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Strategy

Chief of Naval Operations Zumwalt’s Project 60, Part 1

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Project SIXTY was Admiral Elmo “Bud” Zumwalt’s plan of action for his term as Chief of Naval Operations, lasting from July 1, 1970 to June 29, 1974. In it Admiral Zumwalt describes a resurgent naval threat from a peer competitor, the need to rebalance the mission focus between sea control and power projection, and how to optimize the fleet in the context of budgetary pressures. 

Project SIXTY will be republished here on CIMSEC in three parts. This republication is drawn from the U.S. Naval War College’s Newport Papers, specifically “U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1970s, Selected Documents” edited by John B. Hattendorf. 

Memorandum For All Flag Officers (And Marine General Officers, Dated SEP 16, 1970

Subj: Project SIXTY

1.  In July I told you that I would make an assessment of the Navy’s capabilities and problems for a presentation to the Secretary of Defense in early September. With the benefit of your insights and assistance, this task, Project SIXTY, has been completed. Secretary Chafee and I made the presentation on 10 September to Secretaries Laird and Packard and follow-on discussions with them are scheduled.

2. I consider that the substance of this presentation sets forth the direction in which we want the Navy to move in the next few years. The decisions that we make, and implement, at the command levels of the Navy should be consistent with these concepts. Further, I am passing this paper to the CNO Executive Panel, and its Programs Analysis Group, as the primary guideline for their deliberations in advising me on actions we should take and on the suitability of current programs. The Panel will consider the Project SIXTY paper as a dynamic statement of the direction that the Navy is to move and will adapt new concepts and ideas to keep the guidelines current and in-step with the threat and our best thoughts. 

3. I am forwarding the Project Sixty Presentation to you, under cover of this letter, to guide your actions as well to keep you fully aware of my thinking and to encourage your support as we move ahead. 

 

 

My purpose today is to report to you on our naval strengths and weaknesses and the actions we are taking, or will propose, to achieve the highest feasible combat readiness. The report reflects our survey of the Navy to date and sets forth the change of direction which we think necessary. It is impossible to discuss these changes outside the context  of potential budget reductions. We will indicate the effect of such reductions; they would curtail our capabilities critically, regardless of our actions. However, we hope to emphasize the theme of the changes that we feel must be undertaken, whether we can maintain our present expenditures or not.

The Navy’s capabilities fall naturally into four categories:

NAVAL CAPABILITIES

  • ASSURED SECOND STRIKE
  • CONTROL OF SEA LINES AND AREAS
  • PROJECTION OF POWER ASHORE
  • OVERSEAS PRESENCE IN PEACETIME
  • Assured Second Strike Potential,
  • Sea Control by our attack submarines, dual-mission carriers, escorts, and patrol aircraft,
  • Projection of power ashore by our dual-mission carriers and the amphibious force, and
  • Overseas presence in peacetime

We want to see where each of these capabilities fits into the possible conflict situations that we may face in the decade ahead. What, in short, does the country require of its sea forces?

SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN SOVIET THREAT OF LATE ’60s

  • NUCLEAR PARITY
  • EMERGENCE OF STRONG, WORLDWIDE DEPLOYED SOVIET NAVY

We are looking at this matter at a time when two factors have developed, of the highest importance to the power relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union:

  • Nuclear parity, and
  • The emergence of a strong, worldwide-deployed Soviet Navy

ASSURED SECOND STRIKE POTENTIAL

The initial Navy capability is the contribution it can make to an assured Second Strike potential.

Strategic deterrence must come first. Soviet achievement of nuclear parity, deployment of SS-9’s, and potential deployment of MIRVs have all raised the value of our sea-based strategic forces, and we are close upon the point when more of our deterrent forces will have to be based more securely. We are confident that the Navy can design and build a secure, effective ULMS (Underwater Long Range Missile System). If the national decision is to rely more heavily on sea basing— that is, to have ULMS operating before 1980—we must soon decide to accelerate.

SEA CONTROL AND PROJECTION

The other major naval missions at sea involve our sea control and projection forces.

The recent changes in relative strategic power between the Soviets and ourselves also have important implications for these conventional forces.

SEA CONTROL AND PROJECTION

NUCLEAR-CONVENTIONAL  RELATIONSHIPS

  • SEA CONTROL GUARANTEES INVULNERABILITY OF SEA BASED MISSILES
  • NUCLEAR PARITY INCREASES LIKELIHOOD OF CONVENTIONAL CONFLICT

On the one hand, the credibility of our ability to control the sea is essential to the credibility of our strategic sea-based deterrent. On the other hand, now that we have lost our superiority and are reducing our conventional forces, the Soviets are more likely to use military force to achieve their political objectives. The importance of the portion of our conventional force that is capable of overseas presence has thus been increased.

SEA CONTROL AND PROJECTION

  • NIXON DOCTRINE
  • NEW SOVIET NAVAL CAPABILITY

From the naval standpoint, these relationships are influenced further by the Nixon Doctrine and by the large, modern Soviet Navy that emerged in the 1960s.

The continuing withdrawal of the United States from foreign bases and—in Asia—the change in the forms of armed support we plan to make available to our allies, place additional responsibilities on our sea control and projection forces. Both will employ the dual mission carrier—the new CV concept. The Sea Control forces will see to it that sealift supplies get through to our allies. Projection forces will maintain a ready deterrent to avoid any misunderstanding of our intent and provide support promptly if needed. The Nixon Doctrine has effectively raised the threshold at which we would commit land forces overseas. We have moved closer to a situation in which Soviet or CHICOM involvement is the primary circumstance that might force us to intervene. We therefore face conventional war that will not include the sanctuary of full use of our sea lines of communication. The Soviets have conceded us this luxury in the past, in part because of our nuclear superiority, in part because of their belief that we could defeat them at sea in conventional war.

But now the Soviet Navy has evolved impressively in both size and spectrum of capabilities. Its technical and industrial base operates at high levels of design, development, and production. The Soviet Navy has been constructing and deploying submarines and surface ships at an ominously high rate. The quantity and technical quality of these ships has been rising sharply.

What does this new Soviet naval capability mean to us?

In strategic terms, the Soviet Navy is a worldwide force whose routine deployments reach into the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, and Caribbean, as well as the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Today the Soviet naval presence in the Mediterranean is as great as ours; 10 years ago it was negligible. We devote fewer than 800 ship days a year to limited parts of the Indian Ocean; the Soviets’ reach over that area has gone from zero ship days to 2400 in the past 3 years. Their submarine activity is four times as intense as ours and covers all the sea lanes of the world.

As you know, the Soviets have more attack submarines than we do. And they are building at a rate of 10–14 a year; we are building three. The Soviets are reducing the advantage we had in quality by building new, quieter classes of submarines. These new submarines have unique features that are so good we may copy them. In just two years, the Soviets have produced at least 6 new designs in submarines. Their new attack submarines are 3½ to 5½ knots faster than ours. Beyond this, they are giving priority to the Yankee-class ballistic missile submarines, building them at a rate of 6 to 8 a year.

SEA CONTROL AND PROJECTION

  • SOVIET SUBMARINES
  • 10–14 NEW SSNs PER YEAR
  • QUIETER
  • NEW DESIGNS (FASTER)
  • PRIORITY TO YANKEE CLASS SSBNs (6–8/YEAR)

These factors give the Soviets several advantages:

SOVIET ADVANTAGES

  • INCREASED OUT OF AREA PATROLS
  • DECREASED U.S. ACOUSTIC ADVANTAGE
  • SPEED
  • With greater numbers of submarines, routine out of area deployments can be increased without alerting our intelligence. Their readiness to fight is kept at a high level.
  • Quieter submarines decrease the acoustic advantage on which our submarine barriers and underseas surveillance systems depend to detect Soviet submarine transits.
  • Their speed advantage permits the Soviet submarines to use leap-frog tactics and brute speed in attack or evasion underseas.

