History

The Forgotten Texas Navy: Heroes from the Gulf of Mexico

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By LT Jason Lancaster, USN

 “It is no exaggeration to say that without the Texas Navy there probably would have been no Lone Star State, and possibly, the state of Texas would still be a part of Mexico.”

 – Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

Texan Independence and the First Texas Navy

Despite their integral part in the creation, defense, and maintenance of the Republic of Texas, today, the Texas Navy is a footnote in modern history. Mexican invasions that never happened and gunboat diplomacy criticized so heavily by President Houston destroyed the reputation of the Navy and erased their history from public memory.

In 1835, Texas’ population was small, rural, and dispersed across a vast territorial expanse. There was no industrial base to speak of; Texas imported everything by sea. Galveston Island, on the upper coast, was the most important city and port in Texas, followed by Velasco on the Brazos River, and Indianola on Matagorda Bay. Texas exported timber and cotton but imported everything else. To lose the ports would mean the destruction of the republic and the death knell of the Anglo-Texan dream.   

With the start of the Texas Revolution, Texans formed a provisional government and declared independence on March 2nd, 1836. Despite a provisional government primarily composed of farmers, ranchers, frontiersmen, and lawyers, some of the government’s first acts issued Letters of Marques to ship owners and laid the foundations for a navy. Officials debated how generous to make the terms for privateers, but viewed privateering as a temporary measure to protect the lifeline to New Orleans and fight the Mexican Navy while the provisional government created a regular navy.

With privateers guarding the coast, the hunt for ships began and eventually four ships were found. The flagship of the new navy was the 18-gun brig Independence, a former U.S. Revenue Cutter. The other ships were the Invincible, an eight-gun Baltimore slave ship, the Brutus, a 10-gun schooner, and the six-gun schooner Liberty, a former Texas privateer.1 The squadron quickly cleared the Gulf of Mexican ships. Following the major Texan defeats at the Alamo and Goliad, the navy shielded the Texan coast from invasion and prevented the Mexicans from using the Texan coast for resupply, forcing Mexican logistics to come overland from Matamoros and Laredo instead of landing supplies and men at Copano Bay in southern Texas.

The Texas Navy of the revolution was short lived. Texas won independence at the battle of San Jacinto. The Texas army captured Mexican President, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana and forced him to recognize Texas’ independence and withdrawal Mexican soldiers from Texas at the Treaty of Velasco. Despite the treaty, the two nations continued to spar at sea. In 1837, a numerically superior Mexican fleet attacked the Texas ships near Galveston Bay. The Mexican fleet captured the Independence, while the Brutus ran aground on a sandbar in Galveston Harbor and broke up in a storm. The Texas Navy was gone. Under President Sam Houston, there was no drive to procure replacements. Without a navy, the eight ships of the Mexican Navy were free to harass commerce and cut Texas off from New Orleans commerce. Fortunately for Texas, a diplomatic row between France and Mexico over the treatment of French citizens’ pastry shops resulted in France sending a large fleet to protect its interests. The French captured the Mexican navy and demolished the fortress at Vera Cruz. The Mexican naval threat had been eliminated… at least temporarily.

Republic of Texas Politics

From the beginning of Anglo settlement in Texas, there had been a faction desiring annexation into the United States. Annexation was a highly popular idea in revolutionary and republican Texas. However, there was a second party that believed Texas should be independent. This faction believed that Texas could be the greatest power on the North American continent, and should expand to the Pacific Ocean. American immigrants such as Mirabeau Lamar carried Manifest Destiny to Texas and dreamt that Texas could rival the United States in power.

In Texas, presidents could not serve consecutive terms, so after President Houston’s first term expired December 1, 1838, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar became president of the Republic of Texas. President Lamar’s vision for Texas was as expansive and glorious as his name would suggest. He believed in Texas’ own manifest destiny. Lamar’s policies as president reflected his belief in the republic. He sent military and trade expeditions to conquer Santa Fe and gain control of the overland trade routes to California, rebuilt the navy, and created alliances with rebelling Mexican provinces.

The Texas Navy was reborn. New warships were constructed in Baltimore, Maryland. Instead of enterprising merchant sailors, Texas searched for talented young American naval officers bored by slow promotion and the dull existence of the peacetime navy. Texas found Lieutenant Edwin Ward Moore to command the squadron with the title of Commodore and the rank of Post Captain.  

Former President and now Congressman Houston ridiculed these policies and accused Lamar of entangling Texas in foreign disputes irrelevant to the republic. Congressman Houston did not think Lamar should squander money on expansionist schemes, but save money and wait until the United States annexed Texas.

One of Lamar’s most controversial policies included interference with Mexican domestic politics. In the 1840s, Mexico possessed two major political philosophies: the Centralists, who favored a strong central government typically led by dictators such as General Santa Anna, and the Federalists, typically found in the extremities of Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula and on the border with Texas. These states felt threatened by the strong central government. Their livelihoods were based primarily on commerce with foreign countries and any threat to international commerce threatened their livelihoods. The Centralists placed high tariffs on imported goods to support Mexican industrialization. The high tariffs affected the merchants in the Yucatan provinces and along the Rio Grande, who frequently rebelled against the Central Government. Both regions proclaimed themselves republics, the Republic of the Rio Grande centered on the now Texas city of Laredo, while the Republic of the Yucatan comprised the provinces of Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo. Both of the new republics asked for Texan support but only one republic was successful. President Lamar went on to conclude treaties of friendship with the Yucatecos. The Yucatecos offered to pay for the Texas Navy if it was employed on the Yucatan Coast. The only aid for the Republic of the Rio Grande was an unofficial army of filibusters formed in Texas, in support of the fledgling republic.

Lithograph in Huber, 1856. (Wikimedia Commons)

While serving as a Texas Congressman in between presidential terms Houston opposed almost everything that Lamar had done, and Houston’s political following constituted its own political party. Under his leadership, the congress disbanded the army and ignored issuing commissions for naval officers. For three years, the navy sailed without any official documents stating their legitimacy.2

President Lamar’s expansionist mindset was not without precedent. In the middle President Houston’s first term in July 1837, the Texas Navy under the command of Captain Thompson claimed the island of Cozumel, in the words of Captain Thompson, the “star spangled banner [referring to the Texas flag] was raised to a height of forty-five feet with acclamations both from inhabitants and our little patriotic band.”3 In addition to the island of Cozumel, the navy took possession of the Arcas Islands, a small island chain in the Gulf of Mexico. The Arcas islands proved a valuable halfway point between Galveston, the Yucatan, and Vera Cruz.  Only 250 miles separated them from Vera Cruz, while it was 623 miles from Galveston to Vera Cruz, or 789 miles from New Orleans.4 The Texans used these uninhabited islands as a rendezvous, recreational area, and supply base. The central position of the Arcas Islands allowed the Texans an easier time of blockading ports and intercepting Mexico’s commerce.

