The Navy: back to the past in the future

ARTICLE: The New NOC, by Matt Hilburn, Seapower, October 2006

A good sign to see these sorts of Phase 0 references in the NOC (Naval Operational Concept), with associated force structure implications. Not sexy, but truer--on average--to U.S. naval tradition than Big War-centric scenarios.

Thanks to Andrew Surprise for sending this in.

Comments

[Tom S]

I have not read through the entire document yet but just flipping through it I was immediately drawn to the map used in figure 1. It should be pretty familiar to all readers of this blog.

For me, the most interesting and possibly most influential portion of this NOC is in the opening paragraph of the methods section. "...the policing and protecting of the maritime commons is in the collective interest of all nations. As such, a global maritime network of willing international navies will be required to ensure the maritime commons are safe and free for the use of all."

This does not seem to be the Navy that I was in just a short two years ago. As a former and hopefully future Navy man, and current student of China, I am excited about the implications that this has for future operations with the PLAN.

I shouldn't get too excited however. There is a great distance between NOCs and similiar documents and the actual implementation of policy.

[Sean Meade]

Tom S: yes indeed. we posted about the new NOC here: http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives2/003693.html

[Fred Zimmerman]

Tom -- what the heck does it mean to say 'truer - on average' to US naval tradition? Averages are often misleading and it is particularly so when the period you are covering includes such vast swings as the 6-frigate navy of 1797 and the 125-carrier navy of 1945. Surely the only thing that matters is whether the US navy's traditions meet the nation's current requirements.

As for those requirements:

The policing and protecting of the maritime commons is in the collective interest of all nations. As such, a global maritime network of willing international navies will be required to ensure the maritime commons are safe and free for the use of all.

You could either code this as a massive outburst of wishful thinking, or as simply confirming the need for Europe and Asia to provide lots of destroyers to police places like Somalia.

As for the prospect of the PLAN participating, is the pLAN willing to rely on the US led network fleet to assure its oil security?