Justice, freedom, and peace: The final decision

Sea Power, Jan 2002 by Fanning, Timothy O

"The world will never be the same again!"

That was the common reaction of the American people in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks against the Pentagon and New York City's World Trade Center complex.

The time and circumstances were different, but it was almost exactly the same reaction that had been voiced by an earlier generation of Americans some 60 years ago-on 7 December 1941, to be more precise-immediately after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. That earlier generation of Americans is now belatedly being recognized as the "greatest" generation.

The "world"-a shorthand way of saying people's lives, their prospects for the future, and the political balance of power-had changed several times before, though, irrevocably and irreversibly. Some of those "times" can be pinned down with almost microscopic specificity: the U.S. declaration of war against Germany, and entry into World War I, on 6 April 1917, for example. Other examples are the Wright brothers' "first (manned) flight" at Kill Devil Hills on 17 December 1903; the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945; and the moon landing by Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. on 20 July 1969. In each instance, the world was indeed changed forever-frequently for the worse. But not always.

the Wright brothers had already completed a number of experimental flights with gliders at Kill Devil Hills, but had not yet made that first manned flight, when the Navy League of the United States was founded on 12 June 1902. President Theodore Roosevelt, one of the earliest and most visibly public supporters of the Navy League, had been in office less than a year-he had succeeded President William McKinley the previous September, when the latter died from the wounds inflicted by an assassin.

Fortunately for the Navy and the still embryonic Navy League, Roosevelt-possibly the most proactive of all American presidents both before and since-had read the writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan and was a strong proponent of American sea power, both naval and commercial. It was primarily due to Roosevelt's powers of persuasion, and his occasional bullying of Congress, that funding was provided for the building of a "Great White Fleet" of 16 battleships-which Roosevelt dispatched on a 15-month around-- the-world cruise that marked the emergence of the United States as a major naval power.

Since the end of the Cold War it has become increasingly clear that today's U.S. Navy, the lineal descendant of the Great White Fleet, is, despite imprudent budget cutbacks and frequent overcommitments, far and away the most capable naval force in the world and, quite possibly, the most effective force for peace in all world history.

Which, of course, is no guarantee of complete and/or immediate naval dominance in a specific area or region of the world-the Taiwan Straits and South China Sea, to take the most obvious current example. But it does very strongly suggest that in today's world the key not only to winning wars but also to keeping those wars from starting in the first place-deterrence, in other words-is naval power. And not just naval power, but forward-deployed naval power.

This is particularly true in the post-Cold War era, when literally hundreds of thousands of U.S. air and ground personnel have returned home from Europe, South Korea, the Philippines, and other former U.S. bases overseas. Several hundred of those bases also have been closed, and will probably never be reopened.

The utility of forward-deployed Navy carrier battlegroups and Navy/Marine Corps amphibious ready groups has been proved on scores of occasions both during the Cold War and in the now more than 10 years since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the breakup of the Soviet Union. Naval forces played a major role in each and all of the wars of the past century in which U.S. combat forces have been involved. Of perhaps much greater importance is the role played by those same naval forces in deterring war. Here the most obvious example is the Cuban Missile Crisis.

From the beginning, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps-the U.S. Coast Guard as well-also have been front and center in the counterattacks against the Taliban and in the war against terrorism in general. That war is another, more current-and ultimately, perhaps, more relevant and more important-example of the continued usefulness of forward-deployed naval forces. More important for at least two reasons. The first is the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that started before the breakup of the Soviet Union and has escalated almost exponentially over the last decade. The second is the parallel proliferation of al Qaeda "cells" and other international terrorist units throughout the world. It is already more than three months since two or three anthrax letters were found in the Capitol Hill mail. Most if not all of the anthrax spores now have been killed, but the members of Congress and their staffs, understandably, still do not feel completely safe. The detection and extermination of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of al Qaeda cells will be a much longer and much more difficult undertaking than the cleansing of a few House and Senate office buildings.