In search of strategy: The Navy and the depths of the maritime strategy.

摘要

The success of United States grand strategy depends on how well its military organizations adapt to, and are integrated with, America's defense policies. The security studies field can contribute to that adaptive effort by providing a better understanding of past relationships between military institutions and grand strategies.;This dissertation analyzes one case oaf this adaptive effort: how the US Navy adapted to, or failed to adapt to, the national defense strategies of massive retaliation and flexible response between the end of the Korean war and the beginning of the Vietnam war. The dissertation asks four questions: (1) did the Navy have a strategy; (2) did the Navy lose its maritime strategy of the first postwar decade; (3) what explains the offensive bias of the Navy; and (4) was naval strategy integrated with grand strategy? Using theories from the security studies and international relations fields (on "political-military integration" and the grand strategic, organizational and technological causes of offensive military doctrine), I researched archives at the Naval Historical Center and the Naval War College and utilized questionnaire answers from retired admirals who served in the Fleets and the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Insights into administration grand strategy were found in primary documents from the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson libraries.;The Navy, despite significant arguments to the contrary, did have an explicit warfighting strategy and did not lose its offensive maritime strategy in the mid-1950s. Organizational and technological causes offered the most significant explanations of offensive doctrine. Organizational essence, defined at the time by aircraft carriers, dictated an offensive strategy, while the technological problems of defensive ASW dictated an "attack at source" solution. However, an offensive naval strategy did not make sense after the nuclear revolution. The nuclear "balance of terror" deterred the third battle of the Atlantic and threatened Soviet retaliation in response to attacks on their submarine bases. Navy warfighting strategy was thus not integrated with grand strategy. Navy peacetime strategy of forward deployed presence, however, was integrated with US grand strategy of deterring local aggression and reassuring allies.