When I read the
New America Foundation Command of the Commons report (PDF), my first thought was that the report represents the first iteration of a genuine attempt to take a hard look at what reducing roles and missions of the United States Navy looks like. I think the report is important to read for that function alone, because a report that implies less seapower can also be more for the nation is immediately going to make a lot of folks in this community uncomfortable.
I personally found some of the assumptions in the report to be broadly optimistic while I found others to be remarkably simplistic. For example, I think the report almost takes it a step too far with an implication that American control of the maritime commons is bad for America. Control of the maritime commons has been conceded to the US Navy since the end of the cold war, I think the authors could have done better by noting that it is how one uses command of the maritime commons that is important, rather than trying to make "control" of those commons in and of itself a path towards problems.
But the report also reminds us that strategic frameworks exist for policy makers towards seeing the US Navy as a balancing force in a world of emerging regional powers. The report never specifically uses the phrase "offshore balancing" and instead tries to introduce "security" as some sort of neutral substitute, but the general strategic concept behind the hedging of bets approach outlined in the report is offshore balancing. For the record, despite what Bryan has previously suggested, I am not in agreement with the report - I simply appreciate that someone is willing to publish a report that defines roles and missions for the US Navy different than we do today. I believe seeing the contrast is important for understanding what the US currently has, and what is on the table to be lost.
If you followed
Bryan McGrath's criticisms of the New America Foundation Command of the Commons report, and the other discussions of the report that have taken place by Jonathan Rue (
here and
here), the
latest article at Gunpowder and Lead that expands the discussion on offshore balancing might interest you as it did me. It is basically a response by Jonathan to Bryan's criticisms. This isn't a debate between them, rather more akin to a panel discussion of the merits of the New America Foundation report. What has my attention is the latest post that takes a closer look at offshore balancing as a strategic concept.
Offshore balancing is actually part of a realist strategic worldview, not a (neo)isolationist one. The basic idea is that one country uses friends and allies to check the rise of (potentially) hostile powers (see John Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics for the Full Monty). Rather than committing your own military resources to preventing another power from challenging you, you let friends and allies shoulder that burden. The end results is that a country such as China is too busy worrying about India, Japan, and other countries to challenge the U.S. directly.
This isn’t a novel idea: the U.S. has engaged in offshore balancing at numerous times in history. Support for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, and support for the mujahedeen in Afghanistan are just a few examples. Now, I understand that the response to this might be that in none of those instances did offshore balancing work: we ended up fighting World War II, Saddam Hussein became our enemy anyway, and, well, we all know how Afghanistan turned out. But I want to point out that if you assume that U.S. national debt is already a crushing problem and that entitlements are not going away, given the woeful state of the U.S. economy, the inevitable conclusion is that the U.S. Department of Defense cannot continue simultaneously acting as the Japanese, Saudi Arabian, and Western European Departments of Defense too. Offshore balancing must be part and parcel of any U.S. national security strategy going forward because we can’t afford to guarantee everybody’s security by ourselves. Somebody else has to step up to the plate.
The problem with offshore balancing is how to operationalize it. Lalwani and Shifrinson ran headfirst into this problem. They focused on the maritime commons and removed it from a strategic context which, as McGrath notes is problematic. I will be the first to admit that operationalizing it is tricky, and to be frank, I don’t exactly know how to do it. Luckily, that’s not my job… yet.
The Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower is in fact leading to our Asian friends and allies shouldering part of the burden, so we do not necessarily need to transition to the New America Foundation reports proposed model to encourage that activity among our allies. There are also policy issues that come into play in Asia that has the US invested ashore - Japan, South Korea, and Singapore being three primary examples. I would also argue that offshore balancing does exist, and has long existed, in 'part and parcel' U.S. national security strategy all over the globe at various times throughout our nations history.
I do agree with Bryan - the New America Foundation report also reads to me as a "neo-isolationist" variation of offshore balancing - and the New America Foundation is suggesting the US should craft policy that would inform naval strategists towards a domestic centric naval posture to offshore balance globally. I think one needs to be completely disengaged from the American international business community to believe such a policy would benifit the US in today's global economy, and that is before we even get to the political elements of disengaging from certain specific commitments with allies around the globe.
The suggestion that offshore balancing is either a realist strategic worldview or neo-isolationist worldview is a false choice. Offshore balancing is obviously not new and has manifested itself as policy in many ways throughout history - because it is an inherent policy option of seapower. In many ways the maritime strategy of the United States manifested itself throughout the 19th century as a "neo-isolationist" variation of offshore balancing specifically as it related to our national policies at the time in the Caribbean Sea towards keeping European governments out of South America. Both the 6th and 7th fleets today represent tailored manifestations of offshore balancing, and 6th fleet has been doing offshore balancing since at least 1945.
