N S 1133 Exam 2

Catalysts for war (WWII)

Japan invades French Indochina

• Need for natural resources

US/Allied economic sanctions

• Aviation fuel

• Iron

• Steel

• Oil

Continued Japanese expansionist policies

Japanese strategy

• Eliminate United States Pacific as a combat effective unit

• Fortify outer Pacific islands to prevent any United States attempt to regain lost territory

• Need to drive U.S. to the negotiating table, avoiding a war

• Admiral Yamamoto orchestrated the attack on Pearl Harbor (despite not supporting the plan) once the emperor decided to go to war.

Attack on Pearl Harbor strategy

• Conceived by Admiral Yamamoto

• Commanded by Vice Admiral Nagumo

• 6 aircraft carriers, other smaller ships supporting

• Approach from the north - little chance of meeting shipping

• Radio silence

• Submarines and destroyers scout ahead

Attack on Pearl Harbor outcomes

• Able to achieve complete surprise

  • Sunday morning attack

  • Japanese fleet undetected, radar indications of inbound aircraft were dismissed as friendly

• Majority of the United States Pacific Fleet was at anchor in Pearl Harbor

  • Except for aircraft carriers at sea

• United States was not expecting an attack

  • Attack on Pearl Harbor considered inconceivable

  • Expected an attack elsewhere in the Pacific

Allied strategy post-Pearl Harbor

• Pool resources - ABDA command (American, British, Dutch, Australian)

  • Goal was to defend Indian Ocean and Australia

  • British have command

  • Overall failure - disagreements in strategy and priority of territory to defend'

  • Battle of Java Sea (Feb 1942)

    • Largest surface battle since Jutland (1916)

    • ABDA combined fleet takes heavy losses

    • Japanese proceeds to occupy entire Dutch East Indies

Allied reorganization

• America takes the overall lead in the Pacific Theater, which is supported by British and Australian forces

• United States begins to strike back with available ships

• Nimitz launches a series of carrier raids to keep Japanese off balance

• Doolittle raid (18 April 1942)

  • Army B-25s from the USS Hornet bomb Tokyo

  • Little actual damage

Battles in the Pacific

1942

• Coral Sea - May 1942

  • First battle between aircraft carriers

• Midway - June 1942 (Admiral Yamamoto plan)

  • Draw out and destroy American carrier forces in a multi-layered ambush

  • Turning point of the war

• Guadalcanal - August 1942 (Operation Watchtower)

  • First major allied offensive

1944

• Philippine Sea - June 1944

  • Largest Naval battle between aircraft carriers

1945

• Battle for Iwo Jima - March 1945

• Battle of Okinawa - April to June 1945

  • Bloodiest battle in the Pacific

Why did we use the atomic bombs?

• Nothing but unconditional surrender was acceptable per the Potsdam Declaration

• Projected casualties of a million in the invasion of Japan, Truman administration worried that number of casualties would be too much for the American public

• The quickest way for Japan to surrender and end the war

End of WWII

• Japan surrenders on September 2, 1945, on board USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay

• Largest Navy in world history

  • 65,000 combat vessels including landing craft

  • 4 million United States Naval personnel

  • Double the size of the world’s navies combined

Post-WWII Navy

• Personnel cutbacks

  • Servicemen ready to go home (operation Magic Carpet)

  • Out-processed 3.5 million Officers and enlisted personnel, Navy reduced to 600 warships by the end of 1946

• One major difference…

  • No overwhelming retrenchment

  • Mothballed/scrapped vessels, but Navy remains greatest naval power on Earth

Revolt of the Admirals (1949)

• SECDEF Louis Johnson cancels construction of the USS United States

  • First ‘super carrier’ of the fleet

  • Many admirals pen open letters in protest; CNO is relieved

• Congress gets involved

  • Supports naval aviation as a valuable component of national defense

  • Forrestal-class carrier is designed

• Balanced forces strategy eventually accepted

  • Soviets detonate atomic bomb in 1949

  • NSC-68 called for an increase in defense spending from $28 billion in 1951 to $47 billion in 1953

Cold War

• United States and Soviet Union emerge from WWII as two dominant world powers with profound political and economic differences

• Constant global confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States

• Avoidance direct armed conflict between the two ‘superpowers’

• Containment policy

  • Truman Doctrine

Why did the Cold War start?

