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Air
j. .ed naval cooperation has been a precon- ll| '°n of the Maritime Strategy, even . °ugh its requirements for conventional with the Soviets are often at odds with p led defense needs, especially in the ^cif,c Typically, the Midway (CV-41), eFe with an Australian frigate in the plane lyard station, might be called out of the estern Pacific operating area in time of ar> leaving a serious gap.
T
he maritime strategy has been a bold attempt to “solve” the major U. S. foreign policy problem, as C|j - the Reagan team saw it, of the early 1980s: a deI Hiavn Pos*t>on of authority in its alliances. The
I \u
■ Th •
Ij^ne maritime strategy requires a continuing, almost inpositioning of U. S. forces close to Soviet naval 0).ts so the U. S. ships can track down Soviet vessels in 5r'r home waters at the beginning of any conflict. The p()s control implications of this assertive use of naval tll^er as well as the strategy’s actual capacity to deter-
^time strategy always has been something of a political ®§y in military guise.
c°nti
the course of a war have been matters of intense
^/oversy. The U. S. Navy’s diplomatic purposes, how
''ll,
1
gj. , * * * * * .
’ have largely been left unexamined. In fact, the mari, e strategy was designed as a mighty attempt to cobble J;'her the Navy’s particular needs with U. S. needs
r,dwide.
5j. n °ne sense, the maritime strategy was merely one of array of war-fighting strategies elaborated in the Rea-
years. But perhaps more than any of the other strate-
f() ’ it was designed to buttress alliance coherence. ^rhier Chief of Naval Operations James Watkins wrote: C(;ei2ing the initiative demonstrates to our allies this "htry’s determination to prevail and thus contributes to
alliance solidarity.”1 Therefore, allied naval cooperation has been seen as virtually a precondition to the maritime strategy, almost from the outset. John Lehman, perhaps the most influential Secretary of the Navy since Theodore Roosevelt, told lawmakers in the spring of 1984: “We are forward deployed, and that development is fundamentally based on coalition approaches to all our threats, not go-it- alone approaches.”2
It is surprising that the maritime strategy’s relationship to the interests of America’s allies has evoked little comment. Yet, some of the strategy’s clearest and most coherent intentions are aimed at serving allied interests, as well as explicitly implicating the allies by requiring their wide- ranging assistance. The allies, however, have difficulties with four general categories in the maritime strategy:
► The policy is hard to comprehend. Setting aside the rhetorical flourishes, the maritime strategy’s substantive innovations are difficult to delineate.
► The requirements for fulfilling more assertive and daring missions “in harm’s way” may be beyond both foreseeable budgets and force levels. Allies, therefore, may be uncertain that resources will be available to fund their specific interests.
► A radical change has occurred in the maritime environment—specifically, in the “rise of the defense.” The Stark (FFG-31) incident in the Persian Gulf last May sets in sharp relief the potential effectiveness of relatively cheap, precise munitions against costly offensive naval platforms.
► The maritime strategy’s requirements are at odds with U. S. allies’ own defense needs, at least in the Pacific. Allies usually measure defense associations by two tests: Do they enhance their security? And are they cost-effective? Protracted conventional war against the Soviets in Soviet home waters may not meet these criteria.
The attempt to implicate allies in a vast maritime coalition may find the allies arguing that the maritime strategy is peripheral to their central interests, since the strategy is dominated by the logic of global coalition war. The strategy’s larger interest is to prevail over the Soviets in a
lysts, marked the high point of naval procurement
“Removing [carriers] from the Mediterranean impact on the cohesion of NATO. As the soul
may
thern
the
conventional war. This enormous undertaking, almost of necessity, overrides the immediate interests of regional allies.
Allied Perceptions in the Absence of Doctrinal Specificity: Most of the maritime strategy’s advocates concede that the new naval design is largely predicated on assertive forward deployments. But since the strategy is usually presented in a highly abstract manner, and the Navy’s leadership has seemed unusually reluctant to detail the strategy’s particulars (at least in public), we cannot fault the allies for thinking that it might be as much mood as substance.
