The United States is inevitably a maritime nation, and the United States and its Navy have inescapable global responsibilities. A carefully designed strategy has always been an imperative, but the need for a sound strategy has grown all the more important as the Soviets developed a formidable blue-water Navy able to challenge U. S. interests worldwide. Accordingly, three years ago, we reviewed our extant strategy—a strategy with broad contours reasonably well understood, but one which had not been submitted to the rigor inherent in codification. The result of that effort was the Maritime Strategy.
The Maritime Strategy, the maritime component of the National Military Strategy, helps us think and plan intelligently for the global use of naval forces from peacetime through global war to war termination. It is a strategy for today’s forces, today’s capabilities, and today’s threat. It also is a dynamic concept. We continually gauge its adequacy through our everyday operations, exercises, and war games, and we apply the lessons learned from these experiences to improve and enhance the strategy.
Before discussing the strategy in detail, it is important to define its bounds and perspective. The Maritime Strategy is firmly set in the context of national strategy, emphasizing coalition warfare and the criticality of allies, and demanding cooperation with our sister services. Moreover, the Maritime Strategy recognizes that the unified and specified commanders fight the wars, under the direction of the President and the Secretary of Defense, and thus does not purport to be a detailed war plan with firm timelines, tactical doctrine, or specific target sets. Instead, it offers a global perspective to operational commanders and provides a foundation for advice to the National Command Authorities. The strategy has become a key element in shaping Navy programmatic decisions. It is of equal value as a vehicle for shaping and disseminating a professional consensus on warfighting where it matters—at sea.
National Military Strategy and the Maritime Role
Our national military strategy is designed: to preserve this country’s political identity, framework, and institutions; to protect the United States, including its foreign assets and allies; to foster the country’s economic wellbeing; and to bolster an international order supportive of the vital interests of this country and its allies. To achieve these ends, our national strategy is built on three pillars: deterrence, forward defense, and alliance solidarity.
Deterrence simply means convincing a potential aggressor that the risks involved in aggression are greater than its possible benefits. The Soviets, or any other potential aggressors, will not be deterred by empty threats and rhetoric. A credible deterrent must have ready and capable forces behind it and the commitment to use them if necessary. Our formal alliances and treaties with 43 nations also require forward posture to reaffirm United States resolve and bolster alliance solidarity, which redounds to the credibility of our deterrence.
As the naval component of the National Military Strategy, the Maritime Strategy is designed to support campaigns in ground theaters of operations both directly and indirectly. Its success depends on the contributions of our sister services and allies. Accordingly, we place great emphasis on joint operations. In addition to our historic relationship with the Marine Corps, we have strengthened our partnerships with the Air Force, Army, and Coast Guard in the planning, exercising, and executing of joint operations.
An important part of our cooperative effort has been the Memorandum of Agreement I signed with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, in September 1982. This agreement accelerated such ongoing efforts as routinely including Air Force units in fleet exercises, developing doctrine and procedures for employment of AWACS and B-52s in maritime missions, and identifying aerial refueling requirements. It also led to several new initiatives such as data link and communications interoperability, and joint air combat training ranges.
A similar example of cooperative efforts to correct combat deficiencies is the Memorandum of Agreement with the Coast Guard establishing Maritime Defense Zones. Under this agreement. Coast Guard units combined with naval forces, both active and reserve, will defend harbors and shipping lanes along our coasts in time of war.
The Navy has also identified 11 areas in a Memorandum of Agreement signed last year between the Army and Air Force where we can contribute to enhanced joint operational effectiveness, and we are pressing ahead to do so. Efforts like these complement vigorous Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) initiatives including JCS-directed joint exercises and pilot projects on tactical and strategic air support to maritime operations.
The Era of Violent Peace
Preparation for global war is the critical element in ensuring deterrence, but our peacetime operations and response in time of crisis are also crucial contributions to deterrence and stability. Therefore, while the peacetime presence and crisis response components of our Maritime Strategy are less detailed and formal than the warfighting component, they are no less important. In fact, the volatility of today’s international situation suggests that we must expect to employ these elements of our Maritime Strategy in an expanding set of the world’s trouble spots. To understand the scope of their worth, we must recognize the chief characteristic of the modem era—a permanent state of what I call violent peace.
