ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the geopolitical rationale for US maritime strategy and the navy’s ‘strategic concept’ for the Cold War. It illustrates the particular manifestations of the US maritime strategy from the end of the Second World War to the end of the Cold War. The chapter discusses the principles of naval force planning employed by the navy to support the nation’s maritime strategy. The debate over the navy’s maritime strategy of the 1980s obscured the remarkable constancy exhibited by US naval strategic thought during the entire Cold War. Naval planning for PINCHER was the genesis of US Cold War maritime strategy. The original maritime strategy as articulated by Forrest Sherman and the OP-30 planners was consistent with the geopolitical realities of the Cold War. During the Cold War, the preferred maritime strategy of the US navy emphasized forward, offensive action to secure sea control and to project power against the USSR.
