NAVAL WAR COLLEGE NEWPORT PAPERS 26 N A Reposturing the Force V AL U.S. Overseas Presence in the Twenty-first Century W AR COLLEGE NE WPOR T P AP ERS N ES AV T A A L T W S A D R E C T I O N L L U E E G H E T R I VI IBU OR A S CT MARI VI 26 Carnes Lord, Editor Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Cover Preparations for evening flight operations on board the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) in March 2005. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate Airman Ryan O’Connor. T:\Academic\Newport Papers\Newport Paper Lord\Ventura\NPLord.vp Tuesday, February 07, 2006 10:14:03 AM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Reposturing the Force U.S. Overseas Presence in the Twenty-first Century Carnes Lord, Editor NAVAL WAR COLLEGE PRESS Newport, Rhode Island T:\Academic\Newport Papers\Newport Paper Lord\Ventura\NPLord.vp Tuesday, February 07, 2006 10:14:13 AM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Naval War College The Newport Papers are extended research projects that the Newport, Rhode Island Editor, the Dean of Naval Warfare Studies, and the Center for Naval Warfare Studies President of the Naval War College consider of particular Newport Paper Twenty-six interest to policy makers, scholars, and analysts. February 2006 The views expressed in the Newport Papers are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the President, Naval War College Naval War College or the Department of the Navy. Rear Admiral Jacob L. Shuford, U.S. Navy Correspondence concerning the Newport Papers may be Provost/Dean of Academics addressed to the Editor of the Naval War College Press. To Professor James F. Giblin, Jr. request additional copies, back copies, or subscriptions to Dean of Naval Warfare Studies the series, please either write the President (Code 32S), Dr. Kenneth H. Watman Naval War College, 686 Cushing Road, Newport, RI 02841-1207, or contact the Press staff at the telephone, fax, Naval War College Press or e-mail addresses given. Editor: Dr. Carnes Lord Reproduction and printing is subject to the Copyright Act Managing Editor: Pelham G. Boyer of 1976 and applicable treaties of the United States. This document may be freely reproduced for academic or other Telephone: 401.841.2236 noncommercial use; however, it is requested that Fax: 401.841.1071 reproductions credit the author and Newport Papers series DSN exchange: 948 and that the Press editorial office be informed. To obtain E-mail: [email protected] permission to reproduce this publication for commercial Web: www.nwc.navy.mil/press purposes, contact the Press editorial office. Printed in the United States of America ISSN 1544-6824 T:\Academic\Newport Papers\Newport Paper Lord\Ventura\NPLord.vp Tuesday, February 07, 2006 10:14:13 AM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Contents Foreword, by Carnes Lord v Introduction, by Carnes Lord 1 CHAPTER ONE Thinking about Basing 9 by Robert E. Harkavy CHAPTER TWO Transforming the U.S. Global Defense Posture 33 by Ryan Henry CHAPTER THREE Politics and Diplomacy of the Global Defense Posture Review 49 by Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr. CHAPTER FOUR A Place and a Base: Guam and the American Presence in East Asia 65 by Andrew S. Erickson and Justin D. Mikolay CHAPTER FIVE On Sea Basing 95 by Robert O. Work List of Abbreviations 183 Contributors 191 The Newport Papers 193 T:\Academic\Newport Papers\Newport Paper Lord\Ventura\NPLord.vp Tuesday, February 07, 2006 10:14:13 AM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen T:\Academic\Newport Papers\Newport Paper Lord\Ventura\NPLord.vp Tuesday, February 07, 2006 10:14:13 AM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Foreword The present volume, Reposturing the Force: U.S. Overseas Presence in the Twenty-first Century, is the twenty-sixth in the Newport Papers monograph series, published since 1991 by the Naval War College Press. Its primary aim is to provide a snapshot of a pro- cess—the ongoing reconfiguration of America’s foreign military “footprint” abroad— that is likely to prove of the most fundamental importance for the long-term security of the United States, yet has so far received little if any systematic attention from na- tional security specialists and still less from the wider public. As such, it serves well the broad mission of the Newport Papers series—to provide rigorous and authoritative analysis, of a sort not readily available in the world of academic or commercial pub- lishing, of issues of strategic salience to the U.S. Navy and the national security com- munity generally. Reposturing the Force is, however, unusual in the manner in which it combines rigor and authoritativeness, for