Globalization and Expeditionary Warfare

The war the nation fights today is not a war of America’s choosing. It is a war that was brought violently and brutally to America’s shores by the evil forces of terror. It is a war against America and America’s way of life. It is a war against all that America holds dear. It is a war against freedom itself.

Sounds like a Rudy Giuliani campaign speech, but that is actually a quote from the 2001 Quarterly Defense Report (PDF). Lately I've been trying to introduce more strategic content into the blog, examples being Milan Vigo's and Admiral Cebrowski's insights on future fleet requirements, or Bob Work's insights on the lack of definition for Sea Basing. We have also added some articles with our own analysis of the subjects. As I have been looking deeper into Expeditionary Warfare and Sea Basing specifically, I have found myself drawn to the writings of George V. Galdorisi. We had previously discussed a Proceedings article he contributed to on the topic of RW gaps back in September.

Galdorisi's contribution to Globalization and Maritime Power, Chapter 21, is excellent in full. We find this section on Globalization and Expeditionary Warfare brilliant, and we find it more relavent today than in 2002 when it was written.

The forces impelling globalization suggest the need for a military strategy that combines peacetime regional engagement, crisis management, and maintenance of warfighting capabilities to mitigate and contain likely conflicts. As concerns about the impact of globalization on U.S. security have gained traction during the past decade, U.S. forces have often been called upon to operate in multiple, simultaneous, lesser regional contingencies. The number of contingencies is striking. During the 1990s, the United States engaged in more than 500 lesser regional contingencies. The ability to respond to these contingencies—occurring at the rate of one per week—depends upon the ability of naval expeditionary forces to remain forward deployed, mobile, flexible, and combat-credible.

Expeditionary warfare forces in general and amphibious warfare forces in particular have provided first responders to these crises that occur more frequently. Less well understood is the impact that these forces have on the globalization process. What effect does the ability of the United States to field a robust amphibious warfare capability have on the ongoing process of globalization? Are these forces a facilitating element, or are they merely crisis response forces operating on the margins?

The economy that essentially defines globalization is built on the worldwide transport of goods and services as well as the accelerating connectivity wrought by modern telecommunications and information technology. Although some time-critical material travels by air, the overwhelming bulk of this worldwide transport occurs by sea and is facilitated by international law such as the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other accords. However, regional aggressors, international pirates, rogue states, international terrorists, and the like have little respect for international law. Ultimately, it is incumbent on maritime powers such as the United States to guarantee this worldwide transport of goods and services by protecting the ocean commons—both the high seas and the ports of embarkation and debarkation.

In concert with the navies of allied nations, the Navy and Marine Corps are the guarantors of international trade, allowing it to flourish and expand without the fear of long-term disruption. While localized crises such as the Iraq-Iran tanker war during the 1980s can temporarily disrupt international trade, ultimately the maritime powers in general, and the United States in particular, restore order on the global commons with their naval forces. Clearly, without this worldwide naval presence—and the threat of retaliation against those who would disrupt world trade—it is unlikely that globalization as we know it today would be a reality, and thus, the continued expansion of a globalizing economy could well be an uncertain thing.

Increasingly, expeditionary warfare forces are becoming more visible in their role in undergirding the political stability necessary for globalization. Other naval assets—such as CVBGs, submarines, independently operating surface combatants, and long-range tactical aviation—play key roles in enforcing order on the high seas portion of the global commons. But it is the nature of amphibious forces—that is, the ability to project power from the sea onto the land in a measured, tailored fashion—that makes them the most likely asset to be called upon to perform stability operations. Landing marines ashore has an obviously longer-term impact (and more flexible outcome) than aerial bombing or a missile strike. In this sense, amphibious forces are the most visible sign of reassurance for friendly nations and deterrence for potential hostile actors.

Should an aggressor threaten commerce on the global commons—either on the high seas or in the littorals—expeditionary warfare forces are structured to extract swift retribution: from destroying ships, aircraft, ports, or airfields that disrupt or even threaten to disrupt global commerce, to protecting the ports and airfields of friendly nations to ensure the continued free flow of trade, to directly attacking pirates or other rogue entities that seize or otherwise hazard international merchant shipping, to escorting this same shipping during selected portions of their transits.

The ability of expeditionary warfare forces to serve as key guarantors of international commerce from terminus to terminus makes them indispensable assets in facilitating and accelerating globalization. While these forces dramatically impact globalization, so too does globalization impact the rule set for the conduct of amphibious warfare. This suggests that the paradigm for expeditionary warfare may be changing as rapidly as globalization is changing the world.

George V. Galdorisi was on target. We observe that nearly 6 years later the paradigm for expeditionary warfare has already changed as a direct result of globalization. The major, visible influence of globalization is that the importance of expeditionary forces has increased, but in the process we observe the prominence of amphibious assault within the context of expeditionary forces has decreased. This has led to new expeditionary warfare force requirements, and the results appear to be Sea Basing... and all the definitions of it.