The Global Era of National Policy and the Pan-Oceanic National Fleet

This article develops a framework for considering the future requirements for U.S. maritime power. It does so by proposing that these requirements must be considered within the context of an integrated National Fleet—the combined capabilities of the three “Sea Services”—the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard. It also would include their reserve components, as well as the Military Sealift Command (MSC) and the Maritime Administration's Ready Reserve Force (RRF)—the two organizations responsible for maintaining the nation's strategic sealift fleet.     

How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015

Years of strategic missteps in oceans policy, naval strategy and a force structure in decline set the stage for U.S. defeat at sea in 2015. After decades of double-digit budget increases, the People's Liberation Army (Navy) was operating some of the most impressive systems in the world, including a medium-range ballistic missile that could hit a moving aircraft carrier and a super-quiet diesel electric submarine that was stealthier than U.S. nuclear submarines. Coupling this new asymmetric naval force to visionary maritime strategy and oceans policy, China ensured that all elements of national power promoted its goal of dominating the East China Sea. The United States, in contrast, had a declining naval force structured around 10 aircraft carriers spread thinly throughout the globe. With a maritime strategy focused on lower-order partnerships, and a national oceans policy that devalued strategic interests in freedom of navigation, the stage was set for defeat at sea. This article recounts how China destroyed the USS George Washington in the East China Sea in 2015. The political fallout from the disaster ended 75 years of U.S. dominance in the Pacific Ocean and cemented China's position as the Asian hegemon.     

The United States and Maritime Strategy: A Parochial View from the U.S. Naval War College

The emergence of transnational non-state threats, America's ongoing war on terror, and the increasing globalization of the world's economy all affect the security and stability of the maritime environment. As the world's leading economic and maritime power, the US bears a unique responsibility—it must secure and share the benefits of the global commons. A maritime strategy is not just a force planning exercise, or a guide to naval operations in wartime. This article identifies key trends and non-military issues – geographic, economic, and diplomatic – that the Navy and the country must consider in developing a new maritime strategy to provide for good order at sea in the coming decades.     

The New Maritime Strategy: Confronting Peer Competitors, Rogue States, and Transnational Insurgents

Established military organizations, such as the U.S. military services, have many things – revered service traditions, stable bureaucratic structures, standard operating procedures, and of course distinctive weapons systems.¹ Ideally, they should also have a coherent military strategy, one which will guide them in how to fight their wars or how to deter these wars from ever happening. The U.S. Navy is now developing a new maritime strategy, its first real strategy since the 1980s. The Maritime Strategy then was directed toward a single enemy, the Soviet Union. The new strategy faces three very different kinds of enemies: peer competitors, rogue states and transnational terrorists. The new strategy will include such familiar concepts as containment and deterrence, but is should be centered upon the concepts of command of the commons and denial.     

论戈尔什科夫的国家海上威力论及其现实意义——以海权理论为视角

苏联戈尔什科夫的国家海上威力论是海权理论在冷战期间发展的一个高峰。国家海上威力论认为大洋对人类生活具有非常重要的意义,国家有必要发展自己的海上威力。国家海上威力由海军、运输船队、捕鱼船队、科学考察船队等组成。海军的主要任务是对海作战和对陆打击等等。苏联红海军在国家海上威力论的指导下成为足以与美国海军相抗衡的强大海上武装力量。然而,国家海上威力论存在的缺陷与不足也给苏联的海权发展和海军建设带来了严重的后果,值得海权领域的学者深思。     

China's New Multi-Faceted Maritime Strategy

As trade-driven growth and prosperity redefine both the Chinese economy and the global competitive landscape, U.S. policy makers increasingly must ponder whether the Chinese leadership will seek new options and capabilities to protect its far-reaching oceanic lifelines. As imported oil and raw minerals power the Chinese juggernaut, much of these flows traverse the Strait of Malacca and other littorals where there is little current Chinese capability to project power. In recent years, there is an ongoing debate among Chinese military circles regarding the feasibility of constructing a blue-water fleet that could change the balance of power in the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans. U.S. policy makers watch with increasing unease as a new generation of technically-savvy navy officers forcefully argue for a forward-looking maritime strategic posture that extends beyond the East and South China Seas. In addition, recent Chinese space-based and cyber warfare technology initatives bear watching as Beijing seeks to nullify key U.S. advantages in C4SRI using a high-tech variant of “asymmetric warfare.” Although it is unclear what direction future Chinese maritime strategy and doctrine will take, U.S. policy makers need to remain vigilant about rising Chinese maritime ambitions and capabilities in the future.     

东亚海上安全与中美合作前景(英文)

The cooperation in maritime security is an integral part for the building of a "new type" or "new model" of great power relations. In this paper, the author investigates the causes of the maritime insecurity in East Asia, and introduces a number of practical ways through which China and the U.S.can consider enhancing cooperation in this area.     

