The ninth article retrieved from Davey Jones’s Locker comes from the November 1978 edition of the Journal of the Australian Naval Institute. The article was written by Commodore J.A ‘Rocker’ Robertson, who with Commodore Vernon Parker, were the two officers who originally conceived the idea of the ANI. ‘Rocker’ Robertson had a particular interest in maritime strategy and would go on to write an influential monograph on the topic. His article provided members with a useful primer on the topic.
The Fundamentals of Maritime Strategy
Strategy is a slippery word and an even slipperier concept. It means different things to different people there are at least seven definitions given by seven different well respected writers on military strategy, and there is always the Oxford Dictionary definition for an eighth. So that, for anyone to presume to discuss any aspect of strategy, is to enter into a minefield of misunderstandings from the outset.
The Defence Department uses expressions such as ‘Equipment Acquisition Strategy’ to describe the course of action proposed to be adopted for the purchase of hardware. Games players use the word ‘strategy’ to describe their method of play. Businessmen and economists talk of ‘business strategies’. The word has a wide currency and needs pinning down.
No doubt everyone has his own idea of what strategy means but a generally accepted definition of military strategy is ‘The art and science of applying the armed forces of a nation to secure the objectives of national policy by the application of force or the threat of force’.
Maritime strategy is, of course only one of the four classic ‘schools’ of military strategic theory. And it is as well to mention the others briefly so as to make it clear that they are not ignored to refresh your minds. the classic schools are:
- Continental strategy
- Aerospace Strategy
- Revolutionary Warfare Strategy
- Maritime Strategy
The first school, the ‘Continental’, is principally after Clausewiz and is about land warfare. It is naturally, concerned with terrain but most importantly, this school concludes that outcome of war is decided by the defeat of the opposing Army which in turn causes the loser’s Government to surrender. This final and major battle has been likened by Clausewitz to the presentation of the bill after a cash transaction.
The ‘Aerospace’ school is after Douhet and. arguably, began with the RNAS was developed by the German Zeppelins. and was stated as a concept in the 1920’s. The principal idea behind it is to either pose such a threat of annihilation of the civilian population and the industrial base of a country, or to conduct actual bombing of them, so that the victim Government would sue for peace. It has now been brought to a high pinnacle of importance in world strategy by the nuclear weapons delivered by missiles or manned aircraft, or even from satellites, but there could be occasions when it could still be applied using conventional explosives, or even. God forbid, bacteriological or chemical weapons.
The ‘Revolutionary Warfare’ school has a long history, and those who have an interest in such matters will know of many ancients who have advocated it, or something like it. Leo the Wise of Byzantium, for one. expressed its essential principles in the Middle Ages but the high priest today is Mao, and his theories of guerilla warfare which have been practised so successfully in recent years. In some ways it could be considered the antithesis of the ‘Continental’ school, though that is not strictly true.
The last school listed is the ‘Maritime School’, which, as theory — as opposed to practice — first began to be enunciated by Mahan in the late 19th century. Before expanding on it one could also consider Herman Kahn’s On Escalation as a generalised strategy. It is quite possible to develop a deliberate policy of escalation in order to win a war, militarily. Deliberate escalation is, of course, hard to sell in a non-aggressive democracy, but it should not be overlooked. It is better than losing.
One other point should be made plain; il has been suggested by Admiral Wylie1 that we should not be doctrinaire in our approach to the subject of strategy, and it is simple commonsense to agree with him that we need to be able to amalgamate all the appropriate aspects of all the recognized schools to suit our purposes and the occasions of needing them. That said, let us now turn to Maritime Strategy
Mahan called it ‘Seapower’ but he was not, by my reading of him anyway, entirely clear about what he really meant. He knew that Seapower had played a large part in influencing history, and the conduct of war. and quoted a great many historical precedents to support his view of strategy. But he did not really penetrate to the logical end of the subject, nevertheless his writings set off a wave of warship building at the turn of the century. A number of people developed Mahan’s views into more precise theory, notably Julian Corbett in his lectures and writings before 1914; the concept of the Fleet-in-Being for example, was derived from him, alas. he too was not properly understood. The Fleet-m-Being concept had great vogue and tied up huge resources which ultimately met at the tactically inconclusive Battle of Jutland, while Britain came perilously close to losing the submarine war in World War I.
