Presence is an absolutely critical mission for a navy of any nation. When conducted, it needs to be visible, and credible.
If you are conducting a presence mission to comfort your friends from potential dangers, the credibility has to be measured from both the point of your friends and also of those seen as a danger.
With that established, what are we doing?
A U.S. carrier strike group is lingering in the Mediterranean Sea rather than journeying to the Middle East on orders from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, USNI News learned on Tuesday.
USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), Carrier Air Wing 1 and its escorts are now operating in the Ionian Sea between Greece and Italy rather than resume a planned transit through the Suez Canal to U.S. Central Command, a defense official confirmed to USNI News. USNI News first reported the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group in the Ionian Sea Monday, according to the USNI News Fleet Tracker.
The schedule change, blessed by Austin, is to reassure European allies of U.S commitment to regional security, one official said without mentioning the ongoing Russian military buildup on the eastern border of Ukraine.
As we usually do, let’s go to the map room.
That is 1,000 NM from the Ionian to eastern Ukraine. No one concerned or concerning, friend or otherwise, will see anything in the Ionian.
Allies are of course, NATO – specifically NATO members who used to be in the Warsaw Pact or were one of the captive nations of the former Soviet Union. “Friends” would be Ukraine.
Does a carrier floating around the Ionian Sea really do anything? What signal is this sending, strength or weakness?
The security threat in Ukraine is in a large measure a land component challenge, supported by air, then maritime. If we are not going to move European based mechanized forces to the nearest railhead heading east, then what can the US Navy do besides take pictures of VLS cells and float a carrier in the Ionian?
You do what you can with what you have … and you have options depending on the level of signal you want to send by your presence. One great thing about naval forces is their flexibility. Loading up train cars with M-1 tanks is a rather binary message … naval forces give you the ability to do a little statecraft.
On the back of a cocktail napkin, let’s look at the “Heat Scale” for various Courses of Action we could take if we desire to make the TRUMAN Carrier Strike Group’s presence a message.
Heat Scale:
0 – Go home as per regular schedule.
1 – Extend deployment but float around Ionian.
2 – Conduct short notice exercise with Polish Air Force out of Kraków-Balice Air Base with most of the FA-18, EA-18G, and E-2D from the airwing.
3 – Conduct #2, but with at least 4 of 7 USAF, British, German, French, Czech, Romanian, & Bulgarian participation. If you can throw in Sweden or Finland, even better.
4 – Conduct #2, but with Ukrainian Air Force out of Starokostiantyniv Air Base in Ukraine.
5 – Conduct #3, but with Ukrainian Air Force out of Starokostiantyniv Air Base in Ukraine.
So, today we’ve flavored our message with 1 out of 5 on the heat scale.
Remember my point at the start. Presence by itself does not necessarily send a message of strength. History is sticky and nations realize that as fast as a fleet can arrive off your shore, it can disappear. Even if it stays offshore … it may do nothing.
Ask the people of the Smyrna diaspora the limited utility of naval presence if it is not credible. An aggressive and confident force who knows your mind better than you know your own may just call your bluff … and in your impotence you will stand there weaker at the end of your presence mission than you were at the start … and those who worried you only encouraged to go further in their aggression.
Make sure you have the right heat for the right appetite.
UPDATE: There are a few quotes about the presence mission from right after we had to retreat from another ill-fought war in Asia that might be handy.
“The naval presence mission is simultaneously as sophisticated and sensitive as any, but also the least understood of all Navy missions. A well orchestrated naval presence can be enormously useful in complementing diplomatic actions to achieve political objectives. Applied deftly but firmly, in precisely the proper force, naval presence can be a persuasive deterrent to war. If used ineptly, it can be disastrous. Thus, in determining presence objectives, scaling forces, & appraising perceptions, there will never be a weapons system as important as the human intellect.“
– Vice Admiral Stansfield Turner, USN, 34th President of the Naval War College: “Missions of the Navy,” (Newport, RI: U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1970’s, Naval War College Newport Papers, No. 30, September 2007), p.49
Another 1974 quote;
“The American policy switch from confrontation to negotiation can be characterized as a policy of conflict avoidance. Such a policy demands that U.S. military capabilities be directed toward the deterrence of conflict not only in the strategic nuclear, but at lesser levels of conventional conflict as well. Naval Presence is a natural fit for this policy change. Nevertheless, it has yet to receive its full measure of thoughtful analysis evident in discussions of the other three naval mission areas. Here the author lends additional credence to that ancient strategic wisdom, the belief that “to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” “
– then Commander James F. McNulty titled “NAVAL PRESENCE–THE MISUNDERSTOOD MISSION“
