sea engagements, battles, and operations produce operational results, but cites the Spanish-American War, Russo-Japanese War, and attack on Pearl Harbor as exceptions in which naval action had strategic consequences. More often, strategic significance emerges from the totality of fleet operations across a war, illustrated by Russian Mediterranean campaigns, the struggle for Atlantic communications in both world wars, and Soviet fleet operations during the Great Patriotic War. In a future nuclear war, preventing sea-launched nuclear strikes would itself be a strategic fleet mission. His balanced-fleet calculus covers platform comparisons and the way accumulated naval action can change the course of a war.