The nation’s three Sea Services have revised their 2007 Maritime Strategy, more formally titled A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged Ready. Changes in the world since 2007, new strategic guidance, and our current fiscal circumstances have compelled this revision. Security threats have become more sophisticated, widespread, and sinister. We face new or evolving threats from violent extremist organizations such as Boko Haram, al Qaeda in Yemen, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL); from Russia with its current unlawful aggression in the Ukraine; from North Korea and Iran; and from the proliferation of anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities that threaten our access in cyberspace and in the global commons. Additionally, we face a rising China that presents both opportunities and challenges. In response to this new security calculus, the revised Strategy explains how the U.S. Navy will design, organize, and employ its forces in support of national security interests. It describes a Navy built and ready for any challenge from a high-end war to humanitarian operations.

From a U.S. Navy perspective, the 2015 Maritime Strategy identifies the biggest challenges to forward progress confronting the Navy and describes how it will design, organize, and employ its forces in support of our national security and defense objectives. It also sets Navy priorities in an era of constrained resources, while emphasizing warfighting capabilities and forward presence to protect our global national interests. It is a well-defined strategy to ensure our citizens and political leaders understand and support the Navy’s national security role, the necessity of the Navy’s existence, and the Navy’s resource requirements. A separate, Navy-only classified annex addresses the Navy’s strategic approach to regional threats and challenges.

The revised Maritime Strategy achieves its purpose by stressing the importance of seapower to the nation’s security and describing how the Navy will move forward through a coherent set of key Navy implementation actions:

- Emphasize Warfighting First;

- Sustain Forward Presence—Being Where It Matters, When It Matters;

- Continue to Strengthen Alliances and Partnership;

- Assure Global Access;

- Rebalance to the Indo-Asia-Pacific Region;

- Build the Navy of the Future.

The Importance of Seapower to the Nation’s Security

The United States is and will remain a global leader with world-wide interests and responsibilities. The geopolitical reality is that the United States exists as an island nation between two great oceans. These realities mandate that the United States must be a seapower nation if it is to influence global security conditions. Freedom and the capability to use the oceans are absolutely essential for any U.S. defense policy to insure the security of the United States and our allies and partners. The United States must have the ability to use the sea for whatever purposes are necessary to the nation, as well as the ability to deny its use to a potential enemy. Moreover, no matter what kind of military power the United States projects overseas—naval, ground, or air—the nation will always use the seas to sustain that military power. Indeed the Navy and all members of the Joint Force must be able to conduct their missions at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by any opposing force. In short the Navy must ensure that the United States in conjunction with its allies has maritime superiority sufficient to put at risk the survivability of any potential enemy.

Operating routinely from the sea, and not from land-based and fixed locations, the Navy advances and protects our national interests and responsibilities. Seapower is the ability to project military power or influence through the control and exploitation of the maritime domain to include the maritime littorals and the air above it, as well as space and cyberspace, to achieve strategic, operational, or tactical objectives. What makes sea power so crucial in current conditions is that it can exert its influence without resorting to force. It can be present without another country’s permission. Seapower offers mobility, both to engage where we wish and to disengage as we must in both cases at minimum cost.

Naval forces are essentially self-contained offensively, defensively, and logistically to insure U.S.strength and influence can always be exerted where and when needed. With their unique combination of combat power, mobility, sustainment, and multi-mission flexibility, these forces are well suited to a global security environment in which threats cannot be anticipated and prepared for long in advance. Moreover Navy forces operating around the globe in peacetime have the same capabilities as they would in time of war. They are armed and ready for action, designed to cross broad expanses of ocean space to conduct sustained, large-scale Joint military operations upon arrival wherever in the maritime domain.

Navy Implementation Actions

• Emphasize Warfighting First

Defending our nation and winning its wars is the core task of the U.S. Navy. The Navy must have the capabilities and capacities to defeat any adversary and defend the homeland and honor our alliances worldwide. The Service’s number-one responsibility is to deter aggression and, if deterrence fails, to fight and win our nation’s wars.

Because the maritime domain supports the bulk of the Joint Force’s forward deployment and sustainment, as well as enables the commerce that underpins the global economic system, the Navy and Marine Corps team places a significant premium on warfighting. To safeguard U.S. and partner nation interests, we must guarantee that the Navy and Marine Corps team, as part of the Joint Force, is prepared to oppose any nation’s actions that jeopardize access to and use of the global commons or that may threaten the security of our allies. We will ensure a modern and capable force that is “combat credible” because of its ability to project power against advanced air defenses, conduct and enable littoral/amphibious operations in opposed environments, and establish blue-water dominance against highly capable surface, sub-surface, and air threats. Above all, we must provide U.S. Combatant Commanders with versatile maritime forces.

