In most future operations, decisive warfare will be joint warfare. For the Navy, this means a shift in emphasis from decisive Mahanian battle at sea to a strategy that focuses on operations and forces—such as a stealthy sea-based fighter—required in the first critical days of a short-notice conflict.
During the celebrations following the end of the Cold War, many cautioned that it was too soon for the United States to relax its guard, that the collapse of the Soviet Union was too good to be true. As time parted the veil of uncertainty, however, it became evident that the Cold War had yielded to a new paradigm oriented toward regional threats and issues. Less than ten years from the beginning of a new century, the armed forces of the United States faced the challenge of reshaping their strategic visions and force structures for a changing security environment. For the Navy, this translates into an opportunity to shake the Mahanian theories of concentrated force and decisive battle and develop a maritime strategy focused on providing critical capabilities in the early stages of a major regional conflict (MRC) to better facilitate future joint operations.1
A New Paradigm
In 1993, the Department of Defense conducted a Bot- tom-Up Review (BUR), which recommended smaller force structures for the service departments and led to a new National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement. Faced with limited means, burgeoning regional commitments, and the results of the BUR, the Navy decided it needed a new blueprint for ways naval forces can contribute to joint operations across the full range of conflict.
In 1992, the Navy published a new strategic vision titled . . From the Sea, which was supplemented by “Forward . . . From the Sea” two years later. These documents envision a shift away from engagements at sea and toward a wide range of operations in the littoral regions. In the post-Cold War era, naval forces will support the National Security Strategy by performing five fundamental roles: “projection of power from sea to land, sea control and maritime supremacy, strategic deterrence, strategic sealift, and forward naval presence.”2 Typical missions are categorized under a continuum of forward operations from peacetime presence to crisis response to regional conflict.
Naval overseas presence and strategic nuclear deterrence are the principal missions in the peacetime presence category; crisis response encompasses limited strikes, noncombatant evacuations, and humanitarian relief operations. Typical naval missions in a regional conflict include antisubmarine warfare, surface warfare, long-range strikes, forced entries, seizing and defending advanced ports and airfields to enable closure of follow-on air and ground forces, and supporting sustained land combat operations, including strategic sealift. A closer look at these three categories provides a better indication of the potential strengths and shortfalls of the Navy’s new “maritime strategy.”
Peacetime Presence. According to the Bottom-Up Review, all three legs of the triad are necessary to sustain nuclear deterrence. The BUR recommended a nuclear force structure consisting of 18 Trident submarines, 500 Minuteman III missiles, up to 94 B-52H bombers, and 20 B-2 bombers.3 A follow-on Nuclear Posture Review reaffirmed the continuing value of the triad and recommended that the Navy reduce its Trident force to 14 boats, each equipped with 24 D-5 sea-launched ballistic missiles, and that the Air Force cut its nuclear-capable B-52H force to 66.4 Although SSBNs are more expensive to operate than bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, DoD strongly supported maintaining a two-ocean SSBN fleet because they are the most survivable and flexible leg of the triad.
The National Security Strategy states that the nation must “maintain robust overseas presence in several forms, such as permanently stationed forces and prepositioned equipment, deployments and combined exercises, port calls and other force visits, as well as military-to-military contacts.”3 In an era of overseas base closures, the nation is increasingly dependent on forces that can operate outside the United States on a sustained basis, especially in regions where the United States lacks a permanent presence. Naval forces are ideally suited for this task.
“Forward . . . From the Sea” indicates that aircraft carrier battle groups and amphibious ready groups with embarked Marine expeditionary units are the basic building blocks for naval overseas presence. These units can respond rapidly to areas of increased tension to perform a wide range of operations or supplement deployed Air Force and Army units. This follows the logic of the BUR, which established overseas presence as the mission that ultimately sizes the carrier force.
The BUR concluded that four or five carriers are sufficient for a single MRC, or a ten carrier fleet for two nearly simultaneous MRCs. To maintain the Navy’s desired operating tempo, an additional active carrier and a deployable reserve carrier were added for overseas presence. As a result, the Navy will maintain a 12-carrier force to provide adequate coverage of the Mediterranean Sea, Western Pacific, and Indian Ocean/Persian Gulf. Additional Army and Air Force units will deploy to the appropriate region when a carrier gap exists. This is a reasonable strategy that seeks to take advantage of the complementary capabilities of air, land, and sea forces.
Crisis Response. Crisis response encompasses missions up to the threshold of war. Naval forces are prepared to provide humanitarian relief, execute noncombatant evacuations, or perform limited strikes such as the Tomahawk attack against Iraq in June 1993. The ability of naval forces to conduct sustained forward operations and avoid political entanglements that may restrict land-based forces significantly increases the options available to a theater commander.
The BUR determined that the capabilities required for these lesser contingencies are contained in a force that is sized and shaped for two nearly simultaneous major regional contingencies, with a few exceptions. As real-world taskings grow increasingly frequent, readiness concerns may require another look at this assumption. Deployments extended for operational concerns or back-to-back contingencies can affect morale, reduce training opportunities, and shorten the expected service lives of major weapon systems. If this trend continues, crisis-response mission requirements may have an increased impact on the size and shape of the Navy’s force structure.
