Sea Control - Sea Control 273 - Naval Strategy and Operations with Dr. Milan Vego

Episode Date: September 5, 2021

Links1. Operational Warfare at Sea: Theory and Practice, by Milan Vego, Routledge, 2020.2. Exercising Control of the Sea: Theory and Practice, by Milan Vego, Routledge, 2020.3. Maritime Strategy and Sea Denial: Theory and Practice, by Milan Vego, Routledge, 2020.4. General Naval Tactics: Theory and Practice, by Milan Vego, Naval Institute Press, 2020.5. “On Littoral Warfare,” by Milan Vego, Naval War College Review, Spring 2015.6. Naval Strategies in Narrow Seas, by Milan Vego, Routledge, 2003.

Hey folks, Sherrod here. It's a big Navy week here at SimSec. Thursday morning we rolled out Brian's Clark and McGrath discussing the Navy's force generation model. Today we have Walker Mills in the host chair and he's interviewing the legend Professor Milan Vigo of the elite U.S. Naval War College. This episode was edited and produced by David Sahida. We just launched the call for submissions for the SimSec forum for authors and readers over at the main website. There is a particular piece that you enjoyed this year. Nominate it and if it gets enough votes you can hear the author present his or her work. We've also officially put out our call for articles for the end-of-year fiction contest. Go over to simsec.org for full details. Finally, I want to

take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast Network, The Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and Apollo Brown Brew Bottles wherever you download your podcasts. On that note, I'll turn it over to Kimbersman. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Welcome back aboard the Sea Control Podcast from the Center for International Maritime Security. Today, we're talking with Dr. Milan Vigo, a professor of operations and the R.K. Turner professor of operational art at the Naval War College. Milan is the author of 15 books and over 380 articles, but most recently, Operational Warfare at Sea, Theory in Practice, Exercising

Control of the Sea, Theory in Practice, Maritime Strategy, and Sea Denial, Theory in Practice. We're excited to have him on the podcast today, and we're going to be talking about the complex nature of naval operations. And this is, we're excited because this is his first podcast. Milan, welcome aboard. Do you want to add anything else to your introduction? I'm very happy to participate in your program. That's my first time on podcast, and hopefully everything will be okay. I really don't have anything. I'm here at the college since 91, and I think we've been out 30 years this year. And before that, I worked at Defense Intelligence College. I was teaching East European Studies and Soviet Naval Operational Art, and then also I took part as a part of a team on wargaming for the Red Side at NDU, National Defense University. And I came to the country as a political refugee in 1976, and then stayed here. So before we start, I'd like to remind our listeners that the opinions presented here are solely our own and should not be taken as representative of any of the institutions that we are associated with.

I want to start by asking you kind of how your books fit together. You were describing it a little bit to me before we started the podcast, but you're publishing a lot. So how, you know, how do these books fit together? My focus was since I came to the college here, I started to teach Soviet naval operational art at the DIA. And then I transferred that concept of the operational art, not Soviet, but in generic, to elective here. And I developed this as an elective in 92, 91, 92 actually. And then two years later, I decided to propose to my chairman and my faculty to establish full course for the program on operational art. And that happened in 94. And since then, we are teaching operational art as a core curriculum on the military theory.

And then later in 2006, that was expanded when we got permission to novelize the resident program for junior course to the naval operational art or maritime operational warfare. So since 2006, we are teaching that and we expanded most of my writings actually in that course and also the course on the joint operational warfare. So that's a background for these books, you know, and then for the last 10, 11 years, I have been publishing mostly books on the operational warfare at sea. And I just finished last year, the fourth volume, they're not core volumes, but the one is the first one is operational warfare at sea, Warfare at Sea, which is foundation, and then Maritime Strategy and Sea Control, then Sea Denial, and then Exercising Control of the Sea. So that's a four-volume series on the operational warfare at sea. And before that, in 2003, I published one textbook here on operational warfare, and then it was expanded in 2007 to Joint Operational Warfare, which is a 1,500-page

