A Personal Theory of Strategy

May 30, 2014 Guest Author Leave a comment

This essay by Nick Prime is part of the Personal Theories of Power series, a joint Bridge–CIMSEC project which asked a group of national security professionals to provide their theory of power and its application. We hope this launches a long and insightful debate that may one day shape policy.

“The primary aim of the strategist in the conduct of war is some selected degree of control of the enemy for the strategist’s own purpose; this is achieved by control of the patterns of war; and this control of the pattern of war is had by manipulation of the center of gravity of war to the advantage of the strategist and the disadvantage of the opponent.”[i]

This theory of control, whereby the aim of war is some measure of control over the enemy, and the achievement of this degree of control is the purpose of strategy, was most cogently expressed by Admiral J.C. Wylie. Its origins however date back to the early 1950s. When Wylie, along with Admiral Henry Eccles and German-American historian Dr. Herbert Rosinski, developed a general theory of strategy around this central concept of ‘control’. While each of the three men’s conceptions of this theory reflected variances in nuance and expression. All three sought to understand the interplay between politics, power, and control. The focus herein will be on the value of this theory as a means to understand strategy as something which exists and is practiced both in the physical and cognitive domains.

Understanding the Terms

A half century ago Wylie remarked that the study of strategy lacked a clear and consistent vocabulary, a statement that is as true today as it was then.[ii] In addition to the many definitions of strategy itself, there are as yet no established definitions for the terms and concepts which serve as the foundational elements for our understanding of strategy. It is important then to provide, in brief, a working conception of these terms so that their interplay can be shown in each domain.

Perhaps the most simple and practical definition of politics is that provided by Harold Lasswell who defined it as “the way people decide who gets what, when, where, how, and why”.[iii] Here we see the first unstated but unmistakable emphasis on choice as critical to understanding the concept. Another unstated but clear emphasis is on the role of authority, a crucial element in the practice of politics. As Lawrence Freedman has noted there is a critical interplay between power and authority, with a great deal of debate being had as to whether the two concepts are exclusive or extensions of each other.[iv] Freedman’s discussion of power in a strategic sense (what he dubs ‘strategic power’) also emphasizes a duality between physical and cognitive. Though he makes clear distinctions between the physical expression as force (or the capability to use force) and the cognitive expression, what he sees as its perception in the mind of the ‘target’ or ‘beholder’. While his focus on strategic power is largely on ‘coercive capacity’ the important term there is capacity.

Wylie saw politics as “the allocation, use, transfer of power” a conception which echoes both the interplay between power and authority, while also reflecting an emphasis on capacity.[v] Power then could perhaps best be thought of as energy, capable of existing in various forms such as watts of electrical charge or calories of food. Politics then is the means by which the power of a group, institution, or nation state is marshalled, allotted, and/or directed. Strategy then should be viewed as the mechanism by which the capacity (power) created through politics, is applied towards the aim of a given policy. The assertion of authority or more appropriately, control. Herein lies the subtle but distinct difference between Freedman’s conception of strategy and that of Wylie, Eccles and Rosinski. Freedman defines strategy as “the art of creating power to obtain maximum political objectives using available military means.”

Rosinski, whose understanding of strategy resembles that previously quoted by Wylie, defined strategy as the comprehensive direction of (military) power, applied through tactics, for the purpose of control.[vi] The difference between Freedman’s theory and the control theory is subtle but significant. By placing the emphasis on strategy’s purpose as being (some measure of) control, they are focusing on the application of power, in contrast to Freedman’s focus on the creation of power.

Control as Cognitive & Physical

In developing their theories of strategy both Wylie and Rosinski placed the bulk of their emphasis on control in the physical domain or ‘field of action’. As the intention was to establish control as a general theory of strategy, it was critical that theory bear equal relevance to each of the commonly identified ‘domains’ of conflict (land, sea, and air). In each of the respective domains the relevance and contribution towards control was measured when contrasted against destruction. The importance of this distinction is simple but significant. Destruction serves strategy only insofar as it contributes towards the achievement of control.