YEARLY CONSTRUCTION OF NUCLEAR SUBMARINES 

NOW BUILDING CAPACITY Avg. time to build 1 Sub.
USSR 14–20 35 21 MOS.
U.S. 3 6* 27 MOS.

*WHEN POSEIDON IS COMPLETE, U.S. CAPACITY WILL BE 10–12 A YEAR.

And, highly important, the Soviets, with their large capacity and high building rate, can exploit technical improvements more rapidly than we can. They have a potential production level of 35 nuclear submarines a year without facility expansion.

GROWTH IN SOVIET MISSILE-LAUNCH PLATFORMS 

1960 1970
MAJOR MISSILE WARSHIPS 6 49
MISSILE PATROL BOATS 6 158
CRUISE MISSILE SUBMARINES 0 62
RECONNAISSANCE AND MISSILE AIRCRAFT 215 454
TOTAL 227 723

The Soviets have concentrated on weapons for use at sea. This chart shows the buildup in missile-launching vehicles in their naval inventory.

Their surface fleet continues to grow in size and quality relative to ours.

US VS USSR GENERAL PURPOSE NAVAL SHIP CONSTRUCTION 1966–1970 

US USSR USSR/US IN %
MAJOR COMBATANTS 11 17 155
MINOR COMBATANTS 47 182 387
AMPHIBIOUS SHIPS 14 6 43
ATTACK  SUBMARINES 26 43 165

They are building more ships than we are; amphibious ships are the only category in which we have been outbuilding them.

And the Soviets are enhancing the effectiveness of these forces with a high quality capability for electronics warfare and communications. This includes active and passive countermeasures directed at our systems, intercept equipment covering all of our emitters, and excellent facilities for communications jamming, deception, and intelligence. These assets are drawn together by a highly secure, worldwide communications system.

The Soviet Navy I have touched on here can be deployed in all the oceans. To maintain our own position, our Navy must be based on the two-ocean concept. We cannot concentrate forces in one ocean unless we are prepared to accept in war the loss of control of the other oceans—and thus the destruction of the Free World Alliance.

As an example of this limitation, in the first naval capability to be examined—that of support of war on land—we have looked at alternative ways to provide lift across the Atlantic. The lift mission cannot be performed by air alone. For a NATO war in the mid-1970’s, JCS plans call for moving seven million tons of military dry cargo and five million tons of military POL in the first six months. Of this total only 6% could be moved by air. This is consistent with our experience in Southeast Asia, where 96% has moved in ships.

SEALIFT IS ESSENTIAL

  • IN A NATO WAR IN THE MID 1970’S, AIRLIFT WILL BE ABLE TO HANDLE ONLY 6% OF MILITARY CARGOES REQUIRED
  • IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, ONLY 4% HAS MOVED BY AIR

Heavy reliance on sealift is an integral part of the U.S. role as a sea power. It emphasizes the absolute need to be able to control the seas if the nation is to exist. This slide shows why the sea control role must be a main concern of the U.S. Navy. Seaborne trade is several times more important to the U.S. than to the Soviets. Oceans lie between us and our allies; most of the Soviet alliances are with contiguous nations.

SEABORNE TRADE

(MILLIONS OF LONG TONS) 

1958 1965
U.S. 274 395
USSR 26 90

ALLIANCES

WITH CONTIGUOUS NATIONS WITH NON-CONTIGUOUS NATIONS
U.S. 2 43
USSR 7 4

POTENTIAL  ENEMIES

U.S.: NO CONTIGUOUS ENEMIES

USSR: CHINA AND NATO

Support of war-on-land requires not only the ability to lift forces across the seas but also the ability to project power ashore.

At reduced force levels, we should be concerned about the threat to sea projection forces during the early days of a NATO war. The situation on each flank is different.

NATO WAR

MEDITERRANEAN THREAT FACTORS

  • CONTINUOUS OPERATIONS OF SOVIET SHIPS
  • SOVIET ACCESS TO PORTS
  • SOVIET USE OF AIRFIELDS

A combination of factors has given rise to a serious threat in the relatively restricted sea area of the Mediterranean. There are three such factors:

1. Continuous operation of Soviet ships in the Mediterranean,
2. Soviet access to ports that were closed to them less than a decade ago, and
3. Soviet use of airfields in the UAR and Libya. 

Because we lack adequate surveillance capabilities, we cannot keep full-time track of Soviet submarines in the Mediterranean. For their part, the Soviets’ surface ships trail our carriers, ready for a first-strike attack in the event of conflict.

Yet, the Soviet naval presence in the Mediterranean demands militarily that we maintain our SIXTH Fleet at generally current force levels. Politically, the whole ambience of NATO requires us to assume that those forces—or augmented forces—will be in place and subject to early and very heavy attack at the outbreak of hostilities.

On the northern flank, however, political circumstances do not require our permanent or prior presence. Hence, before moving in to support forces on land, we would probably operate from mid-ocean to erode the Soviets’ submarine force, sweep up their surface ships and, as Allied land-based air operations took effect, slow down the rate of sorties from enemy air bases.

These considerations also raise the question of the importance of the naval air strike responsibility in NATO. NATO plans call for using all our carriers in this role. Because of air base shortages in Europe and competitive SAC requirements for tankers, I consider that mission of central value in holding the line on the NATO flanks until planned Air Force reinforcements can be deployed from CONUS. Though some feasible measures will reduce the naval problem, the essential deficiency is in forces.

I should add that strategic warning does not lessen the Soviet naval threat, but it might give us time to move our forces from the Pacific. Strategic warning might also permit the Air Force to make deployments, though bases would be a limiting factor.

Support of the land battle in a NATO war would thus require naval carrier strike forces. Therefore, most of our sea control forces would be engaged in protecting these projection forces. There would be little left to provide more than random security to the sea lines of communications. We would then be ceding to the Soviets this linchpin of rapid reinforcement upon which NATO depends to stabilize the conflict on land and reduce the likelihood of escalation.

Within likely budgets, this heavy commitment in one ocean would, in our judgment, require the movement of naval forces from the Pacific, abandonment of the Pacific  area west of Hawaii, and cession of control of those waters—including all of Japan, for instance—to the Soviet Far East Fleet. We can also lose sea control in the Atlantic as a result of events in the Pacific. The Soviets can give direct or proxy support to a North Korean attack on South Korea. The logical first response to that situation, as in South Vietnam, would be strikes by our carrier aircraft. Our analysis of the threat in the Sea of Japan at the time the EC-121 was shot down indicates a requirement for at least four carriers, with large protecting forces. Again, within likely budgets, our forces will be inadequate for sea control in the Pacific in the face of Soviet involvement—or threat of involvement—at sea, unless we move the bulk of our naval forces to the area. But that would cost us control of the Atlantic and the sea lines that support NATO.

These considerations present us with a number of hard alternatives in the face of budget reductions, if the Navy is to be in a position to make the necessary contribution to the nation’s security.

ALTERNATIVES

  • COMMIT ALL NAVAL FORCES TO SEA CONTROL
  • CONCENTRATE FORCES IN ONE OCEAN
  • INCREASE FORCES TO A LEVEL COMMENSURATE WITH TWO-OCEAN NEEDS
  • One course would be to commit all or nearly all the forces available, including the carriers, to the sea control mission. If so, the NATO air strike responsibility would have to be significantly reduced or even eliminated. In Asia, the cutting edge provided by attack carriers in a situation such as Korea would be reduced drastically if the Soviets chose to become involved at sea. At our lower force levels, we simply could not risk the irretrievable loss of sea control by hazarding our few carriers in land battles close to Eurasia.
  • Another course would be augmentation of forces from one ocean to the other in time of crisis or conflict, as an integral part of our strategic planning. If so, we would have to accept the risk or actual fact of Soviet control of the other seas and the implications of that result for the Free World Alliance.
  • The only real solution is maintenance of forces at the FY-1970 level or, for greater assurance, an increase of forces. This alternative will retain the naval option to provide the President with a mobile strategic contingency force whenever required and ensures greater confidence in our capability to support the deployment of Army and Air Force units.