is textbook and that's a main source for readings you know in uh in our course you know on operational art actually okay so now i shifted my attention to tactics and i published general naval tactics by naval institute in uh 2021 and i'm now working on the sequel which the tactics or naval combat arms you know surface forces submarine forces uh naval aviation and this event so that's what my for the next three or two three years i've tried to complete about i think four books on on naval tactics you know so so that's that's how i plan to do it is it fair to say that these books mirror pretty closely what you're teaching at the naval war college all these books are taught here they're not the entire you know most of the reading especially book which is very popular is

operational warfare c second edition 2018 is used really as throughout the maritime operational warfare but we don't have enough hours to teach everything but faculty has all the books you know and they all study this you know so so it could be you know in other words whatever i write is really in my aim is to improve curriculum it's not disconnected from our curriculum okay and i but i mean very blessed you know to have a great support from my bosses that led me to do most of writing for the last six seven years and i teach uh or reduce you know i teach only about 10 15 sessions you know for each trimester and uh all of my time is really devoted to writing okay and i finished also two historical monographs if you know one is a major fleet versus fleet operations

in the pacific war and that is with the battle coral sea battle midway and the philippine sea that was published in 2016 and this year we published major naval operations in european waters 1939 1945 which is study also three major naval operations you know one is a pq-17 convoy in july 1942 then pedestal operation pedestal to malta in 1942 and then landing in ncl in uh January 1944. So that's now the whole complete, these two historical monographs and four books dealing all with operational art scene. Milan, I also want to ask, in the beginning of Maritime Strategy and Sea Denial from 2018, you mentioned that there's a gap in the literature that you're trying to fill. And can you talk a little bit more about that? I mean, do you think

that that there's a space that you're trying to fill with these books well in my mind and i think they said again there are a lot of articles written there but i think there are not many substantive works you know in english language on operational art at sea operational at sea and also operational art in general and theories are actually neglected i think and uh there are reasons are many and not the best person to diagnose this you know what I think I think one reason why people shy from theory I think because they especially naval officers you know they somehow consider theory is somehow abstract is really for professors is not for them but I think reason because I think misunderstanding the theory is essentially experience is based

on experience or the past worse and the way the theory is developed is different than theory or chemistry or physics where you have hypotheses and then you test hypotheses they become theory here you have a experience and then you derive certain lessons you know and then that becomes part of the theory and we always say that anytime theory conflicts with reality must yield to So it's a constant, and I think there is nothing in our theory, good theory should be always general, it should be flexible, and that search for the improvement theory, it never stops, you know. So that's how I think that very few works, you know, done on various aspects of the Operation Warfare C, especially in terms of major naval operations. We have done a lot of good things in practice in World War II, but after that, that area had been neglected. When I read your work, I'm always struck by the amount of history that you bring to bear on the reader.

It seems like on the same page, we can have an example from the Punic Wars, an example from World War I, World War II, the Pacific, Europe. And so I really appreciate that. And I think a lot of its history also that we may not be familiar with because a lot of it's European history. And I also want to ask Milan, you know, you mentioned you thought there was kind of a paucity of sources in English. Are you turning to other international places to pull from? i read i would say i was fortunate after the collapse of soviet union i went to berlin and there is one library of bundeswehr library which collected all the textbooks and doctrinal documents from the former east german navy and army from dresden and that was moved to berlin and i was able to get copies of all these documents and so i know i think i'm very familiar with the what the soviets had done you know during the cold war but also in the aftermath of the colossal soviet union there were many of the wars which were previously classified and they

were published in 1940s and 1930s on operational art i got all all of them so their theory i think that the soviets had much better or much more systematic approach to study operational art but i think the problem with them is a commander control you know and a very rigid society and that's a reflection also the military so the practice was always behind the theory theory was far ahead of the practical ability to execute that the germans were just different they had a lot of work done you know but i think they were not to my surprise little systematic as the soviets were in 1930s you know but they had a better concept in practice you know because of mission command and many other i always say that germans lost wars yeah but they have been unique

you know in focusing on war fighting and leadership which uh other armies and navies had neglected you know in my judgment you know yeah i think that's really interesting that because normally we think of the german military influencing kind of ground combat and ground tactics and certainly we see uh some of their doctrine reflected in the us army and the and And then Marine Corps, I wasn't aware that it had the same kind of effect at sea. Well, you know, they have weaknesses always in policy. Policy strategy has been really, in my judgment, has been always pretty bad. You know, there was disconnect between policy strategy and operational realities.

