October 26, 2007
Navy Looks Beyond Wars In New Strategy
The U.S. Navy is revamping its global posture for the first time in a quarter of a century through new collaboration with the Marine Corps and Coast Guard.
Calling the maritime services "a unifying force and a willing partner for global prosperity and peace," the Navy unveiled its new strategy last week at the International Seapower Symposium in Rhode Island. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead (who formally replaced now-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen less than a month ago) said earlier this month, "We must be prepared for many future paths, many dangers and many potential threats. And that requires, above all, a long-term perspective and a long-term commitment to building a Navy capable of meeting 21st-century challenges."
The U.S. maritime focus will continue to be on support operations for the other armed forces and combat readiness, but the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard will also look past the current conflicts in the Middle East to the waters around China, Africa and South America. Humanitarian missions and sea commerce will also be of primary importance for the maritime services.
"Expansion of the global system has increased the prosperity of many nations. Yet their continued growth may create increasing competition for resources and capital with other economic powers, transnational corporations and international organizations," the strategy update reads. "Heightened popular expectations and increased competition for resources, coupled with scarcity, may encourage nations to exert wider claims of sovereignty over greater expanses of ocean, waterways, and natural resources -- potentially resulting in conflict."
Although the countries aren't named specifically in the new strategy, the reference to the Western Pacific undoubtedly boils down to China and the Koreas. The Army has already moved troops away from the demilitarized zone in part to get them out of the direct path of North Korean missiles. Under former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon sought to redistribute forces in Japan, Singapore and Guam that would be able to move around the region quickly to put out fires.
China, which is pouring resources into its own military, is viewed with growing concern in Washington. The strategy update states that "credible combat power" will be a mainstay in the Western Pacific and elsewhere to "deter and dissuade potential adversaries and peer competitors." With some implied support from Washington, Taiwain presses on for independence under threat of war from Beijing. A significant U.S. presence in the region would warn both parties against using force to achieve their goals.
The Navy also predicts an increase in activity in the Arctic due to heightened competition for resources outside of the Middle East: "Technology is rapidly expanding marine activities such as energy development, resource extraction, and other commercial activity in and under the oceans. Climate change is gradually opening up the waters in the Arctic, not only to new resource development, but also to new shipping routes that may reshape the global transport system."
Oxford Analytica has more on the strategy update. You can read the update in full here [PDF].
Posted at 10:47 AM
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Asia, China, Military, North Korea
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