Surface raiding versus enforcing a blockade

Was surface raiding impractical in World War II?

It remained possible, but success depended on the wider balance of sea power; dominant British cruisers performed similar trade-interdiction work under the label of blockade enforcement.

The response uses German surface raiders and Royal Navy cruisers searching for Axis merchant traffic to show how sea power changes the language applied to similar work. German ships struggled because the stronger British fleet could hunt them and cover global routes. British cruisers, aided early in the war by scout aircraft, searched wide areas and intercepted enemy commerce much more freely. A weaker fleet's trade attacks are called raiding, while a dominant navy's global campaign is described as enforcing a blockade.