Regional Conflicts. Desert Storm gave the Navy the opportunity to prove the relevance of naval forces in modern limited conventional conflicts. Fortunately, the force8 designed to counter a blue-water Soviet threat were adequate for the challenges of the Red Sea and Persian Gull littorals, with a few notable exceptions.6 The Navy built on this experience as it formulated its new strategic vision. According to “Forward . . . From the Sea,” naval forces can “serve as the transition force as land-based forces are brought forward into theater” and “contribute to sustained land combat operations.” Dominance of the littoral battlespace will allow naval forces to “bring decisive power on and below the sea, on land, and in the air.”
Carrier battle groups and amphibious ready groups again are the basic forces for a wide array of missions during regional conflicts. As mentioned earlier, the Bottom-Up Review determined that four or five carrier air wings were adequate for a single MRC. This determination was not based on rigorous analysis, however, but was simply assumed to be about right.7 There are few recent analyses that attempt to determine carrier force requirements for a typical MRC. In 1994, the Air Force conducted a two-MRC campaign analysis that included an evaluation of the relative contribution of carrier air wings for notional conflicts involving Iraq and North Korea. In essence, the study concludes that the value of carrier air is greatest in the first days of a conflict, before land-based forces could deploy in substantial quantities. After assuming that land-based forces are able to deploy into the theater, the Air Force study implies that carrier-based aircraft have little relative impact on sustained operations.
These results are consistent with an earlier study by the Center for Naval Analyses that concluded that “the unique contributions of carriers will occur primarily in peacetime presence and responding to day-to-day crises” and in “the early days of a fast-breaking regional war.”8
The Navy’s vision of its role in limited conventional wars has evolved, but its concept of providing sustained support for land-based forces remains more or less the same as it was during the Vietnam War and Desert Storm. Its carriers will continue to carry a modified version of the Cold War-era air wing well into the next century, and extreme skeptics may see the Navy’s reliance on offensive carrier operations as simply another manifestation of its traditional fixation on capital ships.
Carrier battle groups have a critical role to play in major regional conflicts. Instead of focusing on sustained offensive operations in support of a land campaign, however, a maritime strategy that emphasizes the unique capabilities of naval forces during the “early days of a fast-breaking regional war” may be more appropriate for the post-Cold War era.
A Maritime Strategy for the 21st Century
The current National Military Strategy notes that the services must remain prepared to engage in conventional conflicts to defeat a regional aggressor. The next war probably will not be a repeat of Desert Storm, but a conflict in Southwest Asia or along the Pacific rim is quite possible. Considering the current absence of a credible naval threat, direct operations against an opposing navy will be limited. Joint force commanders will require naval forces to establish exclusion zones, execute blockades, and ensure sea lines of communication are kept open; there Mil be little opportunity for a Mahanian battle. Instead of building a force primarily suited to defeat direct challenges to U.S. maritime superiority, the Navy should focus on building forces that can respond to short-notice conflicts rapidly and perform a wide array of critical missions.
The worst-case scenario for a major regional conflict is one in which the United States must deploy with little or no warning to deter or defeat an aggressor without the benefit of an established in-theater force. What the Navy brings to the fight in the first days of a short-notice conflict is arguably more important than its ability to support joint land-based forces in an extended campaign, assuming that land-based forces are able to deploy.9 In addition to establishing maritime superiority, securing sea lines of communication, seizing and defending critical ports and airfields, and providing strategic sealift, naval forces are likely to assume a role in theater air and missile defense, striking time-critical targets, suppressing enemy air defenses, and gaining battlespace awareness.
Theater air and missile defense will remain a major concern for theater commanders, especially in the first days of a crisis. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction increases the need for a comprehensive defense capability, and land-based air defenses require time to deploy their considerable infrastructure—time that an enemy may not grant. There will be a great demand for self-deploying air defense forces that can operate relatively free from shore facilities. This is a mission tailor-made for naval forces.
The Navy is moving to expand its Aegis-equipped fleet of cruisers and destroyers for air defense operations, and development also continues on an upper-tier system that will help defend friendly forces at sea and ashore. Nevertheless, these “catcher’s mitt” defensive systems may not provide the degree of assurance a commander-in-chief will require before placing land-based forces within range of missiles carrying nuclear, biological, or chemical warheads. The Navy also should consider developing a sea- based capability to destroy theater ballistic missiles before launch and during the ascent phase. This would provide joint forces with a more comprehensive shield from air attacks, as well as help deter an enemy from resorting to weapons of mass destruction in the first place.
Sea-based strikes on high-value, time-critical targets in a non-permissive environment will require the use of standoff weapons and stealthy aircraft. The Navy’s Tomahawk cruise missiles, the air-delivered joint standoff weapon and standoff land-attack missile (expanded response), the joint direct-attack munition, and the multiple-kill-per-pass anti-armor sensor fused weapon all will help to slow an advancing armored force and provide much-needed support for allied forces prior to the arrival of U.S. land-based air and ground units. What the Navy lacks, however, is a stealthy aircraft capable of penetrating under-graded air defenses. This limits its abilities to take the fight to the enemy and strike the most heavily defended targets with precision early in a conflict.
