Each week Eastern Europe seems to experience changes that just a year ago would have been only distant hopes for the future: the democratization of previously totalitarian regimes, the opening of the Berlin Wall, the new openness in international communications, the emergence of independent political parties, and the new tack in Soviet foreign and domestic policy. In addition, an emerging spirit of cooperation between East and West offers the greatest opportunity to move beyond the Cold War since it began.
We have witnessed a declining perception of the Soviet threat, both at home and among our allies, adding to the already strong desire to reduce the defense budget. We cannot, however, afford to react precipitously to the euphoria that these events inspire. We cannot forget that the United States faces a very real threat from regional conflicts, international terrorism, narcotics, and a variety of other challenges that fall outside the scope of the U.S.- Soviet balance.
Clearly, the nature of our political and military environment is changing, and we need to examine closely how we will proceed as the United States moves into the 1990s. From a naval perspective, one of the most important aspects of this examination is the degree to which the Maritime Strategy will remain valid as a key component of our national military strategy in a security environment shaped by continuing changes overseas.
Although the Maritime Strategy has become a major topic of public discussion only in the past few years, its origins predate the Cold War. While most notably associated with a strategy for global war with the Soviet Union, the Maritime Strategy is designed to support the entire spectrum of actions needed to represent U.S. global interests as a maritime nation and a world superpower.
Accelerating Events, Enduring Principles: The Maritime Strategy is a concept of operations rather than a war plan. It is based upon three broad principles governing the global employment of naval forces.
The first of these is deterrence. We want to convince any potential adversary that an attack on the United States or our allies would result in unacceptable consequences for the aggressor. This requires a strategic nuclear force, the capability to defend ourselves in a global conventional war, and a crisis-response capability to deal with lower levels of conflict that are localized or regional in nature.
Second is the principle of forward defense. It enhances deterrence by ensuring that naval forces are in a position to respond to crises quickly, and it maximizes our response options should deterrence fail. Many of our allies and trading partners are located on the periphery of the Eurasian landmass. If the United States is to participate effectively in the mutual defense of our own interests and those of our allies, it is imperative that we have forces deployed in the regions where those interests lie.
Third, the strategy rests firmly upon a network of alliances. Since World War II, the United States has established agreements with more than 40 countries—in Europe and in the Pacific—to provide mutual security. By defending our allies we defend ourselves. Each individual nation benefits from the combined strength of all the alliance partners.
Keeping a Watchful Eye . . . : Arguing for a strong defense in the face of the destruction of the Berlin Wall can seem like shouting into a strong wind. Yet the thawing of the Cold War has been accompanied by other more sobering and tragic events such as the Tiananmen Square massacre; the murder of Marine Lieutenant Colonel William R. Higgins; the drug war; attempts to overthrow democratic governments and the democratic process in the Philippines, Panama, Colombia, and El Salvador; and continued attacks by terrorists around the world. As we plan for the future, we need to consider all aspects of the global political and economic environment.
Despite all the changes we see around us, certain facts endure. The United States is essentially an island nation. It is the leader of a global maritime coalition for an array of allies, trading partners, and political interests across the oceans. Global economic interdependence is a fact of life. The majority of our trade routes, our economic and political lifelines, are oceanic. Over 70% of our total trade by value and 99.7% of our overseas export and import tonnage move by sea. Our economic well-being has been made possible by and depends upon political stability.
Maintaining our maritime alliances will be increasingly important as power and influence become more diffuse globally. In the 1990s, the two superpowers will remain the first among equals, but they will not be as dominant as they have been. Political and economic power will be more broadly distributed in the world, and existing alliance systems will become more political than military in their orientation.
Low-intensity conflicts must be considered; they can involve protracted struggles or sharp outbreaks of violence. They run the gamut from terrorism to regional wars with limited objectives. As we saw in the Persian Gulf and are seeing today with drug interdiction efforts, regional conflicts affect our vital interests and those of our friends and allies. We must be prepared to act in support of U.S. interests throughout the world if we are to protect our citizens and economic prosperity.
The most worrisome aspect of the increasing diffusion of global political and military power is the accompanying spread of high-technology weaponry. The availability of the most modem weapons and the growth of indigenous arms industries add a new dimension to the security calculations of these regional powers, and our own as well. Today, 41 Third World nations collectively possess more than 250 attack submarines, 102 have antiship cruise missiles, 41 have a sophisticated naval mining capability, and 40 are arms producers.