The Texas Navy used this advanced position to interdict Mexican trade and the navy seized British and American merchantmen carrying weapons and military supplies to Mexico. Often times these countries ignored their own pasts and demanded compensation from the fledgling republic. Similarly to how during the Napoleonic Wars the Royal Navy captured neutral ships with cargos bound to France, the Texas Navy was defending Texas from similar Mexican aggression and could therefore intercept neutral ships. Several times the Texas Navy captured vessels like the U.S. brig Pocket bound to Mexico with weapons and gunpowder hidden in barrels of flour. Houston cited occurrences such as these as examples of Texas Navy lawlessness and a  primary reason for the dissolution of the navy.

President Lamar sent expeditions to Santa Fe and other places claimed by Texas and Mexico. The Santa Fe expedition’s goal was to bring the city of Santa Fe under the jurisdiction of Texas. Santa Fe was a valuable trading center in the southwest. This expedition crossed several hundred miles of unexplored terrain to reach Santa Fe, but they lost all of their supplies, and were forced to surrender to the Mexican garrison of a village outside Santa Fe after encountering inhabitants resistant to the idea of becoming Texan. The prisoners were marched to Mexico City. The Santa Fe expedition, along with several others, taxed the resources of the republic. Arms, food, and accoutrements cost money and Texas could not raise the funds to pay for it because the government lacked the power of direct taxation. It was incredibly difficult to raise the means to make Manifest Destiny a reality. Instead of money, soldiers were paid in land bounties. The financial cost of empire proved to be the downfall of the Republic of Texas.

Recognition

The last act of President Jackson recognized Texas independence. However, this did not guarantee protection. On September 25, 1839, France became the first European power to recognize Texas signing a “Treaty of Amity, Navigation, and Commerce” with France. Trade did not guarantee protection. From 1836 until the annexation process began in 1844, Texans had to maintain their Independence by force. A navy is an expensive tool. But, when properly used, and properly supported, is well worth the investment. According to Captain A.T. Mahan, the “influence of the government should make itself felt, to build up for the nation a navy, which, if not capable of reaching distant countries, shall at least be able to keep clear the approaches to its own.”5 The close proximity of the Texas coast to the Mexican coast, combined with the relative poverty of both national governments, allowed two small naval forces to operate in the Gulf. Both navies combined never equaled more than fifteen men of war. Often times, they could never put more than two or three to sea at one time. The Texas Navy’s primary mission was to protect the independence of Texas, done through the blockading of the main Atlantic ports of Mexico.

The blockades strangled the commerce of Mexico, and forced British diplomatic recognition of Texas, followed quickly by Belgium and Holland. In 1840, the Mexicans were still recovering from the French assault in 1838. They had no navy to defend their shores from the Texans; however, they quickly and desperately searched for one. The Mexicans sought complete dominance over the western Gulf, and ordered two new steam ships of war. In addition to these, they found, armed, and commissioned several sailings ships.  

Mexican shipbuilding projects frightened Galvestonians. The Texas Navy was ill-used by President Houston. His hesitancy to spend money on maintenance, pay, and supplies caused the ships’ material condition to deteriorate and the crews to go unpaid. Her officers received pay only three times in as many years.

Mexico postured threateningly toward conquest of the Yucatan and then Texas, causing hysteria in Texas, and the hysteria increased because the navy was stuck in New Orleans without money to recruit crews, pay its debts, or maintain the ships. The navy did not even need Texan taxes, just President Houston’s support for the Yucatecos, who had been subsidizing the fleet for two years. Commodore Moore had operated continuously on the Mexican coast, blockading enemy ports, extracting ransom money from them, and disrupting trade with Europe. Houston simply had to allow subsidies to continue, as well as make periodic expenditures toward the upkeep of the navy in dry dock and refitting.

President Houston’s Militia Navy   

On the few occasions Houston desired the navy’s use, his orders for them were entirely improper for both the size and nature of the fleet vis-à-vis the opposing force. Houston’s experiences as a soldier led him to believe the best way to protect Galveston was to have the navy moored in port as a fleet-in-being. Following Houston’s orders meant the navy could be blockaded in Galveston by a superior force and rendered useless, similar to what had happened to the Brutus and the Invincible in the first navy during Houston’s last presidency.

There was a great debate on the measures necessary to protect the republic. President Houston had great experience with the use of militias on land, and believed that a naval militia would be an inexpensive and viable option for the fledgling republic. President Houston favored militias on land and sea to save money. However, a naval militia cannot accomplish the same objectives as a standing naval force commensurate with protecting Texas commerce. Sea control is the goal of a navy. The Texas Navy’s mission was to protect Texas’ international commerce, while disrupting the Mexican commerce by interdicting trade, and destroying or defeating the enemy’s fleet.

The use of militia ships proved to be complete and utter folly. The Englishman William Bollaert served as a volunteer “waister” aboard the steamer Lafitte, one of three militia ships operating out of Galveston. President Houston sent the militia squadron to interdict a rumored Mexican invasion fleet. The cruise was a complete fiasco, with the ships luckily failing in their mission to intercept the enemy force. The Lafitte did capture one small prize, but poor discipline and lack of naval training proved the ineffectiveness of a militia fleet. Mahan said that the best way for a fleet to protect a port was “drawing the enemy forces away from shores through offensive action on the high seas or forcing them to concentrate against a powerful if inferior force.”6 President Houston repeatedly defied common sense naval strategy; luckily, his defiance did not cost the life of the Republic.

President Houston and the Navy    

President Houston’s handling of naval affairs is incredibly controversial. Why was President Houston so belligerent toward his own navy? There are perceived reasons for Houston’s antipathy. The first Secretary of the Navy, Robert Potter proposed dismissing Sam Houston from his post as commander-in-chief after the battle of San Jacinto. Secretary Potter had opposed his appointment to the post to begin with.7 In addition to these actions in the wake of San Jacinto, Houston’s great victory, Secretary Potter had ordered the first Texas navy on a cruise forbidden by Houston, and then joined the cruise himself. Perhaps a part of the answer is that Secretary Potter’s actions had caused Houston to associate the navy with his disgust for Secretary Potter. When Houston was a member of the Texas Senate, he led his large faction in opposition to all large financial projects, including the navy.

(Sloop-of-war Austin, Republic of Texas Navy, in the Battle of Campeche.
Painting, San Jacinto Museum of History)

In 1842, Houston sent three naval commissioners to New Orleans where the fleet had been stuck for lack of funds, to order the fleet to return to Galveston, and for Moore to relinquish command to the next senior officer. Moore, alerted by Yucateco friends of the eminent fall of Campeche, persuaded Commissioner Morgan to allow him to engage the Mexican fleet and attempt to relieve Campeche, lest the Mexicans invade Galveston next. Commissioner Morgan concurred, and they proceeded to Campeche. Houston was outraged. He declared Moore a pirate, and asked the “naval powers of Christendom” to “seize… and bring them into the port of Galveston.”8  Another example of Houston’s continued anti-Moore stance comes from a speech he made after annexation in the United States Senate where spoke, “that miserable Commodore Moore… who would fall by his own poison, or be strangled by his own venom…  He, like a bloated maggot, can only live in his own corruption.”9 The Writings of Sam Houston, volume VI; contain a 32-page harangue of Moore’s actions as commodore. Houston successfully prevented Commodore Moore and the other Texas Naval Officers from receiving commissions in the United States Navy after Annexation. Houston won his feud, killing all memorials to the navy as well as pensions and land bounties to her sailors.

