Naval strategy, naval power: uses & abuses

[Fuchs]

Sooo... when and how exactly did the USN crush Somali piracy without CNN learning about it?


Sorry, the structure of the USN is suitable for land attack and bullying foreign countries, not for securing maritime trade. The latter would demand modern cruisers - high seas patrol ships / sea control ships. I see a lot of offensive aircraft carriers, nuclear subs and amphibious aircraft carriers instead.


Plus: It's impossible to prove that there would have been any major disruption of maritime trade if there was no USN.
The only case that comes close is the Persian Gulf during the 80's, and I don't recall the USN protecting tankers leaving Iranian harbours against Iraqi Mirage F.1 and their Exocets (keep in mind Iran was the victim of an obvious war of aggression then!). The USS Stark was fine with the Mirage F.1 on such an attack mission until it got misunderstood for a tanker itself.
Meanwhile during the same conflict, USS Ticonderoga displayed USN standards of excellence by grasping an opportunity to claim "self defence" and shoot down an Iranian aircraft. Damn the journalists who knew enough to point out that the supposed F-14 was not a threat to a missile cruiser and damn the bad luck that the F-14 was an airliner on an announced, scheduled flight!



Sorry, if viewed from a neutral stance, the USN is more of a threat, a lingering aggressor, than any valiant protector of maritime trade.
The U.S. has mis-used the 'free maritime trade' idea so often as excuse for entering hostilities and violated it at will so often as well by restricting maritime trade itself that I don't see why a foreigner should buy into the U.S. chest-beating about supposedly providing a great service to mankind by securing maritime trade against threats.



Now from another point of view:
Pretty much every military is first and foremost a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies strive for maximising their size up to the limit of sustainability.
The USN heartily embraces every opportunity to justify its budget (size), and it's obvious that claiming to be the protector of global maritime trade is one such opportunity. One should not buy into such bureaucratic propaganda, though.

The same goes for the forward deploying /patrolling in distant waters. This requires a rotation scheme, and rotation schemes multiply the need for forces. The forward deployment thing was the great bureaucratic moment of creativity in pursuing the biggest possible budget. All this patrolling does not serve the purpose of being able to react quickly or the purpose of suppressing conflicts - it serves the bureaucratic self-interest in an almost ingenious way. It's almost ingenious because with no other scheme on earth the USN could have convinced anyone that it truly needs so many ships, more than half of the world's modern combatant tonnage! The idea is ridiculous, especially since the DoD has a 2nd "D" for "Defense", not a "N" for "Navy" nowadays.

[carl]

Sooo... when and how exactly did the USN crush Somali piracy without CNN learning about it?

I said important threats. And you will notice the success rate of the young gents is down lately. Also, sad to say, the modern USN is a bit hobbled by PC. In the 20s things might have been a little different.

Sorry, the structure of the USN is suitable for land attack and bullying foreign countries, not for securing maritime trade. The latter would demand modern cruisers - high seas patrol ships / sea control ships. I see a lot of offensive aircraft carriers, nuclear subs and amphibious aircraft carriers instead.

So you don't the think the USN's force structure is unsuitable for keeping the oceans free. They have done pretty well over the last 70 years so I think I'll defer to their judgment as to what works. You might note that any threat to sea borne commerce that isn't an act of God comes from people. And people mostly live on land.

Plus: It's impossible to prove that there would have been any major disruption of maritime trade if there was no USN.
The only case that comes close is the Persian Gulf during the 80's, and I don't recall the USN protecting tankers leaving Iranian harbours against Iraqi Mirage F.1 and their Exocets (keep in mind Iran was the victim of an obvious war of aggression then!). The USS Stark was fine with the Mirage F.1 on such an attack mission until it got misunderstood for a tanker itself.
Meanwhile during the same conflict, USS Ticonderoga displayed USN standards of excellence by grasping an opportunity to claim "self defence" and shoot down an Iranian aircraft. Damn the journalists who knew enough to point out that the supposed F-14 was not a threat to a missile cruiser and damn the bad luck that the F-14 was an airliner on an announced, scheduled flight!