Implied in this emphasis on control, as opposed to an emphasis on destruction, is the focus on economy of force. By limiting the destruction and focusing it towards asserting a ‘selected degree’ of control over ‘key centers of gravity’ and/or ‘lines of communication’, control seeks to solve the challenge posed by strategy in the most economical means possible.[vii] Many theories of strategy lack this critical balancing. Favouring an emphasis on destruction, which can and often does become counterproductive. Strategies premised first on destruction emphasize as the primary means the use of (or through coercion, the threat to use) force. These strategies fail to account for the myriad of other means through which some measure of control, or contributions toward it, can be achieved. Such as political or economic pressures which can contribute towards control, adding to coercion, while curbing destruction only to that which is necessary. As Lukas Milevski noted, “control and coercion run along a single set of tracks: only the living can be threatened and consequently controlled, but they can only be so if, due to the expected cost or due to fear, the choice of continuing is less palatable than that of accommodating.”[viii]

Wylie and Eccles also provide valuable and insightful observations on the cognitive aspects of control. For Wylie, the manipulation of the physical centers of gravity would, through its effect on the “equilibrium” of the conflict, effect the “critical decisions” of the adversary.[ix] According to Rosinski, strategy became a means of control by taking “into account the multitude of possible enemy counteractions.”[x] Eccles, in expanding on the point made by Rosinski, stressed the importance of a clear understanding of both the strategist’s own objectives and those of his adversary. He viewed this as crucial to the holistic formation of sound strategic action. Understanding that objectives (both the strategist’s own, and those of his adversary) were a critical expression of both the actions and choices, which one had to control through strategy.[xi]

This emphasis on choice is critical, as Wylie noted, with respect to deterrence-based strategies predicated on the threat to use force. As the coercive effect of this threat to use force is itself a degree of control.[xii] The ability to control by dictating, limiting, or removing the choices of the opponent, is then implicit in the cognitive side of the control theory.

Why It Matters

There is a great deal of value to be derived from understanding this control theory of strategy. This understanding of the control theory allows the strategist to perceive, under the same conceptual framework. Both those physical strategies which utilize and rely on the direct application of force and destruction, to achieve the desired political ends. As well as those strategies of coercion and deterrence, reliant upon other measures to achieve that selected degree of control required for the desired ends of policy. Violence is inherent in the nature of war, but not in the nature of strategy (broadly defined), and certainly not in the nature of conflict.

The character of contemporary conflicts whether diplomatic or political, as illustrated by recent events in both the South China Sea and the Ukraine, has shown that power can be created and the aims of policy can be achieved through more than the simple application of force. In this regard a framework that applies the same understanding of strategy to achieve a policy through brinkmanship, economic coercion, or the use of military force, is of significant utility.

[i] J.C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control (Annapolis, 1989), 77-78.

[ii] Wylie, Military Strategy, 11.

[iii] H. Lasswell, Politics: Who gets what, when and how? (New York, 1958)

[iv] L. Freedman, ‘Strategic Studies and the Problem of Power’ in T. Mahnken & J. Maiolo ed., Strategic Studies: A Reader, (New York, 2014), 13.

[v] Wylie, Military Strategy, 90.

[vi] H. Rosinski, ‘The Structures of Military Strategy’ (1956), 18-19

[vii] Wylie, Military Strategy, 77-78; H. Rosinski, ‘New Thoughts on Strategy’ (1955), 2.

[viii] L. Milevski, ‘Revisiting J.C. Wylie’s Dichotomy of Strategy: The Effects of Sequential and Cumulative Patterns of Operations’, Journal of Strategy Studies, 35:2 (2012), 231.

[ix] Wylie, Military Strategy, 75-76.

[x] H. Rosinski, ‘New Thoughts on Strategy’ (1955)

[xi] H.E. Eccles, Logistics in the National Defense (Newport, 1997), 25-27; H.E. Eccles, Military Concepts and Philosophy (New Brunswick, 1965), 51.

[xii] Wylie, Military Strategy, 88.

Future War

Space Power: The Buttress of the Modern Military

May 30, 2014 Guest Author Leave a comment

Introduction

The United States possesses the world’s leading military. It has the most sophisticated air, land, sea, and, now, cyber forces and wields them in such a manner such that no single nation, barring the employment of total nuclear war, approaches its destructive capability.

America’s military power in these realms is identifiable. Fighter jets, bombs, tanks, submarines, ships, and more — these are all synonymous with the Nation’s warfighting portfolio. And in the modern world, even though we cannot see a cyber attack coming, we can certainly see its results — as with the alleged Stuxnet attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. To the public, these tools together are America’s “stick” on the global stage, for whatever purpose its leaders deem necessary.

