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Playing to Win: Crafting a Creative Strategic Vision for Maritime Superiority

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By Heather Venable

Daydreaming, meditation, and long walks in the forest do not spring to mind as ways to achieve maritime superiority, much less to win the next peer conflict. But these simple approaches to thinking reward institutions with unparalleled dividends. The deepest discernment, as Isaac Asimov explains, occurs when the mind can “take new pathways and make erratic associations you would not think of consciously. The solution will then come while you think you are not thinking.”1

This approach is imperative because—amidst the proliferation of many weapons technologies—the Navy faces a challenge to its current force structure potentially more disruptive than the shift from battleships to carriers or even from sail to steam.2 Yet it sometimes takes institutions too long to accept ideas internally even as it becomes clear to external observers how desperately updating is required.3 Simultaneously, the Navy must open up spaces for creative thinking in order to regain its lost strategic acumen.4 Fortunately, solutions are not costly, but they do require a cultural shift that recognizes the importance of creativity in crafting strategy.5

Historical precedent reveals insights into how and why creativity fosters the best strategy. In the 1950s, a handful of naval officers began working to revitalize naval education by thinking carefully about how they studied history to make strategy. This group included J.C. Wylie, who actively pursued creative thinking throughout his career by challenging accepted ways of doing things, as will be seen.

Wylie also benefited from attending the regular and the advanced courses at the Naval War College on two separate assignments.6 This education provided him with the requisite depth to imbibe basic patterns of strategic thought. As Wylie explained, getting to the “heart of the problem” required diving into the “strategic patterns of thought from which grow the actions of war itself.”7

Creativity cannot occur until one has “mastered the old ways of doing or thinking.”8 As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains, “One cannot be creative without learning what others know, but then one cannot be creative without becoming dissatisfied with that knowledge and rejecting it (or some of it) for a better way.”9 As such, much of the seminar format of professional military education (PME) focusing on history and international relations is sound. One cannot help one’s service push forward to viable solutions until one understands the foundational knowledge upon which past decisions have been made.

But that is not enough. Depth must be married to breadth in a way that spurs creative thought. But naval officers have not internalized these rules deeply enough because they lack a strong educational foundation. Fortunately, recent steps improve requirements for future flag officers, to include requiring all “future unrestricted line Flag and General Officers” to graduate from in-residence programs by the end of 2021.10 Key documents like the National Defense Strategy (2018) and A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, Version 2.0 (2018) recognize creativity’s importance.11 Still, creativity receives only a brief head nod, providing no vision to pursue.

The tendency to recognize creativity’s importance before quickly dismissing it runs throughout the defense community. One commentator recently called for the military to develop “creative solutions” to acquire new technology, citing the example of a “commercial cloud.” But this idea is not new at all.12 This exemplifies how a technical rationalist mindset pervades much of the Department of Defense (DOD), with cursory mentions of creativity predominantly linked to inventing new products. Creativity, in other words, is assumed to contribute the most to the development of new things, rather than new thoughts.

Innovation continually underperforms because it must occur after ideas. Previous eras of transformational change required societies to tackle “primarily intellectual, not technical” challenges.13 Placing too much emphasis on the tools with which to fight results in a lack of knowledge of how to fight or to what end.

Even the 2018 Education for Seapower study undervalues creativity. After mentioning creativity twice and characterizing it, along with talent, as the Navy’s “most critical resource,” the 468-page study fails to address creativity until an appendix, which ironically details the British appreciation for this trait in its PME.14 By contrast, the report repeatedly highlights the twin concepts of strategic and critical thinking, even defining “critical thinking” in the glossary but not creativity.15

Yet creativity provides the missing link to complete a triangle consisting also of strategy and critical thinking, without which the Navy just has a wobbly “stool.”16 Creativity’s ultimate value centers on its ability to trigger new ways of thinking, which requires individuals to make mental connections in unexpected ways.17

Those responsible for crafting U.S. naval strategy must foster new ways of thinking to challenge the nation’s current strategic paradigm.18 Although the U.S. military acknowledges this need—recognizing that peer adversaries have been studying U.S. successes since Operation Desert Storm—it has not figured out how to change the rules of the game because of “functional fixedness,” or the process whereby cognitive bias “limits the way we use an object to what it was originally intended for and keeps us from seeking new usages.”19 Take multi-domain operations as an example. The Army and Air Force’s newest solution to future war has striking overlaps with its predecessor AirLand battle.20 It seeks to improve upon jointness, even as it exacerbates the communication requirements that constitute the nation’s warfighting Achilles heel. It provides evolutionary improvements but no shift in strategy because the military feels more comfortable focusing on operational solutions.21 Thus the Navy is not alone in its strategic crisis.

Likewise, the Navy struggled to adjust to the new realities of the nuclear age after World War II, a point at which Wylie and others turned to strategy to articulate the Navy’s purpose.22 Surveying the key theorists from each domain, Wylie expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of a general theory. Of the various theories, however, he found himself most drawn to Mao’s thinking on wars of national liberation as most “sophisticated.”23 He appreciated Mao’s thinking because it did not limit itself to the “bounds of military action.”24

By contrast, Wylie identified the dangerous direction that the U.S. military had taken. In effect, he argued that the DOD had embraced the ultimate measure of the airpower domain: destruction. While Wylie found destruction to be the air domain’s most logical goal, he did not necessarily see it as the key outcome for the Army or the Navy.25 But the DOD could not resist the air domain’s dangerously seductive quantitative form of measurement.

This approach continues to characterize the U.S. military’s underlying philosophy in what has been characterized as a “continuous movement away from the political objectives of war toward a focus on killing and destroying things.”26 This tendency can be seen in the Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority 2.0’s mission statement (emphasis added):

“The United States Navy will be ready to conduct prompt and sustained combat incident to operations at sea. Our Navy will protect America from attack, promote American prosperity, and preserve America’s strategic influence. U.S. naval operations – from the seafloor to space, from blue water to the littorals, and in the information domain – will deter aggression and enable resolution of crises on terms acceptable to the United States and our allies and partners. If deterrence fails, the Navy will conduct decisive combat operations to defeat any enemy.27

Currently, the mission statement sandwiches hints of a holistic naval strategy between “prompt and sustained combat” and “decisive combat operations.” Those operational and tactical tasks go last, not first and last.

Wylie posited shifting away from pure destruction toward asserting control. By control, Wylie did not refer to control of the sea—a concept so natural to naval thinkers—but something much broader. He defined control as how a “social entity” exerted control over individuals through the power of ideas.  he sought to prod the U.S. to “articulat[e] . . . a philosophy to be ‘for.’”28 Promoting aspects of an ideological enemy’s vision during the Cold War required moral courage and intellectual openness.

For the Navy to regain its strategic acumen similarly requires traditional ways of thinking to be “disrupt[ed]” so that one achieves a perspective typical of an outsider rather than an insider.29 As Geoff Colvin asks, “Why didn’t IBM invent the personal computer? Over and over, the organizations that knew all there was to know about a technology or an industry failed to make the creative breakthrough that would transform the business.”30

One of the easiest ways to facilitate this process is to locate strategists on cultural fault lines because they trigger new ways of seeing and understanding, which helps them envision how to change the rules of the game rather than reacting to what others do. As Everett Dolman explains:

“When confronted with an unbreakable logic, such as the paper-scissors-rock dilemma of the of the Swiss pike, which is superior to the French cavalry, which is superior to the Spanish tercio, which is superior to the Swiss pike, ad infinitum, the only way out is to move beyond the conundrum and change the rules of the game.”31

This problem is made more challenging by differences in perspective between tactical thinkers and strategic ones.32 A tactical thinker concentrates on the short-term prospect of winning a clear-cut victory. A strategic thinker, by contrast, plays the long game, continually asking, “then what?” These two perspectives often exist in tension. In the case of a father who wants to teach his daughter how to play chess, the tactical mindset of seeking to “win” a game sits at odds with the more strategic perspective of ensuring that the father does not extinguish the daughter’s motivation to learn when she keeps losing.33

Recently, then-Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson, explained that the Navy had a new strategy of “making the first moves ‘so that we can force our competitors to respond.’”34 A “first move,” however, epitomizes this short-term tactical approach. A more holistic method begins with the consideration of desired ends. Richardson made his comments in the wake of another freedom of navigation operation, also making the strategy’s novelty unclear. Richardson’s rectitude can be understood in light of the nation’s return to great power conflict; still, the deepest creative thinking cannot occur if the Navy shuts itself off from outside connections that stimulate originality. Indeed, the U.S.’s greatest strategic advantage may be how it fosters the sharing of information; China’s tight control of information, by contrast, could result in a creative drought in some areas, although it might be able to overcome these limitations in other ways that it facilitates creativity.35

Because of the range of political, economic, diplomatic, and military responsibilities inherent to the maritime domain, it is arguable that the Navy should be the most comfortable with thinking strategically, as some have argued.36 Other advantages result from the Navy’s greater experience with cumulative as opposed to sequential strategies. The Army, for example, struggled to adjust to a non-linear battlefield during the Global War on Terror. By contrast, the Navy may possess a seamless ability to perceive and understand a kind of “spatial non-linearity” because its officers are comfortable with the ocean, which lacks an “obvious threat direction.”37 The Navy also has helped to contest “excessive maritime claims and practices,” a perspective useful for rising above military solutions. These experiences should position the Navy to think creatively about future warfare.

