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Tactics

Sea Control Through The Eyes of the Person Who Does It, Pt. 1

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The following article originally appeared in The Naval War College Review and is republished with permission. It will be republished in three parts. Read it in its original form here.

By Christofer Waldenström 

This article suggests a new perspective on the old problem of protecting ships at sea, for two reasons. First, although screen tactics and other defensive measures have been developed and used for many years, this new perspective will be useful in addressing two developments since the late nineteenth century: attackers are no longer just other ships but also aircraft, submarines, and, recently, missiles with very long ranges launched from the land; also, torpedo boats, coastal submarines, and mines have complicated operations in congested and archipelagic waters. The second reason for a new approach is that in order to support commanders in the problems of sea control we need to study the issues they encounter while solving them. This requires a description of each task that commanders have to do; without such a description it becomes difficult to determine which actions lead to increased control and which to loss of control, which in turn makes it harder to identify whether commanders are running into trouble and if so, why. The new analytical method introduced here represents an attempt at such a description. As such, it may enrich and extend traditional thinking about sea control and how to achieve it, especially in littoral waters.

Sea control is generally associated with the protection of shipping, and it refers normally either to a stationary patch of water, such as a strait, or to a region around a moving formation of ships. Today it is quite well understood how to protect such a region of water. To handle aircraft and missiles, defenses are organized in several layers, with an outer layer of combat air patrols to take out enemy aircraft before they can launch their weapons. Next is a zone where long- and short-range surface-to-air missiles take down missiles that the enemy manages to fire. Any “leakers” are to be handled by soft-kill and hardkill point defenses—for example, jammers, chaff, and close-in weapon systems. For submarines and surface vessels the logic is similar, but here maneuver is also an option. Since the attacking surface ship or submarine moves at about the same speed as the formation, it is possible to stay out of reach of the enemy. Maneuver seeks to deny detection and targeting and to force attacking surface ships and submarines to operate in ways in which they cannot muster enough strength to carry out their mission or are more easily detected.1

A prerequisite of a successful layered defense is detection of the enemy far enough out that all the layers get a chance to work. The restricted space of congested and archipelagic waters, however, may prevent the outer “strainers” from acting on the enemy. This gives small, heavily armed combatants opportunities to hide, perhaps among islands, and fire their weapons from cover, leaving only point defenses to deal with the oncoming missiles and torpedoes, with little room for maneuver.2 This increases the risk of saturation of defense systems and may allow weapons to penetrate.

The problems associated with archipelagic and coastal environments have been recognized since the introduction of the mobile torpedo.3 The torpedo gave small units the firepower to destroy ships much larger than themselves and made it possible for a small fleet to challenge a larger one, at least if it did not have to do so on the open ocean. To deal with such an inshore threat, the British naval historian and strategist Sir Julian Corbett suggested in 1911 that a “flotilla” of small combatants had to be introduced to deal with this type of warfare, because capital ships could no longer approach defended coasts, as they had when ships of the line dueled with forts.4 Today, the introduction of long-range missiles, mines, stealth design, and the ability to coordinate the efforts of land-, sea-, and air-based systems have further intensified this threat.5

Littoral environments seem to change the problem of sea control, at least in some aspects.6 Sensors, weapons, and tactics developed to handle threats on the open ocean may be less appropriate in congested and archipelagic waters. Radar and sonar returns are cluttered, missile seekers are confused, and targeting is complicated by the existence of islands and coastlines close to the ships to be protected. The land-sea environment introduces variables that make the sea control problem hard to solve using methods developed for an open ocean. As the uncertainties and intangibles mount up, quantitative approaches become less feasible, and we can only rely on human judgment.7 That is why it is important to study what commanders find difficult when executing sea-control missions in littoral environments.

It has been shown to be fruitful, when studying the problems people face when trying to solve a task, to have a model of the task that describes what the decision maker is required to do.8 Whether that task description takes the form of a document—a formal description or formula—or an expert, the approach is similar—you compare people’s behavior to the description and try to identify where and why they differ. Since experts differ, formal descriptions are preferable, if feasible. For the sea-control task, the description can either list the problems that the commander must solve in order to get ships safely to their destinations or define the variables of interest and the states they must be in for sea control to be considered established.

To get a description of what is required to establish sea control one can study what doctrine has to say. A major U.S. Navy doctrinal publication, Naval Warfare, characterizes sea control as one of the service’s core capabilities and states that it “requires control of the surface, subsurface, and airspace and relies upon naval forces’ maintaining superior capabilities and capacities in all sea-control operations. It is established through naval, joint, or combined operations designed to secure the use of ocean and littoral areas by one’s own forces and to prevent their use by the enemy.”9 British Maritime Doctrine has a similar description of sea control: “Sea control is the condition in which one has freedom of action to use the sea for one’s own purposes in specified areas and for specified periods of time and, where necessary, to deny or limit its use to the enemy. . . . Sea control includes the airspace above the surface and the water volume and seabed below.”10 A North Atlantic Treaty Organization publication, Allied Joint Maritime Operations, relates the level of control to the level of risk: “The level of sea control required will be a balance between the desired degree of freedom of action and the degree of acceptable risk.”11 Two academic analysts offer a more minimalistic view, arguing that tying the definition of sea control to specific military objectives creates contrasts between the challenges posed by, for example, littoral environments and blue-water environments.12 To accommodate these contrasts and allow for the full range of operations, they put forward “the use of the sea as a maneuver space to achieve military objectives” as a definition of sea control.

However, two issues make it hard to use these descriptions for studying the problems commanders face in sea control tasks. To say so is not to criticize their doctrinal utility but rather to point out that for the purposes of this article, their meanings need to be expressed in a somewhat more formal way. The first issue is related to how the definitions describe when sea control has been established. All these definitions describe sea control from a general perspective, as a state, implying a line between when that state has been reached and when it has not. As result, it would be possible to use such a description to determine whether sea control has been established, at least in theory. A necessary precondition of such a description, however, is that it contain concepts—or to be more specific, a set of variables—that can be observed from the outside. For each variable there must be specified the value it must have, or the condition it must be in, in order to say that the overall state has been reached. Only then are we able to use the definition to measure whether a commander has succeeded in establishing sea control. The second issue regards the “general,” “outside” perspective that characterizes all these descriptions—a conceptual view, detached from the environment, the task, and the decision maker. In a sea-control task, however, several factors, variables, need to be considered in order to determine the degree to which the commander has managed to solve it: geography, type and duration of the operation, the enemy’s units and weapons, own resources, and the size of the region are just a few examples. A description covering all possible aspects of sea control and all possible situations would probably be quite complicated, containing many variables and many states; new variables not considered at the beginning might even have to be added as they arise.13 This is not an attractive situation for a scientific concept. Another approach would go in the other direction, stripping the definition of variables and formulating it on a very general level (the academic definition cited above is such an attempt).14 Such a definition covers a wide range of situations, but it is not very specific and provides no guidance as to when sea control has been established.

It would seem, then, that defining sea control from a general perspective is not helpful for present purposes. The point is to not separate the definition of sea control from the person trying to achieve it, or from the environment, or from the task. Such a definition would assume the perspective of the commander, describe sea control as a task that the commander has to accomplish, and lay out what is required to accomplish that task.15 Such a definition could, as we have postulated about the analytical definition we need, either describe the problems that the commander must solve in order to protect the ships or be a representation of the sea-control task. Such a description would allow systematic investigation of the effects of different tasks and different environments on the commander’s ability to establish sea control.

In fact, I argue, to investigate the concept empirically, sea control is best described from the inside. Taking the perspective of commanders trying to achieve control makes it possible to investigate systematically the problems they face and in turn, perhaps, to derive guidance for the design of training and support systems. The point of departure for such a description is the idea that securing control at sea is analogous to establishing a “field of safe travel,” a concept that has been proposed to describe the behavior of automobile drivers.16 This approach can be useful for investigating the problems commanders at sea face, and it may enrich and extend traditional thinking about sea control and how to achieve it, especially in littoral waters.

The Field of Safe Travel

Driving a car has been described analytically as locomotion through a terrain or a field of space. The primitive function of locomotion is to move an individual from one point of space to another, the “destination.” In the process obstacles are met, and locomotion must be adapted to avoid them—collision may lead to bodily injury. Locomotion by some device, such as a vehicle, is, at this level of abstraction, no different from walking, and accordingly it is chiefly guided by vision. This guidance is given in terms of a path within the visual field of the individual, such that obstacles are avoided and the destination is ultimately reached.

