Maritime Forces in Peace & War (UK)

Bailrigg Paper 30
MARITIME FORCES IN
PEACE & WAR: JOINT &
COMBINED OPERATIONS
Contributing editors:
Professor Martin Edmonds
& Humphry Crum Ewing
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Security Studies · Lancaster University
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ISSN: 0969-6032
LANCASTER
UNIVERSITY
Centre for Defence and
International Security
Studies
Martin Edmonds PhD – DIRECTOR

Pauline Elliott ACIS – EXEC. SECRETARY
Lancaster University
Cartmel College
Lancaster
Lancashire LA1 4YL
United Kingdom
Tel: (01524) 594254

Fax: (01524) 594258
Email: CDISS@lancaster.ac.uk.
E d i t o r, B a i l r i g g P u b l i c a t i o n s
Humphry Crum Ewing
Tel, Fax, Answerphone 24 hours: 0118 958 5096
E-mail: crumewing@aol.com
Assistant to the Editor

Pauline Elliott
Tel: 01524 594254
Fax: 01524 594258
E-mail: p.elliott@lancaster.ac.uk
World Wide Web site http://www.cdiss.org
MARITIME FORCES IN PEACE &
WAR: JOINT & COMBINED
OPERATIONS
Contributors:
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce KCB RN
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Ben Bathurst GCB RN: Captain Derek Christian SAN
Sir Patrick Duffy: Stewart Fraser: Brigadier Richard Fry RM
Major General Rob Fulton RM: Professor Colin Gray: Dr Eric Grove
Rear Admiral Richard Hill RN Retd: Captain Peter Hore RN
Rear Admiral Raja Menon, Indian Navy Retd: Lt.Col Alistair Sheppard MBE
Sir Moray Stewart KCB: Jeremy Stocker: Captain Gerard Valin French Navy
Captain B M Van der Hulst, Royal Netherlands Navy: Dr Stanley Byron Weeks
Contributing editors: Professor Martin Edmonds

& Humphry Crum Ewing
Bailrigg Paper 30
International Security Studies
Lancaster University
Bailrigg Papers, Memoranda and Debating Points are

published by CDISS, Lancaster University, as contributions
to the informed consideration and debate of international
defence and security issues. In content, they reflect primarily
the views of their named authors.
This study has been made possible through the assistance and support of:
and
CONTENTS
5 PREFACE
6 ABOUT THE AUTHORS
9 INTRODUCTION
“The MCJO Conference”
Humphry Crum Ewing, Peter Hore & Martin Edmonds
11 KEY-NOTE ADDRESS
“The Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations (MCJO)”
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce KCB First Sea Lord & Chief of the Naval Staff
15 PART 1 “MCJO: THEORY & PRACTICE”

(Chairman: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Ben Bathurst GCB DL )
“Past & Present Theories and Doctrines”

Stewart Fraser
22 “MCJO in Peace & War: a New Taxonomy”

Professor Martin Edmonds
33 “Maritime Limitation”
Jeremy Stocker
36 PART 2 “MCJO: NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES”

(Chairman: Sir Patrick Duffy PhD )
“A Naval Perspective on the Development of Joint and

Combined Operations in South Africa”
Captain Derek Christian SAN
43 “The Indian Navy’s View on Joint and Combined Operations”

Rear Admiral Raja Menon, Indian Navy
47 “The Netherlands Approach to Joint and Combined Operations”

Captain B M Van der Hulst, Royal Netherlands Navy
51 “A French view of the contribution of Main Naval Forces

to Joint and Combined Operations”
Captain Gerard Valin, French Navy
56 “Maritime Forces in Joint and Combined Operations: a US Perspective”

Dr Stanley Byron Weeks
65 PART 3: “COMBINED JOINT AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS”

(Chairman: Major General Rob Fulton RM)
“UK Amphibious Operations”

Brigadier Robert Fry RM
70 “Alliance Concepts of Combined and Joint Operations”

Lt Col Alistair Sheppard MBE
73 “Amphibious Operations: the Historical Continuum”
Professor Colin Gray
79 PART 4: THE ONGOING AGENDA FOR DEVELOPING

THE MARITIME CONTRIBUTION
(Chairman: Sir Moray Stewart KCB D.Litt)
“Joint and Combined Operations”

Richard Connaughton, M.Phil
80 “The Maritime Contribution and the Putting into Effect

the Conclusions of the SDR”
Humphry Crum Ewing, MA
81 “Shaping the Debate amongst those Interested in Naval Affairs”

Rear Admiral Richard Hill RN (Retd)
82 PART 5: CONFERENCE POST-SCRIPT

“Maritime Contribution to Joint and Combined Operations
Final Comments”
Sir Moray Stewart KCB, D.Litt
83 GLOSSARY
86 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS
Joint & Combined Operations 5
PREFACE
This Bailrigg Paper comprises the revised and edited text of the proceedings of a Conference on “Joint and Combined
Operations: the Role of Maritime Forces in Peace and War” held at Lancaster University on 25 and 26 March 1999
under the joint auspices of the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies, Lancaster
University, (CDISS) and the Maritime Strategic Studies Institute of the Royal Navy (MSSI) and with
the sponsorship of GEC Marconi Naval Systems based at Barrow-in-Furness.
The Conference was held under a modified Chatham House Rule, in that the main presentations were for the record
but the subsequent discussions were non-attributable. Points from these latter are accordingly taken under the
published contribution from the Chairmen of the several sessions.
Captain Peter Hore,

Director, Maritime Institute for Strategic Studies
Professor Martin Edmonds Bailrigg Paper 30

6 Maritime Forces in Peace & War
About the contributors
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce KCB OBE has been First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff since October,
1998. He joined the Royal Navy in 1961 and made his career initially in submarines. He was Director of
Naval Staff Duties 1989-91 and subsequently Flag Officer Surface Flotilla 1992-4, Second Sea Lord and C-
in-C Naval Home Command 1995 and C-in-C Fleet, with concurrent NATO Commands, 1995-8.
Captain Peter Hore, M.Phil RN is currently Head of Defence Studies for the Navy in the MoD and
Director and founder of the Maritime Institute for Strategic Studies. He joined the Navy in 1966 as a
Supply Officer, with the distinction of being one of the youngest officers to graduate from the Naval Staff
College in 1974. His intellectual interests are in naval strategy and concepts and is a doctoral candidate at
Exeter University.
Mr Humphry Crum Ewing, MA is a Research Fellow at CDISS and is Editor of the Centre’s
Publications. Amongst the research programmes he leads are: Security of the Sea Lanes and Military
Technology and contributes to the Centre’s programme on Missile Threats & Responses. He is advisor to
the Commons Defence Committee on defence information to Parliament. He writes and speaks widely on
the politics of defence.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Benjamin Bathurst GCB DL was First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff
1993-1995. He made his early naval carer as a helicopter pilot. After several command appointments he
served as Chief of Fleet Support as Vice-Admiral in 1986 and was promoted Admiral when becoming C-in-
C and Allied C-in-C Channel and Eastern Atlantic. He was Vice Chief of Defence Staff from 1991-3.
Stewart Fraser, MA, M.Litt is a graduate of Aberdeen University and a Doctoral candidate at
Lancaster University researching into the “Aircraft Carrier in British Naval Policy and Planning” under a
Bursary from GEC Marconi Marine at Barrow. His publications include Littoral Warfare & Joint Maritime
Operations: UK Approaches and Capabilities now adopted as required reading at the Joint Services
Command & Staff College.
Professor Martin Edmonds BA, MA, PhD, FRSA is Director of CDISS and Editor of the journal
Defense Analysis (Carfax). He has served on the staffs of Manchester, Columbia, Southern California,
Maryland and Toulouse Universities. From 1974-1987 he was MoD Lecturer in Higher Defence Studies at
Lancaster. Widely published, his current research has a strong maritime focus on ASW, the future carrier,
and naval shipbuilding.
Lt Cdr Jeremy Stocker BA, MA is an independent defence analysis, Departmental Fellow at the Centre
for Security Studies, Hull University, and Research Associate of CDISS. He joint the Royal Navy in 1976 as
a gunnery officer and left in 1996, when he transferred to the Operations Branch (HQ) of the RNVR as Lt
Cdr. He has written extensively on naval matters, the latest being Sea-Based Missile Defence (Bailrigg
Study 2) 1999.
Sir Patrick Duffy, PhD is a former MP for Attercliffe (Sheffield), Minister for the Royal Navy and Labour
Party spokesman on defence. He has retired from parliament and maintains a close interest in naval
matters. Before entering parliament he had a distinguished career in the Navy and Fleet Air Arm. A
graduate of the LSE and Columbia University where he earned his doctorate, he started an academic
career before turning to politics.
Captain Derek Christian, MMM, B.Mil, MBA, MA, psn is Director, Naval Strategy at the South
African Navy (SAN) Headquarters, Pretoria. He joined the SAN in 1975 and after service with the Strike
Craft Flotilla transferred to submarines in 1980. Staff appointments have included being on the Directing
Staff at the SAN Staff College. In 1996, he attended the US Navy War College completing a Diploma in
International Strategy.

Rear Admiral K.R. Menon, MSc, IN (Retd) has had a distinguished carer in the Indian Navy
holding such posts as Deputy Director General Defence Planning Staff, Head of Submarine Acquisitions
and Chief Instructor at the defence Service Staff College. He retired from the Navy in 1994 as Assistant
Chief Naval Operations. He is widely published his most recent book, Maritime Strategy and Continental
Wars (Cass) was launched in 1998.
Captain Bart Van der Hulst MSc, is currently Director of Operational Requirements at the Naval Staff
in the Hague. He joined the Navy in 1967 and qualified as a PWO(A). His MSc was in guided weapons
systems from the RMCS Shrivenham. After operational tours and a spell on the Naval College directing
staff, he commanded HNLMS Witte de With. In 1996 he was appointed the first CO of the Netherlands-
Belgium Operational School.
Captain Gerard Valin, Chev d’Honn, FN is Deputy Director Bureau Etudes et Plans Genereaux at
the French Navy Headquarters in Paris. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1997 joining the French
Naval Air Arm flying F8 Crusader aircraft. From there he flew over 3,300 hours in Maritime Patrol Aircraft.
After Staff College, he commanded the FF Vendemaire. For service in Tchad he was made Chevalier
d’Honneur.
Dr Stan Weeks MA PhD is a Senior Scientist with Science Applications in McLean Virginia supporting
the USN’s Strategy and Policy Director on future force configuration and structure. He is also a member of
the UN Maritime Experts Group. Prior to this he served in the USN serving in a number of Staff and
Directing posts between 1982-90. His operational experience included Command of the Spruance Class
destroyer, USS Hayter.
Major General Rob Fulton, BA, RM is Commandant General, Royal Marines. He joined the Marines
in 1972 and served in 40 and 42 Cdos before attending Staff College in 1981. Postings in the MoD and the
Army Staff College preceded his command of 42 Cdo. In 1995, after a tour in operational requirements
(MoD) he was on the RRF Operations Staff in Bosnia. After a year at the RCDS, he commanded 3 Cdo
Brigade from 1997-8.
Brigadier Robert Fry BA, MA, MBE, RM, is currently Director, Naval Staff Duties in the MoD. After a
period in finance in New York, his military career centred mainly on 41 Cdo serving in Cyprus and N.
Ireland. Later appointments include tours with the Directorate of Special Forces, as Chief of Staff 3 Cdo
Brigade and Directorate Naval Plans. In 1995 he commanded 45 Cdo Group which became the inaugural
JRDF unit in 1996.
Lt Col Alistair Sheppard is currently serving as SO1 Concepts with the Combined Joint Planning Staff
at SHAPE Headquarters. A Royal Engineer, he joined the Army in 1979 and saw service Belize, Kenya,
and Germany. In 1989 he was with the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers in Hong Kong. After Staff College he
served in Bosnia in ARRC HQ and then commanded the 67 Gurkha Engineers. He joined the CJPS in 1997.
Professor Colin Gray BA, D.Phil is Director of the Centre for Security Studies, University of Hull. His
distinguished academic included appointments at Lancaster, British Columbia Universities. However,
much of his career has been with think tanks including the famous Hudson Institute and the National
Institute for Public Policy, which he founded. He has held numerous appointments with the DoD and
served on the US NSC.
Rear Admiral Richard Hill, RN (Retd) is Editor of Naval Review and Chairman of the Society for
Nautical Research. He entered the Navy in 1942 and served mainly in destroyers and frigates as a
navigation officer. The rest of his career was mainly in the MoD though was Defence Fellow at King’s
College in 1972, writing on the ‘The Rule of Law at Sea’. His books include Maritime Strategy for Medium
Powers and The Prizes of War.
Dr Richard Connaughton M.Litt PhD is Research Fellow of CDISS at Lancaster University. His Army

career was spent primarily with the Royal Corps of Transport finishing as Col Defence Studies. He took
early retirement to pursue a second career as a military author. He is the author of many books and articles
on military history and military doctrine. He is working on a major study The Impossible Dream – from
Kant to Kosovo.
Sir Moray Stewart KCB D.Litt retired in 1998 as 2nd Permanent Under Secretary in the MoD, a post he
held for six years. Among his many appointments, he includes a time as Private Secretary to successive
Secretaries of State for N. Ireland. From 1984-6 he was Assistant Secretary General for Policy and Planning
in NATO, then DUS for Personnel and Logistics before becoming in 1988 Deputy Under Secretary for
Defence Procurement.

INTRODUCTION
THE CONFERENCE ON “JOINT AND COMBINED OPERATIONS:

THE ROLE OF MARITIME FORCES IN PEACE AND WAR”
by
Humphry Crum Ewing, Martin Edmonds and Captain Peter Hore, RN
Lancaster University - and the members of its the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies (CDISS) in
particular - were pleased and honoured to host the proceedings of the many distinguished participants in the
international security debate who gathered at Lancaster on 25 and 26 March 1999, at the invitation of the Royal
Navy, to discuss the future ‘Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations’ - as now conventionally abbreviated to
‘MCJO’.
We are pleased to have the opportunity to publish this record of those proceedings as one of our Bailrigg Papers. We
were also delighted that the occasion enabled the Lancaster University Services Dining Club to hear from the First
Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Ian Boyce, so soon after his appointment. He was, unfortunately, detained by the outbreak of
the NATO Kosovo operation, and his speech was presented on his behalf by the Commandant General of the Royal
Marines, Major General Rob Fulton, who also fielded questions from those present with the assistance of Brigadier
Robert Fry. His presence, and the acceptance of the First Sea Lord, further extended the series of the Heads of the
Armed Services and other eminent guests of honour which the Dining Club has entertained since its foundation.
The Club is a valuable and effective continuing link between the military and the civil community of which the
University is such an important element.
The names of the participants in the Conference are listed in annex 2 of this paper. From this it will be seen that the
occasion brought together what was generally judged to be an authoritative and mutually stimulating combination
of officers from the armed services of numerous different countries, academic analysts and commentators - several
of whom also have distinguished service records - and others with important interests in the business of defence.
Some, as serving officers, were able to contribute - subject to some inevitable constraints - valuable current insights
into the practical facets of the debate. Others, having retired and thus no longer having political masters, were able
to contribute their experience more freely to that debate. The participants, all speaking as it is well understood, in a
personal rather than a representative capacity, included many in senior positions in the Royal Navy, the Royal
Marines, the Army and the Royal Air Force and - of particular value in broadening the scope of the discussion - from
the Naval Services of France, the Netherlands, India and South Africa.
A number of themes recurred at several points in the proceedings. The first, and arguably the most self evident was
that the concepts of both ‘joint’ and ‘combined’ are not new in the annals of warfare. What perhaps was less self-
evident was the effect of historical experience on different states attitudes and approaches to them as was clearly
stated by both UK and overseas speakers. In several instances, Service boundaries have remained as sacrosanct as
ever either for geostrategic or for military doctrinal reasons. There would seem to be less concern where combined
forces are concerned, but this rather overlooked the requirement for structural and operational adjustments among
national armed forces to enhance alliance, or coalition, operational effectiveness.
A second recurring theme within the conference was the recognition that the international security environment has
changed radically since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The past nostrums that
guided military doctrinal and strategic thinking within NATO manifestly no longer apply which has led to both
individual nation states and the major military alliances rethinking policy and the purposes behind the application
of military force. Britain has not been alone in this exercise as the contributors from the United States, the Netherlands,
and France detailed in their presentations; however, the content of the 1998 Strategic Defence Review served to focus
debate and served as an illustration of the new emphasis that has been placed on ‘power projection’ and the
contribution of maritime forces.
Crum Ewing, Edmonds & Hore Bailrigg Paper 30

Of importance as a recurring theme was the recognition that in the new world of power projection, it is maritime
forces, not purely navies, that matters. Maritime forces are inherently ‘joint’ inasmuch as they encompass all manner
of capabilities, land, air and amphibious, brought respectively by all branches of armed services. It was also a
recurring theme that these forces were highly flexible and manoeuvrable and capable of being used across the whole
spectrum of conflict from peace support operations to high intensive interventionary war. The strength of maritime
contributions to joint operations, lies in their ability of naval ships to operate independently of host nation support
yet meet all the requirements of command and control, reconnaissance, support for land forces and amphibious
operations. For this reason, both the UK and France have followed the lead of the United States in acquiring both an
amphibious capability and a wide range of sea-based air power.
One encouraging theme throughout the conference was the recognition that currently the armed services, particularly
in the UK, are working increasingly within a ‘joint’ framework. Several joint establishments and commands have
been established without compromising the essential benefits of a single service ethos. Also encouraging was the
appreciation that in any coalition, or combined operation, there was a need for improved inter-operability and
commonality. Part of that appreciation was the weight given to the Combined Joint Task Force concept that enabled
coalitions to be established outside the institutional frameworks of existing alliances. Again, converting the concept
into reality was proving to be a challenge, but one in which structural progress was being made.
The message, if there was one in particular, that the conference highlighted in respect of maritime contributions to
joint and combined operations is that there is still a long way to go both in operational doctrinal terms and future
equipment. Nevertheless, for as long as the NATO allies wish to project power either in peace or war outside the
NATO area at times and places of its own choosing, maritime forces will be at the centre of operations. The important
thing to remember, as Brigadier Fry pointed out, is that this need not necessarily be a permanent condition; many
states in the world are rapidly acquiring military forces that could serve to make future power projection or
interventionary operations difficult to mount or hard to prosecute successfully. Current concepts as ‘battlefield
dominance’ may not be as possible in practice as desirable in theory.
The next decade may not entirely be dominated by maritime forces, but the Conference made clear that, based on the
premise that it is better to promote international security than to react when it has broken down, the flexibility,
manoeuvrability and speed of reaction of maritime-based joint forces is the most promising and effective way
forward. Much progress has already been achieved in that direction in the UK, the US, France and elsewhere. The
challenge, now, is to find the ways and means to ensure that the mixture of forces, capabilities and countries are
forthcoming to deliver that objective.
Crum Ewing, Edmonds & Hore Bailrigg Paper 30

KEY-NOTE ADDRESS
THE MARITIME CONTRIBUTION TO JOINT OPERATIONS (MCJO)
by
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, KCB

First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff
Let me first say how pleased and honoured I am to be invited to this combined conference and University/
Services’ Dining Club dinner this evening. I thank the Vice-Chancellor for the invitation and the Dining Club for
providing the perfect setting for such a visit. May I also take this opportunity to express my pleasure to note the
presence at this conference of the University Royal Naval Unit. I know that they are particularly active in the
North-West and have forged a strong link with Lancaster University.
Why am I pleased to be here? Well, it is to identify myself with this Dining Club and today’s Conference, because one
of the side effects of the many changes the Services have undergone over the past two decades, and I refer in
particular to our shrinking size and therefore reducing footprint across the country, is that we have dropped out of
the day-to-day awareness of a large portion of the populace. And we feel this particularly keenly in the Navy
because, of course, our day-to-day business is undertaken out of sight and out of camera - on the high seas. But I
believe very strongly that our armed forces should remain visible to society at large (if only because that is where the
pay cheque comes from!). So, we are having to work hard at achieving this - and one of they ways of disseminating
the defence message is through organisations and Dining Clubs such as this one.
I am, therefore, very grateful to you and your ilk elsewhere for ensuring a Service profile throughout the country and,
more importantly, encouraging and fostering debate on defence issues. Moving from the general to the particular, as
a naval man I am, of course, delighted to see the strong relationship forged between Captain Peter Hore and
Professor Martin Edmonds; but I know that similar links also exist with the other Services.
But coming back to keeping the public engaged, and given most people have a laissez faire attitude to anything
beyond our shores, 2 it is important that the sort of debate you are engaged in here is given a high profile and informs
those of real influence in the Country. We have seen in the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) this government’s
willingness to involve academics, and indeed anyone with a valid and informed view, in the process which leads
to the formulation of policy. This is as it should be and today’s Conference is a further step in fostering reasoned and
informed debate both within the UK; and in also considering the views and contributions of other nations.
Of course, the focus for much of this debate of late has been, as I have just intimated, the Strategic Defence Review.
It was not the starting point - much work had already taken place since 1990 in remoulding the forces to meet the
post-Cold War era - but the Review did bring together the many strands of this complex process and present them in
a logical fashion, capturing the grand strategic rhythms of today and establishing a broad and coherent military
strategic framework.
As I am sure you know, one fundamental change arising from this review was the move from a continental strategy
- one based on the predisposition of forces in Europe and the Atlantic - to an expeditionary strategy - one that allows
us to deploy forces when and wherever required. What I would like to do for the next few minutes is to explain where
I see naval forces fitting into this strategy, (and I realise I may risk covering the ground you have trodden in this
afternoon’s sessions) before going on to talk a little about another of the review’s main themes – ‘jointery’, i.e. tri-
service modus operandi.
With the Navy’s traditional attributes of reach, tactical and logistic self-sufficiency, and operational flexibility all
remaining valid in this new epoch, an expeditionary strategy necessarily has a significant maritime component at
its centre. This is not least because maritime forces are able to provide reach and self-sufficiency; they can operate
anywhere in the world without relying on a friendly country in the area for support. And they also offer a range and
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce Bailrigg Paper 30

a subtlety of operational choices - they can deploy, withdraw and redeploy, simply by exercising freedom of navigation
on the high seas. From a sea base, they can provide transport, a mounting base, airfields, stores and a range of other
facilities, all without infringing sovereignty and often with complete invulnerability.
Finally, maritime forces provide the quickest means of deploying a logistically self-sustaining and tactically coherent
force over long distance, providing an invaluable capacity for early presence and, therefore, the ability to nip a crisis
in the bud. If this fails, they have the ability to move up and down the scale of operational intensity in a manner
which allows the government to send a clear political message.
But this modern strategy is not simply a naval one. I picked my words carefully earlier when I described the force as
‘maritime’. The days have gone where we plan our campaigns in terms of separate wars for each Service with the
Royal Navy operating on the high seas solely against another navy. We envisage the maritime environment being
used to convey a tri-service force and then project it and support it during the ensuing campaign in order to achieve
an objective on the land. It is a move away from Mahan’s strategy of decisive sea engagement towards the strategy
described by Julian Corbett - that of maritime action in support of operations ashore. And this vision is underpinned
by the government’s commitment to an equipment programme which can support it; in other words, endorsement
of that 3-core capability and, for strategic lift, 6 x rocon.
With this balance you should be in no doubt that maritime capability is not a capability in its own right, but a key
component of a joint capability - in other words one which relies on contribution from the Army and Royal Air Force
as well as from the Navy.
Of course, for the Royal Navy, there is nothing new in this. We have been used to working with other Services and
indeed other countries for many years. Today, however, after 50 years of strategic stagnation with both sides staring
at each other across the inner-German border, there is an emphasis on new concepts, organisations and operations.
And within all this, the word ‘joint’ is written large. Before I go on to explain some of the ways in which this is
causing us to change how we do our business, let me strike a cautionary note. Although there is no doubt that joint
initiatives offer a real chance to improve military coherence and fund effectiveness, there is an undetermined point
at which their impact on single Service ethos will have the reverse effect. I am absolutely sure that the real driving
force in fighting and winning - which in the final analysis is what the Army, Navy and Air Force are here for - is the
servicemen and women’s loyalty and commitment to their Services and cap badges - people join the Navy, Army
and Air Force, not the UK armed forces, and most of them will spend their careers entirely in their own environment
without meeting other Service people. Indeed, I quote from the SDR joint vision statement when I say “individual
units depend for their fighting capability on the training, discipline and ethos generated by their parent service”. I
worry, therefore, that too slavish an addiction to the word ‘joint’ may cause some to lose sight of this - to our peril.
But having said that, and provided we do retain our single Service ethos, there are many areas where ‘jointery’ will
be a positive advantage, not least in being able to talk the same doctrinal language. And there is no doubt that the
Services are increasingly talking the same language - although occasionally we may not mean the same thing. Let
me give you an example of the word ‘secure’: if the Navy was told to secure a building, the chances are we would
lock it up and go home; the RAF would probably take out a 10 year lease and spend a couple of million refurbishing
it; and the Army would throw in a couple of grenades, kick the door down and kill everything in sight.
An amusing example, but I’m afraid true of quite a lot of our so-called common military language. Let me now take
a few moments to describe some parts of progress towards the joint vision of the SDR.
Firstly, the Permanent Joint Headquarters, (PHHQ) based at Northwood, has proved an unqualified success and its
introduction could not have been more timely as we moved from the stark simplicity of the Cold War to the busy and
uncertain strategic environment we are involved with today. To illustrate my point, in 1992 this country was busy
running seven different operations from three different headquarters. This was a muddle, normally involved some
in-fighting as to which HQ should have what operation, and ‘ad hoc-ness’ ruled okay. Such a situation would have
been completely unsustainable this year when, so far, the Chief of Joint Operations, (CJO), has the responsibility of
running 22 operations.

In fact, PJHQ has made such a good job of running operations that there is a view that CJO can absorb the functions
of the three single Service Commanders-in-Chief. Such a proposal, however, ignores the fact that CJO and the
Commanders-in-Chief, although contributing to the same end-state, have very different perspectives of the force
elements required for an operation. CJO is a user - he asks for the tools in the form of ready, trained forces but is not,
and should not, be bogged down in how they are provided. That is the Commander-in-Chiefs remit - to provide units
to an operational commander at the correct level of fighting effectiveness and ethos. This involves a myriad of issues
from training through to welfare, from material state though to the right level of manning, all matters the CJO neither
wants nor can afford to be involved in when planning and directing an operation.
Moving on, another innovation, the Joint Rapid Reaction Force, or JRRF, is a step change from the earlier joint rapid
deployment force and will be capable of transporting and projecting a brigade or equivalent sized force anywhere
in the world. This entails logistic enhancement and is why, in particular, we are setting about acquiring the 6 x
rocon and 4 x c17. The JRRF will have an initial operational capability from 1 April 1999 and will be fully operational
from 1 October 2001. All operations will be commanded by a Joint Task Force Commander who will be drawn from
whichever Service is best suited for the task in hand.
One of the more advantageous moves on the joint force is the introduction of Joint Force 2000- a concept initiated
between the RN and the RAF. This is a ground-breaking venture which paves the way for the truly joint projection
of power ashore from the new carriers due in 2012. But in fact Joint Force 2000 will be in action well before that with
RAF GR7 and FAA FA2 co-locating in 2003, and the Joint Force 2000 HQ standing up in April 2000. I should take
this opportunity to scotch a rumour created by one of the UK tabloids, no doubt in order to boost circulation, that
Joint Force 2000 does not mean the end of the Fleet Air Arm (FAA). Quite the contrary - the Fleet Air Arm are, in fact,
looking forward to the challenges posed by this initiative. For those who are perhaps unaware, Joint Force 2000 will
be embedded within the RAF Strike Command with a two- star naval Admiral in charge and a one- star RAF officer
in command of the deployable force itself. At first, the aircraft will be based at RAF Wittering and RAF Cottesmore
but later, with the future carrier borne aircraft, it will operate from RAF Cottesmore alone.
We are also about to witness the inception of the Joint Helicopter Command (JHC) which forms up in October, 1999,
and also officially starts work in April 2000. It will bring together all battlefield helicopters except those which form
part of ships weapon systems, i.e. anti-submarine warfare, in a joint organisation under the Army’s Land Command.
It will comprise some 350 aircraft and employ approximately 12,000 people. It is an entirely sensible innovation
which I am sure will enable us to deploy much more effectively our support helicopters across the myriad of
operations they are required for nowadays (few operations do not have a call for them).
A major initiative, trailed in the Review and due to be formally announced by ministers in a few days time, is the
creation of a Joint Defence Logistics Organisation (JDLO). This will be formed by merging the departments of the
Support and Logistics Chiefs of the three Services and be established under the direction of a four-star officer. There
is much to be exploited in this concept.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that my drilling down a level or two below the plane at which your conference has
been working on today has not taxed you with too much detail. But I thought some flesh on the bones that military
and academe were brought together to devise through the Defence Review was probably in order, especially since
this was a process to which Lancaster University make a valuable contribution. And, of course, you are still
contributing - and I do find the engagement between academe and the individual Service Defence Studies
Departments, and with the Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre (JDCC) soon pulling all together to inform the future,
a very healthy way of doing our conceptual business and one to be greatly encouraged
On that note, may I thank you for your attention. I have gone on quite long enough and I am conscious you may want
to get some questions in before the bar shuts! It therefore remains for me to thank you again for this evening,
President, and to wish conference attendees well in your deliberation tomorrow. But at the same time, we should be
quite honest and not underestimate the size of the task facing the future Chief of Defence Logistics with some 44,000
people under his command and an annual budget of £4.6bn. Not dropping any stitches, in terms of the primary role
of supporting the three Service front lines, during the transition period especially, is a significant challenge.
Finally on this ‘joint’ theme, I should make mention of one other initiative - and one which may be of particular

interest to those who follow defence thinking - this is the Joint Defence Centre, (JDC) as it was described in the SDR.
Further work has established that there is greater scope for this concept than first envisaged and so, when it
forms(ed) up at Shrivenham with an interim capability in September, 1999, it will be known as the JDCC - the Joint
Doctrine and Concepts Centre. It will not only have a military cadre but also a strong academic element which will
forge links with the defence community at Universities across the UK. I predict that it will become a focus for defence
academic research in the UK and beyond and its output will undoubtedly significantly influence future policy.