Let me speak now of other naval capabilities that are required and that will fit into the force implications just discussed in the war-on-land case.

In addition to possibly contesting for control of sea lanes incident to a war on land, the Soviets’ naval strength enables them to start a war restricted to the sea. Such a conflict could be directed at Free World merchant shipping, at our naval forces, or at some combination of the two, the choice depending on the Soviets’ objective. The Soviets might also wage such a war by proxy.

If we were not already engaged in conflict, we could commit maximum available forces immediately to the sea control mission. There would be no conflicting requirements for projection of power ashore, though our ability to provide a strategic contingency force for another crisis would be reduced. This slide shows the results of a recent study of such a war at sea, including a high intensity war and a guerrilla war at sea. The study assumed present force levels projected ahead. In this study, our losses are heavy. They would be heavier at the lower levels we are now planning on.

How our allies—we—and the Soviets estimate the outcome of such a conflict could have a significant influence on responses to other situations. The Soviets surely gave this matter prominence in their decisions during the Cuban missile crisis. In our judgment, their naval course since that time originated then. Whether any President will ever again be willing to impose a blockade will depend on his assessment—and ours— of the risks if war at sea were to result. His decision will also depend on whether we proceed now to provide him with credible tools. To expect our allies to help us counter a Soviet initiative at sea will depend primarily on their view of our ability to pursue such a conflict successfully.

Read Part 2.

Admiral Elmo “Bud” Zumwalt served as the nineteenth Chief of Naval Operations of the U.S. Navy, from 1970-1974. 

Featured Image: Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt. Jr., USN, Chief of Naval Operations (left), and Rear Admiral Robert S. Salzer, USN, Commander Naval Forces Vietnam, discuss their recent visit to Nam Can Naval Base, Republic of Vietnam, as they fly to their next stop, May 1971. Official U.S. Navy Photograph.

Strategy

The Role of Public Affairs in U.S. Seapower, Pt. 1

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By LCDR Arlo Abrahamson, USN

Introduction

The technological innovations of the twenty-first century are transforming mass communications on a global scale. Organizations are competing in a hyper-competitive and increasingly diverse information environment that demands continuous communication engagement to affirm truth and facts while deterring adversary misinformation.1 This global transformation in mass communication practices is also changing how the world’s militaries are devising their strategic messaging and these changes will have a significant impact on the U.S. Navy’s mission. Public affairs is a command function with responsibilities for commanders at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels that require astute vision, collaboration, and synchronization of messaging and information dissemination.2 The underlying question remains, “How can the Navy’s public affairs program successfully support the U.S. maritime strategy for twenty-first century seapower?”

To achieve success, the Navy must enable public affairs to function as a tool of credibility versus persuasion and spin, it must embody the principles of transparency, and it must better synchronize public affairs with other elements of U.S. information power such as information operations and public diplomacy. The modalities of maritime strategy and the information environment must be examined to provide sufficient context for a discussion about the aforementioned challenges of the Navy’s public affairs program. 

External Influences of Maritime Strategy

The Navy’s Cooperative Strategy for Twenty-First Century Seapower and the Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority affirm the core tenets of projecting forward naval presence and enhancing maritime partnerships.3 Due to the external nature of these operations combined with a frequent focus in support of U.S. diplomacy, a successful maritime strategy will require sustained and comprehensive communication strategies that are supported at all levels of command. Edward Luttwak notes the unique capability of seapower as a tool for strategic communication given how naval presence and security partnerships convey important political messaging.4 In his critique of the U.S. maritime strategy, Geoffrey Till notes that the “variation and complexity” of such an initiative centered on generating support domestically and internationally to sustain forward presence and security partnerships will require the Navy to “devote significant effort to their strategic communication plan.”5 Admiral John Kirby, the former Pentagon press secretary and spokesperson for the Department of State, argues “the Navy is historically one of the least understood branches, and yet one of the most capital-intensive.”6 As a result, Kirby posits that “any strategy which defines the way the Navy will fight and win” will fail if not supported by domestic stakeholders along with allies and partners, considering how long the U.S. maritime strategy actually takes to render results.7  

This challenge compounds the importance of commanders understanding the functionality of public affairs within the context of the information environment, to promote transparency, and ensure messaging is synchronized with other elements of information power in support of the maritime strategy.

The Changing Information Environment

The Joint Publication 3-13 Information Operations describes the information environment as “the aggregate of individuals, organizations, and systems that collect, process, disseminate, or act on information.”8 Kirby further characterizes the public domain of the information environment as an evolving space where allies, partners, and adversaries are contending for narratives in real-time on new media platforms such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and a growing portfolio of interconnected online venues.9 With the diffusion of actors and contributors to the modern information environment, and the speed at which information travels, this compounds the notion that tactical actions can have strategic consequences.10 Consequently, operational and tactical commanders must be aware that their units increasingly operate in an atmosphere that is exposed to the public domain via technological innovations of the information environment, and every ship, unit, and headquarters is critical to communication success through their credible and transparent actions.

Optimizing Public Affairs to Support U.S. Maritime Strategy 

The function and utilization of military public affairs within the complex information environment is often misunderstood by commanders and organizations alike, which undercuts the enduring value of the discipline to support initiatives such as the maritime strategy. There are well-intentioned commanders who favor more of a shaping or salesmanship function of public affairs operations, a role more attuned to the hybrid public relations-information operations construct of U.S. adversaries.11 Moreover, Kirby argues that commanders often view the information environment as “one they can own and shape at will, one of kinetics,” – which underestimates the complexities and dynamics of an environment that requires comprehensive and persistent communication strategies.12 Kirby further posits that while “rapid reaction and cyber agility” are necessary to counter adversary information, these qualities alone are insufficient:

“Our approach must be bolstered by an unfailing commitment to truthful context and imagery, aggressive transparency and a willingness to overwhelm fake news and media manipulation over time.”13

While Kirby does not discount the need to shape the information environment, he notes that commanders should utilize their public affairs capability as a long-term strategic communication initiative that achieves desired effects with sustained engagement.14 Jeff Davis, a career Navy public affairs officer and former Pentagon spokesperson, argues that the information power of the Department of Defense is harnessed by providing persistent strategic messaging that is “credible, sober, and factual” and grounded in matching deeds with words.15 When this action-communication sequence does not align, it can affect the Navy’s organizational credibility and degrade public trust in the Navy’s forward presence mission. For example, in 2017 the U.S. Third Fleet promulgated a news release announcing the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group departed Singapore and would “sail North” leading media outlets to assume the aircraft carrier was expeditiously headed to waters in Northeast Asia as a show of force to North Korean provocations occurring at the time.16 The news release declined to note the strike group would make an intermediate routing for an exercise near Indonesia and Australia, inadvertently provoking allegations of U.S. misinformation among international media stakeholders and umbrage from key U.S. allies in South Korea and Japan who perceived a deeds-words mismatch in their commitment to their respective alliances.17 

Beyond being credible and accurate, public communication must also be persistent to effectively support the maritime strategy. Collin Koh, a maritime security researcher at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies, notes the information environment demands continuous public communications of U.S. naval presence to demonstrate resolve to allies and partners and deter adversaries from filling in information voids.18 Koh and Dzirhan Mahadzir, a naval analyst, characterize this persistent communication engagement as “normalizing the narrative.”19    