The Battle of Campeche

In 1843, before Moore was declared a pirate, he set sail to do battle with a greatly superior foe. The Mexican fleet consisted of two modern steam ships of war, officered and manned by Britons. In addition to these two steamers, the Mexicans kept four or five sailing ships blockading Campeche. Moore headed for Campeche with his two ships the Austin and the Wharton. After a long and brutal siege, the citizens of Campeche were preparing to capitulate, when in the distance they spied the Texan ships. They broke off negotiations with the Centralists, and cheered the approaching ships. The newly arrived Texans had a difficult task to accomplish. Outnumbered three to one, they sailed out of Campeche to meet the adversary. The Mexican ships refused to engage the Texans and continually withdrew in the face of the Texans, fighting a running battle with them.

The Campeche Campaign, 1843, Meed, pg 2. (Texas State Historical Association, Austin)

Eventually, the Texans were compelled to break off their actions in defense of their allies in Campeche and return to Galveston, not by enemy action, but betrayal at home. President Houston had declared his own Navy to be pirates and outlaws. Commodore Moore received a copy of Houston’s piracy declaration in Campeche, and was forced to return to Galveston. Moore had no desire to risk his men and ships to the consequences of piracy charges if captured by the Mexicans. Despite President Houston’s declaration of the navy as pirates, Commodore Moore’s squadron returned as heroes, the sheriff refused to arrest him; balls were thrown in honor of him and his officers.

Annexation

There were unconfirmed reports that President Jackson had sent his young protégé Sam Houston to Texas to bring her into the Union. Houston denied these reports, and proof has never surfaced. However, he used every trick in the book to encourage the United States to annex the state. He engaged in talks with European powers Britain and France, frequently conversing with European attaches such as Captain Charles Elliot R.N., and the Frenchmen, Viscount Craymayel and Dubois de Saligny. Viscount Craymayel believed all of the peace talks with Mexico completely futile. Moreover, he asserted that the only way “for Texas to escape from her precarious position would be… annexation, which has always been the desire of the population.”10 Craymayel also accused the United States of using Texas to drain Mexican resources to prevent them becoming a rival on the continent.

With annexation efforts decided in Washington D.C., instead of in Texas, Houston attempted annexation through another tack. He spent time with the British Charge d’Affaires in Texas, Captain Elliot, RN. At times, he hinted at emancipation, although never ever specifically saying such a thing. When word of this arrived in America, the newspapers went berserk claiming Britain was trying to defeat them from “within” 11 Sam Houston’s coy discussions with Britain helped persuade the United States to annex Texas. Houston explained his often-confusing diplomatic initiatives thusly “just as a woman with two suitors might use coquetry to prompt the interest of the one she favored, you must excuse me for using the same means to annex Texas to Uncle Sam.”12 The people loved Sam Houston’s explanation for his actions; the people loved, and still love Sam Houston. When it came time to vote for or against annexation, the people voted overwhelmingly for annexation. In the election on October 13, 1845, there were 4,254 votes for annexation with 267 votes against annexation. 

Conclusion

Today we often remember the heroes who fell at the Alamo, the men who were massacred at Goliad, and the men who charged the Mexican lines at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. Save for a county named after Moore in the Texas panhandle, an entire pantheon of naval heroes has largely been ignored. If one goes to Galveston, there are no statues of Commodore Moore, but one sees memorials to Heros of the republic who fought at San Jacinto and a monument to Confederate Heroes. On the streets, no mention of the Texas Navy, no Moore Avenue runs adjacent to the Strand. The Texas Navy is largely forgotten, erased from memory by a vindictive president.

LT Jason Lancaster is a U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer. He is currently the Weapons Officer aboard USS STOUT (DDG 55). He holds a Masters degree in History from the University of Tulsa. His views are his alone and do not represent the stance of any U.S. government department or agency.

Bibliography

1.) Hill, Jim Dan, The Texas Navy, in Forgotten Battles and Shirtsleeve Diplomacy, 
University of Chicago Press, 1937; reprint, State House Press, Austin, Texas, 1987, 224p.

2.) Wells, Commander Tom Henderson, USN, retired, Commodore Moore & The Texas Navy, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1960, second printing 1988, 218p.

3.) Douglas, Claude L, Thunder on the Gulf, or, The Story of the Texas Navy, Old Army Press, Fort Collins, CO, 1973. 

4.) Francaviglia, Richard V., From Sail to Steam, Four Centuries of Texas Maritime 
 History 1500-1900, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1998, 324p. Company, 1936; reprint, Old Army Press, 1973, 128p.

5.) Meed, Douglas V., the Fighting Texas Navy, Republic of Texas Press, 2001, 250p.

6.) Devereaux, Linda Ericson, the Texas Navy, Ericson Books, Nacogdoches, Texas, 1983.

7.) Barker, Eugene, The Writings of Sam Houston, volumes I-VIII Pemberton Press, 1970.

8.) Barker, Nancy Nichols, The French Legation in Texas, volumes I-II Texas State Historical Association, 1973.

9.) Campbell, Randolph B, Sam Houston and the Southwest, Harper-Collins College Publishers, 1993.

10.) Sumida, Tetsuro Jon, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: the Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington D.C. 1997.

11.) Mahan, A.T., the Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783, Dover Publications, NY, 1987.

12.) Maberry, Robert Jr., Texas Flags, Texas A&M Press, College Station, 2001.

13.) Gulick, Charles Adams, Jr., the Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, volumes II-VI, AMS Press New York, 1972.