The Soviets do not desire a superpower confrontation, for two principal reasons. First, they recognize that there would be no easy victory and the costs would be high. Equally important, though, and consistent with Marxist- Leninist doctrine, they believe that history is on their side and that the West will collapse because of the "natural dialectic.” To channel the course of history, the Soviets foster evolutionary—as well as revolutionary—change, and support proxies and surrogates—such as Cuba, Libya, Angola, and North Korea—who do their bidding. This results in worldwide challenges to the United States and our allies. We may be technically at peace, but the period since 1945 can be characterized as an era of violent peace.
A principal feature of this era is the continuing and widespread existence of localized conflicts and crises, mostly in the Third World, but often with global implications. This profusion of crises and conflicts has been a feature of the international environment since World War II. In 1984, millions of people were involved in more than 30 armed conflicts throughout the world. These ran the gamut from civil unrest in Sri Lanka, to insurgencies in Central and South America, to civil war in Chad, to direct conflict between states in the Persian Gulf.
These conflicts and other crises with the potential to break into hostilities frequently involve U. S. and allied interests. Transcending the interests of states directly involved, these confrontations often serve as backdrop for potentially more serious conflicts between major powers. A fundamental component of the nation’s success in deterring war with the Soviet Union depends upon our ability to stabilize and control escalation in Third World crises.
As a result, our Navy devotes much of its effort to maintaining this stability. Potential crises and the aftermath of crises have increasingly defined the location and character of our forward deployments. We now maintain a continual presence in the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and Caribbean, as well as our more traditional forward deployments to the Mediterranean and the Western Pacific. Although we are not at war today, our operating tempo has been about 20% higher than during the Vietnam War. This indicates increased need for forces-in-being during peacetime, a need made more acute by the probability that, should war come, there will be only a brief time for mobilization. In this age of violent peace, the Navy is on the front lines already, and will be for the foreseeable future.
The international setting is complicated by the proliferation of modem, high-technology weaponry in the Third World. Certainly the most alarming aspect of this proliferation is the growing numbers of nations in positions to acquire mass annihilation weapons—chemical, biological, and even nuclear. Even in the absence of such weapons, impressive conventional arsenals possessed by Third World nations pose an immediate concern. While these weapons do not fundamentally change the causes of instability, they do change the nature of conflict and the threats we face. Naval forces must be prepared to encounter high- technology, combined-arms threats in virtually every ocean of the world.
The rise of state-sponsored terrorism is a new and disturbing phenomenon. Its unpredictability, worldwide scope, and anonymity render it one of the most insidious threats we face today. Terrorism is not new, but the threat has increased because terrorism has, in some cases, become a preferred arm of state action. If not countered, it can be effective against targeted forward-deployed forces. By placing at risk forward-deployed forces, terrorists (and their state sponsors) hope to be able to intimidate us into withdrawing, thereby undermining our credibility.
At the same time, the Soviets exploit instability in the Third World to promote governments that support Soviet ideology, improve the Soviet strategic position, and reduce Western influence. Soviet methods include support and encouragement of limited warfare by Cuban, Libyan, and North Korean proxies as well as direct crisis response by their own forces.
Since 1948, the Third World has been the most common arena for United States-Soviet competition, and this pattern will continue. U. S. interests and commitments are worldwide, and increasingly focus on the Third World. Our economy and security require oil from the Persian Gulf and Caribbean, and strategic minerals from southern Africa. Our trade with nations of the Pacific Basin now surpasses that with Europe. Obviously, we have vital stakes in what happens in these and other key areas.
As the challenges to peace and stability increase, so do the Soviets’ capabilities for global military reach. Their military airlift and sealift have grown significantly. The Soviet Navy, with a large deck aircraft carrier under construction, is increasingly capable of sustained distant operations. In addition, the Soviets continue to expand and improve their attack submarine force, making it a formidable global threat. They also have enhanced their access to air and naval facilities in key strategic locations, including Ethiopia, South Yemen, Cuba, and Vietnam.
Moscow recently established its first fully developed overseas base at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. These facilities can support a large concentration of Soviet naval forces, maintaining a permanent naval force astride key sea-lanes to our Pacific allies and friends. From this base Soviet forces can strike key United States and friendly forces and installations as far north as Hong Kong.
