The Communists recognize this conflict as a war on all fronts, using every method available, under any circumstances, and with no holds barred.—Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, U. S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations.
Significant changes in the world order, plus a quantum leap forward in naval capabilities, plainly indicate that if a U. S. victory is to be achieved in the cold war, there must be a vast increase in the use of seapower.
The successful undersea firing of a Polaris rocket from the submarine George Washington last July presaged a tremendous expansion of the missions assigned U. S. naval forces. The proving of a revolutionary sea-based weapons
SHIPS CAN BE USED IN THE COLD WAR
Cold War victory will go to the nation which uses its military power in new ways short of all-out war. Showing the flag in the Indian Ocean from ships such as USS Joseph P. Kennedy (DD-850) will help demonstrate U. S. strength and friendship to key national leaders. system, however, for all its great significance, was merely a technical breakthrough that happily met a requirement suddenly imposed on the United States—namely, that its strength be deployed in new regions of the world where land bases are not available.
This requirement arises from the need to project American power into areas of the globe where, until recently, Western interests were guarded by European nations. In the last half century, since the rise of the United States as a major world power, U. S. military commitments have been largely restricted to the North and mid-Atlantic, the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. The Atlantic and the Pacific fleets were sufficient to carry the principal defense burdens for the American Republic. Now, in the wake of the withdrawal of the European states from their former colonies in Africa and Asia—and with the sudden explosion of Latin nationalism, a power vacuum has been created in territories bordering the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
If the forces of international Communism are not to fill this vacuum, American power must be brought to bear. The inability of the United States to obtain adequate land bases in these troubled zones, let alone the questionable feasibility of such bases because of complicated political factors, makes it imperative that the new projection of American power be at sea where no hard-to-negotiate treaties are required and no difficult regimes need be dealt with at high cost to U. S. taxpayers.
Now the planning upon which our national defense establishment has been based since World War II involves certain assumptions both as to available weapons and the world order. For years, it was widely believed in this country that Soviet aggression against the United States and its allies would be direct aggression—a massive air and/or missile attack followed up by a ground sweep into Western Europe utilizing the Soviet strength in armor. Secondary strikes by the enemy into the oil-rich Near East also were contemplated by those strategic planners with the greatest influence.
Now, however, it is evident that this type of aggression is highly unlikely. One of the principal reasons why an all-out nuclear attack is unlikely is the growing American deterrent strength. In building this strength, sea power has a role of rapidly increasing importance.
One half of the U. S. naval effort in the next decade necessarily will be concerned with furnishing a ballistic missile deterrent at sea. As the Polaris fleet increases in size, the threat of direct Soviet attack will diminish. Thus, on the nuclear war front, the United States and the Communist world will be in a condition of stalemate. This means no more than that there will be stalemate at a single point on the spectrum of war. Indeed, such a stalemate would increase the probability of conflict at other points on the spectrum. It would mean that a wide variety of forms of limited war—from Koreas to Cuban-style war by subversion—would present opportunities for new acts of aggression by the Communists. They can be expected to take advantage of such opportunities.
As a matter of fact, the last two years have witnessed a marked increase in this sort of indirect aggression on the part of the Russian and Chinese Communists. This, then, almost certainly will be the big war waged by Communism—a big war made up of many relatively small actions.
The cold war situation in which Americans find themselves today, and which threatens the national security, was well-described in an editorial in Life, 18 February 1959. Said Life: “Neither the Red Army nor straight Marxist propaganda, with all their power, could alone have created student riots . . . frustrated the parliamentary system of Italy, won an election in the most literate state of India . . . dazzled the opening mind of Africa, or poisoned strategic corners of press and university opinion from Paris to Tokyo.”
Clearly, the force at work was political warfare—warfare that represents a new type of conflict between nations. Be that as it may, someone may say, what has it to do with the role of seapower in national defense? Sea- power, such commentators may observe, has to do with certain classic missions—the destruction of enemy fleets, the protection of sea lanes, and the safeguarding of conventional amphibious operations.
To limit seapower to these activities, however, is to refuse to recognize the changing nature of naval forces and of their relation to world conflict.
Naval participation in the political war of our times is no more of an unorthodox idea than a navy’s involvement in nuclear deterrence. Who, 15 years ago, envisioned a substantial part of the U. S. Navy serving as undersea rocket bases around the Soviet heartland? This mission, which is now understood throughout the Navy, violates many of the conventions of warfare that prevailed only a decade ago.