越美海军关系新发展值得关注

近期,美国调整其亚太战略,不断发展与东盟国家的关系,增强在东亚包括东南亚地区的军事存在。越南与美国海军交往的战略意图不容忽视,越南与美国发展海军关系,既迎合了美国对亚太战略进行重大调整、加强与东南亚国家接触的需要,也是其自身推行新的全面海洋战略和南海争端＂国际化＂战略的需要。越南应该清醒地看到,越美之间战略利益的一致性将会是短暂的、不均衡的。美国的全球战略决定它不会把现在的越南作为长期战略伙伴,不会把越南放在举足轻重的战略位置上。     

俄罗斯海上战略通道思想与政策探析

在历史上,俄罗斯为了争夺出海口,占领和控制黑海海峡,与西方列强展开激烈的争夺。冷战结束后,俄罗斯采取更为现实的做法,积极发展海军,以加强海上战略核威慑力量为突破口,重视海上的国际合作,切实维护好与俄罗斯利益相关的海上通道的安全。研究俄罗斯海上通道安全的思想和政策,对维护国际战略通道的安全与合作,制定中国的通道战略思想具有重要意义。     

Former Secretary of the Navy Lehman Assesses U.S. Strategy—Past and Present

A recurring question posed in recent issues of Orbis has been whether we find ourselves in a new era of great power competition. If so, are there lessons to be learned from America’s Cold War experience? Editor Nikolas K. Gvosdev asked John F. Lehman— former Secretary of the Navy, member of FPRI’s Board of Directors, and one of America’s leading strategic thinkers and policymakers—for his advice for U.S. strategists in this new era of great power competition, based on his experiences during the Cold War. Readers of Orbis will also benefit from Secretary Lehman’s assessments with the release of his new book, Where are the Carriers? U.S. National Strategy and the Choices Ahead.     

Power and Paradox: Asian Geopolitics and Sino-American Relations in the 21 Century

The pattern of Asian geopolitics can be examined by employing three analytical perspectives. The first employs East Asia and the vigorous debate over the meaning of the rise of China as an intellectual prism to observe the currents of geopolitical continuity and change that are currently abroad in the Asian region. The second explores the extent to which the interacting forces of geopolitics and military modernization foster the rise of new force projection capabilities that may affect the strategic environment in Asia—particularly in East Asia. Here, the focus is mainly on the arsenals of the three indigenous Asian giants, China, Japan and India, all of whom have developed, or are in the process of developing, significant air and maritime assets whose operations have the potential to intersect in East and South East Asia. Russia is not as much a presence because it no longer possesses its powerful Soviet-era Pacific Fleet and has, in essential respects, retreated to its traditional role as a Eurasian land power.¹ The third examines the future of Sino-American relations in Asia in the context of the debate over China's ascent and U. S. decline—a discussion that has intensified since the implosion of the U.S. financial system in 2008 and the onset of the worst global recession since the 1930s.     

Security governance in the maritime commons: The case for a transatlantic partnership

Power distribution in the maritime commons is changing. The inevitable relative decline of U.S. sea power provides an opening not only for China as a rising challenger but also for the European Union as a cooperative security provider. Although such a claim may have seemed farfetched a few years ago, the performance of the European Union in the counter-piracy Operation Atalanta off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden, illustrates the possibility that the European Union will prove to be an unexpected player in the maritime commons in the twenty-first century. This possibility suggests a renewed transatlantic dialog over the governance of the maritime commons.     

Sailing through the Cold War: Indian Navy's Quest for a Submarine Arm, 1947-67

ABSTRACT

It took approximately two decades for the Indian Navy to acquire submarines even when the first naval plan prepared by the Naval Headquarters in New Delhi and informally submitted to the British Admiralty in September 1947 contained an active submarine component. Other littoral navies in the Indian Ocean went for submarines much earlier. Using Indian, British, and U.S. archives, this article argues that the delay in India’s submarine arm was largely a result of the vagaries of the Cold War. Both Britain and the United States wanted the Indian Navy to contribute to the Western effort for a collective defense against the communist threat, which was largely conceived to be submarine based. This resulted in a surface heavy force structure. However, as India’s threat perceptions changed in 1960s, its quest for submarines gained momentum. When negotiations with the Western powers did not result in anything concrete, Indian Navy turned to the Soviets for initiating its own submarine arm. This decision had long-term implications for the Indian Navy as its underwater fleet thereafter remain dependent upon Soviet assistance for the rest of the Cold War.     

