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Historian Andrew Gordon's naval strategy book warns about how maritime security can lead to culture decay.
Why would any sane naval commander execute an order sure to bring about catastrophe?
That’s among the questions historian Andrew Gordon investigates in his masterful work The Rules of the Game. Ostensibly about the 1916 Battle of Jutland, The Rules of the Game is really about the perils of winning too big in sea combat. The history of Jutland is there, and in abundant detail. But it mainly serves to frame the author’s meditations on how a culture of automatic obedience dulls individual enterprise and derring-do to the detriment of battle effectiveness.
Gordon’s verdict: winning too big—as the Royal Navy did at Trafalgar in 1805—makes a navy intellectually flabby over time. It debilitates the institutional culture. Victory begets cultural decay by sparing the navy the rigors of future combat, the truest test of martial adequacy.