Yet this optimistic assessment of naval talent should be considered in light of the reality that naval officers “underperform” in graduate programs, although the Secretary of the Navy’s response to Education for Seapower indicates that important changes are underway.38 The study, however, stops short of identifying a holistic solution to the Navy’s strategic shortfalls.39

By contrast, Wylie’s career honed his ability to step outside of expected patterns of thought. In particular, his time serving on the USS Augusta in the Asiatic Fleet gave him an “appreciation of cultural differences” and useful experiences with diplomacy even if he could not participate in fleet exercises in home waters.40 In short, it broadened his vision. Assigned in World War II to instruct at a school for destroyers arriving in the Pacific theater, Wylie confronted “ingrained patterns of thought” in those crewmembers he had the responsibility for training.41

Wylie’s ability to command and control depended on creative communications solutions that he devised in opposition to the doctrine du jour while challenging accepted norms of naval warfighting culture.42 Rather than fight at the conventional steering position, he positioned himself at the radar scope so that he could better visualize the unfolding battle.43 His accomplishments—some of them working in tandem with his ship captain Commander William Cole—epitomize the challenges of integrating new technology seamlessly into an institution against ingrained ways of thinking.44 As has been recognized, technology is easy. People are hard.

Wylie acted similarly at the Naval War College by fostering new ways of doing things. As described by long-time instructor and supporter of the institution Rear Admiral Henry Eccles, Wylie “demonstrated his imagination and his independence of mind in a continuing challenge of conventional assumptions and routine formulations.”45 Much of his effort centered on encouraging a broader and more active study of naval history. Wylie believed that the U.S. should adopt the British model of producing strategists by widening their horizons, to include exploring connections with politics, the economy, and culture.46

The resulting program required participants to develop their thoughts on a weekly basis, writing a paper each week and then “defending” it in a seminar attended by various experts.47 This kind of habitual writing offered deep learning, providing the key foundational knowledge to engage in significant strategic thought. Indeed, it walked Wylie through a series of baby steps. Shorter articles eventually led to his work on naval strategy being published in 1967.

And, before the joint mandates of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, Wylie sought to understand other services’ perspectives, even beginning his work with such a discussion.48 Likewise, Wylie’s strategic vision anticipated the perspective needed to undergird multi-domain operations (although the Navy has not yet bought in fully).49

Multi-domain operations require naval strategists to balance an understanding of their own service’s capabilities and limitations with a holistic comprehension of other services, enlarging their own perspective outside of their own domain. Or, as one author describes it, “Multi-domain operations start with the recognition that maneuver in one’s domain is dependent upon actions, both friendly and adversarial, that occur within other domains.”50 Yet some naval officers already struggle to look beyond their own tribe within the Navy, much less beyond their own expertise in and familiarity with their own domain.51

Having taken important steps to improve its foundation of learning, the Navy need not create more administration or sponsor expensive studies to begin fostering creativity. It might sound trite, but more creativity occurs in the shower than at work.52 The simple act of walking, for example, physiologically improves creativity.53

Specific recommendations designed to target multiple aspects of naval culture and the DOD include:

  • Begin all Navy education courses with a discussion of creativity and how to channel it daily. Creativity is a way of thinking that more sailors must understand how to harness. Resident PME provides an ideal space for teaching creative approaches until they become habitual. Likewise, the Navy also must recognize those who genuinely crave intellectual engagement and have a “drive for exploration”—the best predictor of creativity—and place them in positions where they can create.54
  • Crowdsource ideas for naval strategy in conjunction with naval strategists screened for their creative potential who possess both depth and breadth.55 While this suggestion appears the most outlandish, it best reflects how creativity functions in the 21st century.56 Add to the mix a handful of graduate school interns to craft a holistic strategy for the Navy. Provide them the opportunity to engage with others on cultural fault lines like San Francisco or Calcutta.
  • The CNO must do something novel and attention-getting to demonstrate how the Navy truly cares about PME.57 The CNO should convey his message in a personal manner across the ranks of the Navy, including what has been called the Navy’s “frozen middle.”58 The Navy may not control budget battles, but it must control its own culture. The CNO should also provide an equivalent of the Rapid Innovation Cell for ideas to transform the Navy’s strategic thinking, which previously fell under his office and allowed for junior officers to bring diverse perspectives and opinions to his attention.59 Again, this is something being done with innovation more so than with ideas.60
  • In negotiating with the Army and the Air Force over the future of multi-domain operations, it is imperative that the Navy not buy in until it can get the other services to agree to a holistic strategy befitting the broadest tradition of naval thinking. As Wylie noted, for too long the U.S. has been dominated by the “comfortable and placid acceptance of a single idea, a single and exclusively dominant military pattern of thought” that could be characterized today as an emphasis on destruction.61

These steps can begin changing institutionalized culture while paying strategic dividends at bargain-basement prices.

The Navy’s need to craft a creative and holistic strategy has not been so urgent in decades. Wylie’s vision of how one loses maritime superiority resonates powerfully in light of recent events in the South China Sea. He explains how:

“the exploitation of sea power is usually a combination of general slow stiflings with a few critical thrusts. These latter are frequently spectacular and draw our attention to the exclusion of the former, while in point of fact the critical thrusts would not be critical were it not for the tedious and constant tightening of the screws that make them possible.”62

Only a strategic vision cognizant of how the military is “inextricably woven into the whole social power fabric” can provide the necessary answers to help the Navy and the military as a whole be the global force for good it can be when focused on ends.63

Heather Venable is an associate professor of military and security studies at the U.S. Air Command and Staff College and teaches in the Department of Airpower. She is the author of How the Few Became the Proud: Crafting the Marine Corps Mystique, 1874-1918. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not represent the official position of the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

References

1. See, for example, Isaac Asimov, “The Eureka Phenomenon,” aharchaou.com/the-eureka-phenomena/.

2. Andrew, Krepinevich, “Get Ready for the Democratization of Destruction,” Foreign Affairs, 15 Aug 2011; https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/08/15/get-ready-for-the-democratization-of-destruction/.

3. Jamshid Gharajedaghi, Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business Architecture, 3rd ed., (New York: Morgan Kaufmann, 2011), especially pp. 4-7.

4. For one example of this assessment, with others cited throughout this article, see Christopher P. Cavas, “Does the US Navy have a Strategy beyond Hope,” Defense News, 4 Jan 2018, “https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/surface-navy-association/2018/01/04/does-the-us-navy-have-a-strategy-beyond-hope/. In a related vein, the National Defense Strategy has come under fire for not even being a strategy. Gregory D. Foster, “The National Defense Strategy is No Strategy,” Defense One, 4 April 2019; at https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/04/national-defense-strategy-no-strategy/156068/.

5. For an innovative solution derailed by budgetary constraints, see Jason Knudson, “The Frozen Middle and the CRIC,” U.S. Naval Institute Blog, 19 Feb 2016, https://blog.usni.org/posts/2016/02/19/the-frozen-middle-and-the-cric.

6. Naval History and Heritage Command, “Joseph Caldwell Wylie Jr., 20 March 1911-29 March 1993,” https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/library/research-guides/lists-of-senior-officers-and-civilian-officials-of-the-us-navy/district-commanders/first-naval-district/wylie-jr-joseph-caldwell.html.

7. J.C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2014); reprint, 1967, p. 79.

8. Francisco Camara Pereira, Creativity and Artificial Intelligence: A Conceptual Blending Approach (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), p. 23.

9. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (New York: Harper, 2013), p. 90.

10. Secretary of the Navy, “Education for Seapower Decisions and Immediate Actions,” 5 Feb 2019, https://www.navy.mil/strategic/E4SSECNAVMemo.pdf. The percentage of flag officers who have attended the residence course at the Naval War College currently is a dismal 20 percent. Education for Seapower, p. 31.

11. Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, p. 8; https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf;U.S. Navy, A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, Version 2.0, December 2018, pp. 5 and 9.

12. VADM T.J. White, RDML Danelle Barrett, and LCDR Robert Bebber, “The Future of Information Combat Power: Winning the Information War,” 14 March 2019, https://cimsec.org/the-future-of-information-combat-power-winning-the-information-war/39934?fbclid=IwAR3DF3vZthb_ipk1A57Uih7Vz1yht1_i9QBuDESLHzcZ8OtcOSl8Oh5i398

13. Quoted in Dave Lyle, “Fifth Generation Warfare and Other Myths: Clarifying Muddled Thinking in Our Current Defense Debates,” 4 Dec 2017, https://othjournal.com/2017/12/04/fifth-generation-warfare-and-other-myths-clarifying-muddled-thinking-in-our-current-defense-debates/. Also see Lt Col Dave Lyle, “The Foundations of Innovation—A Model of Innovative Change,” Part 2 of 7; https://community.apan.org/wg/aucoi/air-university-innovation/b/innovation-blog/posts/the-foundations-of-innovation-a-model-of-innovative-change-part-2-of-7. For more on the failure to innovate organizationally, see Lt. Gen. Michael G. Dana, “Future War: Not Back to the Future,” 6 Mar 2019, War on the Rocks; https://warontherocks.com/2019/03/future-war-not-back-to-the-future/.

14. Education for Seapower, p. 110; “Memorandum for Distribution,” 19 April 2018, n.p. in Department of the Navy, Education for Seapower, Dec. 2018, https://www.navy.mil/strategic/E4SFinalReport.pdf.

15. Education for Seapower, pp. 5, 13, 15, 28, 32, 36, 39, 54, and 69.

16. The stool analogy has been borrowed from Art Lykke. See H. Richard Yarger, “Towards a Theory of Strategy: Art Lykke and the Army War College Strategy Model,” http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army-usawc/stratpap.htm.

