Cover

This perspective aerial view of Newport, 

Rhode Island, drawn and published by 

Galt & Hoy of New York, circa 1878, is 

found in the American Memory Online 

Map Collections: 1500–2003, of the 

Library of Congress Geography and Map 

Division, Washington, D.C. The map 

may be viewed at http://hdl.loc.gov/

loc.gmd/g3774n.pm008790.
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Writing to Think

The Intellectual Journey of a Naval Career

Robert C. Rubel

NAVA L WA R COLLEGE PR ESS

Newport, Rhode Island
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 Naval War College

Newport, Rhode Island

Center for Naval Warfare Studies

Newport Paper Forty-One

February 2014

President, Naval War College

Rear Adm. Walter E. Carter, Jr., USN

Provost

Amb. Mary Ann Peters

Dean of Naval Warfare Studies

Robert C. Rubel

Naval War College Press

Director: Dr. Carnes Lord

Managing Editor: Pelham G. Boyer

Telephone: 401.841.2236

Fax: 401.841.1071

DSN exchange: 841

E-mail: press@usnwc.edu

Web: www.usnwc.edu/press

Twitter: http://twitter.com/NavalWarCollege

Printed in the United States of America

 The Newport Papers are extended research projects that 

the Director, the Dean of Naval Warfare Studies, and the 

President of the Naval War College consider of particular 

interest to policy makers, scholars, and analysts.

The views expressed in the Newport Papers are those of 

the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 

the Naval War College or the Department of the Navy.

Correspondence concerning the Newport Papers may be 

addressed to the Director of the Naval War College Press. 

To request additional copies, back copies, or subscriptions 

to the series, please either write the President (Code 32S), 

Naval War College, 686 Cushing Road, Newport, RI 

02841-1207, or contact the Press staff at the telephone, fax, 

or e-mail addresses given.

Reproduction and printing are subject to the Copyright 

Act of 1976 and applicable treaties of the United States. 

This document may be freely reproduced for academic or 

other noncommercial use; however, it is requested that 

reproductions credit the author and Newport Papers series 

and that the Press editorial office be informed. To obtain 

permission to reproduce this publication for commercial 

purposes, contact the Press editorial office.

ISSN 1544-6824

ISBN 978-1-935352-27-3
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Contents

Foreword, by Carnes Lord 

Introduction, by Robert C. Rubel 

PART ONE: NAVAL STRATEGY

CHAPTER ONE The New Maritime Strategy: The 

Rest of the Story 

CHAPTER TWO The Navy’s Changing Force Paradigm 

CHAPTER THREE Talking about Sea Control 

CHAPTER FOUR Command of the Sea: An Old Concept 

Resurfaces in a New Form 

CHAPTER FIVE Navies and Economic Prosperity: 

The New Logic of Sea Power 

CHAPTER SIX Defense of the System: Changing the 

Geometry of Great Power Competition 

PART TWO: NAVAL AVIATION

CHAPTER SEVEN The U.S. Navy’s Transition to Jets 

CHAPTER EIGHT The Future of Aircraft Carriers 

CHAPTER NINE Pigeonholes and Paradigm Shifts: Getti

the Most Out of Unmanned Aircraft 

CHAPTER TEN Tales from the Platform 
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CHAPTER ELEVEN Gettysburg and Midway: Historical 

Parallels in Operational Command 13

CHAPTER TWELVE Principles of Jointness 15

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Slicing the Onion Differently: 

Seapower and the Levels of War 15

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Getting a Grip on Tailored Deterrence: 

The World of Conflict Management 17

PART FOUR: WAR GAMING

CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Forms of Warfare: Integrating 

Ethos and Warfighting 18

CHAPTER SIXTEEN War-Gaming Network-centric Warfare 20

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Epistemology of War Gaming 22

About the Author 24

The Newport Papers 24
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Foreword

The purpose of this volume is to honor the work and thought of Robert C. Rubel, C

U.S. Navy (Ret.). Since his retirement from the Navy, Robert (a.k.a. “Barney”) Rub

has held senior positions in the Center for Naval Warfare Studies (CNWS), in the 

War College, in Newport, Rhode Island—first as deputy dean, then as chairman o

War Gaming Department, and finally (since 2006) as dean. During this period, n

has he presided effectively over a complex (and in many ways anomalous) instituti

but he has found the time to create a substantial body of published writings about 

warfare and war, or strategy generally. In the process, he has quietly established h

as one of the Navy’s most innovative and wide-ranging thinkers. This volume brin

together a selection of Rubel’s short papers from over the last decade and a half. M

these have appeared in the Naval War College Review, but others are scattered and 

accessible. Viewed as a single body of thought (Rubel himself indicates in his intro

tion that his basic views have not appreciably altered over these years), they gain in 

weight from being read and considered together. It is hoped, therefore, that this vo

will provide a basis for a better and more enduring appreciation of Rubel’s contrib

to the intellectual capital of today’s Navy.

Perhaps the key characteristic of Rubel’s writings is their self-conscious return to 

classical naval strategists—especially the American Alfred Thayer Mahan and the 

Briton Julian Corbett—as guides to the concerns of military analysts of the presen

and near future. While he nowhere directly addresses methodological issues, Rub

clearly intends to distinguish his own approach from the only too prevalent tende

of analysts to follow fads of the moment, to overrate the importance of technology

to embark on futuristic speculations detached from political and historical contex

Mahan—though widely regarded as obsolete and today little read, even (or especia

by naval officers—is particularly valuable for Rubel, in two respects. First, he offer

sophisticated understanding of the political and economic dimensions of naval str

egy. Mahan wrote toward the end of the nineteenth century, in what may be called 

first era of globalization, extending to the outbreak of World War I. Since the end 

Cold War, we are living in a second age of globalization, and Mahan provides imp

tant guidance to reordering naval or maritime strategy in this geoeconomic conte

(see especially chapters 5 and 6). Second, Mahan and Corbett are essential in help

us rediscover concepts that have withered, if not vanished, in American naval stra

gic thought since the disappearance of a peer naval adversary following World Wa
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the United States in the maritime domain makes it imperative, according to Rubel, to 

rethink the meaning of command or control of the sea under contemporary geographical and operational conditions (see chapters 3 and 4).

To consider all this an exercise in backward-looking, navalist nostalgia would be to 

make a serious mistake. Rubel is careful to give due weight to what is different or unique 

in our contemporary strategic environment. Nor can he be accused of any kind of parochial advocacy. A former aviator himself, Rubel is so far from championing the aircraft 

carrier as the Navy’s capital ship in the traditional manner that he has been one of the 

most influential voices in calling for a rethinking of its core missions and a lessening over time of our reliance on it (see chapters 8 and 9). Indeed, one of his persistent 

themes is the continuing problem of the Navy’s community-centrism and the need to 

develop a more sophisticated “combined arms” approach to naval operational art and 

tactics. Further, he is fully in tune with the need for the Navy to work in harmony with 

and support of the other services (chapter 12).

The last eight years have seen major transformations at the Naval War College. Many 

of these have involved a strengthening of the institution’s ties with the fleet and the 

Navy Staff. Rubel has had a key role in this respect. As he indicates, the high point of 

his tenure as dean of CNWS was its support of the development of the document that 

was eventually published in 2007 under the signature of the chiefs of the Navy, Marine 

Corps, and Coast Guard, entitled “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.” 

Since that time, Rubel has been tireless in his explication of this text (see especially 

chapters 1 and 2). More clearly than anyone else, he has spelled out its implications not 

only for the Navy but for American foreign policy, or grand strategy generally. Though 

not without its foreshadowing in Mahan, this vision of global maritime cooperation 

between the United States and allied or friendly maritime forces is a radical departure 

from the past and one that has already generated significant dividends for the nation. 

It can only be hoped that this development—and Rubel’s part in it—will become better 

known over time. 

carnes lord

Director, Naval War College Press

Newport, R.I.
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Introduction

It was my third flight as an operational squadron pilot. Just four days before, I had 

reported to Attack Squadron 66 (VA-66) on board USS Independence, which was s

ing in the eastern Mediterranean. There was no time to get me trained up before I 

pressed into service on an operational mission. My A-7 Corsair was loaded with li

five-hundred-pound bombs, and the ship was operating in “emission control”—th

is, not radiating any electronic signals. This was because the United States had gon

Defense Condition Three, owing to the potential for a showdown with the Soviet U

in the eastern Mediterranean as a result of the Fourth Arab-Israeli War. I was sup

to be flying on the skipper’s wing this day, being the new guy, but our rendezvous 

was over a hundred miles from Independence. It was a very lonely flight, staying a

hundred feet above the water until I reached what I thought was that point. My rel

was almost painful as I spotted the skipper’s aircraft. I would not have to decide o

own whether World War III had started.

Our mission was to “bird-dog” Soviet warships, orbiting overhead and eyeing thei

decks, looking for the smoke of a missile launch. If we saw it, we were supposed to 

out a “Zippo” call, a broadcast in the blind that the Soviets were shooting. We wer

highly vulnerable position, being directly overhead of Soviet destroyers and cruise

a slow loiter speed at ten thousand feet—right in the sweet spot for their surface-to

missiles. Had they launched, we would be dead just after we made our Zippo call, 

before we could make it. This sucked, but the U.S. Navy, in October 1973, had neit

antiship weapons (at least for carrier aircraft) nor antiship tactics. The Yom Kippu

War and the Soviet response to it had caught us by surprise. The Soviet ships were 

armed with antiship cruise missiles, and, we learned after the Cold War, they had 

doctrine for using them. We had our subs, but that was cold comfort to us aviator

were staring down at Soviet surface-to-air missile launchers.

The crisis blew over, but it was a wake-up call for the Navy. Work began on antish

missiles (Harpoon and Tomahawk were the eventual products) and on antiship ta
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they arrived we had to make do with what we had—dumb bombs, Shrike antiradiation 

missiles, and some TV-guided bombs left over from Vietnam. Mostly, we had to develop 

tactics that would allow us to get close enough to drop iron bombs hardly any different from those of World War II. We came up with a low-level coordinated maneuver, in 

which five to seven aircraft split up just after breaking the radar horizon and attempted 

to get in close for bomb release within several seconds of each other, coming in from 

different angles. The hope was that at least one aircraft would get through and get a hit. 

It seemed to me we were going to lose four or five aircraft for each ship we struck—a bad 

economic proposition given the number of ships the Soviets would flush to the Med. 

Thank God, no more crises flared up.

For the better part of the next two decades I flew off carriers that had been sent storming into crises of various sorts. As luck would have it, in none of them did I get a chance 

to fly into actual combat. As a junior aviator, I wondered why the Navy was still so 

unready for the situation it had encountered in the eastern Mediterranean in October/

November 1973. I wondered why we botched the hostage-rescue attempt in 1980, and I 

wondered why we were not ready to execute theater air warfare in the summer of 1990 

(I was by then in command of a Hornet squadron on board USS Eisenhower in the Red 

Sea). I also wondered why we kept losing so many aircraft to accidents (I myself lost over 

a dozen friends to accidents). All of these questions drove me to read and study. I lobbied to be a student at the Spanish Naval War College and later the U.S. Naval War College, in Newport, Rhode Island, both times in spite of sage advice from my seniors that 

doing so would be career suicide. I figured that if answers were to be found, it would be 

in those places. 

Over the years of operating off carrier decks and, later, of teaching operations at 

Newport, the answers started to emerge; I felt I was getting a grip on why the United 

States and its navy operated aircraft carriers in the way they did and why those carriers 

were either ready or not ready for the missions they were assigned. In developing these 

answers I necessarily had to understand naval strategy writ large and how it supported 

or did not support national strategies and interests. The answers I came up with did not 

necessarily correspond to either conventional wisdom or that which is found in famous 

books on warfare. Eventually I started writing.

The articles in this Newport Paper are a selection of those that I have published (all but 

one of them) over the years in various publications. I did not write them to “get published”; I wrote them because I am a true extrovert—I have to talk, or write, in order 

to think. I do it in a particular way—I write with pencil on graph paper. This seems to 

lubricate the flow of thoughts from my head to the paper, or maybe it’s the other way 

around. I’m not sure. In any case, I have a desk drawer with a fat file folder full of the 
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mit for publication. I write, as I say, to think, and if the end result seems sufficient

cid, I submit it to a journal. I am not a trained academic scholar, nor have I been a 

officer with an agenda. Nonetheless, as the dean of the Center for Naval Warfare S

at the Naval War College, I have been deeply influenced by the work of my faculty

number of my articles on naval strategy are attempts to “fly high cover” on their i

most of their work being classified.

To paraphrase Vince Lombardi, timing isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Whatever purposes God has, he has elected to keep me alive when I should have died in 

airplane, and he has repeatedly plunked me down in positions of opportunity in w

I could leverage the answers to the operational and strategic questions I have aske

answered for myself over the years. The most prominent case was when I was mad

ing dean of the center, just weeks before Adm. Mike Mullen asked for a new marit

strategy in 2006. The Naval War College was tasked to support the Navy Staff in d

oping it, I was put in charge, and in that moment, I knew exactly what to do. I laid 

program of workshops and games, along with some rules for how the project wou

focused and conducted. Our project produced a set of options for the Navy Staff, w

combined them, along with several key concepts we came up with, into “A Cooper

tive Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.” This document was catalytic in creatin

functioning global maritime partnership to ensure that the seas could not be us

terrorists. As I write this, it is still the national maritime strategy, in effect for th

six years. The first article in this Newport Paper gives my perspective on the cre

of this document—the capstone of my career in the Navy, both in uniform and 

civilian.

That I was in that place at that time was a function in part of my decision to comm

myself to the Naval War College. Factoring out the various acts of God and turns 

my ability to serve the Navy from the banks of Narragansett Bay hinged on the go

offices of three people. Capt. Frank Snyder, USN (Ret.), was my first boss at the Co

Director of the Planning and Decision-Making branch of the College’s Joint Milit

Operations Department, he introduced me to the world of command and control, 

he did me the decisive favor of directing me to develop a teaching session on camp

planning. This was in the mid-1980s, when the U.S. Army had just constructed its 

operational-level-of-war theory—and the Navy had no inkling of what that meant

found a number of answers to my questions as I did research for that session. Fran

was also decisive in bringing me back to the College after a command tour. He pu

off that trick by appealing to Rear Adm. Joseph Strasser, then President of the Col

lege. Admiral Strasser, the College’s longest-serving president, was to throw his we

behind keeping me there on several occasions. Finally, Dr. Ken Watman, then cha
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ies), decided that I would make a good leader of an analytic cell he was building within 

his department and hired me as a civilian. In our years of collaboration at the College I 

found him to be a highly effective intellectual mentor.

The presence of these men at the College was no accident; the institution attracts people 

who like to think. Founded by Rear Adm. Stephen B. Luce, an archetypal reflective 

practitioner, the institution has remained true to his vision for almost 130 years, as a 

place where naval officers can come to explore the higher reaches of their profession—

to answer questions they have developed over their years of service. Seen by many as 

simply a schoolhouse, the Naval War College is really an incubator of thought. Whereas 

the other service colleges perform structural educational functions for their respective 

services (Leavenworth produces staff officers, Maxwell turns out airpower advocates), 

the Naval War College has no such function beyond rendering the joint-education credentials mandated by Congress. The Navy, in fact, has had at best mixed feelings about 

the institution. Receiving little in the way of rudder orders, the College has been free to 

structure itself to fulfill Luce’s vision as conditions have changed over successive generations. It continues to constitute the intellectual soil in which the seeds of thought, sown 

by reflective naval officers, can germinate.

A key fertilizer (to risk overusing a metaphor) in the College’s intellectual soil is war 

gaming. It was introduced at the direction of Luce, and its practice at the College since 

then has become almost legendary. It was thus inevitable that I would become deeply 

involved in it over my years at the College, as variously a game sponsor, game designer, 

game director, game umpire, and game analyst, and ultimately chairman of the War 

Gaming Department. As has happened in everything else I have done, participation in 

war gaming produced questions in my mind, specifically about how and why it is done. 

One of the great advantages of gaming in Newport is that because of the institutional 

characteristics mentioned in the previous paragraph, games here can be designed and 

played for the right reasons, something much more difficult to achieve elsewhere. 

With regard to how it is done, one of the achievements that satisfies me most is the 

conversion of the War Gaming Department from a staff culture to a faculty culture. 

The civilian war-gaming faculty does not simply conduct games—it professes war 

gaming; I too professed war gaming. In doing so one must determine how the discipline or technique can produce valid knowledge. This is the subject of the last chapter 

of this collection, and it is perhaps a most fitting tribute to the institution that has 

nurtured my intellectual journey.

The chapters lay out the various answers I have developed for myself concerning naval 

strategy, naval aviation, joint operations, and war gaming. They are not in chronological order, so the reader will see no progression in thought or in writing style. I do not 
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I said in earlier ones. In total, though, they represent a window into my brain, extr

that I am. I was never satisfied with pat answers or with the authority of famous w

on military theory. I have always looked for the deeper patterns, the deeper motiv

I hope that readers use what I write to stimulate a search for their own answers.

This Newport Paper is a benediction of sorts on my naval career, spanning in vari

forms forty-eight years. This being the case, I beg the reader’s pardon for taking th

opportunity to offer some recognition and thanks. I will start with someone who, 

am sure, never thought he would see his name in a book introduction, Lt. Lynn “P

per” Trowbridge. Pipper was not the kind of guy the Navy would consider an exam

of an officer and gentleman. When he was my flight lead, I could not join on him 

enough to catch him without a cigarette in his mouth. Why he never toasted his lu

in the cockpit I will never know. However, he was a talented attack pilot and fanat

meticulous about understanding the smallest details of the A-7 weapons system an

armament it carried. I learned from him the benefits of digging deep for an under

ing of how things worked. Another person who deserves recognition is Charlie Co

the guy who taught me how to be a landing signal officer—and who was the best o

ever met. Nobody was cooler on the platform, and I learned from him how to keep 

wits when everything seemed to be going haywire. Sad to say, there were few othe

met in my naval career, other than the three gentlemen mentioned previously, to w

I could point as positive role models, though I developed great respect for some—

as now-senator John McCain, who was my commanding officer in VA-174. I woul

choose his leadership methods, but he was the most effective commander I ever m

The real factor in my success as a naval officer is my wife Donna. On our first date 

picked her up in a Piper Cherokee borrowed from the University of Illinois (she w

attending Eastern Illinois University, fifty miles to the south). The girl got in the 

airplane with me, and right then and there I knew she had the right stuff. Decades 

naval service revealed that I had been a good judge of character; she has endured t

separations, the repeated memorial services for fellow aviators, and all the vicissit

of Navy life without ever complaining or asking me not to get in an airplane—eve

certain occasions when we both knew pretty well I might not be coming back. She 

natural leader herself and is actually the best role model I have had. Thanks are si

not enough. Among her leadership feats is raising our two sons virtually as a singl

parent for way too much time. Testimony to her success in this is the fact that both 

have grown into outstanding fathers and family men whose adaptability in our ye

moving around is now being passed on to their children. If it does not kill you, the 

makes you strong.
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and obtaining the necessary permissions for this work. Finally, I offer my thanks to Dr. 

Carnes Lord and Mr. Pelham Boyer for the great gift of this publication. Their management of the Naval War College Press has been magnificent and has made oversight from 

the dean’s position both simple and pleasurable.
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PART ONE

Naval Strategy
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The New Maritime Strategy

The Rest of the Story 

The U.S. Navy’s new maritime strategy is contained in a fairly terse ten-page docu

that speaks in broad terms about how sea power should be used through the next 

fifteen years to defend the nation and its global interests. Soon after its release, an

pundits, and naval officers began to offer criti cisms and interpretations. A numbe

the articles, blogs, and e-mails demon strate a clear misunderstanding of the strate

at least a failure to understand what the strategy is meant to do. The author, as the 

of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College, was in charge o

project to develop maritime strategy options and analyses for the Navy Staff. With

engaging in a defense of the strategy as written, this article will leverage its author

perspective to provide a deeper understanding of the strategy by discussing the fin

that emerged from the workshops and games that produced the options, as well as 

of the background logic that governed our approach to the project. It will also offe

some personal analysis of the strategy’s underlying intent.

It should be emphasized from the outset that the maritime strategy was written by 

a combination of officers on the staff of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for 

Information, Plans, and Strategy (N3/N5) and some participating civilian academ

ics and contractors. The Naval War College delivered to them a series of options, t

be discussed later, which they used as raw material in the composition of the strat

document. Throughout the development process, everyone avoided ascribing idea

individuals, so that positions would not harden because of “ownership.” Thus, wh

no particular person can be pointed out as the strategy’s progenitor, a clear intelle

audit trail winds through the developmental events, includ ing a war game and wo

shops, to the published strategy.

In June 2006, during the Secretary of the Navy–sponsored Current Strategy Forum 

Newport, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Michael Mullen, called 

CHAPTER ONE

Naval War College Review, Spring 2008, Vol. 61, No. 2
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of and for its time and enjoined us to elevate the discussion. Within two weeks after 

this speech, Vice Admiral John Morgan, the Deputy CNO for Strategy and Operations, 

visited the College to provide more detailed tasking. He specified that the strategy development process was to be a “competition of ideas” and was to be open and collaborative. These parame ters were themselves rather revolutionary in the history of maritime 

strategy de velopment, but two even more important pieces of guidance emerged from 

our discussions as well. When asked whether the project should be international ized, 

he said yes. When asked if we were really working with a blank sheet of pa per, with no 

a priori assumptions of fleet size or policy constraints, he said yes. This set of instructions put in train a strategic logic vector that heavily influ enced project design and the 

nature of the final product.

From the outset, this project would not simply derive from existing strategic guidance, such as the National Security Strategy or the National Defense Strategy. This 

may seem somehow subversive to those who are used to military planning processes in 

which guidance from higher headquarters is regarded as holy writ. However, consider 

our situation—the project was undertaken at the end of the Bush administration and 

our requirement was to look ahead twenty years. We could not responsibly make the 

assumption that current U.S. security strategy would remain in place, and there was no 

adequate way to predict the direction of the next administration’s policies. Our solution was to postulate four different po tential strategy vectors of a future administration, 

which resulted in having four U.S. teams in a strategic war game we conducted. The 

first team represented a “Primacy” strategy, in which the United States would attempt to 

maintain its near-hegemonic status in the world. The second team adopted a “Selective 

En gagement” posture, in which the United States would focus its efforts on averting 

conflict among major powers. The third team played a “Cooperative Security” strategy, 

in which the nation committed itself to seeking security through multilateralism and 

international institutions. The fourth team represented an “Offshore Balancing” strategy, in which the United States retracted certain security guarantees and caused major 

powers to balance each other.

As the project transpired we attempted to find maritime strategy options that would 

be valid across two or more of these policy futures. Frankly, freeing our selves from the 

dictates of current policy allowed us to perceive and accept gam ing outcomes we might 

otherwise have missed. War games tend to “whisper” to you—that is, they produce 

subtle results within the context of their play that can be ignored easily, especially if 

they are things that defy conventional wisdom or are threatening to the game’s sponsors.1

Our strategic foundations game did in deed provide whispers, and we were able 

to hear them.
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brought together some of the old hands who had participated in the developmen

the 1980s Maritime Strategy (capitalized here to distinguish it from the current ef

In that workshop, one of the participants asserted that what that strategy had had

what had been missing since the end of the Cold War, was context. What he mean

that the Maritime Strategy told naval offi cers who they would fight, why, and whe

addition to how. The “. . . From the Sea” series of white papers issued in the 1990s 

not—they had been more doctrinal in nature. The Navy needed to rediscover cont

if its strategy was to be compelling and useful. Another thread of discussion invol

the need to “reglobalize” the Navy. There was no intellectual glue that linked oper

in the Philippine Sea with those in the Persian Gulf or the Caribbean, although m

participants in the workshop, as well as those in a number of different games in re

years, instinctively felt that what happened in one part of the world had important 

effects in other parts. Thus, as we designed and played our strategic game, we wer

for any indications of what might con stitute a new context for maritime strategy a

basis for global vision.

The Strategic Foundations Game took about six weeks to play and involved the fou

teams, one for each potential policy future, and five “strategic enti ties,” countries 

nonstate groups selected for detailed play. Teams were directed to develop grand s

gies for the next twenty years that would maximize their security, aspirations, and 

terests. Non-U.S. teams were not required to demonstrate hostility to the United S

unless that made sense in terms of their grand strategies. This represented a depar

from normal gaming, in which worst-case scenarios are the rule. In the open adju

tion sessions in which each team proclaimed its strategy, a compelling central thre

emerged. Each state had an intrinsic interest in the effective functioning of the glo

sys tem of trade, even such “rogue” actors as Iran and North Korea. Only al-Qa‘ida 

associated groups had endemic hostility to the system. This insight produced the “

idea” that the protection of the existing global system of trade and security (as opp

to the process of globalization) provided both the context for the new strategy and 

intellectual glue that tied together all regions of the world. Thus the notion of syst

security and defense figures prominently in the maritime strategy document, both 

front,” in its introduction, and in the description of the maritime strategic concep

could not have been more important—even, in its way, more revolutionary. It prov

a basis for not only a maritime strategy but a national grand strategy not aimed ag

a particular country or threat but positive, without being aggressive. The strategic 

concept upon which the maritime strategy is based—defense of the global system 

commerce and security—offers the opportunity for future administrations to ado
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that brings. As a defensive strategy, it makes global maritime cooper ation much easier 

to attain.

While the game and workshops had no trouble identifying current and future threats, 

except in the case of Islamic extremists, these threats were either nascent or equivocal. Is China a true threat? How about a resurgent Russia? Iran and North Korea, while 

clearly potential aggressors, were not existential threats, and at least at this juncture did 

not seem poised to attack anyone. Moreover, glim mers of progress in reining in their 

aggressive tendencies seemed to exist. Thus it was difficult to pursue traditional threatbased planning convincingly. In devel oping the strategy, we realized that one of the real 

dangers, especially with regard to emerging powers, is that considering them hostile for 

planning purposes could be self-fulfilling. Thus we tried not to engage reflexively in 

threat-based or capabilities-based planning, techniques that would naturally assume the 

break out of war. Instead, we realized, we had opportunities to disrupt the flow of events 

toward war. Accordingly, the new strategy reflects what I call “opportu nity based” planning—positioning the maritime services to take positive actions to prevent war, protect 

the global system, and create a better peace.

The injunction to elevate the discussion also greatly affected the development process 

and the nature of the end product. The Navy has been afflicted in the past few years 

with a controversy of sorts over force structure. One camp asserts that there are new 

mission sets, such as homeland defense, the Long War, and humanitarian assistance, 

that require new kinds of forces. The other camp holds that the Navy should only build 

high-end combat forces and that these can be effectively used for less “kinetic” missions

A solution could not be found if the “dialogue” continued at the level of forces; therefore, the strategy project banned any discussion of force structure. Participants mostly 

followed this rule, and the options presented to the project’s executive committee, 

consisting of flag-level representatives from the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, 

contained nothing that would provide stimulus or opportunity for those who equate 

strategy with force structure to drag the discussion in that direction. As a result, the 

staff ing and vetting process forced the “three stars” and “four stars” to respond in kind, 

and this appears to have generated both a new level of dialogue in the Navy and a new 

strategic consensus. There are many who are frustrated that the new strategy makes no 

mention of force structure, but it does seem to provide an overarching logic from which 

future force structure could be deduced. At the very least, it is a consensus document 

that has to some degree knit the Navy together.

At this nexus of force structure and strategy, it is useful to interpret the strat egy in light 

of the ideas of the two greatest maritime strategy theorists, Alfred Thayer Mahan and 

Sir Julian Corbett. In a sense, the new strategy is very “Corbettian,” in that it requires 
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domain awareness—be exercised day in and day out. Corbett described two tradit

concentration points for the Royal Navy, one near the French island of Ushant off 

tany to control the Channel, and the other in the Downs (a roadstead near Dover) 

guard against invasion threats from the North Sea. These concentration points we

established be cause Britain’s proximity to them afforded little geographic strategic 

depth. However, fleets concentrated there could disperse for “systemic” sea-contro

ties, being always ready to regroup if a major threat developed near home.3

 Simila

new maritime strategy prescribes two concentration points, one in the Arabian G

the other in northeast Asia, where important economic elements of the global syst

are near potentially aggressive states.4

 Per current U.S. Navy practice, these “comb

credible” forces will “starburst,” or disperse, for engagement purposes but can reg

quickly in case of need. Corbett said that commercial shipping elsewhere could be 

protected by cruisers and the “flotilla”—smaller ships that could deal with most th

short of first-class forces—types not normally encountered in the far-flung reache

the empire. The analog today is the “thousand-ship navy,” the loose network of na

coop erating for maritime security. The U.S. part of that flotilla will be those units 

signed to Global Fleet Stations and other, more ad hoc deployments to catalyze gre

levels of cooperation. The key word is catalyze. We would not build a fleet of patro

to do other nations’ jobs for them. We would dispatch ships and other kinds of for

that would help other navies and coast guards adopt congruent strategies and prov

them with the training and perhaps equipment to implement them. The exact typ

numbers of forces required are not self-evident and need to be the subject of analy

and gaming.

The notion of two deployment hubs where strong naval forces are concen trated fo

the logic of system defense. Just as Corbett acknowledged the necessity for concen

tration points in the home islands due to their proximity to threats emanating fro

Europe—that is, a lack of strategic depth—so too does this maritime strategy pres

fleet concentrations in areas where there is little geographic space in which to abso

an attack. The oil fields of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are uncomfortably near 

Seoul is within artillery range of North Korea; and Taiwan is only a narrow strait 

from the power of the People’s Liberation Army. Certainly the oil fields of the Per

Gulf and the productive capacity of South Korea and Japan are key organs of the g

system and must be protected. If deterrence fails, we must be ready and able to def

these areas. Again, the exact type and nature of forces needed to do this is not self

evident, especially since rapid technological development overseas has significant

morphed the kinds of sea-denial threats we will face. They must, how ever, be the m

robust type of high-end combat forces.
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ignored or misunderstood is his focus on deterrence. Mahans world was characterized 

by the existence of great powers overseas that had navies capa ble of conducting operations in the Western Hemisphere. Mahan worried about the defense of the soon-to-beopened Panama Canal and about other European adventurism in Latin America. His 

prescription for a strong battle fleet and its deployment was based as much on deterring 

outside intervention in the Americas as it was on protecting American interests overseas.5

 This notion of deterring a range of major powers through a strong, high-end fleet 

is an intrinsic part of the new strategy. Moreover, Mahan’s prescription for a consortium 

of cooperating navies belonging to like-minded powers has a strong echo in the new 

strat egy. In Mahan’s era, Britain was the preeminent naval power, but there were others 

on the rise, including Germany, Japan, and the United States. Mahan could see that even 

the Royal Navy might not be able to police the world in an era where capital ships were 

becoming ever more expensive and any single nation might not be able to keep the seas 

free around the world. Thus he proposed that the navies of several nations act in concert 

(not necessarily in alliance) to make sure regional powers could not close off large parts 

of the ocean to trade.6

 Today, even though the United States enjoys a measure of naval 

relative advantage Mahan could not have dreamed of, the world is still too big for a 

single navy to act as sheriff of the seas. Therefore, the new maritime strategy advocates 

a consortium of navies and coast guards working together to assure maritime security, 

the new manifestation of sea control.

The strategy also implies a return by the U.S. Marine Corps to its expeditionary roots. 

The global distribution of forces for catalyzing cooperative relationships, preventing or 

containing local disruptions before they impact the global system, and for rendering 

various kinds of assistance is a recipe for the kind of flexible maritime maneuver for 

which the Marines are famous.

Prevention of war is a naturally deduced mission from the concept of system protection. 

Throughout history, nothing has been more disruptive to the free movement of global 

trade than war among the major powers. Niall Ferguson in his The War of the World 

makes the case that the world was globalizing in the decades leading up to World War 

I. It was a world of multiple great powers that enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity but that was also infected by nonstate actors with various agendas. This world slid 

into a ruinous global war whose consequences afflicted it for more than seventy-five 

years.7

 One can make the case that, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the world is 

just now getting back to globalizing in the way it was before the Great War tore it apart. 

Mark Twain famously said that history does not repeat itself but rhymes. Thus, in this 

globalizing world that is populated by one big navy and a number of growing ones, an 
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catastrophe such as that of 1914.

There was another element of thought that attended the design of the strategy dev

ment process. The focus on grand strategy had not only to do with elevating the d

sion in order to untangle force-structure controversies. More broadly, there was a 

among several researchers in key positions that since the Cold War the United Sta

had lacked a concept around which a coherent national grand strategy could coale

In the author’s personal view, the con cept of containment that had guided Americ

policy and strategy throughout the Cold War had not been replaced with anythin

similar geostrategic ratio nality. Most importantly, because the global conceptual g

mentioned earlier has been missing, American policy and strategy have tended to 

the world as a collection of regions, each of which can be approached as an indepe

entity. The result has been that the United States, through successive administra ti

has backed its way into a de facto Eurasian continentalist grand strategy, in which 

has committed vast resources to projects of the kind one would expect to see from 

major Eurasian land power attempting to establish buffer zones, almost as if Calif

butted up against Iran. These projects included the enlargement of NATO to the e

the “‘Stans’ project” to secure bases and influence in the heart of Eurasia, establish

of ballistic missile defenses in Poland, and the invasion of Iraq. The danger of this 

ad hoc and inadvertent grand stra tegic vector is that it is leading to strategic overe

sion. There has been no compelling alternate vision or concept to deflect its thrus

new maritime strategy does not, in and of itself, constitute that alternate vision, bu

goal in helping formulate it was to find the kernel of an idea that could translate in

global concept that does not require the United States to intervene everywhere it s

trouble and that provides criteria upon which the advisability of potential projects 

be judged. Neither the Weinberger nor Powell doctrine possesses suitable breadth 

vision to serve in this role.8

It should be said at this point that the strategic logic expressed above was not mea

be a recipe for disengagement. “Offshore Balancing” was indeed one of the four U

policy futures examined, but in the end nobody thought that the United States sho

retreat from its strategic alliances or from its forward en gagement, and especially 

from the forward-deployed posture of its forces. Rather, it is meant to be an injunc

to look at the world as a whole. At the global level, because the world is 70 percent 

grand strategy necessarily takes on a maritime flavor. Moreover, Eurasia is just on

mass; there are others. The United States is about to establish Africa Command. A

is second only to Eurasia in size, and if Eurasia can absorb all the strategic resourc

of a powerful nation, then Eurasia, Africa, South America, and North America ca

overwhelm any power that seeks to use land superiority to assure its security. Le ve
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and risk established. Only a global, and therefore maritime, grand strategic concept can 

provide the needed perspective and guidance. Thus it was from hopes of at least initiating a new dialogue on national grand strategy that the maritime strategy development 

process took its cue.

As it turned out, the Strategic Foundations Game and the several workshops did not 

produce the maritime strategy options in a straightforward way. Naval War College 

researchers were left with a considerable body of data, but the planned events produced 

no clear definition of options. Thus they set about trying to deduce strategy options 

from the four policy futures. This work produced five options. The first, called “Winning Combat Power Forward,” was derived from the Primacy policy future and called 

for strong, war-winning forces to be deployed in the northern Arabian Sea and in 

northeast Asia. The underpinning assumption was that since deterrence could not 

be relied upon and sufficient strategic depth in these areas was lacking, strong forces 

must be positioned where they would be needed. The second option was based on the 

Offshore Balancing policy future and called for U.S. naval forces to be forward deployed 

only in the Persian Gulf. The rest of the Navy would remain in home waters, in a “surge” 

status. Monetary savings of this posture would be used to increase force structure or to 

transform the Navy. The third option called for a focus on securing the global commons 

as a key element in the health of the global system. This option seemed to have relevance 

across most of the policy futures. The fourth option, one that came “over the transom” 

from outside the College, called for high-end forces to combat anti-access capabilities 

in northeast Asia and low-end forces for the Long War and engagement elsewhere. The 

final option, another one that came in from an outside source, was an outgrowth of the 

Selective Engagement policy future and called for raising war prevention to the same 

level of importance as war win ning. Prevention was to be achieved through a combination of deterrence through strength and widespread engagement to reduce the causes of 

discontent, resource competition, and failed governance that could spawn wars. 

These five options were offered to the Executive Committee. These were quickly winnowed down to three: war-winning power forward, securing the global commons, and 

war prevention. These three were carried forward for staffing and, eventually, were all 

combined into a single strategy—the one that has been published.

In looking at the completed document, an important aspect to note about the strategy is 

that it is meant to operate continuously. In this respect it is very differ ent from contingent warfighting strategies of the past that would only be in voked in case of war. It is 

also different from the doctrinal strategy contained in the “. . . From the Sea” white papers. This strategy is meant to prevent wars and ensure a better peace by deploying and 

operating forces in a systemic fashion. Some have termed it a policy, not a strategy, and 
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makes it a true strategy.

Another way to assess strategies is to consider how they use force to achieve their 

Some are meant to achieve definitive checkmates of an enemy, either through bru

force or maneuver. Others are coercive, posing threats or impos ing destruction in 

to extract concessions. This strategy is catalytic; its aim is to get our maritime serv

our future administrations, and indeed all governments and navies of the world th

ing in terms of cooperating to protect the global system.

The new strategy was announced in October 2007, and already there has been con

erable analysis and critique. In reviewing the articles and blogs on the strat egy, I h

observed two principal criticisms or objections to it. The first is that it does not id

specific threats. A number of commentators feel that the strategy should have spe

cally mentioned China, Iran, and North Korea, at a minimum, as threats that nee

be countered. My answer to this is that if the strategy’s pur pose is to prevent war a

major powers and generate the widest possible mar itime cooperation, why create h

ity by singling out specific countries as threats? That is especially the case with Ch

with which we have a deeply inter dependent economic relationship and which is w

ing hard on conducting a “peaceful rise” foreign policy. It turns out that the strate

getting some favor able reviews from the Chinese, which seems to me to be a small 

forward that would not have taken place had we listed that nation as a threat. As t

UNESCO preamble says: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the mind

men that the defenses of peace must be erected.” To this end the Naval War Colleg

already started implementing the strategy, by hosting a workshop with the Chi nes

on cooperation and avoidance of incidents. I think that remarks made concerning 

cooperation between the United States and China by a Chinese scholar in attenda

the workshop bear repeating here: “Thus, cooperation on noncompetitive issues m

the interactive and cognitive basis for further joint efforts to mitigate the consequ

of maritime and naval competition.”

Another criticism is that the strategy does not prescribe force structure. As I alrea

mentioned, the controversy over force structure that exists in the Navy cannot be 

by simply declaring a particular fleet size or composition in the strategy. For start

such a strategy would have never survived the staffing process. By focusing on glo

strategic issues and ways, the strategy provides a basis for evaluating the utility of 

force-structure proposals and avoids “taking sides.”

No strategy document of ten pages can adequately explain the complex think ing t

spawned it. It is clear to those who worked on developing the document that it can 

be easily misinterpreted, which is the price for being concise. It is also the price of 
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But we hope that separate explanations, such as this one, can help people better interpre

what the maritime strategy document is really saying.

Notes

1. For this and other gaming phenomena, see the 

author’s “The Epistemology of War Gam ing,” 

Naval War College Review 59, no. 2 (Spring 

2006), pp. 108–28, esp. p. 124ff.

2. For the development of that strategy see John 

B. Hattendorf, The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s 

Maritime Strategy, 1977–1986, Newport Paper 

19 (Newport, R.I.: Naval War Col lege Press, 

2004).

3. Sir Julian Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime 

Strategy (London: Longmans, Green, 1918). 

See part 2, chap. 3, for a discussion of concentration and dispersal; see part 2, chap. 2, for 

a discussion of the roles of cruisers and the 

flotilla.

4. U.S. Navy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, pp. 4–5, available at www.navy

.mil/maritime/MaritimeStrategy.pdf and re printed in the Naval War College Review (Winter 

2008), at www.usnwc.edu/Publications/Naval 

-War-College-Review/2008---Winter.aspx.

5. Alfred Thayer Mahan, Naval Strategy (Boston: 

Little, Brown, 1918), pp. 18–19. See also his 

The Interest of America in Seapower Present 

and Future (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918), pp. 

182–83.

6. Mahan, Interest of America in Sea Power 

Pres ent and Future, pp. 110–16. Interestingly, 

Mahan talks about the need not to force alliances but to let common interests, in this case 

between the United States and Great Britain, 

lead to a natural naval cooperation. This 

very much reflects the logic of today’s Global 

Maritime Partnership—formerly known as th

“thousand-ship navy.”

7. Niall Ferguson, The War of the World (New 

York: Penguin, 2006), p. 73.

8. The Weinberger Doctrine, enunciated in 1984

and its derivative successor the Powell Doctrine (really a neologism concocted by journalists, but see Powell’s article “U.S. Forces: 

Challenges Ahead” in Foreign Affairs for Winter 1992/1993) pose a series of questions that 

should be answered in the affirmative before 

military action is deemed both appropriate 

and practicable. The first question—Is a vital 

national security interest threatened?—reveals 

the shortcoming of both, as neither offers 

any geostrategic con cept that would help an 

administration answer it clearly.
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The Navy’s Changing Force Paradigm

The recently issued Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower reflects an inst

tional response to America’s changed strategic circumstances and embodies a logi

suggests a significant change to the Navy’s force structure paradigm.1

 However, be

the document is broadly worded, the service still has a lot of work to do to achieve 

internal consensus on the implications of this logic for its future force structure. T

is considerable intellectual “churn” associated with this shift, and the Navy has ye

come fully to grips with its im plications for force structure. This article will attem

describe the broad out lines of the paradigm shift and assess some of the programm

implications, including the need for additional numbers of general-purpose surfac

combatants.

A naval force paradigm is a theory of how various types of ships and weapons ava

to a navy should be organized for warfare. The paradigm is governed by the chara

istics of the principal naval weapons of the day and by the maritime strategy a nat

pursues. In this nation’s early days, the principal weapon was the naval cannon, w

could hurl a twenty-four-pound shot about half a mile with effectiveness. The stra

egy of early administrations not to be drawn into European wars, coupled with th

determination to protect American merchant shipping, produced a force paradigm 

a small fleet of highly capable frigates, operating independently or in small squad

At the dawn of the twen tieth century, as the United States elected to widen its stra

perspective and be come a player on the world stage, its force paradigm shifted t

battleship-centric fleet, reflecting the governing weapon of the day, the large-calib

naval gun. With the advent of the airplane and the impetus of the Japanese attack 

on Pearl Harbor, the battle-line paradigm shifted to one of circular formations cen

tered on fast aircraft carriers. In all of these paradigms there was a central ship typ

that supported the principal weapon. Other ship types supported the central type 

performed such collateral, systemic duties as convoy escort, amphibious operation

CHAPTER TWO

Naval War College, Spring 2009, Vol. 62, No. 2
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ship, as well as its characteristics and numbers, could be justi fied based on its role in the 

existing force paradigm.

Of late, the Navy has come under fire from Congress and various pundits and think 

tanks for its inability to provide adequate justification for the proposed “DDG-1000” 

advanced destroyer, as well as for its decision to cut production of that type to three 

ships. Much blame is laid at the feet of current Navy leadership, especially as this issue 

is regarded as symptomatic of a larger problem with the service’s shipbuilding plans. 

The call for a 313-ship navy by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Gary 

Roughead, is regarded in some quarters as unaffordable and in others as based upon a 

number, be it too high or too low, that is supported by insufficient analysis. Part of the 

Navy’s current difficulty with programmatics may indeed be institutional and procedural, consisting, in various degrees, of failures in concept development, cost estimation, and pro gram management. However, the perceived credibility problem also stems 

from the fact that the Navy is in the initial stages of a fundamental naval force paradigm shift, one with implications for force structure that are not unlike the shift from a 

battleship-centric force to an aircraft carrier–centric force. Today, the in creasing effectiveness of antiship missiles, along with the increasing lethality of antiaircraft defenses, 

is about to make necessary a shift from a force centered on “big deck” aviation platform

to one that is more distributed and oriented around missile-firing platforms—most 

prominently, submarines and surface combatants. In the process, the Navy will shift 

from a force paradigm it adopted in 1942 and has employed in a refined version since 

the end of the Cold War.

The “. . . From the Sea” Era

In September 1992 the Navy issued “. . . From the Sea,” a white paper that re sponded 

to the radical alteration in global strategic conditions caused by the collapse of the 

Soviet Union.2

 With its only competition on the high seas gone, the U.S. Navy faced the 

prospect of losing its justification for being. As Samuel Huntington pointed out in 1954, 

a military service requires a viable strategic concept in order to generate the public support needed to secure funding for it.3

 “. . . From the Sea” represented that new concept: 

the Navy and Marine Corps would focus on projecting power ashore in support of joint 

operations. In a post–Soviet navy era, the United States was left as sovereign of the seas, 

and its navy, as the white paper asserted, “can afford to deemphasize some ef forts in 

some naval warfare areas.” 4

The area that was deemphasized was sea control. Gradually, over the course of the 

next fifteen years, the Navy structured itself in alignment with the logic embedded 

in “ . . . From the Sea” and its two successors.5

 However, this realignment was rather 
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amphibious forces, were, by and large, suitable for the execution of joint warfare in 

uncontested littoral. The force drawdown of the 1990s consisted mostly of disposi

various classes of sea control–focused surface combatants; the force settled upon a 

carrier strike groups (CSGs) and expeditionary strike groups (ESGs), oriented aro

big-deck aviation platforms. The transition was made all the easier because the Na

dominant community at the time, carrier-based aviation, remained at the center o

new paradigm.

During the succeeding fifteen years, nearly to the present, the Navy could concen

geographically as well as functionally. Deployments gradually narrowed to two fo

areas, the Persian Gulf and Northeast Asia, where “rogue states” might commit co

tional aggression against U.S. allies. The lack of se rious naval threat and the emer

of precision-strike munitions in time allowed the Navy and Marine Corps to estab

the idea of a “sea base” (a concept that has since been raised to a quasi-paradigm s

whereby American opera tions ashore in hostile or undeveloped areas would be su

ported from the sea, without the need for much infrastructure on land. Perhaps th

apotheosis of this concept was Operation Enduring Freedom, whose initial ph

was supported almost entirely by a naval task force some seven hundred miles fro

landlocked scene of operations in Afghanistan. Starting in the late 1990s, advocat

network-centric warfare (NCW) added momentum to the Navy’s littoral focus by 

that dispersed, networked forces could generate higher levels of combat effectiven

with smaller, cheaper platforms. Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski, a key oracle 

NCW, promoted “Streetfighter,” a small, fast, networked ship that eventually emer

the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). This was only part of the transformation. DDG-1

starting life conceptually as an “arse nal ship,” was to be a survivable platform, mo

a high-tech gun, that would provide significant naval gunfire support to forces de

land. As “The Navy Op erational Concept: Forward . . . From the Sea” said in 1997

will be able to deliver a large volume of firepower through new ways of achieving v

high aircraft sortie rates and new weapons and platforms for delivering joint fires

However, even as the Navy adopted this new force paradigm and aligned itself ins

tionally to focus on joint warfare in the littorals, factors were emerg ing—technolo

cal, economic, and political—that would eventually force it to reconsider. Among 

factors most relevant for the present discussion were the progressive development 

proliferation of ballistic-missile technology, po tentially including antiship capabil

ity; the ability of American cruisers and de stroyers to conduct midcourse intercep

some kinds of ballistic missiles; the emergence of China as an economic power an

its construction of a capable navy; the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and their downstrea

effects; and the resurgence of an economically viable and potentially hostile Russi
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un comfortable with their services institutional vector. This discomfort culmi nated 

in 2006 with then-CNO Michael Mullen’s call for the development of a new maritime 

strategy. When it appeared in October 2007, the new strategy, while perhaps overly terse 

and virtually silent on the particulars of force design, contained a new logic that ran 

counter to the force paradigm set by the “. . . From the Sea” series of white papers.

The new strategy calls for “combat credible” forces (to be concentrated in North east 

Asia and the Persian Gulf regions), “globally distributed, mission-tailored forces,” and 

a global maritime-security network—all welded together to prevent or limit regional 

conflict, render disaster relief, and provide other services necessary to foster and defend 

commerce and security. Viewed in the context of emerging blue-water navies, terrorists bent on smuggling weapons of mass de struction into the United States and allied 

nations, increasing exploitation of ocean resources, and interregional ballistic-missile 

threats, this new strategy strongly suggests a navy very unlike the one that has emerged 

since the Cold War.

A New Force Paradigm

It is, therefore, as a result of a changed strategic environment and a new but broadly 

worded strategy that the Navy is now attempting to accommodate a fun damental forceparadigm shift. In the past, years and much experimentation with ship types have been 

required to make the transition. There have been blind alleys. Whether battle cruisers 

or small aircraft carriers, these blind alleys were functions of conceptual uncertainty as 

to what the new governing weapon would be. That same uncertainty exists today; the 

Navy is struggling to find ways to make its current force more secure against missile 

and submarine attacks while at the same time its analyses are finding that a different 

approach may be necessary. In order to make sense of what is occurring and to develop a 

level of institutional confidence in its new direction, the Navy has reinstituted “Title X” 

war gaming, an arena it abandoned in 2001, and has developed a new strategic planning 

process meant to provide guidance to programmatic processes.7

As has been the case for the past 120-plus years, the service has turned to its war college to help think through the problem. Studies conducted at the Naval War College in 

Newport, Rhode Island, over the past few years have concluded that the combination of 

emergent weapons technology, political realignments, and economic trends points to a 

fleet that should possess different characteristics from the one in the water today—different even from some planned designs, like DDG-1000. These studies suggest that Navy 

forces should adopt a different style of war fighting, one that is more dispersed and 

flowing, not oriented to de fensive bastions around sea bases of CSGs or ESGs. Moreover

the access-denial problem is fundamentally different in the Persian Gulf from what it is 
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area. Further, studies suggest, the Navy does not necessarily need to de sign every 

for integration into a battle group. These findings are based, in some cases, on mo

than five years of continuous, iterative, and highly detailed war gaming, but even 

they are still preliminary and must be subjected to additional gaming and analysi

One kind of force paradigm that can be inferred from the results of these studies i

navy that consists of four principal segments. The first segment, an “access genera

force, would focus on employing missiles. The targets for these missiles would pri

pally be opposing access-denial forces, whether ships, submarines, aircraft, or bal

missile sites on the shore. Given the difficulty of defending against modern missil

force would adopt a highly dispersed and covert posture in order to prevent the en

from targeting it and to maintain combat credibility even in the most difficult cri

brink-of-war situations. The exact constitution and operational doctrine of this fo

would be different in Northeast Asia from what it would in the Persian Gulf, due t

fundamentally different natures of the opposing forces and the maritime ter rains. 

erally speaking, this force would be centered on submarines, especially the conver

Ohio-class SSGNs (formerly SSBNs) and surface ships such as the Arleigh Burke (D

51) class of guided-missile destroyers and the Littoral Combat Ship. The key will b

erating targeting data for the missiles these platforms carry, but that is a better com

problem to have to solve than the de fense of a carrier battle group.

Currently, the Navy relies on carrier-based strike fighter aircraft to perform the b

of its sea-control and power-projection missions. The Chinese and oth ers underst

this and are working on ways to neutralize U.S. carriers and their embarked tactic

aviation. To date, the Navy’s response has been to focus on de veloping better defen

for carriers against submarines and cruise missiles. Such an approach, while logic

understandable, has always been problem atic. History has shown that tactical defe

the most disadvantageous type of sea fight. If the Chinese are able to perfect an an

ballistic missile, the prob lem could get worse. One solution is to disperse striking 

among greater numbers of platforms that are hard to find and hit. The SSGN, with 

ability to house 155 strike missiles, is a promising candidate. A strategy employing 

“grid” populated with DDGs, submarines, and LCSs and using advanced mis siles 

both sea control and land attack might negate and neutralize investments in carri

killing systems. Such an approach would make an overall naval operation more ro

as there would be no key ship type, the loss of one or two of which would unhinge 

overall operation. Such an approach would also increase opportunities for decepti

instilling doubt in the minds of potential opponents. This would be especially valu

able in crisis situations. Concentrated and vulnerable naval forces can quickly tur

into political liabilities, removing instead of adding to options. A hard-to-target fo
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and influence.

The second force segment would be the “power projection” force, which would look 

much like what the Navy has today: CSGs and ESGs centered on big-deck aviation 

ships. However, instead of being the ubiquitous arbiter of naval power they are today, 

they would become a specialized role-playing force, not unlike the U.S. Seventh Fleet in 

World War II, which in effect con stituted General Douglas MacArthur’s “sea base” in 

his campaign up the Solomons and New Guinea toward the Philippines. That force was 

capable of anything but confronting the main Japanese fleet. The new power-projection 

force would generally operate in permissive environments but could support the accessgeneration force in certain instances.

The third force segment would be the “maritime security” force. Frequently supported 

by elements of the first two segments, this force would have special ized units conduct 

patrols for terrorists and criminals and help to catalyze a global maritime security partnership through extensive engagement. Other units, such as hospital ships, high-speed 

vessels, and others, would conduct sys tematic operations to establish a stable political 

and economic environment throughout the oceans and in the littorals. A recent Global 

War Game at the Na val War College that involved international naval officers as players 

revealed that our potential partner navies, especially those in Africa, regard any kind 

of grey-hulled ship as threatening. Therefore, new (and cheaper) types of vessels should 

be considered for global maritime partnership missions. Another insight gained from 

that game was that a broad cross section of international navies consider their principal mission to be law enforcement. This might seem a U.S. Coast Guard function, 

but because of severe limitations on the Coast Guard’s size and because these partner 

services are navies as such, with defense missions in addition to law enforcement responsibilities, the U.S. Navy will have to find ways to engage in this arena. Therefore, 

this force segment is as much characterized by the sailors who man it as by the nature 

of its platforms.

The fourth force segment would be the series of maritime operations centers (MOCs) 

that is now being established around the world. These centers represent a force element 

in themselves, not simply command-and-control “overhead” for afloat forces; they will 

carry out various kinds of information operations that are critical to maritime security, 

power projection, and the screening of access-generation forces. In today’s networked 

and media-saturated world, information is a weapon, much more than it was in the past

Obtaining and de nying information are central operational capabilities, as is the ability 

to process and assess the meaning and significance of the avalanche of information 

avail able to naval forces. It is no longer sufficient for naval staffs to generate plans and 

issue orders; they must function as information clearinghouses and as opera tional units 
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contemplating embedding task force commanders within the MOC and standard

its task force structure on a global basis to make networked and interconnected st

operations more coherent. Another indica tion is the establishment of a maritime s

operators’ course to train the per sonnel who will operate the MOCs.

Calculating Force Size

Traditionally, the overall size of the Navy has been determined principally by calc

ing the forces needed to fight the major theater wars that could most likely occur 

Iran, Korea, etc.), with some additional forces for “pres ence.” Multipliers for main

nance and training cycles were added to arrive at the total force. However, this for

focused on the Middle East and East Asia. Its ability to generate engagement, hum

tarian assistance, and disaster relief as well as ballistic-missile defense in other are

marginal. However, the new maritime strategy is supposed to provide for the defe

global commerce and security on a continuous basis. Therefore, force-size calcula

must now shift to a different basis. Some writers have discussed “high/low” mixes 

dif ferent “modes.” Under the new force paradigm, some traditional ship types, suc

amphibious ships and aircraft carriers, will be employed at various times in opera

undertaken by the access-generation and maritime-security ele ments. Thus it is n

accurate nor useful to talk about high- and low-end op erations. The real question 

terms of programmatics under the new paradigm will be how much capacity is ne

in each element of the force. To use an old paradigm as an easy example, the Navy 

would not have wanted to overspend on battleships if it was to be able to buy enou

cruisers and destroyers necessary for screening the battleships, let alone the logist

forces necessary for the fleet’s successful forward operation. Moreover, there woul

been a point of di minishing returns at which the incremental naval power generat

by the next new battleship would not be worth its marginal cost. In this new para d

a careful calculation must be made of how much access-generation, power-project

missile-defense, engagement, and disaster-relief capacity is needed worldwide. Cle

the traditional major combat scenarios (major combat operations, or MCOs) will 

in the calculation of access-generation forces, but the Navy will have to establish a 

defendable criterion for force sizing outside this framework if the new force parad

to be achieved.

The new maritime strategy contains potentially useful logic for capacity calcu latio

even if that logic is as much implicit as articulated. The fundamental premise is th

defense of the global system under current strategic conditions de pends more than 

ever on the collective and cooperative action of nations and their navies. In order 

catalyze and capitalize on this cooperation, the Navy must have at its disposal cer
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building—in all regions of the world. Each regions exact re quirements would be a bit 

different from those of the others, but the steady-state peacetime defense scenario in 

each would be treated like an MCO for force plan ning purposes. If we assume that a 

transformed access-generation force will re quire fewer power-projection capabilities for 

MCO purposes, trade-offs can be made that would shape the force without much, if any

total growth in the overall tonnage, or at least overall cost, of the U.S. Navy.

To some this may sound like the Navy would be blunting its sword, but in an age of 

antiship missiles and advanced surface-to-air missiles, its current princi pal ship type, 

the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, and its principal weapon, the tac tical strike fighter, may 

not constitute as sharp an edge as they used to. The cost of keeping this ship type viable 

as an access-generation tool is probably all out of proportion to investments by others in 

threatening it. Recognizing the shift to the missile age is as difficult today for some officers as many officers in the 1930s found it to recognize that the airplane had superseded 

the large-caliber gun. But the last thing the Navy or the nation needs is a naval defeat 

like Pearl Harbor or the sinking of HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales in 1941 to bring 

home the lesson that times have changed.

The Centrality of DDG 51

One potential connecting link among the elements of the new force paradigm is the 

guided-missile destroyer. There are a number of reasons why the future Navy should be 

populated with a relatively large number of these warships. First, neutralizing ballistic 

missiles, whether they are aimed at shore or sea targets, is a critical function worldwide. 

This notion is supported by increasing Navy com ponent commanders’ calls for the 

stationing of ships with this capability in areas outside normal naval-presence hubs. 

Since sea-based ballistic-missile defense is a proven capability, the Navy should procure 

enough ships that can do it, not only to defend and support CSGs and ESGs but also 

to establish a viable ballistic-missile defense posture in virtually every region of the 

world. The key is to have enough of them to provide theater commanders flexibility in 

responding to emergent situations, including timeliness of response. For various tactical 

and technical reasons, they should operate in this role in pairs. Arleigh Burke guidedmissile destroyers are also useful for signaling and other forms of naval diplomacy, as 

recently illus trated by the dispatch of USS McFaul (DDG 74) to deliver humanitarian 

supplies to Georgia. The logic of the move, as delineated by a Stratfor.com analyst, 

reveals the utility of the ship type:

It is interesting, therefore, that a U.S. warship delivered humanitarian supplies to the Georgians. 

The ship did not use the port of Poti, which the Russians have effectively blocked, but Batumi, to the 

south. That the ship was a destroyer is important. It demonstrates that the Americans have a force 
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While it was a warship, however, it was only a destroyer—so it is a gesture, but not a threat.8

One of the key aspects of U.S. maritime strategy since the end of the Second Worl

has been the maintenance of naval forces forward, so as to keep them available to 

port American interests quickly. Timeliness of response has been a factor in a num

of situations, ranging from the invasion of South Korea by the North in 1950 to th

rival of aircraft carriers in the Red Sea and the north ern Arabian Sea in response t

Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Significant lag times in arrival of naval forces ca

potential aggressors to think in terms of a “window of opportunity.”9

 There is evid

that in 1982 the Argentine junta made its final decision for invasion of the Falklan

the basis of a report that the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror had just b

dispatched from the Mediterranean to the South Atlantic. Once it arrived, the jun

felt, nothing would be possible; therefore, it calculated, the interval between the sh

departure and its estimated arrival on the scene represented a window of opportu

one that could not be wasted.10 This logic suggests that U.S. naval forces be positio

such that no potential aggressor can perceive an operationally useful interim befo

can be on station. This kind of responsiveness defines the necessary capacity—tha

the numbers of ships—the Navy should possess. Given the ship-by-ship superiorit

U.S. Navy forces over their poten tial opponents, be they sea or shore based, the Un

States does not need to dis patch a fleet or battle group; in many cases a small, tailo

squadron, even a single DDG 51, would suffice.

In today’s world, inherently peaceful operations like humanitarian assis tance may 

threatened by cruise missiles. The fact that Hezbollah was able to surprise and hit 

raeli patrol boat with an Iranian-provided C802 coastal-defense cruise missile sho

a warning flare to all nations with navies that such weapons can be obtained by no

actors and secretly posi tioned almost anywhere. Thus, nonmilitary or auxiliary sh

sent for peace operations may require missile-defense escorts, at least until the sec

of the operations area can be assured.

Assuming that the capabilities of DDGs would be useful enough in every region fo

ater commanders to want at least two continuously available, and also that most c

would be assigned to group defense, a minimum of seventy-five DDGs would be n

for battle-group support, ballistic-missile defense, and independent missions. The 

has programmed sixty-two; a force growth of thirteen would be feasible. However

total number needed may grow even more if the Navy adopts the new force parad

outlined above in order to overcome the increasingly formidable antiaccess force t

Chinese are building.
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Navy officers to revise their positions on DDG-1000 and the DDG 51 class. This sea 

change in the Navy indicates the early stages of a paradigm shift away from a force 

centered on big-deck aviation platforms. Although assault ships (LHDs) and nuclearpowered aircraft carriers (CVNs) will continue to constitute a critical power-projection 

capability for the United States into the foreseeable future, the Navy will increasingly 

shift to dispersed but integrated surface and subsurface operations to constitute the 

credible combat power required by its new maritime strategy.

CNO has justified DDG-1000 as a technology demonstrator, and this corre sponds well 

with the decision to build only three of them. Despite the current advantages of Arleigh 

Burke in system configuration and cost, and its projected utility, it is still a gas-turbinepowered destroyer that employs chemical-based weapons. As the technologies of rail 

guns, electromagnetic-discharge defenses, and electric drive develop, there will come 

a time when a new class of vessel is needed to take full advantage of them. DDG-1000s 

will provide the Navy and de fense industry with valuable education in how to take some 

of these technologies to sea. In the meantime, the Burke class and the LCS will help 

make the paradigm shift for the U.S. Navy.

Fighting for Information

The new naval force paradigm will also feature a doctrine of fighting first for information. Not only must it be able to overcome opposition to get information (that 

is, to conduct “opposed ISR”),* but it must be able to fight to deny information to the 

enemy. Future sea fights for information will not be localized (the Chinese doctrine of 

“localized and limited wars under informatized conditions” holds that although the direct combat space of wars will be limited, the “related war space” will be expanded), and 

they will begin well before any overt outbreak of traditional hostilities.11 The protective 

covertness that surface fleets have tra ditionally enjoyed is being threatened by new combinational arrays of ISR technologies including satellites, unmanned systems, over-thehorizon radars, the Internet, etc. The reach of these systems and networks will be global

so the in formation fight will be global, even if the “kinetic arena” is geographically 

con strained. An indicator that the Navy is starting to understand this can be seen in its 

initiative, mentioned above, to establish a network of interconnected mari time operations centers that will be capable of coordinating the information fight on a global scale. 

