Unsinkable Ships? Theoretical and Historical Groundings of Joint Operations for Sea Control

Introduction

In the National Defence Statement that forms Part A of the public version of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR), the Minister for Defence, Richard Marles, states that ‘Army must be optimised for littoral operations in our northern land and maritime spaces and provided a long-range strike capability’. Elsewhere in the document, one of the key priorities for the Army is stated to be ‘land-based maritime strike’.[1]

The concept of maritime force projection from land has been developing for some time, with Peter Dean, one of the DSR authors, advocating in 2019 that ‘in this modern battlespace Australia’s land forces need to be fully fused with air and naval capabilities to create a truly integrated joint force’ in order to operate effectively in the maritime-dominated Indo-Pacific.[2] There are also significant parallels between the ideas set out in the DSR and the United States Marine Corps Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) concept. As the recent second edition of the Marine Corps Tentative Manualfor Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations sets out, ‘[t]he true advantage of EABO lie [sic] in the ability to support the projection of naval power by integrating with and supporting the larger naval campaign’.[3] It goes on to explain how the ‘littoral force plays a vital role within the greater naval force by applying fires against maritime surface targets to deny or control sea space’. Similarly, the force would conduct ‘defensive actions to destroy, nullify, or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air and missile threats’.[4]

A core rationale for these ideas has been the rapidly changing technological environment in which forces will be operating in littoral regions. In explaining the EABO concept, Marine Corps Commandant General David Berger has highlighted how ‘[a]dversary advances in long-range precision fires make closer naval integration an imperative’, something that will mean ‘the future integrated naval force will shift from traditional power projection to meet the new challenges associated with maintaining persistent forward naval presence to enable sea control and denial operations’.[5] In order to achieve this: 

Given the realities of geography and the proliferating precision strike regime, the Navy and the joint force will need an ‘inside’ or ‘stand in’ force that can operate persistently within the weapons engagement zone of a peer adversary.[6]

Thus, long-range precision strike, and the challenges it poses to naval forces in littoral regions, is seen as one of the key drivers of this new trend in land operations in the Indo-Pacific. These new technologies are, however, not only part of the rationale for land-based maritime power projection operations; they are also integral to how such a concept would work. 

It is no coincidence that the DSR placed such a priority on Army rapidly accelerating and expanding long-range land-based maritime strike programs.[7] A similar framing has been visible for some time in the American approach.[8] When viewed from this perspective the new operational concepts being explored by the Australian Army and US Marine Corps are driven in large part by the perceived influence long-range land-based maritime strike capabilities will have on operations at sea. 

The focus on land-based maritime strike is noteworthy. It represents a reversal of the trend of at least the past 30 years, and arguably past 80 years, which has seen navies and maritime strategists focus on the ability to project power from the sea to the land. More generally it raises some interesting questions about how these new concepts will fit into traditional maritime strategy. This paper will explore the framing of land power within traditional maritime strategy, and suggest how these new strategic developments can be best understood through both a theoretical and a historical lens. In doing so it will help to provide an intellectual framework through which to understand the new role played by land forces in joint operations in the maritime domain. 

Projecting Power from Land to Sea

Traditionally, states that have sought to control the sea and use it for their own purposes have rarely given much thought to the idea of using land power to control the sea. The only real exception to this is the discussion of expeditionary warfare that targets naval bases. This concept was most fully developed in early 20th century Britain where concerns that an enemy might refrain from confronting the might of the Royal Navy, and instead act as a ‘fleet in being’, led both scholars and practitioners to consider how to meet such a threat. It was in this context that General Sir Charles Callwell wrote of the ‘intimate connection between command of the sea and control of the shore’.[9] These ideas were also explored in detail by Callwell’s contemporary the Royal Marine George Aston.[10] The Russo-Japanese War provided a clear case study of precisely the value of land power in this context. The Imperial Japanese Navy was unable to destroy the inferior Russian Pacific Fleet, which remained in its harbour at Port Arthur, in the Liaodong Peninsula in modern China. In the latter part of 1904, the Russian Baltic Fleet was on its way out to East Asia, and if it had managed to join up with the Pacific Fleet, it would have potentially challenged Japanese sea control. The Japanese Army had besieged the Russian base at Port Arthur, and a desperate battle ensued for the high ground surrounding the harbour. On this action ‘hung the fate of the Russian Squadron’, and arguably the wider war.[11] Japanese success on 5 December 1904 allowed for spotting for the Japanese heavy artillery, and the Russian warships were destroyed in harbour. The French strategic theorist Raoul Castex noted that ‘the destruction of the Russian squadron meant not a private success for the navy but control of the sea so as to safeguard the army’s lines of communications and ensure final victory’.[12] It was in part for this reason that Julian Corbett concluded his history of the war by noting that in a ‘maritime theatre’, the ‘issue of the war must turn on the just coordination of the sea and land arms’.[13]

