House of Steel The Honorverse Companion - By David Weber Page 0,2

do very well.

What we have not done, and what we must do, is to acquire the capability to discharge the rest of our mission and our obligation. We must recognize that we cannot, as a single star nation of extraordinary wealth, afford to ignore the temptation we must present to less prosperous but militarily powerful star nations. As the ancient pre-space philosopher Machiavelli pointed out, gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can always get you gold. The Star Kingdom, and the Junction, are that gold, and it will require good soldiers—or, in our case, a qualitatively superior navy—to protect it. We cannot continue to embrace a vague, poorly articulated strategic and tactical doctrine based on an uncritical acceptance of the Solarian model as the best and highest available to us. We must accept instead that we will not be able to match the numbers of platforms an adversary may bring against us, and we must capitalize upon the most precious tactical resource we have: the tradition of independent judgment and responsibility taking we have inculcated into our officer corps ever since the days of Edward Saganami and Ellen D’Orville. We must value that initiative properly, cultivate it, and integrate it into our operational and tactical doctrine at every level. And we must provide that initiative with the tools it requires—the innovative approach to weaponry and war-fighting technologies—to make it fully effective.

Initiative thrives upon exploitable asymmetrical relationships, upon the ability to oppose qualitative superiority to quantitative predominance. It is not sufficient for us to accept that the gradual, stable evolution of war-fighting technologies which has typified naval doctrine and capabilities for the past several centuries is inevitable. It is time that we began significantly investing in an aggressive search for new capabilities, innovative applications, to provide an officer corps trained to think for itself with levers it can use to offset its almost inevitable numerical inferiority when confronted by a powerful aggressor. Our wall of battle’s ship strength must be increased, but it will never be possible for the Star Kingdom to produce, man, and maintain naval forces on the scale of a star nation such as the Solarian League or even the People’s Republic of Haven. Since we cannot have the most numerous navy in space, we must instead strive to have the most efficient one.

Commander Janofsky’s call to bolster our forward deployed presence in Silesia is clear, logical, and concise. Despite that, however, one cannot avoid the conclusion that from the perspective of our primary mission, it is time and past time for the Navy to look to its wall of battle and the acquisition of the true war-fighting capability absolutely essential for any single-star system nation to adequately defend itself against a much larger multi-star system nation.

(ED: Lieutenant Winton is currently assigned to HMS Wolverine, serving as her executive officer.)

—From “On the Event Horizon:

Letters from the Deck Plates,”

Proceedings of the Royal Manticoran Navy Institute,

Issue number 3675, 12/10/249 AL

CAPTAIN E. JANACEK—Lieutenant Winton’s comments on Commander Janofsky’s article (see “On the Event Horizon,” Proceedings, No. 3675) are as perspicacious and insightful as one might readily anticipate from a member of his family and an officer whose career to date has demonstrated not only intelligence and ability but diligence and dedication. Nonetheless, there are certain pragmatic realities to which he has attached insufficient weight.

While it is true that the Navy’s current mission formulation rightly emphasizes the security of the home system, it is also true that the actual work of the Navy requires a concentration upon the mission in hand, and the mission in hand is, in fact, commerce protection, as Commander Janofsky so ably pointed out. At this time, there is no realistic threat to the security of the Manticore Binary System itself or to the Manticoran Wormhole Junction. The completion of the Royal Winton class will provide the Navy with a powerful, flexible deterrent force capable of holding its own against any projected threat. Lieutenant Winton is quite correct to underscore the invaluable advantage of our officer corps’ flexibility, initiative, and independence of thought. That advantage, coupled with the enormous increase in combat power represented by the Royal Wintons and HMS Samothrace and backed up by our older but still perfectly serviceable dreadnoughts, is fully adequate to the mission of protecting our home space and our fellow subjects from any realistic threat. And while Lieutenant Winton is also correct to emphasize that initiative and operational innovation are most effective when provided with the tools