The maritime strategists have steadfastly refused to develop overly specific strategic “cook books.” For several years, John Lehman seemed intent on keeping the strategy unarticulated. But the allies are finding it difficult to climb on board when strategic concepts are poorly illuminated. Any allied skepticism about the real intent of the maritime strategy could only have been reinforced when retired U. S. fleet admirals and naval planners frequently qualified, discounted, or deftly finessed suggestions regarding the most aggressive deployments.3 To be sure, part of the strategy’s vagueness seems deliberate in order to complicate Soviet planning as much as possible. But this vagueness runs the almost inevitable risk of confounding our allies as well.
Force Building and Bureaucratic Politics: If the maritime strategy were stripped of prescriptions regarding the more robust forward deployments, many of the consensual aspects of the strategy would remain unchanged from the naval plans of the 1970s. Part of the difficulty allies may have with the strategy could stem from their suspicion that much of the “new Navy’s” rhetoric seems to be driven by the Navy’s own bureaucratic and budgetary imperatives.
It is undeniable, after all, that many of the strategy’s “novel” elements served as a means to establish an early preeminence in the scramble for the defense budget when the Reagan team came to office. The maritime strategy’s inclination toward the aggressive use of naval power helped make the case for more plentiful, powerful, high- value platforms. As a result, at least 60 combatants were added to the number of ships the fleet would have had under the Carter funding levels. Yet, U. S. allies must notice that most of the maritime strategy involves tasks such as defeating Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs)—Navy goals for almost 20 years.
The Navy claims that a 600-ship fleet follows a formula of capabilities sized to threats. But the same figure was used as far back as 1974—in an era of substantially different threats and commitments. The problem for alliance solidarity, of course, is not that the maritime strategy may have yielded more U. S. ships, but that suspicions of bureaucratic motivations buttress an allied assessment that the strategy is a “force builder” rather than a real commitment to lead a vast maritime coalition in a conventional global war.
The mid-1980s, according to most defense budget ana
and
deployment. But there will have to be a dramatic increase in funding for the next 15 years to match the growth 0 the Navy during the Reagan administration’s first sev years. The U. S. Navy will be at least 30,000 petty 0 ^ cers short in the 1990s. Moreover, the Navy’s real rate-o funding growth is estimated to require increases from ■> to 7% a year. After the early 1990s, the Navy will have n more ships to engage Soviet naval forces aggressively 1 two or three oceans than were available during the Ca years.4 ,fi
In the 1970s, the 12-carrier task force order of bat reinforced the Carter administration’s restrictive intefp tation of the best way to sustain commitments. When current wave of defense budget enthusiasm has ebbed a the major naval combatants have aged, some of the curt assertions about engaging the enemy early and virtua anywhere might seem less credible. The prospect ofan^ spreading mismatch between the future number of nav combatants available for an aggressive set of missions the anticipation of a more menacing maritime environm would be disturbing. Equally unsettling would be the fects on U. S. attempts to use the maritime strategy 1 “alliance aggregation.”
The Atlantic: To European allies it may matter a deal whether American planners are, as some advocates the maritime strategy suggest, ready now, or will be in future, to send U. S. carriers close to the shores of1 Soviet Union in the early stages of war. Europeans 1 .
well fear that closing on Murmansk, for example, wou^ expend maritime assets needlessly in northern Europ and Arctic waters while leaving NATO’s Southern denuded of carriers. Indeed, the European component the maritime strategy requires virtually total coopera 1 of European allies in compensating for the shift of a nU' ber of U. S. carrier task forces to the Northern Flank other stations as soon as possible at the time or even be hostilities break out. The closest repository of carriers the Mediterranean. But pulling the Sixth Fleet from Mediterranean to the Baltic imperils Southern Flank s*a that have pinned a great deal of hope on U. S. naval av* tion in the event of war. As one British observer, C° mander S. V. MacKay, conjectured:
member nations perceive a greater emphasis on Northern Flank, they may question their current f,n -s cial and military commitment to the alliance. 1° situation, NATO could possibly even face a split strn ^ ture, with the Southern Flank countries following separate alliance.”5
To the European allies, a prerequisite of full Part'c*^. tion in the maritime strategy is a sufficient number or ^ riers at the ready and in place. Commander Mackay plained in Proceedings'.
