The current decade has been a good one for the Navy. Much of what the Navy lost during the 1970s in the way of personnel strength, readiness, and overall capability was recovered and surpassed by its achievements during the 1980s.
The 1980s are drawing to a close, however, and not just in a chronological sense: President Ronald Reagan, who implemented a substantial rebuilding of the nation’s defenses, will be leaving office soon. John Lehman, who was central in securing a prominent place for the Navy in the rebuilding effort, stepped down as Secretary of the Navy in 1987. And the public consensus for the rebuilding effort, which underpinned both Reagan’s and Lehman’s efforts, began to dissipate long before Lehman’s departure and is now essentially gone. In all these ways, the 1990s could well prove to be a very different era for the Navy. Indeed, the resignation of Lehman’s successor, James Webb, after only ten months in office, can be seen as an early signal of more difficult times to come.
If, during the coming decade, the Navy is to build upon the achievements of the 1980s, rather than see them dissolve, a natural first step would be to identify the key organizing concepts and arguments behind those achievements, and then examine whether these concepts and arguments can be refined and applied in the years ahead. To be sure, the Navy cannot afford to rest on its laurels by relying exclusively on concepts from the previous decade. New concepts must always be added as circumstances change, or else decay will set in. But the Navy also cannot afford to discard powerful concepts arbitrarily, simply because they are not new, particularly if they might be applicable, with refinements, to emerging circumstances.
In searching for the key organizing concepts and arguments behind the Navy’s achievements of the 1980s, a good place to start would be with the Maritime Strategy- For the past several years, the Maritime Strategy has served the Navy as:
► A guide for rationalizing Navy plans and programs
► A persuasive framework for Navy funding requests
► A vehicle to help deter the Soviets
► A statement of reassurance to the allies
The Maritime Strategy gave life to the 600-ship Navy concept, and shaped much of the Navy’s experience during the 1980s. In meeting the challenges of the 1990s, a more fully developed Maritime Strategy might prove to be of substantial value.
The Navy could choose to jettison the Maritime Strategy entirely, consigning it to the 1980s as an artifact of the Reagan-Lehman era, and enter the 1990s without it, perhaps with something new in its place. It might be difficult, however, to find a new and equally powerful organizing concept, and the Navy would risk much by venturing into the 1990s without a worthy substitute. Consequently, it could well be prudent to begin focusing now on the task of refining the Maritime Strategy for the 1990s. Here are some thoughts on this task, particularly as it relates to the Maritime Strategy as a public document. In undertaking this task, the Navy will need to address five potential difficulties.
The Strategy's Linkage to John Lehman: The first of these difficulties is the Maritime Strategy’s linkage to John Lehman. To those in uniform, the Maritime Strategy is a concept firmly embedded in Navy thinking and planting. To many outside the Navy, however, the strategy remains a personal creation of John Lehman.
This perception stems largely from the fact that Secretory Lehman:
► Wrote a high-profile essay, “Rebirth of a U. S. Naval Strategy,” that was published in the Summer 1981 issue of Strategic Review, just after he assumed office as Secretary of the Navy
► Played an important role in prompting the uniformed Navy to write up the strategy
► Was the leading exponent of the strategy in his earlier years in office Eventually, the task of articulating and defending the strategy shifted to the Chief of Naval Operations and other Navy officers, and Lehman concentrated on obtaining funding for the 600-ship Navy. This later shift in roles, however, did not erase the impressions that were generated by Lehman’s early activities in connection with the strategy, and for many today, the Maritime Strategy is still “Lehman’s strategy.”
This linkage presents a potential problem for the Navy. John Lehman is no longer Secretary of the Navy, but while in office he expressed his views and exercised his authority in ways that antagonized many inside and outside the Navy. Now that he has left, a public backlash against his legacy may develop, and to the extent that the Maritime Strategy is personally identified with him, it could become a target of this backlash.
This matter merits attention because some of the people Lehman antagonized are opponents of the Maritime Strategy or of associated Navy programs. Lehman sometimes dismissed these individuals as “armchair strategists” and “parlor-room Pershings.” In the near term—while he was in office—these characterizations were often effective in deflecting or dismissing criticism of the Maritime Strategy or various Navy programs. In the long run, however, they may prove troublesome: Lehman no longer wields influence from center stage, and it would not be surprising if these individuals now feel motivated to discredit whatever they see as Lehman’s legacy, including the Maritime Strategy.
