The Complexity of Strategy: ’Jackie’ Fisher and the Trouble with Submarines

By utilising original memoranda, letters, and notes, this article illustrates the destabilising effect that new technology can have on naval strategic thinking. Correspondence between Admiral Sir “Jackie” Fisher, the Unionist Prime Minister A. J. Balfour, the naval historian and strategist Julian Corbett, and others before the First World War (1914–18) demonstrates the confusion and uncertainty that the submarine’s development brought to the British naval establishment. It follows a year-long debate concerning the submarine’s impact on Britain and its traditional naval strategy. It shows what motivated the participants, why they held divergent views, and why “consensus” was reached by relying on established paradigms.