The patterns of Islamic seapower illustrated by MacDougall appear again in the present day. By engaging with this important book, modern naval and military thinkers will begin to develop an understanding of how naval and maritime power has been developed in the region in the past. This can result in a better framework for them to consider developments and naval strategy in the present and the future.
Preventing the Titanic Syndrome: Monitoring Surface Warfare Experience at Sea
The kind of accident any organization should worry about is the one that seems impossible. In 2017, the U.S. Navy was rocked with two collisions at sea. These tragedies resulted in the combined deaths of 17 sailors. While both collisions were under different circumstances, and in-depth investigations remain ongoing, these events have triggered a service-wide review of the demands placed on surface warfare officers, including manning, sleep deprivation, and rising operational tempos. This article examines the way in which the Navy assigns officers to its surface vessels., and suggests improvements that could mitigate future collisions at sea.
#Reviewing Rebalancing U.S. Forces: Basing and Forward Presence in the Asia-Pacific
The Problem of Distance in the Information Age: Challenges for Militaries and Politicians
We live in an era of instant connection and instant communication. For instance, when news of a military incident breaks, within seconds it can be rebroadcast around the world. Within minutes commentators demand that something must be done. Yet the speed at which the news breaks means that in an era where information flow has made it easy for a military’s higher headquarters to be kept abreast of every tactical incident, we forget that the flow of information vastly outpaces than the speed of military deployment.
Beyond the Trenches with the U.S. Navy in the First World War: #Reviewing Crisis at Sea
Crisis at Sea is an exhaustive study of the U.S. Navy in the European theater. William Still brings a remarkable attention to detail in his latest volume, providing a thorough account of America’s role at sea in the First World War. Eleven years after its publication, this is still the definitive resource for its subject, and likely will remain so for many years to come.
Fleet Maintenance and Sustainment for Naval Maneuver Warfare More Than Ship Salvage and Battle Damage Repair
Fundamentally, naval maneuver is based on the ability of the naval forces to generate overwhelming operational tempo and a series of dilemmas for the enemy that shatters his cohesion through a multiplicity of rapid, focused, and unexpected actions. Generating and sustaining this necessary tempo requires keeping more ships in the fight longer, sustaining their maximum warfighting capacity, and delaying the fleet’s culminating point as long as possible. The logistical functions of supply and maintenance (to include salvage and repair capabilities) are critical to achieving this advantage.
#Reviewing A Tale of Two Navies
The shared history of both the American and British people and their navies, in concert with shared visions for how the world ought to function is indeed special. But, beyond simply being special, this relationship is critical in underwriting global security. A Tale of Two Navies has a place on the shelves of all who study and strive to understand the importance of effective maritime partnerships and strategy.
Distributed Lethality and the Failure to Break Naval Stovepipes
The U.S. Navy faces a demanding challenge to recover its ability to generate high tempo unrelenting operations. A skilled naval maneuver warfare capacity creates a multiplicity of overwhelming dilemmas for an enemy that shatters the enemy’s cohesion through unexpected but highly coordinated actions on, over, below and from the sea, including fully employing the advantages of littoral and archipelagic terrain.
Preparing for 2035: The Navy’s Role in Shaping the Future
On 15 October 2036, the USS ZUMWALT (DDG-1000) glides through the Philippines Sea on the twentieth anniversary of its commissioning. Nearby, the USS ENTERPRISE (CVN-80) launches both the F-35C and the unmanned F-47C to jointly conduct bombing raids on the Navy’s Western Pacific bombing range. Both ships, along with the entire ENTERPRISE Carrier Strike Group, are headed toward the South China Sea to participate in the annual US-India-Singapore naval exercise called DRAGON FURY. Below the surface, the USS MONTANA (SSN-794) deploys the unmanned underwater vehicle called SEA-EYE to assist in trailing a Russian Dolgorukiy class SSBN as it leaves port headed to its strategic patrol areas.