In the long view, of course, seapower as a political deterrent is as old as the gunboat or the landing party. But while the use of seapower as a political deterrent has historical precedent, there are no precedents for the new counter-revolutionary measures that naval commanders must employ.
It is clear that the United States must out- think, out-plan, and out-perform the Communist enemy in the use of military power for political ends. This is the survival issue facing the defense leaders of the United States. It is not the nation that has the most missiles that will win the cold war, but the nation that finds new ways of using its military power short of all-out war. The Soviets have proved to be most resourceful in this respect. They armed the North Koreans who fought against the United States. At present, they are helping the Red Chinese build a submarine fleet. Red Army tanks have been turned over to the United Arab Republic. Military advisers from Soviet satellite countries are in Guinea. Communist adventurers are in the Cuban government. Communist instructors in guerrilla warfare have aided the Algerian rebels. Anti-West forces are being stirred up and bolstered by Communists in Laos and Vietnam.
American traditions make it hard to adjust to the cold war techniques of the enemy. In years past, the United States has laid heavy stress on separation of military and political action. This was possible in the less complex days of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. But lack of political preparation resulted in serious morale problems among U. S. servicemen who were prisoners of war in Korea. The United States must face up to the new close relationship between military conflict and political warfare.
It also is important to realize that the Communists deem themselves capable of putting pressure simultaneously on Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It would be a grave mistake for Americans to regard their missile strength, especially that part of it which is based on land and therefore exposed to a sudden sneak attack, as an effective Maginot Line. The enemy is unlikely to take the biggest of all chances when he has an opportunity to outflank the U. S. deterrent with a political war campaign launched from many points at once. Just as Adolf Hitler found the exposed area north of the Maginot Line a suitable line of advance, so Moscow and Peiping look to political war in underdeveloped countries as the ideal flanking move.
In preparing to counter Communist war by subversion, the United States must formulate plans as bold and original as the plans of the enemy. Conventional approaches to the enemy’s unconventional warfare will not do.
Precisely, then, what is the U. S. Navy’s role within this national objective of unconventional, counter-revolutionary warfare? Let us consider one of the areas where Communism is mounting a massive attack—the lands bordering the Indian Ocean.
This is the area of the uncommitted nations. Only Australia is absolutely and irrevocably allied with the West. Ties of ancestry, religion, and civilization make that faraway English-speaking nation a natural ally of the United States. Burma, India, Ceylon, Pakistan, Malaya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and various emerging nations, on the other hand, all are exposed to threats and pressures from Communism. Some of the Indian Ocean countries already are heavily infiltrated by Communist agents. Others are “neutralist” because of fear of the Red Colossus.
Of especial concern is the east coast of the African continent. Along this coast are a variety of peoples emerging into nationhood or, as some observers say, into chaos. These people are moving rapidly from a Stone Age culture into the perils of the Atomic Age. Influences on them range from tribal fears to Communist propaganda.
Here is a land and a situation where no clear-cut victory can be obtained overnight, but where defeat for the West could come rapidly if Communism is allowed to gain and consolidate a hold on primitive peoples. Red China, if allowed to intervene in Africa, would not hesitate to employ the brutal methods it has used to establish communes. The United States must be prepared to exert a continuing beneficial influence and guidance on the new African nations. The task is to prevent harmful political combinations, thwart Communist designs, and help friendly regimes. The United States also must insist that seas be kept open so ships of this and allied nations will have freedom to trade.
The stability which America rightly seeks in Africa amounts to a bar on Communist control of the natural and human resources of the continent. The United States must have a flexible strategy that will keep pace with change in Africa. The job before the United States—and before the U. S. Navy—is to see to it that change in Africa does not benefit Moscow and Peiping.
U. S. forces in the Indian Ocean area must be able to counter what is referred to as “salami tactics.” This is the steady cutting away of Western influence, slice by slice, until nothing is left.
Eric Hula, writing in the volume, Alliance Policy, has well analyzed the need for interventionist plans that thwart the “salami tactics” of the Communists:
The right to request and render assistance against domestic subversion, recognized in general international law, is today, even more indispensable than it has been at other periods, since indirect aggression plays an exceptionally large role in the current international struggle for power. In a revolutionary age like ours, domestic subversive forces are more often than not supported, if not instigated, by foreign governments bent upon extending their dominion or at least their influence. Nor is it reasonable to argue that governments that are threatened by domestic subversion and possible indirect aggression should rely exclusively upon collective protection by the United Nations instead of resorting to the traditional methods of seeking the assistance of a friendly power. For the United Nations is hardly less problematical as an instrument for dealing effectively with indirect aggression than with direct aggression.
