Littoral modesty

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This is a 2020 paper draft that was IIRC submitted to and rejected by CIMSEC (they published other drafts of mine). I just rediscovered it and don't remember having it published on D&F (and a quick search didn't find it, either). In worst case it's a cosmetically changed repost.

Small and regional powers with coastlines have legitimate maritime law enforcement and defence interests. Their governments should pursue the public interest, and it’s a seemingly trivial decision to seek maritime power for this.  

The history of small and regional maritime powers does not easily or clearly support the notion that allocating great resources to the maritime domain is wise, though. Such an expenditure should yield greater benefits than the costs incurred, for else it causes net harm to the own country. 

 

There are many examples of inefficient small and regional power navies:

Iran’s navy failed to enforce a naval blockade on the aggressor Iraq during the Gulf War in the 1980’s. Such a blockade was potentially decisive and the geography as well as Iranian pre-war investments in naval and air power made it look very easy, but third party intervention ruined the strategy for Iran.

The Argentinian navy proved to be irrelevant in the Falklands War save for one coastal-launched anti-ship missile and naval light strike aircraft operating from a continental airbase.

The navies of Italy and Hungary-Austria had their glorious battle at Lissa in 1866, but the naval battle winning-Austria-Hungary still lost the war.

The navies of Siam, China, Chile, Poland, Russia, Pakistan and even Germany were more a drain of resources than war winners throughout their histories. Even the navy of France has little to show in terms of useful performance relative to its budgeting since the mid-18th century.

There are precious few examples of successful and relevant small wartime navies, such as Greece in the First Balkan War (naval blockade of Ottoman ports) and Sri Lanka in the late stage of the Sri Lankan Civil War (naval blockade against arms-running boats). Auxiliary cruisers refitted during wartime were important to exploit successes of a few modern regular warships in the former case and small speedy gunboats built during wartime were decisive in the latter case.

 

Learning about naval history should rather discourage small and regional powers from affording much of a seagoing navy. This can be explained with a naval “The winner takes it all” pattern. 

 

There’s rarely a naval conflict in which the inferior navy is of much utility. The superior navy can enforce or break blockades, can conduct land attacks and even invasions. The inferior navy suffers and may inflict suffering, but doesn’t prove to be decisive in favour of its country. Land-based assets, submarines and at least up to WW2 also small motor torpedo boats and auxiliary cruisers (merchant raiders) were the only tactically usually successful assets for underdog naval powers. They can still operate when and where surface warship fleets would get wiped out. Surface warship fleets are useful for dominant navies only. Yet even superior navies need to employ their surface fleets with caution and avoid many too dangerous areas.

 

Small and regional maritime powers should thus be aware that spending great resources on a seagoing miniature navy is most unlikely to be cost-efficient. Even a (usually expensive) submarine force is of very questionable value. The largest submarine force of history lost its war and the modern Argentinians submarine fleet achieved nothing relevant at the Falklands.

 

Land-based assets on the other hand may be survivable and effective enough to justify themselves with their deterrence value.  Modern minehunting and minebreaking is largely done by drones, and there’s little reason why these could not be operated from land rather than from some minehunter.

Anti-ship missiles can be launched from land, and receive their targeting information from air power. This was tactically successful for Argentina and Ukraine and is an important capability to Sweden and Taiwan. They can also be launched by land-based aircraft, and be synchronised with anti-radar missiles.

Sea lanes close to the coast could be secured against submarines by multistatic low frequency active sonar (LFAS) networks that make use of semi-mobile receivers with cable connection to land and a few tug-pulled emitters, or even buoy LFAS emitters with cable connection to land. Contact verification could be done with minehunting sensor drones (that usually identify naval mines, could be delivered by rotary wing drone) or (as a most expensive and fragile solution) by ASW helicopters. Submarines could be engaged by self-deploying self-recovering naval mines (essentially electric heavyweight torpedoes), quickly rocket-delivered lightweight torpedoes (similar to the RUM-125B Sea Lance project) or rotary wing drone-deployed lightweight torpedoes.

 

An ordinary ASW frigate with one ASW helicopter can cost nearly a billion dollars till operational and is a juicy “all eggs in one basket” high value target by comparison to such a resilient coastal ASW network. The frigate would no doubt be preferred by admirals on an emotional level, though.

 

Small and regional maritime powers need more than wartime capability, of course.

Iceland’s coastal guard has shown during the “Cod Wars” that a coast guard can achieve much with great determination and audacity in spite of little resources and without firing a shot. Policing and sea rescue boats as well as maritime surveillance equipment (over the horizon radars, light twin engine planes with FLIR, radar, E/O zoom camera and possibly additional sensors to detect illegal environmental pollution by ships) do make sense. Maritime SAR helicopters with a secondary policing (boarding) missions are another fairly easily justified coast guard asset for many of the wealthier countries.

 

Smalls and regional powers do also require a suitable national maritime policy to ward off territorial or other challenges, not just tools.

Such a policy should be multinational. A great power may choose to pick on a small power, but great powers are not known for overt aggressions towards a group of small powers that opposes transgressions unitedly. A challenge to a maritime exclusive economic zone claim by a warship-escorted fishing fleet should be answered by a multinational coast guard boat task force, for example. Even a modern destroyer is at great risk when surrounded by three gun-armed coast guard boats at short distance. A suitable design of the coast guard boats could make the risk in ramming incidents unbearable for every destroyer captain.

 

There are alternative ways to pursue a small or regional power’s goals in the littorals than a conventional miniature navy. These alternatives may be a lot more robust and useful in wartime and fully satisfactory in SAR and policing during peacetime.

 

Navies do define themselves as organisations with a warship fleet, and the interest in having such platforms creates a bias against non-warship answers to the challenges.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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