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When one of our LSTs poked her drawbridge-like bow into the Barents Sea, one of their frisky “Krivaks” cut across to proclaim that these cold waters are under the control of the Soviets’ largest and most capable armada, their Northern Fleet. Yet, if war comes, it is here and in the Greenland and Norwegian seas, that the U. S. Navy must stand, fight, and win.
so it would presumably prevent the next. rj lnally, a clear understanding of how history and expence can be used effectively is demonstrated by General ^®0rge C. Marshall’s visionary economic assistance plan, he 'in in midcentury restored Western Europe to economic the& 3nd S° avo'ded tIie economic crisis that was among mot sources of political instability during the interwar
y of wisdom that shapes our naval thinking today-
Our naval officers are sometimes compared with the Bourbon kings, about whom Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord unkindly said, “They have aiT|ed nothing, and forgotten nothing.” A Washington na™ describes today’s Navy as encompassing some of e best minds of the 19th century, wh eSKCCt /°r edition, however, is valuable cement a pnc? ldin8 £Sprit de corPs in any organization that has su ° personne^ turnover annually. Ten generations of NavySS 'n War 3t Sea are ^ne Stu^ uPon wbich to build a
1 At the same time, though, both correct and incorrect notS°ns can he drawn from the past, and naval officers are prone to doing one or the other exclusively. Brief re- le ctlon reveals examples of both right and wrong lessons in^?6^ ^r°m history. For example, the bloody stalemate ^ f trenches of World War I led the French to construct tQe IXed defenses of the Maginot Line, and the Germans bl'/>tVe^°P *be doctrine of highly mobile, mechanized the f e§' t00k Just six weeks in 1940 to discover that e tormer drew the incorrect lesson from the past; the ter the correct one.
j or^d War I was widely regarded as having happened, st part’ because there was no established forum where jn3 es,nen could meet and deliberate, and so forestall the c^-blc mobilization schedules that pulled Europe into fQn lct- After the Great War, the League of Nations was tytned to eliminate this cause of the prior conflict. After tio°rd ^ar II, in June 1945, “to save succeeding genera- Cr ns Ir°m the scourge of war,” the United Nations was the3^ ^be ^n*ted Ebons’ great power condominium, e Security Council, it was believed, would have pre- ar)ated Nazi Germany from thrusting the world into war, lar 8errn trudl *n tbese charges is that, as in any burcaucrac'y’ decisions in the Navy often are made tu bas's op momentum. We continue doing in the fu- w e what we have done in the past, either because it n . d or because the mechanisms are in place for conti- or*ly but not for change. This is understandable. No line Soganization can spend more than a small part of its re- Ur.Urces peering into the future or dissecting the past. The ^fe’ency of events presses too hard to permit musing. and*6 events’ however, are so important that they must st er8° intense scrutiny and analysis, in order that the ate§ic decisions that flow from such events are the best ^Wisdom and resources will afford, everal changes during the past 40 years are sufficiently 0 ound to challenge whatever conclusions have been ^aWn from World War II naval campaigns in the °rth Atlantic and the Western Pacific—the traditional
First, there has been a sharp relative decline in U. S. military strength by every measure. At the end of World War II, the United States was the premier military and economic power in the world. Indeed, so vast was our strength and influence, that all sorts of U. S. products, solutions, and styles were adopted by allies and former foes alike as models. This is not true today. Concerning the balance of power, the trends of the past few decades have been unkind to the West.
With respect to the central strategic balance, the U. S. monopoly of nuclear weapons is long since history; so, too, is U. S. nuclear predominance. Today, we have, at best, “essential equivalence” of strategic systems, with two legs of our deterrent triad seriously threatened by countervailing Soviet systems. In the Central Front, the Soviet Union has increased its conventional strength, and—through deployment of more than 300 SS-20 missiles—offset the earlier Western lead in tactical nuclear weapons.
The military situation on the flanks of NATO is no more encouraging. NATO’s Northern Flank is separated from the alliance’s principal exporter of power projection forces—the United States—by vast ocean distances, inhospitable terrain, and domestic political judgments that make stationing allied troops on Norwegian soil impossible. The Southern Flank is marked by ancient enmity between two alliance members; good intentions but a weak economy and enervating political instability by a third; and relative poverty and political isolation from NATO’s Northern European social democrats by the region’s fourth and fifth allies.
