u.s. naval responses to situations, 1970-1999gorenbur/naval responses.pdf · the 1970s, after...

Center for Naval Analyses4825 Mark Center Drive • Alexandria, Virginia 22311-1850

CRM D0002763.A2/FinalDecember 2000

U.S. Naval Responses to Situations, 1970-1999

H. H. Gaffney (Project Director)Eugene CobbleDmitry GorenburgAdam MoodyRichard WeitzDaniel Whiteneck

This document represents the best opinion of CNA at the time of issue.It does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Department of the Navy.

Distribution limited to DOD agencies. Specific authority: N00014-00-D-0700.Copies will be provided only with the project director’s authority.

Copyright 2001 The CNA Corporation

Approved for distribution: December 2000

H. H. GaffneyDirector, Strategy and ConceptsCenter for Strategic Studies

Contents

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Further Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Approach to the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Historical review: introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Historical review: the 1970s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Nixon-Ford Administration’s national security priorities . 20Carter Administration’s priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22U.S. naval responses, 1970-1979 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Responses in the 1970s related to Nixon-Ford national security policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Responses in the 1970s related to Carter’s national security policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Details of naval responses in the 1970s . . . . . . . . 28Summary of naval responses in the 1970s . . . . . . . . . 35

Historical review: the 1980s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Reagan Administration’s national security priorities . . . 39U.S. naval responses in the 1980s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Responses in the 1980s related to the Reagan Administration’s national security priorities . . . . 41

Details of naval responses, in the 1980s . . . . . . . . 43Summary of naval responses in the 1980s . . . . . . . . . 50

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Historical review: the 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Bush Administration national security priorities . . . 54Clinton Administration national security priorities . 56

Naval responses in the 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Responses in the 1990s related to the Bush

Administration’s national security priorities . . . . 58Responses in the 1990s related to the Clinton

Administration’s national security priorities . . . . . 59Details of naval responses in the 1990s . . . . . . . . 61

Summary of naval responses in the 1990s . . . . . . . . . 68

Navy-only responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Patterns of ship usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Simultaneity of responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Significance of naval responses, 1970-1999 . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Observations on naval responses to situations . . . . . . . . . . 98

Extrapolation into the 2000-2010 decade . . . . . . . . . . . . 103Foreign policy issues for national security . . . . . . . . . 103Possible demands on U.S. naval forces in the next decade 106Extrapolating the need for specific naval capabilities . . . 109Wild cards during the coming decade . . . . . . . . . . . 111The role of U.S. naval forces in the wild cards . . . . . . . 112

Force structure implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115Factors driving force structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116The stretches of U.S. forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123What this study did not cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Annex A: Charts on Navy-only responses . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Annex B: Spreadsheet on cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Acronyms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

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Summary

Task

To support the sub-IWAR on Conventional Deterrence, N812C askedCNAC to update and refine N312’s database on U.S. naval forces’responses to situations, as ordered by higher authorities. Specifically,they asked us to conduct analyses of those responses during theperiod 1970--1999. N812C was particularly interested in the implica-tions for U.S. Navy force structure that CNAC could derive from theanalyses.

Approach

CNAC refined and updated the database, adding roughly 50 cases,bringing it to a total of 192 cases. These cases were named operationsto which ships were diverted from their regular schedules. All caseswere those ordered by high authorities (“the NCA”), so all wereimportant to the successive presidential administrations. We thenarrayed the cases across the years, and sorted them into five categories(combat, shows of forces or escorts, contingent positionings, NEOs,and natural disasters). We displayed them by country, duration, andships involved.

We also attempted to put these naval responses into the contexts ofthe overall conflicts in the world and successive administrations’national security priorities. We looked at the patterns of ship usage(i.e., what types were sent to what kind of situations). We looked athow many operations took place simultaneously. We then judged thesignificance of the cases. Significance depended on whether theywere responses to world system-threatening events, responses to state-on-state wars, or responses that were down at the individual level(internal wars, threatened American citizens, or natural disasters).

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We tried to get away from mere “numerology” in analyzing these responses.The responses are not all equal in duration, intensity, ships involved, and sig-nificance, notwithstanding that all were ordered by higher authority. Somecontinuing operations, especially in the Adriatic, were given new names atdifferent times. All this is especially true in the 1990s, where a 54-percentincrease in responses shows that about half involved only four situations(Somalia, Haiti, Gulf, and Adriatic) and most of the other half were NEOsand responses to natural disasters.

In anticipating the next decade, we extrapolated the trends in conflicts andnaval responses with due regard for evident evolutions in conflicts aroundthe world (rather than a simple numerical extrapolation), threw in somewild cards, and estimated what kinds of ships might be used in futureresponses. We then made some observations about the force structure impli-cations of these extrapolations.

Observations

As far as we could tell, all responses to situations, with the exception of DesertStorm, have been made by ships on their regular deployments. We are alsoaware that, since the mid-1980s, and again with the exception of DesertStorm, the Navy has strictly observed PERSTEMPO and brought ships homeafter six-month deployments.

The world has changed from the 1970s. Then, containment and balancingthe Soviet Union were the dominant U.S. strategies. In the 1980s, the U.S.found itself having to focus more on the Middle East and Arabian Gulf andto roll-backs of Soviet influence in several internal conflicts in the 1980s(such as Central America). With the Soviets gone, the 1990s were dominatedby U.S. responses in four situations: the Gulf, Somalia, Haiti, and the FormerYugoslavia. The responses in the 1990s did not reflect some grand strategy,but perhaps could be better characterized as mini-containments in the gapbetween the largely stable North and the turbulent South.

One observation that we must reluctantly make is that one does not discoverworld history, and not even the history of conflict, from studying theseresponses. One gets glimpses of, say, the Cyprus situation, or the wars in Cen-tral America, but hardly the full story. The U.S. Navy is not involved in every-thing, only in a selection.

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The 1970s, after Vietnam, were quiet years for U.S. naval forces’responses. The Navy did not have a significant role in the major con-flict of the 1970s, the Arab-Israeli war of 1973. Most responses werescattered and short, with a high proportion of NEOs and responses tonatural disasters. With the fall of the Shah early in 1979, the Navybecame nearly continuously engaged in the Arabian Gulf, and thiscontinues to the present day. This is the major strategic shift affectingthe U.S. Navy, rather than the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolu-tion of the Soviet Union a decade later.

The 1980s saw some more intensive actions by U.S. naval forces. Withthe outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war in 1980, the Navy got engaged inrepeated escort operations in the Gulf, as well as defending the sea-ward approaches to Saudi Arabia. These operations culminated withthe Earnest Will operation in 1987 and 1988. There was also a wholeseries of rather frustrating operations related to Lebanon, a series ofincidents with Libya, and the quick operation into Grenada in 1983.

While the 1990s saw a 50-percent increase in cases, nearly half thecases were connected to just four situations: the Gulf, the FormerYugoslavia, Somalia, and Haiti. “Cases” is hardly the appropriate termhere, for continuing operations may have had successive names. Thebig shift was from the short operations of the previous two decades tocontinuous operations, notably multinational interception opera-tions (MIOs) in the Gulf and the Adriatic, and Southern Watch.Three of these four situations have ended (as far as the Navy is con-cerned); the Gulf remains with us and is intense. The rest of the oper-ations in the 1990s were the scattered NEOs and responses to naturaldisasters.

Across the three decades, the European and African regions and theArabian Gulf-Indian Ocean region have seen far more U.S. navalresponses to situations than the Pacific and Western Hemisphereregions. For the Pacific region especially, this is no comment on thestrategic value of naval presence, which we will discuss in more detaillater.

Ship usage has been as commonly known: CVBGs have done most ofthe combat strikes in the rare combat situations (22 of 192 cases) andhave made shows of force. Surface combatants have done MIOs and

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other escorting. They took on a new independent strike role with theinitial combat use of Tomahawk in the 1990s. ARGs have been presentin the Gulf and Adriatic, have been involved in Haiti and Somalia,and have covered NEOs and natural disasters (sometimes with asingle amphibious ship). Their helicopters have been especiallyuseful in these situations.

As for the simultaneity of responses across the decades, we saw oneresponse at a time, sometimes two, in the 1970s, and more frequentlytwo at a time in the 1980s and a rise to four to six at a time in the1990s. But when the data on the two major continuing operations, inthe Gulf and Adriatic, are normalized, the pattern for the 1990s issimilar to that for the 1980s. Thus, it is not a matter of the UnitedStates not being more engaged in the world during the 1990s, butthat rather it participated in those two long-term local situations.Only the Gulf situation was world system-threatening. Moreover, car-riers and surface combatants have carried the load in the Gulf andAdriatic (though ARGs have been present in both areas and have hada reserve role in the Adriatic), while ARGs and single amphibiousships have generally covered the NEOs and natural disaster relief. Inother words, we have not seen the forces stretched by that kind ofsimultaneity.

We did not analyze the employment of low-density/high-demandcapabilities, e.g., EA-6Bs, E-2Cs, EP-3s, and Seals, nor did we analyzeattack submarine (SSN) operations. Some details on their employ-ment were recorded in the data base, and we extracted and reportedthese separately to the sponsor.

Navy-only responses during the three decades have declined innumber from 37 in the 1970s to 31 in the 1980s to 29 in the 1990s. Butthey have declined steeply in proportion to Joint and coalitionalresponses, from 74 percent in the 1970s, to 55 percent in the 1980s,to 34 percent in the 1990s. Operations have become more Joint andcoalitional. This trend is likely to continue.

The stress on the U.S. Navy comes from the continuing operations inthe Arabian Gulf. This stress may well be compounded by the concur-rent desire to maintain perfect readiness for two abstract MTWs andby the desire to engage with many more countries around the world,

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including those of questionable reliability. The Navy has not beenstressed by its responses to the minor situations, and the situation inBosnia and Kosovo no longer requires the presence of naval forces.

The chart below summarizes the cases, with special attention to thesplit among Navy-only, joint, and coalitional cases:

Conclusions

We extrapolated the observed historical patterns to the next tenyears, the first decade of the 21st century. The great continuity we seeis the absence of great power confrontations (with the possible excep-tion of confrontations with China over Taiwan), the continueddecline of state-on-state conflicts, and continuing (not necessarily

Navy Only Joint Coalitional Total1970s Combat 0 1 0 1

Show of Force 5 2 1 8Contingency 13 3 1 17NEO 9 3 1 13Human. Assist. 10 1 0 11Total 37 10 3 50

1980s Combat 3 6 1 10Show of Force 10 7 1 18Contingency 11 5 3 19NEO 5 0 1 6Human. Assist. 2 1 0 3Total 31 19 6 56


Total Combat 7 9 6 22Show of Force 18 20 15 53Contingency 28 13 5 46NEO 26 9 2 37Human. Assist. 18 14 2 34Total 97 65 30 192

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growing) internal conflicts in failing states. Bosnia and Kosovo nolonger require naval forces, though army personnel will remain onthe ground in the peacekeeping function, and the Montenegro sce-nario have ended. We don’t know where the next equivalent of theKosovo campaign might be. U.S. naval presence in the Gulf hasbecome routine and we have no idea as to when that might change.We note that the great reluctance of the United States to intervene infailing states has grown during the 1990s. This is likely to continue,whichever party is in power.

All this means that the current capabilities of the U.S. Navy, whichperformed well in the 1990s, should be quite adequate during thisdecade. The wild cards—beyond extrapolation—are closer to themore abstract planning scenarios in the Defense Planning Guidance(DPG) than to reality, though the U.S. must always be ready for warwith Iraq or North Korea—not both at the same time. During the last30 years, North Korea has passed up many opportunities to attack theSouth while the U.S. has been distracted and the forces of SouthKorea have gotten stronger.

Thus, we could not see a way to derive force structure simply fromU.S. naval forces’ responses to situations in the 1990s, or in theirextrapolation. Regularly deployed naval ships handled all situationsexcept Desert Storm. These responses are what the Navy does duringdeployments. We did not see any missed opportunities for lack ofships; rather, the U.S. Government has become highly selective in thesituations in which it intervenes. Most of the responses didn’t takemany ships or took a variety of ships. NEOs have not required carri-ers.

As a final note, the U.S. Navy is not deployed around the world simplyto be ready for the responses we have catalogued. For instance, wehave tracked very little response activity in the Pacific during thethree decades. But we all know that the U.S. Navy plays, and will con-tinue to play, a strong deterrent and stabilizing role in the area. Wealso note that the Navy’s war-fighting capabilities have been stressedonly by Desert Storm during these three decades (with the exceptionof certain low density/high demand (LD/HD) units). That does notmean that the U.S. Navy shouldn’t continue to pursue its pro-

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grammed improvements. It might mean that it doesn’t need radicalimprovements.

Further work

There is more work to be done on this subject. We did not look at thefull range of U.S. military responses to situations—only those inwhich the Navy had some involvement. We don’t think theseresponses give anything like a complete picture of what the Navy doesduring its deployments. A more complete picture would be gainedfrom counting ship days devoted to the Navy’s various activities. Weneed to do more work to fully understand the connections betweenthe responses of U.S. naval forces and overall patterns of conflicts inthe world and the administrations’ national security priorities. All ofthese further analyses would illuminate the greater utility of the Navyin deterrence and engagement.

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Introduction

This report summarizes the extensive research undertaken by CNACto examine the historical record of U.S. naval forces’ operating pat-terns—-with respect to their responses to situations—from 1970through 1999.

This study elucidates the role of naval forces in responding to situa-tions of political-military instability, of natural disasters, conflicts, con-frontations, and war around the world now that the vast majority ofthese outbreaks present little direct threat to U.S. national security. Ifthese situations are not connected to the global system as we under-stand it, then to what larger context do we refer when judging the util-ity of naval responses to those situations?

This report is divided into six sections.

• We begin with a quick overview of the project’s goals andapproach. The ultimate task was to try to link the historicalrecord of operations to consideration of future force structure.

• Next we present a comprehensive review of both global conflictand instability over the past three decades and to overlay thosesituations to which naval forces were applied by higher U.S.authorities.

• Third, we present an exhaustive compilation of ship types usedin each naval response over the past 30 years, again with specialreference to their implications for future force structure.

• Fourth, we tackle the specific issues surrounding simultaneousresponses and what they tell us about the varying levels of oper-ational “strain” endured by naval forces over the past threedecades, with special reference to the post-Cold War period.

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• Fifth, we propose a three-tiered approach to judging the signif-icance of naval responses within the larger context of interna-tional security.

• We wrap up this report by offering our immediate observationsof the historical record; extrapolating from that record oneview of the world’s near-term future; bounding future forcestructure needs with both past experience and future consider-ations; and then presenting our study’s overall conclusions.

Approach to the study

We begin with a quick review of the project itself.

The broad goal of the study was to explore how U.S. naval forcesrespond to situations of political-military instability, confrontations,conflicts, and wars as they have arisen. If, as it is widely surmised, thepost-Cold War international environment poses a more challengingmenu of response situations (in breadth if not in depth), then it isessential to examine whether or not that presumably “larger” opera-tional scope presents naval forces with both new and greater chal-lenges.

By tracing naval operational patterns back to 1970, we were able tocompare naval responses to situations of instability during not only aclassic Cold War decade (the 1970s) and the first post-Cold Wardecade (the 1990s), but likewise the transitional decade (the 1980s)that lay between, during which naval forces shifted from a Soviet Blocfocus to the Arabian Gulf focus that remains to this day.

The three decades trace a crucial evolution in terms of the role ofnaval forces in that most nebulous of concepts—deterrence. Whenwe pick up the story in 1970, the U.S. military faced a “market” for itsdeterrence “product” that is best described as a monopsony, meaningthat a single, dominant “consumer”—the Soviet Union—was thetarget of essentially all of our deterrence strategy. That internationalstrategic environment no longer exists, so what do we accomplishtoday by our having naval forces respond regularly to situations ofinstability around the world? What is the significance of theseresponses?

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The starting point for all the analysis in this study was to use, add to,and refine the comprehensive database of naval responses to situa-tions set up in the Navy Command Center with the help of CNAC andmaintained by N312. This database had also been used by N812C inthe first IWAR cycle, and they urged us to continue its use.

By analyzing the patterns of responses to situations over the years, weaddressed four questions frequently raised in post-Cold War debatesabout the global security environment:

• Is it more dangerous and uncertain? That is, are naval forcesresponding to more “crises,” or have our definitions of that theterm “crisis” simply become muddled since the end of the ColdWar? The term “crisis” implies something out of the blue,whereas most of the conflict situations to which U.S. navalforces have responded during the last 30 years have been longfestering and the U.S. has responded to them only after longdecision-making processes. Iraq’s surprise attacks in 1980 and1990 are the main exceptions.

Center for Strategic Studies

N812C TASKINGS

Analyze operating patterns

that emerge

If available dataindicate increased usage:•How much due to

changed definitions•Other explanations?

What effectsfrom break-up

of Soviet Union?

Correlations betweenoperating patterns

andforce structure

changes?

Correlations betweenoperating patterns and

naval infrastructurechanges?

National security objectives:enhanced or degraded?

Larger contextof foreign policy

Larger contextof world events

Predictive insights for determining future naval force structure

and capabilities

Use their data baseof responses

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• Did the collapse of the Soviet Bloc unleash a torrent of instabil-ities around the planet, or has the U.S. simply refocused on theold “lesser includeds” of the Cold War and—to the surprise ofsome—found them plentiful? Are we less inhibited about inter-vening in certain situations then we were when the Soviets werearound?

• Have the Navy and Marine Corps units used in responses beeninappropriate, appropriate, or over-qualified for their tasks?

We were also asked whether loss of overseas basing hampered navalefforts to deal with the situations in the post-Cold War environment.We were unable to address this question in this study. The only signif-icant loss, given the locations of the situations to which the U.S. Navyresponded, was of Subic Bay. The effects of its loss did not leap out atus as we looked at responses. We note that U.S. naval presence in theArabian Gulf became continuous in the 1990s and is still ongoing.This has put great strains on the force, given the Gulf’s extreme dis-tance from the United States, the few ports for rest and recreation,and minimal support facilities. Transit times are long, and sometimesmade up with faster speeds of advance, but we did not come acrossassociated maintenance troubles.

It is from the answers generated in response to such questions that welinked the historical record of naval responses to the larger contextsof U.S. national security and force structure planning.

Assumptions

First, all responses in the database stemmed from orders issued by theNational Command Authorities. All were considered importantenough to divert U.S. naval forces from their regular schedules. Theywere not self-initiated. This high-level attention explains U.S. navalforces involvement in situations that might otherwise seem minor orinconsequential in the larger historical policy picture. That is, theywere important at the moment and received high-level attention.

We chose to eschew the phrase “crisis response” in favor of the moregeneric “responses to situations.” Without assuming the significanceof naval responses in individual situations, we hoped to explore the

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role of naval forces in the post-Cold War era cumulatively, i.e., keep-ing in mind the notion that lots of small efforts can sometimes add upto a substantial contribution to world stability.

Not all situations are crises. The situations in the database rarely cameout of the blue. Most represent peaks in ongoing “messes” that theU.S. had been watching warily for some time. Many of them were pre-ceded by plenty of deliberate decision-making and significant inter-nal debate in Washington. Finally, some of these situations may haveposed more opportunity than threat, emphasizing the self-selectivenature of our military interactions with the outside world.

The responses to situations in the database are characterized by thediversion of ships from their planned schedules. While theseresponses mark a diversion from normal activities, they are nonethe-less part and parcel of what naval forces do every day of the year: theyare present throughout the world, engaging in support of U.S. for-eign policy. In short, naval responses, at least by surface ships, are nota “break in the action,” but a refocusing of that action. We found thatall responses except Desert Shield/Desert Storm were accomplishedby already deployed or deploying forces.

Finally, responding to situations is not the only thing that U.S. navalforces do during their deployments. They also conduct training andexercises, make port visits, and may engage with other countries inexercises and during those port visits.