The Navy guarantees strategic nuclear deterrence through its fleet of ballistic missile submarines (SSBN). These submarines provide the United States with assured, precise, nuclear second-strike capability. We are always at sea, patrolling undetected, in constant communication ready to strike at a moment’s notice. The Navy operates the most secure and survivable leg of the nuclear triad, and will maintain it at peak-performance and readiness.

We will ensure a dominant Navy and Marine Corps team as compared to potential adversaries and challengers. This means the capability to exert sea control when and where needed, to sustain operations in these areas indefinitely, to support and influence operations on land, and to ensure freedom of movement for a nation’s forces. It also means the capability to do high-performance TACAIR, high-tempo submarine operations, large-scale amphibious operations, power projection from the sea with precision strike, and joint and combined operations.

We will maintain our dominance by continuing operations and training in a range of capabilities that are unmatched by any potential challengers. We will exhibit the following characteristics: strategic and tactical mobility; kinetic and non-kinetic options for the use of forces to influence events ashore and at sea; tailorable packages of forces that are sustainable at sea for long periods of time; support and enable amphibious operations; assured access and protection for maritime and joint forces; and command and control of international maritime coalitions across a spectrum of operations.

The Navy’s increased attention on its warfighting mission is underscored by the Navy’s active role in the on-going Operation Inherent Resolve. Since the president ordered the first air strikes in December 2014, the Navy has been at the leading-edge of the Joint and international coalition conducting targeted strikes in Iraq and Syria to degrade and defeat ISIL.

• Sustain Forward Presence—Being Where It Matters, When It Matter

The U.S. Navy is forward deployed primarily to project power into critical world regions, quickly. However, forward naval presence is central to everything we do. By operating forward the Navy also acts to protect U.S. interests and citizens; reassure allies and partners of U.S. political and military commitment; deter potential aggressors; support humanitarian and disaster-response needs; conduct counter-terrorism and maritime-security operations; and respond to crises rapidly, before they escalate into more costly conflicts.

U.S. Navy forward presence can be visible or invisible, large or small, provocative or peaceful, depending upon what best serves U.S. interests. The sight of a single U.S. warship in the harbor of a friend can serve as tangible evidence of the United States’ close relations with or commitment to that country. The U.S. Navy can modulate presence to exert the degree and kind of influence best suited to resolve the situation in a manner compatible with U.S. interests. In a crisis where force might be required to protect U.S. interests or evacuate U.S. nationals, but where visibility could provoke the outbreak of hostilities, U.S. Naval Forces can remain out of sight, over the horizon, ready to respond in a matter of minutes.

The U.S. Navy, unlike land-based forces, does not have to rely on prior international agreements before taking a position beyond a coastal state’s territorial sea in an area of potential crisis. U.S. Naval Forces do not have to request overflight authorization or diplomatic clearance. By remaining on station in international waters, for indefinite periods of time, naval forces communicate a capability for action that ground or air forces can duplicate only by landing or entering the sovereign air space. U.S. Naval Forces can be positioned near potential trouble spots without the political entanglement associated with the employment of land-based forces.

The deployment of U.S. Naval Forces forward in sensitive areas of the globe, positioned for warfighting ensures the United States can engage the enemy promptly at the initiation of hostilities and to stop the advance of the enemy as soon as possible. U.S. Naval Forces have the organic ability to respond to contingencies or crisis situations worldwide with the discrete type and magnitude of forces necessary to achieve a given objective. Ready on arrival, Naval Forces can commence combat operations immediately upon reaching a crisis location. They are often the first on the scene and the last to leave.

Operating forward provides the president with immediate options to defend our interests, de-escalate hostilities, respond to crises, and keep conflict far from our shores. Additionally, our forward naval forces reassure our allies, build trust with partners, and protect the strength of the U.S. economy by deploying with the credible combat-power to ensure the unimpeded flow of maritime commerce.

The value of naval forward presence to the nation was recently re-demonstrated by the USS George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group (CSG) ability to conduct air strikes against ISIL targets in Iraq last fall. Within 30 hours of presidential tasking, this CSG commenced 54 days of strikes as the only viable U.S. strike and power projection option. In August 2013, the five U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers off the Syrian coast provided presence and military resolve to the diplomatic efforts to successfully remove Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles. Within two days of AirAsia flight QZ8501's disappearance in December 2014, the USS Sampson (DDG 102) and its helicopters were on-station in the Java Sea coordinating surface and aerial searches with Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency.

