The Enduring Myth of the Fragile Battlecruiser

The first battllecruiser HMS Invincible

     The repetition of the myth of the fragile battlecruiser continues even as the greatest victory of the class is now just over 100 years in the past. This particular capital ship has been on the receiving end of the naval world’s harshest criticism since three of their British number met untimely ends at the May 31-June 1, 1916 Battle of Jutland. In fact, the battlecruiser was a hybrid, cost saving platform designed specifically to support a mature British strategic concept of seapower. Its heavy losses at Jutland were more to do with early 20^th century capital ship design and poor British tactical doctrine than the thickness (or lack thereof) of its armor belt. That particular myth was constructed in the wake of Jutland for good reasons of operational security, but there is no reason to continue to repeat it in the present day. The experience of the battlecruiser still has important lessons for contemporary warship designers. Every warship is a compromise of weapons, protective features, speed, and operational range. Operational employment is as important as physical design and construction in determining a warship’s vulnerability. Time marches forever forward and today’s invincible front line combatant can become tomorrow’s proverbial fighter with a glass jaw if not modernized to reflect technological change. Warship designers seeking lethal, high speed and survivable platforms on a limited hull would do well to consider the battlecruiser’s performance in their deliberations on how much of these qualities can be achieved in a single class. Sometimes operational employment and tactical doctrine can be just as deadly to a ship in battle as its lack of speed, armament and robust construction.

The ever-combative Admiral Sir John Fisher

    The battlecruiser was the brainchild of mercurial British technological innovator and strategist Admiral Sir John Fisher. Fisher’s well documented “need for speed” so denigrated in the battlecruiser myth was actually just one part of a well thought out plan to create a hybrid, cost effective, modern capital ship in support of British strategic interests. Fisher was appointed to a series of high level naval positions culminating in that of First Sea Lord in 1904 following his command of Britain’s Mediterranean Fleet from 1899-1902. While in that billet, Fisher became convinced that the high speed armored cruiser and the torpedo boat would prove significant threats to Britain’s fleet of slow, conventional battleships, still known in the late 19^th century as “ironclads”.

      Fisher was appointed not so much for his ideas on naval warfare, but rather that Lord Selborne, the First Lord of the Admiralty and civilian head of the Royal Navy, recognized that Fisher “was the only admiral on the flag list willing and able to find economies in naval expenditure.”[1] His challenge was to reduce naval expenditures whilst combating the threat of armored cruisers to the Empire’s trade routes, meeting the threat of torpedo-armed small craft and submarines, and still maintaining a force of battle-worthy combatants to destroy hostile enemy fleets. Fisher’s elegant solution to these problems was what he called the “large armored cruiser” and massed flotillas of torpedo-armed destroyers and submarines. The large cruisers would protect British trade routes and carry the war to remote enemy colonies and bases. Destroyers and submarines would form the ideal defense for the “narrow seas” that Fisher defined as the Western Mediterranean basin and the English Channel.[2] The team of Fisher and his civilian superior Selborne was very successful in that their overall program of cutting old warships, geographic re-balance of the fleet, and introduction of new types of vessels kept British naval spending at or below the levels of 1906 for five years.[3]

     Unfortunately the British civilian and naval leadership did not buy into Fisher’s full scheme. While the feisty Admiral seems to have regarded his famous all big gun creation HMS Dreadnought as a mere interim step toward a high speed, high endurance heavy combatant, successive First Lords of the Admiralty from Selbourne through Winston Churchill hedged their bets by investing in both concepts. They refused to regard the traditional battleship as obsolete, and built successive “Dreadnoughts” as well as Fisher’s large armored cruisers which by 1911 were labeled as “battlecruisers” by the Royal Navy. Given that they were the same size as contemporary battleships, it is not surprising that naval traditionalists assigned them to capital ship duties within the British fleet. The balance of power in Europe also shifted in the period from 1905 to 1911 as Britain reached accommodations with its former imperial enemies of France and Russia, and the German Empire became a more significant threat. Rather than roam the sea in defense of colonial trade, the battlecruiser became the naval equivalent of heavy cavalry and found employment as the principle heavy scouting arm of the British battle fleet in home waters. These changes would place the battlecruiser in an environment not anticipated by Fisher and expose significant faults in British tactical doctrine.

