Writing in the WSJ, former SecNav Gordon England joins former CNO Vern Clark and former Marine Corps Commandant James L. Jones to channel their inner Alfred Thayer Mahan:
First, international political realities and the internationally agreed-to sovereign rights of nations will increasingly limit the sustained involvement of American permanent land-based, heavy forces to the more extreme crises. This will make offshore options for deterrence and power projection ever more paramount in support of our national interests.
Second, the naval dimensions of American power will re-emerge as the primary means for assuring our allies and partners, ensuring prosperity in times of peace, and countering anti-access, area-denial efforts in times of crisis. We do not believe these trends will require the dismantling of land-based forces, as these forces will remain essential reservoirs of power. As the United States has learned time and again, once a crisis becomes a conflict, it is impossible to predict with certainty its depth, duration and cost.
That said, the U.S. has been shrinking its overseas land-based installations, so the ability to project power globally will make the forward presence of naval forces an even more essential dimension of American influence.
The triumvirate of used-to-be’s characteristically laud the maneuver space of the sea, which offers unparalleled access to vast swathes of the world’s population. The expressed desire to counter “anti-access, area-denial efforts” is the current code language for the military threat represented by rising China.
Where the Chairman is visiting to re-assure Beijing that the US has no interest in “taking sides” in any regional struggle for dominance, but rather seeks only to ensure that differences are settled amicably:
The United States will maintain its presence in the South China Sea but will show no prejudice toward any side involved in the territorial dispute there, the top US military officer said on Sunday.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, also expected the US and Chinese militaries to develop “more tangible relations” that match Beijing’s rising role and its deepening relations with Washington.
“The worry, among others that I have, is that the ongoing incidents could spark a miscalculation, and an outbreak that no one anticipated,” Mullen said at a news conference at the start of his four-day visit to China on Sunday morning, referring to rising tensions in the South China Sea, where several nations in the region hold territorial claims.
“We have an enduring presence here, we have an enduring responsibility. We seek to strongly support the peaceful resolution of these (differences),” he said.
The visit came after the US and the Philippines held an 11-day joint naval exercise in the South China Sea.
The Marine Corps, for its part, is re-tooling itself back to its maritime roles and missions in preparation for reduced occupation and COIN responsibilities in Iraq and Afghanistan:
While the public focus since 9/11 has remained on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military at large has continued to provide the global public good of keeping the international system humming by, among other things, protecting the international seaways, building indigenous capacity to take care of security challenges, and responding to brewing problems to make sure they don’t get out of hand. Some call this policing the American empire; others call it managing the security aspects of globalization. Whatever your preference and mindset, it may be fair to describe the Marines as, to borrow a term from Robert Kaplan, imperial grunts.
All this provides the raison d’être for Exercise Mailed Fist. While the focus on Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years is understandable (it has been, after all, the national priority since 9/11), the Marine Corps worries that Iraq and Afghanistan missions have not only made the Corps too heavy and bulky but also that the counter-insurgency fight have splintered the force, and that this has left each and every part of the Corps focused on supporting its specific role in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations. Mailed Fist is designed to bring all of the components back together, and allowing them to exercise their capabilities from soup to nuts, ranging from logistics and flight operations support in austere locations, to conducting air strikes in a forced entry scenario. Ultimately, the Marine Corps is seeking to recreate that slimmer, expeditionary, and pre-Iraq and Afghanistan force that can go back to the fleet, integrate with the Navy, and respond to emerging crisis scenarios around the world.
The Marine Corps has never been an organization to dodge a fight, even if that meant going in heavy in land-locked Afghanistan. But as the public support for wars in distant lands wanes, and mushrooming national deficits cry out for trimming, the service is intent on once again differentiating itself from the US Army by focusing on its expeditionary roots.
Taken together, this is a conversation of many parties: The retirees are speaking to policy elites in the US about the importance of naval power in an attempt to ensure that the coming restructuring of the Department of Defense takes into account our island status, dependence upon the sea lanes for commerce , emerging threats to those sea lanes, and the resources that travel upon them and – increasingly – lie beneath them.
