You may have heard the President of the Naval War College established an Institute for Future Warfare Studies (IFWS).
Recently, IFWS was brought under the Strategic and Operational Research Division (SORD) of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies (CNWS) – the Naval War College’s research arm.
As per the charter:
The Institute for Future Warfare Studies (IFWS) was established in 2017 to serve as a focal point for research and analysis on future warfare trends and challenges, the future operating environment, warfare innovation, and future strategy and force structures.
However, we are very cognizant that there are at least 30 other organizations in the Department of Defense such as Federally-Funded Research and Development Centers and associated think tanks that research “futures.”
In organizing the Institute, the obvious questions were: What makes IFWS different? How can IFWS add value? How can it gain credibility and have an impact?
To be different, add value, and have an impact, we have adopted a research agenda that is stated thus:
The current IFWS research program focuses on the options, assumptions, costs and risks of near-term decisions that will affect the Navy and the Nation in the years to 2050 and beyond.
Our primary products will include a series of specific-issue working papers. The working papers are designed to analyze an existing or potential issue impacting the Navy/DoD into the future that is NOT being examined by the Navy staff, Joint Staff, or other DoD organizations. We are trying to avoid duplicating other efforts.
You will notice that it has a very particular format – although written in full sentences and paragraphs, it is bulletized so it can be quickly absorbed by section. There is a narrative, but it is added as an appendix and our intent is to also publish the narratives separately. (In the case of the first, the narrative happened to be published before the working paper.) You will also notice there is no advocacy – it is a balanced analysis: statement of problem, proposal, arguments for, arguments against, costs, risks, and alternatives. Again, designed to have an impact on staffs and decisions-makers by making them consider (in a non-threatening way) issues they are not analyzing.
The reason I am detailing this is because I would like to invite all CIMSEC readers to comment on this working paper… and perhaps even participate as an outside member of IFWS and produce a working paper for this series.
We intend to keep future working papers in the same (or very similar) format and standards will remain very high. But if you have an interest in participating, have a suggestion for an issue we should address, or simply have a comment on the first working paper, please feel free to contact us at IFWS_DIRECTOR@usnwc.edu.
Thank you for your interest in international maritime security.
Dr. Sam J. Tangredi is Professor of National, Naval and Maritime Strategy and Director of the Institute for Future Warfare Studies at the U.S. Naval War College.
Featured Image: SOUTH CHINA SEA (Jul. 14, 2010) – U.S. Coast Guard Seaman Michael Luna stands lookout watch as two Republic of Singapore amphibious dock landing ships pass by U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mellon (WHEC 717) during an exercise as part of Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Singapore 2010. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class David A. Brandenburg)
Recently, CIMSEC interviewed three leaders at the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School (MAWS) at the Naval War College in Newport, RI – Captain Brian Koehr, USN, the Director of MAWS, Colonel Rob Gardner, USMC (Ret.), the Deputy Director, and Commander Mike Croskrey, USN (Ret.). Our conversation covered the basics about MAWS, how MAWS students are impacting Fleet planning, and how future capabilities will affect operational planning.
An edited transcript of the conversation follows.
O’Keefe: Tell us a bit about yourselves and how you ended up at MAWS.
Captain Brian Koehr, USN: I’m a career carrier fighter pilot. My connection with MAWS started when it was called the Naval Operational Planner Course (NOPC). I was in the second graduating class of 2001. After I was finished flying, I had a series of staff jobs at PACOM, NORAD/NORTHCOM, and then on 6th Fleet staff before I reported here two years ago to lead MAWS.
Professor Rob Gardner, Col, USMC (Ret.): I was a career Marine officer, and retired as a Colonel just shy of 28 years in order to take this job. I’ve been with this program for almost 5 years. My background was artillery, although my career path was described by one of my students as something akin to the life led by Forrest Gump in terms of the things that I stood witness to over the course of my career. My initial planning background is that I actually went to the Marine Corps version of MAWS – the School of Advanced Warfighting – so I look at MAWS through a little bit different lens because I’ve seen one of its sister schools up close and personal.
Professor Mike Croskrey, CDR, USN (Ret.): I am a retired Navy Commander, where I served as a Naval Flight Officer in S-3 Vikings. My connection to MAWS started when the program was still called the Naval Operational Planner Course. I was detailed into the Naval War College as an instructor while I was still on active duty, and I had come straight from 7th Fleet having just completed a tour as the future operations officer. I had done a year-plus of crisis action planning, and that experience enabled me to start teaching here at the NOPC, which became the MAWS. I’ve been doing this since 2005.
O’Keefe: What are the main things everyone should know about the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School?
The primary difference between MAWS and the other peer schools is that the others do the intermediate-level war college for a year and get their master’s degree, and then they attend for an additional year in their respective schools, whereas our students leverage the War College curriculum for the intermediate-level course concurrent with the MAWS course load. Our graduates earn a master’s degree through NWC, and Navy graduates also receive JP-1 designation. It’s a unique opportunity for us to leverage all the NWC faculty and expertise to teach these core educational items to our students while we also teach a very robust planning/operational art and campaigning side to them throughout the year. Beyond the extra length of the course, MAWS students put in a higher level of work. What for a normal student would be considered an elective, our students participate in MAWS, at twice the frequency per week. In the spring, we have them entirely to ourselves for a tailored Joint Military Operations core course as well as for an elective, so we have them as one closed group for the whole spring.
Another unique thing about MAWS is what we do at the end of the program. We call it a capstone summer planning project, and it is a Fleet- or Combatant Command-sponsored project that serves as a final synthesis event for our students. This is really the icing on the cake of their education here. Since we’ve gone up to 3 seminars – a capacity for 45 students – we execute 2 summer projects. These are requested early on by higher level headquarters throughout the world. If they have a planning problem they want to put our students on, we talk to them about how to best meet our educational needs but also give back to the Fleet or other sponsor with very dedicated expertise from our students to tackle some tough problems.
We’ve seen dramatic success out of those projects. At the end of the summer, we travel to brief the commanders of these respective units. This past year, we briefed Admiral Swift at Pacific Fleet (PACFLT), and he thought highly enough of the brief that he was trying to get us on the CNO’s calendar to brief him as well.
The second group went out to 6th Fleet and briefed Vice Admiral Grady. Both of those briefs got rave reviews from 3- and 4-star admirals and their respective staffs. This past summer we also did a third project embedded with the PACFLT one, more of a concept development piece.
So, these summer projects are where our students really come together as a group and the education really forms in their heads. I think what it really gives them is the confidence to go forward and contribute in the Fleet. They’re like a move-in ready house at that point. They can be plugged in right away, and they often are plugged in as Operational Planning Team (OPT) leads for the biggest plans that that staff has cooking at the time. To date, they’ve been performing superbly in all those roles.
O’Keefe: That sounds like a terrific way to keep yourselves at MAWS connected with Fleet needs. How else do you get feedback from the Fleet, and how do you act on it? Specifically, what are people looking for in a planner, and what makes someone a great planner?
Gardner: You’re right in that the summer projects keep us well-connected with the Fleet and with the joint headquarters that we support. A lot of the lessons or experience that we as a faculty gain from working with them, we incorporate back into our curriculum to keep it current.
In terms of what makes a good planner, there’s a belief in some fairly-senior circles that if you adhere to the planning process, good plans will result. I think that’s a false belief in that the process doesn’t guarantee anything, other than that you went through the process. What makes good plans is people who can think. From my perspective, the thing that we instill in our students over the 13 months that we have them is a deep belief and understanding of critical thinking and creative thinking in solving operational, tactical, and strategic problems. So, when our students leave, they are familiar with the planning process, but more importantly, they are familiar with critical and creative thinking. The bottom line is that our program is designed to expose students to the planning process, but more importantly, we give them a critical and creative thinking skill set that will ensure they have a good plan when they’re done.
