A Slavish Devotion to Forward Presence Has Nearly Broken the U.S. Navy
The forward presence mission is taking a toll on the fleet and the force.
By The Honorable Robert O. Work
December 2021
“The gods refuse the crown of victory to those who rest content after a single triumph. They give it to those who exert themselves in peacetime training, who have therefore won before any fighting begins. As the men of old said, ‘After a victory, tighten your helmet strings.’”1
—Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō
Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō said these words to the Imperial Japanese Combined Fleet that had recently annihilated the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima in October 1905. In his final instructions, Admiral Tōgō exhorted his shipmates to prepare themselves for the next war, whenever it might come, against whatever adversary might challenge them.
Fast forward eight decades. In the 1980s, no one doubted that the nearly 600-ship U.S. Navy was bred and ready for war. Its mission was not easy, but it was simple. Everyone, from senior admirals to junior sailors, knew, if push came to shove, their job was to put steel on target and the Soviet Navy on the bottom. The service locked its sights on the adversary. It adopted a pugnacious wartime strategy designed to take the fight to the Soviet Navy in its home waters. It would attack the Soviet Union’s flanks in support of the main effort in central Europe.2 The Navy exercised this strategy relentlessly, demonstrating its intention and will to sail into the teeth of Soviet defenses and hound, harry, and destroy every ship, submarine, and aircraft it could find—in addition to projecting power on Soviet shores.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/december/slavish-devotion-forward-presence-has-nearly-broken-us-navy