When it comes to more directly projecting power from the land to the sea, traditional maritime strategy has cast a far more damning verdict. The classic expression comes from Alfred Thayer Mahan, also writing in relation to the Russo-Japanese War. He noted that the behaviour of the Russian fleet at Port Arthur suggested that there was:

prevalent in the high command in Russia a radically erroneous conception of the relations of a fleet to coast operations … This conception is held so strongly as to take form in the phrase ‘fortress-fleet’.[14]

Mahan viewed the idea of a fleet relying upon the support of land-based artillery, and thus being connected to it, as utterly antithetical to the proper use of sea power. As he explained disparagingly, ‘[t]he fortress throughout reduced the fleet, as fleet, to insignificance’.[15] 

The fortress fleet concept has recently been reinvigorated, most notably by the American scholar James Holmes, who has suggested that the concept has ‘come of age’ with the development of China’s long-range anti-ship missiles and wider anti-access area denial (A2AD) capability.[16] His argument is that the radical changes in technology available to land-based forces have made this a viable strategy. He has a point. In 1904 the coastal artillery in fortresses such as Port Arthur had a range measured in thousands of yards. This capability has now been replaced by long-range cruise missiles and anti-ship ballistic missiles that have ranges measured in the thousands of kilometres. Accordingly, the fleet now has a far greater range to operate within while remaining under the ‘guns’ of the fortress. It is significant, however, that Mahan’s critique of the ‘fortress fleet’ idea was not primarily based around the limited range of the coastal artillery. Indeed, he made a measured statement that it was important to ‘give each element—coast fortress and fleet—its due weight, its due consideration, in the scheme of military and naval policy’.[17] Mahan’s fundamental objection was the way that the ‘predominant conception of a fortress fleet reflects national temperament; that is national characteristics, national bias. For what does Fortress Fleet stand? For defensive ideas’. Mahan believed that the strategy of connecting sea power to land power in this way had ‘moral characteristics which will pervade action’ and would do so in ways that were fundamentally detrimental to the effective development and use of sea power.[18] This was, in his view, a limited and continentalist view of maritime power rooted in the basic assumption that the sea is primarily a medium for potential threats and that its use needs to be denied to adversaries. 

Experience across the 20th century tended to broadly support Mahan’s contention. The leveraging of land to shape events at sea continued to be the strategy of those seeking primarily to defend their coastlines through sea denial. The Soviet ‘New School’ of the 1920s and 1930s exemplified such an approach, relying on ‘a small navy which acts together with the Army according to a single strategic plan’.[19] Versions of these ideas remained in currency throughout the Soviet era. Despite the Soviet Union’s far more expansive gaze post-1945, sea denial remained a central element of its maritime strategic thought, and it continued to leverage off land-based assets, particularly a significant naval aviation arm. The protection of its coastline and the ability to hold Western naval forces at bay in the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans was the most important Soviet naval mission throughout the Cold War. This focus intensified with the development of ‘bastion’ strategies aimed at providing protected zones in which Soviet ballistic missile submarines could operate safely. Within this strategy, land-based aviation was seen as playing a crucial role. With some notable exceptions, such as the Soviet Union’s growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean, Soviet naval strategy can be seen as conforming closely with a continentalist view of maritime strategy. 

A continentalist mindset can also be seen in the military strategy of another great power, China. The early years of the People’s Republic of China saw a limited focus on naval matters, with the broad strategic approach being framed as ‘sabotage warfare at sea’. This was based upon ‘mutual support between [limited] surface forces and shore-based weaponry’.[20] Within sections of the Chinese Communist Party, a large navy was seen as ‘an “evil instrument”’ used by Western nations ‘“in the struggle for global hegemony”’.[21] This perspective was evident from the 1970s onwards as China began to look to new technology, notably long-range cruise missiles to defend its coastline. In 1972 the Chinese Vice-Premier stated bluntly that ‘[w]e are continentalists. Now guided missiles are well developed. Installed on shore, they can hit any target, and there is no need to build a big navy’.[22]

This framing remains the primary lens through which most Western analysts conceptualise China’s developing long-range maritime strike capability. As Holmes and Yoshihara have put it, ‘the synergy between sea and land-based maritime might endures in Chinese force design and methods’.[23] The strategic situation in the Western Pacific is often presented as being a contest between a Chinese A2AD approach and American efforts to gain sea control through some form of air-sea battle, or Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAM-GC).[24] Long-range anti-ship missiles, especially land-based ones, are consistently framed as an asymmetric capability deployed by a power seeking to deny the use of the sea.[25] This viewpoint comes through most clearly in the near universal colloquial characterisation of them as ‘carrier killers’. 

