Tomorrow’s Navy mix should include scrappy ‘guerrilla-warfare’ vessels to prevail in the littorals.
In the coming decades, naval power is likely to grow in importance for U.S. policymakers. While recovering from two difficult land wars, the nation can be expected to shift to maritime strategy, capitalizing on its command of the seas to influence events ashore. Yet at the same time, our potential opponents have increased investment in anti-access/area-denial weapons. The Navy will continue to develop a comprehensive plan involving air, surface, subsurface, and amphibious assets to accomplish all missions in future contested littoral regions. Many other nations have already considered this problem and have adopted a type of platform that the U.S. Navy does not yet use—small, littoral-combatant craft.
