21st Century Mahan

I recently had an opportunity to read 21st Century Mahan: Sound Military Conclusions for the Modern Era by Benjamin Armstrong. Below is the official book description on Amazon.

Alfred Thayer Mahan's The Influence of Seapower upon History is well known to students of naval history and strategy, but his other writings are often dismissed as irrelevant to today's problems. This collection of five of Mahan's essays, along with Benjamin Armstrong's informative introductions, illustrates why Mahan's work remains relevant to the 21st century and how it can help develop our strategic thinking. People misunderstand Mahan, the editor argues, because they have read only what others say about him, not what Mahan wrote himself. Armstrong's analysis is derived directly from Mahan's own writings. From the challenges of bureaucratic organization and the pit falls of staff duty, to the development of global strategy and fleet composition, to illustrations of effective combat leadership, Armstrong demonstrates that Mahan's ideas continue to provide today's readers with a solid foundation to address the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world.

It is probably expected that as an American blogger on naval history and naval strategy, I would be a big fan of Alfred Thayer Mahan. The truth is, I am not. AT Mahan may be known as America's great strategist, but he takes subjects I love like naval history and naval strategy and does what I consider impossible - he makes the subjects boring to read. While reading most of his books, I'll find myself on paragraph seven and sentence ten on some various subject screaming at AT Mahan to "get to the f-in point already you long winded...". AT Mahan's style of writing books is one where he goes so far out of the way to be so precise in what he is saying that it's like driving from Maine to Montana to get to New Jersey. With that said, some of my favorite articles are written by AT Mahan, but in every single case those articles are for periodicals, not his books.

21st Century Mahan is a very clever book. The book combines five articles written by AT Mahan for periodicals specifically for public audiences, thus presenting AT Mahan in a way that is more approachable by those like me who can get annoyed by his difficult to read classical writing style. All five articles are very well written, but they are also relevant to the discussions surrounding the US Navy today. Benjamin Armstrong is a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy today, so the author intentionally draws no conclusions from Mahan's work and applies them to current events. And yet, because of the presentation and delivery within the book, the reader can't help but think about Mahan in a 21st century context applicable today. I am not sure if that was how LCDR Armstrong intended to write the book, or how the USNI editors helped arrange the book, but it is very clever and works well.

I really enjoyed the book. It helped that I had never read any of the five AT Mahan essay's covered in the book, and it also helped that I enjoyed each of the essay's. In particular the way the chapter involving Naval Administration and Warfare, Some General Principles came together early in the book was so well done I had to read it again with my yellow marker I was so impressed. To give one a sense of just how much easier this book is to read on Alfred Thayer Mahan than most works of AT Mahan, my 18 year old daughter actually finished the book when I asked her to read it just for an opinion. I assure you, if this was a typical Mahan book, she would not have made it past chapter 2.

If you are looking for a book with a strong authors opinion that draws conclusions for you in applying AT Mahan to the 21st century, this is not the right book for you. This book asks readers to draw their own conclusions. That detail actually defines the style of the book better than any other detail of the book, because the author doesn't tell the reader what to think, rather asks the reader to think for themselves.

Final note on this book. Availability of this book at Amazon for the paper copy has been hit and miss, but the electronic versions are always available. I note this because I have purchased two copies of this book since its release in late June and both copies arrived over 2 weeks later, so if you are expecting this book to be a last second quick gift idea, my experience suggests you should expect delays. With that said, there does appear to be copies available on Amazon again today.

Book Review

The The Heart and the Fist is the story of Eric Greitens’ world travels where he encounters the best and the worst of humanity while discovering his own passions and strengths. Eric is one of those amazingly impressive individuals who seems to master anything he attempts. Upon graduating with a PhD from Oxford, the Rhodes Scholar and collegiate boxing champion could have remained comfortably ensconsed in academia, or made a fortune in the corporate world. Instead, he chose to serve his country as a Navy SEAL.

This book is not typical of the special operations genre, although it contains uniquely detailed insight into NSW’s rigorous training regime at BUDS and Naval Special Warfare’s involvement in the war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. One of the most interesting chapters from an IW perspective was the description of Eric’s leadership of a MK V detachment in support of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines. The deployment was unique in that it included the longest transit ever (1,400 NM) of a naval special warfare craft, from Singapore to Zamboanga, visiting a number of small ports in Indonesia which had never seen a US Navy presence. This transit serves as a reminder that 21st Century naval diplomacy takes many forms.

The book will also appeal to those involved in development and humanitarian work, which increasingly overlaps the same places America finds itself immersed in counter-terrorism or counter-insurgency operations. Although the book presents an inspiring story of character and humanitarianism, I think the most important take away is the challenge for readers to strive for lives of service and leadership. Eric continues to serve as a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Reserve and runs an organization called The Mission Continues, challenging disabled veterans to continue serving in their own way.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Sunday Book Review: Innovation, Transformation, and War

James Russell's Innovation, Transformation, and War tracks doctrinal innovation in the US Army prior to the Surge. Russell, an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, wrote the book based on face-to-face interviews of personnel operating in Iraq between 2005 and 2007, and close attention to primary documents associated with the development of counter-insurgency on the ground in Iraq. Russell gives what is essentially a bottom up account of doctrinal innovation prior to the Surge. Networks of officers and NCOs shared information about tactics that worked across units, leading to general increase in the institutional capacity of units to conduct the Surge. Russell's work runs orthogonal to many accounts of the Surge, which focus on top-down doctrinal innovation coming from the group of officers and civilian experts closely associated with David Petraeus and FM 3-24. We read Russell as part of my Spring 2011 Counter-Insurgency course at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce.