PART 1: MCJO: THEORY AND PRACTICE

(Chairman: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Benjamin Bathurst, GCB, DL)
“THE BRITISH (PREFERRED) WAY IN WARFARE”
by
Stewart Fraser
Research Associate, Centre for Defence and International
Security Studies, Lancaster University
Introduction
In preparing this paper, I decided to focus on the proposition that there has long been a distinctly British style of
warfare, inherently maritime and joint. The resultant piece which, with apologies to Basil Liddell Hart, I have
entitled the “British (Preferred) Way in Warfare”.
In a period when British strategy is assuming a joint, expeditionary, and essentially maritime character, a number of
commentators have suggested that we are returning to a more natural - or at least historically typical - mode of
operations. The phrase, “The British Way in Warfare” has surfaced more than once, but often analysis is confined
to the observation that the British continental commitment has been a 20th century - and specifically Cold War -
aberration. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to examine the aims and characteristics of this concept as they have
developed over the centuries, and to examine its relevance - if any - to our current situation.
The “British Way in Warfare”

So what is the “British Way in Warfare”? It most emphatically is not a clearly defined doctrine, or theory, or even a
collection of these. Instead, the “British Way” is a series of broad principles, persisting over time, and flowing from
that vague concept, ‘strategic culture’. The latter draws upon values, beliefs and traditions regarding how, when,
and where to wage war, rooted in a nation’s unique geographic setting, historical experience and political culture.
Over time, these beliefs manifest themselves in the state’s strategic behaviour. In the British case, underlying influences
have included an island location, great power status, a long-standing and relatively stable parliamentary system,
extensive overseas trading interests, and colonial possessions. The emergence of such a strategic culture can be
traced at least to Tudor times, and a number of enduring characteristics may be identified over the succeeding
centuries.
Firstly, Britain’s role in Europe was perceived to be that of a balancing power, as opposed to a leading protagonist,
in continental warfare, avoiding total objectives and employing a limited liability strategy. British diplomacy and
foreign policy was equally cautious, as one writer has noted, and tended,
“To proceed by a sidling movement rather than move directly toward an object, to underplay one’s hand, to dampen
conflicts and depreciate dangers, to balance parties off against each other, to compromise rather than fight, to
postpone decisions, to obscure issues rather than confront them, to move as it were by elision from one position of
policy to another; such habits, anciently engendered and long crystallized, in the style of British foreign policy.” 3
“Perfidious Albion”, indeed! Land power, the final arbiter in any European conflict, was provided by continental
allies, backed by British economic power. Nevertheless, direct intervention on the continent was sometimes deemed
necessary, as in Marlborough’s campaign and during the Seven Years War.
Secondly, maintenance of a navy capable of defeating any adversary and securing command of the sea was, in
general, a given in British politics, and there was a powerful ‘navalist’ constituency in British public life, with
widespread popular support. This element could - and did - exert considerable pressure on the government in the
Stewart Fraser Bailrigg Paper 30

event of any real, or perceived, decline in naval strength vis-à-vis other powers as, for example, the Two-Power
standard.
Thirdly, the capacity to project power and influence ashore, through maritime means -gunboat diplomacy, blockade,
bombardment, raids, amphibious invasion, and so forth -was viewed as central. The Army was viewed as
expeditionary in character - home defence and imperial tasks notwithstanding. Operations tended to be directed
against targets which were predominantly maritime, such as ports, or peninsulas and island colonies easily accessible
from the sea: examples include the seizure of Gibraltar in 1704 and Nelson’s famous 1807 raid on Copenhagen. The
effects that could be achieved through close co-ordination of the Navy and Army were certainly recognised: for
example, according to Thomas More Molyneaux, writing in 1759: “The Fleet and Army, acting in consort, seem to be
the Natural Bulwark of these Kingdoms”.4
In general, however, few practical steps were taken to place this relationship on a formal and practical footing.
Marryat, writing on the unsuccessful amphibious operation at Cartagena in 1741, reported that, “The Army thought
that the Navy might have beaten down stone ramparts ten feet thick; and the Navy wondered why the Army had not
walked up the same ramparts which were thirty feet perpendicular”.5
18 th and 19th Century War

The nature and efficacy of such maritime campaigns varied enormously, but the 18th century probably marked the
heyday of the “British Way in Warfare”. The wars of the 18th century, comparatively limited in their objectives and
impact compared, for example, to either the Thirty Years War or the French Revolutionary Wars, were ideally suited
to this mode of strategy. As a rule, the principal focus of conflict remained within Europe, but the scope for profitable
expeditions against overseas colonies was considerable, both in terms of commercial gain to Britain, and loss to
France and Spain. The West Indies, for example, accounted for a third of French external trade.6 In a succession of
conflicts, French colonies in Canada, India, and the West Indies came under British control, forming a basis for
much of the Empire that was to reach its zenith at the end of the following century.
During the 19th Century, exercise of maritime power shifted somewhat from the mercantilist character of the 18th.
While enemy colonial possessions remained an attractive target, and Britain’s ability to maintain and expand the
empire rested, in all cases, on the direct or indirect use of seapower, a much wider range of activity was undertaken.
Major undertakings included Wellington’s extensive campaign on the Iberian peninsula, and the expedition to the
United States during the War of 1812. As the century progressed, however, the emphasis shifted partly away from
amphibious operations. Britain adopted, instead
“an offensive and deterrent strategy based on winning, or more likely, maintaining, command of the
sea, then exploiting it by projecting flexible mobile maritime power against the shore by means of naval
bombardments, especially of naval ports, from the early 19th Century onwards, and/or cutting out
operations, plus landings where necessary”.7
Economic blockade was a further instrument in this approach. The Crimean War saw several different methods
applied: in the Baltic, operations were carried out along the Finnish coast, while the Russian fleet was blockaded
within the fortified port of Kronstadt, unwilling to confront British and French naval power. In the Black Sea,
operations chiefly centred around the siege of Sevastopol.
Corbett, Callwell and Aston

The period from the turn of the century, up to the outbreak of war, saw some of the most effective analysis of “The
British Way in Warfare”, emphasising the role of maritime power as a strategic enabler for the land campaign and
the limited direct effects of sea power when pitted against a powerful continental opponent. Corbett, Callwell and,
to a lesser extent, Aston, all produced works of this type. Their respective approaches and emphases were, however,
somewhat different. Corbett’s most famous work, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, highlights the crucial attributes
and application of a maritime strategy from a recognisably naval perspective, and for a naval audience. He summed
up the inherent limitations of seapower in the context of a full-scale European war, thus:

“It is almost impossible that a war can be decided by naval action alone. Unaided, naval pressure can only work by
a process of exhaustion. For a firm decision, a quicker and more drastic form of pressure is required. Since men live
upon the land and not upon the sea, great issues between men at war have always been decided -except in the rarest
of cases - either by what your army can do against your enemy’s territory and national life or else by fear of what the
fleet makes it possible for your army to do”.8
In a period when amphibious capabilities were, at best, primitive, and the extent of naval power projection ashore
could effectively be measured in terms of the maximum range of a battleship’s main armament. Corbett recognised
that naval forces were largely restricted to an enabling and support role in a continental scenario. Nevertheless, he
remained ambivalent regarding the potential utility of British maritime power in a general European war, through
the concept of “war by contingent”, where Britain’s geostrategic situation and mastery of the seas could best be
exploited:
“War by contingent or war with a ‘disposal force’ attains the highest success when it approaches most
closely to true limited war, as in the case of the Peninsula and the Crimea, where its object is to wrest or
secure from the enemy a definite piece of territory that to a greater or lesser extent can be isolated by
naval action. Its operative power, in fact, seems to bear some direct relation to the intimacy with which
naval and military action can be combined to give the contingent a weight and mobility that are
beyond its intrinsic power”.9
This was the classic objective of the “British Way in Warfare”, but under the conditions of 20th century warfare, and
especially as applied to a strong Germany with only a few small colonies overseas, and relatively invulnerable to
most forms of naval action aside from blockade, its efficacy was somewhat questionable. At best, this approach
might be used against German allies.
Callwell, for his part, chiefly concentrated on the interdependence of naval and military forces. As a career Army
officer, with considerable experience of imperial campaigning - including the Boer War - he stressed the influence of
maritime factors on the conduct of military operations, ranging from siege warfare to the formation of naval brigades
for service ashore. Callwell’s central assumption was that a condition of absolute command of the sea was unlikely
to prevail in most wars.10 More probable was a state of maritime preponderance, where some level of naval threat
could still be posed by the weaker side. It might prove difficult, under such circumstances, to force the inferior fleet
to emerge from its well-fortified bases. Callwell’s solution was to invest such fortresses with amphibious forces
equipped with heavy siege artillery, the method applied by the Japanese against the Russian Pacific Fleet trapped in
Port Arthur.11
Aston, like Callwell, was a veteran of numerous imperial policing actions and wars. His views on maritime
preponderance, for example, did not differ greatly from those of his Army counterpart, though his emphasis on
amphibious operations was somewhat greater - as might be expected, given his background in the Royal Marines
Artillery.
Of the three, and writing immediately prior to the First World War, he was the only one to consider the impact of air
power on strategy. 12
It should be noted, of course, that what these writers proposed was not ‘jointery’ in its current sense, with closer
integration at all levels cutting across traditional service interests and demarcation lines, but the co-ordination of
sea and land power at the strategic level. 13 In effect, the Services would still be pursuing independent action, with
varying levels of co-operation, albeit within a unified strategy.
The early 20 th Century: Mahan and Liddell Hart

Corbett, Callwell, and Aston were, however, out of step with contemporary trends. By the first decade of the 20th
century, the ‘navalist’ and expeditionary strands of the British maritime tradition were diverging rapidly. The Royal
Navy was already looking with alarm towards the growing naval power of Germany, and the time was approaching
when the bulk of the Fleet would be concentrated in home waters, in preparation for a massive Mahanian

confrontation with the High Seas Fleet in the North Sea. With the Anglo-French entente, and the commitment of the
bulk of its regular units to an expeditionary force to fight alongside the French Army in the event of war with
Germany, the British Army was also preparing for Der Tag. Given Mackinder’s doom laden prophecy on the likely
fate of peripheral maritime powers facing fully industrialised continental states, and uncertainty surrounding the
nature of future warfare and the impact of new technology, the traditional amphibious approach seemed to be in
doubt. For example, a 1906 British General Staff Memorandum contained the following observation:
“When the question of dispatching a military expeditionary force to the Gallipoli Peninsula comes to be passed in
review, the first point to be considered is the general one of whether a landing is possible at all, in the face of active
opposition under modern conditions. In regard to this history affords no guide”.14
Corbett came in for particular criticism. In a period when the primacy of main fleet action in the Mahanian mould
was almost a sacred article of faith in the Royal Navy, and elsewhere, his views were widely regarded as heretical.
Callwell’s works were similarly disregarded; while Aston was faced with the problem that, in the inter-service
politics of the day, the Royal Marines tended to be marginalised.
A further British theorist, whose theories must also be considered, is Basil Liddell Hart, writing from the 1920s
onwards. Ironically, having coined the phrase in a book of the same name, his exposition of the “British Way in
Warfare” compared unfavourably with that of Corbett, especially in terms of historical analysis. According to
Liddell Hart
“there has been a distinctively British practice of war, based on experience and proved by three centuries of success.
From that practice a theory should have developed naturally. But its growth was stunted by shallow thought and
deformed by slavish imitation of continental fashions. The consequences of that malformation are to be found in the
years 1914-1918, and have been felt ever since The historic British practice was based, above all, on mobility and
surprise - apt to Britain’s natural conditions and aptly used to enhance her relative strength while exploiting her
opponent’s weaknesses”.15
Liddell Hart’s work should not, however, be seen as a measured historical analysis of Britain’s maritime past. Aside
from the first chapter, which was constructed around a highly selective group of historical examples, the book
concentrates almost exclusively on contemporary strategic theory, mechanisation of the Army, and the author’s
perception of a manoeuverist approach to warfare. To a large extent, therefore, the British Way in Warfare should be
seen as a reflection of Liddell Hart’s experiences as an infantry officer during the First World War, rather than a
balanced appraisal of Britain’s strategic situation and natural priorities in wartime.
This weakness notwithstanding, Liddell Hart’s book has assumed a central role in 20th Century debate over the
character, efficacy, and even the existence of a “British Way in Warfare”. Such disagreement has existed at least as
long as the notion, but the nature and circumstances of the two world wars tended to sharpen the debate. Sir
Michael Howard, for example, pointed out that
“The attack on the Dardanelles, a brilliant almost flawless strategic concept, had met the fate of virtually every
British amphibious operation since the age of Elizabeth... all brilliant in conception, all lamentable in execution. The
surprise and mobility which Liddell Hart had seen as the essence of British maritime strategy, so far from ensuring
success, had resulted over the centuries in an almost unbroken record of expensive and humiliating failures from
which Wolfe’s seizure of Quebec stands out as one of the few exceptions.”16
Two main areas of criticism have been levelled at the idea of a “British Way in Warfare” in general, and Liddell
Hart’s interpretation in particular. Firstly, his ideas were too heavily based on the 18th Century and before, a period
when maritime trade and communications enjoyed significant advantages. 17 This ignores Mackinder and the
technological and geopolitical revolution of the late 19 th Century, whereby industrialisation, mass mobilisation,
and development of the railway system substantially reduced the advantages of maritime powers vis-à-vis their
continental equivalents.
The second criticism is levelled squarely at the supposed freedom of action to pursue limited objectives within an

unlimited continental war - even in the 18 th Century context. As one critic has pointed out,
“In [the Seven Years War] ... Britain’s control of the sea allowed her to choose to fight in land theatres which could
be sustained by the navy, campaigns limited in method and in geographical extent, but unlimited in their objectives.
But Corbett acknowledged that to enable the application of such a strategy, Britain had had to be allied to a power
for whom the war was unlimited.” 18
Under the balance of power, the main objective was to prevent domination of Europe by an single power, which
could ultimately harness the resources of the whole continent against Britain. In this respect, Britain did not enjoy
limited liability with respect to events on the continent, but was dependent on its interests being protected by
continental allies - allies who could not limit their own involvement, and who might require substantial support in
the land war from a British expeditionary force.19 The problem was merely heightened by the movement, from the
period of the French Revolution, towards much less limited political objectives in war, and the adoption of the mass
conscript army by most continental states over the course of the 19th Century.
World War Experiences
The experience of the First and Second World Wars, and the Cold War, has tended to vindicate the view that a
maritime strategy in its purest form is unlikely to be conclusive in a continental war. The First World War, with the
attritional stalemate of the Western Front, was the antithesis of Liddell Hart’s “British Way in Warfare”. Schemes to
exploit British maritime power abounded – Fisher’s plan for an attack on the German Baltic coast, Churchill’s
Dardanelles scheme, plans to attack the German flank on the Belgian coast - were either stillborn or, in the case of
Gallipoli disastrous. While the politicians were eager to end the blood-letting in Flanders by way of a bold stroke, if
such an opportunity offered itself, and there were still those who, like Sir Edward Grey, believed that “The British
Army should be a projectile to be fired by the Navy”.20
As the war progressed, there was a growing recognition that the Central Powers could only be defeated by direct
action against their military centre of gravity, the German Army on the Western Front. Moreover, involvement of a
near-autarkic continental and maritime power, the United States, was to be one of the decisive factors. The maritime
contribution was, nevertheless, far from negligible. While the navalists were disappointed in their quest to destroy
the High Seas Fleet in battle, after Jutland it was effectively confined to port. Moreover, the naval blockade of
Germany brought the country to the verge of social and economic collapse by 1918. As ever, of course, Britain s
survival depended on a constant flow of seaborne supplies; and finally, the BEF in France was effectively supplied
and reinforced by sea.
The maritime element was much more pronounced during the Second World War, with a sequential maritime-
continental strategy exercised by the allies in Europe, and a predominantly maritime approach in the Pacific. As far
as Europe was concerned, Britain had little choice, following Dunkirk, but to conduct operations around the European
periphery, in the Mediterranean and North Africa, prior to the US entry into the war and subsequent build-up of
forces in preparation for the massive landings in France and Italy. As in the First World War, the battle for control of
the Atlantic sea lanes lasted for the duration, but this time German occupation of a much larger area of the European
continent, and domination of the coastline from the North Cape to the Bay of Biscay, rendered the British blockade
somewhat less effective than before. Again, as before, victory over Germany was heavily dependent on the involvement
of two immensely powerful continental powers, the United States and Soviet Union.
It was recognised between the wars that any campaign against Japan would, perforce, be maritime and - especially
- amphibious in nature. In the event, resource constraints meant that Britain’s contribution to the war in the Far East
was largely limited to naval operations in support of the US fleets, and a major land campaign in Burma. A successful
combined arms expedition to Madagascar was carried out in 1943, however, and various plans existed for amphibious
operations: for example, only the end of the war prevented an amphibious invasion of Malaya; and Britain would
also have contributed some forces to any invasion of Japan itself.

The Cold War

The Cold War position, and the development of nuclear weapons, placed the role of maritime forces in general in
some doubt:
“During the Cold War, NATO’s position in Federal Germany was one of condensed operational space, restricted
logistic time, and logistic space of trans-oceanic dimensions. These circumstances necessitated maintenance of
forces at a high level of readiness with forward pre-positioning of materiel and munitions. In consequence, a strong
body of opinion within the Alliance was convinced that forces not already within theatre, and in position at the
outbreak of war, were unlikely to greatly affect the outcome.”21
Britain’s maritime forces, nevertheless, occupied an important position in NATO planning. Under the Forward
Strategy, for example, the Royal Navy had a major role in ASW precursor operations; while the amphibious forces
were assigned reinforcement roles on the flanks - especially in Norway - from the 1970s. Throughout the 1950s and
1960s, British maritime forces were also heavily involved in a series of brushfire and post-colonial conflicts, notably
Suez, Kuwait and the Indonesian Confrontation, amongst others; and after withdrawal from East of Suez, they
formed the core of the country’s residual out of area capability.
Conclusion
So where, exactly, does all this leave us in relation to our contemporary situation? Viewed over the centuries, British
strategic behaviour has been sufficiently diverse as to render the whole concept rather unsatisfactory. There are,
moreover, some crucial differences, between the classic “British Way in Warfare”, and the post-Cold War
expeditionary strategy. Firstly, for the first time in centuries, there is no appreciable continental threat in view, and
the focus of attention has shifted from central Europe to its southern littoral and beyond. Threats in general are
much more diverse and ill-defined. Secondly, the Cold War alliance system centred on NATO, the trans-Atlantic
‘special relationship’, and broad-ranging economic and political ties with Europe have hardened into certainties
within British defence planning, to an extent which would have bemused our forebears, accustomed as they were to
a system of loose coalitions and limited involvement.
Thirdly, the centrality of command of the sea has been much reduced, relative to the joint maritime power element:
under an assumption of western preponderance, the new priority is power projection from the sea. The emphasis is
on western command of the sea: this is no longer within the Royal Navy’s capability - or even that of a European
coalition - in the absence of the US Navy in anything other than a strictly local sense. Fourthly, Britain can no longer
rely on the worldwide network of bases, nor enjoy the same position as a great power relative to other states; at the
same time, colonial responsibilities have been supplanted by a range of global commitments and interests.
Given these critical differences, it is impossible to say that we have returned to anything like a traditional “British
Way in Warfare”. On the other hand, what we do have is a useful modern analogue, where certain similarities
persist, albeit largely due to the inherent flexibility of maritime forces rather than to any strategic similarities. If
current realities do not reflect even the rather woolly set of principles and characteristics which come together to
form “The British Way in Warfare”, it is still impossible to disagree with Admiral Sir John Woodward’s comment
that, “All UK Defence Forces are essentially maritime. Not naval, but definitely maritime. From our position as an
island race it would be absurd to think otherwise.”22

End Notes
1 Alan MacMillan, “Strategic Culture and National Ways in Warfare: The British Case”, RUSJ Journal, Vol. 140,
No.5, October 1995, p.33.
2 Geoffrey Till, “Amphibious Operations and the British”, in Geoffrey Till, Theo Farrell, and Mark J Grove,
Amphibious Operations Camberley: Strategic and Combat Studies Institute, No.31, November 1997. pp. 7-9.
3 Kenneth M Waltz, quoted in Alan MacMillan, “Strategic Culture and National Ways in Warfare”, op cit.
4 Quoted in Colin S Gray’s Introduction to Charles E Callwell, Military Operations mid Maritime
Preponderance. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 1996, p. xi.
5 Quoted in Army Code 71451. Design for Military Operations - The British Military Doctrine: 1996, p.4.32.
6 Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, Amphibious Warfare in British History Exeter, Historical Association
Pamphlet No.119, 1941 p.6.
7 Geoffrey Till, “Amphibious Operations and the British”, op cit. p.15.
8 Sir Julian Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy London, Brassey’s. 1988, pp. 15-16.
9 Sir Julian Corbett. ibid . pp. 62-63.
10 Charles E Callwell, Military Operations and Maritime Preponderance, pp.1-4.
11 George G Aston, “Combined Strategy for Fleets and Armies: or Amphibious Strategy”. Journal of the Royal
United Services Institution, July-December 1907, pp988-989.
12 Sir George Aston, Sea, Land, and Air Strategy: A Comparison. London, John Murray, 1914.
13 Colin Mclnnes, “British Maritime Power: Military Perspectives”. in Christopher Coker, Michael Clarke and
Colin Mclnnes, British Maritime Power Historical, Security and Military Perspectives, London Defence
Studies #41. London, Centre for Defence Studies, 1997 p.43.
14 Quoted in Theodore L Gatchel, At the Water’s Edge - Defending Against the Modern Amphibious Assault.
Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1996 p.10.
15 Basil Liddell Hart, The British Way in Warfare: Adaptability and Mobility. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1942
edition p. v.
16 Sir Michael Howard, “The British Way in Warfare” in Sir Michael Howard, Causes of Wars and Other Essays.
London, Temple Smith, 1983, p.186.
17 Hew Strachan, “The British Way in Warfare” in David Chandler (ed), The Oxford Illustrated History of the
British Army Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 400-401.
18 Ibid.
19 Lawrence Freedman, “Alliance and the British Way in Warfare”, Review of International Studies, vol. 21, no.2.
April, 1995. p.146.
20 Quoted in Ruddock F Mackay. Fisher of Kilverstone London, Oxford University Press, 1973 p. 369.
21 Stewart M Fraser, Littoral Warfare and Joint Maritime Operations: UK Approaches and Capabilities, Bailrigg
Memorandum 32, CDISS Lancaster University, November 1997, p.14.
22 Admiral Sir John Woodward. “UK Maritime Forces: Role and Structure into the 21st Century”, RUSI and
Brassey’s Defence Yearbook 1992 London, Brassey’s, 1992, p.47.

MJCO IN PEACE & WAR: A NEW TAXONOMY?

by
Professor Martin Edmonds PhD

Director, CDISS, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Preamble
Old concepts are re-entering the lexicon of defence policy planning but with new meanings. The primary purpose
of this paper is to examine these concepts and to discuss what interpretations can be placed on them in today’s
security and defence debates. The second is to consider the implications that this may have for future UK defence
policy and for the armed services that will be charged with the responsibility for its implementation.
The two principal concepts of ‘joint’ and ‘combined’ will be considered first, demonstrating that neither is in any
way new. Second, the term ‘maritime’ will be examined to differentiate between its broader meaning and the narrower
‘naval’ concept. Third, current perspectives on what is assumed to mean ‘peace’ and ‘war’ are examined in the light
of the probability of the United Kingdom, and her allies, becoming engaged within the full spectrum of conflict in the
contemporary world.
Finally, a synthesis of all five concepts is undertaken in order to give some pointers as to what future scenarios are
likely to be and where scarce national resources might best be allocated. This is done in the light of the UK’s
independent and multinational Combined and Joint Task Force Missions and of critical C4I, early warning and air
defence, strike, amphibious warfare, anti-submarine, and counter mine capabilities.
The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that a number of independent variables, over which the UK does not always
have full control, have the potential to undermine defence policy and to leave naval and maritime forces potentially
vulnerable. The discussion is premised on the two basic assumptions that the current UK administration will, as it
asserted, adhere to the underlying tenets of the July 1998 Strategic Defence Review, and that other major developments,
such as the development of a European defence structure or a decline or abandonment of the NATO alliance, will
not occur within the next twenty years.
Past as Prologue?
Neither the concept of ‘joint’, nor that of ‘combined’, military operations is new. Throughout the history of warfare
military forces of societies and states have combined to engage a common enemy. Within the military forces of such
states, different combat units of men and equipment have joined together under a common command to concentrate
armed force against the enemy. It is a matter of history and the prevailing level of technology whether these are
purely land based, or a mixture of land and sea-based units.
‘Jointness’
Joint Operations
The interest in joint operations by land and sea-based forces began to emerge during the sixteenth century after
significant improvements in artillery and the construction of fighting ships. The interest took on a more serious
dimension during the eighteenth century as the nation-states of Western Europe began to expand their foreign trade
and assert their influence and presence throughout the world. With economic interests to defend and, later, colonies
to protect and control, those states learnt to employ their land and sea capabilities jointly. But perhaps the most
evident reflection of the synergism between sea and land operations was that of the Marines whose roles expanded
from merely that of fighting in sea battles but more especially to engage in amphibious and land operations.
The need for military forces to operate closely and co-ordinate in combat was dramatically demonstrated during the
Anglo-Boer War. In part, this was a function of geographical scale and the fact that operational mobility was better
provided by sea than over land. The war was merely a harbinger of the tactics and strategy of First World War, when

‘jointery’ took on a new salience. This was the arrival of the third dimension of war, air power, and with it, subsequently,
the introduction in some states of an independent third branch of the Armed Services, an Air Force.
For some, it took time to recognise the air medium as an operational environment in its own right; many saw it more
as an adjunct to sea or land operations. Nor was the critical nature of air power immediately seen as an important
and sometimes necessary component of military success. If there had been any doubt during the inter-war period,
the Second World War confirmed both the establishment of independent Air Forces and the essential need of co-
ordinated joint operations in war. This was especially evident in a war in which military operations not only
spanned the entire globe, but also introduced new technologies, many of which were common to all branches of the
Armed Services.
The forty-five years of the Cold War to some extent witnessed a retreat from joint operations as armed services
pressed home their particular and separate interests, often at the expense of the others. Nor did ‘jointness’ during
this period develop significantly either, other than the retention of the operational decision-making and planning
structures inherited from the 1939-1945 War. The concept did not expand or become as established as might have
been expected. This was because inter alia of the nature of the military confrontation between the West and the
Soviet Union and the distorting impact on military strategic planning of the nuclear deterrent. It was also during
this period that a fourth operational dimension, that of space, emerged, one over which the existing Services chose
to compete. Each fought to retain its own independent structures and spending budgets and to compete for defence
functions and resources than to integrate.
‘Jointery’
The current post Cold War emphasis on ‘jointery’ reaches back to the origins of ‘jointness’ when state interests
extended well beyond national territorial boundaries and where ‘power projection’ capabilities in pursuit of national
political and commercial interests were required. Today, the impulse among Western states is to work through the
mechanisms of the United Nations when intervening militarily in conflicts around the world. The objective is to
stop these conflicts escalating and threatening wider international stability or committing crimes against humanity.
It is a policy that has been driven by the need to protect national commercial and strategic interests, assuage
domestic public sensibilities and from an acceptance that the air/land-based conventional military confrontation
of the Cold War has become, virtually, a thing of the past.
Defence and Service planners, as distinct from the policy-makers, have, with some reservations, embraced the
concept of ‘jointery’. They have done so largely for more practical reasons. First, the step-level improvements in
information technology and communications have dramatically changed the way future wars will likely be fought.
Encapsulated in the term ‘The Revolution in Military Affairs’, modern information technology has put into the
hands given to military commanders of all three Services the ability to view a theatre of operations from each other’s
perspective. From this perspective, ‘jointery’ has become more a matter of the integration of military capabilities
than of co-ordinating them. Correspondingly, rigid Service distinctions diminish in relevance.
Second, faced with severe resource constraints – estimated to be, on average, a reduction of 40% in some Western
states - defence planners have had to find new ways of effecting economies and efficiencies. The task has been made
more difficult in the UK by the fact that from the mid-1980s until the SDR, a number of administrative, managerial
and procedural changes were introduced precisely to achieve that objective.1 These far-reaching initiatives left little
scope for further scope for efficiency. Scope for further saving and improved efficiency, however, was found in
‘jointery’ that not only made operational planning and procurement sense, but reduced wasteful duplication and
redundancy.
Third, ‘jointery’ had always been an objective among those who saw the rigid separation of the three branches of the
armed services as an obstruction to effective operational planning and execution. Accepting that such considerations
as morale and commitment were derived from each Service their rigid institutional and organisational boundaries
could be, and often were, counter-productive to overall defence efficiency.2 ‘Jointery’ was consequently promoted as
a new management development conforming to the principles of management actively promoted within both
government and industry.

Combined Operations
Like ‘jointery’ ‘combined operations’ has a long history. Any military alliance is, by definition, one of combined
operations. The alliances of convenience that characterised mediaeval times and the inter-state wars of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries had more in common with each other than the development of alliances in wartime during
the early and mid twentieth century. They were in fact fewer combined operations than the actions of two military
forces fighting a common enemy side by side.
The First World War heralded a significant move towards combined operations when the Allies co-ordinated their
tactical and war plans in greater detail. However, the theatre of war was divided between the different armies with
a clear demarcation as to which sector of the line of battle ‘belonged’ to whom. The Second World War was substantially
different when, for example, the US and UK forming a Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee to advise on military
strategy and formulate the military strategy. Despite combining and integrating a number of military functions, even
the Second World War manifest a preference for states to fight alongside one another than as an integrated force.
The concept of ‘combined’ forces came of age during the Cold War on account of the overwhelming Soviet conventional
threat to Western forces. At the 1949 Washington Treaty, the solution was to form and alliance, one that within two
years was effectively transformed when it was recognised there had to be minimum levels of manpower, an
infrastructure and a common strategy. The North Atlantic Treaty soon became NATO, an organisation with the
whole greater than the sum of the parts. 3
The trend towards ‘combined’ forces in the sense of greater inter-operability, common weapon systems, planning,
and procedures, shared infrastructure, training etc., received a boost, paradoxically, with the end of the Cold War.
Again, reductions in defence resources were largely responsible. States could no longer contemplate taking
independent military action and revised their future defence policy on the assumption that future military
engagements would be in alliance with other states. With a changed strategic environment, the focus of defence
planning lay more on smaller scale expeditionary operations than on large scale, high intensity conventional war
and required the co-ordination of the joint forces of allied states. Finally, information technology was making C4I
more capable and thus was driving the need for closer co-ordination of allied forces.
Within post Cold war Europe latent conflicts and instabilities came to the surface. The first to manifest itself was the
break up of the former Yugoslavia in 1991. NATO’s Rapid Reaction Force had been designed to deal with such
crises, but the US tended to see these as essentially European and not a high priority. Lacking the combined
capability themselves, the Europeans, with US assistance, formulated the concept of the Combined Joint Task Force
(CJTF), possibly under the command of the Western European Union (WEU). In essence, this would be a European
force using a NATO, and therefore primarily US C4I, infrastructure, to deal with intra-European crises.
The critical question, however, remains: in respect of anticipated future joint and combined operations, is it likely in
future that a wider range of maritime assets will be used, both civilian and naval? The evidence points to an
increasing likelihood. If that is the case, the issue of ‘joint’ and ‘combined’ operations assumes a further dimension,
that of civilian participation.4 In one sense, this should come as no surprise, given that the policy of the current
Labour Administration is to use civilians increasingly in defence-related operations and to require certain essential
technological and engineering personnel employed in defence manufacturing companies to become members of a
defence ‘sponsored’ reserve force.
‘Maritime’ Considerations
The term ‘maritime’ applies to all things that have something to do with the sea, land-based facilities and with
ships. It is not exclusively confined to navies. The spectrum of maritime interests also covers everything from the off-
shore resources of a riparian state, as defined within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), to all its fixed assets –
ports, harbours, locks, bridges, lighthouses, navigational aids, communications, shipyards and repair facilities.
To this list has also to be included merchant fleets. Beyond these there are fishing, dredging, research, survey, patrol,
etc., vessels and, in the case of the UK, numerous services, such as marine and ship insurance, maritime information,
meteorological advice, navigational charts, chandlers etc. Navies then have to be added to this eclectic array of

maritime interests. These include: fighting ships, supply vessels, submarines, naval bases, research and development
areas both at shore and at sea, sea and air patrol ships and aircraft, underwater diving and exploration, and air and
sea rescue capabilities.
A state would be in a position to use this varied array of assets and capabilities in time of peace or war as circumstances
demanded. In World War I, for example, the Admiralty compulsorily purchased wooden-hulled fishing boats for
mine clearance operations and between 1939 and 1945 in addition to sequestrating civilian vessels for a range of
naval purposes, armed merchant vessels were deployed as ‘Q’ ships. In the Gulf War and in the Falklands the UK
government compulsorily contracted for both cargo ships and passenger liners, a practice known as ‘Ships Taken
Up From Trade’ (STUFT), to transport logistic support and personnel to the theatre of war. The Soviet Navy persistently
used purportedly civilian ocean-going ‘trawlers’ to gather intelligence on Western navies and shipping.
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) ships that provide logistic support to HM Ships at sea are not formally part of the
Royal Navy; they are operated under contract by civilians and fly the blue ensign. The Royal Maritime Auxiliary
Service (RMAS), also manned by civilians, provides a number of services to HM ships, but inshore using a wide
range of vessels.
During the Cold War, it was a practice among the major maritime states, particularly by the Russians, to sacrifice
efficiency in merchant ship design so that they could serve a dual naval and commercial purpose. To a lesser degree,
this practice was also followed in the West, though commercial shipping operators were given financial compensation.
Currently in the UK, large, strategic roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) ferries are being designed and introduced so that they
can operate both as civilian commercial ferries and as logistic support vessels in support of the UK Rapid Reaction
forces in Europe and elsewhere.
In time of peace, when the Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOC) are not threatened and the objective of foreign and
defence policy is to support peace- related operations and bring humanitarian assistance to those in need around
the world, one question comes to the fore: are naval vessels, manned and equipped primarily for fighting wars at
sea, the most appropriate or cost-effective option? As the practice of ‘contracting out’ defence functions to private
companies increases, so for peace-related missions the practice of contracting out these roles to civilian shipping
companies might, in a strictly maritime sense, prove more cost effective. For example, the decision has already been
taken in the UK to contract out the Scottish Fishery Protection role to a civilian contractor. If this practice were more
widely adopted, naval ships would be released from tasks for which they were neither primarily designed nor their
crews trained, and left to provide extensive defence of the sea lanes.
‘Peace’ and ‘War’

It is generally assumed that the concepts of ‘peace’ and ‘war’ are two ends of a linear spectrum. To accept this would
be a distortion for the same reason that ‘peace’ is not the antonym of ‘conflict’; more accurately, ‘co-operation’ is
opposite of ‘conflict’. Likewise, ‘peace’ is a dynamic condition within which states, organisations and individuals
can go about their daily affairs without facing the threat of, or experiencing, constraint or interference.
‘War’ is a condition where states, principally, are engaged in violent conflict and are subject only to internationally
accepted rules and protocols governing what is permissible and what is not. More often than not, in time of ‘war’
these protocols are ignored and, in the name of war aims, claims of justification or necessity, atrocities are committed.
In recent years, there have been attempts by the international community to strengthen the implementation of the
Laws of War, to clarify Rules of Engagement (ROE) and ban certain categories of equipment, such as anti-personnel
mines. Furthermore, the establishment of the International Criminal Court will help to bring those who have exceeded
the bounds of what is acceptable in armed conflict to justice.
‘Peace’ is a dynamic condition, principally characterised by the free movements of peoples, the pursuit of commercial
trade, and the open exchange of ideas, resources, and information. It is a condition, or situation, in which there is the
absence of coercion other than that defined by the statutory law or international law. This definition of ‘peace’ is
vitally important to the debate on the legitimate use of Armed Services as distinct from the use of coercive military
force. It implies their deployment to ensure that the free passage and exchange between all peoples are maintained.

