For many years the United States has considered its economic and security interests inextricably linked to a larger international system composed of interdependent networks of trade, finance, information, law, people, and governance. As a result, it has been the nation’s long-standing policy—across changes of administration and party affiliations—that the United States will act to protect the global system from disruptions. Such disruptions may come in a variety of forms, to include natural disasters, lawlessness, acts of terrorism, regional conflict, or major-power war.1 Given the nature of the global system, the United States prefers to act in concert with international partners but will, if and when necessary, take unilateral action—as the demise of Osama bin Laden recently demonstrated.
Just as maritime trade has long been a key element of economic prosperity—from the heyday of the Phoenicians right up to the present—sea power historically has been an essential ingredient in both protecting national interests and promoting the stability of the global system. While the value of sea power is enduring, its ways and means have evolved to support the ends policy makers have established to address the demands of each security era. Today, as we face great strategic uncertainty and significant economic challenges, U.S. policy makers will be required to make difficult decisions regarding the nation’s defense establishment, including our investment in sea power. It is reasonable to ask, as indeed they have been, “How are the current and planned capabilities of the Navy and Marine Corps relevant to national policy—and in what priority?”
Here we seek to provide insights regarding the relevance of one aspect of sea power—amphibious capabilities—to current national policy. To do so, we build on the construct historian Samuel P. Huntington used in his oft-quoted 1954 Proceedings article explaining the relevance of naval forces in the Cold War.2 After relating how amphibious forces evolved to suit the three phases of policy identified by Huntington, we describe the emerging security era and current policy to inform decisions regarding amphibious capability and capacity.
The Continental Phase
Huntington explained that “the first stage of American national security policy may best be described as the Continental Phase. This lasted approximately from the founding of the Republic down to the 1890s.” During that period national policy focused on securing North America from internal and external threats. Except for a few minor punitive expeditions, the United States did not attempt to project power outside the Western Hemisphere. As Huntington observed, “This policy manifested itself in our refusal to enter into entangling alliances with non-American powers, in our promulgation and defense of the Monroe Doctrine, and our gradual expansion westward to the Pacific.”3
During this phase land forces were the preeminent form of U.S. military power. Naval forces played a subordinate role and were used mainly to protect commerce and to retaliate for outrages against American citizens by a variety of minor overseas foes, such as the Barbary pirates. Amphibious operations were largely ad hoc affairs, wherein landing forces were task-organized from shipboard Marine detachments and rowed ashore by their Navy shipmates. Given the nature of military and naval technology of the era, even some of the largest amphibious operations—such as those at Veracruz during the Mexican War and on the Eastern Seaboard and Western rivers during the Civil War—did not produce specialized organizations or platforms.
The Oceanic Phase
In the 1890s, “the United States began to project its interests and power across the oceans. The acquisition of overseas territorial possessions and the involvement of the United States in maintaining the balance of power in Europe and Asia necessarily changed the nature of the security threats with which it was concerned.”4 Sea power became more prominent and was used to gain access, protect commercial interests, and project strength. Indeed, naval forces were considered the nation’s “first line of defense.” From a Marine Corps perspective, this was an expeditionary era in which we earned our “small wars” experience, developed our amphibious-assault expertise, and won an exemplary combat reputation.
As this phase unfolded, the approach toward amphibious operations evolved from the impromptu assembly of Marine detachments afloat to the establishment of standing units organized, trained, and equipped to seize advance bases in support of a naval campaign in accordance with a well-conceived doctrine. In addition to assault vehicles and landing craft, the Navy-Marine team developed a family of landing ships and support vessels, each designed to perform a specific function associated with the rapid buildup of combat power ashore after a relatively brief ocean transit.
An examination of the composition of the U.S. Fleet at the beginning and end of World War II reveals just how important those capabilities were. As depicted in Figure 1, the United States began the war with no purpose-built landing ships, yet four years later they comprised 37.6 percent of the Fleet. Perhaps more surprising for a war in which the United States fought toe-to-toe for sea control against highly capable peer competitors, only a very small proportion of the Fleet was optimized for blue-water combat.5
The Eurasian Phase
At the conclusion of World War II, the United States found itself in a Cold War versus a nuclear-armed Eurasian land power. The national strategy became one of containment, wherein large Army and Air Force formations were positioned in an extensive network of overseas bases ringing the Soviet Union. The purpose of naval forces was initially unclear, providing the impetus for Huntington to describe the role of the “transoceanic” Navy (and by inference, the Marine Corps), whose mission was
to apply naval power to that decisive strip of littoral encircling the Eurasian continent. . . . The basic weapons of the new Navy are those that make it possible to project naval power far inland . . . the sea is now the base from which the Navy operates. . . . Carrier aviation is sea-based aviation; the Fleet Marine Force is a sea-based ground force; the guns and guided missiles of the fleet are sea-based artillery. . . . The objective should be to perform as far as practicable the functions now performed on land at sea bases closer to the scene of operations.6
Huntington’s premise is recognizable in the 1980s Maritime Strategy, which employed carrier battle groups and Marine amphibious brigades to threaten Soviet forces on the northern flank of NATO. He did not, however, anticipate that the Navy would also have to invest in significant antisubmarine capabilities in order to keep the lifeline to NATO open.