Croskrey: Just one thing to add, our graduates often stay in touch with us when they leave. They’re out in the Fleet and in the planning community, and we’re able to keep connected with them on some of the projects that they’re working on. Often, they’ll ask questions, or share a bit about what they’re doing. That helps our program keep informed as well. And often, those connections enable us to shape a capstone project, because we can see what projects are within the visibility of the commander by what kind of projects our graduates are working on at the time.
Koehr: What Rob was saying about thinking being important was absolutely right. One thing we say around here is a good plan will come from the process, but a great plan comes from thinking. I think the proof in the pudding there is when our students in small briefing teams go forward to brief these commanders. The 4-star would be enough to put them on edge, but the room is full of 1- and 2-stars too. When the questions are flying to our students, and they’re just backhanding them back to the admirals, it’s eye-watering to see because they’ve already considered and thought through the questions that the flag officers have. It’s a proud moment when we see them perform during these briefings.
On feedback, Professor Croskrey hit it on the head – student feedback is where we get the most conversation. They are also helpful in shaping future capstone projects because they are active on the staffs. There is usually a rush from these commands to get us on their dance cards to do these summer projects, because you don’t often get 15-20 expert-level planners dedicated for 10 weeks, not being pulled away for collateral duties, just focused to sit down and work on their problems. The biggest feedback we get from the leadership out there is “make more MAWS graduates.” They want more, and there is a competition among the headquarters to get our graduates because they see what they can do. It’s unlike any other program you might see at the Naval War College here. Our graduates are truly unique and gifted in what they do.
O’Keefe: Often we’ll hear at the tactical, ship-level that the Fleet is very short-term focused, that we don’t think through long-term planning challenges. Is there something in the MAWS graduate that helps them promote a better, longer-term planning process? Do we structure our teams better when we know we have teams that can manage longer-term planning? It’s often very hard at a tactical level to get out and look past three months. Do you think your graduates have a better ability to think longer-term and more strategically?
Gardner: As the lone Marine in the room, I’ll take this on – I think everyone else might feel some loyalty to their service. When you look at the Navy, by-and-large the Navy is ship-focused. Up through commander, most folks are at the ship-level. Their perspective is often tactical in nature. One of the things we see with our students here is that we take them out of that comfort zone and don’t just expose them to other ships and fleets and things like that, but we take them up to the strategic level where they’re looking at the interplay of nations. What we see is that the students over time, and I think some of them would describe it as an unnatural act, trying to do that mind expansion, but they recognize over time as the course continues that when you’re at that higher level, things take longer. Whether it’s a military plan or political negotiations, you see the students start to gain an appreciation for a longer-term view.
The tactical stuff happens fairly fast, and in a naval battle it’s a matter of seconds in some cases. But when you start to look at how nations interact with one another, that may be on the order of years or even decades. We see it over the course of 13 months. The students’ perspectives grow with that expanding view of time that comes with that higher-level exposure. In terms of changing things out in the Fleet, that’s a cultural thing. I think the only way that’s going to happen is if we continue to grow the population of folks with that perspective. Or, the Navy could send more students through educational courses, like the courses here at the Naval War College.
Croskrey: Two elements come to mind. First, the MAWS graduate, if we look at a couple of capstone projects that we’ve done, they’ve developed a three-year or longer campaign. That planning horizon extends well outside of what you’re referring to – that 1-3 month mark that oftentimes the Fleet staff is looking at. So, I think that MAWS education enables those officers to be able to ask those kinds of questions. It’s a strategic look, an interaction among nations, a “how do we terminate this fight” kind of question, and that begs questions about military end states versus political end states. MAWS educates the students toward that end.
The other piece to that question that’s really insightful is where in the Navy are we addressing long-term planning challenges? How does a MAWS graduate impact that ability to go out there at a Fleet level and do that? I’m not sure he or she can at the Fleet level. But there’s more of a systemic nature to that question – the theory/doctrine/practice piece. Your question looks at extending thought about the future of the Fleet, and where the Fleet needs to go in its thinking about fleet tactics or longer-range planning. There is a cultural and even systemic nature to that question that probably needs to be addressed above the Fleet level, in my opinion.
O’Keefe: We’re talking at some level about how nation-states interact in certain ways. We hear a lot at the War College about our partners and allies, the CNO has his purple line of effort in the Design, so how do you think about our allies and how they plan? Do their planning styles affect our ability to execute coalition operations? Do you think about that at all in the course of planning your instruction?
Croskrey: Yes, we do. It’s almost pervasive throughout our syllabus. We do a lot of historical case studies, and almost every one of them is a combined effort, an international effort. In our planning syllabus, almost all of the exercises are combined. So, that’s a heavy emphasis from a curriculum standpoint.
Gardner: The one thing we don’t have is international students in our program, though they are at the War College. MAWS students are embedded with international students in their seminars (in some of the regular War College courses that they take) but we don’t actually have them in our program. That’s mainly because of the summer projects, which can go up to the Top Secret level. We also have some constraints in terms of being able to have coalition partners in our spaces. We’ve looked hard at it several years in a row, but regulatory restrictions have held it back at this point. But to make up for that, I can’t think of any portion of our curriculum that doesn’t have a coalition flavor to it, and our summer projects certainly have a coalition aspect that the students have to think through. I’m pretty confident that we have it embedded into the curriculum. The only exposure that they don’t get (and it’s not because we don’t want it, we just haven’t figured out how to do it) is having a coalition partner planning side-by-side with them.
O’Keefe: We talked about the fact that most of our planning and operations focus is at the ship level. In general, the carrier strike group (CSG) is the fundamental unit of issue for naval forces. So how has the drive towards distributed operations affected what you’re doing at MAWS, if at all?
Gardner: We are not carrier strike group-centric in our approach. While the Navy may be like that, because we’re trying to elevate the students’ perspective, the CSG is just another unit out in the battlespace for the students to plan for. Normally, we’re planning at the Fleet level. Oftentimes, they’re worried about how to plan for multiple strike groups, and how to integrate the operations of those strike groups in a naval fight. So, I think from our perspective, we walk through that in terms of what the CSG capabilities are early in the course, but that’s not the focus of what we’re doing. It’s higher than that.
O’Keefe: We have tons of new technologies out there – autonomous systems, people thinking about electromagnetic maneuver warfare, the cyber domain. So how if at all are you teaching your students to think about those as tools in their toolkit, and do those change your planning processes and the ways you might get to an answer for a military problem?
Koehr: While we don’t have a dedicated class, per se, on the electromagnetic spectrum, etc., we have the advantage here of leveraging the core curriculum at the War College, where there is a little bit more depth to learning about some of these newer technologies. We do get subject matter experts in to talk to our students. In particular, for the summer project we always have a lot of people from the Office of Naval Intelligence, the CIA, and DIA come in and tell us what’s in the realm of the possible as a planning consideration. They talk about what kinds of effects we might see out of these things and what advantages we can take from them. Also, what are the disadvantages and the drawbacks? A lot of the new technologies are viewed as panaceas and they’re just not quite that. So, getting to the ground truth of what the new technology means in the process of putting together a plan is very important. We get outside experts who are studying this all the time to come and speak with the students to bring them up to a baseline from which they can start their efforts.
The MAWS faculty and class of 2017 at Correnti Island, Sicily, Italy during the OPERATION HUSKY staff ride. Staff rides are an integral component of the MAWS curriculum as they help students tangibly relate theory, doctrine, practice, and terrain together in a manner that cannot be accomplished in a classroom.
Croskrey: I would add that to help the students understand the constant dynamic of technological development in naval warfare, we help them to understand the changing character of war aspect that will need to be addressed, but that the nature of war is going to remain relatively stable. I think that helps them. Let’s say you start to look at UAVs being implemented into the fight. It helps to not look at the technology and rely on it as a way to win, which can get you into trouble very quickly. It is more of a “how can I leverage the technology,” this character of war, in order to win this fight. Like CAPT Koehr said, we bring in the experts to help inform us on what’s in the realm of the possible. But we, I think, have a level-headed approach to that technological input to our planning.
