Sea Control and Surface Forces: the Theoretical Foundation

This week I want to talk a bit about sea control and surface warfare. Late last year, Bryan Clark at CSBA published an excellent monograph on the subjects. More recently, the surface Navy’s leadership published an article in the January issue of Proceedings regarding potential uses of Surface Action Groups (SAG) to perform sea control tasks. I will be writing more about both of those pieces over the next few days.

In preparation, though, I think it’s important to review the nuances of classical sea control theory. Towards the end of Part II Chapter I of Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, Julian Corbett explained that:

If the object of the command of the sea is to control communications, it is obvious it may exist in various degrees. We may be able to control the whole of the common communications as the result either of great initial preponderance or of decisive victory. If we are not sufficiently strong to do this, we may still be able to control some of the communications; that is, our control may be general or local. Obvious as the point is, it needs emphasizing, because of a maxim that has become current that "the sea is all one." Like other maxims of the kind, it conveys a truth with a trail of error in its wake. The truth it contains seems to be simply this, that as a rule local control can only avail us temporarily, for so long as the enemy has a sufficient fleet anywhere, it is theoretically in his power to overthrow our control of any special sea area.(Pg. 103)

Per Corbett, then, “general” sea control by a navy is only possible when it possesses an exceptionally vast margin of superiority over its opponent(s) throughout “the whole of the common communications.” Yet, if even an enfeebled opponent typically retains some capacity for contesting the protagonist’s sea control in “any special sea area,” then “general” sea control becomes more an illustrative theoretical construct than something practically attainable. The obvious implication is that sea control is normally obtainable and exercisable only locally and temporarily, with the expanse of control determined by the protagonist’s margin of superiority within the area in question over some period. This means the act of obtaining and then exercising temporary localized sea control must have a discrete mission-centric purpose. After all, it would be illogical to expend such effort just to seek bounded sea control for its own sake.

Another question follows close behind: how much maritime power (e.g. aerospace forces, surface combatants, and submarines as well as the surveillance/reconnaissance apparatus that supports each of them) must be concentrated to achieve the necessary margin of temporary local superiority to perform some task? Against a relatively weak adversary, the answer is often ‘not much.’ As we witnessed during the twelve years of maritime interdiction operations within the Arabian Gulf following the first Gulf War, individual surface combatants (or sometimes small groupings of them) can be completely adequate for gaining and then exercising sea control under such conditions. The more maritime power that an adversary can concentrate against the protagonist in some sea area over some period, though, the more maritime power the protagonist must apply to sustain sea control. At some point, it becomes no longer feasible for the protagonist to ‘charge into the lion’s den’ or otherwise operate deep within a contested zone for an extended amount of time. There simply may not be enough weapons in a naval battleforce of any practical (let alone available) size to perform the requisite anti-air, anti-surface, anti-submarine, and anti-sensor/communications tasks of sea control during a particular period in a particular area.

The interactions between location, time, purpose, and attainable margin of superiority compel the protagonist theater-level commander to be judicious, then, in applying maritime power. In major war, the theater-level commander does this via sequential or cumulative campaigns consisting of individual operations that are designed to incrementally achieve some set of strategic objectives. If strategic objectives dictate that certain naval tasks be accomplished in some area, but the protagonist’s naval forces do not by default possess the requisite margin of superiority to do so at an acceptable degree of risk, then the protagonist must conduct one or more preliminary or parallel operations that create the conditions for achieving the main operation’s margin of superiority in space and time. This also says nothing of the fact that some strategic objectives are (or should be viewed as) more crucial to achieve earlier in a campaign than others. For instance, in the case of the United States, no application of military power in an overseas region to reinforce and defend an ally—or deter or compel an adversary—can succeed in the absence of secure sea and air lines of communication for conveying that power across the ocean and then distributing it within theater.