Figure 1. JGSDF Type 12 Anti-Ship Missile Launch, Talisman Sabre 23.(Source: Defence image gallery)

Superficially, this conceptualisation of land-based long-range maritime strike capabilities aligns neatly with the strategic approach recommended for Australia in the DSR. The review’s primary recommendation is that ‘the Government directs Defence to adopt a strategy of denial’. It goes on to say that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) ‘must focus on the development of anti-access/area denial capabilities’, including long-range maritime strike.[26] In some regards, this approach has the hallmarks of a modern version of the late Cold War Defence of Australia strategy, using new technology to dominate the air-sea gap.[27] By extension, one could argue that Australia should emulate the A2AD model which is supposedly at the heart of Chinese strategy within the Western Pacific. 

Closer engagement, however, shows the obvious flaws in such a framing. The DSR itself highlights the essential requirement to use the maritime domain, not merely deny its use to others. This is implicit in its focus on joint operations, littoral capability, and the significance of an immediate region of primary military interest that is ‘encompassing the north-eastern Indian Ocean through maritime Southeast Asia into the Pacific’.[28] The necessity for Australia to go beyond denial comes through most strongly when looking at the third ‘mission’ for the ADF set out by the Minister for Defence in his National Defence Statement, namely the requirement to ‘protect Australia’s economic connection to our region and the world’.[29] The problem with applying a narrow ‘continentalist’ conception of denial is expressed with notable clarity in Australian Maritime Doctrine. It states:

Because Australia is an island continent fundamentally dependent upon the sea for communications, and because it exists within a region equally dependent upon the sea, it is control rather than denial which bears more closely upon our national situation.[30]

For this reason, Australian efforts to utilise land power to influence actions at sea must be focused on working with the Navy and Air Force to achieve both sea denial and sea control where appropriate. Given the similarities in strategic outlook between Australia and the US, it is unsurprising that this is the same conclusion reached by the US Marine Corps. 

The realisation that Australia needs to go well beyond any narrow focus on A2AD returns us to the core question addressed in this paper: how should the ADF conceptualise the projection of force from land to sea in an effort to support the control and use of the sea? Put another way, how should we view long-range land-based maritime strike if we accept that the continentalist narrative around ‘carrier killers’ and asymmetric capabilities is not appropriate?

Achieving Sea Control

Sir Julian Corbett, the British naval historian and maritime strategist, stated plainly that ‘[t]he object of naval warfare must always be directly or indirectly either to secure the command of the sea or to prevent the enemy from securing it’.[31] In this, his views largely aligned with those of his great contemporary, Mahan. While they agreed on this core principle, there was divergence between the two theorists’ views about how that command was to be secured. 

Mahan was a great advocate of large fleets of battleships: ‘[A] navy which wishes to affect decisively the issues of a maritime war must be composed of heavy ships—“battleships”—possessing a maximum of fighting power’.[32] In his view, the battlefleet needed the freedom to seek out and destroy enemy forces as opposed to being tied in any way to the land. Indeed, the idea of a battlefleet being in anyway defensive, even of interests on land, was seen as heretical. As Mahan observed, ‘[s]eaports should defend themselves; the sphere of the fleet is on the open ocean, its object is offence rather than defence, its objective the enemy’s shipping wherever it can be found’.[33] Thus, Mahan viewed command of the sea, or sea control, as something that derived directly from the actions of the battlefleet. Preferably this would result from the destruction of an enemy’s fleet in a decisive battle, which he saw as the primary means of securing command of the sea. These ideas have remained hugely influential in maritime strategic thought throughout the century since Mahan’s death. 