17. Scott Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire, Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind (New York: Tarcher Perigee, 2016), p. 92.

18. For an assessment of what the authors call the Navy’s “strategic deficit,” see James A. Russell, James J. Wirtz, Donald Abenheim, Thomas-Durrell Young, and Diana Wueger, Navy Strategy Development: Strategy in the 21st Century, June 2015, p. 4; https://news.usni.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NPS-Strategy-Report-Final-June-16-2015-2.pdf#viewer.action=download.

19. Design 2.0, p. 3; Wired to Create, p. 182.

20. See, for example, Colin Clark, “Army Unveils Multi-Domain Concept; Joined at Hip with Air Force,” 10 Oct 2018, Breaking Defense, https://breakingdefense.com/2018/10/army-unveils-multi-domain-concept-joined-at-hip-with-air-force/.

21. See, for example, LTC Antulio J. Echevarria II, “An American Way of War or Way of Battle,” Parameters, 1 January 2004, https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=662.

22. Nick Prime, “On J.C. Wylie’s ‘Military Strategy’ with Nick Prime,” Strategy Bridge, 24 March 2019; https://thestrategybridge.libsyn.com/on-jc-wylies-military-strategy-with-nick-prime.

23. Wylie, Military Strategy, p. 104.

24. Wylie, Military Strategy, p. 126.

25. Wylie, Military Strategy, p. 180.

26. Frederick Kagan, Finding the Target (New York: Encounter Books, 2006), p. 358; Wylie, Military Strategy, p. 181; Peter Haynes, Toward a New Maritime Strategy: American Naval Thinking in the Post-Cold War Era (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2015), p. 5.

27. Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, Version 2.0, December 2018, p. 1.

28. Wylie, Military Strategy, p. 183 and p. 188.

29. Wired to Create, pp. 93-94.

30. Wired to Create, p. 95.

31. For an example from the popular movie Princess Bride that Dolman discusses as well, see Mark McNeilly, “’The Princess Bride’ and the Man in Black’s Lessons in Competitive Strategy,” 2 October 2012, https://www.fastcompany.com/3001732/princess-bride-and-man-blacks-lessons-competitive-strategy.

32. Everett Carl Dolman, “Seeking Strategy” in Strategy: Context and Adaptation from Archidamus to Airpower. Eds. Richard Bailey and James Forsyth (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2016), pp. 5-37.

33. Dolman, “Seeking Strategy,” p. 18.

34. Paul McLeary, “CNO: New Strategy is to ‘Force Our Competitors to Respond,’” Breaking Defense, 29 April 2019; https://breakingdefense.com/2019/04/cno-new-strategy-is-to-force-our-competitors-to-respond/?fbclid=IwAR2m6UVcaBOc4ATAK7GEOgwPdkkI52VPEcfcFKpTqVe9k0JAZJpAad9WSrs.

35. See, for example, Kai-Fu Lee, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008).

36. Roger W. Barnett, Navy Strategic Culture: Why the Navy Thinks Differently (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2009), p. 1.

37. Barnett, Navy Strategic Culture, p. 26.

38. Education for Seapower, p. 46.

39. Education for Seapower might better be titled Administration for Education for Seapower as its overarching conclusion recommends creating a Navy University. This recommendation has real merit in seeking to provide an overarching strategic vision; after all, the other services benefit from this administrative structure.

40. Wylie, Military Strategy, Kindle Location 89 of 3186 and 117. A short biography can be found here: “Joseph Caldwell Wylie Jr., 20 March 1911-29 March 1993,” Naval History and Heritage Command, https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/library/research-guides/lists-of-senior-officers-and-civilian-officials-of-the-us-navy/district-commanders/first-naval-district/wylie-jr-joseph-caldwell.html.

41. Wylie, Military Strategy, Kindle Location 211 of 3186.

42. Wylie, Military Strategy, Kindle Location 147 and 179.

43. Cole and Wylie Essay, available online at https://destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/index.asp?r=44500&pid=44504.

44. Preface, CIC Handbook for Destroyers, Pacific Fleet, June 1943; available on at https://destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/index.asp?r=44500&pid=44504; “USS Fletcher,” available online at http://destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/ussfletcher/.

45. Quoted in John B. Hattendorf, “Introduction,” Wylie, Military Strategy, p. 128.

46. Wylie, Military Strategy, Kindle Location 275; also see Wylie, Military Strategy, p. 83

47. Wylie, Military Strategy, Kindle location, 307.

48. Wylie, Military Strategy, pp. 67-68 and p. 99.

49. Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., “All Services Sign on to Data Sharing—But Not to Multi-Domain,” Breaking Defense, 8 Feb 2019; https://breakingdefense.com/2019/02/all-services-sign-on-to-data-sharing-but-not-to-multi-domain/.

50. Brian Willis, “Multi-Domain Operations at the Strategic Level,” 2 March 2018; https://othjournal.com/2018/03/02/multi-domain-operations-at-the-strategic-level/.

51. Education for Seapower, p. 29.

52. Wired to Create, p. 38.

53. Wired to Create, p. 39.

54. Wired to Create, p. 84; Education for Seapower, p. 118.

55. “The Role of the Knowledge Base in Creative Learning” in Creativity and Reason in Cognitive Development¸ eds. James C. Kaufman and John Baer (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 139; available online. 

56. Steve Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation (Riverhead Books, 2010). This theme runs throughout his work.

57. For how to institutionalize it, see, for example, Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs, Air Force announces selection process for officer instructor and recruiting special duty assignments,” 11 April 2019; https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1811802/air-force-announces-selection-process-for-officer-instructor-and-recruiting-spe/.

58. Jason Knudson, “The Frozen Middle and the CRIC,” 19 Feb 2016, https://blog.usni.org/posts/2016/02/19/the-frozen-middle-and-the-cric.

59. Jason Knudson, “The Frozen Middle and the CRIC,” 19 Feb 2016, https://blog.usni.org/posts/2016/02/19/the-frozen-middle-and-the-cric; U.S. Navy, CHIPS Magazine, “CNO’s Rapid Innovation Cell,” 27 Jan 2015; available online at https://www.doncio.navy.mil/CHIPS/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=5896.

60. See, for example, National Innovation Security Network at https://www.nsin.us/hacking-for-defense/.

61. Quoted in Haynes, New Maritime Strategy, pp. 25 and 170.

62. Wylie, “Appendix B: On Maritime Strategy” in Military Strategy, Kindle Location 2390. The quote does not have an endnote in the Kindle location, and it does not appear elsewhere in the book.

63. Wylie, Military Strategy, p. 188.

Featured Image: NEWPORT, R.I. (June 27, 2017) James Giordano, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. gives a presentation at a symposium hosted by the Center for Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups (CIWAG) at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. (U.S. Navy photo by Daniel L. Kuester/Released)

Capability Analysis

Human Intelligence: The Missing Piece to Comprehensive Maritime Domain Awareness

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By Jay Benson

The Challenge of Maritime Domain Awareness

To effectively govern the maritime space, states need an accurate picture of what is happening and where in order to establish normal “patterns of life” at sea. With this picture, states can identify suspicious activity and task assets to respond. This ability to collect, analyze, share, and respond to information in the maritime realm is often called maritime domain awareness (MDA).

This is a challenging task for any state, much less those with relatively limited resources and assets in the maritime realm. Combined territorial waters and exclusive economic zones are huge spaces to monitor and, for many states , this “maritime domain” is much larger than their total land area. What’s more, this maritime domain is an incredibly active space. Tens of thousands of shipping vessels, millions of fishing boats, and other vessels, registered and otherwise, traverse the seas on a daily basis for an incredibly diverse set of licit and illicit purposes. It can be an overwhelming scope of activity for many states around the world to monitor

States have largely sought to establish MDA through the use of high-tech, high-cost solutions like technical information collection platforms (e.g., coastal radar systems, and tracking shipping through AIS) and deploying costly air and sea patrols These are important elements of robust MDA, but few states possess the resources to implement all of these tools.

Given this strain on resources it may be useful for maritime security policy makers to make more effective use of another, less utilized, form of information collection in the maritime space – human intelligence.

Human Intelligence in the Maritime Space: A Force Multiplier

Human intelligence, which refers to the collection and analysis of information from a variety of human sources, is widely acknowledged as a vital component of all-source intelligence collection and national security. However, it is largely underutilized in the maritime space.

Human intelligence in maritime security could replicate the successes of community relations initiatives in counterinsurgent and policing operations onshore. Developing strong relationships between civilian populations and security forces can help improve the legitimacy of their operations in the eyes of civilians and begin to build a basis for information-sharing that enhances the effectiveness of law enforcement operations. This is no less true in the maritime space.

The oceans, and coastal waters in particular, are not empty spaces. Shipping vessels, industrial and artisanal fishing fleets, ferries, offshore hydrocarbon installations, and ports are all active across a wide geographic area and around the clock. Individuals working in offshore and coastal spaces develop an intimate knowledge of the normal pattern of life at sea in their areas of operation. They have the potential to be the eyes and ears necessary to develop stronger MDA for resource-constrained states around the world. They can see the signs of potential IUU fishing, human trafficking, piracy, and other forms of maritime crime that might evade sparse patrols and technical information collection platforms designed to monitor larger vessels. These civilians in the maritime space have a vested interest in its security. By building stronger relationships with members of this community, maritime enforcement authorities can improve maritime security while using scarce resources more efficiently.

The Path Forward: Building Relationships and Reporting Channels

States can realize the potential of expanded human intelligence for MDA by increasing positive interactions with relevant maritime and coastal communities and developing quick and effective reporting mechanisms.

