sea power and maritime affairs appendix a · reaucratic worries. food service areas had not passed...

NAVAL RESERVE OFFICERS TRAINING CORPS SEA POWER AND MARITIME AFFAIRS

APPENDIX A

CNET P1550/6 (Rev. 12-02)

CHIEF OF NAVAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING

P1550/6 APX(A)1202

NAVAL RESERVE OFFICERS TRAINING CORPS SEA POWER AND MARITIME AFFAIRS

APPENDIX A

The following articles may be locally reproduced for classroom use: Lesson 20 --

“Joint Special Operations in Support of Earnest Will,” by David B. Crist, as printed in Joint Forces Quarterly, Autumn/Winter 2001-02. (Reprinted as public domain.)

Lesson 21 --

“The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf,” by Edward J. Marolda. Paper prepared for Director, Navy Staff, by Naval Historical Center, October 2001. (Reprinted with permission of the author.) “On [the Gulf] War,” by Kenneth J. Hagan, as printed in Naval History, March/April 1999, pp. 24-30. (Reprinted from Naval History with permission; Copyright © (1999) U.S. Naval Institute/www.navalinstitute.org.)

Lesson 22 --

“Lessons from the War in Kosovo,” by Benjamin S. Lambeth, as printed in Joint Forces Quarterly, Spring 2002. (Reprinted as public domain.)

“Sea Power 21: Projecting Decisive Joint Capabilities,” by Admiral Vern Clark, USN, as printed in Proceedings, October 2002. (Reprinted from Proceedings with permission; Copyright © (2002), U.S. Naval Institute/www.navalinstitute.org.)

“The Fall & Rise of Naval Forward Presence,” by Captain Sam Tangredi, USN, as printed in Proceedings, May 2000. (Reprinted from Proceedings with permission; Copyright © (2000), U.S. Naval Institute/www.navalinstitute.org.)

“The Fall and Rise of Naval Forward Presence: Rebuttal,” by Rear Admiral Philip Dur, USN, printed in Proceedings, July 2000. (Reprinted from Proceedings with permission; Copyright © (2000), U.S. Naval Institute/www.navalinstitute.org.)

On the night of July 23, 1987, there wasnews of an unusual amount of navalactivity around the small Iranian islandof Farsi in the northern Persian Gulf.

Rear Admiral Harold Bernsen, commander of Mid-dle East Force, found the reports disquieting. Thefirst convoy of Operation Earnest Will was due toarrive in a few hours. It consisted of two oiltankers accompanied by three naval warships. Thenext morning, twenty miles west of Farsi, CaptainFrank Seitz of SS Bridgetown heard a sound like

“a 500-ton hammer hit us up forward.”1 The shiphad struck one of nine contact mines laid by theIranian vessel Sirjan on the previous night. It blewan eight-and-a-half by ten-foot hole in the tanker,halting activity in the northern Gulf to the embar-rassment of Washington.

The United States launched a unique effortin response, forming a joint special operationstask force based aboard two converted oil barges.For more than a year this force engaged in adaily struggle with Iranian small boats and minelayers for control of the sealanes in the channel-ized area north of Bahrain. In every respect, thisoperation was a remarkable effort and a blue-print for crafting unconventional responses tounconventional threats.

Autumn/Winter 2001–02 / JFQ 15

David B. Crist is a historian at the Marine Corps Historical Center andadjunct professor at the Marine Command and Staff College.

Joint SpecialOperations in Support of Earnest WillBy D A V I D B. C R I S T

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■ E A R N E S T W I L L

The Tanker WarAs the eight-year Iran-Iraq conflict stale-

mated, the countries began preying on eachother’s oil industries. Iran also began attackingshipping by Iraq’s chief financial supporters,Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Many early Iranian at-tacks were by fixed wing and helicopter, but spareparts shortages and operational losses virtuallyeliminated any credible air threat, forcing achange in strategy. Small boats, a combination offast Swedish-built Boghammers and Boston

Whaler-type craft manned by RevolutionaryGuards, roamed the sealanes attacking shippingin September 1986. Armed with 107mm rockets,RPG–7s, and machine guns, this mosquito fleetrarely sank a ship but could inflict serious damageon tankers or their crews. Their favorite tactic wasto approach a target, swarm around it, then rakeits bridge and superstructure with automaticweapons and rocket propelled grenades. Some 43

attacks included thesinking of the 42,000-ton bulk carrier Nor-man Atlantic. Mines,in conjunction withsea raids, added an-other deadly threat.Kuwait formally in-quired about reflag-

ging its oil tankers under the Stars and Stripes onDecember 23. Three months later the UnitedStates agreed to place 11 tankers under Americanregistry and provide them with armed protectionfrom Iranian attack.

Washington rushed additional assets to theregion following the SS Bridgetown incident. Buteven countermine vessels were not enough. Thedangers in the northern Persian Gulf were not aclassic blue water threat. The shallow passagesforced the shipping into a narrow corridor con-stricted by islands, shoals, and oil platforms,which provided concealment for hostile boats.Any vessel needed a shallow draft to avoid mineslocated 12–18 feet below the surface. Ships madetempting targets. This area was assigned to Iran-ian 2d Naval District in Bushehr, which used FarsiIsland as a forward operating base. American war-ships were not designed or equipped to deal withthe combination of small boat attacks and minesemployed by the Iranians.

Middle East Force developed a plan that pro-vided for constant patrolling to prevent attacks.Bernsen sent an outline of his concept of opera-tions to General George Crist, USMC, Commanderin Chief, Central Command, on August 6, 1987:“In my view, to be successful in the northern Gulfwe must establish intensive patrol operations toprevent the Iranians from laying mines.”2 Ratherthan using regular naval vessels, he concluded, thearea could be better patrolled by a mixture of heli-copters and small boats, augmented by SEALs andmarines. They could range over a wide area andwere better equipped to deal with unconventionalthreats. These assets would also be far less expen-sive than additional warships.

Because of political sensitivities, neitherKuwait nor Saudi Arabia would grant U.S. Cen-tral Command (CENTCOM) basing rights forcombatants who might engage in offensive oper-ations against Iran. Thus American forces re-quired an operating base, ideally in the center ofthe patrol area, positioned astride the sealaneand close to Farsi Island. Attention quickly fo-cused on two oil platform construction barges,Hercules and Wimbrown VII, located at a shipyardin Bahrain and owned by Brown and Root. Thecompany had extensive business dealings withthe Kuwait Oil Company and agreed to lease thebarges. Both were strong, compartmentalized,and surrounded by a floodable tank which wouldprotect against a mine strike. They had large sup-port facilities and helicopter flight decks. Herculeswas immediately available. At 400 by 140 feet, itwas one of the largest oil barges in the world.Wimbrown VII, 250 by 70 feet, required extensiverepairs to be made habitable.

To guard the 100-mile stretch, each bargewould be deployed to cover a 50-mile section,with their helicopters and patrol boats operatingin a 25-mile radius. While patrol boats maintaineda 24-hour presence, preventing penetration bysmall craft, helicopters would provide a quick re-action force as well as night surveillance. Each

16 JFQ / Autumn/Winter 2001–02

Iranian Boghammer.

helicopters and small boats couldrange over a wide area and werebetter equipped to deal withunconventional threats

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barge would have a mixture of patrol craft, includ-ing Vietnam-era riverine patrol boats (PBRs), NavySEALs, and a Marine platoon. Should the Iraniansdirectly challenge the barges, positions would bereinforced with metal plating and sandbags whilethe marines manned various weapons: 50 calibermachine-guns, MK–19 grenade launchers, a TOWmissile, 81mm mortars, and Stinger missiles. Withthe addition of an explosive ordnance team and aMarine Corps radio reconnaissance linguistic andcommunication detachment, Hercules and Wim-brown VII would carry complements of 177 and132, respectively.

Barges would be moved randomly every fewdays among the Saudi islands and oil platformsand have a layered defense. Helicopters would in-terdict any target out to 50 nautical miles whileMK–III patrol boats covered the mid-distancesand smaller Seafoxes and PBRs safeguarded forthe first five miles. If all else failed, the Marine se-curity force would man the decks with machineguns, rifles, and side arms.

Stovepipes, Rice Bowls, and Home TurfThe mobile sea base concept was essentially

complete by mid-August. The CENTCOM planwas forwarded to the Joint Chiefs for approval.The proposal touched off a storm of debate. Ad-miral Lee Baggot, Commander in Chief, AtlanticCommand, argued along with the commandersof Sixth and Seventh Fleets that the bases wouldbe lucrative targets for air and naval attacks. Theyhad no effective air defense. Command and con-trol would be impossible due to the hodgepodgeof multiservice Special Operations Forces (SOF)on board. Some critics referred to these barges asfloating “Beirut Barracks.”

CENTCOM convened a conference to ad-dress the rising chorus of criticism and work outthe details of essentially designing a ship fromscratch. Representatives from 2d Marine Division,Mine Warfare Command, Naval Sea and Air Sys-tems Commands, U.S. Atlantic and U.S. PacificCommands, and the Joint Chiefs met on Septem-ber 9–11 in Tampa. Every relevant operationalissue was discussed—tactics, ammunition storage,barge defense, firefighting, damage control, and


KUWAIT

QATAR

BAHRAIN

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

IRAQIRAN

OMAN

SAUDI ARABIA

OMAN

Farsi Island

Faw Peninsula

Bushehr

Inbound convoy route

Outbound convoy route

Operating area of Hercules and Wimbrown VII

Source: Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, “Arabian Gulf Lessons Learned Report: April 1987” (1988), p. 11.

Ernest Will: Northern Persian Gulf (1987–1988)

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electromagnetic concerns. Then there were bu-reaucratic worries. Food service areas had notpassed a Navy health inspection. Moreover, a de-tailed certification program was needed to allowMarine pilots to land on the barges even thoughthey were already carrier qualified. The confer-ence did little to change the opinions of thoseopposed to the plan.

Bernsen countered that the critics failed tounderstand the threat in the northern Gulf. TheIranians had no real air capability, with onlytwenty operational F–4s which were occupiedwith fighting Iraq. Their navy had only oneworking Harpoon anti-ship missile. The threat

was unconventional. Nothing in Tehran’s arse-nal could sink the barges. The mobile bases of-fered the best, least expensive means to supportthe patrol craft and helicopters required tocontrol the sealanes. “Unless in extremis,” hemaintained, “the Iranians will continue to avoida direct confrontation.”3

Crist countered JCS arguments by asking,“Would you rather risk losing two oil barges or abillion dollar ship?”4 The threat of mines or anerrant missile from an Iraqi aircraft simply madethe northern Gulf too risky for a gray hull. Healso worked behind the scenes, specifically withRichard Armitage, Assistant Secretary of Defensefor International Security Affairs, to overcome re-sistance and get the plan approved.

The Chairman, Admiral William Crowe,threw his full support behind the plan after ex-amining Hercules on September 17. While recog-nizing the perils, Crowe concluded that thebarges were the best means to control the north-ern sealanes without unduly risking lives. Withhis support, the operation went forward.

Fortresses at SeaIn the meantime, men and matériel destined

for the bases flowed into theater. The first twoMK–IIIs arrived by ship on September 3 alongwith Lieutenant Commander Paul Evancoe, des-ignated as the first barge commander. The alu-minum-hulled patrol boats could only operate inthe open ocean with difficulty, but they were theonly assets available in the inventory. Additionalweapons stations were added. A stabilized 40mmbow-mounted Bofers gun, 50 caliber machineguns, and MK–19 grenade launchers proved morethan enough firepower to deal with any Iranianboat, but they reduced the maximum speed ofthe boats to 25 knots, slower than most enemycounterparts.

The Marine Corps wanted the helicoptermission, but their craft were too large and theirpilots lacked extensive night flying training. AtCrowe’s insistence, and over the objections of theDepartment of the Army, Task Force 160 fromFort Campbell was tasked to provide helicoptersand night surveillance capability for the barges.Its A–6 (attack) and M–6 (command and control)helicopters were designed to operate exclusivelyat night, being outfitted with forward-looking in-frared (FLIR) and night vision goggles. Army pi-lots had thousands of hours flying time withnight vision goggles as opposed to, at most, acouple of hundred common in most Marinesquadrons. In addition, with their small air-frames, three helicopters could be accommodatedon each barge.


Iran-Iraq Conflict (1980–1988)

On September 22, 1980, Iraqi fighters struck air bases acrossIran, the first blow of a protracted war that resulted inover half a million military casualties. The precise reason

for Saddam Hussein’s decision to invade Iran remains unclear,though the two countries had long-standing religious, border, andpolitical disputes.

In the first phase of the conflict, six Iraqi divisions launched asurprise offensive on three fronts, rapidly overrunning Iran’s bor-der defenses. The high water mark of Iraqi territorial gains wasreached on November 10, 1980, during house-to-house fightingfor control of Khorramshahr. The government in Tehran rejected asettlement and began a series of counteroffensives in January1981. By 1984 Iran had regained all its lost territory and the re-maining years of the conflict were a bloody war of attritionfought across a relatively static front.

Iraq lost virtually all its capacity to export oil during the firstyears of the war. Iran’s exports also suffered when its major exportfacility on Kharg Island was severely damaged. In the Tanker Warof 1984–87, each side attempted to block the other’s remaining oilexports through the northern Persian Gulf, employing missiles,small boat raids, and mines. These operations also threatened thecommerce of neutral suppliers, attracting the attention of theUnited States and Western countries who relied on oil exportsfrom the region. Before the end of the war, ten Western naviesand eight regional naval forces were operating in the narrow wa-ters of the Persian Gulf. An Iraqi missile struck USS Stark on May17, 1987, killing 37 crewmen. Baghdad apologized for the attack,but the incident proved a catalyst for a new initiative, reflaggingKuwaiti tankers as American ships under Operation Ernest Willand thus affording them U.S. protection.

Another unique feature of the war was the use of chemicalweapons and short-range ballistic missiles by both sides.

Iraq launched a devastating series of counterattacks fromApril to August 1988. After these setbacks, Iran accepted a U.N.resolution on ending the war, and a ceasefire went into place onAugust 20, 1988. In the event, none of the major issues cited atthe outbreak of the conflict were resolved. JFQ

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Evancoe outfitted Hercules before the shipsarrived, ordering 20,000 sandbags to surround thegun positions. Old crew quarters and drillingequipment were replaced by steel ammunitionbunkers, an aircraft hanger, and a communica-tion van. At one point 40 welders were busy 24hours a day. At the same time, work continued toget Wimbrown VII ready by December.

Two MK–III patrol boats went on the first pa-trol north of 27°30 parallel on September 9. Thefirst presence mission ended after five days and530 miles, which included escorting a convoyfrom north of Bahrain to Kuwait. It revealed sig-nificant problems. The rough seas took a heavy

toll on the hulls and crews because the boats werenot designed to operate in the open ocean for ex-tended periods. They also had difficulty keepingup with the convoy. Additionally, while the con-cept of operations in the northern Persian Gulfhad been well articulated up the chain of com-mand, the same was not true for those tasked toexecute it. Evancoe bitterly complained that theywere not even given a simple mission statement,let alone a basic operational concept. It was notuntil December that Middle East Force publishedguidance.

As Hercules neared completion in late Sep-tember, intelligence closely monitored the mass-ing of some seventy small boats near Bushehr andFarsi Islands following an Iranian exercise menac-ingly called “Martyrdom.” Concern heightenedon October 1 when satellites imaged small boatsmassed along a 45-mile front, perhaps for an at-tack on the Saudi Khafji oil complex. The assaultfailed to materialize. However, U.S. forces still be-lieved the Iranians were up to something in thenorthern Gulf.

Hercules deployed into this environment onOctober 6 with welders still installing ballisticmetal plates. As the northernmost American unit,many on the barge had the distinct feeling of

being “hung out to dry.” The nearest warship wasUSS Thach, a frigate which provided air warningwhile remaining 20 miles to the south.

First BloodA frustrated and increasingly worried Evancoe

launched three patrol boats two days later togather intelligence on the Iranians at Farsi. Heplanned to establish a listening post at MiddleShoals Buoy, a navigation aid 15 miles west of Farsiand 8 miles northeast of Hercules. One Seafox boathad Marine Farsi and Arab linguists from thebarge’s radio reconnaissance detachment.

The Seafox would be dropped off, with itsradar signature hopefully blending into that ofthe buoy as the patrol boats passed close to Mid-dle Shoals. The three Army craft, controlled by alight airborne multipurpose system (LAMPS) hel-icopter from USS Thach, would fly a differentroute, arriving to scout out the buoy ahead ofthe patrol boats.

The operation began at 2100 hours. With theboats still four miles from the buoy, the Army


Hercules with MK–IIIsand UH–60 on deck.

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many on the barge had the distinct feelingof being “hung out to dry”

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helicopters flew ahead to reconnoiter. To theiramazement, Army pilots, looking through FLIRs,observed that three small boats were already atthe buoy. Realizing that it was impossible for theU.S. boats to have arrived, one pilot approachedto take a closer look. He found an IranianBoghammer and two smaller craft.

An Iranian leaped up to open fire with a12.7mm machine gun. As tracers flew by, the avi-ator vectored in the two A–6 helicopters follow-ing close behind. They responded with a hail ofhigh explosive and flechette rockets and ma-chine gun fire. The smaller boats were quickly

dispatched in dramatic fashion as their gasolineengines exploded, spreading burning fuel acrossthe water. The Boghammer maneuvered, tryingto get up to speed while firing a 107mm rocketin the general direction of U.S. forces. As an A–6closed in to finish off the Boghammer, the Amer-icans were greeted by an antiaircraft missile. Thewarhead did not have time to arm because of thehelicopter’s close proximity. The second A–6closed in and its last high explosive rocket hitthe Boghammer squarely on the port side, killingseveral of its crew including the commanding of-ficer. It sank in 30 seconds. At the first sight ofthe tracer fire, clearly visible eight miles away,Evancoe ordered general quarters.

The remaining patrol boat was lowered intothe water as the Marine security platoon mannedits positions, joining the other already serving asa local protection and reaction force. Shortlythereafter, the three A–6s returned and werequickly rearmed and refueled.

The two patrol boats closed on Middle ShoalsBuoy in search of other vessels or survivors. SixIranians were pulled from the water, all grievouslywounded. Two succumbed. A petty officer noticeda floating Styrofoam case and dived in to retrieveit. Inside was a battery for an American-built


OH–58 on Hercules.

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Wimbrown VII.

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Stinger. It was later learned that the Iranians hadobtained the missile from Afghanistan.

The Iranian mission had been commandedby a Revolutionary Guard officer and crewed by amotley collection of landlubbers, including an il-literate cook and an AWOL soldier who had beenimpressed by the Revolutionary Guards inBushehr on the previous day. They had left Farsishortly after sunset, the commander telling themthey were “headed on a great mission.”

Radar picked up 20–40 small craft headingsouth toward the base a short time later. To thoseaboard Hercules, it appeared the Iranian vessels atMiddle Shoals Buoy were part of a larger coordi-nated strike. Marines dropped hand grenades off

the side to forestall boardingby swimmers as Evancoe ar-rayed his forces for the im-pending attack. He orderedthe two patrol boats that hadjust returned from MiddleShoals to head north, with

the ominous words “Turn and engage.” Mean-while he requested support, and shortly three ad-ditional A–6s arrived from the southern Gulf, fol-lowed by USS Thach, which came steaming northat a speed of 30 knots.

Once again an attack failed to develop. It ap-peared to Evancoe that the enemy turned andwent back to Bushehr. Other intelligence sourcesconfirmed that the Iranian boats were there andlikely broke off the attack following the action atMiddle Shoals Buoy. However, the commandingofficer of USS Thach later concluded that the re-ported Iranian boats were a radar anomaly andnever existed. The true nature of the threat thatnight remains a mystery to this day.

Fighting an Unconventional ConflictThe Army and Navy forces on the barges per-

fected their tactics over the following months.While the original concept called for the MK–IIIsto operate 25 nautical miles out, radar problemsand limitations on crew endurance reduced thepractical range to 16 miles. Operating in pairsand at night, patrols lasted from 4 to 12 hours,moving along predetermined routes. All thewhile, small riverine boats provided local securityuntil they were withdrawn as unsuitable for oper-ations in rough open water.

Helicopter tactics evolved as well. The Armycraft operating in groups of three, one M–6 andtwo A–6s, went on one and sometimes a secondtwo-hour patrol every night. All patrols pro-ceeded to a predetermined set of checkpointsfrom a list of 25 identifiable sites. They often op-erated in conjunction with MK–IIIs, where speed

and range complemented patrol boat endurance.Meanwhile, the Navy LAMPS helicopters, withtheir excellent surface search radar, perfectedtheir techniques of command and control overthe Army craft, vectoring them in from a safe dis-tance on suspected Iranian boats.

Wimbrown VII became operational in De-cember. Although the original plan called for itto be deployed farther north, it remained tenmiles away to provide mutual support for Her-cules. Not as large or capable, its presence dou-bled the patrol area and relieved overstretchedHercules assets.

In February 1988, Middle East Force mergedwith JTF Middle East, which had been chargedwith controlling all Earnest Will operations insideand outside the Gulf. This entailed a greater de-gree of control by the JTF staff. The barges beganfiling flight plans and patrol routes prior to oper-ations. Improvements continued on the barges atthe same time. More metal plates and sandbagswere added until the Wimbrown VII decks wereawash in high seas. In addition, 25mm navalchain guns augmented 50 caliber weapons on allfour corners, and in July two of those were re-placed by Army 20mm antiaircraft guns. Newlydeveloped anti-missile radar reflectors were alsodeployed around both barges. Most notably, over-taxed A–6 and M–6 helicopters were replaced byArmy OH–58s from Task Force 118. While not assmall or quiet, the new craft possessed a greaterFLIR capability and much greater firepower, in-cluding Hellfire missiles.

Hostile operations virtually ceased followingthe engagement at Middle Shoals Buoy. The Irani-ans occasionally tested the defenses by approach-ing at high speed, then withdrawing at the firstchallenge from a helicopter or patrol boat. Theytried to blend in with numerous fishing boats offthe Saudi coast while advancing. Only once didthey challenge the barges. Two high speed surfacecraft commenced a run on Wimbrown VII on thenight of March 4. The barge and nearby USS JohnA. Moore warned them off with machine gun fireand the boats returned to Farsi.

The Iranians attempted their only attack on atanker in the patrol area on July 12, 1988. Smallboats assaulted the Kuwait-bound PanamanianUniversal Monarch in international waters. Then, toescape American retribution, they went back acrossto their exclusion zone, where the rules of engage-ment did not permit U.S. warships or aircraft tooperate. Wimbrown VII and Hercules launched twoOH–58s, and the JTF commander, Rear AdmiralAnthony Less, gave the helicopters permission toenter the exclusion zone near Farsi. One helicopterreceived machine gun fire. The Americans returnedfire, striking the boat with a high-explosive rocketand leaving it dead in the water.