Under the new force paradigm, the MOCs will be a “screen” for naval forces. Given the 

immense advantages in range and endurance of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), it is 

quite possible that aircraft carriers also will be part of the protective screen for distributed surface and subsurface forces, launching from safe distances arrays of UAVs that 

 * ISR: intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
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its killing missile power.

The information fight will affect all three elements of the new naval force. Be yond 

effects on the access-generation force as just discussed, the information fight is ce

to global maritime security. Maritime forces around the globe, from all nations, m

have information on what and who is out there—on, over, and under the seas—in 

to prevent terrorism, drug running, human traf ficking, and poaching. Although c

efforts are encountering political ob stacles, eventually a global maritime picture w

emerge. Here again, the centrality of the Navy maritime operations centers becom

evident as they be come clearinghouses for maritime situational awareness. When 

tioning as staffs for joint force maritime component commanders, the MOCs will 

key role in the information fight associated with joint power projection. Thus the 

represents a distinct element in the new naval force paradigm.

The new force paradigm described here is not a technological fantasy. It is most fu

damentally a conceptual shift, one that will be useful in steering experi mentation 

investment along more affordable, and ultimately more useful, lines. We have in p

a maritime strategy that can be used to establish a defen sible basis for force-capac

calculations. The Navy has at its disposal, as it did in 1992, forces that can be read

adapted to the new paradigm, and it has already begun changing its command-an

control structure to accommodate the full range of operations called for in the new 

strategy. What remains is for the Navy to make the intellectual and emotional shi

the new force paradigm.

Notes

1. Reprinted in Naval War College Review 61, 

no. 1 (Winter 2008), pp. 7–19; also available at 

www.navy.mil/maritime/MaritimeStrategy

.pdf.

2. U.S. Navy Dept., “. . . From the Sea: Prepar ing 

the Naval Service for the 21st Century.” For 

the publishing history of this white paper and 

the various sources posting or reprinting it, 

see John B. Hattendorf, ed., U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1990s: Selected Documents, Newport 

Paper 27 (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College 

Press, 2006) [hereafter Newport Pa per 27], pp. 

87–88 and notes, available at www.usnwc.edu/

press/newportpapers/documents/NP27.pdf.

3. Samuel P. Huntington, “National Polic

the Transoceanic Navy,” U.S. Naval Ins

Proceedings 80, no. 5 (May 1954), p. 48

4. U.S. Navy Dept., “. . . From the Sea,” p. 

5. See Newport Paper 27.

6. See Newport Paper 27, pp. 159–60 and 

The quote appears on page 12 as origin

issued.

7. So named for Title X of the U.S. Code

establishes the legal basis for the roles 

missions of the services. See “Presiden

Fo rum,” Naval War College Review 61, 

(Summer 2008), pp. 7–11.
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25 August 2008, Stratfor.com, www.stratfor

.com/geopolitical_diary.

9. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years 

(New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 174. 

Thatcher clearly understands the logic of this 

when she says, concerning British decision 

making prior to the Argentine invasion of the 

Falklands, “Most important perhaps is that 

nothing would have more reliably precipi tated 

preparations on the scale required to send an 

effective deterrent.”

10. Lawrence Freedman and Virginia GambaStonehouse, Signals of War (Princeton, N.J.: 

Princeton Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 65–78.

11. For Chinese doctrine, Peng Guangqian and 

Yao Youzhi, eds., The Science of Military 

Strategy (Beijing: Military Publishing House, 

2005), pp. 415–17.
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Talking about Sea Control

The year 1990 was a significant one in naval history. It marked the transition from 

world in which the oceans were contested to one in which one navy had uncontest

command of the sea. The evidence for this shift is that during the run-up to the fi

Gulf War with Iraq, the U.S. Navy positioned half of its to tal aircraft carrier striki

power in narrow seas, splitting it between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. If the

any conceivable threat, such a move would have constituted strategic Russian roul

The incipient demise of the Soviet Union and the evaporation of its fleet, along wi

Iran’s decision to stand aside, made the only threat to U.S. ships the stub oil platfo

the Persian Gulf and some mines in the gulf’s northern reaches. 

In the two decades since, the U.S. Navy has enjoyed total command of the sea, so m

so that it has stopped talking about sea control, even to the extent of forgetting ho

With the emergence in China of a robust area-denial force of great range and a na

capable of reaching beyond home waters, the time has again come to talk about se

control. This article will try to support the dialogue by discussing naval operation

concepts that navies have used in the past and relating them to today’s environme

Naval Operational Concepts

The first thing to understand about naval warfare is that it almost never occurs be

tween two evenly matched navies or fleets. There is always some imbalance, and i

is the degree and nature of the imbalance that spawn the naval operational concep

admirals employ to squeeze the most strategic value out of their fleets. Thus the fo

ing discussion will be organized against a presumption of imbalance, starting wit

concepts used by a fleet with great superiority and ending with those used by the w

side. Also, it should be noted at the outset that it is hard to separate naval operatio

from merchant shipping; naval operational concepts frequently involve acting aga

another’s sea commerce. This point will be blended in rather seamlessly in the con

discussed below. A third factor underlying this examination is sanctuary. Because 

CHAPTER THREE

Naval War College Review, Autumn 2010, Vol. 63, No. 4
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tively first generally wins—a principle articulated by Wayne Hughes), sanctuary is need

ed to prevent the enemy from getting off a first shot or engaging in the first place. In an 

age of aircraft, missiles, and nuclear bombs, sanctuary is harder than ever to achieve.1

Blockade. A fleet that has great superiority may choose simply to bottle up an opponent’s fleet and his commerce by stationing forces off his ports. The goal may be 

economic strangulation, or it may be simply to keep his fleet from get ting to sea. This 

worked well in ages before aviation, when ships could operate out of shore artillery 

range (i.e., the enemy’s sanctuary). Aircraft greatly compli cate the problem, missiles 

and submarines even more. At some point a distant blockade becomes ineffective in a 

military sense and turns into commerce raid ing, in an economic framework. Moreover, 

in an age where merchant ships have flags of convenience, multinational crews, international ownership, and cargoes that may change hands several times during a voyage, 

economic blockade be comes problematic.

From the Sea. A fleet that enjoys command of the sea (that is, establishes conditions in 

which the other navy cannot come out and challenge), or at least local sea control, but 

does not have the possibility of land-based aviation support can nonetheless bring with 

it everything it needs to project power ashore. In current terms, this is sea basing. The 

Leyte Gulf operation in World War II is an example. Given today’s long-range aircraft, i

is doubtful that there will be any more pure “from the sea” operations, although the initial operations in Operation ENDURING FREEDOM approximated such an undertaking

with the important exceptions that land-based tankers and reconnaissance aircraft were 

available. The British operations in the Falklands in 1982 also came close. Smaller-scale 

sea-basing operations might be mounted purely from the sea, and the modern expeditionary strike group is well designed for such a concept.

Air-Sea Battle. The stronger fleet, whether or not it encounters opposition, may be 

supported by land-based aircraft to a significant extent. General Douglas MacArthur’s 

Southwest Pacific campaign in World War II constituted a good ex ample; his operational jumps reached only as far as the operational radius arcs of his land-based fighters

Today it is hard to imagine any major naval operation that would not represent some 

form of this concept.2

 Of course, we can blend space and cyberspace into this concept 

too—and surely will. The defensive converse of this concept would be the operation of 

an area-denial force, like that which the Chinese are building, in the littoral. The idea 

would be, using a combination of ballistic missiles and shore-based aircraft in conjunction with submarines and surface ships, to present the U.S. or other navy with a 

multidimensional threat that would be too hard to deal with. In both the offensive and 
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that is some thing that has not often been satisfactorily achieved.

Decisive Naval Battle. In a contest for control of the oceans between two capable 

navies, a decisive battle has been the goal of the stronger. This is what Nelson soug

1805 as he chased the combined Franco-Spanish squadron, and it is what Yamamo

sought in 1942 at Midway. Generally speaking, the weaker force will attempt to av

such an engagement, but every once in a while circum stances conspire to precipita

one. Trafalgar was produced by Napoleon’s ordering Admiral Villeneuve to sortie

Midway was produced by Chester Nimitz’s recognition that an ambush was possib

There might have been one off the Falklands in 1982, had there been sufficient wi

for the Argentine carrier to launch its strike aircraft and had the aircraft then infl

damage on the British carriers. In today’s world there is little or no chance of such 

engagement, except possibly among two smaller navies.

Fleet-in-Being. A navy that is strong but reluctant to roll the dice on a decisive ba

might elect to avoid engagement but still present a threat to the stronger navy that 

would keep it from doing what it wanted (like projecting power ashore). In 1690 

Lord Torrington, commanding the Anglo-Dutch fleet, adopted such a concept b

keeping his fleet upwind of the French. Although suffering a defeat at the battle of 

Beachy Head, he kept his fleet intact, such that it constituted a threat to any invasi

operation (which would compromise the mobility of the French force) but could n

brought to battle. Thus it achieved its strategic goal of preventing an invasion. The 

to making a fleet-in-being strategy work is sanctuary. Today sanctuary is hard to f

However, diesel submarines might constitute a fleet-in-being if they went to sea an

“got lost.” If they could avoid detection they might constitute a sufficient threat, at 

for a while, to keep the stronger navy (presumably American) from projecting pow

it wished. A lone Argentine Type 209 submarine almost did this in the Falklands; 

British task force used up almost all its antisubmarine weapons on false contacts. 

sources of sanctuary might be political alignments or dense um brellas of missiles 

aircraft.

Commerce Raiding. A navy that is not strong enough even to constitute a fleet-in

might try commerce raiding (also known by the French term guerre de course). Th

mans resorted to it in both world wars. This concept requires sustained and system

operations and therefore sanctuary for the bases of the raiders (since the early twe

century, usually submarines). In an age of jet bombers and missiles, achieving suc

sanctuary is hard to imagine today, except perhaps for the U.S. Navy. Moreover, th

same factors that complicate blockade make commerce raiding almost infeasible i
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merce, nuclear escala tion could become an issue.

Delay, Disruption, Denial, and Demoralization. If a navy is not strong enough for 

anything else, it can attempt “delay, disruption, denial, and demoralization” (D4) 

operations. That is, it can send out units to try to do enough damage to the stronger 

force (which is presumably attempting to project power or blockade) to cause that force 

to abandon the operation or at least delay it, giving the weaker power some strategic 

breathing space. The effects of the “hits” may be physical, such that the operation cannot continue, or they may be demoralizing, either to the force itself or the attacking 

nation’s public or leadership. The Argentine strategy after its fleet retreated to port was 

of this nature, and it almost worked when the containership Atlantic Conveyor was sunk 

by an Exocet. The Japanese Sho plan in World War II was also a D4 strategy. One of 

the elements that make a D4 strategy dangerous and potentially effective is the resolute 

acceptance by its implementer of the prospect that what it sends out will not come back. 

A D4 strategy is normally not sustainable unless—and this is a big unless—the weaker 

side has some kind of sanctuary that enables it to hide its forces until they are used 

and thereby meter them out over time. Mines and coastal submarines are potentially 

effective D4 tools. Such operations that are maintained for a substan tial length of time 

essentially constitute “irregular warfare” at sea.

Maritime Security. Though not universally recognized today as a true area of naval 

warfare, maritime security has nonetheless been raised to a naval strategic imperative by the possibility that terrorists might sneak nuclear or other weap ons into the 

United States or a friendly nation by sea. Given the economic and political disruptions 

caused by the 9/11 attacks, a seaborne insertion of weapons of mass destruction could 

be regarded as having the strategic importance of a conventional invasion. Maritime 

security thus occupies the same level of importance for the U.S. Navy as did fleet-based 

defense of the hemisphere in Alfred Thayer Mahan’s time. Maritime security in today’s 

world requires an almost seamless blanket of awareness and cooperation over all the 

world’s oceans. Thus it is inherently an international naval mission; the U.S. Navy’s job 

is to help catalyze this cooperation. In fact, as an operational concept, maritime security 

today is different from the others in that it is absolutely dependent on the integrated 

operations of both strong and weak navies.

Bastions and Maneuver. If the principle of dominance of the offense at the tactical 

level holds true, which it has for the majority of naval history, logic says that trying to 

establish strongpoints or bastions at sea is a losing proposition. Two ex ceptions—where 

the defensive at sea has worked—have, by their rarity, the ef fect of proving the rule. 
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the American Civil War. These ships being the first ironclads, naval guns and she

that could pierce armor did not yet exist, and thus the cannonballs of each bounce

the other. Less than a century later, the battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 w

triumph of integrated air defense due to the slowness of Japanese bombers and to 

American use of radar to direct fighters, as well as of VT (proximity, or “variable t

fuses on antiaircraft shells. Today, although U.S. cruisers and destroyers carry t

incomparable Aegis weapons system, modern antiship missiles have capabilities 

characteristics that make them very hard to detect and shoot down. Submarines 

mines are still very difficult to find. Naval leaders must still consider very carefull

fact that if “the other guy” knows where to find you, he can likely find a way eithe

evade or saturate any defensive scheme. If nothing else, he may just get lucky. The

fore, when there is a sea-control threat, maneuver is a requirement until that threa

neutralized.

That point raises the issue of the modern “sea base,” essentially a stationary strong

at sea. In some U.S. Navy publications, the definition of the term is stretched to in

almost any grouping of ships at sea, regardless of how they are arranged or maneu

Such definitions have more relevance to inter-service budget competition than act

utility in naval operational art. A sea base is intrinsically a group of ships support

operation ashore. Accord ingly, its scope of operational maneuver is highly restrict

as is the degree of tactical maneuver that can be tolerated if support to the shore is 

remain effec tive. But history has taught navies not to get themselves into situation

which they must risk a disaster ashore in order to avert one at sea, or vice versa. Th

was Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher’s dilemma right after the Guadalcanal landings i

1942: he felt constrained to remove his “sea base” of aircraft carriers before it coul

attacked by the Japanese, since his carriers were the only operational ones in the P

Thus, in theory, a navy should not attempt to project power ashore until it has ach

sea control. But the theory almost never holds. A smart opponent will wait until th

attacker is lodged ashore and cannot maneu ver without invoking the dilemma abo

This was the Japanese plan at Guadalcanal (from which resulted the first battle of 

Island, disastrous for the Americans), Saipan (and the battle of the Philippine Sea)

Leyte (the Sho plan). The same dynamic was illustrated with the Argentine D4 op

tions during the British landings at the Falklands. Attempting to create and defen

bastions at sea entails risk.

Aircraft Carrier Doctrinal Roles

If there were no sea-control threat, there would be no need to discuss the doc trina

of carriers. As a new and uncertain modern world emerges, it is time to review ho
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accordingly their use has always been governed by the degree of risk it is appropriate to 

incur; the doctrinal roles for carriers are centered on this aspect of their operations.

Eyes of the Fleet. The original use envisioned (at least by battleship admirals) for carriers was behind the battle line, out of harm’s way, sending aircraft to scout and spot for 

the battle line. Interestingly, this may be a future role for our carriers. They stay far out 

at sea, beyond the range of missile-based access-denial systems, and send in ultra-longrange unmanned aerial vehicles for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and communication relay in support of a grid of submarines, destroyers, and other craft “inside 

the arena.”

Cavalry. In early 1942, aircraft carriers supported the Doolittle raid on Tokyo, as well 

as a number of hit-and-run raids meant to disrupt Japanese operations. In these, the 

carriers relied on the protective cover of a large ocean. The missions were such that the 

carriers, if detected, could immediately run for safety; stand ing and fighting would have 

been suicidal. So long as a carrier can remain unlocated, it can speed around and deliver 

quick pulses of aerial bombardment.

Capital Ship. When in World War II a decisive naval battle became possible, as at 

Midway, carriers would stand and fight. Nimitz’s definition of calculated risk nicely 

captures the logic of committing capital ships to a desperate fight: “You will be governed 

by the principle of calculated risk, which you shall interpret to mean the avoidance of 

exposure of your force to attack by superior enemy forces without good prospect of inflicting . . . greater damage on the enemy.” Any capi tal ship is a “consumable” in such a 

fight, but not cannon fodder. Thus, when there was a prospect of inflicting greater damage to the other fleet, carriers could be risked, and of course some were lost. By the way, 

a capital ship is that ship type that is most capable in a fight for sea control and around 

which the tactics of the fleet are centered. “Capital ship” is thus a doctrinal term related 

to sea control, not a general phrase describing any big, expensive naval ship.

Nuclear Strike Platform. After World War II, in the “Revolt of the Admirals” era, 

the Navy pressed its carriers into service as nuclear strike platforms. This was due not 

only to interservice fights with the Air Force but also to genuine concern that the slow 

B-36 bombers might not get through. The carriers had to survive to get to their launch 

positions; after that, all bets were off. Carriers retained their nuclear missions until the 

1980s, when the evolving global situation made the massive Single Integrated Operational Plan obsolete.
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they are functioning as air bases at sea—that is, as a kind of sea base. As such, they 

constrained in their maneuvering and thus cannot tolerate any risk from sea-cont

threats. This is the mode in which aircraft carriers have been operating for virtual

whole post–Cold War era. Trying to use them in this mode in a sea-control situati

almost guarantees they will take hits. During the Falklands War, the British had t

their carriers as sea bases, but because there was a sea-control threat from the Arg

tines, the carriers had to be kept out of harm’s way. This meant that their short-leg

Harrier jets could not provide adequate air defense for the San Carlos beachhead, 

a number of destroyers and frigates were lost as a result. When carriers try to func

as air bases inside the range arcs of sea-control threats, they must try to erect bast

around themselves. As previously discussed, this is a debatable proposition.

Water Colors

Reference is heard in naval circles to three metaphorical “colors” of water: blue, gr

and brown. They denote generally the proximity of land: “blue” water, the oceanic

reaches farthest from land; “green” water is the oceanic littoral; and “brown” wate

comprises rivers, bays, and estuaries. In the Cold War, these colors had more spec

meanings. Blue water meant those areas of the ocean in which only other naval fo

could confront one’s own. Green water denoted those areas of the ocean in which 

naval forces could be confronted and affected by land-based aircraft. Brown wat

that zone of the ocean that could be covered by ground-based artillery. This dist

tion had some vague planning value, but the advent of long-range jet bombers ca

antiship cruise missiles made virtually all of the oceans “green.” In the era of total 

Navy dominance after the Cold War, the “colors” of water all but disappeared, oth

than in characterizations of a navy as “blue water,” which meant oceangoing, capa

of more than purely littoral operations. With the emergence of very capable sea-de

forces and oceangoing navies that might turn out to be adversaries, there is utility 

readopting this shorthand, but with new definitions. The new basis of definitions 

be the kind of naval forces that can operate at an ac ceptable degree of risk in water 

each color.

Blue water would denote those areas of the ocean in which naval forces struc tured 

around high-value units (usually aircraft carriers or large amphibious ships, but p

in the future such things as arsenal ships as well) can operate. High-value units (H

concentrate a substantial proportion of the force’s of fensive combat power in a sin

ship, the loss of which would likely unhinge a whole operation or at least significa

reduce the odds of its success. These ships are normally surrounded by a screen of 

ers and destroyers, as well as perhaps submarines operating in more distant suppo
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submarines, aircraft, other surface ships, and missiles. An HVU-centered naval formation relies on not only defensive firepower and electronic countermeasures but also 

ma neuver to defeat attacks. Such maneuver seeks to deny detection and targeting as 

well as to force enemy units, especially submarines, to engage in such disadvan tageous 

actions as speeding up in order to attack. If an HVU and its escort are far enough out 

at sea, the odds will be in their favor: they have plenty of room for maneuver, and an 

opponent can muster fewer forces against them. Blue water comprises those areas of the 

ocean where both of these conditions obtain. The weaker the opponent, the closer to 

shore blue water exists.

If an opposing nation possesses powerful antiaccess forces, especially if they consist of 

capable submarines, aircraft, surface vessels, and missiles, there comes a point at which 

the ability of the screen protecting an HVU risks being saturated. Depending on the 

sophistication of the antiaccess force—in terms of advanced missiles that are hard to 

shoot down, numerous tactical aircraft, robust sea surveillance and targeting, etc.—the 

distance at which saturation could occur varies. A small boat–based force can reach 

out only a few miles; one possessing antiship ballistic missiles can reach out hundreds. 

As an HVU-centered force moves inside the range arcs of various antiaccess systems, 

the defense problem becomes more difficult. Instead of just submarines and long-range 

bombers, the screen now has to deal with surface vessels (like fast missile boats), landbased tactical aircraft, and shore-launched missiles. Threats become not only more 

diverse but also more numerous. As the force moves in, the likelihood of “leakers” 

(missiles, aircraft, submarines, etc., that survive screen defenses to get a shot at the high

value unit itself) increases. Depending on the strategic and operational situation, there 

is a point at which the risk to the HVU becomes incommensu rate with the nature and 

value of its mission. It is at that point that blue water would turn green.

Green water, in the new scheme, would embrace those areas of the ocean into which 

it is not rational to send HVUs. In green water, a different approach to na val warfare 

would have to be taken; offensive power must be dispersed into a number of vessels that 

have sufficient stealth and other characteristics that make them capable of operating 

in these areas, where antiaccess systems are capable of “ganging up” on high-value 

units. At first glance, this may seem to mean only submarines could enter green water, 

but certain kinds of surface combatants might be usable as well. What seems clear is 

that the offensive weapons of necessity in these waters would be missiles, torpedoes, 

and mines (be they launched from manned or unmanned vessels). The “names of the 

game” in green water would be hiding, deception, countertargeting, and ambush—and 

also, conversely, reconnaissance, targeting, and communicating. Given the lethality 

of modern antiship missiles, torpedoes, and mines, naval forces entering green wa ters 
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other technologies improve, the proportion of green water in the world will expa

Brown water, in the new order of things, would not simply be “worse green water” 

zones in which oceangoing units could not operate effectively at all. Generally spe

ing, this would mean waters that are too shallow, narrow, or infested with mines. 

brown water, only smaller craft could operate effectively, whether or not there was 

actual opposition. While brown water clearly de notes rivers and some bays, it wou

necessarily be limited to them. Depending on opposition and other conditions, ce

seaward littoral areas, as well as straits and other choke points, might be regarded 

brown water.

These new definitions, if they became widely accepted, would represent a useful sh

hand for planning and discussing sea control. The very fact of acknowledging tha

water, as just defined, even exists would lead necessarily to force-structure decisio

that would in turn produce a naval force that is at least a bit less centered on high-

units than at present. Moreover, determining where potential naval missions exist 

brown water might yield a force that was not simply “riverine” in nature. Using th

water colors, with the proposed def initions, could enhance dialogue on sea contro

and point to a force more usefully adapted to the emerging strategic and operation

environment.

The Discipline of Sea Control 

When a navy’s sea control is challenged, life is more difficult. That navy cannot as

free access to the littorals, and it may face the prospect of being attacked far out at 

depending on the particulars of a dispute. Since the best protection for a naval for

be unlocated in the vast ocean, the force must not only de velop measures for achie

this condition in wartime but must set things up accordingly in advance, in peace

Thus a navy that contemplates opposition must attain an operational discipline th

cludes not only tactics and weapons but also command-and-control doctrine and 

as well as integration with diplomatic circles. The U.S. Navy allowed this disciplin

erode in the Vietnam era, when it focused all its energies on power projection. Co

quently, when a true sea-control challenge arose, in the form of the Soviet Fifth Es

during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the U.S. Navy had neither the weapons nor t

tics to deal with the situation.3

 Only after the crisis (mercifully) blew over did the 

take up rediscovering sea control. Since 1990, however, the Navy has again focuse

power projection and, again, has lost the discipline of sea control. Perhaps this art

will stimulate a new rebirth of this discipline before the Navy is confronted with a 

challenge for which it is unprepared.
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1. Wayne Hughes, Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 

1986), p. 25.

2. For a theoretical, doctrinal, and historical 

examination of the nature, planning, and conduct of major naval operations generally, see 

Milan Vego, Major Naval Operations, Newport 

Paper 32 (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College 

Press, September 2008), available at www

.usnwc.edu/press/.

3. For this episode see Lyle J. Goldstein and Yuri 

M. Zhukov, “A Tale of Two Fleets: A Russian 

Perspective on the 1973 Naval Standoff in the 

Mediterranean,” Naval War College Review

57, no. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 27–63, available at 

www.usnwc.edu/press/.
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 Command of the Sea

An Old Concept Resurfaces in a New Form

Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever 

commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the worl

consequently the world itself.

SIR WALTER RAL

For in war . . . the common sense of some and the genius of others 

and properly applies means to ends; and naval strategy, like naval 

when boiled down, is simply the proper use of means to attain end

in peace, as in idleness, such matters drop out of mind, unless syste

provision is made for keeping them in view.

ALFRED THAYER MA

The last great sea battle occurred in 1944. Since then the world ocean has been op

free navigation by all nations as a matter of American policy. The ability to enforc

policy—or perhaps better said, the absence of serious challenges to this policy—ha

in significant part a product of the superiority of the U.S. Navy. Despite a latent an

partial challenge during the Cold War by the Soviet navy, since World War II the 

and persistence of U.S. Navy superiority have led most people to take it for granted 

have caused the old term “command of the sea” virtually to disappear from the na

lexicon.1

 However, the emergence of a powerful Chinese navy and an associated la

based sea-denial force is stimulating a new focus on sea control and overcoming a

access/area-denial efforts. New concepts, such as “AirSea Battle,” are being develo

and investments made in platforms, weapons, and systems. This activity is critica

American strategic interests and prospects, and it must be informed by an unders

ing of command of the sea as a foundational concept of sea power. A reconsiderati

command of the sea is all the more necessary as political, economic, and technolo

developments have significantly changed the nature of how sea power influences t

CHAPTER FOUR

Naval War College Review, Autumn 2012, Vol. 65, No. 4
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of the term and its renewed application to naval strategy and doctrine.

The Evolution of the Term

“Command of the sea” denotes a strategic condition, and it is from this actual condition 

that the logic flows, whatever words are used to describe it. Since ancient times, navies 

have sought to control communications on the sea. Such control might be general—such 

as the Romans and British achieved at various times—or it might be local and temporary. In either case the object of such control has been to protect one’s own commerce, 

disrupt the enemy’s, move one’s own army, and prevent the movement of the enemy’s. 

At various times and places belligerents have built substantial navies to carry out these 

missions and in the dynamics of their competitions the notion of command of the sea 

emerged. “Command” denoted a relative strength relationship between two or more 

navies in which one enjoyed a significant superiority such that the freedom of action of 

the others to carry out the four basic missions of sea power was constrained and that of 

the stronger navy enhanced.

By the time the American naval historian and theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote 

about sea power, international trade as a foundation for a nation’s economy had become 

an inherent element in the concept of command of the sea. Although Mahan did not 

use the term directly, his notion of “that overbearing power on the sea which drives the 

enemy’s flag from it, or allows it to appear only as a fugitive; and which, by controlling 

the great common, closes the highways by which commerce moves to and from the 

enemy’s shores” encapsulates the strategic condition in which not only is the enemy’s 

navy unable to interfere with the movements of one’s own army but his sea commerce is 

so constricted as to starve his economy.2

Mahan was an advocate of keeping the U.S. battle fleet concentrated in order to counter 

any European adventurism in the Western Hemisphere.3

 However, this was a tacit 

admission that the United States of the late nineteenth century did not enjoy command 

of the sea on a global scale. That belonged to the Royal Navy of Great Britain. Sir Julian 

Corbett was a British historian who also developed naval theory. In his view, command 

of the sea, conferred by the defeat or blockade of the enemy’s battle fleet, allowed one 

to disperse one’s own naval forces to exercise sea control in specific areas as the need 

arose.4

 The dispersed fleet could also perform other functions, such as showing the 

flag and projecting power ashore. Fleet dispersal highlights the other side of the naval 

strategy coin—sea control. Whereas command of the sea denotes a specific kind of 

general superiority, “control” is delimited in space and time. Command is associated 

with capital ships and the main battle fleet; if the enemy cannot challenge one’s main 

battle fleet, then one has some degree of command. Control is usually, but not always, 
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to be lost on many who see these terms as synonymous. Command has been tradi

ally about the relative strength of fleets, whereas control was and is about the cond

of a water space.

The introduction of the submarine and aircraft in the world wars threatened the i

command of the sea. If the enemy always has the ability to contest control in any a

the sea, whether or not he has a viable battle fleet, there is nothing available to the 

ger navy beyond a rather tenuous and local sea control. However, the uncondition

surrender and occupation of the Axis powers in 1945 eradicated their air and subs

threats. The fact that no other viable hostile navy existed at the time gave the navi

the United States and the United Kingdom command of the sea by default. The ab

magnitude of this command added yet another dimension to the concept.

A critical element of this article’s argument is the notion that the definition of com

of the sea can be extended to peacetime. Those who feel that the concept applies o

wartime tend to base their view on Sir Julian Corbett’s assertion that most of the o

is uncommanded most of the time:

The object of naval warfare must always be directly or indirectly either to secure command o

sea or to prevent the enemy from securing it.

The second part of the proposition should be noted with special care in order to exclude a ha

thought, which is one of the commonest sources of error in naval speculation. That error is t

general assumption that if one belligerent loses command of the sea that command passes at 

to the other belligerent. The most cursory study of naval history is enough to reveal the false

such an assumption. It tells us that the most common situation in naval war is that neither si

command; that the normal position is not a commanded sea, but an uncommanded sea. The 

assertion, which no one denies, that the object of naval warfare is to get command of the sea 

connotes the proposition that the command is normally in dispute. It is this state of dispute w

which naval strategy is most nearly concerned, for when the command is lost or won pure na

strategy comes to an end.5

In Corbett’s framework, command is that condition imposed by one navy on anot

during wartime, and though the effects may extend globally, the arenas of the con

ing fleets are limited to regions.6

 Moreover, as revealed by the quotation above, Co

definition tends to weave between describing a condition of relative strength betw

two fleets and the status of an area of water. In this author’s view, command strict

notes the balance of power between or among navies. Water areas may be controll

not. Conflation of relative strength with water space leads to the kind of error that 

bett himself decries, the kind of error that led to allied efforts early in both world 

to secure the sea-lanes. It turned out that all that could be done was to adopt the c

system and hunt U-boats from the air. Even the concept of sea control, concerned 

is with military conditions in a specific time and space, is ultimately about ships a

whether they can be effectively defended or attacked. Command of the sea, then, i
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in power. Such asymmetry exists in both peace and war.

In today’s globalized world, one characterized by endemic struggle and conflict, nuclear 

weapons, the Internet, mass communications, and ubiquitous sensing, the dynamics of 

interstate, intergroup, and intercorporate relations have produced a world of continuous 

contention, the characteristics of which are significantly influenced by who can do what 

in the global commons. The geopolitical fact of American naval supremacy influenced 

the history of the Cold War, just as it influences the dynamics of today’s world. Extending the definition of command of the sea temporally (into peacetime) and geographically (to global scope) appears to offer analytic utility in this environment, aiding in 

the assessment of appropriate risk for naval forces and in the development of effective 

maritime policies and strategies. In today’s world, sea power, even for nations with smal

coastal navies, cannot be properly understood on any scale less than global. Command 

of the sea of the kind achieved by the United States and Britain in 1945 is directly associated with overall military and economic superiority, which in turn allows a nation to 

establish a world order on its terms.7

 Given that the United States and Great Britain were 

liberal maritime trading democracies, such command underpinned the achievement of 

the Bretton Woods accords of 1944 and the subsequent evolution of the global system 

of commerce and security. As Clark Reynolds puts it, “As in the past, however, international agreements depend on the willingness of the participants to live up to them and 

especially upon the acquiescence of the great powers which are capable of commanding 

the seas.”8

The issue of potentiality is also central to the argument. Carl von Clausewitz asserts that 

possible engagements are to be regarded as real ones because of their consequences.9

Whereas Corbett regarded command as an operative fact in war, this article seeks to establish command of the sea as a condition in which the various actors perceive the U.S. 

Navy as enjoying superiority and shape their actions accordingly. These actions may 

consist of decisions on whether to build a navy to challenge that superiority or decisions 

on whether and how to support, or at least go along with, American policies. Some of 

this could be wrapped up into “suasion,” as described by Edward Luttwak: “Latent naval 

suasion continuously shapes the military dimension of the total environment which 

policy makers perceive and within which they operate.”10 However, for the purposes of 

assessing risk in the development of naval strategies and doctrine, it is useful to understand modern command of the sea as a condition of naval superiority that influences 

other nations’ decisions in a way that is congenial to U.S. interests, especially as it relates 

to the maintenance of a global security system that supports the operation of a global 

economic system.
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text for the way American command of the sea made its presence felt. The develop

of huge arsenals of nuclear weapons created massive disincentives for the United S

and Soviet Union to go to war directly with each other. The USSR, a continental p

attempted to create buffer states and to export its ideology via subversion and prox

wars. The United States was able to adopt a grand strategy of containment based o

command of the sea—which conferred, among other things, the ability to transpo

the U.S. Army to where it was needed. Moreover, this freedom of movement on th

was a major factor in gluing together the cordon of alliances that hemmed in the U

The Soviets, for their part, built a large submarine fleet that was potentially capab

contesting U.S. command. However, the nuclear balance made the actual use of th

capability problematic, and the established fact of U.S. command of the sea could 

reversed short of war.

Nuclear weapons governed another facet of command of the sea as well—concent

The power of nuclear weapons meant that a whole fleet arrayed in a traditional for

tion could be wiped out at a single stroke. While methods of tactical dispersal wer

developed, the larger issue was strategic dispersal. To play its part in the implemen

of a globe-girdling strategy of containment, the U.S. Navy had to disperse its force

multiple regions in any case. Each carrier battle group was more powerful than an

force it could conceivably encounter. On only one occasion, the 1973 Yom Kippur 

were the Soviets able to assemble a locally superior force. Even then, the constrain

nuclear balance and emerging détente prevented the Soviets from leveraging their 

vantage. The command of the sea achieved by the United States at the end of Worl

II put it in a military, geographic, and economic position of leadership and advant

that could not be effectively undone by the Soviets in the nuclear age—short of ris

nuclear war.

The fall of the Soviet Union created a unipolar situation in which U.S. command o

seas was, if anything, even more complete than at the end of World War II. The to

absence of competition made the whole concept seem obsolete and thereby invisib

submerged, as it were, in a sea of peace. The U.S. Navy, though, maintained its glo

pace of operations, an indication that there was still some geopolitical function th

needed to be performed. What was happening was that the process of globalizatio

kicked into high gear, partly as a result of the Soviet Union’s collapse and in part a

result of new global communications technology, including the Internet. The nati

the world were becoming economically interdependent, and what the process need

was comprehensive global security.11 The Gulf war of 1991 spotlighted the issue of 

regional instability, and naval forces seemed to be on call almost everywhere. Am

command of the sea, instantiated by a fleet sufficiently large to sustain capable pre
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War era.

It should be noted that one of the earliest manifestations of command of the sea—preventing an enemy from moving his army by sea and driving his commerce from the 

sea—had by now lost its salience. Fleet dispersal was by now an inherent modus operandi for the U.S. Navy. With American global leadership now a virtually unassailable 

fact, all the factors associated with “command of the sea” disappeared below the waves, 

and with them use of the term.

Command of the Seas Resurfaces

We must ask why command of the sea could now be relevant again. The answer lies 

in the changed set of geopolitical circumstances. The issue is not simply that China is 

building a more capable navy. The point lies in the nature of the global system that has 

emerged and in the potential consequences for that system if the U.S. Navy suffers even 

a local defeat at the hands of China, Iran, or some other power.

The process of globalization has created a closely coupled global economic system in 

which the degree of economic interdependency among nations has made the smooth 

and uninterrupted flow of resources, goods, and information critical to the economic 

well-being of all nations. The system can be visualized as a set of nodes and connectors. The nodes are resource-extraction-and-production areas, manufacturing areas, 

and consumption areas. These nodes are in some cases geographically focused, but 

most often they are widely separated and geographically noncontiguous. Connectors 

consist of commercial maritime shipping, airlines and airfreight carriage, mass media, 

telephony, and the Internet. All this creates a complex economic topology that is tightly 

interdependent. Consumption places demand on manufacturing, which in turn places 

demand on resources. Within the manufacturing node, production has become highly 

parsed, with components for particular goods being made in multiple countries and 

being shipped, in an intricate global ballet of just-in-time delivery, ultimately to the 

country that assembles the final product.12 The history of the last two decades is one of 

nations joining the system, not leaving it. It is likely that this system possesses a degree 

of adaptive self-healing capacity to contend with shocks like natural disasters. However, 

it is not clear what the consequences would be if one nation or bloc of nations withdrew 

from it or attempted to subvert it by imposing a different rule set.

China is a continental power that is pursuing a continental-style grand strategy. A 

Eurasian authoritarian regime, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must garrison its 

own territory to ensure national integrity. Security for such a regime radiates out from 

the capital to the national borders. Typically, continental powers from Rome onward 
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felt compelled to establish buffers, in the form of neutralized states or occupied te

ries, which they eventually incorporate into an empire. This process also takes pla

sea, which appears to be manifest in China’s focus in its “near seas.” China’s ambit

in this process have brought it into conflict with neighboring states that claim the 

islands and sea areas as Beijing does. Although China has benefited greatly from p

pation in the global system, for various reasons the CCP would like to change the 

of that system or even create an alternative one, with China as its leader.13

China’s People’s Liberation Army and its component navy (the PLAN) have, in pu

suance of its buffering strategy, developed an array of missile, air, and naval forces 

designed to deny the U.S. Navy access to the ocean areas adjacent to the Chinese m

land, including the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, South China Sea, and even the wes

portions of the Philippine Sea. In the first instance, these forces are meant to prev

interference by the U.S. Navy if China feels it necessary to use force to prevent a d

tion of independence by Taiwan. However, as its interests have broadened and its n

power has developed, China has expanded its military objectives to keeping the U

States out of the near seas in order to solidify its greater territorial claims. While m

in the U.S. naval establishment regard the evolving operational challenge in East A

as a regional sea-control issue, there are larger implications with regard to the glob

system that cause the matter of command of the sea to resurface in a new form.

The current American maritime strategy, “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Centur

Seapower,” says that the U.S. sea services will be deployed to defend the global sys

a day-to-day basis.14 In doing so, they will attempt to limit regional conflict, defen

homeland, and prevent war among the major powers. The issue is systemic disrup

According to Stephen Carmel, senior vice president of Maersk Line, “As the last gr

age showed us, the forward march of globalization is not inevitable, but also not re

ible. We cannot slide easily backwards into a better previous time when the pressu

to be too much. When globalization breaks, it does so violently, permanently alter

the trajectory of history.”15 In a potential naval fight between China and the Unite

States, the stakes become the functioning of the global system, given the importan

East Asian manufacturing and container shipping hubs.

In light of the central role of the U.S. Navy in maintaining a stable security enviro

in which the system, specifically its flows, can function, we may define command 

the seas as the condition in which the U.S. Navy, in conjunction with allies and pa

ners, is able to maintain a global security environment that permits unrestricted g

systemic flow. In a negative sense, it denotes the inability of any navy or force to im

a defeat on the U.S. Navy that would compromise the latter’s ability to carry out th

function. If we view a regional sea-control fight through the lens of China’s object
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near seas that it undertakes. From an American global perspective, this might seem like 

a regional setback with respect to local sea control. However, the systemic implications 

turn it into a global matter.

If China is able to chase the U.S. Navy from its near seas, it will change the political calculus of the world and acquire several strategic options. First, it could dictate an alteration of the rules under which the current global system operates. One of these would be 

the status of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the two-hundred-nautical-mile band of 

sea abutting a nation’s territorial waters in which certain rights to exploit the resources 

in and under the water are reserved to the coastal state. Currently, the EEZ is regarded 

as a high-seas regime, except for reserved economic rights. China wants to expand 

sovereign rights, to include the ability to exclude outside naval forces from the EEZ. If 

it can enforce this claim, it will—aside from making virtually the entire South China 

Sea its “internal waters”—have erased the ability of the U.S. Navy to operate globally 

to maintain the security environment required by the global system. While not enjoying the kind of comprehensive command of the seas that accrued to the United States 

in 1945, China would, to a significant degree, rob the United States of that command 

necessary to underpin the Bretton Woods regime. The consequences for global flow are 

hard to envision, but if Mr. Carmel is correct in his diagnosis, it would be anything but a 

graceful degradation. The second option that opens up to China would be the formation 

of a separate economic system. It could, for example, elevate the Shanghai Cooperative Organization to the status of a modern and more effective version of Napoleon’s 

Continental System.16 Such a system would not be purely continental, as it is unlikely 

that a continuing state of war would exist, such that the United States could interdict 

the organization’s shipping. Such a project by China might or might not succeed, but the 

attempt would likely disrupt the current system catastrophically.

If we “drill down” to operational matters, we can speculate on what the nature of a 

U.S. Navy strategic defeat might look like. First, we must remind ourselves that China 

is a nuclear power that, in lieu of a proven comprehensive U.S. missile-defense system, 

can presumably inflict massive damage on the American homeland. All naval operations are delimited within this context. Second, U.S. naval conventional striking power 

is substantially invested in eleven large nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The Chinese, 

for their part, have heavily invested in various systems to knock these carriers out 

of action.

With these considerations in mind, we can examine a plausible combat scenario. Postulate: a few years from now the true resource potential of the seabed in the South China 

Sea is revealed, and it is massive. China decides to assert, fully and finally, its territorial 

claims to the South China Sea and issues a démarche instructing all other navies to stay 
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internal waters. Chinese antiaccess/area-denial forces deploy to the theater. The U

States, along with a group of Southeast Asian nations, condemns the démarche, an

carrier battle groups, along with submarines and other naval forces, are dispatche

challenge it. To do so, these forces must sail into the disputed zone.

Let us now assume that the Chinese allow these forces into the zone and then spri

trap, shooting first with missiles and torpedoes, supported by mines. This “battle 

first salvo” succeeds in disabling the two carriers and several surface ships. The pr

dent of the United States now has a decision to make. Does the United States conti

to “feed the fight” with more naval forces? Does the United States escalate with str

against Chinese area-denial systems on the mainland? Or does the United States d

to challenge the military status quo and instead call for negotiations? The latter tw

choices would be politically and strategically unpalatable, at least as long as the Un

States sees an opportunity to stay in the fight via the first option.

But the question now arises of how much of its navy the United States is prepared 

in the fight. The criterion on which this judgment is made should be based on an 

derstanding of the role that command of the sea plays in the functioning of the m

global system and on a calculation of how much loss the U.S. Navy can absorb bef

the edifice crumbles.

Before proceeding farther, it should be noted that there are those who refuse to co

plate issues such as this, being convinced that the U.S. Navy would be able to prev

quickly and decisively, without significant loss, in any such contest. Whether such 

outlooks are based on computer simulations or fear of admitting potential weakne

(whether to the Chinese or to other services, which might take advantage to seize 

budget share), they constitute a roadblock to thinking and could leave the nationa

mand authority unprepared in case the unthinkable happens. In any case, the pur

of positing such a negative scenario is not to assert that U.S. aircraft carriers are v

able but to explore the dimensions of command of the sea. To do so, we have to ge

the other side of the loss of several carriers to see how the options play out. Any at

to discredit this argument on the basis of an assertion that “it would never happen

would therefore be specious.

The foregoing notwithstanding, however, we must first ask ourselves what might h

pen if the U.S. Navy were successful, if it forced the PLAN to retreat from the scen

was able to prevent land-based systems from achieving significant effects. Would 

then withdraw from the system—that is, put an embargo on trade with the United 

and its allies? Despite the emotional and cultural imperative of saving face, econo

survival might dictate that China keep its ports open and even continue to trade w
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system would be damaging, it is plausible to think that the system would adapt and 

remain functional. On the other hand, if the war escalated to the use of nuclear weapons 

or China won the engagement, the system would likely break.

If a win of sorts is possible for the U.S. Navy, what cost would be acceptable? Beyond a 

certain level of destruction, given the length of time needed to build, fit out, and work 

up a modern warship, the U.S. Navy would become less than a global navy. At that point 

it could no longer provide the security environment necessary for the global system 

to operate.17 If the current U.S. Navy, at around 280 ships, is stretched thin and strains 

to meet demands from regional commanders, the amount and kind of losses it could 

absorb in a fight with the Chinese and still maintain command of the sea—in its modern instantiation—likely would be relatively low. This is especially the case for aircraft 

carriers, whose capacity to project power ashore has made them such useful geopolitical chess pieces that President Barack Obama dictated that the Navy retain eleven in 

commission, even in the face of huge defense-budget cuts. Almost paradoxically, the 

utility of carriers on a global scale in maintaining the system’s security environment 

makes them too valuable to risk in a regional sea-control fight, even though, or perhaps 

precisely because, command of the sea is at stake. A posture that would align better 

with the strategic architecture would be to create a naval force consisting of submarines

smaller surface combatants, and unmanned systems that could impose losses on the 

PLAN but could also absorb losses without jeopardizing command of the sea.

This brief thought experiment reveals an interesting inversion of naval strategic 

imperatives that highlights how the nature of command of the sea has changed since 

Sir Walter Raleigh concocted his syllogism. As codified by both Mahan and Corbett, 

command of the sea was to be won by defeating or bottling up the enemy battle fleet. 

This was a matter for the navy’s most powerful ships to settle. Once command of the 

sea was gained, the seas became safe for smaller units, like frigates, to spread out and 

exercise sea control in specific and local circumstances. In other words, one fought for

command of the sea—via battle, if possible—and exercised sea control, via dispersed 

security operations. This general relationship held good at least through the end of 

World War II. Now, however, as we see in our thought experiment, our most capable 

ships, the carriers, are best used to exercise command of the sea—that is, maintain 

the security environment—while smaller, more numerous forces may have to fight a 

decisive battle for local or regional sea control, the outcome of which would likely have 

profound global strategic consequences. This inversion is new and runs counter to 

common wisdom. It must be understood if we are properly to assess risk and structure 

fleet architecture.
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“Command of the sea” is a descriptive term. What it describes is a strategic condit

As the world geopolitical environment evolves, so does the nature of the condition 

the term describes. Great and broad strategic conditions are not easily encapsulate

four-word term, so it is both necessary and useful to inquire more deeply into its d

tion and thus into the parameters of the condition. Such inquiry as we have outlin

reveals important relationships between strategic conditions and the nature and u

naval forces.

Naval forces have always been expensive and relatively scarce. Their employment, 

especially of the largest and scarcest of these, must therefore be attended by clearh

calculations of acceptable risk.18 Bottom-up examinations of potential tactical outc

using computer simulations have their uses, but these must not constitute the sole 

for assessing risk. The enemy could always get lucky, and an understanding of risk 

the top-down strategic perspective allows us to understand the consequences of lo

way that provides better ability to better assess and manage risk.

The inquiry conducted in this article reveals that a new relationship has emerged 

tween command of the sea and sea control, and the kinds of ships that are approp

each function. Whether an aircraft carrier is a capital ship in the sense a battleship 

in 1922 is beside the point. Their unique characteristics, coupled with today’s chan

geopolitical circumstances, suggest that they should be used in a dispersed manne

exercise command of the sea on a day-to-day basis, much as British frigates in 181

ercised sea control around the periphery of the British Empire. While carriers wil

be numerous, the implication is that we should have enough of these ships to mak

readily available in most regions. The U.S. Navy may never again have more than 

of them, but assuming most nations have incentives to do their part to protect the 

system, their carriers, even including those of China, could be enlisted in the com

effort. More total carriers being operated by like-minded nations make the contin

and systemic exercise of command of the sea all the more effective, because they w

available in more places more often. Aircraft carrier building is more widespread 

than it has been at any time since World War II. But given their vulnerability to m

torpedoes, and mines, why would nations devote their scarce resources to such sh

Beyond national prestige, which is no small thing, it appears that there is a tacit un

standing that they contribute to the overall security environment—a corporate co

mand of the sea by an informal condominium of nations all of which, despite part

differences in policy, share a common incentive to keep the global system operatin

The new logic of command of the sea also suggests a kind of strategic equivalence 

between aircraft carrier forces and amphibious forces. Modern amphibious group
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short-takeoff-and-landing jets, have a legitimate capability to conduct autonomous 

power-projection operations, thus increasing the capability of the U.S. Navy and others to exercise command in more places at more times, making that command more 

effective and secure. Moreover, the flexibility of some new designs, such as the San 

Antonio (LPD 17) class, offers the potential of significantly increasing the sea control, 

shore-bombardment capability, and cooperative international expeditionary operations 

capabilities of an amphibious group.

There may never be a fight for sea control between the United States and China. If 

there is, it will be in the American interest to fight it with forces made up of units that 

are relatively hard to find and hit and whose acceptable-risk profile is more compatible 

with the conditions that would obtain in the East Asian arena.19 This would allow the 

president to feed the fight without placing himself on the horns of a difficult strategic 

dilemma. If the United States has the option of fighting—and winning—the war solely 

at sea (on, under, and above it, using joint forces), the strategic risks of nuclear escalation 

and rupture of the system are minimized. If such a posture is credibly attained through 

force-structure investments, concept and doctrine development, and strategic communication, deterrence will be enhanced. In the end, the issue may not be U.S. ability to 

seize sea control in the South China Sea but its ability to deny it to China—a less rigorous and presumably less costly requirement.

“Command of the sea” is not and maybe should not be a doctrinal term, but its utility as a tool for strategic analysis has reemerged. Some may be uncomfortable with its 

hegemonic overtones, but in a global system environment it is ever more suggestive of 

an informal partnership of nations, especially in view of the cooperative approach that 

the current American maritime strategy espouses. A current and sophisticated understanding of command of the sea contextualizes doctrinal concepts and terms such as 

“sea control,” “sea denial,” and others, which should improve programmatic analysis 

and tactical development. “Command of the sea” is an old term that, in a new form, can 

be usefully leveraged to enhance our understanding of the modern strategic maritime 

environment.

Notes

1. U.S. Navy Dept., Naval Warfare, Naval 

Doctrine Publication 1 (Washington, D.C.: 

March 2010), available at www.usnwc.edu/

Academics/Maritime--Staff-Operators

-Course/documents/NDP-1-Naval-Warfare

-(Mar-2010)_Chapters2-3.aspx. This manual 

(known as NDP 1), the Navy’s keystone doctrinal publication, does not mention the 

term. It does use “maritime superiority” and 

“supremacy,” apparently as equivalents to “sea 

control.”
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Little, Brown, 1890), chap. 2, p. 138.

3. Alfred Thayer Mahan, Naval Strategy (Boston: 

Little, Brown, 1919), pp. 5–6, 18. The reader 

will have to connect the dots of Mahan’s 

argument, but it is clear that he regards a 

concentrated fleet as the best deterrent against 

European aggression in the Americas.

4. Julian S. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime 

Strategy (London: Longmans, Green, 1918), 

part 2, chap. 2, pp. 100–104. Corbett establishes the relationship between command of 

the sea and sea control through his discussion 

of the roles of “cruisers” (frigates, brigs, and 

sloops, in the days of sail). Frigates especially 

had a role with the battle fleet as scouts, but 

they also functioned independently as convoy 

escorts, privateer hunters, etc., to protect 

British sea communications and disrupt those 

of the enemy. The need to concentrate the 

fleet to secure command absorbed frigates 

that could otherwise be dispersed to control 

communications.

5. Ibid., p. 77.

6. Ibid., pp. 114–36. Corbett goes into a rather 

intricate explanation of concentration and 

dispersal in naval warfare as distinguished 

from land warfare. He sees concentration as 

an elastic concept in which a certain degree 

of dispersal is inherent. However, his whole 

concept of concentration revolves around 

the existence of a “strategical centre” (p. 117), 

which implies a regional delimitation—for 

example, Royal Navy dispositions in the eastern Atlantic during Britain’s wars with France. 

Dispersal beyond that to such places as the 

Indian Ocean or even the eastern Mediterranean would break the concentration.

7. George Modelski and William Thompson, 

Seapower in Global Politics 1494–1993 (Seattle: 

Univ. of Washington Press, 1988), pp. 16–17.

8. Clark G. Reynolds, Command of the Sea: The 

History and Strategy of Maritime Empires, vol. 

9. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. M

Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N

Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), book 3, c

p. 181.

10. Edward N. Luttwak, “The Political Use

Power: The Theory of Suasion,” in Stra

and History, Collected Essays (New Bru

N.J.: Transaction Books, 1985), vol. 2, 

11. Sam J. Tangredi, ed., Globalization and 

Maritime Power (Honolulu: Univ. Pres

Pacific, 2004), chap. 1, pp. 1–21.

12. Stephen Carmel, “Globalization, Secur

Economic Well-Being” (address, Twen

International Seapower Symposium, N

War College, Newport, R.I., 19 Octobe

available at www.maersklinelimited.co

13. Gregory Chin and Ramesh Thakur, “W

China Change the Rules of Global Ord

Washington Quarterly (October 2010), 

119–38.

14. J. T. Conway, G. Roughead, and T. W. A

“A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Centu

Seapower,” October 2007, available at w

.navy.mil/; repr. Naval War College Rev

no. 1 (Winter 2008), pp. 7–19.

15. Carmel, “Globalization, Security, and E

nomic Well-Being.”

16. Ariel Pablo Sznajder, “China’s Shangha

eration Organization Strategy,” Journal 

5 (Spring 2006), pp. 93–102, available 

.ucsd.edu/.

17. Roger Whiteneck et al., The Navy at a 

Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake?, C

D0022262.A3/1REV (Alexandria, Va.: 

for Naval Analyses, March 2010), pp. 4

available at www.cna.org/.

18. See Robert C. Rubel, “The Future of A

Carriers,” Naval War College Review 64

(Autumn 2011), pp. 13–27.

19. See Robert C. Rubel, “Talking about Se

Control,” Naval War College Review 63

(Autumn 2010), pp. 38–47.
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Navies and Economic Prosperity

The New Logic of Sea Power

Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men tha

defences of peace must be constructed. 

PREAMBLE TO THE UNESCO CONSTITU

Because navies are expensive, they must, from time to time, make an argument fo

why their country should invest its public resources in maintaining one.1

 There ar

number of different justifications that have been used over the course of history, in

ing guarding the nation’s coast from the depredations of raiders or invaders, movi

army to a foreign shore, and simply prestige —announcing to the world via the po

sion of a fleet that the nation is a significant power. It is also routinely argued that 

navy is needed to secure the nation’s economic interests by protecting its commer

shipping. This argument has been leveraged by the U.S. Navy in conjunction with 

rollout of its current maritime strategy and is being employed by the navies of Can

and the United Kingdom as they struggle to secure sufficient public investment to 

keep themselves viable. Admiral Gary Roughead, the former U.S. Navy Chief of N

Operations, said: “So much of what moves on the world today in trade and comm

and the resources that flow moves on the oceans. About 90 percent of everything 

moves, moves on the oceans. So how we protect the sea lanes, how confident we ar

goods can move from one point to the other and not be interfered with is extreme

important.”2

 The notion that navies exist to protect merchant shipping has been a

a long time and has had, up to the end of the Cold War, a substantial element of tr

it. However times have changed and the world strategic environment has evolved 

point that the rug has been pulled out from under this argument. Yet navies persis

using it because they have not delved deeply enough into the new connection betw

sea power and economic activity to articulate a new argument. Thus, when admir

out the traditional utility argument civilians do not find it compelling, although t

CHAPTER FIVE

Corbett Paper No. 11, The Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies, King’s College London

ber 2012, available at www.kcl.ac.uk/, reprinted by permission
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navies and the economic prospects of their parent nations that actually exists in todays 

world. If this relationship is properly understood, perhaps more compelling utility arguments can be made by navies.

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the American naval theorist Alfred Thayer 

Mahan broke new ground in military literature with his book The Influence of Sea 

Power upon History 1660–1783. His principal intellectual advance was to describe the 

connection between war, sea power and the economic prospects of a nation.3

 By doing 

so, Mahan added an outer layer of analysis to the Prussian military theorist Carl Von 

Clausewitz’s epic exploration of war’s essence, On War. It was not enough, Mahan 

argued, to understand war solely by examining the clash of armies. One had to also 

understand that armies are underwritten by the wealth of their parent country, and that 

wealth is in turn enhanced by trade, which by the time Napoleon ruled France, had an 

essential maritime commerce component. The flow or constriction of maritime commerce was, in turn, governed by the success or failure of navies.

Mahan went on to establish a sort of logical syllogism that described the relationship 

between a nation’s economic prospects, its maritime trade and its navy. He described a 

virtuous cycle in which a nation’s propensity for economic activity leads naturally to the 

carrying of goods on the sea, both coastwise and across the ocean. The need to protect 

this trade spawns a navy. The navy, by protecting trade, enhances it and thereby the 

wealth of the nation grows. Sir Julian Corbett, the distinguished British interpreter of 

sea power, based his theories on the same idea, if conversely applied:

Finance is scarcely less important. When other things are equal, it is the longer purse that wins. It 

has even many times redressed an unfavourable balance of armed force and given victory to the 

physically weaker Power. Anything, therefore, which we are able to achieve towards crippling our 

enemy’s finance is a direct step to his overthrow, and the most effective means we can employ to thi

end against a maritime State is to deny him the resources of seaborne trade.4

Theodore Roosevelt read Mahan’s book, became a true believer in sea power and pushed 

for a strong American Navy. He dispatched the Great White Fleet on a world tour to 

announce America’s arrival on the world stage. Mahan’s book was also an international 

best seller and he wrote many articles for popular magazines explaining his theories. 

Thus was welded into the American psyche the idea that its navy sprung from and was 

formed to protect its seaborne commerce. The subsequent experience of two world wars

with their respective Battles of the Atlantic against commerce-raiding German U-boats, 

only reinforced this notion.

After World War II the American merchant marine dwindled, causing considerable 

angst among U.S. navalists, but the U.S. Navy, despite some ups and downs, remained 

by far the strongest navy in the world. American prosperity, coupled with a lack of 
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national consciousness. However, from time to time, when naval affairs were discu

the syllogism was rolled out as a kind of shibboleth—sacred and unchallenged—e

though the reality on the seas had changed fundamentally. By the end of the Cold 

the United States was almost bereft of a merchant marine, was incredibly prospero

and possessed a navy whose size appeared to be all out of proportion to any conce

threat to American commerce. There was, apparently, some problem with Maha

syllogism. And yet, at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, naval 

ficers and naval scholars seem to persist in embracing it in spite of clear evidence i

not hold.

To understand why the relationship between war, economic health, maritime com

merce and navies has changed, we need to go back to the early years of the twentie

century, shortly after Mahan’s book had become a world best seller. It was an era o

unprecedented world trade and stability. The industrial revolution had transforme

much of the world and the empires of the colonial powers were at their zeniths. W

trade flowed virtually unmolested thanks to the Royal Navy’s unchallenged comm

of the seas. Although the old Concert of Europe had broken down, peace still reign

among the principal nations on the Continent. The world was in the process of lin

itself together as a unified global economic system based on free trade.5

 It was, tho

multi-polar world consisting of a number of great powers, each of whom had an o

going navy. Despite the peaceful concord of Europe, nations felt their merchant m

needed protection. Thus despite the lack of war, Mahan’s syllogism held.

The First World War brought the whole edifice down. Navies contended for comm

of the seas; commerce raiding disrupted trade, and the world system crumbled int

hostile blocs. The Second World War simply reinforced this condition, which wor

into the Cold War. However, after 1945, the United States put together a new syste

alliances and economic structures to avoid another Great Depression and to inocu

much of the world as possible against the inroads of communism. It was able to do 

in part because of the complete command of the sea it had won by virtue of defeat

the Axis navies, and the lack of a significant navy by the Soviet Union. Here we se

foundational notion of the new syllogism: command of the sea, as an indicator of 

national power, allows a nation to set the rules of the international order. In the ca

the United States, it permitted the establishment of a liberal capitalist trading orde

The new “Free World” started to put back together the global system of commerce 

security, but it could not be complete in the face of the alternate economic system 

the communist bloc. Moreover, in this era, the U.S. Navy found itself forced to ado

new focus—nuclear warfare. In combination with requirements to support land w

Korea and then Vietnam, the absence of a compelling Soviet threat to its sea comm
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Navy would stay large for reasons other than protection of American shipping, notwithstanding the requirement to protect military shipping to reinforce Germany in case of a 

Soviet invasion.

The fall of the Soviet Union precipitated the final phase of the reconstruction of the 

global trade and security system that the First World War destroyed. China, even 

though possessing a communist government in name, adopted capitalist economic 

policies and became the world’s factory. The process of globalization reordered the 

economic geography of the world, increasing economic interdependency and producing 

areas of specialization. Today, East Asia, including China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, conducts a large part of the world’s manufacturing7

 while the bulk of its oil reserves 

reside in the Persian Gulf. Many key strategic ores are found in only one or two places. 

Consumerism in North America and Europe generates consumption that creates the de

mand for Mideast oil and Asian manufactured goods. A globe-girdling system of financial institutions, laws and agreements as well as the emergence of the internet and global 

media has generated a highly integrated and intertwined economic system. Commercial 

shipping has similarly transformed, and today ships may be owned by multi-national 

companies, sail under a flag of convenience, be operated by a diverse international crew 

and carry a cargo that might change hands several times during its transit.

This economic geography both ashore and at sea has ripped apart Mahan’s syllogism. 

Merchant shipping is not so closely aligned with a national flag any more, and because 

virtually every functioning nation state has a stake in the effective operation of the 

global economic system, commercial shipping moves unmolested and without threat 

from any navy. But navies still exist, and the leaders of these navies must justify the 

expense of building and operating them to their nations. Reflexively, they reach back for 

Mahan’s syllogism to try and link their country’s economic prospects to investment in 

its navy. It does not work because Mahan’s syllogism no longer holds.

If Mahan’s syllogism linking the existence of a nation’s economic well-being to the 

possession of a capable navy is no longer valid, is there one to replace it? Fortunately for 

naval officers, the answer is yes, although the new logic is not as straightforward as its 

ancestor.

The first step in constructing the new syllogism is to understand and accept the world 

in system terms. The difficulty for many naval officers as well as for their civilian 

masters is that such acceptance implies a certain diminution of the state’s sovereignty: 

a traditional bedrock of naval thinking. However, it is simply a brute fact that most 

developed nations are no longer economically, if not politically, self-sufficient. This is 

an uncomfortable notion, but one that is at the heart of the new logic. Acceptance of it 
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door for a new and effective argument for national investment in navies. In fact, th

U.S. Navy’s 2007 maritime strategy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapo

(hereafter referred to as CS21), is explicitly based on it.