‘War’ is a situation where coercion, or the threat of coercion, is used to prevent others from doing what they are
legally entitled to do. The purpose of war is to impose one’s will on the adversary and to establish agreed conditions
of peace.
Today’s Spectrum of ‘Peace’ and ‘War’

During the Cold War, the defence planning was focused on Western Europe, even though the Soviet threat was
worldwide. Today, the West’s attention has turned towards ‘Out-of-Area’ (OOA) threats, such as: international
crime; state-sponsored and independent terrorism; border disputes; illegal migration; ethnic and religious conflict;
environmental degradation; and competition for scarce strategic resources. The threats are many and varied and
some, even, are held by the UN Security Council and the major Western powers to be regionally destabilising.
In his study of amphibious operations, Michael Evans developed a graph of the spectrum of conflict. It was based on
what he perceived in 1990 were the likely levels of violence and their probability of occurring. 5 Since then, the
international security environment has changed substantially, at least in people’s perceptions. Nevertheless, the
principle remains basically the same. The details of levels of violence are the same in kind; only the degrees have
altered.
‘Peace’, ‘Policing’ and ‘Protection’

At the left hand end of the spectrum of conflict is ‘peace’. This is a condition where there is the absence of the use of
force whether by state or non-statutory bodies. This does not mean, however, an absence of armed services but their
protective role in keeping for example the sea lanes of communication open and to deter piracy and other adventurers
and opportunists from interfering with shipping.
On land, such ‘normal’ operations would include police patrol operations along state boundaries, assistance to
those in difficulty, and the proper control and use of airspace. One more evident task would be to render assistance
to states and communities in difficulty following natural disasters. Many of the routine tasks would be in support
of domestic police forces and in areas such as a state’s EEZ, where only military forces are capable of operating.
Surveillance
Between national peace sustaining and international policing activities at the lower end of the conflict spectrum,
there is to be found a broad category that, for sake of argument, is labelled ‘surveillance’. An essential component in
the prevention of war is effective intelligence and early warning. This is provided by a whole array of means and
methods including satellite surveillance, communications interception, and spying. Open source information is
proving a rich source and often, the international media are ahead, even, of the intelligence communities of the more
richly endowed states.
‘Preventive Diplomacy’: The Show of Force

Out of concern that ethnic, religious and other disputes throughout the world do not escalate into violence, the UK
government has placed some emphasis on the concepts of ‘Defence Diplomacy’ and ‘Preventive Diplomacy’. The
former was used primarily to address the problems that former communist and totalitarian states were experiencing
in transforming themselves into liberal democracies. To this end, military forces have been used to assist former
communist states to embrace democratic reform of their armed services. ‘Preventive Diplomacy’ encompasses a
wide variety of initiatives, the purpose of which has been to exercise influence over other states through such
activities as ship courtesy visits to demonstrations of military force using international waters.6
There are, obviously, degrees to which a show of force can be introduced, depending on the political message to be
communicated. Sometimes this can be as a warning to ‘maverick’ leaders or hostile states; at other times a show of
force by ships can act as a mark of reassurance and a token of support. The advantage of such demonstrations by
larger naval vessels in particular is their flexibility, their manoeuvrability in international waters, and the political
symbolism that is associated with them whilst at sea. 7

Small Scale Disputes Requiring Military Action

One of the more worrisome aspects of global violence has been the increase in localised inter-ethnic disputes and
para-military and terrorist threats. These activities threaten to disrupt day-to-day life, the lives of foreign nationals
and potentially inter-state relations. Being non-statutory, these threats to national and regional stability - of which
the Hutu Inhwanda rebels from Rwanda or the Kosovo Liberation Army, would serve as examples – require
suppressing or eliminating. How these situations can be dealt with outside the framework of the United Nations
depends on the readiness of the governments to become involved.
The Higher Peace Keeping Spectrum: The Application and Use of Force
Experience over the past eight years has demonstrated that the UN concept of ‘peace-keeping’ has proved inadequate.
It has not been possible to keep a peace when the parties concerned were actively engaged in fighting. To stop (as
distinct from prevent) crimes against humanity, peace had to be imposed from outside. Once successful, peace had
then to be maintained until conditions prevailed when peace support actions could be introduced. The burden of
imposing peace, as Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia or Allied Force in Kosovo have illustrated, fell to the
combined NATO Air Forces operating under a UN mandate, striking at combatants’ military assets and ground
forces.
Once peace has been imposed, the burden of responsibility becomes that of the ground forces with logistic support
flown in by transport aircraft and delivered in bulk from ships anchored off-shore. Peace Support Operations (PSO)
are introduced at a time when a large military presence is no longer necessary and civilian agencies can take over.
Military Intervention
Seen by some as potentially the most dangerous set of problems that UN members have to face is that “posed by the
many troublesome smaller powers with undemocratic regimes that have significant military capacity”. 8 Areas of
the world where these smaller powers are to be found include the Middle East, North Africa, SW Asia and South
East Asia. They are also the states that need to be monitored closely because of the numbers and types of weapons
systems that they have acquired. They are states that “are pursuing asymmetric threat strategies against (Western)
greatest areas of weakness”. 9 These are also states that are likely to prompt Western military intervention, with or
without UN sanction, if their activities prove too destructive or disruptive. It is in these instances that joint capabilities
become especially relevant and where amphibious capabilities become essential.
Limited War
Beyond these undemocratic and ‘difficult’ states, there are a number of regional powers whose current and projected
capabilities are sufficiently large that Western leaders, even when deploying combined forces, would have to think
very seriously before committing their armed forces. The states concerned have been variously labelled ‘major
regional powers’; counted amongst them are the Russian Federation, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, Brazil, and
Iran. Potentially, South Africa and Iraq should also be added in the longer term. Already, four have nuclear weapons
capabilities and three either have had them or are on the brink of acquiring them.
Relevantly to the issue of maritime manoeuvre, is the fact that all have a significant naval capability or in most cases
are in the process of acquiring one. Prominent among these developments is their acquisition of submarines, a
capability that presents a very serious threat in the warmer, confined and difficult conditions around their coastal
waters.
These states not only present a serious challenge to Western states that would have to operate at long distance from
their home bases, but have the capability to precipitate a regional military conflict. In the forefront, is the confrontation
between India and Pakistan, though tension in the Far East between China and Japan, and between China and the
littoral states of the South China Sea is ever present - the stand-off between China and Taiwan, notwithstanding.
Adding to these regional tensions is India’s policy towards the Indian Ocean one over which it feels it should
exercise some control.

Should a major regional conflict erupt, US policy, as defined in its 1997 Quadrennial Review, is to have the military
capability to intervene with allies. Were such an eventuality occur, the West would have to marshal the full range of
force at its disposal, among which sea-borne air power, maritime protection, massive logistic support, amphibious
forces, and land forces would be essential. The potential lack of host nation support in these areas that could
provide accessible airfields for combat or interdiction aircraft would be a handicap, given that control of the air, as
well as command of the sea, would be an essential ingredient of operational success.
Limited Nuclear and Total War

These categories of violent conflict are found, conceptually at least, at the far right of the spectrum of conflict and are
often referred to as ‘high intensity’. They represent the extreme of what Herman Kahn once referred to as ‘spasm and
insensate war’. The experience eof operational and strategic planning during the Cold War, when limited theatre
nuclear exchanges were contemplated as part of tactical and strategic thinking, has given Western leaders and
military commanders an appreciation of the implications.
Were a regional conflict to escalate to the point that it became nuclear, or total, either regionally or globally, (however
‘total’ is defined) the details of ‘maritime combined and joint operations’ would become largely academic.
Probability of Occurrence
It is one thing to overview the spectrum of conflict in a vacuum; it is another to project where, along that spectrum,
military forces are most likely to be engaged. There is no clear answer, any more that it is possible to predict how
different states will respond to specific situations. Even among close allies there is no guarantee of unanimity of
view regarding national interests, the threat that international crises pose, or the appropriate military response. The
crises in Bosnia and Kosovo are sufficient enough examples; and even when there was almost universal agreement
within the United Nations that military force had to be used to oust Iraq from in Kuwait in 1990, not all states were
agreed as to what should be done, or who should do it.
A number of independent variables come to into play when the question of how probable military action is likely to
be initiated by the UK or others in the event of an international crisis. The first and most immediately relevant is the
nature of the ‘crisis’ and to whom or against what a threat is perceived. Since the end of the Cold War, direct and
immediate threats to territorial integrity and the security of their political state boundaries are generally considered
improbable.
This does not mean that there are no longer border disputes between states; it merely means that the resort to
military force to resolve them has become less likely. Few consider that a conventional conflict in the Central
European region is likely to occur within the next ten to fifteen years. Instead, attention has turned to internal
instabilities around the world that could either erupt into small wars or spill over into cross border conflicts
between neighbouring states, thereby threatening regional stability.
Classic Functions of Navies and the Relevance of ‘Joint-ness’ and ‘Combined-ness’

Before considering contemporary naval contributions in ‘peace’ and ‘war’ it might be useful first to give some brief
attention to what are the primary functions of a Navy. In a prescient article in a 1969 edition of the US Naval Institute
Proceedings John Chase addressed this very question, concluding that there were nine principal functions.10
1) Coastal Defence
2) Commerce Raiding
3) Enforcing respect for national interests, especially trade and shipping
4) As an instrument of foreign policy
5) Commanding the Seas
6) Direct Support for Land Operations

7) Projecting force inland from the seas

8) As an integral component of strategic deterrent power
9) As a means to implement social reforms
Among these functions Chase gave little emphasis to ‘joint-ness’, except in respect of functions 6, and 7. Today,
‘joint-ness’ virtually embraces all nine in varying degrees. Even function one, which at first sight would appear to
be exclusively a Navy/Coast Guard concern, embraces the other Services in the continuing fight against illegal
narcotics smuggling and maritime patrol.11
When the issue of ‘combined-ness’ is considered in respect of these nine functions, the picture is less encouraging.
Reductions in defence spending and a decline in the size of the world’s navies have had the effect of loosening,
rather than tightening, the bonds between them. More problematical is the fact that technologically the United
States Navy, significantly the largest and most powerful in the world, has developed faster and further than any
current or potential ally. Nowhere has this been more evident than in Naval Command and Control technologies
and procedures.
The Cold War circumstances of allied naval roles that largely held the navies of the NATO nations together for
almost forty years have changed; keeping them bound together will prove progressively difficult.12. Alternatively, for
‘combined-ness’ to succeed in these nine functional areas, the United States will have to make a determined effort to
provide practical assistance to others and to work hard to “tighten those loosening bonds”. This might prove
problematical as the European states become closer within the framework of the European Union. The Combined
Joint Task Force (CJTF) concept is currently the framework within which trans-Atlantic naval co-operation is being
achieved, but it is, at best, an ad hoc arrangement.
Naval (and Maritime) Contributions in Peace and War
It should be self evident that across the spectrum of conflict, from a mere presence of naval forces in peace-time to
total war, the issue of the probability of conflict is fundamental. The likelihood of conflict erupting during Cold War
was relatively easy to calculate and the risks were calculable; today, such prognostications are more difficult even
if the overall risks have diminished. Though the risks to the survival of the state been reduced, the impact of conflict
on other national interests have increased – with less risk these is now more uncertainty.
As a generalisation, the focus of Western naval capability to day is towards the support of foreign policy. This in
turn means the use of navies to help maintain peace and international stability through a naval presence, in
coalition, in a broad range of ‘preventive diplomacy’ roles. The strategic rationale is in part recognition of the
‘globalisation’ or ‘internationalisation’ of world affairs, the increased relevance of the UN and of International Law,
and a change in rationale behind the use of military force. It is also in part a recognition of the strategic ‘leverage’ of
sea power afforded to those states, or maritime alliances, that have the requisite capabilities. 13
On a day-to-day basis navies will be engaged in keeping the sea lines of communication open and surveillance
work, such as fishery protection and EEZ patrolling, coupled with the ‘preventive diplomacy’ function of maintaining
a presence where national interests are judged to be critical. There is no reason, in principle, why these roles could,
or should, not be performed by merchant or civilian vessels, exercising their right of free passage in international
waters and assuming that they face no immediate physical threat. These are also roles that to which the other
services have relatively little contribution to make, except in specific or special circumstances, such as maritime
patrol aircraft (and, even here, these are operated in most states by the Navy rather than their Air Force).
Peace-keeping and peace-maintaining operations have proved to be a growth area for military operations. Depending
on the nature of the conflict and the objectives to be achieved, so the maritime contribution has varied in salience. At
one end of the scale of peace – keeping and peace support operations, the critical role is to get the necessary
assistance to its destination as quickly as possible, for which, again, ships are the most effective. Here, too, naval
vessels are not necessarily essential, though their combination of helicopters and C2 capabilities is a significant
asset. The role of maritime forces diminishes in peace imposing operations, such as those in Bosnia and potentially

in Kosovo, where land based forces and air power take on the primary combat function. However, most peace
imposing operations are estimated to occur within 150 kms of the sea, for which reason sea-based air power and
amphibious capabilities are judged to give most flexibility and manoeuvrability.14
The ‘Step Level’ from Peace-keeping to Military Intervention

Naval operations pass through a ‘step level’ function when a crisis calls for intervention. Not only do such conflicts
increase in scale and intensity, but the mixture of combined and joint force capabilities also expands exponentially.
From a maritime perspective, naval forces require capabilities that cover seven roles in order to ensure both the
safety of the naval force at sea and its ability to execute is interventionary function. These seven roles are: C4I;
Carrier-borne (CV) Air/Strike Operations; Amphibious Warfare (AW); Air defence (AAW); Anti-shipping Warfare
(ASW); Mine Warfare and Counter-measure Warfare (MCM); and Anti Submarine Warfare (ASUW). Without these
separate capabilities, a naval task force in a major engagement within a region against small, maverick or regionally
powerful states would be vulnerable. The ‘intervention’ effect not only substantially increases the overall capabilities
of naval task force, but also thrusts them into a much more expensive and complex situation.
The question that this step level increase in naval capability immediately raises is whether states can, or are
prepared to, afford it. Given budgetary restraints, the cost of a naval task force with all the necessary elements will
inevitably impose penalties elsewhere. ‘Jointery’ can help to alleviate some of the impact and enhance efficiency
and capability, but it has to be recognised that the opportunity cost of modern naval task forces for interventionary
or expeditionary operations will be substantial. Another question, in these circumstances, is that of whether costs
can be saved by combining with other navies. For the UK, the US Navy is the obvious partner , but here again the
disparity in technology and the costs that would be incurred need to be recognised. There is also, within the NATO
alliance, a need to explore new technologies, such as UAVs and torpedo defence, to enhance future maritime
contributions in littoral wars.
Maritime contributions in the event of conventional total war and in the nuclear deterrent role are similar to the
situation that prevailed during the Cold War. Such a situation would only be confronted through an alliance, for
which reason the objective of control of the sea and its denial to enemy navies would be the primary naval task.
Through that control, support of land forces, logistic supply and enabling reinforcements would be the associated
tasks. Given that the principal Western deterrent capability is submarine based, the contribution of the French,
British and US Navies is assured for at least the next thirty to forty years.
Conclusion
The above discussion has pointed out that under the present international security situation, states are looking to
prevent inter state conflict erupting or spilling over into other states, thereby threatening regional stability. Navies,
in conjunction with ground and air capabilities are the best means with which to achieve these essential international
and foreign policy objectives. These sorts of conflicts represent a serious threat to global stability and will most
likely occur within easy reach of the sea.
When international conflict escalates beyond that the level of peace-maintaining, maritime capabilities become
more costly and complex and the contributions of the other branches of the armed services. It is this area where the
smaller maritime states, the UK included, become vulnerable. The dimensions of maritime power in this higher level
of conflict require a complex array of inter-related capabilities, all of which are necessary and costly. It is also the
context where ‘combined-ness’ becomes essential, even when there is an asymmetry between the United States and
the remaining maritime ‘powers’.
All of which raises a number of difficult questions that the UK government will have to address in the near future.
As the UK addresses its potential involvement in conflict situations ranging from normal peace-keeping, command
of the sea and surveillance operations to intervention and expeditionary war, so the capability requirement increases
exponentially in three respects. First, the Royal Navy will acquire a range of defensive and offensive capabilities in
order to operate safely in offshore, littoral waters. Secondly, the degree of ‘jointness’, that is to say the Royal Navy’s
ability to conduct operations effectively alongside and with the other two Services, increases as the nature of the

conflict increases in scale and intensity. And, thirdly, as the UK becomes involved in interventionary wars or
medium to high level conflict, the need to do so in a combined manner with allies, particularly the United States,
also increases. In sum, the further up the scale of conflict, the more complex and costly everything exponentially
becomes.
The first major question that the UK government and the Ministry of Defence will have to address, therefore, is how
far up the spectrum of conflict the UK is prepared to go. Any semblance of military redundancy was virtually
eradicated after the Defence Costs Study15 and, finally, ended when the Strategic Defence Review reduced the
Reserves to one of specialist support in low-to-medium scale engagements.16 The second question relates to the
government Strategic Defence Review which contained references to Britain being an “ethical force for good in the
world”. With the high costs associated with even relatively minor operations, some doubt must be expressed how
much the UK can afford. How far the government will go in support of good causes is not the same as how far it can
go, especially in respect of military capability, affordability and public acceptability. In respect of the first, it would
appear critical that the Navy’s future carrier and the associated JSF programmes go ahead with conviction. The
same would also apply to the maintenance of Britain’s amphibious forces. Without any of these, then any semblance
of Britain’s involvement in medium level conflicts would lack credibility.
A third question is an extension of the second. The acquisition of an expeditionary warfare capability will still be a
very costly business, no matter what economies can be effected through ‘jointery’. It might, in time, become a matter
of the government having to make a choice between developing a regional force, focused primarily on Europe, and
an Expeditionary one. There are weighty political and military arguments in favour of either alternative; the critical
question is whether Britain can meaningfully maintain both.
Britain could emulate the Dutch and elect to put all her military effort into an alliance capability and forget any idea
of building up its own balanced military force. 17 This would mean that where Britain felt it had a comparative
advantage it would offer that operational capability to an alliance structure. This line of argument has been offered
on many occasions and one that is based on national specialisms. Thus, for example, Britain, a maritime nation by
tradition, would offer to make a significant naval contribution to an alliance, leaving land and air capabilities to her
continental partners. This ‘division of labour ’ argument has its appeal, though questions need to be raised whether
this would be a better way forward within the European Union or the NATO alliance.
Finally, questions would have to be asked what would be the implications for the composition of the UK’s armed
forces of the different answers to these questions? Is it sufficient for Britain to continue to keep as many of its defence
options open by assuming a ‘golf bag’ approach? Is there a danger of being a ‘jack of all trades’ and master of none?
Britain is a medium-to-small military power and the often-levelled accusation that successive governments have
not acknowledged this fact has a certain ring of truth. Such assertions as “Britain punching above its weight” are no
longer always convincing. What Britain can best do is to bring such professionalism and tailored capability as she
has to an alliance force structure. But this also raises some intractable problems: in the Royal Navy, where there are
high levels of technological competence the equal of the US, there are nonetheless already critical shortfalls in
capability.
This paper has not sought to offer any answers or to offer prescriptions; it has been designed to namely to raise
questions. These, however, are more of a political nature than of a military one. They revolve around the sort of
country Britain wishes to be, with whom it would like to be associated, where it perceives its national security lies,
and what role it wants to pay in world affairs.

End Notes
1 MOD Departmental Report by the MOD: The Government’s Expenditure Plans 1993/4 - 1995/6, Cm 2201,
London HMSO 1993, pp20-26. See also MOD Front Line First: The Defence Costs Study, London HMSO, 1994.
2 Martin Edmonds, “Defence Management and the Impact of ‘Jointery”. in Dorman, A. Smith, M. and Uttley, M.
(Eds) Defense Analysis (Special Edition) Vol 14 No 1 April 1998, pp 9-28.
3 DoD, The Quadrennial Defense Review Washington DC DoD, 1997.
4 Alison Clayton, The Reserve Forces’ Act, 1996: The Financial Implications. Bailrigg Memorandum #23
Lancaster, CDISS. 1997.
5 Michael Evans, Amphibious Operations, The Projection of Sea Power Ashore London, Brassey’s, 1990, p 83.
6 For a discussion of the various dimensions of both categories of diplomacy, see: Martin Edmonds, ‘Defence
Diplomacy’ and ‘Preventive Diplomacy’: The Role of Maritime Forces. Bailrigg Memorandum # 34 Lancaster
CDISS January 1998.
7 Still the best discussion of the political and diplomatic advantages of using naval vessels for these purposes,
is James Cable, Gunboat Diplomacy, London, Macmillan, 1981. See also his later study “Out of Area but
under Control” Defense Analysis, Volume 1 # 1 March 1985, pp 3-20.
8 Ibid. para 2.1.3.
9 Paul Hazell, The Implications of New technology for Maritime Operations in 2015 and Beyond. Unpublished
paper, Brussels, NATO, September, 1998, para 2.1.3.
10 John Chase, “The Function of the Navy” United States Naval Institute Proceedings October 1969, pp 27-33.
Chase subsequently rose to become Rear Admiral and in a lengthy career had an influence on the thinking of
today’s US naval leaders. Chase’s short, but succinct article, was rediscovered by Peter Swartz and forms the
focus of his chapter “Classic Roles and Future Challenges: The Navy after Next” in Pellan G. Bowyer and
Robert S. Wood (Eds) Strategic Transformation and Naval Power in the 21 st Century, Newport RI, Naval War
College Press, 1998, pp 273-305.
11 Ibid, especially pp 293-303.
12 For details of the roles that were ascribed for the Royal Navy in Alliance War during the 1980s, see James
Cable, Britain’s Naval Future, London, Macmillan, 1983, pp 128-129.
13 Colin Gray, “The Leverage of Sea Power” in P. Hore and E. Grove, Dimensions of Sea Power Hull University of
Hull press 1998, p 43.
14 Martin Edmonds ‘Defence Diplomacy’ and ‘Preventive Diplomacy’, The Role of Maritime Forces Bailrigg
Memorandum #34 Lancaster CDISS 1998.
15 Ministry of Defence: Front Line First: The Defence Costs Study London HMSO 1994.
16 Ministry of Defence The Strategic Defence Review: Modern Forces for the Modern World. London, Ministry of
Defence, 1998. Section on Reserve Forces.
17 Bart Van der Hulst “Dutch Thinking on Joint and Combined Operations”. Paper presented to the Conference
on Joint and Combined Operations: Maritime Contributions in Peace and War. Lancaster, March 25-26 1999.

MARITIME LIMITATION
by
Jeremy Stocker, BA, MA

Centre for Security Studies, University of Hull
The focus of current Western maritime doctrines, and indeed of this conference, is the role that flexible, mobile and
autonomous maritime forces have to play in multi-service and, to a lesser extent, multi-national operations. With
Western, essentially though not exclusively American, maritime dominance apparently unchallenged on the high
seas, our navies’ focus has shifted, as we are all well aware, from operations at sea to operations from the sea, that
is against the land. Greater naval interaction with the land-based services - ground and air - flows naturally from
this. Additionally, post-Cold War force reductions of a scale greater than any reduction in operational commitments
also provide a powerful imperative for our Armed Forces to maximise their operational capabilities, by drawing on
each other’s resources and expertise.
We should not overlook, however, the limitations of the Joint and Combined approach. There remain significant
tasks for navies in which the involvement of the other Services, and of other nations, are necessarily limited or even
absent. Nor should we neglect the limitations imposed on maritime forces in contributing to operations conducted
by land-based forces. This is true in peace and war, but especially, I would argue, in peace, or at least in conditions
of dispute and conflict short of ‘high intensity’ shooting war. To that extent, I want to sound a cautionary note in our
current enthusiasm, much of it nonetheless well-placed, for multi-national jointness. The constraints imposed on
maritime operations within a joint framework are both operational and institutional.
A key feature of most applications of military force in the post-Cold War world is Limitation. That limitation may be
of ends or means, and most likely both, as the political purpose of military operations should keep each in tune with
the other. Maritime operations undertaken for limited purposes and employing limited means, often retain distinctive
naval characteristics in which the scope for ‘combined-ness’ may be much greater than that for ‘joint-ness’.
Conveniently for navies, most operations in which western forces are likely to be involved are in the ‘littorals’, the
coastal regions of the world that contain the majority of human populations and political and economic centres. The
commonly accepted definition of the littorals is:
Seaward: The area from the open ocean to the shore which must be controlled to support operations ashore.
Landward: The area inland from shore that can be supported and defended directly from the sea.
The Landward focus of both parts of this definition is noteworthy, and in accord with the power projection, ‘from
the sea’ focus of maritime doctrine. The United States Navy (USN) defines the future role of its surface fleet in terms
of the twin missions of Land Attack and Theater Air Defense - both inherently land-oriented, joint tasks. The RN
lacks both the capability and operational doctrine to be quite so assertive, but the emphasis on the three core power
projection capabilities, as mentioned by the First sea Lord above, - carriers, SSNs and amphibiosity - demonstrate a
similar trend exemplified by Maritime Manoeuvre and the Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations.
However, we should not overlook that what are littoral waters to us, are to local states coastal waters, of increasing
economic, political and military importance. While we may focus our attention landward from these waters, other
states gaze out to sea from ashore. Significant and increasingly sophisticated military capabilities are projected
from the land out to sea. Western maritime dominance, assured for the time being at least on the high seas, is a good
deal less assured as our naval forces approach the coastal margins of regional powers, in the face of land-based sea
denial capabilities. These littoral waters are, of course, precisely where Western navies need to be in order to exercise
power and influence ashore.
Sea control therefore remains an essential maritime mission, even if the disputed battlespace has shifted from the
open sea to shallower, more confined, more congested and more complex coastal environments. Future events may
Jeremy Stocker Bailrigg Paper 30

demonstrate that the United States in particular, has not devoted sufficient attention to achieving local sea control
in the littoral, in order to project its increasingly land-oriented maritime power ashore. Moreover, local sea control
is more likely to be undertaken prior to, rather than after, the establishment of land control ashore. In the absence of
shore bases within reach, the ability of land-based forces to contribute to a joint operation at sea is necessarily
limited or entirely absent. Even where such bases do exist, their static nature and the political constraint inherent in
operating from another states’ territory may limit their effectiveness. And while sea-based forces are increasing their
landward focus, our land-based forces, if not those of potential opponents, are reducing their seaward focus.
The need to achieve local, littoral sea control is not confined to the requirement to secure a maritime operating base
adjacent to shore. Intervention and influence ashore is, rightly, our main focus, as Sir Julian Corbett pointed out. It
is worth making an important distinction here between intervention and influence, however much one may appear
to imply the other. The impact on shore of maritime power may be direct or indirect. That is, interventionary force
may be projected directly ashore, as in for example an amphibious landing.
Alternatively, operations conducted entirely at sea may still have a profound influence over events on land. The
Second World War Pacific and Atlantic campaigns respectively provide good examples of each. The continuing,
some might argue the increasing, importance of the sea in human affairs, especially its economic and environmental
importance, dictates that maritime operations are not only about the projection of power ashore. This is even so in
the littorals. Recent as well as more distant history provides many examples of maritime operations conducted in
littoral regions that stop short of direct intervention ashore. ARMILLA and SHARP GUARD are but two such
examples. Even convoy escort, that apparently most blue-water of naval tasks, is actually just as much a coastal as
an open ocean mission. Distinctively naval missions will remain, even in the littorals, and must not be overlooked
in a desire to be, above all, joint.
We hear much, both from the US and here in Britain, of ‘Battlespace Dominance’ and ‘shaping operations’. Within
the context of high-tempo, high-intensity operations of relatively short duration, the exploitation of qualitative
advantages, especially in the fields of information, stealth, precision and firepower, has obvious appeal. But in our
desire to employ superior technology, training and doctrine to offset our disadvantages in time and space in regions
far distant from home states, we must recognise that, at least as often as not, political purposes are limited and so are
the means employed to achieve them.
Many operations conducted adjacent to a hostile or potentially hostile coast will not entail direct intervention
against that shore, even where significant potential threats to western forces originate on land. This may continue
to be the case even where shooting has taken place, as in the USN’s clashes with the Libyan and Iranian navies in
the 1980s. Land forces, whether delivered by air or sea, have little or no role to play in these kinds of scenarios, and
so the scope for ‘jointness’ itself remains limited.
The range of ‘non-interventionary’ naval missions, in the littorals and further out to sea, is a wide one. Many of them
come under the broad description of sea control - the protection of merchant shipping (from state and non-state
threats), blockade, sanctions and embargo operations, mine clearance, freedom of navigation enforcement. Precursor
operations to establish local sea control will often be required prior to an active intervention ashore later in the
campaign. This audience will need little reminding of the continuing relevance of ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’ limited
naval operations that can be used to influence friends and foes alike, in benign and hostile environments. Warships’
ability to ‘poise’ offshore brings a potent latency that can be exploited in numerous ways, a characteristic not shared
by Joint partners ashore. Finally, the growth of naval Peace Support Operations (PSOs) adds an extra dimension to
many long-standing naval tasks and capabilities.
When the main focus of operations is on land, maritime forces may play a significant role, especially early on before
land-based forces can be established. Most equipment can only arrive by sea, and where suitable, friendly facilities
do not exist, entry for any forces will have to be from the sea. However, maritime forces’ superior mobility is
nonetheless confined to the sea. The further inland is the object of any campaign, the less maritime forces can
contribute. This may seen self-evident, but it is worth re-stating especially as the USN’s technological and doctrinal
investment in operations on and over the land is much greater than Britain’s.