If the only reason a coast guard vessel ever approaches civilians is to fine them for fishing practices or confiscate irregularly exchanged goods, they are unlikely to develop into a source of information. The relationship must be more than punitive. Friendly welfare checks on vessels engaged in fishing and small-scale trade would increase positive interactions and build trust.

States can also build positive relationships with more inclusive policy-making. Consultations with coastal communities on fishing, environmental, and maritime infrastructure policies can help ensure the resulting regulations respect the needs of the communities they impact and reflect input from relevant stakeholders. This community involvement helps build the legitimacy of the rules of the road in the maritime space, which navies and maritime law enforcement entities must then administer. As a result, maritime communities will be much more likely to be willing to provide valuable information to enforcement entities regarding potential illicit activity at sea.

In addition, states can develop convenient and efficient mechanisms for reporting information to maritime enforcement agencies. Civilians active in the maritime space cannot effectively contribute to the situational awareness of maritime enforcement entities if they do not know how to report information on suspicious activity. Clear, easy, and secure reporting platforms will be critical.

One example of this can be seen in recent efforts undertaken by Malaysia. In 2017, the Malaysian Navy and Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency launched the K3M app which was intended to facilitate instantaneous reporting of maritime incidents with the goal of shortening response times. When an incident occurs, the app can provide the user’s exact location and creates a direct link between civilians in the maritime space and coastal communities with a Malaysian maritime security operations center. The app can also be used to communicate news and safety warnings to the maritime community. It has an estimated 4,000 users and plans are in place to increase the coverage of this reporting platform through the use of satellite signals.

Another unique example is the “Caught Red-Handed” project. A joint civil society-UNODC initiative, the project seeks to help states in the Western Indian Ocean collect and analyze human intelligence related to fisheries crime. The project focuses on how to collect human intelligence on fisheries violations systematically, communicate this intelligence to the appropriate maritime enforcement entities in a given jurisdiction, and ensure the intelligence can be utilized as evidence for prosecution. While this project focuses explicitly on fisheries crime, such training could be useful for improving the efficient and responsible use of human intelligence to combat the wide variety of crimes navies and maritime law enforcement entities face, including illicit trades, maritime migration and human trafficking, piracy and armed robbery, and environmental crimes.

Creative efforts of this kind have the potential to be a cost-effective means of ensuring that maritime enforcement agencies are responsive to the needs of the maritime community, strengthening the relationship between law enforcement and civilians in the maritime space, and enlisting the maritime community to actively contribute to maritime domain awareness.

Conclusion

The scope of security challenges that exist in the maritime domain requires the use of all possible options to collect information and intelligence to inform the efforts of maritime enforcement agencies. To this point, much of the attention and resources channeled toward enhancing MDA have gone to expensive technical collection platforms. These platforms provide valuable intelligence, but they are only a part of all-source maritime intelligence and a comprehensive approach to MDA development.

Tapping into the extensive presence of civilians in the maritime space for information collection can help complete the picture. Such information collection from the maritime community may be a particularly important and cost-effective way of building MDA for the many states around the globe without the resources to acquire and operate expensive technical collection platforms. For these states in particular, building strong relationships with maritime and coastal communities and providing them with clear reporting channels can be a force multiplier which allows them to more effectively respond to incidents and prioritize preemptive measures. 

Jay Benson is the Project Manager for the Indo-Pacific at Stable Seas, a non-profit research organization which provides empirical research on maritime security issues. Jay is responsible for driving Stable Seas research and engagement work in the Indo-Pacific region. 

Featured Image: A patrol boat provided to the Philippines by Japan. (Japan Coast Guard photo)

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Operation Indigo Spear and the Second Tanker War of 2022

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Read Part One on the Battle of Locust Point. Read Part Two on the Nanxun Jiao Crisis. Read Part Three on Operation Eminent Shield.

By David R. Strachan

TOP SECRET/NOFORN

The following classified interview is being conducted per the joint NHHC/USNI Oral History Project on Autonomous Warfare.

Admiral Jeremy B. Lacy, USN (Ret.)

December 4, 2033

Annapolis, Maryland

Interviewer: Lt. Cmdr. Hailey J. Dowd, USN

Good morning.

We are joined again today by Admiral Jeremy B. Lacy, widely considered the father of autonomous undersea conflict, or what has come to be known as micronaval warfare. Admiral Lacy spearheaded the Atom-class microsubmarine program, eventually going on to establish Strikepod Group 1 (COMPODGRU 1), and serving as Commander, Strikepod Forces, Atlantic (COMPODLANT), and Commander, Strikepod Command (PODCOM). He is currently the Corbin A. McNeill Endowed Chair in Naval Engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy.

This is the fourth installment of a planned eight-part classified oral history focusing on Admiral Lacy’s distinguished naval career and his profound impact on modern naval warfare. In Part I we learned about the genesis of the Atom-class microsubmarine and its operational construct, the Strikepod, and the series of events leading up to the first combat engagement of the micronaval era, the Battle of Locust Point. In Part II, we learned of how continued Russian micronaval advances led to the development of AUDENs, Autonomous Undersea Denial Networks. We also learned of CYAN, a walk-in CIA agent who revealed Chinese penetration of the AUDEN program, and the resulting emplacement of numerous AUDEN-like Shāyú microsubmarine turrets throughout the South China Sea. In Part III, we learned of Operation Eminent Shield, an unmanned distributed maritime operation where Strikepods and squadrons of Esquire-class unmanned surface vehicles squared off against China’s maritime militia in the South China Sea.

Today we turn to the Persian Gulf, and the employment of Strikepods and Esquires in countering the IRGCN during Operation Indigo Spear, the U.S. response to the so-called Second Tanker War, wherein Iran, lashing out after years of crippling sanctions and perceived bullying by the West, utilized an indigenous, weaponized UUV to wreak havoc on regional stability and the global economy.

We joined Admiral Lacy again at his home in Annapolis, Maryland.

Let’s begin today with Operation Indigo Cloak, the deployment of unmanned maritime systems to the Persian Gulf. Can you tell us how it came about, and what role PODCOM played?

Beginning in mid 2019, Iran engaged in an increasingly belligerent campaign of economic warfare against the United States and the West, lashing out against crushing sanctions, and the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, and looking to drive a wedge between Washington and those EU nations still abiding by the JCPOA. Needless to say, CENTCOM was keeping pretty busy, and once they got wind of what we’d achieved in the South China Sea with Eminent Shield, they were more than a little interested in what we could do for them. So, late in 2018, we shipped two 12-ship Strikepods and a squadron of Esquires down to NAS Bahrain to help monitor IRIN and IRGCN operations.

CENTCOM was also becoming concerned about Iranian UUVs and USVs, and specifically, the Navy’s ability to counter them.

Yes, the Iranians were taking an increasingly keen interest in unmanned maritime systems, so while our main objective was augmenting ISR and providing MCM if needed, we were also monitoring for any developments in that space, especially in the undersea domain where things seemed to be heating up.

What kind of intelligence were you receiving on Iranian UUVs?

For several years we’d been monitoring Iranian efforts to acquire a viable unmanned undersea capability. Front companies with ties to the IRIN [Islamic Republic of Iran Navy] and Iranian defense ministry were attempting to buy COTS inertial navigation systems, accelerometers, and various other components, and sometimes even entire vehicles. Tehran’s unmanned fetish was legendary. UAVs and USVs had served Iran and its proxies well, and so it was entirely reasonable to assume that they’d eventually pursue UUVs. But unlike air or surface drones, the technological barriers to entry for the undersea are pretty high, and appeared too great for Iran to overcome on its own. There’d been one attempt back in 2012, the Phoenix, that went nowhere, and became more of an instrument of propaganda. After that baby failed to thrive, their efforts appeared to stall, but in actuality they’d simply gone underground.

To a renewed relationship with North Korea?

One that would bear significant fruit, as it had with the Yono [Iranian Ghadir-class] boats.

Iran’s first UUV – the Qom?

Correct. The Qom was a rebranded version of the DPRK’s indigenous UUV, the Gwisin, or “Ghost.” The Gwisin was small, about a meter in length, and outfitted with a bunch of smuggled-in COTS technologies. It was kind of a cross between the Chung Sang Eo “Blue Shark” torpedo and a Riptide, with its intended role being ISR or possibly some ASW. But the Iranians literally wanted more bang for their buck. So from the outset the vision for the Qom wasn’t merely to keep an eye on us, but to harass us, or even hold us at risk.

Which the USS Higgins encountered in April of 2018?

We’d received some reports that the IRGCN had been experimenting with Qoms, trying to configure them as undersea armor-piercing EFPs [Explosively Formed Penetrators] and employing them in swarming attacks against surface and subsurface targets. Intelligence indicated that they were capable of around 20 knots, so even without a warhead, the kinetic energy alone might be enough to disable a UUV, SDV, or even a small surface combatant if properly aimed and concentrated.

So, yes, it was during TLAM ops against Syrian chemical weapons sites that we experienced what the IRGCN had managed to achieve. Tehran was not happy with a U.S. missile strike originating in the Gulf, so they decided to send us a message by slamming a swarm of a dozen or so Qoms into the Higgins hull. There was little damage, but it was a wakeup call – Iran’s unmanned ambitions now extended well into the undersea domain.

Were there indications at that time that Iran was developing an indigenous UUV?