The approach to strategy embodied in CS21 reflects the new geopolitical realities 

have been generated by the process of globalization. As Ellen Frost says, “Coming 

to grips with this force calls for substantially transforming the way that U.S. leade

think about the world and adjusting their policy instruments accordingly.”8

 Tradit

military strategies are contingent; that is, they are meant to be invoked when and 

an adversary does something such as invade an ally. Day-to-day, they are on the sh

although the forces that would execute them may conduct peacetime exercises for 

ness or deterrent value. After the Cold War, the U.S. Navy adopted, in its white pa

entitled . . . From the Sea, what might be termed a doctrinal strategy, not specifyin

where or why it would fight, only how. CS21, by contrast, is a systemic strategy, cr

to be executed continuously in time of peace in order to defend the global system.

Understanding the modern linkage between navies and the effective functioning 

global economic system requires us to develop a truly global viewpoint. This is no

ticularly straightforward because geographically, it is all too easy to think of the w

as a collection of different regions. However, to use a trite phrase, the world is mor

the sum of its parts, at least for the purpose of understanding how all the parts rel

to one another. What some key theorists have done is establish a functional schem

of the world. Halford Mackinder in his seminal work on geopolitics showed the w

as a kind of Venn diagram in which the key geographic land masses were depicted 

circles whose size corresponded to both area and population.10 Underpinning this 

tion was the notion that population and land area indicated industrial potential, w

in turn portended the military and naval power the land mass could produce if it 

brought under a single government. More recently, Thomas Barnett described the 

in terms of a “functioning core” of nations that were tied together by economic rel

ships as well as the networks facilitated by the internet. “The Non-Integrating Gap

consists, in his view, of those countries that have not, for various reasons, become 

of the functioning core, including most of Africa, the Middle East and parts of La

America.11 In each case, the writer looked for some basis upon which to describe th

relationships that linked human civilizations on the various continents together s

a comprehensible whole could be discerned. However, description is not enough; t

depiction must have utility in the formation of policy and strategy.

Systems thinking recognizes the interdependency of the various elements that con

ute to a system. If we understand and accept that the world has knitted itself toget

into a global system of commerce (and the necessary forms of collective security t
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range of factors impinge upon and even govern the effectiveness and efficiency of each 

subsystem. Using this logic we can easily understand not only that resource extraction, 

manufacturing, consumption and transportation are inextricably integrated elements 

of the world economy, but also that the protection of one to the exclusion of the others 

is not rational. The system as a whole must be protected. While it is true that no single 

military service—or nation—has the capability to render holistic systemic protection 

it is also true that the effects of each one’s operations ripple throughout the system as a 

whole, either enhancing or diminishing its overall security.

For navies, then, it is not sufficient to think of their purpose only in terms of protecting shipping. Certainly, shipping must be protected, but if there is nothing to put in 

those ships, their transits, safe or not, are meaningless. Therefore, it is as important 

that manufacturing nodes and resource nodes be similarly protected and that efforts be 

made to protect and enhance the nations and societies that constitute these nodes, not 

to mention the nations and societies that consume their output. Thus we have an endto-end systemic-view of what we might call the “mission space” of navies. The better 

the system works—the more secure it is—the better the world’s prospects for economic 

prosperity. It does not work for just one nation. For the purposes of this discussion, the 

important point is that the flow of finance, goods, information, etc. must be sustained 

across the system. The flow can be interrupted by disrupting shipping (and air travel 

and the internet), but commercial shipping, at least, is not significantly threatened in 

today’s world. On the other hand, war among major powers, instability in resource areas 

and major terrorist attacks in consumption areas all could significantly disrupt the flow

with disastrous results for the world economy as well as international peace. Given the 

dependency of most pension plans on the growth in the value of securities, it is not inaccurate to say that the well-being of much of the world’s greying population is dependent 

upon the effective functioning of navies.

Having established the systemic context for the new syllogism, we can engage in some 

reductionism to sort out some individual factors that can help us identify particular 

naval capabilities that are needed, their magnitude and even their mode of application 

(strategy). In doing so, we will focus, naturally, on threats to the system, proceeding 

from the most to the least dire.

As intimated previously, war among major powers is potentially the most disruptive 

threat to the global system. When one considers the almost eighty-year global system 

“dark age” between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War, 

the impact of major power war becomes obvious. It would be arrogant and facile to 

suggest that navies themselves can prevent such wars, but it should be noted that a naval 

arms race between Great Britain and Germany played no small part in the chain of 
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factor in the Japanese decision to attack in 1941. These two themes, naval arms ra

and perceived naval vulnerability, constitute factors that have continuing relevanc

today’s systemic world.

Let us start with naval arms races. We must admit that nations build navies for a r

of reasons beyond protection of merchant shipping. These may include the desire 

protect a vulnerable coast line, deter depredations by other powers and even gener

prestige. There is, perhaps, one element of Mahan’s syllogism that continues to be 

at a certain level of economic activity and wealth, nations start building navies. A 

pable, ocean-going navy is a sign that a nation has “arrived” as a major power. Wh

such navy building is a herald of future war or is a politically neutral phenomenon 

not clear, although the historical record is cause for concern. Today, China, Japan, 

Brazil and other nations are building navies. They each have their reasons, but the 

pects that such building programmes will lead to suspicion, alarm, fear and ultim

war may depend very much on how the current leading navies and their parent na

proceed.

An important reason the world system has been able to stitch itself back together a

the world wars is the military superiority of the United States. A liberal democrati

ing nation, it has coupled this superiority with free trade policies to stimulate econ

growth. Capital, goods and people can flow freely around the globe, generating sy

behaviour. A key element of American military superiority is command of the sea

term denoting the inability of any other navy to impose a strategic defeat on the U

Navy on the high seas. It is this command, like that achieved by the Royal Navy in 

nineteenth century, which helped create the necessary conditions for system form

When it is lost, as it was in 1914 and 1941, the world fragments and falls into war.

The challenge becomes how to use command of the sea to manage or influence th

emergence of other navies such that true naval arms races do not occur. The right 

do this is not completely clear but there appear to be several sure-fire losing strate

The first is for the United States to start the arms race itself by reflexively viewing 

emergence of the Chinese Navy or others as a threat. Policies and patterns of build

and deployment based on alarm and fear will generate reciprocal responses in Ch

and elsewhere. This is why CS21 does not mention China or any other nation by n

something often criticized by those with an alarmist bent. Among the ways the U

Navy can stimulate Chinese alarm is to openly consider interdiction of their seabo

commerce in exercises, war games or articles. Not only would this strengthen the 

of Chinese alarmists, but commerce interdiction would probably be infeasible on 

number of counts anyway. Another good way to invoke this kind of reciprocal sec

dilemma is to link sea control and power projection. After the Cold War, the U.S. 
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to talk about sea control.

 While progress has been made in this area, there is still a 

sense in the doctrine that U.S. forces will use land strikes to neutralize shore based antiaccess systems with sea control being an exercise in access generation that is prerequisite 

to projecting power ashore.13 One can imagine the effect such talk has on a nation like 

China that has suffered humiliation and exploitation from the sea at the hands of western nations. Already, the Chinese are reacting to the most recent U.S. concept of this 

ilk, Air-Sea Battle: “If the U.S. military develops Air-Sea Battle to deal with the [People’s 

Liberation Army], the PLA will be forced to develop anti-Air-Sea Battle.”14

A second way to increase the odds that navy building will lead to war is for the leading 

navies to allow vulnerabilities to emerge. The U.S. Navy did this in two ways during the 

1930s and up to 1941. First, it was slow to recognize and accept that the bomb-carrying 

aircraft had replaced the major calibre gun as the dominant naval weapon. Although 

war games at the Naval War College and demonstrations by Billy Mitchell provided 

clear indicators, it took the December 1941 disasters of Pearl Harbor and the sinking of 

the HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales to force the new reality on the admirals. Today, 

the new reality is that the anti-ship missile is the arbiter of what floats and what does 

not. This is a condition that has existed since the early 1970s but has not been compellingly revealed due to the lack of an all-out naval battle, just as there was no all-out 

naval battle between 1922 and 1941 to reveal the bomb’s superiority. Vulnerability can 

also be generated by concentration. In 1941 the bulk of the U.S. fleet was concentrated 

at Pearl Harbor, leading Admiral Yamamoto to think that a single knock-out blow was 

possible. Although today the U.S. Navy is strategically dispersed around the world, its 

principal combat power is concentrated into eleven aircraft carriers. Taking several of 

these out would seriously compromise the strategic capabilities of the U.S. Navy, not to 

mention the potential adverse effects of derailing U.S. policy as happened via the loss of 

eighteen Special Forces soldiers in Somalia, or conversely stimulating escalation, possibly to the nuclear level. Moreover, a hit on a nuclear carrier that killed hundreds, if no

thousands, of U.S. sailors in a single blow might easily generate national outrage and 

serve to escalate the conflict far above initial intentions. In naval warfare, history has 

shown that the tactical offense has most often trumped the tactical defence, and thinking that aircraft carriers can be defended against the array of existing and potential 

anti-ship missiles is not much different than the outlook of battleship admirals in the 

fall of 1941.15

The combination of vulnerability issues suggests that the U.S. Navy and any allied or 

cooperating navies that seek to constitute a combat credible force in ocean zones threatened by anti-ship missiles will have to disaggregate their power into a dispersed grid of 

submarines, destroyers and unmanned vehicles, themselves armed with highly lethal 
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by deterring aggression via the sea by means of defeating—at sea—any attempt to 

so. Even the best anti-ship missile cannot hit what cannot be found. By disaggrega

naval combat power and equipping it to exert sea control—at sea—we thereby elim

both forms of naval vulnerability that contribute to naval arms races, and the dete

tion of deterrence.

There is one other vulnerability issue that must be considered, and that is position

caught out of position when a crisis erupts, the reactive movements of naval forces 

catalyse rather than deter military action. In 1982, during the crisis leading up to 

Falklands War, fears that the British were gathering up naval forces to send south 

put the Argentine Junta in a now-or-never state of mind, which precipitated their 

sion and the war.16 If catalysis is to be avoided, naval forces must maintain a persis

presence in such areas where deterrence is necessary. This is why CS21 prescribes 

centrated, credible combat forces be stationed forward in East Asia and the Persia

The Navy’s inventory of ships, aircraft and other systems must be sufficiently larg

that this presence can be maintained indefinitely without “using up” ships and sai

an unsustainable rate.

If command of the seas is achieved and maintained wisely by not provoking alarm 

not allowing naval vulnerabilities to occur, the seas can constitute a massive geop

shock absorber, preventing conflicts in one area of the world from spilling over in

ers, mainly by keeping hostile armies from moving by sea, and allowing one’s own 

so. Even though this condition holds today as a function of American command o

sea, there has emerged, since the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, 

prospect of terrorists and their weapons being smuggled by sea to the shores of Am

Europe, China, Japan and other developed countries. Given the disruptive potenti

terrorist attacks, it is reasonable to regard them as only a step down from major po

war as a threat to the system. Although the attacks of 9/11 were perpetrated by the 

radical Islamic organization al Qaeda, in the future such strikes might be staged b

number of groups. Although neutralization of such organizations by intelligence o

enforcement agencies is the preferred method, the lack of success to date in doing 

narco-traffickers and other criminal enterprises leaves us to consider at-sea interd

as a necessary measure.

The seas, of course, are huge, and at any moment they are dotted with tens of thou

of ships. There is not now nor has there ever been a navy of sufficient size to herm

cally seal off the seas to smugglers. The only way to make the seas a barrier to terr

is to have every costal nation effectively guard its own waters and establish good t

work between its navy, intelligence service and law enforcement agencies. Some n
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whose navies or coast guards are embryonic.

The mission of capacity building requires a very different kind of naval force than the 

one needed to prevent major power war. The main “weapon system” of such a force is 

the sailors and other personnel that train, educate and influence those in developing 

countries that will become sailors. The sheer number of countries needing such assistance suggests these missions be conducted from relatively inexpensive ships that can 

be procured in some numbers. In addition to actual naval forces deployed for capacity 

building purposes, the navies of developed nations employ their shore training and education infrastructures. The importance of naval academies and war colleges in building 

not only capacity but relationships cannot be overstated.

Beyond capacity building, making the seas a barrier to terrorists requires information 

about who is at sea, what is in the containers and holds, and where they are. Not only 

are new forms of surveillance needed, but also intensive information sharing so that two 

and two can be put together to reveal suspicious activity. To manage this, the U.S. Navy 

is developing a global network of maritime operations centres that will develop regional 

pictures that will be shared globally. This, in turn requires an international effort to 

develop trust and confidence so that information flows freely.

If an adequate degree of maritime security can be achieved, the seas will constitute a 

geopolitical shock absorber in another way. In the wake of 9/11 the United States had no 

equivalent of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Admiral Lord St Vincent, who supposedly advised a jittery parliament in 1801, “I do not say my lords that the French will 

not come, I say only that they will not come by sea.” Without the assurance of the seas 

as a barrier to further attack, it was as if New York City was connected to Kabul and 

Baghdad by a land bridge. The Bush Administration was spooked by the prospect of a 

WMD attack and rather stampeded itself into two simultaneous Eurasian land wars tha

got the United States mired down and over-extended. The comfort of insulating oceans 

can provide, among other things, a certain poise to the deliberations of the National 

Security Council and time for cooling off and reflection before committing the nation to war. Moreover, in the wake of the pull-out from Iraq and an increasingly rapid 

drawdown in Afghanistan, both the current and former U.S. Chiefs of Naval Operations 

have advanced the notion of an “offshore option” for anchoring forward U.S. military 

capabilities in the future.17 This would increase the proportionate contribution of naval 

forces to the U.S. effort to maintain global stability.

The threat of terrorism emanates principally from an area of a world that has been 

variously referred to as the “arc of instability” and Barnett’s Non-Integrating Gap. It 

encompasses much of Africa and the Middle East as well as parts of Southeast Asia. It 
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for the world economy are found. Thus the nations that constitute the global econ

system can ill afford a hands-off strategy of containment, hoping to seal off the ar

against the spread of terrorism until it heals itself. Therapeutic incisions have been 

will continue to be necessary at various times and places.

Because of the undeveloped nature of this area of the world, along with the fact th

most of its inhabitants live within several hundred miles of the coast, naval force p

tion capability from a sea base will be necessary. The early phases of the Afghanis

operations were of this nature and we can confidently expect that if and when the 

world’s developed nations reach a consensus about going into Somalia to cure the 

problem, it will be a sea-based expeditionary operation. Thus, protection of resou

areas will require that some number of navies possess substantial sea-based exped

ary force capability, preferably of a kind that can integrate multi-national contribu

tions easily. Rendering disaster relief, as was done in the tsunami relief effort in 20

the Haiti earthquake and the Japan tsunami, is also an important form of sea-base

force projection that mitigates economic damage to the system. It is likely that fut

sea-based expeditionary operations will be international, and so that capability m

conceptualized and practiced.

The mere presence of naval forces in areas of the world that are the source of resources, notably oil, seems to have a beneficial economic effect. Both routine pr

of naval forces and their responses in crises were shown to have a substantial ec

nomic benefit in a 1997 study by the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.18 It found 

the initial naval response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is likely to have increas

global GDP by over $86 billion.19 Perhaps the least dire threat to the global system 

piracy —albeit one that is currently seizing the headlines. Somali pirates, a manif

tion of a failed state in the Non-Integrating Gap, hijack merchants and demand r

som for the crew and ship. The actual chance of a particular merchant being hija

is less than one in nine hundred,20 and shipping companies seem more inclined t

the ransom than install armed guards aboard their ships. However, the publicity 

galvanized nations and their navies to take action. A previous bout of piracy in 

Straits of Malacca was cured by the joint action of local navies. The Somalia/Gu

Aden situation is more problematic since there is no effective governmental aut

ashore. However, the emerging world response to it reveals some important facet

an emerging global naval infrastructure that supports the global system of comm

and security.

In Mahan’s day, the movement of major naval forces was noted by many countries

sometimes with alarm, as it might presage invasion, or at least a round of coercive 

macy. In fact, when the PRC announced it was dispatching a small squadron to th
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this was a sign of an expansionist China. The Chinese themselves announced that their 

ships would operate independently in the Gulf of Aden to protect their own merchants. 

However, after several weeks on station two things happened: the alarm about their 

movement died off and the Chinese commander suggested a cooperative zone defence 

in order to make most efficient use of the international naval forces on station. Moreover, not only the Chinese are there, but the Russians, NATO, EU (different task force), 

the Japanese, Koreans, Singaporeans and even the “rogue” nation of Iran. Everybody is 

cooperating—why, how and what does it mean?

To start with, we must acknowledge the uniqueness of the Gulf of Aden situation. Somalia is a failed state that possesses neither resources nor location that would incite major 

power rivalry over influence ashore there. There is a universal confluence of interests 

centred on the protection of shipping. The unusual absence of major power competition 

allows naval operations to follow their natural course and provide a unique opportunity 

for us to see the security side of the global system in action.

The Chinese, Russians, Iranians and other naval forces have become virtually invisible in the Gulf of Aden because they have fallen in on an existing framework and 

infrastructure of sea power that girdles the globe. This infrastructure (perhaps more 

accurately the maritime security subsystem of the global economic system) consists 

of both physical and intangible elements. On the physical side, there is the U.S. Navy’s 

world-wide logistics system. It operates 24/7/365 and is composed of a web of bases, 

husbanding (victuals) contracts and replenishment ships, augmented by the supply 

ships of the Royal Navy, Japan and other allies. This system can support international 

naval operations anywhere in the world. In addition, there are GPS and communication satellites as well as the ubiquitous internet. Among the intangibles are the UN 

Law of the Sea that provides a clear framework for who can do what in whose waters, 

any number of other international agreements governing a range of maritime issues, 

and a world conditioned to see U.S. Navy and allied ships cruising the littorals of 

Eurasia. Perhaps another intangible element is CS21 itself, which casts the United States 

and its navy in a defensive posture (defence of the global system). This makes it easier 

politically for other nations to deploy their ships on a cooperative mission and make 

use of the U.S. Navy’s logistics system. It also appears that the navies of the world are 

getting comfortable with looser coordination arrangements. Before the internet, strict 

communications, protocols, and structured command and control schemes were necessary. With the internet, everyone can talk more extensively and in new ways such that 

restrictive command arrangements are not so necessary. This in turn obviates the need 

for formal agreements prior to conducting cooperative operations. With the political 
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cooperative ventures.

Previously we discussed the seas as geopolitical shock absorbers, both to limit oth

tions’ options for aggression and to provide our own government time for reflectio

preserving the option of doing nothing. In the cooperative naval operations off So

we see another aspect of the phenomenon emerging in a very positive way. It turn

that ships from the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean navies have taken to oper

together in the Gulf of Aden. Strange bedfellows indeed, but as both the Japanese 

operations chief and a Chinese maritime scholar have said to the author on differe

casions, cooperating on easier missions can build trust and confidence that will pr

a basis for achieving resolution of more difficult maritime issues between the nati

This is indeed geopolitical shock absorbing of the most congenial kind.

We have now arrived at a point where we can put all of the elements of modern na

endeavour together in a new syllogism. Navies protect their nations’ economic pro

by operating cooperatively to defend all elements of the global system of commerc

security. Their necessary functions range from averting naval arms races to rende

disaster relief to, yes, protecting shipping. But it is not an every navy for itself proc

the more cooperation, the better. It may even turn out that sustained and habitual 

international naval cooperation will someday make the concept of command of th

irrelevant. Until then, the U.S. Navy must exert careful stewardship over its comm

of the sea, keep its global logistics system robust and develop the capacity to cataly

global maritime security partnership on a broad front by being in a lot of places at 

same time. Other navies must also look at the world in systems terms if they are to 

effectively develop utility arguments and determine how to most effectively target 

limited resources.

If one accepts the arguments that underpin the new syllogism of how navies supp

economic prosperity, then reasons for optimism become clear. Naval building pro

grammes in China, India and elsewhere do not have to lead to war as has happene

the past in Europe; there is a reasonable prospect that the seas can be denied to ter

ists; the seas can be used to bring the Non-Integrating Gap into the system; and th

emerging pattern of naval cooperating can not only secure the seas but reduce the 

hood of conflict and war.

None of this will happen if nations let their navies decay. The unique thing about 

is that their optimum utility is in time of peace. When sea power is hitting on all c

inders, it is invisible. An investment in sea power is most appropriate and effective 

point when threats are not apparent. In Mahan’s day the syllogism of sea power fo

on the sovereign interests of individual nations and its application led eventually t
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terms. Its application, that is, investment in navies structured along systemic lines, 

promises a massive return in the form of an extended and improving peace and—despite 

the current global economic woes—prosperity.

Notes

1. Samuel P. Huntington, “National Policy and 

the Transoceanic Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute 

Proceedings (Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute), Vol. 80, No. 5, May 1954, pp. 483–493.

2. ADM Gary Roughead, podcast 29 February 

2009, www.navy.mil/.

3. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea 

Power upon History 1660–1783 (Boston: Little, 

Brown and Company, 1890). Chapter 1 sets 

forth Mahan’s basic logic. However, it should 

be noted that he subsequently recognized 

that nations without large shipping interests 

may also build navies. See A. T. Mahan, Naval 

Strategy (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 

1918), pp. 445–447.

4. Sir Julian Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime 

Strategy (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 

1911), p. 99.

5. Niall Ferguson, The War of the World (New 

York: The Penguin Press, 2006). Chapters 

1 and 2 delineate the state of the pre-WWI 

world, including its increasing economic integration. Then check the first full paragraph 

on page 73 to see his analysis of the effect on 

globalization of war among major powers.

6. George Modelski and William Thompson, 

Seapower in Global Politics 1494–1993 (Seattle, 

WA: University of Washington Press, 1988), 

pp. 16–17.

7. But manufacturing itself is extensively parsed 

on a global scale with components and 

subcomponents manufacturing distributed 

throughout the world in an intricate ballet of 

shipping and scheduling for final assembly. See 

Stephen Carmel, “Globalization, Security and 

Economic Well-Being” remarks delivered to 

the 20th International Seapower Symposium, 

19 October 2011, Naval War College, Newport, RI, available at www.maersklinelimited

.com/.

8. Ellen Frost, “Geopolitics versus Globalization,” in Richard L. Kugler and Ellen Frost, 

eds., The Global Century, Vol. I (Washington, 

DC: National Defense University, 2001), p. 36

Available on line at library.northsouth.edu/.

9. U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast 

Guard, “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” 2007. www.navy.mil/.

10. Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and 

Reality (London: Constable and Co., 1919), 

pp. 86, 90.

11. Thomas P. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map

(New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons, 2004), 

p. 4.

12. Robert C. Rubel, “Talking about Sea Control,” 

Naval War College Review, Autumn 2010, pp. 

38–47, www.usnwc.edu/.

13. See, for example, Joint Publication 3-0, Operations, 17 September 2006 with Change 2 of 22 

March 2010, p. V-9. www.dtic.mil/. See also 

General Norton A. Schwartz and Admiral 

Jonathan W. Greenert, “Air-Sea Battle,” The 

American Interest, 20 February 2012. Note 

especially the “Attack in Depth” element of 

the concept. Available on line at www.the

-american-interest.com/.

14. Col. Gaoyue Fan, PLA, quoted in “Real Tensions over a Theoretical War: U.S. Model for 

a Future ‘Air-Sea Battle’ Stirs Ire in China and 

inside Pentagon,” by Greg Jaffe, Washington 

Post, 2 August 2012.

15. The November 1941 Army/Navy football 

game program pamphlet had a picture of 

USS Arizona plowing through the waves with 

the following caption: “A bow on view of the 

USS Arizona as she plows into a huge swell. 

It is significant that despite the claims of air 

enthusiasts no battleship has yet been sunk by 

bombs.”

16. Lawrence Freedman and Virginia GambaStonehouse, Signals of War (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 65–78.

17. Testimony of ADM Jonathan Greenert before 

the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on the Future of the Military 
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18. Robert E. Looney, “Market Effects of Naval 

Presence in a Globalized World: A Research 

Summary,” in Sam J. Tangredi, ed., Globalization and Maritime Power (Washington, DC: 

National Defense University Press, 2002), pp. 

103–131.

p

Fleet Maritime Infrastructure Protecti

Symposium February 2009 by CDR Th

Rasmussen (Danish Navy) (claiming t

quoting IMO numbers): Risk of attack

Risk of hijack (i.e. successful attack): 1
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Defense of the System

Changing the Geometry of Great Power Competition

The growth of th e power of Athens, and the alarm which this insp

Sparta, made wa r inevitable.

THUCYDIDES, THE PELOPONNESIAN 

Introduction

The rise of nations has always occasioned alarm and tension, and frequently produ

wars. Existing powers interpret a rising nation’s accretion of economic and militar

power as a threat, and take measures to hedge against it. The rising nation sees suc

measures as an existential threat and makes greater efforts to overcome them. Thu

sues a continuous cycle of strategic challenge and response that may spiral out of c

until a war breaks out. China and the United States potentially find themselves in 

a situation. Although China has pursued what it terms a “peaceful rise” strategy a

adopted a number of policies aimed at reassuring its neighbors and indeed all nati

of its benign intent, its maritime territorial claims that conflict with those of othe

well as the buildup of its navy, have spawned alarm and reaction. Many analysts in 

United States are convinced that China’s strategic aims are indeed limited and pea

and that the extensive economic links between China and the rest of the world ma

war highly unlikely. Others see the picture very differently. In their view, China w

not be self-limiting. It will develop its military and economic power and seek terri

rial expansion until some nation or group of nations impose on it constraints from 

outside. Given the complexities of national grand strategy, the vast and diverse na

of China’s society, and the dynamic nature of even a highly structured and ostensi

stable governing bureaucracy like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it is likely 

the thinking within Chinese policy elites is not entirely settled on the matter.

CHAPTER SIX

Originally published in Peter Dutton, Robert Ross, and Øystein Tunsjø, eds., Twenty-First C

Seapower: Cooperation and Conflict at Sea (London: Routledge, 2012), reprinted by permiss

the Taylor & Francis Group.
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future war that neither wants, but which arrives via a pathway of strategic challenge and 

response cycles; individual actions and policies, each of which is intended to increase security. Thus, some intellectual methodology for escaping the so-called security dilemma 

of spawning alarm and distrust in others through efforts to make oneself more secure 

must be found. This chapter will propose a modest start down that road by proposing 

the adoption of a particular organizing principle for maritime strategy: defense of the 

global system of commerce and security. This principle has already been recognized and 

adopted by the United States Sea Services2

 and has also been proclaimed by the Chief of 

the Canadian Navy.3

 Although not a replacement for strategic hedging in war planning 

and force development, system defense as an organizing principle changes the context in 

which these functions take place, and may moderate the way each nation sees the other’s 

efforts. This is not a complete solution to the problem of avoiding the security dilemma, 

but it is a small step that involves little in the way of strategic risk on the part of either 

nation, and could, if it proves useful in the maritime cooperation realm, mark the way 

for more ambitious measures of strategic reassurance.

The notion that some such measure is worthwhile was clearly indicated by Dr. Wang 

Jisi, dean of the School of International Relations at Peking University, at a conference 

on maritime strategy between Chinese scholars and a group from the U.S. Naval War 

College. He said that a good relationship in the maritime domain between China and 

the United States must be approached both from a bottom up perspective, by which he 

meant mechanisms such as an incidents at sea agreement, hot lines, etc., and from a top 

down perspective.4

 With respect to the top down perspective, he mentioned what he 

called “strategic reassurance.” There are a number of ways to interpret such a term, or 

perhaps better put, a number of facets to it. As the conference proceeded, one Chinese 

scholar complained that a recent exercise between the navies of the United States, India 

and Japan indicated the United States was trying to “encircle” China. Clearly, some 

Chinese, at least, believe the United States has a particular strategic organizing principle 

or approach that it has used before in the defeat of the Axis powers as well as against the 

Soviet Union. Conversely, many in the United States see the Chinese as expansionistic, 

attempting to build continental style buffer zones, even at sea. If each nation persists in 

thinking the other is pursuing one of these traditional strategic approaches, strategic 

reassurance cannot be achieved. Just as clearly, each nation would like to have some assurance that the other is indeed not doing so.

Although the articulation of a strategic organizing principle is simple, its instantiation is 

another matter. While it is easy in retrospect to identify the strategic plan, approach or 

principle a nation used in a war, struggle or era, it is harder to ascribe a specific strategic approach based on any particular policy or action. Grand strategy emerges from a 
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or regimes. Individual leaders may or may not act in specific cases on the basis of 

formally articulated principle or strategy. Often, patterns of decision making over 

exhibit coherency not from adherence to a plan but in the cumulative responses to 

of incentives, pressures, values and ideas that constitute the decision-making envi

ment. Professor Walter A. McDougall said recently:

In other words, was Auguste Comte correct when he insisted that demography is destiny, or 

Strausz-Hupé, when he insisted that you cannot argue with geography? We quote such lines 

effect, but are they operationally true in the sense of being impersonal forces that move even

need not be a rigid determinist to grant that, especially in retrospect, there is often a logic to 

gic interactions that the players sensed, if at all, by sheer instinct.5

Among the elements of this logic is a certain geometry of conflict that arises as a f

tion of geography. That geometry has traditionally involved internal and external 

tions on a global scale, with Eurasian continental powers in the center pushing ou

insular sea powers on the periphery enveloping and pushing in. This pattern has b

place at least since the Napoleonic Era and constitutes a kind of default context wi

which the strategic decision making of great powers takes place. However, the glob

tion process that has gained steam since the end of the Cold War is changing the e

nomic geography and consequently the geopolitical geometry of the world, openin

an opportunity for great powers to escape the traditional cycles of conflict. Geopo

geometry is a convenient basis for crafting an easily grasped organizing principle 

can underpin grand strategy. An example of such is George Kennan’s notion of co

ment which he advanced in his famous “Mr. X” article.

This chapter will attempt to establish “defense of the global system of commerce a

security” as a viable alternative to two traditional strategic organizing principles, 

haps better stated, approaches to strategy that have been based on geopolitical geo

continental and maritime. It will examine the prospects for defense of the system 

adopted by the United States and China as a shared organizing principle for strate

policy.

Strategic Reassurance

Since strategic reassurance is the goal of a new strategic organizing principle, som

tention must be paid to the term and its constituent elements. The term is of relati

recent provenance, being first defined in March of 2001 by Banning Garrett in Ar

Control Today. He established the term as follows:

In order for two states wary of each other to solve policy problems, they may need to first str

to demonstrate that, despite differences over specific issues, their long-term intentions towar

other are benign—in other words, they may need to engage in strategic reassurance.6
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of interests may overlap may not be able to render definitive, long-term judgments to 

themselves, much less to each other, on how benign their intentions are. For the purpose 

of this chapter, it will be limited to the national security policy, planning and decisionmaking realm, which is still extensive. Within this realm, strategic reassurance will 

denote the condition in which each nation’s security leadership has sufficient confidence 

that it understands at least the true short term strategic aims of the other such that it 

could correctly interpret the intent of actions by the other nation as well as feel able to 

refrain from actions that might otherwise invoke or exacerbate a security dilemma.

In his article, Garrett focuses principally on measures the United States might take to 

allay strategic mistrust surrounding its deployment of ballistic missile defense systems. 

Certainly, in the area of nuclear weaponry, strategic reassurance was a key issue in the 

days of “mutually assured destruction” where each side in the Cold War had reasonable 

confidence it could hold the other at risk. However, the potential deployment of highly 

accurate Trident D4 missiles and operational status of the Strategic Defense Initiative 

was viewed by the Soviets as evidence of hostile intent by the United States and therefore destabilizing. China has similar worries about U.S. ballistic missile defense and its 

naval intelligence activities in the South China Sea. If the United States was freed from 

worry about nuclear retaliation, Chinese leaders must fear it would be free to incite 

Taiwan independence or commit other strategic outrages, achieving perhaps a strategy 

of encirclement in which China is again at the mercy of a Western power. Thus, strategic 

reassurance in the realm of nuclear deterrence might take the form of a pact on limited 

deployment of missile defenses such that the United States could be assured of intercepting any missiles North Korea might launch at it while limiting it such that at least one 

Chinese warhead could get through.

Strategic reassurance is now a policy toward China adopted by the Obama Administration. Outlined by Deputy Secretary of State John B. Steinberg, it

. . . rests on a core, if tacit, bargain. Just as we and our allies must make clear that we are prepared to 

welcome China’s “arrival” . . . as a prosperous and successful power, China must reassure the rest of 

the world that its development and growing global role will not come at the expense of security and 

well-being of others.

Steinberg goes on to enumerate a number of areas in which the United States and China 

might adopt policies that would lead to strategic reassurance, including resource and 

monetary policy. Beyond the specifics of missile defense, a later part of Steinberg’s 

speech addresses the broader issue of security planning:

In the face of uncertainty, policymakers in any government tend to prepare for the worst to focus 

on the potential threat down the road, and of course, some of that is necessary. But we also have 

to make sure that by preparing for the worst, we don’t foreclose positive outcomes; that we leave 

ourselves open to the positive, and avoid the trap of self-fulfilling fears.7
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ance, all policy-making and strategic-planning organizations within the governm

must adopt it, requiring acceptance of risk and a culture change in some cases. If s

changes do not occur, United States actions will not match its words and the Chin

will quickly perceive the dichotomy. The United States would appear to the Chine

hegemon attempting to undercut Chinese development in order to retain its globa

macy. The Chinese, in turn, would presumably adopt their own versions of worst-

planning scenarios, further propelling the cycle of mistrust.

Of course, the Chinese would have to keep their end of the tacit bargain. In theory

have been doing so with their doctrine of “peaceful rise.” Clearly, China has genui

desired an era of peace and stability in order to allow her economic development t

take place, so to that extent the doctrine seems genuine enough. However, as Chin

has achieved economic success, it has found itself with the resources to modernize 

and expand its armed forces, including its navy. As it has attained a degree of secu

and self-confidence through naval strength, it has more aggressively asserted wha

considers its traditional and rightful claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere 

its bordering oceans. However, these claims cannot be considered in isolation from 

China’s “resource strategy,” which has increasingly taken the form of mercantilist 

aimed at monopolizing access to various resources and bypassing global commod

markets. Moreover, the presumption of vast energy resources under the Spratly Is

for example, makes China’s claims to them seem more expansionistic than histori

This generates strategic mistrust by virtually all other nations, spawning suspicion

the doctrine of peaceful rise is essentially a ruse to buy time until China has suffic

power to become hegemonic and potentially imperial.

Strategic reassurance requires not so much stated policy but a national security st

planning culture that can abandon the worst-case scenarios that arise from the str

orientation of the particular country. For a continental power, it means being able 

set aside the invasion and encirclement scenarios and abandon the quest for geopo

cal buffers and mercantilist economic “bastions.” For maritime powers, the challe

is to accept the growing strength of a continental power without engaging in balan

or containment strategies. Both of these acts of strategic risk taking would face ser

opposition by conservatives and hawks, just as Obama’s policy of strategic reassur

has drawn criticism from right-leaning pundits.8

 The arguments of conservatives 

a certain salience because the policy of strategic reassurance as currently defined 

articulated requires of strategic planners an act omission based on faith that recip

will be forthcoming from the other side. This is difficult in lieu of any definite con

or organizing principle that would replace the continental and maritime models, a

provide planners with some basis for managing risk in their processes.
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Once humans gained global mobility, the nature of national strategy changed for those 

nations rich enough to possess a powerful navy. The competition between two early 

global powers, Spain and Portugal, prompted Pope Alexander VI to establish a dividing 

line that later encircled the globe from north to south in hopes of peacefully allocating 

newly found lands. This artificial frontier was necessitated by the fact that the oceans 

are all connected and the ships of each power could move freely about them, virtually guaranteeing a clash. Since that time, the interaction between the continental and 

maritime strategic approaches has been about movement (encirclement) versus frontiers 

(exclusion). In today’s world, the essentials of strategic maneuver that characterize the 

continental and maritime strategic approaches still retain their saliency, but technological developments have superimposed on them added dimensions. Nuclear weapons, 

space and the internet each introduce a new virtual geography that must be considered 

in conjunction with the physical geography of the globe. It is not enough for an authoritarian continental power, for example, to establish geographic buffers; it must also erect 

information buffers in the form of internet censorship. Maritime maneuver, similarly, 

cannot any longer rely on the anonymity of the high seas; space must be taken into account. These added dimensions complicate the process of strategic maneuver, but grand 

strategic approaches and principles that incorporate them have yet to be explicitly articulated, although the new approach identified in this chapter inherently integrates them. 

In the meantime, strategists work with the traditional approaches at their disposal.

Continental powers have never needed a geographical theorist to instruct them on the 

need for buffering and expansion, nor have maritime powers required tutelage on the 

dangers of a single continental power becoming too dominant. However, geopolitical 

theorists have articulated the two strategic approaches, allowing them to be analyzed 

and discussed. Most fundamentally, the relationship between geography and the dynamics of the ascent of nations to power as well as the perceptions of strategists generated by that relationship is at the heart of understanding how a new relationship might 

be articulated and a new set of perceptions created.

The Continental Approach

Continental powers arising on the Eurasian “World Island” have generally possessed 

authoritarian governments. Because of this, the continental strategic approach—the net 

vector of perceptions, principles, policies and actions—starts at the capital and radiates 

outward. Maintaining the regime in power is job one. Because a Eurasian power of any 

size is necessarily an empire of sorts—a collection of smaller cultural enclaves—the 

logic of internal security does not differ fundamentally from the logic of external securi

ty. Thus, the establishment of neutralized buffer states around the national periphery is 
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threat of invasion by external powers has been very real and has contributed to th

chosis of impending attack,”9

 the threat of internal dissolution is also a major facto

continental-style strategy. The continental approach is thus oriented on the centra

tion, essentially the capital, with its vectors of security interests radiating outward 

there. The internal side of the continental security equation is based on garrisons 

cultural enclaves—strong points—and control and even suppression of the movem

populace. This general logic tends to carry over into buffer zones outside the cont

power’s borders, including maritime buffers.

Besides being authoritarian, continental powers have also tended to have their ow

economic systems that have been either exclusionary, such as Napoleon’s continen

system and the Soviet command economy, or mercantilist, such as modern China

approach to economics mirrors its approach to political security—exclusionary in 

way or another. Mercantilism, the attempt to corner markets on resources or to ex

competitors from various arenas of economic activity, can be regarded as a form o

strong point or bastion logic in that each exclusive deal with a resource supplier ke

other parties from having access to that particular mine, well or other resource so

It is a matter of keeping others from having access to something of value to one’s s

It has been mostly the case that continental powers are substantially land-locked, 

many and the Soviet Union being the primary examples. On the other hand, Napo

onic France had extensive coastlines and at times a very capable fleet, but still hew

to a continental approach to grand strategy. Perhaps the most striking case is Imp

Japan. Being an island nation akin to Great Britain, and possessing a highly capab

fleet, she nonetheless adopted a continental-style strategy of expansion from a cen

point and tried to defend her maritime acquisitions to the south and east with a sy

of island strong points.

Just as the geopolitical theorist Halford Mackinder understood “the dominant val

sea power,”10 continental powers have been concerned about gaining access to the 

Because of the logic of buffering and garrisoning, however, even the existence of o

access to the sea is problematic because it could constitute an avenue of invasion, a

of course such has been the case. This results in a continental power trying to esta

strong points of various kinds to maintain access to the open sea and prevent cont

ing powers from entering. Moreover centralized or exclusionary regional econom

systems like Imperial Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere or the Warsa

Pact constituted economic bastions that overlaid and supported the center-out sec

bastion logic that is the heart of the continental approach.
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ing the continental approach. She is an authoritarian power that has internal integration issues with Tibet and of course Taiwan, and shares a land border with significant 

geopolitical competitors, India and Russia. The discussion in her modern literature on 

maritime strategy focuses on the “first and second island chains” as geographic barriers 

keeping her from gaining free access to the world ocean or potentially barriers for keeping the U.S. Navy at bay.11 Talking about geographic features in this manner is consistent 

with the continental approach.12

Although she has adopted a capitalist economic structure, she preserves a mercantilist approach to obtaining resources and has manipulated her currency to maintain a 

favorable trade balance—all exclusionary practices. Having suffered invasion from the 

sea on several occasions, she is attempting via extensive oceanic territorial claims and 

exclusionary interpretations of the UN Law of the Sea to establish oceanic buffer zones. 

These policies have brought her into dispute with regional nations and into maritime 

conflict with the United States, the world’s principal maritime power.

The Maritime Approach

Since the time of the Napoleonic Wars, nations following the maritime approach have 

been capitalist democracies, notably Great Britain and the United States. Essentially 

free of internal integration problems, and possessing powerful navies that ensured their 

insularity, these nations have viewed their security in a manner geographically opposite 

of that of continental powers. Because they relied on international trade to build their 

economies, the basis of their security posture is the world ocean. Because the seas are all 

connected, and because the principal threats have emanated from continental powers, 

maritime powers have oriented on the external position. The external position, based 

on extensive global trade and a network of allies, is about movement rather than strong 

points. Maritime powers have always been able to find allies whose location presented 

continental powers with multi-front strategic problems, and have used the mobility of 

sea power to adopt advantageous strategic lines of approach as opportunities presented 

themselves. Being liberal market economies, maritime powers have found it easier than 

authoritarian continental powers to attract allies, regardless of the form of government 

those allies possessed. Command of the seas allowed them to maintain credible and effective contact with allies.

For the first century of its existence, the United States was a continental power as it 

completed the process of consolidating its hold on its North American territory. The 

Monroe Doctrine was a continentalist policy aimed at excluding European powers from 

the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish-American War represented a shift in orientation to a maritime approach, which was further impelled by World War I. Although its 
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attack on Pearl Harbor decisively propelled the United States into the maritime ap

proach. Its subsequent adoption of containment of the Soviet Union was perhaps t

ultimate expression of that approach.

Globalization and the System

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States found itself in the position of a 

maritime hyperpower with no countervailing Eurasian continental power to cont

with. As a liberal trading democracy oriented on the maritime strategic approach

no agenda to assert continental-style control over the world, although the combin

of World War II, the Cold War and the 1991 Gulf War left it with military garrison

around the globe. The general thrust of its policies was to encourage industrializa

and economic development of what had been termed “Third World” nations durin

Cold War. The ensuing spread of economic development was termed “globalizatio

Perhaps the most significant geopolitical effect of globalization was the emergence 

of economic interdependency among nations. Although abetted by the complex o

international economic accords such as Bretton Woods, aimed at preserving demo

in the face of the communist challenge after World War II, the current global syst

is best understood as a phenomenon rather than a construction. Jiang Zemin capt

the essence of this when he said, “Economic globalization, being an objective tend

of the development of the world’s economy, is independent of man’s will and cann

be avoided by any country.”13 The proliferation of economic development and glob

economic growth in general has produced a new economic geography that calls fo

strategic approaches.

Due in part to industrialization, the last decades of the nineteenth century and th

decade of the twentieth saw the emergence of an increasingly active global system 

trade. However, it took place in an international context in which the sovereign sta

almost the sole repository of political power. World War I brought that phase of gl

ization to a halt, followed by a 76-year “dark age” in which two contending econom

systems led the world, and in which continental powers contended in traditional w

with maritime powers.14 After 1990, in the “unipolar moment” enjoyed by the Uni

States, not only did nations start down the road toward economic interdependenc

state itself started to lose its monopoly on political power. International organizat

such as the European Union and the World Trade Organization, and trans-nation

organizations such as multi-national corporations and Al Qaeda have achieved a d

of power formerly held by states. The newly forming system is forcing states into c

coordination and cooperation on a range of issues related to security.
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day, is more important to the long-term prospects of most all states than was the global 

system of 1914. Although the system is complex, it can be simplistically and schematically characterized as consisting of flows of trade, finance and information among three 

types of nodes; resource extraction, manufacturing and consumption. These nodes are 

connected by merchant shipping, airlines, mass media, cell phones and the internet. 

Although in many cases, resource extraction, manufacturing and consumption geographically coexist, it tends to be the case that certain geographic areas emphasize one 

function over the others and so the flow among them must take place if the countries 

comprising the nodes are to prosper.

The U.S. maritime strategy says the system is vulnerable to a range of potential disruptions. The cascading effects emanating from the disruption of air travel in Europe due 

to the eruption of a volcano in Iceland is a case in point. It should also be noted that 

although it is natural to think that a maritime strategy like CS21 (A Cooperative Strategy 

for 21st Century Seapower) would focus on connectors, notably commercial shipping, in 

reality there exist few significant threats to its flow, with the principal exception being 

closure of the Straits of Hormuz. While piracy in the Gulf of Aden is distressing, it is far 

from a level that would cause actual disruption to the system. Rather, it is instability and 

conflict within and between the nodes that pose the greatest threat of systemic disruption. Principal among these is war among the major powers. Additionally, a 9/11-style 

attack on the United States or other major consumer countries might stifle demand, 

causing ripple effects in manufacturing, and major instability in the Middle East or Africa could disrupt access to resources the system needs. It is the recognition not only of 

the criticality of maintaining flows, but also that virtually all countries have a stake in 

proper functioning that prompted U.S. Navy strategists to adopt defense of the system 

as the strategic approach upon which to base its strategy.

As a broad geopolitical strategic approach, defense of the system shares one characteristic with its continental and maritime siblings; it is a continuous process that spans peace 

and war. Additionally, reflecting the fusion of economics, politics and geography as the 

other two do, defense of the system can transcend the policies of individual administrations or regimes and characterize the long-term strategic vector of a nation.

On the other hand, there are some fundamental differences that lead to its potential 

utility in making mutual strategic reassurance possible between the United States/China. The first difference is that whereas both the continental and maritime approaches 

are inherently exclusionary, defense of the system is inherently inclusive. As one example, maritime security is critical for defense of the system (far less critical to the other 

two), and this task is so large and so diffuse in its conduct that no navy, regardless of its 

power, can do it alone. Therefore, the broadest possible maritime cooperation is needed. 
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sions are an inherent part of system defense and are not the sole provinces of big n

or structured alliances. Every navy, regardless of size or makeup, has an importan

to play in systemic maritime security. Similarly, the process of cooperation has sh

from formal and hierarchal alliance structures that have high cost of entry to loos

laborative networks that anyone can join for the cost of a laptop and cell phone.

The second key difference between system defense and the other two approaches i

it is not a zero-sum game. The continental and maritime approaches are ways of li

ing and neutralizing competitive powers. Gains by one power almost always come 

the perceived expense of the other. In the system defense approach, defending the 

is a collective good that benefits not only the major powers but all the nations that 

functioning members of the system. While the adoption of the system defense app

does not eradicate competition it would at least reduce one endemic source of pote

conflict—an inherently adversarial strategic planning structure.

Sharing an Approach—Is It Feasible?

At first glance, defense of the system may appear to be artificial and idealistic. Wh

it may have value in selling maritime security cooperation to smaller nations, as a 

for strategic planning for those nations that have the wherewithal to engage in pow

politics, it is easily seen as invoking too many risks. Its other liability is that it is ne

and it was first articulated by Americans. All of these factors can make the approa

object of suspicion to security planners who are inherently conservative and an ob

of skepticism and derision to pundits who are wedded to a more traditional view o

the world. All of these and other factors would seem to make mutual adoption of t

approach by the United States and China a pipe dream. However, closer examinat

the changed geopolitical realities of the modern world reveals some fundamental 

lems with pursuing either continental or maritime approaches, problems that may 

system defense a more practical and attractive alternative.

Any nation that adopts the continental approach faces the inherent problem of lim

and when to stop. In ancient times, the quest for local security exploded into empi

building. Success, as Brantly Womack states, is a poor teacher of limits.15 If a conti

power is successful in ringing itself with buffers, how does it then protect the bu

fers? In the case of ancient Rome, buffers were added to buffers until it ruled the k

world. Neither Napoleon nor Hitler could abide the idea of a powerful Russia lurk

to the East and were impelled to invade. History aside, even if a continental powe

elects to stop and adopt a status quo stance, it faces the problem of dynamism. Th

world outside is constantly changing, and new political and religious movements 
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geopolitical barriers.

The problem of barriers extends down to the means of erecting and maintaining them, 

particularly at sea. Throughout the history of naval warfare, the offense has trumped 

the defense,16 and the advent of anti-ship missiles only continues this trend. Thus any 

power that sought to keep other navies out of a large area of bordering ocean would have 

a very difficult time of it. This is especially true in the undersea realm, as the oceans 

are anything but transparent even with today’s technology. The advent of unmanned 

systems and nanotechnology will make the problem that much harder. In the realm of 

cyberspace, although China has attempted to erect electronic barriers to information 

flow that are analogues to physical barriers, it is not clear whether these will be viable 

over the long run. Just as historic barriers, whether castles, forts or the Maginot Line, 

all succumbed to the technology of offense and maneuver, modern barriers and strong 

points, geopolitical or otherwise, are likely to suffer the same fate. In a systemic world, 

systemic style defenses are needed.

A third difficulty that attends the continental approach is that it inevitably produces 

conflict between the major power and its neighbors. It was one thing for the United 

States, in its continental phase, to adopt a declaratory Monroe Doctrine that was essentially underpinned by the Royal Navy, and which was motivated more by the desire to 

protect fledgling democracies in Latin America than it was by United States’ desire for 

hegemony. It was quite another thing for the Soviet Union to subvert the Eastern European democracies after World War II and turn them into communist buffer states. The 

recent Russian incursion into Georgia indicates the continental approach is anything 

but dead. China has a somewhat different set of problems and has tried to take a more 

sophisticated and peaceful approach to buffer building, but has nonetheless run into 

conflict with its neighbors and with the United States. China’s territorial claims in the 

South China Sea and East China Sea have ignited disputes with Japan, the Philippines, 

Vietnam and others. Her policies with respect to her asserted rights in the Exclusive 

Economic Zone (EEZ) have generated naval incidents with United States forces. More 

broadly, China’s sheer economic growth coupled with her need to improve regional 

economic infrastructure to support that growth has increased the sense of exposure 

and vulnerability among neighboring nations. The danger of this for China is that they 

could be driven into the arms of a United States that felt impelled to balance or encircle 

her using a maritime approach.

The laundry list of modern geopolitical difficulties facing a continental power notwithstanding, the maritime approach is similarly burdened. To begin with, just as continentalist barriers promised to be increasingly porous in various ways, so has the insularity 

upon which the maritime approach depends become a victim of modern conditions, as 
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ing weapons of mass destruction around by sea is all too conceivable. In the afterm

of 9/11, the Bush Administration was stampeded into a continental approach—loo

to neutralize threats at their origin and establish buffers—by invading Afghanista

and Iraq. At the time there was no admiral who could assure them, as Lord St. Vin

assured a jumpy British Parliament in 1801, that although the enemy might come, 

would not come by sea. Maritime security is rapidly improving today, but it will n

produce the kind of secure insularity that was possible in the days of fleets and co

mand of the sea.

Another bedrock of the maritime approach is allies. Historically, a common threa

drove nations into alliances, even great powers that would otherwise be competito

Smaller nations jumped on the bandwagon. The fact that the expansionist contine

powers also had an alternate economic system helped draw clear lines between go

evil for most nations. Today, in a systemic world the lines are anything but clear. M

nations are part of the global economic system, and even nations that have author

ian regimes such as China do not espouse militant and hostile ideologies as did th

Soviet Union. This makes it hard for a maritime approach to gain strategic purcha

the case of China specifically, her contributions to the global system, and specifica

the economic well-being of the United States, are enormous. There would be mass

economic costs to any attempt at encirclement and isolation.

As with the continental approach, there are naval obstacles to adopting the mariti

proach. An inherent part of encirclement is the interdiction of merchant shipping

to the onset of globalization, seaborne commerce was generally carried in ships fly

the flag of the country that owned the cargo, making interdiction and commerce 

ing relatively straightforward. Today’s situation is much different. Flags of conven

rule the waves, the nationality of crews and masters is likely to be different than th

the flag, and who actually owns the ship and cargo is murky at best. Moreover, the 

cargoes of crude carriers are often on the global oil spot market and could change 

several times en-route. Container shipping has gone to a hub and spoke system m

that any particular ship’s cargo is likely to be very multi-national. For these and va

other naval warfare reasons, chasing enemy commerce from the seas a la Alfred T

Mahan’s theory, if not totally infeasible, is at least a lot more complicated.

The multiplicity of modern difficulties that attend either of the traditional strateg

approaches may make strategists at least listen to arguments for adopting defense 

system. It is not without its own set of risks and difficulties, but they are different 

those previously mentioned and may be more tolerable.
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approach. No single nation can pull it off alone, if for no other reason than being part of 

the global system means a nation must necessarily sacrifice some elements of sovereignty, especially in the economic sphere. In the maritime arena, maritime security 

requires a globally cooperative effort. The oceans are simply too large for one navy, no 

matter how powerful, to police them adequately. Other missions such as disaster relief 

and humanitarian assistance have also become collaborative international enterprises. 

The nature of many collaborative projects in defense of the system tends to equalize the 

participants. In the maritime security business, the United States is not the kind of overwhelmingly influential presence it was as the leader of a military alliance in the Cold 

War. It must get used to being a peer, not because its power has declined, but because 

the nature of the business has changed. Nations as diverse as Italy, Singapore and Brazil 

are new key players in the world of maritime security.

Defense of the system is also bedeviled by the absence of a clearly assignable enemy 

(although this is also one of its virtues). Certainly Al Qaeda and other such movements 

are a threat to the system, but they are covert and diffuse and hard to hem in with clean 

definitions and characterizations. War among major powers is a principal threat to 

the system, but war is a condition, and increasingly hard to nail down when it exists 

and when it doesn’t. Are we in a war on terror? Are we already in a cyber-war? Climate 

change, resource scarcity, volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and pandemics 

are all threats to the system—but to what degree, and who can say where or how the 

next one will strike? Planning for defense of the system is not like planning for a war; 

it’s harder. Besides the lack of a clearly definable villain, it requires a systemic strategy 

rather than a traditional contingent strategy. Wars are episodic whereas threats to the 

system are continuous. This takes strategic planners into some intellectual terra incognita that is likely to be very uncomfortable.

Finally, defense of the system puts powerful nations in a form of the prisoners’ dilemma

The prisoners’ dilemma is a game theory situation in which two prisoners are being 

interrogated separately. If both cooperate—that is, each refuses to rat out the other—

the law has no case and they are released. If, however, one talks and the other doesn’t, 

the talker gets lenient treatment and the ratted out person faces hard time. Obviously, 

if the prisoners could communicate during interrogation, they could assure the most 

favorable outcome because each could assure himself the other was not talking. On the 

other hand, if both talked, each would do some hard time but less than if he kept silent. 

If both China and the United States cooperate in adopting the defense of the system 

approach, then the geopolitical risks that accrue to each from the other are substantially mitigated. However, if one decides to abandon it and secretly pursue a continental 

or maritime approach, it might gain at least a temporary strategic advantage over the 
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each knows what the other is planning to do. This is not easy to achieve in the wor

of strategic planning where levels of classification tend to be high. On the other ha

the first step has already been taken by the United States with the publication of C

in which it not only declares that defense of the system is an organizing principle, 

also refrains from naming China as a specific threat. If China reciprocated with so

kind of analogous unclassified strategic document, then at least both nations wou

have made public declarations of the new approach to which the world could hold 

accountable. The most recent Chinese national defense white paper does not appe

make any progress in this direction.17

If we were to draw up a game theory matrix of the strategic options of both China 

the United States, we would list the strategic options for both sides and bounce the

together. Key to this analysis is the judgment that a true maritime approach to gra

strategy is not feasible for China regardless of how big a navy she builds. The mari

approach requires allies, and as an authoritarian power, China is not likely to be a

attract them. Similarly, while the United States may persist in an offensive version 

continental approach (new versions of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), it is unli

to revert to isolationism, the defensive form.

Thus China can either follow its current course of continentalism with an expand

maritime capacity, or adopt defense of the system. The United States can continue 

facto offensive continentalist approach, a maritime approach (sometimes describe

offshore balancing) or defense of the system. If we mentally game out the interacti

between each of the options for both sides (specific outcomes or payoffs left to the 

ination of the reader), we would find some potential outcomes more favorable to t

United States and some more favorable to China, with the box containing the outc

generated by both pursuing defense of the system as being most favorable to each 

ther prisoner rats out the other). However, in looking at the matrix of presumed re

as a whole, it appears that there would be a tendency for the United States to rever

defense of the system to a maritime approach as a kind of default response to pers

and aggressive continentalism by China and a tendency for China to revert from s

defense to the continental approach in response to perceived United States encircl

In other words, even if one or the other adopted defense of the system, it would no

sist in this approach if it perceived the other was adopting some other approach—

like a prisoner would quickly start talking to interrogators if he perceived that the 

one was starting to talk. The idea is to move from the most adverse outcome cell t

least worst, which is the one in which both prisoners squeal on the other. The outc

of this cell is conflict and war—expensive to both sides, with the ultimate winner 

being the United States, albeit a banged-up and poorer United States. China migh
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instability would rack it for decades.

Clearly, great powers are going to engage in some form of strategic hedging—that is, 

preparing for the worst case. To invoke the prisoners’ dilemma analogy once more, if 

strategic hedging is interpreted by the other as “talking to the interrogator,” then the 

cycle of mistrust kicks in. The question becomes how prudent and appropriate strategic 

hedging could be kept from being interpreted as “talking.” Clearly, strategic hedging 

for both the United States and China involves the building and maintenance of strong 

navies. This, in and of itself, should not be the cause for alarm. Rather it is how these navies are used that is the indicator of whether a nation is adopting one strategic approach 

or another. A continentalist navy will attempt to erect barriers to keep others as far away 

as possible. A maritime navy will attempt to hem in an opposing navy. The game theory 

outcome box governed by both powers pursuing defense of the system would feature 

each navy welcoming the other into its “turf.” From a hedging point of view, the United 

States must accept China’s right to have a strong navy that can prevent invasion of her 

territory and operate globally in support of legitimate sovereign interests as well as 

system defense requirements. China, reciprocally, must accept the presence of the U.S. 

Navy in East Asian waters in support of existing alliance arrangements and also system 

defense needs. U.S. intelligence gathering and aircraft carrier operations in close proximity to China will inevitably be interpreted as “hemming in” operations, while Chinese 

threats to use missiles against U.S. forces as well as collision incidents send the message that China is establishing keep out zones on the high seas. If defense of the system 

was indeed the strategic approach of both nations, neither of these kinds of operations 

would be needed and the naval tactical geometry of conflict would be avoided.

Declarative maritime policy is a start, but it will be the pattern of actions and policies 

over time that will either build or erode strategic reassurance. The basic difficulty with 

the defense of the system approach in this regard is that since it is necessarily cooperative, actions by the United States, say, to establish collaborative maritime security relationships with East Asian nations could be easily interpreted by China as encirclement.18

Similarly, Chinese persistence in its current position on EEZ rights and exclusions 

would be interpreted by the United States as buffer building. Both countries would have 

to develop confidence-building measures that would indicate a true adherence to the 

approach. One such measure might be to agree that any joint naval exercise conducted 

between the United States and regional third parties would be at least observed, if not 

participated in, by China. China, for its part, would have to adjust its interpretation of 

the UN Law of the Sea provisions concerning the EEZ to match that of the United States 

and most other nations. Neither of these measures would have any significant effect on 

China’s island claims or the status of Taiwan. So long as neither country is intent on 
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open to question whether they would be acceptable to each countrys military lead

ship, and what the reactions to such measures by other nations in the region woul

If the difficulties in adopting defense of the system are significant, so are the pote

benefits. The main one has already been mentioned—it avoids the zero-sum game

system is global, and while not all nations are functioning smoothly as members, 

while globalization has not been a uniform blessing to all peoples, its benefits for t

majority of nations and regions are very real and very great. Living standards arou

the world are higher and growing because of it. The costs to any nation that wishe

secede or to overturn it are much greater than before and may even be lethal. The 

and emerging powers of the world need each other, and the defense of the system 

proach is a way of aligning strategic planning with existing economic realities.

There is another potential benefit for China in adopting the defense of the system 

proach. The historical record shows that other than Rome and the Persian Empire 

for them only partially and for relatively short periods) continental powers have n

with success in developing naval power. The problem has not been so much that s

powers did not develop strong navies (which some did), but that they were not abl

develop effective strategies for using them.19 This is perhaps partially a function of 

nations’ accrued histories. Even where a successful transition from the continenta

the maritime approach has occurred, the United States being the principal examp

it is all too easy for leadership to lose its poise and revert.20 Defense of the system m

represent a strategic “halfway house” that provides context and coherency to a nat

that either does not have the resources or the political will to adopt fully the marit

approach. Moreover, as a kind of “anti-Mahanian” concept, in that it requires neit

strong capital ship fleet nor strings of bases, it allows a kind of gradualist approac

execution. In terms of developing execution strategy, which has been a traditional 

ness of continental powers trying to go to sea, defense of the system is far more tol

of errors since it is a collective and collaborative enterprise and allows for some str

flexibility. As mentioned at the outset of this paper, Canada, the second largest co

in the world in terms of land area, and possessing a relatively small navy, is adopting defense of the system as its approach. It has neither the population nor econom

power to build a big navy, and for most of the past century has been a participant 

maritime strategies of Great Britain and the United States. Adopting the defense o

system as its organizing principle allows Canada to justify the maintenance of a gl

deployable fleet of modest size while not having to function as an accessory to any

else’s foreign policy. Defense of the system allows even tentative initial efforts such 

the Chinese naval deployments for anti-piracy operations in the Persian Gulf to h

strategic coherency and utility.
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Despite the difficulties of pursuing the continental and maritime approaches in this 

day and age, and despite the practical benefits of adopting defense of the system as a 

strategic planning organizing principle, there will be considerable friction to overcome 

in doing so. Influential voices in the United States are already opposing the policy of 

strategic reassurance, and a pundit like Robert Kaplan has recently said,

Each of these states [of East Asia] is seeking to adjust the balance of power in its favor. This is why 

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s rejection of balance-of-power politics as a relic of 

the past is either disingenuous or misguided. There is an arms race going on in Asia, and the United 

States will have to face this reality when it substantially reduces its forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.21

Similar debates are no doubt occurring within the Chinese government. Most fundamentally, shifting to defense of the system requires a change in strategic planning 

culture, something that is likely to be difficult for both the United States and China. An 

additional challenge for the United States is the periodic turnover, not just of administrations but of political philosophy, yawing between liberal and conservative.

Despite cultural inertia and opposition of various kinds there are reasons to think the 

new approach has a fighting chance at adoption. First, it has been embraced by the U.S. 

Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, the three largest and most powerful organizations of their kind in the world. Moreover, the U.S. maritime strategy, signed during 

the Bush Administration, survived the transition to the Obama Administration. The 

widespread international approbation the strategy has received will likely moderate any 

internal bureaucratic influences to make arbitrary changes in order to advance careers 

or make personal marks. Importantly, Canada’s adoption of it could spark a chain 

reaction of adoption by other navies, creating a certain momentum the Chinese would 

notice. While China would certainly not want to be seen jumping on any United States 

inspired bandwagon, the opportunity for putting their own spin on it and its collaborative vice affiliated nature might tip their scale in its favor.