With all this in mind, let’s look at how the Navy’s apparent informal definition of sea control has evolved over the past five years. In Naval Operations Concept 2010, sea control was described as:

The employment of naval forces, supported by land and air forces as appropriate, in order to achieve military objectives in vital sea areas. Such operations include destruction of enemy naval forces, suppression of enemy sea commerce, protection of vital sea lanes, and establishment of local military superiority in areas of naval operations. (Pg. 52)

This is preceded in the text by the following key details:

Sea control is the essence of seapower—it allows naval forces to close within striking distance of land to neutralize land-based threats to maritime access, which in turn enhances freedom of action at sea and the resulting ability to project power ashore…The vastness of the world’s oceans makes it impossible for the Naval Service to achieve global sea control. The combatant commanders’ operational objectives, the strategic maritime geography, and the capabilities of potential adversaries drive the scale of forward naval presence and surge capability necessary to conduct effective local and regional sea control operations. (Pg. 51)

The 2010 definition thus addressed the fact that sea control is localized, purpose-based, and affected by the attainable margin of superiority. It did not, though, address sea control’s temporal aspect. As a result, the 2010 definition could not provide context for bounding any particular operation’s practical duration given the intensity of opposition in a particular local area. Nor could it provide context for informing when any particular operation should be conducted within a campaign’s operational sequence.

Contrast the 2010 definition with the implicit definition in this month’s Proceedings article by the surface Navy’s leadership; I have underlined portions for emphasis:

A new emphasis on sea control derives from the simple truth that navies cannot persistently project power from water space they do not control. Nor can navies guarantee the free movement of goods in the face of a power-seeking adversary whose objective is to limit the freedom of the maritime commons within their sphere of influence. Sea control is the necessary precondition for virtually everything else the Navy does, and its provision can no longer be assumed. Threats ranging from low-end piracy to the navies of high-end nation-states pose challenges that we must be prepared to counter—and ultimately defeat.

Sea control does not mean command of all the seas, all the time. Rather, it is the capability and capacity to impose localized sea control when and where it is required to enable other objectives to be met, holding it as long as is necessary to accomplish those objectives. We must begin to treat expanses of ocean the way we viewed islands during World War II—as areas to be seized for conducting follow-on power-projection operations. Additionally, we should recognize that the enemy gets a vote, and that all of the elements of the Navy’s Fleet architecture are unlikely to be available when the shooting starts. The day-to-day persistence of the surface force means that it must be prepared to immediately go on the offensive in order to create conditions for the success of follow-on forces. (Pg. 20)

This is simply excellent. Not only is the temporal aspect is captured here alongside localization and purpose, but the logic of increasing the attainable margins of sea control via sequential operations within a campaign’s context is made more explicit. What’s more, the implications for designing operating concepts, contingency campaign plans, and even force architecture are profound. I’ll be exploring some of these things in my next two posts.

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Beginning with this post, I am going to start applying the views disclaimer below. Although no one in my company’s leadership has asked me to do this, I believe it is important to make clear that the opinions I voice in my posts are mine alone. This disclaimer should be interpreted as also applying to all my previous posts; none of the topics I covered directly related to the work I do. In the event that I choose to write about a topic that is directly related to my work, I will disclose as much.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency. 

Air-Sea Battle and Offshore Control are not Mutually-Exclusive: Part 2

Yesterday we summarized the main arguments surrounding Air-Sea Battle and Offshore Control. We also noted several variables that thus far have been largely overlooked in the debate: the belligerents’ characterization and valuation of their political objectives, and a confrontation’s unique political and strategic circumstances. Over the next two days, we will use plausible interactions between these variables to outline how relevant elements of Air-Sea Battle and Offshore Control can be integrated within a single strategic concept that covers the full spectrum of potential conventional Sino-American conflicts.

Scenario #1: High-End Salami Tactics

Let’s suppose that Chinese leaders sought to extract some political concession(s) by forcibly blockading one of a U.S. East Asian ally’s populated maritime territories or seizing one of its remote, unpopulated/sparsely-populated maritime territories. Let’s stipulate, though, that the initial Chinese actions did not result in direct hostilities with the U.S. ally’s military forces, and that any clashes were limited to exchanges between the belligerents’ constabulary forces such as coast guards or national law enforcement agencies.