Corbett, while broadly agreeing with Mahan on the significance of command of the sea, developed a subtly different concept of how that would be achieved—one that has value when looking at the changes brought about by advances in technology, including long-range precision maritime strike. Corbett wrote at some length about the weapons of naval warfare, or as he put it the ‘constitution of fleets’. He pushed back against the general assumption that fleets should have a relatively consistent form, instead insisting that they ‘are, or ought to be, the expression in material of the strategical and tactical ideas that prevail at any given time’.[34] Corbett also challenged the direct connection between the battlefleet and command of the sea. He argued that ‘for the actual and direct control of either commercial or military lines of passage and communication battle fleets are unnecessary and unsuitable’.[35] Instead, Corbett argued that the flotilla and smaller craft exercised control of the sea. The role of the battlefleet was to provide ‘the security of control’. Therefore, unless there was a direct threat from an enemy fleet, the battlefleet was redundant. In Corbett’s view, the role of the battlefleet was to provide a security umbrella under which smaller vessels could exercise command of the sea, and exploit it as appropriate.[36]

When outlined within maritime strategy it is commonly implied, for the sake of clarity, that such a security umbrella should be direct: that the flotilla should exercise command directly under the guns of the fleet. The reality tends to be very different. For instance, during the First World War, the British Grand Fleet spent most of its time at anchor in Scapa Flow, north of Scotland. To all appearances it achieved very little. However, when considered more closely it is evident that the fleet, through its existence and deterrent effect, continued to provide security. As Herbert Richmond remarked, the ‘small craft acting as escorts, patrols or hunting were able to operate freely … solely by virtue of the cover afforded by the Grand Fleet’.[37] This cover had great geographic range. In both world wars Australia was largely protected from German naval depredations by the location of the superior British fleet astride the German access to the open oceans. Indeed, during the First World War the Royal Australian Navy’s modern vessels spent most of their time in the North Sea precisely because this was the most effective place from which to protect Australia’s national interests. More widely the interconnectedness of oceans and the strategic mobility of naval vessels means that the naval forces of major powers do not need to be in region to exert a significant effect. The mere prospect that they could be deployed is frequently sufficient to provide the security of control, especially in peacetime. 

As Corbett argued, the roles of naval warfare are not necessarily tied to the specific technologies used to carry them out. The century since Corbett’s death has seen significant shifts in the technologies used to create the necessary security umbrella. The battleship’s mantle was passed to the aircraft carrier, and in certain circumstances land-based aviation. This has not undermined the importance of the role, and it appears likely that land-based anti-ship missiles will form (or already have formed) an important addition to this suite of potential capabilities. As was the case with battlefleets, these weapons appear to be ill suited to the role of exercising command of the sea. Like battleships they are too specialised to conduct the range of tasks necessary, and more generally they lack the obvious flexibility of warships. As will be discussed below, they also have significant challenges in terms of providing sufficient command across surface, sub-surface and air in order to facilitate use of the sea. This does not, however, mean that these weapons necessarily strengthen sea denial over sea control, or make surface vessels redundant, any more than their sea-based predecessors in this role did. The technology does not define its use, and we need to be careful to avoid pigeonholing it simply because of the current approaches of certain states. 

The Wartime Influence of the Land on the Sea 

The use of land-based capability in providing a security umbrella for maritime operations is not an entirely new concept. In fact, there have been a number of examples, primarily of the use of land-based aviation in this role in specific theatres, most notably during the Second World War. These ideas have tended to slip from view in the years since 1945, but it is valuable to revisit a couple of examples in order to understand the role of land forces in projecting power into the sea, and why it is that this has failed to gain traction within wider discourse on maritime strategy. The development of air power sufficient to reliably conduct operations at sea, targeting significant-sized vessels, developed during the interwar period. Its impact played out across the range of theatres during the Second World War, and its degree was naturally shaped by factors including geography and strategy. 

One of the theatres where this was most notable was the Mediterranean. This comparatively small, almost entirely landlocked sea sat at the centre of the military theatre, and was essential to both the Allied and Axis powers in their efforts to supply their respective bases and land forces. Both sides maintained significant ‘traditional’ naval forces in the theatre, including battleships and, in the case of the Allies, aircraft carriers. These naval forces were supported (and challenged) by large-scale land-based aviation from both sides. A core role for this air power was sea denial, with much attention being focused on German efforts, especially those of Fliegerkorps X against the Royal Navy, and the sinking of the Italian battleship Roma by a German radio-controlled bomb. 

