Rethinking Maritime Strategy: a New Approach for a More Complex Maritime Environment

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Maritime Security: Questions for a New Era



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China successfully tested an anti-satellite missile last January 11, 2007. If China can hit an object 1.5 meters in diameter traveling is outer space at 28,000 kph with a modified DF21 medium range ballistic missile; more so can a similar type of missile hit a huge aircraft carrier travelling at snail- pace over water 2,500 km away. This is a food for thought for our maritime strategists contemplating the role of aircraft carrier battlegroups in the modern battlefield.

Posted by Victor N. Corpus on 2/21/2007 7:09:31 AM


In rethinking maritime strategy, please consider the following:
1. The adversaries'capability to conduct anti-satellite operations and use of long-range anti-radiation missiles that can temporarily "blind", "mute", or "decapitate" aircraft carrier battle groups. A number of countries already possess such capabilities.
2. Some variants of the DF21 medium range ballistic missile equipped with terminally-guided and maneuverable re-entry vehicles can hit aircraft carriers some 2,500 kms away.
3. Supersonic cruise missiles such as Yakhonts, Granits, Brahmos, Klubs, and Moskits have no known counter in U.S. naval arsenal. Coming in swarms after the battle groups are "blinded", followed by a second swarm of DF21s may well spell the end of aircraft carrier battle groups. Such highly-visible behemoths can be obliterated by countries with no aircraft carrier, such as China or Iran.
4. Super-cavitating rocket torpedoes (such as the SHKVAL or "Squall"); bottom-rising, rocket-propelled sea mines (EM52s); and obsolete combat aircraft converted into UCAVs carrying extra fuel tanks, stand-off precision-guided missiles and packed with high explosives will pose additional problems to the aircraft carrier battle groups - making their survival highly questionable in the modern battlefield.
5. Combine all of the above with rapidly developing C4ISTAR that is global in scope and you have the basic elements of the "assassin's mace", a strategy being developed by an emerging power in the east designed to "defeat a superior by an inferior".
6. It is extremely difficult for U.S. Naval authorities to admit the strategic blunder of focusing on the development of aircraft carrier battle groups now brought to the brink of extinction by the "assassin's mace". Tens of billions have been poured into such systems. Thousands of jobs depend on their continued use. And the highly influential military industrial complex lobby will not allow any major change of strategy that will negate CVN use. This will be a major dilemma for Naval decision makers. They will be stuck with a weapons system that is too expensive to maintain, but will only cause massive casualties and humiliating defeat for the U.S. in the event that it is used in a major conflict.

Posted by: BGEN Victor N. Corpus (Ret.)
Former Chief, Intelligence Service, Armed Forces of the Philippines

Posted by Victor N. Corpus on 12/27/2006 7:30:23 AM


Current DoD policy is to "operationalize intelligence" or said differiently to integrate intel and ops in Joint Operational Intel Centers (JOICS) as the Navy says it wants to do in its Maritime Operations Centers (MOCs).

Whether this is a good idea or not is a different disucssion, but as the USN goes about developing a new Maritime Strategy, it would seem to me that a core question, probably under force shaping, is determining the balance between platforms, networks, and ISR (intel, surveillance, and reconnaissance).

Hopefully, my inability to find a category on this website related to intelligence does not mean Naval Intelligence is not engaged in this process or that their input was disregared

Joe Mazzafro (Capt/1630/USN Ret)
Joseph M. Mazzafro
EMC Federal Division
Senior Intelligence Strategic Planne

Posted by Joe Mazzafro on 12/14/2006 7:48:10 PM

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