Hendrix's View from an Island Nation

Regular readers know the importance of the United States being the world’s premier sea power, but that is inside the lifelines of our corner of the national conversation. 

For a whole host of reasons we have discussed here over the years and on Midrats – in spite of our nation surrounded by the fruits of the open seas – the larger American public does not see it. We suffer, in essence, from our success.

The time when the free flow of goods across the globe was not a given has slipped well out of living memory. Except for older cohort GenX and older, no one even remembers the regional threat the Soviet Red Banner Fleet aspired to be right before the empire she served collapsed and disaggregated.

Not just the United States, but the developed and developing nations throughout the globe who benefit from the post-WWII maritime environment suffer from seablindness. There are other powers - resentful, bitter, and grasping – who even though they benefit from the global agreement – wish to break it down and create something new. Not so much that they want something better – they just don’t like a system they had no role in creating – one defined by the assumed ever-presence of the United States Navy and her friends.

As fish are not aware of the water they swim in, so the global economy does not fully understand the world it exists in … and the fact that it is under threat of disappearing. 

Our friend Jerry Hendrix has been an integral and valuable part of the public conversation for well over two decades – longer inside the lifelines of the US military. 

This month he has an exceptional article over at The Atlantic titled, “America’s Future is at Sea” or in the more flashy online version, "The Age of American Naval Dominance is Over" that you need to take time to read. He weaves together not just the history, but the economic, diplomatic, and civilizational threads that all connect to American seapower. 

What adds additional importance to his article is the venue. 

As I mentioned in the opener to this post, “we” know this story – or at least most of it. The problem is too many others do not. 

The Atlantic has a certain readership segment which includes many people of influence and proximity to the levers of power, or a degree or two separated from someone who does. The vast majority of its readers who are not soaked in the details involving the maritime domain.

These people need to understand the issues as much as readers here do. You really need to read it in full, but here are a few pull quotes I’d like to share. He starts out strong;

Very few Americans—or, for that matter, very few people on the planet—can remember a time when freedom of the seas was in question. But for most of human history, there was no such guarantee. Pirates, predatory states, and the fleets of great powers did as they pleased. The current reality, which dates only to the end of World War II, makes possible the commercial shipping that handles more than 80 percent of all global trade by volume—oil and natural gas, grain and raw ores, manufactured goods of every kind. Because freedom of the seas, in our lifetime, has seemed like a default condition, it is easy to think of it—if we think of it at all—as akin to Earth’s rotation or the force of gravity: as just the way things are, rather than as a man-made construct that needs to be maintained and enforced.

But what if the safe transit of ships could no longer be assumed? What if the oceans were no longer free?

Nothing is guaranteed ... or as Papa Salamander would often tell me, "No one owes you a living."

Imagine, though, a more permanent breakdown. A humiliated Russia could declare a large portion of the Arctic Ocean to be its own territorial waters, twisting the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to support its claim. Russia would then allow its allies access to this route while denying it to those who dared to oppose its wishes. Neither the U.S. Navy, which has not built an Arctic-rated surface warship since the 1950s, nor any other NATO nation is currently equipped to resist such a gambit.

Or maybe the first to move would be Xi Jinping, shoring up his domestic standing by attempting to seize Taiwan and using China’s anti-ship ballistic missiles and other weapons to keep Western navies at bay. An emboldened China might then seek to cement its claim over large portions of the East China Sea and the entirety of the South China Sea as territorial waters. It could impose large tariffs and transfer fees on the bulk carriers that transit the region. Local officials might demand bribes to speed their passage.

"Gentlemen's agreements" only work if both parties act as gentlemen and keep their word. What happens when one party decides not to be? What is the enforcement mechanism ... or is there one at all?

If oceanic trade declines, markets would turn inward, perhaps setting off a second Great Depression. Nations would be reduced to living off their own natural resources, or those they could buy—or take—from their immediate neighbors. The world’s oceans, for 70 years assumed to be a global commons, would become a no-man’s-land. This is the state of affairs that, without a moment’s thought, we have invited.

