The Navy, Laboring In Obscurity

Via Galrahn, the country doesn't really have any idea what gets from its Global Force For Good:

 See Galrahn uncork a mighty rant about the Navy's lack of communication skills. On the one hand, you might say that the land wars of the past decade have obscured the Navy's role. But the anemic 15 percent rating of Navy preeminence before 9/11 complicates that picture significantly.

Another theory, harder to quantify, is that the proliferation of air strikes supplementing land wars for the past 30 years have led the public to believe that war is something that happens in the skies and on the ground. (Galrahn may be right that people discount Naval Aviation, and think of the airborne warfare as the exclusive province of the Air Force, but we'd need more data for that.)

Perhaps the simplest explanation is that people don't know what a U.S. naval battle looks like anymore. New-model air war looks like precision bombing and drone strikes. Complex land campaigns are ubiquitious thanks to Iraq and Afghanistan. But if you were to ask someone what naval operations looks like in the 21st Century, what sort of answer would you get? Humanitarian operations like in Haiti, Indonesia, Japan or Pakistan? Deterrence and sea lane commercial protection in the Pacific Rim? Anti-piracy off Somalia? Support operations to the land wars? Missile strikes and jamming in Libya? 

I use these examples because they're what the Navy has actually spent the last 18 months doing. No one would call the Navy lazy during this time -- it's actually been a rather torrid pace. But these operations don't look obviously like war, and that may be coloring public perception. Which is another way of saying that when the Navy does its job, and keeps the nation out of major theater wars, people take it for granted. The admirals might want to get a beer and gripe with the CIA.

Comments

[Rob]

Taking out Osama bin Laden?

[tom]

Taking out the Somali pirates on Easter Sunday?

[tom]

Nabhan in Somalia?

[PJR]

The Marine Corp and "same" have gained a lot of ground in the polling, and are the only gainers, perhaps in recognition that Americans have come to appreciate integrated combined arms and that the Marines best exemplify this. Plus, they seem to have done a great job wherever they've been. The fall in polls for the Air Force is most interesting.

[Spectacular]

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