Figure 2. HMS Eagle under air attack in the Mediterranean, view from HMAS Vendetta. (Source: Sea Power Centre – Australia)

A wider survey of the theatre, however, reveals that land-based air power served in exactly the role set out by Julian Corbett. It augmented, and at times replaced, the use of heavy naval forces in providing the ‘security of command’ necessary to enable smaller vessels to exercise that command, and merchant vessels to use the sea for critical supply purposes. This security of command was, for much of the period from 1940 to the end of 1943, temporary, limited, and highly contested. Air power, whether land or sea based, was a vital component of wider efforts to provide security of command and, by extension, to control and use the sea. The Allies’ eventual success in the theatre came when they secured control of the entire North African littoral. This was an essential step that allowed the Allies to establish a significant degree of command of the sea, not least because of the infrastructure it made available to Allied land-based aviation—facilities that were at the same time denied to the Axis. This successful land campaign was, however, itself in part a result of the growing ability of the Allies to exert sufficient sea control where and when it was needed, while also preventing the Axis powers from doing the same. These interconnections between air, sea and land power, including the projection of power from the land to the sea, were so tightly enmeshed that it is impossible, and unhelpful, to try to unpick them. Indeed, the historian Richard Hammond has recently noted that the Mediterranean was: 

one of, if not the, most operationally ‘joint’ theatres of war … In no other theatre had combat been so defined by interdependence on the roles of air, sea and land power. Time and again the successful application of any one of these instruments hinged on effective coordination with the other two.[38]

The situation in the South-West Pacific during the Second World War was shaped by very different geographies and resources, but there were notable similarities. Within the wider Pacific theatre, the distances involved ensured that it was carrier-based aviation that came to dominate both the skies and the seas below. This was less true in the waters closer to Australia. In this broadly maritime domain, the real significance of land-based power projection first became evident during the Guadalcanal campaign. From very early on, both sides acknowledged the importance of Henderson Field, the only significant airstrip on the island. US Navy Official Historian Samuel Morison observed that early Japanese efforts to recapture the island in September 1942 were shaped by a strategy that: 

was a curious reversal of principles that had come down from the pre-air age. Instead of counting on a fleet to secure command of adjacent waters before pressing a land attack, the Japanese decided they must capture the air base before challenging their enemy’s fleet.[39]

While the attack was unsuccessful, the ongoing campaign proved that the approach was logical. Despite dreadful conditions and regular Japanese attempts to destroy it, Henderson Field remained a crucial link in the island’s defence due to its ability to support the projection of power from land to sea. Throughout the campaign ‘during daylight hours, aircraft from Guadalcanal dominated the sea around the island’.[40] This force was so significant that it drove the Japanese to rely upon night-time missions to resupply their troops on Guadalcanal. The inability of the Japanese to silence the US Navy and Marines aircraft operating from Henderson was a crucial factor that led to the eventual Japanese decision to evacuate the island. Land-based air power helped ensure that the Japanese were unable to develop sufficient control of the sea around the island to support their operations, and so they were forced to withdraw. 

The operations in the South-West Pacific that followed the Allied victory at Guadalcanal saw a similar, if arguably even more significant, role being played by land-based aviation. While many of these operations occurred along the coast of New Guinea, the second-largest island in the world, the nature of the terrain ensured that it was fundamentally a littoral campaign. The difficulties of manoeuvring on land placed a strong emphasis on maritime mobility and logistics. Circumstances, however, dictated that the theatre commander, General Douglas MacArthur, could not take a traditional approach of relying on naval forces to provide sea control and power projection on shore. The reality was that MacArthur’s relationship with his US Navy colleagues was poor at the best of times, and in a period of limited resources and competing priorities, the South-West Pacific received, initially at least, limited naval support. Despite this: 

MacArthur’s campaign for the advance from New Guinea to the Philippines became one based on a maritime strategy. However, MacArthur had only a relatively small navy. Instead, his main striking force was his air force, based on jungle airstrips rather than on aircraft carriers. The role of the army was to seize and hold the areas for the airstrips and for the naval anchorages and bases.[41]

This approach drove the series of Australian-American operations up the coast of New Guinea, each seeking to establish a new advanced air base from which to then project power further forward. As observed by Dean, ‘For MacArthur “command of the air gave command of the sea, which gave initiative and control of the ground”’.[42] Thus, the nature of the theatre and the exigencies of war meant that traditional maritime strategy was inverted, or at least more complicated—the projection of air power from land to sea became an essential prerequisite for the projection of power from sea to land. As operations moved on to the Philippines in late 1944, the unique characteristics of littoral warfare that had marked the campaigns of the South-West Pacific passed. Following the victories at the battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf, the unprecedented quantity of American carrier-based naval aviation, combined with the naval supremacy exerted by the Allies, ensured that the significant role of land-based aviation in securing command of the sea was not repeated. 