The U.S. response in such a contingency would likely involve positioning and posturing its in-theater conventional forces in order to latently support allied constabularies’ or military forces’ efforts to counter or delegitimize the Chinese actions, not to mention deter Chinese escalation. Some lower-campaign value American forces might overtly line up alongside the ally’s frontline defenders to show solidarity and create a latent tripwire threat; this kind of response would be very desirable for accompanying vessels running through a Chinese blockade. Heavier U.S. forces latently backing this frontline from ‘over the horizon’ would likely take measures to conceal themselves from Chinese maritime surveillance and reconnaissance; their aim would be to severely limit Chinese opportunities for an effective preemptive first strike and thus enhance crisis stability as well as U.S. deterrence credibility. As U.S. political leaders would likely strive to avoid placing U.S. military units in situations where they would risk setting use-of-force precedents themselves, it seems unlikely the U.S. would impose any kind of distant blockade against China at this stage. Instead, information operations and diplomatic maneuvers to build regional and global opposition (or at least disengaged neutrality) to China’s actions would likely dominate the U.S. grand strategic response.

It is important to note, however, that the absence of direct military action in the physical domains almost certainly would not extend into the cyber and electromagnetic domains. It is quite likely that there would be extensive cyber and Electronic Warfare (EW) skirmishing as both sides jockeyed for situational awareness advantages, harassed each other’s forces, or attempted to manipulate third parties’ perceptions. Both would accordingly face the challenge of waging this cyber-electromagnetic warfare without precipitating accidental or inadvertent escalation.

Scenario #2: Limited War in the Contested Zone

Now, let’s examine a scenario in which initial Chinese actions did lead to direct hostilities between the PLA and the U.S. ally’s forces at sea or on the territory in question. Let’s also assume that the PLA did not escalate by striking civil, economic, or military infrastructure located within the ally’s homeland ‘core.’ Let’s additionally stipulate that in its ‘first move’ the PLA neither struck U.S. forward bases and forces in the region, nor deployed to interdict America’s maritime lines of communication with the ally. We could therefore conclude Chinese leaders valued their political objectives highly enough to resort to direct military force, but that the limited scope of those objectives encouraged them to adopt strategically-significant degrees of restraint—at least during the conflict’s opening phase.

The American military response under such conditions would likely lean closer towards Offshore Control’s concept of a limited war within the contested zone, as U.S. political objectives would center upon arresting the Chinese aggression and eventually restoring the status quo ante without escalating the conflict unnecessarily. This means the U.S. war effort would likely be structured to conform to China’s precedent-setting actions in the conflict. Of course, nothing would preclude U.S. political leaders from determining that their own objectives and the conflict’s circumstances necessitated the setting of selected precedents by U.S. forces as well.The bias against doing so would nonetheless be high.

U.S. war strategy would be based around the use of sequential (and sometimes parallel) Joint conventional combined arms campaigns that gradually attrited the PLA’s offensive capabilities within the bounds of the contested zone while dislodging Chinese forces from any territorial spoils. Unlike Offshore Control, though, the U.S. strategy would not strive for persistent denial of a sizable majority of the East and South China Seas to the PLA. Nor would the U.S. strategy strive for permanent absolute control of the oceanic approaches to East Asia. Sea control and denial of these magnitudes and durations are neither necessary nor practicable, as Julian Corbett observed a century ago in his masterwork Some Principles of Maritime Strategy.

Consistent with Corbett’s logic, U.S. forces would instead strive to deny the PLA’s ability to transit or occupy selected maritime areas for discrete periods. Short-duration denial efforts might entail concentrating U.S. air and naval power in time and space against PLA forces once the latter were detected at, over, or under the sea. Longer-duration denial efforts could take the form of leveraging pre-deployed land-based anti-ship/anti-air missile batteries as well as offshore minefields to protect friendly territories and chokepoints. Offensive minelaying in the approaches to Chinese naval bases would also be an option for longer-duration sea denial.

Similarly, U.S. forces would strive to control only those maritime areas that it and allied forces (as well as protected commerce) would need to traverse in order to achieve U.S. political objectives, and only for the periods of time necessary to do so. One could picture this type of control as a purpose-defined ‘moving bubble’ of superiority in time and space centered on the military force or commercial convoy in transit. Longer-duration (but not permanent) control over fixed areas would only be necessary in the maritime approaches to U.S. and allied territories, or otherwise in the areas surrounding PLA-occupied allied territories if U.S. and allied forces were engaged in forcible entry operations.