And yes, they won many campaigns and many major operations. And they won the war because of the, you know, huge flaws at the strategic and policy level. I think one reason for that was a legacy of Maltke, the senior, the field marshal. The idea was that once the war starts, there is no place for policy and strategy. Then you had to turn into, you know, what military thinks, you know. I think that's a basic problem with them, you know, in the way they conduct warfare, especially in World War One. And in World War Two, you know, it was Hitler and his interference and so on. But I have been great admiring the way the training, education, I think we can borrow a lot of things.

I think we can also more faithfully apply mission command the way they actually did. So there is a lot of things we can borrow and emulate, but there are certain things that are not that good. Milan, do you think that there is in the U.S. Navy's kind of doctrine and theory today influences from Soviet naval theory and German naval theory? No, I don't think they adopted the Soviet theory. I think, you know, the way when we started to provide the interest in operational art, there were a group of people in Fort Leavenworth and they studied the Soviet. There was one office called Soviet Studies, Military Studies Office. and they gave a major input when the army developed airline but the concept you know and also the fm 100-5 operations so the term operational art was borrowed actually from the

soviet theory from switching and i think also the studies of the yom kippur war was major also influenced on our development of the flying operational art in 1980s and others my personal view that u.s navy really done they don't understand sea control for example there's a lot of people still believe that sea control somehow is uh identical to naval presence you know the virtue that we have a big presence in western pacific or mediterranean for example that you have some sea control no nobody has sea control in peacetime sea control is a concept which is applicable only once the war starts and what we're talking uh in peacetime is what we call naval influence and every influence is combination of your naval combat potential and uh also

perceptions for the friends and enemies and neutrals about your naval strength and that not necessarily is not identical to your naval combat potential uh so there are many psychological elements there too you know we don't have i think you know a good good understanding of sea control and that will also go over i said that too much emphasis is on sea control versus sea denial and we have neglected that you know and seek denial is a viable concept is uh we apply c denial in 1941-42 of the pearl harbor to the landing or at the weather canal and our fast carriers and submarines were offensively used against the you know someone is against the maritime traffic fast carriers against strong points in central pacific and southern pacific and then we went

onto offensive you know in august 1942. today for example we might be you know in situation we have a hypothetically war with china that china is closely aligned with uh russia so russia and china cannot force us to be strategically on defensive initial phase of the war and that's what i have problem with this concept so area denial anti-axis you know because they always assume that let's say china will be somehow on defensive and we will be on offensive and i would say that probably not true probably will be both sides will go on offensive and then after certain time uh one side another will be forced to go strategically on on defensive i think reason is also psychological because we don't think about sea denial and city now has a different

methods of how to achieve it than the sea control so we have to be educated and trained to do both things or for example if you have a simultaneous crisis in the let's say the western pacific korean peninsula or taiwan or in persian gulf you don't have sufficient forces so you might be forced to be on sea denial in one area and be on sea control in another area. So I think that's one of the great, for me, the concerns, you know, that the Navy doesn't think that way, I think. And so that's a great segue, Milan, because I do want to ask about your book, Sea Denial. You know, as a Marine, that's an interesting topic for me and one that's kind of a hot topic.

So can you talk a little bit more about the methods for sea denial that you talk about in your book? Well, there are several methods. One is what we call traditionally said avoiding decisive encounter with the enemy fleet. It's called fleet in being. The other one is weakening enemy forces over time. Then also, if the other navy declared blockade, then is also naval blockade. Sea denial also have more focus on destroying the enemy military economy potential of trade versus defensive protection of trade, which is a more concern for the superior side. So these are these are main methods, you know, which we can apply. lie you know now offensively minded navy might actually go operationally also on offensive if we are strategically on defensive medium navy or small navy will be should be tactically on offensive but operationally probably be also on defensive because it doesn't have

sufficient forces to do anything at operational level but i think for our navy is a stronger navy we should be tactically and operationally on offensive and strategically on defensive but not permanently but you know temporarily and i'll give you one example or the weakest side was operation on offensive that was japanese navy because japanese navy like u.s navy royal navy was offensively minded butler the philippine sea they uh went on offensive to prevent our land into destroyable forces you know covering the landing in marianas and then also lady They were strategically on defensive, but operationally they were on offensive because they were seeking a decisive battle. So that's one thing which is different.