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hostile operations virtually ceased following the engage-ment at Middle Shoals Buoy

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With northern Gulf operations effectivelyshut down, the Iranians moved their small boatsto the south, around Abu Musa Island. The ideaof redeploying one of the barges there was re-jected because it spread forces too thin. Shortageswithin the SOF community prevented standingup another mobile base. But retaliation for theminestrike on USS Samuel B. Roberts in April 1988eliminated half of the operational Iranian fleetand destroyed the two major oil platforms usedto coordinate mining and small boat attacks.With few platforms and islands to use as hidingplaces, and the vast number of U.S. warships op-erating in the southern Gulf, the Iranians becamea minor annoyance more than a serious threat tothe shipping lanes.

The barges remained operational after aU.N.-sponsored ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq Wartook effect on August 20. A gradual reduction inforces in the north coincided with a general with-drawal of forces throughout the Persian Gulf asthe ceasefire held. Wimbrown VII reverted back toBrown and Root on Christmas Eve. Hercules re-mained in place. The Saudis expressed interest inleasing it for their forces, but they shelved the op-tion as the situation cooled down. Hercules wasreturned to Brown and Root in July 1989 afterbeing deployed for 21 months.

The unorthodox mobile sea base force suc-ceeded in shutting down Iranian operations in thenorthern Gulf. The development of the basesdemonstrates remarkable ingenuity, taking just 60days from initial concept to deployment. And inthe end, even the most ardent detractors admittedthat it was a radical and successful approach to seacontrol. Mobile sea-based operations will likely be-come more common. They will be joint, orientedto unanticipated threats, and employ assets in in-novative and unexpected ways.

Some lessons were immediately noted afteroperations in the Persian Gulf as others were stub-bornly resisted. While Army helicopters operatingfrom Navy vessels have subsequently becomemore common, these were the first such venturesin years. New tactics were needed. Problems ofcorrosion and the effects of shipboard electronicemissions on ordnance were unexpected. Many ofthese issues were worked out aboard the barges.For the Navy, the problems confronting their pa-trol boats led directly to the development of anew generation of craft to replace the MK–IIIs, thePatrol Craft Coastal. Its hull length, for example,had to be at least 100 feet so it could better ridethe rough seas of the Gulf.

The entire mobile sea base concept hadbeen strongly opposed by traditionalists withinthe Navy who simply could not grasp that thebarges were not ships but were more akin to is-lands or the fire support bases in Vietnam. Fur-ther, the leadership viewed the Iranian threatthrough a Cold War prism, though the Iranianfleet was hardly the Soviet navy. The bases repre-sented a strongly resisted move away from bluewater to brown water operations. While the lit-torals are at the heart of current naval doctrine,that was not the case in the 1980s. Yet on thisoccasion the Armed Forces managed to breakthrough the logjam of traditional thinking andfield the right force for the task at hand. Provingequally facile will be the great challenge offuture joint task forces. JFQ

N O T E S

1 Interview with Frank C. Seitz, Jr., “SS Bridgetown:The First Convoy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, vol.114, no. 5 (May 1988), p. 52.

2 COMMIDEASTFOR message, Subject: MEF ForceLevels, 062107Z August 1987.

3 Harold Bernsen, Memorandum for the Commanderin Chief, Central Command, Subject: GULF OPS, Sep-tember 18, 1987, in George B. Crist, Personal Papers,Marine Corps Historical Center.

4 George B. Crist, interview with author, March 18,1994.


MK–IIIs in northernPersian Gulf.

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The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf

by Dr. Edward J. Marolda Senior Historian, Naval Historical Center

Maintaining political stability and the free flow of oil to the global economy have been the overarching objectives of U.S. foreign policy in the Persian Gulf for almost half a century. The U.S. Navy has been one of the primary instruments of that policy, in both peace and war. Prologue to the War Between the establishment of the Middle East Force in 1949 and the outbreak of war in 1990, U.S. naval forces protected America’s interests in the region and helped develop international support for U.S. foreign policy goals. The continuous, albeit limited, American military presence in the Persian Gulf demonstrated to potential aggressors that in any confrontation they faced the prospect of war with a superpower. The Navy’s extended presence in the region generated political support for the United States among the economically vital but militarily vulnerable states on the Arabian Peninsula. Local leaders recognized the value of having U.S. warships positioned between them and their often-bellicose northern neighbors. They also came to consider naval forces that operated in international waters or required only minimal support facilities ashore as the most appropriate expression of U.S. ties to their countries. Their devout Muslim populations were not likely to accept large, predominantly Christian, and non-Arab air and ground forces operating from inland bases. The U.S. Navy’s performance during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988 strengthened these relations. The carrier and battleship task forces that operated in the North Arabian Sea and the cruisers, destroyers, and mine countermeasures ships of Joint Task Force Middle East in the gulf were largely responsible for maintaining the flow of oil from the producing countries of the region. The fleet also prevented Iran’s military power from advancing across the gulf. These positive actions helped dissipate the memory of Washington’s lack of resolve during the Tehran hostage crisis and the Lebanese civil war in the early 1980s, when significant doubt had developed about American staying power. The local Arab states would not forget this American constancy when Iraq threatened regional stability in 1990. The Navy’s long experience as a military shield in the gulf also fostered closer relations between the United States and its Western allies. Multinational operations during the Tanker War that involved naval units from the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands enhanced a sense of joint responsibility for the protection of international shipping and maintenance of the Persian Gulf oil trade. Hence, America’s traditional allies were well disposed to President Bush’s August 1990 proposal for international military action against Iraq. Not only did the tanker escort operation Earnest Will highlight growing American determination to oppose threats to U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf but the Navy’s increasing ability to support forceful action. More than four decades of preparing for war with the Soviet Union and engaging in Cold War operations had created a Navy of formidable fighting power.

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The experience had spurred development of the most advanced ships, aircraft, weapons, and equipment. The Tomahawk land attack missile, intended originally to carry nuclear warheads deep into the USSR, was equally capable of delivering conventional munitions against other nations. Missouri and Wisconsin had been recommissioned in the 1980s because of their ability to employ cruise missiles, but the battleships’ existing 16-inch guns were also ideal for bombardment missions. The sophisticated Aegis defensive system, designed to frustrate multi-dimensional Soviet attacks on the fleet, could handle lesser threats with great confidence. The Composite Warfare Commander concept, designed so carrier task force officers could control air strikes against distant Soviet targets and also defend their formation from enemy air, surface, and submarine attack, was also valid for combat against regional foes. The Cold War experience had inspired the U.S. Navy and allied navies to develop common operational and tactical procedures and compatible weapons and communication systems. After decades of combined exercises around the globe, the British, Argentine, Australian, and other navies were adept at operating in conjunction with the American fleet. Having coordinated with Western European military authorities in the loading, transportation, and delivery of materiel to NATO armies numerous times during the Cold War, the Navy’s Military Sealift Command was reasonably well-prepared to handle major transoceanic operations. Equally important to the readiness of the U.S. Navy in 1990 was its combat experience in the regional wars in Korea and Vietnam and lesser hostilities in such places as Lebanon, Grenada, Libya, the Persian Gulf, and Panama. U.S. naval air forces had become skilled at projecting power ashore and sinking fast attack craft. Sailors and marines were no strangers to amphibious warfare during the Cold War and the gunners on board the Iowa-class battleships had honed the skills needed for accurate bombardment and naval gunfire support. U.S. naval forces also refined tactics and techniques for oceangoing patrol operations involving Navy, Coast Guard, and allied air and sea forces. The operations of naval special warfare, harbor defense, explosive ordnance disposal, and salvage units also reflected the Navy’ experience in the regional conflicts of the Cold War. The near loss of carrier Forrestal off Vietnam and frigates Stark and Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf to fire, missiles, and mines reinforced the importance of thorough damage control training. Cruiser Vincennes’s missile shootdown of an Iranian airliner had driven home in only a few terrible minutes the vital importance to fleet air defense of sound human judgment. By August 1990 the officers and bluejackets manning the fleet’s Aegis and NTU antiair warfare systems were well trained in operating the equipment and coordinating their actions with Air Force E-3 AWACS units. Great Britain’s withdrawal of military forces from “east of Suez,” Iran’s revolutionary excesses, and the Soviet Union’s maritime penetration of the Indian Ocean and invasion of Afghanistan during the 1970s and 1980s prompted the Carter and Reagan administrations, and the Navy, to evaluate their resources for mounting military operations in the Central Command (CENTCOM) area. They were not heartened by the findings. There were no major U.S.-run

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ports, airfields, or logistic bases in the region and the distances from the East and West coasts of the United States could hardly have been greater. Armed with this understanding, the defense establishment strengthened the Carter Doctrine and the Reagan Corollary during the 1980s by creating maritime prepositioning squadrons, with combat-loaded ships deployed in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Marine forces based around the globe would be airlifted into the theater to take possession of the weapons and supplies delivered by the MPS ships. Deploying Marine rapid-reaction units to the combat arena was only one aspect of the sealift mission in a Persian Gulf conflict. The Navy was also responsible for transporting from the United States and other global sites an expeditionary army (minus the troops) of mechanized infantry, armored, and air assault divisions. The Navy then had to maintain the fighting forces in the field. To handle these tasks, the naval service administered the expenditure of over $7 billion worth of construction for the most modern ships, including eight advanced, fast sealift ships. The Navy also worked with the Maritime Administration to ensure that the Ready Reserve Force fleet was prepared to sustain a major U.S. overseas conflict. During the four decades of the Cold War that preceded the crisis with Iraq, the Navy developed a logistic support system that enabled its own combat forces to remain continuously deployed in waters far from the United States. Forward naval bases in the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean were important to this global establishment. The fleet, however, was not tied to shore bases, as it demonstrated during 1980s operations in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. A contingent of mobile logistic ships provided combatants, via underway replenishment, with the wherewithal to fight and remain on the line. Navy Shortcomings The Navy did not always take advantage of the Cold War experience, and this neglect hampered its effectiveness in the crisis with Iraq. The mine warfare operations in Korea and Vietnam did not set off the Navy’s alarm bells, as they should have. The relative ease with which the Navy’s MCM helicopters and surface units seemed to handle their duties masked the inadequacy of these platforms and their command and control establishment. Throughout the Cold War, the Navy relied on its European allies to carry the burden of coastal mine countermeasures while it prepared for blue water combat. The British, Belgian, French, and other navies built and put to sea the most advanced ships and equipment and the most intensively trained sailors. To prepare for a global conflagration with the Soviet Union this division of labor made sense, but the Navy had to expect it would be committed to coastal operations in the post-Cold War era. The damage by mines to merchant ship SS Bridgeton and frigate Samuel B. Roberts during 1987 and 1988 in the Persian Gulf briefly focused the Navy’s attention on mine warfare. As a result, the fleet refined mine hunting and sweeping tactics and procedures, and tested some new equipment. These efforts and the success of American counter mine actions during the last months of the Iran-Iraq War, however, fostered a complacent attitude in the Navy about its mine countermeasures capability. Consequently, the Navy was little better prepared in 1990 to deal with sea mines than it had been in 1987.

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The Navy’s experience confronting the Soviet threat did not spur the service to adjust its post-Cold War relationship to the U.S. command structure. Enactment of the Goldwater-Nichols legislation in 1986 increased the operational control by theater commanders (whatever their service) over naval and other component forces, but the Navy resisted any weakening of its traditional autonomy. Naval leaders were steeped in Mahanian operational concepts that envisioned flag officers directing grand fleet actions at sea, as they had in the cataclysmic World War II battles of Midway, Philippine Sea, and Leyte Gulf. As embodied in the Maritime Strategy of the late 1980s, fleet commanders would control the aircraft and missiles they dispatched from their ships against the Soviet heartland. Especially with regard to the Central Command, the Navy was not interested in long-term, fixed joint relationships. During Operation Earnest Will the naval command setup proved inadequate. To correct it, Washington combined the small staff of Commander Middle East Force with the new, still Navy-led, Joint Task Force Middle East. Soon after Iraq and Iran ceased their fire, however, the mission-oriented, short-term task force headquarters was disestablished. The experience of the Iran-Iraq War and the prospect of further conflict in the Persian Gulf suggested that the Navy needed a more permanent and capable command function in the region and a stronger, more durable relationship with the theater headquarters. Naval leaders in Washington, however, resumed their reliance on the Middle East Force for routine gulf operations and kept the low-ranking and under-staffed Commander Naval Forces, Central Command in Hawaii, far removed from both the Persian Gulf and CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida. The Navy expected that in the event of another conflict in the gulf the admirals leading the unified commands in the Atlantic and the Pacific would temporarily assign their naval forces to the Army or Marine general heading Central Command. In essence, the fleet’s warships, especially its carriers, would remain under Navy control. The Navy assigned few representatives to the staffs developing Operation Plan 1002 and taking part in Exercise Internal Look so the service was not fully attuned to Schwarzkopf’s philosophy of command and his views with regard to a conflict in the CENTCOM theater. The Navy’s reluctance to relinquish control of its forces to General H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., CINCCENT, and to interact with the Tampa headquarters lessened the command’s readiness to respond to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. Hardening the Shield The U.S. Navy’s presence in the Persian Gulf might have limited the scope of Saddam Hussein’s aggressive activity in the waters of the gulf, but it certainly did not deter his attack on Kuwait. Ivory Justice, a July 1990 exercise ordered by Washington, involved only two American frigates, several Air Force aircraft, and a few jet fighters of the United Arab Emirates. It could not be called a show of force. A swift and simultaneous movement of the Independence carrier battle group and other naval forces toward the Strait of Hormuz might have made a difference. National security policymakers, however, did not want a spotlight on American military power. When their low-key approach to the crisis was coupled with Ambassador Glaspie’s muted warning to Saddam, it is hardly surprising that the Iraqi generalissimo felt he had little to fear from American arms.

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While the fleet’s presence in the region did not deter Saddam’s attack on Kuwait, it did make clear to the Iraqi dictator that further advances could cost him dearly. In hindsight, Saddam probably had no intention of invading Saudi Arabia, but the inveterate risk-taker might have launched such an attack if powerful U.S. naval and air forces were not close at hand. Within days of the invasion of Kuwait, carrier aircraft were in range to help defend the Arabian Peninsula. On 15 August, just two weeks after Saddam’s assault on Kuwait, three MPS ships disembarked at al-Jubayl the equipment and supplies of a Marine expeditionary brigade. The troops arrived by air the next day. This response was quick, but not as quick as it should have been. The movement forward of these U.S. naval forces needed the consent of no other nation and could have been ordered shortly after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. General Powell and others in Washington, however, concerned about Saudi sensitivities, waited until 7 August and the official start of Desert Shield to order the action. On the 25th, the same day that Major General John I. Hopkins declared his 7th MEB ready for combat, the troops, armored vehicles, and 30 days of ammunition and supplies of another MEB began arriving at al-Jubayl. In short order, these two brigades were ready to fight to hold open the ports and airfields into which streamed an increasing flood of Army troops and Air Force tactical squadrons. The speedy deployment of the Marine expeditionary brigades to the distant operational theater affirmed the soundness of the maritime prepositioning concept and the wisdom of devoting considerable sealift and airlift resources to the program. During the tense days of August 1990, many observers concluded that Saudi Arabia was at great risk from a massive invasion by Iraqi armored forces and loss of the oil wells and refineries in the eastern reaches of the country. There was much less appreciation of the serious threat posed by the Iraqi military machine to the sea lanes of the Persian Gulf and to the Saudi and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) ports on its south shore. With 750 combat aircraft and approximately 165 naval vessels, 13 equipped with antiship missiles, the Iraqis had the ability to attack merchant ships in the waters of the gulf and to wreak havoc in the congested GCC harbors. Saddam’s jets could have reached the shipping lanes of the central gulf and the coastal sites within minutes from their bases in Kuwait and Iraq. Denied use of these vital ports, the UN coalition could not have deployed an expeditionary army to the Arabian Peninsula as quickly as it did. The Iranians possessed similar military resources and might have used the UN crisis with Saddam to close the Strait of Hormuz or, as they had during the Iran-Iraq War, threaten international shipping. Neither Baghdad nor Tehran initiated hostilities of that sort during Desert Shield, and for many reasons might not have. But, the powerful naval force that the coalition rapidly concentrated in the Persian Gulf and contiguous waters could only have counseled Iraqi and Iranian caution. Land-based aircraft formed an aerial umbrella over the gulf. On the surface, east of the Strait of Hormuz, steamed American aircraft carriers protected by U.S., British, Canadian, and Australian cruisers, destroyers, and frigates. Many of these warships were equipped with Aegis and other state-of-the-art radar systems, electronic countermeasures gear, surface-to-air missiles, and Phalanx close-in weapons systems. In coastal waters, GCC naval forces stayed on

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the lookout for fast craft or commercial vessels whose crews or passengers might have had hostile intent. Navy harbor defense, special warfare, and explosive ordnance disposal units, and Coast Guard port security units formed the final maritime line of defense in the key ports of Manama, al-Jubayl, and ad-Dammam. The coalition’s ability to counter enemy sea mines was a weak link in this defensive chain. Until mid-September, when British Hunt-class mine-hunting ships arrived on station, UN ships were vulnerable to Iraqi mines. The four-ship American MCM flotilla, carried to the gulf in a slow-moving vessel and shunted from port to port in search of an operating base, was not ready for action until long after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The UN coalition was able to dispatch strong ground forces to Saudi Arabia because of the absence of any enemy opposition to seaborne movement. Friendly control of the sea, however, is not a given; it has to be established. Throughout August, fleet units deployed in the Mediterranean and the Western Pacific weighed anchor and converged on the Middle Eastern hot spot. By the end of the month Naval Forces, Central Command consisted of two carrier battle groups (which operated most of the 319 Navy and Marine aircraft then in the theater), a pair of battleships, and 25 other naval vessels, many of them armed with Tomahawk land attack missiles. British, French, and Arab surface combatants complemented this American fleet. As some U.S. and allied warships steamed at flank speed for the Persian Gulf, other units replaced them in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the North Arabian Sea. Even though some governments were reluctant to involve their military forces in the confrontation with Iraq, no political commitment was required to demonstrate support for the UN stand by positioning naval forces in waters traversed by the ships of the allied expeditionary army. These latter deployments were prudent because the governments of Libya, Sudan, and Yemen, which fervently supported Saddam’s stand against the West, had the ability to hazard the UN response to Iraq’s invasion. The armed forces of these nations boasted more than 600 combat aircraft and a large number of missile-armed surface ships, submarines, and mine warfare vessels. These forces, or explosives-laden fast boats crewed by terrorists, could have attacked the sealift ships moving through the several constricted waterways around the Persian Gulf. But, with American and other combatants just off their shores, and carrier and land-based aircraft flying nearby, Libyan Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi and his ideological cohorts did not interfere with the UN sea line of communications. Hence, U.S. and coalition naval forces made a major contribution to the success of allied fortunes in Desert Shield by helping to deter further Iraqi aggression on land and sea and by establishing control of the oceans that gave the coalition access to the Arabian Peninsula. Increasing the Political and Military Pressure on Saddam The multinational embargo patrol, a naval blockade in all but name, proved to be a valuable weapon in the UN-U.S. arsenal. It did not compel Saddam to give up his Kuwait conquest, as its most fervent proponents hoped. But, the embargo patrol prevented the Iraqis from filling their war chest with imported aircraft, ships, missiles, ammunition, and the other necessities of combat.

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Of equal importance, the patrol operation enabled the international community to employ military force against Saddam, even if the UN member states were not yet ready to wage war against him. Most coalition governments readily allowed their navies to take part in offshore operations that involved minimal risk of casualties or political commitment. The successful conduct of the embargo patrol during Desert Shield made it easier for participating Western governments to persuade citizens that their naval forces were engaged in a righteous international effort. In addition, the patrol demonstrated to the Arab world that only in a measured and discriminating fashion were Western and Christian military contingents likely to use force against other Arabs. Ultimately, it also allowed President George H.W. Bush and other world leaders to argue that war was justified to liberate Kuwait, since the restrained application of military force represented by the embargo patrol failed to budge the Iraqi dictator. In short, the naval patrol helped the UN make the transition from peace to war. Some analysts contend that U.S. forces operated as discrete national contingents during the gulf crisis, so the UN effort cannot be described as a truly multinational, combined military enterprise. While there may be merit to this argument with regard to ground and air forces, it is far from accurate with regard to naval forces. U.S. Navy leaders generally believed that the integration of the allied naval forces was a major success story. This integration was especially true of the embargo patrol. American leaders convened monthly conferences of the naval forces taking part in the patrol and suggested various operational approaches. After years of interaction, the Americans had learned how to lead NATO and other naval commanders while respecting their individual national requirements. Many of the participating navies followed U.S. direction, if allowed to do so by their home governments. With a few exceptions, cooperation and consensus among the naval contingents characterized command and control of the embargo patrol. That relationship worked well in the Persian Gulf crisis. The situation did not require absolute operational control of the forces involved. Individual patrol sectors in the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and Persian Gulf were the responsibility of one or more navies, but interception task groups routinely comprised ships and aircraft from several nations. Non-American officers often served as on-scene commanders. It was not unusual for U.S. and Australian frigates, British Royal Marines, or other UN naval forces to cooperate in combined, high-seas interception operations. The participants worked out common procedures for identifying, hailing, stopping, and boarding suspect merchant ships and limiting the risk of hostilities. Normally, the presence of two or three warships, backed up by attack aircraft and armed helicopters loaded with combat-ready naval commandos and marines, was enough to stop a merchantman. But, the terms “vertical insertion” and “fast-roping” entered the lexicon of maritime patrol operations when the international team discovered that they could carry out their mission without the adverse political consequences associated with shooting up or sinking a ship that refused to stop for inspection. As the SS Ibn Khaldoon “peace ship” incident revealed, allied naval commanders had learned the importance of using minimal force to defuse antiwar demonstrations, which carried great potential for turning international opinion against the UN

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effort. The upshot of this effort was that a truly multinational force carried out the UN mandate and completely stopped Iraq’s overseas commerce. Conversely, the sea became a major highway over which flowed the warmaking resources of a huge allied expeditionary army. As during the wars in Korea and Vietnam, sealift remained the only way to deploy major forces overseas quickly and efficiently and then to sustain them. In little more than seven months the Navy’s Military Sealift Command deployed from the United States and elsewhere to the sands of Saudi Arabia 95 percent of the armored vehicles, attack helicopters, wheeled transport, heavy weapons, equipment, ammunition, and supplies for 10 combat divisions and many smaller formations. The Navy’s long-term preparation for the sealift mission bore fruit during Desert Shield. The specially designed fast sealift ships came on line as intended, loaded out Army armored vehicles and helicopters in American ports, sped across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and delivered their high-priority material to the operational theater. The ships returned to the United States and repeated the round-trip passage as many as seven times during Desert Shield. The fast sealift ships proved to be the stars of the operation, carrying 10 percent of all Desert Shield cargo. More important, they accomplished their primary purpose, which was to put heavy Army units on the ground quickly. The Ready Reserve Force fleet did its job but not without difficulty. The RRF lacked critical crewmen skilled in the operation of machinery in the older ships, some of which had not been adequately maintained. As a result, many of the crews had difficulty firing up the boilers of their ships, getting them to designated ports of embarkation on time, and keeping them in operation once underway. The RRF included plenty of older break-bulk freighters, but not enough roll on/roll off ships. Since the United States dominated the seas, however, foreign chartering firms did not hesitate to satisfy the American request for more ships. Foreign charters, faster to ports of embarkation and cheaper to operate than the American merchantmen, quickly made up the shortfall. Moreover, Japan, South Korea, and other maritime nations aided the sealift effort with their own merchant fleets. Port operations in the United States, Europe, and Saudi Arabia that involved the joint Transportation Command, Navy and Army commands in the United States and overseas, and the governments and military forces of many European and Arab nations were anything but smooth. Some ships arrived late at ports of embarkation while others arrived before there were cargoes for them. At several sites the port groups took too long to load ships, stowed cargo improperly, or scattered the equipment of one ground unit among a number of ships. The combined efforts of many people helped alleviate most of these problems. The military and civilian officials responsible for the sealift effort exploited their previous preparation and training to break log jams quickly and decisively. These officials had anticipated supporting NATO forces battling the Warsaw Pact armies on the central German plain, but they adapted their plans and operations to the Desert Storm mission. An important reason for the success of the sealift operation was that the UN coalition’s European and Arab members made their sophisticated transportation establishments available.

