The War that Britain fought between 1739 and 1748 has not been considered one in which the strategic, operational, or tactical abilities of its statesmen and military leaders blossomed. In London, Sir Robert Walpole, the duke of Newcastle, the earl of Carteret and almost all their colleagues in the highest positions of state, are usually seen as ill-informed, misguided, and fractious. On the battlefields the likes of the duke of Cumberland, the earl of Stair, Sir John Cope, Henry Hawley, seem to have little grasp of the broader purpose of their campaigns. At sea, Edward Vernon, Thomas Matthews, Charles Knowles, Henry Medley, and John Byng were unable to make good use of Britain's greatest strategic advantage – sea power. At best the war, which for Britain ended with the status quo ante, was solid training for those lights were going to burn brightly eight years later in the Seven Years War – most obviously, the secretary of state for the Southern Department, William Pitt, but also the illustrious commanders, George Anson, Jean-Louis Ligonier, Edward Hawke, Edward Boscawen, Jeffrey Amherst, and James Wolfe.

The transformation of Britain's performance in the two wars has long been associated with the emergence of this new generation of leaders. That they played important roles in the victories is undeniable, but locating the causes of success almost exclusively in the characters of the leaders, throws much else into the shade.

This chapter will focus less on the performance of individual leaders than on the social process of leadership itself. This way of looking at leadership shows that it is not rigidly hierarchical, nor bureaucratically determined. Nor are its outputs the product of a purely scientific rational process. It is not confined to formal organisational ‘commanders’ nor the preserve of a single brain. Leadership at all levels is a social process that exists between people – the leaders and the led – who are in a constant process of renegotiating that relationship and may be changing roles at any time. Even the output of the strategy formulation process – strategic policy – is only one step in actual performance of the organisation.

Since the first few months of 2020 the world economy has been faced by crises that it had not seen for over seventy years. The sudden progress of the virus COVID-19 throughout most of the world forced an unprecedented economic shut-down, bringing predictions of an economic jolt whose repercussions are likely to be felt for many years to come. So new was the virus that most national governments quickly turned to the scientific community to help them understand the epidemiology. They looked to this community to inform decisions relating to the immediate political questions about ending ‘lock-downs’ and organising life in the post-virus world. They barely dared to make a move without the endorsement of some part of the scientific community. However, it was not long before citizens became restless in many parts of the world, particularly the western world. This was reflected in political backlashes and even violence. It was a stark reminder of an old tension that exists within societies between political authority and the authority of experts.

Barely had the global concern over COVID subsided when another major crisis jolted world politics. In January 2022 increasingly aggressive displays of Russian military power on the borders of Ukraine sent tremors through the world's diplomatic channels. While Russian messaging was ambiguous in so far as what Russian grievances actually were and what would satisfy the Kremlin, what was not in question was the expert power of the Russian armed forces. On conspicuous display was the modern hardware and the new tactical organisation of an armed force that had been substantially reformed since 2008. It was believed that if Russia decided to launch a large-scale invasion of Ukraine it would be a short, one-sided affair.

In the event the invasion of 24 February was a dismal failure. The expertise in the operational art and the technological and tactical changes supposed to have radically altered the effectiveness of the Russian military proved illusory. On the ground, in the air, and at sea the expertise of Russian forces was far more limited in combat than initially anticipated. This came only six months after the withdrawal of Allied forces from Afghanistan had also shown that highly developed, expensive military expertise could not prevent humiliation and disaster. In the world of the military, as in civil society, the authority of the experts was undermined.

This book has not been about strategy, but about the influence navies have exerted upon the strategy-making bodies in different societies. Navies cannot exist without the explicit support of political authorities, and those authorities rely upon their naval experts to help them make decisions to ensure naval power fits into national objectives. It is a symbiotic relationship that is common to almost all experts and their political masters in the modern world. In the twenty-first century the need for political authorities to understand naval power remains as important as ever, but, as the often repeated fears of ‘sea-blindness’ demonstrates, it is a difficult task. What these essays show is that the problems are not new. They have existed at least from the late sixteenth century when institutionalised navies imposed long-term fiscal, economic and political demands on societies’ leaders. The complex demands placed upon those leaders by other actors influenced how they understood their navies and what they demanded of naval power was also highly variable.

