A call to "build awareness from the blue water to the green water to the brown water" and for the Navy to heed the "three r's"—reorganize, recognize, and redistribute—highlighted the U.S. Naval Institute's 2006 Applied Naval History Conference.
"Riverine Warfare: Back to the Future?" was presented at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in April, and more than 300 people—military personnel, civilians, and academics—attended. The Naval Institute held the event in cooperation with the U.S. Naval Academy History Department, Naval War College, Naval Historical Center, Naval Historical Foundation, Marine Corps History and Museums Division, Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, Naval Order of the United States, and the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) Corporation Center for Strategic Studies.
The conference's subject matter was highly relevant to the sea services, especially in light of the pronouncements of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, released in February, which stated in part: "Provide a Navy riverine capability for river patrol, interdiction and tactical troop movement on inland waterways."
Rear Admiral Donald K. Bullard of Naval Expeditionary Combat Command gave conference-goers substantial food for thought regarding all things riverine. In a presentation delineating the Navy's expanding riverine mission, Admiral Bullard also stressed the importance of understanding the riverine mission in a larger context.
The goal of naval thinking today, said Admiral Bullard, should be to "build awareness from the blue water to the green water to the brown water, in an integrated battle space." The maritime environment is a more complex matrix now. "You have to put riverine into this bigger picture," he said. "It's not alone."
Riverine is one category among others on the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command's functions-and-capabilities checklist. Even as its own operational subset, the riverine role is an expanding one; the goal ultimately is to bring area control, counter-piracy, interdiction, insert/extract, fire support coordination, and identify/locate/destroy missions firmly and officially into the riverine sphere.
The Global War on Terrorism is the Navy's cue to rethink itself, suggested Admiral Bullard, and he pointed out "the three r's" as providing the rethink-methodology. First, reorganize accordingly. Second, recognize "where the gaps are . . . where we need to expand into new capabilities" to be an ever more viable fighting force in the war on terror. Finally, redistribute "the current force structure in the Navy" to add fluidity to the Navy's ability to fight this new kind of war in a new century.
The current direction the Navy wants to head with its riverine-capability upgrade was detailed by Captain Michael L. Jordan, commodore of the newly-established, Norfolk-based, Riverine Group One. Some 200 of its sailors are set to undergo the seven-week infantry-training course at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Deployment to Iraq is forthcoming, with Riverine Group One slated to bring additional muscle to the Marine presence already there.
The Marines' Iraq riverine experience, meanwhile, was described by Major Daniel J. Wittnam, Assistant Operations Officer of Tactical Training and Exercise Control Group at Twentynine Palms, California; Major Wittnam was until recently a small-craft company commander in Iraq. His Marines had six months to prepare for combat. First was a crash course in everything to do with the boat, plus that ultimate cross-training so essential to small-boat culture: everyone trained in every job on the boat. Unit cohesion began taking shape among the river-bound Marines, and then, after inheriting a storied lineage from Vietnam-Call Sign Game Warden-pride was truly born.
Major Wittnam described the basic Euphrates River missions: defense of critical infrastructure, convoy, launch-and-recovery, and interdiction operations, as well as direct fire support for forces on the ground. Exemplifying jointness, the new boys of Game Warden worked with everybody: Marine and Army battalions, Navy Special Forces, and Iraqi Special Forces. The fighting often got hot, with blistering RPG fire and IEDs going off. but "we never lost a boat," noted Major Wittnam. Good, solid operating principles, "all the basics from Vietnam." were a key to success, the major said.
The Marine Corps Way
It's all about the preperation. stressed Major Roberto Martinez of the Marine Corps riverine training detachment currently working with the Coast Guard. "Train the way you fight." said Major Martinez, "with the same equipment, the same mentality, and the same type of intensity you're going to have there in combat. . . . In order to have a successful mission you have to have a successful training pipeline." And, quoting his gunnery sergeant, he gave voice to some timeless Marine Corps wisdom: "It is better to feel pain in training than to bleed in combat."
A big reason Marines have been able to hit the rivers at full speed in the Iraqi theater is that they have a body of relevant experience from their 16 years of effort in South America supporting the fight against the drug trade and the militant forces in Colombia. The rough river country of that nation is home to the third largest military operation in the world, and the Marines have been instrumental in providing support and training to the Colombian Marine Corps.
From this tough neighborhood come many valuable lessons learned, as spelled out by Marine Major Ivan Monclova, deputy naval mission chief, Bogota, Colombia, and Marine Corps representative to the Colombian Marines. One of these lessons echoes across the globe: "Stabilize a country so we don't have to go ourselves."
And for riverine operations to really work, in Colombia or anywhere else. "You have to get off the boat," he said. Civilian assistance-providing medical aid, delivering essential supplies, and other goodwill initiatives-has to be perceived as a crucial part of the mission. Not only are you doing a good deed, observed Major Monclova. but "you're taking those villages away as bases of operations" for the bad guys.
The major concluded with a grim truism, backed by a vivid slide photograph that brought warfare's reality back front-and-center: "Enemy sniper fire is death on wheels. If you're not moving fast, you're definitely a target."
Throughout the two-day conference, historical examples of riverine warfare were presented as precursors or parallels to today's missions. From the Civil War to the British-Turkish fight for Mesopotamia in 1914-1918 to the Vietnam War, history's panoply provided many case studies. As Dr. Edward J. Marolda. senior historian at the Naval Historical Center, pointed out, "Riverine warfare did not come naturally to the Navy after World War II." which had imbued America's sea strategists with the concept of big, blue-water battles. Riverine warfare "was peripheral to the main interest of the Navy's officer corps."
And just as there was resistance to a riverine commitment post-World War II. a similar blue-water prejudice exists in today's Navy, indicated retired Admiral Robert J. Natter. Admiral Natter, former commander in chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and first commander, Fleet Forces Command, was a keynote speaker at the conference.
Where others may resist pointing the Navy back to a riverine direction, where some see such a mission as ancillary at best, Admiral Natter sees multiple opportunities, foremost among them, perhaps, the opportunity to remain vital in the Global War on Terrorism. The struggle against al Qaeda's minions is certainly not primarily a bluewater struggle—it's a clarion call for a return to the riverine theater. "If we're going to be relevant today, we've got to take the fight to the enemy."
A positive side-effect of wartime is the opportunity for techonological advancement, remarked Admiral Natter, suggesting that the Navy should be developing technologies for the mission in Iraq and elsewhere in the war against terrorism-technologies that can then be used for future missions. From aerial persistent-surveillance capabilities to unmanned surface craft, "Is there opportunity here? I think so," said Natter.
The admiral closed strongly and to great applause when he declared. "There may be some in the Navy who say this mission [the riverine mission] is not a mission for us. . . . My response is get over it, get out of the way, and get relevant. And get fighting—your country needs you."
Mr. Mills is a book acquisitions editor at the Naval Institute Press and a freelance writer.