There were rumors, and some circumstantial evidence that something else was in the works. It was a source of some pretty … lively debate within the IC. We were all in agreement that some kind of program did exist, but the nature of it, how advanced, or how far along it was – we really had no idea. We definitely had no evidence that the Iranians had an operational prototype, or that they intended to deploy it against ships in the Gulf. One thing we did know – while the Qom may have provided a boost to Iranian ISR, it wasn’t a particularly useful weapon against high-value targets, and that’s what the Iranians really wanted.

Then in early 2019, Cyber Command managed a successful penetration of the IRIN, and they uncovered some files related to a project called AZHDAR – “dragon” in Farsi. From what we could piece together, it appeared that at some point during Iran’s search for an offensive UUV capability engineers hit upon the idea of repurposing something already in the IRIN inventory – specifically, an e-Ghavasi SDV. Being a “human torpedo” type of SDV, the e-Ghavasi was well suited to the task, and it was already capable of carrying a 600 pound multi-influence mine, so all that was needed was sensor integration, a COTS navigation system, coms capability, some ballasting, and a central processor – something as simple as a Raspberry Pi.

But the really intriguing part? The schematics depicted the vehicle’s diving planes and bilge keel recessing into the hull, and the rear stabilizers folding like a Tomahawk’s.

Which suggested that the Azhdar was a sub-launched weapon?

Yes, but it wasn’t until Fujairah that our suspicions were confirmed.

Can you tell us about that day?

It was a warm, brilliant spring evening, and I was enjoying a “Mother’s Day Eve” cookout with my family. I got the call around 1715, and half an hour later I was at my desk at PODCOM, getting briefings every fifteen minutes. We had Strikepods strung from the Gulf of Oman through the Strait and up to Kuwait monitoring IRGCN operations, but there’d been no reports of anything unusual. But then at around 2100 I get an “urgent,” and so I head to the vault for a call with an analyst from NAVCENT. Turns out a Strikepod patrolling off the east coast of the UAE had phoned in four contacts around 0530 local, about half an hour prior to the attacks. It was active sonar, so the hits were reasonably solid, moving west/northwest at around six knots until they disappeared approximately seven miles off Fujairah. Falken [the Atom/Esquire integrated AI] had classified them as probable biologics – dugongs, these manatee-like things common in those waters. The AI was learning fast, but was still prone to misclassification about 20 percent of the time, so this analyst, she took it upon herself to double-check its work, and proceeds to make a pretty compelling case against dugongs, but stopped short of calling them torpedoes. They were too slow and quiet.

Was that the first indication that you might be dealing with something new?

That, and given that in the days leading up to the attacks a Virginia had phoned in intermittent contact with a Kilo operating about 20 nautical miles to the southeast. Yes, you could say my hackle was up. It was definitely the first indication that we might be dealing with something other than fast boats and limpet mines. And it was enough to convince CENTCOM that we should probably take a closer look.

Within twelve hours we carved out two six-ship Strikepods and sent them into the blast zones, and it wasn’t long before we had some hits. Side scanning sonar identified one large debris field to the east of Fujairah where Al Mazrzoqah, A. Michel, and Andrea Victory had been anchored, and a smaller one to the northeast where the Amjad was hit. Follow-up hi-def footage captured several irregularly shaped, metallic objects scattered along the seabed, but we needed to be absolutely sure. So, we got on the phone with COMSUBPAC, and about four days later, Jimmy Carter rolls in for Retract Stripe.

Were you directly involved in Operation Retract Stripe?

With PODCOM providing ISR and ESM support – yes, I was involved. And then once the recovery phase was underway I got called to the vault and was able to watch in real-time via [Strikepod] Relay as Carter’s ROVs recovered the debris and brought it aboard.

And what did it reveal?

For the most part the debris was unrecognizable –  just twisted and mangled chunks of metal. But two large pieces were still intact – what looked like the stern section of a torpedo, and a nose section that contained an acoustic sensor of some kind, possibly from a Valfajr or EM-52.

What was your reaction?

I was impressed, to be sure, but hardly surprised. The Iranians had proven themselves quite resourceful with unmanned systems. They’re cheap, expendable, effective, and provide the plausible deniability they want. That is, unless the debris is successfully recovered, and the vehicle is constructed from something easily identifiable and already in the inventory.

So you were confident then that it was an Azhdar?

Confidence was high, but we weren’t one hundred-percent certain. There was also the possibility, however remote, that we were looking at actual e-Ghavasis, that the IRGCN had actually used the vehicles for their intended purpose – to insert special forces who then attached limpet mines to the tankers. Maybe they’d run into trouble and for whatever reason decided to scuttle them? But within hours a thorough analysis of the debris uncovered evidence of guidance systems, sensors, and processors, so between that, the nature of the blast damage, as well as the intelligence we’d been receiving, it all fell into place, and we concluded that Azhdars had been used in the Fujairah attacks.

Armed now with that information, were there any discussions in Washington of going public with it? To build a diplomatic case against Tehran?

 I wasn’t really privy to the policy considerations, but if you start talking about a rogue state introducing what is essentially a stealthy, mobile, semi-autonomous mine into one of the most hotly contested bodies of water in the world – well it isn’t too hard to imagine our Gulf allies wanting to avoid the destabilizing effect that such a revelation might have, one that could easily mushroom into a full-blown regional crisis. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before official word came down from Dubai: the attacks were carried out by an unnamed state actor using divers attaching limpet mines. There was no finger pointing at Iran, and there was no mention of a weaponized UUV.

What about the report issued by the Norwegian Shipowners’ Mutual War Risks Insurance Association – the DNK? They concluded that it was in fact an Iranian “undersea drone” that had been used in the attacks. How did they know?

 I’m not sure they actually did know. I have no idea what information they had, or where they got it, but it seemed more like speculation, or an analytic leap of faith. It did get picked up by Reuters, but the story fizzled pretty quickly, and pretty soon it faded from the news cycle entirely.

Meanwhile your job had become more urgent?

Iran had just upped the gray zone ante, so yes, very much so. Having confirmed that Iran was in possession of an operational, weaponized UUV, it was critical that we find out as much as we could – its true capabilities, warhead yield, current inventory, production rate. And from there, anticipate how it might be employed in the future.

Let’s fast forward a bit. There’s a lull in activity as the world, particularly Iran, grapples with COVID-19. Then things start heating up again in early 2021.

The sanctions put in place by the Trump administration were taking a real, measurable toll on everyday Iranians. And after Soleimani, and the struggles with COVID-19 – which apparently was “engineered” by the United States using Iranian DNA – there was mounting pressure on [Iranian President Hassan] Rouhani to stand up to Washington. Closing the Strait [of Hormuz] had always been viewed as the nuclear option, but conditions were quickly reaching a point where such a move might be seen as the only recourse.

So, in late 2020 and early 2021, the attacks on Gulf shipping resumed in force, and well beyond the pinprick operations of the recent past. A broader campaign appeared to be underway, with several tankers attacked every week, some with limpet mines, a handful seized by special forces, but most seemed to be the result of conventional mines, which was all at once frustrating and puzzling. Fifth Fleet under Operation Sentinel had been working overtime providing escorts and minesweepers, and we’d been providing Strikepods for MCM since the beginning of Indigo Cloak. There was no surface activity indicating that an IRGCN minelaying operation was underway. We were taking a lot of heat at PODCOM, but everything checked out – technologically, operationally.

You believed it was something else?

Our intelligence on the e-Ghavasi SDV suggested that it was only capable of around 6 knots, or less when loaded down with a warhead. With the convoys running at anywhere from 15 to 20 knots, we expected that, should Tehran ever make good on its threat, the Strait would be seeded with conventional mines – anything from floating and moored, to EM-52s and MDM-3s – with any Azhdar attacks reserved for targets at anchor, like Fujairah, or while entering or leaving port. So we concentrated Remora-heavy Strikepods in those areas and prepared for CUUV [Counter-UUV] operations, but when the convoys were being hit after months of persistent, intensive minesweeping, and without any acoustic evidence indicating torpedoes or rising mines, it suggested – at least to me – that something else was at play, that Iranian engineers had found a way to boost the Azhdar’s power output, enabling it to track and strike targets traveling at cruising speed.

An improved Azhdar? In eighteen months?

Yes. And not only in terms of power and propulsion. We later learned that after the success of the Fujairah operation, the Azhdar benefitted from the Valfajr and Hoot torpedo programs. It had clearly become a priority for Tehran.

How was the IRGCN deploying them?

That was the million-dollar question, one that was the cause of many a sleepless night. We had a lot of information from disparate sources, but we needed to connect the dots. 

We knew that the Fujairah Azdhars were based on an e-Ghavasi, which was compatible with a standard 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tube, and we also had intelligence that the vehicle’s control surfaces were designed to recess into the hull and spring open upon launch. This suggested that the Azhdar was intended to be deployed from a submarine for maximum stealth, which could have meant any one of four different classes, but most likely Kilo or Ghadir. IRIN Kilos, when they were actually working, typically operated in the deeper waters of the Gulf of Oman, and so a Kilo was likely the platform of choice for the Fujairah attacks. But they could also have conceivably been launched over the side of a ship, or even from the side of a pier.

We also knew that Ghadir operations had undergone a pretty fundamental shift in recent months. The Ghadir is a midget sub, with a range of only about 500 nautical miles surfaced, and about 50 submerged, so typically their deployments were quick, out-and-back junkets that only lasted a few days. But in late 2020, we began to notice that they were gradually increasing in duration. A week, then a few weeks or more. And they were random and staggered, seemingly without rhyme or reason. You might have four boats sail, with three of them returning a few days later, two of which would then sail again within hours of tying up and then be gone for like two weeks. The OPTEMPO was all over the place, and in hindsight it was clearly an attempt to confuse and deceive us, because pretty soon three quarters of the Ghadir fleet – ten boats – were on seemingly extended deployment.

