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The Jeune École: The Strategy of the Weak
Author(s): Arne Røksund (Author)
- Publisher: Brill
- Publication Date: April 24, 2007
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 260 pages
- ISBN-10: 9004157239
- ISBN-13: 9789004157231
Book Description
Anglo-American theoreticians have to a large extent dominated the formulation and study of modern naval strategy in Western countries. This Anglo-American dominance has resulted in a focus on how the superior power should exploit its superiority in order to realize its strategic objectives. The present study differs from other books on naval strategy by analysing a military strategy for the inferior power instead. Along with Tirpitz’s “risk theory”, The Jeune École is the most significant maritime strategy dealing with the dilemmas facing the weaker navy. This French body of naval thought is distinguished from other strategies of the weak by its elaborate prescriptions for the offensive use of naval forces. This book represents an unprecedented study of The Jeune École based on hitherto unexploited and unpublished primary sources from the Service Historique de la Marine.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“This book provides the English language reader with the only up-to-date study of this curious development since the appearance of Theodore Ropp’s dissertation-turned-book. Røksund has made some significant additions by using primary sources in the French Navy’s archives which were closed to Ropp when he did his research in the 1930s. The result is a tight story which begins with the French Navy’s surrender of her budget to finance the rebuilding of the Army after 1870 and ends with the emergence of the submarine as the first viable weapon to do what the Jeune École proposed-wage a guerre de course.”
Chalmers Hood in
Journal of Military History 72/1, Jan 2008About the Author
Arne Røksund, Ph. D. (2005) in History, University of Oslo, is Rear Admiral and Commander of the Norwegian Defence Education Command and Commandant of the Norwegian National Defence College.
