There is nothing like a changing geopolitical scene coupled
with fiscal uncertainty to send shudders through a nation’s military
establishment, especially when that nation is, like the United States, a global
power. Institutional soul-searching usually takes the form of devising new
strategies that seek to redefine the military’s mission and to justify its
reason for being. This is a difficult exercise for all of the services, but
especially so for the navy, which operates the most complex and expensive
weapon-delivery systems in the world. The navy is uniquely suited to projecting
American power overseas, but its very mobility makes its mission difficult to
define. In a time of austerity, its $155.8 billion FY2014 budget (larger than that
of China’s entire military) is ripe for the picking. But because so many
policymakers are unsure of what the navy is actually for, they struggle to pick
which programs to keep and which to eliminate.
The roots of the problem are ancient. The first military use
of ships in antiquity was to move soldiers from one place to another, and that
remains a cornerstone of the navy’s mission today. Ship-to-ship conflicts
probably began as efforts to prevent enemy ships from landing their troops, and
were essentially seaborne infantry engagements. Ever since, people have sought
to increase the distance at which ships could fight one another -- first with
bows and arrows, spears, and catapults, and later with cannon fire.
By the twentieth century, shipboard guns were powerful and
effective enough to shell shore targets in tactical support of amphibious
operations. Following World War II, the development of rockets and nuclear
weapons gave surface ships and submarines a previously inconceivable offensive
capability that enabled them to serve as sea-based adjuncts to the army and air
force. Ballistic submarines were at the forefront of the nuclear standoff
between the Soviet Union and the United States, while aircraft carriers and
guided-missile cruisers enabled warships to strike far inland. When the United
States attacked Afghanistan in 2001, for instance, the lack of available
airbases within striking distance of the landlocked country led the army to use
aircraft carriers as forward bases for its helicopters.
Merchant shipping has always been a risky business, and for
much of history mariner merchants could not depend on states for protection.
The widespread adoption of shipboard guns in Europe in the sixteenth century
gave state navies a new rationale. In the era of mercantilism, commercial
protection meant the protection of one’s own ships, and, especially in England,
there was an almost symbiotic relationship between commercial policy and naval
policy -- what one might call a naval-commercial complex -- that was unique to
the period.
Early advocates for a U.S. Navy considered protection of the
nation’s foreign trade as the primary rationale for such a force, and so do
their modern counterparts. Yet today, this close identification of naval
strategy with maritime trade has changed beyond all recognition. Foreign-flag
ships carry 98 percent of U.S. imports and exports. Moreover, the U.S. merchant
marine -- the nation’s commercial shipping fleet -- usually fares poorly in
major wars, in large part because protecting the nation’s trade is not foremost
in the navy’s thinking. This was evident most recently in the desultory
response to Somali piracy, but historically the navy has been strangely
unresponsive to the needs of commercial shippers.
When the Civil War began, the United States merchant marine
comprised 5,300 ships, about 39 percent of the world’s registered merchant
fleet. The U.S. Navy had only 42 ships, a dozen that it kept at home and the
remainder dispersed to protect American interests abroad and to suppress the
transatlantic slave trade. During the war, the navy’s primary strategy was to
blockade southern ports, which it did with considerable success but at the
expense of protecting its own merchants. The Confederate navy’s offensive
capability depended on nine commerce raiders that between them captured more
than 250 Union merchantmen. These losses caused a tenfold increase in the cost
of insurance on American ships, and led to the transfer of more than a thousand
vessels to the protection of neutral foreign ownership. The American merchant
marine never fully recovered.
Things did not improve much in World War I, when the United
States lost 197 merchant ships but only 97 warships, a bleak accounting
considering that one of the country’s chief complaints was the German policy of
unrestricted submarine warfare. Worst of all, however, was the horrendous loss
of merchant ships during World War II. The United States lost more than 1,500
freighters and passenger ships, but less than half as many warships.