Looking toward the West’s “Eastern Flank,” Japan’s contribution to its own defense and that of its Western trading partners is grossly inadequate by any reasonable measure. China and the Soviet Union may some day again consider whether to play their Soviet and Chinese cards, respectively. Rapprochement and renewed Sino-Soviet solidarity would have disturbing implications for both Japan and the West.
In addition, none of the Western allies, except the United States, is willing and able to address—with deployments, not merely prose—the unwelcome fact that NATO’s greatest military and economic vulnerability may lie along the oil trade routes from the Middle East and Southwest Asia, well outside the alliance’s geographical ambit.
The story at sea is much the same. Forty years ago, the Soviets, for all practical purposes, had no navy. Twenty years ago, excepting the Soviet submarine force, their navy compelled little admiration and less serious consideration. Today, this is not so. In the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, U. S. surface combatants (cruisers, destroyers, and frigates) have declined from 392 ships in 1971 to 289 ships ten years later. During this same decade, the Warsaw Pact has increased its surface combatants from 162 to 203. The Pact commissioned ten submarines, while we decommissioned five; their inventory now exceeds ours by 68 boats. Corresponding figures in the Pacific illustrate the same trend. Today, once fully deployed, the Soviet Navy could challenge our own in many of the world’s seas.
In addition to the decline in U. S. military strength, we have witnessed a corresponding decline in the economic strength of our country. Alone among the combatants, the United States survived World War II with an economy not simply undiminished by conflict, but vastly enhanced. In 1946, the U. S. gross national product was $208.5 billion, some $84 billion more than in 1941. Both our allies’ and our erstwhile foes’ economies were exhausted. Japanese and German infrastructures had been destroyed to the point where both countries were hard pressed to feed their survivors. Today, these same countries compete successfully—some would say all too successfully—with us in many world markets. We have been driven from steel manufacturing and commercial shipbuilding. We are second to Japan in automobile production. We have seen a European consortium displace one U. S. commercial aircraft builder and imperil another. The outcome of the competition for the world’s huge and growing information-processing needs is uncertain, but Japan is certainly capable of a global coup in this important business. Equally significant is the unhappy status of the United
States as an energy importer, although not nearly on so great a scale as our Asian and European allies.
The glue that held the alliance together years ago wa{ composed of equal parts common perceptions of the thre and, during an era of U. S. nuclear monopoly or super*0 ^ ity, confidence in the impermeability of the U. S. nuc e umbrella. Any Warsaw Pact move against Western rope, it was believed, would be met by a hail of miss* ^ from the United States. As long as the Soviets could no mount an effective response against the U. S. continen^ our allies luxuriated in relative security that was “made i the U.S.A.” Now that U. S. citizens are at risk, our alhe
There also has been a sharp decline in the strength o our principal military allies and a general weakening of t e bonds that tied the Atlantic community together. Of t e first condition, not much need be said. It is instructive to note that from all the lessons drawn from the Falklan s War, one seems to have escaped comment: all of Grea Britain’s attention and most of the Royal Navy’s asse s were needed to expel a distant, tiny lodgement of one o the world’s minor powers. With respect to the secon . NATO’s members see their national interests in many areas as mutually exclusive, or even competitive. To some extent, this competition is a reflection of the success ot t e Marshall Plan, and we are better served by a restore , vigorous Europe than by enfeebled allies—the situation * the Warsaw Pact. But there are, as a review of the So vie natural gas pipeline debate can attest, painful strains in * alliance as security considerations conflict with economy or other ones. Beyond that, France strains Western so i darity as often as it strains U. S. patience.
heC ,e« certain of an automatic U. S. response “over their pS against the Soviets.
it aJadoxically, nuclear parity has increased the possibil- u . a conventional conflict in Europe, but our allies are cr j- ln§ t0 commit the resources necessary to pose a ^ 'ole deterrent to a Warsaw Pact invasion of the West.* fo rCCent NATO analysis disclosed that Warsaw Pact jnrpCs outnumber the West’s by 1.4 million men in place j UroPe- This asymmetry is also reflected in equipment ^ ent°ries. For example, the Pact has almost 30,000 5q j^e tanks, 16,000 more antitank weapon launchers, and cle' ^ more armored personnel carriers and fighting vehi- tatS l^an ^oes NATO. Even allowing for a possible quali- ,Ve Western advantage, the imbalance is telling. as n (he absence of a commitment by NATO forces, an (j auu could become a footrace to the Bay of Biscay. The pUct*ve power of modern weapons is such that, should to e ejected from the Continent, we would never be able concentrate the forces necessary to reenter. lnally, since Watergate and the end of the Vietnam f0*r> We have witnessed the end of truly bipartisan U. S. ea |’£n and defense policies. From late 1941 through the sen ^ United States enjoyed a broad policy con-
l97n*S 'n l^ese two are35- That consensus dissolved in the s> eroded by a lack of confidence in the President and
Pc ,rj' Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1982),
137.
by doubts about our war aims. In addition, the huge cost of social programs meant that, for the first time, domestic and defense programs were competing head-to-head for resources in a nonexpansionary economy.
