April 19, 2018
How to Make the U.S. Navy Great Again
ALONE AMONG the services, the Navy is always deployed. In wartime, all of the services deploy. In peacetime, the Army and Air Force train and exercise but do not deploy persistently. However, the Navy, and its accompanying Marine Corps, deploy operationally twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year—year in, year out, in peace and in war. This is because the very presence of naval forces demonstrates American interests without having to intrude on another nation’s sovereignty. Naval forces convey the relative importance of American interests through ratcheting up or down the number of ships in a given theater. The Navy’s unique “scalability,” along with its ability to arrive and stay, or to make its presence known and then quietly move on, gives our commander in chief military and diplomatic options.
America cannot retreat from the seas. Its maritime interests are enduring and growing. Great wealth in the form of food stocks, minerals and energy resources lies beneath the waves that find their way to our shores. Additionally, access to lines of communication via the swiftest and most efficient routes across international waters, as well as maritime linkages to forty-nine transoceanic treaty partners, are of critical interest to the United States.
Read the full article in The National Interest
More from CNAS
-
Safe and Effective
Reports
Executive Summary With each passing year, the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy to change the character of war inches closer to reality. This technology wil...
By Josh Wallin
-
Sharper: Military Artificial Intelligence
Commentary
Since the atomic bomb, no technology has the potential to be as disruptive to warfare as artificial intelligence (AI). AI could deliver instant targeting solutions, develop hi...
By Charles Horn
-
America’s Eroding Airpower
Commentary
To have a chance at success, the United States would need more low-end drones and missiles that can provide it with mass....
By Stacie Pettyjohn
-
Maritime Domain Lessons from Russia-Ukraine | Conflict in Focus
Video
In this week's Conflict in Focus episode, Dr. Stacie Pettyjohn, senior fellow and director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, discusses the key ...
By Stacie Pettyjohn