• Continue to Strengthen Alliances and Promote Partnership

Throughout history, however, we have learned that it is almost always in the best interest of nations to act together when responding to crises, whether it involves deterrence or combat or providing humanitarian support. Accordingly, the U.S. Navy has rarely operated alone in a crisis. One of our advantages, as a nation and as a Navy, has been our extensive network of alliances, partnerships, and coalitions. By leveraging the robust capacity of navies worldwide, we are better postured collectively to face new and emerging challenges in the 21st century. There is no magic number of ships required to make coalition operations successful. What does matter is getting the right mix of capacity and capability in the right place, at the right time.

The value of a Network of Navies is that it provides an open and adaptive architecture for facilitating both long-term cooperation and spontaneous, short-lived collaboration. This network can allow countries with converging interests in the maritime domain to form mission-focused—often temporary—goal-oriented associations to address common maritime-security challenges. Whereas close partnerships can take years to develop, a network can rapidly support multiple “coalitions of the willing” and react quickly to changing circumstances, while simultaneously providing an enduring backbone for the growth and development of deeper cooperation.

In the current economic environment, most navies are facing fiscal challenges at home, which is forcing cuts or slowing growth in developing seapower to meet their respective needs. At the same time, security challenges in the maritime domain continue to grow. Accordingly, we will look for new ways to nurture relationships and form partnerships (ad hoc as appropriate) with traditional and nontraditional maritime partners who share a stake in international commerce, safety, security, and freedom of the seas. Operating together, we will prepare innovative and low-cost ways to respond to these emerging threats to regional and global stability. We will conduct more combined, multinational exercises with foreign navies to build capacity and interoperability. We will integrate our most capable allies and partners into cooperative deployments and real-world operations. By practicing how we fight in peacetime with our allies and partners, we are better prepared to win should conflict arise.

One way we strengthen relationships with our allies is to conduct integrated operations at sea. Recently the USS Harry S. Truman CSG conducted five weeks of combined carrier operations with the FS Charles De Gaulle (R 91) and French Navy Task Force 473. We practiced combined flight operations—landing our aircraft on the French carrier and vice versa—combat search and rescue operations, and personnel exchanges in the Fifth Fleet area of operations. Last April, we joined over 20 Pacific navies—including the Chinese—in signing the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES). This code calls on mariners to forgo provocative actions on the high seas and in international airspace, and to contact one another to clear up such misunderstandings as they do arise.

• Assure Global Access

The Navy’s increased attention on assuring global access is in consonance with the 2015 National Security Strategy, which states: “Collective action is needed to assure access to the shared spaces—cyber, space, air, and oceans—where the dangerous behaviors of some threaten us all.”

The Navy and Marine Corps must focus on assuring global access in order to thwart any effort to lock the United States out of important world regions and to enable us to fight and win should war be inescapable. To ensure this goal is achieved, the Defense Strategic Guidance unequivocally states, “the U.S. military will invest as required to ensure its ability to operate effectively in anti-access and area denial environments.”

Our strategy establishes a new essential function—all domain access—to ensure we organize, train, and equip our forces to overcome these threats and assure access and freedom of action in any domain (sea, air, land, space, cyberspace, and the EM spectrum). All domain access allows joint force maritime component commanders (JFMCC) to generate a range of options in all domains to defeat anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) measures through synchronizing and integrating the capabilities that provide battlespace awareness, assured C2, integrated fires, and electromagnetic maneuver warfare. The latter is a relatively new concept, which blends fleet operations in space, cyberspace, and the electro-magnetic spectrum with advanced non-kinetic capabilities to create warfighting advantages. Clearly, the United States and our allies and maritime partners must have the capability to carry out the full range of military operations in order to use the seas without threat or hindrance.

• Rebalance to the Indo-Asia-Pacific

The 2015 National Security Strategy states: “The United States has been and will remain a Pacific power… American leadership will remain essential to shaping the region’s long-term trajectory to enhance stability and security, facilitate trade and commerce through an open and transparent system, and ensure respect for universal rights and freedoms.” The Department of Defense prominently emphasized India’s role in the Asia-Pacific rebalancing in DoD’s 2012 Strategic Guidance, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense,” which states that the United States’ “economic and security interests are inextricably linked to developments in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia to the Indian Ocean region and South Asia...The United States is also investing in a long-term strategic partnership with India to support its ability to be a regional economic anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean.” This guidance makes it explicit that the United States views India as the southwestern cornerstone of its strategic rebalancing towards Asia.

