On July 31, 2022, Russian Navy Day, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the approval of the new Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation in a speech given during a parade at the Kronstadt naval base. To be fully understood, the doctrine must be put into a much broader, global context, factoring in the historical timeline, internal dynamics, especially the general direction of Russian foreign policy and the vertical power structure of the Russian state.
The new doctrine replaced a previous document from 2015 that was published after the Russian annexation of Crimea and is strikingly different in content and tone. A notable difference is that the new version has a more dominant socio-economic dimension. It is important to analyze the doctrine from a Russian vantage point, one that understands it as “a strategic planning document that reflects the totality of official views on the national maritime policy of the Russian Federation and maritime activities of the Russian Federation” and not to zoom in too much on the “why,” which quickly devolves into guesswork. The essence of the new doctrine is communicating Russian national interest as it is conceptualized by Russian leadership.
Total “Hybrid War” with the West and Multipolarity
The recent change in the tone of both speeches from Russian officials and official documents is clear: the Russian Federation believes it is in the business of redesigning borders, both on land and at sea. President Putin himself declared: “We have openly marked the borders and zones of Russia’s national interests.” The international community has or should have known this for decades, as the Russian tactic of using “separatists” to rewrite national borders started in the Republic of Moldova back in 1992 when the Russian backed “rebels” initiated a war with Chisinau and the Moldavian people. It happened again in 2008 with the Russo-Georgian War, and in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine the first time. The Maritime Doctrine touches on this and all the references are directly correlated to the maritime rules-based order. A conviction that great powers are entitled to redrafting borders and having zones of influence is prevalent in Russian official discourse as well as public opinion. The Helsinki Accords are often cited as a basis for “the division of spheres of influence between the USSR and the United States, with the recognition of existing borders, both formal (national) and informal (political),“ with the Russian Federation supposedly being understood as the inheritor of the USSR’s spheres of influence.
Russia’s top two “national interests” listed in the doctrine are: independence, state and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, the inviolability of the country’s sovereignty, which extends to the internal sea waters, territorial sea, their bottom and subsoil, as well as to the airspace above them and ensuring the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the Russian Federation in the exclusive economic zone and on the continental shelf. The geopolitical position of the Russian Federation and its role in world politics (Russian elites strongly favor a multipolar order) are closely tied to international maritime law. Changing or challenging borders at sea has been slowly happening and it directly threatens the integrity of maritime regimes and treaties, including UNCLOS. The annexation of Crimea is the most relevant example. By illegally seizing Ukrainian territory, Russia also changed maritime borders and created new EEZs and territorial waters. This directly affects all regions covered by the new doctrine: from the Arctic and its Northern Sea Route to the Black Sea and the blockade of Azov or the “fluid” EEZs and territorial waters of the Russian Federation. International law is essentially what states make of it and by claiming Crimea, Moscow challenged the existing legal framework.
The doctrine is very specific about which areas Russia considers zones of “vital interest.” For example, it prioritizes: “fixing its external border in accordance with Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982.” Member of the State Duma Artur Chilingarov eloquently synthesized the essence of said “fixing” in 2007: “The Arctic is Russian.” Russia’s proposal to extend the continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean is another example of “fixing borders.” Professor Chilingarov reference to the Arctic carries even more weight due to his extensive knowledges and experience in the Arctic. Artur Chilingarov, led several expeditions to the Arctic and is special Presidential Representative for international cooperation in the Arctic and Antarctica.
There already have been numerous events and incidents which have plagued the security of maritime regimes and there are major open legal cases addressing said violations: the International Court of Justice in the Hagueand Ukraine v. Russia (re Crimea) (dec.) [GC] – 20958/14 address the annexation of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg Case No. 26 concerning the detention of three Ukrainian naval vessels by the Russian Federation is on the roll, and the International Court of Arbitration at the Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm handles the Dispute Concerning Coastal State Rights in the Black Sea, Sea of Azov, and Kerch Strait. Essentially all these tribunals are now discussing Ukraine’s valid complaints vis-à-vis a Russian encroaching on Ukrainian territory, territorial waters, or continental shelf.
Socio-Economic Focus and “Mobilization”
In their coverage of the new maritime doctrine, Western press has focused on the NATO mentions and the paragraph which singles out the Alliance, particularly the United States, as the main threat to the Russian Federation. Nevertheless, there are numerous and very significant non-militaristic changes as compared to the 2015 document. Notably, the 2022 doctrine emphasizes the socio-economic and scientific-technological components of maritime security.
The 2022 doctrine contains a marked focus on maritime activities aimed at “ensuring Russia’s economic independence and food security” to protect Russian national interest. Ports and maritime infrastructure play an important role in the new doctrine. There are plans to create new transport and logistics centers on the basis of Russian seaports that can handle “the entire volume of sea exports and imports of the Russian Federation.” Furthermore, the doctrine voices concern about the lack of naval bases located outside of Russia, as well as an inferior number of vessels, both military and commercial, under the Russian state flag. The doctrine establishes goals to form marine economic centers of national and interregional purpose in what the document calls “zones of advanced development” (Crimea, Black Sea-Kuban, and Azov-Don). A great deal of emphasis is put on the development of Russian merchant and transport fleets as well as “non-military and civil fleets.” The doctrine encourages an increase in the number of Russian-flagged vessels, but does not give any sort of indication as to how this will be achieved specifically.
The 2022 Maritime Doctrine attaches particular strategic importance to the development of offshore pipeline systems for the transportation of hydrocarbons, including those produced on the continental shelf of the Russian Federation. An important change both from an economic perspective and from a maritime law perspective, given that several areas are in international litigation and illegally occupied. In comparison with the 2015 Maritime Doctrine, the development of offshore pipeline systems is singled out as anindependent functional direction of the national maritime policy of the Russian Federation. In the same ranking for functional directions, naval activities are ranked last (fifth). Energy infrastructure in the Federation is under the control of state-owned companies, and we have yet to understand the scope of Russian Maritime “specialized fleets.”
Finally, in this socio-economic direction, an interesting point is the repetitive mention of “mobilization training and mobilization readiness in the field of maritime activities.” The reference is not specific when it refers to vessels. It can be assumed that this will make it possible to introduce civilian vessels and crews into the Russian Navy, and ensure the functioning of maritime infrastructure in wartime. The doctrine is however very specific by region, for instance, it calls for further development of the forces (troops), as well as the basing system of the Baltic Fleet. In the Black Sea, the doctrine specifically declares the intention to address the “international legal regulation of the regime and procedure for using the Kerch Strait.”
The socio-economic direction is an important change in the new document, but it should not come as a surprise. The changes further subordinate other elements of Russian maritime power into a legal framework. This is very important when interpreting Russian maritime documents: the overreaching security strategy and Russian strategic thinking and political culture have a vertical power structure where maritime or energy assets are instruments of power first and foremost and economic/civilian ones second. And the doctrine underscores the primacy of Russian law over any other international legal arrangements.
Regional Directions: NATO, the Arctic, the Black Sea, and the Russian Far East
The new doctrine was approved by the Russian President “in order to ensure the implementation of the national maritime policy of the Russian Federation,” and it serves as a compass for “maritime activities” in the “regions” of strategic interest. The main regional directions of the national maritime policy of the Russian Federation are the Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific, Caspian, Indian Ocean, and Antarctic directions. The regional directions have shifted in priority compared to the 2015 doctrine. Put into the wider context of overall Russian foreign policy, it does not mean that the Black Sea is less important than the Arctic, but that the global security situation requires regional solutions fitted to regional specificities. For Russia, the Black Sea is already a theater of war, while the Arctic presents both opportunity for cooperation and the potential for further escalation. In both regions, Western strategists must re-conceptualize their approach to Russia in order to remain relevant and to produce effective results.
In the Atlantic region, the new Russian maritime policy is now “focused only on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as the imperfection of legal mechanisms for ensuring international security.” Considering the structure of Russian maritime forces, what this means for NATO is that it must take into account how to balance its mandate of military-political alliance with the task at hand. Clearly there will be a need for a more innovative operational approach. The United States will have to take on more leadership in the European maritime space and support allied navies in the Black Sea to modernize fleets with interoperable equipment. If in the Baltic Sea the military balance is quite favorable to the Alliance, especially after the accession of Sweden and Finland, then the Black Sea becomes more vulnerable.