Accordingly, Koh and Mahadzir contend that persistent narratives of operations can help deescalate the news cycle over time and thus lower the perception of provocative actions resulting from freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea if the action-communication is routine and clear in its message.20 It can also be a detriment to commanders when communication is not executed consistently. Lynn Kuok, a security analyst and Yale international fellow, believes the U.S. should routinely release clear details about operations in the South China Sea, i.e. where the operation took place, what the operation did, and what right(s) the U.S. was asserting—simultaneous to or very soon after the conduct of such operations.21 The impact, security analysts note, is to ensure that U.S. forward naval presence can generate favorable strategic outcomes that strengthen the U.S. maritime strategy by publicly affirming navigation rights under international law while deterring China’s public overtures aimed at transforming norms and asserting new customary laws through its shaping of regional and international public opinion.22

Transparency as a Secret Weapon

An emerging concern for external stakeholders of DoD and the Navy is a perceived tilt toward less transparency and openness.23 These concerns are generating contention among journalists, citizens, and analysts of the Navy’s maritime strategy alike with veteran observers such as Thomas Ricks, a former defense reporter for The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, arguing its negative effects on U.S. national security.24 Ricks points out that commanders tend to operate in a low risk posture as they perceive transparency and openness offer few tangible incentives, particularly at the operational and tactical levels where public affairs release authority is often narrower.25 This growing perception among commanders of a zero-defect environment with public communications limits the potential of U.S. information power.26 Moreover, Davis notes that transparency in public communication provides the U.S. military with an asymmetrical advantage in credibility: 

“A transparent, accountable military is our secret weapon. It is what has given us such high levels of trust, both at home and internationally. But that trust is now at risk.”27

Minimizing transparency and engagement with the media, veteran naval reporter Chris Cavas argues, degrades the maritime strategy by limiting the Navy’s ability to use information to “deter adversaries and portray expertise, readiness, and commitment.”28 The Navy recently issued a series of guidance cautioning commanders to limit discussions on capabilities to protect operational security.29 While the guidance does not prohibit commanders from engaging with the media, Cavas contends these overtures are creating a “chilling effect” on the frequency of press engagements and embarkations domestically and overseas among critical allies and partner-nation constituencies.30 As a result, there is a growing cohort of public stakeholders, many who directly impact the sustainability of the maritime strategy, who believe the pendulum of security versus openness in the Navy has swung too far toward secrecy. Representative Mike Gallagher, a member of the House Seapower and Projection of Forces Subcommittee, notes the risk of tepid public communication in the context of sustaining longer term, capital driven initiatives such as the U.S. maritime strategy:

“Despite the old adage that ‘loose lips sink ships,’ non-existent strategic communications can sink entire navies. If the bias is towards silence to prevent adversaries from finding out about unique capabilities or potential weaknesses, guess what, there will never be a public constituency for acquiring or mitigating them. And, oh by the way, our adversaries probably have a decent idea of what we’re up to anyways.”31

These critiques present a difficult, yet necessary balancing consideration for the Navy’s leadership that will require increased attention and risk-benefit analysis. However, Admiral James Stavridis (ret.) posits that commanders still have many opportunities to foster transparency with the media and public within the Navy’s current guidance.32 Limiting press engagement, Stavridis argues, strips commanders of an important tool to enhance their mission and ensure that tactical and operational successes lead to strategic value.33

In Part 2, we will explore how to synchronize information power to enable maritime strategy, along with several counter-arguments and perspectives.

Lt Commander Arlo Abrahamson is a recent graduate of the Naval War College and a career Navy public affairs officer. He has served globally supporting strategic communication, security cooperation, and public diplomacy initiatives for the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of State. These views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U. S. Government or the Department of Defense.

Endnotes

1 John Kirby,  “The Information Environment Today,” lecture filmed May 2016 at the Naval War College, Newport R.I., video, 30:58, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYyoRo5_Alw

2 Secretary of the Navy, Department of the Navy Public Affairs Policy and Regulations, SECNAV Instruction 5720.44C, 1-1 through 1-12, February 12, 2012, https://www.navy.mil/ah_online/opsec/docs/policy/secnavinst-5720_44c_pao.pdf.

3  U.S. Navy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, 2015,1-2,  https://www.navy.mil/local/maritime/150227-CS21R-Final.pdf

4 Edward Luttwak, “Political Uses of Seapower,” Studies in International Affairs, (The Johns Hopkins University Press), (1974), 1-3.

5 Geoffrey Till, “The New Maritime Strategy: Another View from the Outside,” The Naval War College Review, vol. 68, no. 4, (April 2015): 10.

https://digitalcommons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1265&context=nwc-review.

6 John Kirby, Rear Admiral (ret), email correspondence with the author, April 16, 2019.

7 John Kirby, Rear Admiral (ret), email correspondence with the author, April 16, 2019.

8 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-13, Information Operations, (Washington DC: GPO, November 2012), 27.

9 John Kirby, “The Information Environment Today,” lecture filmed May 2016 at the Naval War College, Newport R.I., video, 30:58, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYyoRo5_Alw.

10 Ibid.

11 Michael Parkinson Shannon Bowen, Kenneth Plowman, Robert Pritchard, John Schmeltzer, Mark Swiatek, “Military PAOs and the Media: Conflicting Systems of Ethics,” Institute for Public Relations Research Paper, (March 10, 2012): 3-4, https://instituteforpr.org/wp-content/uploads/Military-PAOs-The-Media.pdf.

12 John Kirby, Rear Admiral (ret), email correspondence with author, April 15, 2019.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Jeff Davis, Captain (ret), email correspondence with author, April 10, 2019.

16 Ryan Pickrell, “The Aircraft Carrier Carl Vinson to Korea Saga, What Happened,” The National Interest, April 20, 2017, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-aircraft-carrier-carl-vinson-korea-saga-what-happened-20278.

17 Ibid.

18 Collin Koh, Rajaratnam School of International Studies, email correspondence with author, April 15, 2019.

19 Collin Koh, Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Dzirhan Mahadzir, Maritime Institute of Malaysia and U.S. Naval Institute contributor, email correspondence to author, April 15, 2019 and April 2, 2019.

20 Ibid.

21 Lynn Kouk, Yale International Fellow and Security Analyst, email correspondence with author, May 2, 2019.

22 Ibid.

23 Adam Smith, “The Pentagon is getting more Secretive, and its hurting Nation Security,” Defense One, Oct 28, 2018, https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/10/pentagons-getting-more-secretive-and-its-hurting-national-security/152345/.

24 Thomas Ricks, email correspondence with author, April 12, 2019. 

25 Ibid.

26 James Stavridis, “It’s been over 300 days since a Pentagon Press Briefing: That should concern all Americans including the Military,” Time Magazine, April 16, 2019, http://time.com/5571643/pentagon-press-briefings/.

27 Jeff Davis, Captain (ret), email correspondence with author, April 10, 2019.

28 Chris Cavas, “Does the U.S. Navy have a Strategy Beyond Hope,” Defense News, January 4, 2018, https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/surface-navy-association/2018/01/04/does-the-us-navy-have-a-strategy-beyond-hope/.

29 Justin Doubleday, “CNO Directs Navy to Curb Warfighting Discussion on Capabilities,” Inside Defense, March 2, 2017, https://insidedefense.com/share/185155.

30 Chris Cavas, “Does the U.S. Navy have a Strategy Beyond Hope,” Defense News, January 4, 2018, https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/surface-navy-association/2018/01/04/does-the-us-navy-have-a-strategy-beyond-hope/.

31 David Larter, “Lawmakers Chide Navy, DoD, on step back from Transparency,” Defense News, January 10, 2018, https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/surface-navy-association/2018/01/10/lawmakers-chide-us-navy-on-step-back-from-transparency/.

