Naval strategy, naval power: uses & abuses

[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.