The threat to U.S. and allied maritime interests is not exclusively naval. A number of Third World nations that are potentially hostile to western interests are well situated to pose a land-based maritime threat. Survival in such an environment requires advanced electronics and weapon systems and does not allow the luxury of “low-mix” platforms. The “hi-tech,” advanced military capability of the world’s nations is underscored by the British experience in the South Atlantic and our own in the Persian Gulf.
The spread of arms technology becomes even more sobering in view of the development of nuclear and chemical weapons by emerging regional powers. By the year 2000, at least 15 nations will be producing, or will have acquired ballistic missile technology, and at least six are actively developing nuclear weapons. Fourteen now possess chemical weapons or the capability to produce them, and 11 more are suspected of developing the capacity. As the use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War shows, some of these nations are willing to employ such capabilities despite international condemnation.
With or without superpower involvement, low-intensity conflicts will be increasingly violent and involve high technology. The proliferation of sophisticated weapons worldwide means that the types of naval forces designed to prevail in the most technically sophisticated and modern threat environment, exemplified by Soviet capabilities, are increasingly the same types of naval forces required to fight anyone else. The main difference is in the number of ships and aircraft that must be brought to bear, rather than their individual combat capability.
Planning for regional and low-intensity conflicts highlights a broadening of the national strategic focus in the past few years. The decrease in American access to bases and overflight rights around the world has further underscored the versatility and capabilities of our naval forces. At the end of World War II, the United States had bases in about 100 countries; today we have bases in fewer than 40. Moreover, more reductions are on the horizon in both Europe and the Pacific. As U.S. access to overseas bases diminishes, naval forces and their afloat logistic support become increasingly important. They can demonstrate military power without raising sensitive political issues of territorial sovereignty, a natural outgrowth of dependence upon overseas base and overflight rights.
. . . And Our Powder Dry: From a military perspective, we must consider a potential enemy’s capabilities as well as his intentions. This is especially true for naval force planning. We must respond to crisis and wartime tasking to a large extent with the ships on hand. The time required to build a modem warship (as much as seven years for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier) and our highly consolidated national shipbuilding industry would effectively preclude new-construction ships from joining the fight in any future war. Simply put, future wars will be “come-as-you-are” affairs for naval forces.
The Soviet Union represents the most severe military threat addressed by the Maritime Strategy. As welcome as the possibilities presented by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s restructuring and openness might be, prudence and history dictate that we continue to gauge our strategy and war-fighting capabilities against this least likely, but ultimately most potent threat.
The Soviet Union today possesses an impressive oceangoing navy that continues to modernize. The most significant Soviet naval improvements have been in undersea warfare. Soviet submarine quieting and sensor improvements have dramatically reduced our ability to localize and track their submarines. The tactical edge in antisubmarine warfare that we have enjoyed for the past three decades continues to erode, and our first priority is to find the most effective means to counter the submarine threat to our sea lines of communication.
The Soviets are also improving in other areas. Their sea control capability is' being enhanced by the development of better integrated air defenses, supported by new cruiser, destroyer, and frigate classes that will join their fleet between now and the year 2000. They are also building a new class of aircraft carrier which will carry high-performance fixed-wing jet aircraft in both fighter and attack configurations. Finally, the addition to the Soviet naval inventory of land-based Blackjack and improved Backfire bombers, Fencer fighter-bombers, and Mainstay AWACS (airborne warning and control system) aircraft is expanding their ability to threaten our key sea lines of communication in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Thus, despite Soviet pronouncements of naval force cutbacks, Soviet naval capabilities are improving. Under the guise of arms reductions, they are scrapping old units that have limited military utility. Having addressed the problem of block obsolescence, the Soviet Navy will emerge as a smaller, but thoroughly updated and modern force, more sustainable and extremely difficult to defeat.
While we applaud the direction of recent political developments within the Soviet Union, and find encouraging the Soviets’ pronouncements of a defensive national strategy, intentions are influenced by both world and domestic events and can change very quickly. We need to see where Soviet internal political developments lead, assure ourselves that openness and democratization are permanent features of Soviet international behavior, and carefully assess both Soviet military capabilities and political intentions before making any major course changes in our own maritime programs. We must remember, as we have learned so many times in the past, that political intentions can change overnight, while naval force structure, once relinquished, takes much longer to rebuild.
