“Gaza-fication” is a name that can be given to strategic bombardment in of the Israel-Hamas war. It has undoubtedly set a new standard for the role of civilians in war last seen at this appalling scale in the unrestricted use of aerial bombardment in the second world war. Russia has foreshadowed the practice against Grozny and elsewhere in Chechnya and continues in its on-going bombardment of civilian targets in its war against Ukraine today.
Israel has used its missile and air strike power against an entrenched and implacable Hamas enemy while evincing little concern for established norms for the protection of civilians. The latter has included the threat of starvation and denial of health services. Israel continues bombardment today against remaining Hamas forces in Gaza and its other enemies in the Mideast.
Israel also continues to rewrite a victor’s history of the actual damage that has been inflicted on Gazans with the intention of shaping the political leadership of a post-Hamas Gaza favorable to Israel. It is fair to say that Israel has enjoyed success in weakening the sense of moral opprobrium attached to attacks on civilians that had developed internationally in the years since 1945. Sympathy for the suffering of Gaza’s population from Israel’s attacks, manifest on television everyday, has sharply eroded acceptance of Israeli policy under President Netanyahu. But the precedent has been set.
Factions in China’s leadership today would doubtless find lessons in the Gaza war that apply to Taiwan. A war between China and Taiwan, supported by its U.S. and other allies, would likely be “Gaza-fied.” Experts in Chinese history and politics can estimate how much strength and importance China will accord to the strategy. Its key element is relentless air/missile bombardment of all territory in Taiwan not known to be favorable to Beijing.
Much, but not all, of Taiwan’s leadership is viewed by China as implacably hostile to yielding control of the island. Thus, it can only be subdued by military force, which would necessarily include denying the island support by its allies and could extend to Gaza-fied attack.
All the ingredients are present for a big, likely long, and certainly bloody war, with the main victims being the people living on Taiwan. The Gaza experience suggests that China need not be overly concerned with outrage in the “international community” no matter what its war does to Taiwan. Indeed, China does not have to win on the ground in Taiwan. It just has to refuse to stop fighting and let a Gaza-fied war grind Taiwan into dust before the world’s eyes.
Gaza-fication, supported by drone technology, adds significant new burdens on Taiwan’s defensive forces and those of the U.S. and Taiwan’s other allies: 1) sustained air-missile defense against China’s bombardment; 2) defense against China’s attack on Taiwan’s own air-missile defenses; 3) defense against attacks on resupply of the island by air transport; 4) defense against China’s sub-surface naval blockade of Taiwan; 5) defense against invasion of the island; and 6) support for Taiwan’s population of 24 million with food and protection against disease.
Whose flag flies over Taipei is of tremendous strategic importance. If Beijing’s ensign replaces that of the Republic of China, the CCP under Xi and his successors will use Taiwan as a point d’appui to contest for control of the Western Pacific.
This blog aims to contribute to understanding the history of the US Navy and to draw lessons from the era of great power competition. I welcome your comments and follows.
A propulsion disabler (PD) is a small, passive, torpedo-like device that serves as a cheap, non-lethal mine and torpedo warhead. The proposed munition’s purpose is to destroy a ship’s external propulsion or direction-control mechanisms, leaving the vessel stationary. Production of PDs is possible with today’s emerging robotics technologies.Future PD devices could be used in an autonomous swarm that combines the smallest explosive charge with the greatest disabling effect by attacking a ship at its most vulnerable point. Once PDs become widely available, they may well be the weapon of choice by all navies against civilian ships. Similarly, disabling an enemy’s naval ship rather than sinking it will almost always be the superior choice, certainly for the U.S. Navy. The logic that makes this so will compel adversary navies to make the same choice.
The PD could see extensive use in the Taiwan war scenario described by the American Seapower Project. It also could play a role in any follow-on war with China, and in current so-called grey-area conflicts.
PDs are not yet known to exist. No signs in the public domain suggest the U.S. intelligence community is aware of any PD, but it is hard to imagine an asymmetric capability more attractive to China, Russia, or, especially, to lesser powers such as Iran. They appear to be fairly simple and inexpensive to manufacture, as well as hard to defend against. Weaker opponents could use them to neutralize the surface ships of more powerful navies. The PD is a strategic weapon that will make existing blockade strategies easier to carry out, and new strategies necessary.
Propulsion Disablers in Defense of Taiwan
The potency of the PD can be understood when analyzed in the context of the American Seapower Project. Set in 2026, the scenario places Chinese forces fighting on Taiwan and receiving logistical support from the mainland by sea—the only way support can come in the volumes needed.
If Taiwan’s defenders deployed PD mines in this hypothetical scenario, some of China’s amphibious landing ships would be disabled, leaving them to drift helplessly and exposing perhaps several thousands of hungry marines to attack by defenders from the air, at and under the sea, and from shore—delivered at whatever time the defenders choose. Chinese tugs or warships sent to retrieve disabled ships would risk being disabled themselves, making the attackers’ situation worse. Supporting logistics ships would face the same threat, assuming defenders could reseed depleted PD minefields. In sum, PDs would pose a significant threat to ships involved in the scenario’s initial attack, and to all ships that came later.
Propulsion Disablers in General Use
Characteristics
Propulsion disablers would be critically affordable for a potentially lengthy war of attrition at sea against China, the world’s leading shipbuilder. Their small size has multiple benefits: It makes them efficient to deploy and to use at scale as mine warheads. Crewed and uncrewed submarines might deploy many hundreds of PD mines from modules already under development or introduced in the future. Cruise or ballistic missiles could deliver significant numbers of PD torpedoes, extending their range of threat and possibly inundating defenses.
Aircraft could seed PD mines rapidly over a wide area. As torpedoes delivered from a wide variety of platforms and means, including anti-ship missiles fired from shore, PDs would target naval and civilian ships, including container ships, liquefied-natural-gas carriers, big fishing ships, scientific research vessels, and other types. A tanker hit by a PD would be unlikely to spill much, if any, of its liquid cargo, thus sparing damage to the seas, islands, and adjacent littorals. Against large warships like those in Western navies, PDs might be employed singly. But swarms of PDs would seek to saturate defenses from multiple azimuths, overwhelm countermeasures, and increase the probability that multi-screw ships could be completely disabled.
PDs would be as smart as modern information and robotics technologies can make them. They would employ a library of sonic signatures of the naval and civilian ships of adversaries, those of partners and allies, and above all, U.S. Navy ships. The ideal PD could distinguish between friendly and enemy ships and those of third parties, as well as between categories of ships, allowing it to avoid targeting ferries and passenger ships.
The technologies that ensure future PD capabilities can also be turned against them. PD mines are hardly invulnerable. Cheap, mass-produced, simple robot minesweeping platforms, effective against mines of all kinds, seem within reach today.
Physical Consequences of Employment
Ships depend on mobility to accomplish their purpose. In the case of civilian ships, that purpose is mainly to move commercial cargo. In the case of naval ships, it is mainly lethality. Depriving a naval ship of its mobility has essentially the same result as sinking it: the ship loses its lethality against targets beyond the range of onboard weapons. It also makes the ship itself a stationary target.
Although PDs are less violent than torpedoes, they are not benign. A ship helpless before an unforgiving sea would present its owner (and the disabling party) with complex choices regarding the use of available forces. The owner would first be concerned with rescuing the crew, and then with recovering the ship and cargo, but might lack the means to do either. In that case, those tasks would fall to the disabling party who, as a matter of moral, political, and likely legal obligation, could not be indifferent to the fate of those its attacks have put at risk. The attacker would have to expend resources to seize disabled enemy merchant ships, and to intern as prisoners of war the crews of disabled naval ships.