• Border disputes

  • Who gets Korea after the war?

  • Where should the line be drawn?

• Political disputes

  • What type of government and economy?

  • Communism or capitalism?

• Cultural disputes

  • What about history?

  • Do they share heritage?

  • Should Korea be one country?

Post-Korean War Navy

• Reactivation of mothballed World War II ships

• Development begins on a new generation of ships

  • Forrestal-class carriers

  • Nuclear-powered submarines

• Power-projection capabilities of the U.S. Navy

  • Close-air support

  • Interdiction

  • Amphibious operations

  • Logistics

Anti-submarine warfare (ASW)

• Soviet submarines threaten U.S. and NATO sea lines of communication

• Hunter Killer Groups (HUKs) established

  • One older fixed-wing support carrier (CVS) with aircraft

  • Five to six destroyers (DDs)

• U.S. nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs)

  • Most effective ASW weapons and eventually replace HUKs

• Long-range land-based maritime patrol aircraft

• Underwater Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS)

  • Passive sonar located at strategic chokepoints

Cuban Missile Crisis

16-28 OCTOBER 1962

Closest world ever came to nuclear war

• Background:

  • Communist leaders reach an agreement

  • Khrushchev provides military support to Cuba

  • Castro allows Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba

• All happens in secrecy until…

  • U2 spy plane takes aerial photographs

  • Immediately relayed to Washington

American response

• Navy immediately dispatched to form a ‘quarantine’ of Cuba

  • Destroyer picket lines

  • Aircraft carriers as backup

• Most ships comply with instructions

• Soviet oiler Grozny refuses

  • U.S. destroyers play chicken with it

  • Shoot rounds across its bow

  • Grozny reverses course and notifies Kremlin

• Behind the scenes

  • Kennedy and Khrushchev broker a deal

  • USSR removes ICBMs from Cuba

  • U.S. removes ICBMs from Turkey

  • U.S. promises never to invade Cuba

Causes for the Vietnam War

Post-WWII Indo-Chinese politics

• France regains Indo-China

• Ho Chi Minh starts revolution

• France withdraws in 1954

• Indochina divided into three parts: Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam

Problem?

• Power vacuum

• Ho Chi Minh v. Bao Dai

Resolution?

• Temporarily split Vietnam into two sections

• Elections in two years

Escalation of United States participation

Gulf of Tonkin Incident

• U.S. 7th Fleet conducting surveillance operations along the North Vietnamese coast in support of South Vietnam

• August 2, 1964

  • USS Maddox is pursued by NV PT boats

  • PT boats swarm and launch torpedoes, but gunfire disperses them. One is sunk

• August 3, 1964

  • USS Turner Joy joins Maddox. Both destroyers think they are being attacked.

How the Vietnam War was fought

Mostly a ground war

• Army, Marines

• Conventional/non-conventional adversaries and warfare

  • Regular Army & Vietcong

• Largely fought in middle of country

Supported by air war

• Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Army

• Operation Rolling Thunder

• Operation Linebacker I/II

Modest naval war

• Navy, Coast Guard

• Brown water Navy

• Operation Game Warden

• Operation Market Time

Comparison of two navies

U.S. Navy declining

• 60% since Vietnam

• Old and outdated

Soviet Navy growing

• 60% since Cold War began

• New and advanced

Nuclear power and mission

1. Nuclear-powered submarines

2. Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers

3. Improvements in ICBMs

Competition between SSBNs and carriers for nuclear strike mission:

• SSBNs remarkably good at mission

• Aviation advocates called for ‘super carriers’ that could launch larger bombers for this mission

Decision:

• Nuclear mission goes to SSBNs

• Phased out of naval aviation

Decline of U.S. Navy under Carter (1977-1981)

• Background: He inherited a congressional and popular anti-military attitude as well as a reduced Navy composed of older ships

• Diplomacy: He believed containment could be achieved through diplomacy and did not think the Soviets were a world threat.