This is not alarmism. A discordant and ill-timed blending of demography, debt, economics, and politics are driving the global system of crisis - what we warned of starting 13-yrs ago as "The Terrible 20s."

—a “free sea”—first enunciated by the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius in 1609. The United States and Great Britain, the two traditional proponents of a free sea, had emerged not only triumphant but also in a position of overwhelming naval dominance. Their navies were together larger than all of the other navies of the world combined. A free sea was no longer an idea. It was now a reality.

In this secure environment, trade flourished. The globalizing economy, which allowed easier and cheaper access to food, energy, labor, and commodities of every kind, grew from nearly $8 trillion in 1940 to more than $100 trillion 75 years later, adjusted for inflation. With prosperity, other improvements followed. During roughly this same period, from the war to the present, the share of the world’s population in extreme poverty, getting by on less than $1.90 a day, dropped from more than 60 percent to about 10 percent. Global literacy doubled, to more than 85 percent. Global life expectancy in 1950 was 46 years. By 2019, it had risen to 73 years. 

What happens if global trade retrogrades to a prior, less safe, less predictable (hurting insurance carriers ability to properly set rates) and vibrant time? Well, you look at the positive effects of growth in the past to see an inverse of what a return to the multipolar ocean might bring the future. That is what Jerry just did. Re-read the above and ponder even a fraction of that headwind;

It is important as we look at today's challenge to accept that we are not a passive victim of a changing world. No. We are here mostly as a result of our own actions. Decline is a choice.

As a side note, if you are not already thinking of another article in The Atlantic from 16 year's ago, Robert D. Kaplan's "America's Elegant Decline," go ahead and read it now.

It is never to a nation’s advantage to depend on others for crucial links in its supply chain. But that is where we are. In 1977, American shipbuilders produced more than 1 million gross tons of merchant ships. By 2005, that number had fallen to 300,000.

Today, most commercial ships built in the United States are constructed for government customers such as the Maritime Administration or for private entities that are required to ship their goods between U.S. ports in U.S.-flagged vessels, under the provisions of the 1920 Jones Act.

The U.S. Navy, too, has been shrinking. After the Second World War, the Navy scrapped many of its ships and sent many more into a ready-reserve “mothball” fleet. For the next two decades, the active naval fleet hovered at about 1,000 ships. But beginning in 1969, the total began to fall. By 1971, the fleet had been reduced to 750 ships. Ten years later, it was down to 521. Reagan, who had campaigned in 1980 on a promise to rebuild the Navy to 600 ships, nearly did so under the able leadership of his secretary of the Navy, John Lehman. During Reagan’s eight years in office, the size of the Navy’s fleet climbed to just over 590 ships.

Then the Cold War ended. The administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton slashed troops, ships, aircraft, and shore-based infrastructure. During the Obama administration, the Navy’s battle force bottomed out at 271 ships. Meanwhile, both China and Russia, in different ways, began to develop systems that would challenge the U.S.-led regime of global free trade on the high seas. 

Read it all.

If this isn’t enough Hendrix, and there is never enough, Jerry will join us this upcoming Sunday for Midrats. Don’t miss it!

Seapower Advocacy: Time to Get Serious

Regulars here and at Midrats know the discussions we have had through the years on the scourge of navalists; seablindness, the Navy's retreat from the press, and the growing bunker mentality as we stumble from crisis to crisis. 

The last decade showed a series of events blend in to a general disconnect from the national conversation at a time when the challenge from China demanded a greater discussion of how our Navy brings value to the national security challenges we face. We were not driving the conversation and often were not even part of it. Others actors with other priorities drove the agenda and steered it in the direction they wanted. 

We need a sustained navalist message, but our present institutions are not able to do it - nor inclined to change to do it. 

Today's guest post comes from a navalists who has been looking at the challenge in a deep and broad context, Bryan McGrath.

Bryan, over to you.

