The Conceptual Foundations for Maritime Strategy in the 21st Century

John B. Hattendorf
Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History, U.S. Naval War College

Paper presented at a conference on South Africa and International Naval Co-operation on the 9 August 1994 at Nassau Centre, Cape Town, jointly hosted by the Institute for Defence Policy and South African Institute of International Affairs. The views expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author.

Published in African Defence Review Issue No 18, 1994

INTRODUCTION

The foundations for maritime strategy in the twenty-first century are laid on centuries of practice, but on only a relatively short period of analysis and theoretical examination. It was only about a century ago that Alfred Thayer Mahan pointed out the role of sea power in wartime national policy1 and it has been only eighty-some years since Sir Julian Corbett first provided a more complete theoretical statement of the principles for establishing control of the sea in wartime2.

Since those years, both naval and maritime practice as well as theory have progressed, widening our perceptions. Today, we have a larger, theoretical understanding that builds on these earlier ideas for wartime maritime strategy. Our perspective has allowed us to go on to lay the foundations of theory for peacetime strategies of maritime power3.

THE THEORY OF MARITIME STRATEGY

The fundamental focus of maritime strategy centres on the control of human activity at sea. There are two parts to this. On the one hand, there is the effort to establish control for oneself or to deny it to an enemy. There are gradations to control that range from the abstract ideal to that which is practical and possible: whether control is general or limited, absolute or merely governing, widespread or local, permanent or temporary.

On the other hand, there is the effort to use the control that one has in order to achieve specific ends. The effort to achieve control, by itself, means nothing unless that control has an effect. Most important, in the wide spectrum of activity that this category involves, is the use of control at sea to influence and, ultimately, to assist in controlling events on land.

The fundamental characteristics of these two broad parts to maritime strategy stress their sequential and cumulative relationships: the need to obtain some degree of control before being able to use it to obtain the important ends that one seeks. This, of course, does not exclude the simultaneous pursuit of these objects, but one can not forget that whatever the relative and temporal character of the control that is achieved it necessarily affects the nature of the end-results that are possible.

In wartime, fleet battles and blockade of war fleets have been the two traditional means by which one opponent has achieved control over another, preventing an enemy from interfering in its own use of the sea. We tend to focus on this initial aspect of maritime strategy, particularly on battles, ignoring the less glamorous, but far more important ways in which the sea is used for maintaining control. In wartime, there are many essential military uses of the sea for this purpose. Among the most important wartime functions are

protecting and facilitating one's own and allied merchant shipping and military supplies at sea,



denying commercial shipping to an enemy,



protecting the coast and offshore resources,



acquiring advanced bases,



moving and supporting troops,



gaining and maintaining local air and sea control in support of air and land operations.4

From a narrowly defined perspective, these seem to be uniquely maritime and naval functions, but in the context of a wider understanding, all of these broad functions are closely related to other aspects of national power. In particular, the navy is operating in its own element, at sea, and using its specialized skills and equipment in a manner that is not in any way divorced from, but rather very closely tied to, the parallel and complementary functions of other armed services.

In peacetime, in operations short of open warfare, and in the non-war functions of naval power, many of which continue even during wartime, maritime strategy involves a wide variety of other considerations. These may be categorized under three headings:5

the diplomatic and international role;

the policing role; and

the military role.

The military role is, of course, the basis for the other two, but it has peacetime functions that range from strategic nuclear deterrence to conventional deterrence. It includes developing the bases, shore facilities and procedures that are prudent and necessary to prepare in peacetime in the event of war. The military role involves protecting the lives, property and interests of one's national citizens on the high seas, in distant waters and off-shore possessions in time of natural disaster. Highly important for the 21st century, it includes active support for the established law of the sea.