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Two major caveats are worth mentioning before we move on to oursubstantive analysis.

First, we could not easily “find” the world in our examination of navalresponses. We catalogued conflicts in each decade, and we also tooka broad view of U.S. national security priorities as they related to theworld. With a few exceptions (especially the Arabian Gulf and Leba-non), U.S. naval forces were not deeply involved in the operations.Also, in certain responses, we captured only fleeting glimpses of situ-ations being managed mostly by other means----prominent examplesare Cyprus beginning in 1974 and Central America in the 1980s. Seethe later section on “Significance.” Similarly, U.S. naval forces wereintensely involved in bombing in Bosnia in 1995 (“Deliberate Force”)and 1999 (“Allied Force”), but otherwise the greater involvement inthe Former Yugoslavia was by ground forces in IFOR/SFOR andKFOR, while U.S. naval forces remained in reserve in the Adriatic.

Second, a focus on naval responses to situations alone undersellsnaval forces’ support to U.S. foreign policy. In the first place, simply


Two Major Caveats

1. Finding the world from naval responses is like looking through the wrong end of a telescope

2. “Responses to situations” are but one part of navaloperating patterns

Using theforce in

responses“Having”the force

Deployingthe force

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having the forces puts the U.S. in a category by itself—-after the col-lapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent deterioration of theRussian Navy, it is the only large navy in the world, and the only onewith a real aircraft carrier force. Numerous advantages and limita-tions flow from that reality, but U.S. naval forces are clearly a pro-found resource that separates us from the rest of the world.

Likewise, presence and peacetime engagement represent a foreignpolicy asset of considerable importance. In a sense, the U.S. is theonly country in the world that exports security. Whatever we buy,however we operate, and wherever we respond, we define—for therest of the world’s militaries—the current standard in high-end powerprojection capabilities. We will address this again in our later discus-sion of force structure.

This chart represents our conceptual approach at the start of theproject. We intended to relate U.S. naval forces’ responses to situa-tions to both the world context and the U.S. foreign policy context inwhich they operated.


Deployed fleetSize of the fleet

… to US foreign policyworking to deal with it all?

1970 1985 20001975 19951980 1990

Big Ops--Harm’s Way Other Ops--Harm’s Way Humanitarian Ops

Conceptual Approach to the Project

… to civil

strife ?

… to great power

relations?

How do these relateto the global economy?

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A general assumption prior to this project was that U.S. naval forceswere being employed more often than they had been during the ColdWar, despite declining fleet size.

The title of the project is “Naval Operating Patterns,” but the actualcontent is narrower than that. Rather, we have attempted to workfrom the specific responses up to the general contexts. We did notassemble data on, or analyze, all the operating patterns of U.S. navalforces—for instance, their exercises in preparation for war-fighting ortheir peaceful engagements with other countries. We also did notrelate the responses to fleet size or deployments during the 30 yearperiod.

The U.S. is forced to account for and balance all of its multifariousinterests (e.g., free trade, democracy, peace) across three, fundamen-tally different levels—that of the international system, nation-states,and individuals. Locating the role of naval forces during all three mayappear quixotic at first glance, and yet, how do we restrict ourselvesto any one? And if we do, are we simply succumbing to the strategicblinders forged by our long Cold War experience? In short, can ouranswers be so simple in such complex times?

In our approach to these questions we sought to put the historicalrecord of naval responses into context by embedding that recordwithin the expanding global economy, the dramatic changes in greatpower relations afforded by the end of our bipolar standoff with theUSSR, and our growing sensitivity to the issues of civil strife in the glo-balization era.

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Historical review: introduction

We now turn to the historical record itself. In doing so, we strove torise above mere numerology. The tendency in compiling the inven-tory of U.S. naval forces’ responses to situations has been to treatevery response as one and as equal to all others. This doesn’t makesense. As we shall demonstrate in the charts that follow, the responsesto situations vary immensely in seriousness, significance, duration,and the numbers and types of ships involved. Moreover, a single oper-ation may be renewed or have its mission slightly changed, gets a newname, and then be counted as two or more operations. We have triedto portray this in the charts.

As a matter of fact, U.S. naval forces’ responses to situations havebeen dominated by just a few situations. In the 1980s, these were theserial operations off Lebanon and the serial escort operations in theArabian Gulf. In the 1990s, there were the serial operations in theArabian Gulf and in the Adriatic off the Former Yugoslavia, in Soma-lia, and, to a much lesser extent, in Haiti. These six situations accountfor a significant proportion of the ships, days, and named operationsin each decade. All the rest tended to be of short duration, scatteredin time, and involving only a few ships or only one ship at a time.

Thus, if we just count up operations, we completely miss the strategicsignificance of the few major operations.

The changing world context

To relate U.S. naval forces responses to situations to the world con-text, we have used the model shown in the chart that follows. We havesorted out the situations—mostly conflicts—to which U.S. navalforces have responded at the three levels shown.

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The first image is at the individual level. Most internal conflicts havemuch to do with the plight of individuals caught in internal disorders.This may happen at two sub-levels: (a) the failing state, where the col-lapse of government and internal order leads to chaos, and (b) thesituation where the government is fighting the people, or a sector ofthe people, as in guerrilla warfare. In either case, individuals andgroups are caught in the middle.

The second image is that of nation-states and their functioning bothinternally and within the overall international system. For the pur-poses of this project, we have looked at the particular situation ofstate-on-state conflicts or confrontations as they have occurred duringthe 30 years covered in the project.

The third image is that of the international system itself. We havelooked at those conflicts that might threaten the structure of theinternational system as we understand it.


Derived from Ken Waltz, Man,The State and War (1954)

Discerning theCausality of

War

First Image: Human Nature

Discerning theNature of the

New Era ofInter-State Relations

Second Image: Nation-States

Third Image: International System

Approach to the WorldApproach to the World

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Historical review: the 1970s

Overview

The 1970s were dominated by the relations between the U.S. and itsNATO and Asian allies on one hand and the Soviet Union and itsallies on the other. (China was internally preoccupied.) These rela-tions were a curious mix of détente and confrontation.

The great conflict (at least for the U.S.) was Vietnam. U.S. forces hadessentially withdrawn by 1972, and the final evacuation was con-ducted in 1975. The U.S. had originally intervened in Vietnambecause it feared the domino effects- of another country lost to Com-munism. In the event, it was not system-threatening.1


WORLD CONFLICTS, 1970-79

Uganda, 1971-79

W. Sahara, 1975-1992

Ethiopia-Somalia,1975-

Egypt-Libya, 1977

Chad, 1970s

Angola, 1970s

Mozambique,1970s

Northern Ireland,1970s on

Cyprus, 1974 on

Laos,1970-75

India-Pakistan,1971

Afghanistan,1978-79

Yemen,1970s

Guatemala,1970s

Nicaragua, late 1970s

Jordan, 1970

Cambodia 77-79

Dhofar

Columbia,1970s

Lebanon, 1975 on

Major U.S. intervention

U.S. security assistance

Others intervene (UN, et al.)

Vietnam

(Other than diplomatic)

Arab-Israeli,1973

Iran,1979

Note: Vietnam did not turn out to be as as we feared

System-changing conflict (3)

State-on-state conflict (7)

Internal conflict (14)China-Vietnam,1979

Turkey-Kurds, 1970s

��

Major U.S. Navy roleMajor U.S. Navy role

19

The major system-threatening event of the decade was the Arab-Israeli war of 1973. A lesser system-threatening event was the PLO’sattempt to take over Jordan in 1970. If it had been successful, Israelwould have completely ringed by hostile countries.

However, at the end of the period, the Shah fell in Iran. This turnedout to cause a major shift in U.S. strategy. The U.S. by default becamethe guardian of the Gulf. As we shall see, this shift also had the great-est effect on U.S. naval deployments and responses of any event in the30-year period.

The last major war between India and Pakistan took place in 1971.Other state-on-state wars, including the three-week China-Vietnamwar in 1979, were less significant.

Internal conflicts were another matter. Lebanon began to disinte-grate in 1974. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the dissolution of the Portu-guese colonial empire set in motion “national liberation movements”in Angola and Mozambique. We also saw the disintegration ofAfghanistan and the Soviet invasion. Some saw that as system-threat-ening, but it turned out to bog down the Soviets in their own Viet-nam.

Fourth, also in the late 1970s, we witnessed the beginning of revolu-tionary stirrings in Central America that would draw the U.S. intolengthy and contentious security assistance programs.

The Nixon-Ford Administrations’ national security priorities

The attention and focus of the Nixon and Ford Administrations inthe first half of the 1970s remained—when allowed by events—-firmlyfixed on relations with the other superpower, the Soviet Union.

Both Vietnam and the Middle East were approached in large part asdependent variables to these larger dynamics: we left Vietnam

1. By system-threatening, we mean an event whose effects are not confinedto the local situation, but may ripple further out into the affected regionor around the world. The most prominent example is that of conflict orthreat of conflict in the Arabian Gulf causing rises in oil prices.

20

because the U.S. situation was hopeless but even more so because ithad bigger fish to fry in opening ties with China. The U.S. respondedswiftly to events in the Middle East because it feared they would pro-vide Moscow with an opportunity to move into the region. The U.S.was also able to restore its forces in Europe after Vietnam drawdownsand the rise in morale problems and to effectively freeze all forcesthere, U.S. and allied, with the MBFR negotiations.

Nixon’s opening to China in 1972 set in motion a redefinition of U.S.relations with the major power centers in the world. The Nixon andFord Administrations struggled with whether to pursue the proffereddétente with the Soviet Union. They did agree to the negotiationsthat led to the Helsinki Final Act and thus to a new extended periodof stability in the European theater. They also began the negotiationson strategic nuclear forces, which governed the development of thoseforces from then on.

The 1973 Arab-Israeli war and consequent oil price shock led the U.S.to undertake extensive arms sales programs with Israel, Jordan, SaudiArabia, and Iran, all to create a new balance in the region and toimprove relations with the Arabs. As peace between Egypt and Israelunfolded, Egypt was added to these programs. Finally, the Shah fell in1979, giving new importance to our relations with Saudi Arabia.

Nixon-Ford Administration National SecurityPriorities, 70-76

•• Fight inflation after Vietnam;Fight inflation after Vietnam;lid on defense budgetlid on defense budget

•• Shrink forces after VietnamShrink forces after Vietnam(let Zumwalt shrink navy)(let Zumwalt shrink navy)

Get out ofVietnam

Openingto China

• Resupply Israel 73• Shuttle diplomacy• Sales to Saudis,

Shah

Soviet policy:• SALT I, détente, Helsinki, MBFR

• Counter SS-18Restore U.S.

forces inEurope

21

The Carter Administration’s priorities

The Carter Administration declared at the beginning that it wasgoing to concentrate more on North-South relations than East-West.However, its policies and reactions to events turned out to be exten-sions of the broad evolutions in U.S. national security policy set inmotion by the Nixon and Ford Administrations, even if they.

In general, the Carter Administration managed relations with theSoviets via two triads: one formed in conjunction with the Chinese,with whom the formalization of state relations was actively pursued,and another in conjunction with NATO, with substantial improve-ments in overall military capabilities and a drastic revamping of TNF.Also in Europe, thanks to the Helsinki Accord, Carter began to focuson human rights within the Soviet Bloc along with the rest of theworld.

The broadening of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry in the Third World in thelate 1970s led briefly to greater U.S. attention to North-South issues.Superpower tensions returned to the foreground, however, followingthe Soviets’ decision to invade Afghanistan in 1979. The invasion wasa momentous event that would foreshadow the Reagan Administra-

Carter Administration National Security Priorities1977-1980

Early emphasis on North-South,then shift back to counter-Soviet.

Worldwide human rights

FormalizeChina

relations• Camp David and

sales programs• Hostages in Iran• Carter Doctrine

Soviet policy:• SALT II,

• Counter-Afghanistan• NATO improvements• Long Range TNF

22

tion’s focus on “roll-back” of Soviet influence in certain third worldcountries and confrontation with Moscow.

The Carter Administration also focused on the Middle East, where itenjoyed significant success at Camp David, but later fell victim to theIranian Revolution and the subsequent taking of American hostagesin the U.S. embassy. These twin events marked the major shift of theU.S. national security focus to Southwest Asia, such that it now hadequal priority with Europe and Northeast Asia.

U.S. naval responses, 1970-1979

In the charts of U.S. naval forces’ responses to situations that follow,we have used the codes shown in the next chart to sort out each case.

Combat situations (in RED) are those in which actual combat tookplace or weapons were fired, e.g., strikes from carriers.

Shows of force and escort operations (in PURPLE) are those inwhich U.S. naval forces sailed into harm’s way, though shots were notfired, or where the U.S. attempted to send a clear message to someother country that we disapproved of its actions. A classic example ofis the positioning of two carriers off Taiwan in 1996.

Contingent positioning (in BROWN) indicated situations for whichnaval ships were ordered by higher authorities to divert from theirschedules and to move closer to a situation that had arisen, but forwhich the higher authorities were undecided as to what action theymight take. These cases were less than shows of force, since we foundno evidence in the cases so coded that signals had been sent to theobject country. A curious case, which we have coded this way, was thedispatch of USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal during the India-Pakistan War of 1971. Neither India, Pakistan, or the U.S. knew whatit was there for, or what it might do.

NEOs (in YELLOW) have as their sole purpose the protection of U.S.embassies or the evacuation of their personnel and others in anembattled city. They do not carry other strategic or contingent pur-poses. We have included all those cases in which ships were diverted

23

for these purposes, whether they got to execute a NEO or not (inabout half the cases they didn’t).

Responses to natural disasters and other humanitarian emergencies(in GREEN) are self-explanatory. None coded here were “into harm’sway,” unlike the other four categories.

U.S. naval responses over the course of the 1970s reflected, in varyingdegrees, the various “disintegrations” described earlier. However, thekey story of the decade was the fundamental shift from Southeast toSouthwest Asia.

As can be noted above, naval responses were concentrated mostprominently in a wide swath running from east to west around theperiphery of the Soviet bloc and those countries that received Sovietweaponry. In keeping with the concept of containment, we spentmost of our energies in responding to events in the seam between“us” and “them.”

Center for Strategic StudiesHumanitarian

NEOs

Contingent positionings

Show of force/escort

Combat/weapons use

Focus on Periphery off

Cold WarPosture

U.S. Naval Responses, 1970-79

24

While U.S. attention in the early 1970s remained largely fixed in theEast, by the end of the decade our responses reflected our generaldesire to balance Soviet influence in the tumultuous Middle East andthe still somewhat “contested” Mediterranean. In this sense, we wereessentially working the Cold War’s “periphery” while maintaining ouressential East-West military posture.

By the end of the decade, it was clear that naval responses were clus-tered in the so-called “arc of crisis” encompassing the Eastern Medi-terranean, Red Sea, Arabian Gulf, and Arabian Sea. Thisconcentration, which lasts in some measure to this day, would mark anew era in naval operational patterns. In effect, Southwest Asiabecame the primary “market” for naval “services” in the internationalsecurity system.

Note the considerable number of “contingent positionings,” espe-cially in the Indian Ocean. Most of these involved the positioning ofcarriers.

Note there was only one combat occasion for naval forces in thedecade (other than Vietnam): the Mayaguez merchant ship hijackingin 1975.

How were U.S. naval responses in the 1970s related to Nixon-Ford national security policies?

U.S. naval responses during the Nixon and Ford Administrationstook place on the peripheries of their main foreign policy prioritiesand concerns, at least in the early years of the 1970s.

The energies of both Administrations were largely spent on the trilat-eral relationship between the United States, the USSR, and China.This relationship was characterized by significant advances in armscontrol, detente, and other means of diplomacy, which contributedto a more stable political atmosphere. An end to the Vietnam Waropened up new prospects for American foreign policy with both theUSSR and China. The Navy’s role in this larger foreign policy was ful-filled by its strategic nuclear submarine forces. Those forces helpedto maintain a strong deterrent posture and thus supported theAdministrations’ strategic arms control agendas.

25

Note: The chart above excludes the Vietnam war. The red symbolrefers to the rescue of the crew of the hijacked freighter Mayaguez.

Naval responses were linked to important foreign policy priorities inone region, an arc encompassing the Middle East and Southwest Asia.This supported two facets of these Administrations’ policies. First, itreflected America’s determination to play a leading role in Arab-Israeli political clashes in the Middle East (using political, economic,and military influence to balance support for Israel and with a role asa broker for peace). Second, it underscored our commitment toregional allies such as the Shah of Iran and the Saudis, helping us bal-ance Soviet attempts to influence the region, and after 1973, ensuringfriendly relations with the most powerful OPEC members.

How were U.S. naval responses in the 1970s related to Carter’s national security policies?

During the Carter Administration, naval responses were removedfrom the central foreign policy concerns, with one exception—theirpresence in the Arabian Gulf and the promulgation of the Carter

Nixon-Ford Administration Priorities and the Role of Naval Responses

•• Fight inflation after Vietnam;Fight inflation after Vietnam;lid on defense budgetlid on defense budget

•• Shrink forces after VietnamShrink forces after Vietnam(let Zumwalt shrink navy)(let Zumwalt shrink navy)

Restore U.S.forces inEurope

Soviet policy:• SALT I, détente, Helsinki, MBFR

• Counter SS-18

Openingto China

• Resupply Israel 73• Shuttle diplomacy• Sales to Saudis,

ShahGet out ofVietnam

26

Doctrine in 1979 upon the fall of the Shah and the taking of the U.S.hostages.

Carter continued to develop the arms control agenda with the Sovi-ets, concluding SALT II in 1979. This was coupled with a continuationof normalizing relations with China, culminating in formal recogni-tion in 1979. Superpower relations were also affected by Carter’sworldwide emphasis on human rights. In the last two years of theAdministration, relations with the USSR deteriorated over the Sovietinvasion of Afghanistan and the initiative to base long-range theaternuclear forces in Europe.

Carter gave the Navy a bigger role to play in the Arabian Gulf regionbeginning in 1979. The fall of the Shah, the disruption of world oilmarkets, the rise of the Iranian Islamic revolution (and the taking ofAmerican hostages), internal unrest in Saudi Arabia, and the Sovietinvasion of Afghanistan all coalesced to concentrate American atten-tion on the Gulf.2

2. The red symbol on the chart represents the Desert One hostage rescueattempt, which occurred in 1980.

Carter Administration Priorities and the Role of Naval Responses

Early emphasis on North-South,then shift back to counter-Soviet.

Worldwide human rights

• NATO improvements• LRTNF

Soviet policy:• SALT II,

• Counter-Afghanistan

FormalizeChina

relations

• Camp Davidand sales programs• Hostages in Iran• Carter Doctrine

27

Naval forces were used to support the Desert One attempt to rescuehostages in Iran, in a show of force, and in contingent positioningsfor the next two years. Most importantly, they were the visible commit-ment of the Carter Doctrine to maintain the flow of oil out of the Gulfand prevent any state hostile to the interests of the United States andits allies from acquiring exclusive control over the oil and the Gulf.Lack of extensive U.S. access to land-based military facilities in theregion strengthened the importance of naval forces as a tool of Amer-ican foreign policy.

Details of naval responses in the 1970s

Europe and Africa

Breaking down the chart on page 29 into its regional components,and turning first to Europe and Africa in the 1970s, we see evidenceof a relatively light load of naval responses, with a quarter of those as


1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

Uganda

Uganda

Tunisia

Tunisia

Syria

Arab-Israeli

Morocco

Libya

Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon

Jordan

IndOcean

Cyprus

Cyprus

Jordan hostages

Syria/Jordan conflict

Lebanon NEO alert

Middle East war

Oil Embargo -IO ops

Flood relief

Flood relief

Cyprus coupCyprus unrest

Polisario rebels

Entebbe

Threats against Tunisia

Travel restrictionson Americans

Lebanon civil war

Lebanon NEOs

Europe & Africa 1970-79: Operations

28

NEOs clustered around a disintegrating Lebanon. These operationswere all of short duration.