The visual field of a driver is selective, in that the elements of the field that are pertinent to locomotion stand out and are attended to, while irrelevant elements recede into the background. The most important part of this pertinent field is the road. It is within the boundaries of the road that the “field of safe travel” exists.17 The field of safe travel is indefinitely bounded and at any given moment comprises all the possible paths that the car may take unimpeded (see figure 1). The field of safe travel can be viewed as a “tongue” that sticks out along the road in front of the car. Its boundaries are determined by objects that should be avoided. An object has valence, positive or negative, in the sense that we want to move toward some (positive valence) and away from others (negative valence). Objects of negative valence have a sort of halo of avoidance, which can be represented by “lines of clearance” surrounding it. The closer to the object the line is, the greater the intensity of avoidance it represents. The field of safe travel itself has positive valence, the more so along its midline.18

The field of safe travel is a spatial field. It is, however, not fixed in physical space but moves with the car through space. The field is not merely a subjective experience of the driver but exists objectively as an actual field in which the car can operate safely, whether or not the driver is aware of it. During locomotion it changes constantly as the road turns and twists. It elongates and contracts, widens and narrows, as objects encroach on its boundaries.

It is now possible to investigate how the concept of a “field of safe travel” applies to naval warfare. As stated above, the purpose of sea control is to take control of maritime communications, whether for commercial shipping or naval forces. The practical problem for a commander is consequently to protect commercial vessels and warships as they move toward their destinations. These ships will be referred to as “high-value units.”

The analogy is straightforward: to make sure that the high-value units get safely to their destinations the commander must create a “field of safe travel” where they can move without risk of being sunk. At the simplest level, without the complication of hostile opposition, the problem of maneuvering a high-value unit is exactly the same as that of driving a car: make sure that it gets to its destination without running into something (that is, for a vessel, colliding or running aground). As such, there is no difference between a high-value unit’s field of safe travel and an automobile’s.

Original figure caption: “If, in this and the following figures, the page is turned around and the figure is viewed from what is now right, the reader may the better be able to empathize the situation, since he will then have the point of view of the driver of the car whose field of safe travel is under discussion.” From American Journal of Psychology. Copyright 1938 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with permission of the authors and the University of Illinois Press.

The fields of individual ships are, however, not of interest here and will not be further discussed; our focus is the field of the commander of the naval operation. In that field, the most pertinent element of the environment is not the terrain (though coasts and islands delimit how the ships can move) but the enemy. Consequently, the boundaries of the commander’s field of safe travel are determined most importantly by enemy units that threaten to sink the commander’s high-value units (see figure 2). In contrast to fixed objects in a driver’s field of safe travel, islands and coastlines may actually have positive valences for a commander, as they can offer protection. Nevertheless, the definition of the field remains the same: the commander’s field of safe travel comprises all the possible paths that the high-value units can take unimpeded.

Though the analogy is straightforward, there are several differences between the driver’s field of safe travel and that of the commander. First, the driver of a car has limited ability to influence the shape of the field of safe travel and can only see and react to obstacles that encroach on the field. Commanders, on the other hand, can actively shape the field of safe travel and have powerful means to do so: they can scout threatening areas to determine whether enemy units are present, and if they detect a threat they can eliminate it by applying deadly force. Second, the commander is up against an enemy who means to do harm. An opponent who uses cover and deception can make it more difficult to establish the requisite field.

For the commander of a naval operation, the field of safe travel is delimited not only by the terrain but also by, most importantly, threatening enemy units.

Third, the commander’s field of safe travel cannot, like the field of a driver of an automobile, be directly perceived; it is too vast. Instead, the commander must derive the field, using data provided by sensors carried by the units in the force. As will be seen later, this difference complicates matters for the commander. Nevertheless, it is important at this point to notice that the field of safe travel is not merely a subjective experience of the commander but exists as an objective field where the commander’s ships can move safely.

The Minimum Safety Zone

In driving, collisions are avoided by one of two methods—changing the direction or stopping the locomotion.19 Changing direction is done by steering. Sometimes, however, the field of safe travel is cut off, for example, when another car turns onto the road from a side street. In these situations steering is not enough, and the driver has to slow down to avoid a collision. Another field concept describes how drivers decelerate—the “minimum stopping zone,” which denotes the minimum spatial field a driver needs to bring the vehicle to a stop (see figure 1).20 Deceleration (or the degree of braking) is proportional to the speed at which the forward boundary of the field of safe travel approaches the edge of the minimum stopping zone.

For the commander of a naval operation, the field of safe travel is delimited not only by the terrain but also by, most importantly, threatening enemy units. The commander uses a related field concept to determine whether action is needed to prevent the high-value units from being sunk—the “minimum safety zone” (see figure 3). The minimum safety zone is a field the size of which is determined by the range of a specific enemy weapon; there exists one minimum safety zone for each type of enemy weapon. The field denotes how close to the high-value units an enemy unit carrying that weapon can be allowed before the enemy unit can sink the high-value units using that specific weapon.21 For example, suppose an enemy ship has an antiship gun with a range of ten thousand meters. In this case, the minimum safety zone for that gun would be a circle with a radius of ten thousand meters around each high-value unit.

From this it follows that there exist as many fields of safe travel as there are minimum safety zones; minimum safety zones and fields of safe travel always come in pairs. For example, the enemy may have a long-range antiship missile that can be fired from surface ships and a medium-range torpedo that can be fired from submarines. This creates two separate pairs of fields of safe travel and minimum safety zones—one for the antiship missile and one for the torpedo. Consequently, to make sure that the high-value unit is not sunk, each minimum safety zone must be completely contained within its corresponding field of safe travel for the duration of the voyage.

Also, the shape of the minimum safety zone varies according to the type of weapon it represents (see figure 3). The shape is determined by the relative speeds of the weapon and the target and their relative headings when the weapon is fired. Suppose a high-speed antiship missile is fired toward a slow-moving high-value unit (see figure 3a). It will take the missile about five minutes to reach its target if the speed of the missile and the range to the target are, respectively, 645 knots and about fifty-four nautical miles. The distance the high-value unit can move during this time at twenty-five knots is about four thousand meters. Thus, the difference in time between when the missile is fired with the high-value unit heading toward it or moving away is negligible; the minimum safety zone can be considered circular. Now consider firing a medium-range torpedo at the same high-value unit. The torpedo has a speed of, say, fifty knots and a range of 25 nautical miles. If the enemy unit fires this torpedo when the high-value unit is heading toward it the theoretical range becomes about thirty-seven nautical miles (it takes thirty minutes for the torpedo to travel its maximum distance, in which time the high-value unit can move 12.5 nautical miles closer). On the other hand, if it fires when the high-value unit is moving away, the range drops to only 12.5 nautical miles. Thus, the shape of the minimum safety zone for the torpedo will be more or less elliptical, with the high-value unit positioned toward its far end (see figure 3b).

The dotted line denotes the minimum safety zone. Its size is determined by the range of an enemy weapon. The minimum safety zone must be completely contained within its corresponding field of safe travel for the duration of the transit, or there will be a risk of loss. In (b) the shape of the minimum safety zone depends on the relative velocities (speed and firing angle) of the weapon and high-value units. To fire a torpedo when the target is moving away, the submarine must come much closer than must a submarine firing at a target moving toward it.

What minimum safety zone the commander uses when encountering a new contact depends on how well the contact is classified. If the commander knows what type of enemy unit is approaching, the proper, specific minimum safety zone is applied. If there is uncertainty, the commander must assume the largest minimum safety zone for that class of contacts. For example, if the commander knows that only surface ships can carry long-range antiship missiles, the minimum safety zone for those missiles must be assumed for an unidentified radar contact—that is, of the class of surface contacts. For the submarine screen, however, the minimum safety zone can be based on the medium-range torpedo—the class of underwater contacts. For the driver of an automobile, braking is a reaction to the threat of crashing into an object and it is initiated when the forward boundary of the field of safe travel recedes toward the minimum stopping zone. In a similar way, the commander of a naval operation reacts when the field of safe travel recedes toward the minimum safety zone—that is, when a threat develops toward the high-value units. In contrast to the automobile driver, however, the commander has three ways of handling a threat: move the high-value units away from the threat, order subordinate units to take action against the threat, or receive the attack and defend. Either way, to establish whether a threat is developing, the commander must be able to determine whether the field of safe travel is receding toward the minimum safety zone.

