This article aims to discuss the role of sea and naval power
in “Rise and Fall Realism”; “Defensive Structural Realism”;
and “Offensive Structural Realism”, which are respectively
represented by the works of Gilpin (2002) and Modelsky and
Thompson (1988); Posen (2003) and Mearsheimer (2001). We
argue that these scholars mistakenly employ sea and naval
power as if they were synonyms. In fact, these scholars are
mainly concerned with the military component of sea power,
that is, naval power. In addition, we claim that the relative
importance of naval power in relation to other sources of
power varies in a spectrum that goes from: 1) the consideration
of naval power as a necessary and almost sufficient condition
to global power raking, 2) moving to the acknowledgment of
naval power as historically important to the last two hegemonic
powers but not necessarily important in future manifestations
of hegemonic power, and 3) reaching the consideration of naval
power as only having a supportive role for land power, being
this power the necessary and almost sufficient condition to a
high placing in the global ranking of powers. Finally, we reflect
on the argument established by those variants of Realism on the
connection between naval power and wealth.