The Russian Federation is the largest country by land mass spanning over 16,376,870.0 km² in both Europe and Asia. However, this landmass is connected to the broader maritime world in only four places, including the Pacific on the Sea of Japan at Vladivostok, in the Baltic at Saint Petersburg, the Barents Sea through Murmansk, and in the Black Sea through the Crimean Peninsula. Russia has many other ports, however none of them are ice-free warm-water ports, and therefore they require expensive procedures during the infamous Russian winter in order to keep them operational. Russia needs warm water ports year-round for military operations as well as commerce. This is addressed in the new document and a lot of emphasis is put on the development of the Northern Sea Route. Russia is looking to comprehensively develop the Northern Sea Route in order to turn it into a safe, year-round trade route, competitive with other routes from Asia to Europe. In an interview in June, Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Representative to the Far East, Yury Trutnev, declared that he saw year-round navigation through the Northern Sea Route as a real possibility by 2024.
Russian internal dynamics have always had a tension between areas of progress and modernization and isolated portions of land and peoples left behind by development. Using maritime development to help overcome the economic and infrastructural isolation of the Russian Far East from the industrially developed regions of the Russian Federation is named as a priority in the doctrine. Establishing sustainable sea (river), air and rail links with cities and towns in Siberia and the European part of the Russian Federation, including the development of the Northern Sea Route would significantly improve the connection between the rest of Russia and the Far East. The doctrine is actually quite ambitious in this regard, it talks about developing “a modern high-tech shipbuilding complex in the Far East, designed for the construction of large-capacity vessels, including for the development of the Arctic and aircraft carriers for the Navy.”
The 2015 Russian maritime doctrine was rightfully perceived as a “showy demonstrations of strength,” but the new version presents a very different image. If properly analyzed, it is obvious Russia still considers itself a great power, including in the maritime space, yet is more self-aware of its shortcomings, both in the maritime domain and beyond. In the previous doctrine, Russia was declaring itself to be the word’s second-best navy, now it is content to be a great maritime power among peers. Russian leadership is looking to consolidate the Russian Navy’s position among the world’s leading maritime powers, but it no longer boasts about supposed superiority. The striking emphasis on mobilization speaks to this self-awareness. Russia is a nuclear power that believes it is prepared for total war, while simultaneously looking for opportunities to open itself up for cooperation with the international community that is beneficial to Russia.
There is also subtle symbolism in the way that the new doctrine was released: Kronstadt is very closely linked to the Russian Navy. Russian culture places a lot of emphasis on symbolism and the current regime often employs history and collective memory as a tool to send messages domestically. Peter the Great had considered making Kronstadt the capital of his empire, and maybe most striking in symbolism is the Kronstadt Rebellion. Although the sailors’ revolt against the reforms of the Bolsheviks was crushed, it forced the system to adopt the “New Economic Policy” a temporary retreat form the aggressive policy of centralization and forced collectivization brought upon by Marxism–Leninism.
Similarly, the new Maritime Doctrine shifted emphasis on socioeconomic aspects and mobilization of a nation preparing for total war with the collective West. Hopefully both the United States and allied strategists understand the pragmatism of the Russian perspective, the symbolism, as well as the importance of more nuanced changes which could bring upon a new order, including in the maritime space.
Dr. Olga R. Chiriac is a Black Sea State Department Title VIII research fellow for the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC and an associated researcher at the Center for Strategic Studies in Bucharest, Romania. She is an alumna of the Arizona Legislative and Government Internship Program and her research and forthcoming work is on the application of cognitive sciences in security and defense, with a focus on joint special operations and the maritime domain.
Featured Image: Russian Navy frigate Admiral Essen. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
On August 26th, ships, aircraft, and personnel from Australia, India, Japan, and the United States commenced, for the second year in a row, a combined naval exercise to demonstrate “cooperative planning, training, and employment of advanced warfare tactics.”1 The exercise, Malabar 2021, marks a significant step toward increased maritime cooperation between the four members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, which has emerged as a promising but unproven partnership for regional security in the Indo-Pacific. The Quad nations are united by their agreement on the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific but have not yet defined their mutual role in the region. Lingering ambiguity surrounding the Quad’s intended function breeds doubt about its potential for success and prompts dismissal by critics of the current, informal relationship.2
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe first described a vision for the Quad as a “security diamond” meant “to safeguard the maritime commons” of the Indo-Pacific.3 How might the current leaders of the Quad nations defy the critics and bring Abe’s vision to fruition? Maritime security is an innately multinational interest with challenges such as unregulated fishing, smuggling, and piracy that occur in international waters and traverse borders between states.4 The Quad, comprised of four democratic nations committed to the rule of law, is well-suited to muster a collective response to these illicit activities. The United States, for its part, would be wise to embrace such cooperation. U.S. policymakers concede that America’s military advantage in the region is eroding and that allies and partners are crucial to achieving U.S. policy objectives.5 The combined national powers of the Quad provide an opportunity to exert the military and law enforcement presence necessary to respond to security threats while actively pursuing increased cooperation with rising regional powers. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue should focus the combined diplomatic, information, military, and economic power of its member nations to promote maritime security in the Indo-Pacific by fostering and strengthening rising partners in the region while coordinating to detect, analyze, and interdict illicit maritime activity.
Invest in ASEAN
The Quad’s main line of effort in the tense Indo-Pacific region should be diplomacy, and the primary avenues of approach should be relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Quad provides a vehicle for its members to engage ASEAN on common goals as one body, rather than as separate parties. ASEAN’s own published “Outlook on the Indo-Pacific” echoes many of the Quad’s priorities for the region, indicating that engagement would likely be worthwhile. The ASEAN nations aspire to play a central role in promoting maritime security by combating transnational crimes such as “trafficking in persons or of illicit drugs, sea piracy, and armed robbery against ships” and by cooperating for “sustainable management of marine resources.”6 The Quad, in turn, has publicly committed to ASEAN centrality in the region and voiced support for ASEAN’s “Outlook.” Such agreement between the two multinational partnerships is a starting point for increased diplomatic efforts and consensus-building.
Another diplomatic component of maritime security in which the Quad nations are highly capable is the realm of humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR). The Quad could expand its soft power in the region with little political resistance by incorporating HADR into its diplomatic agenda.7 By continually promoting itself as a force for good in the region, the Quad will retain the necessary diplomatic capital to enforce maritime law and stave off allegations that its purpose is as a military alliance for great power competition. As China’s presence and power in the region continue to grow it will be increasingly important for the Quad to remain an attractive, non-threatening partner for ASEAN cooperation. HADR will likely prove a key component in sustaining goodwill among both ASEAN political leaders and the people of Southeast Asia.
After establishing firm diplomatic ties with ASEAN nations and other cooperative partners, the Quad should coordinate economic investments to help those partners strengthen their own maritime security efforts. Several Quad nations already have existing economic programs meant to address such security challenges. The Maritime Security Initiative of the United States, for example, is a $425 million program that provides grants to ASEAN nations for technologies such as automatic identification systems; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities; data collection capacity; and secure communications.8 The promise of the Quad is the ability to direct the economic efforts of all four nations toward a single purpose to maximize effectiveness. By acting as one body the Quad can dedicate more resources towards providing ASEAN nations with the technologies and capabilities required to make them effective maritime security partners.
In addition to assisting ASEAN nations with their maritime security capabilities, the Quad could improve economic security in the region by responding to violations of ASEAN economic exclusion zones (EEZs). For example, as signatories to the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, the Quad nations would share an interest in conducting boarding and inspection of fishing vessels to ensure compliance with international rules.9 Enforcing the rule of law in EEZs would help ensure that ASEAN nations have the right to protect and benefit from their own natural resources. Improving their economic situation would provide ASEAN nations with more financial resources to dedicate towards maritime security initiatives.
Enforce Maritime Order
While diplomatic and economic efforts should largely be spent fostering new partnerships for the Quad, the information and military levers of power should be directed toward improving the Quad’s ability to respond to current issues in the region. One of the major challenges to fostering maritime security in the vast Indo-Pacific is maintaining continuous maritime domain awareness (MDA). The individual Quad nations already possess many of the resources and doctrine required to contribute to a robust MDA picture. In the area of maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft, for example, all four nations field comparable assets. The United States, Australia, and India all operate the P-8 Poseidon, and while Japan chose to build the Kawasaki P-1, it shares many standard operating procedures and tactics with the United States and Australia from many years of operating the P-3 Orion.10 The Quad’s immediate focus in the information realm should be combining the MDA efforts of its assets into a shared Common Operational Picture (COP) that provides all four nations with situational awareness of maritime security concerns.