In the Mediterranean and the South-West Pacific theatres of war, neither the Allied nor the Axis forces adopted a strategy defined primarily by sea denial. Sea control and the exploitation of the sea were both essential elements of the strategies of all participants in these campaigns. There has nevertheless been relatively little acknowledgement of this reality within postwar discussions of the operational campaigns and their relevance to wider maritime strategy. With the exception of occasional remarks such as the one by Samuel Morison quoted above, the significant shift within maritime strategy marked by the rise of land-based power projection into the sea has remained largely unexplored. The reasons for this limited engagement with the issue remain obscure. 

In terms of maritime strategic analysis of the Pacific war, most commentary has focused on the US Navy-led thrust through the central Pacific. This story is dominated by the remarkable influence of carrier-based naval aviation, something that continues to define most people’s conceptions of the war in the Pacific. The South-West Pacific campaign was in many ways less obviously significant, and in terms of the perspective of the US Navy had the unfortunate characteristic of being inextricably associated with the figure of General Douglas MacArthur, a leading adversary in the bitter interservice fight. Western navies also had a very strong institutional reason for playing down the impact of land-based aviation on maritime strategy in the years following the end of the Second World War. The late 1940s and early 1950s saw what was believed to be an existential challenge to navies in the form of extreme concepts of air power theory. In 1942, the Russian-American air power ‘prophet’ Alexander de Seversky claimed:

[T]he time is approaching when even the phrase ‘sea power’ will lose all real meaning. All military issues will be settled by relative strength in the skies. At that time, I dare to foresee, by the inexorable logic of military progress, the Navy as a separate entity will cease to exist.[43]

While the rhetoric inside Western armed forces and governments was less extreme, the perceived threat posed by air forces in a world defined by nuclear weapons was nevertheless real.[44] Navies were desperate to demonstrate their own utility, and raising questions about the role of land-based forces in core naval tasks such as sea control would have been extremely damaging.

Discussion of land-based aviation in the European theatre during the Second World War tended to focus on its use by Germany in a primarily sea denial capability. The obvious and very significant exception to this was in the area of anti-submarine warfare (ASW). Experience of both World Wars had demonstrated the effectiveness of land-based aviation in this critical role for any power looking to use the sea. Rapid changes in submarine technology in the early Cold War saw major challenges for fixed-wing air power to find and destroy the new generations of both diesel-electric and later nuclear submarines.[45] Despite this, land-based fixed-wing aviation continued to be seen as a vital part of the ASW puzzle. In terms of wider sea control efforts, there was far less interest in using the land to influence the sea. Indeed, the consistent framing of events through much of the Cold War presented Soviet land-based aviation—a key part of their perceived sea denial strategy—in opposition to Western, and particularly American, carrier-based aviation. As one 1950s American planning document stated, ‘[o]ur carrier task forces will destroy enemy Naval forces and shipping, attack naval bases, [and] attack air bases threatening control of the seas’.[46] This conceptualisation of naval strategy meant that, while there remained an underlying awareness of the potential value of land-based power projection into the sea in support of a sea control mission, it was never really embraced. Instead, Cold War maritime strategy tended to follow the traditional approach of seeing sea control as something provided by naval forces at sea (including carrier-based aviation) which could then be utilised to project power onto the land.[47] The notion of land forces playing a vital role in securing sea control largely faded from view. 

The Revolution in Long-Range Fires

Central to much of the recent discussion around the influence of land-based power projection into the sea has been developments in anti-ship missile technologies. In reality these weapons are nothing like as new as is sometimes suggested. The first warship sunk by an anti-ship missile was the Israeli destroyer Eilat as far back as 1967. While the majority of anti-ship missiles have been designed to be air or ship launched, the concept of ground launch versions is also not new. The Soviets and Chinese have long developed coastal defence missile batteries, something that has fuelled the narrative around the role of A2AD. During the Falklands War, Argentina took an Exocet anti-ship missile launcher from a destroyer and jury-rigged it as a ground-based system. This proved remarkably effective, inflicting significant damage on the British destroyer Glamorgan. More recently, the sinking of the Russian warship Moskva by a Ukrainian mobile anti-ship missile battery received considerable attention, with suggestions that this event has radically changed naval warfare.[48] However, the system used was based on a Cold War era Soviet missile design, so it is important not to overemphasise the novelty of such developments.[49] Even the general focus on the expansion of the range of missiles appears overstated. Cruise missiles with ranges into the thousands of kilometres have been around for decades. Indeed, there is a degree of irony that the Tomahawk missile, a system originally designed in the 1970s, looks set to remain the primary long-range anti-ship weapon for the US Navy and now US Marine Corps.[50] The obvious exception to this is the reported development of ballistic anti-ship missiles, most notably by China. These weapons have a range that is far greater than existing missiles, and the potential impact of this has been referenced by the US Marine Corps Commandant in his discussion of the rationale behind the EABO concept. 