14.) Hollon, Eugene, W. William Bollaert’s Texas, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1956. The Campeche Campaign, 1843, Meed, pg 2. (Texas State Historical Association, Austin) 

Texas Gulf Coastline, Francaviglia, Richard V., From Sail to Steam, Four Centuries of Texas Maritime History 1500-1900, pg 2. (Jeffery G Paine and Robert A. Morton, Shoreline and Vegetation-Line Movement: Texas Gulf Coast 197241882)

Endnotes

[1] Douglas, Thunder on the Gulf,  pg 17

[2] Jim Dan Hill, The Texas Navy,  pg 119

[3] Hill, pg 84

[4] Commander Tom Henderson Wells, Commodore Moore and the Texas Navy, pg 32

[5] John Tetsuro Sumida, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command, 1997

[6] Sumida, pg 48

[7] Campbell, 71

[8] Wells, pg 159

[9] Douglas V. Meed, The Fighting Texas Navy, pg 227 

[11] Nancy Barker, The French Legation in Texas, Volume II, pg 489

[12] Randolph Campbell, Sam Houston, pg 112-113

Featured Image: On a street in London, England at 4 St James’s Street sits the building which at one time served as the site of the Embassy of Texas. From 1842 until 1845, when Texas became a state, this is where the Republic of Texas did business in England and across from St. James Palace. (Photo by Luke Spencer)

Events

Announcing the Nominees

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Thanks to the input of our readers we’re happy to announce the following nominations for CFAR 2018.  We need your help determining what authors and issues will be highlighted at CFAR 2018!  The authors of the top vote-getting articles will be invited to speak at the May 15th event on the article topic, so consider what you’d like an update on or what author you’d like to press with questions.  All CIMSEC members are eligible to vote.

  • Up to 5 nominees in the CIMSEC category; and,
  • Up to 2 nominees in the CNA category

If you’re not yet a CIMSEC member, it’s free and easy to sign up here for eligibility to vote.  And don’t forget to RSVP to the event!

As always, thanks to the generous support of CNA and our contributors for helping us bring you this event, and congratulations to the nominees!

CNA Category Nominees

Russia’s Approach to Cyber Warfare
Michael Connell and Sarah Vogler

Understanding the behavior of adversaries in the cyber domain can often be challenging. Attribution issues, the technical nature of cyberwarfare, its recent and rapid evolution, its ephemeral effects, and the covert ways in which it is often used tend to obscure the motivations and strategies of the actors involved.  This paper is an attempt to address these issues as they pertain to a particularly potent cyber adversary: Russia. Russia’s cyber capabilities are highly advanced, and Moscow has demonstrated a willingness to employ offensive cyber in situations other than war to affect political and economic outcomes in neighboring states and to deter its adversaries. To counter this strategy, U.S. policymakers and military planners need to understand how Russia integrates cyberwarfare concepts into its broader military and security strategies. This paper addresses this issue from a theoretical as well as a practical perspective, first by analyzing Russian doctrine and official writings and statements about cyberwarfare and then by examining how Russian cyber forces have operated in real-world scenarios.
https://www.cna.org/cna_files/pdf/DOP-2016-U-014231-1Rev.pdf 

China’s Military Support Facility in Djibouti: The Economic and Security Dimensions of China’s First Overseas Base
Erica Downs, Jeffrey Becker, and Patrick deGategno

In November 2015, China publicly acknowledged for the first time that it is building its first overseas military facility in Djibouti, which is also home to the largest U.S. military installation in Africa. How did China come to establish its first overseas military support facility in Djibouti? What do we know about this facility and how it might be used, and what insights can we glean from the process to better understand where China’s military might go next? This paper provides a preliminary look at the origins of China’s military support facility in Djibouti. It explores the evolution of the economic and security relations between the two countries that led to the establishment of the facility, how it may be used, and what it may tell us about future Chinese military facilities abroad. It also assesses the implications of the growing economic and military ties between the two countries for the United States and the U.S. Navy. 
https://www.cna.org/CNA_files/PDF/DIM-2017-U-015308-Final2.pdf

Great Power Competition in the Indian Ocean: The Past As Prologue?
Rear Adm. Mike McDevitt, USN (Ret.)

U.S. Navy planners should assume that the PLA Navy’s presence in the western Indian Ocean will grow, and that new bases and places will be organized to support its expanded presence. U.S. authorities can no longer assume unencumbered freedom of action when electing to posture U.S. naval forces offshore of the Horn of Africa and other East African hotspots. If China’s interests are involved and differ from Washington’s, the Chinese could dispatch their own naval forces to the water offshore of the country in question. The U.S. Navy faced similar circumstances between 1968 and 1991, when the United States and the Soviet Union competed for friends, political influence, maritime access, and bases in the western Indian Ocean region. This paper briefly discusses this period in order to provide some historical context for what might occur in the future. As Mark Twain purportedly quipped, “History does not repeat, but it often rhymes.”
https://www.cna.org/CNA_files/PDF/DOP-2017-U-015750-Final2.pdf

Unconstrained Foreign Direct Investment: An Emerging Challenge to Arctic Security
Mark E. Rosen and Cara B. Thuringer

The Arctic Ocean is a vast maritime region which is bordered by six states that are now coming to appreciate their enormous hydrocarbon, mineral, and other natural resource potential as well as the use of the Arctic Ocean as a potential transit route from Asia to the points in the Atlantic in the U.S. and Europe.  Other states outside of the Arctic have also taken note of the Arctic’s vast and unexploited deposits, especially China. The report takes stock of the current foreign direct investment (FDI) patterns — at the transactional level — with a particular focus on Chinese activity. This study explores China’s current natural resource strategies and compares them to past FDI activities in South America and Africa. This study also makes detailed comparisons of the FDI laws of the six main states that border the Arctic Ocean. Based on the findings, the authors suggest three approaches that could be pursued independently or in tandem, to monitor and indirectly regulate inbound FDI. Regulation is highly recommended because unrestrained FDI can alter the political landscape in those areas (e.g., Greenland) desperate for foreign capital and can negatively impact the Arctic marine environment if extraction projects do not reflect state-of-the art technology or are properly bonded.   The approaches suggested include establishing a set of multilateral Arctic FDI review criteria administered by each nation; an Arctic Development Code; and the formation and funding of an Arctic Development Bank, which would provide private developers with access to local capital (vs. Beijing sourced) to finance infrastructure and resource extraction projects.   

The Origins and Development of a Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower 
Peter Swartz, William Rosenau, and Hannah Kates

This study describes and analyzes the origins, creation, announcement, and dissemination of the U.S. Navy–Marine Corps–Coast Guard Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged, Ready (CS21R), published in March 2015. It also describes reactions to the document’s publication, and provides a series of conclusions, observations, and recommendations derived from the initial description and analysis. Its emphasis throughout is mostly on the Navy, although the document was a tri-service effort signed by the heads of the three U.S. sea services, with a signed preface by the U.S. Secretary of the Navy.
https://www.cna.org/CNA_files/PDF/DRM-2016-U-013939-Final2.pdf

NATO Maritime Strategy for a New Era: “These Aren’t the SLOCs You’re Looking For”
Steve Wills

Discussion surrounding the announcement of a new NATO Maritime Command for the North Atlantic seems to have settled on the assumption that there is again a vital “sea line of communication” (SLOC) between North America and Europe as there was supposed to be during the Cold War. There was a great deal of planning on both sides of the Atlantic for major reinforcement of NATO ground and air forces in Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion using convoys of supply ships, much as was done in the two previous World Wars. The Soviet Union had a large fleet of nuclear and conventional submarines and it seemed very clear that Soviet admirals intended to fight a third “Battle of the Atlantic” in the event of war to prevent Western resupply of NATO. However, this scenario bore no resemblance to what the Soviet Navy actually intended to do in case of war. Current geostrategic conditions and military force structure levels make a “fourth” such Atlantic convoy battle even less likely than was envisioned by many in 1985. The United States and its NATO allies and friends should carefully examine the current geography and force structure of the Russian Federation before embarking on another round of mirror-imaging of adversary intentions.