The primary hurdles for the development of a shared COP are limits on information sharing. The Quad should build upon recently signed agreements such as the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) between the U.S. and India and the Trilateral Information Sharing Arrangement (TISA) between the U.S., Australia, and Japan to craft a quadrilateral agreement that allows for universal sharing of maritime intelligence.11,12 With information sharing architecture in place, the Quad should next form a maritime intelligence fusion center where analysts from all four nations can assimilate information and coordinate military or law enforcement responses to illicit maritime activity. Ideally, this fusion center would be developed in a central, strategic location such as India’s Andaman and Nicobar Command at the mouth of the Strait of Malacca.13
In addition to instituting formal information sharing and analysis, the Quad should take several steps to improve its military response to maritime security issues. First should be organizing and conducting ongoing training for proficiency and interoperability, both among its own nations and alongside willing participants from ASEAN. Most of the training should focus on law enforcement and response, which would be less politically sensitive than regular drilling of warfighting tactics and would address the most common concerns in the region, such as smuggling, piracy, human trafficking, and illegal fishing.14 The Quad could even consider involving Chinese authorities in law enforcement training as a way to foster cooperation on mutual concerns.
After a period of successful training, the next step for the Quad should be to create an on-call force comprised of Quad naval and coast guard assets that would share responsibility for responding to illicit activity across the region.15 The four nations would coordinate the placement of maritime assets across the region to minimize response time to any located threats. These assets could then respond to information gathered by the Quad maritime fusion center or reports from ASEAN nations concerning incursions of their sovereignty. By working together to detect, analyze, track, and respond to illicit maritime activity, the Quad could grow into a functional maritime security enforcement organization that would promote a rules-based order across the Indo-Pacific.
No NATO-of-the-Pacific?
More aggressive proponents of the Quad might argue that the group’s maritime security efforts should not be directed solely at partner-building and maritime domain awareness but rather towards deterring China’s malign actions in the region, such as the militarization of the South China Sea. But while recasting the Quad as a NATO-of-the-Pacific may seem like the arrangement’s logical strategic destiny, proceeding too quickly towards open opposition to China would inevitably break the partnership. The greatest challenge for the Quad will be keeping the strategic priorities of the four nations aligned in the face of inevitable pressure from the PRC.16 All four Quad nations are deeply entangled with China economically and, as democracies, would face the difficult task of messaging the economic consequences resulting from a military standoff. Forcing the Quad too quickly into an anti-China alliance would likely produce political pressures leading to its demise. Additionally, the various interests of ASEAN nations align with both China and the Quad. If the Quad were solely aimed at great-power competition with a rising China, ASEAN would not support it.17 Lacking cooperation with ASEAN, the Quad would have little influence or legitimacy in the region.
The Quad’s maritime security efforts should focus on politically insensitive missions that foster cooperation and interoperability and could later be scaled to meet deteriorating strategic conditions. If China continues its record of coercion and pressure in the region, the governments of Canberra, Delhi, Tokyo, and Washington will all recalibrate their threat perceptions, and may very well see the value in intensifying their military cooperation.18 In the meantime, the Quad can still take some steps to counter Chinese aggression. For example, the recent participation of the Quad nations in Malabar 2021 should be repeated. An annual exercise that brings together the capital assets of all four nations fosters high-end interoperability and builds the combined capabilities of the Quad militaries, thereby improving deterrence in the region by demonstrating an increased capacity for response.19
In conclusion, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue should focus the combined diplomatic, information, military, and economic power of its four member nations to promote maritime security in the Indo-Pacific by fostering and strengthening rising partners in the region while coordinating to detect, analyze, and interdict illicit maritime activity. The Quad is the premiere U.S. partnership in the region for addressing maritime security, a critical component of the U.S. vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. The U.S. will not achieve its objectives in the region if Quad efforts towards maritime security are misdirected or ineffective. Diplomacy and economic measures should focus on improving the willingness and capability of ASEAN nations to join the Quad in pursuing their mutual goal of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Quad information and military capabilities should be combined and coordinated to improve maritime domain awareness and provide a response mechanism to address illicit maritime activity. These measures would all be politically viable and would preclude a looming China from driving a wedge between the partners. U.S policy recognizes the Indo-Pacific as “the single most consequential region for America’s future.”21 If the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue embraces its potential for fostering maritime security, America’s future looks much brighter.
Lieutenant Matt Little, USN, is a Naval Flight Officer who most recently served as the P-3 NATOPS Program Manager aboard Patrol Squadron Thirty (VP-30). His views are presented in a personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect the views of any U.S. government department or agency.
Cheng, Dean. “The Importance of Maritime Domain Awareness for the Indo-Pacific Quad Countries.” The Heritage Foundation. Backgrounder No. 3392. 6 March 2019. P. 8. https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2019-03/BG3392.pdf
Australian Government, Department of Defence. “Australia, Japan, U.S. Sign Trilateral Information Sharing Agreement.” Media Release. 28 October 2016. https://news.defence.gov.au/media/media-releases/australia-japan-us-sign-trilateral-information-sharing-arrangement.
The Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits, together with the adjoining Marmara Sea, are known collectively as the Turkish Straits and provide the only access between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. More than 40,000 vessels passed through these waters in 2019, transporting almost 650 million tons of cargo, and reaffirming the Turkish Straits as one of the most important maritime trade corridors in the world. Additionally, the shores of the Straits – which narrow at some points to as little as 700 meters apart – are home to more than 22 million people, including the historic city of Istanbul.
Since 1936, the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits, hereinafter referred to as the Montreux Convention, has allowed for the peaceful flow of commerce through the Turkish Straits. However, recent calls from Turkish and Russian policy circles for revisions to the Montreux Convention should be cause for concern, as these proposals threaten to either spur a naval arms race in the Black Sea region or look to exploit the Straits as a geostrategic chokepoint.
The Montreux Convention
The Montreux Conventionsought to address questions regarding the status of the Turkish Straits that, by the time of the Convention’s writing, had persisted for well over a century, occasionally culminating in violence or near-violence, as in Britain’s effort to wrest control of the Dardanelles in 1922. Among its terms, the Convention stipulates that only littoral states to the Black Sea may transit capital ships (which, if we follow the 1923 Washington Naval Treaty’s definition, refers to “…a vessel of war… whose displacement exceeds 10,000 tons… or which carries a gun with a caliber exceeding 8 inches…”) through the Straits, escorted by no more than two destroyers.
The Bosporus Straits, straddled by Istanbul, are the gateway to and from the Black Sea. (Image: Marine Vessel Traffic)
It also prohibits any country from deploying to the Black Sea more than nine naval vessels displacing a total aggregate of 45,000 tons; it requires that no group of non-littoral states deploy to the Black Sea any naval vessel weighing more than 10,000 tons; and it limits the stay of any vessels from non-littoral states to just 21 days. Littoral states are further obliged under the Convention to inform the relevant Turkish authorities of an intended transit of the Straits by a military vessel at least eight days prior and non-littoral states are obliged to provide 15 days’ notice. Turkey is further empowered to close the Straits to all military traffic in wartime or when under threat of aggression while also denying passage to merchant vessels belonging to countries at war with Turkey.
It is worth noting that Annex II of the Convention specifically excludes aircraft carriers from the definition of a capital ship. This does not extend to any other ship transporting aircraft since, at the time of the Convention’s writing, it was not uncommon for battleships and other military vessels to carry observation aircraft. This may explain the Soviet Union’s unusual designation of its aircraft carriers as ‘aircraft-carrying cruisers’ – for example, the Kiev and Kuznetsov classes. These vessels could fulfill the same strategic function as carriers while still being free to transit the Turkish Straits, even as the Convention denied access to the Black Sea for NATO aircraft carriers due to their explicit designation as aircraft carriers in both name and function.
Though the Montreux Convention has constrained the capacity of NATO support to Ukraine in its struggle against Russian aggression, such as by limiting the number of vessels permitted in the Black Sea as part of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG2), the continued implementation of the agreement is in the national interest of the United States and other non-littoral nations. The United States has long supported the “principle of freedom of transit and navigation” referred to in Article 1 of the Convention and, although it has never ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the United States already abides by UNCLOS as a matter of customary international law.