Russell's unit of analysis is the brigade combat team, and he tracks the development of certain tactics across several brigades in Anbar and Nineva. These tactics include what have come to be known as COIN best practices, including census taking, engagement with local leadership, and maintenance of presence amongst the population. Russell finds that these best practices spread through low level interaction between officers and NCOs from units participating in the fight.

But here's the problem: Good social science typically needs some variation on the dependent variable. This is to say that in order to determine what causes learning, we need some examples of units that have learned, and some examples of units that have not. Russell, as far as I can tell, gives no account of units that have failed to learn. As Russell writes:

All the units studied here demonstrated a grasp of COIN principles and sought to build organizational competencies that could be operationalized in plans and operations. Senior leaders in each of the units studied here universally recognized that the ultimate objective in their operations was to secure the support of the local population and isolate the insurgents from local support.

One reason for this may be that Russell worked closely with many soldiers and marines, and was reluctant to suggest that any particular unit had failed to learn. Identification of the researcher with the subject is a problem that invariably affects social science projects that involve face-to-face interaction. But another possibility goes to the core of Russell's argument. When I'm presented with a situation in which there is no variation across units, I'm inclined to wonder whether a unit based (that is, bottom up) explanation is really necessary. We normally focus on unit level processes (and I use "unit" in the social science sense rather than in the "brigade" sense) when we see lots of variation across units. When all of the units act similarly, social scientist are inclined to look for a common cause. In this case, it's not clear that the development of counter-insurgency was really "bottom-up" as described by Russell. If it were so, we'd probably see variation across brigades, rather than uniformity. The uniformity that Russell describes is an indicator that the units all share a common environment (potentially a top-down oriented learning environment) that focuses their learning around certain goals. Networks may function, but they function as part of a hierarchical system that supports the learning of certain tactics, rather than others.

Long story short, while Russell argues that he's presenting a bottom-up doctrinal case, it seems to me that his evidence is quite consistent with a top-down account, albeit one rich in process-oriented detail. There's a lot at stake here, and not just for counter-insurgency; whenever any military organization recognizes a need to shift course, it's crucial to understand the precise nature through which doctrine changes. The bottom-up vs. top-down distinction is one of the arguments common to the literature, along with the civilian vs. military distinction. It's not clear to me that Russell is on the side he thinks he's on.

Nevertheless, the book was extremely helpful in the context of my counter-insurgency course. On the day we read Russell, Colonel James Crider (who recently took command of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division) spoke to the class about his experiences in Iraq, and the development of counter-insurgency theory. We also read Colonel Crider's CNAS monograph on learning during the Surge, which supported Russell's argument. We also had the pleasure of Pete Mansoor, who discussed his book Brigade Commander at Sunset the week after Crider spoke. This allowed us to compare Mansoor's practices in 2003-4 with Crider's during the Surge, which was an exceptional informative exercise.

See also Frank Hoffman's review.

Sunday Book Review: A War it Was Always Going to Lose

Jeff Record's latest book traces the road to war between Japan and the Western Allies in 1940 and 1941. Record's recent work, much of which has been very critical of modes of thinking prevalent in US foreign policy, has probed the analogies and misperceptions that dominate US security thinking. In this case, Record wants to challenge the idea that Japan was somehow "crazy" to launch a war in 1941 that it thought it would quite likely lose. Part of Record's account has to do with Japan's pursuit of "glory" and domination over Southeast Asia. However, Record also takes account of the role that miscommunication played in forming misconceptions in both the American and Japanese governments.

Japan's decision to go to war in December 1941 remains a puzzle for political scientists. Deterrence theory suggests that states don't go to war when they have a negative expected utility for the decision; in other words, when the likelihood of defeat and the cost of defeat exceed the likelihood and fruits of victory. War is also unlikely when states agree about the probabilities for victory and defeat; if the presumed loser understands that it is likely to lose, it will come to some accomodation rather than fight. The Japan case is puzzling because there is ample evidence that both the Japanese and the Americans judged Japanese victory as unlikely. The most common solution, such that it is, to this problem has been that Japan regarded its international position in late 1941 as untenable, and believed that its capabilities would swiftly decline relative to the US, the USSR, and the UK. A low likelihood of success in war in 1941 was better than no chance of victory in 1943, so the Japanese leaped into the void.

Record doesn't exactly dissent from this conclusion, but he does give us a more process oriented account of the dynamics of the decision for war in Washington and Tokyo. Neither Japan nor the United State really wanted war with the other. Japan would have preferred to seize British, Dutch, and French positions without interference, and in any case regarded both China and the USSR as greater long term threats. The United States remained focused on Europe, and would have preferred to maintain a tolerable trade relationship with Japan until issues with Germany were settled. Both states tried, in clumsy and not-so-clumsy ways, to indicate their preferences to the other. Record suggests that Japan's adherence to the Tripartite Pact was intended to deter the United States, and that the Japanese leadership was surprised by the hostile American reaction. On the other side, the graduated escalation of trade pressure on Japan was supposed to deter further Japanese aggression. Neither move had the intended effect, of course.

