The Incredible Shrinking US Navy

Mark Helprin writing in the WSJ raises a very important issue.  It is a dynamic which has been underway for some years now but has been occurring below the threshold of public awareness and debate.  At stake is the continued capability of the US to project power at great distances from our shores and assure the freedom of maritime trade.

Way back during the Reagan administration there was much brouhaha over plans to enlarge the American navy to the level of six hundred ships.  That was an inventory of combatant vessels not seen since the mid-sixties.  The opposition was loud and sustained.  The primary reasons given against the expansion of the navy were cost and the absence of a credible threat at sea beyond the undeniable presence of Soviet submarines carrying nuclear tipped ballistic missiles.  The proponents of expansion argued that the role of the navy went far beyond mere deterrence and the countering of the Soviet boomers.

When night fell on this particular debate, the navy was enlarged albeit not to the six hundred ship level.  In subsequent years the navy has been reduced.  Some reductions were justified with ease such as the retirement of superannuated SSBNs.  Others simply occurred without any particular note or rationale.

The ground truth which must be held firmly in one's grip is that the US is a maritime power.  Further, it has been one since the beginning.  Even with the unfortunate, not to say potentially fatally enervating, decline of the American merchant marine seeming to lessen the importance of protecting seaborne commerce, the reality remains: The US is heavily dependent upon sea lines of communication for the basics of industrial life as well as for much of its economic strength.

As Admiral Mahan demonstrated with history changing effect in his seminal The Influence of Sea Power On History over a century ago, maritime powers alone have the capability to wrest and maintain the initiative when confronted by a continental power's military threat.  Also as Mahan pointed out, control of the sea provides economic security and geopolitical advantage whether a state is confronted by another maritime power or a continental one.  World War II proved each and every of Mahan's contentions.  So did much of the Cold War.  The US Navy and its overwhelming maritime domination gave the US profound advantages in initiative which could and were never contested seriously by the Soviet Union.

Warships are expensive.  Not only are they expensive they become more so with every change in technology.  They are expensive to build.  Quite expensive to man and maintain.  The expense is multiplied by the simple and unavoidable fact that a maritime power needs a lot of ships.

That is the sticking point as well as the thrust of Helprin's piece.  The US must not only have combatants of all types which are technologically advanced, it must have a lot of them if it is to retain its globe girdling capacity. In straitened economic times like the present the possession of a lot of expensive ships crewed by expensively trained people might seem to be a luxury.

It has been argued that the US can rely upon its allies to provide bases from which force can be projected should such be required.  That argument has been made at regular intervals ever since the founding of NATO over fifty years ago.  The expense of a navy was employed as one of the main reasons for the "pactomania" of John Foster Dulles back when Ike was in the Oval.  Many, if not all, of the multilateral and bilateral military assistance treaties entered into during the Cold War were informed by the need for bases from which either or both air and ground forces could be projected.

The rub comes in the inconvenient fact that treaties and agreements are, as Bismark was alleged to have said, "mere scraps of paper," easily blown away by the winds of political change.  The ongoing events in the Mideast demonstrate the accuracy of this position.  Alliances almost hoary with age come unstuck in an instant when a political hurricane passes through.

The US must have its own sovereign bases.  This is where the navy enters the picture.  The ships of a task force are floating sovereignty.  They are bases of force and power projection over which usage the US has absolute control.  There is no need to gain the permission of an ally whose support may fade at the worst possible moment.

Because ships are movable assets, they provide a unique capacity to demonstrate a compelling American interest in a situation occurring anywhere near any ocean.  Right now the US is moving amphibious warfare ships from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to support diplomatic efforts in Libya.  It is an unfortunate symptom of the decline in the size of the US Navy that the ships and embarked Marines were not immediately available in the Mediterranean as was the case not that many years ago.