The Chairman is manfully attempting to reassure China that the US does not pick sides in regional differences while telling regional allies that China’s rise can be managed peacefully and that the US still has a role to play. It’s a delicate balancing act meant to ensure that China does not pick off regional actors one by one, engage in a regional provocation and – perhaps most importantly – to prevent China’s neighbors from sniffing the winds and deciding to realign with the emerging hegemon, closing Washington out.
And finally, the Corps is speaking to Congress, to shape perceptions that the American people are not, in fact, paying for two land armies, when one ought to suffice.
The first and last conversations are about spending cuts. The central one, both literally and figuratively, is about roles and missions.
We are retrenching, and difficult choices will have to be made. Meanwhile, a near-peer competitor is rising, former certitudes are being swept away and new ones are eager to assert themselves. Everything trembles in the balance.
We continue to live in interesting times.
And the LCS (both of ‘em) are gonna handle this how????
By, “PROACTIVELY “FROM THE SEA”; LEVERAGING THE LITTORAL BEST PRACTICES FOR A PARADIGM BREAKING SIX-SIGMA BEST BUSINESS CASE IN THE GLOBAL COMMONS, RIGHTSIZING THE CORE VALUES SUPPORTING OUR MISSION STATEMENT VIA THE 5-VECTOR MODEL THROUGH CULTURAL DIVERSITY.”*
I really don’t understand why you don’t understand that. It’s as clear as the nose on your face (in a cave with the lights turned out).
*shamelessly stolen from ‘Phib’s splash page because he says it sooooo well.
Made all the more interesting by foolish fiscal choices of our government. Based on his rhetoric and actions over the last couple of years, one might almost reach the conclusion that our head of government seeks just such an environment for us to live in. One might additionally conclude that he seeks to punish us for the sins of our fathers, wasteful and despotic creatures that they were. Yes?
” We continue to live in interesting times.” – The problem is a real alck of LEADERSHIP.
We have a collection of self-absorbed idjits in Governement – If you look at the LEADERSHIP of FDR, Truman, IKE & JFK and try to compare to how inept OBAMA, GW Bush, Clinton, etc. have been, the real issue is a lack of genuine LEADERS – Those who are elected have no real Leadership ability, they fake it and try to pass off popularity as what matters….
The times we live in can be “interesting” but they don’t need to be compounded with vanity and self absorbed pols farking our country up because they haven’t got a clue…..
“We have a collection of self-absorbed idjits in Governement ”
In democracies, elected officials reflect the public that put them in power. The root of the idjitness is us, the American Voter.
As I mentioned over at “Information Dissemination,” (http://www.informationdissemination.net/2011/07/necessity-of-us-naval-power.html) two of the authors are also two of the putative guilty parties whose policies such as “business enterprise,” and “optimal manning,” not to mention going full-speed ahead on the Little Crappy Ship that have led to the dismal state of the Navy as it now stands. Not the guys I want to have leading any discussion on how we need a Navy. I’d have rather seen a couple of serving Flags saying it, and with concrete proposals to take to the Hill. But that would be, um, leadership from the Active GOFO’s?
Good points, but all of this comes back to one question, a question that gets asked every generation: what should the Navy and Marine Corps be? A power projection force with an amphibious army? A sea control fleet with a light commando force? A glorified Coast Guard that doesn’t stick it’s nose in other nation’s business, or their waters? Something completely different?
Anything but the “power projection” answer means smaller and/or fewer ships. Considering our budget realities… and they appear to be getting worse, not better… the Naval services will look more like Elmo Zumwalt’s small-but-many sea control fleet than Reagan’s 600 ship big navy. I don’t think we’re going to get Harry Truman’d, but I think it’s pretty clear that the days of things like $15 billion dollar supercarriers are coming to an end.
I prefer Delta Bravo over at Sal’s Place’s definition of LCS, Little Coffin Ship.
Good Grief, a ship 2/3 the size of a CLEVELAND, armed with a single, optically aimed 57mm gun, 8 SEARAMs, and two twin M2HBs.