It is indeed impossible to prove a negative. But if you look at history things were pretty chaotic before the RN and USN calmed calmed the oceans down.

I understand the high regard you have for American ideals but even we don't go so far as to protect an enemy's commerce from third party attack. Didn't re-flag some tankers to protect them from Iranian attack? I remember that we did. We cleared some Iranian mines or caught a mine layer too I think.

Always feels good to thump the Americans for a mistake.

Sorry, if viewed from a neutral stance, the USN is more of a threat, a lingering aggressor, than any valiant protector of maritime trade.
The U.S. has mis-used the 'free maritime trade' idea so often as excuse for entering hostilities and violated it at will so often as well by restricting maritime trade itself that I don't see why a foreigner should buy into the U.S. chest-beating about supposedly providing a great service to mankind by securing maritime trade against threats.

Saying you are neutral don't make you neutral. Your attitude has been a common one expressed by anti-Americans since I was a little boy. I still remember seeing "Yankee go home!" painted on walls.

Now from another point of view:
Pretty much every military is first and foremost a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies strive for maximising their size up to the limit of sustainability.
The USN heartily embraces every opportunity to justify its budget (size), and it's obvious that claiming to be the protector of global maritime trade is one such opportunity. One should not buy into such bureaucratic propaganda, though.

The same goes for the forward deploying /patrolling in distant waters. This requires a rotation scheme, and rotation schemes multiply the need for forces. The forward deployment thing was the great bureaucratic moment of creativity in pursuing the biggest possible budget. All this patrolling does not serve the purpose of being able to react quickly or the purpose of suppressing conflicts - it serves the bureaucratic self-interest in an almost ingenious way. It's almost ingenious because with no other scheme on earth the USN could have convinced anyone that it truly needs so many ships, more than half of the world's modern combatant tonnage! The idea is ridiculous, especially since the DoD has a 2nd "D" for "Defense", not a "N" for "Navy" nowadays.

You should probably remember that the USN has waxed and waned in size depending upon the threat. Right now it is on the downward slide. The Navy as an institution probably would like nothing better to be humungous forever but the country hasn't done that.

Forward basing has been used by navies since forever. It is not a newly created bureaucratic stratagem dreamed up by the Navy to further its' interests. Also if I remember correctly some of those big carriers were not rotated home. They were home based abroad, as were some subs. That cuts down on the number of ships needed but makes sure they are in position quick.

The Navy having so high a percentage of the world's combatant tonnage is more a matter of their weakness than our strength. And why shouldn't they be weak? We and the RN having been keeping things in order more or less for the last 200 years or so.

DoD. I always thought the Navy was part of our defenses. I don't see how you could have a Dept. of Defense without a navy part.

[Fuchs]

So you don't the think the USN's force structure is unsuitable for keeping the oceans free. They have done pretty well over the last 70 years so I think I'll defer to their judgment as to what works.

That's an assertion. Prove it.
(Obviously, you can't. That would require parallel universe experiments as evidence, and those don't exist. This, of course, means that the assertion is unfounded.)
I might as well say the UN has kept maritime trade safe. That's about as impossible to prove.

I understand the high regard you have for American ideals but even we don't go so far as to protect an enemy's commerce from third party attack.

Well, this kinda ridicules the whole assertion of protecting global maritime trade even for countries such as China, doesn't it?

Always feels good to thump the Americans for a mistake.

It was no mistake. it was an attempt to murder two Iranian aircrews and went wrong, killing much more and other Iranians instead.

Saying you are neutral don't make you neutral. Your attitude has been a common one expressed by anti-Americans since I was a little boy. I still remember seeing "Yankee go home!" painted on walls.

I'm about as harsh on the Bundeswehr, but the Bundeswehr is less active and thus offers less opportunities for exposing its failures.
Plus the Bundeswehr hasn't such an inflated sense of self-importance.

You should probably remember that the USN has waxed and waned in size depending upon the threat.

That's rather "depending on the degree of DoD and Congress procurement incompetence".

Forward basing has been used by navies since forever. It is not a newly created bureaucratic stratagem dreamed up by the Navy to further its' interests. Also if I remember correctly some of those big carriers were not rotated home. They were home based abroad, as were some subs. That cuts down on the number of ships needed but makes sure they are in position quick.

