Naval strategy, naval power: uses & abuses

[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.

[carl]

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

Nobody intended to wage WWIII. If it had started it would have been a mistake. But if it had started they would have deployed those boats and they would have fought and as such the boats were built to fight. Deterrence doesn't work if you are faking it. Building weapons without the genuine determination to use them if needed isn't deterrence. I'll accept that those boats were built to help deter but that means they were meant to fight.

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...

The RN and USN that you cite had created a situation whereby they dominated the seas of the world. They did that by fighting. In order to preserve that situation they maintained their dominance by replacing ships, modernizing them and maintaining superiority in naval power. By doing that they kept a peer power from arising. That was the whole point. It worked. But it would not have worked if those ships had not had genuine naval capabilities, i.e. if they had not been able to fight.

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.

And again, I accept the judgment of the USN as to what is needed in preference to yours.

The people who built, manned and paid for these navies said they did so because they might need them in case a fight came up. I think I'll take them at their word and disregard yours.

[Fuchs]

Well, they're incompetent if they need so much hardware for actual fleet actions given the modest non-allied naval power in the world and the more than modest allied naval power in the world.
Even if they did intend this force structure for more purposes than I mentioned; they'd be incompetent in this case. Only incompetents need such a force ratio or spend so much extra wealth of their country on the multiplying the degree of superiority. I don't respect the judgement of incompetents.

So either they're incompetent or the purpose of such a huge navy (and historical precedents) was not to wage major wars against other fleets, but
* impress foreign leaders
* bullying (land attack mostly)


It's hard to come up with a calculation that compares fiscal costs of different forms of major war fighting and still comes to the conclusion that the immensely expensive carrier groups and amphibious forces are more cost-efficient than other forms of assisting allies. Amphibious forces, for example, are at most counterattack forces in a strategic (alliance) defence.


There is of course another explanation, and I'm disappointed that nobody brought this one yet.
We could also explain large navies with an uncontrolled, accidental development and a lot of institutional inertia.
That would kinda lead to the "Niiskanen's bureaucrat" concept, of course.

[Entropy]

Fuchs,

Just a little advice - if you're going to make accusations of incompetence, you probably should back that up, document those claims and make specific arguments instead of providing vague assertions. It sounds like you might have an interesting criticism, but I really have no idea what your actual argument is.

Also, you've yet to respond to what I wrote earlier about the purpose of the US Navy in relation to US defensive commitments. Thanks.

[carl]

Fuchs:

This whole thing boils down to Fuchs judgment of what prudent, responsible, proficient navies should be doing vs. what navies that have historically proven to be prudent, responsible and proficient think they should do.

I vote for the navies.

[Fuchs]

Fuchs,

Just a little advice - if you're going to make accusations of incompetence, you probably should back that up, document those claims and make specific arguments instead of providing vague assertions. It sounds like you might have an interesting criticism, but I really have no idea what your actual argument is.

Also, you've yet to respond to what I wrote earlier about the purpose of the US Navy in relation to US defensive commitments. Thanks.

Another advice: Read more carefully.

I do not say they are incompetent. I say they'd be incompetent if they did what he thinks they did.

Plus I see no need to reply to your point about commitments, for we seem to be in agreement.

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.

Such ships are meant for impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power, not for peer2peer slaughtering.

The point of these alliance relationships is to prevent an attack on these countries. The point is not to win once they're under attack.


Besides; prepositioned material and airlift of troops are a quicker and cheaper method of reinforcing said allies than cruising with more than a dozen battlegroups on the seven seas with never more than one or two MEU in range for an as timely reserve (and they would likely wait till many more CVBGs are in the area before they'd actually dare to close in with Taiwan, for example.).

Again; the size and all is impressive, but the forces would look very different if they were really about waging major wars. Congress politics (including legalised bribery) and bureaucratic dynamics are the real drivers, not actual preparations for war.

[Entropy]

The point of these alliance relationships is to prevent an attack on these countries. The point is not to win once they're under attack.

Well no. A credible deterrent requires a credible capability. If a potential enemy thinks your forces are only for "wargames" or for "impressing foreign leaders" then, by definition, your forces aren't a credible threat and therefore aren't a credible deterrent. If the enemy believes your force cannot "win once under attack" then there is no credibility. Credibility is dependent on capability. There are a lot of Navies like that - they have platforms that mostly sit pierside, depend on foreign contractors for maintenance, and operate with poorly trained crews that don't practice war-fighting skills. The US Navy isn't one of those navies.

Now, maybe you can argue the force structure is wrong or whatever, but there probably isn't another Navy in the world that's underway practicing actual wartime tasks as much as the US Navy.

Besides; prepositioned material and airlift of troops are a quicker and cheaper method of reinforcing said allies than cruising with more than a dozen battlegroups on the seven seas with never more than one or two MEU in range for an as timely reserve (and they would likely wait till many more CVBGs are in the area before they'd actually dare to close in with Taiwan, for example.).

Naturally you preposition when you can, but that's not always possible and it's quite expensive to put all the stuff you'd need in every single country one is allied with - that's why the US uses prepositioned, preloaded ships with the equipment on board.

Secondly, you need some redundancy with CVBG's and other assets because part of the fleet is going to be in the yard and then you have the problem of geography necessitating an atlantic and a pacific fleet.

Again; the size and all is impressive, but the forces would look very different if they were really about waging major wars.

Ok, I'll bite - what would a Navy that was "really about waging major wars" actually look like?

Congress politics (including legalised bribery) and bureaucratic dynamics are the real drivers, not actual preparations for war.

Well, of course Congressional politics is a problem, but it is one of many and probably not as negatively determinative as you suggest.