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The Germans, Belgians, Dutch, and GCC countries put their highways, railroads, canals, and port facilities at the disposal of the U.S. logistic commands. Even former Warsaw Pact nations pitched in with resources. With an enormous capacity to unload and store cargo, Saudi ports easily handled the tanks, armored personnel carriers, and pallets of ammunition and supplies that the MSC ships disgorged at the end of their journey. Unfortunately, neither the Army nor the Marine logistic commands ashore had enough trucks to transport armored vehicles, troops, and supplies to the front. Once again, international support proved a godsend. The Saudis and Japanese supplied the coalition with hundreds of heavy equipment transporters, trucks, and other vehicles. This timely assistance enabled General Schwarzkopf’s logisticians to complete the deployment of the half-million-strong allied expeditionary force to the northern Saudi border in time for the G-Day offensive into Kuwait. Along with the Military Airlift Command, which flew American troops into the battle zone, MSC deployed a major field army half way around the globe in little more than seven months. Gearing Up for Battle The Navy and the other U.S. armed services could have fought and beaten the Iraqis long before January 1991, but the task would have been harder and the cost higher. The Navy, like the other services, used the six months offered by Desert Shield to marshal powerful fleet units in the theater, fully arm and supply them, and bring active and reserve Sailors and Marines to fighting pitch. Even with six months to prepare for war, the Navy experienced significant operational difficulties, especially in the area of command and control. In keeping with its previous insistence on providing the flag officer who would lead CINCCENT’s naval forces in a major crisis in the gulf, in early August the Navy nominated the Pacific Command’s Commander Seventh Fleet to be COMUSNAVCENT. With no viable alternative, the Secretary of Defense approved the proposal. An emergency did not develop, but precious time was lost before Vice Admiral Henry H. Mauz Jr., his flagship, and much of his staff could deploy to the theater and get acclimated to the new operational environment. During much of Desert Shield the Navy’s top leadership saw the Persian Gulf, where the majority of the carriers would steam and where the commander of all CENTCOM naval forces hoisted his pennant, as its exclusive operational arena. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Frank B. Kelso and Mauz saw COMUSNAVCENT more as a fleet commander, executing a short-term mission than as General Schwarzkopf’s component commander. Thus, Mauz remained on board his flagship in the gulf and continued to manage his Western Pacific responsibilities as Commander Seventh Fleet. He did not establish a close personal relationship with Schwarzkopf or Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Charles Horner. The representative whom Mauz posted to Riyadh late in Desert Shield lacked the rank and aviation background to have any real impact on Schwarzkopf or Horner. The small groups of talented naval officers assigned to the CENTCOM staff and to the staff planning the air campaign were greatly outnumbered by their Air Force and Army counterparts. Admiral Kelso and his staff in Washington were not convinced that the UN coalition would initiate hostilities in mid-January 1991. Hence, the CNO authorized the 1 December 1990 relief of Mauz by Vice Admiral Stanley R. Arthur so the former could take up a new billet in the

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United States. This late change of command gave Arthur little time to get oriented to his forces, put his stamp on their direction, or prepare them for a war that most non-Navy observers believed close at hand. Arthur immediately appreciated the need for a closer, personal link with the theater commander. He also recognized that since the war against Iraq would be a joint campaign fought primarily on and over land, he needed to strengthen the Navy’s presence on the staffs in Riyadh and better integrate naval forces into the campaign plan. It was already too late. With the war liable to begin at any time, Arthur had no wish for his command to be caught in the middle of a headquarters shift or staff reorganization. Schwarzkopf and Arthur remained dissatisfied with the preparations made by Mauz and his staff for participation in the joint-service, multinational campaign. Fortunately for the Navy, Arthur, a combat-tested leader, possessed all the qualities needed to put Naval Forces, Central Command on a solid war footing. U.S. naval forces trained intensively during Desert Shield. Afloat forces carried out numerous antisurface, antiair, naval gunfire support, combat search and rescue, and amphibious exercises with other coalition units. Central Command put on the several highly publicized amphibious exercises not only to divert Iraqi attention from the desert flank, but also to prepare Navy and Marine units for actual amphibious operations, should they be necessary. In some cases, ongoing operations added a strong dose of realism to this training. Formations of Iraqi aircraft went “feet wet” and briefly headed for the fleet on numerous occasions during Desert Shield. Aegis and NTU cruisers and Navy E-2C, Marine and Canadian F/A-18, and Air Force AWACs aircraft reacted quickly to the aerial threat. The routinely fast and coordinated response by strong UN antiair units during Desert Shield may have been one reason why the Iraqis launched only a single over-water attack during Desert Storm. The Navy’s training for participation in the Desert Storm air campaign, however, was a mixed bag. Officers and enlisted personnel of Rear Admiral Riley D. Mixson’s Red Sea carriers, in theater for a long time and dependent on Air Force tanker and AWACs support for the overland approach to Iraq, worked with their Air Force counterparts to fit Navy operations into the joint air campaign plan. The Saratoga and John F. Kennedy attack, fighter, and electronic countermeasures aircraft rehearsed strike missions, large-scale aerial tanking evolutions, and other operations with comparable Air Force units. This interaction minimized wartime differences between Battle Force Yankee and the Air Force. The carriers of Rear Admiral Daniel P. March’s Persian Gulf force were less well prepared to take part in the joint air campaign against Iraq. During much of Desert Shield, Battle Force Zulu air units carried out unilateral exercises in the North Arabian Sea. Since March’s air units would approach their targets in southeastern Iraq and Kuwait primarily over water, they considered it more important to coordinate their operations with Navy aerial tankers and E-2C aircraft than with similar Air Force units. March had little face-to-face contact with the leaders and staff officers in Riyadh. Battle Force Zulu’s lack of adequate training for coordinated, joint-service air operations complicated the Navy’s participation in the air war.

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While a sooner move of the carrier battle force into the Persian Gulf might have improved the coordination of air operations, naval leaders were rightly cautious about hazarding their capital ships in such a way. When asked just before Desert Shield about the feasibility of operating carriers in the gulf, commanding officers of ships that had made brief forays into those confined waters in the 1980s recommended against it. Vice Admiral Mauz was concerned throughout Desert Shield about the threat from Iraqi missile-armed aircraft, fast attack vessels, and shore-based Silkworm missiles, and Iran’s potential for mischief. As with Generals Powell and Schwarzkopf, the Vietnam experience had had a marked influence on Mauz, Arthur, March, and numerous other naval commanders. They abhorred the waste of lives and resources that characterized the failed war in Southeast Asia and were determined to limit needless risks to their Sailors, Marines, ships, and aircraft. Moreover, they understood the impact that the loss of even one ship or helicopter loaded with Marines could have on American sentiment and support for the administration’s foreign policy. But, once these admirals decided that the threat was manageable and that the carriers could carry out flight operations in the obstacle-strewn gulf, they acted boldly. Mauz, for instance, not his superiors in Washington or Riyadh, pushed for the deployment of carriers Independence and Midway into the gulf during Desert Shield. Arthur followed suit. Eventually, four carriers launched aircraft from inside the Strait of Hormuz and just 185 miles southeast of Kuwait City. Logistically supporting their forward-based combat forces in this distant region of the globe was not a big concern of these naval leaders. Backed up by facilities in the United States and the major overseas bases at Subic Bay, Naples, and Diego Garcia, naval logistic forces maintained a steady flow forward of personnel, fuel, ammunition, and supplies. The warships in the Central Command theater could count on the flotilla of oilers, ammunition, stores, repair, and salvage ships, fleet resupply aircraft, and shore-based logistic support sites to keep them in the fight for the duration of the war. A dearth of precision-guided munitions and slow mail delivery to some fleet units were exceptions to the generally positive performance of the logistic establishment. By the start of hostilities, the Navy’s medical establishment was well prepared to minister to the needs of the Sailors and Marines under Vice Admiral Arthur and Lieutenant General Walter Boomer, Commander Marine Forces, Central Command. Staffed by hundreds of highly skilled and motivated healers, most of them naval reservists, the hospital ships Mercy and Comfort, three shore-based fleet hospitals, and several medical battalions stood ready for action. Thousands of hospital corpsmen lined up on the northern Saudi border alongside Marine infantrymen. Disease prevention teams cut short an outbreak of diarrhea among troops in the desert and other medical staffs sold most Sailors and Marines on the benefits of constant water consumption and good field hygiene. The Navy’s medical contingent in the gulf lacked certain critical supplies, some chemical protective gear, and reliable field radios, but in general was prepared for war. Desert Shield was not an easy time. More than 30 American Sailors involved in Desert Shield died as a result of mishaps, a reflection of the danger inherent even in peacetime naval operations. Other Sailors had to endure exhausting “port and starboard” watches, blistering heat and humidity, fouling sand, and often rough seas to ready their ships, aircraft, and weapons for battle. Marines, Seabees, SEALs, corpsmen, and other personnel ashore enjoyed few creature

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comforts or diversions from the daily grind. Recognizing Arab and Muslim sensitivities, naval personnel accepted restrictions on their own political expression, religious observances, and social behavior. Despite these hardships, the morale of America’s Sailors on the eve of Desert Storm was high. The naval establishment had, for the most part, trained them well for the coming fight, equipped them with the most modern weapons and equipment, and provisioned them with all manner of essential supplies. Most Navy men and women had confidence in themselves, their shipmates, and their leaders. Belief in the righteousness of the UN mission was widespread. Their common objective was to finish the enemy quickly and decisively and then return home to waiting families and friends. The Navy, along with the other U.S. and allied military services, was ready on 17 January 1991 to eject the Iraqis from Kuwait and destroy Saddam Hussein’s war machine. Littoral Combat in the Persian Gulf Not for the first time in the twentieth century, the U.S. Navy fought the Persian Gulf War as part of a joint-service and multinational team that executed one of the most exceptional campaigns in military history. With Americans in the lead, coalition forces restored Kuwait to its government and people and severely limited Saddam Hussein’s ability to threaten regional peace. The Navy and the other joint and combined forces reduced the Iraqi air force by more than half, eliminated the Iraqi navy as a fighting force, destroyed 4,200 tanks, armored personnel carriers, and artillery pieces, and killed, wounded, or captured perhaps 100,000 Iraqi troops. Conversely, NAVCENT did not suffer the sinking of a single ship and only lost a half-dozen aircraft. Six naval air crewmen were killed in action. The Iraqis shot down seven Marine aircraft and killed or wounded 110 Marines. The Air War Naval power was fundamental to the success of the Desert Storm air offensive. The Navy’s Tomahawk land attack missile, employed in many of the most critical strike operations of Desert Storm, added a new dimension to the traditional Navy mission of projecting power ashore. Battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines positioned in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and Eastern Mediterranean launched these weapons. Without risking a single naval aviator, the fleet units were able to strike targets with reasonable accuracy hundreds of miles from the sea in heavily defended Baghdad. They were not super weapons. Needing greater penetration and explosive power during the Gulf War, the TLAMs did not always neutralize their targets. Moreover, the Iraqis were able to shoot down some of the missiles. Still, the majority of the successfully launched TLAMS survived to damage or destroy their targets. Validated in war, the Navy’s land attack missile significantly strengthened America’s strike warfare arsenal. Carrier squadrons, fighting alongside other American and coalition air units, brought devastating firepower to bear against the enemy’s warmaking establishment in Baghdad and throughout Iraq. The air campaign severely damaged Saddam’s national command, control, communications, power-generation, and integrated air defense systems; oil refining installations; airfields and aircraft shelters; and naval facilities. The coalition’s air forces also leveled those

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Iraqi facilities that intelligence had identified as involved in the production of weapons of mass destruction. The Navy made a special contribution to the air campaign by helping defeat Iraq’s integrated air defense network in the early stages. Before the war the Navy’s U.S.-based SPEAR intelligence group had suggested that the key to success would be neutralization of Iraq’s radar-directed, surface-to-air missile system. This analysis was correct. Following up on this appreciation, Lieutenant General Horner used Navy tactical air launched decoys and Air Force-operated Navy drones to fool the enemy into thinking they were coalition aircraft. The Iraqis wasted scores of precious surface-to-air missiles on false targets. In addition, the Navy’s HARM air-to-surface missiles destroyed many of those radars that dared to activate (unfortunately some hit a few coalition radars). And, the Navy’s carrier-based EA-6B Prowler electronic countermeasures aircraft proved to be one of the real superstars of the war, helping protect coalition strike aircraft by jamming Iraqi radar signals. Other naval aircraft helped reduce the Iraqi army in Kuwait. As Commander Battle Force Zulu moved his carriers ever closer to the target areas, attacks on the enemy’s field forces grew in intensity. Marine AV-8 Harriers and F/A-18 Hornets used Mavericks, and Navy A-6 Intruders used their FLIRs and 500-pound laser-guided bombs in “tank-plinking” strikes that by G-Day had severely mauled the enemy’s armored forces. The naval services could have done greater damage to the enemy if they had had more precision-guided munitions in the theater. Not all missions, however, required this relatively expensive ordnance. General-purpose bombs were the optimum weapons for reducing the battle worthiness of the enemy’s field army. Even though “ancient,” the Korean War and Vietnam War vintage Mark 80 series of general-purpose bombs, 5-inch Zuni and 2.75-inch rockets, fuel air explosives, and Walleyes proved almost as good as the Rockeyes for this mission. With A-6s dropping all manner of “dumb” bombs by night, and F/A-18s, AV-8s, and other coalition aircraft bombing by day, the helpless Iraqi troops got little respite from Horner’s aerial onslaught. Navy and Marine aircraft also dropped leaflets as part of a sophisticated psychological warfare effort. Enemy morale and military effectiveness suffered badly from this constant attention. By the last days of the war, carrier aircraft and both ship-based and shore-based Marine aircraft were launching numerous strikes against the Iraqi army as it fled from Kuwait City along the “highway of death.” Navy and Marine commanders, having digested the Vietnam and other Cold War experiences, generally employed their ordnance with precision and restraint. There were few civilian casualties and minimal destruction of non-military targets during the war. Aside from obvious humanitarian concerns, naval leaders understood how bombing inaccuracy might enrage the enemy population and generate domestic and international opposition to the UN mission. As Lieutenants Mark Fox and Nick Mongillo demonstrated with their F/A-18s, Navy fighters were just as capable of shooting down enemy jets as Air Force F-16s and F-15s. Navy fighters did not score additional fixed-wing kills during the war, however. Horner and his staff knew that the electronic gear on Air Force fighters could differentiate between friendly and enemy aircraft, but they were not as confident about the Navy’s IFF equipment. Naval leaders placed greater faith in their interceptors. Nevertheless, since there were more than

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enough Air Force units to handle those relatively small number of Iraqi fighters that elected to “dog fight,” Horner wisely chose not to employ other coalition aircraft and risk accidental, or “blue-on-blue” shootdowns. If the Air Force was unsure about the Navy’s IFF equipment, it had great confidence in Navy-designed weapons. The Sidewinder and Sparrow air-to-air missiles developed by the Naval Weapons Center at China Lake, California, performed especially well and figured prominently in the coalition’s 38 aerial victories. As critics have observed, the A-7 and A-6 attack aircraft had made their operational debuts during the Vietnam War and hence lacked the more advanced avionics and weapons systems of the stealthy F-117. These Navy jets were reaching the end of their useful service lives. Despite their age, they performed various missions with marked effectiveness. The Navy’s last two A-7 Corsair squadrons, whose deactivation was postponed for Desert Storm, did not lose a plane to enemy action, and they employed with skill most of the weapons in the aerial arsenal, including precision-guided munitions, general-purpose bombs, and 20-millimeter guns. The venerable A-6 Intruder was clearly the naval services’ workhorse for strike warfare during Desert Storm. Navy and Marine A-6s carried 10,000 pounds of ordnance, much more than the F-117, operated in smoke-filled skies, bad weather, and at night, and flew long distances without aerial refueling. Their FLIR equipment was especially effective at nighttime spotting of stationary Iraqi vehicles. A-6Es were also vital because their laser designators helped other naval aircraft drop laser-guided bombs accurately. The F/A-18 Hornet, even though its bomb-carrying capacity and range were inadequate for deep-strike missions, performed well in battlefield interdiction operations. The AV-8 could only operate effectively at low level, which made it vulnerable to enemy air defense weapons. The Harrier’s ability to fly from unimproved airstrips and from assault ships close offshore, however, made it especially responsive to the requirements of Marine ground commanders. Battle Force Zulu’s four carriers were able to add their offensive punch to the air campaign, in part because the air defense umbrella established by the coalition fleet allowed the capital ships to move right up to the enemy’s coast. U.S. naval leaders have concluded that a determined air assault on the fleet would probably have damaged or even sunk some coalition ships, especially in the early stages of Desert Shield when coalition air defenses in the gulf were not robust. By the start of Desert Storm, however, SAM-armed U.S. Aegis/NTU cruisers; British, Australian, Canadian, and Dutch warships; and Navy, Marine, Air Force, British, and Canadian early warning and patrol planes, backed up by fighters, saturated the northern gulf. The Iraqi air force had to test the defensive perimeter in the gulf only once to discover that the coalition’s seaborne defenses were as impervious as those on land. The shootdown of two Iraqi Mirage jets on 24 January, while exposing some command and control shortcomings, highlighted the resiliency and depth of the allied air defenses. Navy surface and air units and Air Force AWACS planes also monitored hundreds of aircraft flying over the gulf every day for the seven months of Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Of the 65,000 sorties monitored by allied forces, none involved a mid-air collision of coalition aircraft.

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The Navy had its share of operational difficulties during the air campaign, but its battle commanders and staffs demonstrated true professionalism in diagnosing most problems and quickly correcting them. For instance, in the first days of Desert Storm, the carrier navy realized that its tactical approach to strike operations was wrong. Missions carried out at low level, in keeping with prewar training, resulted in the loss or damage of a number of planes. The Royal Air Force suffered as well in its low-level airfield attacks. Meanwhile, the allied onslaught had neutralized the enemy’s air defenses above 10,000 feet, affording the coalition a virtual sanctuary at the higher altitudes. Vice Admiral Arthur, based on his own combat experience in Vietnam, recognized that the situation demanded an immediate change of course. A consummate wartime fleet commander, Arthur generally gave his subordinate officers the latitude they needed to fight their forces. But, as in this case, he did not hesitate to step in when decisive action was called for. He immediately advised his air wing commanders to forego the costly low-level tactic and employ their aircraft from the higher reaches of the Iraqi sky. Aircraft losses declined as a result. So too did bombing effectiveness. Naval aircrews had not been well trained for such missions and naval aircraft, electronic targeting systems, and aerial ordnance had not been configured for high-level strike operations. Many Rockeye bombs dropped from the higher altitudes, for instance, did not explode when they reached the ground. Another hindrance to bombing effectiveness was the enemy’s skill at cover and deception. Like the Communists in the Vietnam air war, the Iraqis positioned armored vehicles, trucks, and missile launchers made of wood at key locations; painted black “holes” in airfield runways; and employed ferries, pontoons, and earthen causeways to move supplies across the Euphrates and other critical rivers. The Navy and the Air Force had a difficult time destroying the highway bridges between Baghdad and the front during the early weeks of the air campaign. Frequently, several strikes were required to knock out the durable, multi-span bridges. But the Navy-Air Force experience benefited the later “bridge busting” operations of the Royal Air Force. By the end of Desert Storm the combined strike effort had eliminated 75 percent of the bridges between the Iraqi capital and southern Iraq. For the most part, the carrier forces were able to quickly adjust their tactics, aircraft, and weapons systems to the demands of the campaign. The Navy and the Air Force also had difficulty tracking down Saddam’s missile launchers that propelled high-explosive SCUD warheads into the heart of Israel and Saudi Arabia. This massive effort diverted aircraft from other vital missions and at the tactical level produced no tangible results—there is no evidence that coalition aircraft destroyed any Iraqi launchers. Convinced that the allies were serious about locating and destroying the weapons, however, the Israelis stayed out of the war, and their decision had great strategic value. Saddam did not succeed in splitting the coalition of Christian and bitterly anti-Israeli Arab forces.

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The Navy also suffered with the other services from the lack of accurate and timely battle damage assessments. Because of over compartmentalization, different service priorities, and the overwhelming volume of data available, the intelligence agencies in Washington and CENTCOM’s J-2 in Riyadh were often unable to deliver timely information to naval forces on the line. Naval commanders in the Persian Gulf were also frustrated with the dearth of satellite intelligence on the basing and movement of aircraft on their northern flank in Iran. Moreover, the TARPS pods carried by a number of its F-14 Tomcats provided the fleet with good tactical intelligence, but there were not enough of these specially equipped aircraft in the operational theater. As in all of America’s modern conflicts, interservice problems arose during the Persian Gulf War. From the first days of Desert Shield, General Schwarzkopf made it clear that he wanted Lieutenant General Horner and the Riyadh-based staff of the Joint Force Air Component Commander to control Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps air units assigned to Central Command. Horner and most other Air Force officers, in keeping with their views on air power, were comfortable with this centralized control. The Navy, because of its traditional stress on decentralized handling of air power, did not take easily to JFACC management. Some naval officers thought that the Air Force-heavy JFACC staff did not understand how to make optimum use of the Navy’s primary strike weapons, the carrier planes and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Others feared that the Desert Storm experience would lead to greater Air Force control of carrier forces in the future and hurt the Navy’s ability to compete for increasingly scarce defense dollars. The Navy also had trouble working with the air tasking order, at least initially. Lacking compatible communications equipment, the carriers could not easily receive the lengthy Riyadh-generated document. Navy staff officers also found the large, daily menu of air strikes unwieldy. Moreover, Navy and Marine air staffs thought that the ATO would not be able to handle fast-changing battlefield situations. Carrier and shore-based naval air staffs, however, adapted their operations to the ATO process. They had to. Only the ATO could adequately handle the 2,500 daily sorties over Iraq, Kuwait, and the Arabian Peninsula. The Navy had no comparable mechanism. In fact, the battle groups and individual carriers were prompted to organize “strike cells” and refine the process by which they nominated targets to Riyadh. Horner also accommodated the needs of the naval services. The general, no air power ideologue, did not object to Arthur’s directing over-water operations, particularly the assault on the Iraqi navy and the air defense of the right flank. Horner also allowed Major General Royal N. Moore Jr. to manage most of the missions in Kuwait of his 3d Marine Aircraft Wing. Still, from the start friction dogged the Navy and Air Force staffs managing the air war. Mixson’s Battle Force Yankee, having trained extensively with the Air Force in Desert Shield, worked reasonably well with the JFACC. Relations between Battle Force Zulu and Riyadh, however, were strained. The causes were many: the inadequacy of Battle Force Zulu’s preparation for a joint air war; different service combat doctrines; parochialism on both sides; poor fleet-to-shore communications; the shortage of Navy officers in Riyadh with sufficient authority; and the small number of Navy personnel on the JFACC staff.

