377 Guillem Colom Piella Defining the US Navy in the 21st Century had proposed years previously – suggested that network warfare was the essence of the RMA, the Navy immediately endorsed this idea and it became the apex of the naval revolution. Expeditionary vocation, littoral warfare, network operations, oceanic supremacy and controversial air-sea battle –recently raised requisites, with the United States fearful that countries like China could challenge their control of the sea and deny access to certain zones of interest in the world– constitute the axes of a naval transformation conditioned by the inheritance of the War on Terror and the grave economic crisis affecting us. Bearing this in mind, we shall take a panoramic view of the technological, operational and organic changes developed by the U.S. Navy since the end of the Cold War, so as to successfully face the uncertain challenges of the 21st Century. 2. THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE NAVAL TRANSFORMATION Historically speaking, the Navy has been one of the main springs of American foreign policy. During the Cold War, it played a central role in military strategy,3 protecting lines of sea communication between the United States and its allies, stalking the Soviet fleet while denying it control of the sea and safeguarding the missile-launch submarines, the most fearful element of the nuclear triad.4 3 A complete analysis of the U.S. Navy during the Cold War can be found in: MAROLDA, Edward: “Cold War to Violent Peace”, in HOLLAND, William (ed.): The Navy, Washington DC: Naval Historical Foundation, 2000, pp. 105-132). However, it is important to recall that the founding principles of the present-day U.S. Navy were established in the 1980s when, in order to counter-attack the Soviet naval strategy devised by Admiral Gorskhov, the Reagan Administration proposed the construction of more and better vessels; that was when the 600-ship Navy was proposed, with the integration of elements of the fleet and the Aegis combat system and the debut of the Tomahawk cruise missile and an aggressive strategy aimed at denying the Soviet fleet control of the sea was implemented, obliging them to reposition their missile-launch submarines to their own coasts or those of the Black Sea, thereby facilitating their destruction in the case of nuclear war. (HATTENDORF, John: The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy, 1977–1986, Newport: Naval War College, 2003). 4 This concept came into existence in The United States during the Cold War to define the three vectors – land-based ballistic intercontinental missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and nuclear-capable strategic bombers. Relying on this nuclear triad guaranteed the survival of atomic weapons in the case of a preventive strike, enabling the capacity for counter-attack and thus strengthening their deterring force. Besides, the difficulty in detecting submarine missile launchers and their capacity for launching missiles any point of the ocean, turned the SLBM into a weapon of reprisal or counter-attack and the most feared element of this nuclear triad.
REVISTA IEEE 4
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