Employing PDs creates a new way of fighting. Rather than attacking to sink the enemy’s naval ship, a better choice might be to PD it. A potential enemy like China presents many thousands of civilian and naval targets at sea and has the capacity to produce many thousands more, especially uncrewed platforms, which require no trained people to operate them. PDs are ideal in this kind of conflict.
Three advantages favor use of PDs against naval ships:
1) A PD makes the ship vulnerable to seizure for intelligence exploitation, while crews can be made POWs.
2) The ship becomes a globally visible symbol of the enemy’s weakness and the attacker’s superiority, highly valuable for diplomatic and information-warfare purposes.
3) Both sides would be forced into actions to protect and rescue disabled ships.
This last reality will produce new scenarios for combat engagement. Each side is fighting, as always, to dominate the other and to determine general command of the world ocean. But now commanders must determine the fates of disabled ships. The disabling side will define where any combat takes place and with what weapons. China would use PDs against ships in zones covered by its anti-access/area-denial systems. Wisely employed, PDs would leave the United States and its allies with little choice but to fight under quite unfavorable conditions.
Political Consequences of Employment
Western naval ships will almost certainly be attacked by PDs for political purposes in the grey-area combat commonly encountered today. They are an almost perfect weapon for use by the weaker side in circumstances where responsibility for the attack may be plausibly denied. U.S. Navy and allied ships are vulnerable to PD attack in the Middle East because their missions require them to operate in near-shore waters. U.S. ships on Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea are equally vulnerable. Washington should immediately prepare military and political reactions to a future PD attack against ships of the U.S. Navy and those of allies and partners.
Attacks on Western naval ships were completely unforeseen in the original thinking about the PD. The propulsion disabler concept first emerged in the search to make a Western blockade strategy affordable and sustainable, and to solve the moral, political, and legal problems involved in a blockade. The advantages of using PDs against naval ships make it nearly certain that PDs will be used against U.S. ships, and those of its allies and partners.
Developing defenses against the PD is a priority as high as fielding the weapon in the first place.The PD may prove transformative. Coupled with uncrewed robotic weapons, it will have far-reaching effects. Both sides will fight over disabled naval ships, with the disabler enjoying significant advantages. The PD will make blockade against economic shipping operationally feasible and politically acceptable, affecting the course and possible outcome of major wars and profoundly affecting international shipping.
Suggested Actions
Develop PD capabilities to support the offensive and defensive strategies suggested here. Exploit robotics technologies to the fullest.
Plan for the protection of the surface Navy and ships of allies against PD attack—immediately in the Middle East and the South China Sea. Anticipate physical actions and prepare verbal policy in response.
Evaluate the potential of PD mines and torpedoes in an antisubmarine role.
Direct the intelligence community to search for signs of adversary PD development, including in their open military writings.
Ensure that intra-Navy research, analysis, and gaming address PD/counter-PD issues. Request the Intermediate Force Capabilities Program to similarly adjust its focus.
The probability PDs will soon appear is high, and their introduction will likely transform naval warfare. The United States should develop and field PDs quickly for use in a potential defense of Taiwan, and for strategic use beyond. The PD will make blockade strategies physically more possible and politically more acceptable. PDs are unlike any weapon in use, and they will make new strategies necessary. It seems highly likely that adversaries will use PDs against the U.S. and allied and partner navies.
Strategic Anti-Submarine Warfare (SASW) is a wartime mission of the U.S. Navy today. SASW is attacking Russian SSBNs where they operate in protected bastions under Arctic ice and in shallow coastal waters. The missiles on SSBNs serve as Russia’s reserve for intercontinental nuclear war. They provide Russia’s last answer in war by deterring attacks on Russia’s cities or retaliating for them. The aim of SASW is to alter the intercontinental nuclear balance in the favor of the U.S. on behalf of larger objectives. During the Cold War these strategic purposes included: 1) protecting SLOCs by forcing the Russian GPF navy to stay tied up defending SSBNs; 2) reducing the overall strength of a possible Soviet-Russian nuclear attack on the U.S. and so protecting the U.S. proper; and/or, 3) gaining strategic leverage in nuclear war—so-called “escalation dominance”[1]—to affect the course of conventional war on the ground.
Russia’s SSBNs would also unavoidably be attacked by Western SSNs and mines deployed to prosecute naval blockade of Russia, independent of the SASW mission. It may be possible to shape blockade operations to minimize their effects on SSBNs and the cruise-missile-firing submarines (SSGN and SSN) that fire conventional and nuclear warheads at targets on land and sea in the Atlantic-European theater.[2]
This is not a theoretical issue. SASW has long been U.S. policy acknowledged publicly with varying degrees of specificity. During the Cold War the mission was an explicit component of the National Security Decision Directive 238, September 2, 1986, signed by President Reagan.[3] It was one of the defining features of “The Maritime Strategy,” publicly described by CNO Adm. James Watkins in January 1986.[4]
In the “post-Cold War” period when national plans focused on the “war on terror,” SASW received no comment. When Secretary of Defense James Mattis reinstated “great power competition” as the basis for national plans in 2018,[5] SASW almost immediately appeared simultaneously. A Navy spokesman let it be known that, in a war with Russia, the Navy intends to use its submarines “to deny bastions to the Russians,” on behalf of “defending the homeland,” presumably meaning to destroy Russian SLBMs and so reduce the weight of a Russian intercontinental nuclear strike.[6] The defense-of-the-homeland objective was repeated in March 2020: An SSN exercise in the Arctic was described as needed “to maintain readiness and capability to defend the homeland when called upon,” according to RADM Butch Dollaga, Commander, Undersea Warfighting Development Center.[7] Note that the comments in 2018 were offhand remarks during a Q&A at a public conference. The situation in 2020 was quite different. RADM Dollaga was speaking officially to the world via the Navy’s Office of Public Affairs.What threat to the US homeland that might emerge from the Arctic was left unnamed. Russian submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, deployed in the Arctic (and Sea of Okhotsk) are the only plausible candidates.
Since then, the military purposes of SSN exercises in the Arctic have generally been deemphasized. The latest in a decades-long series of biennial under-ice exercises known as “ICEX,” has been renamed “Ice Camp 2024” and upgraded from “exercise” to “operation.”[8] Official descriptions state no military, only its environmentally-related scientific purposes.
Assumptions
Absent any public declarations to the contrary, it must be assumed that the SASW stands as national policy and that plans for prosecuting it continue to be pursued. Whether the Navy possesses the capabilities to execute the mission is not publicly known. It is nonetheless true that the Navy has acquired substantial forces uniquely tailored for Arctic operations.
It is theoretically possible that, with or without actual capabilities to execute, the Navy thinks it is a good idea to talk up the mission in the hopes that doing so will force Russian planners to intensify their concern with the security of the SSBN force and make war plans that amount to keeping their GPF navy hunkered down in a strategic defensive crouch. Such a stratagem—a military ploy—suffers from three serious shortcomings. First, it is entirely unnecessary. The Russian GPF navy, like that of its Soviet predecessors, has long been committed to defend its SSBNs in a wartime “bastion” force employment scheme that blends smoothly with the Navy’s mission to defend the homeland against attack from the sea. Second, to this inherently defensive proclivity, one must add the fleet-in-being effect.[9] The fact that the U.S. possesses a force of 60-plus of the quietest SSNs in the world means that prudent Russian planners can never relax their commitment to defense no matter what the U.S. actually plans to do with its submarines. The writer will venture that, while the Russians pay attention to what the U.S. says about its strategic intentions, U.S. words cause little change in Russia’s plans. Third, “playing” with a matter as serious as the intercontinental nuclear balance must be ruled off limits. Serious, responsible planners don’t toy with an issue where the survival of the nation would be literally at stake. Other, lesser shortcomings are taken up below.
Whatever the case, SASW will always be a possibility as long as SSBNs exist. The problems it raises must be recognized and dealt with via the actions suggested here or otherwise. It is one of those rare missions where failure would be a better outcome than success.
