Our 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) states

The Global Operating Model describes how the Joint Force will be postured and employed to achieve its competition and wartime missions ... These are, respectively, designed to help us compete more effectively below the level of armed conflict; delay, degrade, or deny adversary aggression; surge war-winning forces and manage conflict escalation; and defend the U.S. homeland.[2]

America’s maritime domain capabilities, in concert with those of our friends and allies, underpin strategic mobility, enable economic prosperity, and contribute to the global operating model’s capability areas. Simply maintaining the status quo for our maritime domain capability creates unacceptable risk to our ability to influence or deter adversaries, secure our economy, and minimize combat losses in armed conflicts. In our recent history, deployment operations have been administrative and uncontested movements, with the constraints only on lift capacity; load, transit, and unload times; and available port and port-clearance infrastructure. However, in contested environments, our adversaries target our power projection strengths with a multitude of anti-access and area-denial methods to disrupt the combatant commanders’ force flow and scheme of maneuver.

Sea Power: A National Strategy

A national strategy to maintain the many facets of American sea power is a necessity. Even a casual review of the news and commentary by national security strategists highlights that our country demands maritime superiority as a key element of strength and continued prosperity. Development and appropriate resourcing of such a strategy requires a bold and audacious effort, complemented by joint, interagency, intergovernmental, multinational, nongovernmental, and commercial stakeholder engagement and innovative thinking. Anything less leaves the United States, our partners, and our allies vulnerable to the agenda of astute and dynamic great power competitors and adversaries.