Examining the over-all pattern of U. S. responsibilities in the Indian Ocean area, it is evident that this nation needs the following:
1. Seapower sufficient to protect Western shipping against submarine attack, defeat surface attacking forces, and destroy an invasion fleet.
2. Displayed might adequate to cancel out threats of nuclear blackmail of weak countries by means of missile submarines.
3. Battle-ready ground forces capable of carrying out a Lebanon-type landing operation.
4. Facilities for air supply of friendly regimes.
5. Broadcasting and printing facilities for intensive information programs during deterrent exercises or actual intervention.
6. Show-the-flag forces adequate to impress key nationalist leaders with knowledge that the United States has the strength and flexibility to aid its friends and deter its foes.
7. The capacity to wage unconventional Warfare that includes both guerrilla and psychological warfare operations.
Obviously, what is needed are floating American bases in the Indian Ocean. Carriers are the basic instrument for meeting these needs.
Because the United States is without land bases in the Indian Ocean, except for facilities made available by Australia, it is very important that the Navy aim at creating a nuclear-powered task force for that ocean. Moreover, the carriers assigned to the region must be of the largest type, for they would have to cover vast distances. If required to engage in war operations, the need for a sizable air group would be very great.
An effective Indian Ocean fleet with a political war capability would probably include a nuclear-powered carrier, a nuclear- powered cruiser, a nuclear-powered submarine (perhaps with the dual capability of launching an air-breathing missile and of acting as an ASW submarine), a radio broadcasting ship, a helicopter carrier for Marine landing forces, a seaplane tender and seaplane squadron, a squadron of destroyers, including one missile-armed ship; and a command and communications ship.
The task of this fleet would go far beyond guarding against naval attack or smothering a brushfire war. Its commander would be called on to develop ways of exploiting weaknesses and vulnerable points in the Communist political offensive along the shores of the Indian Ocean, to keep the enemy off balance, and to impose on the enemy those problems that an active agency of freedom can create.
Through the instrumentality of displayed seapower, the fleet would aim at saturating the Afro-Asian world with reminders that the United States is possessed of enormous force and intends to keep history going its way. Lands bordering the Indian Ocean should be assured, by the presence of the fleet, that the United States stands ready to help all those who have the courage to resist Communist aggression, and also is active in hindering the schemes of the enemies of freedom. In short, the fleet would operate in terms of offensive rather than defensive action.
For the first time in its history, the United States must develop and maintain a capability for waging political warfare on a grand scale. It is not enough to have fleet units off the African coast. The people of every nation with a shoreline on the Indian Ocean must know about that U. S. fleet. They must not be allowed to forget its presence. Therefore, such a fleet would have as its primary task, not the sinking of enemy ships, but rather the influencing of opinions, attitudes, and political behavior of uncommitted peoples in such ways as to advance the high national aims of the United States.
The U. S. government has been moving steadily toward a heightened awareness of the importance of political warfare in relation to the armed forces. As far back as 1953, the President’s Committee on International Information Activities said: “In reality, there is a psychological aspect or implication to every diplomatic, economic or military policy and action. . . . Every significant act of virtually every department and agency of the government has its effect, either positively or negatively, in the global struggle for freedom.” Thus a fleet in the Indian Ocean would have the mission of helping to lower or destroy the morale and efforts of the enemy’s forces in that region and helping to sustain the morale and implement the efforts of U. S. diplomatic forces and friendly regimes.
Now what of specific acts and programs that an Indian Ocean fleet might be called upon to undertake?
First, it is highly important that show-the- flag missions be carried out vigorously so that the maximum number of influential Afro- Asians view the fleet and gain an understanding of its striking power in war situations. This means a continuing program of visits in the fleet by prominent individuals who are opinion-makers in their countries, as well as a program of air and sea exercises in proximity to large population centers. Rescue and relief operations also afford opportunities for the people of new nations to realize that American seapower is readily available and is well-intentioned toward them.
By arranging fly-overs for friendly leaders and visits to seaports that provide opportunities for spectacular demonstrations before the public, and by engaging in joint sea exercises with the navies of nations on good terms with the United States, a number of salutary changes in Afro-Asian opinion should be effected. The present climate of political neutrality in that part of the world undoubtedly can be attributed in large degree to the lack of on-the-scene American might available for friends pressured by Communists.