But what finally sealed it was the uptick in IRGCN night-time surface operations. We thought they were exercises, and of course we had Strikepods and Esquires keeping a close watch. And one night, there it was – in the moonlight, a Gasthi [fast boat] moored alongside the unmistakable silhouette of a conning tower.

They were rendezvousing with the subs?

Yes, ma’am.

From the outset of Indigo Cloak we’d had Strikepods positioned outside Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, and Jask, keeping tabs of the Ghadirs, and since there were only a handful deployed at any given time, we could usually provide man-to-man coverage. But we failed to anticipate a slow-motion surge, so we had to scramble and switch to zone, and inevitably they’d slip through and disappear. They’d sprint and drift, and – unbeknownst to us at the time – settle on the bottom, somewhere in the shallows flanking the shipping lanes.

Operating on minimum power, the Ghadirs could lie there on the seabed for days, waiting patiently until targets appeared overhead and then quietly release their Azhdars. At a prearranged time and place, they’d head to the surface, rendezvous with a reload crew, snorkel while taking on food and ordnance, and perhaps there would be a change in personnel. Then they’d head back to the bottom to await more prey. In this way the Ghadirs could remain on station almost indefinitely, like stealthy, semi-permanent undersea missile batteries.

The Navy had actually anticipated something like this. We’d gamed it several times, but always with the expectation that they’d be shooting torpedoes – essentially martyrdom operations, since we’d follow the acoustic trail right back to their front door. But releasing an Azhdar generated very little sound, and what little there was would be masked by the ambient noise. The Ghadirs were already quiet and hard to detect, but if they sat on the seabed, it would be virtually impossible to find them.

So, an organized Iranian anti-shipping campaign was underway. What was the reaction in Washington? 

Oil prices were skyrocketing. People were paying close to four dollars a gallon at the pump. Insurers were running scared, and shipping traffic was slowing. We’d been here before, of course, in 1988, and also in 1984 in the Red Sea, but the economy always found a way to adjust to the risk. This time things seemed different, though, especially when the media got to publishing rumors of Iranian “killer robot submarines” roaming the Gulf.

The U.S. had to respond, but the question was how given the risk of escalation. Iran could answer with shore-based ASCMs, or even turn the Azhdars against U.S. warships, a particularly problematic scenario. There were also concerns that they would go scorched earth and order proxies to attack Saudi Arabia or Israel.

And to further complicate matters, this was the first national security test of a newly elected president who was bound and determined to demonstrate U.S. resolve. 

Something had to be done. So the president tasks the Joint Chiefs, who then turn to WARCOM, and one day I get a call from Coronado pitching me on this crazy counter-gray zone operation to disrupt the Azhdar attacks.

Seizing the Ghadirs? 

A daring plan, to be sure, but since PODCOM had some recent experience in this area, I was sure we could help pull it off.

And so Indigo Cloak becomes Indigo Spear.

Yes, a WARCOM/PODCOM joint operation, with Esquires and Strikepods providing support for what was essentially a large-scale, covert interdiction campaign. In a nutshell, teams of SEALs – Rapid Interdiction Platoon (RIPs) – would be assigned to three LPDs and three DDGs which would be fanned out along the shipping lanes, from the Strait to Farsi Island. PODCOM would be charged with hunting submarines, detecting and tracking replenishment operations, and pinning down the boats until the RIPs arrived to grab them.

Can you explain a typical Indigo Spear operation? 

The Ghadirs were careful to stay within Iranian territorial waters. Without a declaration of war, this made Esquire and RIP ops tricky, so they would occur only under cover of darkness. Strikepods, of course, had been operating well inside twelve miles for months. 

The first task was finding the subs, and we had two methods of doing that. First, through a kind of large scale MCM operation, we deployed Strikepods fitted with ultra high resolution side scanning sonar to comb the seabed. If they found something interesting, they’d establish a kill box by forming a wide-area passive sonar array to listen for transients, or a torpedo door opening. If an Azhdar was detected, the Strikepod would vector a Remora, and on at least three occasions we achieved good kills and traced it back to the source.

The second method was by monitoring the replenishment tenders operating out of Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island. An IRGCN replenishment team would head out between 0100 and 0300 local, usually in two Gasthis with a crew of three – one pilot, and two divers – with each towing an Azhdar behind. For EMCON purposes, the rendezvous would have been arranged prior to deployment, or during the previous replenishment evolution, and at the predetermined time, the Ghadir would come to periscope depth, take a peek, surface, and connect with the tender.

The actual reload operation would be fairly straightforward. The Gasthis would maneuver alongside the Ghadir and deploy their divers, who would then submerge the Azhdars and guide them into the empty torpedo tubes. Meanwhile, the sub would snorkel, take on food and supplies, and occasionally there’d be a change of personnel. And then back down it would go. The whole process would take less than thirty minutes.

So, our job was to detect the Gasthis as they left port, and if something looked interesting, we’d order the closest Esquire to launch a Sybil [quadrotor UAV] and we’d be eyes-on with infrared video in a matter of moments. We’d watch the evolution, and as they headed back to port, we’d vector a nearby Strikepod, or deploy one from the Esquire to mark it. Meanwhile, the Sybil would have alerted the task force and a RIP would be deployed.

And what then? 

The Strikepod would have the sub pinned down with active sonar, so they’d know we had a fix. We knew from the Fujairah debris that the Azhdar was equipped with an undersea modem, and intelligence suggested that the Ghadirs were similarly equipped, so the RIP would send them a few chirps via DUMO [Dipping Undersea Modem] ordering them to surface. There’d be no response, of course, so we’d raise our voice and start detonating Remoras, one every minute or so. Nothing to cause any damage, but enough to get their attention, and by the third or fourth one we’d usually hear them blowing ballast. The Iranians were aware of our ROE, and so could be reasonably sure we wouldn’t attack unless provoked. Nevertheless, even for the most confident sailor, there are few things more terrifying than being depth charged, and eventually the fear and uncertainty won out and they’d head for the surface where our guys would be waiting. They’d offload the crew and the weapons, and then use the combined thousand-plus horsepower of their two RHIBs to drag the boat out to a waiting LPD where it would be maneuvered into the well deck for … safe keeping.

How were you able to sustain the operation for so long without alerting the Iranians?

When a sub surfaced, there was always an orbiting Sybil to jam any outbound traffic, and of course we took the crew into custody. But mostly it was just skilled exploitation of what theoretically should have been their strength – minimal C2. The Ghadirs were expected to maintain strict EMCON, coming shallow at a prearranged time and wait for a visual on the inbound tender. Since it was seven days between evolutions, it gave us a window to operate without raising suspicion. And when a sub was a no show, the tender assumed it was a miscue and headed home. But if a sub surfaced and the tender was a no-show, the skipper was expected to return to port.

So that’s how the Iranians caught on?

Exactly. When the subs were no-shows and weren’t eventually defaulting back to base, they realized something was up. The night-time excursions came to an immediate halt, and the Iranians were so desperate to avoid additional losses they cobbled together a flotilla of Boghammars equipped with DUMOs to fan out and broadcast a kind of acoustic kill switch ordering the remaining Ghadirs home. Our rules of engagement were quite clear, and unless fired upon, we could not engage, so we could only watch and liste as they headed home to fight another day.

How many Ghadirs made it back?

Of the ten boats deployed, a total of four made it home. So, with four in the bull pen, they walked away with eight.

And what was Tehran’s reaction? 

Outrage. We were pirates, and the submarines were in territorial waters engaged in training exercises, and we’d engaged in an act of war. But their protests were fairly short-lived, since we now had Azhdars in our possession, as well as forensic evidence from numerous blast sights, and the testimony of several IRGCN sailors. Washington was able to skillfully control the narrative, and once the news media seized upon the Azhdar, Iran’s denials increasingly fell on deaf ears, while the United States was often praised for showing restraint in the face of what was a brazen provocation on the part of Iran.

Nevertheless, Tehran did manage to achieve some marginal gains.

They’d managed to sow plenty of instability, and inflict significant albeit largely short-term economic damage on the global economy, and left unchecked, the psychological effect of Azhdar operations alone could have effectively closed the Strait. So, from that perspective, Iran had asserted itself and demonstrated its power to influence events in the region. But they’d forfeited six submarines in the process, and largely obliterated any chance of consolidating power or strengthening their economic security.

Would you consider Indigo Spear a victory for the United States? 

Yes and no. We’d helped avert a global economic meltdown, but ultimately it was yet another stalemate in what was an intractable regional quagmire. Yes, Iranian naval power had suffered a blow, but one from which they would quickly recover. On the plus side, we’d demonstrated our resolve, and our willingness to use force. We’d also proven, once again, that adversary gray zone tactics could be countered effectively by leveraging advanced unmanned systems. But nevertheless, one thing was pretty clear: if there was going to be stability in the Gulf region, it wasn’t going to happen by force. We couldn’t bend Iran to our will without a full-scale operation that destroyed their capability to wage war. And that wasn’t going to happen absent a truly compelling reason to risk so many lives.

Yet Tehran’s game of incremental belligerence, of gray zone brinkmanship, was becoming increasingly untenable. And in the absence of strategic clarity or competent statecraft on either side, Tehran and Washington were fumbling their way toward yet another protracted regional war that neither could afford to lose.