Invincible explodes during the battle of Jutland

     The outbreak of the First World War at first saw the battlecruiser performing as Fisher had intended. The crusty admiral had returned to the office of First Sea Lord at the behest of an admiring Winston Churchill and immediately set about finding ways to use his creations for the intended purpose. Two of the original battlecruisers fulfilled their mission exactly as designed when they were dispatched from home waters to the South Atlantic on short notice to intercept the commerce-raiding squadron of German cruisers commanded by Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee. HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible destroyed Spee’s flagship the armored cruiser SMS Scharnhorst and her sister SMS Gneisenau on 08 December 2024 with little damage and few British casualties in return. In combat in home waters, however, Fisher’s creations faced more significant threats. During the 1916 Battle of Jutland, three British battlecruisers exploded and sank with heavy loss of life. This is the starting point for the myth that the battlecruisers were destroyed because their combination of high speed, heavy guns and thin armor made them extremely vulnerable to German shellfire.

Invincible sinking

   On the conclusion of the first day of the Battle of Jutland, the exhausted British battlecruiser commander Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty collapsed on the bridge of his flagship HMS Lion and uttered the famous quote to his flag Captain Ernest Chatfield that “something is wrong with our damn bloody ships and our damn bloody system.”[4] Beatty was actually right on both counts, but not for the reasons the mythologists suggest. The supposedly thin armor belts of British battlecruisers were not penetrated in battle. Instead, their turret roofs (17% of the total surface area of some warships’ decks) with relatively thin armor were the locations of German hits.[5] The explosions that sank the ships however were more the result of British tactical doctrine rather than thin armor. The Royal Navy had extensively experimented with director-firing of heavy guns at medium range as a method of achieving critical hits on opponents early in battle. Admiral George Callaghan, Admiral Jellicoe’s immediate predecessor as Grand Fleet Commander, did not fully trust the new system, and decided to mitigate its potential failings by significantly increasing the ammunition supply aboard British capital ships.[6] British doctrine called for high rates of fire to smother an enemy before they had a chance to effectively respond. The battlecruisers were carrying 50% more ammunition then their designed capacity on the day Jutland was fought to accomplish this goal.[7] British gunners also failed to close safety hatches in their turrets designed to protect ammunition magazines from explosion. This was done to achieve the high rates of fire demanded as integral to British tactical doctrine.

Burned out turret of HMS Lion which narrowly avoided Invincible's fate

   Contrary to other parts of the myth, the British Admiralty reacted within days of Jutland to remedy these faults. One report by British inspectors submitted immediately after the battle found “magazine doors were left open, lids were off powder cases, and all (turret) cages were loaded (with propellant charges).[8] The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Henry Jackson, who had replaced Fisher in the wake of the Dardanelles disaster in 1915,   ordered immediate changes. By the spring of 1917 all of the faults in material condition of readiness, and doctrine were corrected. The battlecruisers under construction at this time, including the large Admiral Class warship that would become the HMS Hood were substantially modified with additional armor and protective measures designed to prevent further disasters such as those that befell HM ships Indefatigable, Queen Mary, and Invincible. Why then the false myth that thin armor caused the demise of the battlecruisers at Jutland?

The short path from turret roof to magazine

     When the after action reports were gathered and submitted to the First Sea Lord for approval and action, the occupant of that office had changed. The former Jutland commander Admiral Sir John Jellicoe suppressed the findings of the report, but left the changes it made in place. He repeated the false claims that the battlecruisers were built with inadequate armor and flash protection on numerous occasions. His unofficial reasoning was that fleet morale had suffered enough in the wake of the battle, but it was instead clearly a cover-up to protect the reputation of the Royal Navy in the midst of war.[9] John Jellicoe can probably be excused as it could be argued that it was prudent to avoid the disclosure of a deficient tactical doctrine in the course of an ongoing conflict. They story should not, however, be repeated a century on as gospel when it is clearly false. When historian Arthur Marder first began a systematic, independent investigation of the RN’s operational history during World War One, he turned to retired senior RN officers, some of whom had been on active duty during the First World War, as his first sources. They repeated the myth to Marder, he repeated it to the world, and it remained until the late 1980’s/early 1990’s when RN insiders / scholars such as David K. Brown, John Sumida, and Nicholas Lambert began to unravel and expose the false myth. 