The fleet’s broadcasting facilities should maintain a continuing information program directly geared to specific political targets determined by the President and his advisers. Programming, designed to sway audiences to a particular line of action, rather than to serve merely as a source of information, should be directed by the fleet commander and advisers named by the President.
These broadcasting facilities are essential inasmuch as the fleet would be engaged in naval operations designed primarily for their psychological impact. The fleet commander would have the mission of influencing political situations in which force or threats of force are involved. The techniques of blowing hot and cold, of alternating confusing signals, are basic to this type of warfare. Thus the fleet commander, by movement of his ships, by air and sea exercises, by visits to trouble spots and by other actions, would endeavor to set up stresses in pro-Communist countries or countries in danger of going Communist. Protracted stress, leading to a condition of disorientation and weakened will, is something the armed forces of the United States can and must create as they seek to prevent expansion of international Communism in areas where the will to resist the Communists is not strong.
Beyond this, the fleet outlined here would be the heart of all interventionist actions in the Indian Ocean area in the years ahead. Among the needed units would be landing teams of Marine counter-guerrillas, not only able to deal with the type of revolutionary forces the Chinese Reds organized in Viet Minh, but also able to organize, train, and direct native counter-guerrilla groups many times their own size. An Indian Ocean fleet would have to include officers and men qualified to move into a country as “advisers” or “technicians” rather than as members of full- scale units in uniform.
Other war situations might arise in the area requiring a completely conventional amphibious operation. An Indian Ocean fleet would have to possess both a conventional and an unconventional war capability.
Many of the practices that the fleet commander might have to put into effect have been experimented with by the French Army in recent years. Several years ago, Brigadier General Paris de Bolladiere, a zone commander in Algeria, abandoned orthodox military organization in order to achieve results against terrorist bands. He broke up the conventional army units into small detachments of eight to ten men. These units went into the hinterland with orders to attach themselves to loyal native groups and form the hard core of resistance and control for a region. The United States may need to employ such methods in certain trouble areas, and the Marine Corps is the logical force to carry out these anti-subversion missions.
Of course, the Marine Corps had that mission a generation ago. In Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua, the Marines made possible public order and the minimum of stability needed for community life. As a result of its tremendous role in the amphibious campaigns of World War II and Korea, the Marine Corps no longer has the mission of semi-political policing. Yet who else but Marines can undertake this task? For the kind of sensitive missions ashore that such shock troops would encounter, the superbly trained and indoctrinated Marines are the ideal force. The Marine Corps, as the nation’s most flexible combat organization, must rise to the challenge of the new types of conflict on the spectrum of war—in particular, to the counter-guerrilla operations of political warfare in underdeveloped lands.
In the long struggle against Communism that lies ahead, it is tremendously important that uniformed leaders never lose sight of political objectives. It also is important for all involved to bear in mind Mao Tse-tung’s statement that “the power of the gun” is the ultimate political factor. This “power of the gun” must be utilized in new ways to counter an imaginative and resourceful enemy.
David Sarnoff, board chairman of the Radio Corporation of America, recently touched on this need. A strategy of victory, he said, “would not reject courses of action simply because they are unconventional. We would no longer disdain to use against the enemy some of the weapons used against us. Having finally acknowledged that the struggle is decisive and therefore as real as a ‘real’ war, we would not hesitate to fight fire with fire.”
In truth, as one considers such a fleet as discussed here—a fleet which would practice political warfare and would include trained counter-subversives, broadcasting ships, helicopter carriers for swift intervention, and missile ships for the most modern type of naval conflict, it is evident that seapower is entering a new era of importance undreamed of even 20 years ago. On the U. S. Navy will fall the responsibilities of carrying the major burdens, not simply of guarding but of advancing actively the interests of the Free World in areas of the globe where American power was unknown before World War II. To paraphrase an old British saying, the sun never sets on units of the U. S. Navy. A host of new nations have come into being, nations as weak as they are inexperienced in the affairs of government. They will stay on the side of the Free World only as long as American seapower is an effective determinant of political action. Vast areas of the world are vulnerable to Communist penetration. Only the great gray ships of the U. S. Navy, and its sailors and Marines and fliers, offer a barrier that can prevent total conquest by Communism.
Educated at Kenyon College and the University of Virginia, Mr. Harrigan served with the U. S. Marine Corps during World War II. He is Director, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Charleston, South Carolina, and also Associate Editor with The News and Courier of Charleston. A contributor to several national magazines, his articles have appeared in the New York Times, American Heritage, and American Historical Review.