Understanding Naval Warfare

Ian Speller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351854252
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This new and updated edition of Understanding Naval Warfare offers the reader an accessible introduction to the study of modern naval warfare, providing a thorough grounding in the vocabulary, concepts, issues, and debates, set within the context of relevant history.

Navies operate in an environment that most people do not understand and that many avoid. They are equipped with a bewildering range of ships, craft and other vessels and types of equipment, the purpose of which is often unclear. Writings on naval warfare are usually replete with references to esoteric concepts explained in specialist language than can serve as a barrier to understanding. The objective of this book, therefore, is to cut through the obscure and the arcane to offer a clear, coherent and accessible guide to the key features of naval warfare which will equip the reader with the knowledge and understanding necessary for a sophisticated engagement with the subject.

This second edition is divided into two key parts. The first focuses on concepts of naval warfare and introduces readers to the ideas associated with the theory and practice of naval operations. It also includes a new chapter in which the history of the last century of naval warfare is explored in order to illustrate the key concepts. The second part focuses on the conduct of war at sea and on peacetime roles for contemporary navies. This latter section concludes with a chapter that looks ahead to the likely future of naval warfare.

This textbook will be essential reading for students of naval warfare, sea power and maritime security, and highly recommended for those studying military history, strategic studies and security studies in general.

Part I
Concepts of naval warfare and maritime power

1 The nature of the maritime operating environment

Navies are defined by, and gain particular characteristics from, their operating environ ment. If one is to understand naval warfare then one must first understand this environment. Most obviously this includes the sea for this is the primary medium in which navies work. However, the relevant operating environment is not limited to the sea but also includes the landward portion of coastal regions. Navies often find themselves opposed or supported by land based systems, depending on circumstances. Moreover, because people live on land and not at sea, all naval activity is aimed towards creating an effect on the land, even if that effect is sometimes indirect. As such, no discussion of the maritime operating environment would be complete without some reference to the impact of the land on that environment. US Joint Doctrine defines what it calls the ‘maritime domain’ as ‘the oceans, seas, bays, estuaries, islands, coastal areas, and the airspace above these, including the littorals’ and this definition is the one adopted for the maritime operating environment throughout this chapter.¹

A study of the maritime environment cannot, therefore, begin where the waves lap the shore but must encompass that portion of the land that can be used to have a direct bearing on activity at sea and that may also be subject to direct influence applied from the sea. Given that, with very few exceptions, humans live on land and not on the sea, it is inevitable that most maritime activity will be focused on those regions where land and sea meet, and throughout history the majority of naval battles have occurred within proximity of the shore. This area, referred to as the littoral region, has received increasing prominence in much western thinking about navies since the end of the Cold War (see Box 1.1).

Box 1.1 Defining the Littoral Region

According to NATO doctrine the littoral region is defined as follows:

‘In military operations, a coastal region consisting of the seaward area from the open ocean to the shore that must be controlled to support operations ashore, and the landward area inland from the shore that can be supported and defended directly from the sea.’²

The areas of the sea within which maritime forces operate are often differentiated in the following fashion:

• ‘blue water’ referring to the open ocean or what are frequently called the high seas,
• ’green water’ meaning coastal waters, ports and harbours and,
• ’brown water’ referring to navigable rivers and estuaries.

Operations within these different areas set different physical challenges. Vessels designed to operate primarily in the North Atlantic Ocean (blue water) may require different sea-keeping capabilities to those designed for the Persian Gulf (green water) or the Mekong delta (brown water). It should be noted that these are informal and imprecise terms and that these areas shade into each other as part of an interconnected sea area that covers most of the planet. Of course, whether one is focusing on blue, green or brown water, knowledge of the maritime environment implies an understanding not just of factors that influence operations on the surface of the sea, but also of those above and below the surface.

People have fought at and from the sea from the earliest times. For the majority of that time the maritime environment was relatively one-dimensional. Ships operated on the surface of the sea and any descent beneath the waves was usually fatal. The introduction of sea mines and submersible craft in the mid- to late-nineteenth century added a second dimension to naval warfare, and the development of military aircraft during the First World War (1914–18) added a third. Thus, by the second decade of the twentieth century maritime forces operated in three dimensions, on, under and over the sea. More recently the need to exploit space-based systems, cyber capabilities and the electro-magnetic spectrum for communication, navigation and for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) means that the twenty-first century maritime operating environment is truly multi-dimensional.

Navies are not the only players within this environment. Land-based systems such as coastal artillery, missiles and aircraft can have a profound impact on activities within their reach and are commonly operated by armies and air forces. Likewise, armies and air forces often go to sea as part of a maritime force, contributing to a navy’s ability to project power against the shore. Successful maritime operations therefore are frequently ‘joint’, involving the integration of the three different services – army, air force and navy. Even operations far from the shore and beyond the effective range of most land-based forces, will usually rely to some degree on enabling structures and facilities that are joint. The need to integrate joint forces within a multi-dimensional operating environment adds further complexity to maritime operations.