The F/A-18E/F, soon to join the Navy’s active inventory, has the advantage of additional weapon stations, increased range, and a lower radar cross section, but it is not a next-generation stealthy aircraft on the order of the Air Force’s F-22 or F-117. A recent theater air campaign analysis determined that the F-22 has the potential to cut friendly aircraft losses by 20%, ground troop casualties by 28%, and armor losses by 20%. In the same scenario. F/A-18E/F losses were almost 35 times greater, and air-to-air kills decreased by 18%."10 The $86 billion the Navy is spending to acquire 1,000 F/A-18E/Fs may be a prudent short-term investment, but a sea-based, first-day survivable, stand-alone fighter would expand the options available to a joint force commander.
Lack of an organic air refueling capability also limits the flexibility and range of carrier-based aircraft. Shore-based air refueling aircraft may not be available early in a conflict. Without air refueling, fighter payloads and combat ranges are less than what may be required to attack critical targets deep within an enemy’s homeland. The multi-mission S-3 and F/A-18E/F are capable of providing some tactical air refueling, but they do not approach the capability of a dedicated sea-based refueling platform.
Additional means of delivering munitions directly to shore without an intermediate platform also would increase the options available to a joint force commander early in a crisis. Providing an ATACMS-like capability from the sea also may be a more effective means of destroying high- value targets than carrier aircraft. For example, a partially submersible platform that carries large numbers of standoff cruise missiles or tactical missiles could be used either to strike numerous strategic targets rapidly or to take down an air defense net, allowing attack aircraft to penetrate on follow-up strikes. If such a platform were designed with a relatively low radar cross section, it might be able to operate in littoral regions denied to conventional carriers by shore-based threats.
Suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) will be at a premium during the early days of a conflict. Sea-based F/A-18s can carry the high-speed anti-radiation missile; the Navy’s EA-6B can provide standoff jamming for joint air forces. Providing these capabilities from the sea early in a conflict will leverage the effectiveness of Air Force bomber strikes and non-stealthy fighters. The EA-6B airframe is aging, however, and will begin to exit the inventory around 2015.11 A follow-on sea-based SEAD aircraft or electronic countermeasure pods for conventional fighters may be a wise investment for the Navy.
Forces capable of assisting the joint force commander in gaining a better awareness of the battlespace also will be in high demand early in a conflict. Sea-based reconnaissance platforms can help determine the status of friendly and enemy forces, provide targeting information, and perform bomb damage assessment until land-based forces arrive in theater. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are an extremely promising technology. The Navy made limited use of sea-based UAVs during fire-support operations in the Gulf War. Future platforms that can penetrate and loiter in the areas of highest threat would be an invaluable Weans of dispelling the fog of war in future conflicts.
It is unlikely that a single service will provide all forces required for future operations. With few exceptions, decisive warfare will be joint warfare. Each service will bring unique and complementary capabilities to the battle; the key to success will be “how you put it all together.”12 To leverage better what naval forces bring to the fight, the Navy may need to consider a strategy that emphasizes operations and forces required in the first critical days of an MRC.
1Alfred Thayer Mahan believed that a great nation needed a powerful navy centered on large capital ships. This fleet should be concentrated at all limes so it could sail at the first sign of trouble to find the enemy’s fleet, then engage and defeat it in a decisive, war-ending battle.
2 Forward. . . From The Sea (Washington: Department of the Navy, 1994), 10.
3 Les Aspin, Secretary of Defense, Report on the Bottom-Up Review (Washington: Department of Defense, October 1993), 26.
4 Ibid, 87.
5 National Security Strategy of Enlargement and Engagement (Washington: The White House, February 1995), 9.
6 For example, the Navy lacked an effective mine countermeasures capability, experienced delays in receiving the daily air tasking order because of incompatible data transmission equipment, and lacked adequate quantities of precision munitions.
7 Conversations with action officers responsible for building BUR force options confirmed that the Joint Staff performed little formal analysis of the relative contributions of carrier-based air in a sustained theater campaign.
8 David A. Perm, Aircraft Carriers: Why Do We Have Them? How many Do We Need? (Alexandria, VA: Center for Naval Analyses, October 1993).
9 The notion that the Navy needs an autonomous capability to pursue extended operations in an MRC because of the potential inability of land-based forces to deploy in-theater has little credibility. The United States has never engaged in a major conflict without access to land bases, nor is it likely to do so in the future. If we cannot obtain adequate basing rights, chances are we will choose not to commit to the fight.
10 The Air Force Studies and Analysis Agency conducted the analysis early in 1995. The scenario was based on a major conflict in Southwest Asia in 2010 and used the same force assumptions as the Defense Planning Guidance.
11 Perin, 208. Thirteen Air Force EC-130 Compass Call aircraft also provide a standoff jamming capability.
12 "Each service brings something unique to the battlefield; what counts is how you put it all together." Adm. Jeremy Boorda, USN, in Navy/Air Force staff talks held at the U.S. Naval Academy, 10 April 1995.
Mr. McDaniel is a flight-test engineer with the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's High Altitude Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Office.