Based on their military capability, navies have a policing function. Some countries, such a the United States, have such a wide geographical scope and responsibility in this role, that it justifies moving this naval function to a separate service. Other states, by tradition or for other reasons, have taken similar action or share responsibilities with several organizations, including the navy. Involving, as it does, armed force to control activity at sea, it is logically a naval role. Nevertheless, it is one that involves a whole range of civil responsibilities and this, in the modern world, extends naval activity into an additional realm, often involving specialized procedures and legal requirements. In periods of extended peace and international stability, when there is little justification in the popular mind for a war fleet, the policing role is one through which wartime capabilities and sea-going expertise can be preserved in a contingency force while, at the same time, performing another important naval task.

As a minor subsidiary function under the policing role, navies can contribute also to internal stability and to internal development. For obvious geographical reasons, this type of peaceful use of naval force in giving assistance to the civil community, is limited, nevertheless, it is important. For communities on islands, along navigable rivers, in distant coastal areas, navies can more readily supply electrical power, hospital facilities and transport heavy equipment. In addition, the presence of naval shore facilities and active bases in distant areas acts as a symbol of the nation for the people of those regions, thereby contributing to national solidarity while at the same time contributing to the local economy by employing civil workers who live in the region.

The third peacetime role for navies is the diplomatic and international role. In this role, navies in the 21st century can play an important part to reassure and to strengthen bi-lateral alliances, regional and world wide international organizations. From a position of naval strength, nations can, in this way, contribute to international stability and maintain a nation's international presence and prestige while at the same time cooperating with others to achieve collective security.

All these three roles are based upon the ability to put armed forces to sea and the potential that they have, even in peacetime, to use force. Unlike other types of military force, navies offer a unique quality that is not as readily apparent in an army, an air force, or a marine assault force. While soldiers and warplanes always appear to be menacing, ships and seamen can appear off-shore or in ports around the world in ways that easily allow them to be ambassadors and diplomats - or even benign helpers in times of catastrophe6. The fundamental relationship of navies to national economies, through the protection of commercial shipping and other national maritime activities beyond land boundaries, gives naval forces their unique character, tying naval men and women to the larger community of peaceful seafarers and so distinguishing them from other forms of military force. Thus, navies find that their capabilities and functions derive from two complementary, but quite different, spheres of tradition, one civil and one military, providing them resources for important functions in both peace and war.

TWENTIETH CENTURY MARITIME STRATEGIES

Over the past century, we have seen a variety of maritime strategies at work. Recently, in regional crises in the Adriatic and the Gulf War, as well as in the Vietnam and Korean wars, maritime strategy was largely unopposed and maritime nations concentrated on using the sea for their own purposes in supporting and carrying out their military actions.

In the Cold War era, a bi-polar world drove opposing maritime strategies centred around two super-power navies with nuclear missiles, while many small and medium-sized countries tailored their maritime contributions to fit broad alliance strategies through specialized functions such as mine-sweeping or anti-submarine warfare.

In World War Two, the United Nations faced a desperate threat from the Axis powers, seeking to dominate both the Atlantic and the Pacific. This war was characterized by the struggle against the U-boat attacks on merchant shipping in the Atlantic and the great island-hopping, amphibious campaigns across the Pacific with its carrier-to-carrier battles at Midway and the Philippine Sea, as well as co-ordinated surface, air and submarine actions. Both the First and Second World Wars shared similar maritime strategies that required providing critical logistical support for armies from one continent to another, and the long tedious process of enforcing economic blockades in the face of determined opposition at sea.

More prominent in the popular memory of the First World War, however, is the great battle of Jutland in which opposing squadrons of battleships fought a fleet action reminiscent of the great sea battles of the 17th and 18th centuries. While the naval officers of the day saw themselves within a great maritime tradition, the observers of maritime activity in the period expected something quite different than what actually occurred when war broke out in 1914. They incorrectly predicted that their immediate future would bring them no world engulfing war, but rather relatively confined crises such as they had seen in the Spanish American War in 1898, the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 or the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. All of these wars required major navies to move great distances and to fight or to support wars for limited objectives and deal with crises in distant waters.

