This week’s report of Russia’s intention to dramatically increase production of several weapon systems as a part of the modernization of nuclear and conventional forces included the construction of 14 new warships. This comes on the heels of Russian warships making a highly publicized visit to Cuba following joint naval exercises with the Venezuelan Navy. This news, and the tone of Russian President Medvedev in his “State of the State” speech in the aftermath of the US Presidential elections, represents a clear and powerful statement of intent on the part of a resurgent Russia to challenge the United States as has not happened since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
China, meanwhile, has announced plans for obtaining an aircraft carrier for its rapidly expanding navy. Though the vessel will not, in the estimates of analysts, be ready for several years, such an announcement represents the continuation of a shift in China’s naval strategy. The idea of a Chinese aircraft carrier is not new, having been attempted in fits and starts for the last couple of decades. On this occasion, however, the acquisition of a carrier represents a logical extension of China’s vision for her navy’s worldwide blue-water mission of protecting what a defense spokesman called “maritime rights and interests” of a globally-engaged economic powerhouse.
Though one is quite overt, and the other much more subtle, each of these two expanding maritime powers represents a serious and direct challenge to the United States Navy. Each country has expressed the desire for a “counter-balance” to what has been perceived as a fifteen year US monopoly on blue-water maritime power.
During those fifteen years, without a maritime adversary of note, the United States Navy has shrunk to levels which call into question its ability to meet with one major challenge, let alone two, in the blue-water maritime domain. While surface combatants of the US Navy are undoubtedly more lethal and capable in 2008 than those in commission in the 1990s, the decline in the number of warships, amphibs, and support vessels represents a reduction of the ability to project power and provide presence that has been the hallmark of the US Navy since the end of the Second World War.
At the conclusion of the Gulf War in 1991, the US Navy had in commission some 529 ships, a total that included 22 mine warfare vessels, 61 amphibious ships, and 112 auxiliary units, those unglamorous platforms so critical to any sustained land or naval campaign. Today, the US Navy has fewer than 290 ships in commission. Of these, the numbers of mine warfare vessels, amphibious units, and auxiliaries, have shrunk to a fraction of the 1991 totals. Additionally, this diminished force is now devoid of any substantial naval gunfire capability so vital to successful amphibious operations. As older (sometimes “old” has meant “very capable but expensive to operate”) ships are decommissioned, few new vessels with similar capabilities have replaced them. It is necessary, then, to reassess former CNO Admiral Mullen’s concept of the Thousand Ship Navy, an “international fleet of like-minded nations”, comprised of warships, commercial shipping companies, and merchant vessels, willing to band together to promote and maintain Maritime Domain Awareness. This concept is a major pillar of US Global Maritime Strategy. Admiral Mullen described the Thousand Ship Navy “not as an acquisition program, but rather an operating concept”. What the Thousand Ship Navy seems to be is an overly-optimistic operating concept that relies on other nations’ participation in collective security to make the best of an inadequate acquisition program, a shrinking shipbuilding capability, and a badly flawed Naval Sea Systems Command. The last decade has extended the 20th Century’s dismal record of failure of collective security. The unwillingness of the UN to enforce its own resolutions with Iraq, and the lack of meaningful response to an Iran determined to obtain nuclear capability should have come as no surprise to anyone. However, the events of August, 2008 and Russia’s invasion of Georgia provoked an interesting and disturbing range of responses that portend a new and different paradigm. In the wake of Russia’s invasion, NATO, once a bulwark against Warsaw Pact (Russian) domination of Europe, was incapable of any kind of consensus regarding collective action. German Chancellor Merkel’s trip to St Petersburg to meet with Russian President Medvedev highlighted the unwillingness of many nations to antagonize a re-arming Russia, particularly a Russia pointing the proverbial energy pistol at their temples. The events in the Autumn of 2008 make clear that even pro-western nations will act in their own national, economic, and security self-interests rather than risk those interests through participation in collective action in defense of a threatened neighbor. Toward that end, one must ask the question of just how willing the participants in this Thousand Ship Navy, both national and mercantile, will be when required to act on what America defines as maritime security requirements when that action would potentially place them opposite a Russia or China who can leverage economic or military advantage against them. The multi-national effort to combat piracy in the waters off Somalia is often touted as an example of international cooperation that might be the model for the future of security cooperation on the world’s oceans. This international cooperation as a model of the future is illusory, as at the moment the pirate activity furthers no participating nation’s aims. What should happen when similar activity is being sponsored by Russia or China as they resurrect their considerable talents for fighting wars (and backing terrorists) by proxy, in order to further national interests or subvert the interests of military and economic rivals (the US)? This prospect is precisely the fear of many analysts who have watched events unfold. If traditional US allies are unwilling to face the Russians in Europe, what would make them, the key partners in The Thousand Ship Navy, more willing to challenge Russia or China on the world’s oceans? The US Navy at its current strength of 280-odd ships has been reduced to being barely adequate for the tasks at hand. Russia (very publicly) and China (quietly) have shown themselves to be willing to challenge US influence around the globe, well beyond their traditional spheres of influence. When confronted with a major maritime adversary who directly or indirectly challenges American strategic interests in a vital region of the world, the answer cannot be US reliance on a collection of other partners, military and commercial, whose capabilities and willingness cannot be counted upon when decisive measures are required. To allow US naval strength to erode to the point where the assistance of such a Thousand Ship Navy is required to defend US interests or maintain security, is to abdicate this nation’s defense to that same collective security model that has failed on each occasion since the end of the First World War. Such a state of affairs would have drastic consequences for the US, and for the Western world. It is time to sink the Thousand Ship Navy, and replace it with a US Navy whose capabilities meet the requirements of its mission “to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas”, in the face of any threat that currently exists or is visible on the horizon. Our enemies, present and future, are watching.
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