Sea Control and Regional Warfare

Beginning in the late 19th century and extending to the early 1990s, the U.S. Navy consistently faced an identifiable adversary that could challenge it di­rectly for mastery of the seas. Whether it was the Royal Navy, the Imperial German Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy, or the Soviet Navy, these prospective blue-water °Pponents provided the rationale for U.S. force structure ^and guided the development of U.S. strategic and tacti­cal doctrines. Now, for the first time in almost a century, the U.S. Navy has no obvious maritime opponent. Nor do ^anY of the potential challengers to U.S. vital interests have the economic wherewithal or political motivation to build ^a fleet that could challenge U.S. sea supremacy.

In response, U.S. naval thinking has shifted to a doc­trine of littoral warfare, which emphasizes strike and am­phibious operations. This doctrine implies that in the fu­ture, the U.S. Navy will face green-water, coastal-defense navies that will be incapable of threatening U.S. command °f the seas far from their coasts. While the overall doctri­nal shift is justified, it is dangerous to assume that the U.S. Navy will have uncontested control of the sea.

The lessons of the Persian Gulf War and the halklands Conflict have not been lost on the ^vvorld’s smaller navies. The Persian Gulf War clearly demonstrated that a coastal-defense navy— huilt around missile-armed small surface ships and aircraft—is incapable of denying the use of the sea ^to a powerful blue-water navy.¹ The Falklands Con­flict carries additional lessons for regional powers ^Seeking to build a more traditional blue-water navy,

centered around large surface combatants. Believing that its surface fleet could not survive a toe-to-toe fight with the Royal Navy, Argentina did not send it into action.

Nevertheless, these countries still have a viable naval option. There is an ancient strategy that has been selected often by weak maritime powers who face stronger naval powers: the guerre de course, or “commerce war.”

The Guerre de Course

The guerre de course has long been employed by an inferior sea power in order to harass and cripple an enemy’s seaborne commerce and, by doing so, disperse its navy. Such dispersal would delay or blunt the appli­cation of decisive naval power. Sea power theorists such as Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan disparaged the guerre de course, preferring a strategy that centered on the clash of battle fleets. Their comments not withstanding, there were two reasons why the guerre de course strategy flour­ished in the 20th century. First, the seaborne transport of the enormous amounts of resources that modern indus­trial economies require are vulnerable to interdiction. Sec­ond, the development of the submarine gave navies a plat­form capable of independent operations and stealthy enough to survive clashes with superior forces.

In early 1943, imports to Great Britain fell to such                    be

low levels that the British asked that U.S. military ship'           E'

ping be placed at their disposal. U.S. planners calculated of that the diversion of ships would cut the number of troops p₍

How efficient was the U-boat campaign? I estimated the direct costs of production of the German U-boat fleet ₍

Today, the guerre de course strategy could be used against either the trade necessary to sustain a nation’s economy or the vast logistics train that sustains expedi­tionary forces far from home. It is predicated on the as­sumption that a regional power has the land and air power necessary to achieve its objectives against neighboring op­ponents, and that its navy exists only to delay outside in­tervention—or make it too costly.

Even the most sophisticated navies have difficulties in conducting effective antisubmarine warfare against nu­clear and modem diesel submarines. Therefore, a modem, well-trained submarine force—even of modest size—can pose a significant threat to U.S. naval forces and under­mine the littoral-warfare strategy embodied in “. . . From the Sea.” For example, imagine that Iraq had overrun Saudi Arabia as well as Kuwait in August 1990. If it possessed 20-30 modern diesel submarines and if these submarines had attacked the Coalition naval forces, their logistics train, and the Persian Gulfs tanker traffic, the military and po­litical costs of recapturing the Arabian Peninsula might have become prohibitive.

We Sail Against England

There is a historical example of the effectiveness that this form of naval warfare can have for a small navy fight­ing a larger maritime power: the Battle of the Atlantic.

Histories of this campaign have focused largely on its operational and technical aspects, with little investigation into the logistical and economic repercussions that the mar­itime powers suffered. The German U-boat campaign was effective because it placed strong logistical constraints on deliverable Allied combat power—even after merchant- ship production outpaced losses—and tied up substantial portions of the Allied navies in escort duty.

Prior to the war, the German Navy had planned to build a large balanced fleet that would have been completed in the late 1940s, following the famous Z Plan. However, when the war broke out in 1939 (much earlier than ex­pected), the Germany Navy was incapable of fleet actions against the Royal Navy and the French Navy. There­fore, almost from the beginning of the war, its submarines—the Ubootewaffe—bore the brunt of the fighting.

