Oceans Ventured describes the men and events that enabled the Navy to snatch the strategic initiative from a Soviet navy determined to challenge the U.S. around the globe ... Oceans Ventured, in its engrossing and illuminating narrative, reminds us that numbers are less important than strategy. Let’s hope a new generation of thinkers will soon gather to determine how best to respond to China’s rising challenge. Who knows? Maybe they’ve gathered already, and their plan is recorded on someone’s napkin.
In Oceans Ventured, Mr. Lehman recounts how the naval build-up and bold naval exercises, such as 'Ocean Venture 81,' played a role in Mr. Reagan’s plan ... At times reading like a military thriller, John Lehman’s Oceans Ventured offers an interesting and illuminating look back at Cold War naval history.
Lehman's work reads more like personal memoirs of his time as secretary of the navy during the Reagan years. Based on his former position, his latest work has a bias in favor of 1980s Republicans and the Reagan administration. Lehman dismisses Democrats and 'leftists' while praising favored colleagues ... For anyone studying the late Cold War, although the favoritism can be a turn-off for anyone who isn't a staunch Reagan supporter.
By detailing the role the naval exercises played in signaling to the Soviets that the U.S. Navy would be a force to be reckoned with in a global conflict, Lehman makes a valuable contribution to the yet-to-be-written definitive account of this era. Oceans Ventured also serves as an important reminder of the importance of sea power in the contemporary world and serves as a clarion call for a substantial uptick in procurement to confront emerging threats.
Lehman persuasively argues that the pressure that Ocean Venture ’81 and subsequent exercises brought to bear on the Soviet Union was instrumental in bringing it to its knees ... Lehman describes in some detail the operations that contributed to the ultimate success of the maritime strategy. These operations were executed by aggressive naval officers under extremely difficult conditions, especially in northern waters ... As Lehman remarks, 'diplomacy is the shadow cast by military and naval power.' In Oceans Ventured, John Lehman makes a strong case for the role of naval power in winning the Cold War.
In this provocative account of his years with the Reagan administration, Lehman reveals newly declassified information about this chapter in U.S.-Russia relations, asserting that the expansion and aggressive forward deployment of U.S. naval power led directly to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Lehman’s claims are both interesting and debatable and will likely lead to continued controversy in academic, journalistic, and military circles.
In this incisive political and strategic analysis, Lehman, secretary of the Navy from 1981 to 1987, describes the 'naval rearmament and maritime superiority' strategy that he argues decided the Cold War ... Lehman makes a difficult-to-ignore case for sea power’s potential to 'prevent having to go to war at all.' This well-argued work will have significant appeal for those interested in national security issues.
Former Secretary of the Navy Lehman...unfolds the Ronald Reagan-era strategy to reclaim United States dominance on the high seas and contain the Soviet fleet ... this is a matter-of-fact, evenhanded look at a largely overlooked component in the eventual decline and collapse of the Soviet Union. Valuable for students of naval strategy and geopolitics as well as of Cold War history.