32 James Stavridis, “Admiral Stavridis on the Importance of Engagement with the Press,” U.S. Naval Institute Online, April 30, 2019, https://blog.usni.org/posts/2019/04/30/admiral-stavridis-on-the-importance-of-engagement-with-the-press.

33 Ibid.

Featured Image: VALPARAISO, Chile (Aug. 24, 2014) Capt. Robert A. Hall Jr., commanding officer of the future amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6), addresses the media during a press conference on the flight shortly after the ship moored in Valparaiso, Chile, for a scheduled port visit. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Vladimir Ramos/Released)

Strategy

Maritime Order and America’s Indo-Pacific Strategy

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By Dr. Patrick M. Cronin

America as a Seapower

The United States is a “seapower” in all senses of the word. Its history, prosperity, and security are inseparable from the oceans. Even U.S. states without coastlines depend on global supply chains and markets that move primarily through the oceans.

The United States neglects its Navy at its peril. But military power must be accompanied by other types of power, both hard and soft. In his analysis of five maritime great powers, Professor Andrew Lambert explains how might and identity derive not exclusively from naval power, but also from the aptitude for using the seas cooperatively.1 The crucial distinction between seapowers and more insular continental powers is the art of perpetuating profitable economic and political ties with others. “A seapower, the ancient Greek thalassokratia,” writes Lambert, “was a state that consciously chose to create and sustain a fundamental engagement between nation and ocean, from political inclusion to the rule of law, across the entire spectrum of national life, in order to achieve great power status.”2

The oceans are not just the cradle of life, but vital arteries to tomorrow’s world centers of power. The continuous body of water that facilitates 90 percent of global trade and comprises about 72 percent of the Earth’s surface joins the United States with two major oceans and connects it to the dynamic Indo-Pacific region where the majority of twenty-first century wealth, trade, and population are concentrated.3

Because America’s peace and well-being depend on unhampered access and use of the oceans, order at sea is indispensable for U.S. global strategy and its vision of preserving and adapting a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” the Trump administration’s vision for an expanded regional policy announced during the president’s first trip to Asia.4

The post-World War II international system enshrined the idea of “freedom of the high seas” in the 1945 United Nations Charter.5 Postwar challenges to commercial and military freedom of navigation, however, demanded further protection.6

In the midst of the Cold War, both Western and Eastern blocs along with nonaligned nations came together to support the multilateral negotiations that resulted in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea does not conform with the revisionist notion that the United States imposed its rules on others.7 Instead, as Singapore Ambassador Tommy Koh, who later served as president of the conference, put it, “You will find countries allied here that you will not find working together in any other international forum, such as Mongolia and Swaziland, or Jamaica and Iraq.”8 As U.S. Ambassador John Norton Moore said, freedom of navigation is the original “common heritage” of all humankind.9 

From the signing of UNCLOS, the United States accepted all of its provisions as customary international law. The sole exception was Part XI regarding seabed exploration and mining in international waters, outside countries’ territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).10 In short, the United States helped to establish international law of the sea, and despite not ratifying UNCLOS, seeks to ensure its relevance, survival, and enforcement.

So, freedom of seas has been and remains essential for all Americans. However, maritime order is increasingly at risk and from both traditional and nontraditional threats. A critical question is whether we can sustain freedom of the seas into the future.

Rising Challenges for Maritime Order

Maritime order is a larger concept than maritime security. The maritime domain is defined as “all areas and things of, on, under, relating to, adjacent to, or bordering on a sea, ocean, or other navigable waterway including all maritime-related activities, infrastructure, people, cargo, and vessels and other conveyances.”11 Although security is the sine qua non for order, there is a symbiotic relationship between freedom of navigation on the oceans, for instance, and sustainable coastal communities where almost two-thirds of the world’s mega-cities are situated.12

There are at least four significant challenges to maritime order broadly conceived: over the international rules governing maritime behavior; from pirates, terrorists, traffickers, and other non-state actors and transnational criminal organizations; from mounting human exploitation of ocean resources; and from natural disasters and climate change. This essay focuses on the first but touches on all four risks, as a comprehensive policy for maritime order requires addressing the full panoply of challenges.

First, the seas are at risk from a growing competition over international rules and rule-making.

Revisionist major powers like Russia and China, but also regional states such as Iran and North Korea, increasingly pose challenges to traditional maritime security. Iran’s shootdown of a U.S. surveillance drone in international airspace constitutes a direct threat to freedom of navigation and overflight around the globe and could lead other aggressors to miscalculate by challenging the U.S. interpretation of international law.13 

In the Indo-Pacific, the most pressing challenge to existing maritime rules and norms is being posed by China.14 For example, China’s willful disregard of the 2016 international arbitral tribunal judgment regarding the South China Sea is a direct assault on the postwar system and UNCLOS, the so-called constitution of the oceans.15

But brushing aside awards handed down from The Hague is not the only challenge to postwar maritime order. Revisionist powers are challenging accepted rules and norms in various ways. Reckless behavior at sea that endangers other ships is a direct violation of the 1972 International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs).16 Yet in early June 2019, a Russian destroyer deliberately endangered a U.S. guided-missile cruiser, USS Chancellorsville, an incident that occurred on the heels of an unsafe air maneuver by a Russian fighter jet against a U.S. patrol aircraft.17 Chinese ships and aircraft have periodically conducted similar dangerous maneuvers to prevent lawful U.S. freedom of navigation and overflight in maritime Asia.18

As with North Korea prior to the signing of UNCLOS, China wants to ignore the right of military freedom of navigation and overflight, as suggested by Beijing’s increasingly assertive behavior toward U.S. and other naval vessels operating peacefully within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The EEZ was designed by UNCLOS negotiators to grant coastal states control over resources adjacent to their coasts; it was not designed to grant sovereignty, which extends only in the 12-nautical mile territorial sea.19 Yet China has repeatedly violated this broadly accepted interpretation of UNCLOS.

From the 2001 incident in which a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. EP-3 aircraft 80 miles south of Hainan Island to the more recent unlawful seizure of an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) 50 miles from Subic Bay in the South China Sea, to repeated harassment of Navy Military Sealift Command oceanographic and hydrographic survey vessels, China seeks to alter the rules through provocative actions.20 Admittedly, the issues involving certain types of Marine Scientific Research activities are more complicated (and UNCLOS interpretations have generally become more restrictive of some activities within a coastal nation’s EEZ). China wants it both ways: to preclude any military activities by claiming more limited rights of “peaceful navigation” not derived from UNCLOS within its EEZ, while conducting its own military maneuvers in the EEZs of other countries.21 In addition, while Beijing condemns every U.S. transit with warships, it lavishes praise on its proprietary and state-run mapping and measuring of the South China Sea and world oceans.22 

While states seeking to revise international rules at sea constitute a severe and growing threat to maritime order, there are other acute and chronic challenges.

A second source concerns non-traditional security threats from piracy, terrorism, and illegal trafficking by non-state actors, including transnational criminal syndicates.23  Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing alone “results in global losses in the tens of billions of dollars each year.”24 The cost and irreparable human and environmental damage of illicit trafficking in people, drugs, wildlife, and other commodities is enormous.

But there is an area where traditional and non-traditional threats such as transnational crime converge: lethal technology. Non-state actors are gaining access to more disruptive and deadly technologies. Acting either alone or as proxies of states, they are likely to pose increased risks to maritime shipping, navigation and overflight. The Houthi rebels who allegedly shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over Yemen and the plausible deniability about attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf in June 2019 suggest how non-state actors could significantly disrupt maritime order in years to come.25   

Thirdly, maritime order in the oceans is at severe risk from a growing global population’s use of the oceans, as we face problems such as massive overfishing. The oceans face multiple stressors, including increased human use of maritime resources as global population approaches an anticipated 9.8 billion people by 2050. As Greg Poling observes, in the South China Sea alone there is “a series of catastrophes piling on top of one another.”26 China’s island-building reclamation was enormously destructive to coral reefs, and a resurgence in giant clam digging is causing additional damage.27 This environmental damage comes on top of overfishing.

