Another very important article from Robert Kaplan. America's Elegant Decline revisits the question of our ability to shape events in the Eurasian mainland. Our military power far exceeds that of any combination of opponents. However, in terms of demographics and economic prowess, the U.S. is entering a phase where others are catching up, and eventually, our military ability to shape events will reflect this reality.
Kaplan's article is interesting in that he is trying to think forward, past our current focus on Counterinsurgency and Stability operations. How will the U.S. shape a national security strategy that is within our power to execute? I believe that a powerful mental adjustment may be underway within the American mind -- the world is a big place, and is too large for us to be engaged decisively everywhere. We will increasingly withdraw from Eurasia and focus on key relationships around the world, such as Japan, the U.K., and India, to name but a few. The future of U.S. military forces will turn to Navy to allow us to access Eurasia and ensure communications with our allies. Our Aerospace forces will be used in a similar role. The future of our ground forces will be smaller, more mobile, and will be geared to lower our profile and achieve more tailored and discrete missions to shape the Eurasian environment to our liking.
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I agree with the hypothesis that "The future of ... ground forces will be smaller, more mobile, and will be geared to lower [the] profile and achieve more tailored and discrete missions", that is, ground forces of major powers will need to maintain a footprint offshore as opposed to onshore, less they be construed as overtly hegemonic. But, this does not necessarily herald a return to Mahanian thinking of a military ilk. Navies must be able to support this offshore footprint in the littoral (in future, populations will be ever more littoral), but the strength of the global economy is already bringing another maritime force - that of international corporations and their shipping networks. If Mahanian thinking lives in this century, it is to support the global economic imperative, not for Mahan's original idea of nation-state hegemony. Navies remain too expensive for any one (or more) nations to afford both a blue-water capability and the brown water platform for force presence and support of the ground footprint when needed ashore.
Kaplan, Kaplan, Kaplan....I think you're becoming a prisoner of your own fascination with the soldiers in your war. A few interesting points here, first and foremost our shipbuilding industry/process is broken. Second, the 1,000 ship Navy is only worthwhile/achievable to the extent that we have other nations willing to sail with us. It's one thing to do something generic (if not meaningful) like counter-piracy ops in the Horn of Africa, it's another thing to see who'll stand with us in a trade war with China. Finally, the whole privateer thing is a tad melodramatic. Now, I know you might point towards Blackwater's venture in the Maritime operations, but it's not only the ships - and the crew to man them - but the C2 systems to make them effective. And again, you have a non-state actor with only limited control, potentially getting you into a fight that the Navy is not ready/willing to engage in.
And one other thing, which Kaplan only glosses over...the issue of networked sensors, with which "you could have whole zones of the ocean where you are unable to operate safely on the surface." The bigger issue is our (military-wide) over-reliance on networks and, satellites. I hate to retort to his "Star Trek" analogy with another sci-fi example, but in the new "Battlestar Galactica" what's the first thing the cylons do? They take down the colonial network. Without GPS, without internet chat, without web-browsing, without access to satellite bandwidth, what is the residual power of the Navy? Relatively short range guns, missiles and torpedos. How's a Tomahawk going to find the target without GPS? I think we need a return to the simplicity of Naval Warfare - to be prepared to get in the Naval knife-fight in Kaplan's anarchic worldview.
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