Some Observations about Network-Enabled Over-the-Horizon Attacks

Norman Friedman’s 2009 book Network Centric Warfare is one of the principal influences upon my thinking about 21^st Century maritime combat. It is a seminal recounting of the evolution of modern maritime warfare systems, the ‘systems of systems’ they fit in to, and the doctrines developed for employing them. It also serves as a core reference for researchers seeking to discover the fine (declassified) technical and operational details of the Cold War competition between U.S. and Soviet maritime ‘battle networks.’

One of Friedman’s most interesting observations in the book pertains to network-enabled attacks, especially from ‘over-the-horizon.’ A ship targeted using remote surveillance sensors, for example, might not realize it had been targeted until it detected inbound weapons. Friedman notes that the multi-source Soviet Ocean Surveillance System (SOSS) couldn’t enable true surprise attacks because Soviet anti-ship missile doctrine was predicated on the use of ‘pathfinder’ and ‘tattletale’ scouts for visual confirmation and classification of targets. Detection of these scouts by U.S. Navy or NATO battleforces (or theater/national surveillance systems) would provide the defenders warning that Soviet anti-ship missile platforms were nearby or that a raid was inbound. (Pg. 217-239)

In contrast, the U.S. Navy of the late 1970s and early 1980s sought to use its Ocean Surveillance Information System (OSIS) network of signals intelligence sensors and fusion centers to provide targeting cues to Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile (TASM)-armed submarines via an effort dubbed Outlaw Shark. Since its advent a decade earlier, OSIS had been used to detect, classify, and develop “track histories” for Soviet ships in support of Navy operational-level planning. The experimental Outlaw Shark targeting capability stemmed from using OSIS’s track histories to dead-reckon Soviet ships’ geolocations at future times, then transmitting those cues to patrolling submarines. Unlike SOSS, though, OSIS did not use active surveillance or reconnaissance sensors to supplement its passive ones. As a result, Outlaw Shark targeting would have been unavailable if Soviet ships maintained disciplined Emissions Control (EMCON). (Pg. 206-209)

In the event of exploitable Soviet EMCON indiscipline, however, Friedman observes that Outlaw Shark targeting would in theory have denied a Soviet surface force any warning of an impending U.S. anti-ship attack. This is because the OSIS-TASM tandem’s lack of a scout meant that there would have been no discernable U.S. Navy ‘behavior’ to tip Soviet ships off that they had been targeted. Friedman concludes with the thought that even if a TASM attack had landed no blows, it nevertheless might have disrupted a Soviet surface force’s plans or driven it to take rash actions that could have been exploited offensively or defensively by other U.S. or NATO forces. (Pg. 210)

The obvious limitations of relying almost entirely upon non-real-time signals intelligence for over-the-horizon targeting contributed greatly to the Navy shelving its TASM ambitions during the early 1980s. The Navy’s own mid-to-late Cold War countertargeting doctrine and tactics made great use of EMCON and deceptive emissions against SOSS, so there was no fundamental reason why the Soviets could not have returned the favor against OSIS. Moreover, TASM employment depended upon a Soviet ship maintaining roughly the same course and speed it was on at time of an OSIS-generated targeting cue. If the targeted Soviet ship maneuvered such that it would not be within the TASM’s preset ‘search basket’ at the anticipated time, then the TASM would miss. Nor could Navy shooters have been sure that the TASM would have locked on to a valid and desirable Soviet ship vice a lesser Soviet ship, a Soviet decoy ship, or even a non-combatant third-party’s ship.

Friedman’s point remains, though: a network-enabled attack that results in a physical miss could nevertheless theoretically produce significant tactically-exploitable psychological effects. This concept has long been used to forestall attacks by newly-detected nearby hostile submarines, even when the submarine’s precise position is not known. An anti-submarine weapon launched towards the submarine’s vicinity at minimum complicates the latter’s tactical situation and potentially forces it into a reactive and defensive posture. This can buy time for more effective anti-submarine measures including better-aimed attacks.

It therefore might be reasonable to use some longer-ranged weapons to “shock” an opponent’s forces along the lines Friedman outlines, even if the weapons’ hit probabilities are not high, if it is deemed likely that the targeted forces will react in ways that friendly forces armed with more plentiful and producible weapons could exploit. For example, an opponent’s force might light off its air defense radars upon detecting the attacker’s weapons’ own homing radars. Or perhaps the opponent’s units might distinguish themselves from non-combatant vehicles/aircraft/ships in the battlespace by virtue of their maneuvers once they detect inbound weapons. Either reaction might provide the attacker with definitive localization and classification of the opponent’s platforms, which in turn could be used to provide more accurate targeting support for follow-on attacks. Depending on the circumstances, expenditure of a few advanced weapons to ‘flush’ an opponent’s forces in these ways might be well worth it even if none hit.

But would doing so really be the best use of such weapons in most cases? We must bear in mind the advanced ordnance inventory management dilemma: higher-capability (and especially longer-range) guided weapons expended during a conflict likely will not be replaced in the attacker’s arsenal in a timely manner unless they are readily and affordably wartime-producible. Nor will weapons launched from surface ships’ or submarines’ launchers be quickly reloadable, as these platforms will have to retire from the contested zone and expend several days of transit time cycling through a rearward base for rearmament. The force-level operational tempo effects of this cycle time will not be insignificant. A compelling argument can be made that advanced weapons should be husbanded for attacks in which higher-confidence targeting is available…unless of course the responsible commander assesses that the situation at hand justifies firing based on lower-confidence targeting.

There is another option, however. Instead of expending irreplaceable advanced weapons, a network-enabled attacker might instead use decoy weapons that simulate actual weapons’ trajectories, behaviors, and emissions in order to psychologically jar an opponent’s forces or otherwise entice them to react in exploitable ways. This would be especially useful when the attacker‘s confidence in his targeting picture is fairly low. SCATHE MEAN comes to mind in this respect. This is probably more practical for aircraft and their deep munitions inventories in aircraft carriers or at land bases. Still, it might be worth exploring how a small number of decoy weapons sprinkled within a Surface Action Group or amongst some submarines might trade operationally and tactically against using those launcher spots for actual weapons.

As for the defender, there are four principal ways to immunize against (but not decisively counter) the use of actual or decoy weapons for network-enabled ‘shock or disrupt’ attacks:

• Distribute multi-phenomenology sensors within a defense’s outer layers in order to detect and discriminate decoy platforms or weapons at the earliest opportunity. The sensors must be able to communicate with their operators using means that are highly resistant to detection and exploitation by the attacker.

• Institute routine, realistic, and robust training regimes that condition crews psychologically and tactically for sudden shocks such as inbound weapons “out of nowhere” or deception. This might also lead to development of tactics or operating concepts in which some or all of the defender’s units gain the ability to maintain restrictive emissions, maneuvering, and firing discipline even when an adversary’s inbound weapons are detected unless certain criteria are met.

• Field deep (and properly positioned) defensive ordnance inventories. Note that this ordnance does not just include guns and missiles, but also electronic warfare systems and techniques.

• Embrace tactical flexibility and seize the tactical initiative, or in other words take actions that make it far harder for an adversary to attack first. A force’s possession of preplanned branching actions that cover scenarios in which it is prematurely localized or detected by an adversary can help greatly in this regard.

Friedman’s observations regarding the psychological angles of network-enabled targeting are subtle as they require thinking about how the technological aspects of a tactical scenario might interplay with its human aspects. We tend to fixate on the former and overlook the latter. That’s an intellectual habit we’re going to need to break if we’re going to restore the capacity and conditioning we possessed just a quarter century ago for fighting a great power adversary’s networked forces.

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.

A Definitive Article about Information Age Naval Warfare

Earlier this week I discussed two superb articles in the July 2015 Naval Institute Proceedings that examined aspects of cyber and networking resiliency. Today I’m going to talk about the issue’s third article on cyber-electromagnetic warfare: LCDR DeVere Crooks’s and LCDR Mateo Robertaccio’s “The Face of Battle in the Information Age.”

Usually when I read a journal article I mark it up with a pen to highlight key passages or ideas so that I can revisit them later. My doing so to their article was pointless in retrospect, as I ended up highlighting just about every one of their paragraphs.