Dr. Waldenström works at the Institution of War Studies at the Swedish National Defence College. He is an officer in the Swedish Navy and holds an MSc in computer science and a PhD in computer and systems sciences. His dissertation focused on human factors in command and control and investigated a support system for naval warfare tasks. Currently he is working as lead scientist at the school’s war-gaming section, and his research focuses on learning aspects of war games.

References

1. Robert C. Rubel, “Talking about Sea Control,” Naval War College Review 63, no. 4 (Autumn 2010), pp. 38–47.

2. Ibid.; Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2000).

3. Sir Julian Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (1911; repr. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1988), pp. 122–24.

4. Ibid.

5. For descriptions of littoral navies, see, among others, J. Børresen, “The Seapower of the Coastal State,” Journal of Strategic Studies 17,
no. 1 (1994), pp. 148–75; Tim Sloth Joergensen, “U.S. Navy Operations in Littoral Waters: 2000 and Beyond,” Naval War College Review
51, no. 2 (Spring 1998), pp. 20–29.

6. Hughes, Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat; Milan Vego, Naval Strategy and Operations in Narrow Seas, 2nd ed. (Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass, 1999); John F. G. Wade, “Navy Tactics, Doctrine, and Training Requirements for Littoral Warfare” (thesis, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif., June 1996); V. Addison and D. Dominy, “Got Sea Control?,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 136, no. 3
(2010).

7. See the discussion of the C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) system as an artifact in Berndt Brehmer, “Command and Control Research Is a ‘Science of the Artificial’” (paper delivered to the fifteenth International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium, Seattle, Wash., 2010).

8. An example that has generated a Nobel Prize winner is “heuristics and biases” decisionmaking research, where human judgment is compared to statistical models. See D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A. Tversky, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982); and T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, and D. Kahneman, eds., Heuristics and Biases (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002). For a more general overview,
see, for example, Paul R. Kleindorfer, Howard C. Kunreuther, and Paul J. Schoemaker, Decision Sciences: An Integrative Approach (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993).

9. U.S. Navy Dept., Naval Warfare, Naval Doctrine Publication 1 (Washington, D.C.: 2010) [hereafter NDP-1], p. 28.

10. Ministry of Defence, British Maritime Doctrine (BR1806), 3rd ed. (Norwich, U.K.: by command of the Defence Council, 2004), pp. 41–42.

11. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Allied Joint Maritime Operations, AJP 3.1 (Brussels: NATO Standardization Agency, 2004), chap. 1, p. 8.

12. Addison and Dominy, “Got Sea Control?”

13. As it was necessary for Ptolemy to introduce epicycles in order to handle the irregular movement of planets in his geocentric description of the solar system.

14. Addison and Dominy, “Got Sea Control?”

15. There are several analyses that describe the kinds of missions a commander has to execute in order to achieve sea control. See, for example, Frank Uhlig, “How Navies Fight, and Why,” Naval War College Review NWC_Winter2013Review.indd 98 11/1/12 10:57 AM 22
Naval War College Review, Vol. 66 [2013], No. 1, Art. 7
https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol66/iss1/7
WALDENSTRÖM 99 48, no. 1 (Winter 1995), pp. 34–49; Uhlig,
“The Constants of Naval Warfare,” Naval War College Review 50, no. 2 (Spring 1997), pp. 92–105; and NDP-1. What missions have to be executed, however, do not constitute a description of what has to be accomplished in order to establish sea control. The missions that can be executed represent the means
available to establish sea control—that is, the commander’s ways of bringing about the state of sea control.

16. J. Gibson and L. Crooks, “A Theoretical Field Analysis of Automobile-Driving,” American Journal of Psychology 51, no. 3 (July 1938), pp.
453–71.

17. Ibid., p. 454.

18. The concept of ”valence” is from ibid., p. 455.

19. Ibid., p. 456.

20. Ibid., p. 457.

21. The “minimum safety zone” is just another term describing how far out from the field of safe travel an enemy contact starts to encroach on it. To use the field and anchor it to the high-value units is convenient, however, and makes it possible to use the same concept for all enemy weapons, antiship missiles as well as mines. Further, the observations of naval officers when they solve sea-control tasks have revealed that they use tools in the command-and-control systems on board their ships to visualize these zones—circular regions around high-value units or corridors where high-value units will move.

Featured Image: ATLANTIC OCEAN (May 13, 2010) Operations Specialist 3rd Class Gregory L. Gray mans his station in the Combat Direction Center aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Brooks B. Patton Jr./Released)

Capability Analysis, Indo-Asia-Pacific

A Question of Time: Improving Taiwan’s Maritime Deterrence Posture

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The following essay is adapted from a report published by George Mason University’s Center for Security Policy Studies: A Question of Time: Enhancing Taiwan’s Conventional Deterrence Posture

By Joe Petrucelli

Just last month two U.S. Navy warships conducted a transit of the Taiwan Strait, reminding the world that the status of Taiwan remains contested and unresolved. Although China prefers to use peaceful means to achieve unification, it has not taken the possibility of force off the table. Accordingly, Taiwan remains one of the few states to endure the plausible risk of military invasion.

After visiting Taiwan to study this problem, a team of researchers, including the author, recently released a report advocating for a dramatic shift in Taiwan’s conventional deterrence posture. Among our recommendations, we call for Taiwan’s navy to change its current acquisition priorities and embrace an unconventional-asymmetric doctrine of sea denial.

We suggest this shift in maritime strategy because of what we termed Taiwan’s deterrence trilemma. At a strategic level, Taiwan must simultaneously accomplish three goals that exist in tension with each other:  

  • It must counter China’s grey zone challenges, which means Taiwan must project symbolic strength across its airspace and territorial waters;
  • It must raise the costs of invasion, which means it needs forces that can prolong any conflict and inflict unacceptable losses on the invaders; and
  • It must do both of these things in a resource-constrained environment defined by a general unwillingness to significantly increase defense spending

At least in the near term, a military invasion remains unlikely since the PLA faces a number of obstacles that complicate its ability to mount a successful invasion. Nonetheless, time is on China’s side and Taiwan’s naval doctrine and force posture remain misaligned. Although Taiwan has revised its strategy to emphasize multi-domain, asymmetric deterrence, it remains focused on purchasing high-end, high-capability systems such as the F-35B fighter, Aegis-like destroyers and diesel submarines, the “darlings of their service chiefs.” 

We argue that Taiwan should enhance its deterrence posture by adopting a more coherent and holistic approach. Specifically, we recommend that it adopt an elastic denial-in-defense strategy, which will consist of three core elements:

  • Accept risk in the grey zone. Grey zone aggression does not constitute an existential threat allowing Taiwan to rebalance its force to maintain “just enough” capability to push back against grey zone challenges, such sufficient naval strength to prevent and intercept unwanted excursions into Taiwanese waters;
  • Prioritize denial operations. Specifically, divest as many costly, high-tech platforms as possible so as to invest in large numbers of relatively low-cost, counter-invasion capabilities. This would raise the cost associated with bringing a hostile force close to Taiwan’s shores; and
  • Invest in popular resistance. The prospect of waging a prolonged insurgency will likely deter China’s leadership far more than the threat of fighting a relatively small, conventional force.

We are not the first to propose shifting to an asymmetric maritime force to deny China use of the seas as an invasion corridor. Numerous reports and analyses have suggested specific maritime platforms Taiwan should acquire to execute a sea denial strategy, such as fast missile boats, semi-submersibles, mini-submarines, mines, and coastal defense cruise missiles. We entirely agree with these recommendations and note that to date, despite talk of an asymmetric strategy, Taiwan has made only marginal changes. For example, while it has modestly increased its inventory of missile boats and anti-ship cruise missiles, Taiwan’s navy remains anchored around a relatively small and therefore vulnerable inventory of high-end platforms. 

The political reality is that Taiwan’s navy faces major resource constraints and so must make difficult choices. Accordingly, Taiwan should defer its high-profile procurement priorities, especially the Aegis-like destroyer and the Indigenous Diesel Submarine (IDS). These are technically challenging programs, especially given Taiwan’s lack of experience building similar platforms. Additionally, they are expensive enough that Taiwan will not be able to field them in large numbers and ultimately remain vulnerable to Chinese long-range strike and anti-access weapons systems. Taiwan’s current naval fleet, although aged, is sufficient to “show the flag” and resist grey-zone aggression for the near future. Instead of these planned procurements, Taiwan should significantly increase the numbers of low-cost, lethal platforms, even at the expense of other planned procurements.