Finally, humanity is at greater risk from the seas themselves, including the impact of natural disasters on built-up coastal areas and the effects of climate change.

Littoral regions, where roughly 40 percent of the world’s population lives, are especially vulnerable to tsunamis and rising sea levels. But the entire world is dependent on the oceans in many ways: for instance, 25 percent of all species on the planet are thought to live in the biodiverse tropical coral reefs, even though these reefs comprise less than 1 percent of the Earth’s surface. Sadly, warming oceans resulting from periodic El Niño heat waves are leading to large-scale bleaching and destruction of many coral reefs. Climate change projections suggest most coral reefs may cease to exist by the middle of the century, although some will be able to adapt because of local conditions such as internal waves.28

Faced with all of these risks, we must do more to find ways of cooperating on our maritime commons, while not flinching from protecting both freedom of the seas and the survival of our shared marine environment.

Maritime Order in the Indo-Pacific

Maritime order is indispensable for preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific region. The United States is approaching these issues within the vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific, as most recently described in the June Indo-Pacific Strategy Report.29 Although released by the Department of Defense, the report adopts a comprehensive approach.

The report’s introduction underscores the Indo-Pacific region’s economic centrality for the world and the United States: “The Indo-Pacific contributes two-thirds of global growth in gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for 60% of global GDP.”30  Moreover, “nine of the world’s 10 busiest seaports are in the region, and 60 percent of global maritime trade transits through Asia, with roughly one-third of global shipping passing through the South China Sea alone.”31 Moreover, with five Pacific states and Pacific territories on both sides of the International Date Line, “America’s annual two-way trade with the region is $2.3 trillion, with U.S. foreign direct investment of $1.3 trillion in the region—more than China’s, Japan’s, and South Korea’s combined.”32 

Despite its significant economic holdings, the United States is worried by powers seeking to unilaterally revise agreed-upon rules and norms, especially in the maritime domain. The U.S. strategic vision sets forth principles congruent with ASEAN centrality and norms, including seeking the peaceful resolution of disputes, supporting a rules-based approach, and expanding cooperation. The goal of the United States is to help independent actors protect their interests while not allowing any one nation to dominate the Indo-Pacific.

At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, concern over the consequential U.S.-China relationship took center stage. Then Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said the United States cannot stand aside when smaller actors face pressure and coercion (and that includes the Cross-Strait issue, too), nor can the U.S. fail to respond when revisionist powers seek to unilaterally change a rules-based system. The Law of the Sea and marine policy are caught up in the larger global resurgence of major power rivalry in which the basic contest centers on rules and rule-making.

However, big powers can pursue what Joseph Nye has called “cooperative rivalry” at sea—a reason why Acting Secretary Shanahan used his one-on-one discussion with his Chinese counterpart, General Wei Fenghe, to advance ideas for cracking down on North Korea’s illicit trading and strengthening mechanisms for avoiding unintended catalytic war.33   

The United States can also benefit from fashioning a larger bipartisan majority around halting IUU fishing—something the Obama administration elevated and which the Trump administration has recently shown stronger support for in the Pacific Islands and in its work with ASEAN. The same goes for the global challenge of slowing climate change and building resilient coastlines and islands.

In thinking about a more integrated approach, the United States should take note of what Taiwan has created. In 2018, Taiwan established a single cabinet-level agency, the Ocean Affairs Council, headquartered in the southern city of Kaohsiung, to help coordinate all policies affecting the oceans, sea-based resources, and the maritime environment.34 To mark this concerted effort to step up its oceans policy, Taiwan hosted a small, international group of scholars to visit Dongsha Island, the northernmost part of the South China Sea which is only an 80-minute plane ride from Taiwan’s second-largest city, Kaohsiung. The inaugural Dongsha International Conference followed, and this author was one of two American participants. In his opening remarks, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Chung-Wei Lee noted that the United Nations has proclaimed the decade beginning in 2021 a “Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.”35 By hosting the 2019 Dongsha International Conference, Taiwan demonstrated that it, too, is a seapower in its own right, and it should be fully permitted to join in efforts to protect our global maritime commons.36

The United States should also prepare to harness and enhance existing contributions for maritime order—an appropriate priority for a major seapower state like the United States. As the Indo-Pacific Strategy Report makes clear, the United States is in the fourth year of an Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Initiative (MSI) designed to bolster the security of littoral states in Southeast and South Asia, especially near the South China Sea.37 The MSI represents only a portion of the activities the United States is undertaking to ensure that the oceans continue to support prosperity and peace. Existing investments in building a common operating picture, as well as plans to create interoperability and strengthen maritime capacity of regional partners, might be augmented with new public-private partnerships designed to foster the marine science and culture of the oceans which will be required to withstand the myriad challenges to maritime order now and in the future. These extant and new investments in time and money can ensure that future generations enjoy freedom of the seas and a sustainable ocean environment.

The bottom line is that security and maritime order are intertwined, rather than in opposition to one another.

Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is Senior Fellow and Chair for Asia-Pacific Security at Hudson Institute and is available at [email protected].

References

[1] Andrew Lambert, Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2018).

[2] Ibid., p. 323.

[3] “Factsheet: People and Oceans,” The United Nations Oceans Conference, June 5-9, 2017, https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ocean-fact-sheet-package.pdf.

[4] “Remarks by President Trump on His Trip to Asia,” Whitehouse.gov, November 15, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-trip-asia/.

[5] James Kraska and Raul Pedrozo, The Free Sea: The American Fight for Freedom of Navigation (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018).

[6] Ibid., p. 5.

[7] Few revisionists surpass the successful polemics of Noam Chomsky, who sees the United States as the root of all the world’s ills. For instance, see Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World? (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2016); and for an informed critique of this book, see Adam Lebor, “US vs Them: A One-Sided Attempt to Blame the United States for Everything,” Times Literary Supplement, July 20, 2016, https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/private/us-vs-them/.

[8] “’Common Heritage of Mankind’—Interview: Tommy Koh,” Newsweek, September 25, 1978, p. 64, quoted in Vivek Viswanathan, “Crafting the Law of the Sea: Elliot Richardson and the Search for Order on the Oceans (1977-1980),” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard College 2009), p. 30, https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/mrcbg/files/Viswanathan_2009.pdf.

[9] Ibid., p. 4.

[10] Ibid., p. 6.

[11] This definition is used in the U.S. National Security Presidential Directive-41 (NSPD-41)/Homeland Security Presidential Directive-13 (HSPD-13) (Maritime Security Policy, December 21, 2004), quoted in National Plan to Achieve Maritime Domain Awareness for the National Security for Maritime Security (Washington, DC: Department of Homeland Security, October 2005), p. i., https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/HSPD_MDAPlan_0.pdf.

[12] “Factsheet: Climate Change,” The United Nations Oceans Conference, June 5-9, 2017, https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ocean-fact-sheet-package.pdf.

[13] Some saw the precedent as so dangerous that they advocated proportionate military strikes; see Michael G. Vickers, “To Avoid a Wider War, Iran Must be Deterred with Limited U.S, Military Strikes,” Washington Post, June 21, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/21/avoid-wider-war-iran-must-be-deterred-with-limited-us-military-strikes/?utm_term=.4ab54725dc3e.

[14] For instance, see James R. Holmes, “When China Rules the Sea,” Foreign Policy, September 23, 2015, https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/23/when-china-rules-the-sea-navy-xi-jinping-visit/; more authoritatively and recently, see Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019 (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, May 2019), p. 7-8, passim.

