William Lind has been ruminating about the renewed importance of sea power in a less secure world.
We [the US] need naval supremacy because in a world where the state is weakening, water, and transport by water, grow in importance. People today think of land uniting and water dividing, but that became true only recently, with the rise of the state and the development of railways (which can only function in the safety and order created by states). From the dawn of river and sea-faring until the mid-19th century, water united and land divided. It was easier, safer, cheaper and faster to move goods and people by water than by land. So it will be again in a 21st century dominated by Fourth Generation war and declining or disappearing states. Already, in places such as the Congo, the only way to move is on the rivers. A country that can control waterways anywhere in the world will have a great strategic advantage.
Unfortunately for the US, Lind continues, its Navy is configured in precisely the wrong way for this kind of tasking:
Today as throughout the Cold War, the U.S. Navy is building a fleet perfectly designed to fight the navy of Imperial Japan. If someone wants to contest control of the Pacific Ocean in a war between aircraft carrier task forces, we are ready. Unfortunately, no one does, absent that general Resurrection when Shokaku and Zuikaku, Soryu and Hiryu will rise from their watery graves.
If the US were serious about configuring its Navy the right way for the 21st century, it would “…build lots of ships designed for operations in coastal waters and on rivers, often with troops on board. But such ships are small ships, and the U.S. Navy hates small ships.”
So what of the UK? Let’s start by consulting the helpfully candid Diaries of the late, great Alan Clark, who conducted a Defence Review during his time as MOD Minister of State for Procurement during 1989. Turn to page 262 and we find:
I am in despair about the Navy or, rather, the sailors. This is the Service which has to be the centre-piece of my plan – swift, flexible, hard-hitting. Yet the only thing they want to be is the forward anti-submarine warfare screen for the United States Navy in northern waters. That’s all over, I say. Forget it. The Soviet ‘threat’ no longer exists. Raise your eyes.
Well, fair enough, but that was eighteen years ago. Surely the Navy has reinvented itself by now – just as soldiers (next in line for Clark’s ire in page 262) have finally been weaned off their Main Battle Tank addiction and persuaded of the utility of investing in expeditionary kit like helicopters (not they yet have anything like enough of them, but at least they’re now asking) and armoured personnel carriers? Er, no. Here’s Max Hastings in the Guardian all of two months ago:
Some big ambitions must be forfeited somewhere. A coherent vision is needed, such as is lacking today, and that only a defence review can provide. The navy needs more ships – not expensive hi-tech exhibits like the Type 45 destroyer, but economy models which can provide landing platforms for helicopters. A thinking secretary of state would tell the admirals that, having got their carriers, they must now change the habit of centuries and start building cheap, simple boats. One soldier observes: “The most credible threat to the Royal Navy in the next generation is posed by men in rubber boats.”