Maintaining the Public Case for the Strategy: A second challenge concerns the Navy’s willingness to continue arguing the affirmative side in the public debate on the merits of the strategy. The Navy initiated this debate by going public with the strategy in detail in 1984. Its two top spokesmen. Secretary Lehman and Chief of Naval Operations James Watkins, spoke and wrote frequently on the topic. When the Navy appeared to be losing control over the public articulation and defense of the strategy—that is, when misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the strategy were becoming commonplace—it moved to reestablish control. It got the Naval Institute to publish the Chief of Naval Operations’s authoritative description of the strategy, along with supporting essays on the amphibious strategy and the 600-ship Navy, in the widely circulated January 1986 Maritime Strategy Supplement.
By initiating this public debate on the merits of the strategy, and by having its leaders sustain the case for the strategy in this debate for some time thereafter, the Navy in effect created an obligation to continue its defense of the strategy for the duration of the public debate, which is still far from settled. The Navy, in short, started a public debate—an intellectual fight—that is not yet finished, and from which it cannot walk away without risk of defeat.
It is beginning to appear, however, that the Navy may be preparing to withdraw to a large degree from this public debate. Lehman’s and Watkins’s successors to date have not spoken or written on the Maritime Strategy in the public forum as frequently or at such length as their predecessors. And no other members of the Navy’s leadership appear particularly interested in making up the difference.
The term “Maritime Strategy” still appears regularly in the Navy’s public statements, but those references have become increasingly ritualistic and empty. The term now seems to be invoked as a sanctifying device in much the same way that the Soviets use quotations from Lenin to dress up their policy statements.
Perhaps the Navy has grown tired of participating in the public debate on the strategy—of rebutting the same criticisms, with the same counterpoints, again and again. Perhaps it now wants to concentrate on revising and perfecting the strategy internally. Such in-house work is important and necessary if the strategy is to respond to changing circumstances. But if the Navy abandons the public debate, it risks its loss by default. This could have very real consequences for the Navy.
As a case in point, consider Jack Beatty’s highly critical cover article on the Maritime Strategy, “In Harm’s Way,” in the May 1987 issue of The Atlantic magazine. In light of The Atlantic’s readership, the prominence the magazine gave to the article (the cover’s subtitle: “America’s scary, and expensive, new naval strategy”), and the breadth and strength of Beatty’s criticisms, this is arguably one of the most important essays opposing the Maritime Strategy to appear in recent years.
Two years ago, an article as prominent and critical as this one would have prompted a lengthy letter to the editor from a high-ranking Navy official. Letters rebutting Beatty and defending the strategy have been printed in The Atlantic (in the August and September issues), but none were from high-ranking Navy civilians or active-duty Navy officers. Navy leadership to date has apparently left it to others to defend the strategy in this important forum.
Many of the critics’ arguments are old and have been answered by the Navy on numerous previous occasions. Beatty’s article recycles many themes that have appeared in previous articles critical of the strategy. Having rebutted these arguments in the past, however, does not exempt the Navy from having to answer them each time they arise, if only because the decision makers and the decision-making environment are continuously changing.
The issue here is not the validity of the critics’ arguments. In a public debate such as this one, arguments repeated often enough without public rebuttal often become accepted wisdom, whether or not they are valid. If the Navy does not respond to the strategy’s critics, then their arguments, by virtue of sheer unchallenged repetition, will begin to assume a widespread credibility and acceptance, whatever their merits. Misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the strategy are likely to increase once again. If the critics gain the upper hand in the debate by default, the Navy will have no one to blame for the consequences but itself.
The Strategy and the 600-Ship Objective: A third challenge for the Navy will be to clarify the relationship between the Maritime Strategy and the 15-carrier, 600-ship program objective. In the first years of the Reagan- Lehman era, the concept of the Maritime Strategy was employed extensively in winning support for the 15- carrier, 600-ship force-level goal. In the short run, this linkage was effective, particularly in securing funding in 1982 for the Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and George Washington (CVN-73).
One of the lasting consequences of this tactic, however, is that many now see the Maritime Strategy as a rationale for increasing the size of the fleet to a level of 15 carriers and 600 ships. Only a Navy as large as this, it is understood by many, stands even a chance of being able to carry out the offensive, ambitious aspects of the Maritime Strategy. This presents a problem for the Navy, because the corollary of this understanding is a belief that if the Navy adopts (or is directed to carry out) a less offensive, less ambitious strategy, it can satisfactorily accomplish its tasks with something less than a 15-carrier, 600-ship fleet.