Space is different. There are no bombs raining from orbit, and no crack special forces deploying from orbital platforms. The tide of battle is never turned by the sudden appearance of a satellite overhead. In fact, no one in the history of war has ever been killed by a weapon from space. There are actually no weapons in space nor will there be any in the foreseeable future.

Yet, America is the world’s space power. The Nation’s strength in the modern military era is dependent on its space capabilities.

Yet, America is the world’s space power. The Nation’s strength in the modern military era is dependent on its space capabilities. Space is fundamentally different than air, sea, land, and cyber power, and at the same time inextricably tied to them. It buttresses, binds, and enhances all of those visible modes of power. America cannot conduct war without space.

Simply, space is inherently a medium, as with air, land, sea, and cyber, and space power is the ability to use or deny the use by others of that medium. The United States Air Force (USAF) defines military space power as a “capability” to utilize [space-based] assets towards fulfilling national security needs.[1] In this, space is similar to other forms of military projection. But, its difference comes in how it is measured. When viewed in this context, space power is thus the aggregate of a nation’s abilities to establish, access, and leverage its orbital assets to further all other forms of national power.

Big Brother is Watching

It is important to note that space power is inherently global, as dictated by orbital mechanics. It is essentially impossible to go to space without passing over another nation in some capacity. Thus, the concept of peaceful overflight was established with the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, when the United States did not protest the path of the satellite even as it passed over the Nation. This idea stands in contrast to traditional territorial rules in which it would be considered a violation of sovereignty to put a military craft on or above another nation without express permission.

This difference became especially obvious in 1960 when Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his U-2 spy aircraft above the Soviet Union. Prior to that, the U.S. recognized that its missions over Russia were certainly a provocation and against international norms, but felt that the U-2 aircraft were more than capable of evading Soviet ground-based interceptors. The imagery intelligence (IMINT), they thought, justified the risk.

The downing and subsequent capture of Powers was a significant embarrassment for the United States, and President Eisenhower immediately halted this practice. From that point forward, it became clear that the only viable way for the U.S. to gather substantial IMINT against an opponent with sophisticated anti-air capabilities was via satellite.

The best quantification of space power in its early days came just a few months after the Powers incident. The CIA-run Corona program produced the first successful IMINT satellite in history. This satellite, code-named Discoverer 14, obtained more photographs of the Soviet Union in just 17 orbits over the course of a day than all 24 of the previous U-2 flights combined. Electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellites, such as the early generation GRAB program (which actually launched before Corona), helped map Soviet air defenses by detecting radar pulses, which enabled strategic planners to map bomber routes. Although air-and-sea-based reconnaissance craft had the capability to also detect radar pulses, they could only identify targets at a maximum of 200 miles within the Soviet Union, far less than was needed to plan a secure route to interior targets. Space became more than just a one-to-one replacement of existing tools; it offered significantly more access to foes.

Superiority then became three-pronged: who had the broadest capabilities, who had the best technology in each form of space-based intelligence gathering, and who had the best coverage? Said another way, how well could a nation monitor all spectra in detail at all times everywhere that matters?

Nearly a decade after Corona transformed space into a viable form of power, the U.S. leveraged its first reliable weather monitoring and communications relay satellites in the Vietnam War. This expanded the role of space to that of an active component on the battlefield, rather than just a pre-conflict source of intelligence — an enormously important growth.

More than that, it represented a substantial evolution of war as a whole. The sudden enhancement of meteorological data due to dedicated satellites gave field commanders far greater clarity than in previous conflicts as to when would be the ideal windows to mount a strike or a longer campaign. This was especially important in Vietnam, which was often overcast.

The United States faces the greatest diversity of military threats in its history. At the same time, the military is undergoing a significant size reduction.

Satellite communications also made their wartime debut in Vietnam. This capability offered the first true live link between war planners and field commanders, for the conveyance of orders and the timely distribution of sensitive intelligence. Whereas intelligence satellites broadened the world by opening up vast new areas to prying eyes, communications satellites dramatically shrank it. However, this new channel was offered only to the top commanders in any region, due to limitations in infrastructure. Soldiers in the field still used radios to communicate with base.