I think traditional naval, you know, the naval thinkers, you know, they always focus on fleet in being. But there are also some exceptions that you might conduct or also seek a decisive encounter if you are offensively minded, you know. One of the things that I want to ask about, you know, being a Marine is you talk some about the way that land forces and land-based forces can kind of have an impact on sea denial or contribute to it. Can you talk a little bit about how you would, if you were, you know, a land force or a weaker state that you would, what methods you would use to undertake sea denial? You know, there are various in the history shows many examples, you know, land forces were on offensive on land, you know, but because of weakness of the naval forces, they were strategically on defensive at sea and vice versa. You know, ideally, both sides, I mean, both land forces and naval forces should be on offensive. For example, in the Korean War, before what Marines called, you know, withdrawal from Hongnam in 1950, we were strategically on defensive, but we were on land, but we were strategically on offensive at sea.

so there is that in a literal area that's a what the lot of variants which can actually complicate the things in terms you know planning execution you know i always say that the navies and the arm i mean the air force and so on certainly they are always complementing the ground forces ground forces always the most important because the outcome of war is always on land that's where the people live navy and the air force can i mean greatly contribute to that but they're always supporting arms you know no that that makes a lot of sense um and and so you brought up uh the littoral and and i want to kind of ask you know before we get into the littoral how do you conceptualize it or define it because i know you also use uh terms enclosed sea or

narrow seas um and sometimes i think it gets confused for us littoral i think is a too broad and too imprecise uh terminal because it encompasses a lot of areas for example open waters or fronting the east coast west coast united states or latin america that's littoral too and then it was peripheral seas like a south china sea or east china sea and then you have archipelago is like an Indonesian archipelago or Solomons archipelago. And then you have enclosed seas, which means the seas which has a single exit to the larger sea or ocean, or semi enclosed, like a North Sea, which has two exits.

So I would say that no narrow seas really apply. Most complicated picture is really in a closed seas like a Persian Gulf, or North Sea, you know, as a semi enclosed seas. So these collectively called narrow seas and that term came to use you know in medieval era you know in the the wars between france and england and pertain to english channel especially state of dover and then that term was revived in world war ii to the small actions you know in the english channel you know north sea and so on in the mediterranean so but you know that i think when we talk about the littorals we had to make distinction that which area we are talking because each at each

of these areas poses different challenges and different opportunities you know what makes operations uh different i mean obviously the terrain is different when you're talking about the littoral or inclusive is an enormous influence on land and uh you you have a smaller among other things small size short distances offer much greater opportunities to the weaker side to properly integrate its naval and land air capabilities in order to oppose you and your forces essentially operate within the envelope of the defender and i would say that you know during this you know heyday or transformation that proponents or network warfare were advocating that ncw allows you geographically separated forces to act properly and so on but that doesn't apply in

narrow seas because you are geographically constrained you know you are acting you are operating in a very small area so you cannot be dispersed you know another thing you are you know you are always exposed to the almost continuous surveillance okay there is also enormous influence of mine warfare a mine area or suspected of mines will have the same effect as it is land in other words the mine mines actually can change geography and so you have to avoid that area whether their minds are really there or they are suspected to be in certain areas so there is room for maneuver or your forces are much more constrained then i think i would say that warning times you know and the surprise and high intensity of actions is much more higher in

a narrow seas than it is uh on the open ocean set and then you have a constant threat from the air without the strong air cover you cannot possibly operate today and i would say also we we what we don't have it you know is we need also different platforms and the fact that some ships which are much bigger can operate you know that doesn't mean you should use a bigger platform which are high costly highly capable but by high cost they need also to have a different and more balanced navy in operate to operate in the narrow seas you know this kind of ships should be always covered from distance with much more powerful forces like a carrier strike groups and orland based air or what milan i want to kind of pull the thread a little bit there on the the navy uh composition

do you i mean do you think the u.s navy is appropriately sized or equipped for kind of i don't think it's balanced i think you know some people will say well we don't need the smaller ships you know uh because you are blue water navy and we can rely on allies but i'm not sure that we can allow you know that we can actually uh rely on allies you need your own capabilities you know and i think is anytime you have a war it was always shortage of smaller ships always especially for the defense protection of the shipping and we don't have it and that cannot be uh somehow that helicopters or land-based air are going to protect your ships you need still this naval platforms you know i also don't have a balanced navy in my judgment we need to

