SLOCs remain the sinews of U.S. strategic maritime strategy in the Pacific.
They require international respect for the freedom of navigation and overflight,
as set forth in UNCLOS. Otherwise, the U.S. military’s ability to exercise its
naval mobility will be in jeopardy. The response time for U.S. and allied/coali-
tion maritime forces based far from potential areas of conflict could be prolonged
in times of crisis, when time is at a premium.
U.S. naval forces will remain inherently flexible and will continue to focus on
guaranteeing unhindered SLOC passage, the importance of which is a constant
feature of naval support for the National Military Strategy. Although he wrote
more than a century ago, Mahan remains relevant to twenty-first-century
U.S. maritime strategy in Asia. He linked maritime policies and events to
larger national and international processes and in so doing established naval strat-
egy as a conscious, major element within a nation’s overall security policy and
strategy.
Sea power’s prominent role in national strategy remains closely tied to techno-
logical and doctrinal developments. While the Asian theater is not susceptible
to a purely maritime strategy, the inherently maritime nature of U.S. strategic
interests in that theater is undoubted. The American maritime strategy in the
Pacific that is emerging with the new century will remain founded on close
relationships with allies and friends, deterrence as an instrument of statecraft,
and the capability to project power onto distant shores from forward-deployed
maritime forces.
Sir Walter Raleigh once observed, ‘‘Whosoever commands the sea commands
the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of
the world, and consequently the world itself.’’ Unimpeded SLOCs are as impor-
tant to the United States today as they were to Raleigh and his successors, who
created a mercantile empire sustained by the Royal Navy’s control of the SLOCs
linking England, its colonies, and its trading partners in Asia.
More than 80 percent of global trade still moves by sea, and the United States
depends on the free and unimpeded movement of its share of that commerce.
The very small merchant marine with which the United States has entered the
twenty-first century depends on vital sea lanes. Furthermore, the United States
depends on its ability to use the Asia-Pacific seas to ensure its security. This his-
toric need has become increasingly important owing to renewed American
emphasis on employing power-projection land forces within a preemptive stra-
tegic paradigm that is replete with ideologically based—and hence seemingly
unending—international commitments.
Hence, unimpeded SLOCs underpin U.S. National Security Strategy in the
Asia-Pacific. Maintaining maritime dominance across that huge region lies at
the cusp of this view, increasing the strategic necessity of not just using but
dominating the region’s critical SLOCs and navigation chokepoints. No matter
how described, named, or codified, any effective American maritime strategy in68 Asia Looks Seaward