On the one hand, this seems to suggest that challenging the legitimacy of the Montreux Convention would advance American interests – after all, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in 1949 that, for vessels transiting the Straits or Corfu, which runs along the coasts of Albania and Greece and which serves as a passage between the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, the concept of innocent passage should prevail over any claims of state control over such strategic waterways. With the Corfu precedent and the customary nature of UNCLOS, one might assume that a legal challenge of the Montreux Convention by a non-littoral state would easily succeed.
But the unique geography of the Turkish Straits makes this legal question far from simple. The Marmara Sea is an internal sea, all the coasts of which belong to Turkey. In the event of a dissolution of the Convention, the ICJ would need to consider whether the Turkish Straits constitute a single strait connecting two open seas, in which case innocent passage prevails, or if they are two separate straits connecting an open sea and an internal sea, in which case Turkey would be able to exert even greater control over the flow of maritime traffic through the Straits. Referring to the Turkish Straits in common parlance – rather than referring separately to the Dardanelles, the Bosporus, and the Marmara Sea – implies a single unit, and the bulk of the maritime traffic has flowed over the past decade between the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. It would seem likely then that the ICJ would favor the conception of the Turkish Straits as a single strait connecting two open seas, but this outcome is not guaranteed.
The Turkish Straits are comprised of: (A) The Dardanelles, (B) The Marmara Sea, and (C) The Bosporus. (Image: Maritime Studies South Africa)
It is also difficult to discern to what extent the United States would be able to practically alter the administration of the Turkish Straits. Turkey is a significant maritime power in its own right and much of its naval forces are stationed at Gölcük Naval Base, located on the east coast of the Marmara Sea. Any freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) would encounter immediate resistance and would add to the existing tensions between the Turkish and U.S. governments, especially as Turkey refuses to recognize UNCLOS.
The economic and social importance of the Straits to Turkey cannot be overstated. Beyond the millions of Turkish citizens who live on its banks and the commerce the Straits facilitate, it also offers a physical representation of Turkey’s duality as a European and Asian state, while the administration of the Straits has afforded Turkey a self-image as the guardian of the Black Sea.
Given all of this, it would possibly require the wholesale destruction of Turkish naval forces to impose a major change in the administration of the Turkish Straits and, even then, barriers could be erected intentionally or accidentally that would interfere with the future use of the waterway. In short, the legal and practical status quo offers the best guarantee for the continued flow of trade through the Straits.
Calls for Reform
However, there has been much discussion in Russian and Turkish policy circles around possible revisions to the Montreux Convention. These revisions would be detrimental to U.S. national interests, which include the maximum possible freedom of transit and navigation through the Turkish Straits. In particular, since the annexation of Crimea, some Russian defense planners have called for the Convention to be revised so that the length of stay in the Black Sea for vessels from non-littoral states would be shorter than the current allowance of 21 days. Furthermore, Russian policymakers have creatively interpreted the Convention since annexing Crimea in 2014.
In May 2016, Turkish President Recep Erdogan decried the Black Sea as a “Russian Lake.” In response, the Chair of the State Duma Committee on Defense, Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, claimed that the Russian Federation need only inform Turkey of the transit of its military vessels through the Turkish Straits and that restrictions on the number and kind of vessels transiting applied only to non-littoral states. Meanwhile, in response to Russia’s unilateral restrictions on the flow of maritime traffic through the Kerch Strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, Ukraine called in November 2018 for tighter restrictions on the number and kind of vessels from all states transiting the Turkish Straits, in hopes that this might interfere with the strategic maneuvers of the Russian Navy.
Russian Navy warships based in the Black Sea (Wikimedia Commons)
There have been rumblings from the Turkish governmentas to how Istanbul is “…threatened by the ever growing number of oil tankers and other dangerous cargo vessels” that transit the Straits. While Turkey has been mostly satisfied by regulations adopted through the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and other multilateral bodies,some Turkish commentators have proposed further action. In particular, some suggest promoting a regional ownership model for the Straits under the auspices of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), a multilateral forum comprised of Turkey and the Russian Federation but also Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine.
Such a model could facilitate the re-interpretation of the Montreux Convention, loosening the restrictions on vessels from Black Sea littoral states, but maintaining or even tightening the restrictions on vessels from non-littoral states. This could, in turn, be circumvented by the United States and other non-littoral states by re-flagging vessels. In the wake of the Crimean annexation, some American commentators suggested an enhanced NATO presence in the Black Sea by having U.S. Navy ships fly Bulgarian or Romanian flags. But this, too, would likely only add to tensions between the United States and Turkey as well as further undermine the rules-based order.
The Istanbul Canal
A $25-billion infrastructure project announced in 2011 by Turkey’s then-Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, known as the Istanbul Canal, presents the greatest challenge to the legal and practical status quo in the Turkish Straits. The canal would consist of a 45-kilometer waterway bisecting the European side of Istanbul, allowing 160 vessels daily to bypass the Bosporus as they transit between the Marmara and Black Seas. Officially, the Istanbul Canal was proposed to alleviate congestion on the Bosporus and divert tanker traffic toward less sensitive areas of Istanbul. However, Turkish freighter captains have cast doubt on this, noting that the canal as currently envisioned would be too shallow to accommodate many of the tankers Erdogan claims would be diverted from the Bosporus. Indeed, the canal plan calls for a maximum draft of 17 meters.
In reality, the Istanbul Canal may have been introduced to circumvent the Montreux Convention. In January 2018, Turkey’s then-Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım asserted that, as an artificial waterway, the Convention would not apply to the Istanbul Canal and so the Turkish authorities would be able to unilaterally restrict or regulate traffic through it. This again depends on whether the Turkish Straits are understood to be a single unit or as three distinct waterways – the Dardanelles, Marmara, and Bosporus. In the former interpretation, the Convention could still apply to the canal, given that it connects part of the Straits to the open waters of the Black Sea. In the latter interpretation, however, the canal would be an entirely new and distinct feature to which the Convention would indeed not apply.
Project route of the Istanbul Canal. (Image: TRTWorld)
In any case, the canal presents a serious threat to the spirit of the Convention. On the one hand, Turkey has consistently advanced the narrative that continued use of the Bosporus is unsafe to the natural environment, the millions who live on its banks, and the hundreds of vessels that transit each day, and so unilateral restrictions on maritime traffic through the Bosporus could be justified on the basis that vessels ought to transit the safer canal route. On the other hand, Turkey could upset the balance of power in the Black Sea region by allowing vessels to transit the canal that would have otherwise been denied passage through the Turkish Straits under the Convention. Either scenario would clash with the U.S. policy of seeking the maximum possible freedom of transit and navigation, while also making NATO’s capacity to support members and partners in the Black Sea region contingent on Turkish whims.
Similar concerns regarding Erdogan’s strategic intentions have been expressed in Russia, with some commentators warningthat completion of the canal could soon be followed by a Turkish denouncement of the Montreux Convention. Under the Convention’s provisions, a denunciation by any of the signatories would prompt a conference to be held for the purposes of drafting amendments to the existing Convention or an entirely new agreement on the use of the Turkish Straits. For such a conference to be valid, the Convention calls for participation from three-quarters of the “High Contracting Parties” that are littoral states – in other words, five out of six of what is now Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia, and Turkey.
It is conceivable, then, that a denunciation by Turkey of the Montreux Convention could be followed by a conference to draft a new agreement, held validly without Turkish participation. But it is unlikely Turkey would readily abide by any new agreement that was drafted without its participation, especially when, from the perspective of the Turkish authorities, the Istanbul Canal and the denunciation of the Montreux Convention would afford Turkey full control over access between the Aegean and the Black Seas.
Open Channels
Fortunately, there are diplomatic options available that could preserve the status quo in the Turkish Straits. For example, through the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – of which the United States and all the Black Sea littoral states are members – a series of confidence- and security-building mechanisms (CSBMs) could be developed regarding access between the Aegean and the Black Sea. As exemplified by the Vienna Document, an integral document to the work of the OSCE, CSBMs can include annual exchanges of information on the disposition of military forces, base inspections, and the mutual invitation of observers to military exercises, all of which are intended to demonstrate to neighbors that there is no hostile intent behind various military activities in border areas.