Improved power projection forces and global access provide the Soviets a growing capability to intervene militarily in the Third World. They steadily improve their ability to sever vital sea lines of communication, while improving their ability to counter U. S. crisis reaction moves. Responding effectively to Third World crises may well require that U. S. Navy units bring the range of capabilities necessary to deal with Soviet as well as Third World threats.
Soviet Military Strategy
The Soviet Union has an integrated strategy which seeks to use all Soviet military forces in a coherent fashion to meet Soviet national goals. While we are uncertain of the details of Soviet strategy, its broad outlines are clear. The Soviets appear to assume a future war with the West will be global in scope, violent, and decisive. In such a war the total military power of the state will be expected to serve clearly defined political goals.
Even in such a war the Soviets would not use nuclear weapons lightly, preferring to achieve their goals with conventional means. Nuclear weapons nonetheless have a central place in Soviet military thought. A war between the superpowers may not involve immediate nuclear weapons use, but it is, in Soviet eyes, still a "nuclear” war in the sense that the nuclear balance is constantly examined and evaluated in anticipation of possible escalation. Because of this aspect of Soviet doctrine, the Soviets place a high priority on changing the nuclear balance, or as they term it, the nuclear correlation of forces, during conventional operations.
The probable centerpiece of Soviet strategy in global war would be a combined-arms assault against Europe, where they would seek a quick and decisive victory. As prudent military planners, the Soviets would, of course, prefer to be able to concentrate on a single theater; a central premise of U. S. strategy is to deny them such an option.
Soviet overseas clients and surrogates outside the Warsaw Pact may join in an attack. Figure 1 shows that some of these clients sit astride critical sea lines of communication. Any Western strategy must, of necessity, hedge against such third country involvement. Naval forces are ideally suited to provide such a hedge. Routinely forward deployed in the vicinity of these nations, naval forces possess the required warfighting capability to accomplish the task and move on to more demanding requirements.
While Soviet ground and air forces conduct a massive offensive, a critical Soviet Navy role in a future conflict would be to protect the Soviet homeland and their ballistic missile submarines, which provide the Soviets with their ultimate strategic reserve. Consistent with its overall stress on the nuclear balance, Soviet doctrine gives high priority to locating and destroying Western sea-based nuclear assets, including aircraft carriers, ballistic missile submarines, and Tomahawk-equipped platforms. The Soviets would particularly like to be able to destroy our ballistic missile submarines, but lack the antisubmarine warfare capability to implement such a mission. Other roles, such as interdicting sea lines of communication or supporting the Soviet Army, while important, will probably be secondary, at least at the war’s start.
This view of the Soviet Navy’s role in overall Soviet strategy suggests that initially the bulk of Soviet naval forces will deploy in areas near the Soviet Union, with only a small fraction deployed forward. Soviet exercises confirm such an interpretation. Figure 2 shows the areas in which these exercises take place. It is important to recognize that these arcs encompass Japan, Norway, and Turkey. Thus, the option some advocate, of holding our maritime power near home waters, would inevitably lead to abandoning our allies. This is unacceptable, morally, legally, and strategically. Allied strategy must be prepared to fight in forward areas. That is where our allies are and where our adversary will be.
The Maritime Strategy: Peacetime Presence
Sea power is relevant across the spectrum of conflict, from routine operations in peacetime to the provision of the most survivable component of our forces for deterring strategic nuclear war. The Maritime Strategy provides a framework for considering all uses of maritime power. Among the greatest services we can provide the nation is to operate in peacetime and in crises in a way that will deter war. Figure 3, which illustrates the spectrum of conflict, draws attention to the importance of the lower levels of violence where navies are most often the key actors.
By its peacetime presence throughout the world, the Navy enhances deterrence daily. Our forward deployments maintain U. S. access on fair and reasonable terms to oil, other necessary resources, and markets, and deter and defend against attempts at physical denial of sea and air lines of communications critical to maintenance of the U. S. and allied economies. They provide a clear sign of U. S. interest in a given nation or region, and of U. S. commitment to protect its interests and its citizens.
One key goal of our peacetime strategy is to further international stability through support of regional balances of power. The more stable the international environment, the lower the probability that the Soviets will risk war with the West. Thus our peacetime strategy must support U. S. alliances and friendships. We accomplish this through a variety of peacetime operations including naval ship visits to foreign ports and training and exercises with foreign naval forces.