The Logic of SASW in the Current Era
Although the mission is to be carried out with conventional weapons, its consequences are mainly nuclear. Let’s look at three likely effects of prosecuting the mission and the policy actions implied for each.
Intercontinental Nuclear War
Is an SASW campaign a sensible choice? The answer is an unqualified No. The logic of the Cold War cannot be extrapolated to the situation vis-à-vis Russia today. One particularly misguided idea is that a successful ASW campaign would significantly reduce the damage the U.S. would suffer should there be an intercontinental nuclear exchange. “Defending the homeland” through SASW, as Navy spokesmen have suggested, is impossible. SLBMs comprise a relatively small fraction of Russian intercontinental strike power. Even if the entire SSBN fleet were eliminated, a huge strike potential would remain in Russian ICBMs ashore, and only a small fraction of them would be more than capable of destroying the U.S. as a nation.
Indeed, Michael Kofman has wondered aloud why the Soviets in the past and the Russians today ever built an SSBN force to serve as a strategic nuclear reserve when they had ample rail- and road-mobile ICBMs that could serve that purpose.[10] (This same conclusion was reached by Michael MccGwire during the Cold War.) In addition, an SASW campaign could destabilize the longstanding, stable intercontinental nuclear relationship. The Russians might reasonably conclude that U.S. willingness to attack the most secure component of their strategic triad—missiles the U.S. knows are the ultimate guarantors of the Russian state, missiles whose principal targets are the cities of the United States—must presage dire intent: regime change in Moscow, seizure of Russian territory, or even a disarming nuclear first strike. This last, backed up by air and missile defense of U.S. territory against Russian retaliation, would mean that the U.S. contemplates fighting a nuclear war. This idea was correctly rejected as a lethally dangerous impossibility during the Cold War. It makes no more sense today.
A decision to prosecute SASW is a grave step. Two problems, previously given little attention, are that SASW-like effects can arise—even if SASW is publicly eschewed—from actions taken for entirely different strategic purposes. First, NATO would exert maximum general ASW effort to find and kill Russian GPF submarines that are capable of launching Kalibr and other long-range, precision-guided cruise missiles against NATO land targets (possibly including in the U.S. proper).[11] Second, in an Article V war the U.S. and its NATO allies will almost certainly “blockade” Russia; that is, deny Russia access of any kind to the world ocean. Although often thought of as optional, blockade is in fact simply unavoidable.[12] The West would attack all of Russia’s naval forces at sea and drive remaining forces back to their own or neutral ports. The West would obviously do the same to Russia’s civil fleets. To do otherwise would defy the logic of war, would ignore U.S. and British successful historic experience in major war, and would contradict a NATO military-economic strategy that would take peacetime economic sanctions to their extreme conclusion in war.
The question is how NATO’s anti-“Kalibr” and blockade actions might affect Russia’s SSBN and other intercontinental nuclear forces like the Kanyon nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed autonomous “torpedo.”[13] SSBNs and Kalibr-firing and Kanyon-carrying submarines may share common bases and in any case share unique support facilities like Polyarny on the Kola peninsula. Is it operationally possible to exclude Russia’s sea-based intercontinental nuclear forces from becoming NATO targets by forces executing these other missions? Would mine warfare measures have to be forgone because they are they have little ability to discriminate among targets? Would it be necessary, or even possible, to rewrite rules of engagement for the West’s offensive forces to ensure that only the right category of submarine target is being attacked?
Questions of this kind must be given thorough study along with a series of questions posed later in this essay regarding estimates of Russia’s responses to a successful SASW campaign if one should be mounted.
How has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine affected the SASW calculus? First and most obvious, in the current era it will be Russia, and not the West, that is most likely to use nuclear weapons first—because all parties know that Russia is generally inferior at the conventional level of war, although it can muster local superiority on the ground on its periphery. This situation may lead to a predictable Russian formula: Russia seizes friendly (in the current case, Ukrainian) territory; Russia then digs in on the defense and threatens, credibly, to use nuclear weapons to thwart a counter-offensive. This formula is open to Russia for use against NATO Baltic members and possibly against Rumania.
This is totally different from the Cold War relationship of forces. The West was then inferior in conventional ground forces. It threatened SASW as a substitute for, or reinforcement of, Western nuclear escalation at the tactical, the theater, and ultimately the strategic level. U.S. SASW sought to change the intercontinental nuclear balance and increased the threat to the U.S. of intercontinental nuclear attack. Such dire scenarios were credible because the US had made clear that it would risk nuclear war rather than let Europe fall under the control a single power who would then become Europe’s hegemon. Preventing this possibility was exactly the reason that the US had joined in WWI and WWII. All three cases were justified on ideological grounds—the unacceptability of autocracy, Fascism, Communism. The deeper reason was geopolitical—that a European hegemon would dispose of vast economic potential and ultimately would pose an unanswerable military threat to the US.
Today, Russia poses no direct threat of comparable magnitude to control Europe, through it does pose an obvious threat to states on its periphery. The U.S. should join with its allies to answer these threats. But it should not engage in SASW. Neither the stakes nor the risks justify doing so. As noted earlier, SASW-like effects can nonetheless arise from executing other strategic missions at sea—anti-Kalibr and global blockade. If/where possible, the U.S. and its allies should seek to minimize such effects.
The general conventional superiority of the West, particularly at sea, in and of itself, is a powerful reason for the West to avoid any actions that push the Russians in the direction of nuclear use. Threat of escalation is a common feature of Russian strategic declarations and seems hardly unexpected from the party that knows itself inferior in conventional capabilities.
During the Cold War, however, two arguments were made in favor of executing SASW. First, it was said that by attacking Soviet SSBNs the U.S. would tie down the GPF navy on the defensive and thus protect Western SLOCs. But protect against what threat? It is now generally recognized that the Soviet navy never in its 70-year history had any intention of attacking Western SLOCs on the high seas and indeed was not up to that mission if it had been ordered to execute it.[14]
As noted, the “fleet-in-being” effect of the U.S. SSN force obliged Soviet planners to hold their GPF navy in a defensive stance under essentially all circumstances. If SLOC defense were the goal, actually executing SASW to achieve it would have been superfluous, pointlessly putting at risk irreplaceable naval assets.
Second, some in the U.S. have argued that attacks on Soviet SSBNs would not have had immediate escalatory effects because Soviet planners expected them. This last is almost certainly true but says little about how the Soviets might have responded to a generally successful U.S. campaign. If success came fairly quickly, the “use-them-or-lose-them” decision would have been extremely fraught for the Soviets. In August 1991, the Soviets conveyed to the world that they were capable of the “use them” option when, reportedly, a Delta IV launched all sixteen of its missiles in less than four minutes.[15]
However, if missiles in the nuclear reserve were fired early, then the reserve would have failed to fulfill its reason for being, vitiating the broader Soviet design for war. Launching reserve nuclear missiles is not like committing a reserve battalion of tanks. If the missiles were fired at their presumed targets—U.S. cities—the result would be an answering salvo of U.S. missiles against Soviet cities. Acknowledging that the Soviets would not have been surprised when they found their SSBNs under attack says nothing about how they might actually have responded.
Suggested Actions:
Careful analysis of probable Russian calculations must be completed before reaching a decision about the desirability of the SASW mission—or the absence thereof. Such analysis should be carried out at a level within the government commensurate with the potentially catastrophic national impact of its results. This is a case where conventional war only has nuclear consequences. Perhaps an assessment akin to the Nuclear Posture Review would seem appropriate. It is obvious that decisions of such gravity for the nation should not be made by one of the military services on its own, especially where within the Navy its submarine service is uniquely central to Navy decision-making regarding the mission.