     Why refer to the events of a century ago in conjunction with present U.S. naval strategy and operational and tactical doctrine? Every warship is a compromise in multiple characteristics including armament, survivability, endurance, and speed. A warship might be perfectly suited to perform in one strategic environment, but less effective in future situations. Continued modernization is vital to tactical success. HMS Hood was perfectly suited to the combat conditions of the 1920’s, but failure to modernize her as scheduled placed her in grave danger when exposed to 1940’s naval ordnance. Improper operational employment can be just as dangerous to a ship and her crew as lack of armor, or the active and passive defenses modern warships utilize in lieu of armor protection. Having an offensive ethos, like that of the battlecruiser, sometimes makes its advocates less observant of necessary defensive measures. The battlecruiser force was so concerned with rate of fire that they ignored their ships’ installed safety measures. If the U.S. Navy intends to transition to a concept of “Offensive Sea Control”, it might be tempted to omit or ignore defensive capabilities in order to achieve the perfect first salvo of cruise missiles against an opponent. Small concerns perhaps, but worth noting since the British battlecruiser force lost over 3000 sailors in one battle in large part because its offensive mindset blinded it to necessary defensive actions.

---

[1] Nicholas Lambert, Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution, Columbia, SC, University of South Carolina Press, 1999, p. 91.

[2] Lambert, p. 116.

[3] David K. Brown, The Grand Fleet, Warship Design and Development, 1906-1922, Annapolis, MD, Naval Institute Press, Reprint Edition, 2010, p. 13.

[4] Nicholas Lambert, “Our Bloody Ships or Our Bloody System, Jutland and the Loss of the Battlecruisers, 1916”, The Journal of Military History, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Jan., 1998), p 29

[5] Brown, p. 30.

[6] John Tetsuro Sumida, “The Royal Navy and the Tactics of Decisive Battle, 1912-1916”, The Journal of Military History, Volume 67, No. 1 (Jan 2003), p 110.

[7] Nicholas Lambert, “Our Bloody Ships or Our Bloody System”, pp. 29-55.

[8] Brown, p. 168.

[9] Brown, p. 169.

Technology and the Third Offset Strategy Initiative

Outgoing Defense Secretary Hagel announced the outlines of DOD’s new offset strategy initiative back on November 15^th. Since then, Sydney Freedberg at Breaking Defense has carried some of the best analysis and commentary on the initiative that I’ve come across.

Freedberg’s initial piece did a great job unpacking the various emerging technology areas the SECDEF mentioned in his speech. On quicklook, these technologies are all presently at relatively low Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) with respect to their potential applications in next generation military systems. Any conceptual systems that might be based around these technologies are almost certainly at least a decade away from reaching Milestone B, and that’s assuming laboratory-level research is successful enough for them to support Milestone A decisions and a transition to Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction phase prototyping by the early 2020s. The obvious implication is that the planning horizon for introducing such systems is the U.S. military of the late 2020s/early 2030s. Hagel was therefore not announcing some near-term tectonic shift in DOD force structure and acquisition in favor of these kinds of systems, but rather that the underlying technologies will be prioritized within the DOD budget’s basic and applied research funding lines over the coming years. I accordingly recommend reading the Defense Science Board’s October 2013 examination of several of the above technologies for context on how research investments in them might be shaped.

Freedberg later covered DEPSECDEF Work’s comments regarding the prospective strategy’s technological durability. Work was quite right that the U.S. likely does not possess dramatic or enduring advantages in any particular defense emerging technologies over its main competitors. This represents quite a contrast from how the sizable U.S. competitive advantages of the 1970s-1980s in microelectronics technologies enabled introduction of qualitatively superior conventional warfare systems that could partially offset quantitatively superior Soviet conventional forces. Instead, contemporary technological circumstances seem more similar to those that prevailed throughout the 1950s. During that decade, the Eisenhower administration sought to offset Soviet conventional mass by capitalizing on U.S. superiority in nuclear weapons and delivery vehicle technologies at the expense of U.S. conventional force structure. It certainly made strategic sense to prioritize nuclear force development due to the sheer impossibility of economically sustaining American conventional forces sized to match their Soviet counterparts. It also made sense to threaten massive nuclear retaliation for any major acts of conventional aggression against Western Europe or Japan while both were still politically, economically, and militarily recovering from the Second World War’s traumas. No technological or resource barriers existed to prevent the Soviets from countering relatively quickly with their own symmetric nuclear buildup, however, and by the end of Eisenhower’s second term this and many other factors made it clear that a new and somewhat less nuclear-centric strategic direction would be necessary.