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One particular source of irritation was Battle Force Zulu’s dependence on Air Force aerial tankers for the strike missions into Iraq and portions of Kuwait. The Navy did not believe that the battle force carriers received their fair share of tanking support in the initial phase of the air war. One can rightly question allocation priorities when so many of the Air Force’s tankers were committed to refueling the B-52s (whose bomb drops were fairly inaccurate until late in the campaign) on their long round trips from Diego Garcia, Spain, and the United States. Another problem was that some of the Navy and Air Force aerial refueling equipment and fuel was incompatible. Both services, however, took successful steps to harmonize refueling operations. In contrast to their staffs, Arthur and Horner had few disagreements. For the most part, Arthur’s dealings with Schwarzkopf also remained cordial and professional. The one major exception was the latter’s strong reaction to the fleet’s sinking of Iraqi oil tankers. The admiral was justifiably concerned with the danger that these ships potentially posed to Sailors and Marines conducting amphibious operations. The general, of course, knew there would be no amphibious assault on Kuwait. He feared that the Navy’s actions might take the heat of international opinion off Saddam for his deliberate release of oil into the gulf and might cast the coalition as an ocean polluter. Again, with a few exceptions, accommodation and cooperation were much more typical of interservice relations than conflict. Despite their disagreements, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and Army commanders and staffs worked together to carry out a crushing air campaign. The Maritime Assault on Kuwait The maritime campaign mounted in the northern Persian Gulf and the coastal reaches of Kuwait riveted the enemy’s attention on the seaward flank. Believing that Saddam was especially fearful of a U.S. Marine assault on the coast of Kuwait, General Schwarzkopf directed his naval component commander to reinforce the Iraqi dictator’s fears. Each phase of Vice Admiral Arthur’s maritime campaign focused on that objective. The first stage, clearing enemy forces and defenses from the northern gulf, got off to a slow start. Horner had fully committed Battle Force Zulu to the air war ashore, and until Theodore Roosevelt arrived in the gulf, Arthur and March lacked enough aircraft to search effectively for Iraqi combatants. One measure taken against enemy naval vessels was short-lived. On the second day of the war Ranger aircraft mined the approaches to the primary operating bases of the Iraqi navy. Even though the Iraqi command had already dispersed some of its combatants for protection along the coast and among the islands of the northern gulf, Arthur’s forces had the ability, through intensive and repeated mine-laying activity, to stifle the movement of enemy naval vessels. But U.S. naval officers have not always been enamored with the potential of offensive mine warfare. The admiral was also disturbed by the loss of a pilot and plane during the low-level mine-laying operation. Finally, he was concerned that there were too many mines already in the water, even though only American mines had been dropped there (presumably set for automatic self-sterilization). The upshot was that Arthur ruled out further American mine-laying operations.

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Arthur, however, did impress upon his principal subordinates the importance of the offensive aspect of the antisurface mission and assigned the energetic Rear Admiral Ronald J. “Zap” Zlatoper to direct operations. Zlatoper and his local area antisurface warfare officer, Captain G. T. Forbes, put together a hard-hitting, offensive campaign employing the most effective aircraft, weapons, and ships in his arsenal. Coalition ships with long-range radar, combat aircraft, and patrol planes searched the harbors, inland waterways, and seaways of the northern gulf for enemy naval combatants. Once they made contact, the allied patrol forces guided ship-based Army OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, British Lynx, and Navy LAMPS helicopters to prospective targets. These British-American teams then used their innovative hunter/killer tactics and advanced radars, mast-mounted sights, night-vision goggles, video cameras, and Sea Skua and Hellfire missiles to locate, identify, and destroy the Iraqi foes. Most operations routinely occurred after dark, because in the Gulf War the U.S. Navy, like the other armed services, was supreme in nighttime warfare. Coalition naval forces were the first to capture enemy troops when Commander Dennis G. Morral’s American-Kuwaiti task unit seized the platforms in the ad-Dorra oilfield. The crews of Nicholas and Istiqlal found that most of their 23 Iraqi prisoners were in sad physical shape and eager to surrender. This impression was reinforced on 24 January when Curts, Leftwich, and Nicholas and their embarked SEAL and Army helicopter teams captured 75 Iraqi troops on and around Qurah Island. Thus, even before the battle of Khafji there were clear signs that enemy troops were badly supported, demoralized, and unlikely to put up fierce resistance to UN ground forces. These operations also demonstrated to American commanders that Arab fighting men would be valuable members of the international team. There was a little known but important maritime dimension to the Battle of Khafji. U.S. and British naval aircraft eliminated an enemy boat force moving south along the coast toward the Saudi town and joined other coalition units in destroying the armored columns thrusting toward Khafji and the northern Saudi border. Then, in the “Bubiyan Turkey Shoot,” American, British, and Canadian aircraft bloodied the surviving vessels of the Iraqi fleet as they attempted to reach safety in Iranian territorial waters. The gulf experience laid to rest the old argument that small, fast, and highly maneuverable enemy missile craft would make littoral waters too dangerous for oceangoing navies. In a few short weeks, coalition naval forces destroyed or forced into Iranian hands more than 140 enemy vessels, which included most of the larger units in the Iraqi navy and every one of its 13 missile-launching vessels. After clearing the enemy from the northern gulf, Admiral Arthur’s forces proceeded to the next stage of the effort to fix Iraqi eyes on the sea. Beginning in early February 1991 the Battle Force Zulu carriers, as scheduled in the ATO, intensified their air attacks on targets in Kuwait and Arthur moved the fleet ever closer to the hostile shore. Mine countermeasures forces cleared lanes through suspected minefields for Missouri and Wisconsin, warships the Iraqis probably expected to accompany an amphibious force. For several weeks before the ground assault into Kuwait, these battleships signaled the coalition’s naval presence by lofting their shells into Iraqi defenses ashore. Like the Tomahawk land attack missiles, the battleships’ UAVs greatly improved the Navy’s ability to project power ashore with precision and no risk to naval

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personnel. Because of their especially thick protective armor, these ships could survive hits by enemy shells, bombs, missiles, and mines that would sink other less endowed surface combatants. Complementing the battleships’ defenses was the firepower of their escorts, as demonstrated when British frigate Gloucester’s Sea Dart surface-to-air missiles destroyed an Iraqi Silkworm launched against Missouri. Weeks before then, British and American MCM forces had worked to clear additional lanes and fleet staging areas in the suspected minefields off Kuwait. General Schwarzkopf’s prewar order forbidding reconnaissance flights over the northern gulf compelled the fleet to operate with imprecise information about the outer boundaries and composition of the minefields. The Navy paid a price for this ignorance. Only several hours apart, Tripoli, ironically the mother ship for the six American MCM helicopters, and cruiser Princeton struck mines that severely damaged both vessels. Damage control skills honed by American Sailors since the Vietnam War enabled crewmen and experts flown out to the ships to keep them afloat and in position until relieved by other units. Conventional wisdom has it that Iraqi sea mines stopped the Navy from launching an amphibious assault” on Kuwait, but that appreciation is false. Schwarzkopf had long before ruled out a landing on the heavily fortified and defended coastline unless it was necessary. He did not want to destroy the commercial and residential facilities that crowded the shore south of Kuwait City. On 2 February 1991, Schwarzkopf made it clear to his chief subordinates that he would not order an amphibious landing on the coast of Kuwait. Neither Arthur nor Boomer pushed for a major landing, even though Marine Commandant Al Gray and his representatives pressed hard for it. Indeed, Arthur directed the use of an LPH, a ship that was critical to amphibious operations, as a mine countermeasures support platform. Nor did the mines preclude a secondary mission, the amphibious seizure of Faylaka Island. Helicopters based on board the amphibious ships could have flown over the mines to deploy Marines on the island. Ultimately, battleship bombardments, naval air strikes, and helicopter overflights were all that was needed to persuade the Iraqi garrison on Faylaka to surrender. Had it been necessary for the MCM force to rapidly clear lanes through the minefields, however, there was great probability that ships in the MCM force and in the following amphibious flotilla would have been damaged or sunk. The presence of sea mines off the coast of Kuwait limited the battleships’ ability to provide naval gunfire support. The relatively thin-hulled destroyers and frigates could not be used at all for that mission. Enemy mines also put two important warships out of action and delayed and complicated naval operations. The American capability to execute mine countermeasures in the Persian Gulf was sadly deficient. Avenger, lead ship of a new class, had mechanical and magnetic “signature” problems, as did some of the older ocean minesweepers. The MCM staff in the gulf was an ad hoc group only recently formed. Inadequate planning for the MCM phase of an amphibious assault on the mainland caused British naval officers to question the soundness of American tactical leadership, the only significant instance of such dissatisfaction during Desert Storm. Tellingly, General Schwarzkopf, the theater commander, and his naval component commander, Arthur, asserted

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several times after the war that the Navy’s MCM force just did not do the job that they wanted done. Adapting the Cold War-era composite warfare commander concept to the handling of naval forces in offensive littoral operations led to some confusion among commanders about responsibilities. Theoretically, Rear Admiral March led all U.S. naval forces in the gulf, in keeping with the age-old principle of unity of command. But in practice he had to share command and control with Rear Admiral Fogarty. March focused on the air war and Fogarty on the mine countermeasures, naval gunfire support, and amphibious aspects of the maritime campaign. March’s battle leaders complained about the difficulty of getting timely authorization to attack enemy vessels. Fogarty’s task group commanders were especially confused about which superior command was responsible for protecting their ships from enemy air attack. Needlessly complicating the command and control picture was the Navy’s routine rotation of key commanders sometimes only days before the start of critical operations. Despite the mined waters, in mid-February Arthur positioned the 31 ships of Vice Admiral John B. LaPlante’s Amphibious Task Force, with Major General Harry W. Jenkins’ 4th and 5th MEBs and 13th MEU (SOC) embarked, in close proximity to the coalition front opposite Kuwait. This powerful and mobile force enabled the theater commander not only to threaten the length of Saddam’s coastal flank but also to reinforce coalition formations on land. To convince the enemy that a landing was about to occur, the fleet increased its level of activity in the northern gulf on the day before the general offensive into Kuwait and for the next two days. Carrier aircraft and battleships rained bombs and shells on enemy troops on the mainland and on Faylaka Island. On successive days, attack aircraft and helicopters based in carriers and amphibious assault ships approached the hostile shore as if to inaugurate a landing. Naval special warfare units simulated assaults on likely landing beaches. In these operations, Navy SEALs operated with the traditional derring-do that they first demonstrated in Vietnam. But, having learned from their Cold War experiences, the naval special warriors carefully planned and rehearsed their operations. They accomplished their hazardous missions without losing a man. The amphibious deception worked to perfection. The enemy had wasted untold resources constructing bunkers and other fortifications and installing wire entanglements, minefields, and beach obstacles. The Iraqis also emplaced five antiship missile batteries and hundreds of artillery pieces on the coast. Of greatest importance, the enemy positioned seven divisions on that ultimately dormant front north and south of Kuwait City, delayed redeploying these critical forces until too late to influence the land battle, and ignored the exposed desert flank around which rumbled Lieutenant General Frederick Franks’ armored behemoth. The gulf maritime campaign was truly a combined endeavor. In contrast to the embargo patrol units, with which Arthur employed a “cooperative” command system to carry on the work of the multinational patrol, COMUSNAVCENT directed the combat operations of British, Canadian, Australian, Dutch, and Kuwaiti naval forces in the gulf. The ships and aircraft of his coalition allies did not steam in a separate “foreign” flotilla but fought in fully integrated task

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groups that exploited national strengths. In short, these allied warships proceeded in tandem through the hazardous reaches of the northern gulf, and some of these ships together traded fire with the enemy. As they had in almost every major American land campaign since the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France during World War I, Marine and Army divisions fought side by side during the final assault into Kuwait. Lieutenant General Boomer’s I MEF was an integral part of the coalition’s huge ground army that liberated Kuwait. Nevertheless, the Marine formation was an expeditionary force that could neither deploy far from the sea nor fight without substantial Navy involvement. The naval services gave strong ship and shore-based aircraft support to the Marine divisions, in part because the latter lacked armored and artillery forces that were as powerful as the Army’s. The Marines also counted on naval gunfire support, which the battleships provided, if only for a short time during the ground offensive. Much of their 16-inch fire was directed at targets in the enemy rear or in support of the Arab forces on the coastal road. Integral to Marine operations in the land campaign was the 3d Naval Construction Regiment that, with Marine engineer units, established air strips, ammunition dumps, and logistic sites, opened roads through the desert, and braved enemy fire to widen lanes through the Saddam Line. Also sharing danger with the Marines were Navy chaplains, medical corpsmen, and field hospital personnel, whose hard work and skillful planning had prepared them well for the desert war. Behind the lines and out to sea were the fleet hospitals, medical battalions, and hospital ships. They stood ready with advanced diagnostic and surgical equipment and well-trained professionals to handle thousands of wounded Marines. Fortunately, they never had to. The coalition offensive into Kuwait and southern Iraq completed the destruction of the Iraqi army begun on 17 January 1991. The air campaign had devastated Iraq’s forces in the Kuwait Theater of Operations, and by the time of the coalition’s ground offensive communication between front line Iraqi units was problematic. Saddam’s regular soldiers suffered badly from lack of food, warm clothing, and basic equipment, and as a result, the morale of the officers and men had plummeted. When the coalition’s mechanized juggernaut stormed across the Kuwait and Iraq borders on 24 February, it quickly rolled over the infantry divisions in the enemy’s first line of defense. The forces to the rear, however, including most of the Republican Guard divisions, still had lots of fight and military power in them, even though they had been a prime target of the air campaign. Contrary to the views of some critics, coalition ground forces had to beat their foe on the field of battle before they could claim victory. Had the coalition’s ground forces not been so well prepared, equipped, and skilled in their work, the Iraqis could have exacted a much higher price for allied success. The American armored, mechanized, and air mobile divisions had to demonstrate their overwhelming power before Saddam and his generals were induced to end the brutal occupation of Kuwait. In sum, the UN coalition won the Persian Gulf War because George Bush orchestrated a masterful diplomatic offensive, and because Norman Schwarzkopf skillfully handled his responsibilities as the theater commander of a diverse, multinational expeditionary force. Just as important, U.S. and allied air, ground, and naval forces, despite the inevitable “frictions” of war,

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worked together to execute a well-crafted campaign plan. While husbanding the lives of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines in their charge, Schwarzkopf and Arthur, with their lieutenants, brought overwhelming military power to bear against the invaders of Kuwait. Maintaining Peace and Profiting from the Gulf War Experience The Navy was as critical to American interests in the Persian Gulf after Desert Storm as it had been in the 40 years before. Naval forces were involved in the UN efforts to restore the prewar overseas commerce of Kuwait and to withdraw speedily and efficiently from the Arabian Peninsula the coalition’s expeditionary units. Moreover, the Navy played a prominent role in postwar efforts to limit Saddam’s actions against the Shiites and Kurds in Iraq, assure his compliance with UN resolutions, and limit his ability to again threaten regional peace. Even before the dust had settled over the Kuwaiti battleground, naval and other UN forces moved into Kuwait City and the country’s main ports to restore their basic functions. U.S., Australian, British, and French EOD detachments worked long hours in harbors that were cluttered with lethal, unexploded ordnance, sunken vessels, and the other detritus of war. Despite this tough operating environment, the EOD units opened the ports in short order, and did so without a casualty. Equally impressive was the coalition’s operation to open Kuwait to international shipping and neutralize the Iraqi minefields. The Belgian, French, and British mine-hunting ships, under U.S. tactical control, starred in a gulf operation that for the first time involved German and Japanese naval vessels. The troubles plaguing the U.S. MCM ships and helicopters during the war continued to hinder their operations in the months afterward. The Navy redoubled its efforts to provide the force with better equipment, including advanced sonar systems and remotely operated vehicles. Rear Admiral Raynor A.K. Taylor, the first postwar COMUSNAVCENT, concentrated on improving the training, readiness, and morale of the American MCM force. Taylor questioned the value to the operation of the helicopter units, but the overall American MCM performance improved steadily after June 1991 when the other navies departed the gulf. By early 1992 and the termination of the mine countermeasures program, U.S. naval forces had destroyed over half of the 1,288 mines found in the gulf. The withdrawal from the operational theater after the war of thousands of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and helicopters and tons of ammunition and other materiel was a monumental achievement of the Navy and the other American armed services. Desert Storm was unlike previous wars when the American forces sold for scrap, destroyed, or simply abandoned mountains of weapons, equipment, and supplies. In response to President Bush’s pledge to the Arab governments, Schwarzkopf, Boomer, and Taylor acted to erase the Western military presence from Saudi Arabia. They also endeavored to preserve America’s expensive fighting machine, especially in the post-Cold War era of budgetary cutbacks. The men and women of Schwarzkopf’s logistics commands planned carefully and worked hard to execute this massive retrograde movement. Ultimately, the American forces left the desert much as they had found it in August 1990. In Operation Desert Sortie, the Navy redeployed to their home stations the ships and cargo of the maritime prepositioning squadrons. Very soon after the Gulf War, the U.S. military

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had reestablished America’s global readiness posture. By the spring of 1992, MSC had transported from the theater in 456 ships a phenomenal 1.9 million tons of supplies and equipment. The embargo patrol continued to symbolize international solidarity as a counter to Saddam’s postwar actions. The UN Security Council could count on coalition navies, along with air forces, being available to enforce its cease-fire resolutions. While some coalition members balked at joining the United States in imposing the “no-fly” restrictions over Iraq during the post-cease-fire years, they maintained their involvement with the embargo patrol. The multinational operation also enabled the UN Security Council to enforce, on a daily and continuous basis, the measures taken by the body to destroy Saddam’s capacity for chemical, biological, and nuclear war and to limit his ability to threaten his neighbors. Long after Desert Storm, Saddam continued to brandish a sword in Persian Gulf affairs, but the multinational embargo patrol helped ensure that the weapon stayed dull-edged. It took more than the maritime interception force to restrain Saddam’s postwar actions, however. Time and again, U.S. naval and other American and allied forces were called on to curb his behavior. During Operation Provide Comfort, naval special warfare units, Seabees, and other naval forces, covered by carrier aircraft, operated in the UN protection zone in northern Iraq to bring humanitarian assistance to the Kurds and help protect them from the Iraqi army. The fleet’s presence in the gulf also continued to assure America’s gulf allies of U.S. constancy. Indeed, a prime function of Naval Forces, Central Command in the post-cease-fire period was to work for better collective security arrangements in the region, not just in relation to the Iraqi threat but the potential Iranian threat. Accordingly, the Navy exercised with GCC naval forces and trained them in the use of U.S. weapons, communications, and tactics. In 2000, the GCC nations concluded a mutual defense pact. It is clear that the presence in the Central Command Theater of strong U.S. Navy and other UN forces, their rapid reinforcement, and their employment against Iraq during the 1993 and 1994 confrontations helped restrain the Iraqi dictator. The fleet’s Tomahawk strikes against targets in or near Baghdad in January and June 1993, at the direction of President Bill Clinton, moderated Saddam’s actions, if only temporarily. When he once again threatened the peace by moving Republican Guard divisions into southern Iraq in October 1994, it took the rapid deployment into the gulf of U.S. forces, naval forces in particular, to restore the status quo ante. The fleet was called upon again in September 1996 and December 1998 to strike targets in Iraq. Critics of Washington’s postwar policy with regard to Saddam pointed to the continuing need for force or the threat of force to maintain peace in the region. But in view of the possible alternatives—Saddam’s eradication of the Kurdish and Shiite peoples, military adventures against neighboring states, or de-stabilization of the Middle Eastern oil industry—the messy, but relatively stable peace of the post-Gulf War era was clearly preferable. Since the UN coalition’s objectives did not include deposing Saddam, the United States and its allies were compelled to threaten the use of force to maintain the postwar balance of power in the Persian Gulf region.

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Maintaining stability in the Persian Gulf and other troubled regions has long been a mission of the U.S. Navy, and because of its Desert Shield and Desert Storm experience the naval service enhanced its ability to do so. After initial opposition, Admiral Kelso concurred in the Defense Department’s 1992 decision to make Commander U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command a permanent, three-star admiral’s billet. He also agreed the following year to the establishment ashore in Bahrain of the NAVCENT headquarters and improved logistic facilities. U.S. carrier, submarine, and surface forces steaming in the gulf during the high-tension years of 1993 and 1994 were comparable in number to the Sixth Fleet and Seventh Fleet units that plied the waters of the Mediterranean and the Western Pacific. Consequently, on 1 July 1995 the Navy established the U.S. Fifth Fleet as CENTCOM’s naval combat force. The Navy improved its ability to work as part of a joint-services team, as demonstrated by its adaptation to the ATO process and integration into the staff of Operation Southern Watch, led by an Air Force general. Material improvements in ships, aircraft, weapons, and equipment following the Gulf War were legion, but a few examples should suffice. The fleet improved many of its communications and data link systems; developed, with its sister services, common aerial ordnance; emphasized mine warfare with establishment of a Mine Warfare Command and completion of the technologically advanced Avenger and Osprey-class ships; equipped the SH-60B Seahawks/Lamps III helicopters with Hellfire missiles, FLIR sets, machine guns, and a laser designator/range finder similar to that carried by the Air Force F-117; and encouraged Congress to fund construction of additional fast sealift ships. In a larger sense, the Persian Gulf War stimulated the U.S. Navy to make the transition, rarely a comfortable process, from the Cold War to a new era of regional conflict with unknown enemies and uncertain allies. The 1992 White Paper From the Sea heralded the Navy’s new post-Cold War strategy. Two years later that approach was further refined with promulgation of Forward . . . From the Sea. Both documents clearly embodied the experience of the Persian Gulf War and signaled the Navy’s new focus away from the Soviet Navy and open-ocean combat “toward power projection and the employment of naval forces from the sea to influence events in the littoral regions of the world—those areas adjacent to the oceans and seas that are within direct control of and vulnerable to the striking power of sea-based forces.” In that sense, the Persian Gulf War marked the opening of a new chapter in the history of the United States Navy. Suggested Readings Marolda, Edward J., and Robert J. Schneller Jr. Shield and Sword: The United States Navy and

the Persian Gulf War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Palmer, Michael A. On Course to Desert Storm: The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf.

Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1992. Reprinted with permission of the author, November 2002

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On [the Gulf] War by Kenneth J. Hagan

As part of a continuing analysis of American military strategy and operations in the 20th century, the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation and the U.S. Naval Institute hosted a conference on the Gulf War of 1991 on March 4 and 5, 1998. More than forty veteran policy makers, military officers, scholars and journalists assembled in the neoclassical splendor of the main hall of the Cantigny First Division Museum in Wheaton, Illinois, to discuss the operational characteristics and limited success of Desert Storm. They were fully cognizant that the topic is of great interest to Americans faced with the continuing resistance of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to all United Nations efforts to curtail his development of weapons of mass destruction.

