Book Reviews

Seablindness: How Political Neglect is Choking American Seapower and What to Do About It

By Seth Cropsey. New York: Encounter Books, 2017. 304 pp. Notes. Index. $27.99.

It often is said that history does not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes. After World War I, we signed the Washington naval disarmament treaties and adhered to them while Axis powers rearmed and deterrence collapsed into World War II. After that war, again we disarmed our Navy while the Soviets expanded theirs. We thus failed to deter the Korean invasion and the expansion of the Soviet Empire. After the Reagan administration rebuilt the Navy and won the Cold War, we declared the end of history and disarmed our Navy. In Seth Cropsey’s excellent Seablindness, he declares “The proud 594 ship . . . fleet that helped to win the Cold War is a memory. It has been replaced by an aging and overworked 272-ship force.” Once again, we have lost our ability to deter the growing number of disturbers of the peace. We cannot expect them to resist the temptation to take advantage of our weakness.

The strange “seablindness” repeated after every war by the United States and its allies for the past century is the theme of Cropsey’s compelling book, explained in clear and elegant prose. His unique credentials demand readers’ attention: schooled at St. John’s in “The Greats,” recruited to the ranks of elite writers at Fortune, service as an unrestricted line naval officer in special operations, senior executive in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, then Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy and Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau.

Cropsey plays no political favorites in this sad litany of neglect. Instead of using the 9/11 attack as a cause to rearm and rebuild, President George W. Bush used a massive increase in Defense Department appropriations to plunge into Iraq and nation building and to chase “transformative” rainbows in procurement, leaving the Navy worse than before 9/11. President Barack Obama was, of course, worse for the Navy, but he let the Republicans do the disarming through sequester.

Cropsey draws on apt historical lessons, such as the Spanish seablindness that failed against Elizabethan Britain and against the United States 300 years later. With equal deftness, he draws on Tom Clancy-style fiction to recount a future conflict with Russia invading Estonia—an all too chilling possibility. Today our diplomacy is weak around the world because our deterrence is weak. Diplomacy is the shadow cast by military and naval power. Our adversaries and our allies perceive that we always cannot be counted to deliver. As a result, those who wish us ill are taking advantage of our weaknesses and pressing the envelope of risk in North Korea, the South China Sea, the Arabian Gulf, and the Persian Gulf. Cropsey leaves no doubt that it is past time to rebuild the Navy and restore the credibility of U.S. deterrence before it is too late.

Cropsey calls for a robust naval strategy derived from U.S. global, regional, and coastal interests. From this framework can be derived a program and budget that can rapidly and affordably build the fleet to 355 ships with sustainable readiness and training. He points out that it is a false choice to suggest the United States can restore readiness or build a larger fleet but not both. Without a substantial increase in numbers, the current fleet will be overused and worn out no matter how much is spent on readiness.

Cropsey does not address shipbuilding and procurement policy, but implicit in his proposal is to restore discipline and accountability to attack the enormous bureaucratic bloat to streamline processes and save tens of billions of dollars and to give the Secretary of the Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, and Marine Commandant the authority and accountability for procurement execution and firm control of design changes in production.

There are other important issues that need to be addressed, including readiness, personnel policies, zero tolerance, political correctness, compensation, and reserves. All, however, can be resolved by good leadership.

The experience of the 1980s demonstrated that 90 percent of the benefits from a program to restore U.S. command of the seas and naval supremacy can be reaped immediately. Our adversaries will be forced to trim their sails. As Senator John McCain famously said, “Russia is a gas-station with an economy the size of Denmark.” They know that they cannot challenge a rebuilt U.S. fleet with their professional but very small one-carrier navy. The Chinese are at least a decade away from matching U.S. naval and air capabilities and, more likely can never do so.

Under Cropsey’s formula, U.S. diplomacy, again backed with naval and military superiority, instantly will regain credibility, restore deterrence, and keep the peace.

The choice is not between restoring the balance of deterrence or some other system of “soft power” but between restoring the balance or failing to do so. As Cropsey ends this powerful call to arms, “We are morally bound to defend ourselves.”