Prewar planners had stubbornly failed to anticipate either
the need for commerce protection or the potential of the newest additions to
the navy’s arsenal, the submarine and the aircraft carrier, which had a
profound impact on the ways in which commercial shipping was attacked and
protected. After the war, these new ships would have an even greater impact on
the navy’s strategic role.
“GRATUITOUS ASSISTANCE”
Although the stated mission of the Department of Defense is
“to deter war and to protect the security of our country,” today naval strategy
increasingly emphasizes power projection. More than once, this has tipped the
balance in favor of prosecuting wars that might otherwise have been avoided had
the navy been designed more for defense than offense. In 2007, the U.S. Navy,
Marine Corps, and Coast Guard published
a strategy paper stating
that American “seapower will be globally postured to secure our homeland and
citizens from direct attack and to advance our interests around the world.”
They also maintained that the most persistent problems the United States was
likely to face would arise from failed states or stateless powers, including
pirates and terrorists. As the authors caution in unsettlingly Orwellian terms,
“the United States and its partners find themselves competing for global
influence in an era in which they are unlikely to be fully at war or fully at
peace.”
What is most striking about the joint strategy paper is its
emphasis on the navy’s role in providing relief in humanitarian crises, whether
natural or manmade. Although this is a long-standing commitment (the
U.S.
naval regulations of 1865state that “in all cases of real distress,
gratuitous assistance is to be offered to the fullest extent possible”) the
navy’s modern program of “proactive humanitarian assistance” and “medical
diplomacy” began after the tsunami that struck Indonesia in 2004. There is
little doubt that the navy is often well positioned to assist littoral states
facing emergencies, and that its organizational skills enable the rapid
deployment of precious resources in difficult situations. This humanitarian
role is considered good for the morale of active duty personnel and, to the
extent that they are aware of it, the general public. Supporters of the program
cite practical benefits such as improved operational preparedness, a heightened
appreciation of U.S. intentions among foreign nationals, and the opportunity to
work with military counterparts in other countries. Critics point to the
episodic nature of the navy’s engagement, poor integration with nongovernmental
organizations doing comparable work, the use of ships not intended for the work
at hand, and “a lack of clarity on the relative priority of various goals and
objectives.”
But an obvious question has gone unasked: If the United
States wants a forward-deployed humanitarian assistance program, why doesn’t it
develop one under civilian control and with disaster relief and humanitarian
assistance as its actual priorities? Blurring the lines between military
preparedness, “soft-power” diplomacy, and humanitarianism may “improve foreign
opinion of the United States” on the ground, but it is unlikely to influence a
government’s policy objectives. On the domestic side, this mission creep is
indicative of a growing tendency to militarize and centralize U.S. foreign
policy.
That question, however, is likely to remain unanswered, for
the navy is as much an instrument of domestic political power as a means of
projecting influence abroad. The military is the largest direct employer in the
country, a fact that skews the voting records of senators and representatives
across the political spectrum. Doves and hawks alike find it difficult to vote
against military programs with a significant economic impact on their
constituents, even when the Pentagon actively opposes the programs in question.
Moreover, legislators are particularly sensitive to the need for warships
because the American shipbuilding industry is essentially on life support. Were
the navy to significantly scale back its fleet, the argument goes, American
shipbuilding know-how would evaporate.
At the same time, there are still plenty of opportunities to
cut the navy’s
gargantuan
budget. The only way to do that rationally, rather than by way of
political juvenilia like sequestration, is for the United States to decide what
its navy is actually for. Does it need a navy to protect foreign trade,
regardless of who carries it, or to fulfill the country’s role as the world’s “indispensible
nation”? Can it function both as a war-fighting institution and also as a
vehicle for national compassion? Is the navy an instrument of industrial
protectionism, an engine of economic growth, or an electoral asset?
At present, the answer to all these questions is yes. But no
institution can shoulder such an unwieldy load of responsibilities. And if the
navy suffers from such a glaring lack of clarity about its goals and
priorities, what does that say about the nation it serves?