Distributed Lethality and the Importance of Ship Repair
In the post-Cold War era, the U.S. Navy’s surface fleet has been operating around three general concepts: carrier strike group defensive protection, land-attack missions, and ballistic missile defense. In the absence of a blue water adversary, and few contested areas, the Pentagon emphasized these cost-saving and efficient concepts in an attempt to overcome an evolving threat environment. This article will define and explain a new concept of operations called distributed lethality.
#Reviewing Congress Buys a Navy
This book contains a wealth of specific information about Congressional influence on the Navy. In my opinion, it will be especially useful for readers who are already familiar with the era in question, and are simply looking for reference material to support other research. Yet while general students of U.S. naval politics will find much to mull over in this book, only a specialist would take it on a long voyage.
An Interesting War: #Reviewing The Fleet at Flood Tide
Breaking the Curse of Zheng He: The Enduring Necessity of a Strong American Navy
Accepting Risk: Why the Attack on the Swift Reveals Strategic Vulnerability
Addressing risk in this case is a simple math problem. Either the strategy needs to be resourced with the appropriate number and type of adequately survivable warships, or the scope of the strategy needs to be reduced. Hesitance in taking either course of action is instead a de facto decision to accept dire risk to U.S. geopolitical strategy.
#Monday Musings: Thomas Sheppard
#Reviewing "Syren's Song"
Since 2001, the landscape of warfare has drastically changed. Drones, armed non-state actors, and private security firms have become common on the battlefield, and their influence continues to evolve and grow. While their involvement in the future of warfare is uncertain, more than likely they will be as commonplace in future conflicts as tanks, airplanes, and submarines are today. In his latest book, Claude Berube offers readers a vivid glimpse of this possible future.
#Reviewing The U.S. Naval Institute on Naval Strategy
The strategic mind of the navalist is on full display in the latest Wheel Book from the U.S. Naval Institute. Naval Strategy, edited by Thomas J. Cutler, is paired well with the earlier installment, Naval Tactics by Captain Wayne P. Hughes Jr., USN (Ret.). Cutler’s volume, however, is the meatier one as it includes articles by Admiral J.C. Wylie, Sam Tangredi, Milan Vego, Samuel Huntington, Sir Julian Corbett and Admiral James Stavridis, amongst others. The essays by Wylie and Corbett are themselves worth the price of admission.
#Reviewing “U.S. Naval Institute On Naval Command”
Naval Command is clearly aimed at officers who aspire to or are preparing to assume command. However, it can also serve as a valuable resource for junior officers who wish to better understand the lens through which their commanding officers view their own responsibilities. In several instances, Cutler distilled lengthy contributions down to tightly presented summaries of the salient details. This skillful editing yields a 194-page book that is neither intimidating in scope nor size. While Naval Command can be read cover to cover, it may be best used in the traditional “wheel book” sense — a professional reference manual that an officer can return to time and again for insight and guidance.
Teaching Tacticians: #Reviewing Naval Tactics
How do you win? Strategists determine what must be done and why. Operational planners devise the when and where. Tacticians are left the most daunting question: How? Though tactical prowess cannot save a poor strategy, the success of both strategy and operational planning frequently ride on tactical achievement. Yet, unlike strategy, tactics are infrequently discussed. Many tactics hide behind layers of classification, and training commands train their students to memorize and execute “proven” “pre-planned responses.” In the exigencies of combat, muscle memory is critical, but discussion of how those tactics were proved is often lost.
These problems are particularly acute for naval tactics. No two navies have fought a major fleet engagement in more than seventy years, and those who would command ships in battle must wait until the twilight years of their careers before they can coordinate multiple units. The U.S. Naval Institute’s new Naval Tactics “wheel book” helps fill a yawning gap.
Unlike much rote tactical training, the book highlights the role of thinking and experimentation, particularly qualitative, historical study.