The Indian Ocean region is of immense strategic significance not just on account of its centrality to the current trade and energy flows, but also because of the extreme disparities and inherent volatility of the region. The region faces an array of security challenges, both traditional and non-traditional. Indeed, U.S. and Indian strategic maritime interests in the Indian Ocean region have converged to include the security of these critical energy and trade routes, transit denial for terrorists, and effective responses to natural disasters, leading to increased naval and maritime cooperation. In response to these realities, the strategy has been expanded from an Asia-Pacific security framework to an Indo-Asia-Pacific security framework.

Without question, China is building a modern and regionally powerful Navy with a modest but growing capability for conducting operations beyond China’s near-seas region. This creates both opportunities and challenges for the Navy. The issue at stake is the fundamental question of whether China will use its growing economic and military power to assert its interests without respect to international norms. The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) notes that, “the rapid pace and comprehensive scope of China’s military modernization continues, combined with a relative lack of transparency and openness from China’s leaders regarding both military capabilities and intentions.”

Despite mounting U.S. concern, our nation seeks a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship with China that welcomes China’s ability to take on a responsible leadership role. The Navy’s overall military concept is a balance of deterrence and encouragement, inviting the Chinese Navy to play a responsible and constructive role in promoting security and peaceful development.

Because of the China’s past behaviors in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea, and the lack of transparency in China’s naval modernization, the U.S. Navy will continue to monitor closely China’s naval developments and the implications those developments have on the military balance. Through  its continued forward presence and constructive interaction with Chinese maritime forces, the U.S. Navy will reduce the potential for misunderstanding, discourage aggression, and preserve the U.S. commitment to peace and stability in the region.

• Build the Navy of the Future

Our new strategy describes a fleet of more than 300 ships—including 11 aircraft carriers, 14 ballistic missile submarines (to be replaced by 12 SSBN(X)), and 33 amphibious ships—to support global presence requirements and fulfill the QDR's force planning construct for defeating an adversary, while denying another its objectives.

Anything less than this would increase our risk, decrease forward presence, and limit our warfighting advantages. If we were to return to sequestration levels of funding, Navy surge-ready CSGs and ARGs would be insufficient to meet requirements. Gaps in presence and theater engagement requirements present challenges to meet the Defense Strategic Guidance. They reduce our ability to meet security commitments to allies and partners, deter aggression, and to conduct military operations. They also decrease our ability to be where it matters, when it matters. Some places you may see these gaps manifested include not being positioned to respond as quickly as in the past, not being able to take advantage of fleeting opportunities to destroy terrorist targets, and not being as responsive in Humanitarian Assistance /Disaster Response as in the past.

In building the future force, we will balance investments in readiness, capability, and capacity to ensure we remain capable and combat-ready. We will invest in innovative platforms and systems that allow us to accomplish our missions at reduced cost, but not at a lowered capability. We will focus our resources on the capabilities that allow us to retain and improve our warfighting advantages. When appropriate, we will prioritize capability over capacity and emphasize modularity and open architecture in current and future platform design.

Conclusion

The U.S. Navy operates in the world’s oceans to protect the homeland, build security globally, project power, and win decisively. This ability to maneuver globally on the seas and to prevent others from using the sea against our interests constitutes a strategic advantage for the United States. Forward deployed and stationed U.S. Navy forces use the global maritime commons as a medium of maneuver, assuring access to overseas regions, defending key interests in those areas, protecting our citizens abroad, and preventing our adversaries from leveraging the world’s oceans against us. The ability to sustain operations in international waters far from our shores constitutes a distinct advantage for the United States—a Western Hemisphere nation separated from many of its strategic interests by vast oceans. Maintaining this advantage in an interconnected global community that depends on the oceans remains an imperative for the U.S. Navy. To that end the 2015 Maritime Strategy is where vision and action come together. It provides clear thinking about long-term goals and objectives—about what the Navy ultimately seeks to achieve. The strategy translates that vision into specific initiatives that moves the Navy progressively forward to its objectives.

Rear Admiral William McQuilkin is currently the director of the U.S. Navy's Strategy and Policy Division (OPNAV N51). Bruce Stubbs is a member of the Senior Executive Service and serves as the Deputy Director of the Strategy and Policy Division (OPNAV N51B) on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations. Captain Frank J. Michael is the head of the Navy Strategy Branch OPNAV N513.

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