As the United States moves from intense land combat to a renewed emphasis on naval and air power, the transition team for the next Chief of Naval Operations is about to start work. Concern for U.S. naval power is surging, and the Navy is at a key juncture. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates summed up the situation on 25 February 2011 at West Point: “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.”
Washington Post columnist George Will wrote on 16 and 18 March 2011 of “America’s Navy and the Rise of China,” and on 2 March, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece by Mark Halperin, senior political analyst at Time, titled “The Decline of U.S. Naval Power.” Paralleling other astute Navy-related geostrategic commentary, this is an undeniable wakeup call at a time of great flux and global change.
China is following a pattern observable throughout history: The emergence of great power challengers has nearly always been disruptive. Both the challenger and the status-quo power have not gained from these situations, which have quickly have become militarized.
The historical record is also clear that political inertia and economic sluggishness, like zero-sum politics and zero-sum budgets, are incompatible. These conditions will affect all the services, most of all the Navy, with geopolitical stress on the upswing despite domestic expectations of retrenchment. In this pending context, incoming CNO Admiral Jonathan Greenert will have to consider the following ten long-term strategic planning factors as he takes command.
His concern will be not how to make do with fixed or declining budgets, but rather how to acquire what is needed for what must be done. He will have to muster the arguments and make the case to the Secretary of Defense, the President, the Congress, and the American people.
ONE
As former National Security Agency and CIA chief General Michael Hayden noted on 25 February 2011: “Mackinder is down, and Mahan is up.” That comment on the importance of naval power frames the immediate political, budgetary, strategic, and operational future for the Navy. This reality is going to force great change on the sea services (and the Army and Air Force as well), and will require transitioning to new ways of thinking and strategic and operational planning: what the Navy and Marines will have to do, why, where, with what, and with whom. A crucial facilitator will be an unambiguous demand signal from OPNAV for an extensive, carefully coordinated campaign of strategic and operational-level wargaming.
TWO
Alliances always will be important to the U.S. Navy, but expecting them to make the difference while we tip the balance from offshore as a bloodless political exercise has little relevance to the future security environment suggested by China’s emergence and Iran’s provocations.
THREE
The Navy is holding the line on force levels, but this is insufficient and potentially misleading, given the circumstances. The service must sell itself as a balanced battle fleet prepared to dominate at sea in strategies of fire and maneuver. The nation expects not a return to tradition, but a strategy to address new geostrategic realities of which China’s rise is emblematic.
FOUR
The renaissance of major combat operations (MCO) at sea, occasioned by the increasingly confrontational Chinese navy and unpredictable Iranian maritime activity in the Persian Gulf, marks the end of the post-Cold War period for the Navy. The service’s MCO capabilities need to move up as first-among-equals in the mission list set out by the latest maritime strategy.
FIVE
The South China Sea is the pivot point of Beijing's naval strategy and operations. Given the strategic warning of its intentions provided by the nation’s own words and actions, that sea is the focus of China’s maritime salient, bounded by Sakhalin, Singapore, and Guam. The U.S. Navy should completely master the long-term strategic, political, operational, doctrinal, logistical, and technical requirements to address this reality. Doing so involves accepting the full implications of American joint-force control of this maritime salient, and of the South China Sea littorals, waters, and archipelagos.
SIX
The global-commons concept is of major importance for the Navy, which must operate from, through, and in each of the air, sea, space, and cyberspace commons simultaneously. The Navy must also defend these commons, individually and as a whole. They form the structure for the global enterprise of trade, commerce, industry, and political connectivity. The global commons has particular relevance for the operational and political solidarity of allies and friends.
SEVEN
In the context of its own striking power and global strategic mobility, the Navy should consider how and where to hold Chinese interests at risk—not only in the western Pacific but globally.
EIGHT
The Indian Ocean is the lifeline to African and Middle Eastern energy and commodity supplies that are vital to China's mercantilist economy. But to China, Australia and India are the Scylla and Charybdis of its Indian Ocean sea lines of communication. Based on strategic partnerships with India and Australia, the U.S. Navy should anticipate and respond to China's inevitable moves to secure these lines.
NINE
In light of China's declared intention to deny American military access to the western Pacific, the U.S. Joint Forces Command's attempt to capture the requirements of joint operational access in a new concept document needs realistic and muscular Navy input. To work, this concept absolutely must align with the Air Force and Navy AirSea Battle concept, which Secretary Gates described in March 2011 as having “the potential to do for America’s military deterrent power at the beginning of the 21st century what Air Land Battle did near the end of the 20th” (Air Force Academy, 4 March 2011).
TEN
The U.S. strategy in the western Pacific depends fundamentally on close cooperation with Japan's Self-Defense Forces. So far that cooperation has been disappointing, rhetoric notwithstanding. We need a clear message to Tokyo that articulates the rationale and requirements for alliance strategic planning, and that establishes the basis for Japanese and bilateral decisions and actions. Otherwise, we are likely to reap the whirlwind “rewards” of poor messaging, and to be bitterly disappointed.