In 1984, for example, the Navy and Marine Corps visited 108 countries and conducted joint exercises with 55 foreign countries. Often taken for granted, port visits and joint training and exercises have a material impact around the world in stabilizing peace, reminding friend and foe alike that we are able and have the will to defend the interests of ourselves and our treaty allies.
The Maritime Strategy: Crisis Response
The heart of our evolving Maritime Strategy is crisis response. If war with the Soviets ever comes, it will probably result from a crisis that escalates out of control. Our ability to contain and control crises is an important factor in our ability to prevent global conflict.
Crisis response has long been the business of the Navy and Marine Corps. Between 1946 and 1982, in some 250 instances of employment of American military forces, naval forces constituted the principal element of our response in about 80% of the crises. Reasons for selecting naval forces as the instrument of choice for crisis management and deterrence of conflicts are illuminating:
► Forward-deployed posture and rapid mobility make naval forces readily available at crisis locations worldwide, providing significant deterrent value and reducing the likelihood of ambiguous or short warning.
► Naval forces maintain consistently high states of readiness because of forward deployments, ensuring operational expertise and day-to-day preparedness.
► Naval forces increasingly operate with friendly and allied armed forces and sister services.
► Naval forces can be sustained indefinitely at distant locations, with logistics support relatively independent of foreign basing or overflight rights.
► Naval forces bring the range of capabilities required for credible deterrence. Capabilities demonstrated in actual crises include maintaining presence, conducting surveillance, threatening use of force, conducting naval gunfire or air strikes, landing Marines, evacuating civilians, establishing a blockade or quarantine, and preventing intervention by Soviet or other forces.
► Perhaps most importantly, naval forces have unique escalation control characteristics that contribute to effective crisis control. Naval forces can be intrusive or out of sight, threatening or non-threatening, and easily dispatched but just as easily withdrawn. The flexibility and the precision available in employing naval forces provide escalation control in any crisis, but have particular significance in those crises which might involve the Soviet Union.
The peacetime and crisis response components of the Maritime Strategy are evolving, robust, and designed to foster a stable international setting. This is important for deterrence. Although deterrence is most often associated with strategic nuclear warfare, it is a much broader concept. To protect national interests, we must deter threats ranging from terrorism to nuclear war. This requires a credible peacetime and wartime capability at the level of conflict we seek to deter. Our national interest also requires an extended deterrent capability. Perhaps most importantly, protecting national interests, while preventing war requires the ability to control escalation, and naval forces and our peacetime strategy are ideally suited for that purpose.
If our peacetime presence and crisis response tasks are done well, deterrence is far less likely to fail. Deterrence can fail, however, and we must consider how the Navy would be used in a global war against the Soviets.
The Maritime Strategy: Warfighting
Should war come, the Soviets would prefer to use their massive ground force advantage against Europe without having to concern themselves with a global conflict or with actions on their flanks. It is this preferred Soviet strategy the United States must counter. The key to doing so is to ensure that they will have to face the prospect of prolonged global conflict. Maritime forces have a major role to play in this regard. The strategy setting forth their contribution consists of three phases: deterrence or the transition to war; seizing the initiative; and carrying the fight to the enemy. There are no fixed time frames associated with these phases; they provide a broad outline of what we want to accomplish, not an attempt to predict an inherently unpredictable future.
Phase I: Deterrence or the Transition to War: The initial phase of the Maritime Strategy would be triggered by recognition that a specific international situation has the potential to grow to a global superpower confrontation. Such a confrontation may come because an extra-European crisis escalated or because of problems in Europe, in either event, this phase of the Maritime Strategy deals with a superpower confrontation analogous to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where war with the Soviet Union is a real possibility.
The goal of this phase is deterrence. Through early, worldwide, decisive use of sea power we—along with sister services and allies as appropriate—would seek to win the crisis, to control escalation, and, by the global nature of our operations, to make clear our intention to cede no area to the Soviets by default and to deny them the option to engage in hostilities on their terms. While seeking to enhance deterrence at the brink of war, we must also consider that deterrence may fail. Thus preparing for the transition to war, specifically to global war, is an integral aspect of this phase.
Keys to the success of both the initial phase and the strategy as a whole are speed and decisiveness in national decisionmaking. The United States must be in position to deter the Soviets’ "battle of the first salvo” or deal with that if it comes. Even though a substantial fraction of the fleet is forward deployed in peacetime, prompt decisions are needed to permit rapid forward deployment of additional forces in crisis. Table 1 indicates the times required for illustrative movements of combatants and support ships throughout the world and illustrates the importance of the Panama and Suez Canals in facilitating repositioning. Such early deployment is reversible and not necessarily provocative.