It is perhaps oversimplified, but one cannot help getting the impression that Mahan. and other writers, referring back to major historical naval battles had brought to the fore an idea that the clash of the major naval forces decided the outcome of the war at sea. After all, look at the precedent of Trafalgar. It will be recalled also that Jellicoe was described during World War I as the only man who could ‘lose the British Empire in an afternoon’. It is a sort of Clausewilz-taken-to sea approach to naval warfare. Yet Corbett was much more enlightened than his readers. He had offered the opinion that the sea had never been commanded but could only be controlled in specified areas. Francis Bacon had been on the right track perhaps, but had overstated the case possibly due to Elizabethan exuberance.2
The very word ‘seapower’, which Mahan had coined also seemed to blind its more ardent advocates and despite all the evidence of World War I they continued, in the main, to think in terms of seapower as the majestic ships of the line. This was also true of virtually every other nation, so that, if Britain’s example is examined further it is not with any intention to single out UK as the only nation at fault; in Britain s case, however a failure to appreciate the real basis of maritime strategy then, and between the wars, appeared to make that country to go off in the wrong direction with almost disastrous consequences.
By 1929 the UK could not see an enemy in sight and consequently there was no clear central strategic policy, so the Services invented plausible situations to provide a strategic basis for their force development. The Army prepared for a land battle to defend India against Russia; the Air Force prepared lo bomb France into submission, and the Navy prepared tor a major sea battle to defend the Empire in the East — including the South Pacific — against Japan.3 It might be noted that two Japanese naval officers also wrote a book on the same theme in the early 30s. it was called Japan Fights Britain. The USN directed its thinking to the big sea battles to come with Japan — though it is understood that the US Army turned its thoughts to fighting Britain in a land war in Canada. The lack of a perceived threat does seem to create problems tor strategists in democracies doesn’t it?
When the prospect of war with Germany started to become more apparent from 1932 onwards, the British Defence juggernaut tended to roll-on on the lines already established, except that, as far as the Navy was concerned anyway, its idea of defence of the Empire in the East could not be sustained with the resources available .The Fleet, which had been developed principally around the battleship, would be required in European waters for home defence. Only by about 1937 did the Admiralty turn its thinking to the defence of the Atlantic life line. However Air Ministry opinion at that time was that convoys would make such easy targets for air attack that they would not be a practicable proposition. As a compromise then, it was agreed that, mercantile convoys would be instituted only if Germany began unrestricted submarine warfare. At that time Britain’s economy was almost totally dependent on imported food, minerals and oil, and the export of manufactures. Luckily for Britain, and in contravention of Hitler’s orders the Athenia was torpedoed the day the war began, and then attention was turned seriously anti-submarine warfare (ASW) measures and defence of the Atlantic sea line of communication. Regrettably, sonar had been only marginally developed since World War I and ships ASW weapons remained at the 1919 standard of depth charges. The RAF’s Coastal Command had never exercised with submarines, and when its aircraft found U-Boats on the surface, the weapons available were quickly proved ineffective. There had not been one mercantile convoy exercise in the 20 years from 1919. ASW had to be developed from where it had been left over twenty years before.4
This sorry tale of disaster may appear to be irrelevant to today’s problems, and it must be admitted that it omits a lot of other detail, but this brief outline does have a relevance to an understanding of the fundamentals of maritime strategy, particularly, and, in a more general sense to what it is believed military strategy is all about.
Maritime strategy is concerned principally with two aspects. One is to prevent the enemy, real or potential, from using the sea for his purposes the other is to be able to use that part, or parts of it, which you need tor your own purposes. It is as simple as that.
Modern thinkers on maritime strategy, or seapower if you like, have sometimes called these two aspects ‘Sea Denial’ and ‘Sea Assertion’. There are those who would suggest that denial is too strong a word and prefer some other word such as prevention; others would prefer some word other than assertion, but it is not necessary to quibble about the words, the idea conveyed is the important point. If anyone wishes to use the sea for his own survival, then sea denial is what you need to be able to exercise for your maritime strategy. It you need to use the sea for your own purposes then maritime strategic thinking would call for forces to permit you to assert your use of the sea. You could, of course, need both, and some maritime forces could be used to fulfil either of these two major roles.
These essentially simple facets of maritime strategy are, surprisingly, not readily understood I find — even, apparently by some naval officers. To many, the whole idea of seapower still concerns itself with the Clausewitzian idea of the major Fleet action. One fairly senior Government official quite recently asked what the Navy would do with an aircraft carrier, and he postulated an enemy surface force somewhere in the surrounding ocean and the carrier at its base. His idea, apparently, was that, alerted to the threat, it would dash out from its base, attack the enemy, and having disposed of it. the carrier would return to the comfort and protection of a convenient harbour to await the next call on its services This is both what could be called Clausewitz-gone-to-sea. and a fixed idea that maritime strategy is concerned mainly with sea denial. It is a matter for some considerable dismay, that the vast majority of Australians appear to share this sort of elementary thinking about maritime strategy.