There's nothing radically new in Record's account of the path to war. Most of what we get is nuanced reinterpretation of information that was already available. Nevertheless, there are some productive insights, including most notably Record's account of the extent to which American demands increased over the course of 1941. Following the occupation of French Indochina, the United States effectively demanded a Japanese evacuation not only of FIC, but also of China. Record suggests that this move probably wasn't well thought out in US policymaking circles, but that it did accord with the general US perspective towards East Asian politics.

The question of what might have happened if Japan had limited itself to attacking UK/DEI, or even just DEI and French possessions, remains interesting. The Roosevelt administration viewed this prospect as a critical threat to US national interests, but in the absence of a direct attack on the United States it would have been difficult to mobilize support. If the Japanese had refrained from attacking British possessions, it would have been difficult indeed for Roosevelt to argue for war. On the other hand, seizure of just French and DEI possessions would have left the Japanese in an exceedingly precarious military position, as the British and the Americans would have plenty of time to fortify bases along critical Japanese supply routes. With the Allies in possession of Singapore and the Philippines, the Japanese would effectively have been at the mercy of a Western threat of war. Japanese awareness of this strategic problem, combined with their belief that war was inevitable, made a limited attack less attractive.

What lessons for today? As always, the message we send is not necessarily the message that the other side receives. The enemy is free to draw his own conclusions about whatever we do; there is no message that is so clear that it cannot be willfully misunderstood. Both the Americans and the Japanese felt that they were communicating clearly and forcefully with the other, yet it turned out that neither actually appreciated the other's perspective. To be sure, clear communication might not have prevented war, especially given Japanese belief in the inevitability of such conflict. The Pacific War wasn't "accidental" in any meaningful sense. Nevertheless, we shouldn't expect too much communication, either in its military sense ("they only understand the language of force") or in its diplomatic sense ("we need to create a common understanding"). Foreign policy actors have powerful reasons to misunderstand even the clearest of messages.

Book Review: Hannibal's Last Battle

I recently finished Brian Todd Carey's Hannibal's Last Battle: Zama and the Fall of Carthage, illustrated by Joshua Allfree and John Cairns. Title notwithstanding, this book isn't really about Zama, or even Hannibal. It's a book about the three Punic Wars, with a focus on the second and third. Hannibal inevitably plays a substantial role in this narrative, but the title misleadingly suggests a tight focus on the biography of the general and on the Battle of Zama. In fact, the account of Zama runs about 15 of 160 or so pages. This is hardly insignificant, but some may find the title misleading. Of course, authors often have little control over book titles, so I don't fault Carey et al.

Although Carey sets the political, economic, and strategic stages for the battles of the Punic Wars, the real strength of the book is in the illustrated descriptions of the major engagements. Carey does a marvelous job of explaining the tactical realities of all of the major battles of the Second and Third Punic Wars. The explanations are accompanied by a set of maps for the battles that depict, in detail, how each engagement developed. In most cases the discussion includes four or five maps, with good labeling as to the nature and movement of the engaged units. The descriptions and maps should help almost all readers get a better grip on the nature of ancient officership and the key determinants of victory in ancient war. The book is no substitute for Delbruck, but is useful as a companion and occasional corrective. In particular, it emphasizes the decisive nature of the Numidian cavalry in many of the most important battles between the Romans and the Carthaginians. This hardly represents a novel interpretation of the conflict, but the maps supply sufficient detail to explain precisely how Hannibal and Scipio used cavalry superiority to win conflicts. My main quibble with the maps is that they don't represent the terrain of the battlefield as well as they could; many of the terrain factors are left to the description. Another (relatively minor) quibble is that while the description of the fortifications of Carthage comes in the first few pages, a map of the city isn't supplied until near the end of the book, meaning that pages have to be flipped, etc.

The discussion of the aftermath of the Second Punic War is brief, but very interesting. Deprived of its land empire and restricted in military capability, Carthage nevertheless flourished as a center of commerce and finance. Carthage offered to pay its fifty indemnity to Rome at the end of the first decade, but Rome refused. Cartharge also pursued a policy of accommodation to Roman military and political power, assisting Rome in several minor conflicts and asking for Roman arbitration of its own local disputes. Although we don't know a lot about the internal composition of the Carthaginian aristocracy, it appears that the traditional powerful families retained their wealth and position, even as the empire was stripped away. Unfortunately, the success of Carthage both threatened and enticed Rome, which eventually used its superior military and political resources to preventively eliminate the recurrent rival.

Readers of this blog will probably be a bit unsatisfied by the treatment of seapower in the Punic Wars. Although all of the major naval battles are fully examined, such questions as the nature of Carthaginian maritime power and the growth and organization of the Roman Navy are dealt with in brief. For example, I would have liked a bit more engagement with Mahan's interpretation of the role of strategic seapower in the conflict, and also a deeper account of how the Roman Navy developed into an operationally capable force. The international political scene could also have used some additional fleshing out. The final chapters include some of this, as Carey traces the post-Zama careers of both Hannibal and Scipio.

Quibbles aside, this is a useful short volume on the Punic Wars, and could serve ably either as an introduction to the conflict or a concise summary of their course.

