ABSTRACT
The eighteenth century was a key period in global history, one in which Russia became a great power, the United States became a distinct unit and independent, the Chinese greatly extended their power over non-Chinese people and the Mughal and, even more, Safavid empires collapsed. The last quarter of the eighteenth century is frequently presented in terms of the origins of modern war, with the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars seen as bringing in a new age of warfare. Problematic as that idea is for the Western world, it makes little sense on the world scale. Significant naval forces with a range greater than war canoes were deployed by only a handful of non-Western powers, principally the Ottoman empire, the Barbary states of North Africa and the Arabs of Oman. Programmes of naval construction indicated not only the resources of Western governments, but also the capability of their military–industrial complexes.