Aspects of Deterrence: The Maritime Strategy articulates in broad terms how American naval forces are able to support national policy across this entire spectrum. While supporting nuclear deterrence, the strategy also provides a structured framework for the day-to-day peacetime business of the Navy and Marine Corps—routine fleet deployments, exercises, and frequent response to regional and international crises. It integrates balanced fleet operations with our sister services and allies in peacetime to achieve deterrence of conventional conflicts and, if deterrence fails, to fight a conventional war in a global context.
Nuclear Deterrence: Nuclear deterrence is the keystone on which the rest of our conventional strategy depends. Soviet doctrine leads us to expect that nuclear weapons would be used at sea only in conjunction with their use in a land war. Nevertheless, other nations also are capable of using nuclear weapons at sea, and current trends suggest that such threats will continue to proliferate. Declaratory U.S. doctrine states that enemy initiation of nuclear war at sea will not limit a U.S. response to the use of nuclear weapons at sea, but may include their use against appropriate land targets. Therefore, we expect naval forces to retain their critical role in both strategic and tactical nuclear deterrence for the foreseeable future.
The U.S. force of ballistic missile submarines is and will remain the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad. As such, it is a significant factor in strategic stability. Fifty percent of our national on-line strategic nuclear warheads are at sea, at one fourth the cost of the total strategic force.
As we move with the Soviet Union to reduce our strategic nuclear arsenals, remaining nuclear forces must be cost-effective, survivable, flexible, responsive, and have hard-target kill capability. The fleet ballistic missile force satisfies all of these requirements.
Similarly, U.S. naval forces also contribute to deterrence of theater nuclear warfare through their ability to mount credible nuclear land strikes from the sea. We have dispersed strike assets that were previously concentrated only in manned aircraft on board carriers. Today, submarines and surface combatants armed with nuclear-capable long-range cruise missiles are also available to support the strategy of flexible response.
Guarding the Peace: The objectives of the peacetime posture of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are to achieve deterrence, meet alliance and treaty commitments, support national diplomatic objectives, and to be ready for the rapid response essential to deal with any crisis. These global commitments and alliance responsibilities require a substantial degree of forward naval presence to protect our interests in troubled areas. Roughly one third of the fleet, with over 110,000 sailors and 30,000 Marines, is either at sea or forward deployed on an average day. Because these forces have the necessary combat capability and are at a high level of readiness, we can influence events throughout the world—as demonstrated in naval operations in the 1980s off Libya, Lebanon, and in the Persian Gulf.
Pressure to reduce defense spending has been a fixture in our budget debates for some time; however, in the past it has been counterbalanced by the Soviet threat. A decreasing Soviet threat would add impetus to budgetary pressures to reduce the size of our military forces. Smaller naval forces will of necessity affect our deployment posture. Consequently, responding to the reduced Soviet threat, naval forces could be deployed within key overseas theaters to provide a nearly continuous flexible forward presence. Although military response times may be less prompt and involve an increased degree of risk, we believe this is acceptable in a worldwide environment of reduced superpower tensions.
Additional factors, such as expansion of the naval services’ role in drug interdiction or a decrease in force levels to meet fiscal constraints, will require further adjustment of our traditional forward-deployed global presence in order to maintain personnel stability and fleet readiness.
In the late 1970s, as we concentrated forces in response to events in Iran, the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) spent 247 days of a 252-day deployment at sea. This was an extreme case of what was happening throughout the fleet. We did not have an adequate force to support our needs. Long at-sea periods followed by short turn-around times resulted in equipment breakdowns, personnel turmoil, and a loss of experienced enlisted personnel at the end of their obligated service. By the late 1970s we had a middle management shortfall of 22,000 petty officers, and overall fleet readiness was only half of what it is today.
In order to avoid a repetition of that experience, we have established personnel and operational requirements that define employment limits. The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Navy, recognizing that this policy ultimately preserves our personnel and warfighting readiness, strongly support these guidelines. The turn-around ratios for forward-deployed units guard our most precious asset, our highly skilled and trained naval personnel, but they also affect our ability to meet national peacetime naval commitments.