Such thoughts have a resonance with the latest strategic planning and perhaps the experience and ideas of that time have some valuable maritime lessons for us to keep in mind7. We share an interest in the general problems of limited wars and regional crises. We share with this period a common problem, too, in dealing with the broad issues that nations face in developing adequate naval force and maintaining it while costs rise and technology rapidly changes and expands. Here, the identification, selection and development of new naval technology is interwoven with complex issues of national finance, bureaucratic decision-making, personalities and legislative support.8 The fact that naval planners were faced with the unexpected in 1914 is, in itself, a valuable note of caution, but there are some important differences to keep in mind, if one were to try to press a parallel to the situation of our own era.

The period leading up to 1914 was quite from different from ours. It was a very different world of imperial rivalry and colonial expansion, a time of rising military and naval budgets, and a period in which regional tensions in Europe had immediate and world-wide impact. Perhaps we are closer today to the general pattern of affairs that existed in the first portion of the nineteenth century, in the decades following the end of a long and exhausting series of wars. All nations reduced their armaments and only one, Great Britain, retained a relatively large navy, although it was, in fact, drastically reduced from what it had been. There was a tendency to want to deal with conflict through collective security and various national navies found themselves operating, not for the first time, in multilateral actions.

However instructive this period is, one can not press the parallel too far, either. The congress system for collective security and the multilateral naval actions of the period, at such places as Navarino in 1827 and Acre in 1840, extending even to the Black Sea operations in the Crimean War at mid-century, were far less sophisticated than the approaches we have available to us today.

We live in an era when everything seems to have changed; in a superficial sense, everything is different: ships, weapons, communications, aircraft, nations, politics and problems. Nevertheless, the present is a product of the past. If we are to know where we can go in the future, we need to understand where we are now and how and why we got there. A good navigator must fix a position and know the conditions of wind, weather and tide, before laying out an accurate track.

In parallel with that process, we should be able to profit by insights from both the early nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries as we look at our own present and future naval possibilities. At the same time, we should neither ignore nor accept blindly the insights that careful study of these periods in history will reveal. They seem to offer us more for understanding our future than a study of recent periods, but they can not tell all. A century ago, naval men looking into the future found resonating insight from the study of the great wars of imperial rivalry in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, the structure of world politics and the issues for navies are very different, we need to look to other examples and other periods for more specific insight.

THE NAVAL WORLD OF TODAY AND TOMORROW

To predict the future is indeed to 'see through a glass, darkly.'9 But, if the lines of the recent past and the present continue to develop, one can optimistically suggest that the bi-polar, world-wide struggle of the past half century may not re-occur for a long time, that there may be no major threat of world hegemony from any single power or unified group, that crises and threats may be regional and limited, even if their effects could be widespread if not attended to effectively.

At the same time, the new context for maritime strategy may involve adhering more closely to the growing and more intrusive requirements of international law. World and regional organizations may advance the ideals of collective security and regional co-operation, and these initiatives may be more warmly received as nations recognize that international co-operation may allow more to be done with less. It may be that individual nations continue to operate navies on severely limited budgets. Those naval forces may be smaller than in the past, technological advances may rapidly continue, advanced technology and high costs may force individual navies to become both more complex and more closely integrated with other forces, both joint and combined.

The traditional types of maritime threats and responses may reoccur regularly in the larger regional crises, but more often maritime strategy in the 21st century may focus on control of the sea to deal with the newer threats: terrorism, pollution control and environmental concerns, illicit trade and traffic at sea; or concern for activity within Exclusive Economic Zones at sea, humanitarian relief, fisheries, exploitation and over-exploitation of off-shore resources, and general law enforcement at sea. The new threats require new approaches and new methods, yet in response they, too, will require the use of advanced scientific information about the maritime environment, research, development, planning and intelligence information. In an era when the size and range of problems may well surpass the ability of any one nation or any one navy to deal adequately with them, multilateral naval co-operation may become increasingly common. The key problem that navies face today is to develop the necessary common procedures, common communication and common operational doctrine that will allow naval units to work together more effectively on a regional, or when necessary, on a world-wide basis.

