On Lessons of History

There were lots of interesting comments following the recent speeches by Secretary Gates regarding the US Navy, but I wanted to highlight my favorite comment before too much time passes. Did you catch this one by Daniel Goure at the Lexington Institute blog?

Towards the end of his speech, Secretary Gates made reference to one of his most distinguished predecessors, our first Secretary of War and the man who founded the U.S. Navy, Henry Knox. He noted that in order to garner congressional support for his shipbuilding program, Knox had to spread his program out among different yards in multiple states. According to Gates congressional support for the alternative engines and C-17 programs are modern examples of the same problem.

Unfortunately, Gates chose to emphasize the least remarkable feature of his predecessor’s tenure. The more remarkable feature was Knox’s understanding that the fledgling country needed a navy not just to protect its shores to deal with pirates (the irregular warfare problem of his day) but to project power globally against all threats. As he declared in 1794 on the passage of the act to construct the first six frigates: “. . .this second commencement of a navy for the United States should be worthy of their national character. That the vessels should combine such qualities of strength, durability, swiftness of sailing, and force, as to render them equal, if not superior, to any frigates belonging to any of the European Powers.”

Secretary Gates is no Henry Knox. He has no strategic vision for the Navy of the future. His focus is purely tactical and technical. He does not appreciate what Knox understood more than 200 hundred years ago, that the U.S. Navy has to be a strategic capability that can sail on an ocean and face any threat. Knox built a Navy to go in harms way; Gates wants to build one to avoid being sunk.

The "tactical and technical" observation was a necessary criticism regarding the Gate's view of Naval Power, but it was only when that observation is combined with the last sentence that I fully appreciated how on target this comment was.