“During the Kennedy Administration, defense spending accounted for 46% of the federal budget; outlays for social programs were 30%. In 1980, defense spending had fallen to 23.6% of federal spending while social service expenditures reached 47%. In real 1972 dollars, total expenditures on defense fell from $77.2 billion in 1962 to $73.1 billion in 1980 while the total federal budget saw an increase of over 100% during the same 18 years. The Soviet Union, by contrast, has increased real defense spending over 100% in the same period.’’ (“National Security Record,” No. 50, 1982. The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C.)
The ensuing political debate, couched in economic terms, destroyed what agreement was left.
A “sufficient” U. S. naval presence in the Meditetf nean would include a number of nuclear-powered at a submarines (SSNs) targeted against Soviet surface com batants and submarines, a squadron of missile-armed su face combatants, minelayers, and survivable maritime P trol aircraft equipped with air-to-surface missiles (AbJV ■ To escape a plight similar to the one the Royal Navy face in the Falklands War, the aircraft would also need an si borne early warning (AEW) capability. We have n°®”e like this in the force structure today. For that matter, lack a vehicle for fast, high-volume minelaying also- Such a force, operating in cooperation with naval un
What implications for the Navy emerge from these changes of the past 40 years? For one, we need a new strategy. The notion that we will fight Soviet fleets at sea sequentially—as we did the Germans and the Japanese during World War II: holding in the Pacific until we had the upper hand in the Atlantic—simply will not work, because it requires either the cooperation of our adversary or his impotence to interfere. The Soviets today operate two increasingly capable major fleets; we cannot reasonably expect that either will watch while its counterpart is engaged. Furthermore, if our NATO allies at the exits to the Baltic and Black seas fail the alliance in a crisis, the number of Soviet deployable fleets doubles.
In the face of an impressive Soviet Pacific Fleet, we cannot plan to swing forces to the Atlantic without immediately sacrificing vast and vital ocean areas—to say nothing of Oceana, South, Southeast, and East Asia—to Soviet combatants and to the Kremlin’s strategic designs. Considering the vulnerability of the Panama Canal to closure, such a swing strategy would probably not now permit an urgent, uncontested deployment to the Atlantic in any case.
Balancing our deployed naval forces against our interests reveals a curious mismatch. Although the Seventh Fleet is in position to fight its Soviet counterpart, we have no corresponding naval force forward deployed as a counter to the Soviets’ largest and most capable armada, the Northern Fleet. We should have a permanent major fleet presence in the North Atlantic. Instead, we have a handful of Supreme Allied Command, Atlantic (SACLant)-committed aircraft on Iceland and the weight of our deployed Atlantic naval strength committed to the Mediterranean, thousands of miles south.
Our Mediterranean presence is, to some extent, an accident of history. It derives from an era when the Soviets had no significant naval forces and when our principal maritime ally withdrew to home waters. The Mediterranean’s recent significance arises from:
► The importance of the Suez Canal as a short route to European colonies in Asia
► Its value as the route to the war in North Africa, Southern Europe, and the Orient during World War II
► Local political instability and great power competition
► Arab-Israeli antipathy, the U. S. political commitment to Israel, and the Palestinian refugee problem
► Oil
Beyond seeking some flexibility in carrier deployments to the Mediterranean, we have made no real realignments of our modus operandi in this closed sea, save one.
The envy of many U. S. surface warfare officers, the nuclear-powered cruiser Kirov is a tough missile-equipped ship. The U. S. Navy needs a survivable way to attack modern Soviet naval combatants like her and the Sovremennyy s.