Book Review: Red Star over the Pacific

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to read Toshi Yoshihara and James Holmes' Red Star Over the Pacific. A couple of minor quibbles aside, the book is an excellent overview of emerging Chinese naval capabilities and doctrine, set against the background of China's strategic maritime thought. The volume discusses Chinese naval thought in terms of two major strategic thinkers, Mao Zedong and Alfred Thayer Mahan. It also draws out the implications of technological change, and of shifts in US doctrine and force structure. The book is valuable for its insights into the interplay of USN and PLAN doctrine, but also for its use of Chinese language source material.

The authors begin by contrasting Maoist and Mahanian theory, which is an understandable but ultimately unfortunate choice. The section on the military thought of Mao Zedong is not particularly helpful. The authors note that Mao didn't think very long or very deeply about naval warfare, or indeed about maritime affairs at all. Nevertheless, they attempt to draw some lessons from Maoist military theory for how the PLAN might fight, and how it will go about procurement. This attempt is not particularly successful. What we learn is that the Chinese may fight using a combination of orthodox and unorthodox methods, that they may attack small concentrations of US warships in preference of capital ship battlegroups, that they may attack "in depth," instead of concentrating on forward deployed US forces, and they may combine political and military methods to achieve victory. With due respect, I didn't need to read an analysis of Mao Zedong military thought to learn any of these things, nor do I think that any of them represent singular implications of a Maoist approach to maritime conflict. Frankly, the section on seems leftover from the ruins of a larger argument that never quite came together. Indeed, in a later chapter the authors suggest that the beliefs and pronouncements of Mao Zedong on nuclear theory are wholly irrelevant to analysis of China's SLBM deterrent. While the authors claim that "Maoist theory, then, informs the logic of Chinese statecraft and grand strategy as well as its operational and tactical grammar," they fail to marshal sufficient evidence for that claim, or for the argument that Maoist theory has any specific, direct implications for China's maritime development.

The analysis of Chinese views of Mahan is much more useful. The reading of Mahan doesn't necessitate any direct policy consequences, but it is nevertheless interesting that the Chinese are taking Mahan seriously, and are talking about Mahan in terms of their own future naval development. Yoshihara and Holmes draw extensively from Chinese language analysis of Mahan, discussing the intra-Chinese debates over the utility of Mahanian theory and also of its direct implications for PLAN modernization. The authors are a bit cagey on the quality of Chinese analysis of Mahan, and hold out the possibility that Chinese naval advocates are invoking Mahan primarily to justify large scale naval acquisition. It bears noting that this would hardly be the first time that Mahan has been used in such a fashion.

The chapter on the strategic implications of tactical developments is quite good, although its insights won't be news to many who read ID and similar naval blogs. The authors focus on the effect that the development of ASBMs could have on the strategic balance in the Pacific, and give a good overview of the effect that such a development might have. In particular, Yoshihara and Holmes give several examples of Chinese thought on the strategic interaction of ASBMs and BMD systems, as well as on potential tactics to defeat Japanese BMD capabilities.

The authors also do excellent work distilling Chinese efforts to create a "usable history" of Chinese maritime endeavour. Nicely framing the idea of "usable history" as narrative that emphasizes certain facts and produces a template for thinking about the future, they focus on how Chinese historians and propagandists have focused on the career of Zheng He, the fifteenth century Chinese mariner who led expeditions as far as the coast of Africa. The elevation of Zheng He serves two major ideational purposes. First, his story places China as a major maritime power, one capable of carrying out large scale maritime operations at long distances. Second, the expeditions of Zheng He can be put in terms of peaceful expansion of trade and social contact, rather than in terms of conquest. This provides a nice contrast to post-colonial understandings of European maritime expansion. That this picture excludes much of what we know about China's maritime efforts, its later turn from the sea, and European maritime expansion isn't particularly relevant to the usefulness of the history.

A late chapter provides a good summary of the development of US naval doctrine since the 1970s, ending with the Cooperative Maritime Strategy. Again, the account will be familiar to those who have read John Hattendorf's Newport papers, but the summary is economical and draws out implications for the US response to the rise of Chinese naval power. As for CS-21, Yoshihara and Holmes worry that prospective American allies in the region (particularly China and Japan) will see the cooperative emphasis as insufficiently assertive.

There is more to this book than this review indicates; for example, the authors have a chapter on the development of Chinese nuclear deterrence doctrine. The minor quibbles aside, the volume is extremely valuable, and most who have an interest in Chinese naval doctrine (most of the audience of this blog, I would expect) will find it useful.

Book Review: War is Boring

Most of the security blogosphere will be familiar with David Axe. He has his own group blog, War is Boring, and has contributed to Danger Room, World Politics Review, and several more-or-less mainstream media publications. Axe has long been a friend of Information Dissemination, as well as Lawyers, Guns and Money. In August, he published War is Boring, a graphic novel depicting his experiences in 2006-2008.

It's a good title for a blog, and a good title for a book. There's an expanding literature on the boredom of war. The idea that war is fundamentally a boring, uneventful endeavor punctuated by moments of raw terror has a very long history. However, this vision of war has understandably been difficult to portray, especially on the big screen. Probably the best portrayal of boredom that I can recall is Sam Mendes' film version of Jarhead, which chronicled the long wait and minimal action in the desert in 1990-1.