balance the navy you know and i i do want to ask milan also about um amphibious operations you know and if you think there's a lot of arguments going around about whether or not it's still possible to do um kind of forcible entry operations or amphibious operations in the modern era um and you know thinking about the way that you think about the the littorals do you think it's still possible to do the kind of classical well i know there's a lot of a lot of discussion I remember and I have a higher admiration for Robert Gates you know former Secretary of Defense I think he was somehow doubting that in this new era when you have a greatly increased area denial anti-access capabilities whether we can do still amphibious

assault and I would say yes the methods had to be different than what we had in the past but it's really a historical I mean to think that you don't need amphibious landings you know you really throughout the history the naval power must always go ashore and he's not going by firing tomahawks you know and bombing and so on you need to have troops on the ground so what always changed was uh the method you remember you know the reading that in the aftermath of gallipoli fiasco in 1915 uh the british came to conclusion that in the era or coastal defenses and aircraft the large-scale landings were not possible but our marines you know based on the fleet exercises you know a study or the german landing in bale riga operation albion in in

october 1917 they came to different conclusion and in 1934 we have landing manual and that landing manual paved the way to the fleet training publication and we applied that you know with great success in world war ii in the aftermath of the war uh omar bradley general bradley who was chief for joint staff he expressed the view you know a year before inch on that arrow large-scale landing was over well then we have a lynch inch on 15 september 1950 with 70 000 uh u.n troops you know highly successful any view that in my judgment is premature to say that amphibious landings are obsolete and you cannot do it new creative methods must be found that's a difference and and what about uh milan kind of the the other side the the coastal defense how would you think

about coastal defense or what you know what would you propose are the most effective ways of defending against an amphibious landing well you need i would say that something multi-layered you have a what they call seaworld defense zone and then you have a coastal defense zone you have a rear defense zone i think might be always focused on i mean in terms of organization or a joint force commander the course of defense is also one partly integral part of what they call operational protection in the maritime theater so when you talk about seaworld uh defense zone you need a Defense, certainly air defense, you know, anti-combat craft defense, anti-submarine, defense of the maritime traffic, anti-terrorism, terrorist, I mean, anti-commando raid defense, what has to be all integrated that the only way to do that is having a theater commander to organize all these things, you know, so. No, I think that's an interesting point.

And I think that's something that the Marine Corps right now is kind of working on is how to integrate in terms of command and control with the Navy for their EABO concept. Well, you know, the defense, naval defense, coastal defense in itself, you know, is really in many ways linked to the sea control. Because if you have a defense which is very effective on the coast, you also, you extend actually the effectiveness or reinforce effectiveness of your sea control or control that area. And without the coastal defense, you cannot, there is one concept which we don't use, but the Russians use, the Soviets, they call operational favorable regime in the coastal waters. It means for the Navy to properly employ forces, you need to organize the Navy's side of defense on the coast. You know, that means to secure basic and deployment area. And without strong coastal defense, the Navy forces cannot operate. So that's a mutually supporting what whatever Marines or Army do, you know, they also, the Navy is deeply also involved and certainly affected, you know.

I've always thought that the Soviet example is a really interesting case, because in the United States, we don't really have that history of, at least in recent history, guarding our own coast. It's usually a power projection type scenario. Yeah, not everything is applicable to us, you know, certainly, you know, but I think we had a tradition always great being superiority in terms of human element, you know, the commanders and staffs and, you know, and our non-commissioned officers, you know, and also the petty officers and so on. It's a great, so it's never had it, you know, they are very weak on that. And I wish we never become so bureaucratized that we are not effective. You know, we need to really faithfully apply mission command and mission command to be up to be properly applied means zero error tolerance must go away. Because if you don't have a tolerance for errors or your subordinates, you possibly cannot have a successful or mission command concept.

