383 Guillem Colom Piella Defining the US Navy in the 21st Century the Navy not only embraced the RMA21 but had been converted – thanks to Admiral Owens and his system of systems22 and Admiral Cebrowski with the network-centric warfare23 – its greatest promoters. Similar in form and content to the 1996 roadmap, this document continued ratifying the role of the Navy as the pillar of U.S. foreign policy and established its main duties as forward presence, strategic deterrence, control of the sea, maritime supremacy and strategic deployment. However, the bulk of the report dealt with littoral warfare and power projection onshore, as it was in coastal regions where the new technologies, procedures, concepts and organic structures promised to revolutionise how missions were conducted.24 Basing itself on the framework for joint operations laid down in Joint Vision 2010 – where the dominance of manoeuvre, precision strikes, multidimensional protection and consolidated logistics, together with superior information constituted the pillars of the U.S. Revolution in Military Affairs – this roadmap affirmed that 21 See, for example, the great variety of articles written by Army officers, who were analysing the impact of the RMA on the sea, published in specialised journals like Sea Power, Proceedings or Joint Forces Quarterly; or the numerous research works and monographs penned by pupils, teachers and researchers of the United States Naval School of War. 22 Classified as the essence of the RMA, the system of systems is founded on the networked connectivity that any soldier, sensor, arm, platform or team has available in order to accumulate an immense quantity of information on the operations area, converting it into useful intelligence for the troops operating on the ground and putting it to immediate use in order to defeat the enemy. By providing full knowledge of the battlefield, the system-of-systems not only serves to reduce the inherent friction of any armed conflict, but also to dissipate the fog of war that surrounds any military operation from the beginning of time (OWENS, William: “The Emerging System-of-Systems”, Proceedings, vol. 121 nº 1.105, 1995, pp. 35-39). 23 Considered to constitute the theory of conflicts of the Information Age, it is based on the possibilities offered by the system of systems for the development of a new style of combat which, organised around small joint network-centred forces, and distributed geographically across the battlefield, permits operations with historically-speaking unprecedented coordination, flexibility, speed, precision and security, enabling these to identify, determine and hit enemy targets before they realise that they have been discovered. Indeed, network-centric warfare was to become one of the central elements of the RMA and one of the pillars of the new American style of fighting. (CEBROWSKI, Arthur and GARSTKA, John: “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future”, Proceedings, vol. 124 nº 1.139, 1998, pp. 28-35). 24 It is interesting to note that Forward…From the Sea is the first official document that explained the reasons behind the Navy’s interest in littoral warfare, reasons that years previously had been addressed in numerous technical and academic publications. Thus, as the document argues: “…the landward side of the littoral … encompasses areas of strategic importance to the United States. Seventy-five percent of the Earth’s population and a similar proportion of national capitals and major commercial centres lie in the littorals. These are the places where American influence and power have the greatest impact and are needed most often.” (Department of the Navy, Operational Maneuver… op. cit., p. 3).
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