Of course, adoption of this approach by everyone would not eradicate conflict. China 

will still want to assert what she sees as her legitimate rights and claims and to achieve 

recognition and acceptance as a great power whose interests and opinions are respected. 

The United States will continue to promote democracy and human rights, thus worrying and irritating an authoritarian China. However, through its adoption, the geopolitical geometry of conflict would change, and avenues for dispute resolution, previously 

obviated by the interplay of the continental and maritime approaches to grand strategy, 

might become feasible.

Defense of the global system is simply the articulation of an idea—albeit one that reflects the emergent realities on the ground and at sea. Like its traditional counterparts, 
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strategic forest. Being simply an idea is no small thing, though, for as the preambl

the UNESCO Charter states: “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the m

men that the defences of peace must be constructed.”

Notes

1. Robert B. Strassler, ed., The Landmark 

Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the 

Peloponnesian War (New York: Simon and 

Schuster, 1996), p. 16.

2. U.S. Navy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st 

Century Seapower, www.navy.mil/, reprinted 

in Naval War College Review, vol. 61, no. 1 

(Winter 2008).

3. Dean McFadden, “The Navy and Canada’s 

National Interests in This Maritime Century,” 

Canadian Naval Review, vol. 6, no. 1 (Spring 

2010), pp. 4–5.

4. Wang Jisi, welcoming comments at a conference entitled “Peking University–Naval War 

College Dialogue on Maritime Strategy,” 

Beijing, China, March 10–11, 2010.

5. Walter A. McDougall, “Can the United States 

Do Grand Strategy?” Telegram, no. 3 (Philadelphia: Foreign Policy Research Institute, 

2010).

6. Banning Garrett, “The Need for Strategic Reassurance,” Arms Control Today, March 2001, 

www.armscontrol.org/.

7. John B. Steinberg, “Keynote Address,” Center 

for a New American Security, September 14, 

2009, www.state.gov/.

8. See for example Dan Blumenthal and Robert 

Kagan, “Strategic Reassurance That Isn’t,” 

Washington Post, November 10, 2009, www

.aei.org/.

9. Clark Reynolds, Command of the Sea (Malabar, Fla: Robert E. Krieger, 1983), p. 5.

10. Halford J. Mackinder, Britain and the British 

Seas (London: D. Appleton, 1914), p. 12.

11. See for example Liu Huaqing, Liu Huaqing 

huiyilu [Memoirs of Liu Huaqing] (Beijing: 

Liberation Army Press, 2004), chapter 16; Xu 

Qi, “Maritime Geostrategy and the Development of the Chinese Navy in the Early 

Twenty-First Century,” Naval War College Review, vol. 59, no. 4 (Autumn 2006), pp. 47–67; 

and Nan Li, “The Evolution of China’s 

Strategy and Capabilities: From ‘Near 

and ‘Near Seas’ to ‘Far Seas,’” Asian Sec

vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 144–169.

12. Wolfgang Wegener, The Naval Strategy 

World War (Annapolis: Naval Institute 

1989), chapters 1 and 6. While Wegene

knowledges the criticality of maritime 

naval warfare, the analysis stresses the 

sion of the central position outward to 

13. “Jiang Zemin, Zhang Winnian Meet 

Diplomats,” Xinhua, August 28, 1998, 

FBIS-CHI-98-242.

14. Niall Ferguson, The War of the World (

York: Penguin Press, 2006). Chapters 1 

2 delineate the state of the pre-WWI w

including its increasing economic inte

and page 73 assesses the effect on glob

tion of war among major powers.

15. Brantly Womack, “The South China Se

bolic Conflicts, Common Interests,” re

delivered at the U.S. Naval War Colleg

15, 2010.

16. Wayne Hughes, Fleet Tactics and Coast

bat (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute, 20

17. “China’s National Defense in 2010,” In

tion Office of the State Council of the 

Republic of China, March 31, 2011, m

.ndu.edu/.

18. 万佩华 [Wan Peihua], “美印日‘马拉巴

军演耐人寻味” [The U.S., Indian, Jap

‘Malabar 09’ Military Exercise Gives So

Food for Thought], 当代 海军 [Mode

Navy], December 2009, pp. 15–18.

19. Andrew Erickson, Lyle Goldstein, and 

Lord, “China Sets Sail,” American Inter

5, no. 5 (May–June 2010), p. 30.

20. Ibid., p. 34.

21. Robert D. Kaplan, “The Geography of 

Power,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 3, no. 89 (M

June 2010), p. 38.
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PART TWO

Naval Aviation
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The U.S. Navy’s Transition to Jets

Definition of an optimist: a naval aviator with a savings account.

QUIP POPULAR IN NAVAL AVIA

As we approach 2011, the centennial year of aviation in the U.S. Navy, the jet engin

jet-powered aircraft have become ubiquitous. Today millions travel safely in jet air

ers, and the military jet fighter is almost a cultural icon. However, in the late 1930

prospect for powering aircraft with anything but piston engines seemed remote, e

to a few visionary engineers in Great Brit ain and Germany. In the early 1940s thei

resulted in the first flights of jet-powered aircraft, but due to the low thrust of thei

engines these aircraft were outclassed by existing piston-engine fighters. Addition

advances in engine design in Germany resulted in the fielding of the Me-262 Swal

fighter, which, although not as maneuverable as the American P-51 Mustang or ot

Allied fighters, had a top speed 100 mph faster, due to its jet engines and swept wi

giving it significant operational advantages. After the war, aeronautical engineers 

all the Allied nations studied German technical advances and worked to incorpor

them into their new generations of fighters. 

When the U.S. Navy introduced its first operational jet, the McDonnell F1H Phan

in 1947, it began a transition phase that turned out to be extended and very costly 

terms of aircrew lives and airplanes lost. The higher speeds and altitudes of jets pr

sented a new set of problems to the aircraft designers and manufacturers, as well a

the Navy squadrons that operated them. In 1946, nobody knew that a high-perfor

jet fighter needed such appurtenances as a stabilator (instead of an elevator); irrev

ible, hydraulic flight controls with artificial feel; redundant hydraulic systems; pit

yaw stability augmentation; ejection seats; air conditioning; and others.1

Learning 

lessons required a trial-and-error process that resulted in the fielding and rapid ob

lescence of a series of different jets, each reflecting solutions to the defects discove

earlier models.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Naval War College Review, Spring 2010, Vol. 63, No. 2
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It is central to the story presented in this article to consider how long this “transition” 

to jets lasted. Some histories of naval aviation regard the transition to jets to be substantially complete with the phasing out of the last propeller-driven fighter, the F4U Corsair

while others maintain that the transition lasted until the introduction of the F-8 Crusader and F-4 Phantom II—the first Navy carrier-based fighters that were the equals of 

their land-based counterparts. Another way of looking at it is through the lens of safety: 

one might declare the transition to have been complete when the Navy aviation accident 

rate became comparable to that of the U.S. Air Force. The logic behind this reasoning is 

that whereas a multitude of factors—technical, organizational, and cultural—constitute 

the capability to operate swept-wing jets, the mishap rate offers an overall indicator of 

how successful an organization is in adopting a new technology. Using this criterion, the 

Navy’s transition process lasted until the late 1980s—which was, not coincidentally, the 

era in which the F/A-18 arrived in the fleet in numbers. This article argues that tactical 

jet aircraft design and technology presented Navy aircrews, maintenance personnel, and 

leaders with several major challenges that were in fact not substantially overcome until 

the introduction of the F/A-18 Hornet in 1983. These challenges included such technical problems as engine reliability and response times, swept-wing flight characteristics, 

and man/machine interface issues. The Air Force also encountered these challenges, but 

the Navy’s operating environment and, indeed, its organizational culture kept it from 

achieving a fully successful transition until well after the Air Force did.

Between 1949, the year jets started showing up in the fleet in numbers, and 1988, the 

year their combined mishap rate finally got down to Air Force levels, the Navy and 

Marine Corps lost almost twelve thousand airplanes of all types (helicopters, trainers, 

and patrol planes, in addition to jets) and over 8,500 aircrew, in no small part as a result 

F8U-2N Crusader.

U.S. Navy
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of these issues. Perhaps the statistics for the F-8 Crusader, a supersonic fighter des

by Vought in the late 1950s, provide a good illustration of the problem. The F-8 w

always known as a difficult airplane to master. In all, 1,261 Crusaders were built. B

the time it was withdrawn from the fleet, 1,106 had been involved in mishaps. On

handful of them were lost to enemy fire in Vietnam.2

 While the F-8 statistics migh

been worse than those for most other models, they make the magnitude of the pro

clear: whether from engine failure, pilot error, weather, or bad luck, the vast ma jor

(88 percent!) of Crusaders ever built ended up as smoking holes in the ground, spl

in the water, or fireballs hurtling across a flight deck. This was naval aviation from 

1947 through about 1988. Today, the accident rate is nor mally one or less per hund

thousand hours of flight time, making mishaps an unusual occurrence. This is in 

contrast to the landmark year of 1954, when naval aviation (that is, Navy and Mar

combined) lost 776 aircraft and 535 crew, for an accident rate well above fifty per h

dred thousand flight hours—and the rate for carrier-based tactical aviation was m

higher than that.

During this extended transition period, naval aviation participated in three major 

and numerous crises, and, of course, many planes and crews were lost to enemy fi

However, the vast majority of aircraft losses over this period were due to mishaps, 

of which were associated with the technical and or ganizational problems just men

tioned. In other words, the airplanes that populated the flight decks of aircraft car

F/A-18 Hornet. 

U.S. Navy 
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were, with few exceptions, hard to fly and maintain and would kill the unwary crew. 

Many men and a few women gave their lives trying to operate these machines in the 

challenging environment of the sea. This history is meant to recognize their sacrifice 

and honor their service.

The Operational Imperative

U.S. naval aviation ended World War II at the pinnacle of success; its propeller-driven 

aircraft were the best in the world, and the requirements of carrier suit ability did not 

compromise their performance versus that of land-based fighters. By the early 1940s the 

Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics had received word of jet engine developments in Germany 

and Great Britain and had commissioned Westinghouse and Allis Chalmers to build 

American versions. However, the high fuel consumption, low power at takeoff, and poor 

reliability of early engines did not make them attractive for use in carrier-borne planes. 

Moreover, when details of German aerodynamic advances, specifically the swept wing, 

became known, Navy planners felt that high landing speeds and adverse handling characteristics would make aircraft equipped with them unsuitable for carrier use.

On the other hand, the Navy was faced with a new opponent, the Soviet Union, that had 

also capitalized on captured German knowledge. If the Soviets were to build a highspeed jet bomber, carriers might be defenseless if they could not launch high-speed 

interceptors from their decks. As the Cold War came into being, this knowledge pressurized the development of jet aircraft, adding to the rapidity with which it took place 

but also imposing brutal material and human costs.

An additional source of pressure was the new U.S. Air Force, whose leadership in the 

postwar environment believed that the combination of the atomic bomb and the ultralong-range bomber rendered naval aviation irrelevant. The Navy had long regarded 

strikes against land targets to be a fundamental mission of its own air arm, and the 

prospect of being sidelined in the business of nuclear at tack seemed to threaten the 

very existence of naval aviation. In April 1949 the secretary of defense, Louis Johnson, 

canceled the construction of USS United States, a very large aircraft carrier that had 

been designed to support a new gen eration of big Navy jet bombers capable of carrying 

the large and heavy nuclear weapons of the day. This cancellation, along with Air Force 

efforts to push the huge B-36 bomber program at the expense of the other services, 

produced in October 1949 an incident that has been termed the “Revolt of the Admirals.” Ad miral Arthur Radford and other aviation flag officers, as well as the Chief of 

Na val Operations (CNO), Admiral Louis Denfeld, testified before Congress arguing 

the need for an atomic delivery capability for naval aviation and alleging the deficiencies of the B-36—in direct contravention of the secretary of de fense’s wishes. Although 
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convinced of the Navys utility in strike warfare to authorize in 1951 the construct

of USS Forrestal, the first of the “supercarriers” that could adequately handle the h

fast jets. However, the Navy still needed a jet to perform the mission of nuclear str

and development pressures continued.

The early Cold War operational environment was challenging for naval avia tion, t

the least. Knowing that the Soviet Union was working on jet fighters and jet bomb

that could carry nuclear weapons and drop them on naval for mations, the Navy n

to develop fighter/interceptor aircraft that could de fend the carrier and its escorts 

from attack while sailing into position to launch its own strike, and also strike air

that had enough range to hit meaningful targets and enough speed to survive enem

defenses. These general require ments propelled naval aviation development effort

the late 1940s through the 1970s. During this period, the actual employment of na

aviation in two wars—Korea and Vietnam, as well as later in Desert Storm—d

manded of Navy jets the flexibility to conduct conventional bomb delivery, close a

sup port, and dogfighting. Thus carrier jets morphed over time to designs that wer

more general in purpose, resulting ultimately in the F/A-18 Hornet, an aircraft tha

true strike-fighter.

Thus there was no opportunity for naval aviation to rest on its laurels after World 

War II. In combination with a massive postwar demobilization, it had to forge ahe

with a program to adopt the new engine and aerodynamic technol ogy. It attempte

reduce strategic risk, by letting multiple contracts to differ ent aircraft companies 

hopes that at least one of the designs would be viable. On the other hand, it accept

high degree of operational risk, by ordering se ries production of various models b

flight-testing was complete. The net effect of this strategy was that between 1945 a

1959 twenty-two Navy fighters made their first flights, whereas over the following 

six years only five did so.3

 Some of the designs spawned during the early period, su

the F2H Ban shee, were useful machines and had lengthy service lives, while other

the F7U Cutlass and F-11 Tiger, were disappointments and saw only brief service.

As mentioned previously, the first years of the jet era in the Navy were disas trous 

terms of aircraft and crews lost, but the Navy had little choice but to con tinue send

jets to sea. The gas-guzzling nature of jets made getting them back aboard the car

in a timely manner a matter of utmost urgency and increased the pressure on carr

captains, admirals, and their staffs to adapt to an opera tional tempo very differen

what had been the norm. In 1950, a future vice admiral, Gerald Miller, was on a ca

group staff operating F9F-2 Panthers in Korea. On one occasion the group staff m

to swap sixty-four Panthers from an outgoing carrier to one just coming into the t

The weather was bad at airfields ashore, and heavy seas were causing the flight de
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endurance of the new jet-powered aircraft. Millers description of what happened next 

il lustrates the consequences of learning to operate jets in a wartime environment:

We had a lot of these fighters in the air. Then we tried to bring them down and it was a tough job of 

getting them on board. They were running out of fuel and there was no base on the beach to send 

them to. We had to get them back on board those two carriers, and we broke up those planes in 

some numbers.

It was awful. It was so bad, I can still remember the admiral walking over to the op posite side of the 

bridge, putting his head down on his hands and shaking. It was so bad he couldn’t even get mad. It 

was a horrible mess. Well, that was all because of the size of the ship, the nature of the airplanes and 

straight deck operations. We started from debacles of that kind to get something better. 

Considering the upheaval in the navy caused by demobilization and the introduction of new technologies, it’s amazing that we kept together as much as we did. . . . We worried, but we did proceed 

with the jet program.4

At the same time that naval aviators were attempting to master the new jet air craft, they 

were also grappling with two new missions that increased the degree of difficulty even 

more: night or all-weather operations, and nuclear weapons delivery. In a sense, these 

two missions were connected, in that it was felt that when the call came, weather or 

darkness must not be allowed to stand in the way of getting the nuclear weapon to its 

target. These two missions exerted consider able pressure on aircraft design and on the 

risks naval aviation was willing to en dure to put these capabilities to sea. Coupled with 

the hazards inherent in jet-powered aviation in those years, they significantly contributed to the loss of aircraft. Gerald O’Rourke, USN (Ret.), describes the environment in 

Composite Squadron Four (VC-4, based at Naval Air Station Atlantic City, New Jersey), 

the Navy’s East Coast night/all-weather fighter squadron in the early 1950s: 

F9F-2 Panther.

Courtesy National Naval Aviation Museum
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frequent. In the night carrier operations of those days, accidents were so frequent that they w

considered commonplace and unexceptional. Whenever a det [detachment of four to six airc

sent out on a carrier] departed, the aircraft they flew off were more or less written off. No on

expected that all of them would ever come back to Atlantic City. . . . Unfortunately, the same 

tivism tended to extend to the pilots as well, whose safe return wasn’t much better than the a

Between pilots lost, the pilots maimed, and the pilots who decided to throw in their wings, p

few dets ever returned with the same resources they took with them.5

Naval Aviation Culture and the Transition to Jets

In order to understand the catastrophic price the Navy paid in its march to operat

swept-wing jets from aircraft carriers, we must look at the organizational culture 

which this new technology was grafted. After all, the majority of the mishaps that 

curred were due to aircrew errors of some sort, whether precipi tated or exacerbate

design problems or the result of gross error, negligence, or irresponsibility not con

nected with design issues.

Naval aviators always viewed themselves as daredevils. The difficulties of taking o

from and landing on ships were unequaled in the land aviation domain, and nava

aviators therefore considered themselves exceptionally skilled—and expendable. T

accident rate (if not the sheer number of mishaps) in naval aviation from its incept

World War II was hardly less than the awful rates experienced in the early jet era. 

aviators always regarded themselves as a different breed from their surface-ship br

ren, but for all that they shared, and still do, the Navy’s culture of independence a

self-reliance. The simplicity and relative inexpensiveness of early naval aircraft all

this culture to thrive; flight instruction was personal, and aviators had few detaile

procedures or rules to follow in mastering their aircraft. “Seat of the pants” flying 

individ uality in technique were the orders of the day. Since piston-engine aircraft 

erated essentially in the same way and roughly at the same speeds, especially when 

ing, and since they rarely flew at night or in bad weather, pilots could transition b

aircraft easily and informally. Mr. Richard “Chick” Eldridge, a member of the Nav

Safety Center staff for several decades, remembers his Navy flight training in 1943

“To my recollection, there was little emphasis on aviation safety. What safety infor

tion was imparted to the fledgling aviator came from the primary instructors. Les

learned usually came in the form of ‘gems of instructor wisdom.’ You were simply 

to fly certain maneuvers in a specific way or wind up as a statistic.” 6

The first thing to change was the technology. Culture change lagged by more than 

decade, and the result was a virtual bloodbath. In addition to the specific challeng

flying jets must be added greatly increased speeds. Things happen much faster in 

and a different mind-set and discipline are called for to avoid disaster. Pilots who 
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ficulty adjusting to jet speeds than those who were introduced to jets early. The author 

observed this during the Navy’s transition from the piston-engine S-2 Tracker carrier 

antisubmarine aircraft to the jet-powered S-3 Viking. The more senior pilots seemed 

to have the most difficulty, and indeed a number of them either quit, had accidents, or 

failed to pass flight checks. This was a serious issue as well for the fleet introduction of 

the A-3 Skywarrior. Initially, in addition to carrier pilots, the Navy brought into the A-3 

program senior aviators from the land-based patrol community. A series of accidents 

and difficulties involving former patrol pilots prompted the commander of the Sixth 

Fleet to write a letter to the CNO recommending that only carrier-trained pilots be assigned to A-3 squadrons.7

In the early years of the jet transition, naval aviation remained wedded to its individualistic culture. Structured programs of training, detailed reference manuals, and disciplined evaluations of pilot performance did not exist in any coherent way across naval 

aviation. But jets, with their higher speeds, challeng ing handling characteristics, and 

ever more complex systems, required just that. The horrible accident rates eventually 

drove the Navy to do something. Mean while, the Air Force, which had been suffering 

an increase in mishaps also, formed a Flight Safety Directorate, with 525 personnel, and 

undertook to im pose discipline on the aviation corps by punishing crews after mishaps 

when fault and culpability could be assigned. The Navy’s first effort at a flight-safety 

agency was puny by comparison, with only twenty-five personnel. However, in 1953 

a war hero, Captain James F. “Jimmy” Flatley, wrote a highly critical and influential 

A-3 Skywarrior.

Courtesy National Naval Aviation Museum
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that in turn went far to change the culture.

 Along with them, a more structured p

gram of flight training was introduced, eventually culminating in the establishme

of replacement training squadrons that provided in tensive and detailed instructio

newly “winged” aviators in the aircraft they would fly in the fleet. These squadron

would also become centers of flight and maintenance evaluation of fleet squadron

based with them. A variety of other measures also served to professionalize and d

pline the naval aviation culture, including formal training for squadron safety off

improved accident inves tigation techniques, specially trained medical personnel (

“flight surgeons”), the publication of a safety magazine to share stories of accident

near misses, and top-down leadership that countered the laissez-faire cultural her

However the “ready room” culture was resistant to change. Thus the authors of a 

1961 Naval Aviation News article felt compelled to say, “Some people view the idea 

everyone in Naval Aviation doing everything ‘the one best way’ with some misgiv

They fear that general use of standardized procedures, while it may reduce the acc

rate, will result in a reduction of a pilot’s ability to ‘think on his feet’ and deal flex

with emergencies and combat situations. Experience in other fields has proved tha

unfounded.” 9

 A major element of the resistance to change was the fact that adapta

to the new technology had a value content—that is, it made irrelevant certain skill 

that had been associated with being a “good” aviator. The issue was not so much t

difficulty of learning new skills as reluctance to abandon old ones that were assoc

with professional virtue. The naval aviation culture that had grown up from 1911 

1947 was intense, parochial, and value-centric. Moreover, likely because of the acr

nious relationship that developed between the two services in the late 1940s, there 

reluctance to view anything the Air Force did as appropriate for naval aviation.

The Navy has always placed considerable responsibility and authority in the hand

the individual officer. An imperative of war at sea, this delegated style of comman

control has both enhanced and afflicted U.S. naval aviation. Throughout its histor

standing decision making by relatively junior officers has made the difference in b

such as when, during the battle of Midway, Lieutenant Commander Wade McClus

decided, in the air, to take his strike group in the direction a Japanese destroyer w

headed and thus found the en emy aircraft carriers. Faced in the 1940s and ’50s wi

technology that de manded new types of procedural discipline and centralized ma

ment, the culture was slow to adapt, and many naval aviators lost their lives as a re

Finding the Right Combination of Ingredients

The development of aviation technology between the Wright brothers’ first flight 

1947 was amazingly fast. In just forty-five years aviation progressed from machine
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rapid development meant that individual models of combat aircraft became obsolete 

fairly quickly. This had been the case prior to and during World War II, and it was 

to be the case over the early years of jet transition in the Navy. The initial echelon of 

straight-wing jets had an operational life span in the fleet of only a few years, although 

some of them had longer, second lives in the reserves or specialized shore-based uses, 

such as in training commands. In the late 1940s and the early ’50s, as whole squadrons 

transitioned from propeller airplanes to jets, pilots who had developed habits molded 

to straight-wing propeller planes that were slower, lighter, and simpler and burned fuel 

more slowly were put into fast, gas-guzzling jets. It was a lethal combination.

As the centennial of naval aviation approaches, it is interesting to observe that it has 

been jet powered for over half of its history. The transition was long and brutally expensive in terms of life and aircraft. However, it was, by any measure, a success. Throughout 

the Cold War and a series of hot wars—Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and others—

naval aviation has been able to provide effective tactical airpower from the sea. Its ability to do this despite a long and difficult process of learning how to operate jet aircraft at 

sea is a tribute to the brilliance of various aircraft designers, the ingenuity of countless 

“airdales,” the sailors who struggled to keep those complex and touchy machines flying, 

and the brav ery (and perhaps foolhardiness) of the crews who would climb into jets that 

were hard to fly and lacked reliability and in those aircraft perform missions that took 

them to the edge of what man and machine could do.

Notes

This article is adapted from a paper delivered 

at the U.S. Naval Academy’s 2009 Naval History 

Symposium, held at Annapolis, Maryland, 10–11 

September 2009. It appears in different form in the 

proceedings of that conference, One Hundred Years 

of U.S. Navy Air Power, edited by Douglas V. Smith 

(Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2010).

1. Tommy H. Thomason, U.S. Naval Air Superiority: Development of Shipborne Jet Fighters 

1943–1962 (North Branch, Minn.: Specialty, 

2007), p. 123. 

2. Naval Safety Center aviation safety database. 

Unless otherwise cited, all mishap statistics 

are from this source.

3. Thomason, U.S. Naval Air Superiority, p. 265.

4. Gerald E. Miller, “Transition to the Jet Age,” 

in Into the Jet Age: Conflict and Change in 

Na val Aviation 1945–1975—an Oral History, 

ed. E. T. Wooldridge (Annapolis, Md.: Naval 

Institute Press, 1995), pp. 12–13.

5. Gerald O’Rourke, “We Get Ours at Night,” in 

Into the Jet Age, ed. Wooldridge, pp. 31–32.

6. Richard A. “Chick” Eldridge, “A Look Back: 

Forty Years of Reminiscing,” U.S. Naval Safety 

Center, safetycenter.navy.mil/media/approach/

theydidwhat/eldridge.htm.

7. Jerry Miller, Nuclear Weapons and Aircraft 

Carriers (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2001), p. 104.

8. Steve Ewing, Reaper Leader (Annapolis, Md.: 

Naval Institute Press, 2002), pp. 198–99.

9. “The One Best Way: New Standards for Naval 

Air,” Naval Aviation News (August 1961), p. 6, 

available at www.history.navy.mil/.
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The Future of Aircraft Carriers 

The aircraft carrier has been around in various forms since the First World War. I

emergence as the key denominator of naval power is legendary, and its continuing 

tige in this role is even yet spawning building programs among established and gr

navies. The aircraft carrier is the largest and most complex of all warships and in 

cases the most expensive. In addition to the cost of the ship itself, that of the emba

air wing must be considered, not to mention the extensive logistics and training in

structure needed to keep carriers operating and useful. A recent Naval Postgradua

School study has shown that approximately 46 percent of the Navy’s personnel—o

enlisted, and civilian—are assigned to positions either on or supporting its carrier

For these and other reasons, there has been almost constant debate over the past n

years within navies, between navies and air forces, and within governments over t

advisability of investing in carriers. As the prospects for major cutbacks in defens

spending loom, the debate will again heat up. Both proponents and opponents of c

ers have refined their arguments over the past nine decades, but these are now sta

to wear thin as the geopolitical environment and the technology of war have chan

Also, the arguments both for and against have tended toward the theological, with 

tacit or unacknowledged assumptions underpinning the argumentative maneuver

an attempt to improve the quality of the coming debates, this article will examine 

prospects for future utility of the ship type, including that of the embarked air win

from a different angle. Instead of making a holistic judgment on the future utility 

aircraft carriers, it will focus on the ways they have been, are, or could be used. W

the bounds of security classification, it will also attempt to sort out the risk factors 

attend their use. Others may then proceed to decide whether a continued investm

them is justified.

In order even to begin to analyze the future of aircraft carriers, a definition of the 

type is warranted. It is easy to accept that the imposing, nuclear-powered Nimitz-c

CHAPTER EIGHT

Naval War College Review, Autumn 2011, Vol. 64, No. 4
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mini–air forces of sixty to eighty tactical jets and support aircraft. Similarly, the French 

Charles de Gaulle and the Brazilian São Paulo are clearly aircraft carriers, if significantly smaller. The former Russian Varyag, now being refurbished by the Chinese, is also 

clearly an aircraft carrier, meant as it is to handle fixed-wing jets as well as helicopters. 

There are a number of similar ships around the world that are meant to support operations of short-takeoff/vertical-landing (STOVL) jets. However, the definition becomes 

less clear in the case of ships that are capable of supporting STOVL jets but whose stated 

purpose is either amphibious assault (the U.S. Wasp and Tarawa classes, for example) 

or antisubmarine warfare (the Japanese Hyuga-class “destroyers,” which have ship-long 

flight decks).2

 Principally, though these latter ships are designed to operate helicopters, 

they could have—and they have in fact—operated STOVLs. However, despite their ability to operate STOVL jets, these ships cannot be considered true aircraft carriers, since, 

as will be seen, they cannot adequately perform the doctrinal roles that aircraft carriers 

have historically fulfilled.

A Short Doctrinal History of Aircraft Carriers

Most histories of aircraft carriers focus on the progressive development of their physical 

characteristics and their performance in battle. However, in order to understand the 

issues that will influence their future, it is necessary to understand how the doctrinal 

roles of aircraft carriers have evolved. Since navies in general and the U.S. Navy in particular do not publish doctrine along these lines, it is necessary to infer it from the way 

the carriers have been used.

The normal way to discuss doctrinal roles of aircraft carriers is in terms of “sea control” 

and “power projection”—this terminology being congruent with the way the U.S. Navy 

describes its strategic missions. However, these terms are too broad and indiscriminate to allow clear analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of aircraft carriers. Power 

projection could mean either one-time strikes or sustained, “level of effort” operations 

to prosecute air campaigns against enemy infrastructure or in support of ground forces 

with interdiction and close air support. However, it makes a critical difference whether 

operations against land require a carrier to constrain its movements or not. Thus terms 

like “power projection” and “strike,” and even “sea control,” are too broad to be useful 

in this discussion. For the purpose of this article, they are subsumed, as appropriate, 

within the roles described below.

The six doctrinal roles aircraft carriers have performed are presented below in roughly 

the order they were adopted.
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conceived of as platforms whose aircraft would be used to locate the enemy fleet b

it broke the horizon so that one’s own battle line could maneuver to engage at best 

advantage. Once the battle lines were engaged within visual range, aircraft would 

the fall of shot, adjusting the fire of major-caliber guns more quickly and accurate

at longer ranges than could observers high in the battleships’ masts. In this role, th

rier would operate with its own fleet’s battle line interposed between it and the en

without substantial defense of its own, the carrier could not be subjected to risk. It

wing would consist almost solely of scout planes, which was appropriate in view o

limited performance of the aircraft of the day. However, it did not take long to rea

that the advantages of aircraft scouting and shot spotting were so great that an op

fleet would obtain its own carriers and embark on them fighters to shoot down sc

Thus carriers quickly became homes to fighter aircraft that could fight for and wi

superiority over the enemy fleet so that the scouts could do their mission. 

Cavalry. In some of the fleet battle experiments in the 1930s and throughout mo

of World War II, the carriers took on the mission of conducting hit-and-run raids

the most famous of which was the Doolittle raid on Tokyo in early 1942.3

 Operatin

in a manner not unlike the cavalry of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forres

the Civil War, the fast carriers depended on speed and stealth to sneak into waters 

which the Japanese fleet held sway in order to attack bases and otherwise disrupt 

logistical operations. In this role, the carriers could not risk getting into a decisive 

engagement, any more than a Civil War cavalry brigade could risk becoming snar

dismounted fight with infantry.

Capital Ship. A “capital ship,” rightly understood, is a ship type that can defeat an

other ship type. In the days of sail and dreadnoughts, it was the type of ship havin

the most and biggest guns. It is the ship type around which fleet doctrine and flee

architecture are established. The question is what kind of killing weapon the capit

ship supports. In the early 1920s, as naval aviation was gestating, it became clear f

war games at the U.S. Naval War College that if aircraft performance kept increa

ing, a coordinated attack by carrier aircraft with armor-piercing bombs could sin

battleship before it ever got in range of one’s own fleet. This notion was validated 

the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and by the sinking of two British dreadnoug

by Japanese land-based aircraft. Subsequently, the great carrier battles of the Pac

determined the outcome of the war as much as great sailing-ship battles had those 

of earlier conflicts. Used as capital ships, the acceptable risk profile for aircraft car

ers changes substantially—they become consumables, just like any other capital sh

However, in subjecting themselves to risk they must be able to inflict such harm o
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an acceptable level of risk to itself. Since the battle of Leyte Gulf, carriers have not been 

used in this role.

When nations commit their capital ships to a battle, it is generally for command of the 

sea, having achieved which, by virtue of defeating and seriously weakening the opponent’s main fleet, a force may use the seas for its own strategic purposes. Fighting 

for sea control in specific instances may still be necessary. The carrier battles of World 

War II were generally aimed at securing command of the sea; however, the carriers still 

had to function as local sea-control platforms, a role in which they were very effective. 

However, it should be noted that as the American fleet approached the Japanese home 

islands, threats from land-based defenses required ever greater concentrations of carriers to secure sufficient control of the sea to allow amphibious operations to take place.

Nuclear-Strike Platform. The advent of nuclear weapons caused significant turmoil 

within the U.S. military establishment. The newly independent Air Force argued that its 

intercontinental nuclear bombers made aircraft carriers obsolete. The Navy, for its part, 

sought to defend the carrier force by making it a part of the nation’s nuclear war plans 

and deterrent posture. As a nuclear delivery platform, the carrier would operate a bit 

as it did in the cavalry role, depending on speed and stealth to reach a point at which it 

could launch its nuclear bombers. After that launch, it would attempt to survive as best 

it could, either to get back to the United States or to be ready for additional tasking. The 

point is that in this role, just as in the cavalry and capital-ship roles, its mode of operation was to deliver a pulse of power and then scoot—standing and fighting was a recipe 

for destruction. Keeping risk acceptable was a function of the ability to stay unlocated 

and untargeted. The ballistic-missile nuclear submarine replaced the aircraft carrier 

in this role because the risk of it being found before it could fire its missiles was all but 

eliminated.

Airfield at Sea. Three traditional rules govern how a fleet should be employed:

1. Keep the fleet concentrated.

2. Do not tie a mobile fleet to a piece of ground.

3. Do not become decisively engaged with land forces unless decisively superior.

These rules can be violated, but the conditions have to be right—namely, there can be 

no significant opposition at sea. In order to support a ground fight ashore or conduct a 

continuous air campaign (power projection in the “level of effort” mode), aircraft carriers have to break at least rules 2 and 3, and in order to maintain a carrier on station 

for months or years, as was done in Vietnam, they must break rule 1. The requirement 
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maneuverability, due to the relatively short range of carrier-borne tactical jets. Du

the wars in Korea and Vietnam and all operations since the fall of the Soviet Unio

the almost complete absence of at-sea opposition, U.S. aircraft carriers have opera

exclusively in this role. The one exception was the U.S.-Soviet face-down in the ea

Mediterranean in conjunction with the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and 

sortment of Arab powers. In that crisis, three American carrier groups were positi

to be ready to assist the Israelis with land strikes. Meanwhile, the numerically sup

Soviet Fifth Eskadra positioned itself to sink or disable the carriers.4

This represen

fundamental paradox in doctrinal roles for the carriers, and they faced tactical de

had hostilities broken out, having insufficient sea room to maneuver so as to adop

a capital-ship posture. The key to using carriers in the “airfield at sea” role is to ta

explicit account of their inability to tolerate much risk at all.

Geopolitical Chess Piece. It has been the habit of American presidents and their a

ers in the gamut of crises since World War II to move aircraft carriers around to d

onstrate American concern, resolve, or outright anger. The particular benefits of u

carriers in this way are that they operate on the high seas, where permission to mo

is not needed from other countries, and that because they carry their own fuel, we

ons, and maintenance, they are ready on arrival at the scene of a crisis to deliver p

Moreover, since modern U.S. carriers are large and imposing, and have been unch

lenged on the seas, they “show the flag” to great effect—they provide excellent “vis

Here too, however, precisely because they need to be visible in this role, and becau

they normally must be ready to function also as an airfield at sea, carriers cannot 

ate any significant risk. This was the difficulty in the Yom Kippur War crisis men

previously. The Navy and the nation are so used to operating carriers with impun

airfields at sea that as new sea-denial threats emerge (as did the Soviet navy) the p

tial for a role/risk disconnect is magnified.

Another definition of “capital ship,” though not unrelated to its operational defini

is that of a ship type whose power, expense, and prestige are so great that it becom

yardstick for measuring a nation’s naval power. This definition is essentially a diff

slant on the “geopolitical chess piece” role. This view arose especially during the a

dreadnoughts, when the Washington Treaty attempted to rein in naval arms races 

formally limiting the tonnage of battleships.5

 Aircraft carriers became the objects 

this type of thinking, and this is one of the reasons that a number of emerging nav

well as established navies under pressure from shrinking budgets, are electing to d

higher proportions of their resources to building them.
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Nimitz- and Ford-class carriers are built at only one yard, in Newport News, Virginia. 

Currently, they are being built at the rate of one every five years, in order to maintain 

the Navy’s inventory of them at eleven. One of these carriers, including its air wing, 

costs about as much as ten nuclear submarines or almost twenty guided-missile destroyers. When debates arise about how many carriers this nation really needs, one of the 

arguments employed to oppose reductions is that if it does not keep building these 

ships, it will lose the workforce needed to construct hem. Not having the capability to 

construct a large nuclear-powered carrier would, some argue, put the nation at strategic 

risk. However, this line of reasoning seems to be based more on the general notion that 

carriers represent national strength than on any specific strategic or operational necessity. Even if it does not build another carrier after USS Ford, the United States will have 

nuclear carriers around for at least the next fifty years. It does not seem reasonable to 

presume that the strategic future of the United States hinges on a few thousand shipyard 

workers in Virginia.

Other Roles for Aviation Ships

In World War II, the majority of the aircraft carriers the United States built were termed 

“escort carriers.” These small ships could carry only a few aircraft and were used mostly 

for antisubmarine (ASW) work or for air support of amphibious operations. Because of 

their limited capacity and slow speed, they could not be adequately used in any of the 

six doctrinal roles outlined above. In the 1950s, a number of World War II fast carriers 

of the Essex class were converted to antisubmarine carriers. These ships carried mostly 

sub-hunting aircraft, with a few jets for self-defense. Other Essexes were turned into 

helicopter carriers, for helo-borne assaults over the beach. Once these ships had passed 

their useful service lives, vessels designed from the keel up as helicopter carriers were 

put into service; progressively newer designs have entered the fleet ever since. Some new 

versions of the through-deck aviation ship now complicate the matter of designation. 

The recently commissioned Spanish “strategic projection ship” Juan Carlos would seem 

to blur doctrinal boundaries, because it features a “ski jump” for operating STOVL jets. 

Nevertheless, the ship’s design focuses on amphibious operations more than any of the 

doctrinal roles mentioned above.

Aside from ship designs or conversions with specific mission focuses of ASW or 

amphibious assault, regular aircraft carriers, by virtue of their inherent flexibility, 

have been pressed into service in a number of collateral missions in recent years, most 

prominently disaster relief and humanitarian assistance. In this mode they mostly 

operate helicopters, although other aspects of their capability come into play, such as 

communications, freshwater distillation, and medical capacity. It is worthwhile noting 
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have been more frustration at inability to participate in the 2004 tsunami relief eff

Indonesia (where the Nimitz-class carrier USS Abraham Lincoln played a key part) 

a desire to face down American carriers.

In considering the future of aircraft carriers, we should understand that aviationcapable ships engaging in specialized or collateral missions will always be needed 

some extent. Whether ships used for these purposes look like aircraft carriers or n

calculus for the advisability of building them will be different from that which gov

true aircraft carriers.

The Impact of Future Technology

Armed with an understanding of their doctrinal roles, we can proceed to assess h

current and future weapons and systems technologies might affect the utility of ai

carriers. It is a matter not simply of whether the carrier can be defended or not bu

whether it can fulfill the doctrinal role the nation requires of it.

Antiship Ballistic Missiles. Professional journals have been full of articles analyzi

the potential impact of the recently developed Chinese DF-21F intermediate-rang

listic missile, fitted with a maneuvering reentry head that has an antiship seeker b

into it. The purpose of this missile is thought to be not so much to sink the carrier 

achieve a “mission kill,” causing fires and damage to the air wing and topside stru

tures. If the missile system is perceived to be effective at this, then its existence an

presence of its mobile transporter/erector/launchers would constitute a deterrent t

U.S. interference in an invasion of Taiwan or in other Chinese initiatives within ab

a thousand miles of China’s coast. Assuming that a terminal, hit-to-kill defense is 

feasible against it, this missile would seem to threaten seriously the future utility o

aircraft carrier anywhere within its range. On the other hand, having a seeker, it c

be vulnerable to decoying. If this is the case, the probabilities for missile success a

reduced. This leads us to think in terms of what role the carrier might be playing a

sails into DF-21 threat range. If the carrier is functioning as cavalry, a capital ship

nuclear-strike platform—that is, delivering a pulse of power and then escaping—t

tolerance inherent in those roles might be compatible with the reduced but still sig

cant threat posed by the DF-21. If, however, the carrier is being used as either an a

at sea or a geopolitical chess piece, its mobility sacrificed and the risk incurred lik

would be incommensurate with the role.

Submarines, Antiship Cruise Missiles, and Other Access-Denial Systems. The eff

these systems is similar to that of the DF-21. Current and anticipated defensive sys

for the carrier are likely to be able to handle small numbers of these weapons. How
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pen in littoral waters—the likelihood of leakers increases. Once again, depending on 

the role the carrier is playing, the risk may be tolerable, especially if the carrier is free to 

maneuver. If a combination of geography and doctrinal role constrains its mobility and 

maneuverability, the risk climbs quickly.

Some have advocated, on these grounds, that smaller carriers ought to be built in larger 

numbers to achieve “tactical stability,” the condition in which the defensive capabilities of the ship and its contributions to the overall offensive power of the force are in 

balance. Games at the Naval War College have cast some doubt on this logic, quite 

apart from considerations of the relative efficiency of large and small flight decks. It 

appears that doctrinal role is a governing factor. In general, it seems that if mobility is 

compromised by doctrinal role, the net risk to the force is the same, whether the force is 

composed of one or two large, or four to six small, carriers. Nothing changes, except in 

the inefficiencies and added cost of multiple small carriers.

Improved Air-Defense Systems. In one important sense, the viability of tactical airpower is the essence of the future utility of aircraft carriers. New types of surface-to-air 

missile systems have made operation of nonstealthy aircraft within their range excessively risky. Also, new generations of fighters, notably the Su-27, its derivatives, and even 

newer designs from Russia and China, have eroded the technical advantages traditionally enjoyed by American aircraft. New types of air-to-air missiles, fighter radars, and 

sophisticated crew/system interfaces have similarly lessened the advantage our superior 

training has conferred. All of this calls into question the utility of aircraft carriers as 

strike (cavalry) platforms or airfields at sea against a well armed opponent. The same 

trend holds in the arena of war at sea, at least with respect to surface-to-air missiles, 

and may compromise the viability of the aircraft carrier in the capital-ship role. To 

fight modern, high-tech air defenses, sea or land based, missiles may be the only viable 

answer, although very stealthy unmanned aircraft operating from aircraft carriers may 

also be viable, especially if equipped with short-range attack missiles.

Short-Takeoff/Vertical-Landing Jets. The advent of the F-35B STOVL Joint Strike 

Fighter (JSF) promises to enhance significantly the overall capabilities of a ski jump–

equipped carrier. The question is whether this increase in capability would both allow 

such smaller aviation-capable ships to function as regular aircraft carriers and change 

the calculus of the various doctrinal roles. It appears that the F-35B will offer increases 

in range and load-carrying capability over the AV-8 Harrier, the British-developed 

“jump jet” that has served a number of navies and the U.S. Marines for decades. 

However, these increases do not come close to bringing the F-35B into the same class 

as conventional-takeoff-and-landing carrier aircraft, and the range and endurance 
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The principal advantages of the F-35B will be its increased connectivity, sensing, a

stealth—all good things, but not sufficient to change the logic inherent in the doct

roles. Moreover, the small number of aircraft that can be carried on the ski-jump 

riers limits their ability to perform some of the doctrinal roles. They will likely rem

useful support ships for amphibious and antisubmarine operations, especially ope

helicopters, and will constitute prestige platforms for small navies to show the flag

Unmanned Aircraft (UAVs). What could potentially change the calculus of doctr

roles is the unmanned aircraft. For a given “deck spot” (the square footage an airc

takes up parked on a carrier’s flight or hangar deck), unmanned aircraft offer dou

triple the range and endurance of manned aircraft. Moreover, without the need to 

commodate a human, their form can be considerably more stealthy, and their ope

do not need to take into account crew-rest factors, at least to the extent that they d

manned aircraft. What this may offer in terms of doctrinal roles is a return of the 

rier as the eyes of the fleet, operating a wing of long-range UAVs for reconnaissan

perhaps line-of-sight communications relay. A carrier could then remain outside m

threat “envelopes,” with much more scope for maneuvering to keep from being tar

The longer range of UAVs (including unmanned combat aerial vehicles, or UCAVs

would also allow the carrier to function as an airfield at sea with less risk. In term

command and control, however, UAVs that require a constant “man in the loop” w

not offer as much flexibility to the carrier as those with higher degrees of autonom

Future Doctrinal Roles 

The traditional rationale for aircraft carriers is that they provide tactical airpower 

independent of land bases and that—no small thing—they are ready to do so on a

While all of this is true and constitutes concrete benefits of having aircraft carrier

the real arguments for and against them reside in their doctrinal roles. Which of t

traditional roles are obsolete? Do the remaining ones justify continuing investmen

aircraft carriers? Are there emerging or potential roles for carriers that would just

building more?

As has been mentioned, the development of unmanned aircraft may revitalize the 

primordial role of aircraft carriers as eyes of the fleet. Operating a wing of various 

of UAVs, the carriers could conduct what is known as C4ISR (command, control, 

munications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) or establi

grid of airborne relay nodes that would support a fleet battle network if satellites w

destroyed or intense jamming occurred. Because of the vulnerability of land bases 

ballistic missiles, and at increasing distances from potential war zones, the argum
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carrier-based C4ISR. As with tactical airpower, regardless of how long aircraft range 

is and how much in-flight refueling is available, if land bases are distant from the area 

of operations, it takes far more aircraft to generate a continuous presence in the battle 

space and operations are far less responsive and flexible than they would be if based 

from a nearby carrier. A local source of UAVs, if land bases are far away, is invaluable 

operationally and strategically. 

The cavalry role for carriers, practiced as late as the 1986 El Dorado Canyon strikes 

on Libya, has become a victim of the missile age. In the most recent round of strikes on 

Libya, Tomahawk cruise missiles were used. Now possessing guided-missile submarines 

that can carry over a hundred Tomahawks, the Navy does not have to accept risks of 

running a carrier surreptitiously into hostile waters to carry out a strike or subjecting 

manned tactical aircraft to robust air defenses. In a similar manner, the introduction of 

the ballistic-missile submarine made the carrier nuclear-strike role obsolete. Whatever 

the trade-offs between tactical aircraft, manned or unmanned, and missiles, the lethality of modern air defenses and the difficulty of moving naval forces undetected militate 

strongly against using carriers in this role. It does not appear that a carrier operating 

UCAVs would offer any significant advantage in the cavalry role over a submarine carrying cruise missiles.

As for the capital-ship role, in the missile age the whole concept may be obsolete. There 

has been a constant ebb and flow of technical and tactical superiority of the offense 

and defense at sea, but mostly the offense now dominates—modern antiship missiles 

are very fast and hard to shoot down. Certainly, they are dependent on the successful 

functioning of their seeker heads; these can be de coyed or blinded, and the prospect of 

close-in directed-energy defenses may tilt the balance in favor of the defense.6

 However, 

a successful defense of the carrier does no good if the carrier cannot in turn succeed in 

attacking enemy naval forces. Improvements in air-defense technology by Russia and 

China and the prospects for their proliferation will make the tactical offense progressively more difficult and risky. It should be recalled that in the great carrier battles of 

World War II, the aircraft losses were brutal, on the order of 70 percent for the Japanese and 28 percent for the Americans.7

 In the late 1970s, as naval aviation developed 

aircraft-centric antiship tactics in the aftermath of the wake-up call of the 1973 episode, 

it became clear that a single strike on a single formation of Soviet ships might cost a 

quarter of an air wing.8

 Whereas we were able to replace such losses in 1942–45, no such 

thing would be possible today, given the complexity and expense of modern jets.

The upshot is that the seas, at least certain areas of them, are becoming a no-man’s-land 

for surface ships. Whether or not submarines ought to be considered capital ships is 

beside the point; the carrier will likely not be one. On the other hand, for scenarios shor
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large ocean area than an aircraft carrier, fanning out its air wing to scout and iden

surface vessels. Carrier aircraft probably are the best counter, for example, to the s

boat swarms that some countries, like Iran, have adopted, assuming the carrier ca

operate out of range of the densest littoral defenses.

Currently, the “airfield at sea” is almost the exclusive role for the large aircraft car

rier, essentially fused with that of the “geopolitical chess piece.” This (combined) r

will continue to be highly useful into the future, so long as the intensity of defense

stays below a certain threshold. If either high-tech air or naval defenses proliferate

number of areas and scenarios in which carriers can function in this role will decl

this happens, the value of the carrier as a geopolitical chess piece will erode propo

ately. This is a key uncertainty about the future and a central difficulty in assessin

future value of aircraft carriers. If a ground fight occurs close to the coast and a ca

could move in with impunity to provide air support, perhaps through-deck amph

ships flying STOVL aircraft would suffice. But their capacity to generate sorties an

number of targets they can strike are nowhere near what is possible for large carri

with catapults and arresting wires; moreover, if deep penetration is needed, as has 

the case in Afghanistan, nothing less than a large carrier operating conventional a

will do. Because of miniaturization, advanced electronics, and advances in missile

mine, torpedo, and submarine design, it is becoming easier to hide naval defenses

particular case in point is the Club-K cruise missile marketed by the Russian com

Novator. Four missiles could be housed in an innocuous-looking shipping contain

hidden in plain sight and ready to be fired from trucks, railroad cars, or commerc

ships.9

 Similar advances in covertness can be expected in other weapons types. Th

implication is that it will be difficult or impossible to “sanitize” an area where a ca

can function as an airfield at sea. 

What new doctrinal roles might emerge for the aircraft carrier? One that comes to 

is a variation on “eyes of the fleet.” If the struggle for sea control migrates to below 

surface, an aircraft carrier might be highly useful as a submarine-support vessel. T

carrier would not only provide C4ISR services for submarines but disrupt air and 

face ASW efforts by the enemy, perhaps even conduct ASW itself. Especially if ope

ing long-range UAVs, the carrier might be able to maneuver more widely and ther

perform this role at an acceptable degree of risk—or better put, at a level of risk co

mensurate with the doctrinal role.

Another potential supporting role for the carrier is as a mother ship for the littora

combat ship (LCS). The LCS has limited sea-keeping capability and must have a so

of logistical support relatively close by, especially if it is to operate at high speed an

high combat tempo. If a squadron of LCSs must enter a high-threat area where the
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might be the answer. Having considerable fuel and ammunition-storage capacity, high 

sustained speeds, and self-defense ability (with its escorts), a carrier could range around 

undetected or untargeted until a covert rendezvous with one or more LCSs could be 

arranged. While a logistical support system that employs submarines might be the ideal

this arrangement may be the most feasible in the short term. In conjunction with this 

role, the carrier, operating both manned and unmanned aircraft, could provide tactical 

scouting for littoral combat vessels as well as a secure and robust local battle network.

A New Calculus 

This assessment of doctrinal roles is revealing. Certain roles for the carrier are already 

obsolete, and others are eroding. A few new roles are emerging, but these place the 

carrier in a new position in relation to the rest of the fleet. Whereas the carrier has 

been the central pivot of the fleet since World War II, the arbiter and yardstick of naval 

supremacy and the keystone of fleet architecture, it will gradually become a more narrowly useful role player. There will be, for the foreseeable future, situations that demand 

an aircraft carrier, so it can be said with confidence that the ship type will be needed. 

However, the constriction in its roles and in the locations and circumstances in which it 

could be appropriately used (i.e., where doctrinal role and risk intersect) indicates that a 

new calculus is needed to determine how many the U.S. Navy really needs.

This article has dealt only obliquely with the issue of small versus large carriers. The 

author has served on both types and is convinced that nonnuclear ships under about 

eighty thousand tons sacrifice too much total combat capability to be worthwhile 

investments as aircraft carriers. On the other hand, aviation ships that can support operationally significant numbers of helicopters and STOVL jets will be useful in amphibious and antisubmarine operations as well as a host of others, including disaster relief, 

noncombatant evacuation, and various types of humanitarian assistance.

An embedded implication in all this for amphibious operations should be noted. If 

things are too hot to allow a carrier to operate as an airfield at sea, they are too hot for 

an amphibious assault. If the number of times and places a carrier can operate as an airfield at sea decrease, they decrease as well for amphibious operations. Any assumptions 

about the ability to “roll back” enemy defenses must be severely tempered by the likelihood that new technologies will produce weapons that can be hidden from preemptive strikes—like the improvised explosive devices and car bombs that have been such 

intractable problems in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is no question that some capacity 

for amphibious operations from the sea will be needed in the future, but a rigorous and 

objective analysis of the number of times and places in which they would be possible is 

warranted, and as with carriers, a new calculus for sizing that capability is needed.
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posture. Since World War II, the United States has maintained a forward-deployed 

posture for the Navy, at times severely stressing its capacity. The Navy has found t

each carrier it wants to keep forward, it needs two additional ones to account for c

deployment tempo, training, and maintenance requirements. In theory, then, any 

rier force level ought to be divisible by three. However, an additional carrier is nee

to compensate for the extended yard periods required for nuclear refueling. That a

up to ten CVNs, but Congress has legislated that the Navy maintain eleven, the “e

carrier being available for surge operations. There is currently a carrier homeport

forward in Japan, which provides additional scheduling flexibility. In practice, ho

the demand for carriers by the combatant commanders, coupled with the Navy’s F

Response Plan deployment scheme (which seeks to maximize the number of carri

available for surge operations), makes even eleven carriers seem insufficient. But t

increasing expense of tactical jets and delays in their development, as exemplified 

the JSF, means that there will not be enough aircraft to popu late eleven flight deck

adequately, let alone a higher number.

In the future, as the doctrinal roles of the aircraft carrier change and become mor

rowly defined, the number of carriers needed forward at any time may decline. Us

the reverse of the standard Navy calculus, for every carrier not needed to be statio

forward, the total inventory could, in theory, be reduced by three. The savings wo

enormous, and, if this analysis of doctrinal roles is correct, there would be no redu

in the overall war-fighting effectiveness of the Navy, assuming the money saved co

be reinvested, at least in part, in missiles, submarines, and surface ships. On one h

a reduction of one carrier on station would take the Navy to a force of eight CVNs

the other hand, if new doctrinal roles do materialize, a higher number of carriers 

be warranted. USS Enterprise, the first nuclear carrier, commissioned fifty years a

on a forward deployment as this article is written. There is no reason to think that 

Nimitz-class carriers will have shorter service lives, and the newer ones may last e

longer. There is at least reason to think that a number of these ships will outlive th

utility of any given type of embarked aircraft. This makes it difficult to assess the 

on investment of additional new construction beyond Ford or its follow-on ship. I

possible doctrinal roles for the aircraft carrier become too risky or are significantl

constrained in terms of where and when they might be feasible, the value of so ex p

a platform will be called into question.

The purpose of this article has been to explore the future of the aircraft carrier usi

framework of doctrinal roles. It appears that despite changing technology there w

a continuing need for the ship type, although the obsolescence of some doctrinal r
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that are justified. New doctrinal roles may emerge, depending on the flexibility of mind 

shown by the naval aviation community. However, even if these new roles do pan out, 

they may not justify significantly greater numbers of ships. Moreover, the carrier’s day 

as the supreme arbiter of naval power and the determinant of fleet architecture may be 

coming to a close. Its continuing utility will increasingly be in support roles. Once this 

shift occurs, it may actually be easier to arrive at an objective determination of numbers 

required, as much of the emotional and political baggage surrounding them will have 

been shed.

If we mark the emergence of the aircraft carrier as sovereign of the seas at the British 

carrier strike on the Italian fleet at Taranto in 1940, we see that the carrier has enjoyed a 

period of dominance of over seventy years, substantially longer than that of the dreadnought. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, the future of the aircraft carrier isn’t what it used 

to be, but it is fairly clear the type will be around more than long enough to celebrate a 

century and a half of service.

Notes

The author wishes to extend his appreciation to 

Captain (Ret.) Wayne Hughes, of the U.S. Naval 

Postgraduate School, and Dr. Thomas C. Hone for 

their keen insights and useful suggestions, which 

have improved the quality of this article.

1. Juan Carrasco [Lt., USN], “A Manpower Comparison of Three U.S. Navies: The Current 

Fleet, a Projected 313 Ship Fleet, and a More 

Distributed Bimodal Alternative” (master’s 

thesis, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif., 2009), p. xvii, available at edocs

.nps.edu/.

2. See Vice Adm. Yoji Koda, “A New Carrier 

Race? Strategy, Force Planning, and JS Hyuga,”

Naval War College Review 64, no. 3 (Summer 

2011), pp. 31–60.

3. For the interwar exercises see Albert A. Nofi, 

To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet 

Problems, 1923–1940 (Newport, R.I.: Naval 

War College Press, 2010).

4. See Lyle Goldstein and Yuri Zhukov, “A Tale of 

Two Fleets: A Russian Perspective on the 1973 

Naval Standoff in the Mediterranean,” Naval 

War College Review 57, no. 2 (Spring 2004), 

pp. 27–63.

5. Aircraft carrier tonnage too was limited by the 

treaty, indicating that the carrier had already 

become identified as a type of capital ship.

6. Obscurants might do so as well, as argued by 

Thomas J. Culora, “The Strategic Implications 

of Obscurants: History and the Future,” Naval 

War College Review 63, no. 3 (Summer 2010), 

pp. 73–84.

7. Wayne Hughes, Fleet Tactics and Coastal Com

bat (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 

2000), pp. 102–106.

8. The author was a weapons and tactics officer 

in the A-7 community at that time; this assertion is based on personal experience in both 

planning and conducting exercise strikes.

9. It should be noted that Russian officials 

have denied that these missiles could be 

launched from a shipping container. See 

“Club-K Container Missile System,” Kontsern 

Morinformsistema-AGAT, www.concern-agat

.ru/, for the company’s position. It is interesting, however, that the company has used in 

its advertisements web videos of the missile 

being fired from shipping containers.
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Pigeonholes and Paradigm Shifts

Getting the Most Out of Unmanned Aircraft

The assimilation of a new technology by an organization is a complex undertakin

sides the opposition of people who view it as a threat, a subtle phenomenon that so

times occurs is a failure of the organization to fully leverage the technology becau

failure of imagination. The new technology is at least initially forced into existing 

and functions —slotted, that is, into established intellectual pigeonholes. In this w

organization, while adopting a new technology, will fail to take full advantage of i

article will explore potential uses of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)1

 that go bey

seeing them as merely unmanned versions of existing manned aircraft in order to 

the Navy take full advantage of this new technology.

Pigeonhole 1: Pilots

In the original Star Wars movie Luke Skywalker piloted an X-wing fighter with hi

trusty droid R2-D2 in the back. Single-seat aviators of the era (like the author) not

with some glee the allegorical automation of the naval flight officer. It appeared th

the function of piloting was inherently human, system management being someth

a robot could handle. However, even at their current stage of development, the flig

unmanned aircraft is considerably more automated than, say, radio-controlled mo

airplanes, which indeed must be flown. UAVs such as Global Hawk are capable of 

omous takeoff, navigation, and landing. It is the pilot function that has been autom

it is the naval flight officer function that still requires human decision making. Th

the leading edge of a paradigm shift: pilotless aircraft operated by pilotless squadr

or perhaps not by squadrons at all. The shift may go further, possibly obviating th

need for any kind of “winged” specialist. The Navy has been operating, after all, a 

fleet of highly lethal unmanned aircraft since the 1950s that has been controlled a

exclusively by surface warfare officers. These aircraft are called missiles. As UAVs 

CHAPTER NINE

Appeared in slightly different form in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (July 2012); reprinted 

Proceedings with permission; copyright © 2012 U.S. Naval Institute/www.usni.org
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less with the physics of their functioning and more with the broader decisions of when 

to launch, how many, where to place them, and targeting. It is not clear that, at this level 

of decision making, an aviation specialist is either necessary or desirable. This notion 

would appear to bust some naval aviation rice bowls and would very likely find ready 

opposition in some circles. However, it is not difficult to imagine a future Navy in which 

the UAV “squadrons” are manned solely by maintenance personnel and the craft are 

controlled by naval “general staff” officers who inhabit a maritime operations center 

(MOC). This kind of arrangement could up the odds that UAVs would be used efficiently and perhaps more creatively.

A serious question that will attend the use of armed UAVs that have increasing degrees 

of autonomy is where in the “kill chain” moral agency should exist in the form of 

human decision making. Failures in the form of blue on blue or the inadvertent 

targeting of non-combatants have occurred with both manned and unmanned aircraft. It is not evident at this point how and where moral agency ought to be exerted 

with autonomous or semi-autonomous armed aircraft, but what does seem clear is that 

this question ought not to be hostage to traditional notions of who should control 

what. Existing naval cultural norms concerning centralization and delegation should 

be subordinated to the central issue of assuring effective moral agency in the kill 

chain, and our organizational paradigms will influence how effectively this question is 

answered.

Pigeonhole 2: Aircraft Carrier Doctrinal Roles

The Navy’s allergy to written doctrine, or at least to adhering to it, is well known. However, that does not mean that the Navy does not have doctrine. A tacit form of doctrine 

that has been around for most of its history involves the roles assigned to different types 

of ships. Aircraft carriers, while an extremely versatile ship type, have historically been 

used in a limited set of doctrinal roles. When USS Langley was commissioned, she was 

assigned to the doctrinal role of “eyes of the fleet.” In this role her aircraft would scout 

for the enemy and spot the shot of the battleships. Subsequently, as naval aircraft gained 

capability, the aircraft carrier assumed other roles: capital ship,2

 nuclear strike platform, 

geopolitical chess piece, and airfield at sea, to mention the most prominent ones.3

 Other 

ships have their own sets of roles. In the post–Cold War era, because of the lack of any 

significant naval opposition, the aircraft carrier has been almost exclusively used as 

an airfield at sea. The Northrop Grumman X-47B is a prototype UAV that is meant 

to operate from an aircraft carrier. In a sense, this craft is an unmanned version of an 

F/A-18 Hornet or F-35C Joint Strike Fighter.4

 One would expect, therefore, that while the 
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would not change the doctrinal role of the carrier.

But what if we imagined a different doctrinal role for the aircraft carrier? What m

UAVs, with their doubling or tripling of range and endurance over manned aircra

allow us to do with the CVN that cannot be done now? One possibility that comes 

to mind is a return to a version of the carrier’s original role, eyes of the fleet. Due t

technological advances such as the Chinese ballistic anti-ship missile that present

increasing threat to the carrier in China’s near seas, the U.S. Navy might elect to c

duct a sea fight with its own new set of anti-ship missiles. These missiles, launched 

submarines, aircraft or surface ships, will need C4ISR5

 support. If the Chinese suc

in shooting down our satellites and are thus able to disrupt our networks, we will 

to reconstitute them locally. If we had a wing of long-range and endurance UAVs o

carrier, it could populate the battle space with both ISR and line-of-sight commun

tions relays for the battle-force network. While some of these services could be pro

from land-based UAVs such as the Navy’s version of Global Hawk (Broad Area Ma

Surveillance, or BAMS), the same logic that favors local carrier-based aircraft ove

range land-based bombers also favors carrier-based C4ISR UAVs.6

Resurrecting Old Pigeonholes

What other uses might the Navy find for UAVs? It has been said that if you want a 

idea, read an old book. In this case the old book is a set of former naval concepts t

never quite worked out because the technology of the day was insufficient to make 

viable. The application of UAVs, however, might give them new life.