These lower cost platforms, by the larger numbers procured, complicate adversary targeting and improve their force-level survivability against PLA strike capabilities. Taiwan should start by fielding a larger fleet than currently envisioned of its stealthy Tuo Jiang missile corvette and build on the lessons learned from these small corvettes to field a future small frigate. Both can fulfill peacetime missions but be built in large enough numbers to possibly survive in a wartime environment. By delaying the more ambitious destroyer and IDS programs and starting with smaller, less expensive projects, Taiwan can best prioritize limited resources.

This incremental approach also helps develop relevant technical capability, so that potential future submarine and large surface combatant programs are less technically risky when it becomes fiscally and strategically appropriate to build them. The immediate savings from delaying the destroyer and IDS programs can be diverted into the sea denial platforms that Taiwan needs now, ranging from the small frigate discussed above to even smaller missile boats, mini-subs and mobile anti-ship cruise missiles.

Moreover, Taiwan should eliminate its entire amphibious force. Bluntly speaking, Taiwan’s amphibious assault ships are strategically unnecessary as they are not immediately useful for confronting limited challenges to Taiwan’s territorial sovereignty or other “grey zone” aggression. They also have no ability to counter a cross-strait invasion. Rather than procure expensive amphibious assault ships and maintain aging landing craft, which generate sizable sustainment costs, Taiwan should retire this entire force. It can then shift these savings into further investments in counter-invasion capabilities.

Because Taiwan’s Marine Corps would be losing its sealift, it should be rebranded as Taiwan’s premier counter-amphibious force so as to fill a gap between the navy’s sea denial role and the army’s ground denial mission. Specifically, it would specialize in defending possible landing zones with mines and spread out hard points in addition to engaging landing craft with dispersed, near-shore weapons such as anti-tank guided missiles.

These proposals to transform Taiwan’s naval strategy and procurement plans would produce a force capable of waging a sea denial campaign against a conventionally superior opponent, tailored to the specific threat of a cross-Strait invasion. The changes in naval force structure would be mirrored throughout Taiwan’s armed forces, to include a reduction in army ground strength, the termination of plans to procure F-35B fighters, and accelerated procurement of similar asymmetric capabilities. To invest in popular resistance, we recommend transforming Taiwan’s two-million-man Reserve Force into a Territorial Defense Force prepared to conduct a lengthy insurgency campaign. By abandoning plans for a decisive battle and shifting to a posture that increases invasion costs and prevents a quick victory, Taiwan can better deter China.

Read about these recommendations and more in the full report: A Question of Time: Enhancing Taiwan’s Conventional Deterrence Posture.

Joe Petrucelli is a Ph.D. student at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and a currently mobilized U.S. Navy reserve officer. The analysis and opinions expressed here are his alone and they do not represent those of the Department of Defense.

Featured Image: Tuo Jiang-class missile boat in service with the Taiwanese Navy. (Defense Ministry of Taiwan)

Capability Analysis

How the Fleet Forgot to Fight, Pt. 6: Strategy and Operations

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Read Part 1 on Combat Training. Part 2 on Firepower. Part 3 on Tactics and Doctrine. Read Part 4 on Technical Standards. Read Part 5 on Material Condition and Availability.

By Dmitry Filipoff

Strategy and Operations

“During this time we have seen our once-great fleet cut almost in half and our remaining ships and personnel forced to endure long and continuous deployments as their numbers dwindled while requirements increased, and our nation turned away from international imperatives to attend to vexing problems closer to home…” –Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo “Bud” Zumwalt, 1973

The Navy is not the only branch of the military facing significant challenges born from a long focus on the low-end fight. After the fall of the Soviet Union and especially after the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan all of the military services pivoted their training toward low-end skills to a significant extent. All of the services dealt with crushing operational tempo stemming from demand driven primarily by the Middle East, and are still paying off large maintenance debts. Now they are all trying to radically reorient themselves to be ready for great power competition.

However, the Navy stands far apart from the other services in how it contributed and adapted to the major wars of the power projection era. The nature of blue water naval power was poorly suited to counterinsurgency, causing the Navy to diffuse its efforts across a broad variety of mission areas. The fleet went on to suffer an especially large divide between what it could do and how it was tasked. Missions that were once considered a luxury afforded by the demise of a great power competitor eventually came to be regarded as inescapable obligations. This mission focus blurred the Navy’s priorities, allowed it to overextend itself, and helped blind the fleet to the fundamental need to  develop itself through proper exercises.

As a result, many of the Navy’s operations undermined enduring strategic imperatives, suggesting the urgency of those low-end missions was built on questionable strategy. In the process, the Navy shed high-end warfighting skills that remained relevant even after the demise of the Soviet Union and is entering an era of renewed great power competition at a disadvantage as China rises. The United States, as a maritime nation, and the world, as dependent on maritime order, now find themselves at greater risk by an American fleet deficient in sea control. 

Missions and Adapting to Power Projection

“Looking at how we support our people, build the right platforms, power them to achieve efficient global capability, and develop critical partnerships will be central to its successful execution and to providing that unique capability: presence.” –A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower (2015)

The composition of blue water naval power is often decided a generation in advance of when it actually manifests itself. It takes many years to conceive of a ship, several more years to then build the first ship of a new type, and many more years to build an entire class of ships. The fundamental attributes of the modern U.S. Navy were mostly set or inspired by the national security thinking of the 70s and 80s when sea control defined its focus. The American fleet that sails today is mainly composed of 100,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, large surface warships that can carry over 100 missiles each, and nuclear-powered submarines. The modern U.S. Navy is a living relic of the Cold War, where its design was crafted in an era dominated by great power competition.

Something similar could be said for the force structure of the other military services, and the low-end focus of the immediate post-Cold War era demanded they all adapt. The nation-building and counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan required especially radical changes. Adapting to these wars took more the form of different missions and training, rather than building different kinds of force structure. Divorcing units from high-end force structure inspired by Cold War threats became central toward adapting to the low-end fight.

Both the Army and Marines recognized that a significant part of their force structure was barely useful for counterinsurgency and chose to rarely employ their armored units in traditional roles. It appears the U.S. did not deploy tanks to Afghanistan until 2010, and up until at least two years ago no Army armor units have deployed to Afghanistan with their tanks.1 Having been divorced from their main vehicles these units underwent extensive retraining to take on new missions, and the Army’s field artillery branch experienced similar reforms.2 Even though these units were pushed into less-familiar roles these adaptations were viewed as necessary to make them more applicable to the counterinsurgency fight.

The Army and Marines are not alone in having force structure that was hardly useful to counterinsurgency. Most of the tools of blue water naval forces such as powerful radars and sonars, dozens of missile tubes, electronic warfare suites, nuclear submarines, and long-endurance ships are poorly suited to fighting insurgents. Insurgent war is usually a land-only contest, where insurgents almost never field real navies. Aircraft carriers can employ airpower, but most of the Navy’s major capabilities could hardly be applied. This is reflected in how the surface and submarine fleets’ direct combat contributions to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were mostly confined to cruise missile strikes conducted in the opening months of those campaigns.3 Beyond that there were virtually no contributions of firepower from most American warships for the rest of these wars.

The Navy had to make its own retraining adaptations. The Individual Augmentee (IA) program pulled Sailors from assignments that usually took them to sea and instead deployed them to serve in augmented roles on land. However, the numbers were very uneven across the Navy’s various communities. Even though tens of thousands of Sailors deployed through the IA program it appears less than five percent of Navy individual augmentees came from the surface fleet.4 This points to a major difference in how the Navy adapted to counterinsurgency compared to the other services, in that even in a time of insurgent war the Navy still continued to operate less relevant force structure at pre-9/11 levels. The Navy never went so far as the Army or Marines who regularly made their armor and artillery units leave their main weapons behind. The Navy’s ship deployment rate went unaffected by any augmentation or retraining.

Pay grade distribution of individual augmentees who were deployed from cruisers and destroyers during Fiscal Years 2006 through 2009. (Source: GAO)

The diminished relevance of blue water naval power in the Global War on Terror is reflected in the work of Lieutenant Commander Alan Worthy, who interviewed numerous Sailors while researching the Navy’s IA program: 

“A significant number of the young Sailors I spoke with joined the Navy specifically to be part of this ongoing war. They joined after 9/11 or after the GWOT began and wanted to get into the fight. In my interviews, I was surprised to learn that a considerable percentage of Sailors did not have a good understanding of the Navy’s role in the GWOT. For Sailors who were in the Navy before the war, their day-to-day duties out to sea had not significantly changed because of the war. For those who joined to fight this war, it has been difficult to see what their daily efforts out to sea were accomplishing. The strategic effects of missions such as maritime dominance and theater security cooperation are often unrealized by the average Sailor as they go about daily sea life. Unlike Marine Corps and Army accomplishments, which are in the daily news media, Sailors do not regularly get to the opportunity to see or hear how the maritime mission directly contributes to the war.”5 

The Navy was poorly suited to counterinsurgency, forcing it to focus its operational energies elsewhere. The low-end spectrum missions opened up many opportunities to conduct diverse operations that would allow the Navy to put the forward presence of its ships to use. Warships conducted missions such as counterpiracy, maritime security, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Ships protected fisheries, caught smugglers, and taught foreign counterparts how to better provide for their own security. Partnership engagements in particular became a leading operational activity for U.S. naval power as concepts such as the 1,000-ship Navy and Global Fleet Station urged greater international cooperation.