As I suggested earlier, multilateral naval operations are nothing new. The Dutch and the English navies operated together very successfully in wartime during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The French and the Spanish navies fought together in a number of wars during the same period. In the twentieth century, the failures of the Australian-British-Dutch-American squadron in southeast Asia in 1942 provided worthwhile lessons that were not lost on the survivors. By 1943-44, the allied landings in North Africa and Italy were remarkable feats of international co-operation, the experience of which culminated in the Normandy landings fifty years ago this summer. There, British and American admirals commanded a fleet that included not only their own naval vessels, but also Polish, Norwegian, and Free French ships.

Despite this successful experience, naval leaders are naturally doubtful about the prospects for multilateral operations. In the first place, we nearly always think of navies in national terms. We all have been taught that our navy represents our nation. Everything about navies is organized in national terms. We fight on the decks of our ships for our own nation. For this, we fly our national flag and our ships often carry evocative national names: the names of heroes, battles, symbols or places that are part of our heritage and that we value as a united people. To think of navies in other terms somehow feels improper, even sacrilegious. These feelings come from ingrained habits of thought, not from a dispassionate examination of the facts. In the mid-1960s, when the idea of the Standing Naval Force Atlantic was first suggested, NATO leaders were extremely skeptical that it could succeed. Yet, thirty years later, STANAVFORLANT has shown itself to be a model for a successful multinational naval force, with command rotating among all the national participants, each on equal footing with ships and colleagues from other countries; the smaller countries' contributions not being dominated by the larger. Over the years, the Standing Naval Force has developed common tactics, publications, communications equipment and procedures while working toward standardization in logistics.

Some of the more advanced, co-operative initiatives surrounding this Force have yet to be implemented. Among them, for example, is the idea from the 1970s of the 'Free World Frigate,' a proposal to share standardization in design and supply through a ship-type built with components from all participating countries10.

In recent years, the fundamental problems in trying to adapt the concept of multinational naval forces to other parts of the world outside NATO have been threefold: First, the need to provide a workable system for command and control. Second, the need to provide standardized doctrine. Third, the need to establish common communications methods and equipment. The experience of the early 1990s in the Persian Gulf War, in the Adriatic and off Haiti have provided some alternative models, each with their own drawbacks11. In these situations, we have seen a variety of arrangements used, from ad hoc co-operation to the use of regional organizations and the United Nations.

NAVAL DOCTRINE

Whatever the arrangements for command and control, the problem of doctrine remains a very difficult one, even for fairly routine operations. There is always a lingering fear that one should not share standard operating procedures outside one's own navy and one's closest, permanent allies. Yet, if multilateral naval operations are going to be needed much more commonly in the 21st century, this is an area that will require much co-operative effort before international naval forces can operate together more flexibly and more effectively in facing the challenges of the future. Doctrine for international naval co-operation needs to be developed to deal with the wide range of new operational problems that may well become much more common in the new century.

To my mind, one of the main problems in approaching this issue, is to know, in the context of international naval co-operation, what doctrine is. Too often, observers interpret doctrine as a political statement or, alternatively at the opposite end of the scale, as a hard and fast directive that must always be obeyed. While these definitions may be appropriate in other contexts, naval doctrine, in fact, is more precisely a statement of general procedures. This becomes clearer and more useful when we see that naval doctrine arises more dominantly from the principles of seamanship, not the principles of war. Seamanship includes everything that one must know in order to handle ships safely at sea. It is a learned body of knowledge that involves application of all sorts of specific, practical skills, but it is not a rigid set of rules. Seamanship is filled with standard routines and procedures that require careful and scrupulous attention to detail, but more importantly, it is an art that demands the ability to be alert to changing conditions and requires readiness to cope with unexpected emergencies. The characteristics of a good seaman are initiative, foresight, reliability, and the ability to improvise with superior judgement in dealing with the unpredictable. 'Because the sea is neither predictable nor tolerant of human mistakes,' one writer has succinctly explained to a literary audience, 'the practice of seamanship is often complex, demanding imagination and discrimination more than adherence to fixed rules of procedure.'12

