The War of 1812: What it Means to the United States

摘要

While the opportunity to a celebrate a bicentennial has the United States Navy, and several supporting organizations, reveling in that service's achievements during the War of 1812, these efforts at commemoration are perpetuating a distorted view of the past. The war did produce a series of engagements that remain of inestimable value in establishing the ethos of the American naval profession, however, claims that the war saw the Navy assume the role of guarantor of American freedom of the seas obscures the facts that the United States Navy did not emerge from the war as a force capable of imposing its will on foreign powers, and that its most significant victories occurred far from any ocean.