The biggest event of the period (after Vietnam) was the Arab-Israeliwar of 1973 (the Yom Kippur, or 18-day, war). This is listed as “contin-gent positioning.” The main U.S. effort was to resupply Israel, first byair, and eventually by merchant ships at sea. The U.S. Navy wasdeployed in a blocking position in case the Soviet Navy attempted tointervene on behalf of the Arabs. In the event, the Soviet Navy ven-tured nothing of the sort.

As an example of how these U.S. naval responses provide only aglimpse of significant events, note the two Cyprus examples. Thesewere short responses by the U.S. Navy, but the Cyprus situation thatarose then has dragged on to this day.

In terms of the ships involved, we note the very high representationof carrier battle groups, indicative of their constant presence in theMediterranean in the 1970s and the greater number available then.


1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

Uganda

Uganda

Tunisia

Tunisia

Syria

Arab-Israeli

Morocco

Libya

Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon

Jordan

IndOcean

Cyprus

Cyprus

1cvbg 1arg

3cvbg 1arg 4sc 1aux

1cvbg 1sc 2L

2cvbg 1arg

3cvbg 2arg

1cvbg

1L

3cvbg 2L 2sc 2aux

1cvbg 1arg

2cvbg 1arg

1sc

1cvbg 1sc

2sc

1cvbg 2sc

1L

1L

1cvbg 2arg 4sc

Europe & Africa 1970-79: Ships Involved

29

Three cases involved three carriers each, logically for the blockingrole the Navy maintained during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, but evenfor a potential NEO off Cyprus. When carriers were present, theywere positioned to respond, no matter what the significance of the sit-uation or its duration.

Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean

The Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean in the 1970s saw a relatively lightresponse load, with no responses registered prior to the Arab-IsraeliWar of 1973. Clearly, as far as naval responses were concerned, theGulf and Indian Ocean could reasonably be characterized as “back-waters” in the 1970s until the Shah fell early in 1979.

The response to the Yemen war is shown as a “show of force,”although the show of force was meant mostly to reassure the Saudisthat the war would not spill over to their country without the U.S.reacting. A CVBG was deployed to the Red Sea. An AWACS was


1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

Yemen

Yemen

Somalia

PersGulf

Iran

Iran

Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Afghanistan

PG/IO 1970-79: Operations

Hormuz Patrol

Ethiopia Instability

Ogaden War

Middle East Force

Afghan Unrest

Iran Revolution

Iran Hostages/Afghan

Yemen War

Ethiopia Civil War

30

deployed to Riyadh, where it filled the role of the “eyes” of the Saudis,who felt blind to their south. Finally, F-15s were deployed to SaudiArabia to demonstrate to them that we could reinforce quickly ifneeded.

As for the ships involved in the various responses, we only note thecomplete absence of carrier activity near the Arabian Gulf prior to theIranian Revolution in 1979 and the subsequent embassy hostage cri-sis. From this point on, carriers participate in the vast majority ofnaval responses near the Gulf. (The carriers did not enter the Gulfitself until Desert Storm in 1991. Before that, they stayed in the Ara-bian Sea.)

The biggest time block shown here, involving one surface combatantat a time from MidEastFor, arose during the Arab-Israeli war in late1973, following a South Yemeni threat to attack Israeli and other mer-chant ships in the Bab el Mandeb. The U.S. surface combatant was


PG/IO 1970-79: Ships Involved

2sc

1sc 1aux

1cvbg 2sc

1sc

1cvbg

1cvbg 1c2 4sc 1aux

2cvbg 2arg 2sc 1c2

1cvbg 2sc 1aux

1sc 1aux

1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

Yemen

Yemen

Somalia

PersGulf

Iran

Iran

Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Afghanistan

31

stationed there to intimidate their patrol boats if they tried anyharassment.

Pacific area

In the Pacific and in the 1970s, we note three aspects of responses:

• The scattering of the responses across the area.

• The high proportion of responses to natural disasters.

• The lack of any lengthy responses.

In short, while the number of responses was relatively high, the loadwas relatively easy to handle despite the long distances. Six of the 16cases were related to weather.

We also saw here the pattern of contingent positioning during inci-dents that might have triggered a new war between North Korea andSouth Korea (in the event, a new war did not take place).


1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

VietnamVietnamVietnam

Soviet UnionS. Korea

PhilippinesPhilippinesPhilippines

N. KoreaMauritius

GuamChina

CambodiaCambodiaCambodia

Bangladesh

Pacific Area 1970-79: Operations

Typhoon relief

Indo-Pak War

Eagle Pull AlertEagle Pull

Frequent Wind

Cyclone reliefKorean Tree incident

Typhoon relief

Typhoon reliefFlood relief

Typhoon relief

Sea of Okhotsk

Vietnam invasion by China

Park assassination

Vietnam Yacht Release

Mayaguez

32

Turning to the ships involved, we note in particular the relative infre-quency of the use of carriers (only half the cases, and none of themaccompanied by a full battle group), and in general the small numberof ships involved per individual response.

The exception was the great final evacuation from Vietnam in 1975,where four carriers were stationed offshore to assist.

In sum, with the one exception, ships in the Pacific generally madesmall responses to small situations.


1arg

1cvbg 1arg

1L

1arg

1L 1aux

1arg 1cvbg

4cvbg 1arg

1cvbg1cvbg

1L 2aux

1cvbg 3aux

2sc 1aux

1cvbg

1cvbg

1L

3cvbg 1arg

1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980




N. KoreaMauritius

GuamChina


Bangladesh

Pacific Area 1970-79: Ships Involved

33

Western Hemisphere

In the Western Hemisphere, the 1970s were a relatively quiet decade,with only nine responses—a third of them to natural disasters. Thekey event for the subsequent decade was the Nicaraguan Revolutionin 1979. Again, we get only a glimpse of history from the record ofnaval responses, in no way indicating the depth of concern thatgripped Washington until the situation was resolved in 1989.

Note the “show of force” with regard to the “discovery” of a Soviet bri-gade in Cuba----a fake discovery because intelligence had known it wasthere since the Cuban missile crisis. The dispatch of a carrier off Cubawas mostly a show of force to the American public.

Ship involvement was relatively minor in all but a couple of cases. Thekey exception is the response to Soviet troops being “found” in Cuba.Both a carrier and an ARG were dispatched in order to respond to thepolitical furor in Washington that arose with the “discovery.”


1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

Venezuela

Trinidad

Peru

Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Haiti

Guatemala

Cuba

Cuba

Civil unrest

Earthquake relief

Haiti succession

Bahama Lines

Earthquake relief

Drought relief

Nicaragua civil strife

Nicaragua revolution

Soviet troops in Cuba

W. Hemisphere 1970-79: Operations

34

Summary of naval responses in the 1970s

Despite all that was going on in the international security system, U.S.naval forces enjoyed a relatively quiet decade once past the Vietnamconflict was over. Of the 50 responses recorded, about half were non-combat situations with low levels of danger: 13 NEOs and 11responses to natural disasters.

A third of the naval responses involved contingency positioning,reflecting not only the expansion of Soviet naval activity into the Med-iterranean and the Indian Ocean, but also the sense of an emerging“arc of crisis” that spanned both. In short, naval forces were oftenused like chess pieces in the 1970s, indicative of our continuingglobal balancing act with the Soviet Bloc. U.S. moves were made withregard for the signal they would send to the Soviets.

The oil shocks of the early 1970s had alerted the U.S. to the promi-nent role of the Middle East in the West’s economic system. There-


1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

Venezuela

Trinidad

Peru

Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Haiti

Guatemala

Cuba

Cuba

W. Hemisphere 1970-79: Ships Involved

1arg 1sc

1L

1sc

2sc

3L

1aux

1sc

1L

1cvbg 1arg

35

fore, in addition to the balancing process pursued in relation toSoviet forces, U.S. naval forces became increasingly involved in theregional maintenance of stability—again, signaling a fundamentalshift in naval operations that remains to this day. If it can be said thatU.S. naval forces currently play a “system maintenance” role in theglobalization era, the roots of that role are clearly traced back to thelate 1970s.

To summarize the history of U.S. naval responses in the 1970s:

• It was a relatively quiet decade—after U.S. forces left Vietnam.

• The Navy responded to about 50 situations, almost half whichwere NEOs and responses to natural disasters.

• With a growing and more venturesome Soviet Navy appearingin the Indian Ocean, the U.S. Navy deployed there more oftenas well. One result was that carrier battle groups were severaltimes moved from one side of the Indian Ocean to the other as“contingent positionings” in case the U.S. decided to intervenein any events on the periphery.

• The priority of U.S. Navy deployments was still the balancing ofthe Soviets in the Mediterranean, while maintaining the long-term deterrent posture in East Asia.

36


Overview

The 1980s witnessed the emergence of two global concentrations ofconflict:

• The major concentration lay in Southwest Asia and the EasternMediterranean, and featured the decade’s sole system-threaten-ing conflict: the Iran-Iraq War. In contrast to the Arab oilembargo of 1973--74, this war physically threatened the interna-tional system of oil supplies. With the fall of the Shah, the U.S.had emerged as the guardian of the Gulf, especially protecting



Uganda,1980-86

Western Sahara,1980s

Ethiopia,1980s

Libya, 1980s

Chad,1980s

Angola,1980s

Mozambique,1980s

Turkey-Kurds,1980s

Northern Ireland,1980s

Kashmir,1980s

Afghanistan, 1980s

Lebanon,1980s

Guatemala,1980s

El Salvador,1980s

Sudan, 1980s

Poland,1980-81

Sri Lanka,1980s

Burma,1988-90

Philippines,1980s

Nicaragua,1980s

Peru,1980s

Columbia,1980s

Falklands, 1982

Grenada,1983

Panama,1989

Intifada,1987-

Nagorno-Karabakh,1989-


U.S. security assistance(relevant to conflict)


Syria,1980-82

Cambodia,1980s

Iran-Iraq1980-89



Internal conflict (24)


37

the weak states of the southern shore. This role was confirmedwhen the U.S. took major steps to contain the Iraq-Iran warfrom spilling over to or otherwise involving the lower Gulfstates.

• Another concentration occurred in Central America, wherethe Reagan Administration’s doctrine of “rolling back” Sovietinfluence in the Third World played out in its most explicitform—U.S. military aid to the Contras battling the Sandinistaregime of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and the massive eco-nomic and security assistance for El Salvador.

The Levant remained highly unstable, beginning with Syria’s threat-ening Jordan, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and the chaos in Leba-non. Finally, Israel and the West acquiesced in Syria policing it. But,oddly, the Lebanon situation did not spill over. It was confined andthus not system-threatening.

We saw the growth of internal conflicts during the 1980s, from thePhilippines to El Salvador. They had a characteristic pattern: belea-guered, inefficient, corrupt governments being threatened on theirperipheries by Communist guerrillas.

The general trend of conflicts over the course of the 1980s was gen-erally favorable to the United States. When the decade began, itseemed as though the Soviets were meddling in far-flung conflictsaround the globe: e.g., Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa. But bythe decade’s end, Moscow had effectively abandoned all its ambitionsin both regions and retreated inward—all the way through Afghani-stan. In 1989, we saw the first stirrings of conflict within what wouldsoon become the former Soviet Union (Nagorno-Karabakh), signal-ing the end of Moscow’s superpower status and marking the begin-ning of Russia’s rather more restricted focus on its “near abroad”—the threat to it from the south. The bipolar international securitysystem was no more.

38

The Reagan Administration’s national security priorities

The Reagan Administration’s national security priorities focused on“rolling back” Soviet influence around the globe, most notably inCentral America, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan.

• First, there was the Reagan build-up of the U.S. military, toinclude, inter alia, plans for a 600-ship navy, the deployment ofMX, and the pursuit of national missile defense. All of thesesteps were aimed at outspending the Soviets in high technologyin such a way as to convince them of the futility of trying toremain the U.S.’s military equal.

• Second, there were the huge security assistance programs inSouthwest Asia, meant to balance the perceived threat of theSoviets in the region, and in Egypt and Israel. Then there wasthe controversial military assistance to the Contras in CentralAmerica, which politically tended to overshadow the largerassistance effort in El Salvador.

• Third, there was the highly contentious but ultimately success-ful drive to deploy intermediate nuclear forces in the European

Reagan Administration National Security Priorities1981-1988

• The Reagan build-up(including 600-ship Navy)

• Observe SALT II• SDI

Big securityassistance programs

(Israel, Egypt, Turkey,Greece, Pakistan,

Saudis)

Policy toward Soviets:• Rollbacks in Afghan, Angola

• Negotiate INF, START I • Relate to Gorbachev

• Deploy INF

Central America:El Sal, Contras,also Grenada

Bogged down in Lebanon

Contain Iran-Iraq War

Get Libya!

39

theater, an expensive ploy that brought about the INF treatyand the first reduction of nuclear weapons, especially the SS-20.

• The Reagan Administration also got bogged down in Lebanon,hounded Libya, and contained the Iran-Iraq war by patrollingthe Arabian Gulf.

The second Reagan Administration set in motion the warming ofrelations with Moscow following Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise to power, apivotal development leading to the end of the Cold War.

U.S. naval responses in the 1980s

U.S. naval responses during the 1980s were clustered in the Mideastregion, meaning the Eastern Mediterranean in relation to Lebanon,Libya, and the various hostage/terrorist situations, and the ArabianGulf in relation to the Iran-Iraq War and the consequent threats tothe lower Gulf states and to the international shipping of oil.


MideastTerror/Oil

Focus


Humanitarian

NEOs



Combat/weapons used

40

Compared to the 1970s, naval forces were exposed to more combatsituations. They were also used extensively for contingent positioningand shows of force, for instance, the lengthy escort operations in theArabian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.

The global center of gravity for U.S. naval forces, and for Joint forcesas well, had clearly shifted to the Mideast by the early 1980s. The fallof the Shah led to an increased fear of a Soviet invasion directedtoward the Gulf. This culminated in the creation of the RDJTF, whichsubsequently became the Central Command.

From the end of World War II, U.S. naval force had established itsdominant global presence through its deployments in the Mediterra-nean and the Western Pacific. How its response profile was increas-ingly dominated by events in Southwest Asia.

This shift constitutes the most fundamental change in U.S. navaloperating patterns over the three decades examined in this report. Tothe extent that any one single event can be identified as the key trig-ger for this development, it was the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Theloss of the Shah as a regional ally led the U.S. to focus attention onthe region, a focus that has persisted to this day.

The troubles in Lebanon dragged on, keeping the U.S. Sixth Fleetwaiting, and sometimes involved, at that end of the Med. Note thelarge number of “contingent positionings” there. There were alsothree shooting incidents with Libya.

U.S. naval forces were involved in the quick intervention in Grenadaand for a couple of shows of force off Nicaragua, although the mainactions by the U.S. were on land. Naval ships were not involved in theoperation to seize Noriega in Panama in 1989.

How were U.S. naval responses in the 1980s related to the Reagan Administration’s national security priorities?

The Reagan Administration came into office with clear priorities:build up American conventional and nuclear forces to face the USSRin the Cold War from a position of strength; roll back Communistadvances in Central America, Angola, and Afghanistan; and prevent

41

the Iran-Iraq War from disrupting oil flows from the Arabian Gulf orspilling over onto the territories of U.S. allies in the region. Once inoffice, the Administration made a priority of responding to the disin-tegration of Lebanon and the terrorist threat from Libya.

The Navy continued to play a deterrent role in superpower relationsthrough its strategic missile submarine fleet, and conventionally,through the adoption of the “Maritime Strategy.” Neither of theseroles is reflected in our database of U.S. naval responses during the1980s, but they were perhaps even more important functions.

The only long-lived naval response in the 1980s that was directlyrelated to foreign policy priorities was in the Arabian Gulf. This was areflection of the maturing Carter Doctrine and America’s commit-ment to responding to the ensuing threats to international shippingof oil.

Short-lived (and relatively small in numbers) naval responses in Cen-tral America/the Caribbean and against Libya were also related tolong-standing Reagan priorities of “roll-back” and anti-terrorism.

Reagan Administration Priorities and the Role of Naval Responses

• The Reagan “build-up”(including 600-ship Navy)

• Observe SALT II• SDI

Central America:El Sal, Contras,also Grenada

Policy toward Soviets:• Rollbacks in Afghan, Angola

• Negotiate INF, START I • Relate to Gorbachev• Deploy INF

Big securityassistance programs

(Israel, Egypt, Turkey,Greece, Pakistan,

Saudis)

Get Libya!

Bogged down in Lebanon

Contain Iran-Iraq War

42

Lebanon tied down naval forces for two years, but was always a lownational security priority, as evidenced by the speed of the withdrawalafter the terrorist attack against the Marines in Beirut. At the sametime, President Reagan was distressed about the hostages, and wasready to use any means to get them released.

Details of naval responses, in the 1980s

Europe and Africa

For the European and African regions, we see here that two situationsaccount for the vast majority of responses (19 of 27, or 70 percent):Lebanon and Libya. The subject that linked both was terrorismdirected against the West—and specifically the U.S.—for its supportof Israel.

Most of these responses were very short in duration and represented,in a substantial number of instances, real “bolts from the blue” (e.g.,


1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

SyriaPoland

MoroccoMaltaLibyaEgyptLibyaLibyaLibyaLibya

LiberiaLebanonLebanonLebanonLebanonLebanonLebanonLebanonLebanonLebanonLebanonLebanonLebanon

ItalyFRY

CyprusAlgeria

Earthquake relief

SolidarityShow of force

Show of force

Israel/Syria tension

Gulf of Sidra FON

Sadat assassination

Israeli invasionPK force

Refugee camp massacre

Sudan threats

Chad aggression

Marine barracks bombing

Syria attackBeirut Embassy

Embassy NEO

TWA 847 Hijack

Achille Lauro

EgyptAir Hijack

Attain Document

Pakistan Air hijack

Lebanon hostages

Lebanon hostages Lebanon

civil war

Higgins killedYugoslav unrest

El Dorado Canyon


43

Sadat assassination, various hijackings). Note that the operationsinvolving Lebanon were not continuous, but came one after another.

Shifting to ship involvement, we note the very high percentage ofresponses (77 percent) involving carrier battle groups. This reflectstheir continuous availability in the Mediterranean----the U.S. commit-ted two carriers to NATO under the DPQ.


In the 1980s, we begin to see the first lengthy responses in the Gulf,all of which stem either directly or indirectly from the long Iran-IraqWar. It was the rise of escort operations in the Arabian Gulf and theneed to keep a carrier nearby, in the Arabian Sea, that representedthe permanently altered nature of naval presence and responsesthere.


1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

1L

1sc1sc

1cvbg

2cvbg 1arg

2cvbg

1cvbg 2arg

1cvbg 1arg1arg 9sc 2cvbg

1arg

2cvbg

2cvbg

2cvbg 1bbg 2arg

2cvbg 3sc1cvbg

1cvbg 1arg

1cvbg

1cvbg

1cvbg

2cvbg 1arg 1sc

1sc

1cvbg

1cvbg 1cvbg 1arg

2cvbg 1bbg 1arg 1sc

1cvbg 1arg


SyriaPoland



ItalyFRY

CyprusAlgeria

44

Turning to ship involvement in the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean,we note (in the chart that follows on the next page) how common car-rier participation in response activity was. Carriers appear in eight ofthe ten responses relating to either Iran or Iraq. (C2, an uncommondesignation in these charts, refers to command ships.)

Pacific Area

In the Pacific, the 1980s were even quieter than the 1970s. The chartbelow shows fewer responses than in any other region during thatdecade, and in any region in any decade during the 30-year period.Note also the complete lack of any responses in 1981--82 and 1985--87, with only two responses occurring over a seven-year period. Aftersix responses to severe weather in the 1970s, none occurred in the1980s. This highlights the reality that naval forces make manyresponses of opportunity.


