ABSTRACT
Today’s expeditionary operations are more characteristic of the collaborative approach to seapower than to its competitive alternative, maritime power projection or ‘operations against the shore’ because they are nearly always conducted in company with allies and partners, and are rarely aimed at peer or near-peer competitors. Expeditionary operations, in short, are not the same as expeditionary warfare.2 Exceptions exist and the distinction between expeditionary operations as they are now understood and classical operations against the shore remains fuzzy, however. Perhaps one of the better indicators of the difference between essentially collaborative expeditionary operations and competitive amphibious activity (or ‘naval expeditionary warfare’) would be the extent to which the result, or at least the intention, of the expeditionary parties was accepted by the international community (maybe in the shape of the United Nations) as an attempt to impose good order from the sea.