A snapshot of missions for ships in the Fifth Fleet area of responsibility. (Source: “Surge Readiness: What the Fleet Response Plan Really Means to a Joint Force Maritime Component Commander”)

The power projection era ushered in what may be remembered as a high time for naval soft power, where the Navy devoted a significant amount of its time and skill on directly helping other nations improve their human condition. However, many of these operations are better described as opportunities offered by the diverse set of missions found at the low-end spectrum of operations, rather than pressing requirements driven by wartime demand. While tens of thousands of Soldiers and Marines were solely focused on advising heavily embattled Iraqi and Afghan counterparts the Navy enjoyed the luxury of frequently partnering with dozens of other nations, almost all of whom were not engaged in any major hostilities.

Despite these low-end missions the Navy’s stringent level of continuous forward presence was mainly for guaranteeing deterrence by denial. The Navy sought to primarily deter Iran, who was perfectly positioned to interfere with the Strait of Hormuz and threaten one of the most important global energy lifelines. Iran has regularly made outspoken threats to close the Strait, has far more naval forces than its Arab rivals, and attacks on international shipping in the 1980s prompted armed U.S. intervention that targeted Iranian assets. By continuously maintaining a carrier strike group in the Middle East the Navy sought to insure the global economy and regional allies against Iran.

The necessity of this demanding level of presence is questionable. Unlike in Europe or Asia, the conventional military balance in the Middle East favors U.S. allies versus Iran. The past two U.S. administrations have given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of advanced military aid to U.S. allies in the region, especially those that are staunch rivals of Iran such as Gulf Cooperation Council states and Israel. While Iran certainly enjoyed some military advantages during the power projection era its temptations to pursue major military action may have been tempered by the tens of thousands troops the U.S. deployed to countries flanking Iran.

The worldwide significance of the seaborne energy that transits the Persian Gulf is perhaps the best security guarantor. Iran could cause global economic damage if it tried to close the Strait or initiate major war with its regional rivals, but this would likely prompt extremely fierce condemnation from across the world. Even if the U.S. Navy couldn’t instantly respond, the overriding factor of politics would likely be on its side. With the advantages of politics and allies, deterrence by denial against a rogue state is less necessary if a superior coalition can be counted on to surge in response. Iran’s ability to close the Strait militarily is highly doubtful, but the possibility of this prompting an internationally-supported counter-intervention is not. The same cannot be said for how the world would respond to many contingencies involving great power war.

The Navy struggled to find a place for itself in the power projection era, but it would not abandon its traditional ship deployment rates as major land wars broke out in the Middle East. Instead, it reacted to a new national security focus by subscribing to questionable logic. During this time the Navy chose to obsessively overspend its readiness on many missions that are completely optional in nature, and on a level of deterrence that was hardly warranted. Yet the Navy was so convinced of the necessity of these operations that for years it willingly sacrificed its material readiness, tolerated severe maintenance troubles, and let its warfighting competence wither away.

This unrelenting insistence on optional missions and a total disregard for full-spectrum competence produced decades of fleet deployments that were driven by a grossly misplaced sense of urgency. In a time of power projection and insurgent wars, if any branch of the military could have safely made time to prepare for the high-end fight, it is the Navy.

Full-Spectrum Competence and U.S. Naval Power

“With the demise of the Soviet Union, the free nations of the world claim preeminent control of the seas and ensure freedom of commercial maritime passage. As a result, our national maritime policies can afford to de-emphasize efforts in some naval warfare areas. But the challenge is much more complex…We must structure a fundamentally different naval force to respond to strategic demands, and that new force must be sufficiently flexible and powerful to satisfy enduring national security requirements.”            –…From the Sea: Preparing the Naval Service for the 21st Century (1992)

With the downfall of the Soviet Union the U.S. Navy could afford to take a step back from high-end warfighting. But a single-minded focus on the low-end fight or heavily scripted training could hardly be justified even with the demise of a great power competitor. Difficult threats remained, and required that the Navy still retain high-end warfighting skills. The failure to maintain full-spectrum competence during the immediate post Cold-War era could now come home to roost with the rapid onset of great power competition in maritime Asia.

The Navy allowed the low-end skillset to dominate the nature of its pre-deployment training, but full-spectrum competence across the range of missions is no option for a Navy tasked with protecting the global interests of a superpower. A ship could be conducting counterpiracy operations one week and conducting a show of force near a missile-armed state the next. Ships en route to the Middle East can pass through the South China Sea and be shadowed by the Chinese Navy. Warships in the Mediterranean could be helping refugees stranded in the ocean while a Russian squadron hangs over the horizon.

The power projection era sought to shift the Navy’s attention to littorals mostly populated by third-world states, but these areas contain no shortage of powerful capabilities and tactical challenges. Iran for example still fields a respectable amount of conventional military capability such as coastal anti-ship missile batteries, fast attack craft, mines, and Russian-made submarines. While the quality and resilience of the Iranian military is questionable in many respects, it is still a multi-domain threat worthy of consideration.

The credibility of littoral threats was already recognized in key strategy papers that announced the Navy’s power projection focus. As the major Navy strategy document …From the Sea (1992) declared “a fundamental shift away from open-ocean warfighting on the sea toward joint operations conducted from the sea” it also recognized that this different operating environment of the littoral still had no shortage of tactical challenges:

“The littoral region is frequently characterized by confined and congested water and air space…making identification profoundly difficult. This environment poses varying technical and tactical challenges to Naval Forces. It is an area where our adversaries can concentrate and layer their defenses. In an era when arms proliferation means some third world countries possess sophisticated weaponry, there is a wide range of potential challenges…an adversary’s submarines operating in shallow waters pose a particular challenge to Naval Forces. Similarly, coastal missile batteries can be positioned to ‘hide’ from radar coverage. Some littoral threats–specifically mines, sea-skimming cruise missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles–tax the capabilities of our current systems and force structure. Mastery of the littoral should not be presumed.”6

The power projection focus still required strong warfighting skills, and could hardly justify scripted training or a lack of attention to high-end warfighting. Perhaps the terms “littoral” and “power projection” somehow became synonymous with “easy” for the U.S. Navy, and allowed it to atrophy its warfighting skills.

Even with the demise of the Soviet Union the Navy still had an obligation to deter powerful states. This was made especially clear in one of the most high-profile shows of force in the power projection era when the U.S. deployed carrier battle groups to deter China during the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis. This event added urgency to China’s desire to modernize its military for high-end warfighting, but apparently it did little to remind the U.S. Navy of its obligations toward full-spectrum deterrence.7 

Perhaps the neglect of full-spectrum competence was built on the assumption that the Navy could easily regenerate high-end skills if a new great power rival presented itself. The Chinese Navy has been given an opportunity to test this assumption. The Chinese Navy’s push for high-end competence overlaps with the American Navy’s generational focus on low-end missions, suggesting the PLAN has stolen a march on the U.S. Navy with respect to high-end force development.

After the Soviet Union fell the U.S. Navy could have taken a different path. The lack of utility of blue water naval power for counterinsurgency could have been a blessing in disguise for the Navy while the other services were heavily tied down by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the power projection era the Navy could have focused on settling complex developmental questions posed by Information Age technologies, and evolved its high-end skills. The Navy effectively missed a historic opportunity to make major progress on force development, where the fleet could have easily focused on securing its future dominance. Instead, it let a rising rival close the gap.

For a generation the Chinese and U.S. Navies have focused their skills and culture on opposite ends of the warfighting spectrum, and this disparity is far more fatal to the American fleet. A superpower navy does not threaten itself by lacking low-end skills, but it can certainly risk its defeat and destruction by failing to be ready for the high-end fight. The Navy assumed great risk by failing to maintain full-spectrum competence while an authoritarian China rose to become both a superpower and a maritime power. A possible historical legacy of the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden could now include helping the U.S. Navy atrophy to such a degree that its decay was taken advantage of by an ascendant great power rival.

