Naval Strategy and Operations in Narrow Seas

Milan N. Vego

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135777159
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Many books and articles have been written on wars in narrow seas. However, none deals in any comprehensive manner with the problems of strategy and conduct of naval operations. The aim of this book is to explain in some detail the characteristics of a war fought in narrow seas and to compare and contrast strategy and major operations in narrow seas and naval warfare in the open ocean..

1
Introduction

The terms ‘strategy’, ‘policy’, and ‘operations’ are frequently used interchangeably as if they meant the same thing. However, there is significant difference in the real meaning of each of these terms. In generic terms, strategy is the art and science of applying all sources of power in peacetime and in war to accomplish strategic objectives. National, coalition/alliance, and military strategy are differentiated. National (or national security) strategy deals with the art and science of applying and coordinating all the elements of national power (military, economic, financial, diplomatic, psychological, technological, and others) to achieve national objectives in peacetime and in war, to secure national objectives.¹ Coalition or alliance strategy deals with both the theory and practice of applying and coordinating all the sources of power for the attainment of coalition/alliance aims. It is formulated by heads of state and their principal civilian and military advisors.

Military strategy is the art and science of employing the armed forces of a nation to accomplish national strategy objectives by the application of force or by the threat of force in the support of national strategy.² It must be coordinated with the use of other elements of national power. National policy makers, their military advisors, and the nation’s senior military leadership are principally responsible for determining military strategy both in peacetime and in war. They decide the war aims and assign specific military strategic objectives to individual theaters of war.³ Theater strategy is a subset of military strategy and is applicable to powers facing a potential conflict which may require the threat or use of military force in multiple theaters. Normally, for medium and small powers, there is no intermediate step between national military strategy and the practical application of operational art.

In the strict meaning of the term, military strategy does not involve the actual application of military force, but is principally focused on accomplishing national military and/or theater-strategic objectives through national or coalition/alliance strategy, determining principal and secondary theaters of war and overall military posture (offensive or defensive), deciding on the distribution of armed forces to various theaters, and conflict/war termination. Depending on the medium where sources of military power are to be applied, military strategy encompasses naval, airspace, and land aspects. Many theoreticians differentiate naval from airspace strategy, while the term ‘military strategy’ is commonly used when referring to land warfare.

In a narrow definition of the term, naval (or maritime) strategy encompasses both the art and the science of using sources of military power in a sea/ocean theater to accomplish naval (maritime) aspects of military strategy.⁴ Among other things, naval strategy determines strategic objectives to be accomplished at sea based on military strategy (or theater strategy): selecting naval and air basing areas and acquiring new ones by diplomatic or military means, developing the overall concept of war at sea, deciding which theater will be principal and which secondary, and determining maritime strength in various theaters.

A naval strategy is an integral part of a national security and national military strategy. Therefore, in peacetime and in a crisis, the diplomatic, political, economic, social, and psychological sources of national power backed by military strength are used primarily to accomplish national strategic objectives. In a war, these aspects of power recede into the background, and military force is employed to accomplish the objectives of national strategy.

All too often, naval strategy is confused with naval policy and vice versa. However, there is a considerable difference between these two. In the strict definition of the term, a naval policy constitutes the sum of all political, diplomatic, financial, social, and purely military decisions taken by the country’s highest political and naval leadership that affect the country’s maritime situation in general, the size and composition of the navy, number of personnel, and organization of maritime forces. Naval policy, in contrast to naval strategy, is also heavily influenced by domestic politics. Foreign policy and domestic policy are mutually dependent. Foreign policy should define which countries or group of countries will be regarded as friends, neutral, or potentially hostile. The size and the composition of the navy depend largely on the country’s industrial capacity, financial strength, and the willingness of the country’s political leadership to allocate resources for expansion and modernization of the fleet. Therefore, foreign policy serves as a framework, while domestic policy is the principal factor in the realization of naval policy objectives.

Naval strategy is all too often confused with what is properly understood as ‘operational warfare’ (or ‘operations’) or, in US military terms, ‘operational art’. The highly respected naval strategist Rear Admiral Alfred T.Mahan clearly did not diff erentiate between strategy and what is known today as ‘operational art’. One of his most important works, Naval Strategy (published in 1911), did not deal with naval strategy per se, but rather with various elements of ‘operational art’. Likewise, the US Navy in the 1920s and 1930s believed that strategy was concerned with campaigns and that tactics applied to battles or combat.⁵ This confusion is regrettably common today as well, because many naval officers in discussing employment of naval forces do not differentiate between what pertains to naval strategy and what to operational art. To make things more complicated, the term ‘operations’ is used by the US/ Western military so imprecisely and loosely that its real meaning is obscured or completely lost.⁶

In contrast to strategy, operational art deals with the actual employment of one’s combat forces. Operational art is a component of military art concerned with both the theory and the practice of planning, preparing, conducting, and sustaining major operations and campaigns aimed to accomplish operational or strategic objectives in a theater. It is applied across the entire spectrum of warfare. However, its full potential is possible only in a high-intensity conventional conflict, not a nuclear war or low-intensity conflict.⁷

There are many commonalities in the combat employment of various services when employed to accomplish strategic or operational objectives in a theater. However, there are also significant differences in the methods and the techniques in which the forces of various services are employed in combat. These distinctions are largely due to the diverse characteristics of the physical ‘medium’ (land, air and sea) in which each service operates, and of their unique weapons platforms. Hence, some theoreticians argue that each service has its own operational art.⁸ They have a point, because operational and partial strategic objectives can often be accomplished by forces exclusively or predominantly of a single service. For example, a major operation aimed to cut off the enemy’s maritime trade or defend one’s own trade is usually conducted by naval forces and aviation. The destruction or neutralization of a major part of the enemy’s fleet would require the planning and execution of one or several major operations in which naval forces would play a dominant role. Likewise, an offensive or defensive counterair operation would be planned and conducted predominantly by air forces.

Operational art is greatly influenced not only by strategic, but also by political, economic, social, and other aspects of the situation in a given theater. The opposite is also true, however. The outcome of major operations or campaigns considerably affects the political, economic, social, or even environmental situation in a given theater. In contrast to tactics, the deployment of one’s forces is the very heart of a major operation or campaign plan. Mistakes made in operational or strategic deployment of the combat forces can only be corrected with difficulty, if at all. Also, logistical support and sustainment are much more critical to the successful conduct and outcome of major operations or campaigns than they are in fighting battles and engagements.⁹

Naval strategy guides operational art by determining objectives, allocating forces, and imposing conditions on tactical combat. At the same time, naval strategy should take into account the existing and projected operational realities of the situation. This means, among other things, that strategic or operational objectives must be based on realistic assessment and balancing of the factors of space, time and force. A serious mismatch or a disconnect between the means and ends is invariably fatal.

Operational art translates the intent and conditions of strategy into a plan (or plans) for the defeat of a mjor part of the enemy force. It determines who is employed where and when to achieve tactical victories in support of strategic or operational objectives.¹⁰ Brilliance at the operational level may only delay not prevent an ultimate defeat due to a seriously flawed strategy. Also, a sound and coherent strategy in itself cannot secure victory in a war, because a high level of operational competence is required to accomplish strategic objectives through the actual employment of one’s combat forces.¹¹

The practical application of operational art requires that all the actions be sequenced and synchronized in such a way as to contribute most directly to the accomplishment of the assigned strategic or operational objectives. Therefore, there should always be a clear appreciation not just of what is operationally desirable but of what is strategically possible. In practicing operational art, everything must be subordinated to a simple operational scheme or idea that accomplishes an operational or strategic objective. A properly determined military objective should normally be focused on the enemy forces that must be either destroyed or maneuvered into a situation that makes it impossible for them to accomplish their assigned objectives. However, the politico-strategic purpose should never be forgotten. Serious errors could be made by unrealistic and over-costly demands on tactics.¹²

Tactics encompass both the art and the science of planning, the preparation and conduct of battles, engagements, strikes, and attacks aimed to accomplish tactical (and sometimes operational) objectives in a given combat sector or zone. They must ensure that results are in harmony with both operational and strategic objectives. Poor application of operational art can lead to tactical defeats, which may in turn often have strategic consequences. The accomplishment of strategic objectives depends upon the results gained by tactics. Strategy must ensure that tactical combat is conducted under conditions favorable to accomplishing operational or strategic objectives. It must also always consider the limitations imposed by tactics. The results of tactical actions are useful only when linked together as a part of some larger design framed by military or theater strategy. Bad tactics may invalidate a good strategy. Therefore a sufficient level of tactical competence is absolutely necessary to accomplish strategic or operational objectives.

One of the principal aims of operational art is to bring about a battle under the most favorable terms possible, to make the enemy fight at a disadvantage. However, tactical brilliance can rarely overcome inadequate operational performance. Also, the critical importance of tactics is not reduced with the application of operational art. It is a truism that a lost battle cancels all the advantages obtained by a good (major) operation.¹³

Military art guides the planning, preparation, and employment of one’s armed forces in time of peace and war. Each service of the armed forces operates in an environment that is unique in terms of its physical size and characteristics, and the presence or lack of human settlements or manmade structures.

Navies operate in the open ocean and in what are euphemistically called ‘narrow seas’. However, the latter term is not always properly defined and understood. It is often used interchangeably with the terms ‘coastal waters’, ‘shallow waters’, or ‘confined waters’. Yet, despite some apparent similarities, each of these terms has a different meaning. A body of water can be both narrow and deep throughout, as are the Mediterranean Sea and the Caribbean Sea, or both narrow and predominantly shallow, as are the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Seas are classified as either enclosed or partly enclosed seas. Enclosed seas penetrate deeply into the continent and are connected with the open ocean by a narrow passage. Because of their restricted communication with the open ocean, they are characteristically tideless or have a small tidal range. Enclosed seas are also called ‘continental seas’ because of their restricted connections with the open ocean. These can be shallow if they rest on shallow depressions, as are the Azov Sea, Hudson Bay, and the Baltic Sea; or they can be epeiric or deep continental seas and intercontinental seas, and their depths may exceed 2,500 fathoms. The term ‘mediterranean’ or ‘middle-earth’ sea can be used instead of intercontinental sea but this is usually reserved for the almost landlocked basins of the Arctic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Central American Sea and the Indonesian Sea.¹⁴

In the geographic definition of the term, narrow sea encompasses enclosed and semi-enclosed seas. In addition, large inland bodies of water such as the Caspian Sea, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario can also be considered as narrow seas. An enclosed sea lies wholly within the continental shelf, and is surrounded by a landmass, except for a strait or several straits that connect it to an ocean or another enclosed or semienclosed sea. Semi-enclosed seas may be linked with the open ocean by one or more straits or narrows (as is the North Sea), or by several passages between islands. They are characterized by large tidal ranges and are more oceanic in character than enclosed seas. Because they are open to the ocean, semi-enclosed seas may be referred to as ‘pelagic’ seas. Shallow pelagic seas lie wholly upon the continental shelf (they are sometimes called shelf seas) and their depths rarely exceed 100 fathoms. Deep pelagic seas are those separated from the open ocean by island arcs or shallow submarine ridges and their depths often exceed 1,000 fathoms. Such seas are typical of western Pacific and Central American waters.¹⁵ A marginal or peripheral sea is part of an ocean bordering a continental landmass or an island archipelago. The outer boundary of such a sea is widely open to if not an integral part of the respective ocean. A marginal sea does not lie beyond the continental shelf but on a downward portion of it. It is militarily regarded as a narrow sea when surrounded on all sides by large islands or by an island festoon, even if situated in the midst of an ocean, as are the Coral Sea and the Solomon Sea. Some geographers consider the Mediterranean as one of the marginal seas of the Atlantic Ocean. In the proper understanding of the term, however, the Mediterranean should be considered as a large enclosed sea.

The terms ‘shallow’, ‘coastal’, ‘confined’, ‘inshore’, and ‘restricted’ waters themselves have different meanings. Shallow waters are those waters wherein wind-generated waves travel in less than one half of their length, and are defined as the marginal or inland extension of ocean having prevailing depths of under 600 feet.¹⁶ In the hypsometric definition of the term shallow waters encompass coastal and inshore waters less than 100 fathoms deep. In acoustic terms shallow water exists whenever the propagation of underwater sound is characterized by numerous encounters with both the sea surface and the sea bottom. In some cases a body of water could be considered hypsometrically shallow but ‘deep’ in respect of the propagation of underwater sound.¹⁷

Coastal waters are the waters on the continental shelf and adjacent semienclosed seas. The continental shelf encompasses the seabed and subsoil adjacent to the coast to a depth of about 660 feet or beyond that limit where the depth of the adjacent waters allows exploitation of any natural resources. Depth of the water on the continental shelf worldwide varies from 65 to 200 fathoms. In some places the continental shelf extends for several hundred miles, while in other places it is much narrower or even completely absent. The greatest width of the continental shelf is in the Barents Sea (about 750 miles); off western Europe it is approximately 200 miles. The smallest width of continental shelf exists along the edge of the eastern part of the Pacific, specifically off the US West Coast, where it extends ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Maps
• Abbreviations
• Place Names
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Factor of Space
• 3 Positions
• 4 Bases
• 5 Theater Geometry
• 6 Strategic Objectives and Fleet Distribution
• 7 Sea Control and Sea Denial
• 8 Methods
• 9 Securing Control
• 10 Exercising Control
• 11 Disputing Control
• 12 Attack on Maritime Trade
• 13 Defense and Protection of Maritime Trade
• 14 Support of the Army Flank
• Conclusion
• Select Bibliography