Being There—the Value of Presence: Just as the forward presence of U.S. naval forces has contributed to the deterrence of conflict with the Soviet Union, it has also enabled us to promote regional stability throughout the world. This is especially apparent in the Pacific. Apart from the primarily land oriented military stalemate on the Korean peninsula, the Pacific is essentially a naval and air theater. Since the Vietnam war, U.S. military presence there has been represented most visibly by forward deployed naval forces. Carrier and battleship battle groups, along with forward-deployed Marines, have come to represent the commitment and resolve of the United States to preserve regional stability and freedom of the seas for all nations.
This role is distinct from the requirement to counter any potentially hostile naval power in the Pacific. While Asian nations are concerned with the Soviets because of geographical proximity, they are also concerned with purely regional issues. Local objectives—unrelated to East-West issues—could disrupt the regional stability so necessary for the expansion of free markets and the growth of democracies. The countries of the region accord substantial credit to the United States for having maintained a potent and visible presence and thus fostering the Pacific basin stability needed for economic prosperity. The U.S. Seventh Fleet has played a crucial role in maintaining the peace and security of the Western Pacific.
Crisis Response Roles and Capabilities: Despite the documented deterrent value of forward naval presence, crises do occur. As demonstrated so many times in the last 40 years, forward-deployed naval forces are particularly well suited for limiting the expansion of a crisis and facilitating a return to normalcy. They can move into position rapidly and in strength without violating any borders or raising national sensitivities over territorial sovereignty. If the situation warrants, our Navy and Marine forces, in concert with those of our allies and friends, can apply appropriate force to protect our common interests. Once the crisis is resolved, naval forces can be withdrawn unilaterally without giving the appearance of retreat.
Naval forces have proven to be the military force of choice for Presidents in more than 50 crises in the last decade, and in nearly 200 instances since World War II. This represents more than 80% of the crises which the United States has faced during this period. In order to ensure that naval forces will be available to provide appropriate options for crisis response, we have operated our fleets around key “deployment hubs” where the majority of these crises have occurred: the Mediterranean, Western Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Caribbean.
There is no indication that crisis response requirements in these crucial areas will diminish in the future. In fact, the move toward increasing politico-military multipolarity and the expanding counter-narcotics effort may well increase naval taskings. Overseas regional powers, terrorists, and drug smugglers would be bolstered rather than deterred were we to withdraw naval forces from forward positions and to operate closer to home ports in the United States. Being present in the immediate region enables naval forces to provide a timely response at the outset of future crises. Consequently, only by maintaining a balanced fleet that is forward deployed and combat ready can we fulfill the role of providing regional stability while preserving U.S. economic and foreign policy interests.
Combat Readiness . . . : When a crisis confronts the nation, the first question often asked by policymakers is, “What naval forces are available and how fast can they be on station?” This requires that we maintain our forces in a high state of readiness, positioned as close to the scene of action as possible. Readiness is the key factor in this equation. Sending units that are poorly trained, undermanned, or equipped with inadequately maintained, obsolete equipment is an invitation to disaster. Our forces must not only be there, they must also be capable of conducting successful combat operations.
In order to maintain high levels of readiness and combat capability, we actively participate in a host of joint and combined exercises. In fiscal year 1989, for example, U.S. naval forces participated in more than 300 major and minor exercises, of which 113 were joint exercises with other services and 121 were combined exercises with our allies and friendly navies. These strengthen alliance cohesion, enhance inter-operability with our allies and sister services, and improve combat effectiveness.
. . . And Capabilities: While we have had naval forces in the Persian Gulf continuously since 1948, our recent operations there in response to the Iran-Iraq War served as a pointed illustration of naval capabilities in crises: Whether tracking air contacts over the Gulf, escorting U.S.-flag tankers, sweeping mines, or engaging in military strikes, Navy and Marine Corps units have given the United States a flexible and responsive instrument of national policy.
Operations in the Persian Gulf before and after the 1987 decision to escort re-flagged tankers were oriented around our forward-deployed naval forces, but significant interservice cooperation and interoperability were hallmarks of the entire effort. Fleet Marine Forces were represented by a special Marine air-ground task force embarked aboard an air-capable amphibious ship. Army helicopters and Air Force AWACS, reconnaissance, and tanker aircraft contributed significantly to the success of the entire operation.
