The Maritime Strategy: A Living Document
By Lieutenant (junior grade) Josh Hano, U.S. Navy
August 2023 Proceedings Vol. 149/8/1,446
The 1970s were a tough decade for the U.S. Navy. The U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam brought budget cuts, exacerbated by the perception of strategic parity and détente with the Soviet Union. The fleet was rusting away as funds for recapitalization were spent in the jungles of Southeast Asia. The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the fall of the Shah of Iran elevated the possibility of regional and global conflict. More relevant to the Navy was work done by naval intelligence to determine the real aims of Soviet naval strategy.1 The growing numbers of Soviet nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), missile-armed warships, bombers, and patrol aircraft gave the appearance of a navy planning for blue-water operations and interdiction of U.S. convoys in the Atlantic.2 However, the advent of long-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles enabled Soviet nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs) to operate in “bastions” closer to home.3 This transferred the initiative for offensive maritime operations into the hands of the United States.4 The 1986 Maritime Strategy and effort to achieve a 600-ship fleet were the U.S. Navy’s response. Although this history is well documented, an underappreciated theme emerged: Maritime strategy must be a living document that offers considerable value for Congress, strategists, war planners, program managers, budgeteers, and even the American public.5
The Enduring Value of the Maritime Strategy
Norman Friedman best describes the need for a distinctly naval strategy:
Why, then, should the Navy need an explicit strategy? The answer has to be that the choice of a strategy focuses interest and creative energy within the Navy on the solution of the tactical and technical problems associated with that strategy: on how to fight. Failing such a selection of a particular strategy or a class of strategies, the Navy expends much of its energy in more abstract debate. Without some basic choice it is impossible for the Navy to place relative values on its various [programs]; evaluation is necessary if, given limited funds, intelligent choices are to be made. Elaboration of the strategy can, moreover, reveal significant gaps in naval strength which might otherwise be considered unimportant. Only third would one add that, by adopting a particular strategy, the Navy can explain itself most effectively to the public which assigns its resources.6
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/august/maritime-strategy-living-document
