Posture Statement 2000 (Chapter 2)

II: NAVAL FORCES IN THE 21st CENTURY

The Changing Security Environment

Threats to Regional Stability

The events of the last decade demonstrate that we live in an uncertain time. While we are confident that no nation will match the U.S. on a global scale in the foreseeable future, some nations inevitably will seek to compete with U.S. influence on a regional level. Pursuing economic, political, and military policies designed to raise the cost of U.S. engagement, they may try to diminish the stature and cohesion of our regional partnerships. Such states—or non-state entities—are likely to invest in asymmetric military capabilities that they perceive can leverage their effect on our willingness or ability to remain engaged on behalf of friends and allies.

Our ability to dominate the world's oceans and, when required, project maritime power ashore, may discourage the adventurism of unfriendly regional powers and afford us the means to defeat them should that be necessary. Forward-deployed U.S. naval forces promote stability and reassure allies, and offer a counterweight to the influence of unfriendly regional actors. Such forces contribute to a security framework that complements other instruments of national power to build regional stability.

Globalization's Impact

The sea has always been the principal path of international trade. The "Information Age" has given rise to another path—cyberspace—that is becoming equally indispensable. The globalization of markets, networks, and information inextricably links U.S. economic and security interests more than ever. As the flow of information, money, technology, trade, and people across borders increases, the ability to distinguish between domestic and foreign policy will become increasingly blurred. We can best preserve our well-being at home by being effectively involved in the world beyond our shores. Globalization offers the prospect of widespread economic and political benefits, but requires a stable environment to make this a sustainable reality.

Future Risks to Our Military Preeminence

The trend toward globalization may provide state and non-state actors conventional and unconventional means to advance agendas that are opposed to this stability. Access by potential adversaries to a variety of sophisticated technologies with military relevance may, over time, reduce the technological edge of U.S. platforms, weapons, and sensors, while making our actions more transparent. The growing availability of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies with direct military application highlights this trend. Even with a strong intelligence program, we may be confronted by a sudden realization that a potential adversary possesses a significant capability to interfere with our operations.

While U.S. naval forces will remain pre-eminent, challenges to that status are likely to increase and be fundamentally different in nature than in the past. U.S. forces increasingly may face enhanced threats posed by theater ballistic missiles as well as biological and chemical weapons. Our increased reliance on information systems in warfighting may also create a vulnerability to information warfare.

The warfighting concepts and capabilities of potential adversaries— especially anti-access strategies— are of special concern. Unfettered access to all domains of the battlespace will be a key operational requirement and will hinge on control of the seas and the airspace over it—the cardinal prerequisite to theater access and force sustainment. Dominance in areas such as anti-submarine warfare, neutralization of mines, and defense against air and missile threats will be required to ensure such access.

Warfighting in the Future

Projecting U.S. maritime power from the sea to influence events ashore directly and decisively is the essence of the Navy and Marine Corps Team's contribution to national security. The strategic and operational flexibility of naval forces provides the U.S. extraordinary access overseas. Sea-based, self-contained, and self-sustaining naval forces are relatively unconstrained by regional infrastructure requirements or restrictions. Further, naval forces can exploit the freedom of maneuver afforded by the seas to respond to contingencies and remain engaged in activities that support our interests around the world.

The Navy-Marine Corps vision, ...From the Sea, steered us from the broad ocean areas into the littorals where most of the world's population resides and conflicts occur. Forward ... From the Sea broadened that shift in focus. The landward focus of those documents provides a bridge from strategic vision to programmatic priorities and operational concepts. The defining characteristics of naval forces suggest this vision will remain relevant in the future security environment. However, emerging threats and opportunities will require us to develop and assess new concepts of warfighting in the Information Age that may differ from those of the past.

Characteristics and Attributes

Naval forces have enduring characteristics and attributes that have evolved from constant exposure to the vastness, harshness, unpredictability, accessibility, and opportunity offered by the sea.

Three defining characteristics differentiate the Naval Services from our complementary sister Services and make us a uniquely powerful asset. First, we operate from the sea. Second, we are an expeditionary force—our ships, aircraft, Sailors and Marines are forward deployed, and they exercise power far from American bases. Third, in an age of jointness, the Navy and the Marine Corps are linked more closely than any other two Services in their structures, training, deployments, operations, equipment, and staffing.

Four clusters of attributes derive from these defining characteristics:

Mobility and Adaptability. Naval forces can operate anywhere on the oceans, free of diplomatic restraint. As such, they have an unmatched ability to operate forward continuously, react to contingencies with power and speed, and act as the enabling force for follow-on Army and Air Force power projected from the U.S.

Versatility of Power/Scalability. Ships can be benevolent and welcome visitors, sending their Sailors and Marines ashore as ambassadors of U.S. interest and good will. Ships can also manifest our interest by re-positioning at high speed to areas of concern. The same ships can also deploy Marines to rescue our citizens or deter those who would harm them. And ships and submarines can be important platforms to gather intelligence. Ultimately, they can bring massive and precise firepower to bear and deploy Marine forces to deter and, if necessary, fight and win battles and campaigns.

Presence and Visibility. Ships can be purposely conspicuous or exceptionally difficult to detect. In peacetime, we value visibility for the sense of security and stability our forces convey by signaling U.S. interest, readiness, and ability to act if a crisis brews. The same ships, stationed close in, on the horizon, just over it, or in unlocatable places and circumstances, can be used as needed in crisis or conflict. With the ability to cumulate forces, naval power can be adjusted or scaled at will, increasing or decreasing pressure as our civilian leadership chooses to raise or lower U.S. commitment, and engage or disengage much more easily than land-based forces.