However, War is Boring is less about the various wars that David Axe has covered than it is about David Axe and the modern profession of war correspondent. Over the course of War is Boring, Axe visited Chad, East Timor, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, and (for good measure) Detroit and Washington D.C. We come to know a little bit about all of those places, but Axe focuses on the commonality more than the difference. For Axe, appropriately, the most important commonality is his own presence.

Without question, emotional detachment characterizes Axe's journey through the various war-zones. He clearly cares about the people he works with, but he doesn't seem to have a lot of involvement in the disputes that underlie the actual wars. To great extent this is admirable, as it puts a degree of distance between he and his subjects. However, this distance seems to be almost central to Axe's obsession with war. War is Boring isn't even really about Axe's obsession with war; it's about his obsession with what his obsession with war has wrought psychologically.

I first came to know David shortly after the period that this book covers. He had just returned from Chad, and I invited him to come to Lexington and participate in Patterson's conference on Africa. David gave a very grim appraisal of the state of conflict in Chad and Darfur, suggesting that it was very hard to know who the good guys and bad guys were, and that Western intervention efforts may have helped extend the life of the conflict. A student asked him "What would you do to save Darfur?" David seemed a bit surprised with the question, then finally responded "Don't save Darfur. Screw Darfur."

It's fair to say that the audience was surprised by this. Indeed, at least one member of the audience was quite irritated; the "screw Darfur" idea seemed oblivious to the suffering of refugees, and could be understood to imply a certain racist indifference to the fate of non-Europeans. This isn't how I read the comment, however; I understood it to be an argument along the lines of Edward Luttwak's "Give War a Chance," which argued that Western intervention tends to prolong wars by preventing victory. In the case of Chad and Darfur, I thought that Axe had an entirely reasonable point.

This is not to say that War is Boring doesn't carry a lot of insight into the profession of war correspondent. Title aside, Axe's book isn't just about the boredom of war. It's also about repetition, futility, and all of the soul-grinding nuisances that afflict those who remain dedicated to covering war. You get the sense from War is Boring that Axe doesn't have a very clear idea of why he covers war. Axe makes clear that the career he has selected isn't ideal for the maintenance of inter-personal relationships, both in terms of professional demands (lots of travel for not so much money), and because of the detachment.

War is Boring also serves to remind that what David Axe does is very, very different than what I do. I read, write, and teach, but have never been to a war zone. Now that I have kids, I'm considerably less likely to accept the kind of assignments that would take me into harms way. I must say, though that War is Boring doesn't make the profession of war correspondent look particularly attractive. Nevertheless, I highly recommend it.

Enemy of All

At my other blog, I have a review of Enemy of All, Daniel Heller-Roazen's investigation of the historical meaning of the term "pirate." The book isn't so much about piracy as it is about the relevance of piracy to the development of Western international law, but may nevertheless be of interest.

Book Review: Struggle for the Middle Sea

Vincent O'Hara's Struggle for the Middle Sea is the latest in his series of detailed studies of surface warfare in World War II. O'Hara's previous work includes The German Navy at War 1939-1945, and the US Navy Against the Axis. Struggle for the Middle Sea, unsurprisingly, focuses on the Mediterranean, although it occasionally digresses into related engagements in the Atlantic and in the Red Sea. Unlike the previous two works, Struggle for the Middle Sea is an account of the successive campaigns that were fought in the Mediterranean theater of operations, rather than a collection of surface engagement analyses. As such, it includes a good deal more strategic context and analysis than O'Hara's previous volumes. With only minor reservations, I strongly recommend the book to anyone interested in World War II naval combat.

O'Hara's key argument runs as follows: Most commentators on the Mediterranean War have treated the Italian Navy as a joke, which has led to critical analytical errors. Regia Marina had certain difficulties during the war, but its experience in facing a more proficient enemy was not profoundly different than that of other organizations in similar positions, such as the USN in the early years of the Pacific campaign. Until the Italian surrender in 1943, the Regia Marina continued to dominate operational planning in the central Mediterranean, and in fact only the intervention of the USN and the USAAF would give the Royal Navy the crucial advantage it required. The Italian Navy accomplished its most important goal, maintaining communications with Africa, while forcing the RN to spend tremendous blood and treasure in order to keep its own lines of communications open. Moreover, German intervention in the naval war in the Mediterranean was more often than not hamfisted and counterproductive.

I am partially convinced of this argument. There seems to be no question that the prospect of fighting the Regia Marina forced the Royal Navy to devote enormous resources to the Mediterranean, and that the Italian Navy and air force, in collaboration with the Germans, exacted a very high price on the British. In combination with the threat of Kriegsmarine raiding, the presence of the Regia Marina made a robust naval defense of British Far East possessions impossible. Moreover, O'Hara dispels the notion that the Italians were either a) exceedingly incompetent, or b) cowardly. The Regia Marina was perhaps too cautious in its approach to fighting the Royal Navy, but there were good reasons for this; the Italians expected the war to be short, and believed that they'd need their Navy in the post-war settlement. Risking a decisive engagement might have made sense in terms of overall Axis planning, but such risk didn't necessarily serve Italy's interest. Moreover, the Regia Marina successfully carried out its most critical mission, the maintenance of communications with Libya, until 1943. Finally, problems of cooperation with the Italian Air Force severely limited the ability of the Regia Marina to identify good prospects for decisive battle. On several occasions, the Italian Navy either avoided battle or failed to find Royal Navy forces because of poor reconnaissance.