Even the RN has never based such a large percentage of its ships in distant waters, nor were said waters ever very distant to English crown territories as is for example the Persian Gulf from CONUS.

The Navy having so high a percentage of the world's combatant tonnage is more a matter or their weakness than our strength. And why shouldn't they be weak? We and the RN having been keeping things in order more or less for the last 200 years or so.

I get it, you surely bought into those talking points / myths.


Your whole thinking here is illogical. There's no reason to assume the USN size as fixed, thus no reason to explain its relative size with the other's small size.

The USN is so large because of
- political inertia
- bureaucratic behaviour

It's much bigger than required for land attack AND bullying AND defeating other navies combined. It's really politics and bureaucratic behaviour that explain its size.

DoD. I always thought the Navy was part of our defenses. I don't see how you could have a Dept. of Defense without a navy part.

I was clearly hinting at the navy not being part of national defense. It's part of national strategic offense, not national defense.



Oops, I forgot. Cuba crisis. Unilateral naval embargo (after deploying own nukes to Turkey was apparently totally OK).
Maybe some people have an idea why a so terribly self-contradictory and unreliable global maritime shipping protector ain't no global maritime shipping protector, but a threat to global maritime shipping.
I for one cannot remember so terribly many naval peacetime embargoes that were neither permitted by the UN nor unilaterally staged by the U.S..



Besides; that "anti-Americanism" thing is lame in discussions. Sounds a lot like "the terrorists hate our freedom" BS.
I won't call it an ad hominem attack for being contra a country is not in itself bad (although I'd rather say I'm anti-U.S. policies than anti-American).
After all, certain countries in the world deserve the pushback they receive because they torture, kidnap, assassinate, invade other countries in wars of aggression, bomb other countries at will, support evil dictators, threatened the world with nuclear holocaust for decades ... well, you get the point.

[carl]

That's an assertion. Prove it.
(Obviously, you can't. That would require parallel universe experiments as evidence, and those don't exist. This, of course, means that the assertion is unfounded.)
I might as well say the UN has kept maritime trade safe. That's about as impossible to prove.

No, that wasn't an assertion. It was a comment upon your opinion.

Well, this kinda ridicules the whole assertion of protecting global maritime trade even for countries such as China, doesn't it?

No, it doesn't. It just means it is a normal thing not intervene on behalf of an enemy when a third party attacks it. I pays not be enemies with us, or it has in the past.

It was no mistake. it was an attempt to murder two Iranian aircrews and went wrong, killing much more and other Iranians instead.

That is your opinion. Mine is that it was an attempt at self defense gone awry for a number of reasons, some of them not very good ones.

That's rather "depending on the degree of DoD and Congress procurement incompetence".

The effect is the same.

Even the RN has never based such a large percentage of its ships in distant waters, nor were said waters ever very distant to English crown territories as is for example the Persian Gulf from CONUS.

I don't know the specifics but things were very different then from now. Technology accounts for a lot of that. Geography accounts for a lot more. I'll have to look it up but I think the RN had squadrons and bases in India, the Pacific and Singapore. Those places are pretty far from the British Isles.

I get it, you surely bought into those talking points / myths.

I always do when they make sense to me.

Your whole thinking here is illogical. There's no reason to assume the USN size as fixed, thus no reason to explain its relative size with the other's small size.

The USN is so large because of
- political inertia
- bureaucratic behaviour

It's much bigger than required for land attack AND bullying AND defeating other navies combined. It's really politics and bureaucratic behaviour that explain its size.

I don't think my thinking is illogical. I think it is perfectly logical. I just think you are wrong.

Oops, I forgot. Cuba crisis. Unilateral naval embargo (after deploying own nukes to Turkey was apparently totally OK).
Maybe some people have an idea why a so terribly self-contradictory and unreliable global maritime shipping protector ain't no global maritime shipping protector, but a threat to global maritime shipping.