Even in strongly maritime societies, navies are just one of many organisations and groupings that influence and inform political and defence policy decision-making. Defence demands have to be satisfied or negotiated among many other pressures facing modern industrialised societies. Today, when navies are an element within a broad ‘defence’ proposition, that is expanding from the other traditional domains of land and air to space and cyber, and the message is clearly that the effectiveness of defence will depend on the joint contribution of all these domains, navies have, as always, to compete to explain and demonstrate their place within this joint endeavour. The new digital media, in some ways, makes it easier, but in others it creates an even bigger wall of competing ‘noise’.

On the other side of the equation, for societies to profit from sea power it requires an understanding and a willingness to accept the technical, social, and financial costs over a long period. Political leaders were not faced with the same defence problem, re-presented continually over space and time. What the problems are and how they are presented, varies according to the social, cultural, economic, and political circumstances.

On 7 November 1739, the British declaration of war against Spain was solemnly proclaimed on Guernsey. War had long been expected and the Lieutenant Governor, John Graham, had already been pressing the government for support. He had some success, but this had not reassured the civil authorities. In early November the States ordered Peter Cary, deputy to the States, to explain their concerns to the Secretary of State for the Southern Department, the Duke of Newcastle. From their perspective, Guernsey was hemmed in between St Malo and Cherbourg, so close to the French coast that an invasion force embarked on barques and shallops could be on the island within a few hours. All male inhabitants between the ages of sixteen and sixty, which might amount to 2,000 men, were required to turn out for the militia, but about a third of these men were likely to be employed on privateers. There were only two weak companies of regulars on the island, old soldiers known as invalids, to provide a professional backbone. A proper defence would need at least a regiment and twenty-five field cannon to prevent a landing. However, even this would not be enough. According to Cary, ‘the natural defence of all the Islands’ was effective naval support. If part of the Channel squadron were stationed at Guernsey, which had a good and safe anchorage, it would protect the island from invasion; protect British commerce; destroy French commerce and drive away their privateers. Cary reminded Newcastle of the importance of the Channel Islands. In the last wars with France (1689−98, 1702−13) they had thirty to forty privateers continually cruising along the French coast. Guernsey privateers alone employed 1,700 men (50% of whom were English, Irish and Dutch seamen). They took 1,500 prizes, including many valuable ships. They disrupted French coastal trade, and even penetrated up their rivers. They went where deep-drafted men of war could not venture. They retook prizes from the French and returned them to their owners. They brought frequent and valuable intelligence gleaned from contacts ashore and captured French documents on prizes. For example, Cary claimed that in 1703 intercepted letters, taken on a recaptured English vessel, prevented the 200 ships of the Virginia convoy from falling into the hands of a French squadron that was cruising for them.

Just before 08:00 on 8 March 1801 about 200 boats were lying off a sandy cove in Aboukir Bay. Waiting in this collection of flatboats and other craft were over 5,000 British soldiers with a small detachment of field artillery. On their flanks were some cutters, gunboats, sloops and two bomb ships. On shore, General Friant of the French Armée de l'Orient had assembled about 2,000 of his troops, including cavalry and 15 pieces of field artillery. The British gunboats began to fire on the French as they assembled, but Friant was fairly confident that he could disrupt or even crush any landing that might be attempted.

However, the landing was a startling success and by the end of the day, the whole force of over 12,000 troops and its field artillery was ashore. To General Bertrand, the landing ‘was like a movement on the opera stage’.

The traditional history of the Royal Navy is a history of heroes. Long before the emergence of professional naval history, the purpose of the past was, explicitly, to instruct the present in preferred modes on conduct. From Jesuit education to classical education, the story of great deeds provided the content, narrative structure and purpose of history. With the emergence of modern history schools in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the central role of hero retained its hold on naval and military history. For most of the time since, the idea of leadership has been associated with the heroic central character, whose personality and capability is the determining factor in a critical situation. This is not surprising given the dominating purpose of this history in the education of the officer corps.

Even today, the heroic leader remains a powerful element within historical studies. While behaviour to be emulated is more contested today, the hero, or central character, remains a focus around which the world of the past can be understood and brought to a human scale. Whether in literature, biography or history (actual or counter-factual), personality, good or evil, engages the reader more easily than long past impersonal ‘systems’. The power of Horatio Nelson, two hundred years after his death, to generate books, documentaries, dramas, societies and, ultimately, international commemoration, is testimony to the influence of heroes in the modern world.