The Sea in Russian Strategy
Andrew Monaghan and Richard Connolly, eds. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2023. 272 pp. Figs. Tables. Notes. Index. $22.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Kyle Cregge, U.S. Navy
Americans can struggle to appreciate the shaping force of geography across politics, military force, and economics. Two oceanic moats insulate the United States from foreign expeditions, and a Central American isthmus allows the U.S. Navy flexibility to deploy its forces to either ocean. The Panama Canal’s utility in voyage planning is instructive: A transit from Norfolk to San Diego via the Panama Canal is roughly 5,000 nautical miles (nm); the same voyage via Cape Horn is 13,000 nm. By adding a subsequent transit to Guam via Hawaii, one reaches the more than 18,000-nm voyage the Russian Baltic Fleet completed en route to its ultimate defeat in the 1905 Battle of the Tsushima Strait in the Russo-Japanese War.
Inspired by a 2019 Oxford University eponymous panel, The Sea in Russian Strategy reinforces the eternal realities of geography’s effect on strategy. Editors Andrew Monaghan and Richard Connolly have collected seven worthwhile essays by Russian practitioners or historians, along with an introduction by the editors and a foreword by a Royal Navy commanding officer. Their work is informed but not subsumed by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The book begins with a section on maritime strategies in general, through to their Russian conceptions, down to the Russian Navy’s force structure, present missions, and future force development.
In the introduction, Monaghan seeks to avoid mirroring the United States’ conception of its Navy in Russia’s development and employment. To that end, he succeeds—though the enduring utility of the work may depend on the focus of the reader. If seeking an open-source dissection of the Russian Navy’s force structure and missions, one could do far worse than skimming the book’s second and third parts, in which there is great detail and footnoting of primary sources from Russian leaders, along with extensive tables exploring each ship class and its capabilities and functions in Russian strategy. In short, the Russian Navy is not seeking command of the sea like its U.S. Navy adversary. It seeks a nuclear deterrent, a maneuver space for its army, and the ability to affect strategic thinking through an increasingly capable reconnaissance strike complex.
Yet, the most interesting for me was the early history section that argues for the role of Russia’s use of sea power despite being an unambiguous continental power. Its geography, which spans 11 time zones and in which its waters are among its few firm boundaries, compels use of the sea. Whereas the United States has a canal linking its coasts, Russia is forced to have four and a half fleets, each corresponding to its key waters: the Arctic and Pacific Oceans; and Baltic, Black, and Caspian Seas—the last one being a flotilla. Because Russia can so rarely aggregate its fleets across these areas, its continental, internal-security interests are compounded. Authors, readers, and Russian leaders all conclude it is more logical to deny seaborne access to adversaries and extend Russian littoral control as a function of the Russian Army’s strategy, rather than use a maritime strategy independent of the land component.
American navalists would do well to reflect on the mirroring of Russian strategy back on U.S. strategy. The role of a navy, which is ultimately subordinate to the army and joint forces, or the role of the sea as a maneuver space to project power ashore are both Russian in character, and if the U.S. Navy is to regain or maintain its role as a global naval power, it must seek a conception of itself before supporting a joint fight. Readers can enjoy The Sea in Russian Strategy as much for what it says about U.S. adversaries as for what it implies about the U.S. Navy.
Lieutenant Cregge is a surface warfare officer. He is the operations officer on board the USS Pinckney (DDG-91).
Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine
General David Petraeus, U.S. Army, and Lord Andrew Roberts. New York: Harper, 2023. Maps. Biblio. Index. Photos. $40.
Reviewed by Admiral James Stavridis, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine is an important book that focuses the professional reader on the challenges of evolving warfare in the post–World War II era. Written by two expert sources—a leading U.S. general from Iraq and Afghanistan and a preeminent modern historian—it lays out an ambitious analysis of how war is changing before our eyes.