All these space capabilities continued their evolutionary growth for the next few decades. But, it was Operation Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991 that marked space power as a revolutionary change in the conduct of war. Called the “first space war” by some, this conflict was the first time that satellite communications and new position, navigation, and timing (PNT) systems were utilized in direct concert with military forces to monitor and direct an ongoing campaign at all levels. Space-based intelligence-gathering satellites mapped Iraqi strategic installations well ahead of the first shots and continued to track changes in enemy force distribution. Satellite communications systems enabled ground forces to transmit targeting data to en-route aircraft, substantially improving the accuracy of dropped munitions. In addition, while the constellation was not yet fully deployed, the Global Positioning System (GPS) conveyed Coalition forces an enormous strategic advantage, by enabling ground forces to travel through previously unmapped territory and circumvent the heavily defended road system into Iraq.

Today

The United States faces the greatest diversity of military threats in its history. At the same time, the military is undergoing a significant size reduction. Yet, more so now than ever, it possesses the ability to strike anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. It does not need to constantly maintain local forces when it has force projection. In the modern world, force projection would not exist without space power.

Special forces and drone operations have taken front stage in America’s Global War on Terror. IMINT and SIGINT satellites provide important intelligence about targets far below. GPS satellites enable drones to fly to areas of interest and, if necessary, guide their munitions to their final destinations with minimal collateral damage. Drone operators are often far away from the craft they are piloting, many times even in a different hemisphere. This capability is only possible by utilizing high throughput communications satellites. For special forces, GPS is used to get the teams quickly to their targets. Further, portable satellite communications units allow them to relay updates to their commanders and call in support if necessary.

These options are especially effective against non-space actors who do not have the capabilities to strike back. However, space is increasingly becoming “congested, contested, and competitive” — meaning a broader group of nations is doing more to leverage space for their own military power and deny others from doing the same. China stands out in this realm. While the nation (exclusive of nuclear weapons) stands no match against the United States in any conventional confrontation, it possesses counter-space technologies that would dramatically curtail America’s force projection strengths. In such a situation, America’s power abroad would decline dramatically, to such a point that along the Asian coasts, China may have local superiority.

As such, the definition of space power is expanding, to being the aggregate of a nation’s abilities to establish, access, leverage, and sustain its orbital assets to further all other forms of national power. Earth-shaking rocket launches aside, space is the silent partner in nearly American military endeavor today. Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom and the subsequent counterinsurgency operations that followed demonstrated that clearly enough. Space guides soldiers, sailors, airmen, and bombs to their targets, gives the photographs and signal intercepts to understand what enemies are planning, and provides secure, global communication in an era of global need.

[1] Air Force Basic Doctrine, Air Force Doctrine Document 1, U.S. Air Force Headquarters (Washington, DC: September 1997) 85.

Global Analysis, Theory

Amphibious Power: A Personal Theory of Power

May 29, 2014 Guest Author 2 Comments

This essay is part of the Personal Theories of Power series, which asked a group of national security professionals to provide their theory of power and its application. We hope this launches a long and insightful debate that may one day shape policy.

The two giants of sea power theory, Alfred Thayer Mahan and Sir Julian Corbett, both touched on amphibious operations but both are properly considered sea power theorists. Mahan disliked amphibious operations, declaring that they were “harder to sustain than to make.” He judged them dangerous to those forces extended ashore and that this danger outweighed their potential benefit. In Mahan’s cost-benefit analysis of amphibious operations, they were a waste of resources. Mahan viewed the sea power side of the equation as decisive.

Corbett, however, was more of a fan. Corbett thought that naval forces could rarely be decisive on their own and thus need the ability to project land forces ashore to achieve a decision. But, amphibious forces are dependent on naval forces for protection from enemy naval forces, supply and sustainment, and fire support. For Corbett, the land power side of the equation is decisive.

A little known theorist came down right in the middle. Lieutenant Colonel Earl “Pete” Ellis, USMC, wrote about naval and amphibious strategy in the early 20th Century, including the Marine Corps’ contribution to War Plan Orange, Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia. Ellis viewed amphibious power as a symbiotic relationship between land and sea power. Expeditionary land forces are dependent on naval forces for the necessary sea control, transport, sustainment, and fire support. Naval forces are dependent on those land forces to secure key littoral terrain for protection and to secure forward supply bases. In the course of this analysis, he identified the need for specialized, task-organized amphibious forces that could fill this niche, especially since amphibious assaults were becoming far more difficult in the face of modern artillery and machine guns. Since the focus of all of his writings was on those amphibious forces and their uses, he is perhaps the only amphibious power theorist in history. For Ellis, the mutually reinforcing symbiosis of land and sea power was decisive. He was proved correct during World War II: the US Navy could not strike at the heart of the Imperial Japan without seizing lodgments across the Pacific and Marine and Army forces could not seize those lodgments without Navy transportation, support, and sea control.