Both seamanship and naval doctrine contain rules and procedures, but they are rules that merely provide for the routine. They let other seaman know what to expect and what to do at the opportune time, without having to wait to be told at every move in the pattern. They establish a normal way of thinking and an approach that is both a standard and a necessary basis for seamen to work together efficiently in their unpredictable environment.

Yet, there is a dividing line between good discipline in following the rules and superior judgement in meeting a crisis. There is always a place and an appropriate time for a seaman to put the telescope to a blind eye, ignoring the standard signal, using imagination and initiative to meet an unusual challenge effectively. Naval doctrine for multinational naval operations should and must provide a standard approach for many different navies to work together effectively, and, in doing so, they strengthen one another without divulging national secrets. The very practical area of naval doctrine for multinational naval operations is the key area that needs to be developed more firmly in the closing years of the 20th century, so that one can develop the higher concepts for maritime strategies in the 21st century.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we should not forget that the foundations for maritime strategy in the 21st century are laid on centuries of practice, but on only a relatively short period of analysis and theoretical examination. As we extend analysis of past historical practice as well as of the present, naval and maritime theory progresses, widening our perceptions and our understanding for undertaking future action.

The fundamental focus of maritime strategy remains on the control of human activity at sea. In the 21st century, navies may well face both the traditional threats as well as a variety of new threats as they move on to perform in wider roles. Optimistically, one may hope that a new era of stability and multinational co-operation will come into effect.

In the new environment of the 21st century, the conceptual foundations for maritime strategy will still focus on establishing control and on using that control to achieve a meaningful object. This will be true when one wants to establish control for the enforcement of collective security and international law, and thus deny control to an enemy, whether that enemy be a terrorist, an illicit drug trafficker, or a force eroding precious natural resources. To be most meaningful, the initial focus of strategy on establishing control must be extended to use that maritime control and to make it into a continuing, positive and pervasive influence on other spheres of activity: military, social, economic, or diplomatic.

REFERENCES

See Mahan A T, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, Boston: Little Brown, 1890. His related ideas on strategy are summarized in Hattendorf J B, (ed), Mahan on Naval Strategy, Classics of Sea Power series, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991.



Corbett J S, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy edited with an introduction by Eric Grove. Classics of Sea Power series. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1988,



See the outline of these developments in Hattendorf J B and Jordan R S, Maritime Strategy and the Balance of Power: Britain and America in the 20th Century. St Antony's series London: Macmillan, 1989, Part II: Theory; Wylie J C, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control, Classics of Sea Power series. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1989.



Uhlig F, Jr., How Navies Fight, 1775-1991, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994, chart on pp. 416-17.



Booth K, Navies and Foreign Policy, London: Croom Helm, 1977, pp. 15 - 25.



Wylie J C, Mahan: Then and Now in Hattendorf,J B, (ed)., The Influence of History on Mahan, Newport: Naval War College Press, 1991, p. 41.



See for example, Corbett J, Maritime Operations in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994. 2 volumes.



See Sumida J T, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and British Naval Policy, 1889-1914, Boston, 1989.



1 Corinthians 13:12



More detailed information on this proposal may be found at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island: Naval Historical Collection, manuscript collection.



For reflections on international co-operation in these events, see Eleventh International Sea Power Symposium: Report of the Proceedings, Newport: Naval War College Press, 1991 and Twelfth International Sea Power Symposium: Report of the Proceedings, Newport: Naval War College Press, 1994.



Foulke R, Conrad and the Power of Seamanship, The Great Circle: Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History, 11, 1989, p. 15.