NPR-level assessment of SASW would appear to be mandatory. There are other reasons to reconsider the NPR itself. Technological advances in long-range, precision-guided conventional strike weapons dictate that, if a future NPR is to meet that document’s stated purposes, its scope must widen. The NPR needs to address conventional weapons whose use can directly affect the nuclear balance. That balance specifically means not just the numbers and performance parameters of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles. It also includes the early warning and command and control systems on which their effective use depends. To this increasingly complex conventional-nuclear nexus, we must also take note that our Russian “great power competitor,” has made clear that for some years Russia has considered that attacks by conventional weapons on its strategic forces (as just defined) or against its critical governmental infrastructure will be answered with nuclear weapons.[16] Thus SASW might take its place in a new conventional-cum-nuclear category in a revised remit for the NPR.
During the Cold War the Navy introduced the concept of SASW, first through intensely private planning but, after a fairly short interval, quite publicly. It has now put SASW back into the public domain. Thus far, it appears to be acting on its own. Saying things like “what we [the Navy] are doing [SASW] aligns with the National Security Strategy” (based on a GAO report reflecting strong Navy input) does not suffice. As far as can be inferred from information in the public domain, nothing suggests that the JCS, OSD, or the National Security Council have approved, much less ordered, the Navy to voice SASW intentions and to exercise forces in preparation to execute the mission.
An SASW campaign would put the survival of the nation directly at risk. The national decision-making process should be fully engaged. The NCA should issue explicit directions to the Navy on what to do, and not to do, regarding SASW vis-à-vis the Russians and the Chinese and generically for the long-term future of a mission that will likely be a potential as long as SSBNs are a factor in naval planning. If the NCA’s decision goes against SASW, then the mission should, at a minimum, be held in abeyance. That decision should become the object of national declaratory policy and of military-to-military diplomacy with the Russians.
Words should be accompanied by deeds. For over 30 years the Navy has been acquiring capabilities for anti-SSBN operations in the Arctic. Much of the cost of the most expensive class of attack submarines ever purchased, the Seawolf class, was owed to giving it unprecedented capacity to operate under-ice and also in shallow waters, both areas where Soviet SSBNs were estimated likely to seek concealment. Seawolf and later classes with similar capabilities are in the Navy’s active inventory. The message of SASW intent they bespeak cannot be changed.
Potential discussions with Russia regarding the inviolability of the SSBNs of both sides in war might afford an opportunity to engage with Russia in a cooperative mode. It is difficult think of another area—certainly not one of comparable importance—in the naval sphere where such a thing might be possible. Competition dominates Navy thinking, as it does the writer’s.
On this score, here is one, entirely hypothetical, strategic case to consider: that US SSBNs become detectable and so subject to Russian attack. In addition to mounting a defense of its own SSBNs, the US would want to be able to answer in kind. (Note that this would not be “SASW” at U.S. initiative.) Thus the possible need for under-ice torpedoes would arise. But if very quiet, essentially stationary U.S. SSBNs on patrol had become detectable, presumably by non-acoustic means, would not the same Russian detection systems be brought to bear on US SSNs moving forward to fire under-ice torpedoes?
Possible radical breakthroughs in submarine detection would obviously transform naval warfare. Whether to continue to develop and exercise under-ice torpedoes as a hedge against a breakthrough in submarine detection and so be needed in the hypothetical scenario described here should be analyzed carefully and a deliberate decision made.
In any case, it is theoretically possible that under-ice torpedoes are needed for purposes other than SASW. If so, those purposes should be articulated and evaluated in light of their inescapable SASW implications. If, despite the logic and evidence adduced above, the NCA should decide that SASW is desirable, then the Navy should be prepared to address, and answer with confidence, two questions that arise should execution of the mission become successful: first, would it lead to tactical nuclear war at sea?; and/or, second, would it have undesirable nuclear ecological consequences of catastrophic scale?
Tactical Nuclear War at Sea
The Russians would be highly unlikely to accept the loss of their SSBN force at the hands of U.S. conventional SASW forces without resorting to use of their tactical nuclear ASW weapons. They, like their Soviet predecessors, have many such weapons in their arsenal,[17] and the threshold for their use is relatively low for at least two reasons: 1) in contrast to their use ashore, nuclear weapons fired at sea targets produce no immediate collateral damage; and 2) the Russians have placed great emphasis on their readiness to go nuclear in response to Western conventional superiority. But because the U.S. no longer possesses nuclear ASW weapons it could not answer in kind at sea, even if it wanted to.
Independent of these military factors, the Russians could reasonably expect their decision to use nuclear weapons at sea to have a powerful demonstration effect on their adversaries, perhaps inducing a fracture in the Western alliance. Some states might choose to fight on, but others might wish to withdraw from a war that has turned nuclear. The ranks of the latter would likely be larger if the U.S. is viewed as taking actions at sea, on a unilateral basis, that lead to nuclear escalation.[18]
The Intelligence Community should be directed to estimate the capabilities for, and the likelihood of, the use of Russian nuclear ASW weapons in a campaign to defend SSBNs. The Navy itself should evaluate its readiness to fight an SASW campaign in a tactical nuclear environment with existing conventional ordnance or, if deemed necessary, a new generation of U.S. nuclear ASW weapons.
Further, policy analysis should focus on the expected effects on the West should the Russians cross the nuclear threshold at sea in a variety of scenarios of war ashore. The course of war ashore is likely to be an important, if not the dominant, factor in determining the decisions of the Alliance—primarily the U.S. NCA—regarding responses at sea and ashore. The degree of endorsement of U.S. SASW plans by allies should be assessed and, if need be, sought in advance.
Nuclear Ecological Damage
A successful campaign to kill Russian SSBNs would result in unavoidable and possibly catastrophic damage to the environment. At a minimum it would leave the sea floors of the Arctic Ocean, the Sea of Okhotsk, and adjacent Pacific waters littered with large amounts of radioactive material from nuclear reactors and from the many megaton-scale missile warheads that would be destroyed or damaged. The amount of radioactivity released would depend the losses on both sides, on the number of Russian SSBNs sunk, and what happens to the missiles aboard them. A typical Russian SSBN is estimated to carry at least 100, individual nuclear warheads.[19] Thus sinking even one or two could produce considerable loose radioactive material. In a worst case, a missile warhead might detonate and vaporize a considerable volume of radioactive materials in other warheads, if not trigger their detonations as well. The intensity of the radiation and the area of its dispersal would likely be large. Immediate effects on US territory in Alaska and on allies like Canada, Norway, the UK, Japan, and Korea might be severe. Should longer-term contamination of the global ocean follow, the continental US itself could be threatened, indeed life in all its forms on land, sea, and in the atmosphere could be extinguished.
During the Cold War, ecological damage of this kind was seen as a lesser included case in the nuclear Armageddon that confronted the world. Today, there are no issues yet at stake between the US and Russia that are remotely comparable to those faced vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. There is no justification for accepting potentially higher risk of radiological damage whose actual risk has not even been estimated.
Needed Action
The Navy should review existing studies or initiate new studies of the ecological consequences of even a moderately successful wartime campaign against Russian SSBNs, including estimates of the probability that attacks might detonate strategic nuclear warheads. The aim would be to verify that a SASW would not be environmentally self-defeating: a 21st century twist on the Pyrrhic victory concept—gaining sea control of waters that have become a threat to humankind and other lifeforms.
The Navy must study these environmental questions internally and be able to answer them satisfactorily in public. Such questions seem certain arise in the Congress from Alaska’s delegation, for example, or from private parties with deep commercial commitments in the Arctic like Exxon-Mobil.
They will also likely come from close allies like the UK, Norway, Japan, and Korea who may fear exposure to radiologic toxicity. Indeed, it will be surprising if U.S. critics abroad, who have long charged that the US is indifferent to the fate of its allies in war, do not pick up this line of argument. The specter of apocalyptic damage to the world ocean would likely be raised. It seems impossible for anyone to believe that the world’s most powerful nation would engage in possible planet-threatening military actions without bothering to find out the likely consequences.
