Bring American Seapower to Bear in Europe

By J. Randy Forbes

Friday, April 01, 2016

As a result of the brazen Russian aggression recently witnessed in the Crimea, Ukraine, and Syria, there is widespread recognition that U.S. military presence and activity in Europe must be increased. Even the Obama administration is reversing course on its plans to shutter European bases and withdraw forces and equipment from the continent. To date, however, public discussion and government proposals have been too narrowly focused on the deployment of additional American ground and air forces to deter and counter further Russian aggression. It is true that these forces are needed to signal American commitment. But, while necessary, increased presence on the ground will not be sufficient, and ought to be complemented by the presence of additional American naval forces in European waters.

Deterring Russian aggression in Europe is not a new mission for our naval forces. Indeed, throughout the Cold War, it was a top priority. During this period the Navy typically maintained one or two carrier strike groups on station in the Mediterranean, ready to respond to any conflict or crisis along with one to two dozen surface combatants, amphibious ships carrying Marines, and an unspecified number of submarines. In the North Atlantic, American submarines, surface ships, and aircraft were constantly tracking Soviet subs threatening the United States and our sea lanes to Europe. Perhaps most important, ballistic-missile submarines were kept constantly on station, undetectable beneath the waves, ensuring that our nation and the NATO alliance had the ability to respond to even the most devastating nuclear attack.

Today, however, U.S. naval presence in Europe is a fraction of its former self. Our combat forces in the Mediterranean have been scaled back from dozens of ships to only four destroyers, just one of which is continuously at sea and in position to intercept missiles coming from Iran. Carriers are now present in the region only as they transit to the Middle East, and amphibious ships have become so scarce in the theater that the Marine Corps is considering deploying aboard foreign ships. While our NATO allies keep most of their naval forces in European waters, the size of these forces has declined significantly.

As a result of these trends, the United States and our partners are finding it hard to deal with increasingly threatening Russian naval activity, and to project power into strategically critical areas that are coming under threat. It has been widely reported that Russian submarines are operating at levels of activity not seen since the Cold War, and threatening the undersea cables that are critical for telecommunications and financial transactions. Russian surface forces and subs have also been more active on Europe’s watery flanks in the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the eastern Mediterranean, and have even launched cruise missiles into Syria. Moreover, as our top commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, recently told Congress, Russia has also been deploying land-based anti-ship and anti-air missiles along the coasts of the Baltic, the Black Sea, and Syria to create “bubbles” of well-defended water and airspace into which even our most capable forces will be challenged to go. Together, these developments have given Russia strategic leverage over America’s allies in Europe and called into question our ability to defend them.

To mitigate these threats and restore stability in Europe, America must bring more seapower to bear on the continent. Starting at the top, America must sustain and modernize its nuclear deterrent so that Russia, which has once again taken to brandishing its 1,790 active nuclear warheads, will never question our ability to respond to a nuclear attack. The Navy’s next-generation Ohio replacement submarines, which will safeguard 70 percent of our total nuclear arsenal, will play the most important role in that. To deter and respond to conventional attacks, more U.S. naval and amphibious forces should be deployed to European waters, including the Mediterranean, where they will also be able to respond to terrorist threats and pop-up crises in the Middle East and northern Africa. Larger numbers will be required to counter Russia’s growing fleet, and new capabilities and concepts of operation must be developed to counter the “anti-access/area-denial” challenges that General Breedlove is worried about.

These burdens of deterring Russia will fall upon a Navy and Marine Corps that are stressed to meet the other demands already thrust upon them. With only 272 ships — less than half of Reagan’s fleet, and less than one third of what we had under President Kennedy — our Navy will be hard-pressed to provide the presence and surge capacity needed to simultaneously deter conflict in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. But we cannot afford to continue “pivoting” into one theater at the expense of another. What we must do instead is increase investment in our Navy and rebuild the fleet that we need for national defense, not the one that recent administrations have been willing to pay for.

Seventy years ago, Winston Churchill said of the Russians that “there is nothing they admire so much as strength and there is nothing for which they have less respect than weakness, especially military weakness.” We have seen what Russia makes of weakness. It is past time we rebuilt our fleet and restored deterrence in Europe.