The USA is principally a naval power. This has been true throughout her history, and in many ways it remains true even during this transition to the aero-space age.
Alfred Thayer Mahan's seminal works "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783" and "The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future" still shape the USA's thinking about naval power.
Yet there is an alternative work from a British contemporary that deserves more attention than it has received: Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, by Sir Julian Stafford Corbett. Whereas Mahan focused on capabilities for decisive battle, Sir Corbett tends more toward a view of maritime strategy as both offensive and defensive, and linked to lines of communication as the foremost imperative. It's a work that is likely to be cited more and more often as debates about transforming America's navy - and perhaps even its naval role - gather steam in the coming years.
These works are about more than just navies. They are about how naval power fits into warfare as a whole, and what role it can meaningfully play. As such, they go beneath and beyond contemporary weapons systems and debates, while remaining relevant. Thanks to the wonders of Project Gutenberg, they now exist at your fingertips, on call and available for reading at any time.
UPDATE: See the battleground for these ideas move to space, via USN Commander John J. Klein's Fall 2006 Air & Space Power Journal article: "Space Power An Ill-Suited Space Strategy."
Thanks for these pointers, Joe.
Aside: It bugs me to see, in some cases, such as the Gutenberg Project version of Ben Franklin's Autobiography, obvious typos going uncorrected. Especially when the work is up to the nth revision. The scariest part is when the sense of a sentence gets reversed (as famously happened with at least one edition of the Bible :) ).
Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion World Maps
were used by the US Military in and after WW-II to figure out how to be the world's sea and air power.
Worth reviewing.
better view here but the special maps are missing from google searches
He had the one sea, world air power, one land etc.. type maps that let you look at the earth from different strategic perspectives.
Bucky's estate gets pretty snippy about anyone doing anything public with the Dymaxion (icosahedral) Map, which they seee as his-their Intellectual Property. Sad, since were he still alive he'd probably be giving it away.... But it's a potential revenue stream, so [shrug] wait fifty years past his death and unless they can swing a Disney deal, it'll finally be Public Domain.