Driven, I suspect, by congressional pressures—having nothing to do with larger questions of the balance of PoW® and geostrategy—we have reduced emphasis on Navy’s senior national headquarters in Europe (locate London) and have focused on the Supreme Allied Com mander, Europe’s (SACEur) U. S. subordinate, Com mander in Chief, South (CinCSouth), the senior NA naval commander in Naples. Just when we should be sn ing the full weight of our attention to the north, offsettmS the new blue water capabilities of the Soviet Northe Fleet, we are instead sharpening our focus on waters tn° sands of miles south of the Kola Inlet. Lacking the hulls be sufficiently powerful in two places, we must reposi 1 our Atlantic forward-deployed fleet to where, in wartim > we would need it most: the North Atlantic.
air 'arrnech electronic warfare-equipped maritime patrol tr ■ . to erode Soviet forces as they sortie from their tning f]eet bases.
Second,
we need a new comprehensive employment
doi
a oar *°Ca* a^‘es anc^ friends, should be enough to blunt tj ^ ov*et adventure on the Southern Flank, until such a iJ11^. as events elsewhere and the attrition of the Soviet the Iterranean forces and the Black Sea Fleet permitted ti_e Introduction of U. S. carrier battle groups to support e and battle in Southeastern Europe. w . Ur new strategy, then, should be initially to fight at sea Okh ^0rwarc* *n ^e Northern Pacific (in the Bering, po ots^’ Japan, and East and South China seas) with sup- pi... rom shore facilities in the Aleutians, Japan, and the No 1P^)'nes' We should also fight at sea forward in the se i ^hantic (in the Barents, Greenland, and Norwegian Isle W'^ suPPort from Iceland, Norway, and the British s- Next, we should strike with carrier air wings against in thCt anC* ^arsaw Pact positions on NATO’s flanks and ^ e.accessible, northern areas of the Central Front. At (hreexit.s °f fhe Black and Baltic seas, we would rely on a fac£e ^*mensi°nal defense—mines and submarines, sur- (SA\/|C°m^atants ecluiPPe(I with surface-to-air missiles ASM ^ anC^ surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs), and
fro” T- 8rowth of the Soviet Navy has distracted us aH111 h°w we should be planning to employ our Navy and led navies. We should:
It is not enough to defeat the Soviet Navy at sea. We must also project power ashore in sufficient measure to compensate for the alliance’s relative conventional weakness, with the object being to defend as far forward in Europe as possible. In this way, we can preserve our most powerful continental ally, West Germany. Should NATO’s defense in West Germany collapse, we could not likely recover on the Continent.
We must accomplish these missions recognizing the reality of Soviet naval capabilities. The Soviet Navy poses a serious threat to our capital ships. This is not to say that carriers are uniquely vulnerable—they are not—but rather that we cannot lead into undiluted Soviet naval defenses with a carrier battle group. A single carrier battle group is probably inadequate to challenge a substantial, balanced Soviet task force in contested waters, and it is inadequate to do so where the Soviets are supported by land-based tactical aviation. The loss of a carrier early in hostilities might well be fatal to that naval campaign.
In addition, we have too few SSM- and SAM-equipped surface combatants to challenge their Soviet naval counterparts. Notwithstanding the 600-ship objective force, nothing suggests the situation will be reversed in the next two decades.
Thus, we should reexamine our employment strategy. The potentially mortal threats to our carriers must be eliminated or substantially degraded by advance elements—
►
r o
n uPP°rt the land battle on the European flanks and the \ ptra* European Front
rcvent the successful invasion of our Oriental allies by land forces
jnj .errn*t sufficient ocean commerce to (1) accomplish the andIal Movement of NATO-committed land and air units re . °llow-on support to Europe, and (2) sustain allied lei tance through some minimum essential level of petro- the ’ °^> an<J lubricant imports from the Middle East via Sea lines of communication
r<H*cd
'"gs / July 1983
27
Captain Jampoler received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from lumbia University and was commissioned in 1962. In 1976, he serve executive, then commanding officer of VP-19 at Moffett Field, CA-
the
of
Defense. Captain Jampoler will join the Strategic Studies Group in port, Rl, next month. In addition to his antisubmarine warfare spec!
distant escorts—of the carrier battle group before the carriers arrive in the contested maritime theater.
What are these advance elements? SSNs, SAM- and SSM-equipped surface combatants, and ASM-equipped long-range maritime patrol aircraft. In short, our carriers should be withheld from the initial fighting, until the threat falls to within some acceptable range. Then, they should be committed, in groups of three and four, initially against residual Soviet naval forces, but primarily in support of the land battle.
