A TIME magazine article on the United States Navy's (USN) LPD-17 raised a number of important issues, most of them having to do with technical problems associated with the first of class USS San Antonio. As an admirer of amphibious vessels, and the San Antonio class in particular, I appreciated Mark Thompson's efforts to point out some of the challenges the American naval shipbuilding industry has confronted in recent times. However, the article's concluding paragraph left me uneasy:
The purpose of the USN's amphibious vessels aren't simply to land marines ashore nor are amphibious operations necessarily of war-fighting nature. When viewing today's USN, as well as a number of other developed navies, one must distinguish between the concepts of "naval force" and "maritime force." The USN, along with numerous navies of developed countries, belongs in the latter category.
A naval force, I believe, is a navy which is conceived and developed solely for naval warfare. In other words, its purpose is to combat other navies and their platforms on all three dimensions of air, surface and underwater. As for a maritime force, such a navy not only undertakes war-fighting operations, but also orchestrates the likes of anti-piracy, stability/peace operations and humanitarian operations at and from the sea. In short, a maritime force is a force that maintains general order at sea against a wider range of both state and non-state threats as well as other concerns of political nature that affect the maritime domain.
As this blog will illustrate over the course of time, LPD-17, along with a slew of other amphibious vessels, reflect the needs of such a navy. For now, the video below captures the general idea concerning the role of the USN's amphibious vessels. While the vessels themselves aren't visible, nearly all capabilities exhibited in the video (e.g. naval aviation, special forces, medical teams, humanitarian relief, etc.) derive from them:
The rush to produce the fleet might make military sense if they were needed, but the last time Marines stormed ashore — the key reason the taxpayers are spending $14 billion on the San Antonio and at least eight more ships just like it — was nearly 60 years ago, at Inchon during the Korean War.While the paragraph may amount to a minute portion of the article, it carried by far the harshest criticism by slamming the utility of the USN's amphibious forces. In my opinion, it was an assertion based on narrow understanding.
The purpose of the USN's amphibious vessels aren't simply to land marines ashore nor are amphibious operations necessarily of war-fighting nature. When viewing today's USN, as well as a number of other developed navies, one must distinguish between the concepts of "naval force" and "maritime force." The USN, along with numerous navies of developed countries, belongs in the latter category.
A naval force, I believe, is a navy which is conceived and developed solely for naval warfare. In other words, its purpose is to combat other navies and their platforms on all three dimensions of air, surface and underwater. As for a maritime force, such a navy not only undertakes war-fighting operations, but also orchestrates the likes of anti-piracy, stability/peace operations and humanitarian operations at and from the sea. In short, a maritime force is a force that maintains general order at sea against a wider range of both state and non-state threats as well as other concerns of political nature that affect the maritime domain.
As this blog will illustrate over the course of time, LPD-17, along with a slew of other amphibious vessels, reflect the needs of such a navy. For now, the video below captures the general idea concerning the role of the USN's amphibious vessels. While the vessels themselves aren't visible, nearly all capabilities exhibited in the video (e.g. naval aviation, special forces, medical teams, humanitarian relief, etc.) derive from them:
