The new, 2015 U.S. Naval Maritime Strategy has been generally praised by most commentators as the appropriate next step from the 2007 Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower. That previous effort was well designed and crafted for its time and attendant international environment. The present document, however, has not moved far enough forward from the now receding post-Cold War Era (1991-2009). It remains largely a capabilities rather than a threat-based document in an era of new, and increasing threats. It is not supported by a well-defined force structure requirement as were past successful strategies in similar threat-based conditions. Finally, while the new strategy makes a great effort to describe global partnerships, it leaves out the Navy’s greatest partner; the United States Congress. Instead, the strategy uses the Navy as a tool to criticize the Congress for the effects of sequestration, a condition for which both the executive and legislative branches of government bear responsibility. This author would predict that unlike the 2007 document, this strategy will at best be an interim or bridging effort toward what the next Presidential administration intends in regard to national security and associated service strategies.
Despite identifying significant new threats not seen in its predecessor, the new naval strategy remains largely a capabilities-based document based on what the U.S. will field, but only vague about what threats they mitigate. Although first implemented as official doctrine by then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2001, capabilities-based planning had been development since the mid 1990’s as a replacement for traditional threat-based military assessment. In a January 2002 speech to the National Defense University (NDU) faculty and students, Rumsfeld described capabilities-based assessment as different in that, “Instead of building our armed forces around plans to fight this or that country, we need to examine our vulnerabilities, asking ourselves, as Frederick the Great did in his great General Principles of War, what design would I be forming if I were the enemy, and then fashioning our forces as necessary to deter and defeat those threats.” This imaginative planning method worked well in the environment of the 2000’s that was devoid of defined conventional threats and populated principally by non-state actors. The emerging threats identified in the new maritime strategy, however, are a combination of continuing non-state actor activity, but also greater hostility from traditional states such as Russia, Iran, and North Korea, as well as the “challenge” of China. In this period of hybrid threat it is necessary to determine in more detail what force structure is required to meet a single, or combination of challenges.
The British maintained a similar philosophy in the late 1920's and early 1930's when planning for future conflicts. The Royal Navy was deemed superior to the most probable threat from the Japanese Empire. The British assumed that the Royal Navy (RN) would be capable enough in its reduced, post 1919-size to undertake an expeditionary campaign against Japan alone if required. This assessment, however, proved impractical when the British had to employ the bulk of the RN to fight even the modest German Kriegsmarine and the Italian Navy in 1939. When the Japanese joined the war in 1941, Britain's failure to base it fleet on the possibility of war with all three Axis nations cost them many of the Pacific possessions, including Singapore, the Malaysian peninsula, and Hong Kong. Like the British Empire of the past, the U.S. has global responsibilities, and while agreements with friends and allies to assume parts can reduce U.S. commitments and risks, they are historically not always guaranteed to assure success. The British depended on the French to largely manage the Mediterranean Sea against the Italian Navy when war broke out in 1939. France's collapse in 1940, however, demanded a much greater commitment in the Med by the RN, and thus deprived it of the forces needed to secure the Pacific against Japanese aggression. The U.S. has also seen its plans disrupted by allies, as in the case of the 1986 Dorado Canyon air strikes against Libya, when a number of NATO allies refused the US access to their bases or airspace, and in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when a number of allies refused to join the coalition campaign against Saddam Hussein, or refused to allow the U.S. access to their nation in order to conduct the campaign.
The biggest problem with capabilities-based planning is that it is open to interpretation as to what defines an adequate “capability”. The history of the numerical decline of the U.S. fleet from 1993 to the present is one of different opinions on what it takes to provide for a specific capability. A threat-based assessment, on the other hand, usually results in an analysis that states specific numbers of platforms and payloads required to overcome a specific threat. The return of nation state threats to the strategic equation likewise requires the return of threat analysis to the business of strategy creation. The U.S. is no longer just creatively estimating what hypothetical opponents might do; their are potential, known opponent force structures with which to contend. While some capabilities-based assessment should continue, it should be accompanied by an effective threat-based component for the nations labeled as potential troublemakers in the 2015 strategy.