At first, Germany was hopeful that the U-boat offen­sive would knock Great Britain out of the war; later, the strategic aim was to stem the Anglo-American buildup in order to gain sufficient time to defeat the Soviet Union.² Even after May 1943, when it became clear that the U-boat had been defeated, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz— who had commanded the U-boat force and had been elevated to commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine—ra­tionalized the continued submarine offensive as a way to tie up a disproportionate level of Allied resources in “unproductive” antisubmarine warfare.’

In many respects, the U-boat offensive seriously hand­icapped the Allied effort to project combat power into Eu­rope. First, inadequate sealift caused the cancellation of the original 1942 plans to create a 17 million-man strong U.S. Army.⁴ The inability to achieve this strength made

the Allies strategically reliant on the Soviet Union.                     Foi

The U-boat menace contributed to the shipping limita- du; tions that constrained the Allies’ offensive efforts until mid' _Wo 1944. The official British World War II history notes that:                    ]

Shipping was much more directly and closely connected tw< with strategic operations than the work of the othet to Combined Boards. ... At most conferences of the heads f_er of Governments, the shipping experts of both countries del met to consider the shipping aspects of any plan undet _C0] consideration. . . such as existing tonnage, rates of pro- p_n duction, rate of sinkings. Thus at Casablanca in Janu- itii ary 1943 shipping—including landing craft and escort vessels—played a major part in the choice between 77, a series of operations—in France, Sicily, Burma, the Pacific.⁵

Indeed, the critical lack-of-shipping situation was cen- he tral to the British demand that the cross-channel invasion at planned for 1943 be canceled; instead, Sicily and, even- U, tually, the Italian mainland were invaded.          op

who could be shipped to the European theater to an in- di tolerably low degree—i.e., from 1.5 million to 800,000 i® p( 1943.⁶ Since many of these men were destined for the h; Mediterranean offensives, it followed that the flow of U.S. p₍ troops to Great Britain for Operation Overlord would be ai significantly curtailed. Only the defeat of the U-boat i® ir May 1943 eased the crisis and allowed the Allies to meet their manpower and logistical requirements.⁷               tl

A lack of landing craft plagued Allied planners until a the summer of 1944. This shortfall—which stemmed fror® si a sharp reduction in production of landing craft in early tl 1943 to build more ASW escorts—was the major barrier _w

to the execution of planned Allied amphibious offensives b in the European theater.⁸ For example, the limited num­ber of landing craft and low availability of sealift pre- 7 vented the Allies from outflanking the Germans on the - Italian peninsula.⁹ Thus, what could have been an out­standing example of strategic maneuver from the sea turned p into a slugging match. Furthermore, the lack of landing a craft also delayed the invasion of southern France—Op-      c

eration Anvil-Dragoon—until well after Operation Over- t lord, thereby forfeiting the raison d’etre of the opera- f tion: to draw off German troops from Normandy.¹⁰                                                    5

I

The Efficiency of the U-Boats                                                         1

and compared that figure with the cost of producing Al­lied ASW forces and the cargo ships lost to U-boats. These estimates were extremely conservative because some AS^ forces were not included and the substantial disparity in the costs to operate and maintain ASW aircraft and ships vis­a-vis the U-boats was not included. By these calculations, in order to win the Battle of the Atlantic, the Allies had to outspend the Germans by more than 15:1." The actual dis­parity in resources used was probably substantially greater-

Conclusion

It is fallacious to assume that the world’s stronger re­gional powers will attempt to fight the U.S. Navy either on our own terms—i.e., with a fleet of large suiface ships—or with small coastal-defense forces. Strong re­gional powers will acquire submarine forces and develop doctrine to employ them against sea lines of communi­cation, as well as against naval forces.

As the doctrine of littoral warfare and the base force to execute it—is developed, an adequate sea-control ca­pability must be maintained. Above all, the U.S. Navy should not repeat the mistakes of the Royal Navy in the interwar years. The invention of sonar—or, as the British called it, Asdic—led many in the Royal Navy to believe that the submarine was no longer a threat. The wolfpack tactics and the night surface attacks of Donitz’s U-boats rudely snapped them out of their false sense of security. The Allies eventually relearned the hard-won lessons of World War I and even learned some new ones, but not be­fore Germany nearly had severed Great Britain’s lifelines.