The U.S. and its embattled ally could also conceivably allow the PLA to seize and occupy one or more contested territories of relatively low military-strategic value, as that might induce China to excessively allocate scarce materiel and vulnerable forces in order to hold onto its spoils. Chinese assets exposed in this way could be subjected to withering and incessant attacks that would help gradually reduce the PLA’s quantitative advantages in theater. This might have the secondary effect of drawing Chinese attention and resources away from more important U.S. or allied operations elsewhere in the theater.

It is additionally possible U.S. political leaders might order some form of cumulative campaign to provide indirect support to the conventional campaigns and perhaps pressure the Chinese economy at the margins. This might include a distant blockade (as feasible given available forces and supporting infrastructure), plausibly-deniable special or irregular operations against Chinese economic interests in other countries, severing countries or foreign companies that attempt to engage in proscribed trade with China from access to the U.S. financial system, or other measures. U.S. political leaders would obviously have to weigh how these kinds of coercive actions might detrimentally provoke China as well as third parties to the conflict.

Above all, it must be appreciated that the U.S. would be not able to successfully defend a frontline ally in a limited conflict—never mind restore the status quo ante—in the absence of several key factors associated with Air-Sea Battle. For example, doctrine and capabilities that enhance U.S. forces’ resiliency against a conventional first strike are critical to intra-conflict deterrence credibility. The same is true with respect to capabilities that promote latent and highly survivable U.S. conventional escalation dominance such as submarines, long-range strike aircraft, and an intelligently-crafted balance between long-range and short-range guided munitions. Most importantly, U.S. air, ground, and naval surface operations within a contested zone would not be practicable and U.S. and allied intra-theater lines of communication would not be defensible without extensive operations against PLA maritime surveillance/reconnaissance networks. While some Air-Sea Battle critics have asserted such operations would carry the escalatory risk of attacking PLA nuclear forces’ C³ architectures, the former’s maritime sensors and their supporting data pathways outside China’s borders are most definitely not part of the latter. Even so, and depending on the operational and tactical circumstances, deception and concealment in the face of those sensors might be far more effective and impactful than destroying them.

If Chinese restraint held following a U.S. intervention along the lines I’ve suggested, both sides would be able to take advantage of deep operational-strategic sanctuaries for basing and maneuver within the combat theater. The practical result of this might be a protracted conflict that could remain limited unless one of the belligerents’ political objectives and perceptions of the conflict’s circumstances eventually came to demand escalation. Conversely, conflict protraction along these lines and unambiguously strong U.S. and allied resolve might drive Chinese leaders to seek out a mutually-tolerable negotiated settlement if their political objectives encouraged as much. In the second-best outcome, U.S. and allied forces would be able to induce China to break off its aggression and (if applicable) restore the territorial status quo ante in exchange for nothing more than relatively symbolic gestures. The ideal outcome would obviously be convincing Chinese leaders that a limited war within the contested zone would not be quick, cheap, or low-risk, thereby deterring them altogether from seeking one.

Tomorrow, addressing scenarios for major war.

Some Thoughts on Maritime Denial Inside the First Island Chain

Robert Rubel was correct in his commentary earlier this year on my SSQ conventional deterrence article that I favor attempting to assert maritime denial (as opposed to striving to gain something approaching command of the sea) inside the First Island Chain in the unfortunate event of a Sino-American war. I do not believe it is necessary (or even possible) to try to deny Chinese use of that entire expanse at all times in the event of a conflict. Rather, my vision for a wartime maritime denial campaign applies Corbettian theory: you concentrate or disperse forces and effort where it is necessary or opportunistically desirable to do so, and only for the length of time necessary to perform the requisite tasks.

It follows that maritime denial, as I interpret it, consists of executing kinetic and non-kinetic offensive disruptive operations (interdiction, suppression, etc.) that are opportunistic when possible and reactive when necessary to wrest the campaign-level initiative from a strong adversary as well as arrest the adversary’s operational tempo. Rubel’s describing the disruptive operations as 'sniping' is a perfect analogy; the working term I’ve used for that in some of my ID articles this fall has been ‘operating from over-the-horizon.’ I believe that the ability of the U.S. and its main East Asian allies to develop combined arms operating concepts that integrate ‘frontline’ submarines, lower campaign-value surface combatants, and land-based forces with timely support provided by heavier naval and air forces operating from less vulnerable ‘over-the-horizon’ positions will be a central element in reinforcing our conventional deterrence credibility over the coming two decades.

