ABSTRACT
The US Navy came out of World War II as a large force resting on battleships and aircraft carriers. The Soviet Union, the principal foreseeable antagonist, was a continental land power almost straight from a textbook, and did not possess an offensive naval fleet. Five World War II and post-war developments helped buttress the US grand strategy of containment in the maritime realm, which later became known as combat-credible forward presence. The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, which put Soviet missiles on the US doorstep, was eventually defused by a naval quarantine around the Communist-ruled Caribbean island, driving home the value of measured political and military responses, particular by American sea power. At the time of withdrawal from Vietnam, the US Navy had intellectually and conceptually maneuvered itself into a corner and was not able to stand up to a sea-control challenger.
