BUREAUCRACIES NEVER DIE:

New Maritime Strategy to Focus on 'Soft Power' (Ann Scott Tyson, 10/17/07, Washington Post)

The new approach marks a stark departure from the last U.S. maritime strategy, conceived by the Navy in the 1980s, which focused heavily on offensive operations against the Soviet Union. "This isn't just a strategy about putting ordnance on a target or sinking someone else's fleet," said a senior Navy official, who like some others spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Soft power, the humanitarian and economic efforts, have been elevated to the same level as high-end naval warfare," said another Navy official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity because the strategy had not been officially unveiled.

The 16-page document was developed over two years and outlines six imperatives. These include the traditional missions of concentrating major combat forces in the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean and Western Pacific to deter or fight potential conflicts. Protecting vital sea lanes represents a growing priority, it said, as seaborne trade has more than quadrupled over the last four decades and now accounts for 90 percent of all international commerce and two-thirds of global petroleum trade.

In addition, the strategy calls for dispersing smaller maritime teams to carry out humanitarian missions as well as to counter terrorism, weapons proliferation, piracy and other illicit maritime activities -- partly to contain threats before they can reach the United States. These teams, which would integrate Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard forces, would deploy to areas such as Africa and the Western Hemisphere to promote closer cooperation with maritime forces in other nations.

"The global system and network and commerce could not function without the free flow on the world's oceans," Roughead said at the symposium. "But we all know . . . the disruptions that can occur, whether it's piracy, smuggling of people, of drugs, of weapons, terrorism -- all of that disrupts maritime security."

Roughead also spoke of "a movement toward . . . proactive humanitarian assistance in the deployment of our hospital ships to South America, Southeast Asia" and Africa.

To implement the strategy, sailors, Marines and Coast Guard personnel would be dispatched on a wide variety of ships as "force packages" able to conduct security missions, serve as mobile training teams or perform humanitarian, legal or reconstruction work.

Just because navies are a waste of money doesn't mean ours will go quietly.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 25, 2007 3:07 PM