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Folks, I am worried. I am worried that as a nation, we are unserious. We are unserious about what a security environment pitting two global powers against us means, and we are unserious about leveraging the great advantages we enjoy in that contest. I am speaking of course, about seapower, and I think the time has come to honestly assess the various means through which American Seapower is explained and advocated for in the public square. In this piece, I argue for the creation of an organization focused on the advancement of American Seapower through direct participation in the democratic process. This organization would be unconstrained in its ability to disagree with a particular administration, Department of Defense, or even Department of the Navy should political considerations or bureaucratic infighting reveal those organizations to be unduly timid (or statutorily limited) in the pursuit and maintenance of dominant seapower. Some reading this may be asking, “Isn’t that what the Navy League is for?” or “Isn’t that what the Naval Institute is for?”, and these are good questions I hope I’ll answer by the time I’m finished.


The Problem

The problem, simply stated, is that at the very moment that the need for American Seapower advocacy is most critical, it is nowhere to be found. Ok. That is probably an overstatement. There is advocacy. It is, however, insufficient, ineffective, untargeted, uncoordinated, poorly resourced, diluted, and inadequately championed.

In a perfect world, the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations would serve as the spiritual and intellectual lead clergy of such advocacy, and the two of them—in addition to various four-stars and other subalterns—would devise and preach the Gospel of American Seapower. There would of course, be civilian organizations that would join the choir (see Navy League of the United States, United States Naval Institute), but the vicar and the curate of this congregation would be the senior civilian and senior uniform in the Navy.

But we do not live in a perfect world, we live in the National Security Act of 1947 world and more importantly, the Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986 world. These two pieces of bedrock national security legislation of accomplished many things, some of them positive. These laws also—in the period of time where both have been the active law of the land—have dramatically reduced the level of coherent advocacy for American Seapower, as doing so within the current rules of bureaucratic conduct is seen at best as a threat to “Jointness”, and at worst, a political threat to the unassailable power of the Secretary of Defense. This reality is not likely to change appreciably, and so hoping for a CNO or a SECNAV who is an unconstrained American Seapower advocate (they generally do the best they can within the rules of the game they play) is not a path to success. And so, across the past four decades, a vacuum of formal advocacy has developed, as the uniformed and civilian leadership of the Navy fell into line with the realities of bureaucratic life in the Pentagon. Outside organizations could have stepped into this void, but they have not. Let us start with the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI).

The mission of USNI is to be “…the independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write in order to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.” As such it serves as a professional organization inwardly focused on the needs and desires of its membership. Key to this mission are two additional statements on the USNI mission page: the first, is that USNI will remain “independent”, defined further as “a non-profit member association, with no government support, that does not lobby for special interests.” Second, that it will remain “non-partisan”, as “an independent, professional military association with a mission, goals, and objectives that transcend political affiliations.” Put another way, USNI serves a valued purpose in the constellation of organizations that consider American Seapower, but its MAIN purpose is to its members. It assiduously avoids lobbying, and it avoids the rough and tumble of American politics, as in this case, “non-partisan” and “apolitical” are difficult to discern. Under the leadership of VADM Pete Daly, USNI has become more visible across a number of fronts (public events and new media chief among them), but it has—as has been its historical practice—continued to stay out of active advocacy roles, which is as its membership desires.

Moving on then to the second logical outside organization to look to for aggressive advocacy and political activity—The Navy League of the United States (NLUS)—it is more difficult to see any real conflict between the organization’s mission and these pursuits. “The Navy League of the United States, founded in 1902 with the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, is a nonprofit civilian, educational and advocacy organization that supports America’s sea services: the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and U.S.-flag Merchant Marine. As part of its mission focus, the Navy League of the United States:

• Enhances the morale of sea service personnel and their families through national and council level programs.

• Provides a powerful voice to educate the public and Congress on the importance of our sea services to our nation’s defense, well-being, and economic prosperity.

• Supports youth through programs, such as the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps, Junior ROTC and Young Marines, that expose young people to the values of our sea services.”

Clearly this mission statement contains the seeds for the kind of muscular, political advocacy required. And were the second of the three bullets above to be the primary focus of the organization, there would be little need for this post. But forceful, Washington DC-based advocacy and a relentless dedication to American Seapower policy formulation is not what NLUS either concentrates on or is successful in doing. And the deficit between what the organization says it is dedicated to, and what it does is not so much a function of desire, but organization. The real emphasis of NLUS is in the first and third bullets of its mission statement, in no small part because that is where the power and energy is within the Navy League by design.