The disparity is partly a matter of scale and resources, but also one of choice in operational doctrines and procurement
policies. This is especially so in air defence. While Britain has in the past led the way in joint sea-land air defence,
the RN’s new air defence ships are if anything more narrowly focused on purely naval anti-air warfare requirements
than their predecessors. In contrast, the USN, for the first time, is addressing the defence of forces and allies ashore
against all forms of air threat including ballistic missiles.
A further word of caution on the merits of ‘jointery’ is appropriate. The only inherent Joint issue or problem to be
resolved is that between forces which operate from the land and from the sea, as they intrude into or over each
others’ environments. All others are the consequences of particular institutional arrangements that create a joint
‘problem’ where conceptually at least, none need exist. By this I mean the allocation of tasks and assets between the
services, especially where land-based forces (inevitably more numerous than sea-based, as we are, after all, land
animals) are divided into more than one service - an army and a (land-based) air force.
In Britain, the forces pride themselves on an ability to work jointly at the tactical and operational levels rather better
than most. This may be in part because they have to, given who does what. In most countries, for example, the army
owns its own support helicopters and the navy its own maritime patrol aircraft. In Britain, where both are operated
by the RAF, the forces have long had to address the Joint issue in areas where others have not needed to. Ironically,
some, though not all, of the new joint institutional structures announced in the SDR serve to exacerbate that feature
of Britain’s defences.
The new Joint Helicopter Command (a RAF wheeze finally to secure control of all helicopters that back-fired)
actually serves to confirm the distribution of battlefield helicopters amongst all three services. In doing so, it tends
to divorce those elements from the remainder of their respective services, potentially creating intra-service difficulties.
A similar story is true of Joint Force 2000 (what will we call it in 2001 or 2010?), the joint RNIRAF Harrier force. The
RN’s Sea Harriers may have increasingly more in common with a part of the Air Force than with the rest of the Fleet
Air Aim. When the new carriers arrive with the Future Carrier Borne Aircraft (FCBA) - probably a variant of the Joint
Strike Fighter (JSF), each carrier air wing will have one navy and one air force squadron, employing identical aircraft
operating from the same afloat and shore bases. Very ‘joint’, but why does it need to be joint at all? The answer, of
course, is that these structures address institutional imperatives as much as, perhaps more than, operational needs.
The main thrust of my thesis, here, is the limitations imposed on the joint aspect of maritime operations. The scope
for combined, that is multi-national, operations is usually greater. NATO navies in general have a good deal more
experience in working with each other than they do with their respective national sister services. What one navy can
do on its own, two or more could well do better together. This is not always the case, however. Differing capabilities
and approaches can be contradictory as well as complementary. This is especially so where non-traditional allies
are concerned, with whom co-operation may have a political rather than operational imperative.
Concern is often expressed about the acquisition by the USN of ‘information-age technologies’, to a greater extent
than any other navy can afford, so denying others the ability to work effectively with them. In fact, the increasing
adoption of commercially-derived systems and protocols should make interoperability without interchangeability
easier, not more difficult. It is rather in the realm of doctrine, in all its facets, that difficulties lie. As long as states
retain distinctive cultures and interests, these problems are not going to dissipate.
That a greatly increased stress on ‘joint operations’ is both right and inevitable is not in dispute. We should be
mindful, however, of the limitations, operational and institutional, in the application of maritime power in a joint
context. There are limitations to what maritime forces can and should do. Equally, there remain important things for
maritime forces to do which are by their nature are not particularly ‘joint’.

PART 2: MCJO NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

(Chairman: Sir Patrick Duffy, PhD)
A NAVAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF JOINT

AND COMBINED OPERATIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA
by
Captain D. J. Christian, SAN*

Director Naval Strategy, South African Navy, Pretoria
Introduction
In her essay on the development of trireme warfare prior to the Peloponnesian War, Nicolle Hirschfeld writes as
follows: “In earliest times ... warships were built to quickly carry as many men as possible to battle... ships served
simply as vehicles to get soldiers within close range of their enemy”.1
Cynics in modern-day naval planning communities, continuously abused by the demands of the seemingly never
ending priorities afforded to land forces, might argue that nothing much has changed in the last two and a half
thousand years. History repeatedly shows us that wars are fought to their conclusion on land, with massive ground
forces weaving back and forth over thousands of square kilometres in their quest for supremacy. Amongst the ill-
informed, wars are essentially seen as matters between armies, with the contribution from forces other than land
forces often being incidental to the outcome of the war. The concept of ‘jointness’ as we understand it today has been
slow to develop in the minds of both the casual observer and - sadly enough - in the minds of many military
planners.
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in general, and the South African Navy (SAN) in particular, are
no exceptions to this ‘slow realisation’. Although the SAN has been operating with integrated forces for many years,
it has largely been used ‘in support of’ the Army for most of these operations. The same can be said for the South
African Air Force (SAAF). To put it crudely, the SAN has often been perceived as the ‘water wing’ of the Army.
However, this archaic thinking has fundamentally changed over the past few years. The SANDF has adopted the
concept of jointness in all facets of its future force structure and force design planning, as well as - most importantly
- in its planning and execution of operations. In the space of a few short years we have moved away from an arm-of-
service independent organisation - an organisation of independently functioning silos, if you will - to a far more
focused and joint organisation.
Past Experience
In order to visualise the future contribution that the SAN will make to the ongoing development of joint and combined
operations in South Africa, one must first examine the level of the SAN’s involvement - or lack thereof - in past operations
in the region. More specifically, one needs to understand the basis for the present situation in South Africa.
To state the obvious, South Africa is a maritime nation. From the earliest days of the Portuguese explorers sailing
around the southern tip of Africa, through the Dutch, British and French occupations of the Cape, South Africa’s
future has been inextricably linked to events from the sea. The country’s daily survival depends entirely on its sea
lines of communication and the utilisation of its marine resources. Today, Durban is the busiest port in Africa; the
coal export terminal at Richard’s Bay is the biggest single coal terminal in the world; and millions of tons of iron ore
are exported through the port of Saldanha Bay. The Cape sea route, together with the Straits of Gibraltar and the
* The views expressed in this paper are those of the author ’s and do not necessarily reflect official South African Navy, South African
National Defence Force, or South African Department of Defence policy.This paper will, therefore, illustrate the development of joint
operational thinking within the SANDF, from a naval perspective. It will also address, very briefly, the trends in combined operations
within Southern Africa, again from a naval perspective.
Captain D J Christian Bailrigg Paper 30

Suez Canal, is one of the choke points of the African continent. This last point was not lost on operational planners
during World War II, with German and Japanese surface raiders and submarines accounting for 163 Allied ships
sunk or damaged in the seas off Southern Africa.
A study of history, however, shows that the obvious is not always so in South Africa. Political and military
developments in Southern Africa over the past century indicate that the vital importance of the sea to this country
has been lost on the majority of its citizens.
It is not difficult to understand why. For centuries, South African history has been dominated by conflict over land
issues, with the migration of peoples being driven by their quest for arable and grazing lands. This focus on the land
was amplified by the discovery of hidden wealth deep within the African soil - gold, diamonds and, more recently,
oil. The potential of the untapped riches of Africa were not lost on 19th Century European powers, and the “Scramble
for Africa” went about the division of African land for the coffers of Europe. The Anglo-Boer War of 1899 - 1902, as
an example, was very much about the control of the rich diamond and gold fields in the Boer Republics of the
Orange Free State and the Transvaal. Tragically, the ongoing and seemingly endless conflicts in Africa today are still
primarily over the lust for the riches that the land can offer.
This focus on the land, to the exclusion of the sea, has been reflected in South Africa’s national and security policies
for the past 100 years. What military strategists have overlooked in the past was the contribution that naval elements
have made to the outcome of events on land. The fact that hundreds of thousands of British forces during the time of
the Anglo-Boer War were brought to South Africa by sea, and the inevitable result of that conflict, was quite simply
missed. And this was despite the “obvious” having been pointed out in a speech to the Union Parliament in 1911 by
a Major P.A. Silburn, when he said the following:
“The Republics were lost on the high seas between the coasts of Great Britain and the shores of Africa. It was the
working of that inexorable law - sea power - which conquered those Republics. It was not the British Army but the
Navy that did it”.2
South Africa’s political and military leadership continued to ignore the role of the maritime environment in the
successful resolution of inter-state conflict, despite further glaring examples from both World Wars. 3 As a result, the
fledgling SAN continued to be regarded as the Cinderella arm of service in South Africa. On a lighter note (possibly),
the Army’s influence over the SAN even went so far as to have an artillery officer, a Brigadier P. de Waal, appointed
as the Naval Chief of Staff in 1951. Not only was this a “shock to the South African Navy”, but it was also claimed
in Parliament to be “the first time in history that a soldier had been appointed to command a navy”. 4
Experience is a harsh teacher for those who fail to learn her lessons. The security situation in Southern Africa
during the 1970s and 1980s was dominated by events in Angola, Mozambique, the then South West Africa and
Rhodesia, all regarded as ‘liberation’ struggles for the political ownership of land. As South Africa allowed itself to
be sucked into the maelstrom that was to become known as the Angolan War, the possible contribution of naval
forces in the resolution of a conflict on land was once again overlooked. Although the SAN did take part in an
operation that has been described as “unique in South African military history”, when a small military force was
evacuated from the northern Angolan coast by one of the SAN’s frigates in late 1975, the SAN’s operational
contribution to the rest of this conflict was virtually nil. 5
Of course, the SAN must accept some of the blame for this lack of understanding of naval capabilities, and subsequent
lack of involvement. An article in the Financial Mail in April 1993 put it rather well when it stated the following:
“Part of the Navy’s vulnerability stems from the historic confusion about its role. ... No independent maritime policy
has ever been formulated. The navy is now paying the price for years of vagueness”. 6
The price for these “years of vagueness” was a continuously diminishing naval influence in military strategic
thinking and doctrinal development in South Africa’s armed forces. Not surprisingly, this was coupled with a
commensurate decrease in budgetary allocation. A point was therefore reached in the 1990s where the SAN’s
operational future hung, quite literally, in the balance.

Present Situation
However, all this has changed! As a result of transformation imperatives within the Department of Defence (DoD),7
a White Paper on Defence was produced in 1996, followed by a more detailed Defence Review in 1998.
The process followed in producing these documents was one of the most consultative exercises of its kind ever
conducted in South Africa. This in turn resulted in a far better understanding of defence and security matters, both
within and outside the military, as well as of defence policy documents and their guidelines for military planners.
Certainly, the present security situation in South Africa has a strong internal focus. Operations in support of the
police and the onerous task of border protection dictate that the SANDF’s force design and force structure will
reflect this reality for some time to come. However, there is an emerging understanding that national security issues
encompass more than just a focus on the internal situation, or on the ‘land area’ to the north of South Africa. With
the democratisation of South Africa has come a far more realistic assessment of South Africa’s geostrategic position,
and the fact that the maritime arena plays a far greater role than what has previously been appreciated.
An integral part of this process has been a growing appreciation for the different competencies and capabilities that
the different arms of service provide, within the concept of a ‘joint force’. Planners from all the arms of service began
to realise the vast potential of doing things more jointly. They saw that resources could be far better utilised in a joint
environment, and that a smaller, leaner SANDF could function just as well, if not better, by optimising its expertise
and resources.
Specifically, planning and operational staffs started to appreciate the concept of ‘sea power’ and the range of
contributions that naval forces could play in any conflict situation. As the Defence Review states, “Jointness seeks
to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of all military operations by synchronising the actions of the four arms of
the Service (Army Navy, Air Force, and Military Health Service8) and the civilian component of the DoD at every
level.”9
In a relatively short period, therefore, the SAN found itself an active participant in a new, joint, operational
environment. The Cinderella arm of Service had finally been invited to the ball!
This “joint thinking” has resulted in several structural changes in both the SAN and the SANDF.
Firstly, the execution of operations, or the employment of forces, is done under the command of the Chief of the
SANDF (CSANDF), through the operational control of a Chief of Joint Operations in Pretoria. The Chief of Joint
Operations is the senior staff officer for operations for CSANDF and is responsible for the planning and execution
of all joint and combined operations. 10 He has five Regional Joint Task Force (RJTF) commanders under him, each
one with a fixed geographical regional area of operational responsibility - RJTF West; RJTF South; RJTF East; RJTF
Central; and RJTF North.
For the execution of operations, operationally prepared forces will be assigned from an Arm of Service, to a particular
RJTF Commander, for the duration of the operation. Additionally, Temporary Task Force commanders may be
appointed when and where necessary.
Due to the nature of naval forces, no individual RJTF will have control over SAN forces other than for those
operations unique to a particular geographic or maritime area. In the majority of cases a Naval Task Force will be
formed for a particular operation/deployment. The Naval Task Force Commander will then report directly to Chief
of Joint Operations in Pretoria. This system obviates the need of having to ‘chop’ operational control from one RJTF
Commander to another as the Naval Task Force sails through various maritime areas. It also negates the requirement
for duplication of SAN operational planning staff at the three RJTFs that have a sea border, and allows a centralised
pool of naval expertise to be held in one place.
In the case of combined operations, assigned SAN DF forces will fall under the operational control of a Combined
Forces Commander. In the special case of peacekeeping operations, SAN DF forces will be under the operational
control of a combined force commander appointed by the UN or OAU.

Looking specifically at naval forces, the SAN is now only responsible for the preparation of combat-ready naval
forces. This force preparation is done under the control of a Flag Officer Fleet, a Rear Admiral, situated in Simon’s
Town. All ships, submarines and shore units of the SAN fall under his command. The Chief of the Navy and his
staff, situated in Pretoria, now form the Naval Office of the DoD, under command of CSANDF. As such, the Chief of
the Navy is at the second level of command (CSANDF and the Secretary for Defence being the first level), with Flag
Officer Fleet at the third level. This relationship is shown in the diagram below. Of course, the SAN still has control
over its forces in certain limited cases. These would include exercises and deployments in the preparation of those
forces, as well as any operations that might be considered unique to the SAN.
Looking at combined operations, the SAN currently carries out several combined operations with its regional and
global allies. Even before the formal end of South Africa’s diplomatic and military isolation in 1994, several combined
exercises had been carried out, or were in their final stages of planning, with both African and other countries. The
SAN now participates in exercises, on a regular or ad hoc basis, with navies or maritime elements from East Africa,
South America, South-East Asia, France, the United kingdom, the United States. There is regular training interaction
with at least 11 countries from around the world, and our Chief of the Navy is presently the Chairman of the
Standing Maritime Committee (SMC) of the Inter-State Defence and Security Committee, in turn an organ of the
Southern African Development Community (SADC).11 It is interesting to note that the vision of the SMC is to “promote
peace and prosperity in the region through maritime military cooperation”.
Future Developments
Considering that the concept of joint and combined operations is still in its infancy in South Africa, the question can
be asked: what direction will ‘joint and combined’ operations take in the future, in both South and Southern Africa,
and what will the SAN’s Contribution be in this regard?
From a joint perspective, it would be wishful thinking to claim that ‘jointness’ has been readily accepted by everyone
within the SANDF. It is one thing to adopt a new policy, but usually another when it comes to the first-time practical
execution of that policy. This is understandable when one considers the many years of ‘single-service’ thinking that
has to be changed. Accusations of own arm of service preference or dominance will probably be around for some
time to come, until such time that the concept of jointness is institutionalised in the SANDF.
From a combined perspective, there are two major problems. The first one is that there is virtually no blue water
capability within the Southern African region, as shown by the table of naval capabilities overleaf.
Severe financial and budgetary restrictions within the region, coupled with years of civil conflict, have reduced both
the number and reliability of naval assets amongst Sub-Saharan African countries. This lack of capability makes the
planning for future combined exercises of any level of sophistication, using purely regional naval forces, problematic.
The second problem, at an operational level, goes further than just the region, and concerns the lack of a common
form of tactical data exchange at sea. During the period of military isolation in the 1970s and 1980s, the SAN
developed its own data link systems. Now that we are back in the international arena, our Systems are not compatible
with those of our allies. This naturally creates problems at sea, which are overcome to a certain extent by temporary
arrangements.
Despite these constraints, I see the SAN’s contribution to ‘joint’ and ‘combined’ operations developing in the
following three categories of conflict.

Table 1: Select African Naval Capabilities 12
COUNTRY PERSONNEL SHIPS SUBMARINES DEFENCE BUDGET

(>3000 TONS)13 (US$) 14
SADEFENCE
COMMUNITY
Angola 2,500 295m
DRC 1,000 250m
Mauritius 600 1 16m
Mozambique 450 72m
Namibia 100 2 76m
Seychelles 300 2 10m
South Africa 9,100 20 3 2.1bn
Tanzania 1,050 89m
SUB-SAHARAN
Cameroon 1,250 1 228m
Cote d’Ivoire 950 104m
Ghana 850 2 138m
Kenya 1,200 2 205m
Nigeria 5,600 9 800m
The first category is where there is no conflict, and deals with presence. Naval forces will become more visible in
their day-to-day functions, as government and DoD policy makers make increasing use of the inherent collateral
utility of naval vessels. This presence will include the full spectrum of activities, from a more focused defence
diplomacy role, through to a classical power projection role.
It is important to note that in the Southern African debate, the issue of ‘power projection’ often has negative
connotations, mainly as a result of strategies employed by the super powers and ex colonial powers during the Cold
War. However, it is important that States are able to engage in power projection, in a benign manner, in a region that
is continually racked by instability. As can be seen from the previous table, the SAN stands alone within the SADC
countries when it comes to the ability to carry out this function, and I therefore see that this will increasingly be done
on behalf of other SADC countries. This function is also in direct support of one of the tasks of the SAN DF as given
in the Defence Review, namely that of “promoting regional security through defence co-operation within the SADC
framework”, and “promoting international security through military co-operation in support of South Africa’s
foreign policy”.15
Why naval forces will play a leading role in this regard is quite obvious to naval personnel, but possibly less so to
others. The inherent attributes of maritime forces, such as mobility, versatility and sustained reach, make naval
forces eminently suitable to carry out any government or regional policy. As South Africa’s status and influence in
the Southern African region increases - as I believe it will - then this role becomes vital on behalf of those countries
that are unable to do this for themselves.
Secondly, as the situation deteriorates and the level of conflict threatens to escalate, there is the whole gambit of
support for military operations that naval forces can bring to any operational theatre. Most forces in Africa are
fairly static, due to terrain, equipment limitations, and the general nature of warfare on the continent. Naval forces
therefore have the ability to easily outflank opponents, from the pre-positioning of military forces, through to sealift
and amphibious operations. In particular, the ability to use the ‘freedom of the seas’ to legitimately by-pass a
neighbouring country, in order to reach a third, is an ability that only naval forces have. Once on task, naval assets
provide excellent headquarters for command and control and medical support teams. Depending on the operation,
there are also the more clandestine tasks of intelligence gathering and the insertion and withdrawal of special
reconnaissance teams.

As South Africa’s role in peacekeeping operations increases, the optimum use of the inherent flexibility that naval
assets bring to any task will become vital. Exercise BLUE CRANE, a SADC peacekeeping exercise planned for later
this year, will test both SANDF and SAN peacekeeping doctrine, from a joint and combined perspective. The testing
of the SAN’s sealift capability, which was initially part of this exercise, will now be done at a later stage.
Finally, as the conflict escalates yet further, I see the SAN playing a vital role in a pure warfighting mode. This will
be either at sea against other maritime forces, or from the sea against land or air assets ashore. Concepts such as
‘control of the sea’ and ‘sea denial’ will be important in this phase, especially if one considers the present and future
capabilities of the SAN.
The use of the SAN in all three categories underpins the fact that naval forces can, and probably will, shape any
future battlespace in Southern Africa. Military planners are starting to understand that the outcome of what happens
at sea has a direct bearing on what the final outcome on land will be. This is always so, even in those cases where
there are no obvious enemy naval assets, or where the land battle is so far inland as to make the sea contribution
seemingly negligible.
Personally, I believe that there is no conflict in Africa, either of an inter-state or intra-state nature, now or in the
future; that cannot be influenced from the sea. This can be as a direct result of action against a country’s sea lines of
communication, which most countries in the region are vitally dependent on, or against third party, supporting
countries. For example, the then Rhodesia, a landlocked state, was affected by the naval blockade off Beira in
Mozambique. Most of the weapons being used deep inland in the DRC conflict are reportedly being brought in
through the coast of East Africa. The ongoing Angolan tragedy depends entirely on the ability of parties to continue
the finance of their armies through the export of goods by sea. And so the list goes on.
Conclusion
In conclusion, an analysis of military strategy must always be done in the context within which that strategy is
applied - the relative sophistication of opponents, the commitment of allies and coalition forces, the level of technology
available, and so on.
And so it is with the development of joint and combined operations in South and Southern Africa. The developments
that I have sketched in this paper are neither revolutionary nor profound, yet they must be seen within a Southern
African context -a region racked with years of instability, with extremely limited naval assets, and no capacity to
change the situation in the foreseeable future. However, I would caution against equating ‘lack of capability’ with
‘lack of commitment’ or, even worse, ‘lack of professionalism’. It is too easy to label efforts in Southern Africa as
“Third World”, without analysing what the positive effects of even a basic application of naval assets can be in the
region.
Certainly, South African military planners have come to the realisation that there are very few military objectives
that do not have some degree of naval involvement - that in modern warfare most military objectives will best be
achieved through the optimum use of land, air and naval forces, operating jointly.
I therefore believe that the SAN’s contribution in a joint and combined environment, together with other Southern
African navies, will go a long way in promoting stability in the region. ‘Jointness’ will succeed, simply because it is
the most efficient method of doing one’s business, of utilising limited resources.
Together with the development of combined operational doctrine, that “inexorable law sea power”, to use Major
Silburn’s phrase from 1911, will most certainly have a positive influence on the future of security in Southern Africa!

End Notes
1 Nicolle Hirschfeld, “Trireme Warfare in Thucydides”, in Robert B. Strassler (ed), The Landmark Thucydides,
New York: The Free Press, 1996, p. 608. Of course, this was before the evolution of truly naval tactics at sea
and the commensurate ascendancy of Athens into a major naval power.
2 Elizabeth Ann Biggs, Naval Traditions and Customs, quoting from G.D. Scholtz, Die Afrikaner en die See,
Johannesburg, 1969, unpublished Honours thesis, University of Stellenbosch, March 1991, p. 4.
3 It is interesting to note that this blinkered outlook was also evident in the United States at the end of World
War II, as shown by the debate concerning the ‘demise’ of sea power and the dubious future of the US Navy.
See George W. Baer, One Hundred Years of Sea Power, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994, with chapter
12 aptly titled, “Why do we need a Navy?”
4 South African Navy, A Navy for Three Oceans - Celebrating 75 Years of the South African Navy, Cape Town.
BP Southern Africa, 1997, p.11.
5 Willem Steenkamp, South Africa’s Border War 1966 - 1989, Gibraltar: Ashanti Publishing, 1989, p.51.
6 Own Correspondent, “Staying in the Water”, Financial Mail, Johannesburg: BDFM Publishers, April 1993),
p.24.
7 The DoD refers to the overall defence establishment in South Africa, and has the Minister of Defence as its
political head. The DoD is subdivided into the Defence Secretariat (responsible for defence policy) and the
SAN DF (responsible for defence execution). The SAN is then a subdivision of the SANDF, as are the other
combat arms of service.
8 The SANDF is possibly unique in that it operates its medical services as a separate, fourth arm of service. All
SANDF medical personnel thus belong to the South African Medical Health Service (SAMHS) and are
detached to other service arms for specific deployments.
9 South African Department of Defence, Defence in a Democracy: South African Defence Review 1998, Pretoria:
Department of Defence, 1998, p. 55.
10 The DoD has adopted a ‘systems approach’ to all its structural planning and designs; per this approach, any
SANDF operation will, by definition, be ‘joint’.
11 All fourteen SADC countries are full members of the SMC. The eight SADC countries with sea borders are the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Seychelles
and Mauritius. The six landlocked states are Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.
12 Richard Sharpe (ed), Jane’s Fighting Ships 1997-98, London: Butler and Tanner Limited, 1997.
13 An arbitrary figure of 300 tons was used for comparative purposes, to exclude smaller craft such as river
patrol craft, harbour protection boats, etc. It is not clear how many of the ships listed are operational.
14 The International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 1997-1998, London: Oxford University
Press, 1997.
15 Defence Review, op cit, p.34.

JOINT & COMBINED OPERATIONS - AN INDIAN VIEW
by
Rear Admiral K R Menon, Indian Navy, (Retd)

I was a young Lieutenant in 1966 when I returned to India after a year of serving on board a British submarine. I had
missed the 1965 war and was attached to Naval Headquarters, where I was detailed off to attend the debrief of the
Sept 1965 Indo-Pak war, the only Lieutenant in a high powered audience. The Naval Headquarters team explained
its operations order, the first one written in Independent India. The Fleet’s (there was only one then) task was to
preserve India’s Sea Lanes of Communication, (SLOCs) institute convoying and ensure the arrival of all oil tankers.
The Fleet was to remain South of 23 N and not to physically attack the Pakistani coast. It turned out that the
Pakistani fleet had been given pretty much the same directive about preserving sea lines of communication etc. and
they were to remain North of 23 N.
Needless to say, the two fleets never met; there were no encounters - and at the end of the war, the people and the
political class looked at the Navy asking, “what happened?”. They were told that the operational objectives of the
Navy had been met. It appeared that the naval headquarters staff might carry the day, but for a rebellious commodore
who got up to say that if the fleet had any more successes of this nature, funding for the navy would definitely fall
below the 12% that was being allocated in those days.
This funding figure is the subject of much paranoia in India; I expect it must be so in your country too. Well, the NHQ
staff would not accept this argument and the exchanges became quite heated, in fact so heated that the hall was
cleared of us junior types while the seniors could fight on without being embarrassed. I am trying to explain the
derivation of a navy’s strategic culture in the short span of 50 years. The lessons learnt from the 65 war resulted in
the navy acquiring far more fast missile craft, amphibious ships and submarines. Six years later, the second war
with Pakistan was fought simultaneously in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, by two separate fleets. The one
in the Arabian Sea got much of the glory by attacking the Pakistan navy in Karachi, and thereby most of the
headlines. But to a serious strategist there was little doubt that the centre of gravity was in the Bay of Bengal. Here,
a long, tedious but successful blockade was imposed, before the war.
During the war, carrier aircraft sank all the shipping both naval and civilian, contributing to the deep sense of
isolation and destroying the morale of the Pakistan Army command in what is now Bangladesh. The land campaign
was fought at lightning speed, many of the outflanking movements being undertaken with the help of naval
commandos operating deep inside the river system. I narrate these events to show, that although the war was
actually won and lost in the Bay of Bengal, the greater funding that came our navy’s way was purely as a result of
the political and public approval of the Karachi action - a brilliant tactical action - of no strategic consequence in
terminating the war.
The lessons of this war got a number of us thinking. It seemed fairly certain that at least in this century any war as
such fought by India would probably have its roots somewhere deep inside the continent. The question was therefore,
where would the centre of gravity be? I have always felt that if there was any doubt, about this, the war termination
talks, or the peace treaty would invariably indicate in the text, where both parties thought the centre of gravity lay.
In the sub-continent in the war with China and in the two wars with Pakistan, the peace talks always restored the
international boundary line with the greatest of alacrity. This is not withstanding the fact that most of the casualties
were incurred grabbing territory that would finally be returned.
But the size and weight of the Indian Army and the predominantly continental orientation of the New Delhi’s
thinking made it clear to us that a pure maritime strategy, however effectively executed, may not affect the political
purpose of the war. The texts of the peace agreements did not seem to indicate that a maritime war had been fought
at all. Would the Navy therefore be committed to acting below the political purpose, that is to say, below the strategic
level, for all time? As a side issue, it also became clear to us that there was the question of timing. For a navy’s actions
to begin to bite, a certain amount of time is necessary - whether it is a submarine campaign, or interdicting SLOCs or
attaining temporary Sea Control for amphibious operations. Could the sea war then proceed independently of the
land war, because of the different schedules imposed by continental and maritime strategies?
Rear Admiral K R Menon Bailrigg Paper 30