Gardner: I think the way I would put it is whether it’s unmanned systems, cyber, whatever, those are capabilities. Those capabilities change, in some cases very rapidly. But that’s not a new phenomenon in war. For example, from bows and arrows, to muskets, to rifled guns, to machine guns… that progression is seen across all aspects of warfare. Like Mike was saying, we emphasize that changing character of war so that the students are ready for what we don’t even know is coming. They must incorporate those new capabilities that no one’s even mentioned yet when they show up. The idea is that it’s not a war-winner, necessarily, but it’s an enabler for better operations. So, their ability to think through the question of, “these are the capabilities, how do I best employ them to greatest effect?” – that’s where we put a lot of our focus.
O’Keefe: Continuing in this vein of new capabilities, are there any relationships or feedback loops between the results of your courses and planning exercises and the work of the Navy’s Warfighting Development Centers as they look to develop new tactics, techniques and procedures, and doctrine? Is that a place where you tie in, or is it strictly into the Fleet level where you’re doing the summer programs?
Gardner: The development of the WDCs by the Navy was a long time coming. The War College is a supporting activity to all the WDCs, so the College as a whole is well-connected to the various activities. The way the College has approached that is to ensure that the WDCs know that we’re here and available to support, and we provide the expertise that they need, whatever that might be. We also try to monitor, as a College, what’s going on out there so that we can anticipate what the requirements might be in the future. The school’s done a pretty good job at establishing the connections as a whole. From a MAWS-specific standpoint, we’re monitoring those conversations but we’re not actively out there beating down doors at the WDCs. We’re siphoning off the activities of the rest of the College.
O’Keefe: If someone was interested in becoming an Operational Planner, how do they get into your program? Who are you looking for and where do you find them?
Koehr: Mostly through the Bureau of Naval Personnel (BUPERS), as you would expect. Our goal is to make sure that young officers are aware of the program. Typically, it’s the direct customers at the flag-level who are responsible for these plans, who know all about MAWS. They know what they’re getting in a MAWS graduate. The opportunities need to be spelled out better for the junior officers. We want a career-viable officer. We provide an education, they work for that education, and they gain experience through that education. When they go to the Fleet, we want this expertise to have accessibility to the commander. That accessibility usually comes with increased rank. Typically, our graduates become the go-to guy for the commander. In a perfect world, they’ve got the commander’s full trust and confidence. We’ve seen this play out, where the MAWS graduates are called into the big office and queried about any kind of topic, and end up working on thought pieces for the commander on the side, but they certainly are getting the visibility.
We do want to get bang for the buck for the Navy. That means that officers who graduate from our program should go out and serve in planning billets. To dispel one myth, some students come in and think that they’re being pigeon-holed as a planner, that they’re not going to get to drive their submarines anymore or fly their jets. That’s just patently false. The one thing that always takes primacy for our students is career progression. So, milestone tours will not be deferred to go serve in a planner billet. If they are leaving here to go serve in an XO/ CO billet, they’re going to go do that. Where those staff jobs happen, they go serve in a planning capacity, whether in a J3/J5/N3/N5 directorate, bringing all those skills to the table.
Another good thing for the students there is that face time with the admiral is very important for a viable career. Break-out opportunities on a big staff are heightened for a MAWS graduate because they are going to be out there in front-leading planning teams, coming up with the great plans, becoming the go-to guy for the commander. It’s a career-enhancer in my view. I did NOPC and had command of my fighter squadron down the road. No impact, and if anything it’s a tie-breaker and another arrow in your quiver of accomplishments in the Navy. It shows another specialty that you possess.
Gardner: To more specifically answer your question, if an officer’s interested in becoming a planner, the first thing he or she needs to do is talk to their detailer. Our Navy students are detailed to us by BUPERS, so that slate of students is built there with the understanding that all the students are coming to the War College for the intermediate-level course. So, they have to do the resident education here at that level in order to get to MAWS.
Croskrey: If an officer would like to be an operational planner, then MAWS is a great place for them to come. Our curriculum is actually tailored and set up for officers who want to, and who are progressing toward future warfighting leadership roles. If they want to learn their profession of warfare, the study of war, one of the best places to do that is MAWS. Those officers will also become expert planners. The plans that they produce help commanders make decisions. In effect, MAWS graduates gain experience in their own ability to make better decisions about the warfight through the planning that they learn how to do, and the advising that they do, for the commander. So, we’re really highly tailored toward that kind of officer. MAWS produces planners, yes. But MAWS also produces future leaders, future fleet commanders, even.
Gardner: MAWS is a leadership course disguised as a planner course. Our students, through the effort of planning and discussions about advising commanders, learn an awful lot about senior-level leadership. So, when they leave here, they are much better prepared to step in in that role later on in their careers.
O’Keefe: Let’s say a planner has graduated from your course and they’re out in the Fleet. How would you advise them to maintain their skills in operational planning?
Koehr: Reading is obviously a very good way to stay connected, any kind of publication they can get their hands on, to read what is going on in warfighting. That will spark their planning instincts on how they would tackle issues as they go forward. Reachback here to us at MAWS is also a great way to stay connected – come back, tell us what they’re doing. But don’t shy away from the skill that they have and look for opportunities to use it after their CO tour, if they go to a staff and it’s a good career move. It’s a good opportunity for them to get back in the game.
O’Keefe: I think that wraps us up for this interview. Is there anything else you think we’ve missed or wanted to touch on?
Croskrey: I appreciated your question on the carrier strike group versus the fleet question. How do we fight the Fleet? I think that is a fundamentally important question that the Navy needs to ask. It’s one that we have asked here. As you probably know, there is very little doctrine that describes how to fight the fleet as a maneuver element. There is probably room for work on what the theories say, and how we implement those theories into practice. How do we think about the tactics of fighting the fleet? That is something that we took on a couple of years ago. We asked that question and found that there was very little out there. One of the things that we have really begun to leverage is Fleet Tactics by Captain Wayne Hughes. We have leveraged that a lot in our curriculum to try to understand how do we, through major tactical actions, achieve strategic objectives? That question is so fundamentally important about the fleet and the warfight, and we spend a lot of time on that now. Where is that taught in the Fleet? I don’t know of anywhere in the Navy outside of the MAWS where that’s really looked at.
Koehr: Mike’s being humble here. He has developed a new way of looking at relative combat power assessment, based on the salvo equations in the book, and it’s making the rounds to all the big thinkers. There is a lot of goodness involved in all the hard work he’s put into this. Our students get taught this technique, and we’re seeing it work for them to understand what a fleet can do against a fleet. That’s just one small example of where this does potentially tie into a future relationship with one of the WDCs.
Gardner: I think one of the things to recognize about MAWS is our program is very different from our sister schools’. Not just because we ride the backbone of the intermediate level course, but because we do a couple things they don’t do. On top of the summer planning project, which really puts everything in the course together for the students, the other thing we do is re-designs of historical campaigns. We study what happened, then have the students go back and do it again. When we study what happened, usually the students badmouth the decisions like crazy – with comments like “why would they do this, they were so dumb” – then we turn them loose and have them re-do it. They come up with their own plan for how to do the same thing. Often we then hear comments along the lines of, “Wow, this is hard.” What these redesign efforts give our students is an appreciation for the learning that comes from history. It gives them a different way to view history, rather than just studying what happened, it gives them the ability to ask, “What might have been?”
We have a number of case studies built into our curriculum. I think our students leave here mini-historians when we get done. That perspective of history they depart with… not all the schools take it to the level we do because they don’t have those re-design efforts. So, when you look at the Navy today, we’re the youngest of all the advanced planning schools. But, I think our program better prepares our students for planning positions and leadership because we’re not wedded to what’s already been done. Our program changes fairly frequently to keep it current, and because we have so many real-world and historical pieces, it establishes a foundation for our students that they can apply when they leave that adds value to their careers and services.