The development of a similar document or agreement pertaining to the Turkish Straits could include a commitment from all parties not to interfere in any way with access between the Aegean and the Black Sea, aside from those powers already afforded Turkey under the Montreux Convention, effectively backstopping the Convention but also de facto extending its remit to any artificial waterways that might be established connecting the Aegean and Black Seas.
There is nothing here that would stop Turkey from refusing to abide by these terms at some later date – after all, Russia suspended its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, another OSCE-related CSBM, a little over one year before it mounted its 2008 attack on Georgia. But a suspension of Turkish participation in CSBMs related to the Straits would afford an early warning to the U.S., Russia, and other interested parties that a denunciation of the Montreux Convention may be forthcoming.
Even with a Turkish denunciation of the Convention, CSBMs would help to avoid a regional arms race. The continued exchange of information between the other Black Sea littoral states would provide assurance that no one state intends to take advantage of the change in the practical and legal status of the Turkish Straits, such as by securing a side agreement with Turkey that would allow for an increased buildup of naval forces in the Black Sea. The inclusion of some clear punitive measures for state non-compliance in the CSBM could also deter Turkey from unilaterally altering the practical or legal status of the Straits – for example, the imposition of sanctions by all other parties – but this could also make the conclusion of any agreement on the CSBM unlikely. In any case, it would serve Turkey’s national interests to participate in such an arrangement as CSBMs would provide a safety net for all of the concerned parties, helping to avoid any change in the legal or practical status of the Turkish Straits from escalating into armed conflict.
Beyond multilateral agreements and fora, Erdogan must also contend with public opinion at home. The newly elected Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, has expressed strong opposition to the Istanbul Canal projectand handily defeated former Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, a canal proponent and Erdogan ally, despite alleged efforts by the Turkish authorities to skew the election results in Yıldırım’s favor. Calls for a referendum on the canal also bode ill for Erdogan, with polling in December 2019showing that more than 72 percent of Istanbul residents are opposed to the project. The canal could be sacrificed in hopes of avoiding a showdown with İmamoğlu for the presidency in Turkey’s anticipated 2023 general election.
Conclusion
Given the strategic importance of the Turkish Straits – and the rumblings for reform from Ankara, Moscow, and even Kyiv – the most prudent course for U.S. policymakers would be to ensure open diplomatic channels, both by pursuing commitments from littoral states in multilateral fora like the OSCE, and by maintaining an open dialogue with all Turkish stakeholders on this issue. Neglecting these diplomatic tools would mean surrendering the initiative to the Turkish authorities, who have thus far demonstrated a willingness to erode the legal order that has governed the Turkish Straits for nearly a century whenever it is deemed to serve narrowly defined national interests.
Paul Pryce is the Principal Advisor to the Consul General of Japan in Calgary, and a long-time contributor to the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC). He has previously written as the Senior Research Fellow for the Atlantic Council of Canada’s Maritime Nation Program and earlier served as a Research Fellow with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly.
Featured Image: Turkish Navy MILGEM corvette transits by the Dur Yolcu Memorial on its way to the Dardanelles (Turkish Ministry of Defense photo)
“During this time we have seen our once-great fleet cut almost in half and our remaining ships and personnel forced to endure long and continuous deployments as their numbers dwindled while requirements increased, and our nation turned away from international imperatives to attend to vexing problems closer to home…” –Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo “Bud” Zumwalt, 1973
The Navy is not the only branch of the military facing significant challenges born from a long focus on the low-end fight. After the fall of the Soviet Union and especially after the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan all of the military services pivoted their training toward low-end skills to a significant extent. All of the services dealt with crushing operational tempo stemming from demand driven primarily by the Middle East, and are still paying off large maintenance debts. Now they are all trying to radically reorient themselves to be ready for great power competition.
However, the Navy stands far apart from the other services in how it contributed and adapted to the major wars of the power projection era. The nature of blue water naval power was poorly suited to counterinsurgency, causing the Navy to diffuse its efforts across a broad variety of mission areas. The fleet went on to suffer an especially large divide between what it could do and how it was tasked. Missions that were once considered a luxury afforded by the demise of a great power competitor eventually came to be regarded as inescapable obligations. This mission focus blurred the Navy’s priorities, allowed it to overextend itself, and helped blind the fleet to the fundamental need to develop itself through proper exercises.
As a result, many of the Navy’s operations undermined enduring strategic imperatives, suggesting the urgency of those low-end missions was built on questionable strategy. In the process, the Navy shed high-end warfighting skills that remained relevant even after the demise of the Soviet Union and is entering an era of renewed great power competition at a disadvantage as China rises. The United States, as a maritime nation, and the world, as dependent on maritime order, now find themselves at greater risk by an American fleet deficient in sea control.
Missions and Adapting to Power Projection
“Looking at how we support our people, build the right platforms, power them to achieve efficient global capability, and develop critical partnerships will be central to its successful execution and to providing that unique capability: presence.” –A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower (2015)
The composition of blue water naval power is often decided a generation in advance of when it actually manifests itself. It takes many years to conceive of a ship, several more years to then build the first ship of a new type, and many more years to build an entire class of ships. The fundamental attributes of the modern U.S. Navy were mostly set or inspired by the national security thinking of the 70s and 80s when sea control defined its focus. The American fleet that sails today is mainly composed of 100,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, large surface warships that can carry over 100 missiles each, and nuclear-powered submarines. The modern U.S. Navy is a living relic of the Cold War, where its design was crafted in an era dominated by great power competition.
Something similar could be said for the force structure of the other military services, and the low-end focus of the immediate post-Cold War era demanded they all adapt. The nation-building and counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan required especially radical changes. Adapting to these wars took more the form of different missions and training, rather than building different kinds of force structure. Divorcing units from high-end force structure inspired by Cold War threats became central toward adapting to the low-end fight.
Both the Army and Marines recognized that a significant part of their force structure was barely useful for counterinsurgency and chose to rarely employ their armored units in traditional roles. It appears the U.S. did not deploy tanks to Afghanistan until 2010, and up until at least two years ago no Army armor units have deployed to Afghanistan with their tanks.1 Having been divorced from their main vehicles these units underwent extensive retraining to take on new missions, and the Army’s field artillery branch experienced similar reforms.2 Even though these units were pushed into less-familiar roles these adaptations were viewed as necessary to make them more applicable to the counterinsurgency fight.
The Army and Marines are not alone in having force structure that was hardly useful to counterinsurgency. Most of the tools of blue water naval forces such as powerful radars and sonars, dozens of missile tubes, electronic warfare suites, nuclear submarines, and long-endurance ships are poorly suited to fighting insurgents. Insurgent war is usually a land-only contest, where insurgents almost never field real navies. Aircraft carriers can employ airpower, but most of the Navy’s major capabilities could hardly be applied. This is reflected in how the surface and submarine fleets’ direct combat contributions to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were mostly confined to cruise missile strikes conducted in the opening months of those campaigns.3 Beyond that there were virtually no contributions of firepower from most American warships for the rest of these wars.
The Navy had to make its own retraining adaptations. The Individual Augmentee (IA) program pulled Sailors from assignments that usually took them to sea and instead deployed them to serve in augmented roles on land. However, the numbers were very uneven across the Navy’s various communities. Even though tens of thousands of Sailors deployed through the IA program it appears less than five percent of Navy individual augmentees came from the surface fleet.4 This points to a major difference in how the Navy adapted to counterinsurgency compared to the other services, in that even in a time of insurgent war the Navy still continued to operate less relevant force structure at pre-9/11 levels. The Navy never went so far as the Army or Marines who regularly made their armor and artillery units leave their main weapons behind. The Navy’s ship deployment rate went unaffected by any augmentation or retraining.
Pay grade distribution of individual augmentees who were deployed from cruisers and destroyers during Fiscal Years 2006 through 2009. (Source: GAO)
The diminished relevance of blue water naval power in the Global War on Terror is reflected in the work of Lieutenant Commander Alan Worthy, who interviewed numerous Sailors while researching the Navy’s IA program:
“A significant number of the young Sailors I spoke with joined the Navy specifically to be part of this ongoing war. They joined after 9/11 or after the GWOT began and wanted to get into the fight. In my interviews, I was surprised to learn that a considerable percentage of Sailors did not have a good understanding of the Navy’s role in the GWOT. For Sailors who were in the Navy before the war, their day-to-day duties out to sea had not significantly changed because of the war. For those who joined to fight this war, it has been difficult to see what their daily efforts out to sea were accomplishing. The strategic effects of missions such as maritime dominance and theater security cooperation are often unrealized by the average Sailor as they go about daily sea life. Unlike Marine Corps and Army accomplishments, which are in the daily news media, Sailors do not regularly get to the opportunity to see or hear how the maritime mission directly contributes to the war.”5
The Navy was poorly suited to counterinsurgency, forcing it to focus its operational energies elsewhere. The low-end spectrum missions opened up many opportunities to conduct diverse operations that would allow the Navy to put the forward presence of its ships to use. Warships conducted missions such as counterpiracy, maritime security, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Ships protected fisheries, caught smugglers, and taught foreign counterparts how to better provide for their own security. Partnership engagements in particular became a leading operational activity for U.S. naval power as concepts such as the 1,000-ship Navy and Global Fleet Station urged greater international cooperation.