* * * The conference’s kickoff address was delivered by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Bernard E. Trainor. The United States, he said, had snatched “a modest victory from the jaws of triumph.” The principal mistake, Trainor contended, was the failure “get rid of Saddam Hussein,” and to “have left him in place for the last seven years to cause mischief.” General Trainor faulted General Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), for shifting his focus from the military situation to an unspecified “political aspect of the conflict” and for prematurely recommending to President George Bush a cessation to combat and withdrawal of American forces from the Gulf before Saddam Hussein had been toppled. This allegation directed against General Powell curiously disregards the core tenet of the strategic bible of today’s U.S. military, Carl von Clausewitz’s On War, in which the great Prussian theorist steadfastly holds that the political desiderata of warfare must always control and take precedence over military goals and operations.

* * * The first panel of the conference coped with the question, “What Should We Have Done Differently?” Moderated by Dr. John Hillen, a junior officer in the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment during the Gulf War and currently the Olin Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, the panel featured four retired senior veterans of Desert Storm, each of whom contributed insights gained from a career in one of the U.S. military services that was tempered at its end by the experience of fighting a war as part of an international coalition. The initial speaker was General Walter E. Boomer, USMC (Ret.), Commanding General, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force during the Gulf War. General Boomer eschewed “a strategic perspective” and spoke from an “operational viewpoint.” By this standard, “Very little went wrong.” The Marine Corps carried out its attack “almost flawlessly,” as did “the magnificent Army brigade that we had attached to us.” Intelligence was another matter. General Boomer complained that he did not appreciate “until fairly late” that most of the Iraqi forces were going to run rather than fight because “we never received any superb intelligence” despite its availability in Washington, D.C. Lieutenant General John J. Yeosock, USA (Ret.), Third Army Commander for Desert Shield and Desert Storm, took a geopolitical view of the war and rebutted General Trainor’s

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criticism of General Powell. He focused on the strategic goal of the Coalition, which he said was simply to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. “The truth of the matter is the Saudis put the Coalition together with bilateral relations with each and every nation state that entered therein.” They “were the ones who established the glue that held the coalition together” and “everybody [else] was a hired gun.” When Saddam’s forces were driven out of Kuwait the initial strategic objective was achieved, the Saudi commitment to the Coalition evaporated. Immediate termination of hostilities inevitably followed, as prescribed by the Clausewitzian dictum that nations going to war should have a very clearly defined strategic objective to which they remain faithful. From General Yeosock’s elevated perspective the discussion returned to the technicalities of the operational experience. Admiral Stanley R. Arthur, USN (Ret.), former Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, defended the Navy’s aloofness from the other services. He explained that he had not joined Army General Norman H. Schwarzkopf’s supreme command headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, because he had not been allowed enough time to establish the necessary communications between Riyadh and the forces afloat. Concentrating on the danger enemy minefields posed to U.S. naval vessels in the Gulf, Admiral Arthur said, “I think from my standpoint the folks in Riyadh had very little understanding until we finally got [General] Schwarzkopf out on the ship and gave him a line of what it takes once you’ve got an in-place minefield.” Whether right or wrong, Admiral Arthur’s summation did not enhance anyone’s confidence in the ascendancy of “jointness” within senior U.S. military commands. General Charles A. Horner, USAF (Ret.), Commander, U.S. Air Forces Central Command for Operations in Desert Shield and Storm, indirectly and perhaps unwittingly undermined the concept of institutional jointness by attributing the military success of Desert Storm to the “unusual relationship between the four people sitting at this table. It probably never has existed before and it probably won’t exist in the future.” This historically naive assertion disregards the kind of harmony that characterized the relationship between General Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, which was cut short by Jackson’s death at Chancellorsville and which by its absence contributed to Lee’s failure at Gettysburg.

* * * At the luncheon address following the panel, Mr. James Hoagland, the Associate Editor and Chief Foreign Correspondent of The Washington Post, cut to the heart of the relationship between force and diplomacy. He praised the U.S. and its Coalition partners for victoriously waging “a just war, fought by valiant men and women upholding and observing the highest standards of battlefield behavior.” Yet Mr. Hoagland regretfully admitted that “while the United States won the war, it did not win the incomplete peace that has followed.” Like the kickoff speaker, General Trainor, Mr. Hoagland is bedeviled by the survival of Saddam Hussein and his determined “clawing . . . to the surface of international politics every six months or so.” Beyond the Middle East, Desert Storm carries a warning for the future. The great destructiveness of the conventional or non-nuclear weaponry used in the Gulf War, Mr. Hoagland said, “makes war unthinkable for developed countries of even roughly similar capabilities. Carl von Clausewitz has been superseded.” He categorically rejected as no longer relevant to Europe “north of the Balkans” or to “much of the rest of the globe” the most famous dictum of Clausewitz: “war is a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means.”

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* * *

Following a tour of Cantigny’s state-of-the-art First Division exhibition hall, the participants settled down to the second panel of the conference. Entitled “Did Air Power Carry the Day?” the four-speaker session was moderated by Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn, USN (Ret.), whose combat experience as a senior naval aviator has been tempered by a long affiliation with the Naval Institute in major editorial capacities. Air Force veteran Dr. Thomas A. Keaney, a professor of military strategy at the National War College and co-author of Revolution in Warfare? Air Power in the Persian Gulf (1995), delivered a succinct, highly balanced and provocative assessment of the impact of air power in the Gulf War. In the planning phase, the principal objectives set for missile and bombing attacks were to destroy the Iraqi leadership, disrupt its command and control of weapons of mass destruction, incapacitate the national electrical power network, take out Iraqi Scud missiles, and interdict the army’s overland logistical train. Unexpectedly and surprisingly, air attacks against deployed Iraqi ground forces turned out to be the “aspect of the bombing in the war [that] was a decisive aspect.” Interrupting a spontaneous and spirited discussion of Dr. Keaney’s assessment, Admiral Dunn called on the second scheduled panelist, Dr. Richard P. Hallion, Director of Air Force History. Alluding to the ongoing “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA), in which he believes, the author of Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War (1997) traced the RMA’s origins to the “pre-precision air power era, back in the 1940s” and to General Heinz Guderian, the Nazi German “great grandfather of mechanized warfare.” Guderian, in Hallion’s words, recognized that “success in the air could be exploited for ground warfare which in turn would consolidate the aerial victory.” In a trenchant definition of Desert Storm’s validation of the RMA of the last half-century, Dr. Hallion said that air power “now gives us the opportunity to reach the conflict termination stage rapidly . . . because we can now deliver . . . the traditional surface forces to a point where they can do anything with the opponent that we choose. They don’t have to fight with the tremendous attrition [of past wars] . . . to win the right . . . to enter that enemy country.” The next speaker took a similar stance. Rear Admiral John (“Carlos”) Johnson, USN, the Head of the Aviation Plans and Requirements Branch in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, observed that in the Gulf War air power “dominated Iraq,” which is “roughly the same size as Germany.” The qualitative and quantitative transformation in aerial destructiveness since World War II was not merely the result of the evolution of weapons technology. “We had air dominance in Vietnam,’ said Admiral Johnson, “but we didn’t have the will.” Following Vietnam there had been a “change of will” or a “change in the mindset” behind American military doctrine, planning and weaponry. As a result, in the Gulf War air power “enabled the day but [did] not necessarily win the day, because it clearly wasn’t won until we occupied the land. . . .And that takes combined force, a combined army.” One of Admiral Johnson’s “guys in the field” spoke next. Major General James M. Myatt, USMC (Ret.), who commanded the 1st Marine Division during the liberation of Kuwait City in February 1991, gave an extremely lucid explanation of the value of air power in the Gulf War. Iraqi artillery pieces outnumbered the Marine Corps artillery by about 1200 to 250, which meant that an American ground offensive would have entailed enormous casualties. Therefore, said General Myatt, the air and ground forces developed a strategy of electronic deception

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whereby Iraqi artillerymen were lured into manning and firing their guns to reveal their positions, at which point they were pummeled from the air. The objective, said the general, was not “to destroy artillery pieces.” Rather, “we were trying to defeat the minds of the Iraqi soldiers.” By breaking the enemy field artillerymen’s will to fight, Myatt said, air power provided the “key to allow us to drive the Iraqis [out of Kuwait] with a minimum number of Marine casualties.” In a stunning Clausewitzian summation of the Marine Corps position on warfare, Myatt quoted a 1931 essay by J.F.C. Fuller, the chief of staff of the British Tank Corps in World War I: the “obsession with destruction is a failure to recognize the true object of war,” namely that “war is a contest between human wills and not a physical process of mass against mass.”

* * * The second day of the conference opened with a panel on intelligence in the Gulf War. The panelists of “What We Knew - What We needed to Know” had been placed on the defensive by the previous day’s numerous attacks on the nature and availability of intelligence during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The moderator, Mr. Rick Atkinson, an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post, set the stage briskly and efficiently. “By my count,” he said, “yesterday there were at least 27 precision-guided darts tossed at the Gulf War intelligence operation.” Conceding that indeed “there were catastrophic intel [sic.] shortcomings” and innumerable “perceived shortcomings,” Mr. Atkinson nonetheless defended the overall accuracy of tactical intelligence. When the commander of “the Big Red One got up into Iraq,” Mr. Atkinson said, “he found that the Iraqi units were pretty much where intelligence had told him they were going to be. I’d have to say that ain’t bad.” Admiral William O. Studeman, USN (Ret.), the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) during the war, confessed to “shortfalls” in two principal categories of intelligence: accuracy of bomb damage assessment (BDA) and widespread “imagery dissemination” to appropriate levels of command. Each of these categories has profound inherent difficulties which must be constantly addressed by the relevant bodies in Washington--CIA, DIA, NSA, etc. Progress will be limited by interagency disharmony and the very nature of the problems themselves, and theater commanders are always going to be somewhat frustrated by the intelligence they receive. The CIA’s “ground analyst” for Iraq during Desert Storm, Dr. Kenneth M. Pollack, defended the American wartime intelligence effort: “I think in general a lot about intelligence in the Gulf War went right.” The problems he cited stemmed mainly from the transitional nature of 1990-1991: the Cold War was virtually over but the traditions and structure of American intelligence remained steeped in four decades of preoccupation with the Soviet Union and its thermonuclear arsenal. The CIA had been “set up to support the National Command Authority. I was there to tell the President what was happening.” General Horner later underscored the debilitating seriousness of this arrangement: “The CIA does not come to major [operational military] exercises. If they do show up, they stay in a little huddle.” Lieutenant General W.M. Keys, USMC (Ret.), who led the 2nd Marine Division during its assault on Kuwait City in February 1991, described his perspective as that of “a deploying division commander.” It was not one that comforted the other panelists. He faulted the American intelligence agencies for concentrating on “Iraqi Command and Control, their weapons of mass destruction and the Republican Guard.” Not nearly “enough effort was put down at the

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tactical intelligence level.” Much of the analysis from unspecified “higher headquarters,” General Keys thought, “was poor. A lot of intelligence we got I think we could have got better from CNN.” The total number of Mr. Atkinson’s “precision-guided darts” had just climbed to well beyond thirty.

* * * Emphasis on the operational level of the Gulf War carried over to the final panel of the conference, “Small Unit Operations: Making them Work.” Moderated by Colonel Harry G. Summers, USA (Ret.), the session featured three relatively junior veterans of the Gulf War. Lieutenant Colonel William Bruner, USAF, served on the Directorate of Campaign Plans in Riyadh during Desert Shield and flew combat missions as the airborne command element on the Saudi AWACS during Desert Storm. The Gulf War, he believes, uncovered a fundamental tension “between the necessity to centralize aerospace power for planning purposes, because it is a scarce resource, and the efficiencies gained in war from decentralizing its execution.” This tension will increase as the United States moves further into an era where warfare is dominated by electronic information technology and the engaged infantryman can beam his targeting “laser directly into the cockpit of our F16s.” If the missions and targets of combatant air power are overly constrained by prior planning, its optimal effectiveness in support of the ground forces will not be realized, warned Lieutenant Colonel Bruner. Another aviator, Commander Mark I. Fox, USN, scored the Navy’s first MiG kill on 17 January 1991 and flew a total of eighteen combat sorties during the war. He drew two central conclusions from his combat experience. First, merciless air-to-air fighter training is of utmost importance to the operational performance of aviators in the first few days of actual combat. Secondly, Commander Fox pleaded for an improved flow of intelligence to “the guy that squeezes the trigger that kills somebody. . . . I know it is important for us to have this network-centric information that flows around, but after all is said and done you finally reach the point where there is some guy really scared on the other end of all that information pretty much functioning on brainstem power at that point. And we have got to figure out a way to make sure that he gets that information reliably the first time correctly.” The crucial importance of pre-combat training was also discussed by the final speaker of the panel, Major H.R. McMaster, USA, who commanded an armored cavalry troop in Desert Storm. In the course of a 23-minute battle his nine tanks and supporting vehicles “destroyed the better part of an Iraqi brigade, about 50 armored vehicles” without suffering a single casualty. For this absolute victory he credited a year of highly focused training as a team, the most important payoff of which was “the psychological carryover to soldiers, because what you need soldiers to do is to have a willingness to take risks. You need them to have a willingness to aggressively close with and destroy the enemy in close combat.” Modern electronic intelligence, or “information dominance [also] is great at the operational level,” the tank veteran said, “But once the tactical fight begins, I would suggest that intelligence is a very limited utility because events progress so rapidly.”

* * * In the luncheon address a self-proclaimed Jeffersonian with “a profound respect for the common man’s collective judgment,” concentrated on the domestic political aspects of American

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war making. Former Congressman James Slattery of Kansas believes that the highly unpopular prolongation of the Vietnam War compels future policy makers to consult with the people and Congress before deciding to go to war. In a proposition wholly congruent with Clausewitz’s treatise, he insisted that U.S. military forces should never be committed to action “without a clear military mission, . . . one that’s achievable also.” Moreover, because the Constitution empowers the Congress to declare war, the Congress must be included in the process of committing U.S. forces to combat. President George Bush, said the former congressman, understood these principles and it was “a stroke of genius” on his part to seek congressional approval for Desert Storm. The vote of authorization in January 1991 was very close in both houses, but the debate displayed Congress in its “finest hour.”

* * * Immediately after former Congressman Slattery’s speech, General Sir Peter de la Billiere, the highly decorated commander of the British Middle East forces during Desert Storm, redirected the attention of the conference to the international military dimensions of the Gulf War. In a virtuoso solo performance this distinguished student of the Middle East explained why Desert Storm succeeded in expelling Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait and why it was unique. Molded by sophisticated political leaders, the international Coalition of over thirty nations “was the essence of the success of the operation in the Gulf War.” At the operational level, General Norman Schwarzkopf worked tirelessly to knit and hold the Coalition together. He would have failed without the “unambiguous and fulsome support” and the vast military-logistical infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, which felt threatened by Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait. Even so, the Coalition did not represent a military monolith. As General John Yeosock observed in commenting on Sir Peter’s remarks, the Arab nations in the Coalition would “go in and help liberate Kuwait,” but they would not attack through Iraq because of their reluctance to invade a neighbor. This meant that once the Iraqis had been expelled from Kuwait centrifugal nationalistic and cultural forces were certain to fracture the Coalition. Barring another act of overt aggression by Iraq it could not be reconstituted. This dissolution would leave the United States and Britain virtually alone as proponents of future air strikes against Iraq, said Sir Peter in an observation he well have repeated during Desert Fox in December 1998.

* * * General de la Billiere was followed at the lectern by an outstanding American military historian. Professor Russell F. Weigley, Distinguished University Professor at Temple University, addressed the topic, “What’s Missing in Desert Storm History?” Weigley forcefully argued that civilian control over the military is fundamental to the American constitutional system. Reaching back into history, he praised General John J. Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in World War I, for willingly subordinating his military strategy to political and diplomatic constraints throughout most of his career as a general officer. He contrasted Pershing’s subservience with the overreaching behavior of General Colin Powell, who was “encouraged by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986” to trespass on the civilian prerogative of policy-making in a variety of disturbing ways. Powell too vociferously opposed going to war in the Gulf, insisted on

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withdrawing from the war before Saddam’s Republican Guard had been destroyed, and inappropriately dominated the peace-making process at the end of the Gulf War.

Professor Weigley’s brief and concentrated remarks raise a question about the applicability to the United States of Clausewitz’s contention that the supreme military commander must properly become a member of the highest policy-making circles of the nation. Perhaps a Prussian theorist writing under the influence of the Napoleonic Wars deserves less prominence than he now enjoys in the curricula of American war and staff colleges as they enter the 21st century.

* * *

The question of Clausewitz’s relevance to contemporary America reemerged at a panel entitled “Desert Storm: Who Won What? and What It Means Today” held during the Naval Institute’s 124 Annual Meeting and 8th Annapolis Seminar on 23-24 April 1998. Moderated by Mr. Robert Woodward, the renowned journalist, author and Assistant Managing Editor of The Washington Post, the session reunited three principals from the Cantigny meeting: Lieutenant General Yeosock, Dr. John Hillen and former Congressman James Slattery. In reiterating positions taken at Cantigny they added fresh vehemence and candor. At the time of the Gulf War, Representative Slattery’s district in Kansas embraced Ft. Leavenworth to the east--the location of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College--and Ft. Riley to the west--the home of the “Big Red One,” the First Army Division. Slattery recalled the public outpouring of enthusiasm for the troops during the mobilization and build-up of forces in the Gulf. He explicitly drew from this manifestation a confirmation of Clausewitz’s dictum that war is a continuation of politics. John Hillen was less nostalgic and far more acerbic in comments focusing the post-Gulf War period. Decrying the “politically correct wonderland that passes for the U.S. military today,” he faulted the top leaders of the Clinton administration--whom he described as “weak people trying to look strong”--for talking tough but not brandishing the legendary “big stick” of Theodore Roosevelt. General Yeosock noted that General Powell, General Schwarzkopf, Secretary of State James Baker, and Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney had all declined run for public office from the platform of national recognition each had gained in the war. His conclusion, drawn from recent experience in the corporate world, is that there are a great number of very good people in the United States who do not feel they can bear the pain and humiliation attendant upon seeking for and holding high public office in the United States today.

* * * The Annapolis panel and the Cantigny conference featured a preponderance of men and women who had participated in the Gulf War. The level of consensus reached was striking, as was the breadth and depth of feeling about several issues. First, the war achieved its strategic goal of expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Second, the Coalition could not have achieved more than that without risking its own integrity. Third, by winning congressional approval for military action prior to final commitment, President Bush accomplished something remarkable for the United States: he restored public confidence in the constitutional process and in the executive branch of the government, both of which had been under a cloud of disrespect and suspicion

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since the Vietnam War. Fourth, by the fiery brilliance of its high-tech victory the U.S. military won the admiration of a public that had scorned it since Vietnam. Finally, in the mind of at least one observer, the discussions at Annapolis and Cantigny invited a thorough reassessment of Carl von Clausewitz’s proper role in 21st-century American strategic theory. Reprinted from “Naval History,” April 1999, pp. 24-30, with permission; Copyright © (1999) U.S. Naval Institute. 1 The favored version is Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).

1 See Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), pp. 114-116.

1 Clausewitz, On War, p. 605.

Kenneth J. Hagan is a Professor of Strategy, U.S. Naval War College, Monterey Program, and Professor and Museum Director Emeritus, U.S. Naval Academy.

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A llied Force, the most intense and sus-tained military operation in Europesince World War II, represented thefirst extended use of force by NATO

as well as the first major combat operation con-ducted for humanitarian objectives against a statecommitting atrocities within its own borders. At acost of more than $3 billion, it was also expen-sive. Yet in part because of that investment, it was

an unprecedented exercise in the discriminate useof force, essentially airpower, on a large scale.There were highly publicized civilian fatalities;yet despite 28,000 high-explosive munitions ex-pended over 78 days, no more than 500 noncom-batants died as a direct result, a far better per-formance in terms of civilian casualty avoidancethan either Vietnam or Desert Storm.

But Allied Force was a less than exemplaryexercise in U.S. and NATO strategy and an objectlesson in the limitations of Alliance warfare. Abalanced appraisal must accordingly account notonly for its signal accomplishments, but its short-comings in planning and execution, which nearlymade it a disaster.

12 JFQ / Spring 2002

Benjamin S. Lambeth is a senior staff member at RAND and the author of NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic andOperational Assessment.

Lessonsfrom the War in KosovoBy B E N J A M I N S. L A M B E T H

Escorting Serb detaineesto Kosovo-Serbianborder.

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Allied strikes against dispersed and hiddenforces were largely ineffective, in part because ofthe NATO decision at the outset to forgo even thethreat of a ground invasion. Hence Serb atrocitiesagainst the Kosovar Albanians increased even asair operations intensified. Some observers claimedthat the bombing actually caused what it soughtto prevent. Yet it seems equally likely that Milose-vic would have unleashed some form of Opera-tion Horseshoe, the ethnic cleansing campaign,during the spring or summer of 1999 in anyevent. Had NATO not finally acted, upward of amillion Kosovar refugees may have been strandedin Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro with nohope of return.

Although Allied air strikes were unable tohalt Milosevic’s campaign before it was essentiallyaccomplished, they completely reversed its effectsin the aftermath of the cease-fire. More than

600,000 of the nearly 800,000ethnic Albanian refugees fromKosovo returned home withintwo weeks of the air war’s con-clusion. By the end of July,barely a month later, only

50,000 displaced Kosovar Albanians still awaitedrepatriation. By any reasonable measure, Milose-vic’s bowing to NATO amounted to his defeat,and his accession to the cease-fire left him worseoff than had he accepted the Rambouillet condi-tions, under which Serbia was to keep 5,000 secu-rity forces in Kosovo. Thanks to the settlementreached before the cease-fire, however, there arenow none. Moreover, on the eve of Allied Force,

Milosevic insisted as a point of principle that noforeign troops would be allowed on Kosovar soil.Today, with some 42,000 soldiers from 39 coun-tries performing daily peacekeeping functions,Kosovo is an international protectorate safe-guarded by both the United Nations and NATO,rendering any Serb claim to sovereignty over theprovince a polite fiction.

Second, the Alliance showed that it couldfunction under pressure even in the face of hesi-tancy by political leaders of member states. Inseeing the operation to a successful conclusion, itdid something it was neither created nor config-ured for. The proof of success was that cohesionheld despite the combined pressures of fighting awar and actually going into Kosovo with no fixedexit date even while bringing in new members.

Finally, for all the criticism directed at lesssteadfast Allies for their rear-guard resistance andquestionable loyalty during the air war, even theGreek government held firm to the end, despite90 percent of its population supporting the Serbsthrough large-scale street demonstrations. Trueenough, there remain unknowns about Alliedsteadfastness in future confrontations along Eu-rope’s eastern periphery. Yet NATO maintainedthe one quality essential to Allied Force—in-tegrity as a fighting cooperative.