If DEPSECDEF Work’s assertion that the U.S. will not be able to enjoy any lasting military-strategic advantages from investing in emerging technologies is correct, then why make the exertion at all? The simple answer is that such investments are America’s price for maintaining rough qualitative military-technological parity with its competitors over the coming decades. I would further argue, though, that technological advantages alone are never enough to achieve military dominance. What really matters is doctrine, operating concepts (including how forces are organized), and force-wide competence (from the platform-level technician or console operator all the way up to the theater commander) for employing advanced technology systems. These elements formed the invisible core of the U.S. military's post-1970s microelectronics-based offset. If they end up doing the same in the new offset initiative, they may very well end up being the difference-maker.

The Limits of Cooperative Strategy Models

I think we have all dreamed about the possibility of taking a strong position on issues that mean a great deal to us and having the opportunity to say exactly what we want to say to exactly who we want to say it. I have tried this a few times while blogging, and I'll be the first to warn others the results don't always turn out well in the end. Secretary Robert Gates recently took that opportunity in his around the world trip, and contributed two speeches with exactly that intention in mind.

The speeches at the Shangri-La Dialogue, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Singapore on June 3, 2024 and at the Security and Defense Agenda, Brussels, Belgium on June 10, 2024 are classic policy speeches, and yet also represent blunt expressions of personal opinion from a man who has led the United States during wartime for nearly 6 years. Both speeches are regionally tailored to their respective, specific regional audiences and yet, both speeches contain strings that tie each other together.

What ultimately captures my attention is the theme of cooperation for mutually supporting interests. In Asia Secretary Gates highlights the benefits of cooperation and partnership in the context of value to the economic and security stability in Asia, despite bad actors like North Korea and challenges like territorial disputes. The speech reaffirms an enduring US policy that concentrates on diplomatic resolutions to difficult regional issues that is rooted in a shared security regime where burdens are shared by interested, regional parties. This is contrasted in Secretary Gates' speech in Brussels where the benefits of cooperation and partnership are becoming less evident, particularly when confronted with regional challenges like Libya. The Brussels speech suggests a future where diplomatic resolutions to difficult regional issues are no longer possible because the shared security regime underwriting the diplomatic authority of interested parties is becoming less evident with each new challenge.

In Europe, governments are speaking with their wallets in hand, and are rejecting the costs of alliance while demanding the benefits. Political self interest appears to have trumped mutually shared interest in Europe, and Gates is right to warn the point of no return is rapidly approaching, if not already passed. The only question remaining is how long before US elected officials respond to this emerging reality in Europe.

All of this raises several questions, beginning with whether or not strategic thinking in the US is coherent now that we must confront the reality that so much of our strategic thinking in Europe is based on wishful thinking regarding the shared security model. European political leaders will ignore Secretary Gates the same way that ADM Sandy Woodward will be dismissed casually by the British government for his warnings regarding the Falklands. Libya has exposed some very ugly truths about the freeriding of security by Europe, and it is past time for American political leaders to take on the tough issues of the day regarding our future security interests on that continent. Noteworthy, rather than having a serious conversation, the next move was the US moving to add another major US Air Force base in Poland. Hopefully this base will be populated with military personnel and equipment already in Europe, rather than represent an expansion of the US military footprint on the European continent.

The Inconsistent Cooperation Model

Dan Trombly beats me to the point, and laid similar thoughts to my own in this outstanding analysis of Gate's NATO speech. This part in particular focuses in on the issue facing American strategists as we confront the wishful thinking that underwrites our strategic thinking today.

The Obama administration’s National Security Strategy made a commitment to reciprocal burden-sharing and multilateralism quite explicit, and posited such changes to the US grand strategy as a way to put its global responsibilities in balance with US capabilities and resources. Even though intervening in Libya was far more in the interest of its primary European advocates than it was in US interests, the US intervened in part to maintain cordial ties with the allies it would hope to support its own military adventures. The reality is that European states no longer have the capability to assist the US in “hard” security operations in a way that makes US adventurism affordable. Libya is a judgment on the NSS as much as the state of NATO.

He goes on and absolutely nails the problem to the chalkboard so the J5 staff can think clearly.

Unmentioned, and not surprisingly, in Gates’s speech, is the US contribution to the current state of European defense inefficacy. The US, through pursuing a strategy of primacy, and emphasizing NATO while undermining the emergence of the EU as an alternative bloc for European defense, has basically encouraged free riding. There is more relative parity in European military capabilities, and thus less potential for free riding, at a solely European level. With the United States added in, however, many more European states can skimp on defense and reliably expect the US to pick up the burden. After all, the US will have global interests whether the Europeans are helping pay the bill or not, so the US is more likely to pick up the bill for transoceanic power projection than any single European state. Ultimately, the reduction in US defense spending is not just a wake-up call to Europe, but a necessary precondition for a European re-investment in its own defense.