Son of Akron and Macon

Akron and Macon were two giant dirigibles the Navy operated in the 1930s. Their 

distinguishing feature was the capability to launch and recover biplane fighters vi

“sky hook.” These fighters would be used to extend the scouting horizon of the dir

and for self-defense. Tragically, both dirigibles were lost in storms, and the notion 

an “aerial aircraft carrier” died with them. UAVs may allow us to resurrect this co

cept, not with modern lighter-than-air mother ships but with C-130s and C-17s. T

transports have rear ramps that can be lowered in flight. UAVs could be launched 

recovered while in flight. The operation of UAVs via these aircraft opens up many 

portunities for leveraging their capabilities. We could, for instance, deliver hordes 

mini-UAVs that could not otherwise get to a desired area of operations. Large tran

aircraft could recover larger UAVs that were launched from subs or other ships tha

could not recover them. The possibilities abound.
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Arapaho was originally an Army concept for embarking an aviation detachment on 

a container ship. The Navy subsequently took the idea into consideration as a way of 

creating a convoy self-escort capability (in the Cold War days).7

 All the aviation support 

capability would be in containers and a helo/Harrier flight platform would be mounted 

on top. An Arapaho unit would presumably be able to provide some degree of protection against air raids and submarines. In the 1980s this idea did not gain traction in par

due to the limitations of technology.

Today, UAVs might make the concept viable. While we are unlikely to need convoy selfescort, we might consider a small anti-mine, anti-pirate, or anti–small boat swarm UAV 

detachment. The very small on-scene personnel requirements would comport well with 

the limited berthing capabilities of merchants. If we containerized anti-ship missiles 

such as suggested by a Russian company8

 we would need the kind of on-board over-thehorizon targeting (OTH-T) capability that Son of Arapaho could provide. The combination of containerized missiles and on-board OTH-T could turn any ship into a potential 

surface combatant and greatly complicate an enemy’s sea denial and control problem. 

They could do it, and maybe we should too. There are probably dozens of other possibilities; Son of Arapaho is simply a pump-priming idea.

Son of I-400

In World War II the Japanese devised a way of putting a single float plane on a submarine. They constructed a tubular hangar on the sub’s deck and stuffed three float planes 

with their wings removed inside it. The idea was that the sub could approach the West 

Coast undetected, surface, quickly assemble the airplane, and send it to bomb targets in 

the United States. The major limitation was that the sub could only carry three aircraft, 

so its potential operational and strategic effect was likely to be nil. The U.S. Navy, for 

its part, adopted a similar concept in the 1950s for carrying and launching the early 

nuclear-armed cruise missiles like Regulus. Once Polaris SSBNs hit the fleet this idea 

was abandoned.

The converted Ohio-class SSGNs of today are a modern version of the concept. Capable 

of carrying over a hundred Tomahawk cruise missiles, they are a potent source of striking power. Coupling UAVs with new kinds of missiles in the SSGN gives the concept a 

new twist. UAVs with a submerged launch capability could provide a number of C4ISR, 

deception, and defensive services for the sub. The UAVs might be expendable or could, 

as mentioned earlier, be recovered in the air by a C-17. If the sub itself could recover 

them, the SSGN starts looking at least a little bit like a submersible CVN. One of the 

doctrinal roles of the CV in World War II was “cavalry,” doing hit and run raids on 
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gous to the way Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest used his horsemen. T

a CVN is likely to be too visible to re-adopt that doctrinal role, but the SSGN coul

Son of Jeep Carrier

In World War II the U.S. Navy operated a large number of aircraft carriers, the m

of which were small light carriers or escort carriers. These ships provided sea-base

power for functions such as amphibious landing support and anti-submarine prot

tion that the large carriers were too scarce and valuable to support. After the war t

numbers quickly dwindled in favor of very large aircraft carriers. Starting in the 1

the notion of a smaller carrier again resurfaced in the guise of a “sea control ship.” 

concept never got off the drawing board due to resource constraints and oppositio

within naval aviation ranks. Later, Admiral Art Cebrowski, the oracle of networkcentric warfare, again proposed a small carrier that could be built in numbers and 

ate in threatened littoral waters.9

 This concept again foundered in the face of oppo

Could UAVs breathe new life into the idea of a small carrier?

The Navy currently operates a fleet of ten large-deck amphibious ships (LHA or L

from whose decks the Marines have been operating helos and Harrier jump jets fo

decades. The F-35B STOVL10 jet will significantly improve the capabilities of the 

Marine air wing, but it will not turn the LHA into a kind of aircraft carrier, due m

to limitations in range and payload, not to mention doctrinal constraints imposed 

the Marines. Short takeoff technology, even abetted by a ski jump, will always lim

range, endurance, and load-carrying capability barring unforeseen technical adva

ments. This is why U.S. carriers have catapults and arresting gear and why the Roy

Navy has recently and wisely switched its proposed Queen Elizabeth–class aircraft 

carriers to a catapult and arresting gear configuration. However, mounting catapu

and arresting gear for manned aircraft on LHAs is not likely to be either feasible o

cost-effective.

UAVs could change this picture. There exist small-scale catapults on trailers for U

It is not hard to envision a scaled-up version of these being craned aboard an LHA 

operate a wing of UAVs that might be half the size and weight of a Predator or X-4

These would likely have at least the range and endurance of an F-18. Recovery wou

have to be worked out, but regular arresting gear would not be needed. If such a w

was embarked, the LHA starts looking at least a little bit like a jeep carrier. The sk

the limit, so to speak, on the doctrinal roles that might be adopted by a UAV-oper

LHA. It would appear that UAVs also change the nature of the debate over large ve

small carriers.
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Most everyone knows the story of the German battleship Bismarck. She was essentially 

the last of the surface raiders, having been done in by British aircraft carrier and surface 

fleet power. Her predecessors Graf Spee and Emden met similar fates, and the submarine 

inherited the mission of commerce raiding. Besides being on the surface and easier to 

find than submarines, the problem was numbers; there were never more than one or 

two of them operating at any particular time. Moreover, although Bismarck carried four 

Arado float planes, these were not effectively utilized, and none of the raiders received 

effective air support from land bases, so they operated effectively in the blind.

Perhaps the best surface combatant in the world today is the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke–

class destroyer. Its combination of Aegis weapon system, SPY-1 radar, and an array of 96 

missile tubes makes it highly flexible and lethal. The late block hulls support embarked 

helicopter detachments and all of them can operate a small UAV called the Scan Eagle. 

The Burkes have been slotted into two doctrinal roles: high value unit escort and ballistic missile defense ship. However, if they embarked more capable UAVs that could 

provide greater C4ISR reach, and they were equipped with long-range anti-ship missiles

they could become a modern version of a surface raider. Bismarck had to get within the 

visual horizon to attack her targets and knew not what was lurking just beyond, stalking 

her. A Burke surface raider would suffer no such limitation. It could reach out hundreds 

of miles. Such reach would allow it to maneuver in any number of ways to prevent the 

enemy from identifying and targeting her. The U.S. Navy has 61 of these ships and is 

building more, so it could literally flood a sea fight problem with them. Their targets 

would most likely be enemy combatants vice merchants. Operating singly or perhaps in 

pairs, and in cooperation with submarines and other units, they would add enormous 

complexity to an enemy’s sea denial or sea control problem.

Conclusion

New kinds of missiles, satellites, cyberspace, and robotic technologies, as well as emerging navies, are going to change the nature of naval warfare whether we like it or not. The 

Navy’s imperative is to imagine new ways to leverage these technologies that will give 

us major operational advantages over an enemy. We must realize that other countries, 

some potentially hostile, are developing or buying UAVs. All the ideas presented in this 

article could be turned around and used against us, so we had better think through the 

counters to them even as we develop them for our own use.

UAVs are going to change things, and they will provide us with opportunities to use 

our ships in new ways. We must proceed by examination through war gaming and by 
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to remove our blinders and envision new uses and new relationships.

Notes

1. There are a number of acronyms associated 

with unmanned aircraft, including UCAS 

(unmanned combat air system), UCAV 

(unmanned combat air vehicle), and UAS (unmanned air system). For the purposes of this 

article, all such designations will be subsumed 

under the acronym UAV.

2. Capital ship is defined for the purposes of 

this article as the ship type most capable of 

contending for command of the sea in general 

and for seizing and maintaining local sea 

control.

3. Robert C. Rubel, “The Future of Aircraft 

Carriers,” Naval War College Review (Autumn 

2011), pp. 13–27, www.usnwc.edu/.

4. Norman Friedman, Unmanned Combat Air 

Systems (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute 

Press, 2010). Friedman makes the case that 

the X-47B is a significantly new technology because of the potential for swarming 

operations.

5. Command, control, communications, 

computers, intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance. A T is sometimes appe

to indicate targeting.

6. Aircraft carrier proponents have long p

out that if local land bases for tactical a

are not available, long-range operation

more distant bases are not as effective 

from a nearby carrier. The advantages 

tactical air from a carrier include great

flexibility in changing missions and th

ity to surge quickly in response to eme

conditions.

7. Jim Bencivinga, “Rigging US Contain

Ships to Defend Themselves in Time 

Christian Science Monitor, January 6, 1

www.csmonitor.com/.

8. This concept emerged on line with a c

graphics–based video on YouTube, ww

.youtube.com/watch?v=N6dKCkv1fzs, 

reported by the UK Telegraph, at www

.telegraph.co.uk/.

9. “Cebrowski: Develop Small Aircraft C

from High-Speed Ships,” Inside the Na

August 9, 2004, p. 1.

10. Short takeoff, vertical landing.
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Tales from the Platform

I am proud to say that I served for seven years as a U.S. Navy landing signal office

I often said that I would have been happy to retire as a thirty-year lieutenant if the

would just let me wave aircraft the whole time. That gives you some insight into th

depth of my career planning. In any case, after serving as the Carrier Air Wing (C

landing signal officer (LSO) in Air Wing Seven, I had to move on. I retired after th

years of service and would do it all over again if I had the chance. But regardless o

subsequent achievements and satisfactions that a Navy career brought me, my hea

always on the platform. I proudly devoted a whole section of my retirement shado

to my years as paddles: a pickle switch and the “rectum non bustus” patch. Howev

wasn’t all fair winds and following seas out there, especially in the years I waved (

1980). In the interest of preserving for future generations some idea of the mayhem 

experienced, I offer the following absolutely truthful account of some notable epis

There are no morals to these stories; they just happened.

Night Phantoms, or How I Learned to Love My Net

Like a lot of carrier aviators, I quickly came to idolize my training command and 

placement Air Group (RAG) LSOs. They were the ones that inducted us into the t

of tailhookers, keeping us alive during the process. Naturally, I wanted to be like t

Upon completing the A-7 RAG (VA-174 at NAS Cecil Field) in late September 197

was “must-pumped” to VA-66 (Waldos) aboard USS Independence, then sailing in 

Eastern Mediterranean. I promptly informed the skipper that I wanted to be an LS

The squadron LSO immediately sent me out to the platform to observe a night rec

At this point, I need to say a little about the characteristics of the F-4 Phantom. A 

jet, it was pointed out to me that it was proof that if you put enough power on it, y

could make anything fly. From an LSO’s perspective, that meant power was every

kind of like the Hornet is now. After a lot of nights waving Phantoms, I concluded 

CHAPTER TEN

Landing Signal Officer Newsletter, 2011, reprinted by permission
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high and fast at night when they were in fact on glideslope and on speed. It was a beautiful airplane to have in the pattern in the daytime, but at night it seemed to always be a 

struggle for survival. Of course, I knew none of this as I climbed onto the platform for 

the first time.

Per normal, the fighters were first in line to recover. The first couple of passes were 

uneventful and I was caught up in the excitement of the whole thing. Then Diamondback 104 shows up on the ball. He was a bit high and fast, exacerbating the normal F-4 

illusion, and the pilot made an MFC (do they use this term in the coed Navy?—it means 

a sharp correction that succeeds but probably shouldn’t have been tried). It was like the 

pilot decided his best move was to shut ’em down at the start and go for a relight in the 

middle. Remember, power is everything on a Phantom. The jet immediately went from 

flying to falling and the controlling LSO, a fighter guy named Dan Gabriel, yelled for 

power once and then hit the wave-off lights. Diamondback 104 responded by dipping 

his left wing and came straight at us. Charlie Cook (the CAG LSO and the best paddles 

I ever saw) convulsively mashed the transmit button on his handset and yelled at the 

six of us others on the platform, “Hit the net!!” Now, I don’t know if the radar intercept 

officer (RIO) was taking a nap or what, but if I had been in that back seat, I would have 

yanked on the command eject handle a nanosecond later. He didn’t, which is why I am 

still alive to write about the incident.

Hit the net we did, except for Charlie and Dan, who both crouched down on the platform yelling, “Burner!! Burner!!” Of course, it was pitch black, and with six of us hitting 

the net at the same time, it wasn’t going to be pretty. I landed in the net with nobody 

on top of me so I was instantly up and running full speed inboard. I don’t know where 

I thought I was going (there was only a small, circular “escape” scuttle that was closed 

anyway), but I was going there at warp one. The night being pitch black, I did not see 

the stanchion that held up the LSO platform, and hit it with the right side of my face. 

I bounced back into the net and was instantly up and running full speed inboard again. 

Being a slow learner, I again slammed into the stanchion, again with the right side of 

my face.

While my own little battle with structural steel was taking place, Diamondback 104 did 

jam the throttles into burner and, God bless the J-79, got the Phantom into a climb, just 

enough to miss the round down by two feet and the LSO platform by the same amount. 

Good thing there was no port angle aircraft park on the Forrestal class. We climbed 

back up on the platform, just a bit shaken, but Charlie and Dan just stood up and went 

on to the next approach like nothing had happened. Diamondback 104 eventually came 

back around and trapped with a fair 2 wire.
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a harlequin clown for the next week or so. Charlie and Dan were singed by the F-4

afterburners and looked like they had been out in the sun too long. The next day I 

Charlie what the pilot had to say in the debrief and he said, “Nothing I wanted to h

became an LSO anyway.

FCLP Date Night

After three cruises in 21⁄2 years in VA-66, I got orders to VA-174, where I figured I 

be an LSO. My commanding officer (CO) in the Waldos advised me to abandon w

because the word was that the executive officer (XO) of 174, then Cdr. John McCa

(now senator), didn’t like LSOs, since one had disqualified him, keeping him from 

command at sea. Thus I spent my first year in 174 as a weapons training officer, fi

my waving days were over. But then all the LSOs got out because the airlines were 

and I got pressed back into service at the paddles. Well, because there were so few 

left on active duty, I started to do back-to-back boat detachments (usually to Lady 

[the training carrier USS Lexington], a ship I liked a lot), necessitating lots of time 

edge of the runway. Much of the time having no second LSO around to write book

spending almost no time with my wife on this “shore duty,” I asked her one night 

would come out to the field with me. I had her write book, which she picked up ra

This became too convenient, so we had these “date nights” sitting in the LSO truc

the end of the runway. She developed an eye, so I let her start waving. In those day

a woman’s voice saying, “Roger Ball!” was unheard of, and you could see some win

waggles as guys reacted with surprise. Bless her heart, she got me through the lean 

in 174. She is an honorary paddles in my book.

Vasectomies and Waving Do Not Mix

I am guessing the title of this section is already making the male LSOs reading thi

wince. In late 1978 I reported as CVW-7 LSO aboard the recently-commissioned U

Eisenhower, and by the following spring we were on cruise in the Mediterranean. 

this time, I was thirty years old, with two sons, and my wife and I decided that tw

enough—especially since it appeared that it was her lot in life to be a functional si

parent. Vasectomies were the new, trendy thing then, so we decided I would have 

on cruise. Apparently a lot of my shipmates had the same idea, because sickbay tu

into a vasectomy assembly line. I got mine without incident and after twelve hour

a sickbay cot, was told to go to my stateroom (02 level forward under cat 1) and sta

bed another couple of days. The next day I heard the faint echo of the Air Boss yel

emergency pull forward on the 5MC [intercom speaker]. I knew the other CAG LS

was flying, and I was feeling fine, so I jumped out of the rack, pulled on my wash k
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through the knee knockers to the LSO platform. I got there just in time to wave a burning Tomcat aboard (they seemed to catch fire a lot). We took him in the barrier and the 

crash crew immediately had the fire out. Great, but when the book writer turned to 

look at me for the grade he turned white and said, “Barney! What is going on?” I looked 

down at my crotch where he was staring and it was like I had peed my pants with blood. 

I had ripped all the stitches out (did not feel a thing—good ole adrenalin). Well, they 

could not re-stitch me, so I hobbled around the next couple of weeks with big wads of 

gauze stuffed down my pants. Fortunately, I was full systems capable by the time I met 

my wife in Rome . . .

Mother Ship

Later that cruise, on a balmy night with scattered showers, Ike was steaming through 

the Straits of Sicily making her own wind to recover aircraft. I was backing up and 

greatly enjoying the fact that F-14 drivers did not seem to suffer the old F-4 illusion of 

being high and fast. The wind started to die off and the Air Boss came up on the 14MC 

telling us to be ready for a foul deck. All of a sudden the collision alarm sounded. I 

looked around the windshield just in time to see lights come on right in front of our 

bow. It turned out to be a mother ship for cigarette runners that had been running dark. 

Obviously there had been some back and forth between the bridge and Combat Information Center (CIC) about a non-correlated radar blip that took a finite amount of time

By the time someone decided that yes, the radar blip was more than a shower, we were 

bearing down on the mother ship.

I yelled at my team to grab onto something because I was sure we were going to hit. 

Now, for those of you who have been down in the machinery spaces of a Nimitz class, 

you know that the power output of the reactors and the engines is, for all intents and 

purposes, infinite. The bottleneck that keeps a CVN (Carrier Vessel Nuclear) from having the same thrust to weight ratio as a Hornet is the propeller shaft. Kind of like the 

dilithium crystals in the Starship Enterprise. I can hear in my mind the conversation 

between Capt. Jim Mauldin, then-CO of Ike, and the chief engineer:

“All back emergency, Scottie!!!”

“She will not take no more, Cap’n!!”

“Dammit, Scottie, I said emergency power!!”

“Scottie” obviously obeyed the Captain and pulled out all the rods. The propeller shafts 

must have been starting to look like the rubber band on a model airplane, but the net 

effect for us on the platform was that Ike became a 90,000-ton bucking bronco. Forget 

the collision, we had to cling to whatever we could grab onto in order to keep from being 
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which by now had lights on and was stoking its boilers for all they were worth. In 

moment I imagine there was a brotherhood of soiled britches on both bridges.

The MiG Moment

By early 1980 Ike was starting workups for another cruise. In those days we did ou

tial drills off “Gitmo” (Guantanamo Bay), Cuba, where there was a fleet training t

Ike had sailed from Norfolk with an empty deck. We were supposed to bring elem

of the wing aboard once we neared the Gitmo OPAREA (operating area). So there 

were, off the southeastern tip of Cuba, at flight quarters, waiting for the wing. My 

and I were out on the platform, stripped to the waist, basking in the sun and watch

the dolphins and flying fish play in our wake. I heard something behind me and t

to look forward. I saw a little bug-like thing go zorching down the starboard side o

ship, bow to stern, at around five–500 feet. I thought, gee, that looks like a MiG-21

nah, it can’t be. It zoomed up, did a wingover and came back down at us. Sure eno

was a Cuban MiG-21. How could this be? Nobody had said anything. Thus the fol

ing conversation on the 14MC:

“Air Ops, Paddles.”

“Go, Paddles.”

“Yeah, does anyone know anything about this Cuban MiG-21 that is buzzing the LSO platfor

“Say again?”

“Yeah, we have got a MiG-21 buzzing the LSO platform and we wanted to know what the dea

“Stand by . . . ”

One can only imagine the ensuing conversation between CIC and the bridge. Goo

thing there was no flag aboard. That Cuban MiG driver had a career day. If he too

pictures, he probably got a Hero of the Revolution medal and a promotion.

Why They Do Not Put MB5s on the Flight Deck Anymore

A month or two later we were up in the VACAPES (Virginia Capes Operating Are

doing refresher carrier qualifications (CQ) just before going on the interminable I

Ocean (IO) cruise (Iranian hostage crisis). Plenty of natural wind with choppy wa

overcast skies, and day Case III. An A-6 showed up calling “coupled ball.” Unbekn

to us, he was trying to fly it manual throttle. By the middle the indexer light was g

indicating something was wrong, so we called “uncouple” and “power.” Should ha

waved him off at that point but we didn’t. He added power and seemed to be OK o

the ramp, but then did a big right wing dip. The Intruder immediately lost lift by v
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cared over the wires.

Now, since everyone flies off Nimitz class nowadays (except for Enterprise), you are used 

to a 9.3 degree angle and a 765-foot landing area. In 1980 we had not quite wrapped 

our minds around that, being used to the more canted and shorter angled decks of the 

earlier-class carriers. So we on the platform were not, in that instant, overly concerned 

about the bolter, especially since there was nothing on deck—except the MB5, which for 

some reason was parked hard up against the crotch, just over the foul line. The MB5 was 

essentially the same kind of fire truck you see at shore bases. It turned out that its windshield was at the same height as an A-6 wing. Fortunately, the fire crew saw it coming 

and jumped out of the truck, but one sailor got a bad concussion.

We had always heard about the “Grumman Iron Works” and I actually had some time 

in the old F-9 Cougar. However, this A-6 added to the legend. The outer six feet of the 

Intruder’s starboard wing hit the MB5 at windshield level and peeled the top of the 

truck back like a sardine can. It maybe cost the A-6 a knot of airspeed and scratched up 

the leading edge flap. It got airborne again and diverted to Oceana. I guess there really 

is a moral to this story: do not try to salvage passes and no pass is over for the LSO until 

the jet is stopped or safely airborne again.

Prowlers, Toilet Paper, and Miss America

The weeks and months were wearing away slowly in the spring and summer of 1980 as 

we rotted away on “Gonzo Station” in the Arabian Sea aboard USS Eisenhower. The 

Iranian hostage crisis wore on, and somebody in Washington figured that a visit from 

Miss America and her entourage, doing a song and dance USO show for us, was just the 

ticket. They were CODed (sent by a Carrier Onboard Delivery flight) aboard, and did 

their routine down in the hangar bay. They couldn’t leave until the next day, so were 

bunked in some staterooms on the 03 level, under heavy Marine guard. Meanwhile, 

flight ops proceeded uninterrupted.

Unbeknownst to me, somebody in the black ops wing of my LSO corps either bribed 

or garroted the Marine guards, because in the middle of a night recovery, up pops 

Miss America and her court onto the LSO platform. No time to sort it out because 

the deck was moving and there was no divert, and I did not feel like creating a 

public relations faux pas by kicking them off the platform. So, we just kept landing 

aircraft.

Now, any paddles can tell you that the EA-6B Prowler has a weak hook snubber. The 

snubber is a little hydraulic cylinder that presses the hook down when you lower it so 

that it does not bounce when the aircraft hits the deck, causing it to miss the arresting 
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lands nicely in the wires, but just keeps going due to hook bounce. Well, on this re

ery, sure enough, we had a Prowler that just would not snag a wire. We simply c

not just keep refueling him and keep trying. One fix would be simply to barrica

him—catching the whole plane in a big nylon net stretched across the deck. How

this virtually ensures serious damage to the aircraft. We had a second fix, not c

at the time in the technical bulletins: stack rolls of toilet paper under the arresti

wires to raise them up more to up the odds the hook will catch one. Toilet paper 

used because it won’t harm the jet engines if it gets sucked into the intake. For t

reason, we had an emergency stash of TP located in a locker under the LSO plat

I called the play to the Air Boss, who issued a delta and turned on the floodlights. 

grabbed the cases of TP and ran out onto the deck, madly stuffing rolls under the 

Sure enough, the Prowler snags a wire on the next pass. Of course the arrestment 

cascades of TP flowing down the deck and also over the LSO platform. I can just i

ine the tales Miss America and her court told their friends back in the States.

Story not complete. The same LSO black ops covert organization that snuck the g

out onto the platform also rigged up a disco in the aviator’s wardroom. It was afte

night when we finally completed the recovery, so there were a) midrats available a

no senior officer presence (unless you considered me, the CAG LSO, a senior offi

So, the junior officers were dancing and carrying on until, as luck would have it, 

sleepless executive officer of the ship wanders in. We went from disco to tap dan

in nothing flat.

Moon over the IO

So we find ourselves rotting away in the IO from April to December 1980, with on

four-day port call in Singapore. The first three months were solid Case III due to t

monsoon, with the deck moving a lot. We got real comfortable with MOVLAS (m

visual landing aid), and had several of those legendary passes where the pilot did n

the deck until touchdown. Finally the monsoon blew itself out and the IO turned 

the glassy lake we had heard about. One of the duties of the O-4s aboard Ike was le

the daily FOD (foreign object damage) walkdowns, and the CAG LSOs were not e

so one fine morning I am out in front of several hundred shipmates moving down 

deck in precise military formation (or so I recall). The Air Boss was always up for 

ing on the LSOs, so he kept up a steady stream of cracks and insults on the 5MC a

made our way aft. When we got to the fantail I decided to fight back. I had everyo

up facing aft and issued the order “Drop trou!” Everyone obeyed with military pre

and bent over, providing the Boss with a full IO moon. You probably cannot get aw

with that today, can you?
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God, I loved waving. The fantail is where the sea and sky meet as the planes come down 

the chute to land. It is where the ship and the airplane become one again, and it is the 

LSO that makes it happen. In the monsoon, the CO of Ike would have me go out on the 

platform at dawn to advise him on whether it was safe (relatively speaking) to fly that 

day. He never overrode me. I would stand out there, feeling the ship move, seeing how 

she was getting along with the wind and the waves. She was like a living thing, almost. 

There I was with her, in a conversation about how she felt about tossing her chicks into 

the air. Times like that are rare and precious, and come only to a precious few—the 

paddles. I remember appreciating it, even as I stood there—and then all the chaff cuttings that had been dropping through a deck drain in the chaff cutting room, located 

just above the air intake vent for the main reactor electrical control panel, shorted out 

the main bus and the reactors scrammed, leaving USS Eisenhower adrift in the IO . . .

Happy waving, folks—enjoy it while you can!
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PART THREE

Joint Operations
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Gettysburg and Midway

Historical Parallels in Operational Command

The purpose of this study is to show the profound effect a commander in chief’s a

proach to operational command can have on the course of events in war. It does so 

by analyzing the performance of two operational-level commanders in chief, Gene

Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, and Admiral Isorok

Yamamoto, commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy Combined Fleet, during th

defining campaign of their respective careers. These specific battles are selected to 

demonstrate that the requirements of operational-level command transcend time, 

nology, and environment. Additionally, it is in the study of the losing commander

the most compelling lessons can be drawn. The picture that emerges is an endorse

of Carl von Clausewitz’s notion that there are no hard and fast rules that govern th

conduct of war; it is the presence of the commander that decisively influences the 

of events—for better or worse.1

This focus on the commander in chief recognizes that the process of command at 

operational level of war is a distinct discipline. An operational commander in chi

must orchestrate the actions of a large and complex organization under the most 

ficult of circumstances and must creatively out-think his counterpart on the othe

His span of control is so great that there is no possibility of directly responding to 

erything that happens. He therefore must impose his will on people with whom h

little or no direct contact, and he must get them to act as he would wish even thou

he cannot know all the situations they will face or even be entirely familiar with t

characters.

The term “operational art” denotes the collection of requirements and skills neces

sary for effective command at the operational level. The word “art” is used advised

it indicates that operational-level command is a process sensitive to the abilities of 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Naval War College Review, Winter 1995, Vol. 48, No. 1
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truths and their application to situations that arise. A considerable amount of the current literature in the field of military theory concerns itself with principles and concepts

technology and doctrine—leading one perhaps to suppose that these things exclusively 

govern the conduct of war. As usual, von Clausewitz has the best commentary on the 

matter: “It is only analytically that these attempts at theory can be called advances in the 

realm of truth; synthetically, in the rules and regulations they offer, they are absolutely 

useless.”2

 In other words, one can study war by using theory, principles, and doctrine 

to disassemble it into understandable chunks, but when the responsibility of command 

descends and one has to put it all together, there is nothing but judgment and personal 

approach to help one practice the art. How Lee and Yamamoto practiced the art exerted 

decisive influence on the campaigns we shall examine.

Historical Parallels and the Study of War

In the world of wargaming, there are two terms commonly used to characterize the 

computer models that calculate outcomes. “Deterministic” models are like machinery; 

they crank out identical products every time, given identical inputs. “Stochastic” models, on the other hand, use probabilistic calculations and thus may not yield identical 

results even if the inputs are the same. War, to invoke von Clausewitz once again, is the 

playground of chance, and it requires the practitioner to calculate probabilities.3

 Real 

war is therefore stochastic. This characteristic has bedeviled theorists who have sought 

to identify principles and laws of strategy. Blind application of a particular principle 

or doctrine cannot be relied upon in any particular instance to produce victory; the 

real world of human interactions is too complex and messy to be encompassed by a few 

simple rules.

The complex nature of war should not, however, deter us from trying to understand its 

elements and to learn from the failures and successes of those who have conducted it 

in the past. In studying the chronicle of warfare, its stochastic nature becomes evident; 

concentrating force, for instance, does not always lead to victory any more than dividing 

one’s force in the face of a superior enemy invariably invites disaster. Therefore, when 

one does find parallel events in the historical record, they should be scrutinized for 

evidence that, in certain circumstances, certain approaches to the problem of combat 

command are likely to bring about similar results at least more than once. Put another 

way, if actual war is likened to a stochastic computer model, whenever similar results are 

observed, it is worthwhile to go back and check the inputs.

The battles of Gettysburg and Midway are such parallels, and it turns out that for all 

their separation in time and setting, among their similarities are some that seem to 

be the product of more than pure chance. This is all the more striking because one is 
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and tactics Napoleon used, and the other a sea battle between aircraft carrier force

moreover, the cultural differences between the losing commanders, Robert E. Lee 

Isoroku Yamamoto, appear to be vast. While these are not battles that leap to min

subjects for comparison, the “computer” of war does seem to have calculated some 

prising parallels between them, due to some interestingly similar inputs.

The Parallels

The battles of Gettysburg and Midway marked turning points in their respective w

In both cases the United States secured a tactical victory that gave it the strategic b

ing space needed to build, with its massive economic power, an armed force that w

eventually overwhelm its adversary. In both cases, U.S. forces defeated an enemy t

had a reputation for tactical invincibility, thereby greatly promoting the morale of 

American people as well as that of their military commanders and fighting forces

fore these battles, the enemy had enjoyed the initiative and a string of tactical vict

that had kept the U.S. off balance and the issue of the war in doubt. After the battl

neither the Confederates nor the Japanese were ever again in such a favorable posi

win the war through battlefield victory.

In both battles, the U.S. forces fought on the operational defensive. In neither case 

the battle fit into any overall American strategy except as something required to m

a threat to a base of operations. However, Major General George Meade’s Army of 

Potomac fought on the tactical defensive, whereas Admiral Chester Nimitz’s Pacif

Fleet forces (under the command of Rear Admirals Frank Jack Fletcher and Raym

Spruance) took the tactical offensive. These differences reflect the basic requireme

each kind of warfare (sea and land) and the nature of the weapons the respective f

used. However, in both campaigns, owing to the enemy’s failure to provide for ade

scouting, the U.S. was able to pick the time and place of the battle to its advantage 

thus secure the inherent strengths of defensive warfare.

Both of the battles were lost in part due to the lack of timely and aggressive decisio

making by a key subordinate to the commander in chief. In the case of Gettysburg

Lieutenant General Richard Ewell, commanding the Confederate II Corps, failed 

occupy Culp’s Hill when it was his for the taking; at Midway, Vice Admiral Chuic

Nagumo, commanding the Japanese First Carrier Striking Force, failed to make a 

decision to attack the American task force when he became aware of its presence. 

both occasions inaction permitted the United States forces to achieve a position of 

cal superiority that neither Lee nor Yamamoto could subsequently recoup. In cont

outstanding decisions by U.S. subordinates seized the advantage at critical momen

The decision by Brigadier General John Buford to risk a defense with dismounted 
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Spruance to order an attack on the Japanese carriers even though his aerial strike group 

was not completely launched or organized. This position of tactical advantage stole 

the initiative from the attacker, who as a result suffered heavy losses to his outstanding 

first-line forces. Neither the Confederates nor the Japanese were able to recover fully 

from these losses.

The Inputs

The two battles, then, bear a distinct resemblance. Even the circumstances under which 

the battles were joined and the performance of subordinate officers were impressively 

alike. Accepting that chance can always produce like results from unlike causes, it still 

seems worthwhile to search among the threads of similarity in these battles’ “inputs” in 

search of useful generalizations about the art of war.

Similar Strategic Dilemmas

Although both the South and the Japanese had, through the use of brilliant tactics 

against an ill prepared opponent, seized the operational and even the strategic initiative

their long-term prospects appeared questionable. For the industry-poor South, gasping 

under the squeeze of the North’s economic blockade, a protracted war of attrition was 

not feasible. Japan likewise did not possess an industrial base sufficient to engage in 

such a war with the United States. Both Lee and Yamamoto saw time running against 

their countries. Neither opponent’s initial gambits had brought the United States to the 

bargaining table, and for each the question of what to do next was the subject of debate 

at the highest levels.

In both cases, the dilemma presented to the national authorities was how to use their 

best maneuver forces to secure permanent strategic advantage. The South in early 

1863 had to contemplate the threat to its communication with Texas and to the access, through Mexico, to the resources of the outside world that such communication represented. New Orleans had been lost the previous spring, and contact with 

the trans-Mississippi theater hinged on maintaining Vicksburg. However, by June 

Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant’s troops were threatening Vicksburg, and Union 

forces in Tennessee menaced Atlanta and such industrial and resource heartland as the 

Confederacy possessed. Its best maneuver force was the Army of Northern Virginia, 

under Lee. Should this force, or parts of it, be sent west to secure the Southern position there? Or should it be concentrated in the East to seek decisive battle against the 

battered but intact Army of the Potomac, a battle that might lead directly to peace 

negotiations? 4
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East Indies, which represented staying power for the Empire; however, the buildup 

of Allied forces in Australia posed a serious threat to Japan’s access there. To the e

lay the undefeated U.S. Pacific Fleet. Should the victorious Combined Fleet be use

secure Japan’s position in the south, or to defeat the Pacific Fleet in a decisive batt

could lead to a negotiated settlement with the United States? 5

Strategy has been defined as both an art and a science, but when the bullets fly, str

boils down to what people think about war and the influence they each exert in th

decisions made about where, when, why, and how to fight. In the case of the Confe

eracy and Japan, the resolution of their respective strategic dilemmas was influenc

decisively by what Lee and Yamamoto thought about fighting.6

The Insistence of an Operational Commander

Both Robert E. Lee and Isoroku Yamamoto were enterprising commanders who b

lieved in the utility of activity. Both men, as junior officers, had served with distin

in earlier wars. They each had inherited a defensive strategic doctrine as they assu

their respective commands but soon discarded it as unsuitable to the situations th

faced.7

 Lee realized that digging in and conducting a positional defense of Richmo

would invite eventual pulverization of his army by superior Union forces. He felt h

to wrest the initiative from Major General Joseph Hooker, then commanding the 

of the Potomac.8

 Yamamoto likewise rejected the defensive doctrine of the Imperi

Japanese Navy, which contemplated ambushing the U.S. fleet as it sailed into the W

ern Pacific to take back the Philippines. Given the need for naval support for oper

in the south to secure resources, he felt he could not sit and wait for the U.S. Pacif

to arrive at its own convenience; he had to deal with it on his terms.9

Both commanders were consummate operational planners and decision makers, a

at outfoxing and outmaneuvering their enemies. They consequently developed a s

confidence in the fighting prowess of their forces and in their own command abili

that made them risk-oriented rather than risk-averse. Two months before Gettysb

Lee had divided his smaller force in front of a numerically superior enemy at Chan

lorsville in order to maintain the tactical initiative. Yamamoto, in dispatching his 

to surprise the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, had hazarded his aircraft carriers in a

attack unsupported by land-based air in the face of significant American land def

Both gambits met with great success and reinforced the commanders’ belief in the 

ity of operational risk-taking.10

As a result of their early successes, both Lee and Yamamoto had achieved conside

able prestige and influence in the highest circles of government, not to mention am
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battlefield decisively to bear in getting his views accepted by national authorities.

Thus in each case, matters of national strategic policy were in effect decided by an 

operational-level commander whose outlook was formed by a faith in decisive battle and 

a conviction of the necessity to accept risk to precipitate such a battle.

Lack of Strategic Priority

Interestingly enough, the strategic outlooks of both Lee and Yamamoto were heavily 

influenced by concern for the security of their countries’ capitals. Lee saw his invasion 

of Pennsylvania as a means of drawing the Army of the Potomac away from northern 

Virginia and reducing the threat to Richmond without resorting to a static defense of 

the city.12 Yamamoto’s fixation on Midway was cemented by the April 1942 Doolittle 

raid on Tokyo and his desire to prevent a recurrence by eradicating the Pacific Fleet.13

While concern for the security of their capitals gave useful leverage in gaining acceptance for their projects, both Lee and Yamamoto clearly thought that the best hope for 

a successful end to the war lay in annihilating the enemy in the campaigns upon which 

they were about to embark. A sufficiently complete destruction of remaining U.S. forces 

would lay open the American homeland to operations that would demoralize the populace and, from the perspective of Lee and Yamamoto, strengthen the hand of those in 

the United States who might counsel peace.14

There were also other reasons for undertaking the Gettysburg and Midway campaigns. 

Lee was short of forage for his horses and mules as well as of many other items of supply 

that might be gained from the rich countryside of Pennsylvania and points north. He 

made enough of this aspect of the proposed operation to convince some that it was the 

primary reason for embarking on the campaign.15 Yamamoto too had other uses for a 

successful campaign. He felt that Japanese operations in the south against Australia 

and New Guinea would otherwise constantly be threatened by the American fleet on 

his eastern flank.16 In a real sense, the Midway campaign constituted a monumental 

flank-securing operation.

Whatever their reasons for insisting on those particular campaigns, at the most fundamental level neither Lee nor Yamamoto could abide inaction, and both required a 

suitable outlet for their martial spirits. The majestic scope of each campaign, the lure of 

glory, and the promise of strategic decision pulled them inexorably toward the showdown. But the very multiplicity of prior justifications for the campaigns proved disastrous in the end, because in each case the lack of clear relative priority among the goals 

and objectives of the campaign, especially that of waging decisive battle, led to failure to 

concentrate forces at the critical place and fatal indecision at the critical moment.
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Much has been made of the ignorance of both Lee and Yamamoto as to the where

of the U.S. force that opposed them. In Lee’s case, Major General J. E. B. Stuart an

cavalry failed to maintain contact with either the main Union forces or his own, c

Lee to march blindly into a collision with the Army of the Potomac on ground un

able to the Confederates.17 Likewise, the Japanese Combined Fleet sailed unawares 

an American naval ambush, finding out too late that three Pacific Fleet carriers aw

them at Midway.18

The reasons behind each commander’s failure to ensure adequate scouting are ope

speculation. Certainly both Lee and Yamamoto were sufficiently skilled field com

manders to understand the necessity for scouting, and both had made provisions 

it. In both cases, however, negligence on the part of a principal subordinate led to 

breakdown. General Stuart failed to keep Lee informed on Federal movements, an

miral Nagumo sealed his own fate by failing to mount a sufficiently aggressive tac

reconnaissance.19

In both battles, however easy it may be to pin the blame on subordinate command

ers, the commander in chief retains some responsibility for these failures. In the f

place, neither Lee nor Yamamoto seemed to appreciate fully the importance of det

knowledge of enemy movements in a campaign designed to precipitate a battle tha

hoped would decide the war. They both assumed the U.S. force would react predic

to their own movements, and the lack of information seemed only to confirm thei

expectations.20 Moreover, lack of intelligence did not deter them from pressing on 

their respective plans, even though the level of risk in an already chancy operation 

become thereby even higher.

The reason for this lapse in judgment may be found in the soaring confidence eac

commander had in his force. Both the Army of Northern Virginia and the Japane

Combined Fleet could, with justification, claim to be the finest fighting force of it

kind in the world at the time. Lee and Yamamoto both felt that their commands w

inevitably prevail in any situation in which the enemy could be brought to battle.2

In this frame of mind, complacency about scouting could easily develop. Both me

expected their movements to stimulate an enemy countermove that would bring a

the expected engagement. The enemy was going to come to them, they would defe

enemy when he arrived, and that was that.

The Decisive Place and Time

If there is a principle that is universally accepted by military theorists and writers

is that a commander should attempt to concentrate his own forces when and wher
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or relative (being superior to the enemy at the point of contact), but either way, successful results in a battle cannot be expected, especially on the tactical offensive, if superior 

combat power cannot be brought to bear. At Gettysburg and Midway, neither Lee nor 

Yamamoto, two acknowledged masters of the operational art, adhered to this principle. 

Both of their forces had sufficient combat power in the aggregate to achieve a battlefield 

victory if favorable conditions for engagement could be obtained. Lee’s army, while 

numerically inferior to the Army of the Potomac, was a combat-proven force whose effective power had consistently been out of proportion to its numbers. Yamamoto, on the 

other hand, had a fleet that was superior to the American task forces both in numbers 

and in certain aspects of fighting capability, such as aircraft range, torpedo tactics, and 

night gunnery.

Lee’s inability to concentrate was partially a function of his order of march. He sent his 

army across the Potomac piecemeal, partly in order to maintain a credible rear guard in 

case Hooker decided at that moment to advance on Richmond.22 Lack of parallel avenue

of advance further exacerbated Lee’s maneuver problems, and by the eve of the battle 

the Army of Northern Virginia found itself spread out over many miles along the narrow defiles of the Cumberland Valley. The final division of Lieutenant General James 

Longstreet’s corps was to be unable to reach the scene of the battle until the evening of 

the second day of the battle, too late to have a decisive effect. Yamamoto likewise strung 

out his forces. The most egregious dispersal was of his aircraft carriers; he assigned two 

of his eight carriers to a deception operation in the Aleutians, kept one more with his 

so-called “Main Body,” and placed another with his invasion force. Almost half of his 

total carrier strength was thereby prevented from participating in the main engagement

Each commander failed, in designing his operational campaign, to achieve consistency 

between the principal goal of the operation and the force dispositions employed. In 

light of the strategic situation in which each commander found himself—a high-stakes 

gamble to stave off ultimate strategic defeat—taking unnecessary operational risks by 

failing to provide for rapid concentration should the desired major battle present itself 

seems almost incomprehensible, especially considering the demonstrated talent of the 

two commanders. The answer again seems to revolve around complacency borne of 

successive victories. Both men had achieved success by breaking, rather than adhering 

to, conventional military wisdom, and each seems to have lost some respect for both his 

enemy and the dangers of war in general.23

Indecision by Key Subordinates

General Ewell’s failure to occupy Culp’s Hill on the first day of the battle of Gettysburg 

is commonly cited as one of the major contributing factors in the Confederates’ defeat. 
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take up temporary defensive positions around Gettysburg rather than press the at

on into the evening. Had he acted aggressively to take the high ground while it wa

weakly held, the ill fated attacks on the following days might have been avoided.24

Likewise, Admiral Nagumo’s failure to launch promptly a strike against the U.S. 

forces he had just found doomed his four carriers to a bombing attack with their 

decks crowded with fully fueled and armed aircraft.25 He opted to recover his figh

and prepare an escorted attack on Spruance’s force because he had just witnessed 

carnage that had befallen the initial unescorted American raids on his force. The 

dive-bombing attack occurred just as he was completing these preparations. Had 

American attack been any less successful than it was, Nagumo might indeed have 

nihilated the U.S. force.

The intriguing question is why these officers failed to demonstrate initiative when 

the need arose. The issue is all the more puzzling given the aggressive nature of th

respective commanders in chief. For Ewell, part of the problem was that he was ne

command. Assuming command of Stonewall Jackson’s corps after that brilliant ta

cian’s death on the eve of the Gettysburg campaign, Ewell was presented challenge

with which few officers might have been capable of coping. He had little opportun

to develop confidence in either his own judgment or the capabilities of his lieuten

These leadership challenges were exacerbated by Lee’s own style of command. Ew

functioned well as a division commander under Jackson; Jackson’s directives had 

very detailed, left little room for interpretation, and had given Ewell small opportu

to develop the analytical thinking that underpins initiative. Lee’s discretionary or

proved debilitating for a commander like Ewell, because Lee had not impressed on 

a clear vision of the campaign’s objective or accompanied his orders with a clear st

ment of intent.26

Nagumo, on the other hand, was an experienced carrier task force commander wh

commanded the Pearl Harbor attack and several operations in the South Pacific a

Indian Ocean. However, he was also a methodical and cautious flag officer, a battl

specialist who now found himself in command of an aircraft carrier–centered flee

had been criticized for failing to follow up on the initial success at Pearl Harbor; in 

Yamamoto had been pressed to relieve him but had refused to do so for fear he wo

commit suicide.27

Each of these officers has had his supporters and detractors among historians and 

analysts. Detractors accuse them of indecision, and supporters claim they were ex

ing justified caution. However that may be, their failure to risk aggressive tactical 

allowed in each case the U.S. force to gain a measure of initiative that ultimately d
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commander in chief. Failure to impart a clear vision of the campaigns purpose and the 

place of decisive battle within it made it possible for each of these officers to opt legitimately and rationally for a too-cautious tactical course of action at the critical moment.

Old and New Forms of Warfare

Despite prior battlefield successes that had taken advantage of improved weapons at 

their disposal, in the battles of Gettysburg and Midway both commanders reverted to 

tactics appropriate to weapons of the previous generation. Lee had enjoyed great success 

employing a tactical defensive that was enhanced by the new rifled muskets. Effective 

at over twice the range of smooth-bores, these new weapons made traditional infantry 

charges excessively costly. Assuming the tactical defense at Fredericksburg, Confederate 

forces had mowed down attacking Federals. While Lee’s understanding of the newfound 

strength of the defense may not have been complete, the lesson was abundantly clear to 

officers such as General Longstreet, who sought to engage the Army of the Potomac using the strengths of the tactical defensive.28 Lee must have had some appreciation of this 

when he decided to divide his forces at Chancellorsville in the face of a superior enemy. 

For his part, Yamamoto was considered the oracle of carrier warfare in the Imperial 

Japanese Navy. His design for the Pearl Harbor attack had reflected his understanding of the potential of this new form of naval warfare. The results of Pearl Harbor had 

provided ample reinforcement of the doctrine.

Yet embarking on the most portentous operations of their careers, both commanders 

reverted to forms of warfare made obsolete by their new weapons and tactics, and which 

they themselves had seen fail when used by the enemy. At Gettysburg, Lee ordered 

Pickett’s charge across open ground against prepared Federal positions when he must 

have understood its hazards. Yamamoto made his battleships the centerpiece of his 

tactical plan even though it was by then evident that the aircraft carrier was the ship 

that counted.29 It is difficult to account for these lapses, and available evidence for their 

rationale is scanty. It is possible that when the strategic stakes became sufficiently high, 

the commanders’ confidence in the new forms of fighting was insufficient to bolster 

their nerve, causing them to adopt the methods they had seen succeed in their formative 

years. As a captain during the war with Mexico, Lee had participated in the storming 

of Chapultepec. There, even though he learned about the value of strong fortifications, he saw the tactical offensive carry the day.30 Yamamoto had served with Admiral 

Heihachiro Togo at the battle of Tsushima and had seen the big guns of the Japanese 

battleships annihilate the Russian squadron.31

In any event, in their greatest trials both commanders changed their modes of operation 

and found themselves applying inappropriate tactics. One of the responsibilities of an 
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that technology demands. In this fundamental aspect of the operational art, both 

failed.

Command at a Distance

Finally, these two commanders failed one of the most crucial tests of operational 

command: the ability to influence the course of events that are outside the immed

span of personal control. A tactical commander’s job is to extract maximum fight

performance from his engaged forces. In this role he is in explicit control of the sit

and can react to sudden developments with immediate and specific orders. The op

tional commander, by contrast, is removed by one order of cause and effect from d

control of events. He must achieve orchestration of the varied elements of his com

through influence. Not being privy to every local tactical detail, he must rely on th

judgment of his subordinate commanders to accept or avoid risk in consonance w

overall intent for the operation.

Both Lee and Yamamoto had a fatally flawed command and control arrangement

a variety of reasons, neither enjoyed a productive relationship with key subordinat

They failed to exercise effective influence over the situation because they did not f

establish in their subordinates’ minds the importance of a major engagement in th

overall scheme of campaign.32 Additionally, neither commander promptly provide

formation, guidance, or even moral support once it became evident that the sough

major battle with U.S. forces was imminent.33 In striking contrast is Admiral Ches

Nimitz’s council of war with his tactical commanders, Spruance and Fletcher, and 

message concerning calculated risk.34 Nimitz’s influence allowed Spruance, a norm

circum spect and cautious commander, to go against type and to get in the first blo

ordering his incompletely launched and half-organized strike forces to attack Nag

Lessons

It is clear that similarities in the observed results of the two battles are attended by 

striking similarities in the decisions and command styles of Lee and Yamamoto. D

ences in environment and weapons—one battle being a twentieth-century naval e

ment involving aircraft and submarines almost exclusively, the other a Napoleoni

battle of foot soldiers and smooth-bore artillery—seem less relevant than the para

the personalities and approaches of the commanders, at least the losing ones. It is 

personal approaches to operational command on the part of Lee and Yamamoto t

most enduring lessons can be found, for in the planning and decision making of t

two commanders some of the similarities in the results of the two great battles can 

understood.
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Clemenceaus dictum that war is too important to be left to generals. Lee and 

Yamamoto ventured into the realm of strategic decision making with a rather narrow 

perspective that was based on their faith in the strategic utility of battlefield victory. 

To the misfortune of the Confederacy and Japan, they served no wartime strategists 

like Lincoln or Roosevelt, who possessed the perspective and authority to prevent the 

displacement of coherent grand strategy by operational-level opportunism.

The second lesson is that the operational commander in chief must build internal consistency into his plans. Each of the campaigns studied here was a risky strategic venture, 

normally the recourse of the desperate. Given the high stakes, each commander should 

have attempted to minimize the operational risks. Lee would have been well advised to 

provide for quicker concentration, or at least to form a contingency plan for managing 

an unexpected meeting engagement. Yamamoto should have kept his force concentrated 

so that he could have steamrolled the Americans whether they struck by surprise or not

However, reducing operational-level risks sometimes means accepting greater tactical 

ones. Both Ewell and Nagumo could have risked an aggressive attack and thereby saved 

the day. They did not because their orders did not impart to them the vision that would 

have allowed them responsibly to accept greater risk.

Consistency not only means complementary risk management, it also means knowing what one wants. An organization cannot have more than one top priority, or its 

members will find themselves working at cross purposes. At Gettysburg and Midway 

the fundamental implied objective in the plans of both commanders was to generate a 

decisive battle that would destroy the enemy’s remaining main maneuver forces in the 

theater. That was the object of the strategic risk, and it should have ordered all efforts; 

but neither commander established that priority, either in the disposition of his forces 

or in his guidance to his subordinates. Nor is it even clear that either man had expressly 

prioritized the objectives in his own mind. Beforehand, in marshalling their arguments 

to gain approval for their respective projects, both Lee and Yamamoto had articulated a 

variety of objectives and benefits, and both may have ended up confusing themselves as 

to what exactly they were about.

Thirdly, the operational commander must have faith in his methods. Mastery of the art 

of war involves understanding the characteristics of the weapons at hand and their influence on both tactical and operational-level plans. Technology is always creating new 

and improved weapons, tactics undergo change, and senior commanders are often faced 

with having to apply appreciably different methods than those they learned as junior 

officers. Lee and Yamamoto appeared to lose their poise as the burden of national salvation descended on their shoulders, and they abandoned their newly acquired warfare 

expertise in favor of methods they had seen work years before.
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influence. The commander simply cannot control everything that is going on in 

battle or campaign; he must allow subordinates room to exercise initiative. Howev

retains absolute responsibility for everything that happens and must take steps to 

that all parts of the force work with unity of purpose. He achieves this by establish

a close and forthright relationship with his key subordinates and imbedding his v

in their minds before action occurs. Once the operation is underway, he must fol

up his training of subordinates by providing them information, guidance, and mo

support to help ensure they react to the changing fortunes of battle in consonance 

his intent.

Finally, the biggest lesson that can be drawn may be that though forms of war cha

people do not. Theorists search in vain for the perfect strategy or for immutable 

principles of war. Clausewitz admonishes us that the human genius for war will al

operate outside the rules. Conversely, as these cases show, even geniuses fall prey t

such human frailties as pride, complacency, and irresolution. While these faults m

understandable reactions to the pressure cooker of war, when they reside in the op

tional commander in chief even the finest weapons and the bravest soldiers, sailor

airmen cannot save the cause.

Notes

1. This article assumes a general familiarity 

with the battles and personalities that are its 

subjects. The author recommends the following books for the best overall descriptions: 

Gettysburg: The Gettysburg Campaign: A 

Study in Command, by Edwin B. Coddington 

(New York: Macmillan, 1968). For Midway: 

The Barrier and the Javelin, by H. P. Willmott 

(Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1983).

2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael 

Howard and Peter Paret, trans. and eds. (New 

Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), p. 136.

3. Ibid., pp. 101–2.

4. Coddington, pp. 4–5, 9; Douglas Southall 

Freeman, R. E. Lee: A Biography (New York: 

Scribner, 1937), v. III, pp. 18–9; and Archer 

Jones, Confederate Strategy from Shiloh to 

Vicksburg (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. 

Press, 1991), chap. XI.

5. Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya, 

Midway, the Battle That Doomed Japan: The 

Japanese Navy’s Story (Annapolis, Md.: Naval 

Institute Press, 1955), pp. 34–5; and John 

Deane Potter, Yamamoto: The Man Wh

aced America (New York: Viking Press

pp. 140–54.

6. Coddington, pp. 5–7; and Fuchida, p. 4

7. Fuchida, p. 12; Clifford Dowdey and L

Manarin, eds., The Wartime Papers of R

E. Lee (New York: Bramhall House, 19

letter 463, p. 504.

8. Coddington, pp. 5, 7–8; J. J. Bowen, Th

egy of Robert E. Lee (New York: Neale, 

p. 140; and Dowdey and Manarin, lette

pp. 532–3.

9. Potter, p. 36; and Fuchida, p. 50. For a 

analysis of the Japanese prewar defensi

doctrine and Yamamoto’s role in chang

see “A Commander’s Dilemma: Admir

Yamamoto and the ‘Gradual Attrition’ 

Strategy,” Naval War College Review, A

1993, by Captain Yoji Koda of the Japa

Maritime Self-Defense Force. The read

observe in this article both an excellen

scription of the defensive doctrine Yam

discarded and evidence of the high est
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Americans. Captain Koda attempts to exculpate Yamamoto by saying that revising fleet 

doctrine was too big a job for one admiral. 

This author feels that the Pearl Harbor operation and subsequent ones leading to Midway 

demonstrated that the Imperial Japanese Navy 

was indeed capable of adapting to the new 

form of sea warfare.

10. Coddington, p. 8; Freeman, pp. 23–4; Bowen, 

p. 136; and Potter, p. 139.

11. Peter J. Parrish, The American Civil War (New 

York: Holms and Meier, 1975), p. 280; and 

Potter, p. 139.

12. Dowdey, p. 504.

13. Fuchida, pp. 64–5.

14. Potter, pp. 43–4, 179, 185; and Fuchida, pp. 59, 

76.

15. Freeman, p. 19.

16. Fuchida, pp. 35–7.

17. Dowdey, p. 580. Lee admits earlier in this 

letter (p. 576) that he had not expected to encounter Union forces at this location or time.

18. Willmott, pp. 367–9.

19. Freeman, p. 147. Other writers, including 

Coddington, have deflected the blame onto 

others, including Robertson, one of Stuart’s 

brigade commanders; see Coddington, 

pp. 182–5. Defects in scouting plagued the 

Japanese campaign plan at several levels, but 

Nagumo’s scouting plan was the proximate 

cause for his misfortunes. See Fuchida, pp. 

145–50.

20. Freeman, p. 147; and Willmott, pp. 350–1.

21. Coddington, p. 25; and Potter, pp. 139, 179.

22. Coddington, pp. 68–9.

23. The fighting spirit and mettle of the Army of 

Northern Virginia on the eve of the invasion 

of Pennsylvania was the subject of comment 

by several observers. Lee, as much in the 

emotional grip of his soldiers as they were 

in his, seems to have been caught up in the 

atmosphere of confidence. His letter of 21 

May 1863 to General John B. Hood expresses 

this confidence despite his concerns over finding replacements for the deceased Stonewall 

Jackson and other leaders. See Dowdey and 

Manarin, letter 447, p. 490. The “victory 

disease” of the Japanese is well documented. 

More specifically, Yamamoto, for all of his 

of disdain for the fighting ability of the U.S. 

Navy. At the very least, he appeared to make 

no effort to discourage overconfidence on the 

part of his staff and subordinates. Fuchida repeatedly brings out this aspect of the Imperial 

Japanese Navy’s organizational climate; see pp

134, 170, 207, 246.

24. Some evidence for this analysis is provided 

by General Meade’s 3:00 p.m. letter of 2 July 

to General Henry Halleck, general in chief of 

the Army, in which he states an intent to fall 

back to Westminster if he sees the Confederates trying to get to his rear. If Ewell had taken 

Culp’s Hill, the Confederates would have 

been in a position to get to the rear of Federal 

positions on Cemetery Ridge and Meade 

might very well have elected to withdraw. 

Meade ends his letter by assuring Halleck 

that he would act with caution, which, among 

Union generals, generally meant withdrawing to avoid encirclement. His letter of 8:00 

p.m. of the same day also betrays a degree of 

skittishness. U.S. War Department, War of 

the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official 

Records (Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 

1889), v. 27, part I, p. 72.

25. Fuchida, pp. 169–73.

26. General Ewell’s performance on the first day 

of the battle is the subject of controversy. His 

detractors, including Generals Trimble and 

Gordon, accused him of culpable indecision. 

Even his supporters admit that had he been a 

leader of Jackson’s caliber, he might have been 

able to organize an attack on Culp’s Hill. See 

Coddington, pp. 318–9. Freeman’s account of 

the events of that evening focuses on Ewell’s 

inability to rise to the demands of the situation; see Freeman, pp. 76–8.

27. Potter, p. 123.

28. Coddington, pp. 360–1.

29. Yamamoto sent Nagumo, with his four carriers, out ahead of the “Main Body,” which 

included seven battleships. Nagumo’s carriers 

were being used to attack Midway and create 

the conditions under which the Main Body 

could decisively engage the remnants of the 

U.S. Pacific Fleet. In this stage of the battle, 

the carriers were being used as skirmishers or 

cavalry, a role subordinate to the battleship 

and reflecting obsolete prewar doctrine.

30. Freeman, v. 1, pp. 295–6.

31. Potter, p. 12.
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strategy. Thus his subordinates demonstrated 

insufficient sense of urgency at critical times 

to do those things that would ensure engagement under the best possible circumstances. 

Lee’s concept for the Gettysburg campaign 

had a definite opportunistic flavor that made 

it difficult for subordinates to grasp the 

significance of emerging situations. See Coddington, pp. 8–9. Yamamoto was clear about 

his desire to destroy the American fleet, but he 

and his staff were so sure that the Americans 

would act predictably that he placed Nagumo 

in a position in which that subordinate would 

have to make a split-second decision as to 

priority and risk that rightly belonged to the 

commander in chief himself. See Fuchida, pp. 

126–7.

33. Lee’s style of discretionary or conditional 

order writing is well documented; see 

another instance, and one that Ewell, a

frustrated by such orders, apparently f

to interpret as a suggestion, especially 

it appeared to involve considerable risk

ditionally, Lee kept his grand designs f

campaign to himself, because he had s

privately expressed views find their wa

the newspapers. See Gen. James Longs

From Manassas to Appomattox (New Y

Mallard Press, 1991), pp. 336–7. Yama

insisted on exercising command from 

battleship Yamato, where, far to the rea

Nagumo’s carrier forces, he steadfastly 

to break radio silence. See Fuchida, pp

and Willmott, pp. 362, 368–9.

34. E. B. Potter, Nimitz (Annapolis, Md.: N

Institute Press, 1976), p. 87.
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Principles of Jointness

For all the attention that has been given to jointness among the U.S. armed forces 

World War II, nobody yet has developed a comprehensive theory that underpins s

policy, or doctrine. This is curious, since the literature on operational-art theory, 

subject that most senior military officers contend is inherently joint, is quite exten

Operational art is a clearly identified military discipline and enjoys a general agre

as to its basics. However, despite claims that modern operational art is joint in nat

nobody links it to a theory of jointness. Joint Publication 1, Joint Warfare of the U.

Armed Forces, provides a list of joint principles, but these are mostly exhortatory a

fall short of constituting a theory of jointness.

The reasons for this state of affairs are not hard to fathom. Roger Beaumont, in th

ace to his book Joint Military Operations: A Short History, puts his finger on it:

In the course of research and analysis, I also gained a sense of why jointness has rarely been t

clinically. In peacetime, the bewildering maze of operational detail, legislation, doctrine, tec

ogy, personalities, factions and formal organizations has made jointness many things to man

people. Since as a subset of war, jointness in combat lies in the realm of chaos, it is no more t

to numerical reductionism, logical formats or formulae than the arts, sculpture, or the weath

Like schools of thought in art, the intensity of partisanship on issues of jointness has sometim

proached the level of emotion held toward foes in war, for it touches closely on the critical bo

and cohesion that lie at the heart of military institutions, and their predisposition to see the 

in “them-us” terms.1

In such a highly charged environment, it is difficult to attain the degree of objecti

necessary for the development of theory. This does not mean, however, that there 

literature on the subject. It does mean that even if some brave soul articulates vali

ciples, the proposals are bound to threaten somebody, and the likelihood of unive

acceptance is virtually nil. Notwithstanding this state of affairs, this article will at

a little clinical analysis and set forth some principles of jointness that could under

the development of theory on the subject.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A different version of this article appeared in Joint Force Quarterly, Winter 2000/01
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ers tend to concentrate on either the theater war-fighting aspect of jointness, or on the 

Washington, D.C., headquarters scene. This is not surprising, because the environments 

are so very different. Moreover, writers usually deal with joint principles in order to 

support some other issue that is the real subject of their writing. However, where the literature does attempt to address underlying factors, two basic principles seem to emerge 

repeatedly, either explicitly or implicitly:

• The Complementarity Principle. By combining the various military services into 

single organizations (joint force commands) we can compensate for one arm’s weakness through another arm’s strength. In such a manner, each arm complements the 

others. For example, the Air Force can provide the Army more air defense than the 

Army can provide itself.