Grinding AwayDespite its accomplishments, enough dis-

comfiting surprises emanated from Allied Force tosuggest that air warfare professionals should givecareful thought to what still needs to be done torealize its joint warfare potential instead of bask-ing in airpower’s largely singlehanded success.Many of the surprises entailed tactical shortfalls.Examples abound: the targeting process was inef-ficient, command and control arrangements werecomplicated, and enemy integrated air defensesystem challenges indicated much unfinishedwork in planning suppression of air defense. Inaddition, elusive enemy ground forces belied theoft-cited claim that airpower has arrived at thethreshold of being able to find, fix, track, target,and engage any object on the surface of the earth.

There were likewise failings in strategy andoperations. First, despite its successful outcome,the bombing effort was a suboptimal applicationof airpower. The incremental plan NATO leaderschose risked squandering much of the capitalthat had built up in airpower’s account followingits ringing success in Desert Storm. The commentmade by General Wesley Clark, Supreme AlliedCommander Europe (SACEUR), that coalitionforces would “grind away” at Milosevic ratherthan hammer him hard, attested to the watered-down nature of the strikes. By meting out theraids with such hesitancy, leaders remained blind

Spring 2002 / JFQ 13

by any reasonable measure,Milosevic’s bowing to NATOamounted to his defeat

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to the fact that airpower’s very strengths can be-come weaknesses if used in ways that undermineits credibility. The first month of underachieve-ment likely convinced Milosevic that he couldride out the assault.

Indeed, the way the operation commencedviolated two of the most enduring axioms of mili-tary practice: surprise and keeping the enemy un-clear of one’s intentions. A strategy that preemp-tively ruled out a ground threat and envisagedonly gradually escalating air strikes was a guaran-tee for trouble downstream, even though it wasthe only strategy that seemed politically workable.

In fairness to the U.S. and NATO officialsmost responsible for air operations planning,many of the differences between Allied Force andthe more satisfying Desert Storm were beyond Al-lied control. Bad weather was the rule. Variegatedand forested terrain hampered sensors. Serb sur-face to air missile operators were more proficientand tactically astute than the Iraqis. Alliancecomplications were far greater than the largely in-consequential intracoalition differences duringthe Persian Gulf War. Finally, because the goal

was to compel rather than destroy, it was difficultto measure daily progress without a feedbackmechanism to indicate the effect of the bombingon coercing Milosevic.

That said, the central question has less to dowith platform or systems performance than withbasic strategy choices NATO leaders made andwhat they suggest about lessons forgotten fromprevious conflicts. Had Milosevic been content tohunker down and wait out the bombing, hecould have challenged long-term Allied cohesion

and staying power. By opting instead to accelerateethnic cleansing, he not only united the West butalso left NATO with no alternative but to dig infor the long haul, both to secure an outcome thatwould enable the repatriation of displaced Koso-vars and to ensure its continued credibility as amilitary alliance.

Efforts during the first month were badly un-derresourced because of the prevailing assump-tion among NATO leaders that the operationwould last just two to four days. The conse-quences included erratic target nomination andreview, too few combat aircraft for both nightand day operations, pressure for simultaneous at-tacks not only on fixed infrastructure targets buton fielded Yugoslav armed forces, an inadequateairspace management plan, and no flexible tar-geting cell in the combined air operations center(CAOC) for meeting General Clark’s sudden de-mands for attacking fielded forces in the engage-ment zone. All these problems were a reflectionnot on NATO mechanisms for using airpower perse, but on strategy choices either made or forgoneby political leaders.

Capabilities for detecting and engaging fleet-ing ground targets improved as the Kosovo Liber-ation Army (KLA) became more active. Neverthe-less, persistent problems with the flexibletargeting effort spotlighted deficiencies. TheCAOC went into the operation without an on-hand cadre of experienced target planners accus-tomed to working together. Accordingly, leaderswere forced to resort to a pick-up team during thefirst month of operations against Yugoslav forces.The fusion cell also frequently lacked ready accessto all-source reconnaissance information.

The nature of the operation and the way itwas conducted from the highest levels in Wash-ington and Brussels placed unique stresses on theability of Lieutenant General Michael Short,USAF, the combined forces air component com-mander (CFACC) to command and control air op-erations. For example, leaders had to contendwith continuous shifts in political priorities andSACEUR guidance as well as myriad pressures oc-casioned by a random flow of assets to the the-ater, ranging from combat aircraft to staff aug-mentees in the CAOC. These problems emanatedfrom a lack of consensus on both sides of the At-lantic as to the military goals at any given mo-ment and what it would take to prevail. The defacto no friendly loss rule, stringent collateraldamage constraints, and the absence of a groundthreat to concentrate enemy troops into easiertargets further limited the rational employment


Kosovo ProtectionCorps during massfuneral.

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of in-theater assets and placed a premium on ac-curate information and measures that took a longtime to plan and carry out. One realization drivenhome was the need for targeting cell planners totrain together routinely before a contingency.

The greatest frustration of Allied Force wasits slow start and creeping escalation. A close sec-ond entailed uniquely stringent rules of engage-ment that constrained combat sorties. Indeed,

the dominance of political inhibitions was aunique feature. Because the air war was an essen-tially humanitarian operation, neither theUnited States nor the European Allies saw theirsecurity interests threatened by ongoing eventsin Yugoslavia. The perceived stakes were not highat the outset, so committing early to a ground of-fensive was out of the question. Moreover, boththe anticipated length of the bombing and themenu of targets were bound to be matters ofheated contention.

Dark FutureAlthough Allied Force did not exhibit the

ideal use of airpower, it suggested that gradual-ism may be here to stay if U.S. leaders opt tofight more wars for amorphous interests with adisparate set of allies. Gradualism suggests thatairmen will need discipline whenever politicianshamper the application of a doctrinally purecampaign strategy. War is ultimately about poli-tics, and civilian control of the military is in thedemocratic tradition. While warfighters are duty-bound to argue the merits of their recommenda-tions to civilian superiors, they also have a dutyto make the most of the hands they are dealt inan imperfect world. Senior civilian leaders havean equal obligation to stack the deck so the mili-tary has the optimal hand to play and the fullestfreedom to do its best. That means expendingthe energy and political capital needed to de-velop and enforce a strategy that maximizes theprobability of military success. Most top civilianleaders on both sides of the Atlantic failed to dothat in Allied Force.

On the plus side, the success of the war sug-gested that U.S. airpower may have become capa-ble enough to underwrite a strategy of incremen-tal escalation despite inherent inefficiencies.


gradualism may be here to stay if U.S. leaders optto fight more wars for amorphous interests with a disparate set of allies

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What made the gradualism of Allied Force morebearable was that the NATO advantages instealth, precision standoff attack, and electronicwarfare allowed the Alliance to fight a one-sidedwar with near impunity and achieve the desiredresult even if not in the ideal way.

With the air weapon now largely perfectedfor such established situations as halting massedarmored assaults, it needs to be further refined forhandling messier, less predictable, and more chal-lenging combat situations—elusive or hiddenenemy ground forces, restrictive rules of engage-ment, disagreeable weather, enemy use of humanshields, lawyers in the targeting loop as a matter

of practice, and diverse allies who have their ownpolitical agendas—all of which were features ofthe Kosovo crisis. Moreover, although NATO po-litical leaders arguably set the bar too high withrespect to collateral damage avoidance, it seemsthe Western democracies have passed the pointwhere they can contemplate using airpower, orany force, in ways as unrestrained as World War IIbombing. That implies that along with new preci-sion-attack capability goes new responsibility,and air warfare professionals must now under-stand that they will be held accountable.

One can fairly suggest that both SACEURand CFACC were equally prone throughout AlliedForce to remain wedded to excessively parochialviews of their preferred target priorities, based onimplicit faith in the inherent correctness of serv-ice doctrine. Instead, they might more effectivelyhave approached Milosevic as a unique ratherthan generic opponent, conducted a seriousanalysis of his particular vulnerabilities, and thentailored a campaign plan aimed at attacking thosevulnerabilities directly, irrespective of canonicalland or air warfare solutions for all seasons.

Finally, the probability that future coalitionoperations will be the rule rather than the excep-tion suggests a need to work out ground rules be-fore a campaign, so operators, once empowered,


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can implement the agreed plan with minimal po-litical friction. As it was, Allied Force attested notonly to the strategy legitimation that comes fromthe force of numbers a coalition provides, butalso to the limitations of committee planningand least-common-denominator targeting.

The Ground OptionOne of the most important operational and

strategic realizations was that a ground compo-nent to joint campaign strategies may sometimesbe essential to enable airpower to deliver to itsfullest potential. General Richard Hawley, USAF,the former commander of Air Combat Com-mand, was one of many senior airmen who ad-mitted that the a priori decision by the Clintonadministration and NATO political leaders not toemploy ground forces undercut air operations:“When you don’t have that synergy, things takelonger and they’re harder, and that’s what you’reseeing in this conflict.”1

Had Yugoslav forces faced an imminentground invasion, or even a credible threat of onelater, they would have been obliged to movetroops and supplies over bridges that NATO air-craft could have dropped. They also would havebeen compelled to concentrate and maneuver inways that made it easier to find and attack them.

Earlier, Samuel Berger, the National SecurityAdviser to the President, maintained that takingground forces off the table had been right be-cause anything else would have prompted an im-mediate public debate both in the United Statesand abroad which could have split the Alliance.Yet there was a huge difference between ac-knowledging that a land offensive could be per-ilous and categorically ruling one out before thefact. Considering a land offensive would havebeen demanding enough under the best of cir-cumstances because of basing, airlift, and logisticproblems; but denying the possibility of one wasa colossal strategic mistake in that it gave Milose-vic the freedom to act against the Kosovar Alba-nians and determine when the war would end.The anemic start of Allied Force because of thelack of an accompanying ground threat createdopportunity costs that included failure to exploitthe shock potential of airpower and to instill inMilosevic an early fear of more dire conse-quences to come. It encouraged enemy troops todisperse and hide while they had time, extendedcarte blanche to accelerate atrocities, and relin-quished the initiative.

As for the oft-noted concern over an unbear-able level of friendly casualties from groundaction, there likely would have been no need toactually commit NATO troops to battle. The

mere fact of a serious Desert Shield–like deploy-ment of ground troops along the Albanian andMacedonian borders would have made theenemy more easily targetable by airpower. Itmight also have lessened or deterred ethniccleansing. In both cases, moreover, it could haveenabled a quicker end to the war.

Even had Milosevic remained unyielding tothe point where an opposed ground-force entrybecame unavoidable, continued air preparation ofthe battlefield might have prevented the residualenemy strength from significantly challengingland forces. Impending weather improvementsand further air dominance would have enabledmore effective air performance against targets, es-pecially had KLA forces maintained enough pres-sure on the Serbs to bunch up and move.

The problems created by ruling out a groundoption suggest an important corrective to the ar-gument over airpower versus boots on theground. Although Allied Force reconfirmed thatfriendly ground forces need no longer be inex-orably committed to combat early, it also recon-firmed that airpower often cannot perform to itspotential without a credible ground componentin the campaign strategy. Airpower alone was notwell suited to defeating Yugoslav forces in thefield. Once the returns were in, it was clear thatfew kills were accomplished against dispersed andhidden units. Moreover, airpower was unable toprotect the Kosovar Albanians from Serb terrortactics, a problem exacerbated by the stringentrules of engagement aimed at minimizing collat-eral damage and avoiding any NATO loss of life.As General Merrill McPeak, the former Chief ofStaff of the Air Force elaborated, “In a majorblunder, the use of ground troops was ruled outfrom the beginning. I know of no airman—not asingle one—who welcomed this development.Nobody said, ‘Hey, finally, our own private war.Just what we’ve always wanted!’ It certainly


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B–52H taking off from RAF Fairford.


would have been smarter to retain all the op-tions. . . . Signaling to Belgrade our extreme reluc-tance to fight on the ground made it much lesslikely that the bombing would succeed, exploringthe limits of airpower as a military and diplo-matic instrument.”2

Good Luck and Bad WeatherAs for what should be learned from Allied

Force, the head of the U.S. military contribution,Admiral James Ellis, made a good start in his

after-action briefingto Pentagon and Al-lied officials, declar-ing that luck playedthe chief role. Thecommander of JTFNoble Anvil charged

that NATO leaders “called this one absolutelywrong.” Their failure to anticipate what mightoccur once their initial strategy of hope did notsucceed caused most of the untoward conse-quences, including the hasty activation of a joint

task force, a race to find suitable targets, an ab-sence of coherent campaign planning, and lostopportunities resulting from not adequately con-sidering the unexpected. Ellis concluded that theimperatives of consensus politics made for an “in-cremental war” rather than “decisive operations,”that excessive concern over collateral damage cre-ated “sanctuaries and opportunities for the adver-sary—which were successfully exploited,” andthat the lack of a credible ground threat “proba-bly prolonged the air campaign.”3 It was only be-cause Milosevic made a blunder no less toweringthan ruling out a ground option that the war hada largely positive outcome.

The Kosovo experience further suggestedneeded changes in both investment strategy andcampaign planning. The combination of mar-ginal weather and the unprecedented stressplaced on avoiding collateral damage made fornumerous delays between March 24 and mid-May, when entire air tasking orders had to becanceled and only cruise missiles and B–2s, withtheir through-the-weather capability, could beused. That spoke powerfully for broadening the


the commander of JTF Noble Anvilcharged that NATO leaders “calledthis one absolutely wrong”

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ability of other aircraft to deliver accurate muni-tions irrespective of the weather, as well as for en-suring adequate stocks. The extended badweather underscored the limitations of laser-guided bombs and confirmed the value of globalpositioning system-guided weapons.

The munitions generally performed as adver-tised. Results, however, confirmed the need for alarger inventory of precision-guided munitions(especially those capable of all-weather target at-tack), as well as greater accuracy and more stand-off attack capability. At the same time, they indi-cated a continued operational utility for bothunguided general-purpose bombs and cluster mu-nitions for engaging soft military area targets de-ployed in the open. Other areas for improvementincluded interoperability across platforms, moremultispectral sensors, higher-gain optical sensorsfor unmanned aerial vehicles, more data link in-teroperability, a wider range of bomb sizes, andweapons capable of conducting auto-bomb dam-age assessment. Still other force capability needsincluded better means for locating moving tar-gets, better discrimination of real targets from de-coys, and a way of engaging those targets withsmart submunitions rather than costly precision-guided munitions and cruise missiles.

Viewed in hindsight, the most remarkablething about Allied Force was not that it defeatedMilosevic, but that airpower prevailed despite arisk-averse U.S. leadership and an Alliance often

held together only with paralyzing drag. Althoughairpower can be surgically precise, it is in the finalanalysis a blunt instrument designed to breakthings and kill people in pursuit of clear and mili-tarily achievable objectives. Indeed, air war profes-sionals have insisted since the Vietnam War that ifall one wishes to do is send a message, use West-ern Union.

To admit that gradualism of the Allied Forcesort may be the wave of the future for U.S. in-volvement in coalition warfare is hardly to acceptthat it is thus justifiable from a military stand-point. Quite the contrary, the incrementalism ofthe air war for Kosovo involved a potential pricebeyond the loss of valuable aircraft, munitions,and other expendables for questionable gain rightup to the end. It risked frittering away the hard-earned reputation for effectiveness that U.S. air-power had finally earned in Desert Storm aftermore than three years of unqualified misuse overNorth Vietnam a generation earlier.

U.S. airpower as it has evolved since themid-1980s can do remarkable things when em-ployed with determination in support of a cam-paign whose intent is not in doubt. Yet to con-jure up the specter of air strikes, conducted byNATO or otherwise, for the appearance of doingsomething without initially weighing intendedtargets or consequences, risks getting boggeddown in an operation with no plausible theoryof success. After years of false promises by itsmost outspoken prophets, airpower has becomea vital instrument of force employment in jointwarfare. Even in the best of circumstances, how-ever, airpower can never be more effective thanthe strategy it supports. JFQ

N O T E S

1 Bradley Graham, “General Says U.S. Readiness IsAiling,” The Washington Post, April 30, 1999.

2 Merrill A. McPeak, “The Kosovo Result: The FactsSpeak for Themselves,” Armed Forces Journal International(September 1999), p. 64.

3 Elaine M. Grossman, “For U.S. Commander inKosovo, Luck Played Role in Wartime Success,” Insidethe Pentagon, vol. 15, no. 36 (September 9, 1999), p. 1.


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Sea Power 21: Projecting Decisive Joint Capabilities by Admiral Vern Clark, USN

Chief of Naval Operations

Our Vision The 21st century sets the stage for tremendous increases in naval precision, reach, and connectivity, ushering in a new era of joint operational effectiveness. Innovative concepts and technologies will integrate sea, land, air, space, and cyberspace to a greater extent than ever before. In this unified battlespace, the sea will provide a vast maneuver area from which to project direct and decisive power around the globe. Future naval operations will use revolutionary information superiority and dispersed, networked force capabilities to deliver unprecedented offensive power, defensive assurance, and operational independence to Joint Force Commanders. Our Navy and its partners will dominate the continuum of warfare from the maritime domain—deterring forward in peacetime, responding to crises, and fighting and winning wars. By doing so, we will continue the evolution of U.S. naval power from the blue-water, war-at-sea focus of the “Maritime Strategy” (1986), through the littoral emphasis of “. . . From the Sea” (1992) and “Forward . . . from the Sea” (1994), to a broadened strategy in which naval forces are fully integrated into global joint operations against regional and transnational dangers. To realize the opportunities and navigate the challenges ahead, we must have a clear vision of how our Navy will organize, integrate, and transform. “Sea Power 21” is that vision. It will align our efforts, accelerate our progress, and realize the potential of our people. “Sea Power 21” will guide our Navy as we defend our nation and defeat our enemies in the uncertain century before us. Transformation for a Violent Era The events of 11 September 2001 tragically illustrated that the promise of peace and security in the new century is fraught with profound dangers: nations poised for conflict in key regions, widely dispersed and well-funded terrorist and criminal organizations, and failed states that deliver only despair to their people. These dangers will produce frequent crises, often with little warning of timing, size, location, or intensity. Associated threats will be varied and deadly, including weapons of mass destruction, conventional warfare, and widespread terrorism. Future enemies will attempt to deny us access to critical areas of the world, threaten vital friends and interests overseas, and even try to conduct further attacks against the American homeland. These threats will pose increasingly complex challenges to national security and future warfighting. Previous strategies addressed regional challenges. Today, we must think more broadly. Enhancing security in this dynamic environment requires us to expand our strategic focus to include both evolving regional challenges and transnational threats. This combination of traditional and emerging dangers means increased risk to our nation. To counter that risk, our Navy must expand its striking power, achieve information dominance, and develop transformational ways of fulfilling our enduring missions of sea control, power projection, strategic deterrence, strategic sealift, and forward presence. Three fundamental concepts lie at the heart of the Navy’s continued operational effectiveness: Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing. Sea Strike is the ability to project precise

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and persistent offensive power from the sea; Sea Shield extends defensive assurance throughout the world; and Sea Basing enhances operational independence and support for the joint force. These concepts build upon the solid foundation of the Navy-Marine Corps team, leverage U.S. asymmetric advantages, and strengthen joint combat effectiveness. We often cite asymmetric challenges when referring to enemy threats, virtually assuming such advantages belong only to our adversaries. “Sea Power 21” is built on a foundation of American asymmetric strengths that are powerful and uniquely ours. Among others, these include the expanding power of computing, systems integration, a thriving industrial base, and the extraordinary capabilities of our people, whose innovative nature and desire to excel give us our greatest competitive advantage. Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing will be enabled by ForceNet, an overarching effort to integrate warriors, sensors, networks, command and control, platforms, and weapons into a fully netted, combat force. We have been talking about network-centric warfare for a decade, and ForceNet will be the Navy’s plan to make it an operational reality. Supported by ForceNet, Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing capabilities will be deployed by way of a Global Concept of Operations that widely distributes the firepower of the fleet, strengthens deterrence, improves crisis response, and positions us to win decisively in war.

SEA POWER 21 • Sea Strike—Projecting Precise and Persistent Offensive Power • Sea Shield—Projecting Global Defensive Assurance • Sea Basing—Projecting Joint Operational Independence

Sea Strike: Projecting Precise and Persistent Offensive Power Projecting decisive combat power has been critical to every commander who ever went into battle, and this will remain true in decades ahead. Sea Strike operations are how the 21st-century Navy will exert direct, decisive, and sustained influence in joint campaigns. They will involve the dynamic application of persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; time-sensitive strike; ship-to-objective maneuver; information operations; and covert strike to deliver devastating power and accuracy in future campaigns. Information gathering and management are at the heart of this revolution in striking power. Networked, long-dwell naval sensors will be integrated with national and joint systems to penetrate all types of cover and weather, assembling vast amounts of information. Data provided by Navy assets—manned and unmanned—will be vital to establishing a comprehensive understanding of enemy military, economic, and political vulnerabilities. Rapid planning processes will then use this knowledge to tailor joint strike packages that deliver calibrated effects at precise times and places. Knowledge dominance provided by persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance will be converted into action by a full array of Sea Strike options—next-generation missiles capable of in-flight targeting, aircraft with stand-off precision weapons, extended-range naval gunfire, information operations, stealthy submarines, unmanned combat vehicles, and Marines and SEALs on the ground. Sovereign naval forces will exploit their strategic flexibility, operational independence, and speed of command to conduct sustained operations 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year.

