21 ST CENTURY PARTNERSHIPS AIR POWER 2017 69
21 ST CENTURY CAPABILITIES
T
he United States Navy (USN) adopted
the Design for Maintaining Maritime
Superiority (hereafter Design) document
in response to an ever-evolving strategic
environment. The Design does not represent
a change in USN strategy, which has remained
relatively unchanged since the days of Mahan
and Nelson. Rather, it serves as a guide that
will refocus the USN’s efforts to address the
re-emergence of great power competition.
By making smart choices that optimise the
return on existing resources, we can focus on the
most dangerous threat. In short, as a navy, we
must decide how and where to concentrate our
energy and resources, what we intend to achieve
and how best to maintain maritime superiority.
This will not be accomplished by simply
“buying new stuff”. The capacity of any single
nation to meet all the threats, all the time, is limited.
Therefore, the smart way forward is to leverage
and, more specifically, optimise partner capabilities
to increase everyone’s capacity, giving truth to
the age-old adage, “strength in numbers”.
By actively pursuing increased interoperability
with our strongest and most steadfast allies, we can
realise the mutual benefit of a navy comprised not
only of US ships and aircraft, but a navy multiplied
many times over by the addition of allied partners.
With the United Kingdom’s decision to reinvigorate
the RAF’s long-range maritime patrol aircraft (MPA)
fleet with the recently approved procurement of nine
P-8A Poseidon multi-mission aircraft, the UK joins
the US Navy, Australia, Norway and potentially others
in fielding the most modern maritime patrol and
reconnaissance aircraft (MPRA) in the world today.
As with the USN, the revitalisation of the RAF’s
organic MPA capability is not accidental, but the
result of a well-formulated strategy to modernise
the force to cope with a formidable and growing
submarine threat. As history has shown (and both
the US and UK are aware), anti-submarine warfare
(ASW) is a skill set that is difficult to acquire and also
The US Navy is
pursuing increased
interoperability with
its strongest allies,
which include the
Royal Air Force
(PHOTO: US NAVY MASS
COMMUNICATION
SPECIALIST 3RD CLASS
JASON KOFONOW)
