On 14^th November 2022 the US Navy’s new aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford arrived in UK waters for her first visit to Europe. The 100,000-ton ship is the largest, most expensive and arguably the most powerful warship ever built. The ship's current deployment is part of a “maritime ring of steel around Russia”, in the context of the war in Ukraine. For NATO nations, the sight of a US carrier is always reassuring as the ultimate power projection platform with combat aviation capability surpassing that of many entire air forces.

 

 

Part Two. American sea power. A case study: the South China Sea.

 

TG2 on December 14, TG4/5 on December 9.

 

READ: An online article from the US Naval Institute: “China Has World’s Largest Navy With 355 Ships and Counting, Says Pentagon”. This recent article (November 3, 2021) epitomizes the growing anxiety in US naval circles in regard to the ongoing Chinese naval build-up.
 
Another article deals with the mock-ups of American aircraft carriers built in the Taklamakan desert, in China's hinterland. Their existence means that China is training her forces to fire missiles at American fleets. The threat of Chinese long range antiship missiles might prevent the US Navy from helping Taïwan if China decided to invade the island.
 
WATCH: Philippines: The battle for the South China Sea, a BBC documentary (July 2021, duration: 23 minutes.)

 

Introduction

• In the 21st century, sea power is more important than ever.
• sea power is a country’s naval strength, based on its fleet. As a consequence, it is also the maritime influence of that country, its control of merchant shipping, of the main sea lanes, and of the bottlenecks through which they go. E.g: Singapore, on the strait of Malacca, through which go one third of the world's oil flows as well as an essential part of the supplies needed or exported by East Asian countries including China and Japan .

  

  USS Ronald Reagan, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier based in Yokosuka, Japan, arrived in Singapore on 22 July 2022. The deployment of the carrier and its naval group came amid ongoing tensions in the South China Sea, which the US regularly patrols to purportedly maintain freedom of navigation, due to disputed territorial claims from several countries and China. Picture: US Navy.

• today, the main competition for sea power is between the US and China. And the key place is the South China Sea, in which China seeks local domination, whereas the US tries to defend freedom of navigation.

 

1 | What is sea power ? Why is it important today (and more than ever) ?

1. Sea power is the domination of the seas:
   • The first example was arguably classical Athens, with her triremes.
   • Other examples were Carthage, then Rome. Pompey, Caesar’s rival, is known for his naval victories which turned the Mediterranean Sea into a Roman lake (Mare Nostrum) from 61 BC to the 4^th century AD. The Roman Empire depended very much on sea power. For example, wheat from Egypt was sent to Rome over the sea.

     

     “The Plumb-pudding in danger, or, State Epicures taking un Petit Souper”, cartoon by James Gillray (1805). England and France are carving up the Globe. On the left, William Pitt the Younger is taking the Ocean, while on the right Napoleon is seizing Europe. The cartoon epitomizes the confrontation between sea power and continental power. This time, like in most cases, the sea power would win.

   • The UK was the main sea power from the 18^th to the 20^th century. In 1805, Admiral Nelson destroyed the French fleet at Trafalgar. In the same year, Napoleon crushed the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz, but the decisive battle was Trafalgar, which led to Waterloo.

      

     Sea power and imperial prosperity
      
     In 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882) gave this description of Victorian Britain's world hegemony, based on sea power. Over one-third of the world's merchant shipping flew under the British flag, and that share was steadily increasing. Quoted in Paul Kennedy, The rise and fall of the great powers, London, Collins, 2017, p. 194 (1^st edition 1988).
      
     “The plains of North America and Russia are our corn fields; Chicago and Odessa our granaries; Canada and the Baltic are our timber forests; Australasia contains our sheep farms, and in Argentina and on the western prairies of North America are our herds of oxen; Peru sends her silver, and the gold of South Africa and Australia flows to London; the Hindus and the Chinese grow tea for us, and our coffee, sugar and spice plantations are in all the Indies. Spain and France are our vineyards and the Mediterranean our fruit garden; and our cotton grounds, which for long have occupied the Southern United States, are now being extended everywhere in the warm regions of the Earth.”
      
     In a famous speech delivered in 430 BC, Pericles, the great Athenian leader, had given a similar vision of Athens’ prosperity based on sea power: “The size of our city attracts every sort of import from all over the world, so our enjoyment of goods from abroad is as familiar as that of our own produce.” Thucydides, The Peloponnesian war, II, 38.

   • In both world wars, the maritime powers (the UK and the USA) prevailed over the German continental power. This is also true for the Cold War: the Soviet Union was also a continental power.
2. Today, in the context of globalization, the control of maritime flows is foremost. About 90% of the world trade goes through the seas.
3. The US Navy is the strongest navy in the world, with daunting tasks to carry out:
   • to protect the sea lanes and the merchant ships against threats that come from states (Iran) or pirates (in the Indian Ocean);
   • to guarantee freedom of navigation (like in the South China Sea);
   • to deny access to some maritime areas, to organize blockades (like during the Cuba missile crisis, or to protect Taïwan from a communist invasion);
   • deterrence: which is the role of the 14 US ballistic-missile submarines.

   

   On 12 october 2000, the destroyer USS Cole was hit by a terrorist attack in the port of Aden, Yemen. 17 crew members were killed and 39 injured. The suicide attack, carried out by a small boat, exemplifies asymmetrical warfare: notwithstanding the US naval supremacy, a determined enemy can inflict severe damage to America's most modern ships. The picture shows Cole being towed away for repair in the United States with a big hole in her hull.

4. To do this, the US Navy has:
   • 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers;
   • amphibious ships (a dozen) for landings and escort (as light aircraft carriers);
   • dozens of nuclear-powered attack submarines (which are the most effective antisubmarine weapon);
   • dozens of destroyers (equipped with missiles), to fight enemy submarines, aircraft, or to strike land targets from the sea.

In 2017, USS Jimmy Carter, one of the US Navy's biggest nuclear-powered attack submarines, came home to her home port, Kitsap naval base near Seattle, flying the Jolly Roger. The pirate flag means that the ship saw successful operational action. In that case, it is believed that the submarine had carried out a mission in North Korean waters, the nature of which is still classified.

➣ The current situation is a naval supremacy of the United States. And the US dominance in space makes its naval supremacy stronger.