How would you train to imbue mission command, or what would you emphasize in training and education for naval officers? Well, superficially, mission command is easy, but it's not what we consider many people, whether it's centralized control, decentralized execution, that's a mantra. It requires a lot of things. Among many things, it requires understanding of the true nature of war. The war cannot be considered as complexity theory or, you know, systems theory. It is a Clausewitzian teaching of war. And that means the war is full of uncertainty and chance and luck and irrationality. And so that's a first requirement to apply the mission command. And then mission command must be properly based that commanders are highly educated, and also highly educated subordinate commanders, because if you don't have a highly educated personnel, then you have to rely on directive orders, you cannot have a commander's intent, and commander's intent must be properly formulated and articulated.

it and so the another thing is also that i think very important thing is that the relationship between higher command and subordinate must be excellent that there is a mutual trust and uh if you have a what we call micromanagement you know bypassing uh uh subordinates you know you are not going to be effective in the mission mission command so education and training and sound doctrine and the proper application of the commander's intent and as i said the proper understanding of the true nature of war so there are many things which has to fit you know okay and i'm not saying that the mission command can be applied in all situations you know there are situations for example where errors on the part of subordinates endangering mission or the commander

as a whole or adjacent commander then commander has the duty to overrule and i think another thing very important thing that errors made in good faith should not be punished otherwise you are going to inhibit initiative on the part of the commander that's what was a such a problem for the soviet army forces where there was a habit of waiting or orders because of fear if they commit the main mistake you know they're going to pay not only with their rank but also with their life you know and so we need to go away from that i think we have been very good you know in you know previous years you know and when you look you know i don't know name it's and our king admiral spruance there are all uh people who are not micromanaging the subordinate they have a great trust in subordinate

commanders you know and it was very effective so we can go back to that but i think it would take a long time you know because we have now for many many years you know these deeply grained things you know yeah don't think they're conducive you know to the proper application or the mission command i i think that's fascinating that you know that your your emphasis on education as a is a prerequisite for um mission command and and i would ask you now that you know as a as a professor at the at the naval war college do you think that the education uh that we have in the Look at our doctrine. There is almost no step, for example, in the mission commander's estimate or any others where we don't talk about risk. That's a terrible thing. It's going to inhibit. There's too much focus on risk.

When you look, you know, when we develop course of action, we have already steps where we have to test each course of action. One is actually whether a risk factor came into play. But there is no need in every document, everywhere, now they include it even in commander's intent to have a risk. Well, when you put risk in commander's intent, you are essentially really watering down your intent because you are too overly concerned with the things which might badly happen. But what is also forgotten, risk is also an opportunity.

If you take sometimes prudent and high risk, you are going to have also gain. So risk is not only a source of danger, but also an opportunity. That's really interesting. No, seriously, we really don't understand the true meaning of the mission command. We use these buzzwords, you know, and we don't really, the mission command requires a lot of things to be in place in order to be effective. Are there any really good examples of mission command, either in international navies or in US history? I know you use some World War II examples, but maybe something more recent? Admiral Nelson was a great practitioner of the mission commander. No, I'm serious.

Admiral Spruance, Admiral Halsey, Admiral King, they were all good. General MacArthur. Do you know that General MacArthur was at the headquarters on Leyte, only a few miles away from General Kruger, but he never interfered. He never interfered. I mean, we have this, how I say, this obsession that somehow because of information technologies, somehow somebody who is in central command might know the situation better than the person who is in the caves of Afghanistan. And that's just not true. You know, you have to trust your person on the scene who should know better than anybody else, you know. Does that get more important or does it maybe get less important when you're talking about, you know, combat in the littorals or in closed seas?

I think it's more important, you know. You know, the one thing I will tell you what we need to change, we have never done that during the wars of German unification. General Moltke, he's the one who actually revived that decentralized, what we call later, outer tactic. And he came to a conclusion, despite the existence of Telegraph, that he possibly cannot know more about the situation of the army and army corps commander far away. So he issued instructions, what we call weizungen. And the instructions were very broadly worded, things for one week or two weeks at a time. And that was the way how they commanded large forces. And then the failure or what they call the orders were issued for the, you know, the lower command.

But when they wrote the intent, there was one intent which was called general intent for the force as a whole. And that intent, in a good way, actually that also the purpose, you know, in other words, the method, how we want to achieve something. But then another part of the intent was for subordinates. that was not included. That means it was left to the subordinate commander to decide which method to use to achieve that intent. Intent is de facto what we called a military end state. What the commander wants to see at the end of the mission in military terms in a certain area. One of the things that struck me when you were talking about C-denial is that it's a lot of it can be a lot of little tactical actions. And that's sometimes the focus of effort, but that they can often be uncoordinated.

