The presence of a strong force, even though inferior, near the scene of operations, will produce a momentous effect upon the enemy's action.
Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, the great U.S. writer on sea power, gave this definition of a popular theory which he rejected—the theory of the Fleet in Being.
Admiral Mahan's skepticism notwithstanding, the principle of the Fleet in Being served the Germans well in World War I, and is powerfully at work against the U.S. as well as Britain in World War II. In this case the Fleet in Being is again...
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