A snapshot of missions for ships in the Fifth Fleet area of responsibility. (Source: “Surge Readiness: What the Fleet Response Plan Really Means to a Joint Force Maritime Component Commander”)
The power projection era ushered in what may be remembered as a high time for naval soft power, where the Navy devoted a significant amount of its time and skill on directly helping other nations improve their human condition. However, many of these operations are better described as opportunities offered by the diverse set of missions found at the low-end spectrum of operations, rather than pressing requirements driven by wartime demand. While tens of thousands of Soldiers and Marines were solely focused on advising heavily embattled Iraqi and Afghan counterparts the Navy enjoyed the luxury of frequently partnering with dozens of other nations, almost all of whom were not engaged in any major hostilities.
Despite these low-end missions the Navy’s stringent level of continuous forward presence was mainly for guaranteeing deterrence by denial. The Navy sought to primarily deter Iran, who was perfectly positioned to interfere with the Strait of Hormuz and threaten one of the most important global energy lifelines. Iran has regularly made outspoken threats to close the Strait, has far more naval forces than its Arab rivals, and attacks on international shipping in the 1980s prompted armed U.S. intervention that targeted Iranian assets. By continuously maintaining a carrier strike group in the Middle East the Navy sought to insure the global economy and regional allies against Iran.
The necessity of this demanding level of presence is questionable. Unlike in Europe or Asia, the conventional military balance in the Middle East favors U.S. allies versus Iran. The past two U.S. administrations have given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of advanced military aid to U.S. allies in the region, especially those that are staunch rivals of Iran such as Gulf Cooperation Council states and Israel. While Iran certainly enjoyed some military advantages during the power projection era its temptations to pursue major military action may have been tempered by the tens of thousands troops the U.S. deployed to countries flanking Iran.
The worldwide significance of the seaborne energy that transits the Persian Gulf is perhaps the best security guarantor. Iran could cause global economic damage if it tried to close the Strait or initiate major war with its regional rivals, but this would likely prompt extremely fierce condemnation from across the world. Even if the U.S. Navy couldn’t instantly respond, the overriding factor of politics would likely be on its side. With the advantages of politics and allies, deterrence by denial against a rogue state is less necessary if a superior coalition can be counted on to surge in response. Iran’s ability to close the Strait militarily is highly doubtful, but the possibility of this prompting an internationally-supported counter-intervention is not. The same cannot be said for how the world would respond to many contingencies involving great power war.
The Navy struggled to find a place for itself in the power projection era, but it would not abandon its traditional ship deployment rates as major land wars broke out in the Middle East. Instead, it reacted to a new national security focus by subscribing to questionable logic. During this time the Navy chose to obsessively overspend its readiness on many missions that are completely optional in nature, and on a level of deterrence that was hardly warranted. Yet the Navy was so convinced of the necessity of these operations that for years it willingly sacrificed its material readiness, tolerated severe maintenance troubles, and let its warfighting competence wither away.
This unrelenting insistence on optional missions and a total disregard for full-spectrum competence produced decades of fleet deployments that were driven by a grossly misplaced sense of urgency. In a time of power projection and insurgent wars, if any branch of the military could have safely made time to prepare for the high-end fight, it is the Navy.
Full-Spectrum Competence and U.S. Naval Power
“With the demise of the Soviet Union, the free nations of the world claim preeminent control of the seas and ensure freedom of commercial maritime passage. As a result, our national maritime policies can afford to de-emphasize efforts in some naval warfare areas. But the challenge is much more complex…We must structure a fundamentally different naval force to respond to strategic demands, and that new force must be sufficiently flexible and powerful to satisfy enduring national security requirements.” –…From the Sea: Preparing the Naval Service for the 21st Century (1992)
With the downfall of the Soviet Union the U.S. Navy could afford to take a step back from high-end warfighting. But a single-minded focus on the low-end fight or heavily scripted training could hardly be justified even with the demise of a great power competitor. Difficult threats remained, and required that the Navy still retain high-end warfighting skills. The failure to maintain full-spectrum competence during the immediate post Cold-War era could now come home to roost with the rapid onset of great power competition in maritime Asia.
The Navy allowed the low-end skillset to dominate the nature of its pre-deployment training, but full-spectrum competence across the range of missions is no option for a Navy tasked with protecting the global interests of a superpower. A ship could be conducting counterpiracy operations one week and conducting a show of force near a missile-armed state the next. Ships en route to the Middle East can pass through the South China Sea and be shadowed by the Chinese Navy. Warships in the Mediterranean could be helping refugees stranded in the ocean while a Russian squadron hangs over the horizon.
The power projection era sought to shift the Navy’s attention to littorals mostly populated by third-world states, but these areas contain no shortage of powerful capabilities and tactical challenges. Iran for example still fields a respectable amount of conventional military capability such as coastal anti-ship missile batteries, fast attack craft, mines, and Russian-made submarines. While the quality and resilience of the Iranian military is questionable in many respects, it is still a multi-domain threat worthy of consideration.
The credibility of littoral threats was already recognized in key strategy papers that announced the Navy’s power projection focus. As the major Navy strategy document …From the Sea (1992) declared “a fundamental shift away from open-ocean warfighting on the sea toward joint operations conducted from the sea” it also recognized that this different operating environment of the littoral still had no shortage of tactical challenges:
“The littoral region is frequently characterized by confined and congested water and air space…making identification profoundly difficult. This environment poses varying technical and tactical challenges to Naval Forces. It is an area where our adversaries can concentrate and layer their defenses. In an era when arms proliferation means some third world countries possess sophisticated weaponry, there is a wide range of potential challenges…an adversary’s submarines operating in shallow waters pose a particular challenge to Naval Forces. Similarly, coastal missile batteries can be positioned to ‘hide’ from radar coverage. Some littoral threats–specifically mines, sea-skimming cruise missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles–tax the capabilities of our current systems and force structure. Mastery of the littoral should not be presumed.”6
The power projection focus still required strong warfighting skills, and could hardly justify scripted training or a lack of attention to high-end warfighting. Perhaps the terms “littoral” and “power projection” somehow became synonymous with “easy” for the U.S. Navy, and allowed it to atrophy its warfighting skills.
Even with the demise of the Soviet Union the Navy still had an obligation to deter powerful states. This was made especially clear in one of the most high-profile shows of force in the power projection era when the U.S. deployed carrier battle groups to deter China during the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis. This event added urgency to China’s desire to modernize its military for high-end warfighting, but apparently it did little to remind the U.S. Navy of its obligations toward full-spectrum deterrence.7
Perhaps the neglect of full-spectrum competence was built on the assumption that the Navy could easily regenerate high-end skills if a new great power rival presented itself. The Chinese Navy has been given an opportunity to test this assumption. The Chinese Navy’s push for high-end competence overlaps with the American Navy’s generational focus on low-end missions, suggesting the PLAN has stolen a march on the U.S. Navy with respect to high-end force development.
After the Soviet Union fell the U.S. Navy could have taken a different path. The lack of utility of blue water naval power for counterinsurgency could have been a blessing in disguise for the Navy while the other services were heavily tied down by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the power projection era the Navy could have focused on settling complex developmental questions posed by Information Age technologies, and evolved its high-end skills. The Navy effectively missed a historic opportunity to make major progress on force development, where the fleet could have easily focused on securing its future dominance. Instead, it let a rising rival close the gap.