1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Yemen

PersGulf

Red Sea

Iraq

Iraq

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Desert One

Iran-Iraq War

Iran-Iraq War

Gulf Ship Escorts

Gulf Ship Escorts

Red Sea Mines

Saudi Hijacking

Gulf Ship Escorts

Gulf Ship Escorts

Yemen Civil War

Earnest Will

Praying Mantis


45

The chart that follows points up that the strategic significance of U.S.naval forces’ deployments—in this case in the Pacific—does notdepend on “responses to situations.” This was the period in which theU.S. Navy devised its Maritime Strategy, ready to take war to the SovietUnion, in horizontal escalation (i.e.,diverting the Soviets from theirconcentrated attention to Europe), if it became necessary. The Navyoriented its exercises in the region accordingly. The homeporting ofa carrier in Japan was taken for granted. The Korea scenario alwaysloomed. The general view was that the U.S. Navy stabilized the region.


1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Yemen

PersGulf

Red Sea

Iraq

Iraq

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

1cvbg

2cvbg 1sc

1cvbg 1arg 2sc

1cvbg

5sc

1c2 1L 1aux

1cvbg

2sc

1sc

1c2

6sc 1cvbg

1cvbg 1c2 9sc

1bbg 11sc 1cvbg 1arg-


46

Given the relative infrequency of the responses, it is perhaps less sur-prising that carriers were mustered for most. In short, it is not evidentto us that these responses posed operational strains.

The Burma case shown here is an interesting one. During internaltroubles there, some Americans were not allowed to leave the coun-try. The U.S. Naval Attaché to Thailand, also accredited to Burma,went to Rangoon and informed the authorities that an ARG lay offshore, and that the Burmese should let the Americans go. They did.This is the one example we have found in the whole database wherethe presence of an ARG was used as a show of force.


1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Soviet Union

S. Korea

Philippines

N. Korea

N. Korea

Maldives

Burma


Martial law

Korea-Burma

Coup attempt

Summer Olympics

Burma unrest

Maldives coup

KAL 007

47

Western Hemisphere

In the Western Hemisphere, U.S. naval forces played a large part inonly one significant combat response, the Urgent Fury operation inGrenada.

Otherwise, Nicaragua dominates the naval responses in the region inthe 1980s.

Governments in El Salvador and Nicaragua had disintegrated in thelate 1970s. Thus the region became a central national security con-cern. The Reagan Administration invested heavily in ensuring thatCommunism did not take root in Central America. It provided mas-sive economic and security assistance to El Salvador, supported theContras, and established a base in Honduras to which it regularlyrotated U.S. Army units. As part of this program, it occasionallydiverted CVBGs to pass by Nicaragua on their way to Europe.


1cvbg

1cvbg

2cvbg 2arg

2cvbg

1arg

1cvbg

6sc 3aux


1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Soviet Union

S. Korea

Philippines

N. Korea

N. Korea

Maldives

Burma

48

Naval forces stood offshore during the marred elections in Panama in1989, but were not part of the subsequent Just Cause operation toseize Gen. Manuel Noriega later that year.

In the Western Hemisphere region, ship involvement definitelyincreased in the 1980s, in terms of both numbers and size. This isshown on the chart on the next page. There were just two ARGresponses in the 1970s, but a total of seven CVBG and three ARGresponses in the 1980s.


1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Honduras invasion threat

Urgent Fury

CVBG presence

Seaward Explorer rescue

Panama elections

Surveillance ops

Haiti internal unrest

Hurricane reliefPuerto Rico

Panama

Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Haiti

Grenada

Cuba

El Salvador Jittery Prop

Mariel Boatlift


49


The major influences on the use of U.S. naval forces in responses tosituations in the 1980s were:

• After the fall of the Shah, near-continuous turmoil in the Ara-bian Gulf

• After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, numerous incidentsthere, and especially the taking of Western hostages by theHezbollah

• Confrontations with Qaddafi and Libya

• U.S., but not the U.S. Navy, involved in a major way in CentralAmerica

• Two quick fights:


1cvbg 1bbg

1cvbg 1arg

1cvbg 1bbg 1arg 5sc

1cvbg 1sc

1cvbg 1aux

2cvbg 1arg 5sc

1arg

6sc 4L 3aux

1L1aux

2L 4sc 5pb


1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Puerto Rico

Panama

Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Haiti

Grenada

Cuba

El Salvador

50

— Grenada (1983), involving-major U.S. Navy and MarineCorps participation

— Panama (1989) involving mostly the U.S. Army (no shipswere involved).

Thus the inventory of cases shows at total of 56 responses, of whichnearly half (25) involved:

• Lebanon and Syria (12)

• The Arabian Gulf (7)

• Libya (6).

There were fewer NEOs (six, five of which were in Lebanon) andfewer responses to natural disasters (only three) than in the 1970s.

In addition to the Iranian Revolution, two other lengthy situationsmeant that U.S. naval responses had a strong Mideast focus.

The first was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which stimu-lated a series of hostage-taking situations that would consume theReagan Administration’s attention almost as much as the Iranian hos-tages had obsessed the Carter Administration. Ultimately, the WhiteHouse’s frustration with the never-ending hostage situation wouldlead to the Iran-Contra Affair, with its curious coupling of weaponsfor Iran and money for the Nicaraguan rebels.

The Mideast also involved the Reagan Administration in combatinginternational terrorism. The Qaddafi regime in Libya would becomea strong focus of U.S. military actions as a result of that regime’s rolein supporting Mideast terrorist networks.

While the U.S. also actively tried to roll back Soviet and Cubaninvolvement in Central America, the U.S. Navy was not involved inthis effort to any significant degree. Naval forces did, however, play asignificant role in the 1983 invasion of Grenada.

51


Overview

We now move from the Cold War era to the 1990s. U.S. attentionshifted from its rivalry with the Soviet Union to the emergence of glo-balization as the dominant feature of the international system.

Compared to the 1980s, the 1990s did not see a significant increasein global conflict and instability. System-threatening situationsincreased from one to two (Iraq and Congo—and it is a stretch to callthe situation in the congo system-threatening). State-on-state con-



Ethiopia/Eritrea 90-91,98-99

Chad 90-91

Angola 90s

Mozambique 90-93

Turkey-Kurds 90s

Northern Ireland 90-97

Cambodia,90-92, 96-98

Afghanistan 90s

Guatemala 90-94

El Salvador 90-92

Sudan,1990s

Sri Lanka,90s

Burma 90s

Haiti

Peru 90s

Columbia 90s

Yemen 94

Kashmir,90sPRC-Taiwan

East Timor 99-00

Chechnya 94-96,99 -

Liberia 1990-97

Sierra Leone 91-

Algeria 92-

Burundi and Rwanda 90s

Zaire 1996-

Mexico (Chiapas) 94-

Peru-Ecuador 97




Nagorno-Karabakh 90s Lebanon-Israel 90s

Somalia

Tajikistan 91-98

Note: Russia and China thought Kosovo was

Indonesia 97-

Iraq, 1990s

Georgia



Internal conflict (28)Former Yugoslavia


53

flicts decline from nine to six, although they tend to be more concen-trated in Eurasia. Finally, the number of internal conflicts, while upfrom 23 to 28, certainly had not “exploded” to the degree commonlyperceived. More states completely collapsed, as opposed to the belea-guered, but still functioning, governments that characterized internalwarfare in the 1980s.

What was most noticeably different in the 1990s was the role playedby the United Nations in trying to address humanitarian disasters andcivil conflict if a state failed. While in the 1980s, U.S. security assis-tance could bolster governments dealing with internal conflicts, inthe 1990s this seemed no longer possible. Instead, military interven-tions by external troops were used in the 1990s to protect food sup-plies or otherwise keep the peace.

In sum, the world did not appear to be any more “wildly out of con-trol” in the post-Cold War era than it had during the Cold War. Whatdoes seem true is that situations of instability and conflict were morelikely to involve failed states and therefore to require direct interven-tion rather than just military and economic assistance. This need formore intensive forms of assistance, combined with the disappearanceof the Soviet ideological threat, led to great power ambivalence andlong debates prior to any significant intervention in the 1990s.

Did this development render the world a more dangerous place?That’s a hard case to make. Did it signal a more complex interna-tional security environment? Definitely.

The Bush Administration national security priorities

The Bush Administration did not have to establish architectures andpriorities: history simply moved too fast through its four short years.With the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989, the entire world was“overtaken by events.” Rather than setting priorities, then, the BushAdministration’s strengths lay in its responding effectively to all therapid-fire changes occurring on its watch.

The change was virtually global in scope. Besides the collapse of theSoviet Bloc and all the loose ends involved in removing Soviet troops,establishing non-Communist governments, and shifting to free-

54

market economies, there was the quick reunification of Germany andits continuation as a NATO member. There were positive changesthrough much of Africa, including the fall of the apartheid regime inSouth Africa. Added to these events were the establishment of peaceagreements in both El Salvador and Nicaragua. It suddenly seemedthat democracy was breaking out all over.

The Bush Administration had the advantage of letting events playthemselves out without having to assert U.S. leadership in such a wayas to alienate new friends and potential allies. This was seen mostclearly in its masterful management of the reunification of Germanyand the assembling and sustaining of the international coalition thatultimately drove Iraq out of Kuwait in Desert Storm.

Probably the closest one can come to enunciating a Bush “doctrine”would be to say that the Administration sought to put the North’shouse in order while resisting the temptation to engage in any ambi-tious nation-building in the tumultuous South. However, the BushAdministration gave in to various pressures and began the U.S. mili-tary intervention in Somalia in collaboration with the UN and othernations.

Bush Administration National Security Priorities1989-1992

Base force:put forces on 25%

glidepath down

Policy toward Soviets, then Russia:

Watch USSR collapse;complete START I,negotiate START II;Begin Nunn-Lugar,

other aid

Conclude CFE;Watch fall of Berlin

Wall and WP;Germany reunited;

Wrap upEl Sal, Nicaragua,

seize Noriega

Desert Storm

Went intoSomalia, avoided

Bosnia

55

The Clinton Administration’s national security priorities

If the Bush Administration’s implicit priority was getting the North inorder following the surprising collapse of the Soviet Bloc, then thefirst Clinton Administration was initially far more open to exploringthe possibility of doing the same for the South. Somalia and the sub-sequent intervention in Haiti were hailed as new models of interna-tional cooperation that would use the United Nations moreeffectively and more frequently than it had been used before.

But after the U.S. suffered casualties in Somalia, and Haiti interven-tion seemed to promise no self-sustaining democracy and economicgrowth, enthusiasm both for U.S. interventions and for the UN as aninstrument for organizing crisis responses faded. When the Europe-ans’ indecision on Bosnia reached paralyzing proportions, the Clin-ton Administration felt impelled to get more actively involved.

The Clinton Administration had always been more interested inbuilding the international financial architecture for globalization’sadvance than in policing the messes that now became evident as theremaining major sources of conflict around the world. But the needto bail the Europeans out in Bosnia and the continued requirement

Clinton Administration National Security Priorities1993-2000

Protect people,O&M (R&D, too),

and force structure;procurement

squeezed

Watch Russiaslide down,

Not ratify START II; continue

Nunn-Lugar

Expand NATO;IFOR/SFOR inBosnia; AlliedForce & KFOR

Haiti Contain Iraq, Iran;strike Iraq on occasion

Out ofSomalia;avoid rest

Try to engage China;confrontation over TaiwanWork ME peace

Deals withNorthKorea

56

to dual contain Iran and Iraq, the Administration found itself moredeeply engaged in coping with regional instabilities.

Naval responses in the 1990s

U.S. military interventions during the 1990s were primarily aboutcontaining and managing selected ongoing messes. Rather than seek-ing to achieve definitively positive outcomes—which would have beenunachievable without huge investments of military resources andmassive aid flows—the focus of U.S. interventions seemed to befocused on keeping these “troubles” and “troublemakers” locally con-tained.

Thus, four clustered situations dominated U.S. naval responsesduring the 1990s. The first was the continuing effort to keep Saddam



Post-Cold War “Mini-

Containments”

Humanitarian

NEOs



Combat/weapons used

*

* East Timor the sole casenot fitting classification

57

Hussein in the box imposed by international sanctions imposed afterhe had been ejected from Kuwait. This effort featured two extensiveno-fly-zones, in the north and south of Iraq, and a series of militarystrikes following Saddam’s provocations.

The second cluster of response cases involved the lengthy interven-tion in Somalia. The 18 Ranger deaths proved a significant turningpoint in the Clinton Administration’s willingness to get any furtherinvolved in failed states.

The third cluster involved the similarly failed state of Haiti. While theimmediate intervention was successful, nation-building there provedfrustrating. However, almost all U.S. forces were quickly removed andonly small contingents remained until 2000, with the bulk of policetraining and organized done by other countries.

The last cluster involved the lengthy interventions in Bosnia and Kos-ovo.

The series of NEOs in Africa provide a glimpse of the disintegrationof order in a number of African states. That these were practically theonly actions involving U.S. forces marks the Clinton Administration’sreluctance to intervene anymore, after both the difficulties and criti-cism of operations in Somalia and Haiti.

How were naval responses in the 1990s related to the Bush Administration’s national security priorities?

The main priority of the Bush Administration was to manage the tran-sition to the post-Cold War world. It managed the rapid changes inEurope (especially the reunification of Germany and its remaining inNATO), humanitarian aid to Russia after the collapse of the SovietUnion, reductions in nuclear and conventional arms (throughSTART II and CFE), and the end of the Cold War in Central America.Early on, it made the improvement of U.S.-China relations a priority,but quickly receded after Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Theseefforts did not involve the U.S. Navy or naval responses.

Naval forward presence and warfighting missions played an impor-tant role in Desert Shield/Storm in support of the continuing Amer-ican commitment in the Arabian Gulf. The Joint and combined

58

military operation to liberate Kuwait, punish Iraq, and enforce post-war sanctions through air and sea power were high administrationpriorities supported by extensive use of American naval power.

The combined effect of the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War vic-tory may have given the United States the latitude to use its militaryforce to intervene in internal conflicts, e.g., in Bosnia and in Somalia.The Administration conducted a limited humanitarian mission inSomalia, in which U.S. naval forces were heavily involved. However, itavoided intervention in Bosnia, preferring to rely on diplomacy, leav-ing peacekeeping efforts to the UN and the Europeans.

How were naval responses in the 1990s related to the Clinton Administration’s national security priorities?

The Clinton Administration’s national security priorities becamemore diverse as the post-Cold War world devolved into a number oflimited, regional and local conflicts. The high-priority items in theAdministration—engaging Russia and China, expanding NATO, andpromoting the peace process in the Middle East—are not reflected inthe naval responses we have catalogued.

Bush Administration Priorities and the Role of Naval Responses

Base force:put forces on 25%

glidepath down

Wrap upEl Sal, Nicaragua,

seize Noriega

Conclude CFE;Watch fall of Berlin

Wall and WP;Germany reunited;

Went intoSomalia, avoidedBosnia

Desert Storm

Policy toward Soviets, then Russia:

Watch USSR collapse;Complete START Inegotiate START II;Begin Nunn-Lugar,

other aid

Initially,Maintain Initially,Maintain USUS--PRCPRC

RelationshipRelationship

59

The policy of engaging and responding to “crises” with limited inter-vention with the aim of containing and limiting their spread andthereby inhibiting their possible disruption of emerging regionalmarket economies was paramount throughout the Administration. Itwas in the service of such objectives that the United States used its mil-itary forces in four distinct operations throughout the decade.

In Haiti and Somalia, the United States attempted to use militaryforce to achieve political and humanitarian goals in internal conflicts.These attempted demonstrated the Clinton Administration’s earlypriority on using the military as an instrument to create the necessaryconditions for democratization.

There were long term interventions in the Balkans and in the ArabianGulf. The first case was shaped by America’s leadership role in NATO(a high national priority) and the abject failure of the UN and theEuropeans to bring peace to the Former Yugoslavia upon its violentdissolution. The second case was shaped by the continuation of our20-year commitment to maintaining the political and economic sta-bility of the Arabian Gulf and the free flow of oil supplies, and by theneed to keep Iraq contained after its defeat in Desert Storm.

Clinton Administration Priorities and the Role of Naval Responses

Protect people,O&M (R&D, too),

and force structure;

procurementsqueezed

Haiti

Expand NATO;IFOR/SFOR inBosnia; AlliedForce & KFOR

Watch Russia slide down; START II not ratified; Continue Nunn-Lugar

Try to engage China;confrontation over Taiwan

Contain Iraq, Iran;strike Iraq on occasion

Out of Somalia;avoid the rest of

Africa

Work ME peace

60

Details of naval responses in the 1990s

The chart below, covering Europe and Africa, demonstrates thechanged nature of responses to situations in the 1990s. For theUnited States, conflicts in Europe were exclusively about the continu-ing wars in the Former Yugoslavia. This situation resulted in a seriesof operations, with overlapping missions, for U.S. naval forces presentin the Adriatic. Again, as a demonstration of the false implications ofsimply counting up operations, the same operations here assume dif-ferent names at different stages. Note that the “red” strips----Deliber-ate Force and Noble Anvil----are relatively short. That is, the actualapplication of forces in weapons strikes tended to take finite lengthsof time, while embargoes have dragged on.

The chart also dramatically shows that nearly all the other responsesin these regions were NEOs or humanitarian assistance, usually of

Center for Strategic Studies1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

ZaireTurkeyTunisia

Sierra LeoneRwandaRwandaRwanda

LiberiaLiberiaLiberia

ItalyIraqIraq

GreeceFRYFRYFRYFRYFRYFRYFRYFRYFRYFRYFRYFRYCAR

AlbaniaAlbania

Storm relief

Sharp Edge

Distant Runner

Support Hope

Guardian Retrieval

Noble Obelisk

Autumn Shelter

Avid Response

Quick Response

Silver Wake Silver

KnightBalkan Calm II

Noble Anvil

Shining Hope

Hot Rock

Assured Response

Noble Safeguard

Provide Comfort I

Deny FlightDecisive Edge

Joint Endeavor

Joint Guard

Joint Forge

Provide Promise

Maritime Guard

Decisive Enhancement

Sharp Guard

Sharp Vigilance/MaritimeMonitor

Quick Lift

Allied Force

Determined Falcon

Greece/Turkey tension

Deliberate Force

Shadow Express


Joint Guardian

61

quite short duration, except for the Sharp Edge NEO in Liberia. Inthat case, amphibious ships hovered off Liberia for seven months(during the Bush Administration) before the NEO was executed.

Looking at the ships involved, we again note the pattern by whichCVBGs were engaged in lengthy, loitering responses off the FormerYugoslavia. An ARG was kept in the Adriatic for search-and-rescueand then as the reserve battalion in support of IFOR/SFOR. Later, anARG/MEU was on hand for KFOR. The Marines spent two weeks onthe ground in Kosovo until relieved by U.S. Army units.

Of the 12 sequential responses related to the Former Yugoslavia,CVBGs appear in eight, including all four multi-year responses. Out-side of the Former Yugoslavia cluster, however, ARGs appear in 13 of17 responses, and carriers appear in only one (that is, in brief supportof the Provide Comfort relief operation in Kurdistan, where Navyships off-loaded supplies in Turkey).


1L

1arg 1sc

3L

1arg

1arg

2arg

1arg

1arg-

1arg

1cvbg 1arg

1cvbg 1sc 1arg

1arg- 1L1arg 1sc 1arg-

1arg

1cvbg 2arg

1L

1L

1arg

1sc

1arg- 1sc

1sc1cvbg 1arg

2aux

2cvbg 2sc


4 sc 1sc 1ssn

1cvbg 1arg

1cvbg 1arg

1cvbg 1cvbg

1cvbg 1arg 2aux 1arg

1cvbg 1arg

1sc

2sc

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

ZaireTurkeyTunisia



ItalyIraqIraq


AlbaniaAlbania

62


In the Arabian Gulf-Indian Ocean area, we have highlighted the sub-stantial number of responses related to Iraq (13) and Somalia (7),which in combination account for 80 percent of all naval responses inthe region.