I think the way the New America Foundation report abuses the concept of control of the maritime commons is very annoying, but that's the navalist in me speaking. Control of the global seas is conceded to the United States Navy today. Once control is achieved, and like I said - in our case control is conceded - how one uses control of the sea is a political choice. I'm with Julian Corbett - the default state of the global maritime commons is the absence of control, and when the New America Foundation suggests that our nation can somehow maintain maritime commons "security" through virtual presence instead of through physical presence, I think that's the same mentality of those who suggest the US has a serious Arctic policy even though we have zero operational icebreakers. Security is virtual, not real and not even implied, because it only exists absent a competitor taking control. Once a competitor exists, both control and security are conceded due to our own absence.
The New America Foundation report authors appear to have all kinds of problems with the political choices made once command of the maritime commons is established, but instead of calling out those political policy choices or even examining the range of policy options inherent to seapower, the report authors blames our nations control of the maritime commons as the primary contributing factor towards bad policy decisions exercised by political leaders.
The United States Navy should strive to Project Power globally to be present as necessary to protect the national interests of the United States, because our interests are global in today's economy. What forces are forward deployed, how much power is projected forward, at what levels those forward deployed forces are sustained, and how they operate to secure the interests of the United States is where I believe the debate needs to be. Unlike other elements of the US military, naval forces offer a present, inherent diplomatic function that provides political leaders with a range of policy options, and in some cases - like in the 6th and 7th Fleets, those policy options will be offshore balancing.
If we were looking for a model to operationalize an offshore balancing strategic concept in the emerging geopolitical climate of rising regional powers, wouldn't the 6th Fleet throughout the cold war represent an example of a historical offshore balancing operational model where influence through seapower influenced competing interests? A customized variation of offshore balancing does exist today and has for a long time been in effect for naval forces operating in the 6th Fleet, and even today if one is talking Turkey-Cyprus, Russia-Georgia, Israel-Lebanon-Syria, and several other regional competitions between neighbors - balancing both friends and not so good friends of the United States is a function of US seapower. Some might suggest that because we have seen wars in this region the offshore balancing approach has been unsuccessful, but I would disagree. As the New America Foundation report gets right, offshore balancing is not the direct manipulation of outcomes or exercise of absolute control towards a conclusion, rather in the example of the 6th Fleet, offshore balancing has long manifested itself as a policy of escalation control when political disputes result in the exercise of political power by other means by other states. Where the Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower says "preventing wars," offshore balancing is how escalation control is managed by preventing other powers from engaging in those wars.
The inherent political and diplomatic advantage seapower has over other forms of military power is important, and I thought ignoring the utility of seapower is probably where the New America Foundation report failed the most. This is particularly important in a 21st century security environment where there are many rising powers, mostly regional but some may also have global influence ambitions.
During the cold war the 6th Fleet long operated as a political instrument whose strategic value was inherently understood by Washington political leaders. Facing off against the Soviet Union, political leaders understood that there were only two plausible scenarios in which direct attack upon American naval forces was rational from the Soviet point of view: either in the context of a general attack upon American strategic and forward-deployed forces, or, alternatively, in the event of an attack by our forces against the Soviet Union. The nuclear balance that was in the favor of the United States early on made the first plausible scenario unlikely, and the second scenario was also unlikely given that once an American aircraft carrier launched a nuclear strike, the strategic mission of the 6th Fleet would be exhausted.
Soviet presence in the Mediterranean Sea at the time was almost exclusively submarines and the potential for long range bombers. The focus by the Soviets of these long range strike capabilities played a serious role in our calculations with the Soviets, but for the Soviet Union, those same assets had very limited strategic value for them regarding what those military assets could do for the Soviet Union throughout the region. The 6th Fleet on the other hand was capable of controlling sea lanes, projecting air power, attacking coastal targets, landing troops, and generally support all elements of national power by sea. As it relates to the Soviet Union, 6th Fleet was a strategic power projection force capable of maintaining a balance of power in that region against our primary competitor of the time, but it was also an offshore balancing force throughout the region as it related to other regional political interests of the United States. A list of political uses of naval power in the Mediterranean Sea from 1945-1970 demonstrates the utility of naval forces.