And I thought that was really interesting because usually, you know, I think if you always want to want coordination and you want combined arms and you want to achieve greater effects. So I was hoping you could talk a little bit about why that is. Well, you know, there is, I mean, throughout the said denial, you know, the major naval operations, whether defensive or offensive, are relatively rare. You know, also when you have a sea control, the impression sometimes that everything you do is by planning, executing major naval operations. Well, that's not the case because you have only a few situations where you can have enemy forces massed in such a large number that you can destroy them, you know, and achieve some operational objective. But most of the war, as you know, is a combination of the decisive warfare and weakening enemy forces over time, what we call attrition. and i would say that in terms of the i mean today that opportunities for the weaker enemy forces over time for weaker side are greater than they were in the past because they also might uh

certainly having the inventories the long range highly precise missiles you know and even aircraft and so they can inflict larger losses you know certainly their ability to do more than the the strongest side are not as great, but they're greater than they were in the past, you know. So that means the smaller tactical actions at sea aim to weaken enemy force over time. That's one way of conducting sea denial. Another one is a destruction of the enemy mate and trade, and also defense of your own trade and of course, the defense of the coast. So almost throughout, I mean, the entire spectrum, you're going to conduct tactical actions and very rarely the major operations.

Maybe if you have, for example, anti-fibre defense, that might be a major operation in defense of the coast. You know, you use the word attrition, and that's always been really interesting to me to read in your work, because, you know, in the Marine Corps, we talk maneuver warfare and everything's, you know, you don't do attrition, you don't do attrition, you don't do attrition. And then as, you know, we're shifting to think more about expeditionary advanced base operations and sea denial, all of a sudden, you know, we're reading that maybe attrition is something that you want to do. You know, any Navy or any, you know, Army or, I mean, ground force should always avoid attrition at operational strategic level. That's why the danger is. But you will never avoid force-on-force encounters at tactical level. What we have to take care of, that doesn't go all the way to operational strategic level like we had a war in Iran-Iraq in 1980 and 1988, and both sides suffered a great deal of casualties, or Western Front in 1940-1980.

I mean, this is what we have to avoid. But there is no way to avoid attrition or what we call attrition at tactical level. So it's fair to say that in sea denial, you're looking for attrition at the tactical level, but you still don't want attrition at the operational level. Not operational level, yeah. Okay. Because the weaker side will never be able to recover. Even the stronger side would not have the time to recover from these losses, you know. so even if you have a great superiority in terms of numbers you know you should not really you know

lose a lot of ships you know and the planes and submarines and so on you should try to avoid that you know that makes a lot of sense and i just say you know i'm saying that the war is always combination of weakening enemy forces over time and decisive warfare or what we call maneuver warfare and ideally yeah everything should be decisive but you you will not have a cooperative enemy that will allow you to destroy a large part of his forces you know in a short time you know okay you know that's decisive decisive operations are really what we call major naval operation major naval joint operations predominantly the initial phase of the war where you can actually inflict large losses if you can attack with a surprise you know and destroy

large part of the fleet and today's environment you know that will take you know destroying the forces in coastal waters and ports you know but now because of rise of china we might be moving back to the open ocean so if they have a large number of carriers for example then you will have a move you know to destroy these forces at sea milan so you mentioned the rise of china and obviously that's like this kind of background context for all conversations about naval for a lot of conversations about naval warfare now and i was just wondering how you see the united states navy responding to uh the rise of the chinese navy and then also you know you might even say kind of a resurgent uh russian fleet well i would say that we should take them seriously

that we should never underestimate either them or anybody else that said history is always very very clear on that that the worst thing you can do is underestimate your opponent and they I read a number of times some leading officials say how the Chinese Navy doesn't have a combat experience. Well, we don't have combat experience either since Korea, okay? We don't have any experience in fighting our big competitor. So we really don't know how they're going to perform. I'm not saying the Chinese are 10 feet tall, but, you know, you look, you know, German Navy didn't have any experience in 1914, and they performed very well in many cases, you know, against the Royal Navy.