Mr. Lehman was Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration and a member of the 9/11 Commission. His new book, Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea will be published by W. W. Norton in 2018.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY BOOKS

By Captain Bill Bray, U.S. Navy (Retired)

Underway with Broadside Cartoons

Jeff Bacon. Garden City, Idaho: Deep Water Publishing, 2017. 120 pp. $14.95.

In decades of cartooning about the Navy, Jeff Bacon’s most impressive accomplishment is helping a great U.S. military service laugh at itself without engendering an ounce of disrespect for its heritage, history, or professionals past and present. That is no small feat. Even an organization like the military dedicated to the most serious and consequential of human endeavors can take itself too seriously. Just as we ascribe to good character a capacity for some self-deprecating humor, so we yearn to labor in organizations that encourage some introspective fun-making. A reader neither in the military nor a veteran may not get the humor in many of these cartoons, but he or she should certainly appreciate that the world’s greatest Navy is as open as any institution to celebrating the comedic side of our humanity.

We Were Going to Win, or Die There: With the Marines at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Saipan

Lieutenant Colonel Roy H. Elrod, USMC (Ret.). Fred H. Allison, editor. Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 2017. 265 pp. Index. Illus. Biblio. $29.95.

Lieutenant Colonel Roy Elrod did not write this memoir, he told it in over 30 hours of interviews he gave to Fred Allison, beginning in 2012 when Elrod was 93 years old. Allison is the oral historian for the U.S. Marine Corps’ History Division, and there is precious little time left to capture first-hand accounts from Marines who fought World War II’s greatest battles. Allison learned of Elrod through family and friends from the small Texas town where he grew up, the same town where Elrod was raised a few decades ahead of Allison. Allison flavors the narrative nicely with many of Elrod’s letters and photographs, and did extensive due diligence with the Marine Corps’ archives. But most of the narrative reads exactly like what it is, a transcription from the long hours of conversation. And that is the best part of it, as the still vivid memories of a great veteran like Elrod bring us as close as possible to the actual experience.

Stanley Johnston’s Blunder: The Reporter Who Spilled the Secret behind the U.S. Navy’s Victory at Midway

Elliot Carlson. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017. 242 pp. Append. Biblio. Index. Illus. $29.95.

This book reads remarkably well as important World War II naval history, which is not surprising considering Elliot Carlson is an accomplished journalist. The story centers on the ensuing controversy following a 7 June 1942 Chicago Tribune article by Stanley Johnston, who had been reporting from the Pacific—first from the rescue ship USS Barnett (APA-5) and later from the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2). It is widely believed Johnston and the Tribune breached the censorship protocol and were reckless in reporting that the U.S. Navy had foreknowledge of the Japanese attack at Midway. However, Carlson focuses more on the extensive and ultimately failed Roosevelt administration effort to prosecute Johnston and other Tribune staff under the Espionage Act, a fascinating tale mixing law, politics, and hubris. Relying on recently released 75-year-old grand jury testimony, which followed a three-year legal battle with Carlson as lead petitioner, the book sheds new light on this aspect of the famous episode. National security and freedom of the press always will be in tension in a democracy, and Carlson’s effort offers a gripping account of how this tension played out at a time well before the Pentagon Papers.

U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, 2010-2014: Anthology and Annotated Bibliography

Compiled by Paul Westermeyer with Christopher N. Blaker. Quantico, VA: History Division, United States Marine Corps, 2017. 187 pp. Illus. Biblio. Append. $79.95.

This is the second of two volumes covering the Marine experience in Afghanistan. Heavily illustrated and divided into six sections, it is a collection of 21 articles, interviews, and speeches. Together, they not only capture the key events of the five-year chronology from the 2010 surge to withdrawal in 2014, but more importantly form a montage of the entire Marine Corps experience during this important phase of Operation Enduring Freedom. The book includes first-hand accounts from the corporal on up, reflections of commanders, speeches and statements from President Barack Obama, and even a Marine Corps Gazette article by a first lieutenant highly critical of the counterinsurgency strategy. The point of this series, as explained by Paul Westermeyer, is to provide a “selected record of Marine contributions to the Afghan war effort” until more detailed historical accounts can be written. Westermeyer is too modest, as there is much more to this anthology than a selected historical record.