- April 1946 - US Naval forces help support Turkey's resolve to deter Soviet pressure
- July 1946 - US Naval forces balance Yugoslavia and Italy in the Adriatic Sea
- September 1946 and through 1949 - US Naval forces support the Greek government while deterring the Soviet Union
- May 1956 - US Naval forces support the government of Jordon while deterring Egypt
- October-November 1956 - US Naval forces balance and deterrence to UK, France, Israel, and the Soviet Union
- April 1957 - US Naval forces support the government of Jordon while deterring Egypt
- August 1957 - US Naval forces support forces in Syrian politics while deterring Egypt
- May 1958 - US Naval forces support forces in Lebanon politics while deterring Egypt
- August 1958 - US Naval forces support the government of Jordon while deterring the Soviet Union
- April 1963 - US Naval forces support the government of Jordon while deterring Egypt
- June 1967 - US Naval forces deter intervention by the Soviet Union
- September 1970 - US Naval forces coerce Syria in support of Jordon while deterring the Soviet Union
- October 1973 - US Naval forces deter intervention by the Soviet Union
In the 7th fleet today, the United States is looking at similar strategic challenges that the 6th Fleet faced in the cold war. China's anti-access, area denial capabilities are manifesting themselves as anti-ship ballistic missiles and conventional submarines. Regionally, the offensive capabilities being developed by China are ballistic missiles in the specific case of Taiwan, and PLAAF capabilities that are mostly centered - to date - around short ranged fixed wing fighter aircraft.
From a strategic perspective, it is hard to imagine a scenario where China would wish to trade nuclear blows with the United States, as the United States today holds a significant advantage in survivable, credible nuclear strike capabilities. It is also difficult to see strategic value for China in attacking the United States, a nation the current leadership of China is highly dependent upon for economic success - thus legitimacy and survivability. That makes the most plausible scenario by which the US and China would engage is in a military confrontation is a conflict between China and one of their neighbors.
China's missile and submarine capabilities remind me a lot of the Soviet aircraft and submarine threat that faced the 6th Fleet during the cold war. Just as the Soviets had limited strategic utility in their Mediterranean Sea military capabilities, China currently finds limited strategic utility in their Pacific military capabilities of ballistic missiles and submarines.
Today, offshore balancing is effective because the Chinese are yet to field a fleet that is deployed and operating with the strategic utility that the US 7th fleet offers our allies in the region. When the US sells F-16s to Taiwan, it is in part a manifestation of our offshore balancing policy. I also think selling F-16s, which have a very limited capacity for changing the balance between China and Taiwan, represents the beginning of the end of offshore balancing as a legitimate, credible policy in the Pacific as it relates to Taiwan and China. As blog readers know, the Chinese fleet is expanding at a phenomenal rate, and will not be staying in port forever.
By the mid-2020s, a number of nations like China, India, and Russia are going to be operating larger numbers of modern naval forces; in some cases concentrated regionally and in other cases forward deployed globally. As we approach that future, the utility of naval forces is going to grow in importance, but our national policies are also going to require an adjustment to deal with a world where command of the sea is no longer conceded, but it likely will not often be contested either. With global competition the US will operate more commonly under regional political constraints, which will ultimately have impacts on what policies get exercised when our naval forces enjoy control of the maritime commons.
Offshore balancing is going to present a new dynamic for US policy that as a nation, we have not dealt with at a policy level since before WWII. Unlike the Soviet Union, the Chinese have very definite plans for a very large and capable naval force. The Soviet Union naval fleet was never of sufficient power, sufficient size, nor did it ever operate on the same global scale we did to ever leverage a successful offshore balancing policy against the US during the cold war. Given the scope and size of the manufacturing capacity, economic activity, and ambition in the PLA Navy - the Chinese likely will have such a Navy in the future.
I think this is important because the Cuban missile crisis was a variation of Soviet offshore balancing policy, and that clearly didn't work too well for the Soviets due to, among other things, our competitive advantage in seapower. The distance between Florida and Cuba isn't much different than the distance between Taiwan and China. Offshore balancing in the Pacific may be how we function in the Pacific now, but long term the viability of offshore balancing in the Pacific is highly questionable. Will offshore balancing be effective for dealing with China during periods of high tension in their neighborhood when they are fielding a fleet of their own? I remain skeptical.
It is important to remember - offshore balancing doesn't have a solid track record preventing war; indeed the 6th Fleet offshore balancing approach during the cold war failed to prevent war between Israel and Egypt on more than one occasion. As a regional policy, offshore balancing represents a way for seapower to attempt to maintain escalation control during the wars of others.
This is a big deal.
