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Replacing the Maritime Strategy: The Change in Naval Strategy from 1989-1994

Wills, Steven T.
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8044-4450
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1490792702940456

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, History (Arts and Sciences).
The change in U.S. naval strategy from 1989 to 1994 was the most significant of its kind since the end of the Second World War. The end of the Cold War, the provisions of the Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986 and the effects of the First Gulf War of 1991 combined to radically alter U.S. and naval strategic thinking. The end of the Cold War brought about a review of U.S. naval strategy, but the personalities involved created a new process that greatly hampered the re-creation of strategy designed to combat peer competitors. The provisions of the Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986 indirectly affected the Navy staff where strategy documents had heretofore been produced. Talented officers that had sought service on the Navy Staff gravitated instead toward the Joint Staff and regional Commander Staffs as these positions offered better chances for promotion and advancement. Finally the First Gulf War caused a crisis of confidence among the Navy’s senior leaders in that they did not get to validate traditional naval warfare concepts against Saddam Hussein’s limited Iraqi naval forces. This feeling seems to have further convinced leaders to leave behind traditional concepts and the service staff structures that created them in favor of Army and Air Force methods of organization for combat. Those services appeared to have confirmed their warfare doctrines in the 1991 conflict. Congress agreed and the Navy was concerned that vital funding in the post-Cold War-era required the seagoing service to also adjust to a warfare organization more favorable to legislative support. These factors combined to produce a different kind of new naval strategy in the form of the “From the Sea” white paper. It eschewed blue water naval operations for those in the coastal regions of the world know as the littorals. U.S. Marine Corps forces, which had almost always had a secondary role in naval strategic planning in the past, were in many cases given the leading role in From the Sea with the regular Navy providing logistics support. Once adopted, however, From the Sea was increasingly less relevant as an active document as its predecessor (the 1980’s Maritime Strategy.) In the absence of an integrating opponent like the Soviet Union, the fight with the other military services for scarce budgetary resources dominated the concerns of naval leadership. The Budgets and Assessment arm of the Navy Staff had achieved a significant superiority in authority and influence over its peer staff counterparts as a result of post-Cold War reorganization in response to this concern. Preservation of shrinking naval force structure rather than future strategic planning dominated naval thinking for the next quarter century. The strategy arm of the Naval Staff, weakened in influence due to reorganization, and less well staffed by talented officers due to the Goldwater Nichols Act provisions, was unable to conduct effective strategic planning that had an influence on naval budgets and force structure planning. As a result, the naval service was increasingly less capable of producing new strategic concepts in the post-Cold War era.
Ingo Trauschweizer, Dr (Advisor)
Peter John Brobst, Dr (Committee Member)
Paul Milazzo, Dr (Committee Member)
388 p.
Military History
United States Naval Strategy; United States Naval History; United States Navy; Military Strategy; The Maritime Strategy; The Cold War; Strategic Geography; War Plans; Naval Warfare; Naval History

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wills, S. T. (2017). Replacing the Maritime Strategy: The Change in Naval Strategy from 1989-1994 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1490792702940456

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wills, Steven. Replacing the Maritime Strategy: The Change in Naval Strategy from 1989-1994. 2017. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1490792702940456.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wills, Steven. "Replacing the Maritime Strategy: The Change in Naval Strategy from 1989-1994." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1490792702940456

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.