LCDRs Crooks and Robertaccio touch on virtually every major aspect of operating under cyber-electromagnetic opposition. They correctly argue that cyber-electromagnetic warfare is integral to 21^st Century naval warfare, and that we ignore that truism at our peril. They observe that while our pre-deployment training exercises are generally designed to test how well units perform particular tasks, or to test or troubleshoot plans and operating concepts, they don’t generally allow for freeplay experimentation that might uncover new insights about fighting at sea in the information age. “What will tactical-level decision-makers experience, what will they be able to understand about the battlefield around them, and how will that lead them to employ the tactics and equipment they’ve been handed?” ask the authors.

They also highlight the centrality of emissions control to combat survival, with the added observation that the Navy must learn to accept “electromagnetic silence” as its “default posture.” They decry the fact that the Navy rarely is “forced to operate in a silent (or reduced) mode for any sort of extended period or while conducting complex operations.” They allude to the fact that we were able to regularly perform at such a level as recently as a quarter century ago.

They then go into great detail asking questions about whether our training, preferred communications methods, doctrine, tactics, and tactical culture are fully aligned with the realities of fighting under cyber-electromagnetic opposition. When I was on active duty at sea in 2001-2004, I only recall one exercise in which a destroyer I served on practiced performing combat tasks while using only our passive sensor systems—and that was done at the initiative of my destroyer’s Commanding Officer. I don’t remember ever conducting a drill in any of my ships in which our connectivity with external intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets was deliberately manipulated, degraded, or severed by simulated electronic attacks. Evidently LCDRs Crooks and Robertaccio had similar experiences on their sea tours as well. The issues they raise along these lines in the middle sections of their article are worth the “price of admission” alone.

Their concluding recommendations are most commendable:

• Begin conducting a “series of extended free play Fleet Problems with minimal scripting and objectives beyond the generation of a large body of direct, honest lessons learned and questions for further investigation.” These Fleet Problems should “allow either side to win or lose without intervention to drive a planned outcome” and should “apply as many of the atmospherics and limitations of an Information Age A2/AD environment as possible, challenging participants to work within the constraints of a battlefield that is contested in all domains.”
• Use these experiments and other forms of analysis to generate “a set of assumptions about the conditions that are likely to apply in Information Age naval combat (in specified time frames) and mandate that they be applied to all tactics development, fleet training requirements and scenarios, manning plans, and training requirements for individual personnel” as well as “to the development of requirements for future payloads and platforms.”
• Acknowledge at every level that the cyber and electromagnetic domains will be hotly contested. This means no longer treating the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of information “as a given” or otherwise that it would be “lightly contested.” Tactical-level commanders should treat the need for temporary localized cyber-electromagnetic superiority as just as integral to sea control as is the case with the physical domains of war. As they observe, “this may often largely amount to the monitoring of operations coordinated at higher levels of command, but it is critically relevant even to individual watchstanders.” I would add that qualitative observations of the cyber-electromagnetic situation will likely be just as important as quantitative measurements of that situation.

LCDRs Crooks and Robertaccio have written a definitive thought-piece regarding modern naval warfare under cyber-electromagnetic opposition. I commend it to all naval professionals and enthusiasts alike. It should be considered a point-of-departure reference for the naval debates of our time. 

And my thanks to LCDR Crooks for sharing a follow-on surface force-centric piece here at ID last week. I truly hope his and LCDR Robertaccio’s messages percolate within the fleet. Much in the future depends upon it.

 

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.

Potential Missions for Future PLA Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

I recently came across a 2013 Project 2049 Institute monograph detailing PLA efforts to research and develop UAV technologies. Ian Easton’s and Russell Hsiao’s report pieces together the PLA organizations, academic institutions, and industrial activities involved in Chinese UAV work; this is no small open source achievement. More importantly, though, it taps Chinese-language sources to outline concepts from each of the PLA’s services regarding potential future uses for UAVs. Many of these concepts unsurprisingly mirror a number of those under consideration by the U.S. armed services:

• Long-range autonomous strike
• “Wingman” duties for manned aircraft
• Localized communications relay
• Anti-ship scouting and targeting
• Ground combat scouting and targeting
• Wide-area surveillance

They make an additional key observation regarding the possibility that expanded PLA UAV capabilities might incentivize increased Chinese brinksmanship, and possibly the use of force, in a crisis:

“There could be a sense that because human pilot lives are not at stake, operators can push farther than they otherwise might. It is also not clear how nations would react to isolated UAV attacks in times of crisis, especially if these were blamed on mechanical or technical failure, or even on cyber hackers. In the future, PRC decision-makers might feel compelled to order “plausibly deniable” UAV attacks as a means of sending a political signal only to inadvertently wind up escalating tensions.” (Pg 13)

This dovetails closely to some of my own observations on unmanned systems and escalation management. The main difference is that whereas I proposed that an opponent’s unmanned scouts should be considered fair game for attacks during a crisis depending upon the circumstances at hand, it is entirely possible that an opponent might go further and use its unmanned vehicles to conduct limited attacks on traditional targets for coercive effect. The authors don’t argue that the PLA is considering use of UAVs for this kind of purpose, but they are correct that the PLA or any other UAV-operating military might.  The implications for crisis management deserve systematic examination through war-gaming.

Some of their most interesting but in no way surprising observations concern Chinese writings regarding the potential uses of UAVs to support anti-ship attacks. One such use proposed in the source writings is for UAVs to simulate inbound raiders, with the intent being to lure an opponent’s screening aircraft and surface combatants into wasting long-range anti-air missiles against these decoys. Other UAVs might perform electronic attacks against radars and communications systems. All this represents a longstanding and well-understood set of tactics. The requisite technical, tactical, and doctrinal countermeasures are similarly well-understood: multi-phenomenology outer-layer sensors that can classify contacts with high confidence, robust combat training to psychologically condition crews for the possibility of hostile deception, deep defensive ordnance inventories, and embracing tactical flexibility/seizing the tactical initiative. The only question is the defender’s will to invest in these kinds of countermeasures—both materially and culturally.

Easton and Hsiao also note that Chinese writers have proposed that some UAVs might perform direct ‘suicidal’ attacks against radars or warships (and in doing so fully blur the line between UAV and cruise missile). The Chinese sources additionally suggest that UAVs could replace manned aircraft as anti-ship missile-armed raiders, though I would argue this presumes the requisite artificial intelligence technologies for conducting attacks against ‘uncooperative’ targets in an ambiguous and dynamic tactical environment reach maturity.

Lastly, Easton and Hsiao’s sources suggest UAVs could serve as communications relay nodes that support anti-ship attacker—and perhaps in-flight missiles as well. For example, a scout UAV could conceivably provide targeting-quality cues to an over-the-horizon “shooter” via a relay UAV, and then provide periodic targeting data updates to the in-flight missiles thereafter. Or the relay UAV might enable direct communications between “shooters” within a given area. It might even enable direct coordination between in-flight missiles approaching on different axes. The use of highly-directional line-of-sight communications pathways or low probability of intercept transmission techniques would make this a particularly vexing threat. Clearly, naval battleforces will need means of detecting and classifying relay UAVs (not to mention scout UAVs) lurking in their vicinity.  

Easton and Hsiao observe that even though the sources they reviewed for their monograph wrote relatively little about using UAVs in the aforementioned ways for land-attack or ground warfare missions, there are no fundamental factors that prevent them from being extensible beyond the anti-ship mission. They’re absolutely correct on that point, and that’s something that all the U.S. armed services should be thinking about for the future.

--Updated 7/16/15 10:54PM EDT to fix first link in post--

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.

Revisiting ADM Stansfield Turner’s Classic “Missions of the Navy”

Admiral Stansfield Turner, 1983 (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

“The fundamental element of a military service is its purpose or role in implementing national policy. The statement of this role may be called the strategic concept of the service. Basically, this concept is a description of how, when, and where the military service expects to protect the nation against some threat to its security. If a military service does not possess such a concept, it becomes purpose-less, it wallows about amid a variety of conflicting and confusing goals, and ultimately it suffers both physical and moral degeneration. A military service may at times, of course, perform functions unrelated to external security, such as internal policing, disaster relief, and citizenship training. These are, however, subordinate and collateral responsibilities. A military service does not exist to perform these functions; rather it performs these functions because it has already been called into existence to meet some threat to the national security. A service is many things; it is men, weapons, bases, equipment, traditions, organization. But none of these have meaning or usefulness unless there is a unifying purpose which shapes and directs their relations and activities towards the achievement of some goal of national policy.” -Samuel Huntington. “National Policy and the Trans-Oceanic Navy.” Naval Institute Proceedings Vol. 80, No. 5, May 1954.