Conclusion
The weight of fact and logic means that prosecuting SASW in the current era is simply a stunningly bad idea. It subjects the United States to a high risk of national extinction, a risk that is in no way justified by the importance of what is being threatened. During the Cold War Soviet Russia had the capability to conquer all of Europe in war at the conventional level—which is precisely why the West planned to fire nuclear weapons and chose to engage in SASW in the first place. Russia will take a giant step toward regaining a comparable Europe-conquering potential if it completely subdues Ukraine. Brzezinsky has long warned, “It cannot be stressed enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.”[20]
Until a newly reestablished Russian “empire” appears on the strategic horizon,[21] SASW should be held in abeyance. Instead, a carefully managed relinquishing of the SASW mission may offer the opportunity for useful cooperative exchanges with Russia (and China).
[2] See the writer’s “Freedom of Navigation and Blockade On an Ocean-less Planet, Revising the National Defense Strategy of the United States, forthcoming.
[3] “It [the strategy] may also include conventional attacks on … Soviet ballistic missile submarines. Such actions would be intended to deny the Soviets the ability to operate from sanctuaries and to deter or control escalation. p. 17, https://NSDD 238 1986-CIA-RDP01M00147R000100130003-0.pdf.
[4] CNO Adm. James D. Watkins, “The Maritime Strategy,” Proceedings Vol. 112/1/995 Supplement, January 1986,) “It [the strategy] may also include conventional attacks on … Soviet ballistic missile submarines. Such actions would be intended to deny the Soviets the ability to operate from sanctuaries and to deter or control escalation. p. 17.
[5] In early 2018, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that henceforth US defense planning would be based on “Great Power competition.” James Mattis, “Remarks by Secretary Mattis on the National Defense Strategy” (speech delivered at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, 19 January 2018), available at dod.defense.gov/. The transcript uses initial upper case in Great Power. Mr. Mattis was announcing the recent release of the National Defense Strategy, the summary of which uses the less-specific term inter-state competition [emphasis added], “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge,” U.S. Department of Defense, p. 1, www.defense.gov/.
[6] Jeffrey Barker, deputy branch head for Policy and Posture in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (Op 515B) in remarks delivered Dec. 4, 2018, at a forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, entitled “The Arctic and US National Security.” The Forum was streamed in real time and is available from the Center as a Webcast. Mr. Barker’s remarks were not a part of his prepared presentation. In Part 1, starting at 2h 9m, during Q&A, Mr. Barker observed that the purpose of bastion denial was “So that the Russians don’t have bastions to operate from—defending the homeland.” And “what we [the Navy] are doing [strategic ASW] aligns with the National Security Strategy.” First reported by Richard R. Burgess, “Navy Must Be ‘Agile But Sustainable’ in the Arctic,” Sea Power Magazine, 04 Dec 18, https://seapowermagazine.org/navy-must-be-agile-but-sustainable-in-the-arctic. To confirm the enduring persistence of the SASW idea in 2019 see Magnus Nordenman, The New Battle for the Atlantic, Emerging Naval Competition with Russia in the Far North, Naval Institute Press (Annapolis, MD, 2019), p. 201. The point is repeated in Admiral, USN, James Foggo’s, highlights of Nordenman’s book found in “The Fourth Battle of the Atlantic, the Nordics and the Direct Defense Challenge,” 08/17/2019, https://sldinfo.com/2019/08/the-fourth-battle-of-the-atlantic-the-nordics-and-the-direct-defense-challenge.
[17] Bott quotes Christensen and Korda: “As far as we can ascertain, the biggest user of non-strategic nuclear weapons in the Russian military is the navy, which we estimate has an inventory of approximately 820 warheads for use by land-attack cruise missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles, anti-submarine rockets, anti-aircraft missiles, torpedoes, and depth charges.” Christopher Bott, CAPT, USN [ret.], “Responding to Russia’s Northern Fleet,” Proceedings
Introductory note: This post was prepared for a presentation to the Navy’s Strategy Discussion Group, 21 November 2023. The SDG bears no responsibility for its content.
The United States should deploy the hospital ship USNS Mercy to a station offshore Port Gaza. It should establish a “Mercy Corridor” onshore at or near the port. The ship would be a powerful symbol in a conflict where symbols are powerful.
At 900 feet and 65,000 tons, with a huge red cross on its side and the U.S. flag above, Mercy will tell Gazans—and the world—that the U.S. cares deeply about the fate of Gaza’s civilian population even while it fully supports Israel in its war to eliminate Hamas. The Corridor would be a two-way street. Going out through it would be sick and wounded Gazan civilians to get medical treatment on the ship. In the opposite direction would come aid, in volume by sea, starting first with people and materials needed to restore Gaza’s health care system starting in northern Gaza.
Setting up the Corridor should be doable. The IDF, having encircled Gaza City, is in control of adjacent Port Gaza and, through its Navy, the port and its approaches. Israel should allow UNRWA to set up a processing center there, where, under Israeli eyes, patients, on the one hand, and aid and diplomats on the other, could reach their respective destinations at sea and on land.
Diplomats, mainly from anti-Hamas Arab states, will use the Corridor to contact, face-to-face, people and groups in Gaza that their governments can support and help produce a stable regime for the territory after Hamas has been eliminated. Such a government, which will be seen as untainted by Israel’s influence in its founding, is very much in Israel’s interest to facilitate.
Israel may deeply distrust UNRWA, but it should allow a Corridor for three reasons. First, Israel recognizes that it cannot eliminate Hamas if it does not separate Hamas from Gaza’s population at large. Every wounded Gazan who dies while life-saving treatment is clearly in view just offshore, is a death manifestly at Israel’s hands. Every such death strengthens Hamas’s hold in the territory. Second, the operation of the Corridor would have no effect on the military battle against Hamas. Third, Israel must respond to international public pressure to provide relief for Gaza’s civilians coming from the U.S., every Western government, and from the Global South, especially Arab/Muslim states. Israel knows it is very much in its political interest to be seen as sharing this concern. It must allow relief actions by others which after all cost Israel nothing.
Security for Mercy and the corridor would be provided by Israel on the ground, by Sixth Fleet at sea, and by the humanitarian mission of Mercy itself. Hamas would find it almost impossible to shoot at the ship which is saving wounded Gazan and which itself has no military capability. (This possibility can never be ruled out.)
Mercy would be supported by U.S. Sixth Fleet logistics and helicopter-carrying amphibious ships. The U.S. would be a behind-the-scenes controller /organizer/supporter of what are military-style expeditionary operations, but it should seek to internationalize relief efforts as much as possible. European countries would almost certainly want to supply naval ships and material support. NATO would be the obvious vehicle for multilateral coordination.
Key Arab states, especially Egypt, should be given a prominent role in the Corridor. Passing through the Suez Canal, Mercy will underline the seriousness of U.S. concern to Egypt’s people and to its government which has been until recently reluctant to allow foreign ships supplying medical treatment for Gazans to have access to its ports. Egypt would be highly likely to support Mercy, as necessary.
Today the need for aid can hardly seem more urgent. Yet the need will only increase with time, as civilian casualties grow and malnutrition and disease spread in Gaza. Millions across the world would welcome a “Mercy Corridor.” What state could oppose it? It provides relief for Gazans from the horrific effects of this war and an avenue through which a post-Hamas government can be developed to play a critical role in the settlement that ends it.
The United States Government should announce Mercy’s deployment and plans to establish a “Mercy Corridor” without delay. Simultaneously it should announce plans to deploy USNS Comfort as a relief for Mercy, perhaps operating two ships simultaneously for as long as is necessary.