The Navy, and particularly John Lehman, did in time argue that the requirement for a 600-ship Navy is not driven by the Maritime Strategy. It is driven instead, the argument went, by the more permanent factors of global geography, the nature of our mostly overseas interests and alliance ties, and the growth of the Soviet blue-water fleet. The Maritime Strategy, in this view, simply represents the best way to use a 600-ship fleet. The focus of the discussion, however, settled on how a 600-ship fleet would represent a substantial buildup from the less than 500-ship fleet of the late 1970s. Attention was rarely focused on the fact that a 600-ship fleet would represent only a partial return toward the 900-plus ship levels of the 1950s and 1960s. Consequently, most people refer to the effort to achieve the 600-ship level as the naval buildup; few refer to it as the naval recovery program.
The Navy has never made it clear enough that the Maritime Strategy is not offensively oriented because a Navy with 15 carriers and 600 ships would have excess resources and would need an ambitious strategy to use all those ships. Instead, it is offensively oriented because a 15-carrier, 600-ship Navy would be a decidedly limited force, considering its wartime tasks. A Navy as small as that stands a good chance of completing these tasks only if it adopts a forward, offensively oriented strategy. The Navy has not communicated the critical notion that the Maritime Strategy is not a luxury made possible by a 600- ship fleet, but a necessity that results from being limited to, at most, a 600-ship fleet. The strategy is not offensively oriented because the Navy likes it that way, but because with only 15 carriers and only 600 ships, it has to be that way, if the Navy is to stand any chance of success.
Critics have often commented that the Maritime Strategy, by calling for operations in or near Soviet home waters, would put U. S. forces at the end of their supply lines, beyond the reach of supporting units, and in the teeth of Soviet defenses. The consequent argument is that U. S. forces would face more favorable odds if the battle took place in less-forward areas, farther away from Soviet home bases.
The Navy has not stressed sufficiently in response that the Maritime Strategy generates critical advantages and economies of force that override the disadvantages of forward operations, because:
► Bottling up the Soviet Navy in its home waters requires fewer platforms than countering a Soviet Navy that has dispersed into the wider waters of the open ocean
► Using one’s forces offensively—particularly one’s nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs)—forces the other side to use its units in a more platform-intensive defensive manner (i.e., one aggressive U. S. SSN can tie down many defending Soviet units)
► Only by operating in forward positions can U. S. SSNs simultaneously perform three missions: help bottle up Soviet forces, threaten Soviet nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), and pose a Tomahawk land- attack cruise-missile threat.
Lehman sometimes pointed out that a less forward, more defensive strategy would require a larger merchant fleet because it would result in a greater sealift attrition rate. Navy officials also argued that if the next battle of the Atlantic had to be fought in the Atlantic, rather than in the Norwegian Sea, the United States and NATO would lack sufficient assets and probably lose the fight.
In the end, however, it was not communicated that a less forward, more defensive strategy would, by forfeiting or reversing the critical advantages and economies of force associated with forward operations, result in a requirement not for a fleet of fewer than 600 ships, but for a fleet of more than 600 ships. Evidently, this point was not made, partly because it would contradict the argument made earlier that the required size of the Navy was not linked to the strategy. It may also have been avoided because it would require pointing out that the 600-ship Navy would have limited strength relative to its wartime tasks, a position that would not mesh well with the confident, upbeat tone associated with the effort to win approval for the 600-ship program.
Maintaining a Clear Definition: A fourth challenge for the Navy will be to maintain a clear, well-bounded definition of “the Maritime Strategy.” When first presented in detail to the public, and for some time thereafter, the term referred to a fairly specific concept for the use of maritime power in a protracted, global, conventional war with the Soviet Union. More recently, however, work has started on extending the concept of the Maritime Strategy to other contingencies, from peacetime presence to nuclear war at sea.
It is valuable, of course, for the Navy to think through these other contingencies, so it can better prepare for them, and so it can better explain to various audiences the potential applications of maritime power to them. And it would be convenient if the potential applications of maritime power to all these contingencies could be summarized in a single term, particularly if strategic principles relevant to all these scenarios can be identified.