Edited by Captain Wayne Hughes, USN (ret.), Naval Tactics includes tactical essays from the past 110 years. Hughes highlights directly applicable tactical principles, such as continuing importance of tactical formations, as well as the drivers of tactical change while providing subtle comment on some of the most important challenges facing the U.S. Navy today. Many essays remain as relevant today as they were when written, 30 or more years ago. Unlike much rote tactical training, the book highlights the role of thinking and experimentation, particularly qualitative, historical study.
One might expect that Hughes, an operations researcher, would emphasize quantitative methods in developing and testing new tactics. He argues, however, that tactics require a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, or art and science, as he terms them: “The value of science is illustrated by operations analysis and quantitative calculations while the role of art is illustrated by the unique insights of great leaders who could reduce complex considerations into clear and executable battle plans.”[1] The books emphasis on qualitative analysis is striking. Of its thirteen essays, only the oldest, a selection from Bradley Fiske’s “American Naval Policy,” contains any discussion of quantitative calculations.
This imbalance likely targets the intended audience, few of which will have operations analysis experience and many of whom may have no prior tactical education. Even so, it seems significant that as a tactical primer the book focuses on the art rather than the science of tactics, particularly when that art is presented as the stuff of “unique insights of great leaders.” Such insights are as likely the product of preparation and study as of inborn ability. The book’s existence presupposes one can learn to think tactically.
Hughes frequently omits the tactical conduct of a battle from his selections, focusing instead on the preparation for battle or the development of the tactics it would see employed.
In pursuit of that goal, the book clearly emphasizes rigorous historical study in combination with thought experiments. Eight of Hughes’s thirteen elections detail historical battles or the history by which a tactic was developed. Two of the remaining essays (the opening and closing) layout thought experiments. Surprisingly, Hughes frequently omits the tactical conduct of a battle from his selections, focusing instead on the preparation for battle or the development of the tactics it would see employed. This choice emphasizes the contingency of outcomes and further supports the importance of principles of thought.
Ultimately, the commander must be able to act and react in the moment of battle. In the words of Frank Andrews, when “two pieces of war hardware … are roughly on a par, … the victor will be determined only by the outcome of the clash between the minds and the wills of the two opposing commanding officers.”[2] Here, numerical analysis breaks down, for while aggregate probabilities may suggest what generally works, the commander must determine the best course of action for his or her particular situation. Some officers may be born with talent, but for most no substitute exists for practice and study in developing the perspective and judgment required for making tactical decisions.
Without a doubt, combat experience teaches tactical thinking most effectively, but mistakes are costly and opportunities thankfully rare. Exercises provide the next best option. Although, Navy devotes more time to exercises today than it did when Bradley Fisk called for competitive “sham battles” to improve tactical performance over 100 years ago, the chances for practice remain few.[3] Only the study of past battles, the principals they illuminate, and the discussion of the questions they stir, remains as an inexpensive and widely accessible option.
Operators will always highlight experience when finding ways to win, but too often today’s Navy eschews the investment in study that can prepare officers to take full advantage of operational opportunities. The selections and stories in Naval Tactics provide an excellent and engaging place to begin such study.
Erik Sand is an active duty U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer stationed at the Pentagon. The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone do not reflect those of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.
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Notes:
[1] Wayne P. Hughes Jr., ed., The U.S. Naval Institute on Naval Tactics, U.S. Naval Institute Wheel Books (Annapolis, MD: naval Institute press, 2015), xii.
[2] Hughes, Naval Tactics, 53.
[3] Hughes, Naval Tactics, 108.
A New Sea Power Strategy: What Would Alfred Thayer Mahan Do?
In 1901, Mahan wrote an essay for the British journal National Review entitled “Considerations Governing the Dispositions of Navies.” It was a study of why, where and how a nation should exercise their naval forces in times of relative peace, “for the dispositions of peace should bear a close relation to the contingency of war.” While the essay is little known compared to his seminal book, the noted strategist of the 1930s and 1940s Herbert Rosinski wrote that it was probably some of Mahan’s best work.