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Information superiority and flexible strike options will result in time-sensitive targeting with far greater speed and accuracy. Military operations will become more complicated as advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance products proliferate. Expanded situational awareness will put massed forces at risk, for both friends and adversaries. This will compress timelines and prompt greater use of dispersed, low-visibility forces. Countering such forces will demand speed, agility, and streamlined information processing tied to precision attack. Sea Strike will meet that challenge. The importance of information operations will grow in the years ahead as high-technology weapons and systems become more widely available. Information operations will mature into a major warfare area, to include electronic warfare, psychological operations, computer network attack, computer network defense, operations security, and military deception. Information operations will play a key role in controlling crisis escalation and preparing the battlefield for subsequent attack. This U.S. asymmetry will be a critical part of Sea Strike. When we cannot achieve operational objectives from over the horizon, our Navy-Marine Corps team moves ashore. Using advanced vertical and horizontal envelopment techniques, fully netted ground forces will maneuver throughout the battlespace, employing speed and precision to generate combat power. Supported by sea bases, we will exploit superior situational awareness and coordinated fires to create shock, confusion, and chaos in enemy ranks. Information superiority and networking will act as force multipliers, allowing agile ground units to produce the warfighting impact traditionally provided by far heavier forces, bringing expeditionary warfare to a new level of lethality and combat effectiveness. Sea Strike capabilities will provide Joint Force Commanders with a potent mix of weapons, ranging from long-range precision strike, to covert land-attack in anti-access environments, to the swift insertion of ground forces. Information superiority will empower us to dominate timelines, foreclose adversary options, and deny enemy sanctuary. Sea Strike operations will be fully integrated into joint campaigns, adding the unique independence, responsiveness, and on-scene endurance of naval forces to joint strike efforts. Combined sea-based and land-based striking power will produce devastating effects against enemy strategic, operational, and tactical pressure points—resulting in rapid, decisive operations and the early termination of conflict. Sea Strike Impact • Amplified, effects-based striking power • Increased precision attack and information operations • Enhanced warfighting contribution of Marines and Special Forces • “24 / 7” offensive operations • Seamless integration with joint strike packages Sea Strike Capabilities • Persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance • Time-sensitive strike • Electronic warfare / information operations • Ship-to-objective maneuver • Covert strike

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Future Sea Strike Technologies • Autonomous, organic, long-dwell sensors • Integrated national, theater, and force sensors • Knowledge-enhancement systems • Unmanned combat vehicles • Hypersonic missiles • Electro-magnetic rail guns • Hyper-spectral imaging Sea Strike: Action Steps • Accelerate information dominance via ForceNet • Develop, acquire, and integrate systems to increase combat reach, stealth, and lethality • Distribute offensive striking capability throughout the entire force • Deploy sea-based, long-dwell, manned and unmanned sensors • Develop information operations as a major warfare area • Synergize with Marine Corps transformation efforts • Partner with the other services to accelerate Navy transformation Sea Shield: Projecting Global Defensive Assurance Traditionally, naval defense has protected the unit, the fleet, and the sea lines of communication. Tomorrow’s Navy will do much more. Sea Shield takes us beyond unit and task-force defense to provide the nation with sea-based theater and strategic defense. Sea Shield will protect our national interests with layered global defensive power based on control of the seas, forward presence, and networked intelligence. It will use these strengths to enhance homeland defense, assure access to contested littorals, and project defensive power deep inland. As with Sea Strike, the foundation of these integrated operations will be information superiority, total force networking, and an agile and flexible sea-based force. Homeland defense will be accomplished by a national effort that integrates forward-deployed naval forces with the other military services, civil authorities, and intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. Working with the newly established Northern Command, we will identify, track, and intercept dangers long before they threaten our homeland. These operations will extend the security of the United States far seaward, taking advantage of the time and space afforded by naval forces to shield our nation from impending threats. Maritime patrol aircraft, ships, submarines, and unmanned vehicles will provide comprehensive situational awareness to cue intercepting units. When sent to investigate a suspicious vessel, boarding parties will use advanced equipment to detect the presence of contraband by visual, chemical, and radiological methods. Forward-deployed naval forces will also protect the homeland by engaging inbound ballistic missiles in the boost or mid-course phase, when they are most vulnerable to interception. In addition, our nuclear-armed Trident ballistic missile submarine force will remain on silent patrol around the world, providing the ultimate measure of strategic deterrence. These highly survivable submarines are uniquely powerful assets for deterring aggressors who would contemplate using weapons of mass destruction. Achieving battle-space superiority in forward theaters is central to the Sea Shield concept, especially as enemy area-denial efforts become more capable. In times of rising tension, pre-positioned naval units will sustain access for friendly forces and maritime trade by employing

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evolving expeditionary sensor grids and advanced deployable systems to locate and track enemy threats. Speed will be an ally as linked sensors, high-speed platforms, and improved kill vehicles consolidate area control, including the location and neutralization of mines via state-of-the-art technology on dedicated mine warfare platforms and battle group combatants. Mission-reconfigurable Littoral Combat Ships, manned and unmanned aviation assets, and submarines with unmanned underwater vehicles will gain and maintain the operational advantage, while sea-based aircraft and missiles deliver air dominance. The result will be combat-ready forces that are prepared to “climb into the ring” to achieve and sustain access before and during crises. Perhaps the most dramatic advancement promised by Sea Shield will be the ability of naval forces to project defensive power deep overland, assuring friends and allies while protecting joint forces ashore. A next-generation long-range surface-to-air Standard Missile, modernized E-2 Hawkeye radar, and Cooperative Engagement Capability will combine to extend sea-based cruise missile defense far inland. This will reinforce the impact of sea-based ballistic missile defense and greatly expand the coverage of naval area defense. These capabilities represent a broadened mission for our Navy that will lessen the defensive burden on land forces and increase sea-based influence over operations ashore. The importance of Sea Shield to our nation has never been greater, as the proliferation of advanced weapons and asymmetric attack techniques places an increasing premium on the value of deterrence and battlespace dominance. Sea Shield capabilities, deployed forward, will help dissuade aggressors before the onset of conflict. In addition, Sea Shield will complement Sea Strike efforts by freeing aviation forces previously devoted to force defense, allowing them to concentrate on strike missions and generate far greater offensive firepower from the fleet. In sum, Sea Shield will enhance crisis control, protect allies and joint forces ashore, and set the stage for combat victory—providing a powerful new tool for joint combatant commanders in this dangerous age. Sea Shield Impact • Projected defense for joint forces and allies ashore • Sustained access for maritime trade, coalition building, and military operations • Extended homeland defense via forward presence and networked intelligence • Enhanced international stability, security, and engagement Sea Shield Capabilities • Homeland defense • Sea / littoral superiority • Theater air missile defense • Force entry enabling

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Future Sea Shield Technologies • Interagency intelligence and communications reach-back systems • Organic mine countermeasures • Multi-sensor cargo inspection equipment • Advanced hull forms and modular mission payloads • Directed-energy weapons • Autonomous unmanned vehicles • Common undersea picture • Single integrated air picture • Distributed weapons coordination • Theater missile defense Sea Shield: Action Steps • Expand combat reach • Deploy theater missile defense as soon as possible • Create common operational pictures for air, surface, and subsurface forces • Accelerate the development of sea-based unmanned vehicles to operate in every

environment • Invest in self-defense capabilities to ensure sea superiority Sea Basing: Projecting Joint Operational Independence Operational maneuver is now, and always has been, fundamental to military success. As we look to the future, the extended reach of networked weapons and sensors will tremendously increase the impact of naval forces in joint campaigns. We will do this by exploiting the largest maneuver area on the face of the earth: the sea. Sea Basing serves as the foundation from which offensive and defensive fires are projected—making Sea Strike and Sea Shield realities. As enemy access to weapons of mass destruction grows, and the availability of overseas bases declines, it is compelling both militarily and politically to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. forces through expanded use of secure, mobile, networked sea bases. Sea Basing capabilities will include providing Joint Force Commanders with global command and control and extending integrated logistical support to other services. Afloat positioning of these capabilities strengthens force protection and frees airlift-sealift to support missions ashore. Netted and dispersed sea bases will consist of numerous platforms, including nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, multi-mission destroyers, submarines with Special Forces, and maritime pre-positioned ships, providing greatly expanded power to joint operations. Sea-based platforms will also enhance coalition-building efforts, sharing their information and combat effectiveness with other nations in times of crisis. Sea Basing accelerates expeditionary deployment and employment timelines by pre-positioning vital equipment and supplies in-theater, preparing the United States to take swift and decisive action during crises. We intend to develop these capabilities to the fullest extent. Strategic sealift will be central to this effort. It remains a primary mission of the U.S. Navy and will be critical during any large conflict fought ashore. Moreover, we will build pre-positioned ships with at-sea-accessible cargo, awaiting closure of troops by way of high-speed sealift and

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airlift. Joint operational flexibility will be greatly enhanced by employing pre-positioned shipping that does not have to enter port to offload. Twenty-first-century operations will require greater efficiencies through the development of joint logistical support. This will include the provisioning of joint supplies and common ammunition, and the completion of critical repairs from afloat platforms. Providing these capabilities to on-scene commanders will significantly increase operational effectiveness and constitute a valuable addition to strategic basing support provided by friends and allies around the world. Beyond its operational impact, the Sea Basing concept provides a valuable tool for prioritizing naval programs. Sea-based forces enjoy advantages of security, immediate employability, and operational independence. All naval programs should foster these attributes to the greatest extent feasible. This means transforming shore-based capabilities to sea-based systems whenever practical, and improving the reach, persistence, and sustainability of systems that are already afloat. Sea Basing Impact • Pre-positioned warfighting capabilities for immediate employment • Enhanced joint support from a fully netted, dispersed naval force • Strengthened international coalition building • Increased joint force security and operational agility • Minimized operational reliance on shore infrastructure Sea Basing Capabilities • Enhanced afloat positioning of joint assets • Offensive and defensive power projection • Command and control • Integrated joint logistics • Accelerated deployment and employment timelines Future Sea Basing Technologies • Enhanced sea-based joint command and control • Heavy equipment transfer capabilities • Intra-theater high-speed sealift • Improved vertical delivery methods • Integrated joint logistics • Rotational crewing infrastructure • International data-sharing networks Sea Basing: Action Steps • Exploit the advantages of sea-based forces wherever possible • Develop technologies to enhance on-station time and minimize maintenance

requirements • Experiment with innovative employment concepts and platforms • Challenge every assumption that results in shore basing of Navy capabilities

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ForceNet: Enabling 21st Century Warfare ForceNet is the “glue” that binds together Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing. It is the operational construct and architectural framework for naval warfare in the information age, integrating warriors, sensors, command and control, platforms, and weapons into a networked, distributed combat force. ForceNet will provide the architecture to increase substantially combat capabilities through aligned and integrated systems, functions, and missions. It will transform situational awareness, accelerate speed of decision, and allow us to greatly distribute combat power. ForceNet will harness information for knowledge-based combat operations and increase force survivability. It will also provide real-time enhanced collaborative planning among joint and coalition partners. Using a total system approach, ForceNet will shape the development of integrated capabilities. These include maritime information processing and command and control components that are fully interoperable with joint systems; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance fusion capabilities to support rapid targeting and maneuver; open systems architecture for broad and affordable interoperability; and safeguards to ensure networks are reliable and survivable. ForceNet also emphasizes the human factor in the development of advanced technologies. This philosophy acknowledges that the warrior is a premier element of all operational systems. Today, ForceNet is moving from concept to reality. Initial efforts will focus on integrating existing networks, sensors, and command and control systems. In the years ahead, it will enable the naval service to employ a fully netted force, engage with distributed combat power, and command with increased awareness and speed as an integral part of the joint team. ForceNet Impact • Connected warriors, sensors, networks, command and control, platforms, and weapons • Accelerated speed and accuracy of decision • Integrated knowledge to dominate the battlespace ForceNet Impact • Connected warriors, sensors, networks, command and control, platforms, and weapons • Accelerated speed and accuracy of decision • Integrated knowledge to dominate the battlespace Global Concept of Operations “Sea Power 21” will be implemented by a Global Concept of Operations that will provide our nation with widely dispersed combat power from platforms possessing unprecedented warfighting capabilities. The global environment and our defense strategy call for a military with the ability to respond swiftly to a broad range of scenarios and defend the vital interests of the United States. We must dissuade, deter, and defeat both regional adversaries and transnational threats. The Global Concept of Operations will disperse combat striking power by creating additional independent operational groups capable of responding simultaneously around the world. This increase of combat power is possible because technological advancements are dramatically transforming the capability of our ships, submarines, and aircraft to act as power projection forces, netted together for expanded warfighting effect.

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The results will be profound. Naval capability packages will be readily assembled from forward-deployed forces. These forces will be tailored to meet the mission needs of the Joint Force Commander, complementing other available joint assets. They will be sized to the magnitude of the task at hand. As a result, our Navy will be able to respond simultaneously to a broad continuum of contingencies and conflict, anywhere around the world. The Global Concept of Operations will employ a flexible force structure that includes:

• Carrier Strike Groups that provide the full range of operational capabilities. Carrier Strike Groups will remain the core of our Navy’s warfighting strength. No other force package will come close to matching their sustained power projection ability, extended situational awareness, and combat survivability.

• Expeditionary Strike Groups consisting of amphibious ready groups augmented with strike-capable surface warships and submarines. These groups will prosecute Sea Strike missions in lesser-threat environments. As our operational concepts evolve, and new systems like Joint Strike Fighter deliver to the fleet, it will be advantageous to maximize this increased aviation capability. New platforms being developed for Expeditionary Strike Groups should be designed to realize this warfighting potential.

• Missile-defense Surface Action Groups will increase international stability by providing security to allies and joint forces ashore.

• Specially modified Trident submarines will provide covert striking power from cruise missiles and the insertion of Special Operations Forces.

• A modern, enhanced-capability Combat Logistics Force will sustain the widely dispersed fleet.

The Global Concept of Operations requires a fleet of approximately 375 ships that will increase our striking power from today’s 12 carrier battle groups, to 12 Carrier Strike Groups, 12 Expeditionary Strike Groups, and multiple missile-defense Surface Action Groups and guided-missile submarines. These groups will operate independently around the world to counter transnational threats and they will join together to form Expeditionary Strike Forces—the “gold standard” of naval power—when engaged in regional conflict. This dispersed, netted, and operationally agile fleet, as part of the joint force, will deliver the combat power needed to sustain homeland defense, provide forward deterrence in four theaters, swiftly defeat two aggressors at the same time, and deliver decisive victory in one of those conflicts. Employment of sovereign sea-based forces projecting offensive and defensive power across a unified battlespace will be central to every war plan. Equally important, this 21st-century fleet will be positioned to immediately counter unexpected threats arising from any corner of the world. The Global Concept of Operations will increase striking power, enhance flexibility, and improve responsiveness. It will fulfill our broadened strategy by sustaining the on-scene capabilities needed to fight and win. Impact of Global Concept of Operations • Widely distributed, fully netted striking power to support joint operations • Increased presence, enhanced flexibility, and improved responsiveness • Task-organized to deter forward, respond to crises, and win decisively

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Achieving Our Vision We are developing Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing through a supporting triad of organizational processes: Sea Trial, Sea Warrior, and Sea Enterprise—initiatives that will align and accelerate the development of enhanced warfighting capabilities for the fleet. Sea Trial: The Process of Innovation Our enemies are dedicated to finding new and effective methods of attacking us. They will not stand still. To outpace our adversaries, we must implement a continual process of rapid concept and technology development that will deliver enhanced capabilities to our Sailors as swiftly as possible. The Navy starts with the fleet, and Sea Trial will be fleet-led. The Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, will serve as Executive Agent for Sea Trial, with Second and Third Fleet commanders sponsoring the development of Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing capabilities. These commanders will reach throughout the military and beyond to coordinate concept and technology development in support of future warfighting effectiveness. The Systems Commands and Program Executive Offices will be integral partners in this effort, bringing concepts to reality through technology innovation and the application of sound business principles. The Navy Warfare Development Command, reporting directly to the Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, will coordinate Sea Trial. Working closely with the fleets, technology development centers, and academic resources, the Navy Warfare Development Command will integrate wargaming, experimentation, and exercises to speed development of new concepts and technologies. They will do this by identifying candidates with the greatest potential to provide dramatic increases in warfighting capability. Embracing spiral development, these technologies and concepts will then be matured through targeted investment and guided through a process of rapid prototyping and fleet experimentation. The Sea Trial process will develop enhanced warfighting capabilities for the fleet by more effectively integrating the thousands of talented and energetic experts, military and civilian, who serve throughout our Navy. Working together, we will fulfill the promise of “Sea Power 21.” Sea Trial Impact • Fleet-led, enduring process of innovation • Accelerated concept and technology development • Enhanced headquarters/fleet alignment Sea Warrior: Investing in Sailors The Sea Warrior program implements our Navy’s commitment to the growth and development of our people. It will serve as the foundation of warfighting effectiveness by ensuring the right skills are in the right place at the right time. Led by the Chief of Naval Personnel and Commander, Naval Education and Training Command, Sea Warrior will develop naval professionals who are highly skilled, powerfully motivated, and optimally employed for mission success. Traditionally, our ships have relied on large crews to accomplish their missions. Today, our all-volunteer service is developing new combat capabilities and platforms that feature dramatic advancements in technology and reductions in crew size. The crews of modern warships are streamlined teams of operational, engineering, and information technology experts who collectively operate some of the most complex systems in the world. As optimal manning

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policies and new platforms reduce crew size further, we will increasingly need Sailors who are highly educated and expertly trained. Introducing our people to a life-long continuum of learning is key to achieving our vision. In July 2001, we established Task Force EXCEL (Excellence through our Commitment to Education and Learning) to begin a revolution in training that complements the revolution in technologies, systems, and platforms for tomorrow’s fleet. We are dedicated to improving our Sailors’ professional and personal development, leadership, military education, and performance. Task Force EXCEL will apply information-age methods to accelerate learning and improve proficiency, including advanced trainers and simulators, tailored skills training programs, improved mentoring techniques, and more effective performance measurement and counseling tools. This growth and development focus will revolutionize the way we train. Another initiative central to Sea Warrior is Project SAIL (Sailor Advocacy through Interactive Leadership). Project SAIL is moving the Navy toward an interactive and incentivized distribution system that includes guaranteed schools for high-performing non-rated personnel, team detailing, Internet job listings, an information call center, and expanded detailer outreach. These actions will put choice in the process for both gaining commands and Sailors, and it will empower our people to make more informed career decisions. Our goal is to create a Navy in which all Sailors—active and reserve, afloat and ashore—are optimally assessed, trained, and assigned so that they can contribute their fullest to mission accomplishment. Sea Warrior Impact • Continual professional growth and development • Improved selection and classification • Interactive, web-based, incentivized detailing • Networked, high-impact training Sea Enterprise: Resourcing Tomorrow’s Fleet Among the critical challenges that we face today are finding and allocating resources to recapitalize the Navy. We must replace Cold War-era systems with significantly more capable sensors, networks, weapons, and platforms if we are to increase our ability to deter and defeat enemies. Sea Enterprise, led by the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, is key to this effort. Involving the Navy Headquarters, the Systems Commands, and the Fleet, it seeks to improve organizational alignment, refine requirements, and reinvest savings to buy the platforms and systems needed to transform our Navy. Drawing on lessons from the business revolution, Sea Enterprise will reduce overhead, streamline processes, substitute technology for manpower, and create incentives for positive change. Legacy systems and platforms no longer integral to mission accomplishment will be retired, and we will make our Navy’s business processes more efficient to achieve enhanced warfighting effectiveness in the most cost-effective manner. Our Navy values operational excellence as its highest priority, and the vast majority of our training is devoted to sharpening tactical skills. However, it is also important that our leaders understand sound business practices so that we can provide the greatest return on the taxpayer’s investment. To meet this need, we are creating educational opportunities to teach our leaders about executive business management, finance, and information technology. For example, the Center for Executive Education at the Naval Postgraduate School brings together rising flag

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officers and private industry decision-makers to discuss emerging business practices. We must also extend this understanding to the deckplates, so that our future leaders gain experience in a culture of strengthened productivity and continually measured effectiveness. Increased inter-service integration also holds great promise for achieving efficiencies. For example, the Navy and Marine Corps tactical aviation integration plan will save billions of dollars for both services, enhance our interoperability, and more fully integrate our people. Whether it is the U.S. Coast Guard’s Deepwater Integrated Systems Program, new munitions being developed with the U.S. Air Force, joint experiments with the U.S. Army on high-speed vessels, or a new combined intelligence structure with the U.S. Marine Corps, we will share technologies and systems whenever possible. Such efforts must not just continue; they must expand. Savings captured by Sea Enterprise will play a critical role in the Navy’s transformation into a 21st-century force that delivers what truly matters: increased combat capability. Sea Enterprise Impact • Greater process efficiencies • Divestment of non-core functions • Organizational streamlining • Enhanced investment in Warfighting capability Our Way Ahead The 21st century is clearly characterized by dangerous uncertainty and conflict. In this unpredictable environment, military forces will be required to defeat a growing range of conventional and asymmetric threats. “Sea Power 21” is our vision to align, organize, integrate, and transform our Navy to meet the challenges that lie ahead. It requires us to continually and aggressively reach. It is global in scope, fully joint in execution, and dedicated to transformation. It reinforces and expands concepts being pursued by the other services—long-range strike; global intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; expeditionary maneuver warfare; and light, agile ground forces—to generate maximum combat power from the joint team. “Sea Power 21” will employ current capabilities in new ways, introduce innovative capabilities as quickly as possible, and achieve unprecedented maritime power. Decisive warfighting capabilities from the sea will be built around:

• Sea Strike—expanded power projection that employs networked sensors, combat systems, and warriors to amplify the offensive impact of sea-based forces;

• Sea Shield—global defensive assurance produced by extended homeland defense, sustained access to littorals, and the projection of defensive power deep overland;

• Sea Basing—enhanced operational independence and support for joint forces provided by networked, mobile, and secure sovereign platforms operating in the maritime domain.

The powerful warfighting capabilities of “Sea Power 21” will ensure our joint force dominates the unified battlespace of the 21st century, strengthening America’s ability to assure friends, deter adversaries, and triumph over enemies—anywhere, anytime. Reprinted from “Proceedings,” October 2002, with permission; Copyright © (2002), U.S. Naval Institute/www.navalinstitute.org.

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The Fall & Rise of Naval Forward Presence by Captain Sam J. Tangredi, U.S. Navy

Naval forward presence just may be the most cost-effective means of preserving America’s security in the 21st century. The problem is, the Navy hasn’t proved it.