[End Part IV]

David R. Strachan is a naval analyst and writer focusing on autonomous undersea conflict. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured Image: “Keyframe 2: The Descent” by Robin Thomasson via Artstation

Capability Analysis, Global Analysis

Clausewitz, Corbett, and Corvettes

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This article originally appeared in edition 2/2020 of the German-language publication SIRIUS: The Journal for Strategic Analyses and is republished with permission. SIRIUS is edited by the foundation Stiftung Wissenschaft und Demoktrie based in Kiel, Germany. The article will be available online in its original German in the May-June timeframe. You can follow SIRIUS on Twitter (@JE_SIRIUS) and Facebook. You can find the most recent issues of SIRIUS online here: https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/sirius/sirius-overview.xml. 

By Captain Sascha H. Rackwitz, German Navy

Introduction

Whether we like it or not, we live in an era of a fundamental reorientation of the international system. It doesn’t matter if you follow the American paradigm of “Great Power Competition”1 or the Chinese2 and Russian3 interpretation of a “multipolar world order.”  Global stability is being threatened by hegemonic tendencies of power. The perceptions of the United States, China, and Russia are principally the same, but are viewed from very different vantage points. After the bipolar confrontation of the Cold War and a short time of American unipolarity, the international system has entered a new phase that will be defined by the inter-relations of these three actors.

In public discussions in Germany, and even amongst German “defense professionals,” this understanding does not seem to have been established very well. Russian aggression against Ukraine, and particularly the annexation of Crimea in 2014, was a watershed moment in German security and defense politics. However, Russia’s confrontational politics toward the West is still seen as a specific transatlantic and isolated phenomenon that can be reduced to questions of defense and deterrence at the northeastern borders of the NATO alliance, the “Northflank.”  

No one in Germany will deny that China is posing a strategic challenge. This, however, is perceived to have above all economical relevance for Germany. And it is mostly seen as something totally unrelated to security issues on this side of the globe and more as an intensifying bilateral American-Chinese tussle. Illegal Chinese claims in the South China Sea will be met with open critique by German officials and diplomatic demarches. But China’s behavior is predominantly perceived as an economic threat to the freedom of navigation the German trade-oriented economy is dependent upon.

However, a self-centered perspective will not answer the challenges Germany is facing. For Germany, unlike most other countries, strengthening a rules-based order and the international organizations and structures that support it is not only – in the “end, ways, means” understanding of strategy – a way to achieve national interests. Derived from its geographic location, painful history, and ethical conviction, it is an end in itself. To safeguard this interest, political decision-makers rely on a military-strategic analysis that takes in the intensifying global rivalry in its entirety. Otherwise, Germany – and with it Europe – will face the Melian’s fate that Thucydides described over 2000 years ago, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”4 The lines of conflict of this great power struggle run, with little to no exception, through the maritime domain, including the Indo-Pacific, the North Atlantic, and the Mediterranean Sea. It is therefore particularly important for maritime professionals to take an active part in this strategy discussion and provide a maritime perspective. The following theses are intended to contribute to this debate and attempt to sketch practical conclusions from maritime strategic analysis.      

Thesis 1: Nuclear Weapons Continue to determine Military and Naval Strategy

Nuclear strategy issues have increasingly become a matter of and for specialists, far removed from the political sphere, and this seems even more dangerous in military strategic thinking.5 In Germany it is conventional wisdom that there is nothing to be won by discussing nuclear strategy, not for politicians, not for journalists, not even for political scientists. Even within the German armed forces, the discussion of the subject is often subsumed exclusively under Germany’s role in NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements, as if military thinking is suspended with the threat of using nuclear weapons. However, nuclear weapons remain a necessary starting point for a strategic analysis. They set the framework for the use of conventional military means in a confrontation between the great powers and, not only for their own (maritime) strategic derivations. The roles prescribed for nuclear weapons by the United States, Russia, and China are all the more relevant since their declaratory policies differ substantially.

The Chinese no-first-use policy, usually a position repeatedly demanded by anti-nuclear activists and, for western nuclear weapon states as well, particularly by German anti-nuclear weapons activists, is no reason for consolation. In the context of escalating antagonism with the United States, it has a rather destabilizing effect, since the declared waiver of initial use or use against a non-nuclear weapon state feeds the illusion that a major military conflict can be limited. Read this way, the effect of the Chinese nuclear weapons policy is not to prevent any armed conflict through deterrence; to the contrary, it instead is making a conventional armed conflict more possible.

China presents the U.S. with a dilemma. On one hand, the onus of exceeding the nuclear threshold is assigned solely to the U.S., while at the same time the prospective costs for conventional intervention are increased to forbidding levels. As a consequence, China presents the United States with a stark choice: admit that your reassurances to allies and partners in the western Pacific are worthless; accept that you will suffer a prohibitively high price in blood and treasure trying to meet your obligations conventionally; or risk an all-out nuclear war as a nuclear aggressor. The South China Sea is the cordon sanitaire prerequisite for this narrative. Only by attaining indisputable influence over the East and South China Seas can China hope to create the strategic depth necessary to prevent the United States from defending its own possessions or allies in the Western Pacific. As a result, the Western Pacific is strategically isolated, the U.S. loses its escalation dominance, and military conflict becomes an option for China to resolve disputes in its near-abroad without fear of American interference.

Russia’s “de-escalating nuclear strike” strategy pursues the same purpose on the opposite tack.6 It is based on the assumption that even though Russian conventional forces cannot match NATO’s military potential, Russia can achieve a locally and timely limited conventional superiority sufficient to create a fait accompli. This superior position is then protected by threatening the use of small yield, short-range nuclear weapons. The first-use of nuclear weapons is, therefore, not excluded. On the contrary, the first use policy is openly announced and, as part of major Russian exercises, is also regularly emphasized to the West as the potential opponent. The purpose of threatening to use nuclear weapons in this limited fashion is to strategically separate the east of the alliance area, especially the Baltic States, from the rest of the alliance. A strategic dilemma is presented to the nuclear weapon states of the west, in particular the United States, of either giving in to Russian aggression and consequently allowing the collapse of the alliance or, conversely, to risk an uncontrollable nuclear escalation. The strategic value of the medium-range weapons stationed by Russia in violation of the INF Treaty is precisely that these weapons can reach Poland and possibly Germany, but not the Alliance’s nuclear weapon states. Whether Russia would consider such a nuclear strike only if defeat in a conventional war loomed or early on in a conflict to pre-empt a conventional NATO reaction is beside the point. The strategic isolation of the eastern alliance area by limited nuclear strikes is the basis to shield a war with “limited object”7 and thus to use military force below the threshold of a global nuclear war.

The fact that both China and Russia, while confronted with comparable problems, assign such different roles to their nuclear arsenal is also due to the fact that China acts confidently from a position of strength. Russia, on the other hand, from the assumption that it was only possible to gain conventional superiority vis-à-vis NATO locally, and for a short period of time, plays a weaker hand.

Both approaches share the aim to gain freedom of action in the near-abroad, to be able to use conventional military means to pursue limited purposes, if necessary, and to reduce the risk of an escalation to an unlimited nuclear war. The control of maritime areas is of central importance for both China and Russia in these respects.

Thesis 2: “Anti-Access/Area Denial” has little to do with “Sea Denial” and a lot to do with “Sea Control”8

Undisputed sea control, or maritime supremacy as the U.S. Navy would call it, in the South and East China Seas is what China needs to keep conventional American armed forces at a distance from mainland China, to gain the freedom of movement for its own forces to threaten American forces in the Pacific, and eventually the continental United States with escalation. As a result, the United States will face the dilemma of either accepting high losses, nuclear escalation, or moral defeat – and all this for what amounts to an American perspective as only “limited political aims” – the commitments made to partners in the Western Pacific. China’s illegal land reclamation in the South China Sea9 has less to do with access to marine resources, but much more to do with the development of the military infrastructure to push its own sensor and weapons range so far into the Pacific that it becomes impossible for American forces to touch Chinese positions without risk to its fleet. Having gained freedom of action in order to build a credible military position to assert its own interests in its immediate neighborhood, particularly against Taiwan, China could theoretically reign supreme in the Western Pacific. The only contingency would then be a “distant blockade,”10  which China could attempt to counter by increasing self-reliance or the careful establishment of a string of strategic positions in peacetime. Both are already core elements of current Chinese policy, namely “China 2049” and the “Belt and Road Initiative.”

Compared to China, Russia has a similarly complex strategic position on its doorsteps. This position is aggravated by the fact that American partnerships in Europe are institutionalized in NATO. Particularly interesting is the situation in the Baltic Sea with respect to the Kaliningrad exclave. On one hand, Kaliningrad offers a strategic maritime position from which large parts of the eastern and central Baltic Sea can be affected. At the same time, Kaliningrad threatens the land lines of communication from Poland to the Baltic States through the so-called Suwalki Gap. However, Kaliningrad is dependent on supplies from the sea, and a possible Baltic area of ​​operations is entirely within the range of regional allied naval forces. Moreover, maintaining superiority long enough for Russia to secure territorial gains depends on neutralizing the only two ways by which NATO could reinforce its members in the east in a timely fashion – by air or by sea.

In case of conflict, simply preventing western naval forces’ access to the central and eastern Baltic Sea would not meet Russian requirements. Russia must be able to positively control this sea area. In short, Russia must exercise sea control in order to obtain freedom of action to contribute to joint operations in the Baltic States, protect sea lines of communication to defend the Kaliningrad exclave, and cut off the Baltic States from their western allies. Even if the term “Anti-Access/Area Denial” (A2/AD) at first glance suggests otherwise, A2/AD is not just a question of denying the use of a maritime area. Rather, A2/AD is a concept for obtaining sea control in coastal and confined waters, which is primarily characterized by the use of land-based capabilities.