The crisis of NATO has more foreboding implications for the rest of the American NSS. If Europe is unwilling to finance its own power projection capabilities without US respite from its role as global policeman, how will the US be able to apply its cooperative security model to parts of Eurasia where the US has more pressing security interests and less institutional frameworks to compel foreign participation?

It is very easy to suggest the cooperative strategic model doesn't work in Europe when there is no threat, but the fact is Europe should know better than anyone the value of strategic cooperation after having emerged from the shadow of the Soviet Union primarily due to the advantages of a cooperative strategic model. It also raises the question whether cooperative strategic models will ever work absent a threat, and if such a strategic model is even appropriate in places absent a regional belligerent power. In the Pacific, China too often publicly proves their belligerence regionally by inciting territorial disputes, ignoring proliferation of weapons, and turning a blind eye towards belligerent actions by neighbors like North Korea. Cooperative security strategy in Asia is very effective right now primarily because of China's own behavior, and the US doesn't even say much at all to convince the region of the value of cooperative security.

The same is true in the Middle East, largely because the nations in the Middle East are constantly dealing with the security challenges imposed upon national leaders in the region by Iran. Israel may drive popular idealism regionally, but at the state level Iran is who drives Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Jordon towards cooperative security strategy with the United States. Wherever the threat factor doesn't appear to weigh on political leadership, for example, the absence of an Iranian threat to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, or even Iraq - ultimately US influence is diminished because the value of shared security in the eyes of political leadership is diminished.

Difficult Strategic Choices

What Gates speech reveals more than anything is the strategic weakness of cooperative strategy in the National Security Strategy of the United States. The value of burden sharing only exists when there are mutually shared threats to stability and security, not when there are mutually shared benefits of stability and security. Europe, Africa, and South America are all examples, where a mutual threat is shared we find strong partners, and over the vast majority of territory without mutual threats the partnerships exist, but are not enduring in the face of crisis to only one partner.

The emerging security environment is one of multipolar, regional powers where security interests are going to be regionally focused, not globally shared regardless of how interconnected the world is globally. Cooperative approaches to security is sound strategic thinking in regions where a mutual potential threat to security and stability exists between regional partners and the United States, but the same approach is consistently ineffective in regions that lack a mutually shared challenge to security and stability. The United States must recalculate security posture in a way that addresses how to share security burdens in regions absent a mutually shared security or stability threat, something cooperative security does not effectively do and may actually negatively impact through sustained presence - removing the burden of responsibility from regional stakeholders.

Such a realignment will require genuine strategic thought to be effective, because it may even mean conceding high end regional security of large areas (like South America and Europe) to other nations absent any credible, consistent US military presence. Yes, that may actually mean the US Navy's recent commitment to AEGIS BMD patrols for Europe is a bad idea.

I am starting to believe Bryan McGrath is right, that indeed the Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower is potentially a seriously flawed strategy. Indeed, I am starting to wonder if the Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower is helping set conditions in the future where US interests are in greater jeopardy because too much emphasis is made on US power projection and not enough emphasis on the mutual interest requirement for genuine regional stakeholder leadership. While I am not ready to commit to those positions, I will admit they weigh heavily in my thoughts as a result of Secretary Gates' speech.

Governance Assistance

My latest column at WPR is about the difference between security assistance and "governance" assistance:

In March, the Stimson Center released a report (.pdf) by Gordon Adams and Rebecca Williams reviewing U.S. security assistance programs. Titled "A New Way Forward," the report argued that the United States should restructure its security assistance programs away from "security," as defined in Cold War terms, and toward "governance," which more accurately reflects U.S. interests in the post-War on Terror world. The difference is hardly trivial. "Security" assistance focuses on improving the tactical and operational capabilities of fielded armed forces, whether against domestic or international foes, while "governance" assistance aims to "strengthen state capacity in failing, fragile, collapsing and post-conflict states." Potentially at stake are the resources dedicated to security assistance programs, which involve training, facilitation of doctrinal learning, and very often the transfer of military equipment.

Bahrain's Base Politics

Alex Cooley and Dan Nexon have some thoughts on basing in Bahrain:

Washington's balancing act reflects more than the enduring tensions between pragmatism and idealism in U.S. foreign policy. It highlights the specific strains faced by defense planners as they attempt to maintain the integrity of the United States' worldwide network of military bases, many of which are hosted in authoritarian, politically unstable, and corrupt countries. Now, with the "Arab Spring" unfolding, even U.S. basing agreements with some of its closest allies are vulnerable.