“There is no point in the Royal Navy or all the EuW pean navies trying to execute a forward defense on t
ery modification in U. S. strategic planning has
°b]j
even if the United States presented the logic of the egy with Cartesian rigor and had a surplus of person
a°don one [theater] in order to deal with the other.”8
^hies may seem to be the key to solving the apparent naval deficit. The extent of allied maritime partici- •°n required was indicated by the testimony, in the first
become embarrassing and disruptive. The quintessen-
&V,al strategy t0 cure alliance misgivings was I,he, iU‘ part of 1984, by Secretary Lehman and Admiral Watkins- • ed Multilateral Force (MLF) of 20 years ago. Today, r
r°Pean planners are so uneasy about U. S. assurances,
own. We need U. S. commitment in the form of carrier battle groups to support the European contribution.”6
Evi
'ged our allies to engage in uncomfortable public hackly® ^"'n2- The ephemeral nature of strategic planning
tial al! that strati
and hardware, it would still be encumbered with
doubt.
Pacific Ledger: Some serving officers are conI lied that the maritime strategy reflects a baroque “At- ntic Tilt.” This largely private belief of some command- ^ s Was summed up in late 1985 by retired Admiral nsfield Turner in congressional testimony:
“We have a conundrum here. In peacetime. . . we are going to be needed much more [in the Pacific and ‘ndian Ocean basin] than [in] the Atlantic. But if the "'ar turns into a global war with the Soviet Union, I lhink the job of the Navy is going to be so great in the Atlantic that we are going to have to swing forces out °f the Pacific and the Indian Ocean to do it.”7 y
J't the maritime “consensus” holds that the Pacific can- c1 be sacrificed. As John Lehman told Congress in De-
, tT‘ber of 1985: “[T]hat is inconceivable. ... We cannot
ab,- •
Patj
“Senator Cohen: ‘What about the numbers?’
“Mr. Lehman: ‘[There are] about 150 (diesel electric submarines) on their side and zero on our side. [But] we are not that far away from rough equality in numbers given all of our allies. This includes the Japanese, the Australians, and all the Europeans. If they are generated and at war, then they are part of our force.’ “Admiral Watkins: ‘The combination of the two forces that the Secretary mentioned earlier are absolutely critical to the equation as to whether or not we can win the war at Sea.’9
If operations are as sustained and dispersed as the maritime strategy would indicate, however, neither allied nor U. S. naval assets may suffice. As Admiral William J. Crowe told an interviewer in 1985, the U. S. Pacific command operated then at “full stretch.”10 Recent additional naval operations in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf have been at the edge of mechanical and human endurance. But wartime needs for replenishment, ship servicing, and manpower are so far beyond the current accelerated tempo of operations that naval leaders have been unwilling to calculate even the basic “lift” requirements for a “major engagement.”11 A count of naval assets seems to warrant the suspicion that the maritime strategy requires carriers from the Pacific Command (PaCom) in order to operate along
the European theater, Pacific allies would, most hope that the remains of the U. S. Pacific Fleet woulds “in theater” rather than aid in a battle about to be de ^
NATO’s Northern Flank and its southern reaches at the same time. But it is doubtful that Pacific allies would rush to support a global war centered on Europe. Also, if the war is planned as a “come as you are” war, more distant allies will have little, if any, incentive to hurry to one or several distant fronts. If future wars are going to be “battles of the first salvo” then it is likely, in any case, that Pacific allies transiting great distances would arrive late. Further, if there were remaining PaCom assets to send to
mined in Europe. Meanwhile, of course, there mig^1 u too few U. S. ships remaining in the Pacific to give m depth to the naval confrontation naval planners anticip in the Sea of Okhotsk. t,c
A shift of some U. S. Pacific forces to the Atla^ would inevitably leave Pacific allies to fend for 1 pa. selves, while at the same time implicating Asian an cific associates in an effort to buttress U. S. forward op ations. The Pacific allies, in turn, would have { incentive to engage directly Soviet ships that were actually threatening them. Moreover, Pacific and allies are likely to ask themselves why they should ^ vert” Soviet attention from a worldwide war, especl '
'hem ‘
the .
tnevitable decisions about which commitments de- nd immediate attention and which can wait.