A map of Eastern Europe denoting the Kaliningrad exclave (Wall Street Journal)

The U.S. Marine Corps has taken this understanding as their point of departure for the most fundamental realignment of the force since World War II. The Corps no longer sees its primary warfighting role in the Western Pacific as operating from the sea under the conditions of sea control won by the U.S. Navy. Rather, the Corps sees itself as an integral part of the naval force contributing to the fight for sea control with its specific capabilities, and thus to maintain escalation dominance.11 The Marine Corps no longer desires a dependence on Navy-won access for amphibious operations, but seeks to use its forward amphibious abilities to open access for the navy to project power. It is all about “contested sea control.”

Of course, all of these considerations are solely derived from the declaratory policies of China and Russia, a cursory analysis of the maritime areas in question, and the respective maritime military potentials fielded. Fortunately, it seems unlikely that Russia, for example, will raid one of the Baltic States as long as the Putin system remains stable. Indeed, the intensity of the actors’ motivation is a key factor in assessing the threat and, in turn, the required deterrent.12

The insinuated Russian stratagem is based on two assumptions. First, Russia gains conventional superiority for a short time. Second, and more importantly, that the motivation of western allies, and particularly the United States, does not suffice to risk a nuclear escalation in defense of their eastern allies. But Russian motivation to seek a systemic change in Europe by armed confrontation is perceived to be low, and justifies merely a “tripwire force” in Poland and the Baltic States – NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP).13 Their multinational composition addresses the danger of a split of the alliance and the force creates a limited position of deterrence by denial.14 The small motivation of Russia is thus met by a small but sufficient tripwire, and is thus deterred. The message to Moscow is that invading the Baltic States would mean not only meeting with the Balts, but all major allies, and though NATO could be easily outnumbered, it would not be a walk in the park – so think twice.

What is the maritime dimension of this tripwire? Which specific opportunities does the maritime domain offer to strengthen and enhance the credibility of NATO’s deterrent position?

Thesis 3: Our most pressing operational problem in the Baltic Sea is not maintaining the sea lines of communication to Baltic States for reinforcing and supplying NATO forces

Following Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, NATO and Germany refocused on the ability to conduct a symmetrical war in Europe. By regaining and strengthening NATO’s ability to wage a symmetrical war on Europe’s eastern border, the conventional complement to nuclear deterrence is strengthened. For the German Army, this means above all returning to maneuver warfare and combined arms operations, strengthening armored units, and empowering them to quickly deploy heavy formations to the alliance’s eastern border. For the Navy, this means maintaining the sea lines of communication between the east coast of the United States to ports in Germany, Poland, and the Baltic States.

Of course, conflict between NATO and Russia would not happen out of thin air. There would most probably be times of heightening tensions and grey zone or hybrid activities. Arguably, Russia has for some time tested NATO’s preparedness and resolve, not only in the cyber domain,15 but also by incursions into the Baltic States.16 However, should tensions escalate to a level that would call for a decision of the North Atlantic Council to move larger formations from North America to Europe, deterrence would have already failed. Arguably, in such a situation, Russia would have stopped perceiving the price for taking on NATO in the east as still too high compared with the possible gains. To put it bluntly, if we are compelled to organize convoy operations across the Atlantic and through the Baltic Sea, NATO has already failed with its most important task – to send a message to Russia that the potential costs of aggression are always greater than the prospects of success.

A deterrence posture that basically rests on a tripwire activating over-the-horizon forces is opening a gap to an opposing strategy that is based on quick results and strategic isolation of the theatre of operations. Naval forces, however, in the Baltic Sea could provide an additional deterrent element that counteracts the Russian stratagem at a stage before a distant deployment of NATO formations to the Baltic States becomes necessary and must be protected on its journey. The double exclaves of Kaliningrad and the Baltic States provide the key to do just this. Understandably, due to the exposed location of the Baltic States, western observers perceive the theatre geometry in the Baltic Sea first and foremost as a vulnerability. However, Kaliningrad is even more exposed, lacking even the narrow and hard-to-defend land corridor that the Suwalki Gap is providing between Poland and Lithuania. The Russian position in the Baltic Sea is nowhere near as advantageous as the skillful Russian propaganda makes us believe. Kaliningrad’s geographical position is more tenuous given several considerations. Kaliningrad is essential for the enforcement of Russian sea control in the middle to eastern Baltic Sea and all of Kaliningrad is within weapon range from the sea. Access to Baltysk can easily be blocked, and sea lines of communication from Kaliningrad through the Gulf of Finland to St. Petersburg can easily be disrupted.

While the “Tripwire Forces” of the Enhanced Forward Presence represent an element of “Deterrence by Denial,” the maritime domain offers the possibility of adding an element of “Deterrence by Punishment” without the risk of escalation. As an aggressor, Russia would also have to lose something immediately before the NATO machinery starts up properly, adding a critical psychological effect.17 In the Baltic Sea, the role of naval forces is not merely the defensive protection of sea lines of communication to the Baltic States. In Corbett’s18 terms, already in peacetime and in order to contribute to a balanced deterrent posture and prevent a “limited war,” the role of naval forces in the Baltic Sea can be the “tactical offensive” as part of an overall “defensive strategy.”19 Like the Enhanced Forward Presence, this deterrence posture does not necessarily require great numbers of maritime forces. Those deployed, however, must be able to question the Russian claim to sea control and the sanctuary of the Kaliningrad exclave through land-attack and anti-ship-cruise missiles launched from small surface combatants, corvettes, submarines, and aircraft, as well as through mine-laying capabilities. Not all these forces have to be provided by one nation alone. In parallel to the Enhanced Forward Presence, multi-nationality would be an essential factor in preventing the strategic isolation of the eastern flank. And this is the second major advantage of the maritime domain – only at sea can Sweden and Finland be included in a credible deterrent posture without upsetting the complex balance of power by a motion for formal integration into NATO.

Conclusion

Russian appetite for serious mischief-making in the north is, thankfully, considered to be low. But it should prompt us to widen our peripheral vision – to the Mediterranean, the near east, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific, where we do in fact see a lot more maritime activity. Maritime forces deployed to the Mediterranean or the Indian Ocean in constabulary force missions might actually be just as close to the mission set of “deterrence and defense” as those forces up in the north. Parallels and deviations in the approaches of Russia and China point to the fact that in a struggle involving nuclear-armed great powers there are no easily defined geographic limitations – and in fact, it is in our better interest as the Melians in the room not to allow any power to willfully separate strategic spaces. After all, we have to realize that the autocratic players in “Great Power Competition” try to widen and exploit geographic and political fault lines in the west. Let us not widen them intellectually ourselves.

Captain Sascha H. Rackwitz joined the German Navy in 1991. A submariner by background, he was captain of a submarine and commanding officer of the German Navy’s submarine squadron. After tours in the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he until recently taught naval strategy and operational art at the German Armed Forces Command and Staff College before assuming his current responsibilities as deputy commander and chief of staff of Flotilla 1 of the German Navy, home to the German Navy’s corvettes, submarines, mine countermeasure forces, special operations, and naval infantry forces. The views expressed here are presented in a personal capacity. and do not necessarily reflect the views of any government or agency. 

References

1. United States of America (2017): National Security Strategy of the United States of America.

2. Peoples Republic of China, State Council Information Office (2019): China’s Defence in the New Era.

3. Russian Federation (2015): National Security Strategy.

4. Thucydides, History of the Peleponnesian War, Chapter XVII, Melian Dialogue.

5. Gray, Colin S. (2018): Theory of Strategy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 121f.

6. Gray, Colin S. (2018): Theory of Strategy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 98.

7. Clausewitz, Carl (1832): On War, Berlin, Book VIII, Chapter V.                   

8. “Sea Control” is more of a process than a condition in which by constant effort freedom of action in a maritime area is obtained. Sea Control is regularly understood to be a prerequisite for protecting sea lines of communication and projecting power from the sea. „Sea Denial” on the other hand is the denial of the unhindered operational use of a maritime area to an opponent. Both sea control and sea denial have to be fought for, are therefore principally only applicable in times of conflict. They will only be achieved temporarily and locally to a certain extent depending on the effort invested – uncontested sea control is only theoretically possible.

9. Permanent Court of Arbitration, Philippines vs. China, 2016.

10. Corbett, Julian (1911): Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, London, p. 97.

11. United States Marine Corps (2019): Commandant’s Planning Guidance.

12. Morgan, Patrick (1983): Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis, Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, p. 164f.

13. NATO Factsheet on eFP, https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2019_04/20190402_1904-factsheet_efp_en.pdf

14. Mazarr, Michael J./Chan, Arthur et al. (2018): What Deters and Why. Exploring Requirements for Effective Deterrence of Interstate Aggression, Santa Monica: RAND, p. 17ff.

15. Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (2019) International Security and Estonia.

16. Republic of Estonia, Ministry of the Interior, Press about the kidnapping of an Estonian Internal Security Service officer, last updated 28 September 2015: https://www.siseministeerium.ee/en/eston-kohver

17. Snyder, Glen (1961): Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security. Westport: Greenwood Press.

18. Sir Julian Corbett, 1854-1922, British naval historian and strategic theorist is considered to be one of the most influential theorists of naval power next to the American Alfred Thayer Mahan.

19. Corbett, Julian (1911): Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, London, p. 73.

Featured Image: Russian Navy Baltic Fleet ships on parade. (ITAR-TASS/ Elena Nagornykh)