General David Petraeus is a good friend and shipmate of mine, and he brings all of his intelligence, energy, and experience to bear here, meshing his operational voice perfectly with the strategic historical depth of Lord Andrew Roberts.
As the authors correctly point out in the initial sections covering wars from China’s revolution to Vietnam and Nicaragua, a military leader’s most important task is to get the big ideas right. What are we fighting for, and how will this end? As a general proposition, when the United States and its allies have gotten those answers early on—and convinced the public of them—outcomes have been positive, as in Malaya, the Balkans, or Colombia. When leaders fail to get the biggest aspects of any given war right up front, things eventually go off the rails, as they did in Algeria, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.
In the chapters on Iraq and Afghanistan, the authors’ thesis is simple: Politics sabotaged what might have been successful outcomes. This is most obviously true in Afghanistan, where the abrupt U.S. departure at the hands of both the Trump and Biden administrations simply handed that nation back to the Taliban. It also is part of the terrible outcome in Vietnam, where the United States never stayed consistently focused on the key strategic questions or on the tactical “hearts and minds” campaigns.
Iraq is a more complicated case, and even given the Obama administration’s withdrawal of the final tranche of U.S. troops, it is premature to say the United States and its allies “lost” Iraq. The United States maintains reasonable relations with the current government, has kept it from falling into either the orbit of Tehran or under the boot of the Islamic state, and continues to have functional economic and diplomatic relations with that important petrostate. The United States ensured there were no weapons of mass destruction, ousted the U.S.-hating dictator Saddam Hussein, and planted an imperfect but functioning democracy. While the costs were too high in both blood and treasure, the outcome has served U.S. policy in many ways.
The best part of the book is the final segment analyzing the state of war in Ukraine and what it foretells about the evolution of modern war. Written at the high-water mark of Western support for the Zelensky government, the book smartly walks the reader through the crucial mistakes of Vladimir Putin and the Russian high command: a deeply flawed and wildly overambitious battle plan, poorly crafted intelligence, terrible logistics, and a jumbled command structure with Wagner mercenaries jammed into the middle of it. While events of late have diminished Ukrainian prospects somewhat (with sinking support in the United States and parts of Europe and stiffening Russian defensive capability), most of what the authors provide stands up well.
As they sail to the end of their narrative, the authors note the essence of changes ahead. Even as we watch World War I–style trench warfare and artillery barrages, it is clear that future warfare will increasingly rely on airborne unmanned surveillance and attack vehicles; artificial intelligence that supports and supplements command decision-making; elite special forces operating space-based weapons; a blend of state-owned and commercial sensors and computers; intensive information operations to shape the global narrative; and, above all, decisive cyber operations, both defensive and offensive.
Many of those factors are on display in the Hamas-Israeli conflict as well. But, just as Ukraine shows us that there will be both traditional and futuristic elements in current conflicts, Gaza shows us old-fashioned door-to-door clearing operations not unlike in Falluja during Iraq or Stalingrad during World War II. But such operations will occur alongside emerging technologies and tactics. While the Hamas-Israeli conflict is not addressed in this book, the thesis seems to be holding up well in the current war in the Middle East.
For naval readers, there is not much in Conflict on the maritime side of warfare. The naval operations of the Cold War do not really appear. There are a few references to the important lessons of the Falklands War, for example, on the cut-and-thrust of surface ships operating in proximity to land-based air forces. Nor is there much analysis of the maritime impact playing out in the Black Sea today, where, quite remarkably, the Ukrainians are knocking holes in Russia’s vaunted Black Sea Fleet and breaking a Russian economic blockade without having a single surface capital ship or submarine at their disposal. And there is a larger geopolitical aspect to maritime impact on the world’s economies, as seen by the Houthi rebels’ effective attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, abetted by Iran. All that could have received greater treatment in this volume.
But the length and depth of the book are already significant and sufficient, and this highly readable and well-sourced volume on land conflict is well done. No doubt it will find a place in the libraries of military analysts and historians seeking to understand the changing nature of war ashore. It constitutes a brilliant single-volume treatment of war that will almost certainly stand the test of time.