The physical environment

The oceans and seas cover 70 percent of the planet. They are vast, connected, featureless and inhospitable. These simple facts have profound implications for the way in which we seek to use the sea and, by extension, for the context within which navies operate.

Size and connectivity

The most obvious feature of the sea is its size. Almost three-quarters of the planet is covered by sea water which, with the exception a few inland seas, is connected in a manner that makes the different oceans and seas in effect one great world ocean that connects all points touched by its waves. This connectivity provides, and has always provided, the basis for world trade. It may also be exploited for military purposes. A state may close its land frontiers and refuse the right of aircraft to fly over its territory, but it may not legally hinder the progress of a ship at sea during peacetime. The sea thus represents a great highway for those who are able to use it and a barrier to those who cannot. As the American strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote in 1890:

The first and most obvious light in which the sea presents itself from a political and social point of view is that of a great highway; or better, perhaps, of a wide common, over which men may pass in all directions.³

Connectivity is not absolute, and it can be constrained by a combination of geography and enemy action. For example, prior to the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, the US Pacific and Atlantic fleets were separated by the American continent, and the Russian (and Soviet) navy has always been hindered by the wide geographical separation of its Baltic, Northern, Pacific and Black Sea fleets and by choke points constraining its access to the high seas. Of course, the construction of canals, such as the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal (opened in 1869) and the Baltic-White Sea Canal (1933) demonstrates that maritime geography can be altered by human endeavour. In a different way climate change may also have an impact on geography, opening up new routes such as the Northern Sea Route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through what was previously impassable ice.

Featureless

While the surface of the sea is rarely flat, and may be punctuated by rocks, islands and man-made structures such as oil rigs (especially in coastal areas), the high seas by and large are featureless. There are no physical obstacles to travel or observation. On the whole, a ship may sail where it chooses without the impediments to progress facing any land-based manoeuvre. In the age of sail the prevailing winds promoted the use of established trade routes and today international shipping routes (ISR) exist by virtue of offering the quickest and most economical course between two points. But ships do not need to stick to these routes which have, in any case, always been longer and broader than any road could ever be. As Rear-Admiral Hubert Moineville noted:

The most distinctive geographical feature – that which makes the sea so different from the land – is the uniformity of its surface. There are no contours on the sea, no hills and valleys, no built-up area; there are no road signs (or very few), no frontiers and no single prescribed route. Friends and enemies alike can come and go as they please.⁴

While established road and rail communications or the existence of physical barriers can make land manoeuvre predictable, this is not generally the case at sea, although geographical features such as straits and other ‘choke points’ can channel naval forces and make their approach predictable in a way that is analogous to the movement of armies.

Inhospitable

After their size, the next most obvious feature of the oceans and seas is the fact that they are inhospitable. The sea plays host to a fantastic variety of aquatic life, but humans are not aquatic. People cannot live in the sea or on the sea nor can they travel across it without recourse to special equipment – usually a platform able to sustain life and to support whatever activity brought its passengers to such a challenging environ ment. As one veteran sailor has put it, ‘[b]eing at sea is a temporary accommodation with a medium which, if not hostile, has infinite ways of expressing why mankind should not be there.’⁵ Thus naval warfare, and indeed all activity at sea, tends to be focused on platforms in a way that is dissimilar to activity on the land. With the exception of the ships that traverse them and of a small number of offshore oil platforms and the like, the seas are empty. They do not have a resident human population. There is no one to report on the passing of ships, and ships do not leave footprints or tyre tracks to mark their progress. In this sense the sea is opaque. This makes it easier for ships to pass unnoticed, particularly if they avoid busy sea lanes. Furthermore, as the sea is empty there is little point in trying to protect it. It has no intrinsic value. Unlike on land, there is no population, industry or fixed agriculture to defend at sea. Equally, one cannot control the sea in the way that one controls land. It is not a medium amenable to physical possession.

These physical properties give rise to particular economic, political, legal and military dimensions to the use of the sea. These are each examined in turn below.

Economic dimensions

The sea has always been of enormous economic importance. Indeed, some commentators have argued that maritime warfare is primarily economic, being driven by a desire to deny an enemy the economic advantage of the sea.⁶ Certainly this has been a feature of war at sea over the centuries, and some wars fit this model rather well, for example the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the seventeenth century. However, many other wars do not. The primary role of Anglo-French naval forces in the Crimean War (1853–56), for example, was the projection of power against the Russian coast in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea and support for land forces in Crimea. Economic activities were not absent, and Russia was subjected to a blockade, but this was of secondary importance within the context of that war. Similarly, economic warfare was not the primary consideration for the US Navy during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that the geo-economic importance of the sea does give maritime power an important and unique economic dimension that is relevant in both peace and in war.

The economic importance of the sea rests on two basic facts. First, the resources in the sea and under the seabed are valuable. Fish, crustaceans and seaweed have all been harvested for food since the earliest times, while sea mammals have also been hunted for their meat, skins and oil. Today up to three billion people worldwide rely on wild caught and farmed sea food for their main source of animal protein.^7...