^'hc Rise 0f the Defense: It is uncertain that a surface , avy with the characteristics of the current U. S. fleet can
the kind of combat that the maritime strategy
>12
^he Joint Chiefs’ insistent argument for air cover in the ersian Gulf reveals a public anxiety previously absent
aiio
Matf(
a8ai:
°rms. Previous plans to defend oil shipping lanes
(re.at, within a span of 60 seconds, not just to defend ^=ainst a threat, but even to identify it. One conclusion be that even the most brilliant seamanship cannot ,l (v'ate what appears to be a historic shift in favor of cheap ensive weapons over relatively expensive combatants, he rapid dissemination of submarine technologies is
5.‘,n their analysis, superpower conflict has a high prob- "tty of being ultimately determined by nuclear Capons.
. S. allies perceive the maritime strategy as nothing <■ a “price” extracted by the United States in return for a *y funded strategic deterrent, they may want tangible V|dence that the United States actually has the where- 1 hal to fight the high-intensity conventional war the rategy expects. Both Atlantic and Pacific allies have rea- n to fear that forward operations early in the war would d^hlessly expose them to risks, while it chances leaving ‘holding the bag” once U. S. carriers have to make
^"hstand
^nvisions. Land-based planes have a decisive edge in . 8e and payload over naval aviation. As the current As- ^s|ant Chief of Naval Operations (Air Warfare) Vice Ntiral Robert Dunn, put it to reporters in reference to ,' S. actions in the Gulf: “That’s what the Air Force was es‘gned for.’
P,
ng U. S. planners about the vulnerability of naval
(j a Soviet threat were predicated on land-based avia- ^ n- But the maritime strategy seems to have neglected e necessity to secure land bases for a naval presence and PaJo* mission.
More significantly, the emerging weapons environment j>enis to place the major instruments with which the new ersian Gulf guarantees are funded at risk. The conse- ences of this perception on U. S. alliances with or with- ■ a maritime strategy are incalculable. Although John Ionian dismissed the Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7)-class l^8ates (which include the ill-fated Stark) as “Military °rm Caucus Ships,” they were hardly “low cost” at e °re than $187 million a copy. In fact, Lehman argued 'er that U. S. hulls were “different” and more durable J"1 HMS Sheffield, which Argentine Exocet missiles set lqljje >n the Falklands Conflict. As Lehman wrote in early jn “[W]e are getting perhaps the best quality products lucent memory on the waterfront. . . . The Perry-class e)!f8ates. . . are providing us with the most potent cost; fc'ive above surface anti-submarine warfare platforms n history.”14
b Three of the Stark's officers were charged with not 'nging the bow of the ship about toward the incoming fri'SSile once 'he Iracl* pilot’s radar had locked onto the §ate. Apparently, ships steaming at less than quarter 1|iCed always have to maneuver to be perpendicular to a
a8a
equally disturbing. In the Gulf, Iran was about to acquire attack submarines (and was interested in an aircraft carrier as well) at the time the Shah was overthrown. The Saudis are currently seeking submarines from the French and British. The epoch of the aircraft carrier, on which the U. S. Navy has staked so much, may soon face the challenge of a new regime characterized by plentiful subsurface equalizers.
Potential Responses of the Pacific Allies: The maritime strategy is explicitly predicated on a conventional war. Nonetheless, sustained battles at sea in Soviet home waters (and involving the Soviet mainland) place the U. S. maritime “shield” at great risk. Allies have little incentive to seek protection from planners who contemplate protracted conventional superpower conflict. Rather, in the event of a great power conflict, most allies might well confess a desire to see deterrence maintained by the threat, and if need be, the use of U. S. strategic forces.
