Littoral Warfare: Two Perspectives

Sammanfattning: Littoral warfare implies a disproportionate advantage to the coastal navy or “defending” side. Small navies sometimes lean on larger navies in doctrinal production. A coastal navy’s goals, methods and capabilities can be considered thought to be different from that of a larger navy’s regarding in regards to littoral warfare. This paper answers the question “What does littoral warfare mean for different types of states?”. An ideal type analysis was used to answer the question, and the doctrines of Sweden (type A state), USA (type B), and the UK (type B) were analysed in regards to the research question. This paper found inds that each type of state viewed littoral warfare in regards to themselves, from their own perspective; a type A state can be seen as a defender and a type B state as an aggressor. In the context of littoral warfare context, each the types of states employed different goals, methods and means as pertaining to littoral warfare.