Meanwhile, other writers noted that the standoff between nuclear-armed superpowers did not eliminate the existence of conflict. A series of proxy wars and crises called for something other than a nuclear response. In a 1960 book on defense policy, Sir B. H. Liddell Hart championed the flexibility of amphibious forces for crisis response and limited contingencies:
While it is desirable to have an airborne force . . . it is essential to have a marine force. . . . A self-contained and sea-based amphibious force, of which the U.S. Marine Corps is the prototype, is the best kind of fire extinguisher—because of its flexibility, reliability, logistic simplicity, and relative economy . . . Amphibious flexibility is the greatest strategic asset that a sea-based power possesses.7
The 82nd Congress was a step ahead of Liddell Hart, having already directed that the Marine Corps provide “a strong force in readiness . . . versatile, fast moving, and hard-hitting,” with the observation that “The need for Marines as a ready force is paramount when the Nation is largely demobilized . . . the most ready when the Nation generally is least ready.”8
Key to the mobility and responsiveness that the Congress prized in the Marines was their continuous, sea-based forward presence. It is important to note that, as the Cold War progressed, amphibious capabilities evolved to support persistent forward presence and the ability to perform multiple functions associated with a more fluid and flexible approach to littoral maneuver. The large family of relatively cheap landing ships was replaced by bigger, multi-purpose amphibious ships. Massed ship-to-shore surface movement gave way to dispersed ship-to-objective maneuver using both vertical and surface means. In terms of their proportion of the overall Fleet, the number of amphibious ships declined, while other ship types—most notably the surface combatants and submarines required to counter Soviet submarines—increased. Thus, the key enabler for the expeditionary force in readiness—lacking a corresponding congressional mandate—attained greater capability but reduced capacity.
The Global Phase
With the fall of the Soviet Union a new era began to emerge, one in which crises became more frequent and strategic uncertainty more commonplace as former client states and puppet regimes began to come apart, even as the number of U.S. forces and bases overseas declined dramatically. As a result, amphibious forces have been committed to crises and contingencies at more than double the Cold War frequency.9
General Al Gray, then-Commandant of the Marine Corps, predicted as much in 1989:
Today, our diplomatic interests are well served by an ability to unilaterally position a force, and then rheostatically control its employment to suit the scenario . . . . One might also . . . speculate, as we enter an era characterized by increasing terrorist activities, violence in drug exportation, and the use of coercive tactics such as hostage taking, that amphibious forces . . . will emerge increasingly as the more logical force of choice. There is no indication whatsoever that the zeal of xenophobic radicals, messianic clerics, nihilistic students and other insurgents . . . will decrease. These men of the streets and villages are better dealt with by riflemen than by supersonic aircraft—and they will be dealt with in areas where we will not likely have and will not want to establish, bases ashore.10
Amphibious forces have participated in more than 100 operations since the end of the Cold War.11 These have included: two campaigns against a rogue state; another campaign against irregular actors operating in and from an under-governed state; counterpiracy operations; numerous noncombatant-evacuation operations, including the safe removal of nearly 15,000 American citizens from a combat zone involving state versus non-state actors; and frequent humanitarian-assistance operations worldwide.
Additionally, while many partner nations have welcomed cooperation with U.S. forces, they also have often been reluctant to allow the permanent basing of U.S. forces on their territory. In 2006 the Marine Corps began espousing an expansion of Huntington’s thesis:
The sea-based approach to forward presence will provide persistent security cooperation and counterterrorism capabilities that can be tailored to local requirements while minimizing footprint ashore. This unobtrusive approach will avoid the unintended consequences of a more permanent, landward U.S. military presence.12
The combatant commanders appear to agree, inasmuch as their demand for forward-postured amphibious forces—capable of engaging with partners, responding to crises, and projecting power—has increased 86 percent since 2007 (compared with 29 percent for carrier strike groups).13 In addition, joint doctrine in 2009 revised one of the five types of amphibious operations—amphibious support to other operations—by adding security cooperation to the list of activities that prevent conflict or mitigate crises.