Finally, we need new naval weapon systems. Our need is so vast, as is the attendant price, that even a short list of requirements will sound like the old joint strategic objectives plan, a fiscally unconstrained wish list satisfying everyone but the taxpayer and the economist. Rather than be guilty of the same unconstrained, unuseful planning, I will indicate the most urgent requirements that arise from the changes in the naval balance of power during the past 20 years.
► We need a survivable way to attack modem Soviet naval combatants—for example, to gain sea control— without prematurely risking one of our limited number of aircraft carriers, so they can be free to project power. This can be done with mines, torpedoes, SSMs, and ASMs. The Soviets, however, are more capable in some of these key systems than we are. Their missile-equipped surface combatants—the tough Kirovs and the elegant Sov- remennyys—must certainly be the envy of U. S. Navy surface warfare officers. We have nothing like, and need, a Soviet naval “Backfire” equivalent. Our plans to use P-3s, designed during a more benign era, as missile-shooters and stand-off target designators almost ensures that no P-3 will be used more than once during hostilities and that the P-3s will not contribute much to antisubmarine warfare (ASW).
► We need good mines and a way to deliver them in volume quickly.
► We need a good, all-weather attack aircraft, one that could survive in the air defense environment of Eastern Europe.
► We need an AEW aircraft—or the equivalent capability—that can support small surface action battle groups unaccompanied by an aircraft carrier. The Falklands War demonstrated that the first answer to attack by precision- guided munitions is distant early warning. Today, only the aircraft carrier has this protection in depth, which means that we dare not steam surface combatants independently of the carrier they were meant to escort and protect. This reversal of the escort role must be corrected.
► We need better torpedoes in particular and better ASW weapons in general.
► We must find cheap, effective ways to protect vital merchant shipping against attack. Again, the example of the Falklands is instructive. In short order, the British equipped merchant hulls with vertical or short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft and helicopters and sent them to war. We have played around with the Arapaho concept for years. Tankers and containerships can be equipped with some limited means of self-defense at a modest cost. Although hardly perfect, such installations may well be enough, and, in view of shortages elsewhere, this imp01' tant traffic will not likely be defended by anything e'sC'
What prescriptions flow from this analysis? First, neW procurement should emphasize acquisition of those sea control ships (powerful, well-armed surface combatants and attack submarines), aircraft (attack, AEW, and surviv able, maritime patrol “missileers”), and weapons (mines, torpedoes, ASMs, and SSMs) that will permit our power projection forces to survive in contested waters and to sup port the land battle.
Second, research and development efforts must focuS on technologies relevant to ASW, antiair warfare (AA and cruise missile defense, especially those technology that suggest a near-term payoff, because in the next dec ade or so, the balance at sea will be most precarious-
Third, the most immediate improvement to our war fighting capability is found in significantly enhanced fun ing support for munitions procurement, spares and repaid ables support, scheduled depot level maintenance (SDIA and overhauls, and so on. Dollars expended in lheS^ unglamorous readiness and sustainability-related accoufl^ have the fastest payoff of any disbursements—90 days i some cases. Yet, they are underfunded. ,
Next, our forward sites, especially those on Iceland an in the Aleutians—near Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk, an Archangel—must receive the essential support they re quire to support the fleet. Over time, the Sixth F*e should be transitioned to Northern Europe, perhaps share some Royal Navy facilities in the British Isles- this regard, after neglecting it for so long, we may now guilty of overemphasizing remote Diego Garcia, at 1 expense of urgent requirements in other areas.
Our major exercises and day-to-day operations mus truly prepare us for what we expect in wartime. For exaflj pie, we must structure fleet schedules to allow substant'3 ’ not accidental, opportunities for multiple carrier train1 & evolutions. .
Finally, we must continue to press hard for the 600-sn Y Navy. We must make a forceful and articulate case » naval forces, lest we be unable to implement those wt and necessary policies that the Navy’s leadership has s into place. ,
To accomplish these goals, we must present the Navy mission and needs more convincingly. Too much of 0 rationale is persuasive only to the true believers in unif°r and is unintelligible jargon to the vast majority of uncon verted Americans, without whose political support an financial sacrifices a Navy adequate to preserve our seen rity during dangerous times cannot be sustained.
Co-
assumed command of NAS Moffett Field in 1981 after a tour in Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary^
laity- he is a subspecialist in politico-military strategic planning. He has bee awarded the Defense Superior Service Medal. His most recent Proce ings article was published in the April 1983 issue.