For a generation the Chinese and U.S. Navies have focused their skills and culture on opposite ends of the warfighting spectrum, and this disparity is far more fatal to the American fleet. A superpower navy does not threaten itself by lacking low-end skills, but it can certainly risk its defeat and destruction by failing to be ready for the high-end fight. The Navy assumed great risk by failing to maintain full-spectrum competence while an authoritarian China rose to become both a superpower and a maritime power. A possible historical legacy of the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden could now include helping the U.S. Navy atrophy to such a degree that its decay was taken advantage of by an ascendant great power rival.
Matching Exercises to Strategy
“A final way in which the Maritime Strategy has served as a focus for reform is by shaping an emphasis on tactics and warfighting at the operational level. For too many years, our fleet exercises suffered from a lack of realism and focus, and our routine operations seemed to be lacking in purpose. But the Maritime Strategy now forms a framework for planning realistic, purposeful exercises, and provides a strategic perspective for daily fleet operations in pursuit of deterrence.” –Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James Watkins on the 1986 Maritime Strategy
The low-end skillset clearly proved its worth. Navy Special Forces took out numerous insurgent leaders, collected valuable intelligence, and conducted sensitive operations worldwide. Sailors helped save thousands of lives in the wake of environmental disasters like the deadly tsunamis in Asia and after Hurricane Katrina at home. These low-end missions elevated the Navy’s role in many respects by applying naval power to a greater variety of problems and with many partners. These missions developed meaningful relationships around the globe, and were an excellent opportunity to put national values into practice abroad. The skills and relationships that come with low-end missions will remain relevant going forward because great power competition is still whole-of-government competition in peacetime and in war.
But after the fall of the Soviet Union the U.S. Navy did not just double down on these missions, it went all in. High-end warfighting experience barely came from either the Navy’s training or its forward operations. Of the little time that was actually spent on events that approached high-end exercising, few were truly challenging or well-connected to force development because of heavy scripting. Properly resourced force development can still be undercut by heavy scripting, and quality exercises can still be starved of ready units. In the Navy’s case, high-end force development was effectively taken off the schedule and out of its strategy through a self-inflicted lack of both resourcing and standards.
There is not a stark tradeoff between deterrence, force development exercising, and forward presence because of naval power’s mobility. The Navy can easily exercise within the depths of the Indian, Atlantic, or Pacific Oceans and still remain on call to respond to a contingency within days. This mobility allows for a more remote operating posture to still count as forward presence for the sake of deterrence. However, it would not be the sort of upfront presence that supports the type of small-scale exercises that come with most low-end missions. The Navy did not add more forward presence by deploying the usual 100 ships per year, but rather by disaggregating its formations once they came on station to better take advantage of the many opportunities that come with the low-end focus. By often making formations disaggregate themselves within the forward-most littorals the Navy optimized its presence to exercise for partnerships and low-end operations, rather than stronger deterrence and force development.8
The unbalanced logic of focusing solely on low-end missions caused the Navy to operate with far fewer constraints. Concepts of presence, overseas partnership, and undersea surveillance can become boundless and open-ended, where a force can quickly overwhelm itself with the many opportunities that come with these missions. In a well-rounded strategy these missions would be heavily constrained by training and force development requirements alone, where adequate time for force development has to be protected against many other demands. Trying to maintain high levels of continuous forward presence with a shrinking fleet made it difficult to maintain larger formations without disrupting schedules. A strained readiness cycle and a tunnel-vision focus on low-end missions combined to stretch the fleet so thin that it could rarely get enough ships together to properly resource high-end force development with large exercises.
The Navy can look to what other military branches have done for decades. The Army sends about a third of its brigades every year to the National Training Center, and hundreds of aircraft participate each year in the Air Force’s Red Flag exercises.9 Other military services know that they must guarantee a significant amount of readiness for large-scale exercises.
The Navy still conducted numerous training exercises every year, but their chronic lack of true opposition deprived them of value. The Army and Air Force know to dedicate units to act as full-time opposition forces (OPFOR), to empower those units to inflict meaningful losses, and to mandate them to master the methods of rivals. The Army’s major OPFOR unit is the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and for the Air Force it is the 57th Adversary Tactics Group. By comparison the Navy has no dedicated OPFOR warship formations.
A flight of Air Force Aggressor Squadron F-15 Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons fly in formation over the Nevada Test and Training Ranges. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Kevin J. Gruenwald)
OPFOR units are among the most proficient units in the armed forces because their primary mandate is to train hard, they are given plenty of opportunity to do so through large-scale events, and they are well-connected to an extensive learning architecture that is built around their exercises. People serving in dedicated OPFOR units can take unique culture, tactical knowledge, and professional connections with them throughout their careers. Dedicated OPFOR units perform a strategic force development function by acting as incubators from where tactical excellence can spread throughout the force.
Dedicated OPFOR units are also indispensable because superpowers often think about warfighting in widely different ways. Capt. Dale Rielage (ret.), who wields an intelligence background specializing in China and experience leading opposing forces as the senior member of the Pacific Naval Aggressor Team, sheds light on how the U.S. and Chinese Navies have significant conceptual differences in the conduct of war:
“The Marxist-Leninist view of warfare focuses on military science where Western practitioners focus on military art, which creates an objective analytic approach to warfare. While the PLA has developed and adapted Marxist thinking in the almost century since the first Soviet instructors arrived, it still defines its basic approach to warfare as a ‘Marxist view of strategy with Chinese characteristics.’ The result is that the PLAN, like its Soviets predecessors, practices a style of warfare heavily based on what Westerners would call operations research. This focus has a real impact on PLAN forces and doctrine. For example, the belief that warfare has complex but discernible rules likely produces a military more accepting of automating command functions.”10
Conceptual differences in the conduct of war can lead to highly dissimilar tactics and operational plans, which complicates training realism. Regular troops that are asked to act as opposition forces on short notice can quickly fall into mirror-imaging, where by training and instinct they can easily default to their own nation’s way of war. A rival’s view on the conduct of war can be so complex and different that it warrants dedicated units to fully understand it, train to it, and then put that alternate vision of warfighting into practice. By applying a rival’s tactics a dedicated OPFOR unit can reveal how different warfighting methods could clash with one another to produce unique combat dynamics. This is necessary for defining realism, and to know how one stacks up against the enemy’s way of war is a question of the highest strategic importance.
Now in an era dominated by great power competition even more attention must be devoted to exercising for the high-end fight beyond the responsible minimum needed for full-spectrum competence. But as a result of a long overemphasis on low-end missions the budgets and operating norms of the fleet were stretched to their limits in the absence of a major demand signal. The result is a Navy that must dig deeply into its own time and pockets to make painful choices to correct itself.
Exercises as the Link Between Tactics and Strategy
“In the past tactics has suffered from lack of standard instructions, lack of records, lack of planning and tests of efficiency, lack of a ‘home office’ in the Department, but most of all it has suffered from lack of time in the fleet schedules…The tactical training of our fleet for war has suffered in the past, is now suffering, and will continue to suffer because of the ‘tight’ schedules of the present system.” –Commander Russell Wilson, “Our System of Fleet Training,” April 1925.
Regardless of their immense value exercises still cannot answer plenty of important questions. Exercises cannot probe many of the larger strategic concerns that can inform a campaign, such as political considerations or industrial base limits. These broader questions are more readily assessed using analysis and simulations rather than through the maneuvers of live units. Instead, where realistic combat exercises find their place in strategy is in how they dominate the realm of tactics, and how tactical-level success is the foundation of winning strategy.
Knowing how to organize for tactical success is critical toward crafting strategic plans, and Clausewitz proclaimed that proper strategy is completely contingent on superior tactics:
“…endeavor above all to be tactically superior, in order to upset the enemy’s strategic planning. The latter [strategic planning], therefore, can never be considered as something independent: it can only become valid when one has reason to be confident of tactical success…let us recall that a general such as Bonaparte could ruthlessly cut through all his enemies’ strategic plans in search of battle, because he seldom doubted the battle’s outcome…all strategic planning rests on tactical success alone…this is in all cases the actual fundamental basis for the decision.”11
Failing to understand surprise at the tactical level will eventually beckon surprise at the strategic level because one cannot be too sure of knowing if they can win if they are not sure how to win. Tactical shortsightedness can not only come from a lack of warfighting competence, it can also come from a poor understanding on how capability trends have evolved to redefine tactical ground truth. The unforseen tactical carnage wrought by the machine gun, trench, and artillery barrage in WWI was so devastating it shattered strategic concepts on both sides.12
Exercises come closest to real fighting because only they can use live units to create mock battles, making them the most important activity for understanding the tactical level of war. Only exercises can help thousands of troops practice tactics, and only exercises offer troops the most realistic proving grounds for testing tactical ideas. After having experimented enough to discover the tactical truths that govern the conduct of future war, and after having inculcated the related tactics into the force, exercises can also then be used to reveal tactical skill through bold maneuvers and rehearsals.
