Every year we dedicate the May issue to international navies. Despite the mixed messages allies and partners are getting these days, Proceedings recognizes that one of the United States’ greatest assets in the past century has been its alliances and mutual trust with like-minded nations. As President Ronald Reagan said, “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and ally—not a 20 percent traitor.” While reevaluating load sharing and ensuring all teammates are pulling to the best of their abilities, let us remember that America’s alliances have been a force for global stability and prosperity for all mankind. As Winston Churchill put it, “The only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them.”
Continuing our focus on shipbuilding, this year we invited the chiefs of foreign navies to write about how the state of naval industry in their countries is affecting their ability to build, modernize, and maintain ships. Twenty nations answered in “International Commanders Respond.” In addition, the Chief of the Royal Australian Navy, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, submitted a longer response, “Shipbuilding and Sustainment: Essential National Security Enablers for Australia.” A common theme emerges: “The capability to maintain a modern and effective naval force is imperative,” as the Chief of the Indonesian Navy put it.
Retired Navy Captain Jim Fanell’s “The PLA Navy Comes of Age: Big Decks and More” highlights another year of significant new tonnage and operational firsts for the PLAN, particularly with its carriers and large amphibious ships.
Last year, U.S. Army General Charles Flynn and Lieutenant Colonel Tim Devine wrote, “To Upgun Seapower in the Indo-Pacific, You Need an Army” (February 2024). It seems the Australian Army was paying attention, as this month Major General Ash Collingburn and Colonel Tom McDermott, Australian Army, discuss how “Australia’s Army Is Adapting for the Littorals.” Given the troubles with U.S. Navy amphibious shipbuilding, it is interesting to hear that “The Australian government is procuring for the Army 18 medium landing craft . . . and 9 heavies of between 3,000 and 5,000 tons—the largest fleet of littoral watercraft operated . . . since World War II.”
Long-time Proceedings author and Naval War College (NWC) Professor Milan Vego’s “Auftragstaktik Leads to Decisive Action” examines the 19th- and 20th-century German military doctrine that stressed commander’s intent and subordinate initiative. Professor Vego served in the Yugoslavian Navy before emigrating to the United States in the 1980s, earning his PhD, and joining the NWC faculty. Now in his 80s, Milan continues to write and teach, and senior U.S. Navy leaders often seek his wisdom.
Finally, because international trade and tariffs currently are on everyone’s minds, we wondered what Alfred Thayer Mahan, the patron saint of sea power, had to say about them. He provides food for thought: “The tendency to trade . . . is the national characteristic most important to the development of sea power. . . . it is not likely that the dangers of the sea, or any aversion to it, will deter a people from seeking wealth by the paths of ocean commerce.” Or, as another NWC Professor, Sally Paine, wrote in these pages in 2021, “The transportation revolution arising from the Industrial Revolution upended global economics, with wealth accruing from commerce far outpacing that derived from land.” [Emphasis added.] Global maritime trade is the source of national wealth and power that navies exist to protect or destroy.
