By Benjamin Friedman
The size, budget, and operations of the U.S. Navy rely on a theory that global trade depends on the regular “presence” of U.S. ships. Naval and shipbuilding advocates tell us that global patrols of U.S. warships constantly protect seaborne commerce.
The notion that naval presence is vital to global trade is very expensive. In theory, it creates a near bottomless appetite for ships, since the volume of U.S.-origin or U.S.-bound shipments will always massively exceed the available number of U.S. naval vessels, even if the present size of the fleet doubled. As a recent article by Robert Work discusses, demand for the presence of U.S. ships to protect peacetime commerce has become an increasingly important rationale for the Navy, as its more traditional missions, starting with combatting other navies, have grown less important. The demand from combatant commanders for presence missions is a major reason why roughly one-third of U.S. ships are deployed at any given time and why the Navy has major readiness problems. That means personnel and ships are overworked and less than fit for core war-fighting missions.
Yet this idea that global trade depends on the Navy is a myth, albeit one with real historical origins. It’s true that sea control, which entails protecting trade in sea lanes, is a traditional naval mission that the U.S. fleet should remain equipped to perform in times of war and crisis. But if the Navy stopped patrolling so much in peacetime, there is no good reason to expect trade to suffer. We have confused the Navy’s ability to protect sea lanes with the idea that it should always be doing so.
This piece was originally published in CSIS on January 7, 2022. Read more HERE.