Because we’re relatively small and because the Navy isn’t filling all their seats, we also are the most joint in terms of student mix of all the planning schools. Normally about a third of our students come from sister services, sometimes as much as half. Our students get a phenomenal exposure to their sister services in a tangible planning perspective that I would argue is pretty valuable and is particularly unique in that the Navy is probably the least joint, culturally, among the services, because of the domain they fight in. So, if you look at a MAWS graduate, when they leave they have a very joint perspective but they go back to a service that has only in the last 10-15 years embraced the idea of jointness.
Koehr: To echo what Rob said about the leadership aspect of our school, I’ve come to his way of thinking. This is very much a leadership school. One of the biggest leadership challenges is leading your peers. Throughout the whole curriculum, we grab one person and have them be OPT lead. Put yourselves in the shoes of a supply officer who’s OPT lead in charge of a bunch of line officers. It’s uncomfortable, but they learn how to do it, in addition to briefing up to 4-star admirals. That’s a whole lot of leadership information that is cooked into the curriculum without us really making it a focus item.
Also, just a clarification of this characterization of “becoming a naval planner.” I look at it as you’re still that ship driver, but you’re leaving with an expertise you didn’t have before. For an extra 3.5 months in MAWS, you’re leaving with an AQD of JP1 on top of your Master’s degree. “A” stands for additional. It just means you have one more skill to go back to the Fleet with. You’re not suddenly “I’m Operational Planner LCDR Smith,” you’re still Fighter Pilot LCDR Smith, but you have expertise in operational planning. That’s our goal. That’s why we want, the upwardly mobile and career viable officers hitting all the milestones, because in the perfect world, all the leaders are MAWS graduates and understand the planning process inside and out. The commander has a lot to say about this whole process. If we have a bunch of senior leaders who really understand, we’re going to get some good things done out in the real world. We want those kinds of officers in the program. They just will have an additional skill that a lot of others won’t have in the Fleet.
CAPT BRIAN KOEHR, USN commissioned in 1988 through the NROTC Program with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the U of Notre Dame. He has multiple deployments to the Med Sea and Northern Arabian Gulf flying the F-14. He was the CO of VFA-103 flying the F/A-18F Rhino when the squadron was awarded the Atlantic Fleet Battle “E” and he was presented the 2005 Naval Air Forces Leadership Award. He has served on the staffs of the US SIXTH Fleet as Air Operations Officer, US Pacific Command as acting Director of the Joint Interagency Coordination Group and US NORAD / Northern Command as Dep Command Center Director. Most recently, he was the CO of the NROTC Chicago Area. He holds a JP-3 AQD.
COL Rob Gardner (Ret.) served as assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 Operations Officer for the 1st Marine Division, where he deployed to Afghanistan in support of OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM. Served in artillery units, as a Naval Gunfire Instructor; a Marine Expeditionary Unit FSO; an instructor with MAWTS-1; speechwriter for the 32nd Commandant of the Marine Corps and Senior Aide de Camp to the 32nd and 33rd Commandants; Chief, JPG, CJ-5, CJTF-HOA in support of OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM; Deputy Chief of Combined Policy, C5, for Combined Forces Command and the Chief of Policy, U5, for United Nations Command in the Republic of Korea; and Team Chief, Regional Border Team – North in support of OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.
Professor Michael Croskrey is a faculty member of the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School. He served in the Navy as a Naval Flight Officer in the S-3 Viking aircraft deploying several times throughout the Pacific Ocean and the Arabian Gulf. He has conducted flight operations from six carriers and accumulated significant warfare area experience in anti-submarine, anti-surface warfare and as an air wing strike leader for war-at-sea missions. While forward deployed on Seventh Fleet’s staff he conducted both tactical and operational level planning from the numbered fleet, Joint Force Maritime Component and the Joint Task Force Commander’s perspectives. Professor Croskrey’s teaching concentration is operational level planning. He has orchestrated numerous planning support efforts for MAWS students with various numbered fleets, naval component commands and combatant commands. His research interests include current and historical application of operational art in the maritime environment. Professor Croskrey retired from active duty with 21 years of service. He holds a graduate degree from the Naval Postgraduate School where he completed the Naval War College JPME program, and an undergraduate degree from Iowa State University.
Ashley O’Keefe is the Secretary of CIMSEC and a Surface Warfare Officer. She is currently assigned as the Plans and Tactics Officer in USS LASSEN (DDG 82).
Featured Image: August 1944, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt meeting in Hawaii with General Douglas MacArthur (left), Admiral William D. Leahy (center), and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (standing), who is pointing to Tokyo on a large map. (Wikimedia Commons)
The development of the Future Surface Combatant (FSC) family of warships has widespread implications. These ships will form the backbone of the Navy’s surface force, and add sorely needed numbers to the fleet in general. They may also signal a reorganization of the Navy from its current strike group system to a more amorphous model. Additionally, the FSC’s projected service life indicates that it will encounter and employ technologies that today are only in the developmental stages. Creating requirements for this ship is obviously important.
However, proper assessment of the above factors in the FSC’s development is impossible without a broader conception of America strategy, the Navy’s role in that strategy, and the place of surface combatants within the Navy. New technologies may change the way wars are fought at the tactical and operational level, but policymakers and naval officers must organize those developments under a broader umbrella to understand their true application and effects.
History demonstrates the need to understand strategy, and a service’s role in that strategy, when modernizing a military force. In particular, a comparison of Britain’s largely successful naval modernization before the First World War can be compared to the less successful naval modernization and construction attempts in the U.S. from 1991 to the present. Comparing the underlying clarity of strategy in both modernization attempts offers major lessons to the modern policymaker that should be applied to the FSC’s development.
These lessons should reveal the primacy of sea control in orienting warship and fleet design. The FSC trio of ships should be designed to embody the surface Navy’s distributed lethality concept of operational warfighting against advanced A2/AD threats. These ships will take on specialized roles: the large combatant as an arsenal ship with numerous VLS cells to provide fires; the small surface combatant as an ISR-laden scout to probe the A2/AD envelope, hunt submarines, and retarget missiles; and the unmanned ship as a highly stealthy deception platform employing electronic warfare systems to lure and jam adversary assets. Together, these ships will provide a lasting sea control capability against an ever more challenging threat environment.
Strategy and Fleet Design
In particular, one can employ the idea of a “strategic concept” to connect national strategy with a service’s strategy and force structure. Samuel Huntington coined the term in a 1954 Proceedings essay entitled “National Policy and the Transoceanic Navy.” One can define a strategic concept as the way a specific service’s capabilities and missions fit into an overall national security strategy.
Huntington’s essay tracks the U.S. Navy’s development, contrasting the pre-1880s coastal and frigate Navy with the post-Spanish American War Mahanian Navy. In the former case, America’s primary objectives were located on land, giving the Navy the role of denying foreign powers access to the American coastline, protecting American international trade, and harassing enemy commerce and light warships during conflict. The Navy was subordinate to the Army, as most threats came from land, not sea. The Spanish-American War changed the U.S.’ strategic position, and changed the Navy’s role to defending American interests in the Atlantic and Pacific against European and Asian powers. Consequently, the Navy became the U.S.’ strategically important service. These differing strategic concepts created different fleets. The pre-1880s strategic concept necessitated a coastal navy with a handful of long-range frigates for blue ocean missions, while the post-Spanish American War concept required a battlefleet that could gain command of the seas.
Huntington’s argument specifically addresses the U.S. Navy’s strategic concept in the Cold War. A change in the international balance of power from multipolarity between states with land and naval power to bipolarity between a Eurasian land faction and an insular naval faction required a redefinition of the Navy’s strategic concept.
The present international balance of power has shifted from its 1991 state, and continues to shift as America’s adversaries expand their militaries. China approaches qualitative parity and quantitative superiority in the Pacific, while Russia and Iran can use long-range missiles and, in Russia’s case, a large submarine fleet coupled with a small but modernizing surface force. Each can challenge American sea control in their respective regions. For the first time since the Second World War, the U.S. faces adversaries in two hemispheres that are capable of not only denying it sea control, but also establishing sea control themselves. In the face of such a dramatic shift in the balance of power, understanding American strategy and the Navy’s role in that strategy is a prerequisite for sound fleet design.
