The late Victorian and Edwardian Royal Navy has long occupied a distinctive niche within the discipline of naval history. From Arthur Marder's seminal work in the early 1940s to revisionist conceptualizations over the last two decades, academic discourse in the field has been anything but stagnant. Perhaps more than any other aspect, this is due to the dominating presence of the mercurial Admiral of the Fleet Lord John A. Fisher. Not only did he initiate and oversee the Service's ‘modern’ transformation, he defined it. Thus, Fisher's decisions, actions, and intentions as First Sea Lord inevitably permeate most studies of Admiralty policy in the decade before the First World War and the conflict itself. Herein also reside the pitfalls attending any historical interpretation of the Royal Navy during this period. As Andrew Gordon succinctly observed in The Rules of the Game: ‘The age of Fisher is a territory of thickets and swamps still being mapped and partitioned by academic exploration and fought over in public debate. For a traveller to hope to pass quickly through without getting enmired or paying heavy tolls is an unlikely proposition.’ The following study will wade into this quagmire to chart the Royal Navy's strategic evolution into the First World War.