 

CIMSEC Category Nominees

Three Hard Questions for U.S. Maritime Strategy in A Digital Age – Frank Goertner

Tropical Currents: SOUTHCOM’s 2018 Posture Statement – W Alejandro Sanchez

Chinese Maritime Strategy for the Indian Ocean – David Scott

Hyper Converged Networks and Artificial Intelligence: Fighting at Machine Speed – Travis Howard

History’s Data for Tomorrow’s Navy – Frank Blazich

China: Connected Strategic Themes Across Contested Global Commons, Pt. 2 – Tuan Pham

Evolution of Chinese National Security Debates on Maritime Policy – Sherman Xiaogang Lai

Hainan’s Maritime Militia: All Hands on Deck for Sovereignty, Pt. 3 – Andrew Erickson and Conor Kennedy

The Battle of Locust Point: An Oral History of the First Autonomous Combat Engagement – David Strachan

The Gate of Tears: Interests, Options, and Strategy in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait – Jimmy Drennan

Fighting for the Seafloor: From Lawfare to Warfare – Kyle P Cregge

Return of the Sea Control Ship – Pete Pagano

The U.S. Coast Guard in the South China Sea: Strategy or Folly? – Michael D. Armour

Why Are Our Ships Crashing? Competence, Overload, and Cyber Considerations – Chris Demchak, Keith Patton, and Sam J. Tangredi

Black Swan: An Option for the Navy’s Future Surface Combatant – B. A. Friedman

The PLA Navy’s Plan For Dominance: Subs, Shipborne ASBMs, and Carrier Aviation – Richard D. Fisher, Jr.

What the Loss of the ARA San Juan Reveals About South America’s Submarines – W. Alejandro Sanchez

Breaking the Anti-Ship Missile Chain – Dick Mosier

How Australia’s Maritime Strategy and Partnerships in the Indo-Pacific Upset China – David Scott

Narco Submarines: A Problem That Will Not Sink – W. Alejandro Sanchez

Chinese Maritime Strategy for the Indian Ocean – David Scott

The Navy Needs To Do More Than Rebuild For The Future, It Needs To Reinvent Itself – Frank Goertner

 

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Book Review

Knowing the Enemy: Naval Intelligence in Southeast Asia

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Richard A. Mobley and Edward J. Marolda, Knowing the Enemy: Naval Intelligence in Southeast Asia. Naval History and Heritage Command, 2016, 102 pp.

By LCDR Mark Munson, USN

Knowing the Enemy: Naval Intelligence in Asia by Richard A. Mobley and Edward J. Marolda is the seventh book in the Naval History and Heritage Command’s The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War series, and addresses the role of U.S. Navy intelligence in the Vietnam War. It serves as useful reference for both students of the Vietnam War and Navy intelligence, illuminating both the drastic technological changes that have taken place over the last 50 years, as well as the unchanging nature of core intelligence principles. Determining what information commanders need, and figuring out how to get them that finished intelligence at the right time and in the right format remains the essence of how to do intelligence right.

Many of the ways in which the U.S. Navy conducted intelligence operations during Vietnam would be familiar to practitioners today, with the Integrated Operational Intelligence Center (IOIC) onboard a Vietnam-era carrier the direct ancestor of today’s Carrier Intelligence Center (CVIC), spaces in which intelligence from a variety of sources, including data from national, theater, and carrier air wing (CVW) sensors and feeds are fused to provide what the Navy calls “Operational Intelligence.”

Demonstrating the continuity of all-source intelligence analysis between then and now, the all-source techniques Vietnam-era analysts used to track illicit civilian shipping had originally been perfected during the Second World War. During Operation Market Time, the U.S. Navy’s interdiction campaign in the South China Sea against trawlers smuggling weapons from North Vietnam into South Vietnam, naval intelligence used what Mobley and Marolda describe as a “sophisticated analytical and interpretive process” and techniques like “pattern analysis,” to achieve “a comprehensive understanding of what routes the infiltrating ships would take and what sites on the coast of South Vietnam they would attempt to reach.”

During Vietnam the Navy experimented both with methods where imagery collected during airborne reconnaissance missions was exploited onboard the carrier in the IOIC, as well as what is now called “reachback,” with analysts at the Fleet Intelligence Center Pacific Facility (FICPAC) in Hawaii exploiting imagery during Operation Rolling Thunder early in the war, or at the Fleet Intelligence Center Pacific Facility (FICPACFAC) at Cubi Point in the Philippines later during the bombing of North Vietnam during 1972’s Operation Linebacker. Teams of FICPACFAC imagery analysts “operated around the clock processing raw intelligence photography, interpreting it, and using it to prepare targeting lists” during Linebacker. Navy support to targeting efforts during Linebacker played a vital role to operations such as the air campaign that stopped North Vietnam’s conventional invasion of the South, and the mining of Haiphong Harbor.

Unlike today, however, when reachback is enabled by robust wireless and satellite communications, the state of technology at that time meant that unexploited imagery had to be physically couriered from the various sites afloat and ashore in Southeast Asia to Hawaii and back, demonstrating the old intelligence truism that even the best intelligence collection has no impact if cannot get to an analyst who can exploit and then disseminate it to the right decision-maker in a timely and usable form. This dilemma was demonstrated most acutely during Rolling Thunder, which featured rules-of-engagement requiring the Joint Staff at the Pentagon to approve strikes, meaning that wet film of targets like Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) sites would have to be flown back to the carrier, recovered from the plane, exploited by imagery analysts, transmitted to Washington, and then approved as targets. This lumbering process often allowed the enemy to move their SAM batteries well before an attack was mounted. In this instance the combination of technological limitations and cumbersome command-and-control processes limited the effectiveness of U.S. airpower. It also serves as a reminder for how the current reliance on wireless communications presents vulnerabilities that can be exploited by savvy adversaries that challenge U.S. use of the electromagnetic spectrum by degrading dissemination of intelligence from the analyst to the consumer.

The employment of manned airborne reconnaissance platforms from even before the start of the war demonstrates the desire for better intelligence by both commanders in theater and national leaders during Vietnam, with carrier-based aircraft conducting what is now called Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions being suffering casualties over Laos as early as June 1964. 32 planes from the Navy’s photo-reconnaissance squadrons were eventually shot down during war, with seven pilots killed and five captured. These comparatively heavy losses are possibly the biggest human difference between ISR in Vietnam and the current set of wars prosecuted by the U.S. in the twenty-first century. The extreme risks that North Vietnam’s advanced Soviet air defense network posed to aviators flying manned reconnaissance platforms then contrasts greatly with the virtually threat-free environment that today’s aerial reconnaissance platforms enjoy as they operate with impunity in the skies above places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just like today, signals intelligence (SIGINT) can be collected both in the air and afloat, with support during Vietnam from Naval Security Group cryptologists embarked in Navy ships off the coast, and airborne SIGINT collection conducted from P-3 Orion Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft during Operation Market Time.