However, the argument only goes so far. The performance of Italy's surface fleet wasn't as bad as commonly believed in 1940, and O'Hara profitably compares the inadequacies of Italian training and doctrine with the problems that the USN faced in the early years of the Pacific War. The difference, it seems to me, was that the USN continuously learned from its failures, while the Regia Marina didn't get noticeably better over the course of the war. In part, I suspect this is because the USN regularly accepted combat with the IJN (even when that combat ended poorly), but I also believe that the USN was more effective at creating a learning culture than the Italian Navy. I think it would be easy to argue that the USN improved as much in its first year of surface combat as the RM improved over the course of the entire war. This represents an organizational failure on the part of the RM. It's also fair to say that the poor relations between the Italian navy and air force aren't entirely exogenous to the question of organizational effectiveness. The RAF and the Royal Navy hated each other, but worked out ways to cooperate productively over the course of the war. Organizational disjuncture is often the consequence of larger political problems, but can sometimes be solved by enterprising and capable actors within those organizations.

There are other problems with the structure of O'Hara's account of the Mediterranean campaign. His previous works concentrated on detailing particular surface engagements, and consequently were episodic by nature. O'Hara provides a great deal more connective tissue in terms of analysis and discussion of non-surface engagements in Struggle for the Middle Sea, but the book still sometimes feels like a list of engagements, rather than the history of a campaign. In particular, it would have helped to have more charts detailing the correlation of forces at any given time; at several points it's difficult to figure out how many warships the British and the Italians had available. This would have admittedly been easier for the Italian side than the British, as the Royal Navy often moved ships between theaters, but I still think it could have thrown light on the general balance of power during the campaign. For example, I was often unsure of how many battleships the Italians had available at any given time, and O'Hara's metrics for counting available warships aren't entirely obvious.

O'Hara does not focus exclusively on the British-Italian relationship. He also covers the sad odyssey of the French Navy, from its pre-surrender activities to the scuttling at Toulon and beyond. In my view he comes to the correct conclusion about the attack on Mers El Kebir; the only possible benefit for the British was reputational, as the most important units of the French Navy escaped damage, and no few Frenchmen were pushed away from De Gaulle. After Mers El Kebir, the Marine Nationale and the Royal Navy conducted low level warfare until November 1942, when the bulk of the French Navy scuttled itself at Toulon. O'Hara's description of the naval battles off Lebanon is extremely valuable, as is his account of the Red Sea campaign (the former against the French, the latter against an Italian squadron). The last quarter of the book concentrates on German activities in the Med post-Italian armistice, including the Aegean campaign, which the Germans won handily in spite of overwhelming Royal Navy superiority.

O'Hara doesn't spend too much time evaluating major personalities, but nevertheless his concentration on operational and tactical detail doesn't give Winston Churchill much of an opportunity to shine. Reading the book, it's as hard as ever to avoid the conclusion that whatever grand strategic and political gifts Churchill may have had, he distinctly lacked a talent for developing and deciding between plausible military operations. The failed Aegean campaign was largely Churchill's brainchild, as was the excessive Allied commitment to Crete and to the defense of Greece more generally. His most bizarre scheme was to send HMS Barham on a suicide mission into Tripoli harbor, where she would blast away at the port facilities before scuttling herself in an opportune location. This operation would have anticipated Yamato's suicide run by a good three years. Fortunately, more sensible heads prevailed.

My quibbles with this book are just that; quibbles. Scholars and enthusiasts will find much of value in O'Hara's work, and I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in WWII surface warfare, or in the course of the Mediterranean campaign. I also recommend Jim Dolbow's interview with Vincent O'Hara at the USNI blog.

Atomic Obsession

I had the opportunity earlier this week to diavlog with John Mueller, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, on his new book, Atomic Obsession. Mueller's argument is that the importance of nuclear weapons has been substantially overstated in several ways; popular culture has exaggerated the effect of individual nuclear weapons, historians and political scientists have exaggerated the importance of nuclear weapons to Cold War stability, and policymakers have wildly overhyped the threat of a terrorist group employing nuclear weapons. The book is readable and quite good, and although I would quibble with elements of the historical argument I think the skepticism about a nuclear terrorist attack is dead on. As Mueller argues, the "1% doctrine" is a somewhat sensible way of thinking about the necessity of preparedness for high lost, low probability events, but at some point the events are of such low probability that it's a waste of time to build policy around them. In this section, we discuss the role that arms control efforts might play in eventual nuclear abolition; Mueller is skeptical.

Book Review: Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money

Martin Murphy's Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money is a detailed and exhaustive investigation of piracy, smuggling, maritime robbery, and maritime terrorism. Although Murphy delves into some historical aspects of piracy, his central focus is the development of modern piracy, and the use of maritime terror by modern terrorist organizations.

