Sea & Area Control

Only a few major powers will have the capability to provide a sustained, long-range threat to maritime supremacy and thereby challenge the Navy's concept of dominant maneuver from the sea. That said, future adversaries unable to match U.S. military power head-on may nonetheless attempt to intimidate our regional allies and friends before the full weight of U.S. power can be brought to bear, and will attempt to delay or deny our access to critical areas of operations. Indeed, they may seek to block the projection of U.S. military power into crisis areas by attacking the ports, key logistics hubs, and airfields necessary for operations by land-based forces; concentrations of U.S. and allied forces; and ships and aircraft in transit to the areas. Threats could well come from individual terrorists, or weapons of mass destruction from a broad spectrum of land, sea, and air area-denial forces.

Nevertheless, even regional adversaries could make the investments necessary to extend the range of their area-denial forces out to sea, beyond the chaos of the littorals, by relying on a mix of dispersed sensors and various weapons platforms, including submarines and long-range air power. Such "wild-card" scenarios envision an adversary's attempt to inflict a disproportionate injury against a U.S. capability or friend, in the expectation that U.S. leaders may make a political decision not to proceed. The threat of naval mines in the 1991 Persian Gulf War provides a good example of one such "wild-card" scenario. Two U.S. warships, the USS Princeton (CG-59) and USS Tripoli (LPH-10), suffered mine-strikes on the same day. The two ships sustained more than $125 million in damage, with several crewmembers injured. Princeton was essentially taken out of action for repairs. Had either or both been sunk with a significant loss of life, the domestic U.S. public reaction might have had a similarly significant political affect on subsequent military decisions, despite our overwhelming superiority. As it was, the presence of more than 1,300 Iraqi naval mines and surf-zone obstacles served to constrain the multinational coalition's operational alternatives in the northern Arabian Gulf.

The ability to dominate sea and air lanes and then to defeat an adversary's sea, littoral, and air capabilities throughout a broad theater of operations will be a fundamental naval strength that undergirds a credible U.S. forward presence. The increasing reach and lethality of area-denial threats will require that America's naval expeditionary forces be fully capable of establishing control against sophisticated opposition at sea, ashore, and in the information realm.

Sea and area control are thus prerequisites for theater battlespace dominance — the heart of naval warfare — and are essential elements of the naval expeditionary mission. Throughout its history, the Navy-Marine Corps Team has excelled in establishing sea control and dominating the littoral battlespace. This has entailed blue-water operations against an opposing force, as well as clearing mines and suppressing shore defenses. Navy and Marine Corps forces deny access to a regional adversary, interdict the movement of its supplies, and control the littoral sea and air space. In the near future, naval forces will also be able to establish theater-level command and control and to spearhead joint efforts to defeat hostile air, cruise, and ballistic missile threats. The Navy will ensure that reinforcement and resupply reach naval expeditionary forces ashore and follow-on heavy land-based ground and air forces. As innovative operational concepts evolve in response to the reality of regional and possible global threats, ground force operational and logistics support will increasingly be sea-based. That will be possible only if U.S. naval forces control the maritime and littoral battlespace.

Together, these forces can control an area extending from the open ocean to the shore, and inland to that area that can be directly supported and defended from the sea. Aircraft carriers and their multipurpose air wings, submarines and surface warships, amphibious forces, and supporting naval forces are the backbone of the U.S. military's ability to dominate regional and littoral battlespaces, which is the sine qua non of the nation's ability to project credible military power from the sea.