Navy collectors of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in Vietnam included Naval Intelligence Liaison Officers (NILO) serving as part of Naval Intelligence Field Organization (NIFO) in Vietnam’s coastal and riverine zones. Perhaps the most impressive HUMINT success took place in 1969 when Navy collection was able to prove that North Vietnam was moving weapons and personnel into the South via Cambodia. This was a victory against both the enemy as well as the national intelligence bureaucracy. Previous technical collection had failed to prove the existence of a Cambodian transshipment node, and strongly-held assessments by CIA, DIA, and the State Department had rejected suspicions that support to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong was being funneled through Cambodia.

Perhaps some of the most insightful observations made in Knowing the Enemy is when it recounts how the desire for better intelligence on the intentions of the North Vietnamese, Chinese, and Soviet rivals of the U.S. ended up driving both military operations and political events, instead of the reverse. Although the U.S. had been involved in the fight in Southeast Asia since the French had been forced out of its former Indochinese colony in the mid-1950s, the main trigger for the “official” start of the war was actually caused by the push for more aggressive intelligence collection.

By the early sixties, U.S. Navy destroyers were regularly conducting intelligence collection missions called “DESOTO patrols,” typically off the coast but outside the territorial waters of the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, and North Vietnam. By 1964 U.S. leaders were pushing for more aggressive DESOTO patrols in order to support South Vietnam’s “Operation 34A” commando raids against North Vietnamese coastal targets. Admiral Harry D. Felt, then serving as Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), stated that the “lack of adequate intelligence is a prime factor in the failure of maritime operations,” concluding that Operation 34A needed better U.S. Navy afloat collection to be successful.

The pressure to improve collection by operating U.S. Navy ships closer to the North Vietnamese coast, sometime inside of territorial waters, led directly to the 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident in which the destroyers Maddox (DD-731) and Turner Joy (DD-951), were purportedly attacked by the North Vietnamese Navy, providing the justification for the subsequent Tonkin Gulf Resolution and the closest thing to an actual “start” of the Vietnam War. The authors briefly discuss the controversy over exactly what happened in August 1964, and how intelligence reporting and analysis of those events at the time were used by the Johnson administration to justify a greatly expanded role in Vietnam, noting that “it is now clear that North Vietnamese naval units did not attack Maddox and Turner Joy on 4 August 1964.”

Knowing the Enemy highlights heroes such as Jack Graf, a decorated NILO who, after being shot down during his second tour in Vietnam, escaped from captivity but ultimately went missing; Lieutenant Charles F. Klusmann, a reconnaissance pilot who was shot down over Laos in 1964 but was able to escape; and Captain Earl F. “Rex” Rectanus, the Intelligence Officer for Naval Forces Vietnam (NAVFORV) who stood up to CIA and DIA in 1969, proving that enemy forces were being resupplied via Cambodia. It also includes sections discussing more prosaic challenges like those faced by cryptologists located ashore at bases like Danang who underwent frequent rocket attacks from Viet Cong rebels.

Knowing the Enemy provides a rich resource for those interested in U.S. Naval intelligence efforts in Vietnam, covering the war both chronologically and thematically in terms of how intelligence supported Navy operations off the coast, in the air, on the ground, and in the rivers of southeast Asia. It can be downloaded for free from the Naval History and Heritage Command’ website.

Lieutenant Commander Mark Munson is a naval officer assigned to Coastal Riverine Group TWO. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official viewpoints or policies of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Featured Image: Ben Cat, South Vietnam, Sept. 25, 1965 by french photographer Henry Huet. The soldiers in the photo are paratroopers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade. (Colorized by Wayne Degan)

Indo-Asia-Pacific

Strategic Convergence and Prospects for Indo-Israeli-U.S. Maritime Cooperation

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By Harry Halem

Introduction

This past January, Benjamin Netanyahu undertook a high-profile visit to India, becoming the second Israeli Prime Minister to travel to the country. Accompanied by a 130-member delegation, Netanyahu’s trip included a stay in New Delhi, and visits to the Taj Mahal, Mahatma Gandhi’s grave, and Gandhi’s home in the state of Gujrat. The personal relationship between Netanyahu and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, seems extremely strong – in a distinct break from protocol, Modi greeted Netanyahu at the airport, an honor denied to the popular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during his visit a month later.

Netanyahu and Modi’s strong personal relationship indicates the growing closeness of Indo-Israeli relations. While India opened an embassy in Tel Aviv only 26 years ago, since the two countries have engaged in growing levels of trade and military cooperation – the present diplomatic evolution simply reflects underlying trends. Since 1992, India has also engaged in a sustained rapprochement with the United States. Tacitly aligned with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the USSR’s collapse revolutionized India’s strategic situation, and has resulted in progressively improving relations with the U.S., despite multiple hiccups along the way.

Strategic trends dictate growing areas of cooperation between India, the U.S., and Israel, particularly in the maritime sphere. As such, U.S. policymakers are faced with the unique opportunity of being able to forge an alliance with a major power that could revolutionize American security architecture in the Near East and Indian Ocean. Despite the potential points of Indo-American and Indo-Israeli friction that remain, Washington can use the relationship between its critical Near Eastern ally and New Delhi to actualize the full potential of this partnership.

The Development of Indian Foreign Policy – Non-Alignment to Balancing

India’s shifting policy toward the West is the culmination of steady changes in India’s approach toward the external world since its independence in 1947. Despite its initial war with Pakistan, India faced few external threats during its first decade of independent existence. Its armed forces were employed internally, enabling the absorption of reticent enclaves into the fledgling Republic. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, embarked upon an anticolonial foreign policy, using India’s ostensible moral capital to build links with other nations emerging from their colonial pasts.

The outbreak of war with China in 1962, therefore, was a distinct shock for the Indian governing establishment. Up until that point, China had been viewed as a Marxist brother in arms – Nehru hoped to anchor Indian foreign policy on cooperation with China, and use the combined authority of the two formerly colonial powers to remain independent from the Cold War. Despite its border dispute with China, the PRC’s invasion across the McMahon Line and into Ladakh was utterly unanticipated. Not only were India’s armed forces unprepared for conflict in Jammu and Kashmir’s harsh mountain conditions against the more experienced People’s Liberation Army, China also executed its offensive concurrent with the Cuban Missile Crisis, ensuring that neither Washington nor Moscow could properly focus on the region and lend New Delhi support until after Beijing consolidated its initial gains.