Matching Exercises to Strategy

“A final way in which the Maritime Strategy has served as a focus for reform is by shaping an emphasis on tactics and warfighting at the operational level. For too many years, our fleet exercises suffered from a lack of realism and focus, and our routine operations seemed to be lacking in purpose. But the Maritime Strategy now forms a framework for planning realistic, purposeful exercises, and provides a strategic perspective for daily fleet operations in pursuit of deterrence.” –Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James Watkins on the 1986 Maritime Strategy 

The low-end skillset clearly proved its worth. Navy Special Forces took out numerous insurgent leaders, collected valuable intelligence, and conducted sensitive operations worldwide. Sailors helped save thousands of lives in the wake of environmental disasters like the deadly tsunamis in Asia and after Hurricane Katrina at home. These low-end missions elevated the Navy’s role in many respects by applying naval power to a greater variety of problems and with many partners. These missions developed meaningful relationships around the globe, and were an excellent opportunity to put national values into practice abroad. The skills and relationships that come with low-end missions will remain relevant going forward because great power competition is still whole-of-government competition in peacetime and in war.

But after the fall of the Soviet Union the U.S. Navy did not just double down on these missions, it went all in. High-end warfighting experience barely came from either the Navy’s training or its forward operations. Of the little time that was actually spent on events that approached high-end exercising, few were truly challenging or well-connected to force development because of heavy scripting. Properly resourced force development can still be undercut by heavy scripting, and quality exercises can still be starved of ready units. In the Navy’s case, high-end force development was effectively taken off the schedule and out of its strategy through a self-inflicted lack of both resourcing and standards.

There is not a stark tradeoff between deterrence, force development exercising, and forward presence because of naval power’s mobility. The Navy can easily exercise within the depths of the Indian, Atlantic, or Pacific Oceans and still remain on call to respond to a contingency within days. This mobility allows for a more remote operating posture to still count as forward presence for the sake of deterrence. However, it would not be the sort of upfront presence that supports the type of small-scale exercises that come with most low-end missions. The Navy did not add more forward presence by deploying the usual 100 ships per year, but rather by disaggregating its formations once they came on station to better take advantage of the many opportunities that come with the low-end focus. By often making formations disaggregate themselves within the forward-most littorals the Navy optimized its presence to exercise for partnerships and low-end operations, rather than stronger deterrence and force development.8

The unbalanced logic of focusing solely on low-end missions caused the Navy to operate with far fewer constraints. Concepts of presence, overseas partnership, and undersea surveillance can become boundless and open-ended, where a force can quickly overwhelm itself with the many opportunities that come with these missions. In a well-rounded strategy these missions would be heavily constrained by training and force development requirements alone, where adequate time for force development has to be protected against many other demands. Trying to maintain high levels of continuous forward presence with a shrinking fleet made it difficult to maintain larger formations without disrupting schedules. A strained readiness cycle and a tunnel-vision focus on low-end missions combined to stretch the fleet so thin that it could rarely get enough ships together to properly resource high-end force development with large exercises.

The Navy can look to what other military branches have done for decades. The Army sends about a third of its brigades every year to the National Training Center, and hundreds of aircraft participate each year in the Air Force’s Red Flag exercises.9 Other military services know that they must guarantee a significant amount of readiness for large-scale exercises.

The Navy still conducted numerous training exercises every year, but their chronic lack of true opposition deprived them of value. The Army and Air Force know to dedicate units to act as full-time opposition forces (OPFOR), to empower those units to inflict meaningful losses, and to mandate them to master the methods of rivals. The Army’s major OPFOR unit is the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and for the Air Force it is the 57th Adversary Tactics Group. By comparison the Navy has no dedicated OPFOR warship formations.

A flight of Air Force Aggressor Squadron F-15 Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons  fly in formation over the Nevada Test and Training Ranges. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Kevin J. Gruenwald)

OPFOR units are among the most proficient units in the armed forces because their primary mandate is to train hard, they are given plenty of opportunity to do so through large-scale events, and they are well-connected to an extensive learning architecture that is built around their exercises. People serving in dedicated OPFOR units can take unique culture, tactical knowledge, and professional connections with them throughout their careers. Dedicated OPFOR units perform a strategic force development function by acting as incubators from where tactical excellence can spread throughout the force.

Dedicated OPFOR units are also indispensable because superpowers often think about warfighting in widely different ways. Capt. Dale Rielage (ret.), who wields an intelligence background specializing in China and experience leading opposing forces as the senior member of the Pacific Naval Aggressor Team, sheds light on how the U.S. and Chinese Navies have significant conceptual differences in the conduct of war:

“The Marxist-Leninist view of warfare focuses on military science where Western practitioners focus on military art, which creates an objective analytic approach to warfare. While the PLA has developed and adapted Marxist thinking in the almost century since the first Soviet instructors arrived, it still defines its basic approach to warfare as a ‘Marxist view of strategy with Chinese characteristics.’ The result is that the PLAN, like its Soviets predecessors, practices a style of warfare heavily based on what Westerners would call operations research. This focus has a real impact on PLAN forces and doctrine. For example, the belief that warfare has complex but discernible rules likely produces a military more accepting of automating command functions.”10

Conceptual differences in the conduct of war can lead to highly dissimilar tactics and operational plans, which complicates training realism. Regular troops that are asked to act as opposition forces on short notice can quickly fall into mirror-imaging, where by training and instinct they can easily default to their own nation’s way of war. A rival’s view on the conduct of war can be so complex and different that it warrants dedicated units to fully understand it, train to it, and then put that alternate vision of warfighting into practice. By applying a rival’s tactics a dedicated OPFOR unit can reveal how different warfighting methods could clash with one another to produce unique combat dynamics. This is necessary for defining realism, and to know how one stacks up against the enemy’s way of war is a question of the highest strategic importance.

Now in an era dominated by great power competition even more attention must be devoted to exercising for the high-end fight beyond the responsible minimum needed for full-spectrum competence. But as a result of a long overemphasis on low-end missions the budgets and operating norms of the fleet were stretched to their limits in the absence of a major demand signal. The result is a Navy that must dig deeply into its own time and pockets to make painful choices to correct itself. 

Exercises as the Link Between Tactics and Strategy

“In the past tactics has suffered from lack of standard instructions, lack of records, lack of planning and tests of efficiency, lack of a ‘home office’ in the Department, but most of all it has suffered from lack of time in the fleet schedules…The tactical training of our fleet for war has suffered in the past, is now suffering, and will continue to suffer because of the ‘tight’ schedules of the present system.” –Commander Russell Wilson, “Our System of Fleet Training,” April 1925.

Regardless of their immense value exercises still cannot answer plenty of important questions. Exercises cannot probe many of the larger strategic concerns that can inform a campaign, such as political considerations or industrial base limits. These broader questions are more readily assessed using analysis and simulations rather than through the maneuvers of live units. Instead, where realistic combat exercises find their place in strategy is in how they dominate the realm of tactics, and how tactical-level success is the foundation of winning strategy.

Knowing how to organize for tactical success is critical toward crafting strategic plans, and Clausewitz proclaimed that proper strategy is completely contingent on superior tactics:

“…endeavor above all to be tactically superior, in order to upset the enemy’s strategic planning. The latter [strategic planning], therefore, can never be considered as something independent: it can only become valid when one has reason to be confident of tactical success…let us recall that a general such as Bonaparte could ruthlessly cut through all his enemies’ strategic plans in search of battle, because he seldom doubted the battle’s outcome…all strategic planning rests on tactical success alone…this is in all cases the actual fundamental basis for the decision.”11

Failing to understand surprise at the tactical level will eventually beckon surprise at the strategic level because one cannot be too sure of knowing if they can win if they are not sure how to win. Tactical shortsightedness can not only come from a lack of warfighting competence, it can also come from a poor understanding on how capability trends have evolved to redefine tactical ground truth. The unforseen tactical carnage wrought by the machine gun, trench, and artillery barrage in WWI was so devastating it shattered strategic concepts on both sides.12

Exercises come closest to real fighting because only they can use live units to create mock battles, making them the most important activity for understanding the tactical level of war. Only exercises can help thousands of troops practice tactics, and only exercises offer troops the most realistic proving grounds for testing tactical ideas. After having experimented enough to discover the tactical truths that govern the conduct of future war, and after having inculcated the related tactics into the force, exercises can also then be used to reveal tactical skill through bold maneuvers and rehearsals.