Attempting to fit all these contingencies under the rubric of “the Maritime Strategy,” however, could prove problematic, because it could lead to a situation in which “the Maritime Strategy” refers to all of the Navy’s possible peacetime and wartime operations, and thus to none of them in particular. By stretching the concept in this manner, “the Maritime Strategy” could come to mean everything, and thus nothing. Even now, “the Maritime Strategy” means different things to different people. If the situation is further confused by the addition of new meanings—even worthy ones—“the Maritime Strategy” could lose its force as an organizing concept and revert to the amorphous and not very useful term it was only a few years ago.
The Strategy’s Reality as a War-Fighting Concept: A final challenge for the Navy will be to confirm or otherwise clarify the reality of the Maritime Strategy as a warfighting concept. As a resource-allocation guide for the Navy, as a guide for the planning of naval exercises, and as a policy statement to the Soviets and U. S. allies, the reality of the Maritime Strategy is well established.
As a document whose major principles have been applied to the actual war-fighting plans of the theater Com- manders-in-Chief (CinCs), however, the reality of the Maritime Strategy remains less clear. Outside the Navy, particularly among our allies, many still believe that the Maritime Strategy is basically a Navy budget-justification tool, and little else. They find it difficult to believe that the Navy will want (or be permitted) to actually conduct the kind of forward, offensive operations called for in the strategy.
Statements from U. S. officials outside of the Navy have done little to clarify this issue. When questioned on this point, they have described the Maritime Strategy as generally consistent with the national or NATO military strategies. That sounds supportive, but it is not quite the same as saying that the Maritime Strategy actually has been implemented as a broad war-fighting guideline, or that its principles have been applied to, or incorporated as elements of, the actual war-fighting plans of the theater CinCs. This difference is beginning to register in the minds of those who doubt the reality of the strategy as a war-fighting concept. Allowing this ambiguity to continue can only be confusing at best and corrosive at worst.
Meeting the Challenge: If all or most of these potential difficulties come to pass, the effect on the Maritime Strategy, and thus on the Navy, could be substantial. Consider the worst case: The Maritime Strategy could come to be seen as John Lehman’s personal strategy, as something the Navy is no longer particularly interested in defending, as the principal rationale for the buildup to a 15-carrier, 600- ship fleet, as a vague, catch-all phrase that has little real meaning, and as something whose relationship to the national and NATO military strategies remains unclear, perhaps because it is not a real war-fighting concept after all. If the Navy does not provide an alternative to this view, it would be an understandable temptation to take the whole package—including the 15-carrier, 600-ship force structure—and toss it out the window.
Some of this potential problem can be traced to the fact that the strategy has been used to score some important but short-term points for the Navy in the annual budget-justification process. These short-term gains, however, should not come at the expense of the long-term benefits that the Maritime Strategy could generate. If the Navy is serious about maintaining the value of the Maritime Strategy into the 1990s, then it might be argued that the Navy should:
► Make it clear that the Maritime Strategy is not John Lehman’s personal creation and that it is firmly embedded in Navy planning
► Continue to defend the Maritime Strategy vigorously in the public debate on its merits
► Express more explicitly the idea that the strategy is a necessity that allows the United States to minimize the size of the Navy required to carry out the nation’s maritime tasks in war, and that a less forward, less offensive strategy would create a requirement for a larger, not a smaller Navy
► Continue to think through contingencies other than a protracted conventional war with the Soviets, but prevent the definition of “the Maritime Strategy” from expanding to the point where it loses its clarity and usefulness as an organizing concept
► Confirm or otherwise clarify, particularly for the benefit of allied observers overseas, the reality of the strategy as a set of principles for the theater war-fighting plans
These comments and recommendations have focused on the public side of the Maritime Strategy, and thus constitute only a portion of what might need to be done to refine the strategy for the 1990s. The strategy is also, of course, a substantive operational document, and its content will have to be redefined to suit changing circumstances. This task, however, is something that will come naturally to the Navy. It is the task of maintaining the strategy as a forceful public document that seems more in danger of falling through the cracks, because it is a relatively foreign undertaking for those in uniform, and a time-consuming and frequently unrewarding task that the civilian Navy leadership can easily choose not to undertake. Arguably, the Navy cannot afford to leave this task unattended, however, because the Maritime Strategy is now very much a part of the public consciousness regarding U. S. defense policy. If the Maritime Strategy is to help the Navy in the next decade, and not become a burden, then its public side must be maintained and refined.