Reprinted from June 14, 2023 Lawfare, a nonprofit multimedia publication dedicated to national security issues, published by the Lawfare Institute in cooperation with the Brookings Institution
With a little help from its friends, Ukraine can guard its maritime security in the Black Sea and protect its critical grain exports.
Ukrainian patrol boats participate in a display in Odessa, Ukraine, for Ukrainian Navy Day on July 7, 2019. Photo credit: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Kyle Steckler/Released/Public Domain via DVIDS.
Editor’s Note: Since the war began in 2022, Ukraine has fitfully exported its grain to the world market, with Russia often interrupting, or threatening to interrupt, this flow. Foreign policy experts Bradford Dismukes and Barry Blechman argue that the United States and its allies should work with Ukraine to establish a Black Sea shipping corridor, counter-blockade Russian forces, and create an international convention to ensure the region’s food products will reach world markets. Daniel Byman
Roughly 40 percent of Ukraine’s exports are agricultural products, especially grain, the vast majority of which move by ship over the Black Sea. At the start of its invasion in early 2022, Russia attempted to stop these shipments, which prompted an outcry from developing nations, such as Egypt aand Lebanon, that are dependent on Black Sea food and fertilizer to feed their populations. In response, Russia agreed in July 2022 to a “grain initiative” brokered by the United Nations and Turkey. The initiative permits Russia to inspect ships arriving at three Ukrainian ports to ensure they are not delivering arms, and then—once loaded—move through a specified maritime corridor to exit the Black Sea. Russia manipulates the initiative frequently and at will, slow-rolling its inspections and approvals. It also has threatened repeatedly to suspend the initiative, most recently in May. Although negotiations succeeded in extending the current arrangement, since November Russia has only permitted renewals to last for 60 days. Russia’s frequent delays of incoming ships and continuing threats to suspend the initiative have driven up Ukraine’s costs and reduced the country’s earnings significantly.
Ukraine should seek an alternative to bypass these problems and reinforce its maritime security. An effective political and military strategy would have three key components: 1) establish a near-shore shipment corridor in the Black Sea defended by Ukraine and NATO; 2) initiate a Ukrainian counter-blockade of Russian naval forces; and 3) propose an international convention to guarantee the unfettered export of all the region’s grain and other foodstuffs. These synergistic plans reflect enduring geopolitical and economic realities. Their combined effect is greater than the sum of the parts, but each prong of the strategy stands on its own and should be pursued on its own right.
Corridor for Grain Shipments
The highest military priority would be to establish a near-shore, grain-ship corridor, from Odessa to the Bosphorus. The proposed route would be entirely within the territorial waters of Ukraine and NATO member states.
Proposed near-shore corridor to provide Ukrainian ships access to the Bosphorus. Yellow areas show Ukrainian territorial waters to be defended by Ukrainian forces; red areas show territorial waters of Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey, to be defended by NATO. Image credit: Authors.
The portion of this proposed corridor in Ukraine’s territorial waters would be Ukraine’s responsibility to defend; the rest of the route should be secured by NATO to create a seamless means of access. To protect the corridor, NATO would provide purely defensive armaments to Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey—specifically, minesweepers, minelayers, and anti-submarine mines to counter Russia’s undersea threat; land-based anti-surface ship missiles; land-based air/missile defenses, possibly with sea-based early warning enhancement; and, as needed, NATO’s best electronic warfare for cover and deception.
NATO’s actions, as envisioned in the strategy, would be the least escalatory measures conceivable. They would pose no threat to Russia’s territory or its regime. Nor would NATO nations be required to engage Russian forces unless they were used to attack ships within NATO’s territorial waters. NATO-Russia combat at sea would be nearly impossible, unless Russia chose to attack, which would be highly unlikely given the decimated state of its Black Sea Fleet (BSF). The larger purpose of the corridor would be humanitarian: It would keep Ukraine’s grain flowing to world markets. These measures would be entirely consistent with the Montreux Convention, which allows riparian states to provide for their own self-defense. And the small ships that would be provided to Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey would not justify a Russian reinforcement of its forces. Reinforcing these states’ access to the Sea of Marmara has been a long-term concern, and assessments dating back more than 70 years argue that modest reinforcements would not generate a Russian response.
A defended near-shore corridor is vital to Ukraine’s security. The nation must have access to the sea for its export-dependent economy to function. Odessa is Ukraine’s jugular; without its exports, Ukraine’s economy would be strangled. Given increasing political discomfort about the cost of the war in the United States and other Ukrainian allies, it seems clear that NATO would not support a dying economy and a large-scale war effort for very long.
Despite the overwhelming focus on the territorial shifts in the land war, Ukraine could lose the war through action at sea. If, following settlement of the current conflict, Russia were to invade Ukraine again, it would not repeat its strategic mistake of 2022 and instead would attempt to mount a sustained naval blockade of Odessa. But in the near term, Russia is weak at sea and so will push over land, west from Kherson to try to seize Odessa.
Russia’s threats to suspend or withdraw from the UN deal are not credible, but are nonetheless effective because of the “insurance effect.” Attacking merchant ships, or threatening to do so, causes international insurance companies—notoriously risk-averse—to end or charge astronomical rates for coverage. For example, Reuters reported in January that Lloyd’s Black Sea rates increased 20 to 25 percent at the start of the year. When insurance becomes inaccessible or unaffordable, merchant ships stop sailing.
Militarily, Russia may lack the physical means to interdict ships carrying Ukrainian grain even today. Any effort in the future could be defeated by Ukrainian and NATO forces defending the near-shore corridor. Politically, Russia faces insurmountable disincentives against withdrawing from current arrangements. It has negotiated, signed, and thrice renewed the UN agreement. It cannot now reverse course and attack grain-laden ships sailing from Odessa. Doing so would eviscerate the humanitarian propaganda that it has promoted diligently since the agreement was first announced in July 2022. Moreover, it would add further to the NATO consensus on the need for the near-shore grain corridor and its international acceptance. Ukraine can and should end Russia’s continuing manipulation of the existing UN arrangement. It can demand that the initiative be modified to guarantee passage of Ukrainian grain ships sailing via the defended, near-shore corridor. Western governments should intervene in international insurance markets, becoming reinsurers of last resort, as the United States did during the Persian Gulf “Tanker War” in the 1980s, to cover ships sailing in the corridor. NATO can and should immediately demonstrate its intent to join Ukraine in defending the corridor, which would do double duty as a strategic glacis—a protective barrier on a strategic scale—defending NATO’s southern flank while providing an enduring lifeline for Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Counter-Blockade
With material and political support from the United States and other allies, Ukraine should declare its intention to mount a counter-blockade against the BSF. Ukraine’s counter-blockade would be executed with close-in minefields laid, surveilled, and defended by uncrewed surface vessels (USVs). This idea was also recently suggested by analysts at the RAND Corporation.
USVs are a new dimension of naval warfare. Ukraine’s versions appear to be simple, inexpensive, and effective. Its USVs have already successfully attacked Russian naval vessels in the approaches to Sevastopol harbor and harassed Russian merchant ships near the Kerch Strait. Russia withdrew most of the BSF east to Novorossiysk because Ukraine’s USVs, along with its anti-surface ship missiles, have transformed the situation. The BSF, its sea-based cruise missiles aside, had become little else than an exposed and useless vulnerability.
Ukraine’s counter-blockade would focus on naval forces at bases in Sevastopol and Novorossiysk. It would explicitly exclude merchant ships carrying grain, fertilizer, and other food products. South of Novorossiysk (Sevastopol does not export grain) Ukraine would designate and provide such ships a safe, near-shore corridor in Russia’s territorial waters, and they would register with and follow appropriately modified rules of the now-existing UN Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul. The plan would exactly mirror that followed by ships carrying grain from Ukraine today.
