US Navy Girds for Sea Control

US Navy Girds for Sea Control

from The Diplomat by James R. Holmes

Maybe the US Navy surface fleet is getting serious about commanding the sea—at last. Exhibit A: the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has fast-tracked development of the navy’s first anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) since the last AGM-84 Harpoons, the fleet’s workhorse ASCMs, were delivered nearly two decades ago. Material superiority is crucial to the United States’ standing in the world, not least in Asia. As MIT Professor Barry Posen pointed out in 2003, command of the global ‘commons,’ namely the seas and skies outside any nation’s jurisdiction, constitutes the substructure on which US military primacy is built. Untrammelled ability to move forces through the commons permits Washington to project power onto foreign shores, shaping events in important ‘rimlands’ like the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean basin. The US Navy has basically assumed it owns the commons ever since the Soviet Union’s demise left its chief competitor rusting pierside. As Samuel ... Read More...