Admiral Stavridis was 16th Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and 12th Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He currently is vice chairman, global affairs, at the Carlyle Group and chairman of the board of the Rockefeller Foundation.
F-35: The Inside Story of the Lightning II
Tom Burbage, Betsy Clark, and Adrian Pitman, with David Poyer. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2023. 390 pp. Index. Notes. $35.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Michael Axel, U.S. Navy
I was a sophomore in high school when the X-35 was announced as the winner of the Joint Strike Fighter competition. For the more than two decades since, the F-35 has been the North Star by which the next generation of advanced aviation platforms and weaponry would be guided. The history is peppered with successes and failures, controversies and crises. Today, the United States and its many international partners have developed and fielded the three variants of the F-35 and can now boast more than a thousand aircraft in active service.
The “inside story” of the development and rollout of the Lightning II is told from three of the consummate insiders of the program. Tom Burbage was Lockheed Martin’s executive vice president of the program for its first decade; Dr. Betsy Clark was a participant in multiple reviews of the program for both the U.S. Department of Defense and Australia; and Adrian Pitman was the Australian director of Acquisition Engineering Improvement for the Defence Materiel Organization and participated in multiple F-35 reviews as well. Alongside fiction writer David Poyer, these insiders’ exhaustive experiences with the program lend gravitas to the rollercoaster ride of development. Hobbyists and runway photographers they are not; these are some of the very people who were in the room when the most critical decisions were made.
Reading about some of the internal challenges and negotiations, it becomes clear the F-35 program is, at its core, an immense program rife with contradiction. Yes, the technology and progress baked into the aircraft and support systems border on miraculous; the advancement of interoperability and international cooperative development were part of the most ambitious acquisitions program undertaken by the West in history. And, yet, the program has been beset by delays, cost overruns, and developmental obstacles aplenty, and by rights could have (or should have!) been curtailed or canceled at any of several critical points along the way. All these assertions can be, and largely are, true. If anything, the book reinforces the sheer, infuriating complexity—counterbalanced by the triumphant payoff—of the entire undertaking; the skill of the diplomatic and military negotiators in keeping such a large and cumbersome train mostly on the tracks; the political and fiscal cliffs that were continually and tortuously traversed; and the technological and engineering brilliance underpinning it all. The tremendous risk Lockheed Martin assumed in committing to the scope of the F-35 cannot be overstated.
The many anecdotes peppered throughout both engage readers and keep the story moving, with insider tidbits aplenty, as one would expect coming from such important players. The result is a reasonably even-handed assessment of the many ups and downs faced by the program’s leaders. However, the simple fact of who the book’s authors are lends their work an air of advertisement alongside retrospection. Regardless of the current operational success of the program and the revolution these aircraft represent, the program’s development delays and budget overruns did result in a Nunn-McCurdy breach, and the program spent more than two decades in development prior to all three variants reaching the flight line. The repeated exhortations of “this program is truly a success, no matter what they say,” occasionally distracts from the narrative, which stands perfectly well on its own as an objective evaluation without cheerleading from the authors.
Perhaps the most fascinating insights relate to the parallel developments in logistics, supply chain management, and maintenance. Some of the innovations developed for F-35 have made their way into other programs, especially in the Navy’s Air Wing of the Future. For current carrier flyers, it is easy to draw the through-line from the F-35’s development to the rest of the air wing, even if it is not made explicit in the book.
The “why” behind the “how” brought forward in this book makes it a must-read for acquisitions professionals and career aviators who manage the many program offices across the force. One can hope that the challenges surmounted by the international development team behind this magnificent aircraft can present valuable lessons in efficiency and design, which should result in a smoother process for sixth-generation aircraft in the decades to come.
Lieutenant Commander Axel is an E-2 naval flight officer. He is a department head at Airborne Command and Control Squadron 120 in Norfolk, Virginia.