These demand signals and doctrinal changes should come as no surprise to those familiar with extant strategy documents. The National Security Strategy espouses a cooperative approach toward maintaining the international system. The National Defense Strategy notes that the security of the United States is tightly bound up with the security of the broader international system: “Global prosperity is contingent on the free flow of ideas, goods, and services. . . . The United States requires freedom of action in the global commons and strategic access to important regions of the world to meet our national security needs.”14
The National Military Strategy calls for countering violent extremism in the long term by strengthening and expanding our network of partnerships, explaining that preventing wars “is as important as winning them, and far less costly.” It highlights the need to counter anti-access and area-denial strategies and stresses that core U.S. military competencies must include “complementary, multi-domain power projection, joint forcible entry, the ability to maintain joint assured access to the global commons and cyberspace should they become contested, and the ability to fight and win.” It also calls for “a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship with China” while cautioning that we will “monitor carefully China’s military developments.”15
Collectively, these documents describe a “global phase” of U.S. policy, wherein the application of “smart power” promotes a cooperative approach to maintaining the security and stability of the international system.16 Amphibious capabilities are especially relevant in implementing such a policy, having repeatedly demonstrated wide utility in overcoming geographic, military, and diplomatic challenges to access in order to conduct a host of proactive engagement, reactive crisis response, and offensive combat operations.
Downsizing Versatility
Unfortunately, amphibious capacity does not match policy requirements. Amphibious ships, for example, are increasingly recognized as the most flexible and relevant platforms for the current era, yet their number—28—is proportionally no different from the Cold War fleet and remains so in the current shipbuilding plan. Despite the versatility of amphibious forces for crisis response—and indeed a wider range of military operations—the amphibious fleet has inexplicably waned in size. It therefore remains to be determined, in light of national policy, exactly what amphibious capability and capacity will be required and—more important—resourced.
Such determinations are often clouded by well-intentioned but misguided initiatives. It is not uncommon, for example, for analysts to seek alternative, “more cost-effective” approaches following extended-duration military interventions overseas.
One emerging school of thought is that the United States should adopt a “high-low” approach, investing in sophisticated weaponry suitable against potential peer opponents while relying on international partners, assisted by U.S. special-operations forces when necessary, to deal with irregular threats. That approach is attractive from a purely budgetary perspective, but it ignores enduring truths about the nature of conflict and is inconsistent with national policy. However appealing they may be dollar-wise, such simplistic solutions are no substitute for sound assessments of the ways and means necessary to achieve the ends of policy.
Given the established national policy, it is time to re-emphasize investment in our most versatile means of projecting influence and power. In light of budgetary constraints, a re-allocation of proportional share and/or the inclusion of amphibious capabilities on board other ship-types are required to produce a Fleet that reflects and can execute policy.
1. GEN James T. Conway, USMC, ADM Gary Roughead, USN, and ADM Thad W. Allen, USCG, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2007), p. 1.
2. Samuel P. Huntington,, “National Policy and the Transoceanic Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 80, no. 5 (May 1954), pp. 483–93.
3. Ibid., p. 485.
4. Ibid., p. 487.
5. Figure 1 was developed from analysis of the U.S. Navy Active Ship Force Levels, 1917–Present, provided on the Naval History and Heritage Command’s website and the Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for the Construction of Naval Vessels.
6. Huntington, p. 491.
7. Basil H. Liddell Hart, Deterrent or Defense: A Fresh Look at the West’s Military Position, (New York: Praeger, 1960), pp. 127–128.
8. See House Report No. 666, 30 June 1952.
9. This assertion and figure 2 are based on analysis of data obtained from: the electronic Chronologies of the United States Marine Corps; the official histories produced by the History & Museums Division, USMC; Navy Program Guide 2010, Appendix A, “Navy-Marine Corps Crisis Response and Combat Actions,” produced by the Office of the CNO; the “US Navy Today: Status of the Navy” and Naval History and Heritage Command official websites; and the memorandum detailed in endnote 10.
10. GEN A. M. Gray, “Memorandum for the Secretary of the Navy: Reductions in Seapower,” (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 15 November 1989), pp. 1–2.
11. GEN James T. Conway, USMC, ADM Gary Roughead, USN, and ADM Thad W. Allen, USCG, Naval Operations Concept 2010, (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, June 2010), pp. 61, 101.
12. LGEN James N. Mattis, USMC, Marine Corps Operating Concepts for a Changing Security Environment (Quantico, VA: U.S. Government, March 2006), p. 17.
13. Naval Operations Concept 2010, pp. 27–28, 100.
14. The Honorable Robert M. Gates, National Defense Strategy (Washington, DC: June 2008), p. 16.
15. Adm Michael G. Mullen, National Military Strategy of the United States (Washington, DC: 8 February 2011), pp. 7–9, 14.
16. The concept of “smart power” has been espoused by Harvard professor Joseph Nye and has become increasingly commonplace within U.S. government agencies. Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1-0, Marine Corps Operations, of 9 August 2011 provides the first known doctrinal definition.
Lieutenant Colonel Berry is the G3/G5 Division’s senior writer/editor.