The primary military purpose of the blockade would be to neutralize the BSF on behalf of achieving Ukraine’s territorial objectives in the south. Sinking the BSF seems unlikely, although Ukraine already has reduced its size to fewer than 20 surface combatants, three of which carry missiles, and just two to four submarines. Instead, the blockade would be a war of attrition at sea in which a successful outcome would tie up the Russian fleet on defense and prevent it from carrying out any other missions at acceptable rates of losses to Ukrainian forces. Human casualties on the Ukrainian side would be minimal. A secondary objective would be to interdict Russian and shadow ships carrying military cargo into or out of Russia—for example, to Syria and beyond.
It is assumed that the West has on hand or can generate ample supplies of mines and that indigenous capacity to produce USVs in Ukraine has been or can be developed at scale, and/or USVs can be acquired from third parties like Turkey. A blockade war of this kind might be sustained for a lengthy period, possibly measured in years. Ukraine must also develop defenses against Russian USVs. The longer a blockade war lasts, the more its tactical and technological evolution must be addressed. In sum, a Ukrainian counter-blockade seems feasible and could be an important element in a war-winning strategy at sea.
International Grain Export Convention
Announcement of Ukraine’s intention to blockade should be accompanied by demands that Russia agree to an International Grain Export Convention (IGEC), a more formal, multinational guarantee to replace the current grain initiative. Under it, all Black Sea states would agree not to interfere, under any circumstances, with the seaborne export of the region’s grain, other foods, and fertilizer. The IGEC would be signed and guaranteed by the great powers, including the United States, and would be opened for signature by all other nations.
A grain convention is not a radically new idea. It grows out of principles already being observed in the Black Sea: specifically, that war between states in the region should not be allowed to cause the starvation of millions of people in nations thousands of miles away, who are in no way parties to the war. That principle underlies the current UN grain initiative. The proposed IGEC would expand its application to the Black Sea as a whole and would build on existing international mechanisms for its oversight and management, like the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul established to support the current arrangement.
A grain export convention would be an essential companion to the Ukrainian counter-blockade. Ukraine would be fighting not only to defend its own exports; it would be fighting for the security of the exports of all Black Sea states, including Russia’s. Ukraine’s actions reflect recognition of the world’s dependence on grain exported from the Black Sea. Ukraine’s laudable humanitarian objective would generate near-universal international support—even Russia could not publicly oppose it.
However, Russia would likely make its acceptance of an IGEC conditional on a “poison pill” demand that the entry to the Black Sea of non-riparian navies be prohibited. In fact, such a situation has been in effect since the war started and, surprisingly, has been accepted tacitly by the United States and other NATO nations. Even though it would solidify Russia’s dominant position in the Black Sea, many nations might find this appealing—China, for obvious reasons, and the many additional nations who have remained neutral in the Russia-Ukraine war. Many might view it as a form of stabilizing arms control; after all, for more than a year NATO and Russia have avoided a broader conflict at sea, despite the raging war on land.
The continued exclusion of NATO from the Black Sea would obviously be unacceptable to Ukraine and the West. It would render an IGEC unenforceable if, following a truce, Russia were to restart the conflict. An IGEC would result in the re-entry of the navies of all NATO members under the most favorable conditions possible. In this event, NATO should restrict its maritime reinforcements to the small ships required to defend the grain corridor and mount the blockade of the BSF to avoid creating a precedent for Russia to reinforce the BSF with major combatants. It also would make it extremely difficult for Russia to use its threat of blockade as a bargaining chip in negotiations to end the war.
An IGEC proposal should be put forward immediately. Doing so would be essentially cost and risk free. International bodies are much concerned with food security, which is now recognized as having major implications for political stability, as well as meeting a deep humanitarian need. Any U.S. president would find that a grain export agreement has widespread appeal. It should be advanced as soon as possible—with proper acknowledgment of Ukraine’s central role in it. In addition, a grain convention could reshape the strategic architecture of the Black Sea in Ukraine’s favor. The Montreux Convention benefits Russia, as it did previously for its biggest booster, the Soviet Union. A grain convention would have the effect of draining Montreux of some of its pro-Russian bias and blocking Russia’s possible path toward making the Black Sea a strategic point d’appui in the Balkans, in Syria to the south, and (with Iran’s enthusiastic support) in the Caspian and Central Asia to the east. An IGEC would make the Black Sea region a more stable place and Ukraine more secure within it, while garnering praise and support for Ukraine, the United States, and its allies. It should be put forward immediately, even independently of the other much needed actions proposed.
A Naval Advantage
With rare exceptions, such as the sinking of the BSF flagship Moskva, the major events of the war in Ukraine have emphasized the importance of territorial conflict—Ukraine’s battles to regain areas in the east and south lost in 2014, the further losses in the opening months of Russia’s offensive in 2022, and Russia’s brutal attacks on civilians and the destruction of Ukraine’s cities. Naval forces, however, could play a much larger role. Curiously, the conflict’s focus replicates the current U.S. National Security Strategy, which concentrates exclusively on ground, air, and space forces in considering how to confront Russia and China. Like the United States vis-à-vis the other great powers, Ukraine may be outgunned in the air and on the ground, but it has the advantage in the maritime arena. It should exploit this advantage through establishment of the “grain corridor” and a counter blockade of Russian ports to hasten the end of this tragic conflict.
Acknowledgement
Many of these proposals arise from online and live discussions over the last year of the Navy’s Strategy Discussion Group. For critique and general encouragement, the writers are indebted to Thomas M. Duffy, Mary Ellen Connell, James H. Bergeron, Steven T. Wills, and Ronald R. Harris. All are herewith absolved of responsibility for any misuse of their ideas.
This essay provides ideas for incorporation in the coming version of “The National Security Strategy of the US” (NSS) and its successors. It is paired with a second essay addressing “The National Defense Strategy of the US” (NDS). These national documents have a close, symbiotic relationship, as do these two essays, which share a common logic, structure, and multiple cross-references. However, the ideas in these two essays are severable. The reader does not have to subscribe to one to endorse the other — though they are written with that linkage in mind. Critique and suggestions for action are offered in a spirit of utmost respect for the offices involved.
Abstract
Rewrite the National Security Strategy of the US; adopt a geopolitical perspective, specifically:
Acknowledge that the US is a geopolitical seapower engaged in long-term competition with great continental adversaries.
The ultimate stakes are control of Eurasia, either through a) a stable balance of power (with no single entity in control) or b) through the hegemony of one state or a duopoly.
The security of the US depends on preserving a) and preventing b) and requires maintenance of a favorable military balance in the key economic regions of Eurasia — and on the world ocean.
Recognize that, if war cannot be prevented, the side that can exert control of the world ocean will, sought or unsought, deny its weaker adversary all access to the sea and may well force its adversary to face existential choices regarding its sea-based intercontinental nuclear forces, its economic well-being, and its very sovereignty. This sea-denial process — provisionally designated “blockade”— appears unavoidable and difficult, if not impossible, to modulate.
Defend the seapower’s vulnerabilities; the US has no greater vulnerability in conventional war than the sea lines of communication that link it to its allies; without defensible SLOCs, the US alliance will collapse, the US will lose the war, and then face a Eurasian hegemon alone — likely itself becoming the target of blockade.
Exploit the advantages that a seapower enjoys: 1)forming alliances, 2) prosecuting military-economic warfare, 3) exerting blockade (global sea denial) which has strategic meaning independent of what happens on land. Note that the third is conditional on acquiring and maintaining capabilities to control the sea — an option that is open to continental powers as well.
Combine competitive strategies with cooperative ones to deal with the security dilemma.
Publicly express the NSS in ideological language; privately base its development on geopolitical principles.
I’m a political scientist who worked at the Center for Naval Analyses (now known as CNA) 1969-99 with a group that supported and critiqued ONI and OPNAV planners and analyzed the Soviet military press. I directed the group 1974-89. I retired as a Captain in the Naval Reserve after service in Naval Intelligence. This blog aims to contribute to an understanding of the history of the US Navy in the Cold War, to draw lessons from that and earlier periods for the current era, and to conjecture about possible future developments for which history may provide no guide.