Although the series of operations associated with Somalia lastedabout three years, it was dwarfed by the series related to Iraq, whichlasted throughout almost the entire decade. These continuing oper-ations were punctuated by the episodic TLAM strikes and other inci-dental operations.

As the Iraq series indicates, that cluster of naval responses wentbeyond normal definitions of “crisis response” into a new categoryaltogether: not quite a conflict or a crisis, but something akin to mini-containment whose procedures became routinized over time, withthe regular rotation of units.


1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Sud/AfgSomaliaSomaliaSomaliaSomaliaSomaliaSomaliaSomalia

QatarKenya

IraqIraqIraqIraqIraqIraqIraqIraqIraqIraqIraqIraqIraq

EritreaEritrea

Eastern Exit

Pressure on Kuwait

Impressive Lift

USLO Withdrawal

United ShieldSilent Assurance

Safe Departure

Resolute Response

Desert Viper

Desert Fox

Desert Shield

Provide Relief

Restore Hope

Desert Thunder

Infinite Reach

Continue Hope

Eritrea NEO

Iraq MIO

Nuclear Facility Strike

TLAM Strikes

Vigilant Warrior

Desert Storm

Vigilant Sentinel

Desert Strike

Southern Watch

PG/IO1990-99: Operations

63

Carriers and sometimes independent surface combatants have beenoperating in the Gulf to contain and sometimes strike Iraq. An ARGis routinely in the Gulf as well, ready for any contingency, but has notactually been used in any operation. It did stand by for any possibledisruption that might have been attempted by terrorists during theSummit conference the U.S. organized in Qatar in 1997.

In Somalia, the ARG was fully involved, both in landing Marines andserving as an offshore base. CVBGs were deployed twice to Somaliafor shows-of-force. They had no impact, so one wonders why theywere sent.


1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000


QatarKenya


EritreaEritrea

1arg-

1arg

1arg

1arg

2arg 2L 1sc 2aux

1arg

1arg

1arg

1cvbg 1sc

2cvbg 1arg 2sc

4cvbg 3arg

1arg

1cvbg 1arg 4aux

2cvbg 1arg

2sc 1ssn

1cvbg 1arg1arg

1arg

3sc 1aux

4sc2sc

1cvbg 1arg

6cvbg 4arg 1bbg 2aux

1cvbg 1arg

4sc 1ssn

1cvbg 1arg 2cvbg 1cvbg


64

Pacific Area

The Pacific region in the 1990s was quiet as far as responses goes, withonly slightly more activity than the 1980s. All of the responses wereshort in duration. Responses to natural disasters were concentratedearly in the period, during the Bush Administration. One of theseinvolved an ARG stopping by Bangladesh in 1991 on its way homefrom Desert Storm to assist in flood relief. Even though Bangladeshhas one or two catastrophic floods each year, the record shows nomore responses by U.S. naval forces.

The two most significant situations involved China’s threats to Taiwanin 1996, which returned that situation to the attention of the U.S.Government, and North Korea’s threats to pursue nuclear weaponsand long-range missile programs.

Finally, there was the operation off East Timor, which we have coloredblue because it was the only operation that we could not easily fit into


1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

USA

Samoa

Philippines

Philippines

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Micronesia

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China

Cambodia

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Typhoon relief

Hawaii Typhoon relief

Korea tensions

Balm Restore

Fiery Vigil

Bevel Edge

Bevel Incline

Sea Angel

Water Pitcher

Typhoon relief

Taiwan Flexible Deterrent East Timor Stablise*

Reactor negotiations


* East Timor* East Timordidn’t fit the fivedidn’t fit the fivecategories we havecategories we haveused. It involved heloused. It involved heloand communications and communications supportsupport

65

our five categories. The ARG was useful for the four heavy-lift helicop-ters employed for transport. The U.S. also provided communicationssupport.

The most important use of ships in this decade was the use of CVBGsin the shows of force off Korea and off Taiwan.

Western Hemisphere

As for the Western Hemisphere, the 1990s represent the one decadeof truly high number of responses over the survey period. Cuba (boatpeople) and Haiti (intervention in a failed state) dominate theperiod, accounting for all but two of the 14 responses.

The significant responses in the period concerned Haiti. Again, wesee a series of operations that continued until the U.S. decided to puttroops on the ground.


1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

USA

Samoa

Philippines

Philippines

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Indonesia

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Bangladesh


1L

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1arg

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4aux

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2cvbg

66

The incidents off Cuba represent the problem of protecting boatpeople on one hand and, on the other hand, the problem of interpos-ing U.S. naval forces when the confrontations between Cuba and theCubans in Florida threatened incidents.

It is also instructive to compare ship involvement between a mini-con-tainment cluster such as Haiti and another situation that spawns mul-tiple responses over a relatively short time frame—in this instance,Cuba.

Notice the much larger ship contingents involved in the Haiti series,reflecting not only the size of the operations but also the logisticalrequirements associated with continuous, long-term operations. Incomparison, the several responses involving Cuba were very short andinvolved few ships.

In short, the Cuba responses were run-of-the-mill, whereas the Haitiseries of responses were something more—-again demonstrating that


1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Hurricane relief

Sea Signal

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Operation MonitorSafe Passage

Able Manner

Victor Squared


67

it doesn’t make sense to “count up” responses in a mini-containmentcluster in the same way we count scattered responses. Instead, theyshould be combined into one representative response.


We counted a total of 86 naval responses in the 1990s. This number ismisleading, for, as can be seen in the charts in the preceding pages, anumber of operations in the Gulf and the Adriatic were simply con-tinuations of previous operations that were given new names. Thenumber of combat cases (i.e., where munitions were actually used)was about the same as in the 1980s (11 vs. 10). Shows of force wereone-third higher (27 vs. 18), whereas contingent positionings weredown (10 vs. 19). This reflects the decisions of higher authorities tomove U.S. naval forces more closely into harm’s way. Finally, there wasa great increase in NEOs and responses to natural disasters from the1980s, from 9 up to 38, or 44 percent of total cases, or closer to half


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68

the cases when the run-on operations are counted as one case. Itshould also be noted that 11 of the 20 responses to natural disastersoccurred in the Bush Administration.

The argument that the U.S. military was asked to “do more with less”seems, at first glance, to be supported by the raw numbers of U.S.naval responses in the 1990s—86, compared to 55 cases in the 1980s.Closer examination reveals both a plethora of “follow-on” operationscentered in the four response clusters and a significant increase inboth NEOs and disaster relief. Neither of these rank high as crises ofstrategic significance. In other words, the number of responses mayhave increased, but the number of situations didn’t.

Instead, the higher number of responses in the 1990s representedtwo categories:

• The conscious decision of the Clinton Administration to “con-tain” the threat of regional instability posed by the four intrac-table situations. Does some number of named operationstherefore represent a greater operational load (“more”) thanthat presented by the decades-long global standoff with theSoviets? And how do we identify the proper resources for thisnew sort of global operational pattern?

• A rise in what used to be called the “lesser includeds,” i.e.,NEOs and disaster relief operations. The average was only oneeach of these a year. The responses to natural disasters hap-pened mostly in 1991-1992.

It may all come down to how we define “operational success” in thepost-Cold War environment. If the U.S. military is going to beemployed in a range of “system maintenance” activities around theworld meant to preclude major wars, it has implications for the kindof training to be conducted, the extent to which advanced technolo-gies are pursued, and which elements of force structures to beretained.

69

Navy-only responses

We examined the number of situations responded to using only navalforces, by aggregate and by decade. These are shown in the summarychart below:

In summary, Navy-only responses during the three decades (1970-1999) totaled 97 of 192 cases, or 50%. The numbers of Navy-onlyresponses showed some decline during the three decades: 37 in the1970s, 31 in the 80s, and 29 in the 90s. However, as a proportion of

Navy Only Joint Coalitional Total1970s Combat 0 1 0 1

Show of Force 5 2 1 8Contingency 13 3 1 17NEO 9 3 1 13Human. Assist. 10 1 0 11Total 37 10 3 50



Total Combat 7 9 6 22Show of Force 18 20 15 53Contingency 28 13 5 46NEO 26 9 2 37Human. Assist. 18 14 2 34Total 97 65 30 192

71

total responses, Navy-only responses showed a steeper decline----from74 percent in the 1970s, to 55 percent in the 1980s, to 34 percent inthe 1990s.

What accounts for the greater proportion of Joint and combinedresponses in the 1990s?

• In the 1970s, U.S. naval forces’ responses, after Vietnam, weremostly scattered and of short duration. There was a higher pro-portion of NEOs and natural disasters than later, in the 1980s.There were no major engagements other than Vietnam, exceptfor the contingent positioning of the Navy during the 1973Arab-Israeli war.

• In the 1980s, the responses became more intense and, if not oflonger duration, involved repeated visits to Lebanon and nearlycontinuous escorting in the Gulf. The nature of those situationsmade at-sea operations appropriate.

— When Israel invaded Lebanon, and the Marines and Frenchforces took up peacekeeping there, the operations were


74%

20%

6%1970-1979

55%34%

11%1980-1989

34%

42%

24%

50%

34%

16%

Composite, 1970-19991990-1999

Proportions of Navy-Only Responses, 1970-1999

Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional

72

coalitional, so to speak. But when the U.S. pulled theMarines out of Lebanon, after the bombing of their bar-racks, the remaining U.S. activity was offshore, waiting forthe release of hostages.

— In the case of the Gulf, the initial U.S. responses after Iraqinvaded Iran were to protect Saudi Arabia, and thereforethe responses were Joint. But as the war wore on, the U.S.role became one of protecting tanker traffic, and the oper-ations listed were thus mostly Navy-only.

• Responses in the 1990s, with operations against Iraq and in thetangle of the Former Yugoslavia, became more prolonged,Joint, and combined.

— In the case of the Former Yugoslavia—Bosnia and thenKosovo—the action was mostly on land, with naval forces inmore supporting roles in the Adriatic. The two separatestrike operations—Deliberate Force and Allied Force/Noble Anvil—were coalitional. The MIO in the Adriatic wasalso coalitional.

— In the case of the Gulf, Desert Shield and Desert Storm wereJoint and coalitional. The continuing MIO was coalitionalas well. Northern Watch is mostly a U.S. Air Force opera-tion, but naval EA-6Bs operating off the land participate.Southern Watch is joint and coalitional, with the Air Forceand the British participating as well as the Navy. The Navy-only responses consisted of the Tomahawk strikes.

Altogether, the shift to more Joint and coalition operations in the1980s and 1990s reflects the larger shift to operations on and over thetwo land areas: the Former Yugoslavia and Iraq. We cannot drawmuch larger world-strategic conclusions from this, except to say thatthe trend has been away from state-on-state conflicts toward internalconflicts, and that the U.S. is engaging in mini-containments of theseconflicts. It should be noted that the NEO and Natural Disasterresponses account for 45 percent of the total of 97 Navy-onlyresponses. That is, the Navy-only responses are disproportionately atthe very lower end of the conflict spectrum. NEOs are dangerous, but

73

do not involve the U.S. trying to resolve the internal conflict in themidst of which the NEO may be conducted.

The divisions of Navy-only, Joint, and coalitional responses by the typeof response, during the three decades, are summarized in the follow-ing chart.

We offer the following caveats to this analysis:

• The database covers only operations in which the Navy wasinvolved, not all U.S. military operations; that is, it understatestotal U.S. operations (the Navy, for instance, is not involved inNorthern Watch).

• The “number of cases” neglects both the length and intensityof individual operations—the numbers don’t tell us much.

• In a number of NEOs and responses to natural disasters, wewere unable to track what U.S. Government agencies outsideDOD and NGOs might have been involved. “Navy-only” maynot be quite right in some of these cases.


Force Involvement

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bat

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74

Patterns of ship usage

In this section, we examine the patterns for the use of different shiptypes in the five kinds of operations in our database. This section con-stitutes a summary of the ship charts shown for each of the decadesand for each of the four regions.

This chart summarizes total ship-type operations by type and decade.Two strong qualifications must be borne in mind in looking at thischart.


0

5

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Combat

CV

BG

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/AR

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AR

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Human. Assist.

NEOContingent Positg.

Show of Force

Total Ship Operations, by type

75

• First, it show cases of named operations. We have compensatedfor this in part by counting a string of named operations thatare essentially a single situation as one. Thus, carrier operationsin the Adriatic were counted as one.

• Second, it doesn’t account for ship days. Thus, Southern Watchcounts only as one case, but it has lasted over 8 years. The chartsimply tells us what kinds of ships (or groups of ships) havebeen used in what types of responses.

In the 1970s, we saw a freer use of the large formations----CVBGs andCVBGs/ARGs, but with a significant proportion of the cases as “con-tingent positioning” without further action of recorded effect. TheU.S. even used them for NEOs and natural disasters. But the U.S. alsoused single amphibious ships for those purposes. Surface combatantswere used for shows of forces, as they were in the 1980s.

In the 1980s, the U.S. reinforced this pattern because events in theGulf and Lebanon dominated. We saw more combat use and shows offorce by CVBGs. The shows of force by surface combatants in thisdecade were their use as escorts of oil tankers and other merchantships in the Gulf.

The 1990s involved more prolonged carrier operations in the Gulfand Adriatic, and the ARG in the Adriatic. In essence, there were onlythree operations. Surface combatants got to fire Tomahawks in twoindividual operations. Notably, ARGs and single amphibious shipswere sent for NEOs and natural disaster relief, but most of those oper-ations were short compared to the days spent in the Gulf and Adriatic.

Summing up ship involvement by response category, several impres-sions emerge.

• First, the carrier battle group clearly remains the premierplayer of naval response activity. However, as we noted earlier,the sheer number of cases involving carriers declined in thepost-Cold War era as carriers became engaged in the long-termsequential operations in the Gulf and Adriatic.

• Second, the carrier’s dominance obviously resides on the highend of the response scale—-namely, strikes, shows of force, andcontingency positioning.

76

• Third, ARGs are the usually the tool of choice on the lower endof the response scale—namely, for NEOs and humanitariandisaster relief.

In essence, we’re witnessing a certain bifurcation of naval responsethat only makes sense given the wide spread of situations encoun-tered in the post-Cold War era. In the era of globalization, we see anew high-end response category emerging: that of the mini-contain-ment policies in four situations. For those situations, carriers and sur-face combatants are committed for long-term responses. The lesser-included cases during the Cold War live on in all of the other situa-tions that continue to occur in a scattered fashion, and for theseresponses, the ARG and even individual amphibious ships haveemerged as the work horses. However, they were likely to spend a lotfewer day on these operations than carriers do in Gulf operations.

While we had starting and ending dates in the database for the indi-vidual operations, the records are not complete enough for us tocount up ship-days. This may be possible in a follow-up project.

To sum up this section, we offer the following basic rules of thumbregarding ship involvement in the globalization era:

• For the big contingencies and especially those that fall withinthe mini-containment category, CVBGs and ARGs are the usualcombination. In essence, the mini-containment clusterspresent a wide menu of missions—everything from strikes andshows of force down to humanitarian assistance and nation-building.

• CVBGs remain the tool of choice for shows of force.

• TLAMs have enabled surface combatants to play a significantand independent strike role. Because such use is so dependenton the special circumstances----Deliberate Force in Bosnia andNoble Anvil with regard to Kosovo, and the series of strikesagainst Saddam, it is difficult to predict whether this patternwill continue in the future. The capability has been demon-strated, however.

77

• Disaster relief and NEOs have become the almost exclusive pur-view of the amphibious ships----which shouldn’t surprise us. Acertain bifurcation of responsibilities has emerged in the glo-balization era, with amphibious ships becoming the work horseof the low-end response categories and carriers and surfacecombatants the specialists in clustered mini-containmentresponses.

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Simultaneity of responses

In the previous sections of this report, we broke down the U.S. navalforces’ responses to situations by four geographic regions. In this sec-tion, We asked, if the data from all four regions were combined,whether the results would inform us as to the strains that might havebeen put on the overall U.S. Navy. We have combined cases and thelength of the individual cases from the database to show the numberof operations at any given time around the world.

In the 1990s, the four clustered mini-containment situations werespread across four continents. But only two of these have been pro-longed: the Gulf and the Adriatic. The other two, Somalia and Haiti,turned out to be relatively short and, in any case, did not tie downmany naval assets, especially not the carriers. In the 1990s, it waslargely the situations in the Gulf and Adriatic that fueled the percep-tion of response “overload,” given their duration, the routinization offollow-on operations, and, in the case of the Gulf, the schedulingdemands imposed by the great transit distances to that area.

By examining the historical record on a simultaneous geographicbasis, we aimed to uncover an objective sense of the strain placed onnaval forces by simultaneous, far-flung operations. Our ultimate goalis to discern how much of an increase in demand has occurred sincethe end of the Cold War and what challenge that increase presents tonaval forces as a whole.

We did not discriminate by ship type in the following charts. As notedin the section on ship types used, CVBGs and surface combatantshave tended to be involved in the long-term situations in the Gulf andAdriatic. An ARG has been present in reserve in both these places,though it was not really part of the named Gulf operations. For theother, scattered, situations, generally ARGs and individual amphibi-ous ships responded.

79

In all the following charts, the scale runs only from 0 to 7. In the chartbelow, for instance, most of the activity is at 1, with a few spikes at 2 or3, and one at 5.

When judged by the parameter of simultaneity, the 1970s appear tohave been a rather quiet decade. As the chart indicates, naval forceswere involved in only one response for most of the timeline. We seeroughly a dozen periods during which multiple responses were pur-sued, but these heightened periods of activity are relatively brief. Thespike in 1976 represents a conjunction of very short events scatteredacross the four regions.

In contrast, the 1980s present a far more clustered display of responsebulges. This is in large part due to the fact that more responses occurand that a significant portion of them were of longer duration thanthose in the 1970s.


Simultaneous Responses, 1970-79

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A closer examination of the record indicates that much of the simul-taneity captured on this slide represents the geographic spread ofnaval responses throughout the Mideast. In other words, most of thespikes here are generated by simultaneous naval responses to eventsin Lebanon (Eastern Mediterranean) and the Iran-Iraq War (ArabianGulf). These are reasonably categorized as simultaneous becausethey involved different fleets.

However, to the extent that naval forces were under higher opera-tional strain in this decade as compared to the 1970s, it is because ofa new and high focus on the Middle East—-and how intense andlengthy that activity level became on several occasions. Moreover, theU.S. Navy was continuing to match the Soviets in the Mediterranean.It kept two carriers there to meet the continuing NATO DPQ commit-ment. The carriers might as well have been at the eastern end of theMed as at the western end.



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For the 1990s, we come to the crux of the question as to whether U.S.“commitments” and “interventions” have greatly increased since theend of the Cold War. Indeed, the 1990s do display more incidences ofsimultaneity. Moreover, the heightened simultaneity is sustained overa seven-year period, rarely dipping below the two-response mark after1993.

As our later analysis of ships used will demonstrate, the vast bulk ofthis simultaneity is accounted for by very lengthy operations in boththe Adriatic (in response to events in Bosnia and Kosovo) and theArabian Gulf (part of our multitude of continuing responses to Iraq’sintransigence regarding no-fly-zones, international arms inspections,etc.).

In the Adriatic, for example, three lengthy operations stretch duringthe years 1992 through 1996 in response to the Bosnia situation:


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Former YugoslaviaFormer Yugoslaviaand Iraq operationsand Iraq operations

baselinebaseline

82

• Sharp Vigilance/Maritime Monitor segueing into MaritimeGuard and then Sharp Guard and finally Decisive Enhance-ment

• Provide Promise

• Deny Flight segueing into Decisive Edge.