[15] See “In the Matter of the South China Sea Arbitration before An Arbitral Tribunal Constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China,” July 12, 2016, https://pca-cpa.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/07/PH-CN-20160712-Award.pdf.

[16] “Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 (COLREGS),” International Maritime Organization, October 20, 1972, http://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/ListOfConventions/Pages/COLREG.aspx.

[17] See Mark D. Faram, “Both Russia and the United States Point the Fingers After Warships Almost Collide,” Navy Times, June 7, 2019, https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/06/07/both-russia-and-us-point-fingers-after-warships-almost-collide/.

[18] For instance, see Brad Lendon, “Photos Show How Close Chinese Warship Came to Colliding with US Destroyer,” CNN, October 4, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/02/politics/us-china-destroyers-confrontation-south-china-sea-intl/index.html.

[19] James Kraska and Raul Pedrozo, The Free Sea: The American Fight for Freedom of Navigation, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018), p. 248-249.

[20] Ibid., p. 248-260.

[21] Ibid., p. 261.

[22] China’s propaganda is pervasive on this issue. For instance, see “Chinese Research Vessel Departs for Seamounts in Mariana Trench,” Global Times, May 15, 2019, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1150514.shtml; and more generally, “Vision for Maritime Cooperation Under the Belt and Road Initiative,” Xinhua, June 20, 2017, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-06/20/c_136380414.htm. Meanwhile, China’s surveys of the oceans have specific military implications; see Steven Stashwick, “New Chinese Ocean Network Collecting Data to Target Submarines, The Diplomat, January 2, 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/new-chinese-ocean-network-collecting-data-to-target-submarines/; and Andrew Greene, “China Increases Surveillance Near PNG Expanding as Australia and US Begin Manus Island Naval Upgrades,” ABC, April 20, 2019,  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-21/china-increases-surveillance-near-png/11028192.

[23] For instance, see Joshua Tallis, The War for Muddy Waters: Pirates, Terrorists, Traffickers and Maritime Insecurity (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2019).

[24] “Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing,” U.S. Department of State, Office of Marine Conservation, https://www.state.gov/key-topics-office-of-marine-conservation/illegal-unreported-and-unregulated-fishing/.

[25] David S. Cloud and Laura King, “Pentagon Accuses Iran of Shooting Missiles at U.S. Drones,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-iran-drone-attack-20190616-story.html.

[26]  “South China Sea Threatened by ‘a Series of Catastrophes’,”PBS Newshour, May 18, 2019, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/south-china-sea-threatened-by-a-series-of-catastrophes.

[27] See Viola Zhou, “China Puts a Stop to Commercial Land Reclamation After Damning Environment Reports: But Key Defence and Infrastructure Projects Likely to Get Green Light,” South China Morning Post, January 2, 2018, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2126567/china-puts-stop-commercial-land-reclamation-after; and John W. McManus, “Massively Destructive Coral Reef Damage from Giant Clam Shell Digging in the South China Sea: Birth, Death and Rebirth,” Webinar published on OpenChannels.org, June 13, 2019, https://www.openchannels.org/webinars/2019/massively-destructive-coral-reef-damage-giant-clam-shell-digging-south-china-sea-birth.

[28] Dr. Anne Cohen, Associate Scientist with Tenure, at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has brought attention to “Super Reefs” that appear poised to be better able to withstand temperature changes than most coral reefs. For an overview of her recent research, see “Super Reefs” on the Woods Hole website: https://superreefs.whoi.edu/quest-for-super-reefs/.

[29] The Department of Defense Indo-Pacific Strategy Report: Preparedness, Partnerships, and Promoting a Networked Region (Washington, D.C.: DoD, June 1, 2019), https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/31/2002139210/-1/-1/1/DOD_INDO_PACIFIC_STRATEGY_REPORT_JUNE_2019.PDF.

[30] Ibid., p. 2.

[31] Ibid., p. 1.

[32] Ibid., p. 2.

[33] Speaking to the press after meeting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned of a possible “accidental conflict” breaking out from rising tensions, mutual suspicions, miscalculation, and the possible role of third parties, including non-state actors. See Amir Vahdat, Aya Batrawy and Jon Gambrell, “Japan Premier Warns US, Iran ‘Accidental Conflict’ Possible,” The Washington Post, June 12, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/iran-newspaper-to-japan-how-can-you-trust-a-war-criminal/2019/06/12/d538abc8-8cdd-11e9-b6f4-033356502dce_story.html?utm_term=.aa9d9e1e401d.

[34] See Duncan DeAeth, “Taiwan’s New ‘Ocean Affairs Council’ to be Headquartered in Kaohsiung,” Taiwan News, April 26, 2018, https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3415182.

[35] “United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030),” United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 2018, https://en.unesco.org/ocean-decade.

[36] See Lin Chia-nan, “Dongsha Meeting Urges Conservation, Cooperation,” Taipei Times, June 15, 2019, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2019/06/15/2003716964.

[37] The Department of Defense Indo-Pacific Strategy Report: Preparedness, Partnerships, and Promoting a Networked Security, p. 49.

Featured Image: SANTA RITA, Guam (May 24, 2019) The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG-54) departs Guam for exercise Pacific Vanguard (PACVAN). PACVAN is the first of its kind quadrilateral exercise between Australia, Japan, Republic of Korea, and U.S. naval forces. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. j.g. Emily Bull)

Strategy

The Case for Maritime Security in an Era of Great Power Competition

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By Joshua Tallis

“Maritime security.” The phrase, and the nebulous set of missions that loosely fall underneath it, came into expanded use in the decades after September 11, including in U.S. strategic documents. Even during the height of interest in maritime security, however—say, around 2007 and the publication of A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower—it was not clear how those missions could or should be prioritized with respect to other strategic challenges. As the Department of Defense, and the Navy with it, reorients to great power competition, it will only become easier for those questions to slide into the background. And yet, as we will see below, historical trends and emerging patterns will conspire to keep the littorals at the forefront of policymaker’s minds. Alongside the renewed focus on traditional adversaries, therefore, operations in green and brown waters driven by unconventional threats will likely play an enduring role in U.S. foreign policy.

In his book Out of the Mountains, counterinsurgency strategist David Kilcullen sets out a compelling argument for taking the littorals seriously. Kilcullen’s argument is focused on events ashore, but his articulation of the global drivers shaping the littorals can be made equally valuable for the seaward end of the domain. The premise underlying these drivers is based on one simple principle: conflict happens where people are.1 So, where are the people?

In response, Kilcullen identifies four “megatrends” of demography and economic geography that suggest where we will find most of the world’s population in the coming decades. “Rapid population growth, accelerating urbanization, littoralization (the tendency for things to cluster on the coastlines), and increasing connectedness” all suggest that populations are concentrating in networked, urban, dense, littoral communities.2 UN estimates project that by 2050 at least two-thirds of the global population (which is projected to reach 9.8 billion) will likely live in cities, a great many of whom will end up in slums (where about a billion people already call home). Moreover, much of this urban expansion—most of which will be coastal—will take place across the global South, often where governments are least prepared to receive it. The populations of the Caribbean and Latin America could grow by more than 130 million people; Africa may see its population expand by more than a billion; and Asia will see a growth of at least 800 million according to mean estimates from the United Nations.

