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The US needs a green-water navy

On June 26 the Hudson Institute hosted two author presentations followed by a panel discussion on maritime irregular warfare. The panel consisted of Benjamin Armstrong, author of Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy, Joshua Tallis, author of The War for Muddy Waters: Pirates, Terrorists, Traffickers and Maritime Insecurity, Peter Haynes, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and former Deputy Director, Strategy, Plans, and Policy (J5) of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Martin N. Murphy, Visiting Fellow of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies, and Linda Robinson, Senior International/Defense Researcher at the RAND Corporation. Patrick Cronin, the Hudson Institute’s Asia-Pacific Security Chair, moderated.

Armstrong gave an overview of the two prevalent schools of naval thought, guerre de course (commerce raiding) and guerre d’escadre (fleet to fleet battle). These, however, leave out large parts of US naval tradition, in particular guerre de razzia, or “war by raiding.” In this school of thought the focus lies on raiding coasts and colonies using a “green water” navy. Armstrong believes that strategies of guerre de razzia are important for naval operations today.

Tallis pointed to the 2007 Cooperative Strategy for Maritime Seapower serves as a guide for the US Navy, Marines and Coast Guard. With Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 NATO’s focus shifted back to great power competition. The 2015 review of the 2007 strategy and the 2018 National Defense Strategy echo this shift. Tallis warns that there can be more than one trend at a time, and a full shift towards great power competition would ignore important issues.

Population growth and urbanization all put stresses on the Global South and poor governments, which leads to other actors, such as the Houthis in Yemen, cropping up. The issues caused by these groups don’t stay local and matter to global powers too. Tallis argues that maritime insecurities are more like crime than war. Coast guards and navies recognize issues but are equipped for war and lack the proper tools to respond. He warns against militarization of a criminal problem. It often leads to an us vs. them or fortress mentality in which the people the coast guard is supposed to protect resist it.

Using the broken windows theory, Tallis says crime is context-dependent and multidimensional, which extends to maritime security. By addressing the eco-system of maritime criminality, links between illegal fishing and piracy or human trafficking can be found and progress can be made. Maritime security needs to be treated as a cohesive discipline instead of individual issues like piracy or illegal fishing. The US needs to become better at following the local lead and listening to local communities in areas where it provides maritime security.

Haynes views the return to maritime great power competition with China as the first since the Empire of Japan in WWII. The difference is China competes across many different fields (economically, socially, militarily), in part due to globalization. The US Navy has defined competition too narrowly. It sees itself as a blue-water navy and focuses almost exclusively on war and anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD). It lacks the small boats, such as the river boats used in Vietnam, needed for green- and brown-water operations.

Maritime control is important. 65% of goods and 90% of internet traffic go by sea. Complementing Armstrong’s argument, Haynes says the US does a poor job of using history to analyze and develop strategies to counter irregular maritime threats. Part of the issue stems from the Cold War hyper-rational thinking, which is harder to apply to irregular maritime warfare. 

Murphy thinks the US is not prepared to deal with irregular maritime challenges because it lacks of maritime political intention and policy cohesion, while China sees economic opportunities in the sea and devotes funding to maritime projects such as a network of ports. The US is a naval power without maritime power, because it sees the sea as a medium to project US power onto land. US naval operations have shifted away from the sea to supporting ground and air forces.

Robinson agreed and and pointed towards opponents using irregular warfare as a centerpiece to their global strategy: China expanding its exclusive economic zone, and Russia through the Wagner mercenary group as well as Iran through its famous use of proxies in both the military and political realm. The US needs to establish a cohesive response. Armstrong added that irregular warfare and great power competition are intermixed. States use irregular warfare when they don’t want to go to full war. Treating them as separate would be fatal.

The US is stuck in a WWII view of war, Robinson argued. Once more modern circumstances are appreciated, a shift in spending will follow. Haynes supported her argument: under no circumstances would he trade a singe F-18 for several smaller boats, which would be useful for green-water navy strategies. The incapability for the US to see the gray zone between war and peace and adjust both strategy and spending could be very costly.

A full video of the event is available here.