Cooley and Nexon recommend a strategic rethinking of basing policy, to the main effect of distancing the US presence from close identification with unpopular regimes. That's fine and well as far as it goes, although of course host regimes are often looking for patronage opportunities and guarantees of US support. Nevertheless, worth your time...

Muddling

I'll have more thoughts on the subject later in the week, especially in response to Galrahn's "Obama Doctrine" posts, but for today I've written my WPR column on grand strategy and "muddling through."

None of this is to suggest that we should avoid grand strategic thinking. Such thought helps clarify the values upon which we construct our interests and, consequently, how we go about securing those interests. However, grand strategy offers neither a template nor a roadmap for dealing with particular foreign policy events. Rather, it highlights certain values and gives some indication of how those values relate to one another. As such, a grand strategy gives guidance to policymakers in specific crises without dictating a particular response. Instead of thinking of the "Obama doctrine," whatever that might be, as dictating that we should pursue certain policies, we should think of it as creating a framework for weighing the available options. Every individual application of a doctrine will inevitably involve the messy compromises that constitute muddling through. That's why becoming adept at muddling is every bit as important as creating a coherent grand strategy.

The Obama Doctrine: Part III

The Obama Doctrine is consistent. As previously highlighted the President has remained consistent from the Speech in Cairo, to the Speech at West Point, to the National Security Strategy.

The President tied it together in the context of Libya with Monday nights speech.

As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than keeping this country safe. And no decision weighs on me more than when to deploy our men and women in uniform. I have made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies, and our core interests. That is why we are going after al Qaeda wherever they seek a foothold. That is why we continue to fight in Afghanistan, even as we have ended our combat mission in Iraq and removed more than 100,000 troops from that country.

There will be times, though, when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and values are. Sometimes, the course of history poses challenges that threaten our common humanity and common security - responding to natural disasters, for example; or preventing genocide and keeping the peace; ensuring regional security, and maintaining the flow of commerce. These may not be America’s problems alone, but they are important to us, and they are problems worth solving. And in these circumstances, we know that the United States, as the world’s most powerful nation, will often be called upon to help.

In such cases, we should not be afraid to act - but the burden of action should not be America’s alone. As we have in Libya, our task is instead to mobilize the international community for collective action. Because contrary to the claims of some, American leadership is not simply a matter of going it alone and bearing all of the burden ourselves. Real leadership creates the conditions and coalitions for others to step up as well; to work with allies and partners so that they bear their share of the burden and pay their share of the costs; and to see that the principles of justice and human dignity are upheld by all.

That’s the kind of leadership we have shown in Libya. Of course, even when we act as part of a coalition, the risks of any military action will be high. Those risks were realized when one of our planes malfunctioned over Libya. Yet when one of our airmen parachuted to the ground, in a country whose leader has so often demonized the United States - in a region that has such a difficult history with our country - this American did not find enemies. Instead, he was met by people who embraced him. One young Libyan who came to his aid said, “We are your friends. We are so grateful to these men who are protecting the skies.”

This voice is just one of many in a region where a new generation is refusing to be denied their rights and opportunities any longer. Yes, this change will make the world more complicated for a time. Progress will be uneven, and change will come differently in different countries. There are places, like Egypt, where this change will inspire us and raise our hopes. And there will be places, like Iran, where change is fiercely suppressed. The dark forces of civil conflict and sectarian war will have to be averted, and difficult political and economic concerns addressed.

The United States will not be able to dictate the pace and scope of this change. Only the people of the region can do that. But we can make a difference. I believe that this movement of change cannot be turned back, and that we must stand alongside those who believe in the same core principles that have guided us through many storms: our opposition to violence directed against one’s own citizens; our support for a set of universal rights, including the freedom for people to express themselves and choose their leaders; our support for governments that are ultimately responsive to the aspirations of the people.

Born, as we are, out of a revolution by those who longed to be free, we welcome the fact that history is on the move in the Middle East and North Africa, and that young people are leading the way. Because wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States. Ultimately, it is that faith - those ideals - that are the true measure of American leadership.

I think most political opponents of the President will ignore the significance of what it means when President Obama discusses American values, but it is very important when it comes to the Middle East. America has been at war on the ground in Muslim countries for nine and half years. The battle is not solely of military power, rather it has been since 2004 a battle that competes western values against those espoused by extremists.