International Journal of Naval History

Editorial

Speaking to the Naval Present in this Historical Forum

Robert Browning,

Chief Historian, U.S. Coast Guard

For the IJNH

    It gives me great pleasure to introduce the seventh issue of the International Journal of Naval History.  This marks the beginning of the journal’s fourth year.  With the help of our colleagues, we have made huge strides to develop this journal as a popular on-line resource for everyone.  In this issue, I am proud to tout Douglas Ford’s article on British naval Policy, which covers the period just before the beginning of World War II, and follows the British and their conduct of the war until 1945.  This revealing and thought-provoking piece scrutinizes the ability of the British to fight the Imperial Japanese Navy.  To make his case, Ford reviewed and analyzed that country’s resources and finances, its intelligence gathering, doctrine, technology and the battle experience of the British Navy.  Ford contends that all these elements shaped the successes and failings of the British to deal with the well-prepared and perceptive Japanese.  Ford’s article should create lively discussion among our colleagues.  The book reviews in this issue are as diverse as our field of endeavor and should further the scholarship as well as advance the exchange of ideas.  The editors would like to thank again Professor Eric Mills of Dalhousie University for providing the History of Oceanography Newsletter. His newest issue will appear with us in August. In addition, our illustrations in this number of the IJNH demonstrate the variety of artistic expressions one can find in ship patches and symbols.

    For future issues our readers may consider writing articles that examine our rapidly changing world.  As historians, we should also be aware of and discuss some of the recent events that will shape naval activity for many years.  Specifically we invite articles that reveal the new roles and missions that the majority of the world’s navies have recently inherited and currently face—that of homeland security and the suppression of terrorism.  These burgeoning issues will create new topics for discussion within the naval history field.  This new threat will influence the future of all military forces afloat and alter some of the historic missions of most of the world’s navies.  It certainly seems to have changed the strategic outlook of our naval leaders.  The naval leadership around the world has had to review budgets, reevaluate their operations and recast their views of both long-range doctrine and planning.

    As historians, however, we need to use the IJNH to demonstrate what has changed and what has not. What is a new threat, strategy, or tactic, and what is simply a time-honored practice with a new face? Can current navies address the international war on terrorism with lessons learned from the age of fighting sail, the American Civil War, or the Great War? How does History speak to the current conflict and those who must plan for it?

    I would like to encourage specifically our international peers to submit articles.  We have reached a worldwide audience and would like the journal to be the best and the most thorough international forum for naval history.