several of its authors are or recently were senior U.S. govern- ment officials. Ryan Henry and Lincoln Bloomfield, Jr., have been central figures in the Global Defense Posture Review (initiated by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2002 as the key mechanism for forcing transformation of the U.S. overseas presence) while serving as, respectively, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. As such, they are uniquely positioned to comment on the unfolding of this vast, complex, and extremely sensitive undertaking, many of the details of which are still in flux or are (and likely will remain) classified. For additional perspective on the subject, however, we have felt it important to include also papers by several independent scholars and policy analysts. Robert Harkavy’s opening essay helps to place current developments in the American global posture in a larger historical and strategic framework. Andrew Erickson and Justin Mikolay provide an in-depth analysis of the role of Guam in recent thinking and deci- sions about the posture of the U.S. military in the western Pacific. Finally, Robert Work examines the emerging concept of “sea basing” in Navy and Marine Corps doctrine and force planning, an integral yet so far largely neglected dimension of the American military presence abroad. The papers by Henry and Bloomfield were specially commissioned for this volume, and the editor would like to thank both authors for their eager and responsive participation in this project. Also instrumental in supporting this effort within the Office of the Sec- retary of Defense were Barry Pavel; Captain Randall Hendrickson, USN; Lesley Young; T:\Academic\Newport Papers\Newport Paper Lord\Ventura\NPLord.vp Tuesday, February 07, 2006 10:14:14 AM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen vi THE NEWPORT PAPERS and Brian Arakelian; thanks are due to each of them. Finally, I would like to express ap- preciation to Robert Work for making available portions of a larger manuscript on Navy/Marine Corps force structure, as well as to Henry Kamradt of the Center for Na- val Warfare Studies for his editorial work on this material. Ryan Henry’s paper has been formally reviewed and cleared for publication by the De- partment of Defense. The remaining papers reflect the opinions of the authors and should not be assumed to coincide with the official views of the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government generally. CARNES LORD Director, Naval War College Press Newport, Rhode Island T:\Academic\Newport Papers\Newport Paper Lord\Ventura\NPLord.vp Tuesday, February 07, 2006 10:14:14 AM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Introduction CARNES LORD Perhaps because American theorizing about war and strategy has in recent times been heavily influenced by the land-power orientation of our chief adversaries, the subject of overseas bases and the necessity of reliance on them for the projection of power across maritime theaters of operations has remained very much at the margins of stra- tegic analysis in the United States. The revival of the thought of the nineteenth-century Prussian theorist of war Carl von Clausewitz within the American armed forces begin- ning in the late 1970s has not been matched by a rediscovery of our own Alfred Thayer Mahan, the late-Victorian apostle of a navy with global reach as the chief enabler of national power. Mahan’s classic work The Influence of Seapower upon History 1600– 1783 (1890) made a convincing case that the rise of Britain in modern times was de- cisively aided by its ability to dominate the world’s sea lines of communication by its formidable navy, supported, on the one hand, by a robust foreign commerce and, on the other, by a network of strategically positioned overseas bases. In the contemporary world, the immense technological advantages enjoyed by American ground and air forces too often lead us to take for granted the continuing importance for the United States of command of the sea—and its corollary, ready access to the territory of distant friends and adversaries throughout the world.1 The long series of conflicts between Britain and France and their various respective al- lies that culminated in the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 were the first truly global wars. The strategic competition they engendered gave a powerful impetus to the develop- ment of the great European overseas empires and helps explain the shape those em- pires took. Now-forgotten battles over remote places such as Mauritius, Réunion, and Trincomalee helped decide which power would control India and the China trade. World War I is commonly remembered only as a land war in Europe.