Panel: Navy Needs To Think Small When Planning Irregular Surface Warfare Strategies by John Grady – USNI News
Great power competition dramatically expands the challenges of confronting irregular naval warfare such as defending against maritime pirates or preserving the security of data sent through undersea cables, a panel of experts said at the Hudson Institute last week.
Concentrating on the “new favorite buzzword, ‘lethality,'” masks the fact this kind of warfare “has always been a part” of the United States Navy’s experience, said Cmdr. Benjamin Armstrong, a professor at the Naval Academy and author of a recent book on early American naval history, at the Hudson Institute panel.
Great power competition and irregular warfare, “in history, they are explicitly mixed,” as they are now, although circumstances have changed with the eras, Armstrong said.
The difference today, Armstrong said, is how the Navy responds. During the era of John Paul Jones raiding Whitehaven or the Navy and Marine Corps battle against the pirates of Tripoli, the Navy had “general purpose” forces — sailors, soldiers, Marines — with enough training and the right gear able to do the job. Today, the nation increasingly relies on using U.S. Special Forces such as the Navy’s SEALs and Army’s Green Berets. These units are frequently tasked with carrying out some of these missions — especially using force…