Exercises are the best possible means to teach tactics through training, to invent tactics through experimentation, and to showcase tactics for deterrence through demonstration. To strongly emphasize challenging exercises is to pay appropriate respect to how the tactical level of war is the foundation upon which strategy rests. 

Hazarding a Navy, a Maritime Nation, and a Maritime System

“If in the future we have war, it will almost certainly come because of some action, or lack of action, on our part in the way of refusing to accept responsibilities at the proper time, or failing to prepare for war when war does not threaten. An ignoble peace is even worse than an unsuccessful war…” –Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, 1897

A generation’s worth of poor priorities and standards has gambled much of the Navy’s credibility away. Readiness is degraded across the board, from the material state of the ships, to the warfighting competence of the individual Sailor, and to the level of institutional understanding of high-end warfighting. This degraded sea control capability can pose a strategic liability, especially when a rival superpower is focused on creating a powerful sea control capability of its own. The history of the United States and its chosen role of advancing a principled global order points to what the U.S. and the rest of the world stands to lose from an American Navy deficient in sea control.  

The discovery and colonization of the New World was driven by maritime power. Wave after wave of ships delivered settlers, supplies, and influence as the great maritime powers of the time such as Great Britain and Spain sought to expand and compete across a new hemisphere. Here the United States finds its origin story as a colony of a maritime superpower, a nation whose founding was made possible by the sea.

The Mayflower at Sea. Gilbert Margeson (1852-1940)

After gaining independence from Great Britain the United States gained a similar sort of strategic flexibility its English forefathers enjoyed. Nations in most other continents border several neighbors which forces them to always be aware and engaged. As a maritime nation, the United States could often choose to use the large oceans that divide it from most of the world to keep its distance from international events, or actively engage abroad if desired. This relative isolation from international turbulence helped the United States bide its time on developing itself into a first rate power. Soon after the start of the 20th century the U.S. had gained enough in confidence and strength, and announced its ascendancy as a nation of global influence in part through a high-profile naval deployment in the form of the Great White Fleet.

The independence that often came with being a maritime nation is gone today. The world’s oceans have become an even more indispensable foundation for human progress and globalization. By far the most cost effective form of transportation, 90 percent of the world’s trade goes by sea.13 2.4 billion people, a third of  the world’s population, live within 60 miles of a coast.14 97 percent of global communications and $10 trillion in daily transactions flow through undersea cables.15 International benefits and problems can be more readily transferred through the seas, and severe shocks to the maritime system can quickly cascade throughout the global economy.  

In a war at sea these things that make the world’s oceans a pillar of civilization become pressure points at the mercy of the victorious navy. By projecting power through the air, surface, subsurface, and across the coastline blue water naval power can dictate foreboding terms through sea control. The consequences of command of the seas are especially more severe for maritime nations such as the United States, where being isolated by the sea comes with greater dependence on it. A powerful example comes from the U.S. Navy’s own history in dominating the navy of a maritime superpower in WWII. It is a curious thing that several of the Navy’s top admirals came out against dropping the atom bomb when their proposals to end the war included using uncontested sea control to starve millions of Japanese into submission.16

A maritime nation that is separated from its allies by oceans requires sea control to send reinforcements abroad and maintain physical links, making the Navy especially critical to American security guarantees. The U.S. Navy could easily serve as the tip of the spear for the rest of the American military in many contingencies, since “Control of the seas near land assures the prompt access and freedom of maneuver of joint forces from the sea base.”17 The U.S. Navy must be able to secure forward spaces and sea lanes well enough to allow the joint force to surge across the ocean from the homeland. If the Navy cedes sea control to a superpower rival many U.S. allies could be left to fend for themselves.

Maritime commerce could be interdicted by a hostile Navy, causing untold economic damage and offering a powerful point of leverage. Coastlines and territories could be threatened by amphibious invasion. Population centers and critical infrastructure could be attacked deep inland through long-range fires safely delivered by ships at a distance. If the U.S. Navy cannot best a great power rival at sea control then many allies would be put at the mercy of the same sort of blue water naval power the Navy itself has wielded for decades.

The value of American naval supremacy goes far beyond what it could offer in war because of the nature of the global maritime system. Command of the seas is not just a wartime state of dominance for a particular Navy or coalition. It can also be understood as a particular state of peace. Today, command of the seas does not belong to any one nation or group, but rather it belongs to all as a global commons. 

The set of rules that govern the world’s oceans was not solely decided by the world’s strongest powers, nor does it vary from region to region based on local preferences. In this sense, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is a historic human achievement. It lays down rights and rules for most of the surface of the world with regard to safe passage, economic development, and many other legal matters for conduct within the global maritime domain. 167 countries have ratified UNCLOS, including China.

The U.S. hasn’t ratified UNCLOS, but still adheres to many of its provisions as customary international law.18 The commitment to a common and principled legal framework to guide conduct on the world’s oceans is perhaps one of the more high-profile examples of American commitment to a rules-based international order. The United States has repeatedly demonstrated its seriousness about protecting the principle of freedom of navigation, with the U.S. Navy being a main instrument for doing so.

A Freedom of Navigation Operation conducted by U.S. warships is not simply a message to highlight the violation of rules or norms. It is the American Navy retracing a red line the United States has a long history of enforcing through the use of force. From Barbary pirates to the impressment of Sailors, to Gaddafi’s “Line of Death” or the Tanker Wars in the Persian Gulf, freedom of navigation has figured prominently in U.S. military intervention for over two centuries.19

On the other hand, China’s commitment to undermining the rules of the global maritime system is one of its most brazen examples of contempt for international order. Trillions of dollars of trade flow through the South China Sea since it is the main body of water that most seaborne commerce from Africa, Europe, and the Middle East transits on the way to Asia. China’s claim to the whole of the South China Sea is a clear example of a nation viewing its personal sense of entitlement as more important than respecting an agreed-upon framework of conduct that was forged by global cooperation. It remained steadfast in its selfish defiance even after its claims were decisively ruled against by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea at The Hague.

China’s worsening authoritarian character and the rapid ascent of its powerful Navy casts doubt on its maritime ambitions. If China wins command of the seas through war or other means it could earn a powerful medium for peacetime coercion by molding the maritime commons to its advantage. What would be the character and norms of such an authoritarian maritime system? Given the interconnected nature of the world’s oceans, command of the seas in a specific region could be enough to exert targeted pressure on a global scale. But how could an authoritarian state impose and enforce such a vision? Defeating the U.S. Navy would certainly go a long way. 

Part 7 will focus on Strategy and Force Development.

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Nextwar@cimsec.org.

References

1. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “U.S. deploying heavily armored battle tanks for first time in Afghan war,” Washington Post, November 19, 2010.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/18/AR2010111806856.html?noredirect=on

Robert S. Cameron, Armor In Battle, U.S. Army Center of Military History, August 2016. https://history.army.mil/news/2016/images/gal_armorInBattle/Armor%20in%20Battle_opt.pdf#page=480

2. Major Daniel C. Gibson, USA, “Counter-Insurgency’s Effects on the U.S. Army Field Artillery,” USMC Command and Staff College Marine Corps University, 2010. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a602988.pdf

Boyd L. Dastrup, “Artillery Strong: Modernizing the Field Artillery for the 21st Century,” Combat Studies Institute Press, 2018. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/Artillery-Strong-Final.pdf 

Excerpt: “Redesigning the school’s curriculum went beyond modernizing the 2005–2006 Field Artillery Captain’s Career Course under Colonel McDonald. With the 2003 rise of the insurgency in Iraq, field artillery Soldiers devoted the bulk of their time to nonstandard missions, such as patrolling, providing base defense, and convoy operations. Because only a few field artillery units provided fire support, field artillery core competencies atrophied. As outlined in the 20 July 2006 Army Campaign Plan Update, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, General Richard A. Cody, understood the effect of nonstandard missions. He directed the US Army Training and Doctrine Command to assess the competency of field artillery lieutenants to determine if nonstandard missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom had degraded their basic branch skills and if they required additional or refresher training.”