It is the global nature of American interests as well as the unique capacity of warships to move rapidly and bring impressive force to bear on a location of concern which obviates the contention that individual ships are far more competent than their predecessors of only twenty years ago.  It is quite true that a single aircraft carrier battle group has more conventional firepower on tap than did an entire fleet at the end of World War II.  It is also irrelevant.

A single carrier battle group can not be in two widely separated locations simultaneously.  As the current world situation shows, there is a very high probability that two or more crises requiring an American response can and do occur simultaneously.  Nor does the existence of one or two high profile crises obviate the ongoing need for sealane protection.  Neither does such end the requirement for a visible presence in areas of the world which appear quiet.

The Deep Thinkers who have complaisantly presided over the run down of the US Navy apparently have failed to appreciate the recent developments in China.  The Trolls of Beijing have decided to trod a path not walked by Chinese for nearly a thousand years--the path which leads to the sea, to maritime power aspirations.

The Trolls have made explicit that the South China Sea is an area of major concern.  They have all but declared the Yellow Sea to be territorial waters.  The Chinese navy has engaged in operations against the pirates of Somalia as well as making courtesy calls on African ports.  All of this is a recapitulation of past Chinese experience--admittedly long past experience.

The Chinese have been bending metal to provide the hardware needed for a true blue water navy which includes at least one aircraft carrier.  It is true that the Chinese are a long, long way from mastering the intricate job of operating a force projection oriented blue water navy, but there is no doubt that the Trolls have placed their feet firmly on the road that leads to that end.

The old opponent Russia has included major additions to its fleet in the defense ramp up currently planned.  Given the ambitious claims made by the Kremlin regarding sovereignty over large portions of the Arctic Sea and the resources below that unattractive body of water, there is little reason to believe the Russians will suddenly decide a new, improved navy is a luxury which can be dispensed with easily and at no loss.

To put a narrow focus on a bit of the Arctic Sea and adjoining water, it might be worth recalling the recent study showing the offshore proven reserves near Alaska have the potential to put that state in the top five oil and natural gas producing countries of the world.  The Russian's territorial claims run right up to (and perhaps beyond) the limits of the Alaskan sub-sea field.  That does raise some interesting possibilities, doesn't it?

The pirates of Somalia may represent a paradigm of an emerging threat which can envelope other areas of the world.  Nor is there any reason to believe these areas will be limited to those populated by Muslims and ringed with failed, failing, or hollow states.  As the quest for resources--and not simply those of a hydrocarbon sort--pushes evermore into the maritime zones, the potential for political or criminal entities to embarrass state actors with piratical acts similar to those taking place off the coast of Somalia grows apace.

Maritime protection missions including those directed against pirates or smugglers as well as guarding exclusive economic zones are tasks for the navy.  They are all ship intensive operations even if the combatants need not have more than a moderate level of individual competence.  This implies the US Navy will need more smaller combatants than it currently possesses.  It also implies the individual ships will have to have a multi-mission capability.

Littoral control and amphibious forcible entry missions are not going to go away simply because Secretary Gates fears the proliferation of relatively inexpensive and capable anti-ship missiles.  Rather, the challenge exists for the US Navy to develop and deploy appropriate threat reduction systems.  This will not be a task accomplished cheaply nor quickly.

Nothing in the area of naval development will be nor can be cheap and quick in its accomplishment.  It takes time, a lot of time, to design and construct new ships, new systems.  The time can be shortened and the expense lessened by refining the procurement process--a task which has bedeviled generations of defense secretaries.  Still it must be done if the erosion of US naval power is to ended and reversed before the anemia is fatal.

For all of those who have hoped that the "end of history" predicted at the time of the Soviet bloc's collapse will arrive finally with the ending of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all that can be said is, "Welcome to the real world."  The choice is blunt and harsh.  Reverse the slow degradation of American naval power or accept a greatly diminished status for the US along with an increase in the costs of nearly everything along with a greater number of threats and strictures to our way of life and independence as a country.