In Colin S. Gray’s Theory of War Taxonomy, this theory of amphibious power falls into a category along with Mahan, Douhet, and Schelling. It is clearly not a general theory nor is it a general theory of a domain as it exists at the confluence of land, sea, and air. It does explain “how a particular kind or use of a military power strategically affects the course of conflict as a whole.” A brief look at history illuminates this point.

The Influence of Amphibious Power on History

A few examples from history suffice to illustrate the timeless nature of amphibious power. The first occurred early in the Peloponnesian War. Sparta began the war dominant on land, while Athens was dominant at sea. While Spartan land power allowed her to ravage the fields before Athens herself, Athenian fleets plied the waters of the Mediterranean. In 425 BC, Thucydides landed a fleet at Pylos in Spartan-controlled territory. The fighting that occurred at Pylos and the offshore island of Sphacteria eventually led to the defeat and capture of about 300 Spartan hoplites by Athenian expeditionary forces. Land power and sea control did not lead directly to strategic effect, but the use of sea power to project land power to defeat and capture Spartan hoplites shocked the Greek world and led directly to the Peace of Nicias. The Athenians subsequently botched the peace and thus squandered the strategic effect garnered, but they would not have had the opportunity at all if not for the use of amphibious power.

The second example occurred during the Second Punic War. The sea control of the Mediterranean gained by the Romans after the First Punic War had profound strategic effects: it force Hannibal into a difficult march through the Alps which depleted the combat power he was able to bring to Italy and prevented significant reinforcement once he had gained a lodgment in Italy. His eventual defeat there, however, failed to end the war with Carthage. It was not until Scipio used sea control to project Roman land power across the sea to Carthage itself that decisive effects occurred and Carthage surrendered.

During the American Civil War, Union forces secured sea control early on and held it throughout the war as part of the Anaconda Plan. While the Anaconda Plan certainly produced strategic effects that choked the Confederacy off from reliable and consistent sources of supply, it did not have decisive effects by itself. In this case, amphibious power would not have decisive effects but the tactical level is interesting. Union General Ambrose Burnside was an amphibious visionary. As a Brigadier General, he formed an expeditionary force and developed radically new ship-to-shore tactics which allowed him to seize virtually all of coastal North Carolina for the Union.

Another waypoint in the history of amphibious operations occurred in 1915. During the Gallipoli campaign, British forces attempted to seize control of the Dardanelles from the Turks, allied with Germany. While the attempt failed, it is easy to see what kind of strategic effects victory could have produced. If British and French forces seize the Dardanelles, control of Constantinople could have easily followed, knocking Turkey out of the war entirely. Additionally, control of the Dardanelles would have allowed supplies from the Western allies to flow to the Eastern front, shoring up their Russian allies. The British and French had the sea power and the land power, but using both as amphibious power had great potential, if unrealized.

Lastly, World War II proved to be a high water mark for amphibious operations. In the Western theater, the Allies also largely secured sea control while Germany dominated the continent. That sea control granted the allies the ability to project power ashore in Africa, Italy, and eventually in France. In the Pacific Theater, the entire Allied strategy depended on amphibious power. A measure of sea control was gained by the U.S. after the battle of Midway, but amphibious power was necessary to secure lodgments to allow the U.S. to project force across the Pacific Ocean. That sea control had to be translated into force projection ashore at dozens of islands, producing a credible threat of an amphibious assault on Japan herself and the ability to use air power to strike Japanese soil.

Conclusions from Theory and Praxis

Sea power can enable land power, land power can enable sea power, and the projection of power ashore is now dependent on air power. The fusion of all of these capabilities is amphibious power.

Specialized troops are needed to wield credible and effective amphibious power. Burnside’s pick-up team of amphibious soldiers ran into daunting tactical problems in North Carolina. While U.S. Army troops drew on Marine tactics in the European theater, hard lessons had to be learned in North Africa and at Anzio and Salerno.