International cooperation was also extensive. We worked well in coordinated operations with a number of our western allies. Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands all had military forces operating in the Persian Gulf. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization duties of the deployed allied units were performed by other allies. Examples of this maritime cooperation included the deployment of West German frigates to the Mediterranean and Norwegian minehunters to the North Sea.
This demonstration of how naval forces operate in distant locations, in support of air and ground forces and in conjunction with allies, is a clear example of the flexibility that the regional application of our global Maritime Strategy provides in times of crisis and contingency response.
The Worst Conventional Case—Global War: Since the end of 1945, the United States and its allies, despite numerous crises and regional conflicts, have been able to prevent a major war with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. This very success has sometimes been used as an argument for reducing military forces and avoiding the necessity to “think the unthinkable.” Nevertheless, the reality is that for the past four decades it has been our strong military capabilities, the cohesion of our alliances, and our strength of will that have preserved a world free from the horror of global war. We must continue to maintain sufficient combat-ready forces to prevail in a major conflict. The degree to which we are able to do this is, in fact, the real measure of our future deterrent capability.
The changes occurring today in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have lowered superpower tension and hold the promise of achieving significant reductions in the forces facing each other in Europe. These developments require a careful reassessment of our defense planning in such areas as warning time, mobilization capability, reinforcement requirements, available base structures, and overall opposing force levels. Yet, in looking at the nature of any potential or future major war, several elements will remain constant.
First and foremost, the Soviet Union, with or without its other Warsaw Pact allies, is the only single power with the ability to threaten the continued existence of the United States. Whatever the eventual level of Soviet military and naval forces, and however greatly the superpowers reduce their conventional and strategic nuclear forces in the immediate future, the Soviet Union will almost certainly remain our most dangerous potential adversary.
Second, the basic principles that have guided our naval war-fighting strategy through the Eighties will remain valid during the Nineties. This means reliance upon deterrence, forward defense, and global coalition warfare. In the event of regional or global conflict, U.S. and allied fortunes would continue to depend on our ability to control the seas. Maritime forces would be relied upon to support and resupply our allies and deployed forces as far forward as possible. In any conflict, we would seek leverage to achieve early favorable conflict resolution, while taking every measure to avoid crossing the nuclear threshold unless such a step were forced upon us.
Maritime Superiority: While naval forces alone cannot win a war against a predominantly continental power, maritime superiority makes two contributions that are necessary for victory by a maritime nation.
The first is that. maritime superiority, and the unimpeded use of the seas which it guarantees, provides a means of fighting a protracted conventional war overseas. Most crucially, the sea-lanes must be kept open for the reinforcement and resupply of forward-deployed U.S. and allied ground and air forces. Successful forward sea control can best secure sea lines of communications, and thereby ensure full access to global industries and resources in order to fuel the wartime economies of the maritime coalition.
Second, maritime superiority enables us to deny an opponent the option of a single-theater strategy in a global war. It would make no sense to allow an opponent to attack us at a point of his choosing without moving to threaten him in areas where he may be more vulnerable. Naval forces allow us to enforce the enemy’s isolation and expand our own strategic options. It is hard to imagine warships passing peacefully in the night while we are engaged in a shooting war ashore.
This does not imply that the Navy and Marine Corps would proceed simultaneously with forward maritime campaigns throughout the world’s oceans. We do not have sufficient forces to do that today, and we are unlikely to have them any time in the foreseeable future. Instead, we would concentrate our forces in sequential maritime campaigns in order to exploit our own mobility and the vulnerabilities of any would-be enemy, while, in conjunction with our allies, keeping any adversary engaged wherever he may be.
The ability to move into forward areas is a necessity if we are to protect our allies, prevent enemy interdiction of our sea lines of communication, destroy his navy, and force him into a defensive posture. In addition, the ability of naval power projection forces to threaten large areas of an enemy’s homeland, whether or not they are ever actually employed against it, ensures that he must tie down large numbers of forces in response. This limits his options to mass forces in support of main offensive and defensive operations.
Naval operations in support of this forward strategy will require significant contributions from our allies and the other U.S. military services, particularly the Air Force. Naval forces have operated in three traditional dimensions—air, surface, and undersea—and increasingly in space, which provides important new warfighting advantages. The use of space will become more significant to the United States as other countries enter this realm as users and potential competitors, and interservice cooperation will be particularly important in this area. We will also rely heavily upon our allies in a host of areas.