Murphy investigates the legal and definitional problems of piracy in some detail. He locates the rise of modern piracy in decolonization, and in the development of modern maritime law. With the collapse of the great European empires, successor states acquired legal responsibility for the maintenance of order within their territorial waters. Unfortunately, these successor states often lacked either the capacity or wherewithal to control criminal maritime activity. At the same time, the need to express and reinforce sovereignty limited the degree to which colonial successor states could request or accept assistance from major states. Accordingly, Murphy argues that maritime piracy tends to increase as the interest and capability of local states (and local substate actors) to police their areas decreases. Maritime piracy in Southeast Asia, for example, declined after Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore began to pay attention and devote resources to the problem. Poverty certainly creates opportunities for recruitment of pirates, but poverty alone cannot create piracy; lack of state authority enables the success of pirate organizations. Moreover, successful piracy creates a negative feedback loop by empowering criminal organizations and separatist groups.

Murphy's analysis of the social and organizational networks that pirates and maritime terrorists occupy is sophisticated, well argued, and readable. He argues that piracy is, because of some definitional issues, probably more widespread than most analysts acknowledge. Robbery in port, for example, does not count in piracy statistics, even though it makes up a substantial percentage of all criminal maritime activity. Similarly, distinctions between "public" and "private" purposes, which has traditionally been the manner in which piracy has been distinguished from war or terrorism, often serve to obscure the extent and scope of piracy.

Murphy's chapters on terrorism detail the long history of terrorist attacks in the maritime arena. Murphy has little patience for formulations of the maritime terrorism question that treat such terrorism as an unrealized potential; terrorists have used the maritime arena for years, and have done so effectively. Speculation about what terrorists might do is less useful, in Murphy's account, than analysis of what they have done thus far. Like piracy, maritime terrorism is an essentially local phenomenon, usually performed by local actors with local grievances. The Tamil Tigers remain the prototypical maritime terrorist groups, but various other terrorist organizations have resorted to the maritime arena. These campaigns have often lacked the flash associated with other terrorist campaigns (major events such as the seizure of the Achille Lauro and the bombing of the Cole excepted) but have nevertheless been as effective as any other terrorist campaign.

Murphy's conclusion regarding piracy is that it represents an irritant to international trade, but a genuine threat to the stability of the states and regions that it afflicts. Piracy helps maintain criminal syndicates and other illicit actors that undermine state authority, and which can limit the development and effectiveness of domestic institutions. Similarly, Murphy is skeptical of some of the more alarmist warnings about maritime terrorism; he details why certain maritime terrorist scenarios discussed in the media are practically implausible. Nevertheless, he is not reassuring regarding the threat of maritime terrorism; terrorist use the maritime arena regularly, and will continue to do so in the future.

This is the best one volume discussion of illicit activity in the modern maritime arena that I've seen. It is an exceedingly helpful corrective to the conceptions of piracy and maritime terrorism that occupy the public conversation. Murphy's account is too complex and detailed to summarize in this relatively short review; many of the arguments that he makes bear additional analysis and discussion. Most who have any interest in piracy and illicit maritime affairs will find something of use in the book. Academics will be pleased by the organizational and anthropological analysis, while policymakers and policy executors will find the detailed accounts of piracy, smuggling, and terrorism extremely useful.

Book Review: Flotilla

I recently finished Donald Shomette's Flotilla: The Patuxent Naval Campaign in the War of 1812. The United States initiated the War of 1812 in response to the activity of the Royal Navy, including the impressment of US sailors and the restriction of US freedom of trade. Territorial aggrandizement was also a goal; although opinions differ on how serious the US was about the annexation of Canada, the elimination of British influence along the frontier was understood as necessary to further US settlement and expansion. In spite of US growth since the Revolution, Great Britain remained militarily dominant by any metric. It was hoped, however, that the British would be too distracted by the war against Napoleon to devote their full attention to North America. Unfortunately for the Americans, the Royal Navy had largely eliminated the French Navy as a major threat, and was able to devote serious attention to the United States from the beginning of the war. The US coastline was virtually unprotected, leaving American vulnerable to trade blockade and to raids. The Royal Navy decided to concentrate its activity in the Chesapeake Bay area, home of the new US capitol and of the major port of Baltimore.

In response to the overwhelming dominance of the Royal Navy, Revolutionary War veteran Joshua Barney proposed to the Secretary of War a new set of tactics. In order to carry out their raiding operations, large, deep draft Royal Navy vessels had to accept some vulnerability, and had to employ launches in order to deliver and recover troops. Barney reasoned that a flotilla of shallow draft barges could sufficiently harass Royal Navy raiding parties to make the operations too costly and dangerous to carry out. Barney received approval from Washington to build a flotilla and recruit a corps of sailors necessary to carry out this effort; for his pains, he was made Commodore of the flotilla. The organization was distinct from the USN, and was viewed with some hostility by military professionals. Nevertheless, it represented the only chance to break the hold of the Royal Navy over the Chesapeake, a hold that was becoming increasingly intolerable as escaped slaves began to flock to the British flag.

Barney was able to put together his flotilla, but he was unable to stop Royal Navy depredation. The British took the flotilla seriously, and treated it as the major threat in the Chesapeake. They responded by bottling the flotilla up and blockading it on the Patuxent River. This utilized some Royal Navy resources, and the Americans were able to score some minor victories, but no major British vessels were lost, and British raiding activity continued. Local militia had no interest in fighting the British, and typically fled at the first shot. Because of the large number of pro-British slaves (male slaves of age were trained to fight, while the rest were freed and sent either to Canada or British Caribbean possessions), the Royal Marines typically had excellent intelligence as to American capabilities and dispositions.

