Selling Sea Power

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A submarine lurks in the far reaches of the ocean, a fighter shrieks off a cata­pult, a frigate anchors in a quiet harbor, Marines land on a troubled beach, a cutter stops a drug smuggler, a tanker stands into port. Sea power is all this and much more. Why must we ensure that the United States remains the world’s leading sea power? And how can we justify the cost this will entail?

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b_eii ^e_f^r’ Kennedy, Maxwell Taylor, and others—this ■nilyi ^^{aS assum}ed greater urgency because of our trade (j £ ^ances, the decline or eclipse of several sectors of the ^lnd^Ustry indispensable for modern weaponry, and Wori^¹'⁰¹¹³' debt (we have gone precipitously from the tion ■ ^S §^reatest creditor nation to its greatest debtor na- hav ^{m S}*^X y^ears)- Historically, such economic indicators

Presaged military decline. That is the central argu-

taent

As we enter the 1990s, we need to recognize peo­ple’s beliefs about sea power, address their uncer- rro ^tainties, and gauge the future state of the world. ,^{111 suc}h reflections, we can justify the price of Ameri- ^s Preeminence as a sea power.

s Dominant Beliefs

tio ^{,e S}^^ou*^ understand the prevalent views of our na- the ^SP°*^ltlca' and intellectual leaders, and strive to assist citizenry in its direction of our government. This jgri^{ns ta}king a greater part in the extensive, even bewil- ⁿg, conversation among America’s chosen officials, arsT^⁶ ^^lrectors’ media figures, and influential schol- zin • ^{r rostrums} include leading newspapers and maga- and^{S lnterview} programs, documentaries, professional Wo .^acac*^emi^c journals, and nonfiction best-sellers. Net- cami ^news P^rog^rams and other popular forums signifi- im ^ ^lnfl^uence public discussion and foster a number of dorti’’ ^{ant contern}porary concepts of “conventional wis- relating to sea power.

_t)Vj ^Co,1°mic Strength and Military Strength are Inter- the Vi 'ⁿ Evaluating National Power: While not new— hoyi ^Ca.^Was enunciated decades ago by Dwight Eisen-

Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great

and protect wealth. If, however, too large a proportion of the state’s resources is diverted from wealth creation and allocated instead to military purposes, then that is likely to lead to a weakening of national power over the longer term.”¹

The upshot of this concern with economics is that the defense budgets of the 1990s will not grow, and may in fact shrink, in real dollars as well as in percentage of the gross national product (GNP). Few leaders in Washington predict otherwise, barring a major international crisis.

Military Power, Nuclear and Conventional, is Losing Relevance in International Affairs: This generalization is associated with four assumptions:

►  A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought (as Ronald Reagan repeatedly said).

►  Under Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s program of perestroika, the Soviet Union is less bellicose and will be non-imperialistic.

►  The phrase ‘‘No More Vietnams” combines a restric­tive sense of what is a vital national interest with a doubt­ing appraisal of military solutions to “social conflicts.”

►  Arms control agreements—in strategic nuclear, Euro­pean theater conventional, and (possibly) worldwide naval forces—are inherently desirable.

All of these ideas reflect a general Western aversion to violence, an assumption that disagreements can be re­solved by reason and through respect for rights, and a suspicion that wars are a result of misunderstandings or of beliefs and prejudices we can abandon if we but choose to do so. (The invasion of Afghanistan, the Falklands cam­paign, the Grenada assault, the Iran-Iraq conflict, and Per­sian Gulf convoy operations have registered some counter­weight to this tendency to discount the relevance of military power.)

Future Warfare Will Differ from Warfare in the Past: Weapons are becoming enormously expensive and,

Regretfully, those arguments have been so widely ^a vanced that assertions to the contrary are now greete with ridicule.”²

“But the facts, if viewed without emotion,” Admir^ Trost continued, “tell another story.” Unfortunate)

that

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the Navy’s total expenses). We spend more to ^recrU^₀ train, pay, and provide services for our people thanwe ^ on modernizing our ships, planes, and weapons, °^r researching, developing, and testing future hardw “Sustainability” through purchases of ordnance, wa^f^_e serve materiel, and forces—while less than halt

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through technology, effective; we are unsure whether we will be able to afford adequate numbers of tomorrow’s “genius” weapons to replace yesterday’s “smart” and today’s “brilliant” weapons. Owing in part to the Argen­tinian cruiser General Belgrano, HMS Sheffield, and the USS Stark (FFG-31), it is widely believed that surface ships and aircraft carriers have become unacceptably vul­nerable to modern weapons. Space-based reconnaissance systems are imagined performing real-time global surveil­lance, and are touted as being able to “make the oceans transparent” in the not-too-distant future. In addition, a special style of war is foreseen, for which U. S. military forces are ill-prepared: low-intensity conflict, ranging from terrorism to guerrilla-style revolutions.

The World is Becoming Truly Multi-polar. Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and other nations (or groups of nations, such as the European Economic Community) variously are nominated as new centers of power and in­fluence. Financial, industrial, and diplomatic delibera­tions in Tokyo, Beijing, or Bonn are becoming increas­ingly interactive with, and much less dependent on, decisions made in Washington and Moscow. Throughout much of the world, concerns about sovereignty already work against foreign basing or significant logistics access. Even in coercive diplomacy, “minor powers” can daunt much larger military establishments by acquiring ad­vanced weapons; biological, chemical, and nuclear war­heads are available to the armed forces of more and more nations (whether or not political leaders publicly acknowl­edge the full armory). Hence, the efficacy of either super­power’s relevant coercive measures against most other nations has declined. (Afghanistan is a military example, Panama a diplomatic one.)

Difficulties in Comprehension

Whether or not one agrees with the prevailing tenets of “conventional wisdom,” one must recognize their impor­tance to our professional lives. Implicitly or explicitly, they influence many of the decisions that govern national policy regarding sea power.

We are also directly affected (e.g., in recruiting) and indirectly (e.g., in congressional deliberations) by the atti­tudes and beliefs of the American citizenry. An informed public can guide the nation to make prudent defense deci­sions; an uninformed public is a danger to liberty. We should address the major misconceptions about sea power as vigorously and openly as possible. If we remain apa­thetic, if we are overly secretive, or if we underestimate the public’s ability to understand our profession, we will have no one to blame but ourselves if the public fails to understand and appreciate sea power.

Expenses: Admiral Carlisle Trost, the Chief of Naval Operations, warned against misconceptions in this area.

“Many people, even some who are ostensibly well- informed, have accepted the argument that defense spending in this decade has all but bankrupted the Treasury, and that the Navy has absorbed far too much of the defense appropriation to build a 600-ship fleet.

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facts do not speak for themselves. We must bring “other” story to the attention of every citizen we can clearly as we can.                                    ,

This is the first decade since World War II in which t ^ federal budget declined as a share of the gross natio¹¹^ product. Defense spending, while up more than 50 a real outlays compared with the previous decade, is ⁿ° only about 6% of GNP, whereas even in the prosper⁰¹¹ 1955-1964 years it averaged 10%. And the Navy’s ovetf annual real growth rate in this decade is 3%, less than of the Air Force or the Army. So three of the most p^reV^ lent beliefs about federal spending are wrong: It ^lS consuming more and more of GNP; defense is not devo ing an unprecedented share of the tax dollar; and the N^a is not being especially rapacious in grabbing money tr the other services in order to construct an expensive tie Second, about 17% of the Navy budget is dev°^te “force structure” (construction of new ships, convers and reactivation of old ships, and procurement of aircra “Readiness” (the manning, training, and operating naval forces) accounts for more than half of our bu°c , and personnel costs constitute a third of it (about

amount we spend on personnel—has enjoyed a growth rate over the past six years. This means our tion has been focused on filling magazines and prov the wherewithal for protracted combat.       _1S

Related to a general misunderstanding about these is ignorance about what our tax dollars buy. How m Americans know, for instance, that our battleships °Qfl 32 missiles capable of precise attacks on targets t> miles away? On the other hand, many citizens thin ^ Navy’s budget request for a new ship is a request additional ship. Few people are aware that a wars _g useful life is approximately 30 years, so to mainta¹ Navy of 600 ships, 20 ships must be ordered every ) ^ Third, an American platitude claims that govern'¹¹ . management is hopelessly inefficient compared wit'¹ P ^ vate industry. While nothing we say could chang^e _e belief, certain things we have done or failed to do j painfully reinforced it. Some toilet seats, ashtrays* post-retirement jobs have damaged our national seen ^ more than we can calculate—certainly not in thenise but for their corrosion of public confidence in our ^ worthiness. It is of little avail to point out how ’^inS'kj_avy cant” such incidents are, to cite how many complex ^ contracts must be authorized each day, or to note ^{1 4} y almost every case we caught the violator ourselves- b ^ defense scandal reinforces the widespread suspici°ⁿ

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as of a hallmark of the naval profession:

^ °urth, the public scrutinizes the decisions we make °ut our force structure often in hindsight and with no ^Preciation of the lead times involved. One need only 'hep ^c'^amor about the shortage of minesweepers for ^ ^Persian Gulf escort mission. Charles R. Morris wrote ^be New York Times magazine:

In the Gulf, to the Navy’s intense embarrassment, the j'nierican fleet was thoroughly spooked by the lowest- ^echnology weapons possible—floating mines not |*J^Uch different from those used in the Civil War. The nited States, it turns out, possesses only a handful of ^J50s-vintagc mine sweepers, most of which were not Readily available to the Gulf. The huge American com­^at ships, with all their glittering electronic gear, were ^0rced to shelter ignominiously behind the tankers they ^^Crc supposed to protect, because the reinforced tanker

. *^s are much more likely to survive a mine explo­sion.’^

^shou ^WCVer one chooses to respond to such criticism, one ref| . acknowledge that it reports a widely held adverse ^^ection on the kind of Navy we have bought. Mv°^Untability: The investigations into the actions in- pub||ⁿS ^lhe USS Stark and Vincennes (CG-49) allowed the ship!^C a glimpse into the ambiguities and difficulties a thg f^{S Crevv} faces operating in or near a war zone. Yet in sjjfi i^st case, there was no court-martial; the officers were y allowed to resign or retire. In the second case, a 0^r₍ji'₎^nan(-Jiⁿg officer was not held accountable for his sub- iitr, ofr •' ^errors- Some officers have speculated that civil- dot t₀ *^C*^a*^S ^^{or reasons} they thought sufficient) decided (Iep_rj_v ^authorize further proceedings. In so doing, they

^lnR^s / July 1989

“On the sea there is a tradition older even than the traditions of the country itself and wiser in its age than this new custom. It is the tradition that with responsi­bility goes authority and with them goes accountability.

“This accountability is not for the intention but for the deed.

“It is cmel, this accountability of good and well- intentioned men.

“But the choice is that or an end to responsibility and, finally, as the cruel sea has taught, an end to the confidence and trust in the men who lead, for men will not long trust leaders who feel themselves beyond ac­countability for what they do.”⁴

In 1983, Admiral James Watkins referred to this famous editorial on the sinking of the USS Hobson (DMS-26):

“All too often, individuals ... in our society com­plain that being required to account for mistakes or er­rors in judgment is just “crying over spilled milk.” All around we hear the plea accepted that “what is done is done” . . . that an accounting cannot change the past . . . that for honest men in error there should be no accountability. But such complacency can only result in a loss of credibility and, as the Wall Street Journal voiced, a loss of just authority.”⁵

Service Life: If our fellow citizens were not permitted to appreciate a fundamental of our profession in these in­stances, still less surprising must it seem that they gener-

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are ill-informed is the most important: why the Urn¹ States needs the world’s strongest navy. Few of them

ize that oceans cover 70% of the world’s surface, exported goods constitute 20% of our GNP, that more

ally misapprehend the mundane routines of naval service. The number of senators and representatives with a military background is declining, and the all-volunteer force sharply reduces the percentage of citizens with firsthand knowledge of our working lives. Most people are genu­inely astonished to learn that U. S. Navy sailors and Ma­rines regularly deploy for six months at a time, that they stay at sea continually for weeks, and that their living accommodations are markedly less luxurious than cruise liner standards. The poignant realities of today’s naval ser­vice need to be explained better. Many people also do not realize that one-sixth of Navy and Marine personnel are not home at Christmas; they might see their child for the first time when the baby is four months old; and they fre­quently miss successive anniversaries or a child’s gradua­tion. Numerous other misconceptions circulate as folklore: prices in exchanges and commissaries are extravagantly lower than those in the shopping mall; one’s housing is provided either free on base or fully compensated off base; moves are wholly paid for by the government; one is auto­matically promoted solely by virtue of longevity; and, after 20 years’ service, one can retire drawing full pay. The movie, “Top Gun” was wonderful for recruiting, but it did not portray the truth about life in the Navy.

Loyalty: We also must address the serious harm done by spies among us. In addition to the aid they gave foreign powers, the Walkers, Whitworths, Pollards, Lonetrees,

and their ilk stained all of us. They insinuated that, f°^r money, sex, or “thrills,” Navy and Marine Corps person nel would betray the American people, who now have t° wonder how many more of us will subvert millions⁰ dollars of their investment in sea power. Are we doM enough to identify and remove “bad apples” before the) hurt us?    ,

Raison d’Etre: The last area about which our citiz^e,;’

ted

real' that than

90% of our international trade is carried on merchan¹ ships, that our industrial system would quickly collap without the shipbome import of raw materials (including about two dozen minerals essential to our defense capa^b' ities), and that more than half of the oil we use must brought in on tankers, one after the other. Not many P^e^ pie can name even a few of our country’s more than treaty commitments with scores of nations who are ⁰ allies, friends, and trading partners. We have much '^v0 to do.                                                                  ₍

Similarly, we should strive to ensure that more of ⁰ citizens recognize how often the Navy is ordered iⁿ action in crises or in wars. Since 1945, Navy and Mat¹ Corps forces have been called on in all but about dozen of the more than 200 international crises invoW¹ -

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Most think of the Navy-Marine Corps team in terms of classic amphibious warfare, but the Commandant of the Marine Corps has stressed the need to prevent, control, or win “the most likely conflict”—most likely in the Third World. This may bring the team out in new combi­nations (here, the Nicholas [FFG-47] steaming in the Per­sian Gulf carries a Marine Sea Cobra).

the United States. “Return on investment” is a _c. American yardstick, so we benefit when our work ^|S ^ ognized. The successes of Tom Clancy (The Huntf°^r j|. October), and Stephen Coonts (Flight of the Intrude*'^ lustrate how much the American public is interested & _l0 activities. This interest could readily be extended “nonfiction” pages of books, columns of newspaP.^. and seconds of television time through local comrnafl tiatives, background discussions, and a friendlier at

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