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The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) was one of the defining conflicts of the ancient Greek world. It involved almost all the Greek city-states, aligned with one of the two main protagonists, Athens and Sparta. Conventionally it is seen as a war between a great land power, Sparta, and a great sea power, Athens. The effect of viewing the war in this way is to give less prominence to the place of sea power in the conduct of the war, with that element viewed as relevant to only one side. Many scholars acknowledge that Athenian war strategy was primarily a maritime strategy and that Sparta only defeated Athens once the former had embraced the use of sea power against the latter. This is the basic narrative, and it is essentially correct. However, there is little appraisal of how sea power was used in the conduct of the war. This is unfortunate, since the Peloponnesian War is an excellent example of the uses and effectiveness of sea power. A more thorough examination of the thirty-year war between Sparta and Athens and their respective allies reveals a conflict in which sea power was of critical importance.
Sea power in the Peloponnesian War is visible along the full spectrum of maritime operations. Following Ken Booth and Eric Grove, modern naval operations commonly are divided into three main categories-the "span of maritime tasks," in current Australian maritime doctrine: military, diplomatic, and constabulary (policing).1 An examination of naval operations during the Peloponnesian War makes clear that, even at that time, naval forces conducted operations that spanned these three basic categories in ways that are recognizable to the modern observer.
These categories are not intended to be prescriptive, and naval operations often span several different tasks; current Chinese antipiracy operations in the Gulf of Aden can be seen as both constabulary and diplomatic in nature, for instance. What these categories aid in illustrating is the many and varied operations that navies conduct and how sea power is used, and used differently, by various powers and with different strategies in place.
The strategy of Athens under the leadership of the statesman Pericles was conspicuously and unambiguously maritime in nature. Under his leadership, Athens would import all its required foodstuffs, avoid land battle with...