The Scheme and Ship Design – Britain before World War I
This can best be shown by illustration of a situation in which a Navy had a clear strategic concept. The pre-First World War Royal Navy, dominated by Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill, had a strong conception of Britain’s strategy and its own strategic concept. This enabled the success of “the scheme,” Fisher’s modernization program. Remarkably, this success occurred during a period when Britain’s government only loosely understood the implications of the policy choices, as Aaron Friedberg and Donald Kagan articulate.
Establishing the Royal Navy’s strategic concept during the pre-war period requires a brief review of British grand strategy from 1905 onward. Germany was slowly recognized as the primary threat to British power, particularly after the Russo-Japanese War. Britain’s desire to retain a free hand led to a reliance on its naval power, rather than a land army, to deter Germany. In the event that deterrence failed, Britain would use naval power to degrade the German economy through blockade while it mobilized resources to support its continental coalition partners.
This dictated a strategic concept for the Royal Navy that held sea control as its central objective. The concentration of a battle squadron in the North Sea would most effectively achieve this goal. Hunting down enemy raiding squadrons and protecting British and allied commerce was another a major component of the sea control objective. In addition, the Navy was expected to influence the land war through the aforementioned blockade of the Central Powers, impossible if Germany could operate freely at sea. Tangential to this were limited power projection attempts, including the Cuxhaven Raid and the much larger Gallipoli Campaign.
Fisher’s “scheme” is a reflection of this strategic concept, as demonstrated by its main components, the dreadnought battleship and the battlecruiser. The dreadnought fulfilled the need to deny Germany naval parity. The role of the dreadnought is not remarkable – a capital ship is inherently designed to destroy other capital ships. However, by leveraging technology, namely long-range gunnery advances and new propulsion techniques, Fisher and the Royal Navy were able to make all non-dreadnought battleships obsolete, forcing Germany to devote even more resources to its Navy in the pre-war period, or, as eventually occurred, surrender naval superiority to Britain.
HMS Dreadnought in 1906. (Wikimedia Commons)
The dreadnought’s development has strategic aspects, but the invention of the battlecruiser indicates the clear link between strategy and effective fleet design. Conceived by Fisher as “cruiser-killers,” the ships were armed with dreadnought-style guns, but eschewed the armor of a battleship for additional speed. As conceived, the battlecruiser could outrun anything powerful enough to destroy it, and catch anything lightly armed enough to fall prey to its heavy guns. When used in their intended role, such as at the Falklands, the ships excelled. Even the battlecruiser’s notable failures, such as at Jutland and Dogger Bank, had more to do with tactical handling than the inherent concept of the ship class.
After Fisher departed the admiralty in 1910, the new First Lord, Winston Churchill, continued the scheme’s progress, frequently taking advice from Fisher on fleet design and expansion issues. This continuity of thought up until the Great War began gave the scheme remarkable staying power. Indeed, the Fisher-Churchill fleet served Britain through both world wars. The Revenge and Queen Elizabeth-class battleships are two notable examples of this fact. The ships remained useful not only because of the quality of their construction, but also because they were designed with a specific role that remained strategically relevant for Britain over the entirety of their service lives.
Post-Cold War Strategic Malaise and Fleet Development
The same cannot be said of the U.S. Navy’s development projects since 1991. While America’s national security strategy shifted throughout the Cold War, the underlying political and strategic situation remained consistent, facilitating remarkable continuity in the Navy’s role. The 1982 Maritime Strategy and successive strategic documents were the clearest articulations of this approach, which one could term a strategic concept, to borrow from Huntington. In the event of a conflict, the Navy would use the Mediterranean as a staging ground for strikes against advancing Soviet forces while protecting allied convoys from submarines. Russia would need to divert attention from the central front, while the U.S. and its allies would gain operational flexibility. A 600-ship Navy of supercarriers; large and small surface combatants; attack and ballistic missiles submarines; and amphibious ships, emerged from this approach.
The Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 created a new strategic environment within which the Navy had difficulty articulating its purpose. The Navy published two operational and strategic documents during the 1990s: …From the Seain 1992 and Forward…From the Sea in 1994. Both rest on the assumption of absolute sea control, and indicated a shift in focus to littoral operations. One can derive the Zumwalt-class destroyer and LCS from this focus. The former was designed in part to replace the battleship in the naval gunfire support role while using stealth technology to avoid detection by enemy shore installations. The latter was intended to counter low- and medium-level littoral threats like diesel-electric submarines, mines, and, fast-attack craft.
The Navy’s post-Cold War missions did support this role. During the Gulf War, the Navy used 288 Tomahawk missiles to strike Iraqi ground targets, while the embarked MAGTF in the Persian Gulf combined with the First Marine Division’s frontal assault on Iraqi positions in Kuwait pinned Saddam’s forces in place for Schwarzkopf’s turning movement. The Navy played a critical facilitating role in the opening stages of the war in Afghanistan, providing air support for Special Forces and CIA operatives. During Iraq, the Navy played a similar role. However, the 700,000-strong ground force deployment during the Gulf War overshadowed the Navy’s strike role, while the counterinsurgency campaigns of the early 21st century further diminished the Navy’s public visibility.
Moreover, …From the Sea and Forward…From the Sea were based on assumptions that no longer hold true. The Navy can no longer assume universal sea control. This is most apparent in the Asia-Pacific. In 1991, the PLAN was unsuited for missions beyond China’s immediate coastline. It possessed no aircraft carriers, and had only one SSBN, precluding steady nuclear deterrence patrols. So pronounced was China’s naval inferiority that, during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, an American aircraft carrier and amphibious assault ship were able to sail through the Taiwan Straits without fear of retaliation. The U.S. had achieved absolute naval supremacy in the Pacific, preventing China from isolating American regional allies, and constricting Chinese freedom of movement in wartime.
Today, the PLAN surface combatant fleet outnumbers the U.S. Navy’s, while the PLAN has nearly achieved numerical parity with the U.S. attack submarine force. It currently operates one ex-Soviet STOBAR carrier, will operate two STOBAR carriers by 2020, and will field an 85,000-ton CATOBAR carrier by 2022. Moreover, the PLA employs long-range anti-ship missiles like the DF-21 to create an anti-access bubble in the South and East China Seas, within which its surface fleet can operate relatively unopposed. Littoral operations and power projection are made less feasible in an environment where long-range missiles force American warships to remain hundreds of miles away from hostile coastlines.
Regarding recent U.S. Navy surface combatant programs, the Zumwalt-class destroyer incorporates a number of technological advances. It is one of the world’s first stealth ships, has the potential to use energy weapons due to increased power generation, and was designed to use terminally guided artillery shells that were eventually cancelled due to cost. The program ran over budget, was cut from 32 ships to just three, and has experienced multiple mechanical issues during testing. The Littoral Combat Ship has fared slightly better, but still has budgetary and mechanical issues. Additionally, survivability and lethality concerns have compelled a potential “frigate” spinoff class, indicating the initial design’s weaknesses in the emerging strategic environment.
PEARL HARBOR (Sep. 4, 2016) Littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) returns to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam after experiencing an engineering casualty while transiting to the Western Pacific. Coronado departed Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Aug. 26 to continue its independent deployment to the Western Pacific. Prior to departing Pearl Harbor the ship participated in the Rim of the Pacific 2016 exercise. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Katarzyna Kobiljak/Released)
Both the Zumwalt and LCS were built to field advancing technologies that, according to the transformation doctrine of the early 21st century, would revolutionize warfare. Transformation proponents may have been overzealous in predicting the initial operability of their technologies, but the general assertion that networked computing, combined with precision weapons, stealth, unmanned systems, and other weapons developments would indelibly change tactics and operations is being proven correct today. Indeed, the LCS and Zumwalt may been seen as test projects for the advances that will dominate warfare in the foreseeable future: automation, stealth technology, modularity, unmanned systems, and networking.