Cooperative and Independent Capabilities. Naval forces are important instruments of international cooperation. Navy ships conduct numerous exercises and interact with naval forces of allies, neutral nations, and even potential adversaries every year. The Marine Corps is a natural partner for many foreign land forces. At the same time, the Navy and Marine Corps are a powerful independent force, with little reliance on foreign bases or overflight rights to conduct strike or forcible entry operations around the world.

In short, the enduring attractiveness of naval power is the flexibility that stems from these inherent characteristics and attributes. Investments in the Navy and Marine Corps are like money in the bank. We do not need to know precisely how and where we will use this resource in order to see its value—indeed our value is greater because we are useful virtually anywhere and anytime. Our expeditionary character, mobility, adaptability, variable visibility, and cooperative and independent capabilities combine with our immense firepower to make us an especially relevant and useful force.

New Opportunities

Historically, these advantages were developed over time and with a high cost in technology. Even then, communications between dispersed ships and land commanders were often sporadic. In years past, it was difficult for ships at sea to discern what was happening on and near land. Strike capabilities from the sea were limited by weapon bulkiness (as compared with the small size of ships) and small magazine capacity. Naval firepower and Marine combat forces could be projected onto and over the land only a limited distance.

Entering this new century, the technology, information, strike and telecommunications revolutions are rapidly undoing these bounds on naval power. For example:

Communications capacity between ships, from ships landward, and from air- and space-based assets have increased by several orders of magnitude. Information processing capabilities have expanded concomitantly.

Sensor and surveillance systems provide ship-based forces with information about and insights into the land environment that can equal that of land-based forces.

The power, reach, and precision of naval strike assets exceed anything previously available in the history of warfare. For example, TLAMs, targeted within hours onboard ships and submarines, can fly hundreds of miles, hitting targets with precision measured in a few meters. Carrier strike aircraft deliver similarly precise ordnance far inland. When combined with the ability to insert Marine forces hundreds of miles from their ships without the need to first build up forces on a beachhead, our forces are able to maneuver and engage over great land areas, more precisely, and more quickly than any naval force in history.

Sustainment capacity has grown proportionately. Improved sea-based logistics capabilities and larger, better-outfitted amphibious platforms will facilitate operations of indefinite length and allow land forces to become less dependent on vulnerable, fixed bases or stockpiles.

Investing for the Future

Unique among the Services, the Navy-Marine Corps Team gains much of its combat power by coordinating operations in six battlespace dimensions: on the sea, under the sea, on land, in the air, in space and in cyberspace. Our challenge is to invest in a balanced fashion, shifting the emphasis as particular opportunities present themselves and seek optimum synergy between the Navy and Marine Corps and among the different dimensions in which we operate. To this end, we must invest wisely:

To have or assure access to, and maintain presence and maneuver within, areas where civilian leadership wants to assert U.S. interests. In seeking control of the battlespace, we will maintain and enhance mobility (shipbuilding capacity and a sustained build rate); counter anti-access strategies (mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare) and asymmetric strategies (Biological, Chemical and Information Warfare); and maneuver on and over land (Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV), MV-22).
To know what is occurring, identify threats, and be prepared to act quickly on that information. By investing in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles/Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UAVs/UUVs), submarine intelligence collection and communications systems, space systems, Information Technology 21st Century (IT21), nodal analysis, and our Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), we will improve our ability to have superior knowledge of the battlespace and turn this knowledge into the capability to act.
To project power and strike, if necessary, with weapons and forces, unilaterally or in con-junction with joint or allied forces. Weapons and platforms such as Tactical TLAM, F-18E/F, DD-21, LPD-17, EA-6B follow-on, Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), SH-60R, MV-22, AAAV, Light-Weight 155mm Howitzer will enhance precision and speed of attack and maneuver within the battlespace.
To protect and sustain ourselves and, when required, others. This requires enhancing force protection (Navy Area Defense, Navy Theater-Wide); expanding sealift and combat logistics (Maritime Preposition Force Enhancement and Maritime Preposition Force Future programs); improving "reach back" capabilities (IT21, Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI)); and increasing use of robotics and automation.

These are only a few examples of the necessary investments for conducting warfare in the Information Age. We invite you to examine in greater detail the actual weapons and support equipment being procured by the Department of the Navy in the Navy's Vision... Presence... Power and the Marine Corps' Concepts and Issues program guides.

Connecting Strategy and Capabilities

Transforming our Naval Services is a complex, ongoing process that requires priorities to be examined rigorously. The annual Navy Strategic Planning Guidance (NSPG) and its prioritized Long-Range Planning Objectives, provide the links between strategy and the CNO's Program Assessment Memorandum (CPAM) and the Integrated Warfare Architecture (IWARS) assessment process used as the Navy's program planning tool. The Marine Corps Master Plan provides the link between Operational Maneuver from the Sea, and the Marine Corps' doctrine, plans, policies, and programs. These Service documents and processes are developed in conjunction with the Secretary of Defense's Future Year Defense Plan and, internal to the Department of the Navy, the Secretary of the Navy's Planning Guidance (SPG).

******** In Chapter II, we described our efforts to apply new technology to warfighting in the Information Age. However, warfare is, at its core, a clash of wills, thus the human dimension— the ability to take aggressive and decisive action faster than our adversaries—is all-important. In Chapter III, we discuss the important investments we must make in our people to prevail in future conflict.

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