There are refinements of the two major facets of seapower. An ability to assert one’s use of the sea makes it possible to project power ashore against an enemy. There are some writers who regard this as the oldest use of seapower, quoting the Danish invasion of Britain as an example. A more modern application is the use of ballistic missile submarines, the use of aircraft carriers as in Korea and Vietnam, or the use of amphibious forces. The latter of course can range in scale from raiding parties launched from say. submarines, up to the assault capability of the US Marine Corps or the Soviet Naval Infantry. There are those today who suggest that modern warfare makes amphibious warfare virtually impossible5, and maybe it is for all except the super powers. It is possible, though, to get an uneasy feeling when it is remembered that the British Amphibious warfare school was closed on the outbreak of World War II on the grounds that there would be no combined operations in this war; one is entitled to wonder about people who make such unproven assertions with such alarming certainty.
The other refinements of maritime strategy are what are called the peacetime or deterrent functions, and the war fighting or. if you like, combat function of each aspect. Some may regard this as too fine a distinction but it is important to appreciate that military strategies ought to be able to function in peace as well as in war, flowing from one into the other. If the peacetime strategy works, then, with luck, there would be no need to go to war.6
No one can ever expect in peacetime in democracies particularly to have all the forces which might be needed to light some unforeseen war at some unspecified time ahead. So the deterrent aspect of seapower is interpreted to mean that one acquires and maintains in peace a demonstrable capability to conduct certain forms of maritime warfare with forces which might have to be expanded if that became necessary. The possession of appropriate combat technologies in peace is then a signal to any potential aggressor that it may not be worth attacking you or your interests in that fashion. Take sea denial, a modern range of combat technologies for sea denial could include, for example submarines, maritime patrol aircraft, surveillance systems and which can detect, and associated weapons to destroy, cruise and ballistic missile firing submarines which might be used against you, air and surface maritime strike forces to prevent an enemy using the sea to attack you in, say, a seaborne invasion, and, at the last ditch, defensive minefields around your own coast. The list is not exhaustive and does not include, for example land based anti-ship missile systems, such as some nations install on their coasts.
A prime example of a maritime strategy heavily slanted towards sea denial was the Russian Navy of the 1950s. It incorporated submarines, surface ships from cruiser size down to missile firing patrol boats, and it backed them up with land based aircraft for reconnaissance, strike, and fighter cover, and a formidable capability for mining. As a nation fairly well self sufficient, and not dependent tor its survival on maritime trade it had, and still has, little need for sea assertion, and structured its maritime forces accordingly Russia’s maritime forces structured in this way made a big signal to the rest of the world not to try to attack her across her maritime frontier. She was prepared to repel attack from the sea, and invasion in particular.
As an aside, it is. of course. just the type of maritime force most people understand, and one which many of our public commentators on Australian defence strategy see as the only way to go for this country. For those who take a land-bound view of maritime strategy it is all that is needed. Technology, such people believe, can solve the problem of preventing the enemy from using the sea against our island, and that is all we require. It is the maritime component of a ‘Fortress Australia’ outlook on a national strategy.
For a nation or an alliance which sees the need to be able to use some parts of the sea for its survival will also acquire a representative range of sea assertion forces NATO, which begins with the premise that it is dependent on reinforcement and resupply across the Atlantic for its corporate survival, is much more heavily oriented towards sea assertion for this reason. So NATO maritime forces cover a range of combat technologies beginning with minesweepers and rising up through the scale of antisubmarine warfare forces to maritime air defence systems. Of course they do not expect representative governments in peacetime to provide them with all the resources needed to go to war with the Warsaw Pact today, but they incorporate representative combat technologies to signal to their most likely opponent that they possess the skills needed to put up a pretty stout defence of this vital interest and so hope to deter the threat from ever materializing as actual attacks. Certainly some, perhaps a lot of ships, would be sunk if it ever got to a shooting war, but even so, NATO clearly hopes that enough could be got through to survive.
These then are examples of how the deterrent aspect of maritime strategies have been demonstrated in peacetime. As noted earlier, some maritime combat technologies may be used for either sea denial or sea assertion as circumstances require at the time.
