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[QUOTE]Originally posted by zarahan: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by alTakruri: [qb] See Appendix 1 @ http://www.navy.gov.au/w/images/IntSP_1_Ancient_EgyptSP.pdf See Appendix 1 for an extensive chart of more than 2600 years of AE maritime operations. [/qb][/QUOTE]Good find this article. The author has a section in there on the "Western way" and the argument that Western 'freedom' is linked with sea power. But the author questions it somewhat- noting that the imperialist regimes of Europe also used sea power to maintain their hegemony, not always as a means of generating "freedom or the so-called Western values of liberalism, democracy and capitalism." ======================================== http://www.navy.gov.au/w/images/IntSP_1_Ancient_EgyptSP.pdf Sea Power and the Opening of the Western Mind Many of today’s naval historians, brought up within a Western academic tradition, have seen a link between the liberal democratic and capitalist traditions and the rise of sea power. One widely renowned scholar has even suggested that maritime supremacy was responsible for the development of today’s Western beliefs and systems of government, ‘the opening of the Western mind' and that the distinguishing mark of maritime power is freedom. "Both trade and consultative government require the widest dissemination of information and free expression of opinion; thus the basic freedoms of trade spread through all areas of life, tending to break down social hierarchies and the grip of received ideas, creating more open, mobile and enterprising cultures. Liberty has always been the pride and rallying cry of powers enjoying maritime supremacy."35 Such thinking may be traced back to the seminal works in naval strategy written by Alfred T. Mahan and Julian S. Corbett before the outbreak of World War I; at a time when European maritime empires had spread across the globe.36 Using the British Empire and Royal Navy as examples, these early naval strategists emphasised the importance of commercial trade and sea communications toward achieving maritime supremacy. Both however, contained underlying assumptions that Western liberal democratic forms of government and free enterprise capitalist economies were both prerequisites for becoming and remaining a global sea power. Other scholars have emphasised the superiority of ‘independent supreme commanders, innovative soldiers and a sovereign legislature’, over ‘rigid hierarchy and complete submission of the individual’.37 The supposed superiority of the ‘Western way of war’ is more apparent than real.38 The advantage of using evidence of ancient history and archaeology is that it can extend our comparative telescope over thousands of years instead of hundreds of years. Over the previous pages it has become clear that the rise of Egypt was a very long process, undertaken over thousands of years, characterised by increasing political power, social complexity, economic organisation and trade, as well as increasingly complex religious beliefs and other ideological factors. It is possible that increased naval power did help the state formation process along the path towards an integrated Egyptian territorial state. But what of the so-called Western institutions? Where are the liberal democratic and capitalist traditions in Ancient Egypt? Ancient Egyptian society was a formidable kingdom with a king exercising the power of life and death over his subjects, and where a centralised bureaucracy controlled all trading, economic and religious activities. In such a society there was little room for liberal democratic and capitalist ideologies. However, Ancient Egyptian society was not static. During the height of the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, the royal power was strongest; but during the three intermediate periods, actual royal power was weak and there were effectively many warlords and small states within Egypt rather than a unified Egyptian state. The actual extent of Egyptian sea power also fluctuated in association with Egyptian royal power, and it will be possible to see how the characteristics of actual Egyptian maritime operations changed over time when the evidence is examined later in this book. There is a noticeable trend in the rise of Ancient Egyptian sea power. The earliest growth of Egyptian sea power occured during a period of relatively high individual freedom and coincided with great advances in the arts, crafts, technology, language and cultural identity. But Egyptian sea power remained quite strong after the formation of the Egyptian state, even when the society was strongly centralised, bureaucratic and authoritarian. If the rise of early modern European maritime states and their Western liberal democratic and capitalist traditions are reconsidered, it is possible to see a parallel development.40 The freedoms cherished by the early European mercantile communities that precipitated the rise of global maritime empires gradually gave way to more centralised maritime states, which used maritime and naval forces to generate and maintain worldwide empires.41 Modern Western maritime states maintain powerful forces that have the ability to exercise sea power across the globe, under centralised and authoritarian command. Western sea powers – those nations with strong maritime traditions – do not automatically generate freedom or the so-called Western values of liberalism, democracy and capitalism. Rather, all societies, should consciously safeguard the values that they most cherish. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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