• The Dilemma Principle. In order for an enemy to defend successfully against one 

arm, he must become vulnerable to another. If, for example, an enemy wanted to 

throw his mobile operational reserve against a U.S. Army thrust at a particular objective, he would have to move that reserve. This would make it vulnerable to attack 

by the Air Force. The enemy is therefore faced with an unpalatable dilemma.2

Together, these two principles define what synergy means in military terms. In other 

words, by combining the forces of two or more services, you get more effect than if you 

just added up their respective numbers. Joint doctrine appears to be built upon these 

principles, as Joint Publications 1 and 3 (Joint Operations) frequently prescribe achieving synergy and presenting the enemy with difficult dilemmas.

That is not the whole story, however. The preceding principles represent the desired 

benefits of joint operations; they do not address how jointness is to be achieved or 

how much is enough. A number of writers advance, in various ways, what we will call 

the Hierarchy Principle, which says that the degree of jointness (which we will loosely 

define here as effective cooperation between the various military services) is inversely 

proportional to the number of command echelons.3

 The clear implication is that flatter 

organizations are more apt to exhibit effective internal cooperation. This principle is 

firmly embedded in joint doctrine, in the form of the joint task force. JTFs have become 

the principal method of U.S. operational command and control in-theater—despite 

the risks and costs of their ad hoc nature—precisely because they make the operational 

organization flatter.

Another, somewhat related principle that arises in the literature can be termed the 

Necessity Principle. It states that greater jointness tends to be exhibited in the face of the 

enemy at the lower echelons of command. One writer states that “the supreme lesson 

of the Pacific War . . . [is] that true unity of command can be achieved only on the field 
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is nothing particularly surprising about this principle, but it does raise an interest

point that seems to penetrate to the heart of the matter. While creative improvisation and willingness to put mission interests ahead of service political interests wh

engaged in battle is laudable, it should not constitute de facto military policy. In o

words, instead of waiting until we are locked in combat, we would prefer to have “

active jointness,” the ability to achieve effective cooperation prior to entering a fig

However, proactive jointness is an inherently top-down policy matter in peacetim

it is therefore inhibited by the Hierarchy Principle, since all echelons from the Join

down get involved.

The literature also deals with the question of how much jointness is enough and h

much is too much. There seem to be at least two principles at work here. The first 

Cohesion Principle. Writers almost universally state that joint arrangements that d

unit cohesion would negate any potential benefits of jointness by reducing morale 

basic military efficiency. The command level at which jointness would disrupt coh

is generally thought to be the upper tactical level (division, battle group, wing, Ma

expeditionary force).5

 However, the historical record with regard to the Necessity 

ciple would seem to indicate that lower levels have successfully integrated. The “C

Air Force” in the World War II Solomons campaign successfully integrated squad

from different services into a cohesive fighting group.6

At this point it is probably worthwhile to distinguish between synchronization an

tegration. There appears to be great advantage in having tactical units self-synchr

with elements from other services. However, integration, the assignment of eleme

one service’s forces to those of another (attachment, in joint parlance), is fraught w

hazards. First, logistics can become so cumbersome that formation efficiency is re

despite the additive effects of the attached element. Second, depending on when th

is attached, training (or the lack thereof) will be similarly inhibiting. Therefore, w

conclude that the applicability of the Cohesion Principle is situation dependent.

A second limiting factor on jointness is the idea of diversity. Some writers decry 

potential for strategic “monism” if the services were truly unified.7

 So, the Divers

Principle states that competition of ideas leads to a more robust and stable strate

development process.8

 This idea seems to have merit on several counts. First, the h

cal record is full of episodes in which one person or organization dominated natio

or theater strategy to the detriment of the parent nation’s interests. The United Sta

is a pluralistic democracy, and its strategies should be discourse based and represe

the aggregate interests of the relevant stakeholders. This was illustrated when Pres

Harry Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. Sec

jointness were incarnated by a general staff, it might acquire a strategic “tilt” that 
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corner. Moreover, the unhappy history of the Canadian Armed Forces with true unification is universally cited as an example of too much jointness.

This is not to say that constant internecine service squabbling is to be tolerated. Congress, in passing the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, clearly based its actions on the idea 

that competition could be accommodated only within the context of available national 

resources and only down to certain levels of command. In the era 1947 to 1986 the 

Diversity and Hierarchy Principles combined, without the moderating influence of necessity, to override decisively the Complementarity Principle. Congress finally supplied 

the necessity. If we have correctly discerned the existence of the Diversity and Hierarchy 

Principles, then logic would tell us that those are wrong who say that the military has so 

changed since 1986 that continuing legislative forcing functions is unnecessary.

The Cohesion Principle seems to lose relevance as we go up the chain of command, 

whereas the Diversity Principle loses relevance as we descend the hierarchy. In the 

middle, where the curves cross, exist the joint commanders in chief (CINCs) and the 

JTFs. At these levels a joint-force commander can choose two styles of command with 

regard to these two principles. He can elect to be a “coordinator,” who rationalizes the 

possibly competing plans of his service component commanders, or an “orchestrator,” 

who uses his staff to develop an operational plan and then issues unambiguous orders 

to his components. General Norman Schwarzkopf appears to have been a coordinator, 

letting his service components develop their plans (within the context of a general strategy) and then taking whatever minimum steps he deemed necessary to deconflict them

In contrast, General MacArthur was an orchestrator. The Inchon operation was an example of a detailed operational strategy imposed on unwilling subordinate commands.9

A coordinator will maximize diversity and therefore unit cohesion, while an orchestrator will minimize diversity and might very well take some risks with tactical formation 

cohesion in the interests of tight orchestration. Both of these joint command styles have 

their place, and neither can be said to be inherently superior to the other. The trick is to 

recognize when one is more appropriate.

This leads us to the conclusion that the degree of desired jointness is situation dependent and not an absolute standard. While the principles so far discussed give us some 

general parameters concerning jointness, they do not offer any clear guidance on what 

kinds of circumstances demand various degrees of jointness. At this point we leave the 

realm of available literature and head into intellectual terra incognita. The principles I 

will articulate are at best speculative, but they are based as much as possible on observed 

facts and trends.
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greater the expected necessity for speed of command in an operation, the greater t

required degree of proactive jointness. One of the fundamental tenets of “Joint Vi

2020” is that the future operational environment will demand increasing speed of 

mand. This implies that much self-synchronization of lower command echelons w

required and that therefore the services should invest heavily in C4ISR interopera

down to the unit level.10

Networking of combat units will have a profound effect on how the Preparation, C

sion, and Diversity Principles apply to military operations. Networked units will p

a swarming style of warfare, in which individual unit commanders will have cons

able decision-making discretion within the context of a constantly updated joint c

mander’s intent. Good joint doctrine will be critical to the success of such operatio

that aspect of preparation will be central. However, networking will allow both cr

ity and changes of plans on the fly, so highly structured joint training will be of le

Since networked units will be less dependent on fixed formations for mutual supp

and more dependent on information sharing, the Cohesion Principle will change 

dramatically. There may be little need for formal attachments, and units will natu

collaborate and cooperate on the basis of the emerging common operational pictu

Finally, network-enabled swarming will demand knowledge of and adherence to a 

rule set (doctrine) but will permit (and even require) considerable latitude in decis

making for local commanders, so the Diversity Principle will change.

The Orchestration Principle. Joint strategies and concepts of operation that requ

tight orchestration should be subject to centralized joint planning and control. Th

may be a time and place for diverse inputs on strategy, but once decided, diversity 

an evil. Desert Storm seemed to illustrate this principle. The Marine Corps wa

supposed to conduct a fixing attack in the center while the Army VII Corps condu

a flanking attack that would surround and annihilate the Iraqi Republican Guard

However, General Schwarzkopf did not closely control the Marines’ rate of advanc

and their rapid attack forced the Iraqis into headlong retreat before the VII Corps 

close the trap.11

The Triphibious Principle. (This principle is named in honor of Winston Church

who coined the term to articulate the need for officers who understood the combi

action of land, sea, and air forces.) The converse of the Dilemma Principle, it hold

a joint-force commander should avoid getting into situations in which he has to ri

disaster in one warfare environment in order to avoid one in another. There are va

ous permutations of this principle, such as “Don’t get yourself into a situation in w

you have to risk a disaster at sea in order to avert one on land, or vice versa.” Land
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that are connected by this principle. A prime historical example is Guadalcanal, where 

Admiral Ernest J. King sent the Marines ashore before an adequate degree of sea and 

air control was attained. The result was that Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher was put in 

an untenable dilemma and General Alexander Vandegrift and his Marines were put at 

extreme risk.

The Parallel Strategies Principle. Military risk is reduced by executing multiple, simultaneous strategies (for instance, an air strategy combined with a ground or maritime 

strategy), to the extent that their effects are additive and do not significantly attenuate 

the effects or execution of each other. This is a combination of the Complementarity and 

Dilemma Principles writ large. Joint doctrine does not take this issue head on but leaves 

the door open for it, and it is the source of serious doctrinal friction between the Air 

Force and the other services. The Marines, for example, because they are so dependent 

on their aviation arm for tactical fires, are loath to chop their air assets to the Joint Force 

Air Component Commander (JFACC), because losses in a precursor air campaign may 

hamstring subsequent amphibious or ground maneuver operations. Joint-force commanders must have the authority, objectivity, and guts to decide on a principal operational strategy, but also the vision (based on education in strategy and operations) to see 

the benefits and hazards of a multipronged strategy.

There are two issues that have not been addressed by any of the principles articulated so 

far. The first is micromanagement. There are those who contend that increasing connec

tivity and flatter organizations will lead to centralized control. There does not appear 

to be any principle governing this matter that can be deduced from either the literature 

or the historical record. Abraham Lincoln tried to micromanage his armies at various 

points with a telegraph and pony express, whereas President George Bush left Schwarzkopf in a guidance vacuum during cease-fire talks in the desert, despite the availability 

of satellite phones, faxes, and numerous other means of instant communications. This 

seems to be a matter governed by personalities and not at all amenable to simple rules.

The second matter that has not been broached is who should hold joint command. This 

issue is currently governed by the quasi-principle that the commander of a joint force 

should be from the service that supplies the preponderance of forces.12 There is some 

sense to this, but on the other hand, it does not necessarily guarantee the fittest person 

gains command. There is the concern that an officer from one service cannot be trusted 

to make strategic decisions concerning the core fighting capability of another service’s 

main forces. The Navy, for example, refused to assign any fast carriers to General 

MacArthur in World War II, assuming that an Army officer would not be able to make 
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the Army assigned a three-star general to the command of a relatively small helico

detachment in Albania in order to ensure the Air Force JFACC would not “misuse

helicopters.

The answer to these problems does not appear to lie in principles or rules of thum

does seem to lie, in this writer’s opinion, in the existence of robust joint institution

Joint Forces Command, as the joint-force trainer and integrator, and National Def

University, through its component schools and think tanks, should be centers of e

lence that develop joint operational theory and doctrine. This system would refine 

ficer joint education and training to the point that all officers eligible for joint com

would be adequately prepared and the “preponderance of forces” policy would suf

Conversely, if joint officer development reached a sufficiently sophisticated level, i

vidual capabilities and personality, not the color of uniform, could be the deciding 

tor in picking a joint commander.13 In such an environment, where higher echelon

great confidence in local commanders, counterproductive micromanagement wou

less likely.

Having gone through the exercise of distilling prospective joint principles, can we 

any utility in them? Would the existence of an accepted joint theory make a differ

in how the armed forces operate? I think the answer is yes. For one thing, the artic

tion of theory provides us with a common set of terms through which we can com

nicate complex ideas. Who would argue the utility of Clausewitz’s “center of gravi

or “culminating point”? No common set of terms settles all arguments, but at leas

would move closer to knowing what we are really arguing about. Second, theory b

theory. If we can take the first step toward a clinical examination of jointness, it li

will stimulate further work. Progressive theoretical work might help prevent reinv

of the same wheels by successive generations of officers. The rather cyclic nature o

tempts at jointness, reflected in part by the Necessity Principle, would be disrupte

actual progress would be achieved.

Notes

1. Roger A. Beaumont, Joint Military Operations: 

A Short History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993), p. xv.

2. Robert Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver (Novato, Calif.: Presidio, 1991), pp. 92–93.

3. C. P. Ankersen, “A Little Bit Joint: Component 

Commands: Seams, Not Synergy,” Joint Force 

Quarterly (Spring 1998), p. 92.

4. Louis Morton, “Pacific Command: A S

Interservice Relations,” in Harmon Me

rial Lectures in Military History, 1957–

(Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force 

tory, 1988), p. 152.

5. See, for example, Thomas C. Linn, “Th

Cutting Edge of Unified Actions,” Joint 

Quarterly (Winter 1993/94), p. 39.
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Institute Press, 1993), pp. 23–38. 

7. Mackubin T. Owens, “The Use and Abuse of 

Jointness,” Marine Corps Gazette (November, 

1997). Owens casts the argument in terms of 

integration versus unification and comes out, 

on the basis of historical analysis, on the side 

of integration.

8. An example of numerous student papers 

that discuss the subject of unification of 

the services and the effects and benefits of 

organizational competition is Lt. Col. Dennis 

W. Tighe, “Unification of Forces: The Road to 

Jointness” (School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., 1991).

9. Maj. Jerry McElwee, USA, “Principles for Organization of Joint and Combined Staffs” (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans., 1986). McElwee cites the 

following principles that MacArthur used to 

organize his commands and staffs: complete 

location; and frequent coordination between 

combined and component staffs. 

10. C4ISR: Command, control, communications, 

computers, intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance. 

11. Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. 

Trainor, The Generals’ War (Boston: Little, 

Brown, 1995), pp. 472–73.

12. Actually, joint doctrine addresses this principle explicitly with regard only to functional 

component commanders and multinational 

force commanders. See U.S. Defense Dept., 

Unified Action Armed Forces, Joint Publication 

0-2 (Washington, D.C.: Joint Staff, 2001).

13. A variation on this theme is that the nature of 

the task should determine the service of a JTF 

commander. Linn, “Cutting Edge of Unified 

Actions,” pp. 34–35.
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Slicing the Onion Differently

Seapower and the Levels of War

Significantly, this strategy requires new ways of thinking—about b

empowering individual commanders and understanding the net ef

dispersed operations.

A COOPERATIVE STRATEGY FOR 21ST-CENTURY SEAPO

For most of history, generals and admirals have talked about the process of war in 

of strategy and tactics. However, in its 1982 Field Manual 100-5, Operations, the U

Army inserted an intermediate level between strategy and tactics that it called the 

erational level.” Subsequently, military officers and scholars have devoted conside

effort to defining and developing the different levels of war, especially the operatio

level. Although first institutionalized by the Army, the levels of war were eventual

embedded in joint doctrine. However, the notion of an operational level of war an

its attendant set of terms, principles, and concepts has not gained purchase within 

U.S. Navy until recently, despite being taught and touted by its own war college. E

now, most naval officers, including many admirals, are either unfamiliar or uncom

fortable with the idea, despite giving it considerable lip service. Although this cou

dismissed as parochialism, there are deeper and more pragmatic reasons for the N

institutional discomfort with the operational level of war that will be addressed in 

article. Understanding these reasons will lead to the articulation of a new way to l

the relationship between levels of war—a different way to slice the onion.

The Problem of Command

Napoleon, it is said, was unbeatable when he could see the whole battlefield and p

sonally direct the action. However, he did not do so well when he had to rely on hi

subordinate generals to exercise independent command.2

 Either they were incomp

or Napoleon lacked understanding of what we now call the operational art. The gr

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Joint Force Quarterly, January 2012, all rights reserved
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roads, meant that no general could exercise personal command of a whole army. This 

was clearly illustrated in the U.S. Civil War when General Ulysses S. Grant coordinated 

the movements of several widely separated armies toward a common goal. By World 

War II, millions of men comprised the Red Army that drove back the vaunted German 

Wehrmacht in 1944 and 1945. The Soviets, in order to keep coherence across this massive force, developed the notion of operational art, which referred to the principles and 

concepts needed to link a set of tactical actions to a goal that was itself part of a larger 

scheme. Armed with this doctrine, subordinate commanders and their staffs could plan 

and execute even large and progressive operations in a way that was congruent with 

overall strategy. The commander in chief did not have to be there in person.

Until World War II, navies did not have the problem of trying to closely coordinate 

the actions of widely separated fleets. It was not that there were no scattered fleets; it 

was just that the nature of the problem at sea was different than on land. If one navy 

concentrated its power into a main fleet, the contending navy had to follow suit or risk 

defeat in detail. The mobility of ships made this a central issue. Therefore, large naval 

battles, when they occurred, were concentrated in space and time such that the admiral 

in charge was there in person. The key command problem was tactical: how to find the 

enemy and then how to coordinate the movements of individual ships or squadrons 

such that maximum firepower could be brought to bear. The big battles were over in 

a few hours, and they generally had significant strategic effects. Thus, naval officers 

thought in terms of strategy and tactics.

World War II forced a change in practice, if not in terminology. The adoption of a progressive island-hopping strategy through the Mandated Islands with concurrent suppor

to General Douglas MacArthur’s converging drive along the north coast of New Guinea 

meant that the actions of separate, powerful fleets had to be coordinated. Upon arrival 

in Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief, 

Pacific Ocean Areas, elected to command from ashore in Hawaii, allowing subordinate 

admirals such as Raymond Spruance and William Halsey to plan and execute the individual operations that constituted the Central Pacific campaign, each of which might 

involve multiple tactical engagements or battles. Although not articulated as such, the 

Navy had to develop its own version of the Soviet operational art. However, after the 

war—and notwithstanding several dramatic operational-level actions in the Korean 

War such as the Inchon invasion and the rescue of Army and Marine forces in North 

Korea—with no enemy fleet in sight but pressured by the advent of nuclear weapons, the 

Navy promptly reverted to the traditional strategy and tactics framework. Individual 

battlegroups each centered on an aircraft carrier became the strategic chess pieces that 

the fleet commanders moved around.
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conflict, the Service discovered that the lack of any theory or doctrine connected 

a progressive and sustained air campaign, a form of operational art, put it in a sub

dinate position to the Air Force, which did have such doctrine. After the war, the N

embarked upon an effort to achieve its own operational-level command and contr

capability by trying to mirror the Air Force’s Joint Force Air Component Comma

(JFACC) command structure—at sea. This effort ultimately failed in part because 

Navy attempted to shoehorn a highly complex operations center into a space-limit

ship and superimpose it on existing tactical staffs. However, a key reason it did no

out was that the Navy did not have any existing operational-level theory or doctri

would have established the need for such a command element.

The command problem for the Navy in the 1990s became one of protecting its wa

fighting equities in an increasingly developed joint command environment that w

based substantially on Army structure, process, and doctrine. In the wake of the S

Union’s demise, the Navy again found itself without a seagoing rival. In order to e

lish its continuing relevance in new terms, it issued a white paper entitled . . . From 

Sea in which it acknowledged the absence of a threat to its command of the seas an

committed itself to supporting joint warfighting in the littorals. Over the next few 

several successor documents were issued to refine the Navy’s utility argument, bu

retained the fundamental argument that its mission was power projection.3

 This a

ment ended up presenting the Navy with a new command problem in the first dec

of the 21st century. Prior to . . . From the Sea, the world ocean was divided into tw

massive areas of responsibility (AORs), U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Atlantic C

mand. The two “fleet commanders in chief” owned virtually all naval forces, whic

moved fluidly (as it were) around the world operating “in support” of the land-ori

joint commanders (although substantial forces were transferred on a rotating basi

the Mediterranean under U.S. European Command). After the Navy issued . . . Fr

the Sea, each successive Unified Command Plan (UCP), the document that spells 

the joint command structure, expanded the AOR boundaries of the land comman

into the oceans. Now, U.S. Southern Command, a traditionally Army-centric com

owns the Caribbean and large swaths of the Atlantic and Pacific. U.S. Central Com

mand owns the Indian Ocean north and west of Diego Garcia, and U.S. Africa Co

mand owns the seas around much of Africa.

In the new joint command arrangements, each unified commander has his own n

component, a numbered fleet that exercises command in the AOR in a way very si

to the ground and air components. In joint theory, these components represent th

lower echelon of the operational level, with the joint task force commander being 
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strategic level—the levels-of-war onion being sliced rather thin by now.

For the world of the 1990s, this set of command arrangements worked adequately 

despite being occasionally awkward for mobile naval forces and despite various spats 

between the Air Force and Navy over where the maritime commander’s airspace ended 

and that of the JFACC began. Naval forces were essentially a “sea base” that contributed 

air sorties, gunfire, and other support to forces ashore. Moreover, even in the peacetime 

naval diplomacy role, the pattern of naval operations was a function of the COCOM’s 

security cooperation plan. The world as seen from the perspective of the UCP is simply 

a collection of individual and autonomous AORs.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the whole architecture of the UCP started to become obsolete, especially for the Navy. The possibility of terrorists smuggling nuclear weapons 

or other dangerous things into the homeland by sea posed a new kind of security threat, 

one that neither the Navy nor the Coast Guard was prepared to deal with. As the nature 

of the problem and its potential solution began to emerge, it started to dawn on admiral

that a new approach to command and control was necessary. Maritime security and its 

component function, maritime domain awareness (MDA), require the utmost in fleet 

dispersal in order to catalyze a global maritime security partnership. MDA—the collaborative sharing of information about who is doing what on the seas and where—requires 

centralized fusion of information to see tips and patterns from terrorist organizations 

that are not constrained by American AOR boundaries. The need is for information 

to flow freely among naval forces and headquarters around the world, unfettered or 

distorted by the existing structure of joint command authorities and UCP dividing 

lines. The Navy’s answer to this problem has been the establishment of a network of 

interconnected maritime operations centers (MOCs), one in each of the numbered fleet 

headquarters. While not exactly violating the existing provisions of U.S. statute or the 

UCP, the networking of the MOCs to rapidly share information is the leading edge of an 

emerging process of globalizing naval command and control that eventually will yield a 

structure that does not conform to the Army-defined levels of war.

The MOCs are one response to the global terrorist problem, but they are not the only 

one. As mentioned previously, achieving global maritime security requires the utmost 

in dispersion of naval forces. However, the Navy is not structured to do this effectively. 

Its fleet of around 280 ships consists primarily of high-end combat units centered on 

nuclear aircraft carriers and large amphibious ships. It currently has few ships that are 

suitable for constabulary work or supporting engagement with the many small navies of 

African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and Southeast Asian countries. With such limited 

assets, the Navy cannot afford to respond fully to the demands levied by each regional 

numbered fleet or the COCOMs. The Navy has decided it needs some way of figuring 
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therefore created the Global Engagement Strategy Division within the Navy Head

ters staff in the Pentagon. Having no direct command authority, it is charged non

less with advising the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) on how to make the case f

depriving some AORs of forces and attention while loading up others—in other w

devising a strategy for placing the Navy’s limited chips where they count the most 

a global perspective. Here again, there are no violations of existing law or joint reg

tions, but the CNO is now getting more involved in how Navy forces are distribute

A third Navy command and control response to the changed strategic environme

the standup of U.S. Tenth Fleet, the Navy component of U.S. Cyber Command (wh

itself is a subunified command of U.S. Strategic Command). U.S. Strategic Comm

has global functional responsibilities, so Tenth Fleet is global within the context o

existing UCP. However, much remains to be worked out as to how Tenth Fleet rela

to the rest of the numbered fleets and their MOCs. Tenth Fleet has recently assum

authority over the Navy Information Operations Command, allowing it to coordi

information operations that will be needed to cover the movement of forces durin

crisis or war. In an age of satellites, the Internet, cell phones, and significant ocean 

instrumentation, naval operational deception will no longer be a local tactical ma

will require a globe-girdling effort of exquisite timing and comprehensiveness to a

ships and fleets to show up somewhere by surprise. This can only be achieved thro

a tightly coordinated effort among all the MOCs and the Navy Staff in the Pentag

Tenth Fleet’s MOC will be the logical coordination point.

Perspective

The Navy’s responses to the command and control problems it faces point toward 

ferent way of looking at the relationships among forces and commanders. In each 

the Navy is attempting to match planning and execution authority with the persp

needed to ensure those plans and orders are coherent at the proper level; and in ea

case, the Navy has found that the existing joint command structure is either inapp

ate or incomplete. That command structure, and the attendant levels-of-war fram

upon which it is based, is inherently regional and land-oriented. What is missing i

effective global and maritime perspective.

For the Navy, and perhaps also for the Air Force, a framework that makes more se

in terms of matching command arrangements with environment and mission can 

described simply as global, regional, and local. Unlike the existing levels of war (ta

cal, operational, and strategic), in this framework the military skill sets of strategy 

tactics—and, yes, the operational art—could inhabit each level of command, depe

on the nature of the specific missions and functions that are needed. By divorcing 
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level, we would empower Sailors, to use a trite phrase, to think globally and act locally. 

Moreover, if the military skill sets were refined within this framework, there would be 

less likelihood of destructive micromanagement from above, of the operational tail wagging the strategic dog, and of “loose cannon” activities at the tactical level.

The proposed framework is anchored at the global level. The Navy has good reasons for 

needing a global perspective embedded in its planning and decision-making process, 

operational as well as administrative. The first and perhaps most fundamental reason 

is that seapower can be neither understood properly nor applied properly except from a 

global perspective. Most naval theorists have missed this point. A true maritime strategy is based on the ocean and is oriented on movement. Leveraging the geographic fact 

that the seas are all connected, it seeks to gain and maintain the global exterior position in order to provide sanctuary for the Nation’s trading economy, maintain credible 

contact with allies and create strategic options, and hem in opponents. The pursuance o

such a strategy might result in regional or local operations (such as invasions) but must 

be coordinated from a global perspective. One reason for having a maritime headquarters with a global perspective is that because the global system is so tightly coupled, 

perturbations propagate rapidly and globally and can emanate from disruptions that are 

of natural or human origin. Planning for and reacting to such disruptions must be 

based on a global perspective and can best be coordinated from Washington, where, 

not coincidentally, most of the personnel from other executive branch departments, 

headquarters of nongovernmental organizations, and embassies of other countries 

are located.

In 2003, the Navy and U.S. Joint Forces Command ran a war game entitled Unified 

Course 04 in which conflicts erupted in several different regions of the world nearly 

simultaneously. Each region’s game cell was led by an admiral. By the end of the game, 

a strong consensus emerged that since events in widely separated theaters seemed to be 

coupled in various ways, some sort of “global operational art” was needed for a number of reasons, including making sure the logistics of one theater did not disrupt the 

logistics in another. Moreover, in the Internet age, ad hoc allies scattered around the 

globe can form up and coordinate their efforts if their common foe is the United States. 

Without commensurate operational coordination among theaters, the U.S. military 

risks being outmaneuvered. In lieu of the Joint Staff acting as a general staff, such a 

military skill is orphaned, with no staff having the perspective or incentive to develop it

In World War II, Admiral Ernest King and his staff, with King functioning as Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, as well as CNO, provided the Navy with the global operational perspective needed to rationalize Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, and Indian 

Ocean projects. Currently, the UCP offers no such mechanism. The issue here is that the 
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mostly for naval, air, cyber, and space operations.

There are clearly times and places where the local perspective is the key to effectiv

military decision-making. The sea Services have a long tradition of decentralized 

mand and control, and this corporate culture will continue to serve them well. Ho

naval weapons, both offensive and defensive, and sensors have attained such range 

capability that in many cases, local perspective is no longer competent to control t

It has been a long time since a naval officer in tactical command has had targeting 

authority over his land attack missiles or aircraft, and as the Standard Missile ach

over-the-horizon aircraft intercept capability, it is likely that the JFACC will have 

call on some defensive shots. Because our arsenal of missiles is limited, including 

for ballistic missile defense, a headquarters with regional perspective will have to 

decisions on the positioning of forces and establishing doctrine for making actual 

of these weapons. The necessity for regional perspective is a way of establishing w

should have what authorities over what weapons and sensors. Given the culture of 

delegation in the Navy, allowing the matter to be defined as centralization versus 

centralization will unnecessarily abet conservatism and generate tensions. As the 

establishes the MOC as its key regional command center, using the needed geogra

perspective as the litmus test for whether it should have certain command authori

will help ensure its ultimate success.

New Principles

As with the introduction of the operational level of war in 1982, adoption of this 

framework will necessarily be attended by a gestation period in which the war and 

colleges and perhaps academia in general digest the concept, test it in games, and 

ate doctrine. However, it seems possible at this point to identify some principles a 

that fall out logically from the inherent nature of the new framework.

The first principle is the most basic: define the security problem from all perspect

Defining the problem is a preliminary step in the military decision-making proce

that has found currency in the U.S. Army in the past few years.4

 Performed prior t

mission analysis step, it makes the whole process more intellectual and less mecha

In terms of the new framework proposed here, defining a problem separately from 

global, regional, and local perspectives helps to illuminate what measures of coord

tion will be necessary and where various command authorities ought to reside.

A second principle is that strategy is not a level of war or even a command echelon

a thought process that links specific actions, military or otherwise, to political and 

nomic goals. This makes strategy an intellectual skill set that, combined with defi
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military literature has been full of assertions that the levels of war have been fusing into 

each other and of observations about “strategic corporals.” 5

 However, the traditional 

levels-of-war framework does not accommodate such an evolution comfortably. Establishing a framework based on command perspective, and regarding strategy, operations

and tactics as skill sets to be applied as needed at each level, would accommodate these 

phenomena quite naturally.

Regarding strategy as a skill set versus command echelon or level of war might also 

improve the oversight of military operations. Two Army authors argue that the elaboration of the original Soviet concept of operational art into a level of war and echelon 

of command has driven a wedge between civilian political authorities and commanders in the field. Politicians, they say, have become detached strategic sponsors rather 

than effective strategic overseers of operations.6

 If perspective rather than levels of war 

became our organizing principle, and there existed a military staff in Washington with 

operational authority, the coordination of politics and operations would be much more 

effective. Moreover, since strategy would be a skill set that inhabited each level, based 

on perspective, the appropriate influence of political and economic guidance from the 

capital would be clearer, with issues of micromanagement or neglect becoming moot.7

The issue of strategy as a skill set leads to a third principle. Command authority should 

not be a comprehensive or blanket tool; it is multifaceted and should be delegated in 

specific segments to the command with the appropriate perspective for exercising it. 

This kind of thing has already happened. Navy battlegroup commanders no longer 

have targeting authority over the land attack missiles their ships carry; that resides 

with higher authority—commanders with the requisite perspective on the effects those 

weapons are to produce or on the coordination of their employment with other means 

from other Services. Instead of echeloning command as is currently done, it would be 

distributed. Moreover, specific command authorities would not be static; they would 

migrate among the command levels as the situation unfolds. Whereas the local commander might initially have the authority to strike certain types of targets, emerging 

intelligence may indicate that such authority should be moved to either the regional or 

global level, at least for a time. Authorities could as easily migrate downward. For those 

used to the rigid command structure that has been in place since Napoleon’s day, this 

may seem a recipe for chaos. However, what we have observed at the tactical level in 

wars from Vietnam through Afghanistan is that an echeloned command structure is 

not capable of rapidly integrating strategy and operations, thus allowing events to spin 

out of control. At the end of the “100-hour war” in 1991, the George H. W. Bush administration failed to exert sufficient oversight of General Norman Schwarzkopf (who, 

despite having four stars, was a local commander in that fight), and the Iraqis were 
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ground commanders removed key command elements from Baghdad at precisely 

moment their presence could have been most helpful in averting an insurgency. W

echeloning of command is necessary for the effective functioning of ground force

the corps level and below, the presence of a global/regional/local framework migh

distributed command authorities in these cases such that the strategic errors coul

been avoided.

A fourth principle prescribes that speed of coordination trumps speed of comman

Since Air Force Colonel John Boyd articulated his theory of the “observe-orient-d

act loop,” 8

 military theorists have almost universally extolled the virtues of what s

call “speed of command,” that is, the ability of a commander and staff to make an

plement decisions faster than the enemy. This is clearly a benefit when the issue is 

kinetic combat, but in an age in which fewer military actions are purely or even m

kinetic and the need for interagency and international coordination is also univer

cited, it is more likely that kinetic speed of command will produce harmful strateg

side effects that outweigh the tactical or operational benefits. If coordination is in

key, then the faster it can be done, the less it will adversely affect speed of comman

A command framework that has at its core a global operations center that is colloc

with the headquarters of the other government agencies as well as foreign embassi

and has as its intellectual fabric the integration of strategy, operations, and tactics 

each command level, is far better positioned to achieve speed of coordination.

A final preliminary principle is that the U.S. Government should act in a unified 

manner. Given the size of the executive branch and its multiplicity of organization

that could have both a stake in and influence on any modern military operation, t

government as a whole must be convinced to lend support and to coordinate with 

military. This idea was manifested in a speech by Admiral Mike Mullen, then Cha

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he said that no military operation ought to be un

taken unless and until the whole government is ready.9

 The framework advocated 

this article would make it easier and faster for a proposed operation to be articulat

a way that would be more intelligible and persuasive to organizations not imbued 

a military culture or educated in military matters. The need for military action m

be sold, but under the current levels-of-war structure, the military is isolated and 

imperatives and reasoning are opaque to other organizations. Defining problems 

the different command perspectives and integrating strategy at each level could gr

enhance communication and thus aid the vetting process.

There are undoubtedly more principles that can be defined, but these five serve to 

provide a better view of what the proposed framework really is and how it would w
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adopted in practice, a specific new command structure would have to be created.

Fixing the Problem

There are several ways the problem might be solved or ameliorated. The most radical 

solution is to do away with the geographic combatant commanders (GCCs). Over the 

past few years, a number of people, including Admiral Mullen, have expressed concern 

that American diplomacy has become too militarized.1

0 One way of counteracting this 

perception, if not fact, is to disestablish the GCC position. Much of the staff structure 

would remain in place, but instead of a four-star military officer, the person heading the 

staff would be a senior State Department officer. There would be a number of three-star 

officers on the staff who would maintain the necessary regional military infrastructure. 

The mission of this newly reorganized “regional engagement staff” would focus on 

diplomacy. There would not be AOR boundaries in the current sense, but rather perhaps 

delineations that correspond to current State Department assignments. There would 

also be a standing joint task force headquarters in each region to handle any contingencies that might arise. These joint task force headquarters, as well as the regional Service 

component headquarters, would report to a central military coordinating staff in 

Washington, thus establishing a joint staff with a global perspective and global authority, located in a place where close coordination with the National Security Council as 

well as a host of other agencies is most feasible. If current operational-level doctrine 

has produced a disconnect between strategy and operations, then such an arrangement 

would facilitate appropriate strategic oversight of military operations.

On the other hand, major surgery on the UCP may be politically infeasible. How could 

all of this be squared with the existing joint command and control system? One way 

would be to focus on the status of naval forces. Resurrecting the doctrine of operating 

“in support” and having the Pacific Fleet and Fleet Forces staffs function as the principal maritime operations centers for each hemisphere would be one way to reestablish fleet mobility in peacetime execution of the Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century 

Seapower. If a fight did break out in Korea or the Persian Gulf, a joint task force could 

be established and, per existing joint doctrine, the local numbered fleet would take over 

Joint Force Maritime Component Commander duties for the joint operations area.

Although the Navy, in its attempt to generate a global command perspective, is applying the various band-aid fixes that have been described in this article, a more 

comprehensive solution is needed in order to ensure a global command perspective is 

available when needed. Assuming that the reestablishment of Admiral Ernest King–like 

authorities for the CNO is no more politically feasible than eradicating current AOR 

boundaries, a new approach is called for. One possibility is to create a naval deputy to 
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and certain operations of naval forces. The advantage of such an arrangement is th

this officer would be located in Washington, close to the other cabinet departmen

the Pentagon’s communications capabilities. An alternate solution might be to inv

such authorities in the existing Navy component to U.S. Strategic Command, alth

the range of responsibilities and authorities would not be exactly compatible with 

of the unified commander. Moreover, it adds a layer of command between the glo

naval commander and the national command authorities. In any case, the emergi

global strategic environment cries out for an updated U.S. military command stru

that can provide a global perspective to local operations and can conceive of and e

strategic maritime maneuver.

For armies, the three levels of war are not abstract constructions, but a command 

eloning framework that emerged quite naturally as a function of the scale of opera

enabled by industrialized warfare. However, this framework does not apply equall

naturally to naval operations. In an era when naval operations were almost entirel

auxiliary to land operations, the inconveniences were tolerable. In an era of global 

transnational threats, the Internet, and an emerging global competitor, the inconv

niences are turning into operational and strategic vulnerabilities. The world has e

an era in which the seas are more than just extended communications zones betw

land operation in Eurasia and the continental United States; they have attained str

significance in and of themselves. Among other things, they are now a vast strateg

and operational maneuver space, not only for us, but also increasingly for nations 

groups hostile to the United States and to the global system of commerce and secu

that perpetuates our economic well-being and political values. If we are to avoid b

outmaneuvered, we must overcome the maritime seams our former strategic suc

has created. Slicing the onion differently in terms of maritime command arrangem

will help.

Notes

1. U.S. Navy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st 

Century Seapower, October 2007, available at 

www.navy.mil/.

2. John Prados, “Napoleon Bonaparte,” in The 

Reader’s Companion to Military History, ed. 

Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker (New 

York: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1996), 322.

3. There are three principal documents that 

were progressively issued during the 1990s: 

. . . From the Sea (September 1992), available 

at www.globalsecurity.org/; Forward . . 

the Sea (1994), available at www.dtic.m

Forward . . . From the Sea, the Navy Op

tional Concept, March 1997, available a

.navy.mil/.

4. U.S. Army, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5

“Commander’s Appreciation and Cam

Design,” January 28, 2008, page 5, para

e, concisely states the logic of the issue

tion 1-3 goes into detail on defining pr
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(Winter 1992/1993), 33–47; Elaine M. Grossman, “Developing Adaptive Army Leaders: 

10 Questions for Don Vandergriff,” Inside the 

Pentagon, March 15, 2007; Charles C. Krulak, 

“The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the 

Three Block War,” Marines Magazine (January 

1999).

6. Justin Kelly and Mike Brennan, Alien: How the 

Operational Art Devoured Strategy (Carlisle, 

PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2010), 93.

7. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. 

Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 177. 

Clausewitz has some pithy remarks concerning the coordination of strategy and operations that are apropos of the difficulties cited 

by Kelly and Brennan.

Osinga, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (London: Routledge, 

Taylor and Francis Group, 2007).

9. “In fact, I would argue that in the future 

struggles of the asymmetric counterinsurgent 

variety, we ought to make it a precondition of 

committing our troops, that we will do so only 

if and when the other instruments of national 

power are ready to engage as well.” Admiral 

Michael G. Mullen, speech at Kansas State 

University, March 3, 2011, available at www

.cfr.org/.

10. Max Hastings, “Heroism Is No Substitute for 

an Afghan Strategy,” Financial Times, December 20, 2010.
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Getting a Grip on Tailored Deterrence

The World of Conflict Management

The end of the Cold War brought about a lengthy hiatus in the national and intern

al dialogue on deterrence. A concept that once seemed pivotal to the very survival 

human race, deterrence appeared to rest upon the rather narrow foundation of nu

weapons, a perception only reinforced by the rapid disappearance of deterrence fr

the national agenda after the fall of the Soviet Union. Recently, however, deterrenc

resurfaced as a subject of discussion and concern in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, f

nuclear proliferation and the increasing dependence of the world on computer sys

linked by the Internet.

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) introduced a broadened notion of t

concept it labeled tailored deterrence: “The future force will provide a fully balanc

tailored capability to deter both state and non-state threats—including WMD emp

ment, terrorist attacks in the physical and information domains, and opportunist

aggression—while assuring allies and dissuading potential competitors.”1

 The ver

broadness of this approach to deterrence has spurred a new round of discussion in 

policy and academic circles on the modern nature and limits of deterrence.

Extending the notion of deterrence beyond its more traditional arena of nuclear w

ons quickly invokes difficult—if not intractable—issues surrounding who and wh

might be the method’s new targets. The 2010 QDR continues its 2006 counterpart

discussion of tailored deterrence in this vein: “Credibly underwriting U.S. defense 

mitments will demand tailored approaches to deterrence. Such tailoring requires 

depth understanding of the capabilities, values, intent, and decision making of po

adversaries, whether they are individuals, networks, or states.”2

 The 2006 Deterren

Operations Joint Operating Concept (DO JOC) adopts the same approach in its ce

idea for mechanizing deterrence: Deterrence operations are dependent on the abil

CHAPTER FOURTEE

Orbis, Fall 2012. © 2012 Published for the Foreign Policy Research Institute by Elsevier Ltd. A

rights reserved
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multiple domains on the decision-making calculus of adversaries.

An interesting recent example of an attempt at very tailored deterrence, albeit directed 

at the United States, is China’s development of the DF-21D intermediate range ballistic 

missile with an anti-ship homing device installed. China’s specific goal is to dissuade 

U.S. intervention in a crisis involving Taiwan.4

 The humiliation China felt after the 1996 

Taiwan Straits crisis, when the United States dispatched two carrier battle groups to the 

area, spawned a general naval buildup. However, realizing that it would be decades, if 

ever, before the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) could expect to face 

down the U.S. Navy, they sought an asymmetric and focused deterrent option. The 

DF-21D seems to fit the bill—the presumed effect being to alter the U.S. risk/benefit 

analysis to deter intervention entirely, or at least to keep U.S. aircraft carriers far enough 

away from a putative Taiwan invasion effort that their tactical aircraft would not be able 

to make a difference. While broadly worded, the following quotation from the most 

recent Chinese defense white paper clearly conveys their intent: “Following the principle of building a lean and effective force, the PLA Second Artillery Force (PLASAF) 

strives to push forward its modernization and improve its capabilities in rapid reaction, 

penetration, precision strike, damage infliction, protection, and survivability, while 

steadily enhancing its capabilities in strategic deterrence and defensive operations.”5

 Not 

surprisingly, the U.S. Navy is hard at work finding ways to neutralize or work around 

this threat, which ought to provide insight on the effect of our own attempted efforts to 

focus, or tailor, deterrence.

Approaches to Deterrence

There are two potential intellectual approaches to understanding deterrence. The first, 

as exemplified by the QDRs and DO JOC, is to focus on the opponent and ask what 

levers might exist to influence their actions. This would be especially important for the 

examination of tailored deterrence, since it deals with preventing an opponent from 

taking fairly specific actions.6

 At the heart of this approach is manipulation, and while 

history records some successful episodes (an example is the infamous “Mr. X” episode 

prior to D Day in World War II, in which a dead body carrying false plans for the invasion washed ashore in Spain and caused Hitler to delay the movement of his reaction 

forces toward Normandy until it was too late), it is problematic on several counts. First, 

there is the issue of complexity at the strategic level. Understanding the dynamics of 

decision making within the inner councils of a government requires “exquisite” intelligence of a form that is rarely available and, in any case, there is still the problem of unpredictability in governments that are less than stolidly doctrinal in their functioning.
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and predicting a negative. The matter of retrospective proof is important because 

absence of any conclusive evidence from historical cases makes the future-oriente

process of deterrence planning a faith-based proposition. On the other hand, com

sense might convince us that it is easier to keep someone from doing something th

it is getting them to act. However, this is at least partly illusory. While it is likely tr

that overall strength and credible intent will serve to raise the risks and deter som

whose motivation is not especially strong, trying to get specific with deterrence co

easily result in miscalculation. The more specific the intended deterrence, the mo

starts to look like an attempt to catalyze second or third order events; always a risk

undertaking.

There is a second intellectual approach to understanding deterrence, one that, wh

neither a panacea nor a key to unlocking the puzzle, at least avoids some of the dif

ties associated with the first approach. This second approach focuses on the conte

of deterrence, examining the logic of situations and the incentives and opportunit

for action and inaction. Here, the prospects for deterrence depend less on an exqu

understanding of the other side’s intent (although this is always good to know if o

can obtain such intelligence), than on an understanding of one’s own situation an

inherent logic of conflict. This article will explore the second approach to underst

ing deterrence, defining it as a subset of conflict management strategy.

As normally used in the existing international relations literature, “conflict mana

ment” denotes a form of bargaining or mediation among nations or other parties 

dispute, analogous to the use of the term in labor relations and organizational dyn

ics. In contrast, the term is used in this article to denote the intent of a state or gro

and the methods it uses to limit, channel or otherwise control the intensity and na

of violence associated with a conflict when the prospects for dispute resolution on 

favorable terms have disappeared. A conflict management strategy in this context 

defensive holding action. It will be established that such a strategic defensive hold

action may occur either right after a war, in times of tension or crisis, or even in ti

what might be termed “violent peace” such as exist today.

Defining deterrence as a component of conflict management strategy first require

examination of the broader context of conflict, because conflict management stra

gies are themselves components of an overall approach to dealing with conflict. F

purpose of this article, conflict means the range of measures a state, alliance, arm

group, etc., takes to resolve a dispute in its favor. Viewed through this lens, conflic

encompasses everything from antagonistic negotiations to nuclear war. At first gl

this definition may seem to be so broad as to be useless for analytic purposes, but 

very holistic nature that produces the necessary insights. Looked at in this way, co
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approach is necessary to establish whether a concept like tailored deterrence is viable 

and advisable.

If one accepts this “unified field theory” of conflict, then it follows that notions such as 

“fourth generation war,” conventional war, insurgency and “hybrid war” deal solely with 

means and have no useful meaning with respect to the intent and dynamics of conflict, 

the elements relevant to the study of deterrence. These appellations of different modes 

of warfare constitute thick intellectual underbrush that must be cleared away in order to 

observe the trees of strategy, much less the forest. Moreover, in the literature concerning all these concepts there is frequently embedded the notion that there is a particular 

“recipe” for conducting war or conflict in a particular mode. This is an effect of dealing 

with means rather than motivation and intent. While the matter of means will enter 

into this discussion, it will always be subordinate to the factors of human intent and 

motivation.

Disputes

Disputes are the engine of conflict, and before conflict as well as strategies for pursuing it can be adequately characterized, there must be a framework for understanding 

disputes. To build such a framework it is first necessary to delineate what kinds of 

disputes are relevant to this discussion of deterrence. Simply stated, they are those that 

affect the policies and actions of national governments and groups such as al Qaeda, 

and more specifically, those policies and actions taken in the national security arena, 

broadly defined. These include everything from trade disputes to collisions between the 

most fundamental aspirations or identities of peoples. Today’s world is a stewpot of disputes, large and small, some of which simmer quietly and some of which boil over into 

violence of varying types and intensities. While any pragmatic discussion of tailored 

deterrence would have to pick apart specific disputes, some antecedent considerations 

can produce useful insights.

First, because the world is a closed system, disputes will impinge on each other and 

amplify, attenuate or alter each other in complex ways. Thus, any discussion of deterrence with respect to a particular dispute or disputant risks the danger of ignoring some 

relevant external factor. If this is acknowledged up front, the discussion is at least more 

sophisticated. Other useful observations devolve from the first. Disputes tend not to be 

static; not only are they affected by the conflict generated by other disputes, they may 

change in intensity and nature in response to the dynamics of conflict associated with 

the dispute itself. What started out as a simple spat over who may fish where might escalate into a full-blown duel of national pride if one nation takes actions that the other sees 

as excessive. Moreover, there is a natural tendency for disputes and conflicts to escalate 
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Prussian philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz.

A third useful observation is that disputes, especially those that are connected to t

fundamental identity of the disputants, tend to be persistent, if not intractable. Ev

massive application of military force may not settle them, which led Clausewitz to 

that in war the result is never final. This notion leads, in turn, to a fourth one, bas

on this article’s definition of conflict, which is that the span of conflict covers the 

duration from the onset of a dispute to the point at which it is settled. Settlement m

involve a deal (not some sort of armistice or imposed peace) or it may require the 

mination of one of the disputants, or at least its government and controlling ideolo

is critical, though, to distinguish between a cessation of violent conflict associated 

the settlement of a dispute and one that is simply an armistice. The difference betw

the two is not always clear. The peace settlement at Versailles in 1919 did not prev

World War II; the peace accord in Paris in 1973 proved to be a prelude to the Nort

Vietnamese invasion of the South.

In some cases, wars do produce a definitive settlement of a conflict, such as the Pa

War of 1941–1945, but in other cases they do not. If they do not, the winning disp

has a choice to make: do nothing and hope the dispute just goes away or simmers 

lessly, take yet more draconian measures to force a definitive settlement, or adopt 

form of conflict management strategy to limit the nature and amount of future vi

associated with the dispute in hopes that conditions will mature such that a deal w

possible or that new avenues of forceful dispute resolution will open up.

Disputes are numerous and persistent; they affect each other, and they can evolve 

intensity and nature. They are the source of conflict and conflict does not disappe

until disputes are settled. Each of these characteristics has an impact on the logic 

deterrence.

Conflict

This article has offered a very broad definition of conflict that encompasses, at a m

mum, all forms of violence. There are a few more things that need to be said about 

order to finalize a basis for addressing deterrence. The first is obvious, but needs t

formally stated: conflict comes in numerous forms, ranging from political maneu

cyber attacks to nuclear war. The key insight emerging from this point is that disp

have a lot of different tools at their disposal. If one option is removed, they may se

another. If a dispute is not settled by means of war, the losing disputant may resor

an alternate means of carrying on the struggle. This is today’s asymmetric war. Fo

ample, a militarily-defeated Taliban shifted to an insurgency directed from a sanc
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political strictures that make certain avenues or modes of conflict off limits; however, as 

the dispute morphs or is impacted by others, these strictures may disappear.

What does all of this mean for strategy and deterrence? First, strategies may be sorted 

into two types: those designed to resolve the dispute on favorable terms and those whose 

purpose is to manage the nature of conflict attendant to the dispute. Much of the literature on conflict and war deals solely with the first kind of strategy and indeed makes 

the tacit assumption that this is the only kind. The traditional view, focused on means, 

is that peace and war are two different phenomena. Clearly, the definition of conflict 

that has been established recognizes only the existence or absence of disputes. Thus, it 

becomes entirely reasonable to think about strategies that are aimed not at settling a 

dispute but rather at managing the conflict related to the dispute until conditions favor 

another attempt at settlement. The whole concept of containment pursued during the 

Cold War, of which nuclear and conventional deterrence were components, was a massive and extended strategy of conflict management. The current U.S. maritime strategy, 

A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower (CS21), is a pure form of conflict 

management strategy.8

The literature of conflict management has tended to divide conflict not only into war 

and peace, but in a more sophisticated way, into rivalries, disputes and wars.9

 A unified 

approach to conflict as a manifestation of disputes produces a different analytic lens 

through which to examine conflict management strategy. If all conflict is understood 

to emanate from disputes, then the objective of the disputants is to settle the dispute 

on terms favorable to themselves. This produces the first family of strategies: those 

intended to achieve favorable dispute settlement. If this becomes infeasible, then one or 

more of the disputants is likely to adopt a conflict management strategy—which may 

be defined as the attempt to control the nature and intensity of conflict until such time 

as conditions favor another try at dispute settlement. Starting with this perspective, 

conflict management strategy can be dissected in order to help contextualize the role of 

deterrence.

Conflict Management Strategy

To begin with, the objectives of a conflict management strategy must be understood. On 

the whole, the intent of conflict management is defensive—to keep the military, politica

and economic conditions of a dispute from deteriorating until such time as new opportunities for dispute resolution emerge. It should be noted at this point that Clausewitz 

regarded defense as the stronger form of warfare, principally because it is the resort of 

the weaker side. However, as will be discussed presently, it is often the stronger or even 

dominant side that adopts a conflict management strategy. This apparent contradiction 
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frequently external factors that impinge on a conflict that block, at least temporar

the acceptable avenues of dispute resolution open to the stronger power. A combin

of moral and political inhibitions, for example, not to mention fear of bringing in 

Chinese or Russians, prevented the United States from bombing the Red River dik

in North Vietnam, which would have been a devastating blow to Hanoi that migh

have won the war. Instead, the United States adopted a less harsh but also less effe

conflict management strategy that featured, among other things, local pacification 

supply line interdiction.

The second objective of conflict management strategy is to buy time. The inheren

assumption is that by creating some kind of pause in the intensity of the conflict, 

march of political and economic events will eventually produce conditions more f

able to dispute resolution. Returning to the Vietnam example, the U.S. strategy af

1968 was meant to buy time for the South Vietnamese government and military to 

develop such that it could defend itself. This in itself was not a war-winning strate

a holding action that would eventually allow the United States to extract itself from 

fight—which it did. To follow Clausewitz’s logic of polarity,10 if a moderation of co

is in one’s own interest, it must not be in the enemy’s interest. Thus, the enemy can 

expected to act in some way to break the strictures of the conflict management str

Of course, any number of real world factors may impinge to moderate the enemy’s 

sire to do so, including his own internal political dynamics. This is what makes it 

to assert that particular actions or policies actually had a deterrent effect; the enem

may have found his own reasons for not acting. However, at the heart of the matte

logic governs: if it is in one’s interest to manage conflict, it is in the interest of the 

not to allow such conflict management to occur.

The particular combination of factors—a stronger power wanting to moderate con

and an opposing weaker power (or group) that does not—leads naturally to what a

termed asymmetric operations. The term denotes the use of means other than con

tional military forces, but may also be used to indicate novel employment of conve

tional forces, such as the aforementioned Chinese DF-21 anti-ship ballistic missile

from mobile ground launchers, it would be targeted against U.S. aircraft carriers, 

relieving the Chinese navy of having to face the U.S. Navy in a direct sea battle.

Regardless of the arena of conflict or particular means, the principle is the same: t

weaker power, seeing certain avenues or axes of conflict barred to it by the stronge

power’s conflict management (including deterrent) measures, will look for and pu

other avenues for gaining advantage in the dispute. A bit like water taking the pat

least resistance, this phenomenon of switching conflict mode or arena due to perc

obstacles down one avenue or axis of conflict modality is sometimes referred to as 
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conflict management and the other side pursuing dispute resolution. This is typically 

the case in insurgencies, in which the nation conducting counterinsurgency is likely 

pursuing conflict management and the insurgents are pursuing dispute resolution. Note 

also that differing motivations are structural and not directly dependent on other factors such as political will or the value of the object.

The Chinese DF-21 example also illustrates one of Clausewitz’s basic elements of strategic wisdom: one is faced not with an inert target but with an enemy that reacts. The 

1996 dispatch of two aircraft carrier battle groups to the waters off Taiwan precipitated 

the asymmetric buildup of Chinese access denial forces. What to the United States 

was an almost routine exercise in “gunboat diplomacy”11 (probably termed a “flexible 

deterrent option” within U.S. decision making circles) was to the Chinese a national 

humiliation that unleashed considerable national energy and catalyzed the current 

naval buildup. Measures intended as a deterrent may turn out to be catalytic for several 

reasons. First is simple miscalculation. One may simply be wrong about the deterrent 

effect of a measure. Second, while the specific instance of deterrence may have been successful, it produced a reaction, such as in the China case, that serves to erode deterrence 

in the long run. Finally, and again due to an ostensibly successful instance of specific 

and discrete deterrence, the opponent may elect to pursue alternate avenues of conflict. 

Thus, one cannot usefully speak of tailored deterrence or flexible deterrent options 

without taking these phenomena into account.

Deterrence is a major component of conflict management strategy, but there are others 

also. Among the other potential tools are conflict channeling, accommodation and appeasement, dissuasion and preventive war. Deterrence cannot be properly understood 

unless its relationship to these other tools is taken into account. While there is not room 

here to examine all the relationships among these tools, the main point to be made is 

that for deterrence planning to make sense, it must be preceded by the recognition and 

admission that a conflict management strategy is being pursued (often a difficult admis

sion) and this being the case, there are, inevitably, more components to it.

Making Strategy

At this point it is useful to pause and reflect on strategy making and execution, as this 

plays a key role in how the logic of deterrence plays out. Although the word “strategy” 

is general and scalable—it can mean anything from a chess player’s scheme to the 

Schlieffen Plan—for the purposes of this discussion it will denote the pattern of policies 

and decisions taken over time by a national government or defined group (such as the 

Taliban) in conjunction with a dispute or series of concurrent disputes. As such, it normally does not take the form of a well-defined and formally articulated plan to which 
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only discernable in retrospect, even to its own leadership; muddling through has b

something any number of governments have done. Internal bureaucratic dynamic

the coming and going of politicians, among many other things, serve to make the 

cess less coherent and straightforward. However, underneath, the DNA of the disp

remains and works to shape the strategy. This alone ensures that deterrence is not 

formula—not some tool in a mythical strategic toolbox. It is a temporary conditio

someone is trying to create in the context of considerable uncertainty.

However, strategy must be discussed and analyzed if the human mind is to bring c

ence to the realm of conflict. A useful way to proceed is to categorize strategy on t

sis of intent—dispute resolution or conflict management—for these categorization

lead to certain insights about deterrence. To begin with, the word “deterrence,” lik

word “strategy,” is general and can be used to denote the condition of someone ref

ing from doing something under threat from another in circumstances ranging fr

personal disputes to those among nations. While the focus here is on the national 

it is necessary to point out that it can be applied at each level of war, tactical, opera

and strategic. In fact in On War, Clausewitz has a nice discussion of what today w

be termed the operational or campaign level.12 In his view, a general would calcula

the potential outcome of an envisioned engagement and if it was likely to be adver

would decline the engagement. Thus deterrence naturally inhabits conflict and wa

the operational and tactical levels, regardless of the intent of a strategy. However, a

with this insight it is possible to say that deterrence is at most a subordinate and au

iary part of a dispute resolution strategy, whereas it occupies a more prominent pl

conflict management strategies.

Conflict management strategies are frequently not the desired approach to disput

since solution on favorable terms is the preferred solution. Conflict management s

gies are often strategies of necessity. The conditions under which they are adopted 

be addressed presently, but since they are usually not preferred strategies, their ad

is likely to be shrouded in cant and propaganda. Governments will cling to the rhe

of victory even as they recognize that dispute resolution on favorable terms has sli

from their grasp. This makes the rare moment of lucidity such as George Kennan’

Telegram during the Cold War all the more valuable and revealing.13 This is not to 

that conflict management strategies always denote some type of antecedent failur

simply that they imply limits to power and motivation. It is in that context, howev

that deterrence must be examined.

Armed with an understanding of conflict as a broad, inclusive phenomenon that c

change in nature and intensity over the course of a dispute, it is possible to identif

ations in which conflict management strategies might be adopted. A simple, schem
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all means from hostile political maneuvering to nuclear war. The graph depicts the 

notional life of a dispute in which conflict begins at a low level, perhaps propaganda, but 

escalates into economic sanctions. The first spike is a medium intensity war in which 

one side “wins” but fails to achieve dispute settlement. As time passes, another, more 

violent war breaks out that finally settles the dispute by, perhaps, removing the opposing government.

The first situation that stands out is the area where the curve bottoms out at the end of a 

war that fails to settle the underlying dispute. The capture of Baghdad and the disintegration of the Iraqi army is a case in point. At this juncture, unless the winning power 

has some plausible avenue for pursuing dispute resolution, it has no choice but to adopt 

a conflict management strategy or simply retreat and relinquish the political gains that 

victory in war conferred. Clausewitz explicitly recognized this situation with his concept of the culminating point of victory.

Every offense, he said, regardless of how successful it has been, must culminate in a defense. Knowing this, an attacker must first of all ensure he has enough military power to 

mount a successful defense at the point of victory. Clausewitz’s example was Napoleon’s 

invasion of Russia. Although he captured Moscow, Bonaparte no longer had sufficient 

force to impose a peace on Czar Alexander. Assuming that a) having reached his goal, 

the attacker no longer wishes to keep on fighting and b) the defender is significantly 

beaten down but neither fully defeated nor willing to cede his side of the dispute, then 

the victor must establish a strong enough defense to deter further military action on 

the part of the defender. In other words, to again leverage Clausewitz’s thought, the 

defender calculates the likely outcome of another counterattack, sees that it would be 

defeated, and so refrains from doing so—is deterred—at least for some period of time.

If the defender’s army is defeated but the government is still viable, perhaps in hiding if 

the capital was overrun, it may carry on the struggle via insurgency. This is especially 

feasible if some type of sanctuary exists. Two obvious examples are the Free French 

government in World War II and the Taliban of today. The nation attempting to counter 

the insurgency or resistance must, almost by definition, pursue a conflict management 

strategy, the goal being to suppress the degree of violence as much as possible in order to 

“pacify” the occupied territories.

Dispute resolution may consist of trying to win the hearts and minds of the populace, 

but history has demonstrated that if the resistance can just keep the pot boiling, the nation attempting to defend its conventional victory will sooner or later resort to a conflict 

management strategy as a prelude to leaving. In this context—when there is a political 

sanctuary—deterrence of any sort from the perspective of the occupier is not likely to 
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strategy was adopted. Moreover, the original military victory is not likely to have 

rent value after the occupier leaves. The North Vietnamese invasion of the South i

is an example of this, because it was U.S. exhaustion that led to its adoption of a co

management strategy and subsequent withdrawal—it wasn’t going to come back. N

amount of rhetoric can change the inherent dynamics of the situation.

The other location on our graph of conflict where conflict management strategies 

occur is after the onset of a dispute but prior to the escalation of violence into a wa

key example is the Cold War. It is thought by many that the existence of large arse

of nuclear weapons on both sides, as well as the presence of hundreds of thousand

of troops stationed on both sides of the inter-German border, served to prevent a w

between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Of course, limited wars such as Korea and V

nam broke out, but despite tense crises such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the n

standoff in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1973, the U.S. conflict management stra

containment held until internal decay brought down the USSR.

The prospects for success of a conflict management strategy in the pre-war phase 

dispute are dependent on a wide variety of factors, many of which have received co

tent coverage in the existing literature on deterrence. On the other hand, the persp

tive that seems to be missing is the essential fact that a conflict management strate

being pursued. One is being pursued because a dispute resolution strategy is unav

able due to the strength of the opponent, one’s own weakness, potential interventi

of third parties or other constraints. They all add up to an uncomfortable situatio

which powerlessness must be at least tacitly acknowledged. This is the psychologic

political milieu of those attempting to deter. The attempt to deter others also impl

self-deterrence on one’s own part. If this were not the case, preventive wars would 

norm. This is obviously an ultra-realist view, and more altruistic motives on the p

states must be acknowledged, but even here the strictures of law or morality repre

form of self-deterrence.

