Why naval theory cannot be taught in isolation

Why teach Clausewitz alongside Mahan and Corbett?

Because Mahan and Corbett belong to a wider tradition of systematically explaining warfare; Clausewitz supplies essential context, and Machiavelli provides an earlier starting point.

Naval theorists belong within the broader history of military thought. Mahan and Corbett are easier to understand when readers know the tradition represented by Clausewitz. The habit of systematically writing down how war should be waged is then traced further back to Machiavelli. This intellectual route into naval theory places its major authors in conversation with earlier military thought.