However, the transformation-RMA concept of warfighting did not translate into a coherent strategy that directed force structure, particularly in the context of the Navy. This was likely a historical accident. September 11th forced the Bush Administration, and the military as a whole, to entirely reorient its paradigm of war against a non-state enemy. The RMA, in contrast, was intended to revolutionize conventional warfare. Such a shift in threat perception did not translate well to naval development, and is in part responsible for the difficulties that the Zumwalt and LCS experienced.
Now, just as the military had adapted to the counterinsurgency framework of the early 21st century, it must return to a more traditional situation, albeit with persistent non-state threats. This strategic complexity and confusion can help explain the Zumwalt’s and LCS’ developmental difficulties. The Zumwalt may be an advanced ship, but its exact role is amorphous. The LCS’ modular nature appears to offer planners a greater breadth of employment options, but in reality decreases the overall lethality of the surface fleet.
An important lesson for the FSC’s development is that a solid conception of strategy, and from it the role each ship must play in an envisioned fleet, is paramount for effective acquisition and development. Therefore, a discussion of America’s national security strategy, and the Navy’s role in that strategy, is required.
American Strategy and the Navy’s Role
U.S. strategy is derived from the balance of power it currently faces internationally. Three sorts of threats undermine America’s international status. First, major state challengers like China and Russia threaten to undermine U.S. interests in the Pacific and Europe. China combines an expanding Navy with economic initiatives including the NDB, AIIB, and New Silk Road to create an independent Asian power bloc. Russia manufactures instability in Eastern Europe while using its foothold in Syria to wrap around the U.S. flank, and threaten the Balkans and Southern NATO. Second, medium challengers use traditional and non-traditional means to threaten American interests. Iran and North Korea fall into this group, with the former’s use of Shia militias in Iraq and Syria to increase its influence and the latter’s nuclear bullying, where both are designed to decrease American prestige and influence. Third, non-state actors, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, create pervasive instability in strategically important regions, while consistently attempting to strike American and allied citizens. These threats do not exist in isolation – multiple hostile actors operate within the same theater, as is the case in the Middle East.
The Navy’s role in responding to these threats returns to the Mahanian concept of “command of the seas.” The U.S. today faces a naval threat similar in effect to the great power fleets of the early 20th century. However, this threat is not expressed through battle squadrons intended for decisive fleet actions, but through an anti-access area denial (A2/AD) network. Each threat creates this network differently. As previously stated, China uses a more traditional fleet to establish sea control within the wider A2/AD bubble its long-range missiles create. On the lower end of the spectrum, Iran’s focus is on denying the U.S. sea control, rather than achieving its own regional command of the seas. Rather than investing in surface combatants and attack submarines, it uses missiles, fast-attack craft, and midget submarines for sea denial. Ironically, this bears greatest similarity to the situation …From the Sea and Forward…From the Sea initially envisioned, albeit with the added and pervasive element of advanced long-range missiles. Russian capabilities are more similar to Chinese ones, but Russia’s less advanced and smaller navy cannot achieve meaningful sea control in the same way that the PLAN can.
Regardless of the differences, RMA predictions enable all these A2/AD networks. America’s adversaries use long-range missiles and ISR architectures based on networked computing to counter the U.S. network of global super bases and forward deployed assets. A decade ago, the U.S. could reliably assume that, in the event of conflict, it could shuttle soldiers, aircraft, and other equipment to any point in the world without obstruction. Moreover, force deployments were relatively small – the Iraq War’s peak troop strength of 168,000 is dwarfed by Korea’s 325,000 troops, and Vietnam’s 500,000-plus-soldier commitment. Today, great power conflict is viable, creating the potential for larger force deployments, all while sea control is no longer guaranteed.
Ships must therefore be designed to combat the great power adversaries that field these A2/AD networks, rather than to focus on projecting power against land targets, or counter the low-tech littoral assets of rogue regimes. The Zumwalt and LCS will have a role in this new fleet architecture, but some of their original missions such as naval gunfire support and littoral dominance will have less relevance.
Nuclear weapons also complicate the Navy’s role. Russia, China, and North Korea are nuclear states, while Iran can obtain nuclear capabilities. Inland strikes against logistics and communications facilities could prompt a nuclear response and other forms of escalation. Using the Navy to blockade hostile nations and shifting its focus from power projection to sea control has military and political benefits, as it gives the U.S. greater control over a conflict’s escalation.
In modern conflict, applying decisive firepower is less dependent upon concentrating forces than before. Thus, although the Navy’s task will be more similar to the traditional role of a great power sea service than it has been since World War II, it will not need to seek out an enemy battlefleet in force in the traditional manner. Instead, its targets will be networked manned and unmanned air forces, ships, submarines, and land-based installations spread out over vast distances. The U.S. disposition is similar to this. The Navy can retain the CSG/ESG structure for certain operations, but the distributed lethality concept indicates the beginning of a concerted effort to network spread-out American warships.
The Role of Surface Combatants and the FSC
From an operational and strategic standpoint, one can identify many similarities between the A2/AD-network competition the U.S. will face in the near future and the First World War’s western front. Networking allows a broader distribution of forces, and decreases the need for, and effectiveness of, excessive target hardening. Nevertheless, one can envision a large-scale Sino-American conflict developing into a war of attrition in which China attempts to create an envelope within which it can establish uncontested sea control, and subdue American regional bases. Concurrently, the U.S. will use submarines and its own long-range missiles to punch through China’s A2/AD network, much like infiltration tactics and maneuver warfare schemes were used to break trench lines a century ago.
In this new environment, surface combatants can no longer be purely defensive ships as they are today. The Arleigh Burkes’ and Ticonderogas’ air defense capabilities will remain important, but surface combatants must have the means to strike enemy targets offensively, and not simply to protect American capital ships. Submarines will be the primary tool used to penetrate and degrade A2/AD networks, but surface combatants provide heavier capabilities in higher volumes than undersea assets in more domains. In addition to their strike role, surface combatants must be able to detect and destroy enemy submarines. The Pacific’s geography, combined with Russo-Chinese force structure, makes this an imperative. Outside of wartime, the FSC will also conduct presence missions in contested Asian and European maritime regions. Ideally, older ships like the Arleigh Burke could provide shore strike capabilities, while amphibious ships equipped with land-attack missiles would support naval landings. This overall structure would free up the FSC for greater sea control specialization.
The Navy’s overarching operational goal will clearly be to break down an A2/AD network. While submarines can avoid detection and hit critical nodes in this network, the FSC would best be used to provide sustained salvo fire against exposed targets, while delivering overwhelming firepower when a more significant target presents itself. In peacetime, the FSC’s components may operate independently while conducting presence or deterrence missions. However, during wartime, the best way to take advantage of networking and distributed lethality is to consistently use all three FSCs in tandem. Much as the Grand Fleet served as a blockade force and battlefleet in its station at Scapa Flow, these FSC SAGs would blockade China’s maritime space in the Asia-Pacific, while also forming the core of America’s Pacific battlefleet. Each FSC would have a specific role in fulfilling this strategy.
The large FSC would form the backbone of the SAG’s striking power. Much like the projected Arsenal Ship concept of the early 1990s, this ship must be maximized for its offensive firepower, using a low freeboard and long-range missiles to avoid retaliation. As envisioned, this ship would operate in two ways. First, it would receive targeting information from other assets deployed closer to enemy positions, launching strikes against those targets – like an advanced battleship relying on spotting aircraft to direct its ordinance. Second, the large FSC would launch its missiles and “hand off” retargeting control to other ships and aircraft more proximate to the target, serving as the SAG’s “quiver.” Considering its mission, the large FSC could be larger than a contemporary destroyer, and even approach the cruiser size of 15,000 tons.