We were involved in the cold war at the time. In times of war, we don't permit enemies freedom of the seas. We interfered with Japanese shipping from 1941 to 1945 also. Of course sometimes we don't, the Korean War and the Vietnam conflict being two cases in point.

Besides; that "anti-Americanism" thing is lame in discussions. Sounds a lot like "the terrorists hate our freedom" BS.
I won't call it an ad hominem attack for being contra a country is not in itself bad (although I'd rather say I'm anti-U.S. policies than anti-American).
After all, certain countries in the world deserve the pushback they receive because they torture, kidnap, assassinate, invade other countries in wars of aggression, bomb other countries at will, support evil dictators, threatened the world with nuclear holocaust for decades ... well, you get the point.

Anti-Americanism may be lame but it is real. Go ahead and push. I'll push back. Yes, I get the point. We're evil hypocrites.

I think it useful to look at how some of the countries closest to China view their naval ambitions. They seem a bit suspicious. The Viets haven't purchased submarines because they are afraid of the USN. It is because they are afraid of China's intentions.

[Fuchs]

Have a look at the non-existing air/ship combat capabilities of a F-14 fighter, at the altitude it was supposedly flying at, the straight line it was supposedly flying at, typical air/ship attack patterns, the USS Vincennes' (not Tico, sry) CIWS and then tell me again that was self-defence.
Self-defence in peacetime, of course.

Maybe sometime the Cubans should kill a New Orleans-Rio de Janeiro airliner and claim it was a ship's self-defence against a RC-135. Then we'd see how see how serious and consistent the U.S. is in its idea of what's self-defence and what's not.

I'm seriously fed up with this "bombing a wedding was a F-16's self defence against AK muzzle fire" line of institutionalised lying.

[Entropy]

I'm seriously fed up with this "bombing a wedding was a F-16's self defence against AK muzzle fire" line of institutionalised lying.

That's a pretty bold accusation. You are saying here that these weren't accidents or even negligence but "murder," which the intentional killing of innocents. That means that the people who gave the orders that led to those deaths and/or the people who "pulled the trigger" knew they were murdering. That analysis doesn't match the facts of any of the cases you've cited, Fuchs, but obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion and people can judge for themselves what to think of your accusations and come to their own conclusions. Frankly I'm surprised that someone who has studied conflict and war as much as you have would think that such incidents can only be explained by murder.

As to the roles of the US Navy, it's important to keep in mind that many countries are defensively allied with the US where the US is obligated to militarily defend those countries. For such treaties to be effective, the US must have the credible ability to actually come to the aid of said nations. That requires a strong Navy so that the US can assure sea access to its allies in times of war and crisis to transport troops, supplies, equipment, etc. Without that ability our defensive treaties are greatly diminished in terms of credibility. We have allies in the Middle East, Europe and Asia and guess where our Naval forces are concentrated?

I think Fuch's is right to a certain extent that during peacetime the "sea lanes" are open by default because it's usually in everyone's interest to keep them open. But we don't live in a perfect world, the world isn't always peaceful, and the US economy depends on global trade. As a result, the US is not about to simply assume that commerce will never be interdicted (even if we had no defense alliances).

[Fuchs]

Entropy, a F-14 is no threat to a cruiser, shooting it down is thus no self-defence, still trying to shoot it down equals trying to kill the pilots and since that happened without a state of war or similar it's an attempt to murder them.
One might discuss the difference between murder and manslaughter in this case, but that's about it.


About the repeated bombing of civilian concentrations with the "muzzle flash, self defence" excuse: There's no way how counter-attacking is safer than flying away with afterburner. Thus it was no self-defence. Furthermore, those pilots can be expected to know that no 57 mm AAA was with any degree of likeliness the source of the muzzle flashes, and anything below that (basically only 23mm, 14.5mm, 12.7mm or 7.62mm) is pretty much ineffective unless the aircraft was really, really low. In that case, attacking would again be the least safe path of action.


The U.S. military has a pattern of using wrong "self-defense" claims as an excuse for when trigger happiness went wrong or when it was eager to kill at the fringe of the ROE. I know that it's not the only military with this defect; others have reacted similarly in Afghanistan and Iraq, even the Bundeswehr. It's a discipline and leadership issue.