The management of allied defense by atomic munitions has always been the most bedeviling aspect of the American guarantee. Australia and New Zealand, as well as NATO, have always been troubled by such questions. But the maritime strategy, if anything, because of its confident language of confrontation and unabashed call for clear maritime superiority, can only add to allied unease that their nuclear guarantee is being hedged at their expense.
Pacific allies are concerned that once great power hostilities begin, escalation will soon follow. They are afraid that plans for sensitive choreographies of force are more dangerous than the mere statement of simple deterrence based on massive retaliation. This may explain the apparent anomaly of the Japanese. On the one hand, they claim that they perform the role of an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” (and manage to perform an antisubmarine warfare mission in league with the United States, some 1,000 nautical miles from their homeland); on the other hand, when asked to patrol the sea-lanes that provide them with around 70% of their oil, the Japanese repeatedly argue that their constitution prevents them from sending military forces abroad. Similarly, even though Australia seems prepared to accept the risk (in exchange for some other substantial alliance benefits) that U. S.-Australian joint facilities might come under attack in a global war, current Australian defense planning foresees “[no] requirement ... for pre committing” Australia to U. S. “contingency planning for global war.”15 Regional allies have expressed a reluctance to sign onto parts of the maritime strategy not manifestly directed toward their specific needs.
The maritime strategy postulates that the Far Eastern area in the Soviet Union is most vulnerable to attack. U. S. bases in Japan are critical for these forward naval operations that provide the command centers, communications facilities, and logistical support. But Japanese maritime patrols in the sea-lanes would seem irrelevant in the heat of a great crisis in which U. S. naval assets may be consumed in the first days of battle or, eventually, drawn away in order to sustain the European Central Front. As Masashi Nishihara of the Japanese National Defense
‘Adm. J. Watkins, USN(Ret.) “The Maritime Strategy,” Supplement to the 0 Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1986, p. 11. ^g$,
department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, 98th Congress, second sc ^ j on S.2414, Part 8. Sea Power and Force Projection, 14,28,29 March; 5, D P May 1984, pp. 3853-54.
3Ibid., pp. 3871-73, and 3877. _jt-
See the Report of the Sea Power and Strategic and Critical Materials Subco f
~ " ‘ ■ " ■ “ c~‘ neCecon-
Academy wrote recently:
“The US strategy ... to force the Soviets to disperse their forces . . . may not meet Japanese interests. If the United States should treat the Korean peninsula as a theater for horizontal escalation ... it would certainly endanger Japan. ... In other words, what the United States may consider a tactical issue, may be a strategic one for Japan.”16
The Japanese have a number of questions regarding this policy: Will the United States successfully defend Korea with conventional weapons? If nuclear weapons are planned for in any global war, will they be brought into Japan after a “short pause”? Can a conventional war at sea with the Soviets stay below the atomic threshold? If future wars are going to be short, do Japanese naval units best serve their nation’s interests in an antisubmarine warfare mission (for which their forces are said to be inadequate)—sailing more than 1,000 nautical miles away from the naval front? So vast are the imponderables and risks, the Japanese may well begin a search for defense alternatives.
The maritime strategy has had an ironic result for a .policy, such as the Australian-New Zealand-U. S. (ANZUS) alliance, explicitly designed to effect “alignment decisions in the Pacific.” The Australian zone of security interests currently defined as extending 2,000 nautical miles out from the Australian coast seems a vast distance to patrol from the Australian perspective. But it is self-consciously short of where the United States would like to see an Australian maritime interest.
Australia, the only active South Pacific ally, seems little enthused about exercising with the United States on the basis of global contingency plans. Rather, it sees its contribution to the ANZUS alliance as contributing to “simple deterrence.” The Australian Air Force F-Ills may well be able to seek out and destroy Soviet naval assets as far afield as Cam Ranh Bay, but there is no apparent incentive for such a heady undertaking, especially if a war is focused on Europe. Therefore, the Australians have resisted calls to exercise in and near Korea, or to extend patrolling in the Indian Ocean, and they have declined invitations to have intimate association with the yearly Pacific Command exercises in the Sea of Japan.