In the Arabian Gulf, two operations stretch simultaneously duringmost of the decade: Southern Watch and the Iraq Maritime Intercep-tion Operations.

In the above chart, we counted the collective operations in both theAdriatic and the Gulf as one each, and that yields us the baselinesimultaneity mark stretching from 1993 through the end of 1999.

Now pulling back for the long-term view, we can clearly see the growthof thicker clusters of simultaneity during the 1980s segueing into asharp and sustained increase in simultaneity over the length of the1990s.

Taking into account that the bulk of the sustained simultaneity in the1990s stems from two long-term operational clusters (Adriatic andArabian Gulf), naval forces were busier in responding to situations inthe post-Cold War era than in the previous two decades. However, akey caveat remains: this heightened level of activity has become rou-tinized during two long-term containment operations.

This raises the question: At what point do we stop counting these twosituations as “responses” and start counting them as part and parcelof U.S. naval presence around the world? Are these in fact a moreactive definition of “holding the line” against permanent aggression—similar to the roles of ground and air forces in Europe for the ColdWar and along the Korean DMZ since 1953? In short, do these oper-ational patterns in fact represent a new strategy similar to the Con-tainment strategy of the Cold War?

83

If the ongoing, lengthy, and sequential operations that naval forceshave been conducting in the Adriatic and Arabian Gulf can be viewedas constituting a new routine U.S. strategy, then how would theirremoval from the database affect our view of simultaneity during theentire time period of 1970-1999?

The chart on the next page does just that, and reveals a trend farsmoother than that displayed on the previous slide. Aside from thetwo major situations, we are talking about two or three operations ata time, with a few spikes to three to five. At least two of those—thosein the Gulf and Adriatic—have significantly longer times on stationthan in the previous decade (though it is to be noted that Lebanonand escort operations in the Gulf in the 1980s were a series of discon-nected operations almost as long). There were more periods in the1990s when at least more than one operations was taking place, asreflected in the greater density of the blue color up through three.


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Former YugoslaviaFormer Yugoslaviaand Iraq operationsand Iraq operations

baselinebaseline

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We do not make this point simply to argue away the notion that navalforces are engaging in more simultaneous operations in the post-Cold War era, but rather to highlight the possible utility of rethinkingour definitions of “response” in light of the changing internationalsecurity environment of the globalization era and the pattern the U.S.has already displayed in its overall response to that environment.

As such, any new definition of naval responses would necessarilyincorporate some sense of regional “system maintenance” into anyanalysis of naval operational patterns. In effect, what U.S. naval forcesare doing in these two instances are actualizing their otherwise latentrole as regional Leviathans. In their essence, then, these ongoingoperations can be considered a new form of proactive presence—asort of operational category that lies somewhere between classic pres-ence and classic response.


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Significance of naval responses, 1970-1999

Continuing the theme of how best to interpret the changing natureof U.S. naval responses in the post-Cold War era, we now examine thesignificance of those responses.

We classified the significance of naval responses in our 30-year data-base according to four basic parameters:

• First, how significant was the event in relation to the stability ofthe international system? Would the event be consideredperipheral no matter what the outcome? Or was a certain rangeof outcomes required to maintain good functioning of theglobal security and economic system?

• Second, how much attention did the event attract within theadministration? Was it a clear focus of top decision-makers? Orwas it considered a routine military function once the decisionwas made to respond? (We must remember throughout thisanalysis that all U.S. naval forces’ responses to situation havebeen ordered by higher authorities. All were taken seriously atthe time those authorities.)

• Third, under what conditions and circumstances was the situa-tion resolved? Who resolved it?

• Finally, how important were naval forces in resolving the situa-tion’s? Did naval forces contribute something only they couldprovide? And did that contribution prove decisive or merelysupplementary?

The details of each of the nearly 200 situations to which U.S. navalforces responded is contained in the spreadsheet attached to thisreport (Annex B).

For examining the situations themselves, without reference to U.S.interests or involvement, we employ the three-tiered categorization

87

based on Kenneth Waltz’s seminal examination of the causality of war(Man, the State and War, 1954).

Corresponding to Waltz’s “first image,” or the individual perspective,are those situations involving subnational or internal outbreaks of dis-order or violence. This level encompasses the so-called failed statesand all manner of natural disasters, with the greatest consequencesbeing to individuals.

Corresponding to Waltz’s “second image,” or the nation-state per-spective, are those situations involving state-on-state conflict----essen-tially the classic definition of war.

Corresponding to Waltz’s “third image,” or the system perspective,are those situations—from either of the first two categories—that sug-gest the potential for disrupting major regional systems or the wholeinternational system itself. By definition, these are conflicts or disas-ters of such magnitude (or potential impact) that they could conceiv-ably alter—to a significant degree—how an international system


Ken Waltz: Man,The State and War

Discerning theCausality of

War

First Image: Human Nature

Discerning theNature of the

New Era ofInter-State Relations

Second Image: Nation-States

Third Image: International System

88

functions from that point onward. They are seminal events, withstrong pathway legacies for both those involved in the conflict andthose witnessing it from the sidelines.

Obviously, the last category involves the greatest amount of subjectivejudgment, for one country’s “insignificant” humanitarian interven-tion is sometimes another state’s “grave threat.”

System-threatening events

Over the 30-year period in question, we’ve identified four clear casesof systemic situations that featured a major role for U.S. navalresponses. In each instance, the operational patterns of naval forceswere significantly altered by their participation in the overall U.S. mil-itary response.

The first situation was the Vietnam War, through 1975. The UnitedStates originally got involved in Vietnam in the late 1950s because of


System Events: Major Naval Role, 1970-1999

Vietnam Vietnam WarWaruntil until 19751975

IranIran--IraqIraqWarWar

19801980--8989LibyanLibyan--sponsoredsponsoredterrorismterrorism

1980s1980sIraqIraq

invasioninvasionof Kuwaitof Kuwait19901990--9191

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our great fear that another country would fall to Communism andthat this in turn would lead to the rest of the countries in SoutheastAsia falling to Communism, like dominoes. The U.S. got deeplyinvolved, and North Vietnam was assisted by the Soviet Union andChina. In the event, the war was confined to Indochina. The fall ofdominoes did not extend beyond the former Indochina. North Koreadid not take the opportunity to attack again, nor did the Soviets takeadvantage in Europe (the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968was undertaken, not because the West was distracted, but by the grow-ing Soviet distress over the internal political evolution in that coun-try—the “Prague Spring”).

The focus of U.S. naval responses would thereafter shift irrevocably tothe Mideast in response to the second and third seminal situations:the emergence of continued threats to international oil shipping inthe Arabian Gulf, and the rise of Mideast terrorism arising from West-ern support to Israel. By the late 1980s, roughly three-quarters of allnaval “response days” were being spent in either the Eastern Mediter-ranean or the Arabian Gulf.

The Gulf’s status as the center of gravity for naval operations wascemented even further by the last system-threatening situation: Iraq’sinvasion of Kuwait and the subsequent long-term containment ofSaddam Hussein’s “rogue state.”

Over the 30-year period we’ve identified eight cases of system-threat-ening situations in which U.S. naval forces can claim only a support-ing role in terms of response and/or ultimate resolution. Of the eightevents, only the fall of the Shah of Iran had any lasting impact on his-torical operational patterns, for it triggered the perception in Wash-ington of Western vulnerability in the Arabian Gulf. But U.S. navalforces could only stand by helplessly as the Iranian Revolution tookplace. Soon thereafter, however, Iraq took advantage of the confusionin Iran to attack that country in October 1980.

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The explanations for the remaining selections are as follows:

If the PLO had been successful in taking over Jordan, Mideastregional stability would have been greatly threatened because of theimmediate threat that would have posed to Israel. Israel would havebeen completely surrounded by hostile Arab countries. One reasonthat the Jordanians defeated the Syrians when they invaded in thenorth in support of the PLO was that Hafez Assad as commander ofthe Syrian air force kept his air force out of the battle. Some say hedid that because of the threat of Israeli air intervention. Others say hewas deterred because U.S. carrier air might have intervened. We donot know, and he wouldn’t tell us (and won’t now), but Assad seizedthe occasion to take over Syria as dictator.

The 1973 Mideast War constituted a major system threat, and it evenlooked like it could turn into a U.S.-Soviet battle. The U.S. Navy’s rolewas as a blocking force, in case the Soviet navy were to move to assist


System Events: Minor Naval Role, 1970-1999

PLOPLOattemptsattempts

takeover intakeover inJordanJordan19701970

ArabArab--IsraeliIsraeliWar War 19731973

Shah ofShah ofIran fallsIran falls

19791979

NicaraguaNicaraguarevolutionrevolution

19791979

PolandPolandcrisiscrisis19811981

NorthNorthKoreaKoreanukesnukes19941994

Zaire/Zaire/CongoCongo

civil warcivil war1997+1997+

OsamaOsamabin Ladenbin Ladennetworknetwork1990s1990s

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the Arabs. This was a classic case of “contingent positioning.” Theremay have even been an element of deterrence at work.

The Nicaraguan Revolution represented a successful advance of aCommunist national liberation movement in the Western hemi-sphere, something that had not happened since the Cuba revolutionin 1959. Coupled with the guerrillas in El Salvador, it looked as if theCentral American dominoes would fall. The United States embarkedon a massive economic and military assistance program for El Salva-dor, supported (with great controversy) the Contras, and rotated U.S.Army troops through a base in Honduras. The Navy’s role was mini-mal---the occasional show of force off Nicaragua in the Atlantic, plussome surveillance in the Gulf of Fonseca on the Pacific side.

The Poland crisis of 1981 represented the first great stirrings of inde-pendence in Eastern Europe and the first case in Eastern Europewhere the Soviets decided not to intervene, marking the end of theBrezhnev Doctrine, and, as it turned out, the progressive collapse ofthe Soviet empire thereafter. The U.S. Navy had essentially no role,though our database shows one operation keyed to it----STANAVFOR-LANT was told to stand by, and was consequently not allowed to gohome for Christmas. It is one of those examples where the U.S. Navygot a glimpse significant world events through the wrong end of thetelescope.

North Korea’s threat to leave the IAEA regime came close to trigger-ing a Western intervention to destroy its putative nuclear weaponsplants. In any case, two carriers were deployed off North Korea in ashow of force, an event roundly condemned by the North Korean rep-resentative negotiating in Geneva.

The Congo civil war represents Africa’s first great regional war.

Bin Laden’s terrorist network raises the specter of the resurgence ofanti-Western terrorism designed to pressure the U.S. to reduced itspresence in the Middle East and to weaken our support for Israel.The U.S. Navy’s role has been minimal with regard to Congo (shipspositioned for two NEOs, but the evacuation not executed by them inthe event). The Navy’s strikes into Sudan and Afghanistan sent astrong signal to Bin Laden and to his Taliban hosts.

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State-on-state wars (not necessarily system-threatening)

When it comes to classic inter-state war (meaning State A attacks StateB), our review of the historical record indicates that such conflictsseem to be heading toward obsolescence. Globalization makes themeven less likely.

Of the seven such conflicts in the 1970s, naval forces engaged in nosignificant responses, outside of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War discussedearlier, even though glimpses of those conflicts were seen in the data-base as contingent positionings.

Naval forces did play a significant role in containing the Iran-Iraq Warof the 1980s, and conducted both a tragic peacekeeping operationand a long, frustrating series of NEO preparations following Israel’s1982 invasion of Lebanon. They did not, however, do anything in rela-tion to the Falklands War of 1982.


Classic* State-on-State Wars

India-PakistanArab-IsraeliCyprus (a case?)Somalia-Ethiopia China-VietnamUSSR-AfghanistanIndonesia-E.Timor

Iran-IraqUK-Argentina Israel-Lebanon

Armenia-Azerbj.Iraq-KuwaitPeru-EcuadorEthiopia-Eritrea

1970s 1990s1980s

* Meaning, not involving civil wars (e.g., Congo, Chad) or the break-up of states (e.g., former Yugoslavia, East Timor)

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In the 1990s, the only state-on-state event that was system-threateningand that involved the U.S. Navy was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Theother three conflicts did not require responses by U.S. forces (U.S.Army personnel participate as truce observers in the Peru-Ecuadorborder clash). U.S. naval ships were sent into position for a potentialNEO from Eritrea.

Having noted that classic state-on-state wars are a diminishing phe-nomenon hasn’t meant that humans inflicting violence on otherhumans is going the way of the dinosaur. Much of the violence thatwe have historically associated with the nation-state level has simplymigrated down to the level of civil strife, while the struggles amongadvanced countries have migrated up to the system level and havetaken the far more benign form of economic competition.

Internal conflicts (below the state level)

Turning now to civil or internal conflicts, there is the oft-stated prop-osition that the end of the Cold War unleashed a plethora of so-calledfailed states, generating a “huge” demand for U.S. and internationalinterventions.

This is a large part of the self-perceived “strain” on U.S forces in theera of globalization, leading some to call for a reduction in U.S. mili-tary interventions worldwide. Our examination of the historicalrecord, however, finds fault with this judgment on two levels:

• First, each decade since World War II has witnessed roughly twodozen or so internal conflicts at a time. During the Cold War,such situations typically generated a response from either Eastor West or both----in part because many of the conflicts involvedCommunist or other guerrillas and each side tried to bolsterselected existing governments. Through the 1980s, we hadlittle occasion for defining states as “failed,” since existing gov-ernments could still be supported. What characterizes mostfailed states today is the collapse of government functions.

• Second, of the 36 states we identified as suffering significantinternal conflict during the 1990s, the U.S. intervened in onlyfour cases, or just over one-tenth. What seems to drive the per-

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ception of “failed state overload” for U.S. naval forces is thatthese four interventions have been counted as so many individ-ual responses, whereas the situations have been continuous.

The U.S. Navy and the Marine Corps played a significant role in andoffshore of Somalia. The Navy embargoed Haiti, but the Coast Guardhad the lion’s share of intercepting boat people. The Navy then trans-ported the Marines and Army helicopter forces to Haiti. The Navyalso played a significant role in the strikes into Bosnia and with regardto Kosovo and related operations in the Adriatic.

Hybrid events

We have singled out three situations since 1979 that we think demon-strate how sometimes conflicts that would have otherwise not regis-tered as system-threatening did so because of the reactions that arosein other countries, particularly Russia and China.


Failing States

Of 36 countries experiencing internal conflicts, civil wars and/or state break-up in the 1990s . . .

…the U.S. intervened in only 4 situations

1. Somalia2. Haiti3. Bosnia4. Kosovo

No significantMilitary response

But those four situations generate 32 naval response

cases (>1/3 of total)

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The first two examples are the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979and China’s threatening of Taiwan in 1996. At first sight, these situa-tions would be categorized as classic state-on-state conflicts whenjudged in and of themselves. However, in each instance, what definesthem as hybrid system events is the reaction of the United States. Inboth situations, the U.S. interpreted the act as signifying (or poten-tially signifying in the Taiwan case) an explicit upgrading of theaggressor nation’s military rivalry with the West and our nation in par-ticular. As such, both situations led the U.S. to reevaluate the long-term nature of each state’s military threat to international security.

In the case of the U.S.-led and NATO-supported response to Serbia’sactions in Kosovo in 1999, the West did it for humanitarian reasons(though one of those humanitarian reasons was to prevent a flood ofrefugees). Some say it was “to preserve NATO,” but we believe thatwas something of a post-decision rationalization. The West did arousefears in Russia and China that it was undertaking a system-changingoperation. Both Russia and China feared the precedent of NATO


HYBRID EVENTS

STATESTATE--ONON--STATESTATECONFLICTSCONFLICTS

SYSTEMSYSTEM--THREATSTHREATS

FAILING STATESFAILING STATES

Sovs invadeAfghanistan

1979

Both belong here, but . . .

Play out up here with US

PRC threatensTaiwan1996

Serbs inKosovo1999

US treats here, but . . .

Russia & China

view up here

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acting “out of area,” as well as the notion that NATO would feel embo-ldened to intervene internally in what they considered internal mat-ters. Moreover, China interpreted the U.S. accidental bombing of itsembassy in Belgrade as a clear signal meant to intimidate. So whatbegan as a U.S. desire to relieve the suffering in a man-made disasterlooked to them as it were a renewal of East-West great power rela-tions—a throwback to the Cold War. (In the event, though, the Rus-sians were key to the diplomatic breakthrough that caused Milosevicto retreat from Kosovo, and the Chinese seemed to find it moreimportant to pursue membership in the World Trade Organization.

In wrapping up our analysis of the significance of naval responsesover the three decades in question, we offer the following “cosmicconclusion”: the role of naval forces in responding to internationalsituations has evolved dramatically since 1970 in consonance withdramatic evolutions in the global system.


Downshifting Naval Responses

70’s Cold War Containment Arc(Vietnam, Carter Doctrine, Match Soviets in Med and IO)

80’s Mideast Concentration(Israel v. Arab terror, Israel v. PLO/Lebanon, Iran v. Iraq)

90’s Scattered Mini-Containments(Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo)

ShiftDownDown

ShiftDownDown

STATESTATE--ONON--STATESTATECONFLICTSCONFLICTS

SYSTEMSYSTEM--THREATSTHREATS

FAILING STATESFAILING STATES

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In the 1970s, naval responses were part and parcel of the overall U.S.pursuit of the global containment strategy. Naval forces were deeplyinvolved in the Vietnam Conflict, and formed the main thrust of ourresponse to fears of growing Soviet influence in Southwest Asia andthe Mediterranean. However, with the fall of the Shah of Iran and theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan, the scope of U.S. naval responses“downshifted” from a global to a focused regional concentration.

In the 1980s, naval responses covered in this project were highly clus-tered in the Mideast, where the bulk of its activities centered aroundthree ongoing conflicts: Israel’s occupation of Lebanon, the Iran-IraqWar, and the terrorism/hostage situations that emerged as a connec-tion across the two (Libya’s support of terrorism). Rather than play-ing a significant role on the system level, naval responses took onmore of a containment role with regard to the state-on-state threatsand conflicts in the Mideast.

The second “downshift” occurred in the 1990s with the twin events ofthe end of the Cold War and Desert Storm. At that point, civil strifein the poorer areas of the world seem to be more prominent. Suchcivil strife was not necessarily more numerous. Rather, the passage ofthe confrontation with the Soviet Union and the decline in state-on-state wars left them more exposed to public and political notice in theWest. There is a temptation to think that this led to more responsesto situations by naval forces, particularly noting the increase inresponse cases. However, this is misleading, for the number of NEOsand responses to natural disasters may have increased in the 1990sover the 1980s, but are otherwise comparable to the rather quietperiod of the 1970s. In any case, NEOs and responses to natural disas-ters are not that frequent, are of short duration, and use ships oflesser combat capabilities.

An exception that appeared in the 1990s may be the Taiwan confron-tation of 1996. Did it signal a new Cold War, a Cold War betweenChina and the United States? The signal is confused by the lack ofsuch a confrontation during the Taiwanese presidential election of2000 and the Chinese-American agreement on the conditions bywhich China would join the World Trade Organization.

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Observations on naval responses to situations

Having covered the database of naval responses from a variety ofangles, we now offer our summary analysis. We begin with some basicobservations about the patterns exhibited in naval responses over thepast three decades.

The following major observations can be made about unfoldingevents in the 1990s:

• The stress on U.S. naval forces comes mostly from continuingoperations in the Arabian Gulf.

• But there were only two major operations in the 1990s, eightyears apart. Both were joint and coalitional:

— Desert Storm in 1991

— Kosovo in 1999.

• Initial combat use of Tomahawk in the 1990s has led to a newstrike concept.

• Libya, Lebanon, and Somalia are now off the scope. Haiti is too,but the boat people may be back.

• Taiwan is back on the American scope—from 1996 on.

