President's forum

Naval War College Review, Summer, 2002

The goal is to develop a vision that facilitates our adaptation to a rapidly changing strategic and operational environment. The focus is naval; both Navy and Marine Corps operations are integral parts of future plans. A guiding principle has been to emphasize uniquely naval characteristics that will, now and in the future, contribute to overall national strategy.

The Naval War College has two main missions: to educate future leaders and to help define the future Navy. These are, remarkably, the basic missions for which the College was established over a century ago. The times have certainly changed, the technology of maritime warfare has improved, and the geopolitical landscape would hardly be recognizable to our founder, Stephen B. Luce. But the mission has remained constant--to be a force for change and to serve as the intellectual center of the Navy.

Over the past six months, a team of scholars from the Center for Naval Warfare Studies and the Navy Warfare Development Command has been working to provide a vision for the use of maritime forces in the twenty-first century. Because at the College we are far removed from the all-encompassing day-to-day demands of leading operating forces and the day-to-day politics of Washington, D.C., we are able to step back and extend our focus beyond today's problems to consider tomorrow's challenges. This vision is still a work in progress. However, I would like to share its general outlines as they have been identified to this point.

The Vision. Several analytical parameters were established early on to refine the focus of the endeavor. Since the product is intended to be of practical use in the near term, the team limited itself to consideration of today's Navy as it might evolve over the next fifteen years. By design, this approach fits nicely with work being done by other groups, such as the Chief of Naval Operations staff's work on a nearer-term vision, and the Strategic Studies Group, which is taking a much longer perspective. The goal is to develop a vision that facilitates our adaptation to a rapidly changing strategic and operational environment. The focus is naval; both Navy and Marine Corps operations are integral parts of future plans. A guiding principle has been to emphasize uniquely naval characteristics that will, now and in the future, contribute to overall national strategy.

An early step in the process was to identify and analyze future scenarios that the nation maybe forced to confront within the next decade and a half. Those selected for consideration were known as:

* Peer competitor. This scenario postulates the emergence of an expansionist power with global reach.

* Regionalization of the world. In this possible future the world is fragmented into competing and potentially hostile economic blocs.

* Transnational threats. In this scenario, the United States and our allies are likely to face the spread and intensification of terrorism and cross-border crime.

* "Arc of instability." This projection envisions chronic hostility and warfare in Southwest and South Asia.

Of course, the future can rarely be predicted with any degree of accuracy. In fact, our crystal ball seems to be getting cloudier. It is likely that the future will comprise some combination of the four scenarios above.

The team identified the enduring characteristics of naval forces. In conflict after conflict, we have seen our Navy and Marine Corps used as the nation's "force of choice," because they provide a high degree of political deterrence, independence from overseas bases, and means to facilitate bringing other U.S. and allied forces into an overseas theater. Further, naval forces are:

* Rapidly deployable

* Sustainable in-theater

* Operationally flexible

* Tactically agile

* Able to project combat power overseas.

While these are enduring and well-understood qualities, there are also other enduring characteristics of naval forces that account for their increasing contributions to meeting national security objectives as we enter the twenty-first century in the midst of the Terror War:

* National freedom of action. Naval forces offer national freedom of action for the application of military power in an increasingly uncertain and complex world. They provide a commander with the greatest operational flexibility and tactical agility, and offer more options than do forces that require overflight permission or authorization to use ports or airfields in foreign lands. By using a combination of the right of freedom of the seas and the might of U.S. forces to keep these sea-lanes open, naval forces enable the nation to take the fight to the enemy overseas.

* Transformation. Naval transformation is beginning to emerge as the catalyst for the transformation of how the nation applies military power. The ongoing transformation in the sea services is not solely technical, nor is it dependent on new ships, aircraft, weapon systems, or networks. Nor is this transformation radically altering the missions or essential characteristics of naval forces. Instead, the sea services are recognizing that the nation will increasingly project power from "afloat bases" constituted by battle groups, expeditionary forces, specific-mission action groups, and prepositioned ships.