Borders and territories disputed by China and India today. (Graphic News)

Following the Sino-Indian War, India’s foreign policy shifted away from its idealistic roots. However, relations between India and the West remained chilled, particularly over America’s persistent support for Pakistan, a critical facilitator in Nixon and Kissinger’s attempts to realign China during the early 1970s. Ideologically, the socialist, anti-Imperialist Indian National Congress (INC), which dominated Indian politics until the late 1970s, found the Soviet Union to be a more amenable partner than the United States, with its capitalist ideology and close relationship with Britain and other former colonial European powers, while the Kremlin had a progressively increasing interest in balancing China as relations cooled and animosity increased from Stalin’s death onward. India’s relationship with Israel was similarly frigid, albeit for more pragmatic reasons. India initially refused to recognize Israel, and remained wary of appearing too close to the Jewish state despite recognition in 1950. Indian politicians feared the response of the significant Muslim minority population if New Delhi formally opened an embassy in Tel Aviv. Moreover, India was dependent upon Israel’s Arab adversaries for energy supplies, relied on the Persian Gulf states to maintain Indian foreign exchange reserves, and significantly benefited from the productivity of Indian nationals working in the Near East. Formally engaging with Israel would therefore have risked Indian economic and energy security.

The Cold War’s conclusion was a major turning point for Indo-Israeli and Indo-American relations. INC progressively lost its political monopoly from Indira Gandhi’s ouster in 1977 after unprecedented centralization. By 1989, India’s political environment had become much more balanced, with various opposition parties, namely the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its affiliates challenging long-standing socialist economic policies, and implementing free market reforms. American loans underwrote India’s market liberalization. The U.S. also identified India as a potential defense export market, and gradually increased technological transfers. More notably, the U.S. Navy began its Malabar exercises with its Indian counterpart in 1992, explicitly focusing on rehearsing combat operations, rather than non-wartime activities. Indo-American relations then cooled in 1998 when the Clinton administration sanctioned India for its nuclear testing. However, President Clinton quickly abandoned his sanctions policy, while President Bush identified India as a critical potential partner in the Global War on Terror after the September 11th Attacks. The Malabar naval exercises have continued to increase in scope, while Indian Navy and U.S. Navy ships cooperate on antipiracy, counterterrorism, and other maritime patrol missions in the Indian Ocean.

Indo-Israeli relations also progressively thawed. India opened an embassy in Tel Aviv in 1992. Economic relations have flourished since, while India and Israel also have a progressively expanding security relationship. Indian forces have participated in training exercises in Israel, while Israeli defense companies sell advanced technologies to the Indian military – India has used Israeli drones to offset the advantages of its regional rivals. Increased state visits demonstrate the strength of this relationship: the Netanyahu-Modi visits are only the most recent of a rising number of high-profile diplomatic exchanges. Additionally, significant are changes in Indian rhetoric. In the 2014 Gaza War, India broke with its previous strong condemnation of Israeli action in the Palestinian territories, instead blaming both parties for the conflict, and calling upon the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to limit civilian casualties. This reflects a broader attempt to “de-hyphenate” Indo-Israeli relations: New Delhi wishes to build an independent relationship with Tel Aviv, regardless of the Palestinian issue. One can only expect this cooperation to increase in the future.

The Strategic Roots of Cooperation

Policymakers rarely have the opportunity to forge new, lasting alliances. The uncertainty of the international environment makes ensuring sustained cooperation difficult, particularly among great powers – a cursory observation of Sino-Russo-American relations from 1945 to the present indicates this fact. However, the clear confluence of interests between India, Israel, and the United States makes the potential for cooperation extremely high, particularly in the maritime domain.

The U.S. and Israel have clear shared interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, Arabian Gulf, and Indian Ocean. Both require Near Eastern stability to advance their interests. The Islamic Republic of Iran is presently the greatest regional threat to both of their goals. Iranian influence in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon poses a physical threat to Israeli security through irregular assets like Hezbollah and their missile capabilities, or, potentially in the future, a direct threat from conventional ground forces. Iranian expansion in the Indian Ocean also threatens the U.S.’ ability to impose a “far blockade” on China in the event of conflict by attempting to closing the Strait of Hormuz and pressure American sea lines of communication running from the Near East to the Western Pacific. Hence, Israel and the U.S. have a clear joint interest in ensuring their control over the Eastern Mediterranean and Indian Ocean.

India and the U.S. also share a critical interest concerning China. China is a blatant threat to India’s sphere of influence in South Asia. The Doklam Crisis is only the most recent evidence of Chinese encroachment on Indian or Indian allied borders, while China’s hedging strategy involves supporting India’s chief rival, Pakistan. India is the only regional actor that can offer China significant resistance without external support. The qualitatively sophisticated JSDF and Taiwanese militaries are too small to sustainably challenge the PLA absent American aid, while the Vietnamese and Philippine Armed Forces are qualitatively and quantitatively outmatched. India’s active military ranks only behind China’s numerically, while if reserves and paramilitary groups are included, the Indian Armed Forces could field nearly two million more personnel than the PLA. Moreover, as a nuclear-armed state, India can limit Chinese escalatory options in a way no other regional power can. However, India’s military is outmatched by the PLA. The PLAAF fields more combat aircraft than its Indian counterpart, and faces only three substantial regional threats aside from India – the Taiwanese Air Force, Japanese Air Self Defense Forces, and Republic of Korea Air Force (assuming the ROK is not tied down in some fashion by North Korea either through conflict or deterrence requirements) while the Indians will need to divert forces to deterring or fighting Pakistan’s Air Force in any conflict. At sea, the PLAN outmatches the Indian Navy. The PLAN’s two STOBAR carriers’ air wings match the INS Vikramaditya’s in size, while it outnumbers India in every surface combatant category. In the near future, the Indian Navy could face as much as a one-to-four disadvantage in a conflict with the PLAN. Nevertheless, India has a commanding geographic position over the approaches to and from the South China Sea, and can use both naval forces and land-based maritime patrol craft to prevent PLAN surface combatants from entering the Indian Ocean. Considering concurrent American interest in countering China’s rise, formalized cooperation between the U.S. and India would significantly improve the relative position of both countries in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific.

Israel and India also share a number of direct interests outside of their present economic and military transactions. Israel is not directly threatened by China – indeed, Israeli companies have sold the PLA military technology – while India relies on Iran for a significant portion of its energy imports. However, both have a clear interest in Indian Ocean maritime security. Chinese patrols in the Indian Ocean could pressure Indian supply lines, while China’s growing economic relationship with Iran could allow it to diplomatically leverage the Islamic Republic into choking off its oil flows to New Delhi. Israel, alternatively, would be unable to respond to Chinese submarine harassment of Israeli shipping in the Indian Ocean. Despite the IDF’s military sophistication, it lacks a blue water navy, and small powers remain at the mercy of larger adversaries in conflict absent a great power partner. Additionally, damage inflicted upon the Indian economy would harm Israel’s own productivity: Israel has a clear interest in ensuring India remains insulated from Chinese economic pressure. Finally, Israel could benefit from the ability to pressure Iran from the Indian Ocean, rather than simply overland. The U.S. Navy’s current presence in the Arabian Gulf allows for greater Israeli freedom of action on land. However, Israel would benefit from having its own naval forces, giving it the ability to act more independently.

