This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
For any country to become a sea power requires its leaders to commit to a maritime strategy. President and Commander-inChief of the Nigerian Armed Forces General Ibrahim Babangida, reviewing his ships and men, appears ready to lead his nation seaward.
A littoral state’s failure to develop as a sea power when it is most appropriate opens that state to the risk of becoming a pawn in the maritime game being played by those opponents who have acquired sea power. Such a state cannot realize the benefits of having naval strength—commerce, prosperity, security, and, perhaps, prestige. Nigeria, therefore, must become a sea power if it is to join the league of great nations.
The prospects of establishing a credible sea power are fraught, however, with problems. The main problem is economic. During a period of serious financial constraints, the cost of modern naval weaponry seems astronomical. A merchant marine and other sea power infrastructures are expensive for a country that does not have an indigenous shipbuilding capability.
The second obstacle to the development of sea power is political. Lee Dowdy explains that the percentage of funding a navy receives “depends on the size of the total pie and on the relative political power of other claimants. It depends as well on the vision and continuity of the political leaders, on their assessment of threat and opportunity, and on their persistence in the pursuit of policy.”1 Despite these major obstacles, there are two indicators that Nigeria soon will begin to build a credible sea power. First, there is a consensus within the intellectual and policy-making communities that sea power has been neglected for too long. The National Shipping Policy, in Decree 10 of April 1987, the recent approval by the Navy Board of a Maritime Defence Strategy, and the South Atlantic project that the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies is commissioned to do are part of this process.2 Second, there also seems to be a shift in Nigeria’s strategic focus toward the South Atlantic because of external threats to the southeastern flank, which is the nation’s economic lifeline.3
Navies throughout the world tend to identify naval missions and structure their tactical operations appropriately, conditioned, of course, by the peculiarities of geography, economy, technology, and policy. But the balance between the universal approach to navies of medium-sized powers and an individualized view of a particular state’s analysis of sea power is delicate.
Naval authority Ken Booth divides the roles of navies into policing, diplomatic, and military.4 Booth also places the navies of the world into one of four categories: global, oceangoing, contiguous sea, or coastal patrol.
The Nigerian Navy often is categorized as a contiguous sea navy. The Nigerian naval community generally is excited by Booth’s analyses of strategic nuclear deterrence, negotiation from a position of strength, manipulation, and wishes for a navy that contributes to the nation’s prestige. While all-embracing analyses like these may be useful, they may befuddle the priorities of developing navies if they are adopted blindly.
In fairness to Booth, his analyses are global and comprehensive but allow for selective examination and application. There are alternative analyses of “Third Force Navies” (preferable to the propagandist’s term, “Third World”). Some are motivated by ethnocentric concern about the challenge that the expansion of third force navies
poses to other maritime nations’ uncontrolled free access to the world’s oceans.
Perhaps of all the analysts of third force navies, Clem- son University Political Science Professor Michael Morris provides the most rational model analysis of the growth of developing countries’ navies. His analysis provides for three key roles for Third Force Navies:
► A constabulary regulatory role in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), including surveillance and enforcement of fisheries, and offshore oil and pollution control; Morris agrees that large navies also carry out this role
► Territorial (coastal) defense role requiring more potent combat capabilities than may also be involved in resource control in the EEZ
► Force-at-sea role in area adjacent to “national zones,” i.e., operations beyond the EEZ5
Morris places all developing countries’ navies in the hierarchy of naval expansion using initial weaponry criteria, (age and sophistication of weapons) supplementary naval power, and corroborating national power-base criteria. Using these criteria, he establishes six categories:
► Category 6: Regional Force Projection—Brazil, Argentina, and India
► Category 5: Adjacent Force-projection Navies—Peru, Chile, Iran, North Korea, and South Korea
► Category 4: Offshore Territorial Defense Navies— Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, and The Philippines
► Category 3: Inshore Territorial Defense Navies—12 members, including Nigeria
► Category 2: Constabulary Navies—12 members
► Category 1: Token Navies—62 members
Morris states that the Nigerian Navy is likely to rise to a high naval ranking “given the current growth rate and the size of and degree of the national power base.”6 He contends that although Nigeria is an emerging power with “a large and fairly well-equipped Army,” its navy is capable of only inshore territorial defense because the “naval share of military budget has remained very small.”7 Morris’s analysis coincides with what I have conceptualized as three levels of overlapping perimeters of maritime defense. A fourth level may develop in the future when the Nigerian Navy’s abilities to project power into the distant waters improve.