The need for forward movement is obvious. This is where the Soviet fleet will be, and this is where we must be prepared to fight. Aggressive forward movement of anti-submarine warfare forces, both submarines and maritime patrol aircraft, will force Soviet submarines to retreat into defensive bastions to protect their ballistic missile submarines. This both denies the Soviets the option of a massive, early attempt to interdict our sea lines of communication and counters such operations against them that the Soviets undertake.
Early embarkation of Marine amphibious forces takes advantage of their flexibility and would be matched with forward movement of maritime prepositioning ship squadrons toward most likely areas of employment. Moving one Marine amphibious brigade by air to rendezvous with its prepositioned equipment and reinforce Norway provides a convincing signal of alliance solidarity.
|
From |
To |
Steaming Days |
|---|---|---|
|
U. S. East Coast |
Northern Atlantic |
7 |
|
U. S. East Coast |
Mediterranean |
10 |
|
U. S. East Coast |
Indian Ocean |
241 |
|
U. S. West Coast |
Northern Atlantic |
312 |
|
U. S. West Coast |
Western Pacific |
9 |
|
U. S. West Coast |
Indian Ocean |
24 |
|
Mediterranean |
Northern Atlantic |
6 |
|
Mediterranean |
Indian Ocean |
213 |
|
Indian Ocean |
Northern Atlantic |
24 |
|
Western Pacific |
Indian Ocean |
14 |
|
1Subtract 6 days by using Suez Canal 2Subtract 13 days by using Panama Canal |
||
Early forward deployment of sea-based air power also is essential to support our allies, particularly Japan, Norway, and Turkey. Early forward movement of carrier battle forces provides prudent positioning of our forces in order to support the requirements of the unified commanders and to roll back Soviet forces, should war come. It does not imply some immediate "Charge of the Light Brigade” attack on the Kola Peninsula or any other specific target.
Forward deployment must be global as well as early. Deployments to the Western Pacific directly enhance deterrence, including deterrence of an attack in Europe, by providing a clear indication that, should war come, the Soviets will not be able to ignore any region of the globe. Should deterrence fail, such deployments tie down Soviet forces, especially strike aircraft, limiting the Soviets’ ability to concentrate their forces on Central Europe. Thus, even in its earliest phase, the Maritime Strategy, by exerting global pressure on the Soviet Union, can help ease the burden for NATO forces in Europe.
In addition to allowing rapid deployment, speed and decisiveness in national decisionmaking are crucial to the strategy’s overall execution. As more functions are transferred to the reserve forces, execution of the President’s authority to call up reservists (currently limited to 100,000 in number) becomes increasingly crucial to successful implementation of the strategy. Virtually the entire Navy cargo-handling capability, for example, and all Navy combat search and rescue capability depend on reservists. Their prompt call-up is imperative. In a similar fashion, an early decision to place the Coast Guard under Navy command and control will have a major impact on the rapidity with which the strategy can be implemented.
An important aspect of the strategy’s initial phase is sealift. In 1984, the Secretary of the Navy established sealift as the third primary mission of the Navy, along with sea control and power projection. This increased emphasis recognizes the importance of both economic and military resupply. By the end of the decade, we will have adequate sealift for the movement of military forces. But we will neither be able to tolerate attrition typical of World War II nor provide adequate dedicated sealift to transport the strategic raw materials we will require. For this reason, early and effective uses of existing sealift are essential.
Phase II: Seizing the Initiative: We cannot predict where the first shot will be fired should deterrence fail, but almost certainly the conflict will involve Europe. If war comes, we will move into the second phase of the strategy in which the Navy will seize the initiative as far forward as possible. Naval forces will destroy Soviet forces in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and other forward areas, neutralize Soviet clients if required, and fight our way toward Soviet home waters.
Seizing the initiative is vital for several reasons. First, it demonstrates to our allies this country’s determination to prevail and thus, contributes to alliance solidarity. Second, the history of war tells us that gaining the initiative is the key to destroying an opponent’s forces. Finally, seizing the initiative opens the way to apply direct pressure on the Soviets to end the war on our terms—the new goal of our strategy once deterrence has failed. Indeed, it is possible that, faced with our determination, the Soviets can be induced to accept war termination while still in this phase.
The Soviets will probably focus their offensive on Central Europe, while attempting to maintain a defensive posture elsewhere. Instead, we must dilute their effort, divert their attention, and force them to divide their forces. We must control the type and tempo of conflict, making sure the Soviets understand that they can take no area for granted. To accomplish this, maritime forces must counter a first salvo, wear down the enemy forces, protect sea lines of communication, continue reinforcement and resupply, and improve positioning. We must defeat Soviet maritime strength in all its dimensions, including base support. That converts to classic Navy tasks of antisubmarine warfare, antisurface warfare, counter command and control, strike operations, antiair warfare, mine warfare, special operations, amphibious operations, and sealift. Each is essential if the strategy is to succeed.
One of the most complex aspects of Phase II of the Maritime Strategy is antisubmarine warfare. It will be essential to conduct forward operations with attack submarines, as well as to establish barriers at key world choke- points using maritime patrol aircraft, mines, attack submarines, or sonobuoys, to prevent leakage of enemy forces to the open ocean where the Western Alliance’s resupply lines can be threatened. Maritime air and anti-submarine warfare units will be involved, along with offensive and defensive mining. As the battle groups move forward, we will wage an aggressive campaign against all Soviet submarines, including ballistic missile submarines. This aggressive action ensures that we prevent such losses as the Germans inflicted on allied shipping between January and July of 1942 when 14 of 50 then-operational German U-boats sunk 450 ships, as illustrated in Figure 4.
Antiair warfare is equally complex and equally important. It demands both offense and defense in depth, long- range indication and warning, long-range interception and surveillance, and base neutralization, and is an area where the contribution of our allies and sister services is particularly important. The overriding goal is to counter the Soviets’ missile-launching platforms, to shoot the archer before he releases his arrows. Not only is it easier to destroy bombers than missiles, but the bomber destroyed today cannot return with more missiles tomorrow. Our strategy envisions making extensive use of jamming, deception, and decoys to counter the enemy’s targeting capability. Area defensive weapons will deal with in-bound missiles or, in some cases, aircraft that leak through our offensive thrust. No single approach will be sufficient; countering the Soviet air threat through offensive antiair warfare demands a layered approach.
Antisurface warfare involves carriers, submarines, cruise missile-equipped surface ships, and land-based forces eliminating forward-deployed Soviet surface ships at the outset of conflict. This requires appropriate rules of engagement at the brink of war to avoid losing the battle of the first salvo which is so important in Soviet doctrine. Our allies also have a critical role to play in antisurface warfare. Germany, for example, will bear the brunt of the campaign in the Baltic while the Turks will be key players in the Black Sea. As our forces move forward, antisurface warfare will continue, with a goal the elimination of the Soviet fleets worldwide.
Successes in antiair, antisubmarine, and antisurface warfare are crucial to effective prosecution of offensive strike warfare. The battle groups are central to defeating Soviet air, submarine, and surface forces. To apply our immense strike capability, we must move carriers into positions where, combined with the U. S. Air Force and allied forces, they can bring to bear the added strength needed on NATO’s Northern or Southern flanks, or in Northeast Asia. Further, selective use of naval forces on the Central Front could have an important stabilizing impact. The strike power of carrier battle forces can also be augmented with conventional land-attack Tomahawks launched from submarines or surface ships. All of these would be brought to bear as the unified commanders direct. The strategy does not envision automatic attacks on any specific targets, but the main threats to our fleet during this phase are the "Backfires” and other missile-carrying aircraft of Soviet Naval Aviation. The United States cannot allow our adversary to assume he will be able to attack the fleet with impunity, from inviolable sanctuaries.
The nature of these battle force operations is not always understood. One often hears self-appointed strategic experts suggest that elimination of a carrier battle group would be a simple task and that such a group represents a single target. In attempting to explain the evolution of battle force formations since World War II, I sometimes use pictures like Figure 5, showing the Eastern United States on the same scale as the 56,000 square miles that a typical carrier battle group formation might occupy.
In amphibious warfare, the United States has the flexibility of conducting a Marine amphibious brigade size raid or forcible entry by the 55,000 men of a Marine amphibious force. Such operations could be conducted alone or in conjunction with the allied marine forces, as directed by the unified commanders. The principal requirement would be to seize a beachhead for the introduction of follow-up forces, either from other services or from other countries.
Mine countermeasures form yet another important aspect of the strategy. The West must be ready to clear mines whenever and wherever necessary. Mine warfare provides a striking example of the importance of our allies to the Maritime Strategy. The Commander, Mine Warfare Command, executes a very aggressive cooperative program with our allies, traveling to roughly 40 nations every year to ensure that we integrate both allied mine-clearing and allied offensive mine-laying operations.
In addition to these traditional combat tasks, implementing Phase II of the Maritime Strategy depends on other efforts. It is crucial that we counter the Soviets’ capability both to control their forces and to locate and target ours. Maritime forces, working with other assets, must confuse, deceive, and disrupt Soviet command and control. They must also deny the Soviets a targeting capability through platform destruction, jamming, dispersal, and emission control.
Finally, we must support our forces as we fight. Mobile logistic support forces, sustained sealift, and the use of Navy Seabees to establish advanced bases all play a role in a forward logistic support concept which is a prerequisite for seizing the initiative. Logistics and sustainability are integral to the success of any strategy; they are especially vital in one such as ours which demands aggressive, sustained, forward operations.
Phase III: Carrying the Fight to the Enemy: The tasks in this phase are similar to those of earlier phases, but must be more aggressively applied as we seek war termination on terms favorable to the United States and its allies. Our goal would be to complete the destruction of all the Soviet fleets which was begun in Phase II. This destruction allows us to threaten the bases and support structure of the Soviet Navy in all theaters, with both air and amphibious power. Such threats are quite credible to the Soviets. At the same time, antisubmarine warfare forces would continue to destroy Soviet submarines, including ballistic missile submarines, thus reducing the attractiveness of nuclear escalation by changing the nuclear balance in our favor.
During this final phase the United States and its allies would press home the initiative worldwide, while continuing to support air and land campaigns, maintaining sealift, and keeping sea lines of communication open. Amphibious forces, up to the size of a full Marine amphibious force, would be used to regain territory. In addition, the full weight of the carrier battle forces could continue to "roll up” the Soviets on the flanks, contribute to the battle on the Central Front, or carry the war to the Soviets. These tough operations close to the Soviet motherland could even come earlier than the final phase.
I have discussed various tasks separately, but they must be implemented simultaneously on, over, and under the sea. Our forces combine in a synergistic way, both to deter and to win if deterrence fails. One of the truly unique aspects of naval warfare is its awesome complexity, as forcefully portrayed in Figure 6.
The complexity of the tasks makes it essential that we not attempt to micro-manage the war from Washington, but rather that we provide options and broad concepts to assist the unified commanders in implementing their detailed plans. Command, control, communications, and intelligence combine to form the glue that binds this entire effort together. And space is an essential factor in command, control, communications, and intelligence. The Navy is the number one tactical user of information from space. We recover the information, fuse it in real time, and continuously disseminate it to all tactical users at sea. Although we have long understood the importance of space intuitively, the Maritime Strategy clarifies the essentiality of space for a Navy with global responsibilities.
Maritime Strategy and War Termination
The goal of the overall Maritime Strategy, particularly of Phase III, is to use maritime power, in combination with the efforts of our sister services and forces of our allies, to bring about war termination on favorable terms. In a global war, our objectives are to:
► Deny the Soviets their kind of war by exerting global pressure, indicating that the conflict will be neither short nor localized.
► Destroy the Soviet Navy: both important in itself and a necessary step for us to realize our objectives.
► Influence the land battle by limiting redeployment of forces, by ensuring reinforcement and resupply, and by direct application of carrier air and amphibious power.
► Terminate the war on terms acceptable to us and to our allies through measures such as threatening direct attack against the homeland or changing the nuclear correlation of forces.
The Soviets place great weight on the nuclear correlation of forces, even during the time before nuclear weapons have been used. Maritime forces can influence that correlation, both by destroying Soviet ballistic missile submarines and by improving our own nuclear posture, through deployment of carriers and Tomahawk platforms around the periphery of the Soviet Union. Some argue that such steps will lead to immediate escalation, but escalation solely as a result of actions at sea seems improbable, given the Soviet land orientation. Escalation in response to maritime pressure serves no useful purpose for the Soviets since their reserve forces would, be degraded and the United States’ retaliatory posture would be enhanced. Neither we nor the Soviets can rule out the possibility that escalation will occur, but aggressive use of maritime power can make escalation a less attractive option to the Soviets with the passing of every day.