To give an indication of scale, consider the following. In one generation, the world’s poorest cities will absorb most of a population increase equal to all the population growth ever recorded in human history through the year 1960.3 That is sure to produce astounding institutional strains, ones that will inevitably stress already fragile municipal governments. And we need not wait for 2050 to see these statistics in action. Today, half of the world’s population lives within about thirty miles of a coast, and three-quarters of large cities are on the water. To those and other cities, nearly 1.5 million people migrate to every week, which explains why urban areas are soon expected to absorb almost all new population growth.4

But how is demography dangerous? The answer comes from how urban communities respond to the pressures of these trends. Research suggests that when a city doubles in size, it produces, on average, “fifteen percent higher wages, fifteen percent more fancy restaurants, but also fifteen percent more [HIV/AIDS] cases, and fifteen percent more violent crime. Everything scales up by fifteen percent when you double the size.”5 In cities already straining their respective systems, cities like Lagos or Mumbai or San Pedro Sula, the consequences of a 15 percent spike in crime or HIV/AIDS rates act on preexisting stressors like poverty, climate change, and political violence, which can precipitate disorder. In the most extreme cases, the impact of these magnified stressors might even cause a metropolis to turn “feral.” In the Naval War College Review, Richard Norton defines a feral city as “a metropolis with a population of more than a million people in a state the government of which has lost the ability to maintain the rule of law within the city’s boundaries yet remains a functioning actor in the greater international system.”6 John Sullivan and Adam Elkus describe the feral city as a place without any meaningful presence of legitimate authority, where “the architecture consists entirely of slums, and power is a complex process negotiated through violence by differing factions.”7 Norton noted at the time that only Mogadishu truly exemplified his criteria of a feral city. Yet, several cities then contained feral pockets characteristic of Norton’s theory. In such pockets, segments of an urban sprawl may exist outside the reach of the government. A Proceedings article by Matthew Frick as well as a New York Times piece both cite São Paulo, Mexico City, and Johannesburg (the Times also adds Karachi) as examples of modern cities with components that could be described as feral.8 Frick even explicitly links these feral cities to maritime security by arguing that they are echoes of the pirate havens of the 18th century, when raiders similarly leverage ungoverned spaces as bases of operation. In feral cities or pockets, the legitimate governing fabric of the urban area erodes as the stress of an oversized population pushes it past the ability to cope with the pressures of crime, poverty, and health. Such violence perpetuates the cycle of urban exclusion that created it, precipitating yet more political, social, economic, and infrastructure neglect.9

The collapse or erosion of local governance creates a power and services vacuum. That power vacuum creates disorder from which people naturally crave a reprieve. In turn, the local actor that can produce a sense of order and stability is frequently adopted as a surrogate government. Inevitably, these surrogates are not peaceful neighborhood watch groups. Kilcullen’s concept of “competitive control” posits that the surrogates most likely to survive in these environments are those that can act across a spectrum of power ranging from soft to coercive.10 Without soft power, the allure of an institutionalized set of normative community rules, the population is denied the sense of order it demands. Under such a rules-based system, a neighborhood is likely to tolerate a measure of violence because it can be predicted and avoided. Without violence, a competitor will find it easy to supplant the surrogate. What we are left with is a void filled by organized gangs, terrorists, militias, or criminal networks that manipulate a feral city’s disorder to establish fortifications within neighborhoods that often come to depend on them. In Kingston, Jamaica, garrison neighborhoods offer one such example where these districts are made loyal to gang leaders because of their dominant role in the local informal justice system and economy.11 We are left facing an amorphous hybrid threat, what John Sullivan calls “criminal insurgents,” or the melding of criminal syndicates with the direct political control of territory.12 When such groups offer residents enough of a sense of fair and predictable order, many are willing to tolerate their presence.

So far, however, violent nonstate groups and feral cities would appear a danger largely within their own neighborhoods, far from concerning the United States, and certainly not U.S. maritime services. What brings these groups and populations into the international maritime orbit is Kilcullen’s final megatrend—connectedness. Crowded, poor, coastal zones may turn feral, but feral regions do not implode. Instead, they remain connected with the world around them through the Internet, ports, airports, diaspora communities, and other connective tissues. Thus, with all the implications of such connectedness, even a feral region remains a dynamic, strategic, and significant actor in the international arena. This connectedness allows the feral elements of a community to interact with licit and illicit trade and information flows, offering local actors the capacity to directly impact events across the country and, potentially, the globe.13 The same pathways that facilitate normal trade and migration likewise enable illicit transfers such as the smuggling of narcotics, people, and weapons; human trafficking; terrorism; and piracy. This connectedness is what gives rise to the potential for actions a world away, events like protests or acts of political violence, to have a rapid and meaningful consequence across domains, from cyberspace to the sea. September 11 was a dramatic example of the extreme consequences of this networked, globalized connectivity of local violence to the international system. What we have increasingly seen in the intervening two decades, thanks in part to the explosive growth in technologies that connect all of us, is that this ladder between local and international is only strengthening. As a result, in the sphere of nonstate threats, “the distinction between war and crime, between domestic and international affairs” almost disappears.14

As the line blurs between war and crime, the capacity for the return to great power competition to focus minds on a singular, important challenge may simultaneously make it more attractive for strategists to circumvent planning for these opaque, nontraditional challenges. History, however, suggests that would be a mistake. What is remarkable about the pattern of unconventional conflict is its irreverence for the preferences of policymakers.15 Lyndon Johnson was eventually subsumed by a troop escalation in Vietnam despite his clear domestic policy agenda. Bill Clinton, after reluctance to act in the Balkans and Rwanda, ultimately sent troops to Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Haiti, and Liberia. While candidate George W. Bush dismissed interest in stability operations, President Bush launched two prolonged, large-scale counterinsurgency campaigns and led NATO into its largest stabilization mission ever.16 As President Obama initiated his pivot to Asia, he was still negotiating the drawdown of two land wars while conflicts simmered (and flared), inter alia, in Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Mali, Nigeria, and the Congo. Now President Trump, despite obvious isolationist impulses, has struggled to extricate U.S. forces from Afghanistan and Syria in practice. “American policy makers clearly don’t like irregular operations, and the U.S. military isn’t much interested in them, either,” but as the demographic and economic geographic trends discussed above suggest, they will likely continue to present policymakers with difficult choices.17

Any attempt to predict the exact nature of a future threat or conflict is a fool’s errand. To borrow a metaphor from Kilcullen, much like how climate modeling cannot say whether it will rain or snow next week, the projections above say little about the near-term conflict forecast. Yet, just as with climate models, such forecasts “do suggest a range of conditions—a set of system parameters, or a ‘conflict climate’—within which [future] wars will arise.”18

These projections illustrate trends. And while those trends do not say much about what happens tomorrow or the day after, they speak volumes about the forces steadily reshaping our world. These forecasts are unequivocally telling us that dense, networked, and littoral communities are an emerging global force. How maritime forces meet (or fail to meet) the challenges associated with that rise will be dictated by their attentiveness to the unique constraints of securing muddy waters.

Joshua Tallis is the author of The War for Muddy Waters: Pirates, Terrorists, Traffickers, and Maritime Insecurity, from which the above passage is adapted. He is a research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses and holds a PhD in international relations from the University of St Andrews.

References

[1] David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla (London: Hurst, 2013), 239.

[2] Ibid., 25.

[3] Ibid., 29.

[4] Ibid., 29.

[5] Ibid., 247.

[6] Richard Norton, “Feral Cities,” Naval War College Review 56, no. 4 (2003): 98.

[7] John Sullivan and Adam Elkus, “Postcard from Mumbai: Modern Urban Siege,” Small Wars Journal, February 16, 2009, 8.

[9] Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains, 40.

[10] Ibid., 114.

[11] Ibid., 89, 93.

[12] Sullivan and Elkus, “Postcard from Mumbai.”

[13] Kilcullen, 45.

[14] Ibid., 99.

[15] Ibid., 24.

[16] Ibid., 24.

[17] Ibid., 24.

[18] Ibid., 27.

Featured Image: A Republic of Singapore Navy Littoral Mission Vessel (background, far left), and the Police Coast Guard’s patrol interdiction boat (at right) intercepting a mock terrorists’ speedboat in Singapore waters off Changi Coast Road during a demonstration for Exercise Highcrest. (PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO)