The Administration’s National Defense Strategy Hinges on the Navy
The MOC
Image From U.S. Department of Defense.
By
Benjamin E. Mainardi
November 3, 2022
Released on October 27, the Biden Administration’s first National Defense Strategy (NDS), including the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review and Missile Defense Review, included little surprising information. The document is replete with language that has marked nearly every national security discussion by the Administration – “allies and partners” is mentioned no less than 117 times and “deterrence” 167 times. Consistent with the Administration’s National Security Strategy, it has fully enshrined integrated deterrence and campaigning as the Administration’s capstone concepts for its national security posture.
For its part, however, the Navy’s role within the NDS is left unacknowledged. Discussions of the Joint Force found throughout take for granted the capabilities furnished by naval forces, such as integrated missile defense and expeditionary sealift, with scant reference to the capacity of the Navy to fulfill the Administration’s vision of a globally prepared and capable force. The Administration’s existing tepidness on the expansion of the force is in stark contrast to the needs incurred by this vision, a perspective that must change to ensure its success.
The Navy is AlwaysCampaigning
“The Department will conduct campaigning activities from this posture against a clear set of objectives, to include deterring adversary attacks, supporting rapid crisis response with survivable forces, and conducting operations to reinforce internationally-agreed-upon norms.”
Naval forces are, by their very nature, mobile, semi-self-sustaining platforms. This uniquely allows ships to operate for extended periods of time in the global commons, making them specifically optimized for campaigning. Indeed, for decades the Navy has been deploying roughly 100 ships abroad every year. These ships perform day-to-day operations, from freedom of navigation missions to anti-piracy patrols, that tangibly demonstrate the commitment to and tenacity of the United States in supporting the international legal regime and norms whilst displaying power projection capabilities to potential adversaries. Moreover, the Navy consistently does so alongside our allies and partners, deepening relationships and enhancing international credibility.
Nonetheless, the fleet has continued to decline in size despite attempting to maintain its historical rate of deployments, all while attempting to be “capable of winning any fight and ready for the challenges of an unpredictable future.” The shrinking of the fleet undermines the Navy’s ability to fulfill its key conventional missions – being capable of fighting a peer or near-peer adversary at sea and maintaining global forward presence and, by extension, campaigning – simultaneously. Given that the People’s Liberation Army Navy has surpassed the U.S. Navy in size and is projected to grow further, to say nothing of the auxiliary forces from the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia and China Coast Guard, the stagnant numbers of the existing fleet are already questionably sufficient to meet the ‘China Challenge,’ let alone sustain the rate of peacetime deployments and confront additional adversaries.
While the presence mission itself has come increasingly under attack, it remains that consistent deployments of the United States Navy at scale provide the force with internationally unparalleled experience operating at sea, yield invaluable diplomatic influence, provide policymakers flexibility in times of crisis, and reaffirm the commitment of the United States to preserving the international order. There is no alternative to presence other than absence. What is more, the positioning of naval forces abroad and the demonstration of their capabilities furthers the Administration’s emphasis on deterrence, empowering policymakers to actively deter by denial and rapid cost imposition. All such factors contribute to the status of the United States as the preeminent sea power in the twenty-first century. But, as Mahan told the Nation during its first forays into global sea power status over a century ago, navies require not simply an initial investment but continuous support.
Navigating Murky Waters
Through Force Design 2045, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Gilday has attempted to steer the force towards developing the capabilities and capacity to meet these challenges. While many critiques have been levied against the plan, few sufficiently recognize that the plan is decidedly cognizant of constrained fiscal resources and divergent administration priorities. Now, however, the release of the NDS has afforded the CNO an opportunity to singularly argue for the “3-5% sustained budget growth above actual inflation” requirement laid out in NAVPLAN 2022 by situating the fleet within the Administration’s strategy, elucidating the Navy’s role as the most well-positioned service to campaign forward and enhance our relationship with allies and partners. CNO Gilday’s ongoing prioritization of force readiness to meet near-term threats is in-line with at least one of the Navy’s two conventional missions, but the moment must be seized to ensure the force’s ability to fulfill all of its roles.
Certainly, the NDS’s assertion that “this strategy will not be successful if we fail to resource its major initiatives or fail to make the hard choices to align available resources with the strategy’s level of ambition…” rings true. The ability of the Biden Administration to answer many questions of how ends enumerated in the NDS will be linked with the means required, and the corresponding hard choices in the budget and expending of political capital needed to support such decisions, remains to be seen; recent divergences over the future of the Navy within the Pentagon are less than reassuring.
Benjamin E. Mainardi is an analyst at the Center for Maritime Strategy. He holds a master’s in War Studies from King’s College London. His primary research interests are in strategic studies and military history.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Benjamin E. Mainardi
Released on October 27, the Biden Administration’s first National Defense Strategy (NDS), including the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review and Missile Defense Review, included little surprising information. The document is replete with language that has marked nearly every national security discussion by the Administration – “allies and partners” is mentioned no less than 117 times and “deterrence” 167 times. Consistent with the Administration’s National Security Strategy, it has fully enshrined integrated deterrence and campaigning as the Administration’s capstone concepts for its national security posture.
For its part, however, the Navy’s role within the NDS is left unacknowledged. Discussions of the Joint Force found throughout take for granted the capabilities furnished by naval forces, such as integrated missile defense and expeditionary sealift, with scant reference to the capacity of the Navy to fulfill the Administration’s vision of a globally prepared and capable force. The Administration’s existing tepidness on the expansion of the force is in stark contrast to the needs incurred by this vision, a perspective that must change to ensure its success.
The Navy is Always Campaigning
“The Department will conduct campaigning activities from this posture against a clear set of objectives, to include deterring adversary attacks, supporting rapid crisis response with survivable forces, and conducting operations to reinforce internationally-agreed-upon norms.”
Naval forces are, by their very nature, mobile, semi-self-sustaining platforms. This uniquely allows ships to operate for extended periods of time in the global commons, making them specifically optimized for campaigning. Indeed, for decades the Navy has been deploying roughly 100 ships abroad every year. These ships perform day-to-day operations, from freedom of navigation missions to anti-piracy patrols, that tangibly demonstrate the commitment to and tenacity of the United States in supporting the international legal regime and norms whilst displaying power projection capabilities to potential adversaries. Moreover, the Navy consistently does so alongside our allies and partners, deepening relationships and enhancing international credibility.
Nonetheless, the fleet has continued to decline in size despite attempting to maintain its historical rate of deployments, all while attempting to be “capable of winning any fight and ready for the challenges of an unpredictable future.” The shrinking of the fleet undermines the Navy’s ability to fulfill its key conventional missions – being capable of fighting a peer or near-peer adversary at sea and maintaining global forward presence and, by extension, campaigning – simultaneously. Given that the People’s Liberation Army Navy has surpassed the U.S. Navy in size and is projected to grow further, to say nothing of the auxiliary forces from the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia and China Coast Guard, the stagnant numbers of the existing fleet are already questionably sufficient to meet the ‘China Challenge,’ let alone sustain the rate of peacetime deployments and confront additional adversaries.
While the presence mission itself has come increasingly under attack, it remains that consistent deployments of the United States Navy at scale provide the force with internationally unparalleled experience operating at sea, yield invaluable diplomatic influence, provide policymakers flexibility in times of crisis, and reaffirm the commitment of the United States to preserving the international order. There is no alternative to presence other than absence. What is more, the positioning of naval forces abroad and the demonstration of their capabilities furthers the Administration’s emphasis on deterrence, empowering policymakers to actively deter by denial and rapid cost imposition. All such factors contribute to the status of the United States as the preeminent sea power in the twenty-first century. But, as Mahan told the Nation during its first forays into global sea power status over a century ago, navies require not simply an initial investment but continuous support.
Navigating Murky Waters
Through Force Design 2045, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Gilday has attempted to steer the force towards developing the capabilities and capacity to meet these challenges. While many critiques have been levied against the plan, few sufficiently recognize that the plan is decidedly cognizant of constrained fiscal resources and divergent administration priorities. Now, however, the release of the NDS has afforded the CNO an opportunity to singularly argue for the “3-5% sustained budget growth above actual inflation” requirement laid out in NAVPLAN 2022 by situating the fleet within the Administration’s strategy, elucidating the Navy’s role as the most well-positioned service to campaign forward and enhance our relationship with allies and partners. CNO Gilday’s ongoing prioritization of force readiness to meet near-term threats is in-line with at least one of the Navy’s two conventional missions, but the moment must be seized to ensure the force’s ability to fulfill all of its roles.
Certainly, the NDS’s assertion that “this strategy will not be successful if we fail to resource its major initiatives or fail to make the hard choices to align available resources with the strategy’s level of ambition…” rings true. The ability of the Biden Administration to answer many questions of how ends enumerated in the NDS will be linked with the means required, and the corresponding hard choices in the budget and expending of political capital needed to support such decisions, remains to be seen; recent divergences over the future of the Navy within the Pentagon are less than reassuring.
Benjamin E. Mainardi is an analyst at the Center for Maritime Strategy. He holds a master’s in War Studies from King’s College London. His primary research interests are in strategic studies and military history.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.