Each May our Naval Review gives readers the opportunity to reflect on the accomplishments of the Sea Services during the past calendar year while also attempting to look ahead to the big issues that may be awaiting the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard in the near future. As anyone following the news on a daily basis knows, there is no shortage of challenges facing our nation. Whether it’s the ongoing drama of budget discussions here at home or looking abroad to the rise of China, tensions with Iran, and North Korean missile launches (or at least attempts), there’s much to give planners and policy-makers many a sleepless night. But as our authors point out this month, valuable lessons learned from the past can be a guide for us as we navigate an uncertain present, and all do a superb job of applying the lessons of history to address current threats.
Under Secretary of the Navy Robert Work leads off with an in-depth discussion of what he calls “the coming naval century.” He explains that in addition to knowing where you are at any historical moment, it is just as important to know “how you got there.” Expanding on Samuel Huntington’s May 1954 Proceedings article “National Policy and the Transoceanic Navy,” Mr. Work places the Navy’s central role in the nation’s new strategic guidance in the context of past and present national-security eras. He reminds us that when President Dwight D. Eisenhower came into office and began to craft his Fiscal Year 1954 budget proposal, he faced security challenges at least as grave as today’s. Yet the President moved to cut defense spending, while making clear strategic choices and prioritizing his military ways and means, ultimately balancing the budget and putting the country on track to win the Cold War. Similarly, Mr. Work says, in Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta move the country onto a more sustainable and forward-looking national-security pathway. Under Secretary Work is confident that after the coming drawdown is complete, the United States will still have “the best and most capable military in the world,” and maritime power will play a key role.
In this bicentennial year of the War of 1812, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert looks back to that conflict for lessons that can be applied today. Although the young U.S. Navy distinguished itself in individual engagements, demonstrating traits that endure today, the CNO points out that the lack of a large fleet ultimately hurt the United States during the war as the British blockade severely pinched the country’s economy. It became clear that a strong Navy was essential to America’s security and prosperity.
We mark another historic event this month: It’s been three decades since Great Britain and Argentina clashed in the Falklands War. Navy Commander Jim Griffin believes there’s no better way to mark the 30th anniversary than to note the prescient lessons that emerged from that seminal anti-access/area-denial war—a war that may have more to tell today’s navalists than other, more recent conflicts.
Meanwhile, as unrest in the Middle East and North Africa continues to simmer, the new U.S. military strategy is to “pivot,” concentrating the focus on the Pacific Ocean. But retired Navy Captain Gerry Roncolato, former chair of the Naval Institute Editorial Board, warns that turning our backs on the sites of the Arab Spring might not be a good idea. Regardless, the Navy will be in the middle of it all, tasked with making the shift while still possibly being engaged in the Persian Gulf.
What form could such engagement take? Sanctions against Iran’s nuclear aspirations are inciting that country to make noise about closing one of the busiest conduits of seaborne commerce in the region, the Strait of Hormuz. Armed with lessons learned from Operation Praying Mantis in 1988 and Israel’s fight against Hezbollah in 2006, Navy Commander Daniel Dolan takes a look at Iran’s anti-access/area-denial capabilities and advances a strategy to deal militarily with such a closure. While not advocating preemption, Commander Dolan does urge the United States and the Navy to at least have a plan.
In addition to noting our featured authors, I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who contribute the material to our annual review sections. It’s a lot of work, but they come through every year to bring our readers a vivid snapshot of the Sea Services. We couldn’t do it without them.