By way of an anecdote, several years ago, I was contacted by a group of people who wished to see a more forceful and effective approach to American Seapower advocacy. There was at the time (and to be honest, it continues) a bit of envy when we looked at our ideological analogues in the air power and land power realms. The Air Force Association (AFA) and the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) both seemed to be more effective in influencing the debates on Capitol Hill than NLUS, and I set out to discover why. I had a meeting or two with the DC-based NLUS leadership team, and I came away with a few impressions that remain to this day.

For starters, the de-centralized, bureaucratic structure of NLUS governance militated against the kind of nimble advocacy and policy formulation that an effective Washington DC-based organization requires. The more I studied the by-laws then in place, the more I realized that the DC presence was not where the action is within the Navy League. The geographically differentiated councils dispersed power and authority broadly across the country, and the DC based Executive Director had insufficient authority to direct the efforts of the organization.

This became obvious when I brought up the possibility of the Navy League creating a “Seapower Think-tank”, analogous with the then rising-in-prominence “Mitchell Institute” of the Air Force Association. From around the table at NLUS headquarters in Arlington, VA, I got nods of agreement and bright-eyed enthusiasm for what sounded like an unobjectionable good idea. When we got to the discussion of how to make it happen, the bright eyes dimmed, and heads began to droop. There was in the room, a sense of powerlessness to make something like this happen for a few reasons. First, because there was within NLUS an inherent skepticism of central direction and execution, and this rendered the DC/Arlington presence relatively disadvantaged when trying to make decisions and move with alacrity. Second, such an effort would take funding, and while NLUS prized its relationships with industry sponsors, there was not an appetite for providing the seed money such an undertaking would demand or asking their donors to step up more aggressively in support of it.

Next, I came away from the meeting with the Arlington/DC-based executive staff with a sense of complacency, that all that was really being asked of them from a centralized execution perspective was to produce their (valuable, readable) “Seapower” magazine, and broadly support whatever budget the Navy, the Maritime Administration, or the Coast Guard put forward. Knowing what we already know about how the national security resourcing process works and the virtue of “Jointness” above all other virtues, the “advocacy” provided in supporting an administration budget submission is of little additional value to that which can be safely given by the administration representatives submitting it. Put another way, lobbying Congress to pass the submitted budget is not a great lift, and the degree to which Navy League lobbying efforts in any way deviate from the least-common denominator solutions put forward by federal agencies with skin in the seapower game is questionable.

I am told that the Navy League’s governance structure has changed in the six years since I last studied it, that there are fewer than the (if memory serves) scores of Directors that had a hand in making policy then. I did a bit of poking to find the current by-laws online but was unsuccessful. I have spoken recently with three persons who have in-depth knowledge of the current structure, and each indicates that the League’s priorities remain focused on the geographically distributed councils, rather than on federal influence.


What to Do?

The United States needs an organization dedicated to the development of sound policy in support of American Seapower and the advocacy required to bring that policy about. The center of mass of this organization must be the seat of the federal government in Washington DC, and its main audience is the Pentagon, the White House, and the Congress. It must simultaneously be a catalyst for policy development and education, and a powerful agent of American Seapower advocacy. While its efforts and emphases are primarily aimed at the federal government, this organization MUST have an effective outreach program utilizing all appropriate forms of media to inform and educate an American public grown distant from and uninterested in the degree to which their security and prosperity derive from seapower.

It would be correct to view the paragraph above as firmly within the Navy League’s current remit. It would be incorrect to assume that the Navy League either performs these functions or can perform them as currently organized. My preference would be for the Navy League to fundamentally reform itself and centralize authority (read: authority to determine where can money be spent) in Washington DC. I have little hope that this can or will occur.

