The Future Maritime Operating Environment and the Role of Naval Power

those hostilities ended asserted that “[t]he Falklands conflict showed that all surface ships are
vulnerable”, and to cushion the possibility of losses navies needed more ships. 431 That admonition
is still valid decades later. In the intervening years, some naval vessels have been very seriously
damaged 432 ; and in the August 2008 engagement between the Russian and Georgian navies off
the coast of Abkhazia, one of the four Georgian ships (a missile patrol boat) was sunk and another
badly damaged. 433 The risk of such occurrences happening in the future—i.e., ships put out of
action or sunk—can only increase as the conflict setting becomes more intense, particularly if it is
centred on the littorals with adversaries that possess modern capabilities. 434 “History has shown
us,” a recent commentator has written, “that in the complicated littoral sea-control environment,
losses are not only possible, they are inevitable.” 435
A warship can only be in one place at a time and a smaller fleet means fewer places to which a navy
can simultaneously deploy its ships. A smaller fleet not only implies reduced capabilities—quantity
being an ineluctable measure of capability—it diminishes the strategic agility of a navy as well as
reduces its resilience, herein defined as the ability to absorb losses and still achieve operational
objectives. It is, therefore, incontrovertible that fleet size is linked to a navy’s utility as an
instrument of national policy. For even the largest navy, such as the USN, the consequences of
reductions could be significant. The most recent US maritime strategy acknowledges this in its
admonition that “[a] smaller force,” would be required to execute whatever tasks it was assigned
“at increased levels of risk for some missions and functions, decrease forward presence, and
reduce our footprint in some geographic regions.” “Such cuts,” it continues, “would also reduce
our warfighting advantage.” 436 Perhaps more so for smaller navies, the consequences of fleet
downsizing are daunting. It is conceivable that a government confronting such circumstances
might be reluctant to deploy a warship on a mission where it might be disabled or lost when a
single vessel represents a large proportion of the country’s naval strength. 437 And, even if there is
a decision to deploy, a smaller fleet’s ability to accomplish whatever operational objectives it is given
431 Bruce George, MP and Michael Coughlin, “British Defence Policy after the Falklands”, Survival,
September/October 1982, p. 203.
432 For example, in May 1987 the USS Stark was struck while operating in the Persian Gulf by an anti-ship
missile fired by an Iraqi Air Force aircraft: in April 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine in the
Persian Gulf and nearly sank: in February 1991, the USS Princeton struck a mine in the Persian Gulf and
was in repair for months and that same day the USS Tripoli was nearly lost after also striking a mine: the
USS Cole was badly damaged by al Qaeda suicide bombers in October 2000 by the explosion of a small
boat in Aden Harbour: in July 2006, an anti-ship missile, fired from a truck by Hezbollah, severely damaging
the INS Hanit, an Israeli corvette off the coast of Lebanon: in March 2010, the ROKS Cheonan was sunk in
the Yellow Sea by a torpedo fired by what many analysts assume was a North Korean midget submarine.
433 “Reports: Russia sinks Georgian ship trying to attack Russian naval ships”, The Jerusalem Post,
10 August 2008 The surviving Georgian vessels were subsequently destroyed in harbour. See
Dmitry Gorenburg, “The Russian Black Sea Fleet After the Georgian War”, Ponars Eurasia Policy Memo,
No. 48, December 2008, pp. 2–3.
434 This argument is made in Montgomery, “Contested Primacy in the Western Pacific: China’s Rise and
the Future of U.S. Power Projection”, p. 117.
435 Captain Victor Addison, Jr. (USN), “Got Sea Control?”, US Naval Institute Proceedings , Vol. 136, No. 3,
March 2010 [accessed on 12 November 2012 at www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2010-03/got-sea-control].
436 A Cooperative Strategy for 21 st Century Seapower, p. 27.
437 Such considerations have influenced naval policies and the conduct of naval warfare in the past.
Phillip Williams argues that galley warfare in the 16 th Century was constrained both by the enormous cost
of platforms and the difficulty of maintaining experienced crews. See his Empire and Holy War in the
Mediterranean (I.B. Taurus: London, 2015).
DRDC-RDDC-2016-R085 87