An armed service must be able to provide solid justification for its requests to its political masters (and in a representative democracy, those who elect them to office) for a particular share of national resources. It cannot do this if it cannot clearly articulate its strategic purpose.

As Huntington alludes above, though, a service must also explain its strategic purpose to a second and equally important audience: its own rank and file. Its officers and enlisted, from the highest level staffs to the lowest level units, must understand and embrace their individual roles within the service’s corporate body. They must be informed as to which missions, tasks, and skillsets should receive the greatest share of their physical and intellectual energies, not to mention the service’s material and financial resources. A strategic purpose is essentially a form of mission command; it serves as executive guidance by which the service’s “little platoons” at all levels and in all of its organizational branches can self-organize in peace and in war for the betterment of the whole. Without this guidance, Huntington observes, the service will not be able to differentiate how the many things the nation asks it to do—or the many other things it sets forth to do by virtue of its own collective professional expertise—should be prioritized and balanced against each other. The end result of an absence of focused purpose: chaos, confusion, and “physical and moral degeneration” that percolates more-or-less out of view from outsiders until it reveals itself tragically in a moment of national need.

The U.S. Navy’s leadership of the early 1970s evidently feared exactly this kind of decay. A decade of power projection into North and South Vietnam from offshore sanctuaries had certainly educated the Navy as to the technical and tactical intricacies of conducting land-attack strikes in spite of opposition from modern air defense systems. But few of the Navy’s other missions during the Vietnam War paralleled the missions it would need to fulfill in a war against the Soviet Union. And on top of that, the Navy’s division into surface warfare, submarine, and aviation communities—and the subdivisions of each of those communities—made it difficult for the officer corps to view the service’s missions holistically.[1] The service needed a reassertion of its strategic purpose.

This was the role filled by then-VADM Stanfield Turner’s seminal article “Missions of the U.S. Navy” in the March-April 1974 Naval War College Review. His ideas and arguments regarding how the Navy should define its missions speak for themselves. I’m going to quote a few that I found particularly applicable to contemporary maritime strategic questions.

On the flowdown of operational and tactical objectives from a service’s strategic missions:

“Focusing on missions helps tactical commanders to keep objectives in mind. Anti-submarine warfare tacticians often overconcentrate on killing submarines when their ultimate objective is to ensure safe maritime operations. An example of a good sense of objectives was the Israeli achievement of air superiority in the 1967 war. Even though air superiority is traditionally thought of as a function of dogfight tactics, the Israelis recognized that shooting the enemy from the air was not the objective. Destroying Egyptian aircraft was. They employed deep surprise attacks on enemy airfields to successfully achieve this objective.”(Pg. 3)

On the necessary linkages between national strategy, a service’s definition of its missions and the allocation of resources to those missions:

“…an amorphous mass of men, ships, and weapons is difficult to manage because it is difficult for an individual to visualize. By subdividing these masses into their expected output, or missions, we are able to establish priorities for allocating resources—to know how much we are spending for different objectives and to judge their consonance with national strategy.” (Pg. 3)

On sea control as a principal mission of the Navy:

“The new term “Sea Control” is intended to connote more realistic control in limited areas and for limited periods of time. It is conceivable today to temporarily exert air, submarine, and surface control in an area while moving ships into position to project power ashore or to resupply overseas forces. It is no longer conceivable, except in the most limited sense, to totally control the seas for one’s own use or to totally deny them to an enemy.

…Four U.S. national objectives which call for asserting our use of the sea and, by the same token, denial of them to an opponent are:

·         To ensure industrial supplies

·         To reinforce/resupply military forces engaged overseas

·         To provide wartime economic/military supplies to allies

·         To provide safety for naval forces in the Projection of Power Ashore role” (Pg. 7-8)

On blockades as a method for achieving sea control objectives:

“As opposed to the 18^th and 19^th century tactic of forcing a major fleet engagement at sea, today’s blockade seeks destruction of individual units as they sortie. If we assume an opponent will be in control of the air near his ports, sortie control tactics must primarily depend upon submarines and mines.