Deterrence Challenges

It is the context of being forced to defer dispute resolution and adopt an expedient 

conflict management strategy that reveals the difficulties and dangers involved in 

attempting to deter, especially if the deterrence aimed for is specific and discrete. 

epistemic difficulties that attend deterrence in general have already been mention

These difficulties are intimidating by themselves, but there are other difficulties t

epistemic ones exacerbate: those of wishful thinking that lead to miscalculation. T

military concept of the strategic barrier can be used to illustrate the point. Comm

strategic barriers consisted of mountain ranges, deserts and seas. These were geog
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proach would not have to be defended strongly, freeing up forces for other missions.

Of course, history is full of examples where an enterprising commander was able to 

surprise and defeat the army relying on the strategic barrier by going over or through it, 

against all common sense or expectation—not being deterred by the putative physical difficulties. From Hannibal’s push through the Alps with his elephants to the wide 

left hook of the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps through the Iraqi desert in the 1991 Gulf 

War, the deterrent effect of strategic barriers has been repeatedly belied. If the strategic 

barrier is regarded as a specific and discrete, i.e., tailored, deterrence measure, then the 

dynamic of concern can be seen.

The army that relied on the barrier estimated that it would be impassible, i.e., that the 

enemy would be deterred from attempting to cross it. Sometimes this worked, but in 

some cases the enemy was not deterred and crossed the barrier, surprising and defeating 

the army that was relying on it. The problem is that adverse necessity—having too few 

forces to defend everywhere, or, relevant to this discussion, having the need to pursue 

a conflict management strategy—can lead to overestimating the deterrent value of a 

strategic barrier or some “tailored deterrence” measure. The first step in developing a 

rational approach to strategic barriers or tailored deterrent efforts is to first recognize 

the nature of the context that drives the need. Only in this way can one guard oneself 

against overestimating the efficacy of the measure.

It is one thing to establish macro efforts to establish strategic deterrence, such as the 

nuclear triad. The destructiveness of these weapons essentially overwhelms the dispute, 

even such a fundamental dispute as the future of communist ideology. However, when 

more discrete and bounded deterrent measures are contemplated, the context of conflict 

management now dominates and the dangers of miscalculation multiply. Thus certain 

new concepts such as “tailored deterrence” seem fragile at best and delusional at worst. 

Equally dangerous is the concept of “flexible deterrent options” (FDOs) that has been 

incorporated into some U.S. military planning.14 Beyond the difficulties already mentioned, FDOs are essentially last-ditch efforts to stave off a war. They are pre-scripted 

maneuvers that are conducted in times of high tension where the incentives for wishful 

thinking are strongest. Being pre-scripted (a necessity so they can be executed reliably 

by deployed forces) they exacerbate the epistemic difficulties too. This is not to say that 

deterrent measures are not necessary or desirable, but to have any reliability, they must 

dominate the conflict management context, not be subordinate to it. This has certain 

implications for escalation theory. Following this logic, a nation desiring to prevent 

escalation has to threaten much greater escalation early in the interaction.
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context in which they are employed. When a state has achieved a dominant status

either globally or regionally, it generally desires that there is as little violence as po

associated with any of the numerous disputes that affect the relations of other stat

its sphere of influence. It wants, in other words, stability. This is a situation in whi

conflict management strategies writ large are adopted. Once again the situation is 

which the limits of power to resolve disputes must be faced, but here it is the mult

of disputes, not only between the dominant state and others, but also between or a

the other parties, that brings a state up against the limits of its power and influenc

The approach to conflict management must be broad and may involve the actual u

of force as a preventive measure. In this context, deterrence rests principally on ov

strength, but it also depends on how it is attempted in particular situations. Specif

measures may enhance or degrade the overall condition. This is because a broadly

conflict management strategy must be founded on much more than just deterrenc

must contain a substantial amount of positive incentives in order to prevent the fo

tion of countervailing coalitions or the release of hostile nationalism within a pote

competitor. One may argue that this is precisely what happened when the United 

dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to the waters off Taiwan in 1996. Wh

this move could be chalked up to U.S. hubris or short-sighted decision making, it 

more revealing and useful to understand the decision as an honest effort at deterr

taken in the absence of any theory of the relationship of discrete deterrent actions 

strategy of conflict management.

Deterrence is normally conceived of as a form of coercion, and indeed, the notion 

tailored deterrence, first mentioned in the 2006 QDR, denoting specific actions to 

specific acts, has an overtone of coercion to it. However, in the context of a conflic

management strategy, a wider conception may be called for. Providing governmen

with reasons not to act, especially in the context of a broad conflict management 

strategy aimed at general stability, may involve positive inducements. These, of co

would not consist of anything resembling appeasement, but might, for example, in

establishing a policy, backed by appropriate naval force, of freedom of the seas. Th

presumably, would deter predation of various kinds on the seas and, thus, obviate 

need on the part of many nations to build a big navy.

Another aspect of deterrence as an element of a conflict management strategy resu

from the inherent nature of strategy itself. Strategy is normally manifested as a ser

moves, i.e., a campaign. In a campaign, events are related to each other in one of t

ways. First, they could have a sequential relationship wherein event A is prerequis

to event B, B is prerequisite to C and so on. In cumulative campaigns, events A, B, 

and others are related only insofar as each produces some incremental effect, such 
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cisive. Gambit A is designed to precipitate a decisive event, such as a battle. If the battle 

does occur and is indeed decisive, the campaign is over. If, however, gambit A does not 

produce the battle or it is not decisive, then gambit B is tried, and so forth again.

Conflict management strategies generally take the form of cumulative campaigns. Their 

object being inherently negative, they most often focus on the avoidance of their own 

casualties or damage while either ignoring enemy damage or conversely focusing very 

much on some aspect of damage to the enemy as a surrogate for a measure of progress 

toward dispute resolution, e.g., enemy body counts in Vietnam and to a lesser extent 

in Iraq and Afghanistan. In terms of deterrence, the cumulative logic can be applied 

to generate some insights. A British naval officer once said that the Royal Navy’s (RN) 

most precious strategic asset was its reputation for reckless persistence. The implication 

is that other countries would be deterred from taking on the RN because it was crazy 

and would not admit defeat, thus extracting costs from the enemy out of proportion to 

the value of the object in question. Presumably, if the RN did not, on a specific occasion

demonstrate such recklessness, its reputation would be diminished and deterrent value 

lost. So in this branch of deterrence logic there can be a campaign of deterrence and its 

nature is cumulative.

Scaling up the RN example to the strategic level, one may deduce that if the dominant 

power engages in some kind of limited war that turns out to be unsuccessful in one way 

or another, its overall deterrent posture is diminished. This may or may not be the case, 

but the essential issue is that deterrence is always part of a conflict management strategy 

that is dynamic—always in motion. Thus deterrence, even the macro kind, is a changeable condition that must be continually tended. Discrete instances of tailored deterrence 

actions, if indeed such things are possible, cannot be properly understood or undertaken without reference to the context of an unfolding and dynamic conflict management 

strategy.

Conclusion

This article has attempted to make the case that deterrence is a desired condition—intended to be produced by certain force postures, policies and, in current U.S. doctrine, 

by specific actions—which cannot be properly understood nor reliably achieved without 

referencing it to an overall strategy of conflict management. In simple words, it is not 

a specific and independent thing; it is a component of something larger. However, that 

larger thing, conflict management strategy, has not been subject to sufficient examination, at least in the sense it has been presented in this article. Thus deterrence, and 

especially the new notion of tailored deterrence, has been subject to an intellectual 
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sion process—the possibility of which is debatable.

Deterrence, inherently, is about stability—keeping things from happening. Theref

its intellectual framework should not be based on the unstable foundation of exqu

intelligence and razor-edge predictions of specific decisions. Rather, it should rest 

more stable intellectual foundation of context, situational logic and an understand

of one’s own motives and incentives. It is hoped that this article will serve to open 

avenues of inquiry concerning deterrence so that novel concepts such as tailored d

rence, coined in important national statements of policy, do not obfuscate defense 

security thinking to the detriment of national interests.

Notes

1. U.S. Department of Defense, 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, p. 48. www.defense

.gov/.

2. U.S. Department of Defense, 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, p. 37. www.defense

.gov/.

3. U.S. Department of Defense, Deterrence Operations Joint Operating Concept, Dec. 2006, 

p. 10. www.dtic.mil/.

4. See, for example, “China Targeting U.S. Deterrence,” Jan. 5, 2011, The Japan Times Online,

search.japantimes.co.jp/.

5. China’s National Defense in 2010 (Beijing: 

Information Office of the State Council, The 

People’s Republic of China, March 2011), p. 

14. www.china.org.cn/.

6. See M. Elaine Bunn, “Can Deterrence Be Tailored?,” National Defense University Strategic 

Forum No. 225, Jan. 2007. permanent.access

.gpo.gov/.

7. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, translated by 

Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, 

NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), Book I, 

Chapter 1, p. 77.

8. U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast 

Guard, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century 

Seapower, www.navy.mil/.

9. Paul F. Diehl and Gary Goertz, War an

in International Rivalry (Ann Arbor, M

University of Michigan, 2000), Chapte

67–85.

10. Clausewitz, Book I, Chapter 1, op. cit., 

11. I use this term in precisely the way Jam

Cable defines it in his landmark book 

boat Diplomacy (London: Macmillan, 

12. Clausewitz, Book III, Chapter 1, op. ci

181.

13. George Kennan, “The Sources of Sovie

duct,” Foreign Affairs (New York: The C

on Foreign Relations, July 1947).

14. Joint Publication 1-02, DOD Dictionar

Military and Associated Terms, as amen

through April 2010. “A planning const

intended to facilitate early decision ma

by developing a wide range of interrela

responses that begin with deterrent-or

actions carefully tailored to produce a 

effect. The flexible deterrent option is 

means by which the various diplomati

information, military, and economic d

rent measures available to the Presiden

included in the joint operation plannin

process. Also called FDO. See also dete

options.”
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PART FOUR

War Gaming
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The Forms of Warfare

Integrating Ethos and Warfighting

Wars must vary with the nature of their motives and of the situati

which give rise to them. The first, the supreme, the most far-reachi

act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make 

to establish by that test the kind of war on which they are embark

neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that 

to its nature.

CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, ON 

Water shapes its course according to the ground over which it flow

soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is fight

SUN TZU, THE ART OF 

Our direct experience of life is limited to the here and now, and to the immediate a

specific issues that we encounter on a daily basis. However, we understand that t

are larger patterns that arise out of our daily activities. These patterns are produ

by the influence of frequently unseen or unacknowledged forces. Perhaps the firs

and most well-known description of such influences was produced by the British 

economist Adam Smith. His “invisible hand” of self-interest underlies the effecti

ness of the market in distributing goods and services.1

 Other writers, such as Ma

MacLuhan2

 and Jared Diamond,3 have revealed the hitherto unperceived influen

media and geography on the patterns of human activity. It is in this same vein th

paper will attempt to reveal a larger pattern of warfare, the understanding of wh

could help governments and militaries improve the judgment that Clausewitz ca

upon them to make.

We frequently talk about not being able to “see the forest for the trees.” What this 

is that we are distracted or blinded by a focus on the specifics or details of an issue 

such that we cannot discern the larger patterns—“the forest”—that would reveal t

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Unpublished manuscript
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of these influences and our decision making is thereby defective. This is as true in the 

realm of warfare as it is in any other arena of life. In particular, it seems that strategy, 

normally considered to be the upper and broadest conceptual level of warfare, is in 

reality just another copse of trees. The forest, the larger pattern, is the form of warfare 

a nation or group conducts. Strategy occurs within the confines of that forest. If we can 

identify and categorize these larger patterns, military services will be able to better understand themselves and the enemy, and thereby, as Sun Tzu says, we will need not fear 

the results of a hundred battles.

Forms of Warfare

One of the defining moments of the American Civil War occurred when General 

Robert E. Lee ordered Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. Although ill-fated from the outset, 

it was perhaps the apotheosis of what we will call the “heroic” form of warfare. Lee was 

the epitome of the “great captain”—the general of genius who, at the head of an army 

comprised of highly skilled and motivated troops, used deft maneuver to defeat a more 

numerous enemy in battle. The Confederate States of America did not pursue the heroic 

form of warfare as an explicit choice; the invisible hand at work was a combination of 

history and necessity. All military officers of the day were well steeped in the legend of 

Napoleon Bonaparte, the archangel of war whose genius for maneuver had made him 

master of Europe. Napoleon applied the heroic form of warfare with considerable success 

until his wave broke upon the rocks of the Russian winter. Lee and his counterparts had 

imbibed the lessons and ethos of Napoleonic warfare since they were cadets, so adopting 

any other form would have seemed almost sacrilegious. However strong the influence of 

history, necessity intervened to reinforce Lee’s attachment to the heroic form. The Confederacy was poor in the kinds of resources that constitute the sinews of war. Lacking in 

industry and with its finances being constricted by the Union blockade, the South had 

to rely on those threads of advantage it seemed to have: excellent generals, especially Lee, 

and troops that could outfight their Union counterparts. The South, as had so many other 

nations who were weaker than their opponents, embraced the heroic form of warfare.

Lee had flummoxed a series of Union generals over the preceding two years, but his 

victorious battles had not produced a strategic decision. Now, in Pennsylvania, he had 

the Army of the Potomac in his grasp. A victory at Gettysburg, especially if it allowed 

him to threaten Washington, might be the final leverage the Confederacy needed to 

force the Lincoln administration to cut a deal. Although the dawning of the third day 

of the battle found his army in a tactically disadvantageous position, he was convinced 

that the fighting skill and spirit of his troops would carry the day in a battle that would 

determine the outcome of the war. This is the essence of the heroic ethos: the faith that 
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we can see the influence that warfare form has on institutional ethos and the cons

quent effect that ethos has on an individual’s decision making.

By contrast, when Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant assumed command of all U

armies, he was in a position to adopt a different form of warfare, which we will ca

“systematic.” Grant understood two things that few others did. First, Lee and his a

were the keys to annihilating the rebellion, and second, his army could only be de

through attrition and the destruction of its support infrastructure. Grant had the 

at his disposal to act on these insights: a virtually inexhaustible supply of men and 

resources and a government and populace that supported the war effort. Grant th

embarked on a campaign in Virginia in which he sought to keep constant pressur

Lee such that the South suffered continual combat losses that it could not make go

Concurrently, Grant ordered Major General W. T. Sherman and his army to captu

Atlanta and then march through the lower South, destroying the resource base for 

Lee’s army. The kind of warfare Grant conducted did not rely on decisive battles o

tactical genius on his part. Rather, relentlessness, well-planned logistics and comp

management carried the day. A certain degree of ruthlessness also helped. The de

ate, almost mechanistic, approach that the systematic form of warfare employs ref

significantly different ethos than the heroic form of fighting.

Perhaps the most indicative articulation of the systematic form of warfare comes f

Rear Admiral Henry E. Eccles, who wrote several landmark books on logistics in 

the wake of World War II: “From the strategic-tactical point of view, exploitation 

momentum is similar to the ‘killer instinct’ in the boxing ring. It means that once 

decisive opening is obtained, every resource is concentrated to obtain overwhelmi

victory by the most rapid succession of powerful blows. It aims at the complete de

tion of enemy fighting power in the area concerned. The enemy is permitted no re

to regroup his forces and to recover his strength.” 4

In the spring of 1865, as Lee’s position became increasingly untenable, Grant’s and 

Lincoln’s thoughts turned to the end game. In particular, they were worried about 

armies of the Confederacy dissolving into partisan bands and carrying on the stru

using a different form of warfare. To describe this, commonly termed insurgency 

irregular warfare, we will use a broader term: “disruptive” warfare. This form of w

is conducted by a party that is much weaker than its opponent. Termed disruptive 

because the stronger opponent’s capabilities to conduct heroic or systematic warfa

are regarded as a system, disruptive warfare seeks to disrupt that system over time 

the opponent is discredited, exhausted and dismayed such that he either withdraw

from the fight or makes terms. The means of disruptive warfare can include terro
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ger opponent and still survive to fight another day.

To illustrate the broader application of the term “disruptive,” we can look at the naval 

strategy employed by U.S. Secretary of the Navy William Jones in the War of 1812. The 

American navy, with its handful of frigates and sloops, was no match for the dominant 

British Royal Navy. What Jones hoped to do was sneak his ships out singly to conduct 

commerce raiding against the British. The intent was not to disrupt British commerce; 

rather its goal was to force the Royal Navy to spend so much effort trying to chase down 

American raiders that Britain would decide the war with the United States was not 

worth the effort in the context of the larger struggle against Napoleon.5

 One can also 

make the case that the German U-boat campaigns in the Atlantic in both world wars 

were applications of the disruptive form.

The disruptive form of warfare is the recourse of the much weaker party. Of necessity, 

it is drawn-out warfare that is conducted on a shoestring, relatively speaking. The ethos 

of disruptive warfare is therefore quite different than those of the other two forms. At 

heart, it demands some form of doctrinal or political orthodoxy, because to carry it out 

requires small cells or units operating independently. In order to achieve unity of effort, 

the leaders of cells must be true believers in the religion, political doctrine, cause or 

strategy. Disruptive warfare is inherently cumulative; each raid or ambush incrementally 

contributes to the overall effect. In order to persist over time, tactical risk must be minimized. The required mind-set is fundamentally different from that which is willing to 

roll the dice on a decisive battle in the heroic form or that which is willing to incur losses 

in order to impose unremitting pressure in the systematic form. Moreover, whereas the 

heroic form aims for a quick victory and the systematic form demands steady progress 

toward victory, in the disruptive form, the path to victory is not predictable in either 

duration or character.

In looking at these three forms of warfare we see that the essential elements of each are 

contained in a “trinity” that is a bit analogous to the one established by Clausewitz.6

 The 

form of war is composed of an expected victory dynamic, an institutional ethos and a 

set of methods. These three elements are interdependent and when aligned, provide the 

power the form has to offer. When they are not aligned, the form is dysfunctional. Most 

commonly this occurs when the prospects for victory using a particular form fade, but 

the form is retained.

Interaction among the Forms

Lincoln and Grant had good reason to worry about the Confederates resorting to the 

disruptive form of warfare. They instinctively understood that trying to apply the 
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at smoke. It is precisely the potential effectiveness of the disruptive form versus th

other two forms that brought it into being in the first place. There is perhaps no b

example of the interaction between the systematic and disruptive forms than the V

nam War. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese waged disruptive war against the 

and South Vietnamese forces using a combination of terror tactics against villages 

ambushes against opposing forces. The United States, for its part, entered the war 

to apply its existing systematic form. While there were tactical successes and failu

both sides, the net result was frustration and exhaustion for the United States, wh

ultimately pulled out of the fight: precisely the result North Vietnam had sought.

In the years between the entry by the United States into and its pullout from Vietn

the unsuccessful attempt to apply the systematic form of warfare warped and wea

the ethos of each of the U.S. armed services. The services had gone into the war w

adherence to analysis-based management, an approach imposed by Secretary of D

Robert McNamara that was entirely compatible with the ethos of systematic warfa

In the context of a limited war and against an enemy pursuing the disruptive form 

warfare, frustration led to the adoption of measures of effectiveness that were not 

indicators of progress, and thus over time produced cynicism within the ranks wh

eroded the Army’s ethos and its embedded ethics.7

After Vietnam, the U.S. Army and its sister services embarked on a program of re

bilitation. As chronicled in the book Prodigal Soldiers, by James Kitfield, senior of

such as Shy Meyer of the Army and Bill Creech of the Air Force wrought major ch

in their respective services that reset their ethos and ultimately produced the high

highly professional force that outmaneuvered and dismembered the Iraqi army an

air force in Desert Storm. At the heart of the transformation lay a shift in the f

of warfare the services pursued, from systematic to heroic. After Vietnam, the Arm

focus shifted to the NATO Central Front. There, facing the massive Red Army and 

the context of massive nuclear stockpiles, the U.S. Army saw itself as the weaker p

thus making the use of the systematic form infeasible. Although it did not work fo

Confederacy, or for that matter for Germany or Japan in World War II, the heroic 

in the guise of AirLand Battle, was seen as the antidote against the Soviets. The So

ets, for their part, had to also consider the use of the heroic form. This was due to 

ever-looming shadow of nuclear weapons. With nukes almost anyone could adopt 

systematic form, but their sheer destructiveness would make any victory Pyrrhic a

So if the Soviets were forced into a heroic-style war of maneuver in Europe to achi

their objectives in a hurry before the nukes flew, they would be themselves, by def

tion, vulnerable to being outmaneuvered.
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repair one that had been ruptured and discredited in Vietnam. The ethos of heroic 

warfare, with its emphasis on warfare virtuosity, was a healing balm for the Army. 

Moreover, emerging technology promised to supercharge the ethos. Technology such as 

Abrams tanks, F-16 fighters and precision guided munitions required technical virtuosity on the part of soldiers but it also made them more powerful warriors, both individually and as units. Thus the American military that was unleashed in the Iraqi desert in 

1991 was heroic in all its dimensions. The systematic army of 1965 most likely could 

have defeated Saddam Hussein in 1991 and again in 2003, especially since Iraq had 

adopted the heroic form itself as a matter of both Arab tradition and of logistic necessity. Moreover, logically, if one has the capacity to conduct systematic warfare against 

an opponent that conducts heroic warfare, one should; otherwise unnecessary risk is 

incurred. In 1991, however, the American military was wedded to the heroic form but its 

sheer quality overwhelmed an Iraqi military that was a generation behind.

After the 9/11 attacks the American military carried with it into Afghanistan and Iraq 

its heroic warfare form and its accompanying ethos. In the early going of both wars the 

techno-heroic form made quick work of the organized opposition. In the aftermath of 

their initial defeats, both the Taliban and Iraqis reverted to a version of the disruptive 

form of warfare—insurgency. However, the interaction between the heroic form and 

disruptive form turned out to be a bit different than the interaction between the systematic form and disruptive form in Vietnam. It was true that in confronting the disruptive 

form, the heroic form still found itself punching at smoke, but the ethos of the heroic 

form turned out to be more resilient under conditions of frustration than did that of 

the systematic form. For one thing, the heroic form appears to more easily accommodate tactical adaptation. Army officers such as David Petraeus were able to shift their 

approach from killing insurgents to courting key tribes, which, in conjunction with 

political errors by Al Qaeda, eventually produced a form of success in Iraq.

In Afghanistan, similar shifts were made, but because the Taliban continued to enjoy 

sanctuary in Pakistan, and for other ethnic and tribal reasons within Afghanistan, the 

war continues without resolution. There is some evidence that mild forms of the cynicism that infected the armed forces in Vietnam have crept into the American forces deployed in Afghanistan, the misuse of measures of effectiveness and statistics being one.8

However, the legacy of the Desert Storm victory in legitimizing and reinforcing the 

heroic ethos has made the Army relatively resilient in the face of frustration. Moreover, 

that legacy and that ethos have created, along with the galvanizing effects of the 9/11 attacks, a very strong bond between the U.S. armed forces and the American public.

Notwithstanding the resilience of the heroic ethos, the heroic form of warfare is not 

working in Afghanistan. The heroic form, which is predicated on maneuver and rapid 
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whose fundamental dynamic involves prolonging war. In his landmark work On W

the Prussian theorist Carl von Clausewitz says that defense must be the stronger fo

of war because it is the weaker party that adopts it. The same logic seems to apply 

disruptive form of warfare. In Clausewitz’s formulation the defense can be overco

the attacker enjoys a sufficient margin of superiority. However, it is not at all clear 

any margin of superiority would allow either the heroic or systematic forms of wa

to prevail over the disruptive form, due to the profound asymmetry that exists. Th

asymmetry is not necessarily one of means; it is one of form. Being an asymmetry 

warfare form, it is also one of ethos.

The forms of warfare are inherent in the logic of human conflict and have been ar

since the Egyptians defeated the Hittites in 1286 BC. A nation or group adopts a fo

of warfare for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because it can. There s

to be a hierarchy among the forms. The systematic form is inherently the weakest 

because only the very strong, relative to the opponent, can adopt it. However, whe

adopted, its results are most sure—at least against the heroic form. The heroic form 

stronger form, and promises quick victory to those who possess the great generals 

excellent technology—assuming that the surrounding set of political conditions p

a military and political checkmate to occur. The disruptive form is the strongest, w

is why it is the resort of the very weak, relative to the military power of the enemy 

relation to the political circumstances surrounding the dispute. It should be noted 

in the course of a conflict a nation or group may shift forms in midstream, as circ

stances dictate.

Technology and the Forms of Warfare

The literature of war in the last two decades has been full of assertions that the na

of war is being changed by new technology. While it is clear that new technology h

deed transformed the methods of war over the course of human history, if we acce

“trinity” of elements that characterize the warfare forms that we have established, 

led to conclude that technology has done little or nothing to change the inherent n

of war. Technology has meaning only within the context of one of the forms of wa

regardless of how seemingly decisive it might be. The only exception is nuclear we

Nuclear warfare has not been conducted; one reason may be that it does not fit int

trinity because there is no available victory dynamic and no available rational eth

it. All other technologies are given meaning within the context of a form of warfa

In the waning days of World War II in Europe, Hitler and the Wehrmacht increas

ingly relied on a set of “wonder weapons” including the V-2 ballistic missile and th

ME-262 jet fighter to turn the tide of the war. These weapons were supposed to sh
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kind of checkmate that would provide Germany with a bit of strategic breathing room, 

if not a negotiated settlement. In a sense, these weapons were the technological avatars 

of Teutonic knights of an earlier age. Since the Wars of German Unification, Teutonic 

armies had been imbued with the ethos of heroic warfare. The goal was always to win 

a decisive battle that would produce a checkmate in which the enemy would call for 

terms, even though he might still have means for resistance. In the early going of World 

War II the Germans used the heroic form with great effect in subduing Poland and 

then France. However, there are limits to which the heroic form of warfare can be effective. If the enemy refuses to concede defeat and adopts one of the other two forms of 

warfare, the heroic form could fail—as a form—regardless of the quality of the fighting 

forces involved.9

The problem for Hitler in 1944 and 1945 was that the Allies had been able to stay in 

the game long enough to adopt the systematic form of warfare. War production in the 

United States and Soviet Union reached levels that allowed them to flood the battlefields 

with a constant stream of new forces. The systematic form relies on constant pressure 

and overwhelming firepower to pulverize enemy forces and force the surrender of the 

enemy. This form also relies on competence and determination if not ruthlessness in its 

generals and in its soldiers; genius may be an added benefit, but it may also get in the 

way. Kitfield reports on how in Vietnam, General DePuy rejected and suppressed innovative tactics by junior officers because they did not conform to the overall doctrine. 

Technology flows along the same lines: the American Sherman tank, like its Soviet 

cousins, was in many ways inferior to the best German tanks, but the United States 

could make lots of Shermans and they were logistically supportable and easy to use. The 

Germans had a number of superior tank types, but their industrial strategy of designing and fielding limited numbers of ever better tanks confounded their logistic system, 

vitiating whatever benefits the newer tank conferred.

Here one can see the differing roles of technology in the heroic and systematic forms of 

warfare. The German Tiger tank was supposed to overcome the Soviet horde with its 

pure excellence. However, there were never enough of them to make a difference. Better, 

as the Soviets said, is the enemy of good enough. The Soviet T-34s and American Shermans were good enough because they could be built in numbers and be supported with 

parts. That is the heart of systematic warfare.

When the Americans rolled into Vietnam they brought with them the systematic form 

of warfare they had adopted in World War II and Korea. However, the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong colleagues adopted the third form of warfare—disruptive. In adopting this form, the Vietnamese used such low technology as booby traps, 

punji stick–filled pits and a variety of man-toted weapons such as mortars. The use of 
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while imposing them on coalition forces. Technology in disruptive warfare must b

focused on empowering persistence while disrupting the enemy. However, disrupt

warfare can also benefit from some of the most advanced forms of technology, inc

cell phones, computers and robotics.

Disruptive Warfare

Since the 9/11 attacks the United States has been engaged in two extended wars ag

insurgencies—Iraq and Afghanistan. Both wars have sparked a voluminous literat

counterinsurgency. Within this literature, disagreements have emerged over the r

efficacy of killing insurgents, denying sanctuary, winning hearts and minds, and 

building. While the United States succeeded in extracting itself from Iraq with at 

some basis for thinking it had achieved a degree of success, the insurgency in Afgh

stan drags on with conflicting assessments over progress there and at best an unce

prognosis after American withdrawal occurs. A former Secretary of Defense opin

wars of this type will characterize the future environment, while scholars and vete

fighters attempt to concoct a formula for successfully fighting them.

Using the forms of warfare framework will not produce such a formula, but it can 

luminate the elements of the conflict and indicate where one might look for soluti

always keeping in mind Carl von Clausewitz’s caveat that however good theory m

be, it can never serve as a formula for a specific situation.10 In order to find avenue

of possible strategic advantage, the disruptive form of warfare must be dissected in

its component elements. However, even before that is done, the context for disrupt

warfare must be understood, and that context, in a like manner, can be dissected s

seemingly profound aphorisms like Clausewitz’s dictum that war is the continuati

politics by other means do not constitute the entire description of context.

Context I: Disputes

Politics is about who has the power to do what. In the course of politics, disputes a

among constituencies, be they political parties, ethnic groups, nations, religious s

or other groupings. Disputes may be settled peaceably via formal, structured polit

processes, or they may be characterized by hostile, violent competition. War occu

the context of disputes, but there are other self-help methods used to achieve dispu

resolution besides violence: diplomatic maneuvering, dirty tricks, demonstrations

All of these methods, including violence up to and including nuclear war, may be 

as a continuum of actions, with no clear boundary necessarily existing between m

ods that involve violence and those that do not. This is lesson one about war; its m

is not politics, it is the dispute. The nature of the dispute, the nature of the parties 
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resolve it. Some writers have made the clever comment that politics is the continuation 

of war by other means, and they are correct. But that only illuminates the point that 

there is a continuum of conflict that is spawned by a dispute.

The nature of a dispute has a profound influence on the methods people will use to resolve it in their favor. Sometimes disputes arise over specific issues like fishing rights or 

even ownership of a particular piece of territory. Depending on the relative motivations 

of the disputants, solutions can be achieved either through diplomatic maneuvering or 

even limited military action. Identity disputes are much harder to resolve and may resul

in the highest levels of violence. The place of Germany in Europe, for example, involved 

multiple wars of the most extreme kind. Another kind of dispute that falls somewhere 

between issue and identity disputes is what might be termed security disputes. The tug 

of war between the United States, NATO and Russia over countries in Eastern Europe is 

an example. While this tug of war is mostly characterized by diplomatic maneuvering 

and interference in internal politics, the Russian invasion of Georgia represented a spike 

in violence in the conflict over what constitutes satisfactory security buffers for Russia.

Disputes are not static or simple phenomena. What starts as an issue dispute might 

easily metastasize into an identity dispute if the actions by one disputant are seen as 

either disproportional or existentially threatening by the other. Clausewitz indirectly 

addresses this with his concept of culminating point of victory. Any victory, he says, 

no matter how complete, must be defended in some way.11 If, therefore, one disputant 

does something that so enrages the other that the nature of the dispute changes, then all 

previous calculations of strategy are negated, and the conflict becomes something much 

more intense. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was intended to take the U.S. Pacific 

Fleet off the table and thereby convince the United States that interference in the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was not feasible. Given the isolationist sentiment in the United States and the sheer distance to East Asia from North 

America, such a plan had some logic in the minds of Japanese strategists. However, the 

way the attack was conducted—without warning—so violated the American sense of 

honor and fairness that it galvanized America and sparked a crusade against fascism 

that resulted in the destruction of Imperial Japan as well as Nazi Germany. Morphing of 

disputes is scalable; it can happen locally as easily as globally, and this has implications 

for the way disruptive warfare is conducted and the way it is countered.

Context II: Conflict

“Conflict” is the term we will use to indicate the hostile intent and methods used 

by disputants to achieve resolution on their terms. As mentioned previously, it can 

encompass the whole range of noncooperative methods from deceptive diplomacy to 
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conflict, it is useful to think of them as variations of the same thing. Viewed in th

we can establish a mental picture of conflict that is almost a graph. If the vertical a

is defined to be the spectrum of conflict methods according to the degree of violen

with higher on the axis representing more violence, and the horizontal axis repres

time, then we can draw a curve that depicts the dynamics of a dispute. The curve 

start at the intersection of the two axes, representing the onset of the dispute. This 

simplification, of course, because many disputes emerge gradually, but such simpl

tion does no harm to our theory. The curve may remain close to the horizontal ax

for a while, indicating latency of the dispute or perhaps the employment of nonvio

means. An upward surge to the curve indicates the introduction of violent means, 

a near-vertical spike represents the outbreak of war. If one party wins the war but 

dispute remains unsettled, the curve will drop down near the horizontal axis, ind

the quiescence of the defeated party, or it may level off at some point higher, indic

ing an insurgency. The curve may spike back up, indicating a subsequent war, or i

undulate at a lower but persistent level of violence indicating an extended insurgen

it descends to intersect the horizontal axis, it means the dispute is settled.

With this graph of conflict in our minds we can make some observations about th

context in which the disruptive form of warfare occurs. First, it can be said that an

disputant has available one of two possible overall strategies: a strategy designed t

obtain favorable dispute resolution, or one that is meant to manage the kind and d

of violence employed in the conflict. The first kind of strategy is adopted when at 

one of the disputants feels it has sufficient resources, be they material, moral or po

cal, to overcome the opposition of the other and achieve resolution. The second ki

is adopted when the disputant does not feel it has such resources, but does not wan

abandon the dispute. Thus it attempts measures to keep the violence within accep

parameters until such time as circumstances may favor a turn to a strategy of the 

kind. Pushing this abstract reasoning a bit further, we might observe that the relat

strength of the disputants is measured with respect to the nature and parameters 

the dispute, not any absolute rating of combat capability, economic strength or po

cal will. It is this principle that allows militarily and economically weaker parties 

sometimes prevail over stronger ones, especially in the context of the adoption of 

disruptive form of warfare.

Depicting conflict via a graph over time leads us also to think about how the event

conflict relate to the overall picture. If we accept the idea that even massive wars d

necessarily settle the underlying dispute that spawned them, we can proceed to est

a hierarchy of events based roughly on their size and duration. To engage in the us

descriptive physics metaphors as did Clausewitz, we might define the engagement 
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involve such things as deception and counterdeception, but we can content ourselves at 

this point with the engagement as the basic constituent particle. The battle, then, is the 

atom, and the campaign the molecule that gives the war its character. But as the graph 

indicates, the war may be itself only a part of a larger substance that we might term a 

struggle. One might thus define the struggle of Germany to define its place in Europe as 

composed of everything from the Wars of German Unification to the Maastricht Treaty. 

On an even grander scale, perhaps the grandest, we have regional or global order. At this 

level there are nations and groups that adhere to and support the order, and those that 

oppose and seek to undermine it. At this level, the graph is essentially open-ended, and 

conflict is seen to be endemic, with disputes of this kind essentially irresolvable.

This “Standard Theory” of conflict now allows us to see the elements of context within 

which the disruptive form of war is conducted. Generally, if history is an indicator, parties engaging in the disruptive form of war have an identity dispute with the stronger 

party. If the particularity of the weaker, let us say insurgent, party is such that the dispute is confined to the level of struggle, then there are prospects for eventual resolution 

of that dispute, even if far off and brutal. The unification of an independent Vietnam 

under the communists comes to mind. On the other hand, remembering the tendency 

of disputes to morph, it is not that hard to envision the struggles of Al Qaeda, the 

Taliban or Arab Spring insurgents growing into an open-ended dispute about the global 

order. The implication is that what Western powers do in the individual engagements or 

campaigns might change the natures of local disputes. This must be kept in mind as we 

proceed to dissect the disruptive form of warfare in order to provide insights into how 

strategies for engagements and campaigns might be crafted.

The Elements of Disruptive Warfare

To extend the physics analogy, the Navy teaches the “fire triangle”; in order for a fire 

to burn, three things are needed: fuel, oxygen and heat to ignite it. Similarly, disruptive 

warfare requires three things for it to be viable. The first is some form of sanctuary. This 

may range from the ability of insurgents to hide among the populace to political restrictions in the form of inviolable territory across a border to the opacity of the seas. Being 

very weak in relation to the opponent, disruptive forces must be able to avoid contact 

except under the right conditions. The second requirement is that there must be some 

feasible coercive or catalytic defeat mechanism available. In other words, the cumulative 

effect of disruptive operations must produce a sufficient level of dismay in the enemy to 

precipitate a withdrawal or a willingness to negotiate under adverse conditions. Thirdly, 

there must be a tactical mechanism that imposes cost on the enemy while limiting the 
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ments are lacking or are removed by the other side, the disruptive form will fail.

There appear to be two basic ways to counter the disruptive form of warfare. The 

to adopt a form of conflict management strategy and the second is to fight fire wit

by adopting the disruptive form oneself. In reality, current counterinsurgency doc

trine is a blend of each, with the disruptive form predominating.12 However, the pr

mixture of force and persuasion cannot be understood or calculated unless the str

of the warfare form is known—in the context of the particulars of the current con

Then and only then can one decide whether to pursue dispute resolution (to “win” 

struggle) or adopt a conflict management strategy. Once that decision is made, the

can proceed to examine opportunities for removing one or more of the elements o

insurgency “fire triangle.” Success in this endeavor might “win the war” but as wit

fire, if the elements remain in place, the fire will reignite. Thus a follow-on strateg

needed for keeping the elements of insurgency from coming together again (win t

peace), or, if no feasible course of action along that line is available, one must cons

reverting to a conflict management strategy. At every step of the way, the strategis

consider whether the actions being taken, regardless of their immediate success, w

cause the dispute to morph, either with regard to its nature in the context of the p

ties involved, or by having it “jump the fire breaks” and become something larger 

endemic that involves regional or world order.

Conflict Management

If we understand war to be one manifestation of the spectrum of conflict that is ge

ated by a dispute among two or more parties, we are in a better position to see the 

meaning of a conflict management strategy. Disputes among nations or groups sp

conflict, which may range from political maneuvering to all-out war. Wars may or 

not settle the dispute, a fact acknowledged by Clausewitz when he said that in war 

results are never final. Depending on the nature of the dispute and the conditions 

tending it, each disputant will have differing levels of motivation both going into i

at various points along the timeline of the dispute. The forms of warfare are applie

within this context. As previously mentioned, disputants may adopt either of two 

of strategy—one aimed at resolution of the dispute or one whose purpose is to ma

age the degree and kind of violence associated with the dispute. Conflict managem

strategies are adopted when political or military conditions close out the possibilit

a successful dispute resolution strategy. The objective is to remain viable in the di

until some future point at which conditions again favor the adoption of a dispute r

tion strategy. Examples of conflict management strategies range from deterrence a
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biding ones time.

If the heroic or systematic form of warfare is frustrated by its encounter with disruptive 

warfare, adoption of a conflict management strategy is a common and sometimes viable 

response. Adoption of a conflict management strategy is a tacit acknowledgment that 

the heroic/systematic form must be at least temporarily abandoned, along with its inherent component of a quick or at least predictable victory schedule. The conflict must 

be drawn out for some indefinite period of time. Nations and armies do not willingly 

admit this to the public or even to themselves. This disconnect between doctrine, ethos, 

and reality produces the cynicism, both individual and corporate, that leads to the 

breakdown in discipline, institutional coherence and public support. In theory it would 

be better for a service and government to acknowledge the true state of affairs and set 

about adjusting expectations and even corporate ethos to gain the institutional resiliency needed for the long haul. When victory becomes a fiction, the results are corrosive.

Conflict management can take the form of security assistance, “Vietnamization” being one instantiation. In other words, the host country’s armed forces are trained and 

equipped so that they can carry on the fight. The supporting country does this because 

it does not see a strategy that would allow it to defeat the insurgents, so it attempts to 

extract itself by creating a viable indigenous army. What that army would be able to 

do in the future is unclear, but if it is viable, at least the supporting country has not 

“lost.” Other strictures on the use of force might be imposed, such as putting the North 

Vietnamese dams off limits to bombing. The whole idea is that there is no apparent path 

to “victory” but acknowledging defeat is unacceptable. Thus the disputant attempts to 

create stable conditions that prevent defeat until some future opportunity might arise. 

However, conflict management does not mean a lack of violence; it simply means that 

one acts to constrain the vector and nature of events so as to avert defeat until opportunities for winning arise. Counterinsurgency can easily take this form. What is 

important is for the nation or force pursuing this kind of strategy to admit to itself that 

conflict management is what it is up to and not confuse itself into thinking it is on the 

road to dispute resolution.

Fighting Fire with Fire

The other method for dealing with disruptive warfare is to adopt some form of it oneself. There are indications that the United States is doing so in Afghanistan. In this case 

it is manifested in the form of drone strikes on Taliban leadership across the border in 

Pakistan. The United States enjoys sanctuary in that it has drones operate from secure 

airfields and their operators are in Nevada, it has a plausible defeat mechanism in the 
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relatively cheap and hard to hit.

However, adoption of the disruptive form demands a shift in ethos. Abandonmen

quick or predictable win is just the start. Drone strikes are anything but heroic, eit

with regard to the technology or its operators. This may allow a form of cynicism 

in as the “warriors” are not subject to personal risk and go home for dinner after t

shift. Perhaps more importantly, adopting the disruptive form requires pushing th

boundaries of international law. Al Qaeda and the Taliban clearly violate internati

norms in a number of ways, including using Pakistan as refuge. The United States

its part, walks a fine line with its drone strikes. Advances in precision targeting m

reduce harm to innocents, but denying sanctuary to disruptive operatives will con

to challenge traditional views of norms.13

The battles of the Atlantic in both world wars offer additional perspective on fight

the disruptive form with the disruptive form. As previously mentioned, disruptive 

fare requires a combination of sanctuary, a strategic defeat mechanism and a susta

engagement tactic. For the German navy these consisted of, respectively, secure po

(submarine pens under thick concrete roofs), the “tonnage theory,” which specifie

a sufficient rate of sinkings in excess of allied ship replacement capacity would “br

England to her knees,” and the stealth of a U-boat torpedo attack. Initial allied “h

efforts to sweep the sea-lanes and bomb submarine pens proved fruitless and the r

sinkings in the initial going of World War II approached the catastrophic. In the e

a form of counterdisruptive warfare—the convoy—was adopted. The convoy disru

the third requirement for disruptive warfare, a sustainable tactic. Escorted convoy

vitiated the damage done by U-boats and also increased the risk and loss to the U-

force to the point that the disruptive form was unsustainable at an effective level 

the Germans.

In terms of the broadest field of regard in our model of conflict, the dispute, adopt

of the disruptive form against an opponent doing the same produces some difficu

questions. Especially with respect to its application on land, how does one know o

winning, or for that matter has won? The inherent opacity of the disruptive form m

progress assessments problematic. Body counts have proved to be worse than wor

and even more focused measures such as the tally of captured and killed leaders m

deceiving. The number of terrorist attacks or ambushes may be an indicator, but t

could also be deceiving if the enemy is simply regrouping or biding his time. This 

of affairs leads us to an element of disruptive ethos that is almost a fourth strategi

quirement: faith in the defeat mechanism, along with massive patience and persist

It is certainly possible that for extended periods of time no progress is discernible 

then, abruptly, the opponent collapses. While not a matter of disruptive warfare p
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West. This is all to say that the conduct of disruptive warfare is oftentimes a faith-based 

exercise, something that would appear to be unprofessional and negligent to one who is 

steeped in the ethos of systematic or heroic warfare.

Precipitous collapse of the enemy or not, how does one conclude a disruptive fight? 

Clausewitz again offers us some insight with his concept of culminating point of 

victory. He says that any offensive, regardless of how successful, must culminate in 

some form of defense.14 In the heroic and systematic forms this usually means setting 

up physical defenses, establishing a military government of occupation and/or nation 

building. In fact, when this process has been flubbed, a disruptive insurgency has 

arisen, Iraq being the most notorious recent example. But what happens at the end 

game of a disruptive war? Precipitous collapse of the enemy likely results in the same 

measures that attend the end of a disruptive or heroic fight. However, if the enemy’s 

demise is less clear cut, the putative victor may be forced to adopt some type of 

conflict management strategy. This could take the form of long-term occupation 

if the idea or doctrine that spawned the insurgency has not been discredited or 

eradicated. Open-ended occupations have always eroded the ethos of the occupying 

force, just as being a jailer proves hazardous to the moral fiber of guards. Nations 

should take this into account when they decide to adopt disruptive warfare to counter 

a disruptive foe.

Another moral hazard associated with disruptive warfare is the involvement of innocent 

parties. It is certainly true that civilians have been killed in heroic and systematic wars. 

In some cases, such as the German pogroms against the Jews and Poles, such killing is 

an evil accessory to these forms. Most often, civilian death, injury or displacement is an 

inadvertent side effect of heroic warfare. Systematic warfare frequently involves attacks 

on civilian infrastructure, but not normally with the express intent of killing civilians, 

although civilian casualties associated with World War II strategic bombing were horrific. In disruptive warfare, innocents or at least third parties are frequently inherent 

elements. Terror against civilians is an integral element of insurgencies. Innocent third 

parties are pawns, as are, to some extent, one’s own forces. One has only to observe 

the role of suicide bombers in Middle Eastern insurgencies to understand that the life 

of a disruptive operative has a very different value than a heroic or systematic warrior. 

Disruptive warfare is fundamentally cumulative and attrition based. A disruptive strate

gist certainly wants to minimize risk to his forces, but this is for an objective reason. 

Minimizing tactical risk is an imperative of a cumulative campaign; it has nothing to 

do with the worth of the individual warrior. This is in stark contrast to the heroic form, 

in which the individual is valued because he or she is critical to victory. This devaluing 

of individuals is an inherent part of the logic of disruptive warfare that can corrode the 
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the disruptive form may be found in the attempt by the Obama administration, os

sibly a liberal values–minded organization, to justify the targeted killing of Ameri

citizens that are members of Al Qaeda.15

Conclusions

Being able to see a larger forest, the forms of warfare, provides us not only with ne

useful insights on the dynamics of warfare, but also illuminates the intimate conn

tion between strategy and ethos. In a very real sense, every strategic plan and deci

is a moral statement. Our strategy cannot be contemplated in isolation from the m

agent—the military—that executes it. If this happens, the moral fabric of the milit

may deteriorate and with it, its fighting value. To the extent that this happens invi

the greater the overall risk.

In addition to this general conclusion, several others suggest themselves, each flo

from the concept of warfare form. To begin with, nuclear weapons may have mad

systematic form obsolete. A nation possessing nukes will not likely allow itself to 

overrun or otherwise reduced to impotence without letting them fly. Assuming t

no nation is willing to suffer nuclear attack, the only choice is some kind of chec

achieved through heroic warfare or a disruptive campaign to undermine the ene

will. The idea of a heroic checkmate seemed to be at the heart of the 1980s AirLa

Battle doctrine.

The heroic form of warfare has shown it can produce a robust ethos that can with

the corrosive effects of a shift to conflict management. However, if the nation elec

to pursue its own form of disruptive warfare, an extension, say, of drone-empower

decapitation (assassination?) of Taliban and other troublesome nonstate actor lead

ship, a change of ethos would be required if this mission fell to the military (instea

the Central Intelligence Agency) and constituted the main thrust of a future exten

of the war on terror. It might be possible that such an effort could be roped off to a 

ticular section of the Air Force or Army, thus limiting the effects of ethos shift, bu

the current joint command and control arrangements established by Goldwater-N

there is little chance disruptive operations can be carried out without the broad in

ment of all the services. The challenge therefore for strategists and military leader

to somehow maintain the heroic ethos intact while it adopts a different form of wa

This cannot be done if we do not acknowledge the existence of these warfare form

the overarching patterns of conflict and their profound influence on the ethos of t

military services.
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1. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (University Park: Pennsylvania State Univ., Electronic 

Classics Series Publication), p. 364, www2

.hn.psu.edu/.

2. Marshall MacLuhan, Understanding Media: 

The Extensions of Man (Corte Madera, Calif.: 

Gingko, 1994).

3. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The 

Fates of Human Societies (New York: W. W. 

Norton, 1999).

4. Henry E. Eccles, Logistics in the National 

Defense (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1959), p. 

124.

5. Kevin McCranie, Utmost Gallantry (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2011), pp. 

116, 158, 218, 248. McCranie’s discussion of 

Jones’ oceanic strategy is distributed in bits 

and pieces throughout the book, but in the 

aggregate it lays out very well the elements of 

a disruptive strategy. Of note is the tension 

between Secretary of the Navy Jones and some 

of his ship captains. Jones, in consonance with 

the demands of a disruptive strategy, wanted 

to limit risk to his ships and ordered captains 

to avoid decisive engagements with the Royal 

Navy. The captains, imbued with the heroic 

ethos, hungered for battle and glory.

6. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael 

Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: 

Princeton Univ. Press, 1984), p. 89. Clausewitz’s trinity consists of primordial violence, 

hatred and enmity, which are associated with 

the people; the play of chance and probability, 

which is associated with the armed forces; and 

war’s subordination to policy, which is associated with the government.

7. James Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers (New York: 

Simon and Schuster, 1995), pp. 73, 121–22.

8. Stephen Downes-Martin, “Operations Assessment in Afghanistan Is Broken,” Naval War 

College Review 64, no. 4 (Autumn 2011), pp. 

103 –25.

9. Clausewitz, On War, p. 161. Clausewitz’s 

discussion of the difference in nature between 

the early victories of Napoleon in Italy and 

Western Europe and his later failures in Russia 

and elsewhere illustrates the limitations on 

the heroic form of warfare. Clausewitz’s entire 

book is essentially based on the heroic ethos.

10. Ibid., p. 139.

11. Ibid., p. 570.

12. U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 (Washington, 

D.C.: December 2006), chap. 4; U.S. Defense 

Dept., Counterinsurgency Operations, JP 3-24 

(Washington, D.C.: 5 October 2009), chap. 

9, www.dtic.mil/. The joint publication goes 

much more deeply into the disruptive aspects 

of counterinsurgency.

13. For an exposition defending the U.S. position 

on drone strikes, see Michael N. Schmitt, 

“Drone Attacks under the Jus ad Bellum and 

Jus in Bello: Clearing the ‘Fog of Law,’” Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 13 

(2011), pp. 311–26. For an argument against 

the legality of drone strikes see Morris Davis, 

Combatant Immunity and the Death of Anwar 

al-Awlaqi, Jurist Forum, 17 October 2011, 

jurist.org/.

14. Clausewitz, On War, p. 566. If we extend 

Clausewitz’s logic, we can see that we must no

do something during a war that makes a defense of victory impossible. Thus the Japanese 

attack on Pearl Harbor so riled the American 

public that any chance for some kind of 

heroic checkmate by Japan had evaporated. 

Moreover, it had empowered the Roosevelt 

administration to adopt the systematic form 

of warfare, since it generated huge public support such that the logistics were fulsome.

15. U.S. Justice Dept., “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed against a U.S. Citizen Who Is 

a Senior Leader of al Qa’ida or an Associated 

Force,” white paper, reported by NBC News, 5 

February 2013, available at msnbcmedia.msn

.com/.
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War-Gaming Network-centric Warfare

The familiar techniques of war gaming will be insufficient for scenarios involving 

network-centric warfare. NCW, as it is known—with its focus on speed, downstre

effects, and information flow—will require of gamers more than simply additiona

computational power or communications bandwidth, although these will certainl

needed. Gamers will need a new framework in which to apply these tools.

In 1886, Lieutenant William McCarty Little introduced war gaming to the Naval W

College. The concept found immediate acceptance; faculty and stu dents recognize

that the war game was well suited to analyzing the characteris tics of naval warfare 

the time. Gaming has since been applied to all manner of warfare, in a variety of w

As warfare has become more sophisticated, multidimensional, and joint, the chall

of gaming it have increased. Even the application of computer technology has not 

effective for all purposes, especially in games that involve large forces. We are now 

ing, in network-centric warfare, a new form of conflict that will challenge gamers 

more severely. In this article we will attempt to develop a framework to help us ide

techniques necessary for gaming network-centric warfare.

A characteristic of warfare that has made it amenable in the past to simulation thr

gaming is its inherently structured nature. Troops operate in formations; so do sh

and aircraft. Groupings of units or formations generally operate according to doct

in some specified relationship to one another. As a result, war-game designers hav

able to govern and model the movements of forces and to project the results of com

with the enemy by relatively simple rules. A scenario that confines itself solely to s

ships, ground forces, or aircraft gener ates possible interactions and outcomes that 

few enough in number for a “playable” game—one with rules sufficiently simple t

low it to be played in a reasonable period of time and at acceptable effort and expe

However, as the numbers and types of playing “pieces” grow and the flexibility of 

employ ment doctrine increases, the difficulties of gaming by sets of rules swell alm

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Naval War College Review, Spring 2001, Vol. 54, No. 2
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level games involving the full range of forces (which includes space assets), even in 

traditional hierarchical command arrangements, must generally be controlled and adjudicated not by rules or algorithms but by the professional judgment of human umpires.2

The current state of affairs in war gaming, then, is not totally satisfactory. Still, it is possible to design and execute games that have a reasonable degree of validity. By validity

we mean a correspondence with reality sufficient to allow useful insights to be drawn 

from the game’s results. Validity is achieved through careful design of the scenario and 

control techniques, and recruitment of players and umpires with appropriate credentials. Of course, computer models are criti cal, but they are usually employed “off-line”—

that is, specialized models are used to support the judgment of the human umpires who 

ultimately decide the aggregated outcomes of complex and extensive engagements.

A Basic Gaming Framework

War gaming can be classified in many different ways. One common distinction is 

between educational (or training) games and research games. In educational games, the 

objective is to acquaint players with warfare situations and exercise their decision-making 

skills. Designers of educational games may stretch the bounds of probability somewhat in 

scenarios, as may control cells in move-outcome assessments, in order to ensure that players are confronted with the decision-making situations desired by the game’s sponsor—

the command or entity (not necessarily the war-gaming center where it is conducted) 

that created the game requirement and set its objectives. Research games, in contrast, are 

designed to generate insights into military problems; designers and controllers at tempt to 

inject as much realism as possible, given the inherent limitations of the medium.

Network-centric warfare would be gamed primarily for research purposes; however, of 

course, research games frequently have instructional value, and the proposals advanced 

here would apply to educational and training games as well.

War games are also classified by the way they deal with time. Some proceed in stages, 

known as “moves.” In each of these steps, players (or groups of players) privately assess a 

situation as they perceive it—on the basis of “intelligence” pro vided by the control cell, 

and within the scenario framework—and then report to the controllers their intentions (force movements, dispositions, and fighting orders) for the next specified period 

of time. The control cell’s umpires, receiving inputs from all player cells, analyze their 

interactions to identify likely combat engagements and assess their out comes. Generally

moves cover short periods of time for tactical-level games and much longer increments for operational and strategic-level ones. In contrast to such stepwise exercises 

are operational games, which involve “moving game clocks” and present players with 
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games, which are almost always computer based, typically run at four or six times 

mal speed. Operational games tend to be limited to the tactical level, due to the ne

sarily limited spans of time they can accommodate.

Network-centric games virtually demand moving game clocks because of the cri

ity of time dynamics. In other words, one of the primary benefits of NCW is that 

side employing it can generate rates of change that are unman ageable for the oth

side’s command and control system. Because of this, a timestep-move convention 

would be unsuitable. A moving game clock would be sufficient for tactical-level p

However, analysts believe that NCW will produce an intermixing, or compressio

of the levels of war.3

 If so, it will be neces sary to accommodate both short and lon

term phenomena in NCW-based war games. One possibility would be composite 

operational and move-step games, in which “time” advances at different speeds i

various portions of the game. To meet tactical-level objectives, designers would s

aside periods in which players would operate against a moving game clock, altern

with move-step phases embracing much longer increments of game time. At the 

of each successive operational-play session, umpires would assess the war’s progr

to that point and produce a new situation for players to confront. There are prob

other ways of dealing with the problem of time in network-centric games, but it i

that traditional methods will not suffice.

In order to explore fully the needs of network-centric war gaming, however, we m

go beyond traditional classification methods. The underlying structure of war gam

suggests a set of categories that illuminate the way in which NCW relates to tradit

gaming. All war games, whether they involve fighting sail or network-centric fl

soldiers, and satellites, share a certain hierarchical organization. We will refer to t

levels of this structure as “dimensions” (figure 1), in order to avoid confusion with 

“levels of war”—tactical, opera tional, and strategic—which themselves form a dif

gaming framework.

ORCHESTRATION OF

OWN FORCES

DECISION

ANALYSIS

OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT

FIGURE 1

“Dimensions” of Gaming
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representing ships are laid out, perhaps on a chart table or a grid floor, players can 

move them around and see directly their relationships to one another at various points. 

Similarly, the U.S. Army routinely conducts “rock drills,” in which markers (as simple 

as bits of stone) representing platoons or tanks are used to orchestrate ma neuvers. Even 

complex operations, including their logistical flows, can be simulated in essentially this 

way, using either physical markers or computer symbols. Many games need to go no 

farther. This first dimension is an extremely important aspect even of more ambitious 

games; the analytical or instructional usefulness of outcomes at higher dimensions of 

a game depends on how realistically forces are played. If tactics are used that would be 

impossible to execute in the real world, assessments of interactions with the enemy will 

be invalid.

The next dimension is assessment of outcomes, the determination of what would 

have happened in a confrontation of forces. Whether based upon a roll of the dice, the 

“crunching” of complex algorithms by a computer, or the judgment of human umpires, 

the outcomes form the basis for judgments of how effec tively players orchestrated their 

forces, and for the input to be provided them for subsequent decisions. Many games stop 

at this dimension; such exercises are generally analytical and are meant to draw insights 

into the suitability of certain tactics or the efficacy of new equipment. Here again, fidelity to real-world phenomena is necessary in order to prevent distortions at the dimension of player decisions. Skewed assessments can lead to faulty analysis and to decisions 

that yield no useful insights.

The topmost dimension is the analysis of player decisions. Frequently the fo cus of educational gaming, the purpose of such analysis is to help players perceive objectively their 

own reactions to warfare situations. It must be emphasized, however, that many analyse

focus on aspects other than player decisions. For instance, a game intended to explore 

the logistics of amphibious operations might require players to develop possible courses 

of action; the factors affecting these courses of action might well be of more concern in 

terms of game objectives than specific plans produced. In order to simulate the “fog of 

war,” players in educational games are typically provided not the actual, precise, and 

complete outcome assessments—the “ground truth,” about which more below—but only 

those elements (or indications of them) that might realistically be observable. Research 

games do not often deal with this dimension, because of its indeterminate and unpredictable nature; a notable exception is the Navy’s Global War Game series.

Network-centric Warfare

Having established a baseline understanding of war gaming, we must do the same for 

network-centric warfare. Stripped of the jargon and mysticism that has grown up 
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individual combat units are robustly connected by information. When this is achi

many familiar constraints disappear, and units become able to interact in many m

productive ways than are possible under traditional systems of command and con

In fact, the potential flexibility is so great that centralized orchestration or manag

however lightly exercised, becomes a limitation. When units know what is going o

are confident that others do as well—that is, when they have shared awareness—th

themselves avoid wasting efforts on enemy units that other friendly forces are eng

or even shooting at each other. They can also render mutual support without high

echelon coordination, fixed physical relationships to each other, or restrictive doc

The net effect of this new flexibility is a “swarming” warfare style that demands a 

fundamentally different approach to command and control than has been practic

until now.4

Current U.S. practice employs layers of staffs to coordinate the efforts of comman

echelons below them. Plans and orders originating from a senior commander prod

a series of staffing cycles in which successively junior echelons distill the orders of 

next higher echelons into more focused orders for their own subordinate comman

ers. This cascade of planning and order writing can produce delay and confusion. 

network-centric environment, fighting organizations will be much “flatter,” becau

need for intermediary coordinating lay ers will be obviated. However, the exact na

of future command and control requirements, should new and radical policies an

techniques be adopted, cannot be determined without resorting to some form of g

and simulation.

The principal requirements for achieving network-centric warfare are a network a

shared awareness. By a network we mean linkage of all units and echelons of a forc

all others. But merely wiring together a collection of units does not guarantee that 

or its benefits will result; network-centric warfare is a behavioral, tactical, bottom

phenomenon. The network cannot be achieved ei ther merely by tuning everyone’s 

radios to the same frequency, because voice channels alone cannot deliver the requ

diversity and volume of information. Nor is e-mail sufficient. We are talking abou

significant bandwidth, enough for simultaneous transmission of voice, video, data

any other necessary me dium of communication. All this is necessary because sha

awareness is a robust phenomenon—comprehensive, responsive, adaptable, and su

able—or it does not exist at all.5

Shared awareness entails more than the possession of large amounts of infor matio

fact, flooding the network with information will guarantee that shared awareness 

not occur. Some undertakings require complex graphics and a sophisticated strea

diverse media; in others, only a few words are nec essary. In any case, the delivery 
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units. Shared awareness, it can be seen, is a concept still in need of refinement by the 

naval warfare community. For our purposes, it is a condition in which every element 

of a force has suffi cient grasp of its own situation and that of other friendly forces to 

synchronize its actions with them without detailed orders from next-higher echelons, 

which themselves would limit their exercise of command and control to the promulgation of broad “commander’s intent.”

So understood, shared awareness via networks powers network-centric warfare. In turn, 

the “swarming” style of warfare thus enabled will generate higher operational tempos 

than ever before. Because of the psychological effects of shock and paralysis that such 

speed promises to inflict, it may become possible to produce higher-order, even strategic, effects very quickly. It is for this reason that many writers have envisioned the weakening of the boundaries between the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war.6

This compression would be furthered by information operations, which would themselves be enhanced by networking. All of this has important implications for gaming.

Putting It All Together

Traditional war gaming employs markers, maps, and rules as substitutes for real warfare. What should gamers use to represent the network-centric environ ment? It seems 

clear that the only way to game network-centric warfare, as is the case for actually 

waging network-centric warfare, is to create a network of play ers with shared awareness. But what kind of network is needed? One of the principal values of gaming is that 

it allows its practitioners to simulate warfare “on the cheap”; field exercises using real 

troops and ships are prohibitively expensive, especially for educational and research 

purposes. How are gamers to replicate a network without generating a real one? The 

interrelated issues of shared awareness and robust networking confound our current 

attempts to game network-centric warfare. Overlaying specially designed local-area 

networks onto traditional command struc tures does not constitute a satisfactory 

simulation of the NCW environment. Until a tactical network of units, each of them 

exercising a great degree of auton omy, can be simulated, it will be impossible to game 

network-centric warfare adequately.

One promising line of development is agent-based models. These programs, fairly 

simple in concept but demanding considerable computer power, consist of a number of 

individual “agents,” virtual entities whose actions are governed by rule sets.7

 However, 

merely dictating rule sets is insufficient for exploring net work-centric warfare. Units in 

the net must be able to generate information for headquarters, and anomalous behavior 

on the part of a few units will be neces sary in order to create realism for the players in 

the command center.
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achieve that, distributed gaming will be necessary. The technology that dis tribute

gaming might be one that units would use in actual operations. If so, the control c

would need to generate “synthetic” forces, both “Blue” and “Red” (friendly and op

tion), that would create a realistic combat environment in units’ display systems. A

this implies a much closer relationship between war-gaming centers and operation

units than currently exists.