Level One refers to coastal defense and inshore operations. It embodies intensive around-the-clock surveillance and early warning out to at least 100 nautical miles into the sea. It includes all aspects of policing, as well as its military missions. It is the Nigerian Navy’s top priority.
Level Two refers to naval presence in the EEZ for monitoring and sea control. It includes the presence of policing forces to protect resources in the EEZ. It makes allowances for subregional/regional coordination of policing of a nonmilitary nature in an indivisible sea area for control of poaching, dumping of radioactive waste, etc.
Level Three is the outer ring in the defense-in-depth and is characterized by surveillance and intelligence gathering, occasional independent and joint exercises in the area, training cruises, and facilitating the formation of alliances. The essence of maritime defense-in-depth is to extend
the perimeters of defense and to ensure that the enemy faces greater resistance and suffers unbearable losses as he nears Nigeria’s coast. Pushing the perimeters south, though, requires expanding the navy in all dimensions— Platforms, maintenance, personnel, and logistical support.
Level Three operations are intended to extend the secu- nty perimeters by creating a wider buffer zone far beyond the EEZ. This will improve control of what Morris calls the national zone. More important, credible Level Three operations will contribute significantly to the security of the South Atlantic.
To guide it to meet the country’s requirements for sea Power, the Nigerian Navy has developed its maritime strategy, called the Trident Strategy. This strategy consists °f the following:
^ Sub-regional sea control in peace and in war in defense °f Nigeria’s maritime interests, especially in light of the country’s new national shipping policy, which, among ether things, requires an appropriate fleet presence to keep ‘he sea lanes open
Effective coastal defense to protect the coastal approaches, territorial waters, and EEZ, all of which have ecome known in maritime literatures as the “coastal zone’’
^ Giving the army adequate sealift and gunfire support in arnphibious operations
. There is nothing in this strategy to suggest that the navy 'gnores the need for joint operations with the other ser- v'ces. The navy’s articulation of its maritime strategy does a°t mean it has overlooked the importance of a compressive military strategy of which naval strategy will be a c°mponent part. The navy simply has taken advantage of .s dominant position in maritime affairs to make an input >nto the national defense policy at a time when that policy ls attracting close scrutiny.
The strategy implies that the navy will cooperate with 1 security agencies to create an effective maritime de- ense. The hallmark of sea power is integrating various c°niponents, such as maritime air, amphibious forces, the "avy. merchant marine, and fishing and scientific research fleets.
Respite the fact that Nigeria has an approximately 420- autical-mile coastline, some analysts argue that Nigerian niilitary strategy ought to be primarily a land strategy, ms argument misses the importance of the potentials of S<2* Power and the opportunity that even one nautical mile eoastline presents to a country. Sea power can influence events on Nigeria’s continental land mass and reach les without facing natural obstacles. The purpose of tVa‘ battles and peacetime presence maneuvers usually is mfluence events on land. Therefore, the strategic focus ° Nigeria which is shifting toward the South Atlantic ecause of potential threats, indicates that the Nigerian ar<tirne strategy is an appropriate, timely, and com- endable method by which to establish a credible mari- lrr>e defense.