Direct defense of allied territories would of course be performed in parallel to denial operations as required. It is important to point out, though, that ‘mutually-assured maritime denial’ in the sea and air approaches to these territories would be strategically unacceptable. Some degree of temporary, localized maritime control would have to be obtained as necessary to keep the vital lines of communication open to these countries.

I’ll be going into more detail on these ideas over the next few weeks.

Terminology: Maritime Control and Denial

In my writings, you’ll frequently see me invoke Julian Corbett’s definitions of sea control and denial. Corbett asserted that navies can never control or deny the entirety of a given sea at all times; there simply aren’t enough naval forces in any nation’s (or conceivable coalition’s) possession to make such a degree of dominance possible. Instead, he argued, a naval force only needed to gain and then exercise control of the specific, localized sea area(s) from which it would perform its assigned operational tasks (e.g., projection of national power ashore, protection of sea lines of communication, enforcement of an offshore blockade, etc.) at a given moment in time. Once control of a given area was no longer necessary for task accomplishment, it could be relinquished without necessarily ceding anything valuable to the enemy. It follows that control can be secured in the form of a ‘moving bubble’ of highly localized superiority as a naval force maneuvers within a contested sea and executes an operation; control need not be geographically fixed or temporally protracted unless the operation’s particulars require as much.

Similar logic applies to denial. Per Corbett, a belligerent seeking to contest its adversary’s sea control should accordingly focus its denial efforts in time and space. For instance, denial efforts could be concentrated against localized areas the adversary’s forces would have to pass through or operate from in order to perform their anticipated (or ongoing) operational tasks. A weaker belligerent might not be able to do much in terms of preventing its adversary from gaining or exercising localized sea control, but it could effectively use denial operations to bog down its adversary’s campaign progress and drive up the adversary’s costs of war continuation.

Sea control and denial have obvious value to operations on, over, and below the sea. However, the use of land-based forces, sensors, communications systems, and the like to help naval forces obtain and exercise sea control—or to otherwise assert sea denial—can lead to some confusion over the boundaries of Corbett’s concepts. As an example, if a ground force’s or land-based air force’s operations on or over some territory are intended to support expansion of a naval force’s freedom of maneuver within an adjacent sea area (or deny the same to an adversary), do these non-naval operations fall under the definitions of sea control and denial? Or are they something conceptually separate?

I believe that the term ‘maritime’ is not limited to purely naval topics or oceanic operations. Indeed, per the DOD’s own Dictionary of Military Terms (Joint Publication 1-02), the ‘maritime domain’ includes “the oceans, seas, bays, estuaries, islands, coastal areas, and the airspace above these, including the littorals” (emphasis is mine). In other words, the maritime domain inherently incorporates the land and air domains when operations in those domains affect or are affected by operations at sea. I also believe Corbett’s logic of control extends to airspace and “landspace;” a force’s assets must be physically present in an air or ground area to assert any kind of control, or else an adversary gains some margin for using that area for his purposes. Corbett’s terms can accordingly be extended to apply within holistic maritime warfare. As I observed in the endnotes of my Maritime Deception and Concealment article:

Given that a maritime area combines the sea with the airspace and “landspace” that can affect or be affected by an actor’s use of the sea, “maritime control” means that a force (whether single-service, joint, or combined) has obtained and is exercising control of a localized maritime area for a certain duration and purpose; “maritime denial” means that a force is challenging an opposing force’s efforts to obtain and exercise control of a localized maritime area. (Pg 107-108)

The implication is that a force can use the land, air, or sea domains to support its efforts to obtain and exercise localized control in any of the other domains. Likewise, it can use any of these domains to prevent or contest an adversary’s localized control in any of the other domains. Control or denial within some combination of these domains is consequently essential to attaining operational objectives within a maritime theater; the particular combinations hinge on the specifics of a conflict and the associated geography. These domains are so entwined that it is difficult to see how operations within one domain could be planned and executed in isolation from those in the other domains without endangering campaign objectives.

This is what I mean in my work when I use the terms ‘maritime control’ and ‘maritime denial.’