3. Naval History and Heritage Command, “Where Are the Shooters? A History of the Tomahawk in Combat,” 2017. https://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/swmag/Pages/Where-are-the-Shooters.aspx 

4. Government Accountability Office, “Military Readiness: Navy Needs to Reassess its Metrics and Assumptions for Ship Crewing Requirements and Training,” June 2010. https://www.gao.gov/assets/310/305282.pdf

5. Lieutenant Commander Alan Worthy, “U.S. Navy Individual Augmentee Program: Is it the Correct Approach to GWOT Service?” Marine Corps Command and Staff College Marine Corps University, 2008. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a490401.pdf 

6. Department of the Navy, …From the Sea: Preparing the Naval Service for the 21st Century, September 1992. https://www.navy.mil/navydata/policy/fromsea/fromsea.txt 

7. Michael Chase et. al, China’s Incomplete Military Transformation: Assessing the Weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army, RAND, 2015. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR893/RAND_RR893.pdf 

8. For disaggregation norms see: 

Naval Operations Concept 2010. https://fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/noc2010.pdf 

Carrier Strike Group 11 Fact Sheet. https://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/ccsg11/Documents/FactSheet.pdf 

9. For National Training Center reference:

Colonel John D. Rosenberger, “Reaching Our Army’s Full Combat Potential in the 21st Century: Insights from the National Training Center’s Opposing Force,” Institute of Land Warfare, February 1999, https://www.ausa.org/sites/default/files/LPE-99-2-Reaching-our-Armys-Full-Combat-Potential-in-the-21st-Century-Insights-from-the-National-Training-Centers-Opposing-Force.pdf.

Major John F. Antal, “OPFOR: Prerequisite to Victory,” Institute of Land Warfare, May 1993. https://www.ausa.org/sites/default/files/LPE-93-4-OPFOR-Prerequisite-for-Victory.pdf

For Red Flag Reference:

414th Combat Squadron Training “Red Flag,” July 2012. https://www.nellis.af.mil/About/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/284176/414th-combat-training-squadron-red-flag/

10. Capt. Dale Rielage, USN (ret.), “The Chinese Navy’s Missing Years,” Naval History Magazine, December 2018. https://www.usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/2018-12/chinese-navys-missing-years 

11. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. 

12. Hew Strachan, “The Strategic Consequences of the World War,” The American Interest, June 2, 2014. https://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/06/02/the-strategic-consequences-of-the-world-war/

13. IMO Profile, International Maritime Organization, United Nations Business Action Hub. https://business.un.org/en/entities/13 

14. NASA “Living Ocean.” https://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/oceanography/living-ocean

15. Brandon Knapp, “How Exposed Deep-Sea Cables Could Leave the Economy Vulnerable to a Russian Attack,” C4ISRnet, February 1, 2018. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/02/01/how-exposed-deep-sea-cables-could-leave-the-economy-vulnerable-to-a-russian-attack/ 

16. Jim Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide, Bantam, 2016. 

17. Department of the Navy, Naval Transformation Roadmap, Power and Access…From the Sea, 2002. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/b295445.pdf

18. Steven Groves, “Accession to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea Is Unnecessary to Secure U.S. Navigational Rights and Freedoms,” Heritage Foundation, August 24, 2011. https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/accession-the-un-convention-the-law-the-sea-unnecessary-secure-us-navigational

19. James Kraska, “The Struggle for Law
in the South China Sea,” Statement of Professor James Kraska Before the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, September 21, 2016. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS28/20160921/105309/HHRG-114-AS28-Wstate-KraskaSJDJ-20160921.pdf 

SUEZ CANAL, Egypt(Sept. 23, 2008) The amphibious transport dock ship USS San Antonio (LPD 17) transits through the Suez Canal. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jason R. Zalasky (Released)

Current Operations

Strategic Loss: How EU Sanctions Affect Russia’s Ability to Replace its Sunken Dry-Dock

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By Lieutenant Commander Peter Barker, RN

The icy waters of Murmansk harbor now cover one of the world’s largest floating dry-docks. Last week, a catastrophic power failure seems to have caused the dock’s pumps to jam, rapidly flooding the ballast tanks. As a result, PD-50, the largest floating dry-dock of the Russian Navy, sank to the bottom of the shipyard and now lies 160 feet below the surface.

Much attention has focused on damage to Russia’s sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kutznetsov, which was in PD-50 at the time of the incident. However, the loss of the dry-dock may have a more significant long-term impact on Russia’s ability to sustain its Northern Fleet. As a consequence, the ability of Russia to recover, repair, or even replace the dock assumes considerable importance because it is a maintenance asset of strategic import.

Russia’s ability to overcome this setback is further complicated by European Union (EU) sanctions, where the legal and practical effects of the EU sanctions regime will strongly affect Russia’s ability to replace this key maritime asset.

Sanctions and Dry Docks

The EU sanctions regime against Russia is conducted under the auspices of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. It is directly applicable in EU law, meaning that it takes effect without the need for national legislation (in fact, most countries have no separate national sanctions regime against Russia). EU sanctions were established in March 2014 as a response to Russia’s activities in Ukraine. They have remained in force since and are reviewed at six-month intervals by the EU Council. The sanctions recently were extended until 31 January 2019. Further, the EU Council has stated that it will continue renewing these sanctions until the complete implementation of the Minsk agreement.

The EU sanctions are a range of measures including asset freezing, an import ban on items from the Crimea and Sevastopol, and a ban on tourism to the same areas. More pertinently for this discussion, sanctions have been enacted in specific economic sectors. This includes a ban on arms sales to Russia (article 4 Council Regulation (EU) 833/2014) and an export ban on dual-use goods (article 2 Council Regulation (EU) 833/2014), with minor amendments being made in Regulations 960/2014 and 1290/2014.

Proceeding on the assumption that these sanctions will remain in place for the foreseeable future, the question is whether the export ban on arms or dual-use goods includes replacement parts for PD-50—or indeed an entirely new dock—if supplied from within the EU.

Looking first at the arms question arising from article 4, the list of prohibited equipment is detailed in the EU Common Military List (2015/C 129/01). The most relevant items are ML9.1 (“vessels (including components) designed or modified for military use”) and ML17b (“construction equipment specifically designed for military use”). Although a floating dry dock, or the components to repair it, may fit the description of a “vessel” or “construction equipment,” it would be difficult to argue that a floating dry dock is designed for military use. It is even harder to conclude that a floating dry dock is specifically designed for military use. Components for a floating dry dock (or even a dock itself) are therefore unlikely to be considered arms under article 4 and would not be caught by the ban on arms sales.

The ban on dual-use goods, set forth in article 2, is more likely to be applicable. Dual-use items are defined in Council Regulation (EU) 428/2009 and include all items that can be used for civil and military purposes. Military end-use includes the “use of production equipment and components for the maintenance of military items,” as stated in article 4(2)(b). Although PD-50 is owned and operated by a private company, this definition focuses on the use of the equipment rather than the owner. The use of a dry-dock for the maintenance of an aircraft carrier (indisputably a military item) strongly suggests that it is caught by this provision. One could argue that this is an unduly broad interpretation of the phrase “production equipment,” but a contextual reading of the article clearly shows that these provisions are intended to cover a wide range of items that may be used to support military infrastructure.

This conclusion is bolstered by article 2(1) of Reg. 833/2014. Article 2(1) states that where the end-user is the Russian military, any dual-use item shall be deemed to be for military use. Again, an argument could be constructed that the private ownership of the dock places it outside the scope of the provision by asserting that the end-user is the company rather than the Russian military. However, given the almost exclusive use of the dock for warship repair and maintenance, a strong case can be made that, appearances aside, the end-user of the dock (or any replacement) would be the Russian military, even if the actual ownership rests elsewhere.

The only caveat to the above analysis is that the sanctions do not affect the completion of contracts entered into before 1 August 2014. It is possible that the purchase agreement for the dock included an ongoing contractual obligation to provide replacement parts. If so, this would be unaffected by the sanction regime. In reality, it is very unlikely that such a provision was included and thus, this caveat can probably be discounted.

Conclusion

Unsurprisingly, there are few concrete details about the state of PD-50 and the prospects for the recovery of this strategic asset. Even a Russian news agency has accepted that this is a complex operation and unlikely to be completed within six months. A rapid repair or replacement of the dock is required to avoid severe pressures on the maintenance and availability of crucial Northern Fleet units and to conduct complex modernization work. Any support for this work is likely to be hampered by the EU sanctions regime, which now assumes additional significance following the sinking of PD-50.

Lieutenant Commander Peter Barker is a serving Royal Navy officer and barrister. He is currently the Associate Director for the Law of Coalition Warfare at the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law (@StocktonCenter), part of the U.S. Naval War College. He can be contacted at peter.barker.uk@usnwc.edu.

These views are presented in a personal capacity and  are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any ministry or government.

Featured Image: Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kutznetsov in dry-dock PD-50. (Lev Fedoseyev via Tass)