Admiral (2015). In a similar vein, never forget that the Netherlands has a seaborne badass of its own. Admiral recalls the story of Admiral Michiel De Ruyter, who commanded the Dutch Navy during the seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch naval wars. Holland was the reigning sea power of the age, England and its Royal Navy the upstarts. De Ruyter reached the summit of his achievements with the Medway Raid (1667), during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The admiral took his fleet into the Thames estuary, deep into the British interior, and either burned or towed away much of the English battle fleet. That’s rather like China’s navy stealing into Tokyo Bay today and attacking the U.S. Seventh Fleet at its moorings. Dutchmen celebrate De Ruyter’s triumph to this day, while Kipling wrote a poem about the raid to illustrate the wages of British naval unpreparedness. A solid telling of a more or less forgotten episode in maritime history. Bonus: also check out Broadside, which covers the Anglo-Dutch wars from the English side and features magnificent visuals of sea battles.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College. The views expressed in this article are his own.

This article first appeared earlier this year and is reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: U.S. Navy / Flickr