  • Salt I

  • Salt II

The Carter Naval policy

• The President did not support naval expansion

• Wanted a smaller, less expensive Navy

• His five-year building programs were extremely austere, planned for only eight carriers

• De-emphasized the ‘presence’ mission of the Navy

• “Swing Strategy”

  • If we need more ships in Europe, swing them over from the Pacific (one ocean Navy)

• The Iranian Crisis (1978-81)

  • Forced Carter to send warships to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean

Consequences: Ford/Carter

• Carter’s policy of Soviets being a European continental threat only damaged the Navy’s ability to handle a crisis in the Middle East

  • American Embassy in Tehran

  • Stability in the Middle East

  • Iran/Iraq War

• Reagan easily elected in 1980

  • Carter’s dealing with hostages in Iran

  • Soviet threat

Reagan Era Navy

• USSR is greatest threat. Need to reestablish American supremacy through military and diplomacy

• Navy budget would double during first two years in office

• Reorganized

  • Military strategy

  • Maritime strategy

  • Military bureaucracy

The “Maritime Strategy”

• Product of the Policy Board

• Main tenet: 600-ship Navy with carrier battle groups as centerpiece

  • 15 carrier strike groups (accomplished 1986)

  • 100 attack subs

  • Carriers could be used in limited war or direct conflict with Soviets

• Offensive outlook

• Forward-deployed forces

Goldwater-Nichols Act

1986

• First major reform since NSA of 1947

• Addressed competing service rivalries

  • Vietnam, Iranian hostage rescue mission, invasion of Grenada

‘Jointness’

• Increased power of CJCS

• Streamlined military COC

• Joint command, start working together

  • Procurement, planning, operations, etc.

Operation Earnest Will

• American military protection of Kuwaiti-owned tankers from Iranian attacks in 1987 and 1988

• Largest naval convoy operation since WWII

• U.S. Navy warships escorted tankers in the Arabian Gulf

  • Kuwaiti tankers were re-registered under U.S. flag

  • Escorted 270 tankers in 135 convoys

• Incidents

  • Bridgeton

  • USS Samuel B. Roberts

  • Operation Praying Mantis

  • USS Vincennes

Reagan and Soviet diplomacy

• U.S. increased military spending - attempted to break Soviet economy by outspending them

• Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988

Soviet dissolution

• August 1991: Conservatives in Communist Party and Soviet military try to oust Gorbachev and re-establish authoritarian government

• December 25, 1991: USSR fractures

  • Secret meetings between Soviet state leaders

  • Decision: Replace USSR with loose and voluntary union called ‘Commonwealth of Independent States’

  • Gorbachev resigned from office

  • Russia took all the nuclear weapons

Now, who is the primary enemy?

• Power vacuum

• Unfettered control of seas

• U.S. Navy must adapt

  • What is the new naval strategy?

  • What is the platform for future success?

• Who/what is the new threat?

  • Anyone who opposes our interests: Arabian Gulf, Asia

Iraq Invades Kuwait

• August 2, 1990

• Iraq sends 100,000 troops and 350 tanks across the border

  • Iraq has world’s fourth largest army

• Saudi Arabia calls for UN intervention

• UN orders Iraq to evacuate Kuwait (UN Resolution 661)

Naval role in Operation Desert Shield

• Initial deterrent to invasion of Saudi Arabia

• Maritime Intercept Operations (MIO)

  • United Nations-approved blockade of trade with Iraq

• Sealift

  • 95% of all equipment moved into theater by the sea

• Six carrier battle groups and two battleship surface action groups move into theater

• Marine forces/SEAL teams

Conclusions from the Middle East

• Estimated Iraqi losses

  • 20,000-35,000 KIA, 75,000+ wounded, 3847 tanks, 1450 armored personnel carriers, 2917 artillery pieces and 141 aircraft

  • 86,000 prisoners

• U.S. losses

  • 292 combined combat and non-combat deaths

• Coalition

  • First since WWII - fastest victory ever

• Importance of power projection from the sea