These conundrums forced the navy to look much more closely at speeding up the battle and at littoral warfare.
Happily for us, this occurred at about the same time as Desert Storm, and the literature that followed Desert Storm,
suggesting that we are going through a ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’. You might gather by now that our idea of
joint warfare is emerging quite differently from the European viewpoint. I gather that the romance with joint warfare
in Europe arises from some strategic and some technological considerations just as it does in our case.
When I look at the literature emanating from the USA and Europe on the subject of combined and joint warfare, I
cannot help notice that most American literature is about the business of being joint, while most European literature
is about the problems of being combined. I understand that the strategic concept of ‘combined’ and ‘joint’ warfare is
to be discussed by NATO in late April,1999, but in our case, the change that is about to occur or is beginning to occur,
is the attempt by the Navy to get into the business of land attack, and hence, act as a catalyst into pushing ‘joint’
warfare in a full scale war. So, the strategic concept in the Indian case does not limit itself to using technology to win
small wars at long distances, with few casualties, because that is not our strategic scenario.
The strategic purpose would flow from geopolitics and America’s global role must be the reason why they can
afford to assume that the strategic purpose exists, and they could therefore get a move on with getting Joint to work.
We in India cannot deny that our size and interests do give us a role as a regional power. We have had this regional
role tested twice in a shooting war, once in operation Pawan, the peace keeping mandate given to the Indian armed
forces in Sri Lanka at the Rajiv Gandhi-Jayawardene talks in 1986. This operation which mistakenly started as a one
brigade peace-keeping operation eventually blew up into a three division peacemaking effort and lasted 4 years.
The Navy’s tasks were complicated not only by the movement of troops and their logistics but the flow of refugees,
among whom were mixed, the terrorists who eventually took Rajiv Gandhi’s life. A joint command structure was
established by the Army and Navy with naval forces under Army command.
Then once again, in 1988, a tri-service reaction was required to support the present Maldivian government after
some mercenaries took over part of the Island capital of Male. Since this operation was planned in less than 8 hours
and executed in less than 36, it simply wasn’t possible to set up any joint staff structure. But everyone is aware that
the success of this operation was due to great good luck as well as the speed of our reaction.
In peacetime, the Indian armed forces do have one unified command in the Andaman Islands where there is a joint
army-navy command with army forces permanently under command of a three star Admiral. An Air Force element
is permanently tasked to this headquarters but is not under command. The Andamans joint headquarters has had
some dramatic successes in 1998 against the enormous drugs and arms inflow that runs in the East Andaman Sea
to Myanmar, Bangladesh and to India’s troubled North Eastern states.
The less- than- war scenario continues to be a relevant one for joint action, because of the fragility of the independence
of some of our island neighbours. There is a permanent Indian training presence in the Mauritius, and in the
Seychelles, there are frequent ship visits, particularly after a couple of lunatic attempts to overthrow the elected
Seychelles government by mercenaries. In the Indian Ocean, joint action is envisaged, preferably with host nation
support, but even without it should the circumstances warrant it. The joint action in such cases emanates from the
Joint Planning Committee (JPC) which consists of part of the staff of the operational directorates of the three services.
The JPC functions directly under the Chairman Chiefs of Staff committee, but executive command is left to a task
organisation, and in that sense there is no permanent jointness of participating units.
A non-formal kind of jointness is created by the extremely close relationships between the officers of the three
services, owing to their joint training at the Academy, followed by a year at the joint services staff college, where 50%
of the syllabus is joint, then a joint fortnight of the higher command course and finally the year together at the
National Defence College. While I will admit that this does not produce institutional jointness, the demands made
by old course-mates are never ever refused, and often go beyond what can be achieved through formal channels.
Coming back to the big question - How can jointness be advanced in the bloody business of continental wars, where
soldiers instinctively prefer long land lines of advance to shorter access by sea? We are of the view that the RMA can
be exploited to reverse the traditional superiority of the shore over the fleet, which has held good now for the last 95
years. This is not to say that Archimedes’s principle is not valid any more and ships won’t sink, but the new

wisdom, is that the unsinkability of shore assets is not as great a virtue any more, if wars are going to be won or lost
as a result of the speed of battle. I accept the US air force statement that air power or missile power is targeting, and
that targeting is intelligence. This being true, a fixed asset like a communication link or a radar station accurately
located over long years of satellite surveillance in peacetime is more vulnerable than a fast moving ship, sinkable
though it may be.
If this is one of the useful manifestations of the RMA in our environment, then navies can reassert their lost superiority
over the shore, thereby forcing their way back into contributing to the conduct of continental wars. In India, for a 1.2
million men Army to accept a 45,000 Navy as a partner in ‘joint’ warfare, the Navy will have to offer something
substantial. This is not a unique situation as we have discovered, but looking around for solutions from the
international arena has produced nothing to inspire our strategists; except perhaps for what the Israeli Navy has
managed to do in a difficult and dense tactical environment. The Israelis use special forces extensively on the basis
that 5 kilos of explosive placed by a man is worth 100 kilos delivered by aircraft. The emphasis on the Special Forces
option is a viable one, and our own marine commandos get due attention.
I suspect that we, like most other navies and unlike the Israelis, are quite far from appointing a marine commando
as the naval chief. A more interesting problem is the role of small aircraft carriers in littoral operations. I think you
faced pretty much the same problem in the Falklands, where the carrier’s flight deck length precluded operating
early warming aircraft, thereby dramatically increasing the vulnerability of both the carrier and the task group. This
is the first hump to be overcome before planning littoral operations, but one that is worth overcoming because of the
magnitude of the carrier s ordnance delivery capability. Even a small carrier often contributes more precision
guided munitions than the rest of the task group combined. The answer as we see it is a preliminary and auxiliary
operation aimed at the enemy’s C31 and surveillance assets to reduce the carrier’s vulnerability. This would split
the traditional sea control part of the war into two phases. So there would be three phases is all - the information war
phase, the battle space dominance phase, and the joint ops phase.
The concept of operations as you can see, is therefore not akin to the American or the European one of using
inherently superior technology to defeat the regimes of rogue states without suffering unacceptable casualties. The
Indian Navy conducted an international Indian ocean navies seminar a month ago and it was brought home to me
lucidly as to how many small powers whose representatives were present think of littoral warfare, not as something
they can do, but as something that will be done to them. They are, quite naturally, determined to try and prevent the
concept of littoral warfare from succeeding against them. Admittedly, I haven’t seen any sensible literature yet on
how this could be done, but my estimate is that in time, littoral warfare will become costlier in terms of casualties
and that is something we accept.
So, there is on the one hand, an expeditionary view of ‘joint’ operations in the Indian ocean, where our thinking is
greatly influenced by the American or European way. There is also the continental war situation where we have to
thread our lonely way to an indigenous solution, In the first case the abnormal size ratio of the Army and Navy
(1:24) does not skew the joint planning process, because the Navy is still the enabling service. In the latter case the
Army’s size is an overwhelming influence and as in the other historical examples, their size gives them the feeling
that they can go it alone.
The Indian Armed Forces are, compared to their western counterparts thin in terms of infrastructural support. The
Indian Navy, for instance maintains two carriers, 16 submarines and 24 frigates on the same budget as the Australian
Navy; so we have perhaps been spoilt when it comes to spending money on things that don’t explode - but that is the
direction that the RMA is moving in. Fortunately, the cost of electronics continues to crash with an Indian-made
communication satellite priced at 350 million dollars in 1986, being reduced today at 30 million dollars. The
reduction in sizes of signal processing and computing units is well known to everyone, so, the information
infrastructure which will enable a joint strategy in India is still very much in its infancy.
We see it developing in a bottom up method, partly driven by the systems that are often acquired from other
countries, which then have to be integrated with other units. I am aware that Admiral Owens has said that joint
operations could be either specialised or synergised, that is to say, that specialised units from the three services are
chosen to fit the mission. In the second case units are chosen that need each other to execute each mission, like a
ship-based radar controlling missiles ashore. Because of our more modest financial resources, our way will probably

entail integrating assets, like helicopter gunships on carriers supporting troops ashore, or, as I have heard of the
elegant British solution of the army financing the J-stars equipment in an aircraft provided by the Royal Air Force
with the Navy financing the terminal on board an LPD. I see no other way that we can get into joint operations than
sharing costs in this manner although those supporting single service specification say that efficiency will always
be less with this method.
But, to relate joint warfare to the main scenario of the Indian armed forces, which is a continental war. The three
services will have their hands full initially in areas which are essentially single-Service bread-and-butter functions
- the Army with territorial defence, the Air Force with gaining a favourable air situation and the Navy with dominating
sea use of denying it to the enemy. No one envisages that with their hands full, each Service would bleed off a
contingent to put together for expeditionary joint warfare.
But within the limitations of the situation I have described, some joint structures and joint allocations exist. Apart
from the brigade of the Army permanently stationed under the naval fortress commander in the Andamans, there is
a brigade earmarked for amphibious operations, whose battalions may be rotated - but the brigade command and
the staff have institutionalised experience with ‘amphops’. The Indian Air Force similarly has a maritime air
command with a senior air staff officer in each maritime headquarters to co-ordinate air operations with the Navy.
A similar practice obtains between the army and air force with the air staff being present with regional army
command headquarters, army corps and with fast moving formations like the armoured strike corps. Historically,
the Indian Air Force has preferred co-operation and liaison rather than command jointness, while the other two
services have no philosophical problems with ‘jointness’.
When I look at the level of’ jointness’ that is technically feasible with, say, the United States Armed Forces, I cannot
help feel that equipment and commonality of the software architecture have been a contributing factor making
possible many joint operational doctrines currently being discussed. In India, there is no such push originating
from C31 commonality, and this is undoubtedly a pity. But some integration is proceeding from the top down, which
have had to be resorted by the Services, in thinking of commonalities in areas, such as, a common national common
post necessitated by nuclear weapons in South Asia, as well as access to common assets like satellite surveillance
and satellite communications.

DUTCH APPROACHES TO JOINT AND COMBINED OPERATIONS
by
Captain Bart Van der Hulst, Royal Netherlands Navy

The principle of joint and combined operations in the Netherlands is fully recognised. How this principle is
implemented in the organisation and daily management of the Dutch Armed Forces, however, is somewhat different
to what we see in other countries.
That this approach is different is a result of the differences between the Navy, the Army and the Air Force. These
differences find their origin in history so I will start my contribution to this Conference some centuries ago.
In the Middle Ages, ships were manned and equipped to protect trade routes. From this the Netherlands Navy
developed. Up to the end of the 18th century, the period of the forming, the prosperity and the decline of the Republic
of the Seven United Provinces, the main task of the Navy was the protection of the interests of the merchantmen.
Equipped and paid by them, the Navy was deployed to protect the trade routes and trade missions, and to secure
trade interests all over the world. The merchantmen were the most powerful factor in politics during that time. The
driving factor here was profit. There was no special interest in taking possession of land. There was no urgency for
expansion. The only interest was to do business. The Navy, which had their own army in the form of marines, was
sufficient to secure trade interests and to prevent other countries from doing business in areas where the Republic
was active. At the same time in the Netherlands, armies were deployed to protect the territorial integrity of the
Republic. Although the Navy also had a role in this, as it was to prevent invasion from the sea, the Army and Navy
never operated jointly.
After the Neapolitan period, when the Kingdom of the Netherlands was formed, the primary role of the Navy in the
Netherlands was the protection of Dutch territory. In view of the Dutch policy of neutrality, this task was limited to
guarding the approaches to Dutch ports. The Navy during those days operated very much in support of the Army
and naval ships just supplemented the Army’s coastal batteries. In addition to this, the Navy was also responsible
for protecting the Dutch Merchant Navy, which in fact meant protecting it from piracy in the Mediterranean.
In the middle of the last century, a Dutch Task Group which operated off the coast of Algiers was recalled. The
primary reason for this was cuts in the defence budget and the presumption that the establishment of French rule in
Algeria was enough insurance that piracy in this area would cease. In addition to these tasks, the Navy also was
responsible for the protection of the colonies in the East Indies. This in fact was its most important mission up to the
Second World War. In the colonies, a Dutch Colonial Army was effective that had no connection with the Army in
the Netherlands. Although the Navy operated in the same theatre, there were no joint operations.
In the Second World War the Netherlands were occupied by German troops. The Navy evaded capture and escaped
to England. The Headquarters of the Royal Netherlands Navy was established in London. During this period,
Dutch ships were deployed in combined operations with the Allies. A Dutch Army brigade was formed and was
incorporated in the Allied land forces. Dutch Air Force squadrons also operated as part of the RAF.
After the war, the Soviet Union formed the main threat to NATO. In the concept of operations of NATO, the Dutch
Army, Air Force and Navy each had its own task, which did not bring them to work together. The Army was
responsible for the defence of an area on the German Plains. The Air Force operated in support of land forces and
had to provide air defence in the Central European Region. The main task of the Navy was sea control and the
protection of the sea lines of communication in the Northwest Atlantic and Channel area.
In this concept, the Army operated very much in isolation, the Air Force operated in combination with other Air
Forces active in the central region and the Navy operated in combination with other NATO navies in the Atlantic.
Again, as you see, no ‘joint’ operations were conducted with the three armed forces. I should also point out at this
point that after the Dutch East Indies became independent and the remains of the colonial army was integrated in
the Army in the Netherlands, the defence of Dutch territory outside Europe became a task solely for the Navy.
Captain Bart Van der Hulst Bailrigg Paper 30

After the wall came down, the emphasis on the defence of NATO territory against an attack from the East shifted to
peace operations elsewhere in the world. The rather static situation of predisposition shifted to a situation where
armed forces were required to conduct ‘expeditionary operations’ in areas on the periphery of NATO territory.
In this new strategy, highly mobile and adaptive forces are required. These forces need to be brought into theatre in
an expedient way. Operations in this concept are ‘joint’ by nature; and because these operations will in most cases
be undertaken by an existing or formed alliance, they will be ‘combined’.
What is the position of the Netherlands Armed Forces in this concept? The Dutch government, which was formed
last year, plans to publish a Defence Paper at the end of 1999. The principles and guidelines for this Defence Paper
are laid down in a Framework Memorandum, which was published in February, 1999.
As stated in the Framework Memorandum for the 2000 Defence Paper, the armed forces must be able to contribute to
the following:
• Defence of the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (this includes the Netherlands Antilles and
Aruba) and that of NATO against a military threat and against a multitude of security risks of various
nature;
• Protection and promotion of the international rule of law. This may include the establishment of secure
and stable relations on the periphery of the NATO treaty area or crisis management and peacekeeping
operations elsewhere in the world. This includes not just peace keeping operations but also operations
involving the threat or use of force given a sufficient international legal basis;
• Maintenance of the national rule of law and the support of civilian authorities, both national and
international, in the event of disaster relief and peace building.
For the Netherlands, NATO remains the primary framework for co-operation on defence. In the execution of these
tasks, the Dutch armed forces will always act as part of an international alliance. Our country provides modules
that are integrated into a larger whole consisting of contributions from other countries. In accordance with the
Framework Memorandum the size of the armed forces must be such that the following tasks can be carried out:
• Simultaneous participation in four crisis management or peace operations at battalion level or its equivalent
(e.g. two frigates or a squadron of fighter aircraft). Sufficient sustainability should be available to maintain
these operations for at least three years;
• Have rapidly deployable forces available for the protection of the NATO treaty area and for an adequate
contribution to a larger scale peace-enforcement operation in peacetime. This could be a brigade, a maritime
task force, three battalions of Marines, several squadrons of fighter aircraft or a combination of these;
• Maintain the capability to allow larger forces to be generated, in order to contribute adequately to the
defence of allied territory in the event of a major threat.
As mentioned, these contributions will always be integrated in an international force. The setting up of a sizeable,
integrated national force consisting of units from all Services is beyond the scope of our ambition. The availability
of ‘modules’ from the different Services that are highly compatible at the international level, therefore, has the
highest priority.
As Dutch defence efforts are so entwined with those of other countries an intensive form of international co-
operation has grown over the last number of years.
• The Army co-operates with the German army in the combined 1 Army Corps;
• The Air Force works together with the Belgian Air Force in a Deployable Air Task Force;
• The Royal Netherlands Marines form part of the UK’NL Amphibious Force;

• The operational headquarters of the Dutch and Belgian Navy is combined and located in Den Helder;
• Last year a Memorandum of Understanding was signed with the US-navy. The Netherlands Task Group
is here integrated into the Striking Fleet as the Escort Group for the Amphibious Striking Force.
So where are we now? We have three Armed Forces that, from an historical perspective, are not used to working
together. There is no requirement for an integrated Dutch force, consisting of units from all three Services. International
compatibility has the highest priority in order to fit contributions from the Armed Forces into an international force.
Different levels of co-operation exist with other countries. From this point there is no direct requirement for a Joint
Defence Force.
But is there no requirement for ‘jointness’ in the Netherlands Defence Force? Before I continue I would like explain
the organisation of the Netherlands Armed Forces.
The top of the Ministry of Defence consists of a Central Department and the Ministerial parts of the Armed Forces.
All are located in The Hague. The responsible politicians, the Minister for Defence and the State-secretary, head the
Central Defence Organisation. The highest civil servant is the Secretary-General, who is responsible for the flow of
information to the political leaders and for the integration and co-ordination of the defence policy. The Chief of
Defence Staff (CDS) is the Minister’s highest military advisor on operational policy including operational
requirements. Furthermore, we find in the Central Organisation three Directorates-General: Personnel; Materiel;
and Economy & Finance. These directorates are responsible for policy in their functional areas and, as such, give
functional directives to the Armed Forces. Relatively new is the Support Command (DICO). This is a tri-service
organisation where several support tasks are concentrated, such as non-operational transport, medical services
and office automation.
The three Armed Services are quite independent. The Commanders in Chief are fully accountable. The Central
Organisation provides the framework and directives for the defence policy. Detailed planing and execution is
carried out by the Services.
Having given a brief summary of the organisation let me return to my question. Is there no requirement for Jointness
in the Netherlands Defence Force? I think there is; and this requirement for ‘jointness’ is mainly lead by three
motives.
First, there is an operational motive. Most operations, today, are conducted in a crisis management scenario where
political control is very important. The media and press follow operations and immediately put questions to the
Minister. This requires a good information flow to the Minister and calls for central control of all armed forces in the
operating area.
Since 1995, the contributions of the Armed Forces to international crisis management, peace operations and
humanitarian operations have been the responsibility of the Chief of the Defence Staff. To execute this responsibility
he has a Crisis Management Centre that is manned by personnel from all the three Services. The CDS assumes
operational command. Planning of these operations and logistic support is retained by the Services. A tendency also
exists to bring the planning function directly under the CDS so the Crisis Management Centre in the future may well
be grow into an joint operational headquarters.
Secondly, there is an economic motive. The desire to increase efficiency and to improve the ‘teeth-to-tail ratio’ calls
for concentration of support functions. This process started in 1994 by grouping comparable support functions.
Further research is being conducted in the areas of procurement, training, logistics and medical support. One has to
operate carefully here because combining support functions is not automatically more efficient.
Finally, there is a political motive. Political leadership rests with the Minister. The Central Organisation working
directly for the Minister calls for a more direct form of control of the different processes in the three Services as this
is seen to ensure political grip on their activities. A tendency exists, therefore, to centralise planning functions in the
Central Organisation and at the same time reduce personnel in the different Service headquarters.

So, why has this up to now not resulted in a radical reorganisation of the Armed Forces? Maybe the answer to this
lies in the way the Dutch political system works. In the Netherlands, parliament and also local government are
elected in accordance with the system of proportional representation. Government is formed as a coalition between
different parties. This means that agreement has to be reached and compromises have to be made on radical changes
such as these. That is why changes only come about slowly.
To conclude my presentation on the Dutch approaches to Joint and Combined Operations, I can say that: “yes, we
fully subscribe to the need and principles of these kinds of operations”. The Joint organisation of the Defence Force,
however, is not seen as a direct consequence of conducting these operations. Reasons for this can be found in the
development of the Netherlands armed forces in history.
In future peace operations, The Netherlands will always participate as part of an international force. So, to be
interoperable with future Allies has a higher priority then Joint operations with its own Services. So, it is combined,
first, and joint, second.

FRANCE AND JOINT MARITIME OPERATIONS
by
Capt Gerard Valin, French Navy
Introduction
It is a great honour for me to have the opportunity to explain to a so distinguished a forum the French point of view
about the Navy’s contribution to joint and combined operations.
I will first go through a short historical review aimed at demonstrating that sea power always had a major influence
on the prosperity of nations, and that the importance of the role of naval forces in joint operations is not a new fact.
Then, I will quickly review the main changes that have taken place in the past decade, which explain why the navies
have come to play again an essential role in joint operations.
Finally, I shall comment on the contributions that the French Navy deems essential for joint operations and on the
assets it operates or is considering purchasing in order to actually bring about those contributions
Sea power and Prosperity - Joint and Combined Operations are not Something New
As a rule, the mastery of rivers and seas has had a major influence on the development of life ashore, and on the
prosperity of nations.
In the beginning, rivers and seas, as main trade routes for goods and knowledge, favoured the fast development of
lakeside, riverside and coastal cities, as well as riverside civilisations such as those of the Assyrians and the
Egyptians, or great maritime civilisations such as those of the Greeks, the Phoenicians or the Venetians.
In the XVth century, sea power was the deciding factor in the building of numerous empires by many European
nations, which acquired a world power status and inaugurated a long-lasting era of prosperity.
Recently, the war in the Pacific Ocean and the great landings in Europe during World War II underlined again the
essential nature of naval action in land operations.
Those developments took place because navies would ensure their own freedom of action at sea, as well as project
and support ground forces, notably through firepower and logistic support. Joint operations, and combined
operations too, are not something new.
During the two World Wars, save the above-mentioned landing operations, naval operations were mainly aimed at
establishing Allied sea dominance, which would secure the ground forces’ logistic support and make victory
possible. The Battle of the Atlantic Ocean best demonstrates this fact.
The image of naval forces as an instrument of protection of trade routes was strongest during the Cold War as
NATO, in anticipation of a conflict with the USSR in Europe, sought to reinforce its military capabilities in the
Atlantic Ocean.
With the collapse of the USSR , the geo-strategic context changed and a number of new circumstances have granted
maritime forces a greater role in joint and combined operations.
Captain Gerard Valin Bailrigg Paper 30

Changes in the Geo-strategic Landscape: The Need for More Naval Contribution to Joint
and Combined Operations
I will quote seven points, which I deem essential, as they affect the role of naval forces in ‘joint’ operations.
• The idea of a conflict in Europe against an arch-opponent has vanished. One now expects the hypothetical
starting of numerous local or regional conflicts : those are hardly foreseeable and the way they evolve is
unpredictable.
• In local conflicts, the belligerents have been improving their military capabilities, thereby forcing
peacekeeping nations to mobilise important assets.
• The internationalisation of trade, companies, capital and interests of all sorts could proceed due to the
spread of peace and stability world-wide, on which many nations depend. Thus, developed countries have
to intervene abroad, often as members of a coalition, in order to defend and promote their interests.
• This internationalisation also favours all kinds of traffic, notably drug trafficking.
• In most Western countries, defence budgets are decreasing every year.
• Nations have been growing more concerned about the lives of their soldiers and seek to limit casualties.
Last, states are trying to free themselves of the inconveniences of stationing troops abroad in a host-country.
These new features of the geo-strategic context give a new importance to naval forces. Among other considerations:
• Naval forces represent a projection capability that does not encroach on foreign nations’ sovereignty.
• Naval forces make it possible to act from the sea (air strikes and naval bombardment against inland
targets, the ability to operate helicopters, deploy an amphibious capability) thus bringing flexibility and
manoeuvrability to any task force while minimising the risks run by the personnel.
• Naval forces can support the ground forces, which diminishes the isolation and vulnerability of a heavily
defended beachhead.
I shall, therefore, underline what naval forces bring to joint operations in these three domains.
Main French Naval Contribution to a Maritime Force in Joint and Combined Operations
The French Navy performs a number of essential roles and tasks in support of combined and joint operations. These
are as follows:
Projection capability
The projection capability brought by a naval force, which is a major asset for a ‘joint’ and ‘combined’ operation. In
fact, around 75% of the world population and more than 80% of major cities are located less than 300 miles from the
sea, and well within range of action of the sea-borne air and surface naval forces.
Considering the military capabilities of the belligerents and the size of civilian populations involved, the least an
peacekeeping operation requires is a large number of ground troops and, above all, heavy equipment and supplies
that can only be conveyed effectively only by sea.
Finally, since naval units stationed in international waters are free from sovereignty problems, they can either
deploy a ‘joint’ and ‘combined’ force in the Zone of Conflict (ZoC) simultaneously or stand off prior to the decision
being taken to take action regardless from any authorisation or diplomatic negotiation.
Thanks to naval forces’ numerous and flexible modes of action, the political authority can choose the modes of

action that seem appropriate (presence; show of force; air strikes; landing of troops; etc. ...). Their being stationed in
an international area makes it possible for naval forces to avoid any diplomatic incident. Furthermore, the presence
of naval forces off-shore can even facilitate negotiations as they can take place on ‘neutral ground’.
The above considerations have led France to give priority to the development of her projection capability, notably
her ability to project forces from the sea. This priority has been reaffirmed by the Defence White Paper dated 1994
and by the concept of the use of forces that follows from it.
France differentiates between ‘projection of power ’, when the operation does not include any landing of troops,
from the ‘projection of forces’ when it does. In that latter purpose, the French Navy has two main assets at its
disposal: the Air and Sea Group, which respectively are based on an aircraft carrier, and the Amphibious Force
composed of Landing Platform Docks (LPDs). These are the main contributions brought by the French Navy to
‘joint’ and ‘combined’ projection operations
The Ability to Act against Ground Forces from the Sea in a Joint Operation
This ability implies, as I mentioned above, a number of operational capabilities. I shall emphasise in particular:
amphibious capabilities; the ability to operate helicopters; the capacity to perform strikes against the ground; air co-
ordination; and the provision of air cover for the ground forces.
Amphibious Capabilities
An amphibious force enables a nation to conduct a power projection operation independent of the need for local
port and airport facilities.
In 1997, the French military developed a concept of the use of an amphibious force that is much like NATO’s. It takes
an operation under a threat as a starting point and ascribes an important role to helicopter-borne operations. This
new concept emphasises the effect of surprise, the speed of manoeuvre and the increase in number of the accessible
landing sites, notably through the use of LCAC-type air-cushioned vehicles
The French Navy’s amphibious capability is centred on 4 LPDs. The ageing ORAGE and OURAGAN will be
decommissioned in 2005 and replaced by 2 new LPDs that will enable the implementation of the above-mentioned
new concept.
The Ability to Operate Helicopters

Helicopters are playing an increasingly important role in the air-to-ground warfare. The ability to conduct an
airborne operation from the sea, whether it be a mere rescue operation or an operation conducted on a larger scale,
is a major advantage to the Army. The ability to operate aircraft and helicopters is a priority of the NTCD program.
Ground Attack
This ability is necessary in order to support the ground forces. It can be implemented directly through the ‘close air
support (CAS)’ missions, which are led by embarked aircraft, the ‘naval surface fire support (NSFS) aircraft’, or it
can be implemented indirectly by conducting interdiction strikes against inland targets.
Thus, the French Navy first developed the air component of its air and sea group by building the new nuclear
powered carrier (CVN) CHARLES DE GAULLE. The latter can operate up to 32 ‘Rafale’ carrier-borne aircraft. These
aircraft will be equipped with the SCALPIEG stand-off missile, the French version of the STORM SHADOW missile,
which has a 300 miles range.
The ‘Rafale’ will also be equipped with the Air-to-Air Stand-off Missile (AASM), a high precision weapon that can
be launched from a stand-off distance of 20 to 40 miles.

The French Navy also intends to install cruise missiles on its future submarines and frigates, that will be commissioned
in 2010. The latter will be equipped with long range high precision sea-to-land artillery.
Air Control and Air Cover above the Theatre of a Joint Operation.
Land operations require the control of air space. In this domain, naval forces can be really helpful, for they can
provide the ground forces with the necessary air cover as soon as the operations begin by operating aircraft from an
aircraft carrier located in the international waters. Besides this, air strike and air defence operations cannot be really
efficient unless they are conducted through a command and control system that has an overview of the theatre of
operations. This is provided by air early warning surveillance aircraft (AEW). For this reason, the French Navy
acquired a new Conventional Take-off and Land (CTOL) carrier, for only CTOL carriers can operate a true AEW.
The ‘Rafale’, a multi-purpose aircraft endowed with air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities, and the HAWKEYE
AEW aircraft provide the keystone of that capability.
The Ability to Provide Forces Ashore with Logistic Support.

This is the third major contribution of maritime forces - operational support. In that domain also, the role of maritime
forces is essential.
The evolution of conflicts being always uncertain, it is necessary to minimise the ground forces’ ‘footprint’ in order
to reinforce their mobility and to maximise their protection.
Ground warfare is now ‘joint’ and consists of seeking superiority through manoeuvre: very mobile forces swoop
down suddenly on a designated target before rapidly dispersing. This is one of the four principles of ‘Joint Vision
2010’. This type of warfare requires light and mobile forces, the operational support of which is centralised.
Naval forces can, therefore, bring two decisive contributions to land operations by carrying out a number of command
and operational support tasks (communications, logistics, medical, etc.) These are the points on which I shall now
comment.
“Command from the Sea”

The new geo-strategic context makes it impossible to rely on commands that are dedicated in peacetime to a particular
theatre. The new NATO concept of the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) was developed in order to enable a ‘joint’
force to project into a distant, ‘out of area’ theatre a command systems appropriate to that theatre, the coalition itself
and the nature of the belligerents.
It takes time to make a headquarters operational; furthermore, it poses problems of dependence on the host country
as well as problems of security. Besides which, it cannot disengage quickly. Naval forces can bring a major contribution
to a ‘joint’ operation by hosting the CJTF’s, or the JFACC’s, headquarters, which therefore do not need to located be
ashore.
Such a solution resolves the problems of security, of installation and disengagement, and problems of dependence
on a host country.
Additionally, on a command ship, a headquarters can be made operational quickly because the facilities are already
known by men who have been trained to use them during peacetime. As far as this is concerned, the French Navy
can host a 120 headquarters personnel aboard its FOUDRE class LPDs. This ability was successfully tested during
the EOLE 98 exercise. Since then, the French Navy has decided to incorporate in its future LPDs (NTCDs) a 150
personnel Command Centre facility and is also considering the acquisition of a specific, customised command ship.
Operational support

Logistical support
A naval force can bring efficient logistic support to a joint operation, for ships’ holds can be used as depots for fuel,
ammunition, spare parts and food supplies. The wounded can be transported by helicopter onboard a ship and
tended in the ship’s sickbay and then evacuated safely.
Technical Support
Last, a naval force can bring technical support to the ground forces. For example, the maintenance and repair of all
types of Army as well as naval and air force equipment - helicopters for instance - can be carried out aboard the
ships.
The CVN CHARLES DE GAULLE is the very manifestation of this concept, for it is as good as an air base, as it is
equipped with all required logistics and aircraft maintenance capabilities. The major contribution of naval forces to
air to ground operations is already partly taken into account in the FOUDRE Class LPDs and will be even more so
in the NTCD project.
This ability to support ground forces also exists during peacetime and can be employed to support humanitarian
operations following natural disasters. The re-routing of the JEANNE D’ARC and of the frigate DUGUAY-TROUIN
to assist Central American countries devastated by the “Mitch” typhoon is a good example of disaster relief that can
be conducted and led by a naval force.
Conclusion
I hope this presentation has helped to give a clearer understanding of the French Navy’s vision about its contribution
to joint operations and of the role played by CVN CHARLES DE GAULLE and the future LPDs in that domain.
I will stress again the fact that these operations are ‘joint’ and call for greater interoperability between allied forces
in the domain of the use of forces and the mastery of information.
Interoperability must exist between the members of NATO and also between European powers who will have to co-
operate more and more as their common interests increase and expand. But that is another debate!