Sufficient numbers of the platforms that are essential to combating the submarine—the frigates and patrol air­craft that would serve as convoy escorts and the attack submarines that are the best hope for effective ASW— must be retained to defend against the threat that could be posed by a strong regional power with a blue-water sub­marine force. The U.S. Navy must not lose the ASW ex­perience so expensively gained. We must continue to improve ASW tactical doctrine—including shallow-water and antidiesel operations—and to train intensively and ex­ercise often. If the lessons of history teach us anything, it is that we don’t need to face a first-class fleet to find ourselves in a first-class fight._____

'Sanjay Singh, "Indian Ocean Navies—Learn From War," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, March 1992, pp. 51-54.

W. E. Tarrant, The U-Boat Offensive, 1914-1945, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Insti­tute Press, 1989), 106-107, 127.

>Karl Donitz, Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days, (Annapolis, MD: Naval In­stitute Press, 1990), p. 344.              .                       .                       _

‘Duncan Hall, The History of the 2nd World War: North American Supply, (Lon­don: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1955), pp. 397—398.

‘Richard ^Leighton, Command Decisions: U.S. Merchant Shipping and the British Import Crisis, (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1990), pp. 209, 214.

⁷Ibid. pp. 222-223.

^sHall, p. 401. In July 1943, landing craft production totaled 51,000 tons—far short of the planned 105,000 tons.

‘'Allied sealift could move only four divisions to Salerno and three divisions to Anzio In both cases, these forces were of insufficient size to accomplish their assigned tasks and no timely breakout occurred. John Schettler, “Anzio,” Strategy and Tactics (November 1992), p. 6. and "Salerno Invasion” Strategy and Tactics (March 1992), pp. 10-11.

^l0E. B. Potter (ed.), Sea Power (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981), p. 283

"Costs of the Allied order of battle could be calculated or estimated based on var­ious archival records and histories. All Allied merchant-ship construction costs were assumed to be the same as for the very efficient U.S. shipyards. Very con­servative figures were used for U-boat construction—e.g., for a Type VII, I used a figure of $1.5 million, based on U.S. costs.

A 1983 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Commander Poirier has served in the USS Parche (SSN-683) and at Naval Sea Systems Com­mand. An Olmsted Scholarship winner, he studied in Aix-en-Provence, France from 1990-92. Commander Poirier has completed the Subma­rine Officers Advanced Course and is now the engineer of the USS Whale (SSN-638).

For example, at its peak the U.S. merchant shipbuilding in­dustry employed 640,000 workers; the highest number o workers in the German submarine industry was 45,OOU.

In short, the German guerre de course forced the wor s two greatest maritime powers to divert extensive resources to their navies and to deploy most of their wais ips e fensively in order to maintain control of the sea. t a so delayed and reduced the application of Anglo- merican combat power on the continent. Therefore, it was the ap­propriate strategy for a continental power facing great mar 'time opponents.

The Guerre de Course as a Regional Strategy_________

Many of the lessons of the Battle of the Atlantic would hold true in a regional context. For example, submarine attacks against the long logistics lifeline to ep U.S. forces would tie up extensive naval forces in asvv operations and, therefore, reduce significantly t e num hers of ships and planes available to project power as or Even if it were only moderately successful, a su mari offensive would degrade sharply the U.S. ability to tDins Port and resupply large numbers of troops ashore, n a dition, if the regional power were reasonably close to - Portant trade routes—e.g., the Strait of Malacca ^{lt c}°u harass and cut off vital commerce, putting ^econo™£ Political pressure for war termination on the United Mate and its allies. Finally, as in World War II, submarines could inflict substantial losses to U.S. and allied navalfarces.

The current low states of the U.S. merchant marine and the U.S. shipbuilding industry means that the United.States must rely heavily on the ability to charter foreign- g sels. If ships cannot be protected from submarine attac , their owners may not hazard them in U. . service. ^ Would further degrade our logistical ability to suppo hat-power projection.

The Only Option?                  _____________________

The most compelling reason for most navies to ch ¹ this strategy is the absence of other maritime op 1    •

a regional power that might face a large ue one day, only a submarine force gives adequa e . ^{s c} that—in seas nominally controlled by superio forces—its navy can survive and effective y ships that enable its enemy to project and sus a Power ashore. The United States must anticip ’ fore, that regional powers that oppose Western interests will acquire capable submarine forces.

The ability to acquire a blue-water submarine force and employ it competently is not shared by a ev p_ ^

lions. A regional maritime power must hav prowess and economic wherewithal neede submarine force as well as the capability to defend its sub­marine bases from attack. Today, there are two rcg Which there are a significant number of countries tha meet these criteria; the Middle East and the Far East. Further more, in these two areas, there are large regional pow­ers—opponents or potential opponents to U.S. inter­ests—who sit astride major arteries of world trade.