The Navy should also consider nuclear propulsion for this FSC. This would enable the Navy to more quickly field directed energy weapons and railguns, likely for point defense against missiles, and would compliment the ship’s armament of long-range missiles by allowing for more launch cells to be allocated for offensive strike weapons rather than defensive anti-air munitions. Nuclear power will also provide critical advantages in endurance and logistics, allowing a smaller number of large FSC’s to service multiple SAGs. Underway VLS replenishment is critical for this ship, and for the Navy as a whole, if this SAG structure is to be used.
While the large FSC provides the bulk of the striking power, the small FSC serves as the envisioned SAG’s targeting ship,and ASW platform. Rather than fielding its own long-range missiles, the small surface combatant, which should be sized at no more than 5,000 tons (i.e. no larger than a small destroyer), would use unmanned vehicles to detect and target enemy A2/AD nodes. Several catapults, deploying Predator/Global Hawk style drones, would extend this ship’s ISR range. Rotary facilities are critical, as are point-defense anti-aircraft missiles. However, the small surface combatant should rely on its larger cousin for most air, surface, and land striking power. In return, the small surface combatant could use the extra space for a full ASW suite, augmented by UUVs to increase detection range. Short-range anti-ship missiles, similar to those envisioned on the fast frigate model LCS, would be the ship’s sole offensive armament. Networking’s most powerful effect will be seen here – independently or otherwise, the small surface combatant should rely on its larger cousin for long-range strike support while it scouts and penetrates the A2/AD bubble. The retargeting capability resident within the Block IV Tomahawk missile and LRASM would allow the small surface combatants closer to the target to redirect missiles launched from a stand-off position by the larger FSC.
Finally, the unmanned surface combatant should be used to jam and deceive enemy assets, while also supplementing the small FSC’s detection capabilities. Stealth is imperative for this ship, as it will operate closer to the enemy during combat than any other surface ship. While the large surface combatant provides firepower, and the small surface combatant detects threats, the unmanned surface combatant conducts electronic warfare schemes that misdirect and confuse enemies attempting to strike back at the SAG. This unmanned ship should be as small as possible, ideally no more than 1,200 tons.
Room for integration exists between the FSC-based SAG and the contemporary fleet. Arleigh Burkes can serve as makeshift arsenal ships, or as dedicated anti-air platforms, freeing up the large FSC for anti-ship missions. Regardless, the emphasis must be on networked integration, not only between the SAGs ships, but with the fleet more broadly, and with other armed services.
As described, the FSC would best be suited for interstate conflict, rather than for power projection against rogue regimes and non-state actors. This is a conscious choice – the Navy could use older ships and aircraft (or allied assets) in those contexts, freeing up advanced platforms for the most sophisticated threats. If constructed in this way, the FSC family of warships would help the Navy fulfill its future sea control mission requirements, while operating independently or as part of a strike group.
Conclusion
Military modernization requires an understanding of strategy. Absent this, new weapons and platforms become imperfect tools to use against growing threats. With it, new assets multiply the fighting effectiveness of the service in question, while reinforcing a nation’s objectives. Therefore, the most important lesson history provides for the FSC’s development is the primacy of strategy. Without an understanding of America’s strategy and the Navy’s role in achieving America’s goals tactical, operational, and technological discussions are groundless.
Harry Halem is an undergraduate at the University of St Andrews studying International Relations and Philosophy. He welcomes your comments at hh66@st-andrews.ac.uk.
Whether you are an academic, a member of the Armed Forces, or an America citizen whose main news outlet is Fox News or CNN, a common term heard in American politics is strategy. In a security environment where challenges grow by the day, we hear our leaders in government outline our national security strategy, military strategy, economic strategy, and other approaches to securing America’s interests. However, a concept that may be unfamiliar to the average American is grand strategy.
The various definitions for grand strategy center on a common theme. For the purpose of this article, grand strategy can be defined as the use of power by leaders through diplomatic, economic, military, and political means to defend their respective nation-states and interests. The United States’ grand strategy has been evolving since the 19th century. President James Monroe articulated his policy in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine, which is arguably America’s first grand strategy, “The American continents…are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.” President Monroe’s call for developing a new order in the Americas paved the way for the U.S. to expand its economic and military power throughout the Western Hemisphere.
During World War II, U.S. grand strategy under President Franklin Roosevelt focused on multilateralism with the ends being the “reestablishment of a stable international order, a prosperous global economic system, and a U.S. population free from military threat at home and abroad.” America’s superiority enabled it to succeed in its objectives in both the European and Asian theaters, leaving the U.S. as the world’s superpower following the war.
Following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, America’s view on the world changed drastically, given that 19 hijackers successfully executed the greatest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. As a result, President George W. Bushiterated to the world his grand strategy for the United States, which can be summarized as a strategy of preemption:
“The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction — and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. [The] United States will, if necessary, act preemptively…in an age where the enemies of civilization openly and actively seek the world’s most destructive technologies.”
Just as with the previous two U.S. presidents, Presidents Bush and Obama, President Donald Trump entered the Oval Office as a wartime president. Each U.S. President in the 21st century has had to justify the need for American troops in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. President Obama’s foreign policy legacy will likely be remembered with triumphs, such as the raid that led to Osama bin Laden’s death and brokering a nuclear agreement between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the P5+1 [The United Nations Security Council’s five permanent members (the P5); China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; plus Germany]. And failures; including his reluctance to act in Syria after publicly stating President Bashar al-Assad must go and Obama’s drone policy which which has encouraged the proliferation of armed drones and the associated legal ambiguities involving their use. Given the complex geopolitical world we live in today, it may be appropriate to adopt a new approach to address today’s challenges in securing American interests. One such approach is offshore balancing.
What is Offshore Balancing?
Offshore balancing is a strategy that can allow the United States to preserve its interests at home and abroad, without weakening its relationships with allies. Offshore balancing in today’s international systems, as defined by Jon Mearsheimer (R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Professor of international affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government), advocates “preserving U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and countering potential hegemons in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf” and encouraging “other countries to take the lead in checking rising powers, [the U.S.] intervening itself only when necessary.” Based on this definition, the United States is capable of protecting its position as the world’s sole superpower for the future while ensuring security at home.
It is evident that the U.S. will remain a regional hegemon in the Western Hemisphere, as no state currently poses a threat. However, the same cannot be said for the U.S. in other regions of the globe. Potential hegemons that offshore balancing would be aimed at addressing include China, Russia, and Iran. In each of the three regions mentioned above, offshore balancing requires a “balancer” to maintain America’s interests abroad ranging from securing trade routes to preserving the national security of allies.
Offshore Balancing in Action: Asia
In Asia, the United States should leverage its strategic alliances with its partners in the Asia-Pacific to balance against the rise of China. The U.S. should combine the use of soft and hard balancing strategies with its Asia-Pacific allies to demonstrate that China’s aggressive behaviors in the region will not be tolerated. The key partner the U.S will need to rely upon in balancing against China’s rise is Japan.
Japan remains wary of China’s intentions in the Asia-Pacific, especially regarding territorial disputes. In February, three Chinese Coast Guard ships enteredwaters near a chain of islands claimed by both China and Japan in the East China Sea. Japan controls the chain and calls them the Senkaku Islands, while China calls refers to them as the Diaoyu Islands. Washington has taken a strong approach in reassuring its commitment to Japan’s territorial claims, for instance, coordinating with Tokyo to revise their Mutual Defense Guidelines (MDG) in April 2015. Given China’s growing strategic threat in the region, the updated MDG focuseson developments in military technology, improvements in interoperability of the U.S. and Japanese militaries, bilateral cooperation on cybersecurity, the use of space for defense purposes, ballistic missile defense, and cooperation in defending Japan’s outlying islands and of sea lanes relied upon by many Asia-Pacific states.
Additionally, the U.S. will need to rely on other local powers to contain China (e.g., South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines), as a stronger Japan is unlikely to counterbalance China’s rise alone. The U.S., with the agreement and cooperation of its regional partners, could develop Anti-Access and Aerial Denial (A2/AD) zones in the region to demonstrate collective strength against China’s unwillingness to abide by international law. Such a U.S.-led effort would include multilateral cooperation to build “a greater reliance in the region on short-range, tactical airpower as well as quieter, faster attack submarines and small, fast frigate-sized warships with robust anti-ship cruise missile capabilities; an expanded inventory of long-range anti-ship missiles” deployed on ships and aircraft at sea.