That makes such good sense.
It’s not just roles and missions, it’s about the long-overdue rebalancing of the DOD budget.
We’ve been stuck in the mid-’80s, with a force balance designed to support a land war in Europe. Big Army, big Air Force (with lots of tactical jets), medium-sized Navy and Marine Corps. Goldwater-Nichols worked to freeze this configuration – it was easier to do across-the-board cuts than to rebalance.
Now, rebalancing is no longer avoidable. The world of the future is not a predictable place. On that globe-girdling chessboard, pieces that can move are priceless – and strategic mobility is the long suit of the sea services.
And there’s another factor, one you’ll find in Corbett more than Mahan. Seapower can squeeze an economy with minimal damage. A blockade campaign can strangle an enemy’s economy, but not do the lasting damage that a bombing campaign (or land campaign) would inflict. There was a reason why General Scott’s counsel to Lincoln in the Civil War was to blockade, not invade, the Confederacy. You inflict great economic pain, especially to the ruling elite, without devastation. Seapower offers surgical warfighting at the strategic level.
“There was a reason why General Scott’s counsel to Lincoln in the Civil War was to blockade, not invade, the Confederacy.”
And had that advice been heeded, the Republic would permanently have been sundered in 1861. Unfortunately the current occupant of the White House is trying to sunder it more fully than Slavery and States Rights would have….
I doubt that would have been the case. Slavery was going to collapse within the next 20 years as farm machinery made slavery uneconomic. The two would have come back together, but on a much different basis than Lincoln wanted.
The last 3 words are the most important part. He and his handlers wanted an economic colony in the south.
I disagree. A blockade strategy would have shattered the cotton economy and bankrupted the planter class, but would not have inflicted the wholesale devastation that an invasion did. It would also have allowed a lot more leeway in political maneuvering, helping to keep the Tobacco States in the Union.
A wise old man in the guvmint once told me that the 2 big differences in the availability of sea power over other forms was that: 1) revenge was not an option. Meaning that the country that grants us overflight rights, or temporary basing for some operation, or joins some coalition inevitably becomes a listee on the “we won’t forget and we will get our revenge” list of the country upon whom we open a can of whoop-a$$.
2) Your “friends” can’t get tired of you and tell you to go home.
And as ADM Mullet (as my gf refers to him) is telling everyone how we aren’t going to take sides in the Pacific but still not ‘inhibit’ China’s movements, (boy is THAT a mind-boggling dichotomy)….China is lecturing him that the US is spending too much on our military, and we’d better look at cutting back a bit…..if we know what’s good for us.
Anyone pols out there want to tell me again how our terrible National Debt, much of that owned by China, isn’t going to come back and haunt us REALLY SOON?
Combat wombat: though not funny, it does tickle a funny bone. I may have to try “WWLCSD?” as an initial thought to naval strategery discussions.
I fear we are having our “East of Suez” moment. British withdrawal from the mid-east was a turning point for them. The slide became increasingly steep for them after that. The only independent action they staged since was in the Falklands, and they can’t repeat that 20 years later.
The problem with what we are facing now is that hardware can be maintained, but we tend to buy only what we can use fairly immediately. The military had been cut mercilessly during the so called “great depression” and set the stage for our involvement in WW2 because we projected weakness rather than strength.
As Vegetius the Blind said to teh Roman Senate, “If you would have peace, prepare for war,” is just as true now as it was then. Alas, history rhymes, and we are doing it in 4 part harmony.
Interesting to see Vern weigh in on the role of seapower when during his tenrure as CNO (1) there wasn’t a copy of Mahan (or others of similar ilk) to be found on the CNO “display” bookshelf but lots of books on the latest thing from the civilian business world on “business practices” and (2) his assertion that a new maritime strategy wasn’t necessary as he had rolled out “Seapower 21″ (which was an organizing construct and not a strategy – but that view wasn’t, um, received favorably shall we say).
w/r, SJS
Unfortunately all too true. The Navy has been pushing management blather, and burying serious strategy.