The new maritime strategy does emphasize some numbers in its calculus. It lists specific new deployments that have been accomplished or well planned including those of four destroyers to the Mediterranean for ballistic missile defense, four nuclear fast attack submarines to Guam, and the proposed basing of four littoral combat ships (LCS) to Singapore. The strategy also states that the U.S. must maintain a fleet of 300 ships, including 11 aircraft carriers, 14, and later 12 ballistic missile submarines, and 33 amphibious ships, as well as a Coast Guard of 91 high, medium, and low endurance cutters. These numbers are given in an almost defensive context rather than in a bold statement of purpose. One might imagine the Roman Emperor Hadrian making similar statements about the various walls, including the famous one in Britain that bears his name, as the best means of imperial defense rather than the active legions of men that sustained them. Hadrian’s Wall ultimately only delayed the barbarian’s advance. These ship numbers too may only delay the inevitable cuts in force structure that often occur in the absence of a defined fleet tailored to specific foes.
These numbers are further unaccompanied by any specific analysis or indication of how many ships the deployed regional commanders may actually require. This lack of specific, secure linkage to analysis or demand signal makes these numbers open to question, and eventual reduction. The best naval strategies from the British Royal Navy’s “Two Power Standard” of 1889 to the U.S. 1980’s Maritime Strategy harnessed a specific number of ships as defined by threat analysis to advance and maintain the fleet strength necessary to fulfill their requirements. The British based their fleet strength of the combined naval forces of their imperial rivals France and Russia. The vaunted 15 carrier fleet on the 1980’s was well supported by a number of carrier requirement studies done in the late 1970’s and identified by future Navy Secretary John Lehman in his book Aircraft Carriers, The Real Choices. Unlike these past successful efforts, the 2015 Maritime strategy does not reference any specific analysis in support of these numbers. While the present budget environment may be dismal, and preservation of current forces rather than advances in fleet strength the goal, the new strategy should have taken a more aggressive approach in articulating the fleet's numerical needs.
Finally, while the Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and the fleets of friends and allies get substantial reference in the new strategy, the U.S. Navy’s most important partner receives little attention. The U.S. Congress receives no mention other than on the first page with a note that Congress is compelled by the Constitution to maintain a Navy. Congressional support is vital to the achievement of any military strategic planning. While the new strategy does not call for a building program and associated additional expenditures as did the 1980’s Maritime Strategy, the Navy will require Congressional support to prevent the fleet from further shrinkage. Instead, the Navy and other service chiefs regularly parade in front of House and Senate Armed Services Committees to decry the effects of sequestration on their respective orders of battle. This is somewhat unfair, as sequestration is a problem created by disagreement between the legislative and executive branches of government on overall public spending. It is further exasperated by political disagreement due to the difference in political party control of these organs of constitutional government.
This situation is made worse, however, due to the fact that Congress in effect “voted itself off the island” of national security influence when it approved the Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986. Congress believed the legislation would result in less parochial, better organized armed forces that spent the taxpayers money in more efficient ways through greater control by the Department of Defense. The actual effect, however, was to further place the military under the control of the political party in control of the presidency. The positioning of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) as the President’s principal military advisor had the effect of making this officer a de facto member of the administration, rather than the first among a group of five equal senior officers in the JCS. Goldwater Nichols fulfilled a prerequisite of former CJCS and military reform supporter General Maxwell Taylor, who said, “the chairman should not only support the president's decisions but also be a true believer in them.” Congressional influence in such an environment is reduced. The services however need Congressional support to sustain the strategies they propose in limited budget environments. Parading the Constitutionally- unbiased service chiefs in front of Congress to berate the legislative branch alone for sequestration is disingenuous at best.
Not all elements of the new Maritime strategy are bad. It recognizes the limits of geography on naval strategy. It specifies a greater role for cyber warfare and it includes some specific joint and international partnerships essential to the achievement of U.S. goals. The strategy remains, however, deficient in three specific categories. If the widely distributed threat from Russia, Iran, North Korea, and possibly China is significant enough to mention in print, it must be addressed by a specific force structure derived from a threat-based analysis. That force structure, like the 600 Ship Navy that supported the 1980’s Maritime strategy, should be independent of what the budget may or may not support. As independent professionals, senior uniformed officers must speak truth to power and identify the resources required to ensure the nation’s maritime security. It is then the decision of elected leaders as to how much risk they choose to assume if the disregard professional military advice. Finally, the new Maritime strategy ought to more actively encourage Congressional support and interaction. In its present format, Congress is a mere footnote.
This strategy is likely a bridging document to the next Presidential administration and Congress who will put their own different stamp on the nation’s national security and attendant service strategies. The document could also change if China continues to present more challenges to the present maritime world order rather than seek cooperative actions within its boundaries. The 2015 Maritime Strategy, unlike its 2007, or even 1980’s predecessors, is unlikely to have a long service life, so maritime security planners should perhaps busy themselves with the next volume. Hopefully that document will fill the strategic glass above the midway point.
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