MARITIME FORCES IN COMBINED AND JOINT OPERATIONS : A US

PERSPECTIVE
by
Dr. Stanley Byron Weeks

Science Applications International Corporation, McClean, Virginia
Introduction
The Royal Navy’s recent articulation of ‘the Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations’ marks a timely convergence
of broad US and UK views on the strategic and operational roles and value of naval forces for the 2lst century - a
conceptual convergence that may provide the basis of a reinvigorated maritime alliance between the Royal Navy
and the U.S. Navy. 1 In assessing this convergence, we will begin by highlighting essential elements of the Royal
Navy’s views on the Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations, including some of the key factors which led to this
strategic vision. Then we will review the evolution of U.S. Navy strategic concepts from 1991 to the present point of
conceptual convergence.
A comparison of the present Royal Navy and US Navy strategic visions will reveal parallels in the respective
national views of the global security context that impelled change in both nations’ maritime strategic visions, as
well as parallels in the evolving operational concepts and even force structures to implement those visions. This
convergence in US and UK maritime strategic thinking, if properly implemented, may provide the basis for a
reinvigorated maritime alliance between - and beyond - the two navies. This will require careful attention by both
navies to several key challenges to implementing these maritime strategic visions, including the challenges arising
from the global strategic context, national policy, and operational issues.
The Royal Navy’s Strategic Vision of the Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations
As articulated by the First Sea Lord in his September 1998 RUSI speech, the vision of the ‘Maritime Contribution to
Joint Operations’ harks back to the Corbett tradition of the Royal Navy, where the strategic role of maritime power is
applied from the sea to influence integrated, joint operations ashore. Changes in the global strategic context - the
end of the Cold War and the Soviet naval challenge - certainly enabled this shift of forces from high seas naval
engagements to a primary role in influencing events on land from the sea. But this change in global strategic context
also impelled this new focus of maritime power toward joint operations ashore, given rising challenges requiring
interventions in the littorals, across the spectrum of conflict. The First Sea Lord’s speech, the new Draft Chapter 9 to
BR 1806: British Maritime Doctrine, (Edition 2), and the speech to Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) by Brigadier
R.A. Fry, RM, all highlight the importance of the concept of manoeuvre warfare for maritime forces to gain critical
advantages in position and tempo of operations which can disable an enemy psychologically as well as physically.
In the new strategic context, however, the classic flexibility and mobility of naval forces can be applied not only in
war at sea but also from the sea to the land in joint operations. Just as the end of the Cold War freed armies from fixed
linear positions and a focus on the high end of the spectrum of conflict, it freed navies to focus more on the
requirements of joint operations ashore across the spectrum of conflict, from “timely presence” to “demonstration,
coercion, and conflict”. 3 And, since air and land forces are unlikely to be already in place, the inherent value of the
expeditionary role of naval forces in initially providing for enabling entry and build-up ashore is particularly
enhanced.
This vision of ‘The Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations’ also highlights the force structure required to carry out the
concept - naval task forces, centred around command and surface power projection capabilities of a new amphibious
flotilla and new, larger aircraft carriers employing jointly Royal Navy and Royal Air Force aircraft for battlefield air
interdiction and close air support as well as air defence.4 Extended range naval gunfire and SSN-launched Tomahawk
land attack missiles also will support the joint battle ashore, while sea basing and replenishment will sustain the
operation while minimising vulnerable logistics footprints ashore. In this way, the Royal Navy’s vision of ‘The Maritime
Contribution to Joint Operations’ leverages the classic flexibility and mobility of naval forces, as well as new precision
long-range strike capabilities to “make a substantial contribution to the joint campaign”.
Dr Stanley Byron Weeks Bailrigg Paper 30

The Evolution of US Navy’s Strategic Concepts, 1991-1999

US
There has been a consistent evolution in US Navy strategic thinking throughout this decade which clearly converges
with the Royal Navy’s vision of the ‘Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations’. The classic US Navy Maritime
Strategy of the 1980s had been very successful as a strategic framework describing how the Navy could make the
strategic difference in a conflict with the Soviet Union, and as a benchmark for coherent force structure planning. 5
But by the end of the Gulf War in 1991, it was clear that the great changes in the global strategic context and resulting
changes in US national security strategy required a new vision for the role of naval forces.
This vision was boldly laid out in 1992 in …From the Sea a “combined vision for the Navy and the Marine Corps”
responding to the shift of strategy “from a focus on a global threat to a focus on regional challenges and
opportunities.”6 The strategy highlighted the unique capabilities of Navy and Marine Corps forces to contribute
“with a far greater emphasis on joint and combined operations” to the revised national strategic requirements of
strategic deterrence and defence, forward presence, and crisis response. Indeed, …From the Sea, acknowledged that
“this strategic direction... represents a fundamental shift away from open ocean warfighting on the sea toward joint
operations conducted from the sea. Naval expeditionary forces would be “shaped for joint operations” - both as the
initial “enabling” capability for entry of forces ashore and as a full contributor in the subsequent operations ashore.
A revitalized sealift force would play the key role in ensuing sustainment.
The focus of naval operations would be in “the littoral region,” defined as two battlespace segments – “seaward, the
area from the open ocean to the shore which must be controlled to support operations ashore; and, landward, the
area inland from shore that can be supported and defended directly from the sea”. As for force structure implications
of the new strategy, the need was seen for greater flexibility in providing joint Unified Commanders with tailored
“National Expeditionary Force Packages” from existing naval forces - aircraft carriers and air wings, submarines,
amphibious ships with embarked Marines, maritime patrol aircraft, surface combatants, mine warfare forces, Navy
special warfare units - which were generally seen as readily adaptable to use under the new strategy.
Four key operational capabilities were highlighted as required to successfully execute the new strategic direction of
the naval service. First, the need to “continue to structure command and control capabilities to promote efficient
joint and combined operations as part of an overarching command, control, and communications architecture that
can adapt from sea to shore,” with the Naval Force Commander having “the capability to command a Joint Task
Force and function as, or host, a Joint Force Commander”.
Second, was ‘Battlespace Dominance’, “the heart of naval warfare,” which would now mean “ensuring effective
transition from open ocean to littoral areas, and from sea to land and back, to accomplish the full range of potential
missions”. Third, ‘Power Projection’, where “Naval Forces maneuver from the sea using their dominance of littoral
areas to mass forces rapidly and generate high intensity, precise offensive power at the time and location of their
desire”. “Joint operations between Naval and Air Force strike assets” were, perhaps prematurely, said to “have
become standard”. Finally, the operational capability for Force Sustainment was highlighted, including forward
logistics, maritime prepositioning ships and strategic sealift. In conclusion, …From the Sea summed up by noting
that “the shift in strategic landscape means that Naval Forces will concentrate on littoral warfare and maneuver
from the sea... [which] provides a potent warfighting tool to the Joint Task Force Commander”.
Although this detailed summary of the essential elements of the 1992 ...From the Sea naval strategic vision almost by
itself serves to illustrate the convergence of US views and those of the new UK ‘Maritime Contribution to Joint
Operations’, the “amplifying documents and policy statements” promised by the 1992 ...From the Sea document
have followed in the ensuing years and merit brief review to ensure further understanding of current US naval
strategic thinking. In 1994, the Secretary of the Navy, Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Chief of Naval
Operations together issued the Forward ...From the Sea document. In the context of the 1993 Bottom Up Review of all
military forces and strategy by the new Clinton Administration, Forward ...From the Sea “updates and expands the
strategic concepts articulated in our 1992 paper to address specifically the unique contribution of naval expeditionary
forces in peacetime operations, in responding to crises, and in regional conflicts”.7
Short of war, the most important role of naval forces was to be engaged in forward areas, with the objectives of
preventing conflicts and controlling crises, as the “foundation of peacetime forward presence operations and

overseas” crisis response. If deterrence fails, “naval forces provide the means for immediate sea-based reaction ...
the critical operational linkages between peacetime operations and the initial requirements of a developing crisis or
major regional contingency”. Naval expeditionary forces, built around the basic forward presence building blocks
of Aircraft Carrier Battle Groups and Amphibious Ready Groups, would build ‘interoperability’ with Allies and
potential coalition partners through routine peacetime forward operations, and in crisis could be complemented by
“the deployment of Army and Air Force units to provide a joint force capable of the full range of combat operations”.
Forward ...From the Sea provides an entire section on Joint and Combined Operations, which acknowledges “our
national strategy calls for the individual services to operate jointly to ensure both that we can operate successfully
in all warfare areas and that we can apply our military power across the spectrum of foreseeable situations”.
It goes on to highlight in detail the inherently joint and integrated air-ground expeditionary team of US Navy and
Marine Corps forces, with the US Marine Corps Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) seen as the model for joint
air-ground task forces, and repeats the commitment “to structuring our naval expeditionary forces so that they are
inherently shaped for joint operations”. Perhaps the major shift in emphasis in Forward ...From the Sea was the
greater prominence given to the mission of forward naval presence and engagement, and ready crisis response -
which was spurred by recent crisis response experiences (Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia) and paralleled the new national
security strategy emphasis on forward presence and engagement.
With …From the Sea and Forward ....From the Sea as benchmarks, the evolution of US naval strategic thinking has
continued in the last half of the 1990s, spurred by the need to re-articulate naval concepts to match evolving
national strategy reviews and documents, particularly the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review and the 1997 National
Defense Panel Report. But perhaps most influential has been the ongoing debate over the implications for naval
forces and strategy of a Revolution (or as most agree, an evolution) in Military Affairs (RMA). Very simply put, the
RMA foresees a quantum leap in military capabilities as a result of leveraging and marrying technologies in Command,
Control, Communications, Computers/Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR), with precision-guided
munitions (PGMs).
Perhaps the best known vision of the RMA’s implications originated from a US Navy Admiral, William Owens,
whose vision of the RMA was of a near-term linkage of the C4ISR and PGMs capabilities as a “System of Systems”. 8
In 1996, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (where Admiral Owens had been Vice Chairman) issued the
Joint Vision 2010 document as a “conceptual template” for future warfighting, highlighting the goal of “Full Spectrum
Dominance” (echoes of the Navy’s earlier “Battlespace Dominance” goal), to be achieved through four joint operational
concepts: precision engagement, dominant maneuver, full dimensional protection, and focused logistics, with
information superiority the essential element integrating these concepts.9
In March 1997, the new Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jay L. Johnson, US Navy, issued Forward ... From the
Sea: The Navy Operational Concept.10 This operational concept paper “directs how we operate Forward ...From the
Sea across the three components of the National Military Strategy: peacetime engagement, deterrence and conflict
prevention, and fight and win”, both now and in the future. The paper outlines “an integral role ... in future joint
operations envisioned in Joint Vision 2010,” with early on on-scene forward deployed naval forces transitioning to
crisis-response or conflict operations, with initial operations “enabling the joint campaign” by ensuring access to
the theater, and by providing on-scene joint command capabilities, including initially taking charge of the joint air
battle as afloat Joint Force Air Component Command”. Naval operations would continue throughout the joint
campaign, including “delivering precision naval fire, conducting naval operational maneuver, providing protection
for joint and coalition forces ashore, keeping the seaborne logistics pipeline flowing, and remaining on scene” as
required after the joint campaign. This concept paper concludes that the Joint Vision 2010 “operational concepts
were anticipated in large measure by Forward ...From the Sea” and that “in many areas the Navy is at the leading
edge of Joint Vision 2010 capabilities”.
For the future, important naval force capabilities will be surveillance, reconnaissance, and information warfare, the
Co-operative Engagement concept (CEC) to link force sensors and weapons, and “closer joint integration”. Of
particular note is the emphasis on “integrated joint fires”, and on “theater air defense and ballistic missile defense...
integrated with joint systems for maximum protection of the joint force”. This US Navy operational concept also
confirms the Navy as a “full partner in developing new amphibious warfare concepts and capabilities for
implementing the Marine Corps concept Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFrS), a concept which “emphasizes

using the seas as a secure area from which to conduct ship-to-objective” maneuver. This concept paper concludes
that “the Navy’s course for the 21st Century set by Forward ...From the Sea has proven to be the right one” in the
context of the requirements of the subsequent National Military Strategy and Joint Vision 2010.
Although the evolution of US Navy strategic thinking this decade has continued to follow the broad lines first set
forth in ...From the Sea, some of the best Navy strategists continue to refine and rearticulate concepts to reflect the
various shifts of emphasis resulting from defense reviews (such as the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review and
National Defense Panel) and annual National Military Strategy revisions. In general, these documents have reflected
increasing emphasis on asymmetric threats such as terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), as well as
in “preparing now” for future challenges, by selectively embracing key technologies which might enable a ‘Revolution
in Military Affairs’.
The recent (unofficial) article by the leaders in the Strategy and Concepts Branch (N513) of the Navy staff provides
perhaps the most current and insightful US Navy strategic thinking. 11 This article observes that “the logic of our
concepts... is indeed the cornerstone of our current force structure and our future programs”, and has as its goal
helping to define these “straightforward and enduring concepts”, seen as particularly necessary in an era when
success may lead to the American public taking naval capabilities for granted.
This latest strategic thinking also builds on the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Johnson’s public vision
of a US Navy for the 21st Century capable of influencing events “anytime, anywhere”, and the recently articulated
“network centric warfare” concept (seen as the “optimal enabling architecture to ensure that the capabilities described
by the concepts could be achieved in the smaller geographically dispersed Navy of the future”.)12 This article
rearticulates the US Navy’s basic strategic concepts (defining these as “a statement of the method by which a
military service implements national policy”) to four concepts: forward presence, deterrence, power projection, and
sea and area control. Deterrence, as a concept, includes conventional as well as nuclear deterrence. The ‘area’ in sea
and area control is to reflect the ability of naval forces to control the littoral land adjacent to the sea, as well as the
need to ensure access by overcoming area denial threats (such as mines, cruise missiles, and now possibly WMD
and ballistic missiles).
The US Navy strategists then articulate four operational concepts “describing the capabilities that naval forces
bring to joint warfighting on the campaign level - how naval forces engage the enemy”: naval fires; naval maneuver;
co-operative protection; and sustainment. These operational concepts are “linked together by the overarching
information structure identified as Network Centric Warfare”, defined as “warfare which derives its power from the
robust networking of a well informed, but geographically dispersed force”. Naval Fires include traditional power
projection as well as other ways of striking for the right effect, such as information warfare.
Naval Maneuver complements naval fires by operational maneuver at sea and operational maneuver from the sea
to the land. Co-operative protection operationalizes sea and area control, beyond just self-defense of naval forces, to
include “casting a protective umbrella over joint, coalition, and friendly forces on land”, and is a prerequisite to
Naval Maneuver. Sustainment from sea continues to be essential in providing strategic sealift, but is also increasingly
vital to enable the US Marine Corps’ Operational Maneuver from the Sea concept, which aims to eventually depend
primarily on sea basing of logistics and much of the fire support, to minimize more vulnerable footprints ashore.
This new articulation of the US Navy’s strategic and operational concepts concludes that technology advances, and
the absence of a significant maritime rival, now mean that the long-time strategic vision of naval forces influencing
the land battle can be more fully realized. This is a powerful vision of the strategic role of the US Navy entering the
21st Century.
The parallels between US naval strategic thinking as it has evolved over the past decade and the UK Maritime
Contribution to Joint Operations vision are striking. Both have their origins in similar lessons drawn from the
changing post-Cold War strategic context - relief from primary war at sea concerns against a major maritime rival,
the opportunity to contribute to increasingly common contingencies in the littorals through peacetime presence and
crisis response, and a warfighting vision based on maneuver (at sea and from the sea to the shore) where future force
structure must support key expeditionary operations and power projection capabilities. if there is a slight divergence
of interest, it is in the more recent US Navy emphasis on information technologies through the “Network Centric
Warfare” concept - a difference accounted for in part by the US fascination with the potential ‘Revolution in Military

Affairs’, but even more (and more logically) a reflection of the fact that the information linkage of significantly larger
numbers of forces (particularly when dispersed for maneuver) is a bigger problem for the US Navy than for the
smaller Royal Navy. With this general convergence in US and UK maritime strategic thinking in mind, we can
assess the potential and the challenges for the two navies’ future Cupertino.
Potential and Challenges of the UK and US Strategic Visions

This convergence of US and UK maritime strategic thinking has the potential to provide the basis of a reinvigorated
maritime alliance for the 21st Century. With agreement on the essential elements of the ‘Maritime Contribution to
Joint Operations’, both countries can now focus renewed attention on the challenges to implementing these concepts
in combined operations. In so doing, the US Navy and the Royal Navy may provide the core of a broader maritime
alliance for future joint and combined operations, which could include other major NATO navies, certain Asian
navies, and even some key navies from Latin America. The Gulf War demonstrated the value of contributions for
many navies in a major joint and combined contingency, and this value has only increased with the subsequent
significant reduction in US and UK naval force levels.
Despite the recent convergence in maritime strategic thinking, there are significant challenges to implementing that
thinking in combined operations and future force structures. In the broadest strategic context of national strategy
and international relations, three challenges appear worthy of note. First, at the global level, there is the question of
whether (and if so, when) a major power will emerge to challenge the current relative strategic calm, and redirect our
navies’ focuses back to war at sea. Both the US and the UK navies do not see such a challenge in the foreseeable
future. However, it is not too early to consider the problems that would be posed for the UK if the PRC should emerge
as a major power challenger in coming years, and the US (as is likely) were to expect a contribution in the Pacific
from the UK and other major Allied navies. A second high-level challenge to a reinvigorated US-UK maritime
alliance is the future state of EU-US relations - in the political and economic dimensions as well as in transatlantic
defense Cupertino.
An emerging European Union and a confident US must both be more sensitive to the realities that we do not best
prepare for fighting side-by-side in a future military conflict by fighting each other over the banana trade; nor
should those NATO allies whose airmen are at risk daily over Iraq have to tolerate a so-called Ally working ceaselessly
to undercut sanctions on Iraq. As for transatlantic defense industrial Cupertino, the logic for such Cupertino is
clearly compelling (as indicated in Gordon Adams’s recent Financial Times article), but is frustrated by industrial
and political considerations on both sides of the Atlantic.12 Third, there is the difficult broader question of whether
our nations will maintain the will to intervene with military force in contingencies which, however justified, do not
threaten national survival. As the new Draft Chapter 9 to BR1806: British Maritime Doctrine, Edition 2, noted:
“These operations will be to a large extent discretionary. Even low casualty rates will be politically difficult to
accept...”. These three high level challenges to smooth future US and UK naval Cupertino are beyond resolution by
naval leaders, but must be kept in mind as critical potential complications in the broader strategic context.
There also exist more specific challenges which the navies of the US and UK can, and must, address themselves and
influence.
• Now that we have a common understanding on the ‘Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations’, we need
to develop together an agreed understanding on our respective maritime contributions in combined operations.
During the Cold War, the US developed and communicated a clear idea of the roles and missions where we
needed help from our Allies, and where we preferred that they give priority in their force planning. In the
Cold War, except for the appreciated carrier and amphibious capabilities of the UK and a few other NATO
allies, desired Allied naval contributions focused on escort ships, antisubmarine warfare, and mine warfare.
It is quite remarkable that in almost a decade since the end of the Cold War, the US Navy has yet to indicate to
its Allied navies its own preferences for their future priorities. This is not to say that national leaders will not,
in the end, make their own determination on future naval force structures and priorities, nor that there is not
benefit inAllied navies striving to maintain balanced forces, including blue-water naval capabilities. However,
with defense budgets very limited, it seems reasonable that the US Navy would put forth some suggestions as
to how much it wants various Allied naval forces to spend on high-technology, high-cost, full-spectrum

naval capabilities (such as sea-based Theater Missile Defense capabilities).
• Allied navies must, in any case, make their own decisions on future force structure and priorities. For
Allies, background considerations might include the degree of expectation of combined operations with the
US Navy and others (hence the advisability of US-Allied naval discussion of these sensitive issues of roles
and missions), and the degree to which certain national capabilities (e.g., submarines) are desired for a
balanced force, despite costs.
• As we consider combined maritime operations, another sensitive but necessary issue is to consider together,
and with other NATO navies, how we can perhaps better organize NATO maritime forces - having new
European aircraft carrier and amphibious capabilities - to contribute to joint and combined operations, and
to better co-ordinate with US Navy forces in the Mediterranean. This would require some shift south in the
geographic focus of some northern Allied navies, and a readiness by the US to consider new integrated
aircraft carrier and amphibious force arrangements in the Mediterranean.
• Interoperability is and will be a major challenge to US and UK naval implementation of a common strategic
vision. The challenge is even tougher for other Allied navies, as the cost and, sometimes, the releasability of
rapidly advancing technologies, greatly stress the abilities of navies to operate with the US Navy. Problems
include bandwidth available for communications, as well as more difficult challenges of planning networks,
intelligence networks, and data and tracking networks. Indeed, interoperability is really a problem at three
levels - within navies (as evidenced by recent US Navy difficulties in new 14 baseline software interoperability
within the battlegroup), joint interoperability of Navy forces with other services (a difficult challenge, despite
recent gains), and combined interoperability among Allied navies. More attention at both the bilateral US-UK
and the NATO-wide level must be devoted to interoperability if the full promise of the maritime contribution
to joint and combined operations is to be achieved.
• Another major challenge to the maritime contribution to joint and combined operations is the asymmetric
threat of chemical and biological weapons, ballistic and cruise missiles, and the classic (but technology
enhanced) sea mine. Any of these threats could prove an Achilles heel to the ability of naval forces to remain
on-scene in support of joint and combined operations ashore. Although mobility may be of benefit to naval
forces in countering the Chemical and Biological Warfare (BW/CW) threat, that mobility may be limited by
the need to remain in support of forces ashore or by minefields. Thus naval forces must give more emphasis
to CBW defenses (particularly in the US Navy, which lagged its NATO naval Allies by years in providing
citadel protection). Integrated ballistic and cruise missile defenses and mine countermeasures will also be
important for navies to truly operate “anytime, anywhere”.
The final challenge to the common strategic vision of the US Navy and Royal Navy is the challenge of numbers.
Although the absolute sizes of the two navies differ, the problem here is, in relative terms, very similar. A couple of
quotes from Soviet military leaders encapsulate the problem. Marshall Ustinov said, “Quantity has a quality all its
own”. Admiral Gorshakov said, “The best is the enemy of the good enough”. Simply put, with the already high costs
of naval forces, even more costly technological demands highlighted above, and restricted defense budgets, how do
we maintain the numbers of ships, aircraft, equipment, and skilled personnel to provide the necessary forward
deployed presence to deter or respond to crises?
The US Navy recognized as early as Forward ...From the Sea that reductions in forces would leave some regions
with only partial coverage of deployed ships - but there are real political limits to further reductions in regional
presence if we wish to influence events. Another idea in the US Navy for the future is to build minimum-manned
surface ships and leave them deployed in overseas regions for several years, rotating crews.
However, this idea is at best two decades away from implementation. The US Navy has for almost a decade resisted
the idea of building “low mix” surface ships that are less costly (but less capable across the full spectrum of conflict),
opting instead for a high-mix force of Aegis cruisers and destroyers. (The US Navy had long since opted for a
smaller, high-mix only aircraft carrier and nuclear submarine force.) The US Navy has observed its (almost) 600 ship
Navy reduced to 300 today, and less than 200 by 2020 at present shipbuilding rates, with even heavier operational
demands. As a result, a major change may be coming in US Navy thinking about the future of its 100-plus surface
warship force, with recent reports of US Navy leaders considering a future “affordable frigate-sized warship” to
help maintain fleet numbers in a way that the only currently-envisioned future warship, the $1billion DD-21 land-
attack destroyer, cannot.13

Conclusion
The Royal Navy’s recent articulation of ‘The Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations’ marks a timely convergence
of broad US and UK views on the strategic and operational roles and value of naval forces for the coming century.
The evolution of US Navy strategic concepts from 1991 to the present illustrates the continued development of a
concept of naval contributions to joint operations ashore, closely paralleling Royal Navy conceptual development.
This convergence in US and UK maritime strategic thinking, if properly implemented, may provide the basis for a
reinvigorated maritime alliance between - and beyond - the two navies. If the US Navy and Royal Navy are to realize
the full potential of their common maritime strategic visions, they must address challenges including the broader
political context, issues of roles in combined operations, interoperability, asymmetric threats, and maintaining force
numbers.
End Notes
1 See, Admiral Sir Jock Slater, First Sea Lord, “The Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations”, Speech to the
Royal United Services Institute, 29 September 1998, in The Maritime Strategic Studies Institute, Maritime
Contribution to Joint Operations, London, MoD, 1998.
2 Op cit, “The Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations”, (Draft chapter 9 to BR 1806: British Maritime
Doctrine, Edition 2), and “The Meaning of Manoeuver”, Brigadier R.A. Fry, RM, speech to RUSI.
3 Op cit, First Sea Lord’s Speech, p.9.
4 The Joint Force 2000 agreement, which was announced in the 1998 Strategic Defense Review, provided for the
integration of both services maritime aviation forces under a new Maritime Air Command. For recent
implementing steps, see “UK Set to Create New Maritime Command”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 24 February
1999, p.15.
5 This writer, as a member of the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Concepts Group (OP-603/N-513 today),
co-authored the original OPNAV Maritime Strategy in 1982, and in 1991, retired and is writing as a
consultant to this same organization, outlined the essential elements of a new maritime strategy in Stanley B.
Weeks, “Crafting a New Maritime Strategy”, United States Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1992, pp.30-
37.
6 From the Sea, Washington DC, Department of the Navy, 1992.
7 Forward …From the Sea, Washington, Department of the Navy, 1994.
8 Owens, William A., Admiral, U.S. Navy, Retired. “The Emerging System of Systems”, United States Naval
Institute Proceedings, May 1995, pp.35-39.
9 Joint Vision 2010, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1997.
10 Forward... From the Sea: The Navy Operational Concept, Washington, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations,
26 March 1997.
11 Tangredi, Sam J., CDR, USN and Bowdish, Randall G., CDR, USN, “Core of Naval Operations: Strategic and
Operational Concepts of the United States Navy”, The Submarine Review, January 1999, pp.11-23.
12 See Johnson, Jay, Admiral, USN, “Anytime, Anywhere: A Navy for the 21st Century”, United States Naval
Institute Proceedings, November 1997, pp.48-5O, and Cebrowski, Arthur K., Vice Admiral, USN and Gartska,
John J., “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future”, United Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1998,
pp.28-35.
13 Adams, Gordon, “The Atlantic Option”, Financial Times, London, January 28, 1999, p.12.
14 For an example of just the difficulty of interoperability between the US Navy and US Marine Corps
components of the naval service, see “Danzig Tells Navy, Marine Corps to Consider Merging C4
Organizations”, Inside the Navy, February 15, 1999, p.3.
15 See Bender, Bryan, “USA Considers Small Frigates for 300-Ship Navy”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, March 3, 1999, p.8.

CHAIRMAN’S REMARKS
by
Sir Patrick Duffy, PhD

There was universal agreement, first on the need of a military strategy that will depend on maritime deployment and
sustainment, along with a switch from ocean warfare to the prosecution of expeditionary operations from the sea to
the land in the demanding environment of the littoral, usually with allies, but could extend beyond coalitions,
which will vary from mission to mission. Yet, despite the recognition, second, that joint and combined operations
equipped to meet these imperatives now provided the conceptual framework of a new warfare doctrine for maritime
forces, there was an uneven response in the various national perspectives and a reluctance to proceed to joint
structuring in some.
The hesitation was most marked in respect of the joint approach, and the objections ranged from the cultural to the
historic and the political. Only the UK in its creation of a tri-service Permanent Joint Headquarters along with the
post of Chief of Joint Operations, and the merger of the RAF and Royal Navy Harrier forces, offered the prospect of
real steps forward in consolidating ‘jointery’. It could lead the world eventually, it was claimed. Though the successful
development of the Joint Force 2000 from two different traditions may require lengthy and complex implementation,
it was pointed out. The constant stress laid on affordability and interoperability suggests that combined action may
be more realisable in the shorter term.
Captain Derek Christian stated that ‘jointery’ was not accepted by everyone in South Africa, and combined action
by the South African Navy was difficult at this stage of its re-emergence. There was an incompatibility of systems
due to the isolation of the seventies and eighties, and power projection was “tainted in some minds”. On the other
hand, the South African Navy had embarked on a re-equipment programme, and was already engaged in combined
exercises with regional and global partners in Africa, South-East Asia, South America and with France and the UK.
He believed that support for combined military operations is likely to grow as South Africa engages more and more
in peacekeeping operations.
“Co-operation and liaison rather than ‘joint’ and ‘combined’ operations has been the way of the Indian Navy”,
stated Rear-Admiral Raja Menon, for India had an aversion to alliances and, therefore, to combined operations.
Nevertheless, joint service and joint planning committees do exist, and he envisages “growing pressure for a more
integrated approach”.
In contrast, the Dutch “fully subscribe to the need and principles” of ‘joint’ and ‘combined’ operations for operational,
economic and political reasons, according to Captain Bart Van der Hulst of the Royal Netherlands Navy. Yet,
movement towards them is slow because the coalition governments that mark the Dutch political system militate
against such “radical changes”. The Netherlands will always participate in future peacekeeping, however, as part
of an international force. Thus, interoperability with future allies will command a higher priority than joint operations
with its own armed services. “So, it is ‘combined’, first, and ‘joint’, second”.
Interoperability was stressed by Captain Gerard Valin of the French Navy and also by Dr. Stanley Byron Weeks, who
offered a US perspective. But otherwise they indicated no direct and structured approach towards ‘jointery’. Indeed,
Captain Valin saw the naval contribution in joint operations as essentially ‘joint’ rather than ‘combined’.
A significant feature of the conference was the impressive presence and authoritative contribution of the Royal
Marines. The last time the present UK government held office, the decision was taken to stand down 42 Cdo Royal
Marines, and the ceremonial formalities were actually completed in Malta. That decision was only rescinded in
Cabinet after a joint appeal by the Commandant General, Royal Marines (CGRM) and his Minister. Today, the
amphibious capability of the Royal Marines is central to effective power projection, and 42 Cdo Royal Marines is an
essential component of 3 Cdo Brigade.
Another significant feature of the Conference was the meaningful interface it provided for the Services and Academe
Sir Patrick Duffy Bailrigg Paper 30

in the shaping of operational doctrine; such a widening consultation, suggests a further striking departure. The
conduct and presentation of the Strategic Defence Review was in sharp contrast, for example, to the role of its
predecessor. When the Labour government was last in office in the seventies, its defence ministers enjoyed no such
access to expertise as is now available at such University Centres as the Centre for Defence and International
Security Studies at Lancaster, the Centre for Defence Economics at York, or the Centre for Security Studies at Hull,
and were otherwise severely restricted in consultation and were becoming increasingly isolated. They were served
excellently by their professional advisers, and were crucially dependent for their statement on nuclear policy on Sir
Michael Quinlan, then Deputy-Under Secretary of State, MOD, 1977-1981, and later Permanent Under-Secretary of
State, 1988-1992. The Polaris improvement programme, project ‘Chevaline’, was undertaken in secret, and the
Defence Statements for 1975–78 disclosed nothing at all.
The defence ministers’ own party policy-making bodies had become incapable of constructive consultation, both in
committee and at annual conference. Their Parliamentary Party Defence Committee had become a battleground,
and its representatives at NATO reported back with discretion. There was not yet a departmental select committee
on defence. Only parliamentary debate proved helpful, notably the annual Navy debate, because of the participation
of World War Two veterans. As public protest grew, however, over the deployment of intermediate nuclear forces,
defence ministers became embattled in Parliament and in their constituencies. The approach of mandatory re-
selection warned of local challenge, and led to the Secretary of State for Defence being dropped by his local party -
in the city where the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) had become accustomed to holding its annual
conference - only two years after leaving office. In complete contrast, the last Secretary of State (George Robertson)
evoked favourable comment for his widespread consultation within his own party, in parliament, and within the
country during the course of his recent review.
Sir Patrick Duffy Bailrigg Paper 30

PART 3: COMBINED AND JOINT AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS

(Chairman: Major General Rob Fulton, Commandant General, Royal Marines)
THE FUTURE OF THE MARITIME CONTRIBUTION TO JOINT OPERATIONS
by
Brigadier R A Fry, Royal Marines
First Words
What I would like to do is to look at the post-SDR Navy because I think that three things came out of the SDR that tell
us about the way that forces across the board are going to be used in the future Two are explicit and one is implicit
They are that operations will be ‘expeditionary’ that they will be ‘joint’ and finally that they will be ‘discretionary’.
But before I discuss these three further, I will try to conduct the obligatory historical survey. It is now conventional
wisdom that something fundamental has happened over the last ten years. We have moved from a military strategy
of predisposition to a military strategy of expeditionary warfare. This seems to be broadly linked to the preceding
forty or so years since the inception of NATO but at that stage folk memory, as it were, seems to run out and I think
that this completely undervalues the scale of the historical change that has taken place during the last ten years.
I actually think you need to go back approximately 200 years - this is an arbitrary date - to about the beginning of the
series of engagements that became known as the Napoleonic Wars. This is because ever since then we have either
been involved in a war of national survival as we were with France at that time; in the business of building and
consolidating an empire; or predisposing forces in support of an integrated alliance architecture in northern Europe.
Now all that period is typified by one single thing - the requirement to defend territory with very little discretion
involved. My contention is that today we have an unprecedented freedom and this is the first part of this whole
discretionary business. I’d also make another comment - for a nation that is always advertised as ‘maritime’ and for
a people who have created the ‘British Way in Warfare’ - which, as far as I can make out, involves holding somebody
else’s coat while they go and do it on our behalf – we’ve had some pretty alarming experiences during the course of
this century.
Peter Hore always tells me that the black day of the British Navy was the meeting of the Committee of Imperial
Defence on the 23 August 1911 which implicitly accepted the continental commitment. In 1914 we went even further
and, in 1916, we categorically accepted a continental commitment For the latter part of the First World War, we took
on for the first time in our history the main enemy in the main theatre and for the rest of the 20th Century we have
been trying to come to terms with that experience. But we’ve stuck with this continental commitment right through
the Second World War and the whole business of having forces pre-deployed in Northern Europe merely confirmed
that thread
So, I think where we are today is quite fundamentally different from where we were 10 years ago, 50 years ago, 100
years ago; we have to look a long way back to try and find something which is an appropriate parallel. Interestingly,
I think that some of the rhythms which were going on 200 years ago are being reproduced today. I don’t say that with
any sense of nostalgia for the Nelsonic Navy. I simply regard it as an accurate historical observation.
So that’s the overall historical pointer. Let’s look at the Royal Navy over the same period. I think the Royal Navy is
the inheritor today of two quite separate traditions. The first of those traditions is unreconstructed ‘navalism’. This
is all about the belief in the twin doctrines of the decisive fleet engagement and sea control as the proper use of naval
force. It also happens that naval battles tend to be annihilating in a way that land battles very rarely are. A cursory
glance at history will show that there are more Navarinos, more Tsushimas, more Midways, than there were
Cannaes and the fact that soldiers from Schlieffen all the way through to Schwarzkopf have tried to reproduce a
Cannae in this century only goes to make it even more emphatic in my view.
If you want to annihilate somebody, you do it at sea. The doctrine of the decisive fleet engagement is therefore a
Brigadier R A Fry Bailrigg Paper 30

terribly attractive concept. In our history, it probably reached its consummation in 1805 at Trafalgar. Others this
century have done it rather better than us, particularly the USA in the Pacific campaign in the Second World War.
Now this is a legacy of which we are all justly proud. It’s a tradition that has seen the Royal Navy as the instrument
of victory in each of our wars of national survival, but it doesn’t do us an awfu1 lot of good today.
The first tradition which I have outlined is normally associated with Alfred Mahan, I think perhaps uncharitably,
because I believe there’s more subtlety to what Mahan says than simply ‘let’s find the enemy and destroy him’. The
other tradition, which has run hand in hand with the first, is all about the projection of force from the sea to the land.
It is always associated with Corbett and is a maritime rather than a naval tradition. They both go back to the
Napoleonic Wars (and beyond) for evidence in their support. Trafalgar I’ve mentioned, but an excellent example of
the second tradition is the Peninsula Campaign - inserted by sea, sustained by sea and utilising an element of
tactical manoeuvre from the sea also. And we can go from there to Gallipoli to Normandy and the Falkland Islands
to illustrate the same theme.
These are two parallel themes which populate naval history, broadly in sympathy with what 1 have outlined as the
wider strategic thinking; but not exactly so.
We are emerging from a period of deep ‘navalism’. The latter part of the Cold War was quintessentially a naval,
rather than a maritime, period in the way that I’ve just described. We are now getting very much into a maritime
stage where the Joint tradition is to the forefront. Today’s Navy and tomorrow’s Navy will be more about the
projection of maritime power; the Navy after next, I would hazard, will be more about sea control if for no other
reason than the people who we would wish to influence are going to develop much more integrated and more
sophisticated capabilities of sea denial in the meantime. So, this is a constantly moving and evolving thing.
I think that’s probably enough in terms of historical perspective, so let me now offer a view where the Royal Navy is
today in respect to the three criteria I mentioned earlier.
‘Expeditionary’
The first one is ‘expeditionary’. I don’t think I have to make an awful lot of claims here. If you want to take a serious
amount of force anywhere in the world you will undoubtedly use the sea. Of course, there are other ways of doing
it, some quicker, but they will never deliver the volume or integration of force that can be projected by maritime
means. I think that the decision within the SDR to acquire six Roll-on/Roll-off ships was a vindication of the
expeditionary process.
If I now look at the expeditionary capability we will have within the next decade or so, I think that we are about to
enter a period where our capacity for projecting of power from the maritime base is going to be transformed.
Traditionally, this has been based on 3 Commando Brigade and that will remain but be improved in many ways at
the tactical level with artillery and an organic armoured vehicle and improvement in CIS connectivity. But one thing
that the increased capacity for lift will give us in the future is that although we can base a force on 3 Commando
Brigade we don’t have to be limited by the combat power that it contains. We should be, in a ‘joint’ sense, much more
ambitious about the grouping that we look for in the future There seems to be for me absolutely no reason why the
force should not be enhanced by a squadron of tanks, self propelled artillery, and so on.
But I’ve only so far talked about the land manoeuvre element. I think it’s when I move beyond land manoeuvre that
I’m really getting into the quantum jump in capability. We will shortly be getting two new LPDs on the back of the
LPH which is currently going through the final part of its trials; in the foreseeable future we will be getting into the
business of serious fixed-wing organic air. Now, this is where we really begin to change the terms of combat.
The Attack Helicopter, when it comes in, will give us something in the very near future that will be a different scale
of operations altogether, not simply in terms of the tactical violence it’s capable of delivering on a range from
somewhere like Lancaster down to Canterbury, but more in terms of what it brings to the battlefield in its sensor
suite, its ability to prosecute both close and deep operations, its capacity for flank protection and so on. It’s suddenly
magnified all of the tactical choices that the land commander has available to him. If you then lay on top of that the

fact that we’ll have with the future carrier (CVF) high performance aviation not only in terms of air defence but in
terms of close air support as well, then I think we’re beginning to see the scale of the transformation from today’s
relatively modest capability to something much more substantive in the medium term.
These acquisitions increase our combat power and will also allow us to get into the business of manoeuvre. Some of
the inherent characteristics of maritime force give you precisely the agility at the operational and the tactical level
that manoeuvre is always about. The ability to transfer power from the sea to land will be exactly the process of
transition which itself then enables tempo; and tempo is the Philosopher’s Stone of manoeuvre doctrine. Here, I’ll
reiterate what Stan Weeks said earlier -a maritime based force based on the capabilities I have outlined can contemplate
a high intensity conflict up to medium scale and we can be confident that the UK can handle that unilaterally. Once
we get beyond that into large scale operations then that’s clearly the business of others, of massed land manoeuvre
based around a deployable armoured division. Even then, in those circumstances, we can continue to play an
important shaping role.
In terms of expeditionary capability, one of the most interesting transformations in recent years is the reconfiguration
of the Submarine Service. Ten years ago or more, submariners were the quintessential Cold War warriors; now I
think that submariners and the Royal Marines have changed roles with the Royal Marines replacing submariners
as the operational standard-bearers. At the same time, the submariners have moved away from ASW to the projection
of power, the insertion of Special Forces and the acquisition of intelligence in the littoral - a salutary transformation
for which the Submarine Service should congratulated.
So, if I have to check where the Royal Navy is today against where the SDR says it should be then I’d give it a ‘tick’.
‘Joint’
Let me go on to ‘joint’. I see that in the conference literature there is a phrase which says “Joint Amphibious
Operations” which I think is a neat little tautology because, inherently, amphibious operations are ‘joint’. If you’re
going to project from the sea to the land through the air, you’re involved in joint operations. More than that, you’re
in the business, concurrently, of air, land, surface and sub-surface operations - of trying to net together the two
pictures of your land-based and sea-based sensors. We cannot possibly ignore the ‘joint’ nature of this enterprise
because it is our daily bread and butter and is an essential enabler for what we do.
Let me go a little bit further and indulge in a bit of self-congratulation for the Armed Forces. I think we will shortly
have an integrated, institutional joint architecture. The Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre (JDCC) will create
doctrine that will then go to the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) where we will teach it. It will
finally go to a Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) which will actually practice it, and this will be an unbroken
line. We are beginning to see some of the advantages of its partial implementation, but in the next generation I think
that the UK will probably lead the world in joint operations as a result of the very perceptive architecture being put
in place now.
So, if we check the Navy against the second criteria of ‘joint’, then I would give this a ‘tick’ also.
‘Discretion’
Now, perhaps the most interesting of all of these is the third – ‘discretion’. This is something implied in the SDR,
which, however, did not major on the theme. It exists at two levels.
The first one is that we don’t necessarily have to fight. This brings me back to where I started. The problem with our
previous strategic condition was the requirement to fight in defence of national sovereignty or because of alliance
commitments. Now we can choose when we fight. What is interesting - and perhaps rather alarming - is the alacrity
with which we are choosing to do so. I think this in turn raises an interesting political dimension, Rather than talk
about national sovereignty these days, the government enters into language such as “being a force for good” which
in itself invites ‘discretionary’ application. There is nothing mandatory about being a “force for good”.

The second level of ‘discretion’ is the sort of military force you want to apply to whatever is going on. And this is
what maritime forces do exceptionally well. The standard frigate deployed anywhere in the Mediterranean or the
Atlantic gives you lots of things. It gives you the capacity to give a rattling good cocktail party but that same ship
also gives you the capacity to conduct high intensity operations immediately afterwards. If I compare that to an
Army unit or an aircraft squadron, I cannot see that same range and subtlety of choice invested within a single
platform; for that single platform, read maritime forces at large. I think that there is a scale of choice that exists within
maritime forces that has no direct equivalent anywhere else.
If we look at what’s happening in Yugoslavia and Kosovo today whatever else it is or isn’t, it’s a terribly traditional
conflict - old-fashioned stuff. We have a clearly defined sovereign state, we have a clearly defined set of operational
targets, and lines of operation towards some, slightly ill-defined, operational end.
We even have an air campaign that uses ‘phases’. Now even those of you who are doctrine train-spotters will know
that the last thing we talk about these days is ‘phases’. This whole thing is very traditional. Yugoslav President
Milosovic’s mistake in military terms - we don’t know if it’s a mistake in political terms - is confront the West on the
grounds of its own technological choosing - a mistake he shares with Saddam Hussein. In political terms, the jury
is still out, but in military terms you simply don’t do this any more. So, I think we are going to see - and to a certain
extent this is conventional wisdom - a move away from clearly defined state actors occupying a conventional and
traditional battlefield and centred round the business of the correlation of forces. We are going to be faced with a
much more insidious environment where the target against which we project ourselves is going to be much more
difficult to define.
What’s important is the ability to come and go, to use the sea as a legally and physically permissive medium that
gives you a way in which you can maximise your choice in terms of the asymmetric warfare of the future. And if we
look for an example for the future it’s not what is going on in Yugoslavia now but probably what happened in East
Africa and the Americans response to that situation a short while ago.
Asymmetric warfare presents real challenges because in many ways the Centre of Gravity of the non-state actor is a
damn sight harder to engage than our Centre of Gravity. Our Centre of Gravity in the future is always going to be the
political will to continue the operation.
We will be faced with extremely complex and demanding operational circumstances and what is the best response
to that - something which gives you a range of choices. Which brings me right back to what I think is the key
characteristic of maritime forces for the future.
So, if I check the Navy against the criterion of ‘discretion’ I can give it a ‘tick’ as well.
Last words
Let me finally now touch on doctrine and where the Royal Navy is and on the business of ‘manoeuvre’ as a whole.
The Royal Navy and doctrine have not always been natural bedfellows and I think there are good reasons for this.
The first reason is if you are a Weapons Engineer in a ballistic missile submarine, you would disappear into your
warfare specialisation and have little time to think about lines of operation and other ephemera. I think that’s
something for which the Navy has often been guilty. I also think that there is a natural and forgivable hubris about
being part of a Royal Navy where we’ve been doing successful business for the last couple of hundred years. As we
seem to have got it broadly right, why do we need to codify it now? Well, we need to codify it now is because we’ve
moved away from ‘navalism’ to the ‘maritime projection of force’; and the ‘maritime projection of force’ is all about
interfacing with other mediums,
We have, therefore, to be conscious of what we can give the land and the air operations. If we’re going to do that, we need
to adopt and use the language of ‘manoeuvre’. One the most interesting things is that the closer you try and do this, the
more you see that maritime forces, particularly in temporal and spatial terms, give you advantages that other forces do
not. A self-sustaining, coherent force package capable of moving 300 miles in 24 hours has no parallel in land or air terms.
It is exactly that sort of tactical agility which allows one to get inside an opponent’s decision making cycle,

If the Royal Navy is to profit from this natural advantage, then we must use the appropriate language. I think this is
a salutary challenge for the Naval Service and one that we are only halfway through addressing. The Maritime
Warfare Centre is now creating a Force Development Procedure within the Royal Navy that will take us into the 21st
Century and attach us to all the ‘joint’ institutions, and this is a good start.
Today, we are on the threshold of a most exciting period with maritime force at the heart of the process. But I should
say that this is not guaranteed forever. We will go through another cyclical process and the sort of optimistic and
rather ambitious outline I have given today will change.

THE ALLIANCE APPROACH TO COMBINED JOINT OPERATIONS
by
Lt Col Alistair Sheppard, MBE, RE*

Combined and Joint Planning Staff, SHAPE, Mons, Belgium
Introduction
The Alliance approach to combined joint operations, in a phrase, is the ‘Combined Joint Task Force’ (CJTF). To
understand the CJTF it is perhaps necessary first to recognise that the Combined Joint Planning Staff (CJPS) evolved
out of the CJTF process and is often seen by many as being synonymous – or simply confused - with it.
The CJPS evolved out of political expediency rather than military logic. Originally known as the ACE Reaction
Forces Planning Staff (ARFPS), the CJPS became operational on October 1 1996. It is collocated in the SHAPE
Building in Mons, Belgium, but is not part of that organisation - an important and often sore point. Structurally, the
relationship between the CJPS and the NATO Command is a complex one stemming largely from its degree of
separation from the formal NATO command structure.
The CJPS Chief of Staff is a non-quota, three-star post who reports personally to the Supreme Allied Commander,
Europe, (SACEUR) and the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT) in his bi-Supreme Commander
capacity. For normal day-to-day routine purposes, the CJPS utilises the existing staff structures of the two Supreme
Commanders and answers to the two Chiefs of Staff.
Despite its recent birth, the CJPS has been under almost constant scrutiny. For example, a recent Manpower Review
Team ‘long term study’ recommended major surgery to the CJPS. However, members of the NATO Military Committee
strongly opposed this and instead have directed that a full review of the CJPS Terms of Reference (TOR) be conducted
with a view to updating its peacetime establishment. This has been completed and a working group has been
established to implement the recommended changes.
The CJPS has also had to adapt to the new NATO Military Command Structure which is, in itself, an illustration of
a new era and one that has moved away from Cold War and static postures into the worlds of: Peace Support
Operations, (PSO); Out-of-Area operations (OOA); European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI) and Western
European Union-led task forces; and, of course, CJTFs. The Alliance’s new structure now has SACLANT continuing
as a strategic command with three regional commands (East, West and South East) and two combatant commands
(Strike Fleet Atlantic and Submarine Force Atlantic).
Under the new structure, there are no land component commands since it was assumed that these would be
embedded within the Regional Command Headquarters. Air and Naval component commands have wide regional
responsibilities and encompass joint sub-regional commands, such as those located in Norway, Greece, Turkey,
Denmark, Germany, Spain and Italy, These, however, have no Areas of Responsibility (AORs). It was finally agreed
that the implementation of the new Alliance command structures should start no later than the Spring of 1999 and
that there should be a simultaneous decision on the activation or the Headquarter reorganisation as a whole.
The CJTF Concept

In 1993, the United States proposed the CJTF concept. It was discussed and agreed at the 1994 Brussels Summit
between the NATO Heads of State. The rationale behind this agreement might be found in the new NATO force
structure and in the understanding that any new challenge to the Alliance would have to be met using an optimal
mix of forces under a combined and joint command. Most of NATO’s planned operations have been ‘joint’ in nature
with at least two or three services involved. The whole philosophy of NATO also builds on the ‘combined’ principle;
that is to say more than one nation would be involved.
* This paper has been transcribed from the author ’s viewfoils. Any factual mistakes or interpretation should be attributed to the
Editors, and not Lt Col Shepphard.
Lt Col Alistair Sheppard Bailrigg Paper 30

During the June 1996 meeting in Berlin, the Defence and Foreign Ministers of the Alliance came to an agreement over
the political guidance for the military structure to commence the implementation of the CJTF concept. On December
4 that year, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) took a final decision on MC 389, the Military Committee’s directive for
the military implementation of the Alliance’s Combined Joint Task Force concept.
One of the driving factors in that development was the rationalisation of NATO’s force structure where the principle
of task-optimised organisations should be developed to replace the old Cold War static organisation and to allow
for NATO involvement in what is known as ‘Outside NATO’s Area of Responsibility’ (AOR). Since then, the Staffs
of the major NATO Commanders, SACEUR and SACLANT, as well as CJPS, have been heavily involved in the
conceptual work to make the CJTF a reality.
Between early 1997 and July 1998, NATO forces were engaged in CJTF trials. In February / March, 1999, the NATO
Commanders were in a position to make the recommendation to commence the full implementation of the concept.
Although primarily intended for operations outside NATO’s Area of Responsibility in Peace Support Operations
(PSO), the concept does not exclude UN Article 5 Collective Defence operations.
CJTF Definition and Principles
The agreed definition of the CJTF is as follows:
“A CJTF is a multi-national (Combined) and Multi-Service (Joint) task force, task oriented and formed for contingency
operations which require multi-national and multi-service command and control by a CJTF Headquarters”.
Where the definition refers to ‘multi-national’, it does not necessarily mean the NATO Alliance members only.
Furthermore, by ‘joint’, the concept does not necessarily mean all three, or four, Services.
The most important aspect of the CJTF, however, is the reference to its Headquarters. There is something very new in
this. The idea of a tailored, deployable Headquarters controlling operations is novel. The core of the HQ is drawn
from a designated Headquarters staff with the rest of the HQ made up by augmentation.
The basis of the CJTF concept is the principle of optimising the organisations to meet the task at hand. It was well
recognised that future tasks would be different from those in the past. The main principles, therefore, are that: the
CJTF is mission tailored; task-oriented; has a non-standing Headquarters; is deployable; and has a modular
construction. The end product was a CJTF that would be mission-tailored to match the task at hand and to be able
to deploy to areas beyond the territory of the NATO nations.
The required forces would have to have a Headquarters that should consequently also be deployable and capable
of controlling a Combined Joint Task Force composed of a corps-sized land force complemented by a maritime
expanded task force and with an equivalent air force component. The approach to this phenomenon was that it
should be built on modules, not only in respect to forces but also, for the first time, with respect to the responsible
headquarters.
There are several key features of the CJTF concept that are unique. First, the capability must be truly Bi-SC (dual
Supreme Command). This means, first, that from the outset, the implementation planning must acquire an ‘Atlantic
flavour’ to a greater extent than has been the case in the past. Second, the capability must cope with NATO-plus
operations that involve non-NATO nations working alongside those of the Alliance.
Second, it must likewise be able to cope with operations in which the Alliance is prepared to participate under, for
example, European leadership without the participation of US forces yet still with a Supreme Commander (always
an American General or Admiral) as a supporting Commander. This involves a number of challenges, not least
among which are finding common doctrines, procedures, and equipment among the participating forces.
Those involved in the development of the CJTF concept still await guidance on what the European Security and

Defence Identity (ESDI) means in terms of co-ordination, structure, inter-operability, and command and control. The
area of CJTF operations may well be beyond NATO’s AOR (NAOR), largely due to the increasing call for peace
support operations (PSOs). There may also be the requirement to use a CJTF for UN Charter Article 5 contingencies.
The CJTF Structure

There are four important terms contained within the CJTF concept that are concerned with its structure. The first of
these is the ‘Parent Headquarters’. This is a pre-designated, multi-national, multi-service, NATO HQ that contains
a CJTF nucleus. This immediately leads to the second term, the ‘CJTF Nucleus’. This comprises dual-hatted personnel
located at a parent HQ who serve as the core for any CJTF Headquarters. Within the Parent HQ Nucleus there is the
‘Key Nucleus’, the third important term. The ‘Key Nucleus’ is a term that refers to specific personnel located within
the CJTF nucleus who ensure the cohesion of the Parent HQ nucleus, enhance its ability to form rapidly, absorb
augmentation, and undertake assigned missions. Finally, there is the term ‘augmentation’. This refers to additional
staff elements provided by NATO, other multi-national Headquarters, and/or individual staff members from these
sources, who can be attached to the nucleus to form a CJTF HQ.
A building-block approach has been used to construct a CJTF Headquarters. The starting point is the Parent
Headquarters. Currently, NATO has three such organisations: Regional Command (RC) South, based in Naples,
Italy; RC North, based in Brunssum, Holland; and Strikfatlant in Norfolk, Virginia in the US. Each one of these
Parent HQs has a Nucleus.
The Nucleus, per se, is an element in the Parent HQ. Pre-designated, dual-hatted personnel form, as the word
implies, the nucleus of a CJTF HQ. Within each Parent HQ nucleus there is the Key Nucleus of dual-hatted staff.
Once the activation of a CJTF HQ is authorised, the nucleus will detach from the Parent HQ to form the core of the
CJTF HQ. Because the nucleus becomes detached from the Parent HQ, it would not be able to fulfil all the HQ Staff
functions, for which reason it would need support and augmentation. This would be achieved by a process in
which the CJTF force would be steadily built up according to its particular mission and task.
The process is sequential. It starts with the Parent HQ and the requirement to for a CJTF HQ. The initial capability
is provided by the nucleus that is looked after by the key nucleus. The nucleus is then reinforced through augmentation,
both with individuals and with modules. The first thing that is sought is the required capabilities in the command
structure. Then it will look to the nations - initially to NATO members - and then to partners.
CJTF augmentation modules and individuals fit into a generic CJTF HQ staff structure. Some staff work is better
suited to individuals, others to the insertion of modules. The programme to turn the CJTF concept into reality is
currently at Stage Two. The First Stage was the initial establishment of the concept; the second, where the UK has
currently reached, is that of the Assessment of Capability. Phase Two has been “to advise the North Atlantic Council
on the Alliance’s capability to deploy small and large scale, land, and sea-based CJTF HQs and the need to nominate
additional CJTF Nuclei Parent HQs”.
Phase Three is the full implementation of the CJTF concept. This requires a sound framework for a real capability
covering a range of missions and the stages of a mission. The components of that capability are theoretical, material,
and practical. But the challenge is there and most importantly the NATO members have to recognise it. Most
prominent is the new NATO philosophy of ‘participation’ rather than ‘prevention’. A second challenge is the
requirement to achieve consensus from nineteen (19) nations on NATO expansion and wider membership.

AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS *
by
Professor Colin S Gray

Director, Centre for Security Studies, Hull University
Amphibious operations are operations launched from the sea onto the land by naval and landing forces. The threat
or execution of such operations can serve a wide range of purposes, extending from a demonstration of capability
for coercive intent, all the way to the opening of a new campaign by means of the conduct of expeditionary warfare
from the sea.
Amphibious operations need to be approached as just one of the ways in which power can be projected from the sea
against the land. Naval suasion via what long has been know as gunboat diplomacy, bombardment of the shore by
guns, sea-based aviation, and missile, and maritime blockade, comprise other regions of action along the full
spectrum of power projection from the sea to the land.
The persisting attractiveness of amphibious operations in particular, and of power projection from the sea in
general, reposes in the facts that the importance of maritime (including major riverine) communications, civil and
military, has been a constant in human history. Not only does physical geography impose an essential unity, a
continuity of the potential for human passage, upon all the oceans, seas, bays, and rivers of the world, but the
seventy percent of the Earth’s surface that is water, on its littorals, grants ready access to seventy percent of the
Earth’s population.
Amphibious operations require the integrated, certainly the well co-ordinated, conduct of sea and land (and, today,
air) warfare. To launch a military operation from the sea requires an expertise that is more than simply the sum of
military and naval skills. All too often, as British Major General Sir Charles Callwell observed in 1905, “soldiers and
sailors in the past in this and other countries, knowing little of each other ’s duties and objects, often failed to
appreciate them at times of crisis”. There are huge and persisting differences between land warfare and sea warfare,
yet of necessity amphibious operations comprise warfare where the land and the sea meet. Professionally excellent
generals and admirals are professionally almost doomed by their genuine, if geographically limited, expertise, to be
less than thoroughly empathetic to the operational imperatives of ‘the other culture’.
Insular powers are obliged by geography to wage war both overseas and, ultimately, from the sea, since wars
against continental adversaries cannot be won at sea. Victorious wars at sea have to be ‘cashed’ strategically in
effect for success on land. More to the point, perhaps, in the words of Basil Liddell Hart, “amphibious flexibility is
the greatest strategic asset that a sea-based power possesses”. Given the strategic significance of the land-sea
interface, the littoral region where land power meets sea power, it follows that the ability to dominate that region
translates as the operational ability to project power either from the shore to the sea, or from the sea to the shore.
Understandably, perhaps, even in this newly ‘joint’ era, military minds - professionally trained principally for land,
sea, or air duties - are not always readily adaptable to the needs of amphibious, let alone triphibious (with air),
operations. When sea forces bring land forces to combat on the enemy’s littoral for amphibious operations,
distinctively geographically based service cultures and doctrines are apt to make unusually challenging demands
upon each other.
At least seven strategically significant purposes lend themselves to support by amphibious operations. First, the
advertisement of possibility of such operations, supported by physical demonstration of capability (though short of
actual use), may have coercive effect. To know, for certain, that there is an amphibiously competent foe on or just over
the horizon, can concentrate the mind and encourage political cooperation. Second, the credible menace of
amphibious operations can be intended not so much to persuade for cooperation, but rather militarily to deceive
and distract. Modern means of land communication by road and rail certainly have tilted the playing field in favour
of the (land) power with interior lines of communication, but still the lurking menace of amphibious power on or
over the horizon is apt to promote uncertainty as to where the blow will fall.
*Excerpt taken with permission of the author from Richard Holmes (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Military History London, Oxford
University Press, 1999.
Professor Colin S Gray Bailrigg Paper 30

Third, amphibious operations, taking advantage of the vastness of the sea that facilitates operational surprise, has
been a classic way to raid. In the words of British Admiral Sir Philip H. Colomb, “ravage and destruction”, as
contrasted with “conquest and occupation”, can be wrought by sea-borne raiders. Given, frequently, the length of
enemy coastline, it is not difficult to appreciate the attractiveness of the raiding option. Fourth, noted immediately
above, the objective of an amphibious operation may be conquest and occupation.
Fifth, an amphibious operation itself may be designed to open a campaign. D-Day, 6 June 1944, was just such an
operation. When there is a strategic stand-off between insular and continental prowess, each side has to use its
environmentally based superiority to seek decisive advantage in the geography preferred by the foe. In June 1944,
the Western Allies translated their maritime superiority into the capacity to throw ashore in Normandy a capability
for land-air warfare good enough to sustain itself in continental campaigning. Alternatively, when one of two
continental belligerents uniquely enjoys the ability to manoeuvre from the sea, an amphibious thrust for operational
advantage may be attempted. A classic example of an endeavour to outflank an enemy army by means of maritime
manoeuvre, was General George B. McClellan’s amphibious expedition (March-August 1862) with the Union’s
Army of the Potomac to threaten Richmond from the Peninsula between the York and James Rivers.
Sixth, amphibious menace, or actual assault, can expedite the conduct of a continental campaign that is already
underway. The classic example of an amphibious operation intended to achieve such an effect was the Anzio
operation of 22 January 1944. Whether or not an amphibious operation can function as a force multiplier for a great
continental campaign depends, all too obviously, upon the quality of the commander (inter alia), not to mention the
enemy. Seventh, amphibious operations can extract an army from a position of more or less dire continental peril.
The evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk (28 May - 4 June 1940) has to be the exemplar
of amphibious rescue on the grand scale under fire. Nonetheless, maritime powers have had occasion to exercise
their capabilities for amphibious extraction at least as often as they have practised amphibious insertion. General
Douglas MacArthur’s amphibious ‘left-hook’ around the Korean peninsula to Inchon (15 September 1950), thereby
threatening both to recapture Seoul and, especially, to cut off the North Korean Army that was locked in battle deep
in South Korea, is far better known than is the no less amphibious manoeuvre that enabled Allied (UN) naval forces
to extract the X Corps from the ports of Hungnam and Wonsan (5-15 December 1950).
The importance of the sea and of rivers for transportation -communications - in human history, has guaranteed their
strategic importance. Because we use, rather than occupy, the sea, and because the sea - and inland waters -
frequently, indeed generally, have been the only practicable geographical medium for strategic exploitation,
amphibious operations have been a hardy perennial of strategic history. The technical and tactical details will vary
from Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain in 55 and 54 BC, to Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus Phocas’s invasion of
Arab held Crete in 960, to William the Conqueror’s invasion of Britain in 1066, right up to the extraordinarily
amphibious dimension to World War II both in Europe and the Pacific, to Korea, to the present day.
Amphibious operations have fluctuated in political and military popularity, and in apparent technical-tactical,
operational, and therefore strategic feasibility. But, to date, amphibious operations as a form of war generically have
survived every assault by technology and doctrine that, for a while, has seemed to menace their military practicability.
Although amphibious operations have a strategic history as old as warfare itself, it was really only in the twentieth
century that their conduct truly was professionalised by means of systematic study, the preparation of formal
doctrine, dedicated planning and training, the acquisition of specialised equipment, and the designation of some
forces to be specifically amphibious in their tactical and operational focus.
Britain approached a truly ‘strategic moment’ for amphibious operations, Gallipoli 1915, with good, if not excellent,
understanding of the general character and particular needs of such operations. Unfortunately, first-rate British
ideas about how to conduct amphibious operations - expressed in books and in official doctrine - found next-to-no
reflection in the actual preparation of forces and acquisition of specialised equipment, not to mention the historically
all too specific problems of 1915.
The fiasco of Gallipoli demonstrated nothing of particular importance about amphibious operations, other than the
obvious points that they need to be well, rather than poorly, conducted, according to the general principles of war,
and that the often extraordinarily stressful contexts for such operations are apt to be uniquely unforgiving of error.

Some people believed that the operational failure of the Gallipoli campaign demonstrated that amphibious operations,
specifically amphibious assault operations, had been overtaken by modern technology. Railways and the several
uses of the internal combustion engine - neither of which were factors at Gallipoli! - allegedly meant that a continental
power could transfer forces more rapidly than could the amphibious power, to win ‘the battle of the build-up’
between continental defenders and maritime attackers. Similarly, it was believed that modern firepower rendered
the beach, shallow water, and the littoral approach, impractically lethal for amphibious assault.
American and British amphibious doctrine developed between the two World Wars challenged the popularly
negative view expressed immediately above. Looking for a new role in a harsh post-war context, the U.S. Marine
Corps reinvented themselves in the 1920s as the specialised force uniquely prepared to seize insular bases for the
prosecution of a great maritime campaign across the Western Pacific. The central strategic idea found enabling
doctrinal support in The Tentative Manual of Landing Operations of 1934, subsequently elevated to the status of
Landing Operations Doctrine, U.S. Navy 1937. The British, whose understanding of amphibious operations -
resting upon three and a half centuries of distinctly mixed experience - tended to be better than their practice,
produced The Manual of Combined Operations (1938), which was congruent in all essentials with its contemporary
American counterpart.
The rather theoretical argument in the 1930s about the obsolescence or otherwise of amphibious operations, simply
was shown history’s exit by the events of 1940-41. Germany’s defeat of France and operational expulsion of the
British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from continental Europe in June 1940, meant that any restoration of a Western
Front could be effected only by a grand scale of amphibious manoeuvre. Whether one liked it or not, aside from the
(post-22 June 1941) land combat in the East, and the none too promising bomber offensive, the war against Hitler’s
Festung Europa had to be amphibious in basic character. There was even less scope for argument over the character
of the war in the Asia-Pacific region. For reasons of geography, the war against Japan had to take the form of a
maritime siege of an over-extended maritime empire. Landing by landing, even extraction by extraction British and
American amphibious power learnt by painful practice how to apply the doctrine that in its basics was sound
enough.
There can be no doubt that D-Day, 6 June 1944, and the assault upon Iwo Jima (19 February-24 March 1945) and
Okinawa (1 April-22 June 1945) comprise the finest, most complete, historical examples of successful amphibious
operations. Justly celebrated though those extraordinary cases certainly are, and deserve to be, the more important
fact remains that amphibious operations - for all of the purposes suggested earlier - great, but more usually small,
are prospectively a permanent feature of strategic history.
The leading difficulty with amphibious operations lies not in grasping the rather obvious ‘principles’ that should
guide and shape them, but rather in learning how, let alone being able, to apply them in historically unique strategic
situations. Nonetheless, principles are important: eight such especially command attention.
First, it is essential that each geographically specialised fighting force should comprehend, in general terms at least,
the limitations, advantages, and conditions that govern the operational characteristics, of the others. For example,
soldiers do not need to master tide-tables, but they do need to know that tides exist, and matter. Second, there is no
magic formula for successful command of an amphibious operation; it may be unified, or it may be co-ordinated but
sequential. What matters is that the key principles of essential unity of command should be followed.
Third, although the furtive amphibious insertion of a small raiding party -for example by a solitary submarine - is
likely ever to be feasible, if not reliably so, amphibious operations on a scale suitable to effect either a major raid or
the seizing and holding of substantial real estate, requires as a prerequisite the securing of (possibly temporary)
command of the sea and of the air. Fourth, a decisive combination of common sense and bitter historical experience
(e.g., Tarawa) obliges the would-be amphibious warrior to pay the most careful attention to minute details of local
hydrography, as well as to the much less reliable detail likely to be available on the weather.
The fifth principle of amphibious warfare is that, except for the benign conditions that permit ‘administrative’
landings, specialist doctrine, training, and equipment is required for the successful conduct of such warfare. A
particularly notable feature of the Anglo-American conduct of amphibious assault in World War II was the invention
of well-armed amphibious tractors for the transport of troops from the off-shore line of departure’ to points inland,

the development of amphibious tanks, and indeed the proliferation of dedicated amphibious shipping on all scales.
Sixth, amphibious operations frequently require operational and tactical surprise if they are to succeed. Any
amphibious insertion of forces across an enemy’s littoral is most likely to translate as an initial military inferiority
for the amphibious power. It follows, necessarily, that the success of amphibious operations, on any scale, almost
requires that the foe should be deceived as to the points of attack, though it is not the case that amphibious operations
absolutely require the advantages of strategic, operational, and tactical, surprise.
Seventh, where feasible, amphibious forces should land where the enemy is not present, prepared, and in strength.
For example, the British in May 1982, landed at San Carlos on the West coast of East Falkland, rather than close to
the strong Argentine garrison around Port Stanley. Eighth, and finally, amphibious operations, even when conducted
on a large scale, typically can have only an enabling effect upon the course of a war. The tactical, technical, and
operational difficulties that attend efforts to land on a hostile shore not infrequently are so great in anticipation that
too little thought is given to post-beachhead campaigning.