Conclusion: At the center of the maritime strategy lies a great plan for aggregating alliance forces and U. S. naval power in order to deter or best the Soviets in a conventional war. But here is the unsolved dilemma: there are two kinds of navies. A navy directed against the Soviet Union in a major war would have big carriers to close off surging Soviet submarines. The other navy would be lighter and faster, with a wider distribution of assets and a more diffuse focus of capabilities. It would have smaller, more plentiful submarines as well as more numerous fast patrol craft for protecting U. S. and allied sea-lanes. It would have a capability for coastal defense and surveillance and a greater ability to entertain a wider range of mine-clearing duties.
The first navy would be useful in determining the distri
bution of power in the aftermath of a great power war. “war winning” navy can force the Soviets into areas where they have traditionally not had a strong hand. T second navy would be especially useful in dealing wi coastal raiders, harassments, piracy, smuggling, an blockades. More plentiful surface ships and more nurner ous undersea and surface patrol craft serve the allies sno of war. Larger vessels with heavier protection and more thunderous striking power can be postulated to abet U- • purposes vis-a-vis “the principal threat” before, during- and after a superpower war. g
Furthermore, almost any “close-in” role for the U- • Navy can be predicted to cause increasing uncertain; about the relevance of U. S. naval assets to influence t outcome of a major conventional war in Central Europe- Allies may wonder if the ships will come in any meaning ful numbers; and if so, will they stay? Finally, allies may ponder what they are supposed to do if a significant pad their U. S. seaborne shield does not survive a bold exp° sure to Soviet missiles and naval aviation.
tee of the Committee on Armed Services, 99th Congress, first session, Dece 1985. See especially, the testimony of Dr. Eric Hanushek, Deputy Director, ^ gressional Budget Office (with Robert F. Hale and Peter Tarpgard), p- 171 • _
see the “Future Budget Requirements for the 600 Ship Navy: Preliminary sis,” staff working paper, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, DC,
1985. . pr0-
5Commander S. V. MacKay, “An Allied Reaction,” U. S. Naval Institute ceedings, April 1987. p. 84.
6Ibid., p. 89. tefjals
^Testimony in the Report of the Sea Power and Strategic and Critical Ma ^ Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services 99th Congress, first ses December 1985. p. 280.
8Ibid., p. 241. l9g5,
department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for the Fiscal Year ^ Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, 98th Congress, second ^i; on S 2414, part 8, Sea Power and Force Projection, 14, 28, 29 March; 5, 1 1 May 1984; p. 3869. uSt
The US cannot and should not go it alone,” Pacific Defense Reporter,
1985, p. 16. 0n
“U. S. House of Representatives, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommi ^ the Department of Defense, Defense Department Appropriations, fiscal year (Hearings), Part 1, U. S. Government Printing Office Washington, DC. P- p 12See “Dunn Sees Air Force Protecting Gulf Ships,” Navy Times, 15 June 1 33. j pg-
13Bart Cooper, “Maritime Roles for Land Based Aviation,” Congressiona search Report, Number 83-15Iff, 1 August 1983. .gVjng
14John Lehman, “Successful Naval Strategy in the Pacific: How we are ac 1 it; How we can afford it,” Naval War College Review, Winter 1987, p- ef0f 15Paul Dibb, Review of Australia’s Defence Capabilities (Report to the Mir>lS Defence), Australia’s Government Publishing Service, March 1986, p- 3 ' nd 16Masashi Nishirara, “Maritime Cooperation in the Pacific: The United State It’s Partners,” Naval War College Review, September 1987, p. 40.
Dr. Nathan is currently a professor of political science at the Unive ^ of Delaware. Last year, he was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at bot University of New South Wales and Curtain University in Perth, we* ^ Australia. He has also been with the Center for Advanced Research a Naval War College. In recent years, he was with the Strategic Stu Institute at the Army War College. Dr. Nathan also had a part in dra ^ “Sea Plan 2000,’’ and served as a foreign service officer for a num years.