And so I find myself believing that a new organization should be formed, and that this organization would have four broad lines of operation: research into the nexus between national strength and seapower, the development of seapower related policy, active advocacy for seapower in both the Executive Branch and the Congress, and dedicated outreach to civic minded Americans through targeted media and events.

This organization would occasionally disagree with the government agencies it advocates for and would look at budget submissions with skepticism rather than as marching orders. It would issue reports under its marque written by in-house scholars and free-lance researchers. It would provide for a stable of competent experts who would become the “go-to” voices on matters of seapower-related strategy, policy, and operations from a world-class, on-site media center and from the home-offices of the experts involved. It would populate and curate a website of seapower related thinking from around the world. It would host events either independently or with other organizations that raise and debate important seapower issues. It would fearlessly advocate for American Seapower without the level of suspicion under which traditional think tanks work because anyone (individual or corporate) who donated money to fund this organization would EXPECT policy advocacy. The quality of the work created would be the return on investment, and if the work were analytically rigorous and contributed to the advancement of American Seapower, the organization would be doing its job.

What I am suggesting is—for lack of more suitable comparison—the creation of a “Planned Parenthood” or a “National Rifle Association” for American Seapower: an organization that believes in the constitutional basis for its advocacy and connects the general population to its advancement. This organization cannot be apolitical; it would by nature be very political because the advancement of American Seapower is, a political process. It must, however, be non-partisan, and it must cultivate friends of seapower wherever they may be.

These are my thoughts. Most of the people who read this who might be interested in helping such a venture get off the ground, know how to find me. The time is now.


Bryan McGrath is the Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC defense consultancy. Neither his private clients nor his Navy clients were consulted on this essay, and his words and thoughts are his own.

Fighting Seablindness is an All Hands Effort

Navalists have the wind at our backs. 

We have not had an opportunity like this in over 30 years to make our point to the American people why it is so critical that our republic own a powerful navy of global reach.

The need has been clear and well documented even before our republic was free of the British Crown, but to most outside the seapower fraternity it is not self-evident.

It is a sale that must be made to each generation. It is a story that must be told and retold; repackaged and redelivered by as many paths as possible. When a crisis brings its need in to focus, it is too late.

A strong navy cannot be built, trained and manned overnight and be effective. It must be ready on day one.

If we don't tell that story enough and in the right way - when her nation calls for her navy, she will not be ready. Even though she will not be ready, she will still answer the call. When an un-ready, under-capitalized, and poorly trained and manned navy gets underway against a challenger that is ready; the seas are filled with your own dead Sailors, it seabed littered with your ships, and your nation is opened to strategic risk to an enemy emboldened by victory.

One fellow retired Commander is more than carrying the load. As we discussed in his visit to Midrats late last year, Bryan McGrath is conducting a speaking tour on seapower in his corner of the republic. He recently put his video series on YouTube. Highly recommended.

As you get yourself ready for the next President and wonder what new directions we may take, during the course of the week, watch a video or so a day. Send a link along to a friend.

If we want our nation to understand why she needs a strong Navy and Marine Corps team, all must do a part. We can't all be Bryan, but we can introduce him to a few friends.

A Day Without Seapower, on Midrats

Almost a decade of involvement in two land wars in Asia combined with a series of costly and ill timed shipbuilding programs that have yet to produce ships anywhere near promised cost and performance has brought our Navy to the growing budget crisis in a delicate position.

The national security arena suffers from SeaBlindness about the critical requirements of seapower to the long term economic and security needs of a maritime, mercantile republic.

Sunday, June 5th at 5pm EST, using their work at The Heritage Foundation, Thinking About a Day Without Sea Power:Implications for U.S. Defense Policy as a starting point, join EagleOne and me with our returning guests Mackenzie Eaglen and Bryan McGrath for the full hour to discuss the long view on the future direction of our Navy and Marine Corps team.

In addition to reading their piece above, you can also read Mackenzie's testimony last Wednesday to the Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, House Armed Services Committee here.

Join us live if you can and join in with the usual suspects in the chat room where you can contribute your thoughts and observation - and suggest to us questions for our guests.

If you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio - but the best way to get the show and download the archive to your audio player is to get a free account and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

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