The U.S. Navy needs a new force structure for the new century's challenges. This force should include ships that are inexpensive enough to be plentiful, and robust enough to operate for prolonged periods in inhospitable environments far from the mainstream of U.S. Navy support. Our commanders must be able to commit these ships without reluctance to dangerous waters among the dhows, junks, and oil platforms in shallow seas. In short, we need a small warship that can self-deploy to (and stay in!) areas like the Horn of Africa, South East Asia, and the Gulf of Guinea.
A corvette-sized ship is ideal. Small enough to operate with local navies yet large enough to operate out of desolate ports for months at a time, the typical ocean-going corvette trades speed and firepower for maximum endurance and reliability. As one example among many, the British River-class offshore patrol vessel provides a striking illustration: it displaces 1,800 tons and has a crew of 38 and an endurance of 7,800 miles. It is equipped with a large reconfigurable cargo deck and facilities for embarking a helicopter.1 Best of all, the ship costs just $50 million. For the price of one DDG, we could have 20 River-class corvettes patrolling the world's oceans.
Major multi-mission warships will continue to contribute to stability. But even the littoral combat ship (LCS) is far too expensive to be produced in sufficient numbers, nor is it likely to be low-tech enough to operate unsupported for months at a time out of primitive ports. On the other hand, the corvette is a cheap, seaworthy vessel that can be built in large numbers.
A Look Back for Inspiration
We need a new force structure and new doctrine because the U.S. Navy finds itself sailing in unfamiliar waters. The Mahanian world we inhabited for more than 100 years has all but disappeared, due to America's undisputed control of the seas. Massive global interconnectedness and diffuse new threats signal a fundamental change in the strategic role of maritime power. In the late 19th century the U.S. Navy successfully navigated a seismic shift in outlook and structure when the blue-water Fleet emerged; today, the next few years offer an opportunity to redefine that Navy as the national instrument of choice.
In seizing this opportunity, we should keep in mind the parallels between our situation and that of the 19th century Royal Navy, which kept the long peace of Pax Britannica. In 1850, the British Navy looked completely unlike the force that had defeated France only 35 years earlier. The Napoleonic-era fleet of battleships concentrated in European waters gave way to a fleet of dispersed cruisers patrolling global sea lanes. No longer facing a credible challenge to its maritime supremacy, Britain refashioned its navy into a force optimized for securing global commerce, suppressing the slave trade, fighting piracy, and acting as the on-call instrument of British policy.
Working closely with other branches of government, the Royal Navy policed the world as what Lord Palmerton called the "watchful eye and long arm of England."2 It not only ensured British supremacy, but also provided the "common good" stability that allowed the entire West to prosper—including the young United States.
Pax Americana with a Three-Tiered Navy
Today the U.S. Navy finds itself in a position similar to that of the 1815 Royal Navy. No legitimate competitor challenges us for control of the seas, yet in many ways the world is a far more dangerous place than it was when the Berlin Wall fell. Terrorism, weapons proliferation, and chaos in ungoverned regions threaten the world on a scale unimaginable ten years ago. Local problems ripple through the tightly interconnected world economy, and a large-scale terrorist attack has the potential to wreck the prosperity of all. At no other time in history has security been so dependent on events on the far side of the world.
We must develop a Navy capable of operating at multiple levels of conflict, ranging from full scale war with a rising maritime threat to stability operations with local forces far inland. In the middle ground, we must always maintain a global presence. This means a three-tiered Navy, both in force structure and in operational outlook.
At the high end, the Navy must continue to dominate the seaways. The essential tasks of our deep-water Navy are enduring: seize and maintain control of the seas, provide safe passage to land forces, and project striking power ashore. Add to these traditional tasks the new missions of ballistic-missile defense and defeating the burgeoning global anti-access challenge for which the LCS is so desperately needed. This is the heart of the Navy we now have. It is a force larger than the next 17 navies in the world combined. However, the realities of modern multi-mission warship construction mean we cannot afford ships in sufficient numbers to meet all of our needs.
At the low end of the spectrum, expeditionary-type forces such as the SeaBees and riverine squadrons are being folded into an integrated whole that promise a leap in capability. It is in the realm of maritime stability operations—presence, influence, and peace enforcement—that the United States lacks the necessary force structure, and, until recently, the right strategy. This missing force in the middle ground is needed to keep the global Pax Americana working. The corvette, coupled with a doctrine of persistent and dispersed forward operations, provides the solution.
The Real World
Much of the Navy's work for the next half-century will involve crisis response, humanitarian relief, long-term stability work with local military forces, policing the trade routes of the world, and countering nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Even the most cursory look at actual U.S. Navy operations since World War II reveals that the vast majority fall firmly into the gunboat diplomacy category, far down at the low-intensity end of the conflict spectrum.3
Despite the routine employment of naval units in operations other than full combat, the Navy has not developed a force structure and doctrinal outlook optimized for these missions: U.S. warship design and maritime strategy has always assumed that a Navy built for sea control and power projection can easily meet "lesser-included" missions such as sanctions enforcement and humanitarian response. But it is becoming increasingly obvious that this approach no longer applies to a world that requires widely distributed and specialized forces to exert American influence.