Figure 3. Iranian frigate Sahand on fire after Harpoon anti-ship missile strikes during OP Praying Mantis, 1988. (Source: United States Navy/Wikimedia commons)

Despite the prevalence of discussions around technology, strategy is arguably a more pressing driver for concepts such as EABO and the Australian Army’s renewed focus on littoral warfare. In technological terms land-based power projection could have been a priority in decades past, but there was no strategic imperative for it. It is the growth of the People’s Liberation Army Navy that has radically reshaped the strategic settings. There is now, certainly for the first time since the height of the Cold War, and arguably for the first time since the Second World War, a power seeking to challenge the dominance of the United States and its allies, not merely through the exercise of sea denial but through attempts to establish regional sea control.[51] In response to this development, efforts are now being made by the West to exploit all opportunities to contest China’s bid for sea control. For this reason, it is important that we do not get too preoccupied with the idea that this shift towards projecting power from land to sea is a technologically driven one. As we have seen, the concept of land-based power projection has a long history. Developing and integrating a land-based maritime strike capability into the ADF will depend as much on a change of mindset as on a technological revolution. 

Unsinkable but Immobile Ships?

In many respects, the development of land-based long-range maritime strike by powers seeking sea control can be readily framed within traditional concepts of maritime strategy. These approaches can be employed in coordination with more traditional naval forces to provide an umbrella of security at sea. There are, however, certain significant differences between a land-based approach to the generation of a ‘security umbrella’ and a more traditional navy-based one, which will have major implications for strategy and planning. 

The first of these is persistence or endurance. As Ken Booth notes ‘warships have impressive staying power’ and their ability to loiter, all the time providing effect, is one of their great strengths.[52] However, when compared to land forces, the endurance of naval platforms is very limited. Thus, any shift towards reliance on land-based rather than naval assets to deliver security of command will have significant strategic implications. It will mean that the power that is able to utilise such terrestrial capabilities will have major advantages. Notably it will have the capacity to exercise command of the sea even when major naval assets are not available—as was frequently the case in New Guinea—and it will enable them to take fewer risks with those naval assets—as was arguably the case at Guadalcanal. 

The second, countervailing implication of any shift towards the use of land-based capabilities to provide the security umbrella at sea is their obvious lack of mobility. A major warship has considerable strategic mobility, travelling up to 600 miles in a day.[53] Land-based forces cannot possibly compete with this mobility, even taking into account the stated desire of both the US Marine Corps and the Australian Army to enhance littoral mobility. This has obvious implications in terms of the area over which a force can provide a security umbrella. Land-based forces cannot move with the vessels exercising command or exploiting that command in the same way that warships can. The heavy escorts provided to convoys such as Operation PEDESTAL during the Second World War were able to create a mobile bubble of sufficient sea control to allow the convoy to get through. The inability of ground forces to do the same will place a greater emphasis on the requirement for range in the weapons system and wider kill chain. Further, the comparative immobility of land-based forces makes them more vulnerable to enemy targeting. Certainly it is far easier to maintain a kill chain targeting established military bases as opposed to mobile warships. Therefore, if land-based forces wish to take advantage of the ‘unsinkable’ nature of their domain, it is likely that they will need to retain sufficient mobility to problematise enemy targeting. 

This lack of mobility also affects the degree of cover that can be provided by land-based capabilities. As discussed above, one of the most valuable aspects of naval power is the indirect cover it can provide. Land-based forces may continue to be able to provide this capability if they can exercise sortie control.[54] In a situation such as that existing between Britain and Germany during the First World War, sufficient control of the vital chokepoints exiting the North Sea enabled the Royal Navy to exert indirect control over the wider oceans. The broader aspects of indirect cover will prove far more problematic. Naval forces have always relied upon the interconnectedness of the oceans to be able to achieve effect through the potential for action. Throughout the 19th century the Royal Navy dominated the world’s oceans, and did so in spite of the fact that its battlefleets rarely left European waters. The potential to do so was sufficient to deter any adversary from challenging the light British forces in theatre. Arguably the United States Navy has benefited from a similar phenomenon in recent decades. Land-based weapons will not be able to offer these advantages. 