Our first observation is that the stress on naval forces as a result ofthese responses comes primarily from the Arabian Gulf. Since 1979this has been a theater of near-constant operations. Because thisregional situation was essentially an add-on to the Cold War patternof operations, it was an additional burden that the Pacific Fleet tookon exclusively until the mid-1980s when the Atlantic Fleet began toshare it. Being the most distant theater from the U.S. and featuringfew liberty ports, the Gulf is not a pleasant place in which to be. How-ever, it is the region where naval forces play a central role in deter-rence, through Southern Watch and in the episodic strikes on Iraq.

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Our second observation is that major operations remain few and farbetween. We count only two since the end of the Vietnam War: DesertStorm and Kosovo. These operations were both Joint and coalitional,meaning the Navy did not go it alone. Indeed, we have found that thenumbers of Navy-only responses have declined somewhat, from 37 inthe 1970s, to 31 in the 1980s, to 29 in the 1990s. But, among allresponses, Navy-only responses have declined from 74 percent in the1970s, to 55 percent in the 1980s, to 34 percent in the 1990s. This isa measure of the concentration of U.S. responses in only a few places.

Third, the initial combat use of the Tomahawk cruise missile in the1990s changed the face of naval strike in a significant way. Seen as arelatively cheap and painless application of discrete power, TLAMsreinvigorated the role of naval strike in a way that suggests that sur-face combatants have become significant players on their own.

Fourth, several of the situations that accounted for a number of navalresponses over this three-decade period are now seemingly off thescope and unlikely to return any time soon. On the other hand, anold stand-by—Taiwan—is back after a very long time.

We make the following additional major observations:

• The U.S. Navy is not breaking OPTEMPO/PERSTEMPO. How-ever:

— Naval ships appear to have missed a lot of port calls (ourresearch did not embrace these details).

— There may have been some rapid transits across the Atlanticand the Pacific Oceans.

— The ships were diverted from scheduled activities, includ-ing exercises, port calls, and engagement with other coun-tries.

• But the key point remains: all these activities except DesertStorm were conducted by regularly deploying ships.

• These “responses to situations” are what the Navy does whendeployed.

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All the responses that have been catalogued in the database for the1990s—with the obvious exception of Desert Storm—have been con-ducted by regularly deploying ships. No cases of broken OPTEMPO/PERSTEMPO have come to our attention.

One interesting case is that of the deployment of Theodore Roosevelt(“TR”)(CVN-71) to participate in the Kosovo operation. It was sup-posed to deploy around April 1999 to relieve USS Enterprise in theArabian Gulf. Instead, it was deployed two weeks earlier thanexpected to participate in the Kosovo operation. Kitty Hawk wasdeployed to the Gulf from Japan instead. TR transited at 32 knots.Enterprise could have conducted the Kosovo operation, but since theNavy did not want to break PERSTEMPO, it continued on its wayhome.

We note that carrier deployments have been kept rigorously to sixmonths since the mid-1980s.

It would take a thorough follow-on study to document what deployingships do with all their days on deployment, and what proportion ofthose would be spent in transit to, and involved in, the operationsdocumented in the present study.

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Extrapolation into the 2000-2010 decade

Moving from the historical record into the future, we now ask our-selves what can reasonably be stated about the next decade and itslikely demand for U.S. naval responses to situations that may arise.

First, we did a simple extrapolation of the 1990s into the next(present) decade----2000-2010. We looked for continuities and evolu-tions. For instance, we had to project that Southern Watch in the Gulfwould continue until further notice. From the patterns of the 1990s,we projected what kinds of operations and thus what kind of navalships might be involved.

Next, and in no great depth, we added some wild cards for thecoming decade. In this short exercise, we found we were verging intoclassic scenario building, rather than prediction. In a way, that iscloser to the heart of force planning than simply anticipatingresponses to the situations as extrapolated from the history of the pastyears.

Foreign policy issues for national security in the next decade

On the next page we display what we think will be the big foreignpolicy issues for national security in the coming decade.The chartshows the most salient mysteries of the coming decade. Possibly thebiggest security issue is whether the U.S. economy will continue togrow. So long as it keeps growing, there is plenty of slack in the globalsecurity environment. But throw a monkey wrench into the U.S. econ-omy, and Western financial flows into Asia or Latin America coulddrop precipitously, giving rise to real political stress of the sort wehave seen in Indonesia since the Asian financial and economic crisisthat began in August 1997.

But even with a well-functioning global economy, there is plenty ofuncertainty surrounding democracy in Russia and the progress of the

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free market in China. Toss in serious questions about the evolution ofEurope as “Euroland” seeks the next level of economic integration,and there is plenty of mystery in the North’s advanced economiesalone to keep both prognosticators and policy-makers busy for thenext decade---with the national security people trailing behind.

The rogues---what is left of them---and their possible missiles andWeapons of Mass Destruction would still be with us. They are thelosers of the world, but Iraq or North Korea could attack at any time.Iran may be moderating. The opening to North Korea has not yetresulted in any stand-down of its military posture.

Turning to the South’s less advanced economies, we still see plenty ofconflicts where both sides are fighting over little pieces of land andwhose flag flies over them: India-Pakistan, Israel and the Palestinians,the Balkans and the Caucasus, Central Asia and Central Africa. UsingThomas Friedman’s terminology, the “Lexus world” continues toexpand, but there are plenty of “olive trees” to fight over. The ques-


Middle East peace:progress?

World Mysteries Over the Coming Decade(for national security)

Africa

United States:

Ahead of allor

bubble bursts?

Colombia

Mexico

DrugsSouth Asia:

MAD or not?

Whither Russia?

China-Taiwan

So what?

When does Iraqattack next?

DoesIran

moderate?

FRY

Does Indonesiafall apart?

Caucasus/CentralAsia

Terrorists?

WhitherChina?

ICBM?

ICBM

?How doesNorth Koreakeep going?

Europe:NATO expands?New European

bloc?

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tion remains whether these remain local or become system-threaten-ing.

In the category of possibly failing states, two outside Africa loomlarge: Indonesia and Colombia. Finally, there are the usual fearsabout narcotics, terrorists, and proliferation. And yet, the globaleconomy is performing better right now than at any point in over adozen years.

As for that “uncertainty” that is loudly proclaimed as plaguing ournational security planning, we think it is vastly overrated. Looking theglobe over, we do not think it is that hard to finger the likely militaryresponses the U.S. will pursue in the decade currently unfolding.

The numbers of each type, as may be noted in the slide’s upper leftcorner, are roughly the same as those encountered in the 1990s.


WORLD CONFLICTS, 2000-2010(extrapolation)

Angola

Turkey-Kurds

Northern Ireland

Afghanistan

Sudan

Sri Lanka

Burma

Haiti

Columbia

Kashmir PRC-Taiwan

East Timor

Chechnya

Sierra Leone

Algeria

Burundi and RwandaCongo

Mexico (Chiapas)




Lebanon-Israel

Somalia

Ferghana Valley

Georgia



Internal conflict (21)Former Yugoslavia

Ecuador

Bolivia

Indonesia

India-Pakistan?

Iraq

��

Korea

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System-threats feature one well-known player (Saddam’s Iraq) andone rising concern (the regional war swirling around the carrionstate of Congo).

Potential state-on-state conflicts are few and well known, and whileinternal conflicts are, by definition, a cats-and-dogs category invari-ably full of surprises, we can easily hypothesize that none are likely inany advanced country essential to the functioning of the global econ-omy.

Where the U.S. is likely to intervene is along the “seam” betweenNorth and South that runs from Central America through the Medi-terranean littoral and then on through Southwest Asia and the littoralof South and Southeast Asia. If something pops up too far south ofthat seam, then the United Nations or some regional grouping islikely to take the lead role in any intervention.

The bottom line is this: some parts of the world matter more to thefunctioning of the global economy than others. When instabilitycomes to the former, expect a U.S. response, but when it descends onthe latter, look for others to pick up the slack or let it burn.

Possible demands on U.S. naval forces in the next decade

We venture the following major observations:

• U.S. naval forces presence in the Gulf is now a permanent strat-tegic reality. Whether it will entail continuous (1.0) presence ofa carrier depends on:

— The continuation of Northern Watch and Southern Watch.

— The internal political evolution of Iran.

• Peacekeepers are likely to continue to be stationed in Bosniaand Kosovo.

— But there would not be much of a role for naval forces, espe-cially now that Milosevic has fallen.

— An operation in response to a Montenegro contingencycould have been a big one, but is now off the scope.

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• North Korea and Taiwan will still concern us:

— North Korea hasn’t relaxed its military posture or stoppedits missile programs yet.

— The 1996 show-of-force off Taiwan was not necessary in2000. Will it be for Taiwan’s election in 2004?

• Will Indonesia disintegrate further? Would there be any inter-national interventions in the various regions?

• The situation in Colombia will be awful, but is not a naval blue-water problem.

• Haiti boat people will be back.

• NEOs are likely to continue, especially in Africa, but U.S. peace-keeping interventions there are unlikely.

Saddam Hussein attacked Iran out of the blue in 1980, attackedKuwait out of the blue in 1990, and was due to do something in 2000,though he did not. There are some fears that the current troublesbetween the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the diversion caused bythem, may lead him to take some action. U.S. naval forces would havea big role in stopping any military initiative by Saddam.

Iran, however, is evolving politically. The Iranians have internal trou-bles to take care of. They are more afraid of U.S. power to close theStrait of Hormuz than we should be of their closing off their own life-line. At the same time, they seem to be busy building long-range mis-siles.

The fall of Milosevic does not mean that U.S. ground forces can beremoved any time soon from Bosnia and Kosovo. It may even be theopposite, since the Kosovars will now lust for independence evenmore and the NATO countries do not support that. But it does meanthe end of the Montenegro contingency. In an event, the need forU.S. naval forces in this area would be far less than it was in the 1990s.

The U.S. must remain vigilant about a North Korean attack until theNorth Koreans truly stand down their massive military forces. TheU.S. Navy is part of this vigilance. But shows of force off Taiwan, nec-essary in 1996, unnecessary in 2000, remain only a periodic possibil-ity.

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An East Timor type of operation could be repeated elsewhere inIndonesia. U.S. Navy support ships might be called upon to assistlogistically.

There are strong political restraints in the United States against fur-ther interventions of the Haiti, Bosnia, or Kosovo type. Any suchintervention would be fully debated before it takes place (and thesedebates would provide ample warning time for military planning).

None of these projections speaks to a U.S. break from the world atlarge.

• The U.S. will remain the world’s sole superpower with a globalpresence. It will interact with allies and friends worldwide. Andthere will be plenty of small and not-so-small surprises that theU.S. will handle in stride, much as it handled them in the 1990s.

• The global economy, having survived the Mexican crisis of1994, the Asian crisis that began in 1997, the Russian crisis thatbegan in 1998, and a possible crisis in Brazil, while proceedingwith the World Trade Organization (WTO) is functioning well.


EXTRAPOLATION THROUGH THE NEXT DECADE(for U.S. naval forces’ responses to situations)

1. Until Saddam leaves the scene, U.S. Navy will be stuck in the Gulf-- Will Northern Watch and Southern Watch go on forever?-- Iran is evolving

2. Peacekeepers likely to continue in Bosnia and Kosovo-- Little naval role-- Montenegro contingency could be a big one

3. North Korea and Taiwan will still concern us-- North Korea hasn’t done anything for us yet-- 1996 show-of-force off Taiwan not necessary in 2000. 2004?

4. Indonesia disintegrates? Any international interventions?

5. Colombia will be awful, but not a naval problem

6. Haiti boat people will be back

7. NEOs likely to continue, especially in Africa, but no U.S.peacekeeping interventions

None of these projections precludes:

- Continuation of presence

- Interactions with allies

- Other engagement

- Surprises

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When global wealth and trade is expanding, the means havebeen found for bail-outs, however slowly the richer nationsmove to counter some new mess among the poorer states.Moreover, conflicts in the poorer states do not threaten theglobal economy, except as they launch refugees looking forjobs.

• In the end, the great tension of the next decade is likely to befelt, not across borders, but rather across class lines withineconomies as globalization continues its inexorable spread anddeepening. Davos Man and Seattle Man will clash in numerouslocales all over this planet in the coming decade, but by andlarge these conflicts will be more symbolic than substantive,more negotiable than zero-sum.

The United States is as strong as it has ever been in both the globaleconomic and security systems, and that counts for a lot. U.S. navalforces contribute to this strength, but not exclusively, and perhapsonly marginally, through their responses to situations of typesdescribed in this report. Except for the large Joint and coalitionaloperations, U.S. naval forces tidy up on the margin, minding the gapbetween North and South.

Extrapolating the need for specific naval capabilities

We can summarize the need for specific naval capabilities as follows:

• Another full Joint and combined air campaign (e.g., Kosovo) ishard to envisage (Montenegro might have been a case, but, asnoted, is now off the scope).

• Naval air capabilities will continue to be required in SouthernWatch until told to stop and may also be called upon for shows-of-force off Taiwan or Korea.

• Administrations will use Tomahawks at times and places of theirchoosing for demonstrative strikes.

• Naval transport and helos are likely to be used to transportpeacekeepers, or to do NEOs, or for disaster relief.

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• It is hard to envisage Marine MEUs used for other than NEOs;ARGs may be more useful for their helos.

Confidence in extrapolating military capabilities is far easier to comeby than that connected with predicting future global conflict, in largepart because the evolutionary nature of the former is relatively easy totrack.

Despite the fears expressed by many (outside the Air Force) that theKosovo precedent of a full-up air campaign will rule most future deci-sion-making on how to intervene in internal conflicts, we are unlikelyto face such a situation in the coming decade outside of a dramaticturn in the current mini-containments of North Korea and Iraq.

Naval air capabilities will remain busy so long as Iraq remains intran-sigent, but situations where similar shows of force will reach that mag-nitude are dwindling in number.

Tomahawks are likely to remain any administration’s favored meansof sending a political signal and as a military tool of punishment. Thiscan and will happen just about anywhere in the world outside of theadvanced economies. Retaliation for terrorist attacks might be a likelyuse.

NEOs and disaster relief operations are likely to use ARGs throughthis next decade, and that means plenty of operations for naval trans-port and helicopters. The Marines are unlikely to be stressed in thecoming years. The MEU/SOC niche remains the NEO and some nat-ural disasters. That demand load----something like one a year---- is veryunlikely to suffer any great leap upwards. The large Marine contin-gents on these ships are less likely to be used. Their helos and smallercontingents may be used.

We don’t see big changes by a new administration in U.S. tendenciesto intervene. The U.S. decision-making and consultation process is aprolonged one (which makes it too late to stop a rapidly evolving sit-uation like the one in Rwanda). The pressure of situations and soli-darity with all ies may result in some interventions as yetunanticipated. The main fact is that the U.S. tendency to intervenehas decreased dramatically across the 1990s.

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Wild cards during the coming decade

A new administration could have a sudden change of heart andbecome serious about humanitarian interventions, of which there arealways plenty to choose from.

Although North Korea’s internal weaknesses appear to have led theirleader, Kim Jong Il, to make an opening to the outside world, Kim hasnot changed his military posture as yet. The theoretical possibility ofhis attacking the South, either because he has long planned to, or hemight feel he has lulled the South and the United States, or in somekind of desperation of his economic situation.

Then there’s the oft-stated proposition that something explosivecould occur over Taiwan. The patterns we have analyzed, if they con-tinue, would require only a show of force. But some analysts readrecent Chinese statements as suggesting that time is no longer ontheir side. Jiang Zemin, due to retire before the end of the decade,


Improbable Wild Cards in Next Decade

Montenegro?

U.S. into Sierra Leone?

U.S. into Congo? U.S. into Moluccas? Aceh?

N. Korea’sN. Korea’sbig deception?big deception?

They attackThey attackS. Korea ...S. Korea ...

Big sea battleBig sea battlewith PRCwith PRC

over Taiwan ...over Taiwan ...

Chaos spreadsChaos spreadsin Central Asia,in Central Asia,out of Ferghanaout of Ferghana

Valley ...Valley ...New Administrationgets serious

about humanitarianinterventions ... A newA new

ArabArab--IsraeliIsraeliwarwar

U.S. forcesU.S. forcessucked intosucked intothe war inthe war inColombiaColombia

(and neighboring(and neighboringcountries)countries)

111

may see his legacy as requiring at least the start of unification or hemay be convinced that Taiwan is moving toward a formal declarationof independence. No Chinese leader can afford the charge of “losingTaiwan.” Yet China has not begun to build the capability to go to waragainst Taiwan except for ballistic missiles and, perhaps, enough sub-marines for some form of blockade.

There’s also the long-held belief that even if the “Great Game”doesn’t materialize in Central Asia, we are looking at the distinct pos-sibility there of a failed state/civil strife explosion because of the poortransitions to either democracy or free markets. The chances of U.S.forces intervening in Central Asia are remote.

The current troubles between Israelis and Palestinians may be accom-panied by Hezbollah raids from South Lebanon. If Israel retaliates,there could be another situation in Lebanon similar to that in 1982or even another 1973 Arab-Israeli war. The role of U.S. forces, includ-ing naval forces, is uncertain for this.

The role of U.S. naval forces in the wild cards

Any of the wild cards just mentioned would move us from the uni-verse of “responses to situations” to serious conflict scenarios of theDefense Planning Guidance sort. None of the history in this briefingmakes a strong case for any of these wild cards, but then again, no realcontingencies are ever easily extrapolated from recent history—that’swhat makes them surprises on some level.

Having said all that, let’s examine what such scenarios would meanfor U.S. naval forces.

• Major contingencies would be:

— Another war with Iraq.

— Another Korean War.

— A huge U.S. resupply effort in the event of a new MiddleEast war—but no intervention by U.S. forces.

112

• The Navy and Marines would play major roles in any war withIraq or North Korea.

• Any battle in the Taiwan Straits would involve CVBGs & SSNs. Amajor sea conflict over Taiwan would be a messy affair, althoughmostly for the Chinese, given the likely state to the Peoples’ Lib-eration Army (Navy) (PLAN) during the decade. The U.S. navywould have little to do with defending against ballistic missileattack since its theater-wide capabilities won’t be availablebefore the end of the decade, but could need to employ attacksubmarines and surface ships to defeat a submarine blockade.

• If the new Administration decides to intervene more in internalconflicts (highly unlikely), If the temptation to intervene infailed states were to prove too much for the next administra-tion, we would see heightened use of Navy transport and heli-copters. As for the Marines, this country tends to use Army forlonger actions inside countries.

• As for a NEO into the middle of a nuclear war between Indiaand Pakistan, it is not credible, and in any case cannot be aforce driver.

113

Force structure implications

The sponsor of this project asked us to explore whether implicationsfor U.S. Navy force structure could be derived from this study ofresponses to situations. In the following pages we examine the possi-bilities.

We looked for arguments that would affect force structure through-out our exhaustive analysis of naval response patterns. But in the end,we did not find any compelling linkages that prove to us that the his-torical patterns as portrayed in this study should drive force structureplanning.

Our specific conclusions are as follows:

• It is not apparent to us that responses drive force structure.

• We did not see the Navy stretched in this study:

— The major operations (Desert Storm, Noble Anvil) wereeight years apart

— The major operations were Joint and coalitional in mostcases.

— Different kinds of ships, usually in small numbers, weredeployed to scattered situations.

• The U.S. has managed simultaneous events:

— In the 1980s, U.S. naval forces were involved on a near-con-stant base off Lebanon and in escort operations in the Gulf.

— In the early 1990s, four operations overlapped: the continu-ing operations against Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, and emergingoperations in the Adriatic. It should be noted that Haitiwasn’t a strain and that Somalia didn’t need a carrier.

• All other operations were scattered, small, and short.

115

We did not see enough evidence to prove the charge that naval forcesare significantly stretched by response loads—even in the 1990s. Themajor operations were several years apart (Desert Storm, Kosovo),and they were both Joint and coalitional.

