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I’m pretty tired, megaproject due on Monday which I finished a few hours ago, but I have not done one of these posts in a while.

TopBilling! HG’S World – 600 Years of Naval Strategy

It’s a big post, as befits six centuries of history and strategy:

The key point of the article focuses on the real goal behind the theory of sea power by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan. Their point is that Mahan saw maritime strategy in these terms.

Naval preparedness is the sharp edge of maritime strategy, then, but it is only a means to an end. For Mahan, commerce was the true path to affluence and national greatness: “War has ceased to be the natural, or even normal, condition of nations, and military considerations are simply accessory and subordinate to the other greater interests” they serve.17 Prosperity took precedence. The “starting point and foundation” for comprehending sea power was “the necessity to secure commerce, by political measures conducive to military, or naval strength. This order is that of actual relative importance to the nation of the three elements-commercial, political, military” (our emphasis).

This is why nations covet access to faraway regions like Asia. In essence, commerce is about unfettered access to the means for producing wealth and national power. Reliable access is impossible without the military means to protect it, and to keep others from denying it. Mahan thus advances a tripartite concept, which we call his first “trident” of sea power. Access to sources of economic well-being-foreign trade, commerce, and natural resources-ranks first within the Mahanian trident, military access third. This cuts against the usual, military-centric understanding of Mahan.

I immediately took notice of this passage because during my recent trip I visited the Ming Dynasty Tombs, where 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors are buried. The Changling tomb of the third Ming Emperor, Yongle Emperor, has an exhibit that traces the acomplishment of this emperor, now considered one of the greatest in Chinese history. One exhibit is given prominence, and is centered to draw attention to Admiral Zheng He who under the sponsorship of Emperor Yongle led seven naval expeditions between 1405 and 1433.

….What was the motivation for these voyages? Not global conquest or imposition of their political system on their neighbors. The goal was to support the tributary system and promote trade and commerce. Historians are somewhat divided on why China ended the voyages and imposed the Hai jin order banning maritime activities. One thing is certain, today’s China appears poised for the first time in 600 years to reach a level of power equal to the early Ming Dynasty.

How does this all square with Alfred T Mahan’s theory? Let us look at the Yongle Emperor’s goal. He wanted to gain respect and demonstrate to those in the extended region that China was the superpower because she controlled the seas. The result, would be tribute and commerce leading to prosperity and continued “national greatness” for China. A great plan, but in a world of a belief in the Mandate of Heaven manipulated by palace Eunuchs fate deemed a different result.

Read the rest here.

One more Naval appraisal, I  really liked this post by Galrahn at Information Dissemination:

Screening Asymmetrical and Symmetrical Threats at Sea

What exactly is asymmetrical about submarines, smaller missile boats, mines, aircraft, and/or land-based missile systems? Swarm tactics with small boats does not represent an asymmetrical military capability, rather it represents a symmetrical naval tactic that is well chronicled as far back as Themistocles.

The way this Office of Naval Intelligence report describes Iranian capabilities as “asymmetrical” does not encourage me, because it essentially groups equipment and tactics that are common among small nations – littoral submarines, missile boats, mines, shore based anti-ship missiles – as an asymmetric military capability. That is fundamentally inaccurate, these capabilities are symmetrical even as these capabilities specifically target what is seen as a weakness in US Navy Fleet forces.

All of these naval capabilities – littoral submarines, missile boats, mines, shore based anti-ship missiles – are simply exploiting the absence of a single naval element of combat in the US Navy:

Normally, I do not like to weigh in on maritime matters, there’s a lot to know there and it is not my area of expertise or more than a passing interest but I think Galrahn has hit on a stubborn lacuna among the flag officers. Lt. Gen. Paul van Riper more or less kicked the Navy’s collective ass so badly in that infamous wargame years ago, that the need for smaller, screening, combat vessels should be a problem en route to being solved by now. Calling attacks from small vessels and missiles “asymmetreic” seems to mean in Navyspeak “If we call it this an ‘asymmetric threat’ then we don’t have to buy those goddamn little brown water boats like Martin Sheen was riding in Apocalypse Now!“.