So far these comments have been confined to military seapower, but it should be quite clear that seapower as a general term is not restricted to combat forces. Seapower, particularly for its sea assertion aspect, requires the merchant shipping to carry those bulk cargoes by which nations survive. How often do you read in histories, of World War II that it was shortage of shipping which affected the operations which could be undertaken?
There is no known substitute at present for those big hulls to carry the quantity of stores of all kinds which allow a national economy to survive and, if necessary, wage war. Oil is only one example but heavy industrial machinery, many weapons of war. food, and minerals simply cannot be transported any other way in any practicable quantities So a national merchant fleet, or access to friendly nations merchant ships is an important element of the seapower a nation can command This factor is unlikely to change in any substantial fashion.
Peacetime economics dictate the use of ships to move bulk goods Professor Sokol in his Seapower in the Nuclear Age quotes a rough rule of thumb ratio for the relative costs of sea, land, and air transport of bulk goods — and I stress the word bulk since it is quantity which counts — as 1:5:50. In thinking of seapower then the importance of merchant shipping must be kept in mind. Strategically, as far as Australia is concerned, you might also bear in mind that by 1985 we will need to import about 150.000 tonnes of oil a day7 to support our economy and our way of life in peace. This represents about 70% of our predicted national needs in the mid 80s. Of the national total a very high percentage would be needed to sustain our Defence Forces in any sort of war we might be in. Since we can expect to produce only about 30% of our requirements locally by 1985, the rest will probably have to cross the Indian Ocean. Without oil our economy and our war effort would collapse so it makes an attractive strategic target.
There are quite sizeable areas of the Indian Ocean, to take only one example, in which it makes no sense for a merchant ship to be there at all unless it is bound for Australia. Some writers on these matters are quick to reassure us that, since nearly all our trade is carried in foreign bottoms, it will be safe. It is a nice pious hope to set against the consequences of it not being realized. The recent history of merchant ships not going to Israel is a salutary reminder that it can still happen, the Beira patrol blockading Rhodesia is another, and British actions in 1939 to institute contraband control, all provide different examples of how we could be left stranded. Putting faith in some other nation’s generosity if survival was an issue seems to me altogether too Pollyanna. I believe we need to be able to demonstrate that we possess the sort of skills needed to protect that shipping which would be essential for our survival. We may not own the merchant fleet we need but if we cannot make a show of protecting those who provide it there could be a marked lack of enthusiasm on the part of merchantmen to continue to come here. It is an element of seapower Australia does not own and therefore only has access to by the national cheque books but it is a major strategic interest
Having presented the main aspects of maritime strategy, it is worthwhile to return briefly to military strategy in a more general sense To provoke you. if you need provoking, it is suggested that strategy is about winning, or alternatively about not losing, because, to win, it may be enough simply not to loss.8 And military strategy therefore should, in the first instance, be about not losing.9
John Collins in his Principles and Practices of Grand Strategy has analysed the United States strategic approach to the Vietnam War, and one of his more important conclusions is that it got off on the wrong foot because there was no vital US interest at stake. National survival was not an issue. Now this is not intended to begin an argument about the rights and wrongs of the Vietnam War but it is suggested that a peacetime military strategy should concern itself first of all with the security of vital national interests. Of course the selection of vital national interests could make tor a fairly lively debate, but the thought is offered that it your military preparations in peacetime make it abundantly clear that you have a demonstrable ability to defend your vital national interests then you could probably be on a winning military strategy. To revert to British experience in the 1920s, the apparent absence of discernable threats led then down the wrong path as they groped around to find a strategic basis for their force structure design. No one can be expected to predict the sort of war he is likely to get into with any accuracy, but, had Britain in the 1920s begun by considering its vital national interests, I believe it would have been in a much better position to go on and develop its forces to meet the German threat when it arose in the 30’s.
The point being made is that the longstanding tradition of looking around for threats before developing the analysis gets bogged down when no threats are to be found; of course if a threat is evident then so much the belter, it sharpens the analysis very satisfactorily. But where no nation can be seen to have either the intent or the capability to attack you or your interests it seems that it is all too difficult. This approach to developing a strategy could be likened to a Platoon Commander-writ-large. If there is no situation then there is apparently no basis on which to develop the appreciation — and so the peacetime military strategy has no precise object except to defend against a wide range of possible contingencies.
