Recommended Reading: "Some Principles of Maritime Strategy" by J. S. Corbett
[h3]What could a pre-WW1 book about war at sea have to say that's relevant to space combat? As it turns out, surprisingly much.[/h3]
"Some Principles" is an attempt to discover order in an apparently chaotic, and certainly very complex, field. Wars were fought at sea in vastly different contexts, for a multitude of purposes, using ever evolving weapons and platforms. Yet they have common features, and most of those apply to wars in space as well.
Space is like the sea in one basic way. The vast majority of it is only useful as a means of communication between places, and it's those places that are strategically important. The sea, like space, is only a pathway, but controlling it provides significant benefits both in peacetime and during conflicts.
Also, both are fundamentally hostile to human life. We can survive there, we can even build ships to move about, but it costs significant effort and resources, and we become far more vulnerable than in our natural environment.
Based on these similarities, Corbett's insights on the roles and limitations of sea forces apply equally well to space. I'm nowhere near qualified to give informed opinions on strategy, so I won't even try. But if you think space wars are interesting, you should definitely give it a read.
Enjoy!
The dev
P.S. I realize that A.T. Mahan's "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" is far more well-known, at least in the U.S., but I can't honestly recommend it. I feel it falls short of Corbett's work in both historical accuracy and logical consistency, to the degree that I didn't make it past the first chapter.
"Some Principles" is an attempt to discover order in an apparently chaotic, and certainly very complex, field. Wars were fought at sea in vastly different contexts, for a multitude of purposes, using ever evolving weapons and platforms. Yet they have common features, and most of those apply to wars in space as well.
Space is like the sea in one basic way. The vast majority of it is only useful as a means of communication between places, and it's those places that are strategically important. The sea, like space, is only a pathway, but controlling it provides significant benefits both in peacetime and during conflicts.
Also, both are fundamentally hostile to human life. We can survive there, we can even build ships to move about, but it costs significant effort and resources, and we become far more vulnerable than in our natural environment.
Based on these similarities, Corbett's insights on the roles and limitations of sea forces apply equally well to space. I'm nowhere near qualified to give informed opinions on strategy, so I won't even try. But if you think space wars are interesting, you should definitely give it a read.
Enjoy!
The dev
P.S. I realize that A.T. Mahan's "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" is far more well-known, at least in the U.S., but I can't honestly recommend it. I feel it falls short of Corbett's work in both historical accuracy and logical consistency, to the degree that I didn't make it past the first chapter.