Terminology: Campaign Value

Campaign value is a term I frequently use to note that an asset’s budgetary ‘price tag’ or its tactical importance are not necessarily the same thing as its importance to a campaign or a war effort. As I described in the endnotes of my Maritime Deception and Concealment article:

The traditional term “high-value unit” is shorthand for tactically important or very expensive assets that a force must strive to protect: aircraft carriers, amphibious and maritime prepositioned matériel-carrying ships, replenishment ships, strategic aircraft, wide-area-surveillance aircraft, transport aircraft, and airborne-refueling aircraft. At the spectrum’s other end, “low-value unit” applies to relatively expendable small surface combatants and tactical aircraft. This terminology is imprecise, however, in that it incorrectly implies that an asset’s tactical value always carries over into campaign-level value. Although “high-value units” generally have high campaign value, the relationship is not automatic. For example, while an aircraft carrier’s tactical value is difficult to dispute, in a given campaign a combatant capable of ballistic-missile defense or a submarine carrying conventional land-attack missiles—either of which might otherwise be considered medium-value units—may be of greater importance and correspondingly require the support of the rest of the force. The key to interpreting a specific asset’s campaign value is to judge how a campaign would be impacted by its temporary incapacitation or outright loss. Campaign value is thus a more nuanced framework for doctrinal development and operational planning. (Pg. 109)

I failed to note above that “high value unit” can also be used to indicate an asset is of great operational-level importance. It is probably also more accurate to characterize them as being ‘very capital intensive’ to field vice merely being “very expensive.” Nevertheless, as most campaigns are comprised of multiple discrete operations, I believe that understanding an asset’s campaign value is a prerequisite to planning those operations.

I must reemphasize that the types of assets we normally think of when we use the term “high value unit” will generally also have high campaign value. My point is that circumstances matter, and as such one should examine how a specific asset’s capabilities and limitations can affect the holistic flow of a particular campaign based upon the capabilities and limitations of every other asset within the friendly force. A particular asset’s campaign value could also conceivably change over the course of a conflict; it is not necessarily static. Gauging an asset’s campaign value in ‘most likely’ as well as ‘most dangerous’ conflict scenarios not only can help inform when and how that asset should be used, but also inform force structure planners as to roughly how many of that asset should be procured or preserved.

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.’

AEI/Heritage Project for the Common Defense Weekly Read Board (USMC)

1. New crisis response unit to be based in Kuwait

2. Marines Reveal Details of Tense Embassy Evacuation From Libya  

3. Driverless Vehicles bet Smarter as Corps gets Lighter

4. Marines Emphasize Advantage of Sea Basing

5. Back to the Beach: U.S. Marines Upgrading, Replacing Amphibs Under New Strategy

6. Complete Transformation in Marine Aviation: Ospreys Send Vietnam Classic to ‘the Boneyard’

7. Marine Corps Develops New Equipment Built for Osprey

8. Marine LtGen Glueck: Two Key Ships May Keep Marines’ Amphibious Hopes Above Water

9. Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group, 22d MEU Arrives in Mideast

AEI/Heritage Project for the Common Defense Weekly Read Board (Navy)

"Should America Fear China's 'Carrier-Killer' Missile?" by Robert Farley (The National Interest, 09/22/14)

"3 Major Decisions Loom for U.S. Navy," by Chris Cavas (Defense News, 09/22/14)

"Russia's Black Sea Build-up: 80 New Warships Expected by 2020," by Douglas Ernst (Washington Times, 09/23/14)

"it's A Rough World Out There For A Small Navy," by Robert Farley (The Diplomat, 09/26/14)

"A Naval Disaster in the Making," by Seth Cropsey (The Weekly Standard, 09/26/14)

"Meet the Zumwalt: The US Navy's Stealth Destroyer Will Go to Sea Next Spring," by Chris Cavas (Defense News, 09/28/14)

"Manned and Unmanned Battle," by Lazarus (Information Dissemination, 09/28/14)

Greetings

         My name is Jon Solomon, and I can’t begin to express my appreciation to Galrahn for granting me the opportunity to contribute here at Information Dissemination. I’m a longtime reader/comments lurker, and am very excited to be joining the ID team!

I’m a former U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer, and served two combat systems division officer tours in destroyers from 2000-2004. Since then, I’ve worked as an analyst at Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. providing systems engineering and program management support to several directorates within the Navy's Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS).

I am not an engineer, though. Rather, my educational background is in security studies with focal areas in maritime strategy, naval history, naval technology, and deterrence theory. I’m extremely lucky to have a job where I am able to apply these academic interests as well as the operational and technical knowledge I gained in the Fleet to support the programs I work on.

My favorite pastime is writing. During my master’s work at Georgetown’s Security Studies Program I managed to develop one of my course papers into a journal article on cyberdeterrence. That experience, as well as kind feedback on my subsequent thesis paper from Bryan McGrath and his colleague Tim Walton, motivated me to develop my master’s research into two additional journal articles that were published last year: one on maritime deception and concealment and the other on conventional deterrence of China. In fact, when I asked Bryan for comments on the latter, he went several steps further and shared his thoughts on it with you here back in January.

I have written several new pieces in my free time over the past two years that I hope will be of interest to you. Many of my initial pieces will deal with conventional deterrence, as I want to help broaden popular understanding of the underlying theory as well as highlight some of its implications for contemporary strategy and policy. Others will cover topics in cyber-electromagnetic warfare, naval doctrine and force structure, and the strategic implications of guided munitions inventory management. Quite a few are heavily endnoted, as I want to highlight the source data, arguments, and analysis. I’ll be breaking the longer articles up into week-long series of posts.

I’ll also be periodically writing shorter commentaries on current naval and strategic issues, think tank monographs, and journal articles as possible. As a preface, next week I’ll be posting up my personal definitions of three key terms that will provide important context for my future posts.

Being accepted to write for ID is frankly an honor. I’m a firm believer that peer review makes one’s arguments stronger, and I can’t think of a better means for ‘red teaming’ my ideas than tapping the incredible knowledge base that is ID’s dedicated readership.