The U.S. Navy has a significant problem. By choice of policy, the number of ships in the U.S. fleet officially is tied to the forward-presence mission. In an effort to preserve force structure threatened by the downsizing potential of the 1993 Bottom-Up Review and the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the Navy’s leaders pushed forward presence to the top of the service’s mission areas. In fact, recent briefings have referred to forward presence as the strategic concept of the Navy. In contrast, the force structures of both the Army and the Air Force are tied to the warfighting requirements of the current military posture of preparing for two near- simultaneous major theater wars. The Navy’s logic in postulating the primacy of forward presence was prompted by the war-gaming models used in both defense reviews. The models indicated a lesser requirement for naval forces in fighting the two major theater wars than the current 12 aircraft carriers and 300+ ships. To forestall further Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)-mandated reductions in force structure—force structure that might be declared in surplus of requirements—the Navy launched a campaign to ensure that OSD remember the “unique contributions” of naval forces in the explicit mission of forward presence.1 This campaign for recognition has been—until now—quite successful. The first effort was to convince then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin that effective overseas presence merited a level of naval resources greater than the analytical models indicated was needed to prosecute the two major regional contingency strategy. This was followed in 1994 by a classified report compiled under the direction of Rear Admiral Philip Dur that attempted to link specific naval force packages to specific forward-presence tasks.2 Also in 1994, “Forward . . . from the Sea” carefully articulated the continuing value of forward-deployed naval forces to the future security of the United States. The results of this campaign were seen in the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, which stated that “the demands associated with maintaining overseas presence play a significant role in determining the size of our naval forces.”3 It is widely perceived within the Defense Department that the Navy “won” the interservice rivalry battle of QDR 1997, by being able to fend off any potential further cuts to the centerpieces of its force structure—aircraft carriers. But there is a downside to this success. In tying Navy battle-group force structure to presence, QDR 1997 implies that the 12-carrier-battle-group force is not needed for fighting two near-simultaneous major theater wars. In contrast, the report clearly states that 12 amphibious ready groups is the number needed for such war fighting. In other words, it has become common wisdom that the only reason the U.S. Navy maintains its “large” number of carrier battle groups is to satisfy all the presence requirements requested by the unified commanders-in-chief (CinCs). The Navy’s leaders seem to have accepted the too-many-carrier-battle-groups-for-warfighting assessment, which was based on modeling originally done by the RAND Corporation. In fact, in a recent article, former Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, Admiral Archie Clemins maintains that “we have transitioned to an era when supporting our national

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interest in peacetime requires a larger force structure than any near-term warfighting requirements would.”4 Admiral Clemins argues that 15 battle groups are needed to provide “consistent presence in the three major theaters—the Mediterranean, the Arabian Gulf, and the Western Pacific.” But even he does not argue that 15 are needed for the two-major-theater-war strategy. So, what’s the problem? If OSD buys the logic that 12, or perhaps more, carrier battle groups are needed to maintain a military presence at the three major deployment hubs, why question it? If they persuade Congress to keep funding replacement aircraft carriers, what difference does it make that they view these carriers as part of the shaping portion of today’s “shape, respond, prepare” strategy, rather than a critical component of “respond” and “prepare”? The problems may not be evident today, but they will become so in a future without defense budget increases. As Admiral Clemins points out, our forward-deployed naval forces are being stretched ever thinner in trying to keep up with CinC requirements and multiple contingencies. In contrast to the Air Force, however, which declared itself “operationally broke” following Kosovo, it is hard to argue that the Navy is being strained by the very mission that is justifying its existence. The problems also will become evident as the strategic visions of our sister services focus on their own “contributions to America’s forward presence”—which they will, particularly during preparations for the next major defense review, QDR 2001. Forward-Presence Bandwagon Having disparaged the need for naval forward presence, and proposed that a “virtual” presence of satellites and U.S.-based bombers could suffice for our defense needs, the Air Force now has discovered that its aerospace expeditionary forces (AEF) provide forward presence.5 Pilots on the first “overseas deployment” of the B-2 bomber—actually a brief stay on the island of Guam—declared it a forward-presence mission in the press. Officers at Air Mobility Command have pointed out that the AEF is not simply a responsive element, and that “in the future, the AEF will also have a forward presence role that we hadn’t planned [for] in the past.”6 A USA Today reporter, who was allowed to fly aboard the U.S. Air Force B-52 that “fired the first missile aimed at Serbia” during the Kosovo crisis, quoted an airman explaining the mission as follows: “last night we received an (order) which changed our ‘forward presence’ mission to a strike mission.”7 The forward-presence mission referred to was the movement of the B-52s from their home at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana to RAF Fairford, England. Previously, the Air Force would have referred to this movement as power projection. A recent article in Air Force magazine laid the groundwork for a cost comparison between the forward presence and warfighting capabilities provided by an aerospace expeditionary force and those of a carrier battle group.8 Naturally, the battle group was found wanting in both categories. And because an AEF essentially is a carrier air wing without a carrier, there is a bit of unsophisticated truth to such a claim: an AEF obviously is less expensive than an air wing with a carrier, particularly since current plans call for the long-range portion of the AEF to remain U.S. based. This gives a false impression that the Air Force can perform the presence mission cheaper than the Navy. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. Army maintained a warfighting presence in Europe, and continues to do so today in Korea. But the end of the Cold War removed much of the justification for maintaining heavy armored divisions overseas. Similarly, many experts expect a peaceful reunification in Korea. During the force reductions following Desert Storm, the Army

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appeared to downgrade the direct importance of a substantial overseas presence, arguing that military attachés and foreign area officers now constituted forward presence. More recently, however, Army leaders have proposed the concept of “strategic responsiveness.”9 Strategic responsiveness refers to the Army’s future vision of being able to respond to overseas crises within 96 hours with sustainable U.S.-based forces. Even the Army concedes the difficulty of achieving such an objective in the immediate future. Effective strategic responsiveness would require prepositioning a great deal of war material overseas, which makes the concept vulnerable to the very threat it was created to avoid—in-theater preemptive strikes on forward-deployed forces. The only near-term solution would be to return to a mix of Army overseas presence and strategic responsiveness forces. This reinforces the image that the Army’s version of presence is a sunk cost, and that a strategically responsive force would be cheaper than buying more ships. Forward-Presence Denial At the same time that our sister services are jumping on the forward-presence bandwagon, diluting the argument for a strong naval forward-presence structure with requests for such forces of their own, the logic of naval forward presence faces attack from the opposite direction. For a number of years, the analysts of the OSD Office of Net Assessment have studied the potential for regional powers to develop antiaccess strategies. Antiaccess—also referred to as area denial, and in its original conception, as anti-Navy strategies—is the ability to deny U.S. forces entry to a region to conduct combat operations.10 In the worst-case scenario, a regional power could use a large inventory of relatively cheap ballistic missiles, potentially armed with weapons of mass destruction, to destroy fixed bases and any forward-presence forces within the region. Following the initial attack, the enemy could use ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, antiair defenses, submarines, and mines to prevent U.S. forces from entering through choke points or lodging on allied territory. Proponents of the view that antiaccess represents the warfare of the future assume that forward-presence naval forces—particularly surface ships—are not survivable in that environment. To them, forward presence is a dead mission. Civilian critics have used the antiaccess argument in calling for reductions in the numbers of aircraft carriers and carrier battle groups. To some extent, their proposed replacement force would include more submarines, but primarily it would focus on U.S.-based aircraft and a strategically responsive Army. The Handwriting in the Report It is possible to defend naval forward presence from these intellectual attacks, but awareness of the importance of naval forward presence seems already on the wane throughout the Defense Department. The Navy has long argued that there are at least four primary objectives of a forward-deployed posture for U.S. naval forces:

• Deter the outbreak of war • Be positioned to respond rapidly to crises • Shape the future security environment through engagement • Demonstrate U.S. resolve in foreign policy objectives

Of these objectives, the only one that has been quantitatively measured is the positioning to respond rapidly to crises. As a rough measure, the Center for Naval Analyses maintains a data base of naval responses to crises and contingencies. One of the recent operations that the Navy

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has used to argue the value of forward-presence forces is the interposing of carrier battle groups in the Taiwan Straits, notably in 1996 and 1998. However, none of these contingency operations—nor any of the typical deployment operations of naval forces—was included in the Secretary of Defense’s March 1999 report to Congress, U.S. Military Involvement in Major Smaller-Scale Contingencies since the Persian Gulf War. This report, which presumably represents the official DoD view of how U.S. forces are being used in peacetime, goes as far as to imply that the primary impact of naval involvement in smaller-scale contingencies is on Seabees and fleet hospital units.11 Although there is a segment on maritime sanctions enforcement and mention of Navy involvement in two humanitarian assistance operations, the overall impression is that naval forward-presence forces have relatively little involvement in contingency operations. The term forward presence is not mentioned anywhere in the report, and a casual reader would conclude that contingencies can be solved only by deployment of land-based forces from the continental United States. Here is where the logic of tying the Navy’s force structure to the forward-presence mission holds the greatest liability. If, as the March report suggests, naval forward-presence forces have but small roles in crisis response and contingencies, such forces essentially are luxuries that may have some relevance in peacetime diplomacy but little usefulness in crisis and war. This is not an impression that bodes well for the future of a military service. The Roots of Forward Presence: Economic Security One of the realizations that appears to have been lost in the contingency debate is that naval forward presence has been, and remains, the prime protector of U.S. economic security. From the founding of the republic, our economic expansion has been largely a product of foreign trade—initially raw materials and, later, manufactured goods. Today, the product includes information, but even this travels over routes that pass through the sea, air, littoral, space, and cyberspace mediums in which the Navy operates. Throughout, access to raw materials, markets, trading partners, and information has been guaranteed by naval forces capable of conducting sovereign operations in the regions where U.S. access has been threatened. No other military means can do this without the acquiescence of potentially competing nations. With their strong signal of U.S. interest, forward-deployed U.S. naval forces remain the most flexible instrument in our repertoire of overseas military strength. The reasons for this are obvious, historical, and nonparochial: unlike overseas land bases, the seas and the skies above them are international commons, in which we require no nation’s permission to operate. Acting independently, the United States can choose its level of involvement in regional crises, without having to depend on the actions of any other state to achieve results. If desired, a U.S. naval battle group can be very visible, or, at almost a moment’s notice, it can be moved over the horizon or out of the region. Forward naval forces produce a very small logistics footprint overseas. This reduces regional sensitivities toward U.S. overseas presence and, at the same time, lessens our exposure to terrorism significantly. Together, these capabilities guarantee the unfettered world access critical for our economic growth. Because of the problem of “proving” economic benefits, however, the Navy has not made much of an effort to justify naval forward presence on these grounds. The most extensive effort has been a Naval Postgraduate School study correlating naval presence (or lack thereof) in the Arabian Gulf with fluctuations in spot oil prices. Other efforts have indicated effects on Asian stock markets from naval movements in the Taiwan Straits during periods of tension

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between China and Taiwan.12 Such research should be pursued aggressively, to incorporate the economic security argument into a new definition of naval forward presence. A New Model of Forward Presence The problem is not the validity of the forward-presence mission but the way we are describing it. We no longer can use the slogan crafted by Rear Admiral Dur, describing naval forces as “forces for presence, shaped for combat.”13 To the American public, military forces are—and should be—forces for combat, and the growing perception is that naval forward presence is but a small aspect of military engagement to shape a peacetime world. We would be wiser to describe the Navy as “forces for combat, shaping (world events) through presence.” If presence is a declining industry in an antiaccess world, then strong, survivable combat forces are America’s real defense. We cannot afford to describe the Navy as anything other than a robust combat force that also can perform the peacetime presence function. To a considerable extent, the Navy should adopt an approach from the Marine Corps’ playbook. Although the Corps gives itself considerable credit as a part of the naval forward-presence mission, it does not describe itself primarily as a forward-presence force. Rather, it sees itself as a combat-capable contingency force, whose forward presence both deters land war and enables U.S. response. In the same manner, the Navy should depict itself as a force capable of defeating antiaccess strategies, and thus as the enabler of U.S. joint warfighting strength. One method would be to adopt a strategic concepts formula that portrays forward presence as integrated into three other primary Navy mission areas: deterrence, power projection, and sea and area control.14 Another would be to focus on the Navy’s emerging land attack and theater ballistic missile defense capabilities as the breakers of potential opponent antiaccess systems. But of most value would be a redefinition of naval forward presence to focus on its role as an enabler for joint engagement and response. To do so would require reducing the Navy-only flavor of presence deployments and viewing them as sea-based engagement of U.S. forces.15 The difference is not mere terminology—although, the term presence seems a bit passive for all that such operations entail. Rather, it would require greater direct linkage to joint capabilities. Network-centric systems might provide such a linkage by requiring cross-service information exchange and sharing among all combat platforms.16 Another method would be the construction of joint littoral supremacy ships that would serve as multiservice deployment platforms.17 A third would be the development of the mobile operating base, the proposed off-shore joint service platform that could substitute for vulnerable or unavailable fixed land bases.18 And, last, the development of highly survivable platforms tailored specifically to littoral warfare, such as the Streetfighter concept, would optimize the warfighting advantages that forward presence brings to the joint table.19 All four methods appear to increase the value of forward presence for joint warfighting in times of crisis or conflict and for economic security in times of peace. The Near-Term Fix Redefining naval forward presence cannot be done overnight, but there are some near-term “fixes” that the Navy could adopt to make its arguments more viable—in other words, to “prove” forward presence.

• Take on the RAND models directly. Based on RAND’s assessment of a war in Korea and the Arabian Gulf, only six carrier battle groups are needed to ensure a favorable outcome for the United States. But what if the intervention is anywhere else—East Asia, for example. What if it were in Indonesia or the Philippines? Would six carriers be all we would need?

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• Adopt the antiaccess paradigm but interject some reality to the suppositions. Granted that a number of nations will have ballistic missile forces that could threaten all land bases within their regions, how many will have the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to target moving ships at sea? Even the Soviet Union found this unaffordable in the Cold War. The best guess is that, in the near term, perhaps two or three nations could attempt to do so, even with information technology available on the open market. • Stop describing our sister services as the “war-winning” forces, and the Navy and Marine Corps as merely the “entry forces” or “enablers.” The Army, for example, intends to transform itself into a light, rapidly mobile force without the heavy armor that we previously assumed was war winning. If, as recently retired Marine Commandant General Charles Krulak often suggested, future wars will be primarily in the littorals, who is to say that a Navy and Marine Corps-centered joint team is not going to be the war-winning force? • Increase our enabling capabilities in an antiaccess environment and tie our vision and doctrine to a broader group of strategic concepts than just forward presence. • Pursue the analytical “proof” that demonstrates the importance of naval forces to economic security. • Broaden the term forward presence to include the sea-based engagement capabilities that joint forces could provide. In other words, forward presence forces should be conceived as the United States’ sea base from which our joint armed forces can operate in a world in which land bases are becoming increasingly vulnerable.

There are compelling reasons for naval forward presence, properly defined and described, to increase in importance as an element of our overall National Security Strategy in the 21st century. Historically, a strong naval presence acts as a buffer that other nations find difficult to penetrate, and as a means of access into regions in which our interests lie. Our global maritime power is a means to enforce world peace, a potential war winner, and a key player in maintaining our economic security. To accomplish all of this requires forces for combat, shaping through presence. This allows a sea power, in the words of the 17th-century political philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, to “take as much or as little of war as it desires.” Captain Tangredi is senior military fellow of the QDR 2001 Working Group at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University. He previously served as head, Strategy and Concepts Branch, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and as commanding officer of the USS Harpers Ferry (LSD-49). 1Adm. Henry H. Mauz, Jr., USN, “The Value of Being There,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 1994, p. 26. 2RAdm. Philip A. Dur, USN, “Presence: Forward, Ready, Engaged,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, June 1994, pp. 41-44. 3DoD, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review, May 1997, p. 23. 4Adm. Archie Clemens, USN, “Where Is the Peace Dividend Now?” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September 1999, p. 44. 5“Air Force Says It Can Offer Presence in Peacetime,” The Wall Street Journal, 27 February 1995, p. A7; and Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall, “What presence means to the Air Force,” Air Force Times, 3 April 1995, p. 19. 6“U.S. Air Force to Rework Strategy: Aerospace Expeditionary Forces Will Become a Forward Presence,” Defense News, 22 February 1999, p. 46. 7“Given the Phrase ‘Rock ‘N Roll,’ B-52 Launches First Strike of Conflict,” USA Today, 25 March 1999, p. 1. 8Rebecca Grant, “The Carrier Myth,” Air Force Magazine, March 1999, p. 26. 9The Army conducted a “Strategic Responsiveness” conference (cosponsored with The Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis) on 2-4 November 1999. 10One of the best discussions of this concept is Thomas G. Mahnken’s “Deny U.S. Access?” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September 1998, pp. 36-39. 11Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Report to Congress on U.S. Military Involvement in Major Smaller-Scale Contingencies since the Persian Gulf War, March 1999, p. 28.

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12Both studies are summarized in Sally Newman, “Political and Economic Implications of Global Naval Presence,” in Naval Forward Presence: Present Status, Future Prospects (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, November 1997), pp. 47-59. 13Dur, “Presence: Forward, Ready, Engaged,” p. 44. 14Cdr. Sam J. Tangredi, USN, and Cdr. Randall G. Bowdish, USN, “Core of Naval Operations,” The Submarine Review (January 1999): pp. 11-23. 15This discussion uses the original, broad definition of engagement as put forward in the administration’s National Security Strategy of “engagement and enlargement (of democracy).” More recently, the Joint Staff has adopted a more narrow definition of engagement that means only military-to-military contacts and combined exercises. The Joint Staff definition, which influences the creation of theater engagement plans, misses and belittles the whole purpose of engagement. 16VAdm. Arthur K. Cebrowski, USN, and John J. Gartska, “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1998, pp. 28-35. 17Cdr. Sam Tangredi, USN, “A Ship for All Reasons,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September 1999, pp. 92-95. 18Adm. William A. Owens, USN, High Seas (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press), pp. 162-66. 19In Proceedings, see VAdm. A. K. Cebrowski and Capt. W. P. Hughes, “Rebalancing the Fleet,” November 1999, pp. 31-34; LCdr. Dave Weeks, USNR, “A Combatant for the Littorals,” November 1999, pp. 26-30; and Capt. Wayne P. Hughes, USN (Ret.), “22 Questions for Streetfighter,” February 2000, pp. 46-49. Reprinted from “Proceedings,” May 2000, with permission; Copyright © (2000), U.S. Naval Institute/www.navalinstitute.org.

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The Fall & Rise of Naval Forward Presence: Rebuttal (A rebuttal to Captain S.J. Tangredi’s article in Proceedings, May 2000.)

Rear Admiral Philip A. Dur, U.S. Navy (Retired) -- First let me add my congratulations to Captain Tangredi. I found his article a thoughtful and persuasive argument for naval forces “shaped for combat” in the world’s littorals. I also would congratulate the Naval Institute for selecting an article that was bound to stimulate thoughtful reaction and commentary. It is in this spirit that I write. Unfortunately, Captain Tangredi opens his case for combat-capable naval forces by creating a forward presence “strawman.” Presumably, this creates a point of contrast between forces employed in the presence role and the more demanding requirements for combat. In fact, the case for naval forward presence with which I was associated in 1993-1995 recognized explicitly the overriding importance of credible, combat-capable formations in the presence role. The very foundation of effective forward naval presence has always been manifest combat capability and readiness. As the Secretary of the Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, and Commandant of the Marine Corps insisted in “Forward from the Sea. . .,” the enabling mission is a principal premise for naval forward presence. Operating in and from sovereign platforms in international waters, naval forces are uniquely suited to demonstrating the ability and the determination to secure the lines of strategic approach (LOSA) to potential areas of operations across the seas. Most important in this regard is the security of the vulnerable termini of those LOSAs to the littorals of the Pacific Rim, the Middle East and the European subcontinent. In short, an important measure of the adequacy of our naval strength in times of peace is our capability to defeat the “antiaccess” strategies of any power that might threaten to deny us access to the forward bases essential for flowing the continental United States-based ground elements and land-based air forces. Although the case was not made as explicitly in the 1994 strategic concept, the criticism that the forward presence argument ignored the economic importance of vital ocean areas also is misplaced. A seminal study by the Center for Naval Analyses was launched as a result of the work then under way on forward naval presence. (See Dr. John Noer, “Maritime Economic Interests and the Sea Lines of Communications through the South China Sea: The Value of Trade in Southeast Asia,” Center for Naval Analyses, March 1996.) In fairness to Captain Tangredi, this work needs to be extended so that we come to define the value of open sea lanes of communications in hard, quantifiable terms. The importance of wartime requirements or major regional contingencies (MRC) for the sizing of naval forces is recognized. But, as others have noted, sizing naval forces for discrete MRCs is, at best, inexact, and, at worst, pure guesswork. Where we have garrisoned land-based forces, in Korea, for example, and therefore would presumably have good strategic warning of major hostilities, requirements for “enabling” naval forces appear very sensitive to scenario assumptions about the progression of conflict. (It is perhaps telling that in a discussion of requirements for air power in a future Korean contingency, the respected industry journal Aviation Week omitted any reference to the role that sea-based tactical air might play in such a conflict.) In more isolated scenarios, especially where the objectives at risk are well inland, the requirement for naval forces may indeed be limited to defeating access-denial threats. Scenarios that feature significant littoral space, from which naval striking power (air and ground) can be projected with decisive effect, however, may generate quite significant requirements for naval

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forces—especially early in the conflict. Any of the foregoing cases also must take into consideration the security of the LOSAs across broad ocean areas. If there is not a significant blue-water threat postulated, the requirements for naval forces are limited to those of power projection. If we cannot dismiss threats in the open oceans, the MRC requirements in every case must be adjusted to include sea control as a precondition for successful operations in the littoral. The inevitable problem with sizing forces for discrete MRC scenarios—fixed in time—is that requirements so derived are as fungible as they are transitory. Certainly, MRC requirements are a weaker rationale for naval force requirements, if only because the scenario assumptions we make today will undergo dramatic change long before the ships and aircraft we are programming today are scuttled. And, if today’s two MRC requirements are unreliable metrics for a capital-intensive naval establishment, what are the “right” determinants of the forces we should be buying for tomorrow? The answer is not as complicated as some assume, and it may be more straightforward for naval forces than for ground-based forces. The case can be seen as turning ultimately on the nature and extent of our truly vital interests, and where these interests may intersect those of our putative foes. An interest-based approach to force sizing begins with two assumptions and a postulate. We assume that the United States has vital interests across the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic-Mediterranean bridge. It is further assumed that we are unable or unwilling to sustain forward ground-force garrisons everywhere we have vital interests at risk. Thus, the argument is that it is prudent to size and configure the Fleet (and the Fleet Marine Force) to permit the maintenance of continuous forward naval presence in the three deployment “hubs” that incorporate our most vital transoceanic interests. The logic for these naval force deployments is to demonstrate both our intention and our readiness to secure the forward termini of the lines of strategic approach from the United States to areas where we are most likely to fight. For those who will argue that the forces continuously deployed would be inadequate to meet wartime requirements, we would point out that the mobility and versatility of naval forces should permit us to collapse our presence in adjacent theaters and reinforce at a threatened point—on warning. This has been standard operating procedure for the Navy and Marine Corps for a long time. The importance of maintaining core enabling forces in each deployment hub turns on the need to deter foes who might attempt to deny us the access we need, as well as the need to encourage and train with friends and allies whose security depends on major reinforcements. In short, if continuous presence cannot take the form of permanent garrisons, naval forces should logically provide it. Once we establish a requirement for continuous (or near-continuous) naval presence, and when we have defined the mix of combat capabilities adequate to enhance deterrence and promote interoperability with our friends and allies in each deployment “hub,” it is relatively simple to derive the aggregate force requirements in the deployment base. Barring those exceptional situations in which we are able to forward-base naval forces in the deployment hub (currently the case in Japan and Okinawa), the deployment base must support rotational deployments to the forward areas. The aggregate requirement is, of course, sensitive to specifics such as maintenance intervals, training cycles, morale and family separation, etc. If past practice provides a useful precedent, we will need three or four times the number of forces that are continuously deployed. As implied, the combat capabilities embodied in our presence forces (shaped for combat) derive from the missions and tasks we assign them in the event of conflict and the most likely threats they may encounter. Here, the need for flexibility and versatility is paramount because, as

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we have argued, drawing on ships and aircraft from adjacent hubs can create force aggregates. No matter where they are routinely deployed, all of the forces should embody similar capabilities for missions that range from antisubmarine warfare in the open ocean and shallow waters to defense against theater ballistic missile attacks. Finally—and every bit as important, given their enabling mission—the forces resident in the deployment base must be designed, maintained, and trained with interoperability as a critical consideration. This applies to joint doctrine and tactics, as well as readiness for combined operations. Forward presence is, by definition, an exercise in jointness and in coalition building. In sum, Captain Tangredi is right when he implies that forward naval presence is not a mission. Moreover, we agree that it has to do with the peacetime employment of combat-ready forces. Precisely because we buy ships and aircraft for 20-40 years, however, today’s MRC scenarios do not provide appropriate force-sizing algorithms. Our enduring vital interests and the means to demonstrate our determination and ability to defend them should have preponderant weight in sizing naval forces for the future. The determination of requirements is not as difficult as some would have it; and the need is urgent. Reprinted from “Proceedings,” July 2000, with permission; Copyright © (2000), U.S. Naval Institute/www.navalinstitute.org.

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