Conducting such a transition will require improvements in training with allies, information-sharing, embedded military advisers, and prepositioned supplies to build a competitive advantage against China of strategic capabilities in the region that are to be used for defensive purpose only. China seems to have no issue with continuing its aggressive behavior in the Asia-Pacific, thus the United States should be proactive in incorporating offshore balancing measures to secure the interests of America and its allies.
Offshore Balancing in Action: Europe
With the case of Europe, the United States and its European allies have stated their concerns over Russia’s action in the past few years and what may potentially be on the horizon for Moscow. Arguably the strongest multilateral security organization in the world, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), is a collection of 28 states promoting democratic values and encouraging cooperation on defense and security issues to build trust and prevent conflict between allies. As part of the NATO members’ commitment to collective security, each member is expected to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) toward defense spending. Currently, only five nations meet that commitment, with the United States spending over $660 billion in 2016. While America’s support is needed to deter Russian aggression in Europe, there are approaches in which the U.S. can lessen its financial burden on providing NATO security but maintain the trust and security of its European allies.
Soldiers from Poland’s 6th Airborne Brigade and the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division during the NATO allies’ Anakonda 16 exercise near Torun, Poland. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)
For instance, increasing the U.S. military footprint in Europe may not be as effective in countering Russia’s growing role in Europe. Recent strategic documents coming from the Kremlin state Russia’s goals in the region include maintaining a military advantage over NATO (which Russia sees as a threat to its security) and politically controlling neighboring spaces and countries to create buffer zones as protection from invasions and external instabilities. Thus, the U.S. should allow its European allies to bolster its own security forces and posture while Washington leverages its soft power to develop a selective engagement approach to strengthen European partnerships and counter Russian influence. The U.S. can serve as an offshore balancer to Russia in Europe by providing security assistance to NATO allies to “increase pre-positioning, develop stronger deterrence measures for the Black Sea…and exploit technologies including longer-range aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and stealthy platforms to address Russian anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities.”
If a scenario were to occur whereby Russia antagonizes European allies, the U.S. can deploy necessary troops or capabilities to deter further Russian aggression. In the long-term, allowing European allies to lead in their collective security allows the U.S. to support when required and demonstrate to Russia that Europe is capable of countering Russian bellicosity.
Offshore Balancing in Action: Middle East
With the Middle East, the United States has, and will continue to have, strategic interests in the region; including the promotion of a more stable and prosperous region with increasingly effective governance, improved security, and trans-regional cooperation to counter state and non-state actors posing a threat to the U.S. and its allies. However, there needs to be a balance between America’s direct role in shaping the region and the need for a proactive, lead role from its Middle East partners who are more directly affected by the security environment of the region.
In the Middle East, an offshore balancing approach should not be viewed as abandoning our allies, but requiring regional powers to “bear the primary responsibility for dealing with crises on the ground, [America’s] military strategy is [to be] oriented toward policing the sea lanes and the skies, and direct intervention is contemplated only when the balance of power is dramatically upset.” The implementation of offshore balancing can be directed toward countering Iran’s aggressive behavior in the Gulf region.
While the United States was able to broker a nuclear accord with Iran in 2015, Washington remains concerned about Tehran’s malign activities in the Gulf. As Central Command’s (CENTCOM) commander General Joseph Votel stated at a recent Congressional hearing, “Iran poses the greatest long-term threat to stability for this part of the world” due to Iran’s “malign influence across Iraq and Syria,” and efforts to prop up the Syrian regime and exploit Shia population centers. To counter Iran in the region to prevent the Islamic Republic from attaining regional dominance, the U.S. does not need to engage in extensive intervention, rather, it will need to rely on its strategic partners in the region.
The United States should focus on bolstering its support for those Middle East states in which Iran has been proactive in building its influence; specifically Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. In Syria, Iran continues to bolster the Assad regime, contributing to the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. A more assertive, military-centric approach to finding a solution in Syria is unlikely to prevail, but rather elongate the dire situation in which millions of Syrian civilians are fleeing or being killed. To move toward a negotiated transition will require “a willingness to apply American resources more forcefully toward a diplomatic outcome that meets the minimum requirements of all relevant actors—including security for all civilians regardless of sect.” Washington should focus on resolving the humanitarian crisis in Syria, as it is unknown if and when a political solution will be achieved. Focusing on counterterrorism activities such as airstrikes aligns with U.S. security interests, but continuing to stock pro-Western militias (if they are discernable versus those backing Syria and Iran) may lead to long-term fighting as even those against the Assad regime have their own oppositions amongst one another. A political solution is needed in any case in Syria, a failed state for the foreseeable future, even if it requires Iran and/or Russia as the leading adjudicator.
As for Lebanon, it seems that Beirut has faded as an area of strategic value for the U.S. in recent years. Iran’s influence includesmilitary, political, cultural, financial, and religious programs “aimed at enhancing the image and strength of Hezbollah, justifying Iranian presence and influence in Lebanon as well as its ties with Hezbollah, and turning public opinion in Lebanon against the United States, Israel and Sunni Arab countries.” Iran’s influence in Beirut continues to grow, especially since Lebanon gained a new president and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was the first top diplomat to meet with him. With the new U.S. administration, President Trump will need to engage with Lebanon more actively and increase U.S. financial and military commitments to the country.
Washington must make it clear to the Lebanese government that it opposes all forms of Iranian military aid to the Lebanese army. Instead, the U.S. government should work with its regional allies to develop a strategy to strengthen Lebanon’s state institutions to counter Iranian influence in Lebanon; whether by improving training and military-to-military cooperation to build sustainable security forces that are more competent than Hezbollah or increasing support for programs, such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative, to enhance America’s image in Lebanon’s Shiite community. If President Trump and his administration want to sustain their strategic interests in the Gulf region, our leaders will need to re-evaluate their comprehensive approach to addressing the challenges of the Middle East.
Conclusion
The examples of offshore balancing approaches provided above may or may not be applicable to today’s security environment in the next week, month, or year. The world we live in today continues to evolve and the future is uncertain to an extent. Thus, the United States can gradually shift toward acting as an offshore balancer in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf until the international setting changes requiring Washington to react more aggressively.
The United States is not always in the position to lead from the front to solve international crises, however, its involvement is probably needed given its influence across the globe. A majority of Americans prefer the U.S. to focus on domestic issues, however, implementing a reactive posture in dealing with challenges in each strategic region of the globe will result in long-term setbacks in achieving U.S. security interests abroad. Offshore balancing in practice should be not perceived as isolationism, either by Americans or our international partners. Washington must collaborate with its allies to prevent emergence of revisionist hegemons to ensure U.S. security at home and around the world.
It is difficult to deny that we live in a multipolar world with a vast array of security challenges. As an offshore balancer, the U.S. can rely upon nuclear deterrence, air power, and naval power to ensure its interests and the security of its allies. Concrete vital interests should determine America’s commitments abroad, rather than credibility determining commitments and thus commitments determining interests. With a cohesive strategy and commitment from leadership, the United States can be a successful offshore balancer —maintaining U.S. security interests without weakening its relationship with its allies who should now act in a greater role in preserving security in the world’s more strategically important regions.
Aaron Richards currently works as a Senior Analyst within the Defense & National Security Sector of Deloitte Consulting LLP. He holds a Master of Science in Defense and Strategic Studies from Missouri State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Affairs from Hofstra University. Aaron was recently nominated to the George C. Marshall Fellowship Class of 2017 sponsored by The Heritage Foundation. Aaron has also written on other national security issues for the Ecologic Institute’s Arctic Summer College and Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) conference series.
Featured Image: Map of WWI by G.F. Morell. (Advocate’s Library Edinburgh)