The ambition to develop adequate sea power to meet jnf ”eeds also must be backed by sound tactical doctrine. n his book Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice, Captain
|
•:?v
Wayne P. Hughes, U. S. Navy, provides five cornerstones of tactics:
► The quality of men in terms of leadership, morale, training, physical and mental conditioning, willpower, and endurance
► Doctrine, essential for command and control at the high military command and important for battle plans at the fleet level
► Relating tactics to technological developments, assuring that the tactician thoroughly understands his weapon systems as they come on line by stressing constant training and practice at sea
► Accepting the concept that sea power’s seat of purpose is on land—the mastery of the sea can directly or indirectly influence developments ashore
► The need to always seize the initiative by attacking first8
The first cornerstone, high-grade manpower, means sound leadership, excellent training, high morale, professional competence, and ingenuity. This is central to contemporary maritime defense and the development of sea power. Modern technology is important, but machines do not win wars. The men who operate them decide battles. It
was the heroic performance of the well-trained, well- motivated, and well-led 224-man crew of the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58), a frigate that struck a mine in the Persian Gulf in April 1988 and had a 22-foot hole torn into her hull, that saved their lives and their ship, not the ship’s high-tech equipment. As Vice Admiral William H. Row- den, U. S. Navy, observed: “The real heroes in this story were not the structure of the ship, or the equipment, but the people involved . . . .The actions of those people saved the ship . . . .Left to her devices, she likely would have sunk.”9
The Samuel B. Roberts episode also demonstrates the value of good leadership and training in tactical situations. Commanding Officer Paul X. Rinn’s timely ordering of the ship to battle stations, to don helmets, life jackets, protective masks, gloves, and to man fire-fighting and damage control equipment before the mine exploded helped control the situation. It was a demonstration of alert leadership and well-trained men who, before their Gulf assignment, had won the highest award in damage control drills.
To get the best out of men is a challenge to good leadership. “Good leadership produces good people,” said the U. S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Carlisle A. H. Trost.10 Good people also means professionalism to meet the challenges posed by the defense needs of a developing nation with no technological base. The new technology is capable of fully testing the intellectual bearing of men at the helm. This demonstrates that the military is no haven for the mediocre. As former Supreme Allied Commander Admiral Harry D. Train II, U. S. Navy, observed: “The profession of arms is not only a life of dedication, sacrifice, and frustration, it is a life of intellectual challenge.”11
'Lee Dowdy, a research associate at Dalhousie University in Canada, wrote ' 'T hird World Navies—New Responsibilities. Old Problems,” Marine Policy, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 147-148.
2VAdm. Patrick S. Koshoni, The Welcome Address at The Nigerian Navy- Citizens Dialogue, 2 May 1988.
3Lt. Gen. Domkat Y. Bali, “National Defence Policy of Nigeria,” a lecture given at University of Jos, Nigeria, 11 March 1988.
4Ken Booth, Navies and Foreign Policy (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1979)- 5Michael A. Morris, Expansion of Third World Navies (London: MacMillan Press, 1987).
6Ibid.
7Ibid., p. 243.
8Capt. Wayne P. Hughes, Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1986).
9International Herald Tribune, 23-24 April 1988.
l0Adm. Carlisle A. H. Trost, “Leadership Is Flesh & Blood,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, February 1988, pp. 78-81.
“Adm. Harry D. Train, “An Analysis of the Falklands/Malvinas Island Campaign,” Naval War College Review, Winter 1988, p. 27.
Captain Oladimeji is the director of information for the Nigerian Navy. He also has served as public relations officer for the eastern and western naval command headquarters. He is the founding managing editor of The Sailor, the magazine of the Nigerian Navy. He also has initiated and coordinated several publications for the Nigerian Navy.
The Collector’s Choice—
A handsome way to preserve and protect your copies of the Proceedings
Our durable Library Case, custom-designed for the Proceedings, allows you to organize your valuable back issues chronologically while protecting them from dust and wear. While conserving shelf space, this is a handsome addition to the home or office library in blue simulated leather with a gold embossed spine. (Each case includes a gold transfer sheet so you can identify the volume and year.)
Proceedings Library Cases are available in two sizes, to accommodate both the current size and the pre-1970 small size of the journal. The larger size measures 11" x 8-%" x 4" and the smaller 10" x 7" x 4%", with each holding 12 issues. When ordering below, please specify size.
$7.95 each. Satisfaction guaranteed.
To: Jesse Jones Industries, Dept. NI, 499 East Erie Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa. 19134
Please send me------------ U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings Library
Cases. Prices: $7.95 each; 3 for $21.95, 6 for $39.95. My check (or
money order) for $----------- is enclosed. Add $1.00 per case (postage/
handling), $2.50 per case for orders outside USA. U. S. funds only.
[ ] Large size. [ ] Small size.
STATE-...................................................................................................... ZIP—
Toll-free (charge orders only): 800-972-5858, 7 days, 24 hours. Minimum charge order: $I5.00/PA residents add 6% sales tax.