The idea of not being able to devise a more precise military strategy without a discernable threat seems to me to be fundamentally wrong II is based, in essence, on the world as seen from the home base. It is suggested that we in Australia might be better advised to look at the country and its strategic weaknesses as they might be seen by others The world seen from Canberra leads us into opinions and judgements about what others might or might not do in a variety of circumstances, examination of our strategic position through the eyes of others could be revealing Put yourself in the role of a potential aggressor — disregarding tor the moment the military means you would need to accomplish your purpose.
If you wanted to strike at something, if not jugular. then at least neuralgic, what would you do? Having decided that, would it be practicable and could you acquire the means to do it? If so you could have a basis for a military strategy to attack Australia and its interests, and, by implication, the basis tor a military strategy to defend Australia and its interests, both in peace and war.
To recapitulate, seapower is concerned with two main aspects, sea denial and sea assertion; and as a particular element of sea assertion one may seek to project power into an enemy’s territory In peace the acquisition of capabilities lo prevent others from using the sea against you is the deterrent function of that aspect; as was the deterrent function of that aspect; as war approaches it can be developed as the combat function. Similarly the acquisition in peacetime of the capabilities to secure the use of that part of the sea you need for your own purposes is intended to deter the threat from emerging. It it does not deter it may have to be expanded, and put to the acid test of actually fighting. It is, of course, well established that it is much cheaper to prevent war. however expensive in peacetime, than to go to war.
It will be noted that any weapon system or capability used to achieve the object of either securing or preventing the use of the sea is engaged in maritime strategy It is quite possible to use soldiers, it they operated land based anti-surface ship missile systems, or if they were to capture or hold some territory, for instance, it it was needed to help secure the use of some part of the sea. It must be quite clear that a maritime strategy does not just imply naval forces alone. On the contrary, any combat system may be employed to support such a strategy.
Finally, it is worthwhile repeating that, like all good ideas, the concept of seapower is disarmingly simple; one may comfortably forget all the fine academic distinctions about sea assertion, sea denial, power projection, and combat and deterrence aspects; indeed too widespread a discussion of these niceties can lead to instant expertise and fruitless arguments. The mission of Australia’s military seapower remains unchanged and may be stated quite simply as:
To secure control of those parts of the sea the nation needs for its purposes at the time.’
Footnotes:
- Wylie, Military Strategy
- “He that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much or as little of the war as he will” – Bacon
- This is all recorded fact quoted by Michael Howard in The Continental Commitment
- Roskill, The Strategy of Seapower
- Michael Howard among olhers
- See Adelphi Paper No 124, article by Admiral Stansfield Turner
- Corbett, Energy tor Australia
- Collins, Principles and Practices of Grand Strategy
- One must, of course, avoid the Maginot Line outlook
About the Author
Alan ‘Rocker’ Robertson was born at Footscray in 1926 and joined the RAN College in 1940 and graduated in 1943 with the prize for English. He was posted to the UK and joined his first ship, the cruiser HMS Cumberland in Jan 1944 from which he went to the destroyer HMS Paladin. Both these ships were based in Trincomalee. He then proceeded to India and undertook a minesweeping course in early 1945; on completion of the course he returned to England and joined HMS Vanquisher at Sheerness. Later in 1945, he joined HMS Excellent for courses before joining HMAS Shropshire for 18 months. In mid 1947 he joined HMAS Australia, then HMAS Swan and later HMAS Lithgow as part of the 20th Minesweeping Flotilla which was formed to clear the minefields in New Guinea-Solomons area, Torres Strait and the Great Barrier Reef.
In 1952 ‘Rocker’ returned to the United Kingdom and specialised in Communications and, after RN Exchange, joined HMAS Melbourne for her commissioning in 1955. In 1960 he became OIC NAVCOMMSTA Darwin. During his time at Darwin he became the Executive Officer of HMAS Melville and served until mid 1961 before proceeding to HMAS Voyager as the Executive Officer. After passing the RN Staff course at Greenwich in 1963 he had a further two years exchange Royal Navy service which was in Singapore as a Joint Planner on the staff of the C–IN-C Far East.
Subsequently, ‘Rocker’ was posted as Executive Officer HMAS Melbourne in 1966 and the following year he commanded HMAS Duchess until 1969. Later in 1969 he became the Director of Naval Communications and in 1971/72, he commanded HMAS Hobart. In February 1975 he commanded HMAS Stalwart and in August 1977 was promoted to Commodore and appointed as DGNOP. Commodore Alan ‘Rocker’ Robertson was one of the Australian Naval Institute’s founding fathers and was renowned for his innovative and lateral thinking both during and after his naval career. He died in 2012.
