The Navy's Great Challenge of our Time

The second thing that proponents of the concept can argue represents real change is the elevation of maritime security and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to core maritime capabilities. Once again, however, critics could argue that maritime security has been a core capability of the Navy since the Continental and Oceanic Eras, when Navy ships combated pirates and slave traders. Maritime security was also important in the Transoceanic Era, as the Navy contributed ships to the war on drugs and anti-terrorist operations (e.g., the Achille Lauro operation). And, of course, maritime security has been a defining role for the Coast Guard since its inception. The same goes for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, which have long been important naval missions. Proponents of the strategy can argue that the concept’s call for more proactive humanitarian assistance and disaster relief activities is something new. However, critics could argue that the Navy is simply using its tools in a slightly different way. For example, the hospital ships Mercy and Comfort, in the fleet since the 1980s, were designed to support a major combat operation. Proactively dispatching them on “Missions of Peace” during peacetime is simply a smart return on their investment.

Once again, whether one sees the elevation of maritime security and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief as being old wine in old bottles or new wine in new bottles is really in the eye of the beholder. Unquestionably, however, the concept’s overall emphasis on the two, and its explanation why the two are so important in a globalized world prone to “system disruptions,” is something new in US maritime strategic documents.

- A Cooperative Strategy For 21st Century Seapower: An Assessment (PDF), CSBA, March 2008

We love this CSBA assessment. It assists with context for any maritime strategy discussion someone would want to have. When we discuss the 21st Century Seapower among ourselves in the office, almost all of our discussions now are related to the elevation of maritime security and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief as part of executing strategy. My chief and my SGT spent many years combined conducting these types of missions, and what is interesting is that while both agree these two capabilities don't represent new activities for the Navy or Marines, both talk of these capabilities as new ways to take the offensive in times absent war. Can you tell they both studied Clausewitz? In our opinion, the development of good peacemaking capabilities in the context of strategy will mean the development of methods for taking the offensive in peacetime.

When given the opportunity to discuss maritime strategy (PDF) with Vice Admiral Morgan last week, I knew almost instantly I would be asking about the elevation of "humanitarian assistance and disaster relief" as a method for executing strategy. The Navy has spent over 2 centuries developing ways to confront wartime challenges at sea, and in the last 6+ decades the United States Navy has proven to be superior to all challengers. It will be an ugly day for the enemy of the United States when our Navy takes the offensive in wartime. Our Navy has the leadership, has been honing its skills for decades, has the tools necessary for victory, and is thoroughly trained for that day. The US Navy has become the fortress Lord Nelson warned fools about fighting. Taking Command of the Sea when that command is contested is not the great challenge of the US Navy in our time.

The great challenge for the US Navy today is to develop our nations strategic capabilities to leverage the maritime domain in support of our nations interests during peacetime, and we think the authors of 21st Century Seapower have demonstrated incredible strategic wisdom by including the foundation for that discussion in the strategy of the joint services. What we call the mission statement of 21st Century Seapower speaks to the challenge.

Today, the United States and its partners find themselves competing for global influence in an era in which they are unlikely to be fully at war or fully at peace. Our challenge is to apply seapower in a manner that protects U.S. vital interests even as it promotes greater collective security, stability, and trust. While defending our homeland and defeating adversaries in war remain the indisputable ends of seapower, it must be applied more broadly if it is to serve the national interest.

We believe that preventing wars is as important as winning wars. There is a tension, however, between the requirements for continued peacetime engagement and maintaining proficiency in the critical skills necessary to fighting and winning in combat. Maritime forces must contribute to winning wars decisively while enhancing our ability to prevent war, win the long struggle against terrorist networks, positively influence events, and ease the impact of disasters.

The pursuit of two objects, preventing wars and winning wars, speaks directly to the duality of the joint services maritime strategy, and it takes critical thinking to apply the pursuit of both objects while avoiding the tension the strategy mentions. The broad application of strategy for a dual approach presents a new context for thinking about how to use seapower strategically, and in our view represents a circular theory of war for using seapower for both warfighting and peacemaking.

Julian Corbett believed the object of naval warfare "must always be directly or indirectly either to secure the command of the sea or to prevent the enemy from securing it." In that spirit we observe an antipodal point in this circular theory of warfare to be the processes that mitigate the disruption of command of the sea to promote peacetime commerce. As part of this circular theory, peacemaking responsibilities for the Navy exist both prior to warfare (cooperative partnerships) and after warfare (reconstitution of commerce and security), also described as the periods of time absent war. We observe that peacemaking relies upon the application of warfighting to regain command of the sea when command is lost.

In a globalized world prone to “System disruptions” that can come from a variety of state and non state threats, we acknowledge up front that as antipodal points warfighting and peacemaking are not diametrically opposite. Because the use of hard military power can promote peacemaking in pursuit of the object of warfighting (Command of the Sea), and the use of soft power can be leveraged successfully in warfighting in pursuit of the object of peacemaking (promoting conditions that prevent war), the tension is exposed in the grey areas within the broad strategic approach the Navy is taking. In that context we have taken the conceptual view for the Navys broad view of strategy to be best described as a yin yang, representing warfighting and peacemaking as two opposing and, at the same time, complementary (completing) applications of seapower in the pursuit of the interests of the United States.

21st Century Seapower takes the position that the Navy will apply the tactical ideas of our time in pursuit of the peacemaking strategy, some of these ideas include military operations other than war, cooperative relationships built on security and stability, cultural awareness, and Maritime Security Operations (MSO). We believe the success of these tactical approaches for "preventing wars" will ultimately be determined by the further development and wise application of peacemaking theories of war that compliment warfighter theories of war. We also observe that in many ways, the development of these theories presents major challenges to the sea services, in particular the Navy.

An easy example is highlighted in the examination of the Marines theories of peacemaking, specifically in regards to COIN. An early lesson of COIN is that properly trained manpower matters a lot. We observe one of the recently exposed principles of 21st century military strategy is that the United States military does not need significant manpower for warfighting, we can bring more military power to the fight with fewer people than any other nation. However, the United States does need significant manpower for peacemaking, and we haven't observed a single exception. With these principles of our nations military strategy in mind, it is easy to see where the duality nature of 21st Century Seapower will create tension in the Navy in the future.

For example, the Littoral Combat Ship was developed before these principles were evident, and by design replaced the primary metric for peacemaking (manpower) with unmanned systems. While in hindsight it is discouraging that the primary surface combatant intended to promote peacemaking in the future may be poorly suited for the job, the Littoral Combat Ship also represents the application of the strategical and tactical ideas of our time (motherships for unmanned systems). In this way, the LCS represents an excellent example of the tension the strategy discussed in regards to peacemaking and warfighting, because in wartime, all those unmanned systems will be a critical factor in scouting for the fleet to insure we fire effectively first. The LCS example demonstrates why we must think clearly about metrics for resources, and why requirements definitions are more important than ever if programs are to execute the desired functions in pursuit of both objects outlined in strategy.

This is but one example why the great challenge for the US Navy in our time is to develop our nations strategic capabilities to leverage the maritime domain in support of our nations interests during peacetime without eroding the nations wartime capabilities. The success or failure in meeting this challenge will, in our opinion, define the relevance of the Navy in the 21st century, not only during peacetime, but in future times of war as well.