Adam Elkus and Lt. John Sullivan on borders and 3rd  Generation gangs ramping up security threats.

Fun with dinosaurs.

Eide Neurolearning Blog – Orchid Kids: The Positives of Intense and Demanding Children

Shepherd’s Pi – A-Space Past and Future

For IC and Social Media -philes.

In Harmonium –Some thoughts on Anthropology as a “Science”

That’s it!

Nothing like dueling Steves (see previous post).

Dr. Steve Metz of SSI compares the surges of Obama and Bush and finds them to be cut from the same cloth. Hat tip to SWJ Blog.

How Obama”s Surge is Like Bush’s

….Ultimately, though, the Obama strategy in Afghanistan and the Bush strategy in Iraq are more alike than different–variations on a theme rather than stark alternatives. Both were attempts to give a beleaguered ally an opportunity to reverse its slide into disaster. And both were gambles. In Iraq, President Bush bet that the Maliki government would rein in sectarian violence, and that the Iraqi Security Forces were nearly ready to assume responsibility for their nation’s security. This panned out. Now President Obama is making the same bet. His strategy is contingent on the Afghan security forces, bolstered by increased assistance from the U.S. military, being able to conduct counterinsurgency on its own by 2011. Even more importantly, Obama’s plan is contingent on the Karzai government’s reining in its crushing corruption and addressing the myriad problems that the Afghan people face. If the Afghan security forces or the Karzai government are not up to the task, nothing the United States can do will matter. A surge of 20,000, 30,000, or 100,000 would be equally irrelevant. Unfortunately, only President Karzai and the Afghan security forces can determine whether the Obama strategy works. Our fate is in their hands.

Read the rest here. 

Steve has spotted a poor contingency for the administration to rely upon. Putting the war strategy on Karzai’s performance is akin to building a house on quicksand. It might look a little like wet cement but it is not going to harden into a foundation no matter how much time passes. We need to work within the parameters of our own capacities and with realistic and not utopian options.

We’d garner more goodwill giving every Afghan child a pony than by waiting for villagers to see honest officials from Kabul appear. It’d be cheaper too.

Steve Schippert, my national security amigo from Threatswatch.org, scored an op-ed in The Washington Times. He’s not happy.

Counterinsurgency incoherence: President Obama prefers an Exit Strategy to Victory

In war, and particularly in an Afghanistan counterinsurgency effort, there are always three sides to the coin: the good, the bad and the ugly. This is especially true in President Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy, finally announced to the American public Tuesday from a West Point backdrop.

The prescribed influx of much-needed American warriors onto the battlefield is clearly and rightly the good. And the good can withstand the bad, a Taliban enemy in the absence of reliable partners in the Afghan and Pakistani governments.

But the glimmering light of the good will surely be eclipsed by the ugly, an incoherence of strategy beneath the surface sheen of a surge. The devil is always in the details.

….For a counterinsurgency effort to succeed, the willing partners aren’t in Kabul or Islamabad, no matter the demands made upon each. Rather, they reside in the villages and towns spread through the provinces of Afghanistan. Winning over the local leaders will strengthen our position and ultimately lead to the Afghan people demanding better governance from Kabul.

This requires – in both word and deed – clear demonstration of presence and resolve, not in intellectual arguments for an exit strategy. There are no exits for the Afghans we seek to defend in parallel with our own security and interests.

Read the rest here.

Arm the tribes. Where there are no tribes, create loyalist paramilitaries from whatever networks are at hand for district and village self-defense. A heavily Tajik and Uzbek Afghan National Army will never fight the Taliban half as eagerly as Pushtun villagers defending their own homes and fields.

One law for them, another for the rest of us.

Courtesy of Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) and Richard Durbin (D- Daley Machine).