For a number of years after I retired I did not closely follow the literature relating to the Navy’s strategic thinking. I only returned to it in 2017 when preparing a talk about CNA’s work on the Soviet navy as part CNA’s 75th anniversary. I was frankly appalled to find that ideas about SLOC protection and strategic ASW had marched zombie-like out of the Cold War and were being taken seriously in what was dubbed a new era of great power competition. A critique is provided in my article “The Return of Great-Power Competition—Cold War Lessons about Strategic Antisubmarine Warfare and Defense of Sea Lines of Communication, Naval War College Review, Summer 2020.
I felt a professional and personal obligation to re-enter the public discussion of these matters. CNA’s analysis from the early 1970s had shown that the Soviet navy had zero intent to attack Western SLOCs, and CNA had been close to the center of the thinking that gave rise to strategic ASW. Today, Russia has even less interest in threatening Western SLOCs on the high seas than did the Soviets. Today, strategic ASW is such a stunningly bad idea that by speaking out I hope to help banish it from polite strategic discussion.
Most recently I have focused on blockade as a strategy that deserves analysis and likely adoption by the US Navy and the navies of allies in a possible war with China and/or Russia. Russia’s invasion and blockade of Ukraine naturally led to attention on blockade- breaking and the role of blockade in war termination and peace settlements. I recognize that this blog steps into the midst of a fast-moving debate that has produced a substantial body of literature that continues to grow. I hope it can make a contribution.
This essay provides ideas for incorporation in the coming version of “The National Defense Strategy of the US” (NDS) and its successors. It is paired with a second essay addressing “The National Security Strategy of the US” (NSS). These two national-level documents have/should have a close, symbiotic relationship. Likewise, the writer’s NDS and NSS essays share a common logic, structure, and multiple cross-references. The ideas within them are severable, and the reader does not have to subscribe to one to endorse the other, though they are written with that linkage in mind. Suggestions for action are offered in a spirit of utmost respect for the offices involved.
Abstract
Revise the National Defense Strategy of the US (NDS) to reflect the geopolitical perspective of a new National Security Strategy (NSS), specifically:
That the US, as a geopolitical sea power in competition with two great continental powers, must exploit its innate advantages, including formation of alliances that attract many, enduring allies, and a superior ability to prosecute military-economic warfare.
To the main effort directed at defeating the enemy’s armed forces in war, the NDS must add military-economic warfare:
To attack the enemy’s war and civil economy through blockade, supported by all elements of civil power of the US and its allies, plus with a new weapon, cyber.
To force the enemy into undesirable strategic choices and reduce as close to zero as possible his ability and willingness to fight.
Recognize that blockade is geographic escalation which must be global in scope; it is maritime, denying the enemy access to the world ocean for any purpose, military or civil; and it is to be conducted against targets at sea without, unless desired, strikes on the enemy’s homeland or other vertical escalation in the war’s level of violence.
Recognize that blockade is not an alternative to other uses of the nation’s seapower, that it will inevitably arise in a war with a great power, and that ad hoc blockade would be worse than no blockade at all.
Rectify the omission of the world ocean in the current NDS and acknowledge the reality that a military contest with continental adversaries can be decided by who controls the sea, as well as who can prevail on the ground in the key regions of Eurasia.
Recognize that the nation must always possess sea control capabilities for defensive use in the protection of the strategic sea lines of communication (SLOCs) that connect the US with its allies; without control of the SLOCs:
The alliance system on which the national strategy is centered will collapse.
The US will lose the war — regardless of how successful its ground and land-based air forces may prove to be.
Defensive sea control can also be used to deny the enemy use of waters needed to execute his own initiatives; for example, a submarine and mine warfare defense of Taiwan could defeat a Chinese attempt to invade or blockade the island and prevent resupply of any forces ashore there; action would be entirely at sea, manifestly defensive, and would not involve strikes on the Chinese homeland with consequent risk of a wider conflict.
Recognize that a revised NDS can, for the first time, put these same sea control capabilities to use on offense: Namely, global blockade which utilizes all elements of US and allied sea power (including sea-based air) to sweep the seas of enemy civil and naval ships and is supported by the Joint Force on the ground in regions that impact the course of the battle at sea.
Recognize that economic and technological developments have made the US’s great continental competitors dependent on the use of the seas and so vulnerable to coercion by denial of that use. China, in particular, is well aware of this vulnerability.
Military-economic warfare, centered on blockade, would, as in the world wars of the 20th century, affect the course of major war in the 21st and could yield the margin of victory.
(The NDS can incorporate military-economic warfare before the NSS is rewritten with a geopolitical perspective, but ultimately the NDS and the NSS should be aligned with each other and with comparable plans of the military services to ensure the logical coherence of the national planning system.)
The Navy has all but ignored blockade as a strategic concept in the 75 years since World War II. Blockade is the offensive use of sea control; the Navy should add it to sea control’s (mandatory) defensive use on behalf of SLOC protection and make it part of a complete 21st century Maritime Strategy.
The Navy:
has no strategic plan to deal with blockade, which will arise, sought or unsought, in a war with a great power adversary, particularly China;
forgoes a mission that affected the strategic course of both world wars of the 20th century, and will almost certainly do the same if there is major war in the 21st; and
casts itself in an ancillary, defensive role at sea; projection of power ashore is the only offensive element of its strategic concept.*
Blockade (and cyber) are the military components of military-economic warfare in a revised national defense strategy.
Military-economic warfare uses the nation’s military capabilities to attack the enemy’s economy, force him into injudicious action, and reduce his ability and willingness to fight as close to zero as possible; it is additional and complementary to action aimed at defeating his armed forces.
If the NCA chooses, mil-economic warfare can extend to air/missile bombardment of the war-economic infrastructure on enemy territory.
Blockade is not an alternative but a complement to all other uses of the naval component of the Joint Force; it is global and maritime in scope; it denies the adversary all uses of the sea; it brings the total force to bear on the center of gravity of the adversary’s power, his (China’s) greatest vulnerability at sea.
Blockade can be used for defense where the geographic focus is on the relatively narrow sea areas the enemy seeks to control to execute his own plans; a leading example is a submarine and mine warfare defense of Taiwan aimed at directly defeating a Chinese attempt to invade or blockade the island or preventing China from resupplying any forces inserted ashore there; action would be entirely at sea, manifestly defensive, and would not involve strikes on the Chinese homeland with consequent risk of a wider conflict (never zero).
Blockade is among the most robust strategies available; it is useful for deterrent effect to underwrite peacetime and crisis diplomacy and in all phases of war. It is particularly so in war termination, where it would give the US and its allies an advantageous position in a chaotic “postwar” where victory itself may be difficult to define.
A “mission-kill” propulsion-disabling weapon, though not absolutely necessary, would increase the efficiency of blockade operations and reduce/eliminate blockade’s negative moral, legal, and political consequences.
Blockade would position the Navy for what it was in the mid-1980s but is not today — a force that can affect the course of a major war and possibly determine its outcome.
Re-thinking blockade faces many obstacles within the Navy which must be understood if they are to be overcome.
In integrating blockade into its strategy, the Navy can and should engender change in the National Defense Strategy and the National Security Strategy to bring the three into coherent alignment.
The Navy effectively wrote the national strategy in 1987; it helped win the Cold War; the Navy can/should do the same again.
*Another exception is strategic anti-submarine warfare (SASW); this offensive mission does not appear in CNO strategy documents but has been publicly expressed as the Navy’s intention by flag-level officials; this is not the Cold War; SASW today is an indefensible mistake that opens the Navy to criticism.
Clio's Musings 