May 3, 2021
Does the U.S. Navy Have a Strategy Problem?
Over at the Wall Street Journal last week, former deputy undersecretary of the navy and current Hudson Institute analyst Seth Cropsey aims a broadside at the U.S. sea services’ latest maritime strategy, titled Advantage at Sea. Cropsey’s broadside sails well wide of the mark. Let’s inspect—and see if we can correct—the fall of shot.
by James Holmes
Over at the Wall Street Journal last week, former deputy undersecretary of the navy and current Hudson Institute analyst Seth Cropsey aims a broadside at the U.S. sea services’ latest maritime strategy, titled Advantage at Sea. Cropsey’s broadside sails well wide of the mark. Let’s inspect—and see if we can correct—the fall of shot.
The U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard have taken to calling themselves “the Naval Service,” singular, to signify that they regard themselves as a cohesive maritime force. Last December they released Advantage at Sea, also known as their “Triservice Maritime Strategy,” to explain how they intend to shape events on the high seas and especially in coastal zones. Yet Cropsey assures us the triservice strategy “isn’t a maritime strategy” at all because it “offers no suggestions about how to win a naval war against China.” For him, it seems, strategy must script out a sequence of events culminating in victory to qualify as strategy.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/does-us-navy-have-strategy-problem-184237