Complex Irregular Warfare: The Next Revolution in Military Affairs

At the time of the 9/11 attacks, Washington was embarking on a defense transformation emphasizing missile defense, space assets, precision weaponry, and information technology. This transformation proved irrelevant to the national security threats we now face, with the emergence of nontraditional adversaries pursuing “complex irregular warfare.” U.S. forces will have to assume a much more expeditionary character to successfully deal with Islamists’ complex irregular warfare. The March 2005 U.S. National Defense Strategy provides a balance to the longstanding American military emphasis on major-theater war, but it remains to be seen whether the military's new interest in operations other than conventional, major-combat operations will last or if it will diminish as soon as a new peer competitor rises, allowing the Pentagon to return to its more familiar paradigm.     

The Privatization of Security: Lessons from Iraq

Images of private forces in Iraq—killed and mutilated in Fallujah, implicated in prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and shooting up civilian vehicles—have provided a dramatic illustration of the role private security companies (pscs) now play in U.S. military operations. Though the United States’ use of contractors on the battlefield is not entirely new, the increased number of contractors deployed and the use of private security forces to perform an escalating number of tasks has created a new environment that poses important trade-offs for U.S. policy and military effectiveness and for U.S. relations with other states. This article outlines the history of U.S. contractors on the battlefield, compares that with the use of private security in Iraq, discusses the benefits and risks associated with their use, and proposes some trade-offs that decision-makers in the United States should consider while contemplating their use in the future.     

20世纪70年代美国在鄂霍次克海的谍报活动探析

美国海军和美国国家安全局(NSA)等部门于20世纪70年代联合发起了在鄂霍次克海海域窃听苏联海底通讯电缆的谍报活动,它曾被认为是美国现代史上最成功的情报搜集活动之一,此即"常春藤之铃"行动。其起根发由、运策决机及东窗事发都有着比较深刻的历史背景。冷战后美国针对有关国家的类似谍报活动远未停止。     

‘Hybrid Threats’: Neither Omnipotent Nor Unbeatable

Hybrid threats have now joined a growing suite of alternative concepts about the ever evolving character of modern conflict. Here and abroad, the hybrid threat construct has found traction in official policy circles despite its relative novelty. It has been cited by the U.S. Secretary of Defense in articles and speeches, and by policymakers now serving in the Pentagon. Heretofore, the rapidly growing hybrid threat literature has focused on the land warfare aspects of the threat. Modern hybrid threats, including Hezbollah and Iran, have demonstrated the ability to employ irregular tactics and advanced naval capabilities along with illegal or terrorist activity. Thus, the hybrid threat is applicable to naval forces and the U.S. Navy needs to dust off lessons learned from its last experience in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s to better prepare for an even more challenging future.     

Fighting the Jihad of the Pen: Countering Revolutionary Islam's Ideology

Al Qaeda's ideology is not new; their critique of the existing political and social order and vision for how to redeem the Muslim world builds on preexisting arguments of several 20th century predecessors who called for an Islamic revolution that would create a new order based on Islam. The persistence of revolutionary Islam suggests that these ideas need to be countered in order to strike at the root of the problem driving Islamically motivated terrorism and insurgency. U.S. efforts to defeat Al Qaeda, however, continue to focus primarily on killing or capturing the leadership, interdicting operations, and defensively bolstering the homeland and U.S. assets against various types of attacks. In order to confront Al Qaeda's ideology, U.S. efforts should focus on indirectly fostering “a market place of ideas”—the space and culture of questioning and debating—in order to challenge the grievances and solutions proposed by revolutionary Islam.     

Ethics and entrapment: Understanding counterterrorism stings

ABSTRACT

This article examines domestic counterterrorism sting operations in the USA. It considers why critics consider these operations unethical and illegitimate. In particular, it looks at claims that counterterrorism sting operations have entrapped innocent people. This article explains why the U.S. courts have rejected claims of entrapment. It discusses different standards of entrapment used by the U.S. courts and sets out how these standards apply to counterterrorism sting operations. The article will show how key pieces of evidence convinced the courts that the targets of sting operations were predisposed towards terrorism. As a result, defendants were not able to mount successful entrapment defenses. By the end of the article, the reader will have a better understanding of the ethical and legal safeguards governing counterterrorism sting operations in the USA.     

A Smaller Military To Fight the War on Terror

The defense budget can be reduced and the U.S. military downsized because (1) the nation-state threat environment is markedly different than it was during the Cold War, and (2) a large military is not necessary to combat the terrorist threat. In fact, the Islamist terrorist threat is relatively undeterred by the U.S. military presence abroad, and U.S. forces abroad, particularly those deployed in Muslim countries, may do more to exacerbate than to diminish the threat. The arduous task of dismantling and degrading the terrorist network will largely be the task of unprecedented international intelligence and law enforcement cooperation, not the application of large-scale military force. To the extent the military is involved in the war on terror, it will be special forces in discrete operations against specific targets rather than large-scale military operations.