Still, a network is of no use unless players can effectively use the information it is c

ble of moving around. It is simply not sufficient to dump information into player c

commanders and staffs would be quickly overwhelmed. There fore, a prerequisite 

achievement of network-centric gaming is the devel opment of techniques for creat

shared awareness among the players. This may seem a chicken-or-egg dilemma: w

should come first? However, it ap pears from the Navy’s experience in the latest ga

of its Global series that shared-awareness technology can be employed and techni

“incubated” in the context of traditional command and control structures; therea

they can be applied to the new network paradigm. Then, and only then, can we em

on the process of effectively gaming network-centric warfare.

A Modified Gaming Framework

With the principles of NCW gaming in mind, we can alter (figure 2) the gaming 

structure by adding two new dimensions, producing a framework in which the hig

and more challenging dimensions rely as before upon the execution of the more b

levels. This reliance has important implications as we proceed with the developme

network-centric warfare gaming.

SHARED

INTERESTS

NETWORK

BEHAVIOR

DECISION ANALYSIS

OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT

ORCHESTRATION OF OWN FORCES

FIGURE 2

Higher-Level Dimensions
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for more ex otic applications. Errors or omissions in lower dimensions would call into 

question any insights de rived or phenomena observed in the higher ones. That is not to 

say that absolute fidelity is required in all aspects; the attempt would probably result in 

a game that was unplayable or too expensive. However, it does mean that designers must 

pay attention to the lower dimensions and find ways to simulate properly, or fix, the 

variables that reside there.

The alert reader may object that the two new dimensions do not belong on top of the 

pyramid—that they should be considered rather as parts of the lowest dimension. This 

objection has considerable validity, on several counts. First, it is clear that the process of 

getting shared awareness and networking right is akin to orchestrating the tactical doctrine of forces. Second, one might well argue that it is the analysis of human decisions 

that is the most difficult and complex problem in gaming. Notwithstanding, the new 

dimensions are here placed atop the pyramid to highlight the extensions of gaming logic 

that are needed to game network-centric warfare effectively.

The dimension of player decisions becomes very interesting in network-centric gaming. Since shared awareness is probably sensitive to competence of command, sponsors 

will have to be especially careful about whom they invite as players in NCW games. 

A reflexive application by a senior player of a traditional, centralized command style 

would probably end any hope of generating true shared-awareness behavior in a game. 

Moreover, players “taken off the street,” with no training in or understanding of sharedawareness theory, techniques, and requirements will likely distort findings from games 

that seek to explore the various phenomena encountered.

If all this is true, several implications emerge. First, it may be necessary to change 

command and control doctrine before NCW can be gamed, in order to train the officers who will be the players. In other words, game designers must work closely with 

command and control experts to synchronize player capabilities with game demands. 

Second, if NCW gaming achieves any degree of validity—that is, correspondence to a 

future warfare environment—the education and training needed by commanders for 

network-centric warfare are likely to be somewhat different than is necessary today.

Third, development of NCW gaming must proceed step by step up the framework. In 

other words, gamers should not begin the process by lashing together a network; they 

need first to game shared awareness alone, in the context of cur rent scenarios and 

equipment. After collecting insights and perfecting their techniques, they can move 

with confidence to true network gaming.

Fourth, the development of network-centric warfare war games will bring a fundamental change to the gaming environment. Traditional games, whether played on map 
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arenas; the pieces movements and interactions are governed by rules, perhaps qui

complex. In network-centric gaming, while traditional geographic displays will be 

used, the most important “map board” will be the human mental picture. This is n

say that a commander’s situational awareness has not always been critical—it has. 

it will now be especially difficult for players to keep track of what is happening in 

game, because events will orient themselves around the flows of information betw

networked players. While game pieces (force symbols) will continue to be necessa

arena that counts in the network-centric game will be virtual, and there are as yet 

equate rules for the movement of information in that topography. At a minimum, 

ers must recognize the fundamental shift of venue and consider how it affects des

play, and analysis. For instance, whereas previously gamers would use tactical exp

umpires and analysts, in NCW gaming they may want to involve psychologists or 

social scientists, as well as perhaps physi ologists and physicians.

Gaming Effects

Closely paralleling the development of network-centric warfare is a movement ten

ing to shift thinking about military operations away from input-based measures (

as sorties flown, ground gained, or targets destroyed) and toward an output-orien

focus on the ultimate effects of military actions—that which, from the commande

perspective, has been caused to happen, or prevented. A classic, if limited, World W

example of this distinction arises from the cruiser-destroyer engagement near Gu

canal on 8–9 August 1942: in “input-measure” terms, the result was the disaster (f

U.S.-Australian force) known as the battle of Savo Island. But because the Japanes

mander, Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, focused only on the “input” measure of allied 

ships sunk, the tactically victorious Japanese cruisers and destroyers departed wit

having attacked the vulnerable U.S. invasion shipping, which had been their ultim

objective.

The desired development of effects-based measures of effectiveness will bring with 

further fusion of the three traditional levels of war. This is characteristic of the em

ing nature of warfare in the information age and has been predicted by many writ

is a difficult idea to get hold of, and almost impossible if one remains tied to conve

al intellectual frameworks. Once again, in terms of war gaming, simply superimpo

effects-based planning onto the traditional gaming approach will not be suffi cient

whole approach to planning and assessment has to change.

Presently, the same rule sets that govern the movement and engagements of “piece

determine the consequent attrition. The strategic effects of this attrition are then e

trapolated—that is, if a certain percentage of an enemy force is destroyed or a part
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sumed to follow. Detailed exploration of the linkages between battlefield events and political decisions has not been a regular feature of operational-level games. Combat—the 

use of force itself—has been the centerpiece, and its political and moral effects usually 

presumed. All traditional gaming models and methods are designed according to this 

approach.

Some work, however, has been done on effects. The Joint Warfare Analysis Center conducts detailed and sophisticated analyses of how various types of effects can be generated through bombing and other military action. To date, most of its work has focused 

on what may be termed “definitive effects,” those whose mechanisms are physical—such 

as neutralizing an electrical generation grid or disrupting a rail transportation system. 

Such an effect can presumably be more easily predicted than can those that lie in the 

realm of belief and reason. The latter, whether catalytic or coercive, involve inducing 

enemy commanders or political leaders to make decisions one wants them to make. 

The complexities and difficulties of precipitating congenial decisions by hostile parties 

are self-evident. However, well-designed games might at least be able to generate useful 

insights into the problem.

To that end, a fundamental reorientation of the gaming process is required. Gamers 

must center their analyses, rules, and gaming contexts on the minds of the decision 

makers whom military actions are designed to influence. Models and methods must be 

capable of rationally depicting, assessing, and synthesizing the effects of a wide variety 

of events on these decision makers. In this con text, the use of force is only one of an 

array of factors that must be considered if war games are to reflect in a valid way the 

influence of combat outcomes on an enemy’s strategic decisions.

One way to shift gaming to an effects-centered approach is to focus on spe cific desired 

enemy decisions, to have players begin by analyzing the full range of factors, including 

(but not only) military ones, that might induce them. Such an approach would tend to 

keep players from ascribing a priori utility to various kinds of military actions. A sensitivity analysis might be able to identify certain types of military outcomes that would

be most influential. The game proper would explore the prospects for generating those 

outcomes.8

Gaming Red

In addition to the taxonomy we have already laid out, war games can be classi fied as 

one-sided or two-sided. In one-sided games, the players are all “Blue,” or friendly; game 

controllers play “Red” (the enemy). One-sided games are fre quently used when the sole 

concern is the orchestration dimension. In higher di mensions, one-sided games are 
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desired decision-making situations for the players. In two-sided games, by contras

there are both Red and Blue play ers, and the opposition is free to act as it wishes; t

control cell limits itself to as sessing outcomes and briefing “intelligence” on them 

both sides.

It might seem that if a network-centric game focused upon effects is pre ceded, as d

scribed above, by an analysis of factors bearing upon enemy decisions, the game it

could be one-sided, in effect a high-tech orchestration exercise. This is not the cas

Network-centric warfare theory envisions that rapid operations (rapid, that is, in c

parison with the enemy’s ability to react) will preclude (“lock out”) certain Red m

options and cause the kind of decision-making paralysis that French commanders 

displayed in 1940 in the face of the German blitzkrieg. One-sided gaming could n

determine if Blue network-centric operations induced such effects. Therefore, muc

network-centric gaming will have to be two-sided.

In present two-sided games, Red cells typically “play” orders of battle that reflect f

accurately those of actual states being simulated. Organizations specializing in ac

ing as the opposition in war games (like the Office of Naval Intelligence Detachm

at the Naval War College) even employ enemy doctrine, insofar as it is understood

network-centric gaming, however, the real key will be the accurate simulation of t

enemy’s command and control. Whether one-sided or two-sided, war games in wh

Red either is given artificially good situational awareness or is allowed face-to-face 

munication between all its command echelons will generate distorted outcomes. N

game designers must ascribe networked capabilities only to player cells that would 

ally pos sess them; the Red side must be designed with realistic command and con

mechanisms. Only then will players and sponsor be able to perceive the effects of 

network-centric operations on enemy decision making.

Ground Truth 

Virtually all war games require some mechanism for keeping track of what forces 

ally exist (friendly, enemy, allied, and neutral), what their condition and capabiliti

are, where they are, what they are doing, and what they intend to do. Ground trut

in effect, the sum of the scenario and the moves as privately submitted to controll

and mediated by umpires. Players usually are not allowed perfect knowledge and m

rely on their own interpretations of the “observables” supplied to them; controller

umpires, however, need ground truth so that they can accurately adjudicate comb

results. In war games that deal solely with forces and physical geography, maintain

ground truth is a relatively simple matter; the control cells know both sides’ strate
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map and status board with the true positions, movements, etc., of all forces.

In network-centric gaming, however, the focus shifts from geographic to mental terrain, 

and from ground, sea, and air maneuver to communications and psychology. In such 

a realm the very concept of ground truth, let alone plotting it, becomes problematic. It 

might be possible to play an NCW operational game (against a running clock) without 

keeping ground truth, but it would be almost impossible to analyze the play after the 

fact. At the very least it will be necessary, therefore, to find ways to capture each side’s 

relative awareness and knowledge at key points. Observers might take notes in command centers, or software solutions may be found. In any case, the whole concept of 

ground truth will have to be reevaluated.

It is not going to be possible to game network-centric warfare by simply superimposing 

information technology onto traditional gaming techniques. Network-centric warfare 

represents in war gaming, as it does in warfare itself, a new frontier, one that will require 

new theory, new techniques, and new technology. It will also require new kinds of training for players, controllers, and designers.

This is not to say that traditional gaming techniques are made obsolete by the new 

warfare paradigm. The basic principles of game design remain largely intact. Games 

will still consist of players, pieces, and rules, and they must, as before, be playable at 

acceptable outlays of effort, time, and money. Nonetheless, game designers will not be 

successful in gaming network-centric warfare without adopting new approaches. It is of 

critical importance that they do succeed, because gaming will be vital to the adoption of 

this new warfare style among commanders. It will be in war games that they best learn 

to wage network-centric warfare and to abandon certain ingrained elements of operational and tactical art, such as fixed formations and cascading staff cycles. War gaming 

will be fundamental in so developing future commanders’ confidence that they do not 

retain old methods past their usefulness, simply out of lack of trust in the new.

Notes 

1. For background on war gaming, see Peter 

Perla’s excellent The Art of Wargaming (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990). 

For the purposes of this article, we can define 

a war game as a simulation of real warfare 

events based on: a scenario, or story, that 

provides the context for game moves; a playing board (either physical or electronic) that 

provides an environment in which the pieces 

can move; playing pieces (again, either physical or electronic) that represent forces; a set 

of rules that govern how the pieces move and 

interact with each other; a procedure for determining the outcome of battles; and finally 

(and most importantly), players.
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officers. The lowest level, involving individual 

units up to divisions and battle groups, is 

tactical; tactics are mostly concerned with the 

actions of forces in contact with the enemy. 

The highest level is strategy, where the plan of 

war is linked to national political objectives. 

The operational level exists between the two. 

There, theater and joint task force commanders devise campaign and operations plans 

that maneuver forces so as to engage under 

the most advantageous circumstances, and to 

link the effects of their tactical actions to the 

attainment of strategic objectives.

3. David S. Alberts, John J. Garstka, and 

Frederick P. Stein, Network Centric Warfare: 

Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority (Washington, D.C.: C4ISR Cooperative 

Research Program, Department of Defense, 

1999), p. 69; see the program site on the 

World Wide Web: www.dodccrp.org.

4. For more depth on the “swarming” style 

of warfare, see John Arquilla and David 

Ronfeldt, Swarming and the Future of Conflict 

(Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2000). This 

publication is available on the World Wide 

Web: www.rand.org/publications/DB/DB311.

5. “Shared battlespace awareness emerges when 

all relevant elements of the warfighting ecosystem are provided with access to the COP 

[common operational picture].” Alberts, 

Garstka, and Stein, Network Centric Warfare. 

This is the seminal book on the subject.

lit erature. For one of the first examinat

it, see Douglas A. MacGregor, “Future 

The Merging Levels of War,” Paramete

Winter 1992–93, pp. 33–47.

7. An example of an agent-based model i

SWARM, developed by researchers at t

Santa Fe Institute. Agent-based model

been found useful in researching comp

phenomena. See the Santa Fe Institute 

Website, www.santafe.edu, and the SW

Website, www.swarm.org.

8. One computer-based tool that shows p

in facilitating this type of analysis is th

fluence Net.” It is based on Bayesian in

a mathematical technique that calculat

relative influence of one set of factors u

another. The model is applied to partic 

decisions to be gamed (for instance, an 

decision on whether or not to use chem 

weapons). Game designers would, with 

help of a virtual web of outside experts

late the model with the encyclopedic d

necessary for its proper functioning. D

the game, certain cells would play com

events in a traditional manner; the out

would be supplied to a wider net of pla

who are each responding to the others

The output of the model would indi cat

proclivities of the targeted decision ma

at the end of the move. For a basic des

tion of influence nets see www.inet.sai

inet-public/. 
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The Epistemology of War Gaming

Anyone who has conducted or has studied actual warfare knows well its massive 

complexities.1

These complexities do not relieve humans from the responsibility for making deci

sions—difficult decisions—aimed at navigating their organizations suc cessfully th

campaigns, be they in a theater of war or in the halls of the Pentagon. Minds must 

prepared beforehand, both in their general, educated functioning and in the speci

sophisticated understanding of conflict and the competitive environments they fa

This preparation must be predicated on the internalization of “valid” knowledge a

the conflict environment. There are many ways of gaining such knowledge: the st

of history and theory, practical experience, and exposure to the results of various 

of research and analysis. Each of these methods of developing knowledge has its o

particular epistemology—formally, a “theory of the nature and grounds of knowle

especially with reference to its limits and validity,” or more practically, rules by wh

error is distinguished from truth. War gaming is a distinct and historically signifi

tool that warriors have used over the centuries to help them understand war in ge

eral and the nature of specific upcoming operations. The importance of war gami

demands serious examination of the nature of the knowledge it produces.

Before going farther, it is worthwhile to define exactly what we mean by “war gam

Peter Perla provides as good a definition as any: a war game is “a warfare model or 

simulation whose operation does not involve the activities of actual military force

and whose sequence of events affects and is, in turn, affected by the decisions mad

players representing the opposing sides.” 2

 War gaming, rightly considered, is inhe

a method of research, regardless of how people apply it. The essence of war gamin

the examination of conflict in an artificial environment. Through such examinati

gamers gain new knowledge about the phenomena the game represents. The purp

a game is immaterial to this central epistemological element. Moreover, the gainin

CHAPTER SEVENTE

Naval War College Review, Spring 2006, Vol. 59, No. 2
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whether such knowledge is valid and useful. This question is all the more important because of the growing reliance on gaming techniques in an increasingly complex world.

This article will attempt to initiate a professional dialogue on the underlying logic structure of gaming by examining the epistemological foundations of gaming in general and 

ways in which the knowledge gained from specific games can be judged sound.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to conduct such an inquiry is the possibility of 

insidious error creeping into war games. War gaming, even after centuries of practice, is 

still more a craft than a discipline, and it is quite possible for rank amateurs, dilettantes, 

and con artists to produce large, expensive, and apparently successful but worthless or 

misleading games for unsuspecting sponsors. There is little incentive to apply incisive 

criticism to games in which heavy investments have been made, and persons or organizations inclined to do so are hampered by lack of an established set of epistemological 

theory and principle. This does not mean that the majority of games are fatally flawed; i

does mean that there is no accepted set of criteria to determine whether they are or not. 

Judgment as to the success and quality of a war game, especially one of high profile and 

consequence, is too often the result of organizational politics.

Epistemology

Some elaboration of the meaning of this somewhat esoteric term is essential. To avoid 

getting sidetracked by philosophical complexities, we can adopt a convention based on 

current thinking. One widely accepted branch of modern epistemological theory holds 

that knowledge results from the building of simplified mental models of reality in order 

to solve problems. The “validity” of a model (or knowledge) emanates from its utility 

in problem solving.3

 This approach seems sufficient for our purposes. Knowledge is a 

practical human response to the challenges of our environment. Valid knowledge is 

that which has sufficient practical correspondence to our environment to be useful for 

problem solving.

Readers with knowledge of modeling and simulation will immediately find resonances 

in this definition with widely used definitions of computer simulation validity—for 

example, “substantiation that a computerized model within its domain of applicability 

possesses a satisfactory range of accuracy consistent with the intended application of 

the model.” 4

 Thus we are not so much concerned with the validity of knowledge in an 

absolute sense as with the practical utility of knowledge emanating from a game relative to the projected warfare environment in which it will be applied. Most war games 

are oriented in some way to the future, either explicitly or inherently; accordingly, the 

predictive value of knowledge emanating from a game is critical. At this point many 
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(although there are some who will disagree). To untangle this knot, let us go back 

our baseline definition of valid knowledge—that which is useful for problem solvi

This presupposes that the environment can to some degree be shaped by decisions

it were not, war gaming—in fact, any decision-support tool—would be irrelevant. 

the environment is malleable, however, there are “right” and “wrong” decisions av

able to the decision maker.5

 Ignorant decision makers would be at the mercy of ch

their decisions would be shots in the dark, or worse. An informed decision maker

who possesses valid knowledge about the environment and the potential conseque

of alternate choices—could do better than that in a future situation. Valid knowle

is predictive to that extent. However, since life in general and war in particular are 

enced by thousands of little happenstances that are beyond the control of any sing

decision maker (a true definition of Clausewitz’s “friction”), “right” decisions do n

guarantee success. If they did, war would be formulaic and gaming unnecessary. F

that reason, although valid knowledge of the environment is inherently predictive

that it indicates potentially valid cause-and-effect relationships through which de

makers can bring about their intent—a war game can never be truly predictive.

Setting aside, for now, arguments about certain war games in history that have see

in some way predictive, we are left with the uncomfortable question of what game

good for if they cannot truly predict. Indeed, why do we game at all?

Why Game?

If we accept the notion that war gaming is inherently a research tool (a definition 

includes the produced effects of education, training, experimentation, and analy

and one that generates potentially valid knowledge, we must ask under what cond

or for what problems, it can have validity. Can it be used validly in lieu of other t

or does it occupy a unique relationship to a class of problems for which it is the on

valid tool?

Perhaps the deepest treatment of this question is that of John Hanley, who relates 

inherent nature and structure of war gaming to the amount and kind of “fuzzines

(indeterminacy) attending a problem. Indeterminacy comprises those things we d

know about either the initial conditions of relevant elements of the problem or abo

effects of our potential attempts to solve it. Hanley posits a spectrum of indetermi

as follows:

• No indeterminacy. The elements of the problem are known and amenable to en

neering solutions. 
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statistics we know, and the effects of our actions upon it can be determined. For 

instance, the chances of a submarine being in a particular area of ocean could be 

calculated from intelligence, and our search efforts would be shaped thereby.

• Stochastic indeterminacy. The initial set of conditions may be known, but the process 

by which new states of affairs (for instance, battle outcomes) are produced by our actions is subject to statistical variation—the “roll of the dice.”

• Strategic indeterminacy. The initial set of conditions is known, but there are two or 

more competing “players” whose independent choices govern the end state.

• Structural indeterminacy. Significant elements of the problem are so little known or 

understood that we cannot define the problem in terms of the other forms of indeterminacy. Such elements might be “indeterminacy in current conditions, the kinematics of the process, acts of nature, the available response time, and the perceptions, 

beliefs and values of the decision makers.” 6

Hanley describes war gaming as a weakly structured tool appropriate to weakly structured problems.7

 Such problems are those so complex or poorly defined as to require 

a tool that can accommodate their considerable imprecision. Warfare in general and 

many of the problems subsumed within it are certainly weakly structured—that is, 

marked by structural indeterminacy. This adds up to the first part of the answer to our 

question: We war-game because we must. There are certain warfare problems that only 

gaming will illuminate.

This imprecision, or lack of solid structure, characterizes both the problem and the 

tool, and therefore governs the nature of the knowledge produced by a war game. That 

knowledge is not in the form of a solution to an engineering problem. It is commonly 

said that war games produce insights, not proofs. This conventional wisdom is correct insofar as it goes, but it is not sufficiently devel oped to stand as an epistemological 

principle. Following Hanley’s line of thought, we can say that the knowledge emanating 

from a game is also weakly structured, meaning that such knowledge is conditional and 

subject to judgment in application. Our confidence in the structural calculations for a 

bridge can be very high if we combine accepted engineering formulae, accurate measurements, and building materials of the predicted quality. In contrast, however, our 

confidence in answers produced by population sampling cannot be 100 percent; further, 

any answers produced by game theory for a particular conflict situation must be understood to be conditional on the scope for free choice enjoyed by the opponent. Answers 

produced by war games are yet more conditional, due to the wide scope of significant 

variables attendant to warfare, whether or not incorporated into the game. Perhaps the 

best way to characterize this conditionality is to say that knowledge produced by war 
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fare situation and certain potential cause-and-effect linkages.

Indicativeness is no mean thing when dealing with a very complex or weakly stru

problem. The primary mechanism through which war games pro duce such knowl

is visualization. Games allow players and observers to see relationships—geograph

temporal, functional, political, and other—that would otherwise not be possible to 

cern. Seeing and understanding these relationships prepare the mind for decisio

complex environment. This holds true whether the purpose of the game is educati

research.

While weak problem structure is a compelling reason to war-game, there are othe

equally compelling reasons, each of which has epistemological implications. A com

reason for mounting a war game is socialization, either of concepts or people. Man

organizations within the U.S. government sponsor games in order to get a wide an

diverse set of stakeholders to “buy into” a set of concepts or doctrine. Military “Ti

games (that is, Title Ten, referring to the federal statute that directs the armed serv

to raise, maintain, and train forces) frequently have this as at least a tacit purpose. 

Knowledge emerging from such games is less conditional than in other settings, a

least with respect to the consensus they are meant to generate. A recent joint war g

revealed that none of the military services had invested sufficiently in the suppres

of enemy air defenses to support an aggressive airborne assault early in a particula

scenario. That revelation was more than just indicative—it was usable intelligence

knowledge could be used to alter budgets or even service roles and missions.

Some games are used to acquaint organizations with each other. This has been an 

important aspect of homeland security gaming in the wake of 9/11. For instance, i

recent homeland security game, a state emergency management agency learned th

it had formally to request federal assistance in a disaster, not just expect it to show 

That knowledge was not in the least conditional; the game provided to key officer

state agency concrete knowledge of federal requirements.

Simulation

War games are inherently simulations of reality. By this we mean that they are sim

fied representations of a potential future (or perhaps past) warfare situation. Simu

has epistemological implications all its own. Most fundamentally, simulation is a c

lation technique, and as such it is coupled to the phenomena it seeks to represent a

Hanley’s spectrum of indeterminacy. For instance, physicists use simulation techn

to explore subatomic interactions. They can do this with high confidence because 

problem set they are dealing with contains no more than statistical indeterminacy
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because of the high degree of structural indeterminacy involved. In other words, it is 

far less likely that any warfare simulation would be “valid” due to all the imponderables 

that are necessarily distilled out.

A war game is an artificial representation—that is, simulation—of war that is used to 

learn more about a particular situation. A common misconception is that computer 

simulations are war games. Computer programs are not in themselves war games, 

although they are frequently referred to as such; war games require human players, 

who may employ computer programs to assist them. In a broad sense, simulation is the 

attempt to represent reality to the degree necessary to explore the warfare phenomena 

in which we are interested. Thus when we talk of simulation in this article, it is in the 

general sense of war-game design and not the narrower sense of computer software.

Following Hanley, we can attack the issue of warfare simulation by establishing a vertical spectrum of sorts, based on the degree of fidelity a simulation possesses. At the bottom of the spectrum exist such games as Go and chess. These games are abstractions; 

all that is retained of reality is the essence of conflict. That does not mean that valid 

knowledge cannot be gained from these games; many wise generals have extolled their 

virtues in preparing the mind for actual battle. At the top of the spectrum are detailed 

simulations, attempts to capture as much reality as possible. In between exist what we 

will call “distillations”—games in which significant simplifications of reality are made 

for specific pur poses. In a sense, all simulations are distillations, because a perfect 

representation of reality would be reality. To put it more practically, exact simulation of 

real warfare is not possible. Admiral Arleigh Burke illustrated the matter well when he 

said, “Nobody can actually duplicate the strain that a commander is under in making a 

decision during combat.”

This distilling process has epistemological implications for simulation. Pur suing farther 

the logic we have been following, we could easily conclude that the knowledge produced by highly distilled games is more conditional and less pre dictive than that from 

simulations having greater fidelity. Such reasoning would force us to conduct nothing 

but elaborate and expensive games. Fortunately, such an epistemological blind alley can 

be avoided by linking purpose to predictiveness. All war games have explicit purposes, 

and rarely are these purposes so holistic as to demand unsparing investment in fidelity. 

Bringing the purpose of a game into focus leads quite naturally to distillation; many 

games are able to set aside significant aspects of reality. To the extent that distillation 

promotes clarity, highlighting relationships in the aspect of warfare we are studying, 

the epistemological damage of failure to include all possible factors is counterbalanced. Since knowledge gained from a war game is in the eye of the beholder (player or 
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the omission of some significant element.

Epistemologically speaking, we conclude that a war game should be designed with 

much fidelity as possible without including factors that, because they are not clear

related to its purpose, risk diluting or masking valid knowledge that might legitim

be gained.

There is another implication of simulation that must be addressed: the common w

holding that war games are not experiments, as they cannot prove anything. This 

clearly true, in terms of John Hanley’s logic, since knowledge emerging from gam

is conditional. The proposition is confirmed also by the nature of warfare simulat

the lack of close coupling with its parent phenom enon due to structural indetermi

makes it always incomplete and defective in some, possibly unknown, way.

Nevertheless, there is an aspect of war gaming that can accommodate experiment

Some war games focus on command and control. In them, players are organized i

cells, each of which represents a command or perhaps an element of a staff organi

tion. These cells are provided with communications devices (most recently netwo

computers) and command and control (C2) doctrine. The war game provides a ve

in which command and control processes can take place. The point here is that wi

the context of the game, actual—not simulated—command and control occurs. T

knowledge gained from this activity can be treated like experimental data, subject 

all the epistemological principles and injunctions of the scientific method. One ca

is that war games are most commonly one-time affairs, so the data cannot be trea

with the same confidence as that gained from experiments run a number of times

the other hand, simple and appropriately distilled games have been used as substr

within multiple-run C2 experiments, the output of which constitutes valid statis ti

data.8

 However, in games featuring a significant command and control focus, info

mation gained from the underlying simulation must be treated differently than th

derived from the command and control “layer.”

Game Artifacts

Games can easily produce information that is invalid. Commonly, such informati

is produced by what are termed “game artifacts,” defects of simulation that corrup

game’s cause-and-effect relationships. If, for instance, a Control umpire somehow 

the wrong weapons-effects table to look up the outcome of a tactical engagement, 

sequent player decisions based on that assessment would be tainted. Similarly, def

display may cause players to be artificially misled as to where units are. Simply asc
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much an epistemological mistake as assigning too much significance to game outcomes

It is entirely reasonable to build the fog of war into a game, which can be done in various ways. These devices, such as revealing to players only that information which their 

reconnaissance assets could “see,” normally place bounds on the na ture of misinformation that may crop up. Players may, for instance, make un warranted assumptions about 

the location of enemy forces due to a lack of information; they might equally do so in 

the real world, and such imperfection of information does no violence to the intellectual validity of cause and effect or critical analysis. However, if a computer-generated 

operational picture through some system defect placed a “Red” unit far out of position 

and thereby affected “Blue’s” decision making, we cannot explain it away as the result 

of a Red computer attack or some sophisticated deception. Nor can it be chalked up 

to equipment failure that might happen in real life; unless it is known that the game’s 

designers provided for this real-world factor, it cannot be assumed to be a part of the 

simulation.

A game artifact that is perhaps easier to understand but more difficult to detect or avert 

is invalid decision making by players. It is a fundamental, if tacit, assumption of war 

gaming that players will make the best decisions they can. They need not be the right 

decisions—after all, somebody has to lose—but they must not be capricious or negligent. Players are expected to try to win, or at least to carry out doctrine in a faithful way

When they do not, as a result of alienation, inattention, or malice, the game’s results 

are contaminated. This can happen all too easily. In some games, Red is constrained by 

Control, in order to shape the game in some needed way, from certain otherwise reasonable actions it wants to take; if Red players react with disillusionment or cynicism, they 

may “mentally disengage” from the game and make very different decisions than if they 

were properly immersed and motivated. Another source of defective decision making is 

ignorance or improper training among players. If the goal of the game is to ex amine the 

efficacy of a particular concept or doctrine but the key players do not know or understand the material, the game results cannot be accepted.

Another player artifact, one that is harder to account for, crops up in games as well: 

players tend to be more aggressive than they would be in the real world with real lives 

at stake. There are several inherent reasons for this. First, it is just a game, and therefore 

real lives are not at stake. Second, depending on the extent of the simulation, there are 

no tactical commanders screaming bloody murder if the operational-level player puts 

them in an unnecessarily dangerous situation. One of the most common misfortunes to 

attend Blue players in Cold War games was the loss of amphibious groups because the 

Blue players had let them sit in exposed positions. Third, since every game has a defined 

end point or specific set of victory conditions, there is no “tomorrow” to be provided for 
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cies and attempt to structure their games to minimize the likelihood and intensity 

this player artifact.

The War Game as Military History

We have seen that knowledge gained from war games is conditional—that its valid

is ultimately dependent on its effects on decisions made in real-world operations. 

analysts examine games after the fact, and all participants have the opportunity to 

from their findings. How should this information be handled, sorted, and conside

How can it be converted into valid knowledge? Because it is not scientific data, it c

be statistically reduced or otherwise treated in ways appropriate for “hard” data. P

haps information produced by war games is best considered artificial military his

Game data can then be approached with the full array of methods available to the 

rian. Moreover, the trap of treating mere discussions as games can be avoided. Ins

have a term for nongames masquerading as games: BOGSAT (“Bunch of Guys Sitt

around a Table”). If the data derived from an event consists solely of what particip

said, it was not truly a war game, and its results should not be accorded the stature 

knowledge gained from a real game should have.

Perhaps the best commentary on converting military history into useful knowledg

be found in the writings of Carl von Clausewitz. Clausewitz regarded history as a 

life laboratory of war, one that can be mined for infor mation useful for preparing 

minds of future commanders. His approach was what he called Kritik, or critical a

sis: researching the facts, tracing effects back to their causes, and evaluating the m

employed.9

 This process (which emerges from a close reading of Book Two, chapte

his classic treatise On War) is as valid today as it was in Clausewitz’s time. These t

steps constitute more than a method; they establish a criterion for the extraction o

knowl edge from a war game. It is not enough simply to list the facts of what happe

in the game; these are meaningless in themselves, because the game was a simu lat

We must examine why these events occurred—the combinations of player decisio

umpire determinations that produced them.

Clausewitz himself, however, acknowledges the limits of the method: at some poin

results must be allowed to speak for themselves. The critic, “having analyzed ever

within the range of human calculation and belief, will let the outcome speak for th

part whose deep, mysterious operation is never visible.”10 In other words, war cann

completely understood in its full complexity; ultimately criticism must recognize 

there are factors at work whose functioning can be revealed only by the actual vic

or defeats of a commander being studied. This is perfectly reasonable with respect 

real warfare. It might also be true for war games, but its usefulness is limited by th
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into battle-outcome calculations is rolling dice to represent the probabilistic nature of 

certain phenomena, like sonar or radar detection. Beyond this narrow use of stochastic 

indeterminacy, game designers frequently aggregate complex interactions of large combat forces with a combination of dice rolls and structured combat-results tables. Here 

the die simulates the effects of a wide range of variables that are not explicitly modeled.

It would be easy enough, lacking any other good explanation of the cause-and-effect 

relationships between player decisions and outcomes, to sense here the presence of invisible factors. But if such “deep, mysterious” elements ex ist in war games, they are not 

those of which Clausewitz speaks. A roll of the dice is simply that. To say it simulates 

unmodeled portions of reality is going too far. The most one can say is that there are 

physical forces at play on the die itself that players cannot calculate and therefore cannot 

predict. This is different from admitting one does not understand all the complexities of 

a real battlefield. Thus, we cannot approach the results of a war game as a military critic 

would the outcome of a real battle or campaign. Results of a war game cannot be used to 

fill in analytical blanks in the way Clausewitz describes, nor can theory or judgment be 

derived from them in the way historians do from real events.

Nevertheless, we can ascribe a certain significance to war-game outcomes. If the game is 

run according to a specific set of rules and those rules constitute a valid distilled simula

tion of reality, outcomes of individual “moves” or entire games can yield useful knowledge. To understand when this can be the case, we need to understand the difference 

between rigidly assessed and freely assessed war games. We describe as “rigidly assessed” 

those games that proceed strictly according to rules governing movement, detection, 

and combat. Such games produce situations governed by player decisions, the rules, 

and combat-results tables (manual or computerized). Assuming the absence of artifacts 

and within the limitations of dice rolls, we can in such a case ascribe significance to 

game, or even move, outcomes. The game goes where the rules take it; if the rules and 

the combat-resolution tables are good representations of reality, the outcome con stitutes 

artificial military history, and one can usefully work backward from out comes and look 

for reasons. This would be so whether the game is played by hand around a board or at 

computer workstations. Inputs are generated, and these, by means of a known system, 

produce results that cannot be predicted or influenced. The game goes where it goes.

Freely assessed games are somewhat different epistemological animals. In these, the 

flow of the game is governed by umpires and game directors. Instead of following game 

rules, players make plans and decisions as they would in real life, more or less, and 

umpires, collecting the interacting moves of all the players, translate them into force 

movements, detections, and combat results. The um pires may be aided by computers. 

The key difference is that the game’s progress, including move results, are governed by 
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interests of stakeholders. Con trol may determine that a certain set of conditions m

occur at a specific point if the game’s objectives are to be met. This is most commo

the case in educa tional games, but it can also occur in research games. In such a c

Control de fines in operational game terms the needed conditions, looks at the situ

tion at the end of the previous move, and then figures out what—within the bound

plausibility, given the players’ new moves—must have happened in order to get fro

situation to the desired condition.

That is, the umpires deduce tactical outcomes, the necessary inputs, by work ing 

backward from a set of desired results. This fact does not negate the validity or v

the game, but it does mean that its outcome does not have the same analytical we

as that of a rigidly assessed game. Freely assessed games can be valuable for disco

purposes—perceiving relationships or finding defects in plans—but they cannot b

to see “who would win.” Similarly, they cannot be regarded as artificial military h

to the same extent as rigidly assessed games.

Monte Carlo versus Deterministic Combat Results

A Naval War College elective course on war-gaming theory and practice recently 

designed and played an instructional board game. In the course of it, a Blue player 

exclaimed in frustration, “This is a dice game, not a capabilities game!” His observ

was trenchant as well as accurate. In the game—which com bined various types of 

and combat-results tables—a small Red force had just hammered a larger Blue flee

four or five very lucky die rolls. The rules had attempted to reflect lower Red stren

awarding hits only on rolls of one or two on a ten-sided die, but five consecutive ro

one or two now produced a David-slaying-Goliath result. How does one deal with 

an outcome?

As we have seen, there are several reasons to roll dice—that is, to use Monte Carlo 

ods to produce uncertainty in outcomes. Perhaps the best reason is to simulate rea

world phenomena that are in fact probabilistic. Some good ex amples are certain ty

radar detections and the reliability of weapons systems. Epistemologically, there a

reasons to object to such an application of probabilistic simulation.

Another reason to roll the dice is to represent the aggregate performance of comp

systems that are at least partially dependent on human performance. If, for instan

assign an 80 percent probability of a hit by an antiship missile and its purely mech

reliability is on the order of 99 percent, the other 19 percent of uncertainty would 

sist of such things as operator error and, perhaps, brilliant maneuvering by the tar

ship. Here, epistemologically speaking, we start to get a bit uneasy, because the mo
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occurrences, such as the string of lucky rolls by Red just mentioned. Could such a thing 

happen? Of course it could—anything is possible—but we must ask our selves if such 

an ascription of exceptional human incompetence or brilliance has any place in the 

intellectual architecture of game objectives. On some level, we may accept the validity of 

the knowledge produced by such simulation methodology, but the student’s complaint 

haunts us: Is it a dice game or a capabilities game? To put it differently, does the introduction of Monte Carlo methodology distort the intellectual structure of the game?

We have previously asserted that it is not valid to substitute dice rolls for unmodeled 

aspects of reality. Here we see one reason why—that luck in dice rolling is a special phenomenon in itself. The actual likelihood of unmodeled factors all lining up in a way that 

would be represented by rolling five ones or twos in a row is likely to be far smaller than 

the roughly three-in-ten-thousand odds of such a string of rolls. It would be different if 

we contemplated a hundred or even a thousand iterations of the game; by looking at the 

most frequent out comes, we might then place the “outliers” in their proper perspective. 

This is done in campaign analyses via computer simulations; scenarios are iterated very 

many times at high speed to produce a population of results that are subject to statistical 

reduction. However, most war games are conducted once, and thus the impact of outlying results arising from the peculiarity of Monte Carlo methods must be considered. 

What validity should we ascribe to a web of human decisions impacted by quirky dice 

rolls? From this point of view, it appears that invalid Monte Carlo methods can produce 

game artifacts.

The obvious alternative to Monte Carlo simulation is deterministic calcula tion, using 

algorithms. Playing pieces are assigned numbers to represent their capabilities on offense, defense, and perhaps other aspects of combat power. Combat-result tables based 

on some predetermined formula are consulted to determine outcomes. One simply 

compares offensive points to defensive points to find a ratio and enters the table with 

that ratio to look up the result. Every time that ratio arises, the same result ensues. For 

this methodology, game valid ity is a function of the accuracy with which the embedded 

algorithms describe real combat interactions. In a deterministic game, neither human 

idiocy nor brilliance exists, below the level of the game player; the impact of player decisions is sharply highlighted. This leads us back to the axiom that games should model 

reality with as much fidelity as possible without masking the phenomena we are trying 

to elucidate.

Strategy and Effects

Clausewitz extended his Kritik from the tactical and operational levels into the realm 

of strategy through the device of concentric analytic rings. He undertook to analyze 
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the French Directory) to make the peace of Campo Formio by examining the wid

strategic context in stages, working from narrower to wider views. In other words

examined the context for Napoleon’s northern Italy campaign to ascertain whethe

latter’s decision to make peace with the Aus trians when and where he did was just

Such analysis might be possible in war games, but the analyst must decide whethe

strategic context of the game was established with sufficient detail and realism to 

as a criterion for judg ment. Operational-level war games are frequently accompan

by unrealistic or truncated strategic contexts, in order to allow the fighting called 

by game objectives to take place. Assessments of operational decision quality or ut

based on such strategic criteria are likely to be invalid.

As an example, the Naval War College’s Global War Game series (played annually 

1979 until 2001) focused on rapid, operational-level decision making, supported in 

years by an advanced, networked collaboration environment and computer-analy

tools.12 In 2000 the scenario featured a brink-of-war situation in which Blue player

to generate high “speed of command” in the conflict’s first exchanges in order to a

catastrophic casualties. The national-level command apparatus was played by Con

which assigned the role to a small cell of subject-matter experts. Pressure from the 

game’s directorship resulted in quick, streamlined, and aggressive decision makin

this cell (also recall the player aggressiveness artifact mentioned previously), allow

operational-level players to preempt and gain a smashing victory. The postgame ju

ment was that network-enabled speed of command was a very good thing.13 Howe

in fact, the strategic-level command apparatus context had been so unrealistic as t

invalidate any such assessment. In any case, games that incorporate detailed play 

the strategic and operational levels are uncommon, for a number of reasons, inclu

ing the practical matter that free play at the strategic level tends to constrain or di

operational-level processes.

Strategic games have a long history, and they can produce knowledge as valid as th

from games at the operational and tactical levels. It is possible to explore the strate

gic conflict environment in order to discern relationships between factors, includi

the structure of incentives that influence players. Sometimes these games are used 

background for subsequent operational-level games. If so, consistency must be ach

between the scenarios, orders of battle, and player assumptions of the various gam

it will not be possible to relate their outcomes to each other—they will be “apples a

oranges.” Moreover, analysts must rigorously identify artifacts in the first game in 

to prevent them from affecting player decisions or analysis in following games.

There is yet another issue related to strategic context and critical analysis that mu

considered—“effects-based operations,” or EBO. This concept, which is permeatin
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focuses on the second- and higher-order effects of military actions, with an eye toward making these actions more effective and avoiding adverse side effects, in terms of 

broader purposes. At the tactical and operational levels, the prediction of battle effects is 

reasonably straightforward, at least in the physical realm. Consequently, assessing wargame move outcomes when players are using EBO planning methods is fairly straightforward. Even “moral” effects at these levels are possible to assess; for instance, units 

that are outflanked tend to lose cohesion, and generals faced with the cutting of main 

supply routes can be expected to withdraw their forces to avoid encirclement.14However, 

at the strategic level, the degrees of freedom proliferate, and assessment of possible effects on populations and on national leaders is highly problematic.15 If it is difficult in 

real war, as has been proven time and again, it is doubly hard in war games, which look 

to an uncertain future. 

There is an epistemological solution. It lies in understanding that while war games are 

not crystal balls, they can highlight the relationships between factors. We could, for example, decide to explore the political terrain of war termination under given mind-sets 

or policies of the enemy leadership. Game designers would “script” a set of presumed 

conditions faced by enemy leadership—personal proclivities, influence distribution 

among top leadership, and the like—establishing a “moral context” for strategic decision 

making. Players would role-play and umpires assess strategic effects strictly within this 

context. Such a game would have a chance at generating indicative information concerning, say, the relationship between the course of one’s own offensive operations and 

the willingness of an enemy leadership to negotiate. Iterative gaming involving dif ferent 

internal enemy conditions would at the very least prove educational.

Comparing War Games

A large military organization with a mission of experimentation and concept development once developed a system for synthesizing the data gained from multiple war games 

so that it could capitalize upon the considerable investment in gaming by the services. 

The key to the system was correlation; the more frequently a particular result emerged, 

the more weight was ascribed to it. Epistemologically, there is potential validity to this 

approach, but it was imple mented in a way that had serious defects. First, the system essentially captured and digested the comments of senior and experienced subject-matter 

experts who participated in the games and interpreted their results. However, that in 

effect reduced games to BOGSATs; the system processed people’s opinions, not game 

results (i.e., plans, decisions, and move assessments). Second, since the same senior 

folks tend to be invited to games, one after another, an expert with a particular outlook 

or agenda is likely to make very similar comments at each game, thus lending these 
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less easy to establish a sound way of comparing results of different war games.

Experienced gamers, for instance, quite naturally on the basis of running many ga

derive rules of thumb and gaming techniques; also, a number of phenomena tend 

cur in similar and consistent ways even in games of very different kinds. One exam

the tendency of players to “fight the scenario”—that is, to object to certain aspects 

game’s story line, structure, or orders of battle and use these objections to hedge a

the possibility of “losing.” Such underlying commonalities with respect to game p

can lead gamers to assume that equivalent commonalities exist in terms of game s

stance. They believe that they can derive on that basis, in an essentially correlative 

synthesized lessons from the substantive outputs of multiple games. But such an a

is intellectually unsupportable, on several grounds.

First, unless games are specifically designed to be analyzed in conjunction with ot

games, there are almost certain to be differences in objectives and design so funda

mental as to prevent it. For instance, imagine two games producing results that, ta

together, point to an apparent vulnerability of the littoral combat ship (LCS)—in b

games several of that ship type are sunk. Closer scrutiny reveals, however, that wh

in one game the objective was indeed to examine the utility of the LCS in littoral w

fare, with consequent close attention in move assessment to ship defenses, the oth

meant to explore maritime command and control processes, with assessments foc

on the handling of various kinds of reports and orders by the C2 system. In the lat

game, umpires in fact imposed ship losses specifically in order to generate reports 

command responses. To attach significance to the fact that several LCSs were lost 

both games distorts conclusions, since in the second game at least some of the loss

were “artificial.” This example is a bit contrived, in order to define the issue clearly

reality, many games appear to offer numerous opportunities for comparison, beca

their methods and outputs appear comparable. Even then, however, there can exis

subtle, disabling differences.

A second reason why correlation of seemingly similar events in different games fa

at the substantive level (even inside the scenario) arises from the very nature of ga

ing. Games are not reality, and players are likely to do things they simply would n

in reality. A common manifestation, as previously discussed, is inadvertently leav

important forces unprotected, to be knocked off by the enemy. Controllers and um

however, rarely identify such instances, making it almost impossible to go back af

game and determine when this tendency was in play.

What then can be gleaned from comparing multiple games? First, we must remem

what games can reliably produce: knowledge about the nature of a warfare problem
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in command and control, logistical needs, etc. The familiar metaphor of blind men 

feeling around an elephant tells us that multiple games, almost regardless of their 

individual methodologies, can contribute incrementally to the understanding of a 

particular warfare problem. That prob lem may be a specific scenario, such as a war 

on the Korean Peninsula, or it may be a function, like close air support. If we avoid attaching significance to the number of times something happens, we can derive epistemologically sound knowledge. We can collect anecdotes of various game happenings, 

lessons learned, and analyses, to be pieced together into a more complete, qualitative 

understanding of the issue in which we are interested. In one game we may learn that 

command and control arrangements for close air support are flawed, in another that 

certain types of preferred weapons are in short supply. These specific outcomes can be 

combined to form a picture of the “elephant.”

Listening to Whispers

Our general thrust to this point has been to identify limitations on what can be said to 

have been learned from a war game. Still, there is an epistemological reason to wrest 

from a game all the valid knowledge it has to offer. If it is easy to over state what was 

learned from a game, it is also easy to ignore what it did produce—all too easy, if that 

information or knowledge is either subtle or somehow threat ening. Such information, 

being tempting to dismiss, might be called “whispers.”

We have seen that the results of a war game are in the eyes of the beholder (player or 

analyst), because of conditionality. That is, game-generated knowledge, being merely 

indicative in itself, must be combined with judgment in order to have useful predictive 

value. But such application of judgment is rarely easy or straightforward. For example, 

in war games at the Naval War College in the 1920s and ’30s, despite the repeated indications of the importance of the Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall island groups—then 

known as the Mandated Islands—as intermediate logistics bases in any campaign to 

relieve the Philippines and defeat Japan, it took many years for the U.S. Navy to abandon fully the idea of mounting a direct thrust on the Philippines from Pearl Harbor.16

The games, apparently, were telling officers things many did not want to hear. Conditional knowledge can be a slippery thing. Games are complex affairs that almost always 

produce more information than their designers intended to generate. Moreover, game 

results are often equivocal, open to interpretation.

The subjective nature of game-produced knowledge is nowhere clearer than in games 

that generate information that is bureaucratically or politically threatening to players 

or sponsors. It is all too easy either to ignore or put a favorable spin on game events or 

results that do not fit comfortably into existing doctrines or accepted theories. A notable 
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Combined Fleet staff prior to the Midway op eration. Historians have made much 

fact that the umpires resurrected a Japanese carrier that had been sunk by Americ

craft operating out of Midway, citing it as evidence of “victory disease.” In fact, ho

the Japanese umpires were perfectly justified—a dice roll had given a highly impro

able hit to level-flying bombers (that is, as opposed to dive-bombers), which had p

generally ineffective in attacking ships. They were properly attempting to prevent 

capabilities game from becoming a dice game. However, at another point during t

game it was asked what would happen if an American carrier task force ambushed 

Admiral Chuichi Nagumo’s carrier force while it was raiding Midway, and that un

fortable question seems to have been ignored. The existing plan was based on dece

and surprise, tenets and war-fighting val ues dear to the Imperial Japanese Navy. T

knowledge the existence of an American task force northeast of Midway in a posit

ambush Nagumo’s carriers would have been to discount the possibility of surprise

Japanese plan ners simply did not want to admit that—it would have negated their 

and there was no time to start again from scratch. At the very least the game shou

have suggested more extensive searches in that sector, but the plan was not modifi

even to that extent. It was easier to ignore this particular game outcome.17

The “whispers” phenomenon has important implications for war-gaming policy. A

Japanese example shows, players and sponsors are almost never objective about th

games. Games are played in a setting of institutional impera tives, such as budget j

fication, or the need to affirm a service’s foundational theory and doctrine (“airpo

is decisive,” “the infantryman is the ultimate strategic weapon,” and so on). Moreo

as in the Japanese case, games may be linked in some way to imminent deadlines. 

these factors tend to deaden ears to the whispers. But these whispers are frequentl

most important outcomes of war gaming. How can an organization increase its ab

to hear them? 

The key is objective, disinterested sponsorship, or at least analysis. A sponsoring 

organization (the agency that “gives,” or initiates, the game, as distinct from the fa

ity that stages it) cannot realistically be relied upon, especially if constrained by ti

political imperatives, or the dictates of theory and doctrine, to hear whispers from 

own games. A frequent alternative is the use of civilian contractors; the difficulty 

contractors, paid for their services and generally hoping for follow-on contracts, h

built-in incentive, regardless of the talent or intellectual integrity of the individua

companies involved, to tell sponsors what they want to hear, or at least not press th

hear whispers. Another option is academia. The service colleges frequently perfor

role, and each has a war-gaming center. These facilities, however, must have a suff

degree of autonomy—specifically, protection from firing of personnel or other san
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must incorporate a culture of rigorous intellectual objectivity and commitment to the 

discipline of war gaming.

Finally, the results of war games must receive proper handling. Perhaps most importantly, the heads of sponsoring organizations must commit themselves to receiving 

game results directly and personally from gaming organizations, and not after filtering 

and sanitizing by their own staffs.

A Guild of War Gamers

In professional war gaming the stakes are high. Not only do games cost money and 

time, but their results can influence important operational and programmatic decisions. This holds true for the business as well as military worlds. Many organizations 

conduct war games, and even more consume their results, but few if any individuals 

involved have rigorous understanding of whether the games produce valid knowledge. 

As we have seen, it is entirely possible for games to produce valid-looking garbage. It is 

not easy to distinguish error from insight; it can be accomplished only if game design, 

execution, and analysis are conducted with discipline and rigor, and according to principles like those outlined here. Even then, however, wheat cannot be sifted from chaff 

with consistency and con fidence unless another step is taken.

War gaming is currently a craft. There are a few highly experienced and skilled game 

designers and directors “out there,” and these individuals each operate by rules of 

thumb they have learned over the years. Approaches vary. A large war game might 

be proclaimed a success by sponsors but at the same time be criticized severely—in 

private—by players, observers, and analysts. Who is right? What is missing is a universal set of standards, an accepted body of knowl edge, such as established academic 

disciplines possess. In the “hard” sciences, even the social sciences, there is less room 

for charlatanism and sloppiness. Practitioners there have frameworks for understanding 

their disciplines and becoming credentialed in them. War gaming needs the same if it is 

to warrant the resources invested in holding games and the confidence routinely vested 

in their results. Such a step is all the more important today in light of the changing 

nature of warfare and the concomitantly receding utility of traditional force-on-force 

gaming techniques. “Fourth-generation warfare” blends politics, mass media, global 

information flows, culture, and religion with combat in a highly complex way; games attempting to simulate it can lead to catastrophic intellectual error if not conducted under 

the aegis of a sound, overarching framework.

The substrate for founding a gaming discipline exists. The nation’s war and staff colleges all have war-gaming departments whose directors have profes sional contact with 
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institutions, notably the Naval Postgraduate School, teach courses in war gaming. 

organizations could come together in a “guild” of sorts to establish standards and 

mote the formalization and professionalization of a war-gaming discipline. This p

sional society, in effect, could draw members from outside the military, such as bu

and acade mia, whose contributions would universalize standards and add vitality

society might publish a professional journal, with refereed articles. All this is nece

if war-game output is to merit a level of epistemological confidence commensurat

the uses made of it.

Valid knowledge can emerge from war games, but only if due diligence is ap plied

diligence is considerably hampered today because war gaming is a craft or an art

a true profession, a discipline. Much more work must be done. Those who believ

the value of games must now link up and work to ward the goal of truly professio

war gaming. 

Notes

1. For background on the theory and practice 

of war gaming, see Robert C. Rubel, “WarGaming Network-centric Warfare,” Naval War 

College Review 54, no. 2 (Spring 2001), pp. 

61–74.

2. Peter P. Perla, The Art of Wargaming: A Guide 

for Professionals and Hobbyists (Annapolis, 

Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990), p. 164.

3. F. Heylighen, C. Joslyn, and V. Turchin, eds., 

Principia Cybernetica Web (Brussels: Principia 

Cybernetica, 1995), available at pespmc1.vub

.ac.be/EPISTEMI.html.

4. S[tewart] Schlesinger et al., “Terminology 

for Model Credibility,” Simulation 32, no. 3 

(1979), pp. 103–104.

5. Right and wrong are not absolute terms. For 

the purpose of this discussion, “right” means 

a decision the likely outcome of which has 

envisioned benefits for the decision maker. 

Clearly, even “right” decisions could result in 

failure due to bad luck (statistically speaking) 

or the intervention of imponderable factors.

6. John T. Hanley, On Wargaming (dissertation, 

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; 

University Microfilms International, 1991), 

p. 13.

7. Ibid., pp. 19–25.

8. Peter Perla, Michael Markowitz, and C

pher Weuve, Game-Based Experimenta

Re search in Command and Control and 

Situational Awareness, CRM D0006277

Final (Alexandria, Va.: Center for Nav

Analyses, 2002). This document repor

the Naval War College’s Scud Hunt exp

ment and offers some excellent prescri

for achieving additional progress in ga

based C2 experimentation.

9. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and 

Peter Paret and Michael Howard (Prin

N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), p. 15

10. Ibid., p. 167.

11. Ibid., pp. 159–61. The Treaty of Camp

Formio of 17 October 1797 between F

and Austria produced, aside from vari

territorial annexations and guarantees 

support, the latter’s retirement from th

of the First Coalition (1793–97, origin

pitting Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, 

Sardinia, and the Netherlands against 

12. For the Global games see Rubel, “War-

Network-centric Warfare”; Kenneth W

“Global 2000,” Naval War College Revi

no. 2 (Spring 2001), pp. 75–88; Bud Ha

Bob Gile, Global War Game: The First 

Years, Newport Paper 4 (Newport, R.I.
meyers$:___WIP from C 032812:_Newport Papers:_NP_41 Rubel:_InDesign:NP_41 17 Ch17EpistWargaming.indd December 5, 2013 10:20 AM

Newport Paper 20 (Newport, R.I.: Naval War 

College Press, 2004).

13. Global 2000 Network-centric Warfare: Gaming 

the Navy Capstone Concept for Operations in

the Information Age (Newport, R.I.: Naval War 

College, December 2000). The report offers 

glowing endorsements of networked speed 

of command. The assessment of the national 

command authority play is that of the author, 

who was an observer during the game. See 

also Watman, “Global 2000.”

14. Clausewitz, On War, p. 137. Clausewitz talks 

extensively and explicitly in On War about 

effects, except with much greater lucidity than 

is commonly found in the current literature, 

which is riddled with unsupported assertions 

and esoteric jargon. 

difficulties of strategy, extolling its successful 

practitioners precisely because of the many 

imponderables at the strategic level.

16. Edwin Miller, War Plan Orange: The U.S. 

Strategy to Defeat Japan 1897–1945 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991), p. 168. 

Miller describes in this passage some of the 

Newport war games that indicated the folly of 

attempting to sail the U.S. fleet directly from 

Hawaii to the Philippines. However, despite 

these results, the “thrusters,” who advocated 

such a strategy, held sway until the mid-1930s

17. Mitsuo Fuchida, Midway: The Battle That 

Doomed Japan (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1955), pp. 96–97.
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About the Author

Professor Rubel, a retired Navy captain, is currently dean of the Center for Naval 

Warfare Studies. Prior to assuming this position he was chairman of the War Gam

Department of the Naval War College. In 2006–2007 he directed the Naval War C

lege’s research and gaming project that led to the current national maritime strate

“A Cooperative Strategy for 21stCentury Seapower,” for which he received the Sup

Civilian Service Award.

A thirty-year Navy veteran, he received his commission through the Naval Reser

Officer Training Corps at the University of Illinois. He subsequently became a ligh

tack naval aviator, flying the A-7 Corsair II and later the F/A-18 Hornet. He comm

Strike Fighter Squadron 131 and also served as the inspector general at U.S. South

Command.

Professor Rubel’s shore assignments were principally involved with professional m

education. He is a graduate of the Spanish Naval War College, in Madrid, and the 

Naval War College. He completed three separate faculty tours at the College as a j

military operations instructor and ultimately as the deputy dean of the Center for 

Warfare Studies. During these tours he served as the William F. Halsey Chair of A

Strike Warfare and later as the Colin Powell Chair of Joint Warfare. He gained ext

sive experience with service and joint education policy through his participation a

accreditation team member on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Process fo

Accreditation of Joint Education (PAJE) Team. He also served as the special assist

for joint education to the dean of academics. After retiring from the Navy, he beca

director of the Research and Analysis Division within the Naval War College’s W

Gaming Department, in 2004 becoming chairman of the department. In addition

has been a visiting lecturer at a number of international professional military educ

institutions, including the German Armed Forces Staff College, the Mexican Nav

College, the British Joint Services Staff College, and the Colombian Senior War C

Professor Rubel has earned master’s degrees from Salve Regina University and th

Naval War College. He has published a number of articles on a variety of subjects 

cluding security engagement strategy, joint operational art, advanced war gaming

air warfare.
meyers$:___WIP from C 032812:_Newport Papers:_NP_41 Rubel:_InDesign:NP_41 yy RubelAboutAu.indd December 5, 2013 10:20 AM
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Influence without Boots on the Ground: Seaborne Crisis Response, by Larissa Forst

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High Seas Buffer: The Taiwan Patrol Force, 1950–1979, by Bruce A. Elleman (no. 3

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Innovation in Carrier Aviation, by Thomas C. Hone, Norman Friedman, and Mar

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Defeating the U-boat: Inventing Antisubmarine Warfare, by Jan S. Breemer (no. 36

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Piracy and Maritime Crime: Historical and Modern Case Studies, edited by Bruce 

Elleman, Andrew Forbes, and David Rosenberg (no. 35, January 2010).

Somalia . . . From the Sea, by Gary Ohls (no. 34, July 2009).

U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1980s: Selected Documents, edited by John B. Hattendor

Peter M. Swartz (no. 33, December 2008).

Major Naval Operations, by Milan Vego (no. 32, September 2008).

Perspectives on Maritime Strategy: Essays from the Americas, edited by Paul D. Tay

(no. 31, August 2008).

U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1970s: Selected Documents, edited by John B. Hattendorf 

30, September 2007).

Shaping the Security Environment, edited by Derek S. Reveron (no. 29, September 

Waves of Hope: The U.S. Navy’s Response to the Tsunami in Northern Indonesia, by 

Bruce A. Elleman (no. 28, February 2007).

U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1990s: Selected Documents, edited by John B. Hattendor

27, September 2006).

Reposturing the Force: U.S. Overseas Presence in the Twenty-first Century, edited b

Carnes Lord (no. 26, February 2006).
James P. Terry (no. 25, October 2005).

Naval Power in the Twenty-first Century: A Naval War College Review Reader, edited by 

Peter Dombrowski (no. 24, July 2005).

The Atlantic Crises: Britain, Europe, and Parting from the United States, by William 

Hopkinson (no. 23, May 2005).

China’s Nuclear Force Modernization, edited by Lyle J. Goldstein with Andrew S. 

Erickson (no. 22, April 2005).

Latin American Security Challenges: A Collaborative Inquiry from North and South,

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Global War Game: Second Series, 1984–1988, by Robert Gile (no. 20, 2004).

The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy, 1977–1986, by John Hattendorf (no. 

19, 2004).

Military Transformation and the Defense Industry after Next: The Defense Industrial 

Implications of Network-Centric Warfare, by Peter J. Dombrowski, Eugene Gholz, and 

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The Limits of Transformation: Officer Attitudes toward the Revolution in Military Affairs

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The Third Battle: Innovation in the U.S. Navy’s Silent Cold War Struggle with Soviet 

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International Law and Naval War: The Effect of Marine Safety and Pollution Conventions during International Armed Conflict, by Dr. Sonja Ann Jozef Boelaert-Suominen 

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Theater Ballistic Missile Defense from the Sea: Issues for the Maritime Component 

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Sailing New Seas, by Admiral J. Paul Reason, U.S. Navy, with David G. Freymann 

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What Color Helmet? Reforming Security Council Peacekeeping Mandates, by Myron H. 

Nordquist (no. 12, August 1997).

The International Legal Ramifications of United States Counter-Proliferation Strategy: 

Problems and Prospects, by Frank Gibson Goldman (no. 11, April 1997).

Chaos Theory: The Essentials for Military Applications, by Major Glenn E. James, U.S. 

Air Force (no. 10, October 1996).
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Physics and Metaphysics of Deterrence: The British Approach, by Myron A. Greenb

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Mission in the East: The Building of an Army in a Democracy in the New German S

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The Burden of Trafalgar: Decisive Battle and Naval Strategic Expectations on the Ev

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Beyond Mahan: A Proposal for a U.S. Naval Strategy in the Twenty-First Century, b

Colonel Gary W. Anderson, U.S. Marine Corps (no. 5, August 1993).

Global War Game: The First Five Years, by Bud Hay and Bob Gile (no. 4, June 1993

The “New” Law of the Sea and the Law of Armed Conflict at Sea, by Horace B. 

Robertson, Jr. (no. 3, October 1992).

Toward a Pax Universalis: A Historical Critique of the National Military Strategy fo

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“Are We Beasts?” Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II “Area Bombing

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Newport Papers are available online (Acrobat required) at www.usnwc.edu/press/