Commerce Raiding

Commerce raiding (guerre de course) is a naval strategy of attacking an enemy’s merchant shipping and seaborne trade rather than seeking decisive battle with the enemy battle fleet. Historic forms ran from privateers and single cruisers to the German U-boat campaigns of both World Wars; the unrestricted submarine warfare of 1917 and 1939 to 1945 are its modern cases. Julian Corbett treated the guerre de course as a method of disputing command of the sea, contrasting it with Alfred Thayer Mahan’s emphasis on concentrating the battle fleet for command.