These bilateral interests cohere into a broader whole. India, Israel, and the U.S. would all benefit from a more formal maritime arrangement in the Indian Ocean, while each nation would directly or indirectly benefit from the increases to the others’ security. These overlapping strategic interests are reinforced by the broader desire of all three potential partners to combat terrorism and respond to Islamic extremist organizations. With the roots for cooperation evidently existing, one must understand how to leverage this into a more explicit framework.

Future Steps to Facilitate Cooperation

Despite the clear cooperative potential between India, the U.S., and Israel, actualizing cooperation is a difficult task. Israel would likely be hesitant to be drawn into a formalized security architecture that would commit it to defending tangential interests with force, while India would reasonably be wary of jeopardizing relations with Iran, and by extension its access to oil. Nevertheless, American policymakers can take several steps to increase cooperation and lay the groundwork for a broader Mediterranean-Indo-Pacific security architecture that can respond to increasing Chinese, Russian, and Iranian southward pressure. Four specific policy recommendations can actualize this cooperation.

First, the U.S. should consider inviting the Israeli Navy to future iterations of the Malabar Exercises. Israel’s participation at Malabar would be a public way to signal Indo-Israeli cooperation, without Israel making any formal commitments in the Indian Ocean. Ensuring the stability of military-to-military contacts between the IDF and Indian Armed Forces will help insulate the security relationship between Israel and India despite changes in administration. Other joint training exercises are possible, and would be beneficial. India already sends fighter aircraft and Special Operations Forces units to Israel for various activities – America’s CENTCOM military forces could engage in exercises along their IDF and Indian Armed Forces counterparts.

Adm RK Dhowan CNS exchanging the memento with VAdm Ram Rutberg Commander-in-Chief, Israeli Navy at IHQ MoD, New Delhi. (Indian Navy photo)

Second, the U.S. can encourage further defense cooperation by making a concerted effort to win over the Indian market. The Indian military largely uses Soviet and Russian equipment. All but six percent of the Indian Army’s main battle tanks, and 20 percent of its combat aircraft, are Russian made or designed. Two-thirds of the Indian Navy’s attack submarine fleet, and slightly under half of its large surface combatant fleet of guided missile destroyers and frigates were produced in Russian shipyards. The U.S.’ high-cost systems, and Israel’s smaller industrial base, makes it difficult to imagine either one of them singlehandedly crowding out Russian production. But at least when it comes to surface combatants, one could envision Israeli or American ships being increasingly represented in the Indian fleet, with Israeli and American-designed small surface combatants competing for purchase. Moreover, the Indian Navy’s undersized submarine fleet offers U.S. producers an opportunity to revive diesel-electric submarines, and produce cheaper platforms to counter growing Chinese numerical superiority. Just as the British shipbuilding industry benefited from building capital ships and surface combatants for foreign nations before the Great War, American shipyards could help expand and maintain critical wartime capacity by producing warships for friendly and allied foreign powers. This could extend to IDF and American tanks and other armored vehicles replacing Soviet and Russian alternatives. Israel’s unmanned expertise is a critical facilitating factor. The Indian Air Force already uses Israeli UAV’s, namely the IAI Harop, a loitering munition, the IAI Searcher, a light scout platform, and the IAI Heron, a MALE reconnaissance and strike UCAV. Not only will demand for these sorts of platforms grow, as armed forces globally develop their understanding of teaming between manned and unmanned assets, but increases in AI technology will likely lead to a fully unmanned fighter aircraft in the next two to three decades. India, the U.S., and Israel would all benefit from research and production of such platforms – or risk being left behind by their Russian and Chinese rivals, who are undoubtedly engaging in developing those capabilities.

Third, American diplomacy can help decrease Iran’s role in India’s energy supply by leveraging energy supplies in the Eastern Mediterranean’s Leviathan Gas Field and other neighboring energy deposits. Current exploration indicates that these newly-discovered Eastern Mediterranean resource deposits contain upwards of 16.5 trillion cubic feet of gasoline. Combined with an increase in already high exports from Saudi Arabia, and a concerted effort to export North American oil and natural gas to India, the U.S. can decrease the proportion of India’s Iranian energy imports, and thereby give India the ability to more openly cooperate with the U.S. and Israel by lessening energy security risks.

Fourth, the U.S. should explore political and military relationships with India to increase security in the Indian Ocean. The present Indo-American relationship is remarkably similar to the early stages of Anglo-French cooperation before the First World War. The 1912 Anglo-French Naval Convention, in which Britain offered to secure the North Sea and France’s Atlantic coastline in return for France’s safeguarding of British interests in the Mediterranean, allowed Britain to concentrate its forces against the Imperial German Kaiserlichmarine while maintaining a degree of security in other global chokepoints. Even if implemented successfully, the PLAN will outnumber the U.S. Navy by nearly 150 ships in 2030, and could outnumber the U.S. Navy as early as 2020, and has nearly achieved numerical surface combatant parity today. Most dangerously, between 2025 and 2035, the U.S. Navy’s ship numbers will hover between 310 and 320 – such a disparity increases potential instability Absent a colossal shipbuilding program, the U.S. Navy’s only hope for parity will involve transferring the vast majority of American combat power to the Pacific, while easing force commitments elsewhere. Turning Indian Ocean and Arabian security over to the Indian Navy, in return for American guarantees to protect shared Indo-American interests in the South and East China Seas, may therefore be a preferable solution. At a minimum, the U.S. should consider joint basing arrangements with Indian facilities in the Southern and Western Indian Oceans, replicating the Royal Navy’s commanding position in the Indian Ocean during the Second World War. Israel could also benefit from such an arrangement – its submarines could refuel and resupply from Indian bases, or Indian support ships, enabling more consistent presence on Iran’s southern flank.

Conclusion – Forging the Strategic Relationship

Seldom does the international environment explicitly conform to the goals of high policy. Sophisticated strategies can easily unravel when they encounter certain facts on the ground. However, this makes identifying the points where a state can exert its influence even more critical. The confluence of interests between Israel, India, and the U.S. creates such a situation. With proper American policy action, the U.S. can effectively further its interests in the Near East, Indian Ocean, and Western Pacific, and potentially build a lasting partnership that stabilizes critical regions stretching from Cyprus to Ceylon.

Harry Halem is an undergraduate at the University of St Andrews studying International Relations and Philosophy. He welcomes your comments at [email protected]. 

Featured Image: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi shake hands at a joint press conference in the president’s house in New Delhi, India, on January 15, 2018. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.