The image of a 10,000-ton, billion-dollar cruiser being used to defend Iraqi oil platforms in painfully shallow and congested waters points to the limits of what can be done to reconfigure our existing Navy. The CNO's new maritime strategy acknowledges that preventing wars is as important as winning wars, and that new challenges face our traditional naval force structure beyond sea control and power projection: irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive threats emanating from terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and disruption of the sea-borne economic lifelines that gird the globe.4
To counter these threats, naval forces must operate in and around what Thomas Barnett calls the "non integrating gaps" in the world politico-economic structure.5 While traditional warships and the LCS can contribute much to stability and counter-proliferation operations, a more continuous and intimate presence is required than what can be achieved with a Navy composed solely of these capable—and expensive—assets.
The "unipolar moment" following the collapse of the Soviet Union is fast disappearing. American relative power is clearly in decline, compared with that of emerging states such as China and India. Couple this trend with the probable resistance of the American public to combat overseas after the experience in Iraq, and the need for the Navy to be "out and about" becomes obvious. A U.S. Navy presence lessens the temptation of minor powers to align themselves with rising competitors, while offering U.S. policy makers precisely scalable military power. But this presence must be persistent and widely distributed.
A Strategy for the Middle Ground
As ex-CNO Admiral Mike Mullen put it, "virtual presence is actual absence."6 Our modern warships are marvels of multi-mission capability, but because they cost so much, they are available in only limited numbers. In the middle ground of security operations, our ever-shrinking pool of multi-billion-dollar warships cannot begin to fill our needs.
Small, inexpensive warships such as corvettes, operating for prolonged periods over widely distributed areas, can provide the needed visible presence, sensor coverage, and intelligence-gathering capabilities. They will make a far stronger impact than our transitory force now does in most parts of the world. Operating out of local ports, mid-level forces can concentrate on crisis response, stability enhancement, and counter-proliferation missions. Aside from projecting a U.S. presence around the world and protecting the sea lanes, specific tasks include
• Work with partner nations to enhance regional maritime security. For many nations, especially those at risk of falling into chaos, occasional visits from large, high-tech ships are only minimally useful. Small ships that can partner with local forces on a consistent basis are required for this critical mission.
• Fight the proliferation of nuclear arms, terrorism, and illicit trafficking (of arms, drugs, and humans), while denying the use of the global high-seas commons, through visible patrol and direct action.
• Enhance the capabilities of major combat forces. Provide coverage in the rest of the world when major Fleet units are forced to concentrate in crisis areas, and serve as a patrol and minor escort, and as a blockade force.
• Project "awareness" around the world. Through a U.S. presence and inter-operation with local forces, small unit naval forces can develop an intimate knowledge of the local operating environment. This will help to prevent strategic surprise and enhance U.S. ability to deal with crisis situations.
A U.S. Navy global presence demonstrates our commitment to a Pax Americana. It is the strategic equivalent to "management by walking around." It also mitigates against a potential U.S. retreat into semi-isolationism, both by demonstrating that our Navy is still on the beat and by providing an acceptable tool of national policy when the American public may not accept overseas troop deployments. Only a corvette-size vessel offers the right balance to achieve all this—affordably.
Sailing into the Future
Colonial connotations of the Victorian Royal Navy may be distasteful to American eyes, but it must be acknowledged that the Royal Navy also suppressed disorder, eliminated the slave trade (at least in the numbers it existed then), projected British will around the world, and served as a peaceful instrument of state. Today, the health of our nation depends on the sinews of trade that gird the globe, while we are threatened as never before by small disaffected groups armed with potentially catastrophic weapons.
Only the U.S. Navy can provide the presence to promote stability while maintaining a non-provocative footprint. The Navy has always been one of the most outward-looking elements of American society, and we should embrace our role as the national instrument best able to preserve an "American Peace" in the new century.
This will require new modes of thought and a new force structure, centered on plentiful, sturdy ships that can deploy to and operate out of austere ports. The U.S. Navy is already well positioned for major combat operations and sending expeditionary forces inland, but the vital missing element is a force of small, high-endurance ships. It is time to fill the wide gap in the middle ground between major combat and small expeditionary forces.
1. An overview of the River-class offshore patrol vessel is available at http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.5953.
3. James Cable, Gunboat Diplomacy, 1919-1991 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992). Cable provides an exhaustive list of year-by-year naval operations short of war. If anything, the pace of operations has increased since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
4.http://www.navy.mil/maritime/.
5. Thomas Barnet, The Pentagon's New Map (New York: Putnam, 2004).
6. Speech by Admiral Mullen at the National Defense University, 16 August 2005, http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/mullen/speeches/mullen050816.txt.