Despite the need for specialized troops to effectively conduct amphibious operations, amphibious operations are never solely the interest of marines. Navy forces and air support are essential to success and must train to the unique problems associated with projecting land power ashore. Armies are also concerned with amphibious operations. In a large scale conflict, there will not be enough Marines to conduct every assault. While the U.S. Army famously conducted more amphibious operations than the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, they did so using doctrine developed by the Marines and capabilities already resident in the Navy.

Strategic Effects

There are numerous tactical lessons that can be learned from history as well. James Wolfe’s campaign in Quebec during the Seven Years War is illustrative as is MacArthur’s master stroke at Inchon in 1950. Both battles achieved far reaching strategic effects. Amphibious power provides options to the side that has it, and the mere threat of amphibious forces the opponent to expend resources to defend against it, constraining his options. During the Gulf War, U.S. Marine forces aboard ship in the Persian Gulf forced Iraqi forces to station seven infantry divisions along the Iraqi coast to prevent a landing, depleting their combat power in Kuwait. Amphibious power, in and of itself, will rarely be directly decisive at the strategic level. It does, however, indirectly contribute to strategic effects because of the options it grants to the joint force. It is usually necessary to establish beachheads through which ground forces can flow, it can extend the range and reach of air forces, and can control littoral chokepoints to ensure the safety of naval forces. Additionally, amphibious power forces the enemy to defend their shores everywhere an amphibious assault is possible, consuming their resources and tying down combat power. Shifting defenders from one shore to another simply opens up another opportunity for a successful assault. Thus, a theory of amphibious power explains how that particular capability can affect the course of conflicts.

Theory

Sea Power Matters: A Personal Theory of Power

May 29, 2014 Guest Author 4 Comments

This essay by LCDR BJ Armstrong is part of the Personal Theories of Power series, a joint Bridge–CIMSEC project which asked a group of national security professionals to provide their theory of power and its application. We hope this launches a long and insightful debate that may one day shape policy.

This is offered not as a personal dogma, or a theory of overall power, but instead as some general thoughts on a specific element of national power: sea power.

“The Navy, within the Department of the Navy, shall be organized, trained, and equipped primarily for prompt and sustained combat incident to operations at sea.”

— Title 32, Code of Federal Regulations

It shouldn’t surprise any of us that combat at sea is the focus of the United States Navy. It seems perfectly rational. This focus, codified in law and embraced by recent tradition, results in a view of sea power that skews toward the wartime, both the operational and tactical. Over the past century this has resulted in a slow migration away from the true meaning of the word. “Sea power” has lost the broad political, diplomatic, and economic meaning and the importance that it once had, shifting away from its true and proper place in strategic affairs.

Inspiration and Foundation

Uniformed and civilian senior leaders are not solely responsible for this shift. Strategists, with a broad definition of the label, share a hand in the shift as well. The Clausewitzians and devotees of Sun Tzu have come to dominate the foundations of strategic thought in the 21st century. There is no doubt that the writings of these thinkers offer a great deal to inform military affairs today. There are, however, some issues with using the texts of the Prussian General and the Chinese courtier as baselines for modern views of strategy. In doing so, we take continentalist views of the relationships between states and military force and attempt to apply them to a globalized world.

The migration of sea power toward the operational and tactical, and the attempts to connect it to continentalist strategic ideals, can be seen partially in the rise in popularity of Sir Julian Corbett’s Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. As Alfred Thayer Mahan’s influence has declined Corbett’s has grown and is commonly cited as more “relevant” by naval officers today. Surely, part of this has to do with the simple fact that Corbett wrote more clearly than Mahan did. It also must be stated that one book is not illustrative of the entirety of the British lawyer and lecturer’s thinking on sea power. However, the tendency within Corbett’s book to focus toward operational issues, or the “grammar” of naval strategy, allows it to appeal to a more practically minded, combat centric officer corps.

Sea power, however, is much more than operational design or combat planning for forces at sea. It has to do with international relationships, economic power, commercial interests, diplomacy and statecraft. Its results are not seen solely at the business end of a Tomahawk missile or in ballistic missile submarine patrols, but also on the stock of shelves at Walmart and the price of gas at the pump. This confusion, between the battle fleet and the navy, between combat incident to operations at sea and the global power and influence of maritime forces, results from the view which labels sea power as a domain centered ideal, as another name for combat operations at sea, rather than a broader field with wider relevance to the world affairs.

