U.S. Naval Forces Require Competent Aerial Leaders

December 20, 2021 Topic: Military Strategy Region: United States Blog Brand: The Reboot

U.S. Naval Forces Require Competent Aerial Leaders

American naval aviation: a combat arm in search of a strategic theory.

Beyond that, however, Mahan has little to say that is of relevance. So let's turn to Julian S. Corbett, that early-twentieth-century maestro of maritime operations, and to Admiral J. C. Wylie, an undeservedly obscure mid-twentieth-century theorist of military strategy. Herewith, a few candidate precepts for a theory governing nautical air power:

•    The surface—not the sky—is where great matters are decided. Corbett maintains that since mankind lives on land, any trial of arms must shape events on land. For him, naval warfare was largely useless except insofar as it helped decide land wars. At most, mariners might prevail through a drawn-out process of exhaustion, squelching commercial shipping to and from opponents. Worse still, interfering with merchant traffic was apt to anger neutrals and one's own trading community. Likewise, Moffett once informed Congress that "supremacy in the air is of no use to anybody except as it affects conditions on the surface beneath." Well put! Moffett, it seems, was a man of Corbettian leanings. So should posterity be.

•   An uncommanded sky is the norm. Corbett observes that the oceans are too vast for any navy to command completely or permanently, no matter how far its reach or how potent its striking power. The same can be said of the skies. The ocean's surface, after all, is a two-dimensional battlefield. The airspace overhead is a vast, three-dimensional column of air. That's a lot of volume for any air force to command. Accordingly, command of the air is typically fleeting, limited in geographic sweep, and contested by adversary surface and air forces. It's also contingent on events down below. Aerial command hinges on whether aircraft-carrier task groups—the mobile airfields on which the air wing depends for sustenance—can fight their way into the theater, withstand enemy anti-access measures, and conduct continuous flight operations. For naval aviation, then, command of the air is symbiotic with command of the sea. Maritime encompasses not just the land-sea interface but the wild blue yonder above.

•   Naval air is more tactical than strategic. Corbett maintained that fleets could dispute, win, and exercise maritime mastery. Naval aviation, likewise, is about challenging enemy sea command when U.S. forces are temporarily weaker, and thereby balking the adversary's strategy. It's about wresting away command by sinking, crippling, or blockading enemy maritime forces. And it's about exploiting command. The fruits of victory include the freedom to land amphibious forces, project power onto hostile shores through air or missile strikes, interdict enemy merchantmen, withdraw friendly noncombatants from war zones, and so forth. Bombarding strategic targets such as industry or the enemy leadership—favorites for the Mitchells and Douhets of the world—is among these prerogatives. But naval air power is first and foremost a shield for the fleet and part of its sword arm. Support for surface forces, not strategic air campaigns, is Job One.

•   Command of the air is merely an enabler—not a goal in itself. Corbett insisted that the goal of maritime strategy is to control communications, meaning passage through the shipping lanes. Control is especially important at the origins and destinations of enemy vessels' voyages, and at focal points such as straits where shipping must converge to pass from point A to point B. That's where it's easiest to find ships in the vastness of the maritime commons. Similarly, the point of maritime air strategy is control of communications, both aloft and on the surface of the waters beneath. Such mastery lets the U.S. Navy coerce opponents. Winning the air battle is crucial, then, but it isn't an end in itself.

•    Don't conflate destruction with control. Admiral Wylie wants to abolish artificial boundaries between warfare domains, and in doing so, concentrate the energies of airmen, seamen, and soldiers on controlling vital territory for the requisite amount of time. The man on the scene with a gun is the arbiter of control. All else should be geared to getting that doughty gunfighter to the scene, surmounting enemy resistance, and helping him remain there until operational and strategic goals are in hand. Aviators, says Wylie, tend to think blowing something up from aloft equates to controlling it. That's a faulty way to execute strategy. Again, Moffett was correct to assert that molding conditions on the earth's surface—not pummeling surface targets from on high—is uppermost for executors of air strategy.

This initial foray into maritime air power barely scratches the surface of an extraordinarily rich subject. Retrofitting theory to practice doubtless seems backward, and so it is. But it's the inductive way. Getting maritime air-power theory right while preserving naval aviators' tactical prowess will restore nimbleness and adaptability to the force. That will help it keep pace with changing surroundings. Aviators will become able spokesmen for their community in the process. And the ghost of William Moffett—the most able spokesman of them all—will smile.

James Holmes is Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College and coauthor of Red Star over the Pacific. The views voiced here are his alone.

Image: Flickr/Official U.S. Navy Imagery