If successful, sortie control is a most economical means of cutting off a nation’s use of the seas or ability to interfere. Nevertheless, such established techniques have their disadvantages. No blockade is 100 percent successful. Some units may be beyond the blockade when hostilities commence and will remain to haunt opposition forces. Against the enemy’s aircraft there is no static defense. Planes must be bombed at their bases. Thus we must conclude that blockades are weapons of attrition requiring time to be effective. But the lesson of history is perhaps the most instructive of all—ingenious man has usually found ways to circumvent blockades.” (Pg. 8)

On the use of deception to perform sea control tasks:

“Assertive Sea Control objectives do not necessarily demand destruction of the enemy’s force. If the enemy can be sufficiently deceived to frustrate his ability to press an attack, we will have achieved our Sea Control objective.” (Pg. 9)

On the relationship between sea control capabilities and deterrence:

“The perceptions of other nations of our Sea Control capability relative to that of other major powers can influence political and military decisions. What any nation says about its capabilities influences the challenges that are offered or accepted.” (Pg. 9)

On the operational-strategic relationship between sea control and power projection (underlined text is my emphasis):

“…we would note that only a fine distinction separates some aspects of the Sea Control and Projection of Power Ashore missions. Many weapons and platforms are used in both missions. Amphibious assaults on chokepoints or tactical airstrikes on enemy airbases can be employed as part of the Sea Control mission. Sea-based tactical aircraft are used in Sea Control missions for antiair warfare and against enemy surface combatants. The distinction in these cases is not in the type of forces nor the tactics which are employed, but in the purposes of the operation. Is the objective to secure/deny the use of the seas or is it to directly support the land campaign? For instance, much of the layman’s confusion over aircraft carriers stems from the impression that they are employed exclusively in the Projection of Power Ashore role. Actually, from the Battle of Cape Matapan through World War II, aircraft carriers were used almost exclusively to establish control of the ocean’s surface. Today they clearly have a vital role to play in both the Sea Control and Projection of Power missions.” (Pg. 12-13)

On the linkages between naval presence and conventional deterrence:

“In a preventative deployment our force capabilities should be relevant to the kind of problems which might arise and clearly cannot be markedly inferior to some other naval force in the neighborhood, but can rely to some extent on the implication that reinforcements can be made available if necessary. On the other hand, in a reactive deployment any force deployed needs to possess an immediately credible threat and be prepared to have its bluff called. If another seapower, such as the Soviet Union, is in the area, a comparison of forces will be inevitable.

…the Naval Presence mission is simultaneously as sophisticated and sensitive as any, but also probably the least understood of all Navy missions. A well orchestrated Naval Presence can be enormously useful in complementing diplomatic actions to achieve political objectives. Applied deftly but firmly, in precisely the proper force, Naval Presence can be a persuasive deterrent to war. If used ineptly, it can be disastrous. Thus, in determining presence objectives, scaling forces, and appraising perceptions, there will never be a weapon system as important as the human intellect.” (Pg. 14-15)

When reading Turner’s full discussion of the sea control mission, it’s important to keep in mind that he incorrectly asserted that “full regulation of the seas in wartime” was something that was sought after—and possible—until the advent of the submarine and airplane. As I’ve noted before, Corbettian theory makes clear that such a broad degree of control was never possible in the ancient world let alone in the years leading up to the First World War. Turner was therefore partially mistaken when he wrote that “it is no longer conceivable…to totally control the seas for one’s own use or to totally deny them to an enemy” as that kind of control never was conceivable.

I’m ashamed to admit that although I had read elsewhere how Turner’s article had influenced the Navy’s path towards the Maritime Strategy of the 1980s, until now I had never taken the time to read it (despite its 16 page length). Don’t make my mistake: download it today and read it yourself. Despite being four decades old and its Cold War-era context, there are few points in it that are not still fully relevant to maritime warfare in the 21^st Century.

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.

---

[1] John B. Hattendorf. Newport Papers 30: U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1970s—Selected Documents. (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2007), Pg. 31