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March 03, 2005
The Navy, the Marines, and Tsunami Relief
Interesting stuff from Robert D. Kaplan on the modern U.S. Navy (hat tip Pejmanesque):
AS the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln returned home to San Diego this week from its relief mission in Indonesia, the main lesson of the United States military's remarkable tsunami relief effort has yet to be acknowledged: that the global war on terrorism, rather than distracting the military from performing humanitarian deeds, has made it far more effective at them. This is worth bearing in mind, especially now that President Bush's request for $82 billion in emergency military spending has re-opened the argument over Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's longstanding plan for remaking the armed forces as a leaner, more flexible military machine.
The fact is, the Navy of the 1990's could not have responded nearly as quickly and efficiently to the tsunami as did the post-9/11 one. This is largely because of structural changes made to fight the war on terrorism.
A decade ago, our carrier battle groups mainly did planned, six-month-long "pulse" deployments. Since 9/11, the Navy has put increasing emphasis on emergency "surge" deployments, in which carriers, cruisers and destroyers have to be ready to go anywhere, anytime, to deal with a security threat. The new strategy explains why, in late December, the Abraham Lincoln strike force was able to so quickly leave Hong Kong for Indonesia at a best speed of 27 knots.
Read it all. Kaplan notes that the Navy has placed greater emphasis on "green water" (i.e., close to shore) operations since 9/11. And he notes that a byproduct of the humanitarian aid effort has been a demonstration of the military expertise of the Navy and Marines, compared to the "floundering" efforts of the Chinese navy.
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Comments
Robert Kaplan fan? What should we ask him this Sunday on C-Span? Tell us your thoughts at:
http://www.cominganarchy.com/archives/2005/03/31/robert-d-kaplan-alert/
Warmly,
Curzon
Posted by: Curzon at March 31, 2005 04:29 PM
I'm afraid to say I haven't read that much Kaplan; the article itself certainly grabbed me right away. I expect that I'll become much more familiar with him in the future, thanks to your very interesting blog. You've done your work for the evening. ;-)
Posted by: Jeff at March 31, 2005 07:11 PM