Finally, an obvious challenge for any land-based force tasked with supporting sea control is the requirement to exert sufficient control over all three domains in order to facilitate the use of the sea. The US Marines are already beginning to consider this challenge. As outlined, they are considering how to provide short-, medium- and long-range air and missile defence to both support their own operations and provide wider security.[55] There has even been discussion about how a land-based force can best support ASW operations. Precisely how this might work remains unclear, but it is apparent that the Marines are looking at how they can deliver support across the air, surface and sub-surface components required for sea control.[56] The wider point about the limitations of land-based forces in influencing across the three domains can be overplayed. After all, the battleships of the Grand Fleet provided little protection against U-boats. Their security umbrella was one focused on the surface domain, allowing the smaller escort vessels to conduct minesweeping and ASW operations unmolested. This model may continue to be relevant with the growth of land-based power projection forces. 

Conclusion

The concepts set out in the DSR, together with those being articulated by the US Marine Corps, underscore a growing interest in developing allied capability to project power from land to sea. The capability to achieve this effect will most likely take the form of long-range anti-ship missiles and supporting systems. This technology and approach have been the subject of intense discussion over the past decade, but this has largely taken place in response to their development by states such as China and Russia in an A2AD capacity. This has led to a preoccupation with their being sea denial weapons which fit into a modern ‘fortress fleet’ strategy. But this is not the only way to conceptualise them. As demonstrated by this paper, long-range maritime strike capabilities that aim to project power from land to sea can fit as easily into the traditional maritime strategic approach of a state seeking sea control as they do into the strategic approach of a state seeking to achieve sea denial. As the case studies from the Second World War clearly demonstrate, a similar strategic approach has been employed by Australian, American and British forces in the past as part of efforts to secure sea control and achieve wider joint effects. Together this theoretical and historical contextualisation offers the potential to better understand the role Australian land forces are now being asked to play, and how it might fit into the wider strategic picture. 

The commentary on the DSR has widely framed it as prioritising the Royal Australian Navy over the Australian Army. In certain respects, this may be true. However, it is perhaps better to frame the review as prioritising warfighting capability focused on a maritime region. The theoretical and historical discussion above demonstrates that land-based forces can play a vital role in a joint strategic approach in such a region. If Australia wishes to hold an adversary at bay at some distance, be able to deter aggression coming from the north, and work with allies to contain threats to a degree sufficient to enable the continued security of its crucial maritime connections, then it will have to employ all potential approaches. Land-based maritime power projection has the potential to be a crucial force multiplier, allowing Australian forces across all three services to achieve maximum results within the country’s constrained resources. 

Land-based forces offer significant advantages in their ability to use a combination of anti-ship missiles, air defence, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to create sea control / sea denial bubbles in scenarios where that would otherwise be impossible. As General Berger has noted, there are major opportunities for them to do so with acceptable risk inside the weapons engagement zone of an adversary. They could also provide a persistent presence which is impossible to maintain with limited naval forces. Land-based maritime power projection offers the potential to utilise limited naval capability more effectively, achieving greatly enhanced geographical reach. It also has the potential to help mitigate some of the very considerable logistical problems of naval operations in the Indo-Pacific region, such as the necessity to return to established port facilities to reload vertical launch systems. In order to maximise this effect, it will be essential that land-based forces are able to provide as effective a sea control / sea denial bubble as possible and coordinate closely with the other two services and international partners in doing so. It will also be important that the land-based forces have sufficient endurance to operate independently for a period; otherwise they may prove more of a liability than an asset to their sister services. Land-based maritime power projection offers considerable opportunities for both the Australian Army and the wider joint force. In order to maximise this, it is essential to move beyond the technologically dominated narratives that have marked much of the discussion of this type of approach, and locate it in its appropriate strategic context. Doing so will enable a clear-eyed analysis of the potential opportunities and costs, and help break down any siloed service-orientated outlooks. 

About the Author

Dr Richard Dunley is a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy. His research and teaching addresses issues across naval history and maritime strategy. A particular focus has been on interactions of naval technology and maritime strategy, in both historical and contemporary contexts.

Endnotes