All operations except Desert Storm were conducted by alreadydeployed U.S. naval forces, and, especially in the 1990s, with not toomany ships involved in each response.

When periods of simultaneity have occurred, U.S. naval forces han-dled the events in question with plenty of dexterity. Some examples:

• The carrier Nimitz left the Gulf in March 1996 to go to Taiwan,but there was no bold move from Saddam in response.

• The carrier Theodore Roosevelt stopped in the Ionian Sea,Kitty Hawk back-filled in the Gulf, and Constellation stayed onthe West Coast, and yet North Korea did nothing to take advan-tage—but then it hasn’t attacked in half a century, despite anumber of significant opportunities when the U.S. was dis-tracted elsewhere, e.g., in Vietnam and in Desert Storm.

In sum, the Navy handled the load quite well over time, dealing withthe sequential, drawn-out situations (e.g., Lebanon, Iraq), workingthrough the finite operations in the failed states (Haiti, Somalia) anddealing with the rest of the scattered responses as they popped up.

It is not apparent to us that opportunities were “lost” in the last 30years for want of the availability of U.S. naval forces.

Factors driving force structure

The basic problem in trying to derive force structure from responsepatterns is that, realistically, four other considerations top the list.

• First and foremost, the DOD top line, and within that, the topline for the Navy, is determined outside defense. The U.S. out-lasted the Soviet Union because it attended to its economy,including restraining the federal budget. Some say the budgetshould be “strategy driven.” This is not the place to go into thisissue. Suffice to say, the previous pages detailing U.S. navalresponses to situations reveal (a) no grand strategy driving the

116

responses and (b) tenuous connections of these responses tosuccessive administrations’ foreign policies. The exception, ofcourse, has been the Arabian Gulf.

• All the responses in this study have been conducted by availableforces. We have not assessed the success of each operation perse, but it does not appear that the naval forces applied wereinadequate to the task. An exception might be the special caseof Desert One and the general case of Desert Storm. The latterset off many improvements, to the point where U.S. naval per-formance was greatly improved in Allied Force/Noble Anvil.This also says that the historic trading off of platforms forimproved capabilities would not be necessary given the recordof responses. The exception, again, would be for the two majoroperations, Desert Storm in 1991 and Noble Anvil in 1999,where neither the Navy nor the Air Force has yet solved theproblem of finding and destroying mobile targets.


Problem of Force Structure

Force structure, realistically, is derived

from many considerations:

Trading off platformsTrading off platformsfor capabilitiesfor capabilities

LegacyLegacyforcesforces

DODDODtoptoplineline

WorldWorld--widewide

deploydeploy--mentsments

117

• Finally, there are the eternal requirements of presence anddeterrence, both of which are just vague and malleable enoughto be ranked under the top three factors, but still make the topfour. Naval response patterns largely fall out of presence anddeterrence. That is, the United States is able to respond to situ-ations because we deploy our ships globally on a constant basis.As such, responses are a dependent variable and not a force-driver.

The stretches of U.S. forces

In their operations, U.S. naval forces are currently stretched in threedirections, reflecting the post-Cold War strategic consensus that theU.S. should try to be all defenses to all scenarios.

First, there was the decision to use the two major theater war standardto drive high readiness, as realized ultimately through high-level jointexercises. It appears sometimes that “perfect readiness is neverhaving to use your forces,” to coin a phrase. The real question iswhether the old proverb of “train as you fight” holds true in the new


US Forces Stretched in Operations

3-way stretch

SituationalSituationalResponseResponse

Prepare forPrepare for2 MTWs2 MTWs

ForwardForwardPresencePresence

118

era. There’s a growing sense among strategic planners that the rise ofthe lesser-included cases in the 1990s casts doubt on the utility of, onthe one hand, training for wars of great infrequency while, on theother hand, wearing out our personnel (and reserves) on operationsfor which no systematic training and planning take place. The combi-nation of Congress, the Unified Commanders, and the services topress for perfect readiness is strong, but this may also reflect theirreluctance to see the forces tied down in the lesser-included cases.

Second, there are the opportunities—wrongly translated as“demands” or “requirements”—associated with forward engagementand our military peacetime interactions with other militaries. In amostly peaceful post-Cold War world, where almost all countries areU.S. allies and friends, where only the losers of the world are hostileto us, it is useful to use U.S. forces (not just the Navy) to maintain rela-tions. The Unified Commanders are particularly seized by the oppor-tunities.

Finally, then, there are those national missions that regularly pop uparound the planet, or basically the responses we’ve analyzed in thisreport. We almost sense that these are perceived by some as intrusionsby U.S. higher authorities into the more important domains of readi-ness and engagement.

What makes the three-way operational stretch so important is theimpact it tends to have on force structure planning. In effect, itencourages us (or even forces us?) to buy three different navies simul-taneously (this may be the most “stressing simultaneity”).

Defense programs are also stretched three ways. As noted in the dis-cussion above of operational stretches, operating and exercising asmuch as possible generates wear and tear on existing equipment. Inturn, that generates requirements for maintenance funding thatmight otherwise be spent on procurement. It also leads to clinging toforce structure, so as to cover as much of the world as possible.

119

The 2-MTW standard places a real pressure on keeping force struc-ture, in terms of units, platforms, and weapons. This, of course, wasthe impulse behind the concept in the first place. In addition to keep-ing traditional units of force structure, there are all the networkingcosts associated with making it all come together in an informationage. As far as its effects on responses to situations go, the U.S. Navyhas kept 12 carriers and 12 ARGs, and has always had enoughresources for the responses examined in this study.

The stretch between (a) operating and exercising as much as possibleand (b) keeping force structure has meant, during the 1990s, asqueeze on procurement and thus recapitalization. If, on the histori-cal record explored here, the Navy per formed adequately—responded with its deployed ships and carried out its operations effec-tively—then for the extrapolated next period, more of the samewould seem to be adequate.

The solution fostered by the Clinton Administration has not been asurprising one: it tried to cover all the bases implied by the three-wayoperational and programmatic stretches. And given the lack of a con-sensus on strategic priorities for defense that has plagued (only) thepolitical-military expert community since the fall of the Berlin Wall,


Defense Programs Likewise Stretched

3-way stretch

SituationalSituationalResponseResponse

Prepare forPrepare for2 MTWs2 MTWs

ForwardForwardPresencePresence

Keep Keep Force structureForce structure

RecapitalizeRecapitalize

Operate & Operate & exercise as much asexercise as much as

possiblepossible

120

this version of the so-called hedging strategy makes no more and noless sense than any other offered up.

So the U.S. seeks to employ naval forces in a truly multi-purpose fash-ion, consistent with the following:

• The U.S. shapes the global security environment by its engage-ment of that world in all of its regional complexities. The majorproblem has been that all situations are particular. They are notconnected by any theme (except, perhaps, for the four rogues).

• The U.S. responds to situations of importance to internationaland regional stability as they arise, providing the world with atleast the confidence that we will respond when we see fit.

• The U.S. prepares for high-end conflict and, by doing so, gen-erates a deterrent effect against any would-be near-peer com-petitors. That is, it discourages him from competing.

The strategy that is all strategies is the combination of the two previ-ous charts, on stretches in operations and stretches in programs. Thatis the “shape, respond, prepare” strategy.


Combining Ops & Program StretchesYields the Current Strategy

3-way stretch

Keep #’sKeep #’sas much asas much as

possiblepossible

RecapitalizeRecapitalizeas much asas much as

possiblepossibleOperate & exOperate & exas much asas much as

possiblepossible

RespondRespond

PreparePrepareShapeShape

121

Do U.S. naval forces cover all these strategies? Definitely. Can weafford all these service capabilities in their current definitions? Prob-ably not, and therein lies the rub. Our definitions for each of thesethree stretches have remained constant over the 1990s, meaning that“hedging” has devolved to the point of never having to say no to ourambitions, even as we are often forced to say no to the outside world.

122

Conclusions

In our examination of the historical record of U.S. naval responses tosituations over the past three decades, we saw a bifurcated universe ofnaval responses, i.e.:

• Large, Joint, coalitional operations that were few and farbetween

• A larger number of scattered and unconnected instabilities towhich U.S. naval forces responded to perform special tasks.

CNAC analyzed ships involved. The guiding principles for our count-ing of responses were ships diverted from regular schedules duringtheir deployments, by order of higher authorities.

Our basic conclusion is the big operations were few and far between,and were Joint and coalitional.

Force structure has been sufficient to cover all the responses, even asnumbers declined in 1990s.

We also saw a specialization in naval force assets:

• Carriers are the work horses of the lengthy, sequential series ofoperations associated with what we call “mini-containment clus-ters,” especially in the Arabian Gulf during the 1980s and intothe 1990s, but earlier in the 1980s for Libya and Lebanon (andin a way even earlier for the 1973 Arab-Israeli war), and then inthe 1990s for the disintegrating Yugoslavia.

• ARGs, or at least their component ships and helos, are the workhorses that cover much of the rest.

• Surface combatants have taken on a special strike role, eithercomplementing air strikes or in separate strikes. (SSNs are alsoallowed to participate in some operations.)

123

Combining those basic observations, we arrive at the conclusion thatforce structure has been sufficient to deal with the response load evenas that load has seemed to increase during recent years—and even asship numbers have declined. In effect, the U.S. calls on U.S. navalforces for responses because the Navy is operating out there anyway.

Our summary conclusions are as follows:

• The Arabian Gulf’s rise as naval response center of gravity is themost compelling trend of the last three decades. That regionhas eclipsed both the European and Pacific theaters----and didso long before the Cold War’s end----for the responses we havestudied in this project.

• Our look at the past 30 years led us to conclude that navalforces essentially mind the gap between the advanced econo-mies in the North and the conflicts that plague many of theunderdeveloped economies of the South.

• With no great threats to the world system, and state-on-stateconflicts on the wane, naval forces will focus on routinizedmini-containments of failing/rogue states that lie along theseam, or gap, separating North and South. The bulk of navalresponses will be clustered in these containment operations.

• No overall national strategy underpinned the naval responses,or to U.S. military responses in general, as we saw them unfoldin the 1990s. Administrations respond to what arises and navalforces go with what they have deployed. Connections to majorforeign policy goals are tenuous at best, hence no great“response strategy” emerges to inform naval force structureplanning.

• We found no significant evidence that naval response patternsprovide significant contributions to force structure planning.They do argue instead for the continued patterns of regulardeployments of naval ships that are available.

124

What this study did not cover

We have noted several times in this report that we did not cover theother activities of the Navy during its regular deployments. We alsodid not feel our data was accurate or complete enough to count theship-days involved in these responses.

We did not examine the policy goals behind the orders issues byhigher authorities to carry out these responses, aside from the grossnational security/foreign policy priorities of each administration.Especially intriguing is that the situations are scattered across timeand are usually unconnected to any other situation. Nor do situationsarise simply because the U.S. is diverted on another situation. Thepatterns of responses covered in this study and its period give no cre-dence to the notion of the simultaneity assumed by the 2-MTW strat-egy. The opposite may be true: if nothing else is going on in the world,administrations might be tempted to respond to situations they mightnot otherwise respond to. But we did examined this.


What this study did not cover

Study:U.S. Naval Forces

ResponsesTo

Situations1970-1999

Did not examinepolicy goals anddecisions behindresponses

Did not estimatedeterrence andshaping effectsresponses mayhave had

Did not lookother Servicesresponses

Only part of what Navy does duringdeployments

Didn’t look at counter-narcoticsoperations

Looked only at ships in gross sense;did not studyLD/HD stresses

125

Counter-drug operations are treated as routine, scheduled opera-tions. They were not part of our database.

The stresses on low-density/high-demand (LD/HD) assets, like EA-6B, would take a more in-depth study. We were concerned with themovement of ships and did not delve into the details of operations inthis project.

Finally, we did not take account of what other services were orderedto do by higher authorities during the period of this study.

Follow-on studies might include:

• A comprehensive study of ship-days spent on deployments intransits, port calls, engagements, exercises, responses, etc., per-haps for the more limited period of the 1990s.

• A comparable study of days spent by submarines on theirdeployments if appropriate data can be made available andclassification does not limit the analysis.

• A study of the employment and stresses on LD/HD assets.

• Further assessments of the wider impact of these responses—for deterrence and stabilization, for instance.

• A comprehensive database of all U.S. military responses to situ-ations around the world and a further assessment of the placeof U.S. naval responses in the whole, again perhaps for themore limited period of the 1990s.

126

127

Annex A: Charts on Navy-only responses


1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

Uganda

Uganda

Tunisia

Tunisia

Syria

Arab-Israeli

Morocco

Libya

Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon

Jordan

IndOcean

Cyprus

Cyprus

Jordan hostages

Syria/Jordan conflict

Lebanon NEO alert

Middle East war

Oil Embargo -IO ops

Flood relief

Flood relief

Cyprus coupCyprus unrest

Polisario rebels

Entebbe

Threats against Tunisia

Travel restrictionson Americans

Lebanon civil war

Lebanon NEOs


Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional


1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

Yemen

Yemen

Somalia

PersGulf

Iran

Iran

Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Afghanistan

Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean 1970-79: Operations

Hormuz Patrol

Ethiopia Instability

Ogaden War

Patrol Bab el Mandeb

Afghan Unrest

Iran Revolution

Iran Hostages/Afghan

Yemen War

Ethiopia Civil War

?

Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional


1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980




N. KoreaMauritius

GuamChina


Bangladesh


Typhoon relief

Indo-Pak War

Eagle Pull AlertEagle Pull

Frequent Wind

Cyclone reliefKorean Tree incident

Typhoon relief

Typhoon reliefFlood relief

Typhoon relief

Sea of Okhotsk

Vietnam invasion by China

Park assassination

Vietnam Yacht Release

Mayaguez

?

Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional


1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

Venezuela

Trinidad

Peru

Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Haiti

Guatemala

Cuba

Cuba

Civil unrest

Earthquake relief

Haiti succession

Bahama Lines

Earthquake relief

Drought relief

Nicaragua civil strife

Nicaragua revolution

Soviet troops in Cuba


?

?

?

Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional

128

129


1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

SyriaPoland



ItalyFRY

CyprusAlgeria

Earthquake relief

SolidarityShow of force

Show of force

Israel/Syria tension

Gulf of Sidra FON

Sadat assassination

Israeli invasionPK force

Refugee camp massacre

Sudan threats

Chad aggression

Syria attackBeirut Embassy

Embassy NEO

TWA 847 Hijack

Achille Lauro

EgyptAir Hijack

Attain Document

Pakistan Air hijack

Lebanon hostages

Lebanon hostages Lebanon

civil war

Higgins killedYugoslav unrest

El Dorado Canyon


Marine barracks bombing

Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional


1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Yemen

PersGulf

Red Sea

Iraq

Iraq

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Iran

Desert One

Iran-Iraq War

Iran-Iraq War

Gulf Ship Escorts

Gulf Ship Escorts

Red Sea Mines

Saudi Hijacking

Gulf Ship Escorts

Gulf Ship Escorts

Yemen Civil War

Earnest Will

Praying Mantis


Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Soviet Union

S. Korea

Philippines

N. Korea

N. Korea

Maldives

Burma


Martial law

Korea-Burma

Coup attempt

Burma unrest

KAL 007

Summer Olympics

Maldives coup

Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Honduras invasion threat

Urgent Fury

CVBG presence

Seaward Explorer rescue

Panama elections

Surveillance ops

Haiti internal unrest

Hurricane reliefPuerto Rico

Panama

Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Haiti

Grenada

Cuba

El Salvador Jittery Prop

Mariel Boatlift


?

Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional

130

Center for Strategic Studies1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

ZaireTurkeyTunisia



ItalyIraqIraq


AlbaniaAlbania

Storm relief

Sharp Edge

Distant Runner

Support Hope

Guardian Retrieval

Noble Obelisk

Autumn Shelter

Avid Response

Quick Response

Silver Wake Silver

Knight

Noble Anvil

Shining Hope

Hot Rock

Assured Response

Noble Safeguard

Provide Comfort I

Deny FlightDecisive Edge

Joint Endeavor

Joint Guard

Joint Forge

Provide Promise

Maritime Guard

Decisive Enhancement

Sharp Guard

Sharp Vigilance/MaritimeMonitor

Quick Lift

Determined Falcon

Greece/Turkey tension

Deliberate Force

Shadow Express


Joint Guardian

Balkan Calm II

Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000


QatarKenya


EritreaEritrea

Eastern Exit

Pressure on Kuwait

Impressive Lift

USLO Withdrawal

United ShieldSilent Assurance

Safe Departure

Resolute Response

Desert Viper

Desert Fox

Desert Shield

Provide Relief

Restore Hope

Desert Thunder

Infinite Reach

Continue Hope

Eritrea NEO

Iraq MIO

Nuclear Facility Strike

TLAM Strikes

Vigilant Warrior

Desert Storm

Vigilant Sentinel

Desert Strike

Southern Watch


Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional

131

132


1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

USA

Samoa

Philippines

Philippines

N. Korea

N. Korea

Micronesia

Indonesia

Indonesia

Guam

China

Cambodia

Bangladesh

Typhoon relief

Hawaii Typhoon relief

Korea tensions

Balm Restore

Fiery Vigil

Bevel Edge

Bevel Incline

Sea Angel

Water Pitcher

Typhoon relief

Taiwan Flexible Deterrent East Timor Stablise*

Reactor negotiations


* East Timor* East Timordidn’t fit the fivedidn’t fit the fivecategories we havecategories we haveused. It involve heloused. It involve heloand communications and communications supportsupport

Navy Only

Joint

Coalitional


1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Hurricane relief

Sea Signal

Able Vigil

Sentinel Lifeguard

Passive Oversight

Support Democracy

Maintain Democracy

Fundamental Relief

Uphold Democracy

Safe Harbor

Puerto Rico

Haiti

Haiti

Haiti

Haiti

Haiti

Haiti

Cuba

Cuba

Cuba

Cuba

Antigua

Cuba

Cuba

Operation MonitorSafe Passage

Able Manner

Victor Squared

W. Hemisphere 1990-99: OperationsNavy Only

Joint

Coalitional

Annex B: Spreadsheet on cases

Attached is the spreadsheet we extracted from the overall database(which is in Access). This spreadsheet includes all the cases we ana-lyzed.

133

Acronyms

AWACS—Airborne Warning and Control System

ARG; ARG/MEU—Amphibious Ready Group/Marine ExpeditionaryUnit

CFE—Conventional Forces Europe (treaty)

CNAC—The CNA Corporation

CVBG—Carrier Battle Group

DMZ—Demilitarized Zone (in Korea)

DOD—Department of Defense

DPG—Defense Planning Guidance

DPQ—Defense Planning Questionnaire (for NATO planning)

FON—Freedom of Navigation (operation)

IAEA—International Atomic Energy Agency (in Vienna)

IFOR, SFOR, KFOR—Intervention Force, Stabilization Force (in Bos-nia), Kosovo Force

INF—Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces

IWAR—Integrated Warfare Assessment

LD/HD—Low Density/High Demand forces or platforms

LRTNF—Long Range Theater Nuclear Forces

MBFR—Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (in Europe

135

MIO—Multinational Interception Operation (to enforce anembargo)

MTW—Major Theater War

MX—Peacekeeper missile

N812C—Deterrence Section of Navy’s Assessment Division

NEO—Noncombatant Evacuation Operation

NGO—Nongovernmental organization

OPEC—Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

OPTEMPO—Operations Tempo

PERSTEMPO—Personnel Tempo

PG/IO—Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean

PLO—Palestinian Liberation Organization

RDJTF—Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force

SDI—Strategic Defense Initiative

SSN—Nuclear-powered attack submarine

STANAVFORLANT—Standing Naval Force Atlantic (NATO)

TLAM—Tomahawk Land-Attack Missile

TNF—Theater Nuclear Forces

136

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