The real issue, however, is not how the Maritime Strategy is influenced by nuclear weapons, but the reverse: how maritime power can alter the nuclear equation. As our maritime campaign progresses, and as the nuclear option becomes less attractive, prolonging the war also becomes unattractive, since the Soviets cannot decouple Europe from the United States and the risk of escalation is always present. Maritime forces thus provide strong pressure for war termination that can come from nowhere else.
Our strategy is not without risk. The strategy depends on early reaction to crisis and the political will to make difficult decisions early. It will require flexibility to meet the inevitable changes in Soviet strategy. To some, that aspect of the strategy which focuses on altering the nuclear balance may seem dangerous. But the risks exist for both sides; that is the nature of deterrence.
Executing the Maritime Strategy
Strategy is a design for relating means to ends. The ends are clear: deterrence or—should deterrence fail—war termination on terms favorable to the United States and its allies. The means are also clear: the 600-ship Navy. The warfighting capabilities of our ships, aircraft, and submarines, and the immense advantage of American sailors with their well-known pride and professionalism, provide powerful means. But can the design work? Will the means be sufficient? My answer to both questions is yes.
I am confident that we can succeed if put to the test because of the vast intelligence and experience that has been brought to bear in the Maritime Strategy’s development. It is based on the collective professional judgments of numerous flag officers, especially those in command positions in the fleet. It has benefited from the efforts of the Strategic Studies Group, top-performing Navy and
Marine Corps officers who spend a year in Newport working directly for me in refining and expanding our strategic horizons. It has been reviewed, examined, and improved by military and civilian scholars inside and outside of government. Thus, our strategic thinking represents the collective judgment of the very best thinkers.
I also have confidence in the Maritime Strategy because we test it in exercises, in war games, and in real-life scenarios. In 1984, for example, the Navy participated in 106 major exercises, 55 of which involved our allies. Such exercises are an integral part of our deterrent strategy and a major source of my confidence that, should deterrence fail, maritime forces will have the skill, capability, and experience to prevail.
We augment these exercises with war-gaming, especially at the war-gaming center in Newport. These games stress the combined-arms nature of war and involve our allies and our sister services. Recently, for example, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sponsored a crisis war game in which all the joint chiefs and all unified commanders personally participated.
Finally, I am confident we can implement our strategy because we measure it against the real world. For example, recent lessons from the Falklands, air action in the Bekka Valley, Grenada, and the mining of the Red Sea have all been incorporated in our dynamic approach to strategy implementation. To give but one example, in 1984 Secretary Lehman and I instituted the Naval Strike Warfare Center ("Strike University”) in recognition of our need to develop more aggressive strike capabilities in implementing our forward strategy.
Summary
The basic strategy of the United States, fully supported by the Maritime Strategy, is deterrence. Through worldwide peacetime operations and the ability to react in crisis, maritime forces play a major role in binding together alliances in preventing escalation. If we continue to do our job properly, our strategy for global conventional war will remain a theoretical topic.
In establishing the maritime component of national strategy, we have been guided by several principles:
► Maritime Strategy is derived from national military strategy and is an integral component of that strategy. The purpose of our strategy is deterrence; should deterrence fail our strategy relies on forward defense and allied cooperation to bring about war termination on terms favorable to ourselves and our allies.
► Maritime Strategy must counter Soviet strategy and deny the Soviets the luxury of fighting the type of war they choose. Our strategy must accomplish the difficult feat of using sea power to influence the result of a land battle, both directly and indirectly. To do this, the Maritime Strategy effectively integrates all elements of United States military power in the maritime arena in order to make the greatest possible contribution to the unified commanders’ mission.
► Maritime Strategy must consider the nuclear balance even during the conventional phase of the war. Our strategy must seek war termination leverage; maritime power may be the only source of such leverage.
Despite the violent peace which characterizes our age, we have been able to maintain our security while avoiding confrontation with the Soviet Union. Deterrence has worked. Our goal is to ensure that it continues to do so. Should deterrence ever fail, maritime power, imaginatively employed, can help bring about war termination and restore the freedom and security of the United States and our allies.