"Reviewing Islamic Seapower During the Age of Fighting Sail" Topic

"Over the past five years, strategic horizons have shifted east and drawn closer attention to increasing naval power across the Pacific. Analysts have pointed out that the rising size of the People's Liberation Army, Navy, to say nothing of the growth of the Chinese Coast Guard fleet, has caused neighbors to adjust their own building plans. Some have even suggested that there is a naval arms race underway in Southeast Asia. The United States is not a passive observer of these trends either, shifting the balance of the U.S. fleet so that 60% of American warships are in the Indo-Pacific region. The nations in that part of the world have noticed American naval developments in parallel with those of China.[1]

This focus on naval power, in a region made up of archipelagic and island nations, peninsulas, and massive expanses of maritime space, certainly makes strategic sense. But the Indo-Pacific is not the only part of the world with navies and naval developments. At the same time observers have trumpeted naval races in the Pacific region, they have reinforced the idea that landpower and armies dominate the Middle East and the Islamic world.[2] Closer examination of both the past and the present suggests this strategic perception is not as persuasive as it appears at first blush. The naval past and present of the Islamic world offers a great deal to study…."

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