Sea Denial is denying the use of the sea for commerce. Power projection ashore is exactly that. Sea Control is taking over the sea for whatever purpose is intended. That means removing any other contesting forces.
Especially in the last decades of the Cold War, the main contesting force to us was the Soviet Union. When they collapsed, their fleet began to rust at anchor. By default, we had sea control, of the major oceans, at least. No major contesting force to remove. However, if we wanted to place our forces in confined straits or other areas, or near hostile coasts, we encountered contesting forces not built for "world" sea control, but for local control. And as things like the 2002 Millenium Challenge wargame proved, they could be a serious threat to us. A look at a world map shows commerce by sea must pass through a number of strategic choke points...the Panama Canal, the Malacca Straits, the Suez Canal, the Magellan Straits, Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, etc. Being able to secure these global strategic points IS sea control. It is also sea denial. The only commerce which can happen at them if we control them is the commerce we want.
Taking a force--like a carrier battle group--which is designed to seize larger bodies of water, and inserting it into a confined area against forces specifically tailored to control those confined areas is a difficult and risky undertaking. For at least 5 years after the Cold War, for us to obtain sea control we faced exactly this situation.
In 1995 and 1996, China tried to intimidate Taiwan, and we effectively blocked them with the use of a couple of carrier battle groups. That is the exact point where China resolved to form a modern, ocean-going sea control navy of their own. And just because they resolved to do this then doesn't mean it happened instantly. For close to a decade after that point, we could indeed see China openly buying and experimenting with old Soviet ships, and with new designs of their own. But, they are still in a state of infancy with aircraft carriers and associated battle groups, and their primary means of local sea control rests in diesel subs, and their creation of anti ship ballistic missiles. I'm sure their mines are also adequate. (Minefields are double-edged. They block enemy use of an area, but also inhibit your own use of it. Just "mindlessly" scattering a bunch of them does not solve all your problems. Consideration needs to be given to whether you anticipate also using a given area.)
So...You continuously accuse us of abandoning sea control.
At the end of the Cold War, the US Navy let go its frigates...its auxiliary warships, most of them specifically tailored for open ocean hunting of nuclear subs; a force no longer presenting a major threat. It RETAINED its carrier battle groups...the force by which it would remove any other major contesting force, thus gaining sea control. There was no other major force for quite a while, but we kept the means to remove it. We did not abandon sea control.
We have endeavored to gain the type of force needed to effectively contest local-force control of a restricted body of water. We are greatly expanding our mine warfare abilities, and that is long overdue. Mines have sunk more of our ships since WWII than any other weapon. We are developing better sensors, networks and the tools to deploy them. We have expanded our helicopter assets...found to be the most effective tool against smaller craft. We have not abandoned sea control.
We are additionally upgrading our forces for power projection ashore. In an area full of islands (like the South China Sea, or the wider Pacific Ocean) being able to seize land is actually sea control.
I see no basis for your claim. I suspect you have some other vision of what sea control should be, which our forces are not matching, so you feel we are deficient somehow. Better articulation of your ideas would then be useful. You've accused us of a "we have no peers" mentality, but "we Have no peers." No force currently seriously threatens our global ocean control. Numerous ones threaten our local control, but our forces are still tailored to "fight WWII or WWIII"...our carrier groups are best suited for destroying large opposing forces out on the ocean. That is "classic sea control" in the Mahanian sense, from the history books. We are in fact ideally suited to battling peer forces. We are then NOT suited to newer challenges from the new non-peer ones. We lack effective counters to anti ship ballistic missiles, a regional threat. We are "dangerously awkward" in any confined seaway.
We have, in fact, spent the last 40 years maintaining the ability to gain wider ocean sea control, while struggling to adapt to the new challenges which have arisen in those past 40 years. Mismanagement would be a failure to try adapting. And we have never abandoned sea control at any point in that period, most especially not to any potential peer force. That is--ironically--about the only kind of force we stand the best chance of defeating.
Yes very well said but you missed the 40 years of Navy mismanagement that discarded a sea control strategy . Maybe a good face can be put on the lack of numbers and call it distributed lethality or something like that .
Well said (as usual!), Ralph. I would add that a naval strategy that is an element of a well-publicized overall national military strategy is essential before we talk about force levels and funding. A primary reason for the success of the Maritime Strategy of the 1980’s and the force structure it rationalized, besides the tenure of Navy Secretary Lehman, was that it was understood by those who would execute it (the Navy), by those who were paying for it (the American public), and by those who were the objects of it (the Soviet Union). Creating this environment today will be an all-hands effort, but as the Maritime Strategy showed, it can be done.
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