Looking Outward

The concepts surrounding the importance of naval forces, and the role which maritime issues play in global affairs, go back centuries. From Thucydides to Sir Walter Raleigh the importance of power at sea had been recognized and written about long before Mahan began reading Gibbon at the English Club while on liberty ashore in Lima. Despite our modern focus toward it, combat between fleets was never the exclusive raison d’etre for maritime forces, or the only lever of power available to them. Raleigh illustrated this in the 17th century when he wrote, “whosoever commands the sea, commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.” In the United States this was echoed in 1787 by Federalist Paper No. 11, which advocated for the founding of the United States Navy on diplomatic and economic/commercial grounds instead of the need for wartime combat at sea.

In The Influence of Sea Power Upon History Mahan lays out the six elements of what makes a nation a sea power, none of which explicitly involve combat. Instead they are the factors that lead a nation to become a sea power. His initial discussion is as much political is it is military. In later works he continued to develop his thoughts on the position of sea power in world affairs. We all know the Clausewitizan truism that war is politics by other means. However, Mahan took things a step further and stated that political/diplomatic, economic/commercial, and military/combat considerations were all one integrated problem and that sea power was part of the connective tissue between the three in a globalized world.

This view of sea power, as something more than simply the when and how battle fleets are put together for combat, may be part of the reason that some continental strategists tend to struggle with the concept. Sea power strays into the realm of statecraft, global rivalries, and grand strategy in a way that may be uncomfortable for strategists focused on borders, territorial occupation, and the “decisiveness” of boots on the ground forcing a population to relent. The very concept of grand strategy is anathema to some, and debated by others, who claim the strict constructionist view of Clausewitz’s writing. These strategists tell us that the word “strategy” is reserved only for military combat. Today the concept of sea power is all too often viewed through this very limiting prism.

Bringing Balance to the Force

There are two dueling roles of navies that must be fulfilled to truly exercise sea power. One, as alluded to in the mission outlined by the Code of Federal Regulations, is to fight wars on and from the sea. This is critical. The ability to defeat adversaries lies at the foundation of the credibility needed to execute the rest of the sea power writ. But it is as much the beginning as it is the end of the sea power discussion.

The other mission of naval forces, which has been an important part of naval history for centuries, is to preserve the peace and secure the global system. This dual responsibility, conducting deployments and operations in both wartime and peacetime, has been central to American naval history since the very founding of the Republic. It was illustrated by Professor Craig Symonds when, in his study of the political debates on naval affairs in the first decades of the nation, he wrote:

All of President James Monroe’s surviving papers on the navy or on naval policy reflect a concern that it efficiently perform two distinct services: first, that it be adequate to cope with the daily problems of a maritime nation — smuggling, piracy, and combating the slave trade; and, second, that it provide the United States with a comfortable degree of readiness in case war should be forced upon the nation.

Despite this centuries old tension between the exercise of sea power in war and in peace, since 1941 the United States Navy has maintained itself on a war footing. The Second World War led directly into the Cold War and when the Soviet Union fell decades later the Navy’s institutional memory remembered nothing but a wartime posture. This mindset is not exclusive to the Navy. However, as a result the sea services have struggled with their vital role in the peace for more than two decades. Some have even resisted the discussion of their importance to the global system on a level above “combat incident to operations at sea.”

As we approach the centenary of Mahan’s death it is time to reexamine our modern conceptions of sea power. This will be a challenge. In recent decades naval officers have been taught strategy built on a land power framework and may have overlooked some of the fundamental differences between a continental view of national power and a global view international affairs. To uphold our responsibilities and American interests in the 21st century we must focus on a global view. It is time to expand the thinking, writing, and theory of sea power across the spectrum of its military, political, and economic implications. The broader obligations of a maritime state and a global power require it.

BJ Armstrong is a naval officer, helicopter pilot, PhD candidate with King’s College, London, and a member of the Editorial Board of the U.S. Naval Institute. He is the editor of “21st Century Mahan: Sound Military Conclusions for the Modern Era.” The opinions and views expressed are those of the author alone and are presented in his private capacity.

Center for International Maritime Security