CHAIRMAN’S COMMENTS
by
Major General Rob Fulton,

Commandant General, Royal Marines
I notice that in 1857 the Royal Navy, in a combined and joint operation with the Indian Navy, captured Khorramshahr
in what was then Persia. Later, in a private despatch, Brigadier General Henry Havelock said that “with the
exception of a few Bombay artillery, the gentlemen in blue had it all to themselves and left us naught to do”.
A small but notable historical example of how naval forces influence events ashore - which, as we have heard many
times during this conference, is the very essence of the Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations (MCJO) and, if you
follow Corbett, the central thrust of maritime strategy in general. The capture of Khorramshahr is also perhaps a rare
example of the Royal Navy being able to manage this with little or no support from landing forces.
It is clear that one of the most critical means we have of continuing to influence events ashore will be our amphibious
forces. It seems unlikely that they will have “naught to do”, given the present UK Government’s desire that our
armed forces should be “a force for good in the world”. If we examine the defence missions set down in the SDR, it
is clear that our amphibious forces will be well suited to many of them, from warfighting to humanitarian tasks.
The reaffirmation of the amphibious capability at Formation Level as a cornerstone of our defence capability after
the close scrutiny of the Strategic Defence Review has meant that the Amphibious Force has emerged as a highly
relevant component of the UK’s ability to promote and protect British interests across the increasingly diverse risks
of modern conflict. Flexible, deployable and sustainable, the force is structured and well suited to the needs of the
new strategic environment.
Obviously, I greatly welcome the priority accorded to our amphibious capability in the SDR, but I am particularly
encouraged by the simultaneous emergence of the MCJO concept, enshrining as it does the Amphibious Force as a
central element that will develop into the next Century.
History certainly bears witness to the complexity of amphibious operations, but it also shows that the recipe for
success includes specialist ships, equipment and men in addition to common and well understood doctrine honed
by constant practice. The UK will maintain a specialist brigade-sized landing force with integral combat and
logistic support. The country will also continue to invest in improved specialist amphibious ships and equipment
to complement HMS OCEAN.
Doctrine must develop in parallel, ensuring that it is truly ‘joint’, in order to establish the necessary mastery of the
interface of all three elements - the land, sea and air. That doctrine must also be common to, and well understood by,
our allies and potential allies with whom we will increasingly conduct operations. Britain is acknowledged as the
European leader in amphibious operations and has an established pedigree in the conduct of combined operations
through its unique 25-year association with the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, as well as its position as the
natural partner for the United States Marine Corps.
The support of friends and allies has become increasingly necessary, even for superpowers. This is important in the
political sphere just as much as in the military one. Other players not only bring with them capabilities in which
they may have developed unique expertise, but their presence also helps to confer legitimacy. By acting in concert
with our NATO allies or other partners, an operation can be seen to have the blessing of part, if not all, of the
international community. Indeed, the threat of action by a credible coalition is more likely to be viewed as an
effective deterrent.
Credibility depends on demonstrable capability; one of the hardest things to get right in any coalition is an effective
Command and Control mechanism. This has led NATO to devote substantial effort to the development of the
concept of the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) and its Headquarters in particular. The timing of Lt Col Sheppard’s
Major General Rob Fulton Bailrigg Paper 30

presentation is, in my view, particularly apposite. Notwithstanding our consideration of the discretionary nature of
future operations, it is right that we should focus on the view of the NATO Alliance, the formal structure of which
the UK is so much a part and to which it remains so fully committed.
Major General Rob Fulton Bailrigg Paper 30

PART 4: THE ONGOING AGENDA FOR DEVELOPING THE

MARITIME CONTRIBUTION
(Chairman Sir Moray Stewart KCB)
JOINT AND COMBINED OPERATIONS
by
Richard Connaughton, M.Phil

Research Fellow, CDISS, Lancaster University
Anyone looking for a scenario with which to demonstrate the worst cases of Joint and Combined operations would
be best advised to examine the South West Pacific 1941-1942.
Circumstances had brought together in the Philippines General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Thomas C. Hart.
The Navy really hated MacArthur and with some justification. MacArthur derided Hart, who was his senior, with
the jibe “big Admiral, small fleet” and when the contentious issue arose for the co-ordination of Army and Navy air
assets, MacArthur would not co-operate, saying: “the Army has its fields, the Navy has its fields”. In fairness, it has
to be said that Hart was no novice in the art of turf protection.
After Pearl Harbor, Hart had no option but to disperse his surface Fleet. He arrived in the Netherlands East Indies
aboard a submarine, his 4-star flag flying from its conning tower. Hart had been appointed Commander of Abdafloat,
to the extreme annoyance of the Netherlands Navy into whose home and waters the Americans had arrived. After
much political lobbying in Washington, the sprightly Hart was eventually removed due to ‘ill health’, but it was too
late to save the uncoordinated Allied Combined Fleet, destroyed at the Battle of Java Sea.
Of that particular combined ABDA Operation, Churchill wrote:
“It was staffed in strict proportion to the claims of the different powers, and all in triplicate for the Army, Navy and
Air. There were elaborate arguments about whether as a compromise, a Dutch Admiral might command the naval
forces; how all was to be arranged with the Americans and the British; where the Australians came in and so forth.
Hardly had all this been agreed for the five powers and the three Services when the whole vast area concerned was
conquered by the Japanese, and the combined fleet was sunk in the forlorn Battle of the Java Sea”.1
It would be comforting to believe that today there could not be a repetition at that level of the disaster of the
Combined ABDA Operation. It is true to say that it is less likely because, in modern coalition operations, there is an
unofficial understanding that the major shareholder will vote the majority of the stock. In addition, the application
of NATO operating procedures does help substantially in the co-ordination of the operations of the leading powers.
It is, however, joint operations which seem to present nation states with their most abiding problems. Each has its
own peculiar collection of factors which influence its joint operations, but it does appear that competition among
the Services is a common deadening factor, just as it caused the rift between MacArthur and Hart.
A great deal of lip service is being paid to the concept of’ joint’ approaches to military operations but in the final
analysis - and this invariably means budgets – ‘jointery’ is not nearly as close-knit as it is often presented. It is
apparent that there is a requirement in a number of states for clear and unequivocal political guidance.
1. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War. The Hinge of Fate. Boston, Little Brown, 1950 pp 132-133.
Richard Connaughton Bailrigg Paper 30

THE MARITIME CONTRIBUTION AND THE PUTTING INTO EFFECT OF

THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE SDR : A POLITICAL VIEW
by
Humphry Crum Ewing

Research Fellow, CDISS Lancaster University
Two simple points about Britain’s Strategic Defence Review - the SDR - need to be made, understood and remembered.
It was, and is, a multi layered process and it is a continuing process. It is not just a couple of neatly arranged papers
in purple covers published in July 1998. Much publicly unreported discussion and decision-making of continuing
relevance and importance took place during the preparations for the publication of those papers, so they were in
that sense a climax not a stand alone event. But it is equally important to recognise that the papers are a landmark
in an ongoing process, marking the start of a continuing journey, not the end of the journey for the time being at least.
My observation of the attitude of all too many politicians and of not a few officials to the SDR moves me to emphasise
this last point. It can be summed up with the sort of phrases, which I am sure that we have all heard from one quarter
or another: “The SDR - thank God that’s all over and done with. Let’s return to normal and get on with our work”
– or, “Let’s get on with something else”.
It seems to me that a particular value of this Conference and of our discussions here is as a strong antidote to such
a mistaken view.
The SDR process, as expressed in the published documents, reached three important determinations about future
British military operations:
1. They will all be joint - as between the four Services. I emphasise four to mark the particular place which the
Royal Marines will have in those operations.
2. Apart from the support to the civil power and the continuing pre-emptive requirement of homeland
defence they will all be expeditionary in nature.
3. They will normally be undertaken in combination with allies, but that there can be no absolute certainty
as to who those allies will be on any particular occasion, or the relative contributions to each particular
operation of those allies concerned with it.
In the ’horse trading’ - a fair term I think - that led up to the settlement of the precise wording of the SDR, the Royal
Navy presciently seized itself of these prospective conclusions. The result was that under the strong and subtle
personal leadership of the then First Sea Lord, Sir Jock Slater, it ‘hit the ground running’ by bringing together,
immediately the Review was published, all the changes that would affect it in a single, positive, concept, namely the
Maritime Contributions to Joint Operations which has given a unifying to our far ranging discussions here,
discussions which could otherwise have been rambling and disjointed and thus much less effective than they could
have been.
As the politicians - Chancellors of the Exchequer, future Cabinets, opinion makers in their focus groups, even
individual responsibly minded Members of Parliament - turn back occasionally from their domestic pre-occupations
to national and global Defence and Security issues the Royal Navy will therefore be ready for them. By encapsulating
its role in the form of a well formulated and systematically explained MCJO the Royal Navy (and its Royal Marines)
are engaging effectively in the highly political process of creating a ‘modern’, obviously essential and continuing
new, identity for itself.
But like the SDR itself, as I began by saying, that has to be a multi-layered and continuing process, not a single one-
off exercise.
Humphry Crum Ewing Bailrigg Paper 30

SHAPING THE DEBATE AMONGST THOSE INTERESTED IN NAVAL AFFAIRS
by
Rear Admiral Richard Hill RN (Retd)

One of the major virtues of Conferences such as this one is the way discussion focuses the mind of a participant in
a way that had not been anticipated. In my case, the trigger was not anything that was said in a one paper but a
response to a question (not mine). Captain Gerard Valin, FN, after his most valuable and interesting paper, was
asked about the machinery for direction of joint operations in France, and replied that the first priority was to get
people ‘thinking joint’.
This led me to consider the relativities of structure and ethos in the conduct of joint operations, in the light of my
recent work on the life and times of Lord Lewin. After the publication of the Nott Review in 1981, he had spent much
time as Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) in reorganising the higher direction of defence so that the CDS became, in
normal circumstances, the sole adviser to the government, reflecting the views of the Chiefs of Staff so far as was
possible.
This new structure proved itself during the subsequent Falklands conflict, when swift policy formulation and
operational decisions were made by a small, tightly-knit body, the Operations and Defence, South Atlantic (ODSA).
ODSA functioned at three levels - Ministerial, including the Prime Minister and CDS; higher official, including
Permanent Under-Secretaries and again the CDS; and Officials, involving uniformed and civilian staffs at about
two-star level. They occupied much of the time considering Rules of Engagement (ROE) and their implications in
not only military, but political and presentational, fields.
The points that I wanted to bring out about this structure were: first, that it handled the joint operation as a politico-
military event, which almost by definition ‘joint’ operations are overwhelmingly likely to be; and, second, that this
was an occasion when organisation and structure actually led the ‘joint’ ethos. At the time, this was not highly
developed amongst the British Services, although some sections were more aware of it than others and many others
paid lip service to it.
The inferences seemed to me to be plain for the higher direction of joint and combined operations involving navies,
that will often be more, not less, complex than that in the Falklands, extensive though that was. The establishment
and maintenance of a clear and attainable politico-military aim is difficult enough for one country; it will be much
more so for an alliance. Both national and allied machinery must therefore be streamlined to the maximum extent
compatible with national interests. At national level, the structures must be in place to ensure rapid co-ordination
of effort and compatibility with allied organisations, if needed. Such machinery, however, need not necessarily
follow doctrinal development; the process is more likely to be iterative.
All this may seem a bit prescriptive. But it is only at Conferences such as this one, and subsequent consideration in
professional circles - service and academic, linked together, on paper and in discussion both formal and informal -
that we can work out how to make the ‘joint’ approach and machinery work to its best effect.
Rear Admiral Richard Hill Bailrigg Paper 30

PART 5: CONFERENCE POST SCRIPT
MARITIME CONTRIBUTION TO JOINT AND COMBINED

OPERATIONS:
FINAL COMMENTS
by
Sir Moray Stewart KCB, D.Litt

It was quickly clear from this Conference that ‘Combined Operations’ were fine, in that they involved fighting in the
same team as servicemen from other countries. But ‘Joint Operations’, which meant fighting in combination with
people from other Services, albeit, or perhaps especially, from your own country, were a rather less attractive
proposition. Why is this? Why, when the armed forces of most Western countries are getting smaller, and operations
usually more and more multi-element in nature, is there such a resistance to moving together?
The answer is less obvious now than it might have been forty years ago when memories of the War or National
Service were widespread. Then, most civilians, including politicians, knew what military training was for and how
it worked. As one officer put it to me some years ago, the question for any infantry commander was how to ensure
that his men did not run away, when facing shot and shell. How well that question was answered depended in
large part how motivated his soldiers were in terms of the unit they fought in and the bond of strength between them
as comrades. The question can be asked and answered in different ways for other arms and Services. One Air
Marshal told me that the only thing he could do to stop his expensively trained fast jet pilots going off to well paid
jobs with the airlines, was to surround them with comradeship and ceremony based on the excellence of their
professional training.
The loyalty that is drummed in to the serviceman and servicewoman is not, therefore, to Queen and Country. It is to
the Unit and the Service. Everyone involved with the armed forces knows this, or at least they ought to. But I can
remember a Civil Service initiative, in the days when rationalisation was the watchword, that lighted on a small
force, I think less than 1000 strong, which provided engineer services for the RAF, primarily in terms of temporary
airfields in distant places. It was called the Airfield Construction Branch (ACB). “But surely”, it was said, “the work
was exactly the same as that done by the Royal Engineers, a much bigger organisation which could easily absorb the
RAF task. So, why not roll the ACB up, give them redundancy terms, but enhanced promotion prospects for those
that transferred to the Royal Engineers?”. If I remember aright, less than two per cent made the career switch. Those
who refused simply said that if they had wanted to join the brown jobs, they would have done so in the first place;
they did not feel any keener now. The rationalisation experts had forgotten, if they ever knew, about the simple
truths set out above.
So, where does that leave ‘joint’ operations? My answer is nowhere very much without working very hard at a
scheme that does not try to overturn the moral training of the early years but which seeks to build on it. It will take
the full commitment of senior officers. The silliness of different training schools for Army and RAF dogs was
perpetuated by the weakness of senior officers who were frightened of the tribe. The creation of a tri-service Staff
College is a very good start. Making sure that every officer who advances, has joint or exchange experience would
also be useful. The creation of Joint Staffs will have to mean a degree of ‘joint’ reporting in terms of career advancement;
I regard this as a very important area.
The main point which came out of the Conference, which suffered from an awful lot of naval logrolling, was that in
the UK, at least, the institutional framework was being put in place. And it was correctly observed that this was a
necessary condition; thinking ‘joint’ was not enough. On the combined side we got, almost, into interesting territory
over where the direction of combined strategic thinking should be going. We had had NATO, but what about
Europe? Over some dead bodies, half way across the Atlantic, it seemed. This may be a topic for another day; and
perhaps more interesting than hearing one lot of heroes singing the demerits of the rest.
Sir Moray Stewart Bailrigg Paper 30

GLOSSARY
AASM Air to Air Stand-off Missile
AAW Anti Air Warfare
ABDA American British Dutch Australian
ACB Airfield Construction Branch
AEW Air Early Warning
AOR Area of Responsibility
ARFPS Ace Reaction Forces Planning Staff
ASW Anti Shipping Warfare
ASUW Anti Submarine Warfare
AW Amphibious Warfare
C4ISR Command Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance
CAS Close Air Support
CBW Chemical and Biological Weapons
CCS Combined Chiefs of Staff
CEC Co-operative Engagement Concept
CDS Chief of Defence Staff
CJO Combined Joint Operations
CJPS Combined Joint Planning Staff
CJTF Combined Joint Task Force
CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
CNO Chief of Naval Operations
CSANDF Chief of the South African National Defence Force
CTOL Conventional Take-off and Land
CVF Carrier Vessel (Future)
DICO Support Command (Netherlands)
DOD Department of Defense
EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone
ESDI European Security and Defence Identity
FAA Fleet Air Arm
Glossary Bailrigg Paper 30

FCBA Future Carrier Borne Aircraft
JDC Joint Defence Centre
JDCC Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre
JDLO Joint Defence Logistics Organisation
JHC Joint Helicopter Command
JPC Joint Planning Committee
JRRF Joint Rapid reaction Force
JSF Joint Strike Fighter
JSCSC Joint Services Command and Staff College
LPD Landing Platform Dock
MCJO Maritime Contribution to Joint Operations
MCM Mine Counter-Measure
MOD Ministry of Defence
NAC North Atlantic Council
NAOR NATO Area of Responsibility
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NSFS Naval Surface Force Support
OAU Organisation of African Unity
ODSA Operations and Defence South Africa
OMFrS Operational Manoeuvre from the Sea
OOA Out of Area
PGM Precision Guided Munitions
PJHQ Permanent Joint Headquarters
PSO Peace Support Operations
RAF Royal Air Force
RFA Royal Fleet Auxiliary
RJTF Regional Joint Task Force
RMA Revolution in Military Affairs
RMAS Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service
RN Royal Navy

RO-RO Roll-on Roll-off
ROE Rules of Engagement
SAAF South African Air Force
SACEUR Supreme Allied Commander Europe
SACLANT Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic
SAN South African Navy
SANDF South African National Defence Force
SDR Strategic Defence Review
SLOC Sea Lanes of Communication
SMC Standing Maritime Committee
SSN Nuclear Powered Submarine
STUFT Ships Taken up from Trade
UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
UN United Nations
USN United States Navy
USMC United States Marine Corps
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
WEU Western European Union
WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
ZOC Zone of Conflict

CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS
Prof Martin Alexander Salford University

Admiral Sir Benjamin Bathurst Bridgewater
Tim Benbow St Anthony’s College Oxford
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce First Sea Lord
Cdr Michael Buckley HMS Trenchant
Colin Butler Huddersfield University
Captain Derek Christian South African Navy HQ, Pretoria
David Cochrane British Aerospace
Dr Richard Connaughton CDISS, Lancaster University. Defence Analyst
Rear Admiral Colin Cooke-Priest Chairman, Fleet Air Arm Officers’ Association
Captain Ian Corder Ministry of Defence
Humphry Crum Ewing CDISS, Lancaster University
Greg Cumming Raytheon Systems Ltd
Captain Graham Cundy Royal Marines
Charles Curnock GEC Marconi Naval Systems
Malcolm Davis CSS, Hull University
Lt Col Paul Denning C-in-C Fleet Northwood
Andrew Douglas-Bate Officers’ Association
Cdr Rob Drewett RAF Waddington
Sir Patrick Duffy Doncaster
Professor Martin Edmonds CDISS, Lancaster University
Flt Lt Keith Edmunds RAF Kinloss
James Elder Researcher, Conservative Party HQ
Pauline Elliott CDISS, Lancaster University
Margaret Evans Lancaster University
Cdr Ed Featherstone Fleet Air Arm Officers Association
Sub Lt Matt Feeney MISS, Ministry of Defence
Paul Fisher British Aerospace
Lt George Franklin Manchester University Royal Naval Unit
Stewart Fraser CDISS, Lancaster University
Brigadier Robert Fry Naval Staff Duties, MoD
Major General Rob Fulton Royal Marines HQ
Dr David Gates CDISS, Lancaster University
Anita Goodenough HMS Charger, Liverpool URNU
Cdr John Gower Naval Operations, MoD
Wr Cdr Peter Gray Ministry of Defence
Professor Colin Gray Director, CSS, Hull University
Participants Bailrigg Paper 30

Wg Cdr Phil Greville JSCSC, Bracknell

Dr Eric Grove Deputy Director, CSS, Hull University
Philip Grove BRNC Dartmouth
Graham Hackett PDU, Lancaster University
Dr George Hayhurst CDISS, Lancaster University
Major Rob Heatley Royal Marines HQ
Rear Admiral Richard Hill Editor, Naval Review
Captain Peter Hore Head of Defence Studies, Royal Navy
Ivor Howcroft Salisbury
Lt Peter Howe HMS Charger, Liverpool URNU
Chris Hunter British Aerospace Military Aircraft Division
Peter Kenyon Director Business Development GEC Marconi Marine
Robin Kerr Director Naval Systems Lockheed Martin
Simon King CDISS Lancaster University
Cdr Olivier Lajous Etat Major de la Marine, Paris
Richard Lawrence Aberdeen University
Col Donald Long Lancaster
Col Peter Marwa Kenyan Armed Forces
Captain Jim Mayberry Royal Marines HQ
Paula McCombe Business Development, BAe Military Aircraft
Antony McGarry Business development, GEC Marconi Naval Systems
Vice Admiral Raja Menon (Retd) Indian Navy
Midshipman Harriet Morris HMS Charger
Andrew Nicholson, Directorate of Force Development, MoD
Major Mark Noble Directorate Naval Operations, MoD
Captain Patrick Oates Australian High Commission
Major Othman Shah Malaysian Army
David Parry Arundel
Alex Pomphrey Business Development, BAe Defence Systems
Richard Poole Business Development, BAe Military Aircraft
Wing Cdr Bob Radley Directorate of Force Development, MoD
Professor Bill Ritchie Vice Chancellor Lancaster University
Christopher Samuel Customer Liaison Manage, BAe, New Maldon
Capt Mark Searight Royal Marines HQ
Lt Abdullah Shamal Maldivian Armed Forces
Lt Col Alistair Sheppard Combined Joint Planning Staff, SHAPE
Rear Admiral Robin Shiffner Account Director, GEC Marconi Electronic Systems
Wade Shol Lancaster University
Cdr Paul Stanley MISS, Ministry of defence

Sir Moray Stewart CDISS, Lancaster University

Lt Cdr Jeremy Stocker CSS Hull University
Claus Telp King’s College London
Malcolm Touchin BAe Defence Systems, New Maldon
David Tweedie CDISS Lancaster University
Captain Gerard Valin Etat-Major de la Marine, Paris
Captain Bart Van der Hulst Ministrie van Defense, Den Haag
Captain Sean Webber Royal Marines HQ
Dr Stan Weeks SAIC, McLean, Virginia, USA
Li Wei Lancaster University
Dr Lee Willett MISS, Ministry of Defence
Cdr Simon Williams Directorate of Naval Plans, Ministry of Defence

CDISS RESEARCH PROGRAMME ON
THE SECURITY OF THE SEA LANES
CDISS has had the privilege of working closely with the Royal
Navy and in particular the Maritime Institute for Strategic Studies
on a range of issues concerning UK defence policy and the contri-
bution of the Royal Navy. This has been reflected in a number of
Bailrigg Memoranda where the Navy has been the focus of the
research. A number of studies stand out. In particular, Stewart
Fraser’s Littoral Warfare and Joint and Maritime Operations
deserves mention since it has been adopted as essential reading for
the Joint Services Staff and Command College senior staff course.
Additionally, there are Martin Edmonds’s several studies on the
role of the carrier in maritime operations, such as his ‘Defence
Diplomacy’ and ‘Preventive Diplomacy’: the Role of Maritime
Forces and Maritime Manoeuvre: Expeditionary Warfare,
Jointery and the Role of the Carrier. Also on this theme is
Humphry Crum Ewing and Eric Grove’s Aircraft Carriers: Their
Current and Prospective Role in Power Projection.
There have also been three maritime-based conferences of which this
Paper covers the proceedings of the most recent. The first, held at
the time of the Strategic Defence Review, was concerned with the
Future of British Naval Aviation the papers for which were published
in two Bailrigg Memorandums: British Naval Aviation in the 21st
Century, and The Future of Naval Aviation: Views from the USA,
1997, both edited by Martin Edmonds. The second, supported by
GKN, was concerned with Sea Based Air Systems and co-edited by
David Gates and Stewart Fraser.
Linked to the Sea Lane security research programme is also the re-
search done by Jerry Stocker on Sea Based Ballistic Missile Defence.
This was published in November 1999 as Bailrigg Study #2 under
the Centre’s Missile Threats and Responses research programme.
More recently, the Centre’s research programme on the security of

the sea lanes has taken a new direction: concern for the submarine
and developments in anti-submarine warfare. With the help of the
Fleet Air Arm Officers’ Association and Lockheed Martin, ASW in
Coastal Waters: A New Challenge? was published earlier in July
1999. The Centre is therefore pleased to have been asked to organise,
and publish the proceedings of, a major conference from 27-29 Sep-
tember 2000, to mark the centenary of the introduction of the sub-
marine into the Royal Navy.
Martin Edmonds & Humphry Crum Ewing Lancaster, December 1999

CDISS
Bailrigg Paper 30
One of the strongest messages to have come out of the

Government’s 1998 Strategic Defence Review was the emphasis
on ‘jointery’. Over the past two years, this commitment has been
manifest in a number of structural changes. These have included,
inter alia, the Joint Services’ Command and Staff College, the
Defence Logistics Organisation, the Permanent Joint Headquarters,
the Joint Helicopter Flying School, the Joint Doctrine and Concepts
Centre, and, more pertinently to this Paper, the RAF and Royal
Navy Harrier Joint Force 2000.
The Bailrigg Paper, therefore, is mainstream with current UK

Ministry of Defence thinking. Rather than focus on structural
change it focuses on more operational issues and in particular the
contribution that maritime forces can and do make to joint
operations. This publication, itself the product of the proceedings
of a conference on the subject held at Lancaster University in the
Spring of 1999 under the combined sponsorship of the Royal
Navy’s Maritime Strategic Studies Institute and GEC Marconi
Naval Systems, looms beyond UK interests in joint operations.
Included are views and experience of jointery contributed by
speakers from France, the Netherlands, India, South Africa and
the United States, in addition to the United Kingdom.
Maritime Forces in Peace and War: Joint and Combined

Operations, however, reaches beyond the issue of ‘jointery’ within
the UK and other states. It addresses two other issues: amphibious
operations and the broader issue of joint and combined operations.
Here, valuable insights are provided, first, from the Royal Marines
on amphibious operations and, second, from the Combined and
Joint Planning Staff at SHAPE Headquarters, on the creation of
CD iSS Combined Joint Task Force.
LANCASTER The Conference proceedings, following a Key-note address from

UNIVERSITY the First Sea Lord, were divided into five parts – MCJO Theory
and Practice; National Perspectives; Combined Joint Amphibious
Inter national Secur ity Operations; the On-going Agenda for Developing the Maritime
Studies Contribution; and a Conference Post script. Each part includes
Cartmel College insightful overviews by a different distinguished Chairman. The
Lancaster University message of the conference is clear: joint operations are the way
Lancaster LA1 4YL
United Kingdom forward; joint and combined operations still have some way to
go; and in today’s international security environment, maritime
ISSN: 0969-6032 contributions are central to UK and alliance defence policies.

Maritime Forces in Peace &amp; War (UK)

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Bailrigg Paper 30

Martin Edmonds PhD – DIRECTOR

Tel: (01524) 594254

Assistant to the Editor

Contributing editors: Professor Martin Edmonds

Bailrigg Papers, Memoranda and Debating Points are

6 ABOUT THE AUTHORS

15 PART 1 “MCJO: THEORY & PRACTICE”

“Past & Present Theories and Doctrines”

22 “MCJO in Peace & War: a New Taxonomy”

36 PART 2 “MCJO: NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES”

“A Naval Perspective on the Development of Joint and

43 “The Indian Navy’s View on Joint and Combined Operations”

47 “The Netherlands Approach to Joint and Combined Operations”

51 “A French view of the contribution of Main Naval Forces

56 “Maritime Forces in Joint and Combined Operations: a US Perspective”

65 PART 3: “COMBINED JOINT AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS”

“UK Amphibious Operations”

70 “Alliance Concepts of Combined and Joint Operations”

79 PART 4: THE ONGOING AGENDA FOR DEVELOPING

“Joint and Combined Operations”

80 “The Maritime Contribution and the Putting into Effect

81 “Shaping the Debate amongst those Interested in Naval Affairs”

82 PART 5: CONFERENCE POST-SCRIPT

Captain Peter Hore,

Professor Martin Edmonds Bailrigg Paper 30

About the contributors

Professor Martin Edmonds Bailrigg Paper 30

Professor Martin Edmonds Bailrigg Paper 30

Professor Martin Edmonds Bailrigg Paper 30

THE CONFERENCE ON “JOINT AND COMBINED OPERATIONS:

Humphry Crum Ewing, Martin Edmonds and Captain Peter Hore, RN

Crum Ewing, Edmonds & Hore Bailrigg Paper 30

Crum Ewing, Edmonds & Hore Bailrigg Paper 30

THE MARITIME CONTRIBUTION TO JOINT OPERATIONS (MCJO)

Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, KCB

Admiral Sir Michael Boyce Bailrigg Paper 30

Admiral Sir Michael Boyce Bailrigg Paper 30

Admiral Sir Michael Boyce Bailrigg Paper 30

Admiral Sir Michael Boyce Bailrigg Paper 30

PART 1: MCJO: THEORY AND PRACTICE

“THE BRITISH (PREFERRED) WAY IN WARFARE”

The “British Way in Warfare”

Stewart Fraser Bailrigg Paper 30

18 th and 19th Century War

Corbett, Callwell and Aston

Stewart Fraser Bailrigg Paper 30

The early 20 th Century: Mahan and Liddell Hart

Stewart Fraser Bailrigg Paper 30

Stewart Fraser Bailrigg Paper 30

World War Experiences

Stewart Fraser Bailrigg Paper 30

The Cold War

Stewart Fraser Bailrigg Paper 30

7 Geoffrey Till, “Amphibious Operations and the British”, op cit. p.15.

9 Sir Julian Corbett. ibid . pp. 62-63.

10 Charles E Callwell, Military Operations and Maritime Preponderance, pp.1-4.

Stewart Fraser Bailrigg Paper 30

MJCO IN PEACE & WAR: A NEW TAXONOMY?

Professor Martin Edmonds PhD

Professor Martin Edmonds Bailrigg Paper 30

Professor Martin Edmonds Bailrigg Paper 30

Professor Martin Edmonds Bailrigg Paper 30

‘Peace’ and ‘War’

Maritime Forces in Peace & War (UK)

Maritime Forces in Peace & War (UK)