The Chesapeake campaign resulted in an almost complete victory for the Royal Navy. Atlhough the British were unable to secure and burn the city of Baltimore, they managed to burn and loot much of the rest of the region, including the city of Washington. The British looted an enormous quantity of tobacco, ground regional commerce to a halt, and freed a substantial number of American slaves. Barney's flotilla was scuttled to prevent capture, although his men served heroically at the Battle of Bladensburg and at Fort McHenry. British victory depended not only on vast material superiority, but also on exceptional skill on sea and on land. American militia and regular Army were simply inadequate to the task of fighting the battle-hardened British on anything approaching equal circumstances. It didn't help that the very best American forces were deployed to the Canadian border. Moreover, the outcome of the Chesapeake campaign should have been essentially foreseeable to American policymakers. While Americans lacked the capacity to challenge the Royal Navy in anything but single-ship battles, it was obvious that the British would use their superiority at sea to devastate American coastal areas. The presence of the French and Spanish navies had limited the damage during the Revolution, but neither were a factor in the War of 1812. I think it can be plausibly argued that the War of 1812 represents the biggest "mistake war" in American history; regardless of whether sufficient cassus belli existed, the United States was simply not up to the task of launching and winning a war against Great Britain.

The American strategy in the Chesapeake campaign represents the same kind of asymmetric, small boat strategy that gave the USN fits in the first half of this decade. To be sure, the Americans also employed other asymmetric strategies, most notably a commerce raiding campaign that depended both on USN frigates and on privateers. Nevertheless, as the points of comparison between the Royal Navy of 1814 and the USN of 2009 are obvious, it's not surprising that opponents adopt broadly similar methods. The small boat strategy is not, apparently, dependent upon a particular constellation of technologies. Small boats can always provide some threat to large ships in littoral areas, although I think it could be argued that the development of the torpedo increased small boat lethality. German torpedo boats significantly reduced Allied freedom of action off the French coast in World War II, for example. Indeed, there's nothing new about the idea of blowing up a small boat next to a big ship, although the suicide element is reasonably novel. Of course, small boats can and have also been utilized as part of a larger symmetrical strategy of warfare; the USN PT-Boat campaign of World War II caused the Japanese no end of difficulty.

The experience of Barney's flotilla also brings up some interesting issues regarding the behavior of military organizations. Barney was forced to essentially invent the flotilla, without significant support (and indeed against opposition) from the United States Navy. Barney did his own recruiting, designed his own ships, and procured his own artillery, provisions, and ordnance. To be sure, he didn't do this from his own funds; both the US government and the State of Maryland gave him some support. Also, even a regular naval commander of the Napoleonic Era had to play the role of independent contractor on many occasions, as readers of Patrick 'Brian will be well aware. Nevertheless, the organizational environment that he created is quite distinct from that which exists in any modern military organization. I suspect that it would be nearly impossible to create such an organization today in a modern state; the institutional and legal barriers would be insurmountable. The exception that proves the rule might be Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which has managed to create naval forces independent of the main naval organizations of the Islamic Republic. The Revolutionary Guard, however, enjoys a level of political and organizational independence that is extremely rare in a modern state, and that depends on the peculiar institutions of modern Iran.

Barney's task was undoubtedly made easier by the fact that he could draw upon a population that was familiar with the sea and with boats. This substantially increased the recruiting pool, the interest level (people who depended on the sea were particularly vulnerable to the British), and the skill level of the recruits. I found this interesting in that it supported Mahan's contention that one of the pillars of naval power is a population that is familiar with and interested in maritime life. I have always had some doubt that this is the case in the industrial era; I don't, for example, believe that a serving officer born and raised in Nebraska is any less capable than an officer raised in Maryland or Massachusetts. This is because the tasks of modern naval life are sufficiently distant from the tasks of civilian maritime experience to make any initial differences disappear beneath professional military training. I have no doubt, however, that a population oriented around maritime activities was critical to naval power in the Age of Sail and before. I'm also inclined now to think that the success of irregular naval forces (of which Barney's flotilla is an example) is much more sensitive to the maritime capabilities of a given population than is that of a professional naval organization.

It's odd that the small boat strategy always seems somewhat surprising to established navies, especially given the recurrence of such strategies over the years. One reason might be that navies are organizationally inclined to think about threats that are symmetrical. A Mahanian naval stance requires modern shipbuilding capabilities and a long organizational tail. A commerce raiding or cruiser strategy requires much the same thing, if on a different scale. A small boat strategy, however, can be conducted by organizations utterly unlike a modern Navy. In its relatively ad hoc approach to construction, procurement, and recruitment, Barney's flotillas shares some characteristics with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the pre-independence Israeli naval forces, the Tamil Tigers, and even Al Qaeda. In combination with the above observation regarding the importance of "people of the sea" to irregular naval forces, there's undoubtedly some interesting work to be done regarding the prospects for Al Qaeda penetration into various maritime-oriented tribal networks in SE Asia. I suspect that there are also some interesting observations to be made regarding population, professionalism, and the effectiveness of small boat strategies.

In any case, Flotilla is valuable both to those interested in naval history, and to those focusing on small boat and irregular warfare strategies. I highly recommend it.