So these kinds of things, the first step is to take them seriously. And I think the second, I think we need to be more flexible how we are going to deal in terms of naval warfare. That means sea control, yes, but also sea denial. And I think we have to focus on somehow trying to balance our Navy to respond to the variety of challenges in an area we might be forced to fight. in your mind what would it what would a more balanced navy look like for the u.s navy well i would say the lcs littoral combat ship i have been always critic i think is too big and is not a really a platform for littorals i would say we had a in my view a lot of good designs by french and germans and italians and we were able to

buy, you know, build a home here and balance Navy by having a smaller platform, you know, less than 15 to 100 to 2,000 tons and so on. And we really have a

shortage of the frigates and corvettes. And I would say the Navy should also buy conventional submarines, not to replace nuclear power submarines, but to complement because many of these submarines are highly effective in littoral waters you know and everything we need some of the organizational i think changes in or like organizing littoral

combat groups you know the smaller ships will be used you know in littoral you know but being provided with the protection of beyond the horizon with the carrier strike groups land-based air and I think we need also, how I see it, you know, proper doctrine. Our doctrine is not adequate, but in my judgment, NWP1, naval warfare is not what I would call sound doctrine for the operational level of war. So how would you recommend that the United States changes its doctrine? I mean, what changes would you want to make? First and foremost, you know, you have to always provide strategic framework,

know because navy doesn't fight alone and my other thing you have to focus properly that capstone document should dictate you know the nwps you know tactical pops it must provide a proper framework for the sea control and methods how we are going to achieve the cdnr and how methods to achieve exercising sea control and that must always include support to other services the Marines, it's a Navy service, Army, and land-based air. And there is not now. You need the other services can help Navy in fighting sea control or sea denial exercises. And this is now missing.

I don't see any mentioning actually other services, you know. It's a big, big omission. It's not a small omission. Well, I think the Marine Corps is certainly moving that way. But, you know, they're not so distant from the Navy already. And then we need, you know, maritime trade warfare, you know, that's an integral part of the naval warfare as a whole. That has to be also, we always talk about naval controller shipping, but that's organizational stuff, you know, you need to have a concept, you know, of how to protect and defend maritime trade and also how to attack enemy maritime trade, you know, so. What other authors or books would you recommend about naval operations and naval strategy, you know, to kind of contrast with your own viewpoints? Well, later, Colin Gray, he wrote a number of the books on strategy, including the maritime aspects, and then Jeffrey Till, and I think Jan Spiller on the naval warfare. So two, three people, you know, that are currently recently alive.

I'm a great admirer of Herbert Richmond, the admiral who lived in the 1930s. He wrote a number of good books, certainly classics. I always recommend classics. Whether we agree or disagree, Mahan and Julian Corbett and Philip Colombe, they should be all read. Also, in terms of littoral warfare, I think one of the great thinkers in my generation was a uh you know raul castex uh he wrote the six volumes strategic theories you know they are unfortunately not translated they had one book published by the naval institute about selected the parts of that and there were some parts translated by the students here in 1930s but that book had been widely read and believed in the eastern europe in the soviet union for example

So Raul Castex is one of the great thinkers, actually, especially in terms of internal warfare. No, I actually have a copy of Raul Castex on my bedside table, and it's dense. So I'm working through it, but slowly. And then another, and, you know, I don't know if you had ever collaborated, but the late Wayne Hughes from the Naval Postgraduate School. Wayne Hughes, yeah, but he wrote Tactics, you know, so he wrote Tactics, you know, and talking about more operational stuff. before i go you know i want to give you an opportunity to kind of leave us with any closing comments and then tell us uh what you're working on and then if we can find you online anywhere well i don't know i'm working now very hard to finish the by october i think the tactics

for naval combat arms for the naval institute is sequel to the general naval tactics and i have already a second project the tactics of combined arms with this with a anti-surface warfare anti-air warfare, mine warfare, amphibious warfare, things like that, that should follow next year. So I hope to finish this trilogy by the end of next year.

I'd like to thank my guest today, Dr. Milan Vigo, the professor at the United States Naval War College, for joining us today. And we're going to make sure that we post links to his recent books below the podcast and some of his recent articles. Thank you for joining us. Take care.

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