Just what does this mean for the actual wartime employment of our naval forces? In the most basic terms, we must attempt to position our forces forward early—prior to any hostilities, if possible. Forward positioning, combined with other measures, may extend deterrence and forestall the outbreak of war. If deterrence fails, we must quickly gain unfettered use of the seas once hostilities are initiated against us, in order to support the land war and as a precursor to possible strike operations ashore.
The forward movement of our forces in the early stages of a crisis serves two purposes. First, it adds to deterrence by signaling national political resolve, showing support for local allies, and demonstrating readiness. Second, it gets our forces into position so they are not caught in port during the critical early stages of a war, reduces our transit times, severely complicates an enemy’s targeting problem, and ensures that we can immediately begin to affect the course of the war.
If deterrence fails, we must establish sea control as far forward and as early as possible. Control of the narrow seas through which an enemy must transit in order to reach the open ocean is a strategic necessity, a force multiplier that exploits geography to our advantage. At sea, the best defense remains a good offense. Taking the fight to the enemy as far from our own shores as possible is a basic tenet of the Maritime Strategy. We want any adversary to react to our initiatives, rather than the other way around.
Although often portrayed as separate from sea control, power projection and the initial campaign to gain control of the seas are actually complementary and closely linked. Air strikes, forcible entry amphibious operations, and the destruction of the enemy fleet and naval air arm are essential elements of the initial sea control campaign.
Once the threat to our naval forces has been brought down to an acceptable level, U.S. and allied naval forces can step up the pace of their campaign against targets ashore. Carrier battle groups will support the land battle, augmented by Marine Corps expeditionary aviation operating from forward land bases. In addition, Marine aviation command and control assets can be used to integrate sea- and land-based tactical air power, adding depth ashore to the maritime operating area in both the sea control and power projection missions. Air Force and allied tactical aircraft may also be available to complement these efforts.
The coalition warfare goal of these forward operations is the support of our exposed allies. An additional important advantage is their role in disrupting enemy time lines for the preplanned commitment of reserves. This diminishes his ability to concentrate on a single theater of operations, and complicates his calculation of allied intentions and force balance.
Strikes against the enemy’s homeland remain an option open to the President and allied decision-makers. The far- reaching political and military ramifications of such a decision are obvious. Our potential to place an enemy’s homeland at risk in a conventional conflict, and our publicly stated willingness to consider this option, are intended to reap significant strategic benefits. Regardless of whether we would ever decide to employ such a capability, the enemy would be forced to allocate scarce resources to protect its own exposed flanks. Most importantly, such a capability adds markedly to deterrence.
Conclusion: This discussion began by asking whether the Maritime Strategy would remain valid during the coming decade in light of the momentous changes we see occurring today. Without question, developments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union are encouraging and may drastically alter the politico-military environment that we have known since 1945. On the other hand, trends toward a more multipolar, fractious, and turbulent political environment elsewhere in the world mean that we will continue to face difficult challenges. Additionally, all this must be viewed against the background of a tightened fiscal climate and severe budgetary strictures.
Our examination of the Maritime Strategy has established several salient points. First, the strategy is flexible. Rather than laying out a set course of action, it is a general frame of reference to guide our decisions in an uncertain future. Second, the strategy rests upon a solid bedrock of sound facts and principles that will remain valid even as our political and economic surroundings change. Geography and geopolitics still determine our maritime character, deterrence and crisis management remain critical national security imperatives, and our global ties and alliances still require that we support our friends in distant regions. Finally, the military principles that have guided our strategy in the past retain fundamental validity. We will continue to rely on deterrence, flexible forward deployments, and close cooperation with our allies as part of a global coalition.
Maritime Strategy has helped to provide the security and stability we have enjoyed these last 40 years, and has brought us to the beginning of a new era. As I look at this next decade, I am convinced that the Maritime Strategy and the balanced forces we have built to execute it provide a solid foundation for the future. Maritime superiority has made the “strategic difference.” The Navy and Marine Corps of the 1990s continue on watch, standing ready to protect the values and interests of the United States, our allies, and friends into the next century.