Exercises are the best possible means to teach tactics through training, to invent tactics through experimentation, and to showcase tactics for deterrence through demonstration. To strongly emphasize challenging exercises is to pay appropriate respect to how the tactical level of war is the foundation upon which strategy rests.
Hazarding a Navy, a Maritime Nation, and a Maritime System
“If in the future we have war, it will almost certainly come because of some action, or lack of action, on our part in the way of refusing to accept responsibilities at the proper time, or failing to prepare for war when war does not threaten. An ignoble peace is even worse than an unsuccessful war…” –Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, 1897
A generation’s worth of poor priorities and standards has gambled much of the Navy’s credibility away. Readiness is degraded across the board, from the material state of the ships, to the warfighting competence of the individual Sailor, and to the level of institutional understanding of high-end warfighting. This degraded sea control capability can pose a strategic liability, especially when a rival superpower is focused on creating a powerful sea control capability of its own. The history of the United States and its chosen role of advancing a principled global order points to what the U.S. and the rest of the world stands to lose from an American Navy deficient in sea control.
The discovery and colonization of the New World was driven by maritime power. Wave after wave of ships delivered settlers, supplies, and influence as the great maritime powers of the time such as Great Britain and Spain sought to expand and compete across a new hemisphere. Here the United States finds its origin story as a colony of a maritime superpower, a nation whose founding was made possible by the sea.
The Mayflower at Sea. Gilbert Margeson (1852-1940)
After gaining independence from Great Britain the United States gained a similar sort of strategic flexibility its English forefathers enjoyed. Nations in most other continents border several neighbors which forces them to always be aware and engaged. As a maritime nation, the United States could often choose to use the large oceans that divide it from most of the world to keep its distance from international events, or actively engage abroad if desired.This relative isolation from international turbulence helped the United States bide its time on developing itself into a first rate power. Soon after the start of the 20th century the U.S. had gained enough in confidence and strength, and announced its ascendancy as a nation of global influence in part through a high-profile naval deployment in the form of the Great White Fleet.
The independence that often came with being a maritime nation is gone today. The world’s oceans have become an even more indispensable foundation for human progress and globalization. By far the most cost effective form of transportation, 90 percent of the world’s trade goes by sea.13 2.4 billion people, a third of the world’s population, live within 60 miles of a coast.14 97 percent of global communications and $10 trillion in daily transactions flow through undersea cables.15 International benefits and problems can be more readily transferred through the seas, and severe shocks to the maritime system can quickly cascade throughout the global economy.
In a war at sea these things that make the world’s oceans a pillar of civilization become pressure points at the mercy of the victorious navy. By projecting power through the air, surface, subsurface, and across the coastline blue water naval power can dictate foreboding terms through sea control. The consequences of command of the seas are especially more severe for maritime nations such as the United States, where being isolated by the sea comes with greater dependence on it. A powerful example comes from the U.S. Navy’s own history in dominating the navy of a maritime superpower in WWII. It is a curious thing that several of the Navy’s top admirals came out against dropping the atom bomb when their proposals to end the war included using uncontested sea control to starve millions of Japanese into submission.16
A maritime nation that is separated from its allies by oceans requires sea control to send reinforcements abroad and maintain physical links, making the Navy especially critical to American security guarantees. The U.S. Navy could easily serve as the tip of the spear for the rest of the American military in many contingencies, since “Control of the seas near land assures the prompt access and freedom of maneuver of joint forces from the sea base.”17 The U.S. Navy must be able to secure forward spaces and sea lanes well enough to allow the joint force to surge across the ocean from the homeland. If the Navy cedes sea control to a superpower rival many U.S. allies could be left to fend for themselves.
Maritime commerce could be interdicted by a hostile Navy, causing untold economic damage and offering a powerful point of leverage. Coastlines and territories could be threatened by amphibious invasion. Population centers and critical infrastructure could be attacked deep inland through long-range fires safely delivered by ships at a distance. If the U.S. Navy cannot best a great power rival at sea control then many allies would be put at the mercy of the same sort of blue water naval power the Navy itself has wielded for decades.
The value of American naval supremacy goes far beyond what it could offer in war because of the nature of the global maritime system. Command of the seas is not just a wartime state of dominance for a particular Navy or coalition. It can also be understood as a particular state of peace. Today, command of the seas does not belong to any one nation or group, but rather it belongs to all as a global commons.
The set of rules that govern the world’s oceans was not solely decided by the world’s strongest powers, nor does it vary from region to region based on local preferences. In this sense, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is a historic human achievement. It lays down rights and rules for most of the surface of the world with regard to safe passage, economic development, and many other legal matters for conduct within the global maritime domain. 167 countries have ratified UNCLOS, including China.
The U.S. hasn’t ratified UNCLOS, but still adheres to many of its provisions as customary international law.18 The commitment to a common and principled legal framework to guide conduct on the world’s oceans is perhaps one of the more high-profile examples of American commitment to a rules-based international order. The United States has repeatedly demonstrated its seriousness about protecting the principle of freedom of navigation, with the U.S. Navy being a main instrument for doing so.
A Freedom of Navigation Operation conducted by U.S. warships is not simply a message to highlight the violation of rules or norms. It is the American Navy retracing a red line the United States has a long history of enforcing through the use of force. From Barbary pirates to the impressment of Sailors, to Gaddafi’s “Line of Death” or the Tanker Wars in the Persian Gulf, freedom of navigation has figured prominently in U.S. military intervention for over two centuries.19
On the other hand, China’s commitment to undermining the rules of the global maritime system is one of its most brazen examples of contempt for international order. Trillions of dollars of trade flow through the South China Sea since it is the main body of water that most seaborne commerce from Africa, Europe, and the Middle East transits on the way to Asia. China’s claim to the whole of the South China Sea is a clear example of a nation viewing its personal sense of entitlement as more important than respecting an agreed-upon framework of conduct that was forged by global cooperation. It remained steadfast in its selfish defiance even after its claims were decisively ruled against by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea at The Hague.
China’s worsening authoritarian character and the rapid ascent of its powerful Navy casts doubt on its maritime ambitions. If China wins command of the seas through war or other means it could earn a powerful medium for peacetime coercion by molding the maritime commons to its advantage. What would be the character and norms of such an authoritarian maritime system? Given the interconnected nature of the world’s oceans, command of the seas in a specific region could be enough to exert targeted pressure on a global scale. But how could an authoritarian state impose and enforce such a vision? Defeating the U.S. Navy would certainly go a long way.
Part 7 will focus on Strategy and Force Development.
Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Nextwar@cimsec.org.
2. Major Daniel C. Gibson, USA, “Counter-Insurgency’s Effects on the U.S. Army Field Artillery,” USMC Command and Staff College Marine Corps University, 2010. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a602988.pdf
Excerpt: “Redesigning the school’s curriculum went beyond modernizing the 2005–2006 Field Artillery Captain’s Career Course under Colonel McDonald. With the 2003 rise of the insurgency in Iraq, field artillery Soldiers devoted the bulk of their time to nonstandard missions, such as patrolling, providing base defense, and convoy operations. Because only a few field artillery units provided fire support, field artillery core competencies atrophied. As outlined in the 20 July 2006 Army Campaign Plan Update, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, General Richard A. Cody, understood the effect of nonstandard missions. He directed the US Army Training and Doctrine Command to assess the competency of field artillery lieutenants to determine if nonstandard missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom had degraded their basic branch skills and if they required additional or refresher training.”
4. Government Accountability Office, “Military Readiness: Navy Needs to Reassess its Metrics and Assumptions for Ship Crewing Requirements and Training,” June 2010. https://www.gao.gov/assets/310/305282.pdf
5. Lieutenant Commander Alan Worthy, “U.S. Navy Individual Augmentee Program: Is it the Correct Approach to GWOT Service?” Marine Corps Command and Staff College Marine Corps University, 2008. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a490401.pdf
SUEZ CANAL, Egypt(Sept. 23, 2008) The amphibious transport dock ship USS San Antonio (LPD 17) transits through the Suez Canal. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jason R. Zalasky (Released)