But we don't live in a perfect world, the world isn't always peaceful, and the US economy depends on global trade.

Well, guess which nations did the most in terms of aggressions since the invention of the UN.

[Sigaba]

It wasn't abut fighting. It was about having a big stick in great power gaming.

Few navies have ever built beautiful and impressive battleships or aircraft carriers during peacetime for risking them in battle. Such ships are meant for impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power, not for peer2peer slaughtering.

As you say:

That's an assertion. Prove it.

And by proof, I mean archival evidence or historical works based upon archival evidence that shows naval planners had no intention of using battleships and aircraft carriers to conduct operations against opposing fleets.

[Fuchs]

I don't have much time today.

For starters, read up on the German Risikoflotte/risk fleet theory/strategy and the RN's "spit & polish" school of officers and their lack of emphasis on battleworthiness. Then think about the Soviet Fleet of the mid/late Cold War.

These are the most obvious cases.

[carl]

For starters, read up on the German Risikoflotte/risk fleet theory/strategy and the RN's "spit & polish" school of officers and their lack of emphasis on battleworthiness. Then think about the Soviet Fleet of the mid/late Cold War.

I think you are confusing risikoflotte with a fleet in being. The risk fleet was intended to prevent war from starting. If the war did start, the theory fell flat on its face. It was based mainly on frightening the other guy. It wouldn't work if he didn't get scared. Now that may be considered building cool ships with the intention never to use them, but it was a German theory I believe, not a British, American or Japanese one.

A fleet in being is a tactic to preserve an inferior force so it can have at least some influence on its' stronger opponent. The tactic is hide in port so the superior force will have a hard time getting at you and has to detail forces to watch you if you do come out to die. It is something that is forced upon the inferior navy by circumstance, not by intention. The Germans had to do it in WWII because the war started several years before their navy was ready. Fleet in being doesn't work so good now because of airpower. Boats are a lot easier to find and hit if they are sitting in port.

As far as the RN's "spit and polish", you are confusing the incompetence of a military force that hadn't had any real battles to fight, with strategy. The RN may not have been so ready for battle in WWI but they fought anyway.

The Soviet Cold War fleet was built around submarines. Those always get used. I don't see how you could say their fleet wasn't built to fight.

[Fuchs]

Simple. It was built for deterrence, for looking good in wargames.
The Soviets did not intend to wage WW3.

It wasn't abut fighting. It was about having a big stick in great power gaming.

Few navies have ever built beautiful and impressive battleships or aircraft carriers during peacetime for risking them in battle. Such ships are meant for impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power, not for peer2peer slaughtering.

(new bold)


The RN of the 1880's and 1890's (spit and polish school era)can hardly have built its battleships for peer2peer fights because there was no peer.
The same goes for the USN. There is no fleet that could oppose more than a fraction of it, thus the USN is mostly for

... impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power ...

Again; it would look very different and not so land-attack-centric if it was about patrols for securing global maritime trade.
It would have many multi-purpose cruisers for independent action, many sea control ships, much less amphibious capacity, less cruise missiles.

[Sigaba]

That's an assertion. Prove it.

I don't have much time today.

Fuchs--

At your convenience, please do provide historiographically credible sources as evidence to support your broad generalizations about modern naval history.

To be clear, the specific interpretation you offered follows.

It wasn't abut fighting. It was about having a big stick in great power gaming.

Few navies have ever built beautiful and impressive battleships or aircraft carriers during peacetime for risking them in battle. Such ships are meant for impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power, not for peer2peer slaughtering.

IMO, your argument requires you to provide evidence that the overwhelming majority of naval building programs and concurrent planning were for show, not fighting.

Nobody intended to wage WWIII.

Carl--

With respect, I disagree. The Maritime Strategy--along with its plans to build a "600 ship fleet"--reflected the U.S. Navy's intention to fight a global war against the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies.

[carl]

With respect, I disagree. The Maritime Strategy--along with its plans to build a "600 ship fleet"--reflected the U.S. Navy's intention to fight a global war against the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies.

Maybe it would be more accurate to say nobody wanted WWIII to start.