The Army Discovers the Navy's "Fortress Fleet"

...finding nuggets mixed in with the pebbles...

We’ve all had a bit of fun with the US Army trying to find some way to convince everyone that they should have a primary role - I guess - in any future Pacific conflict. My go-to move is simply to point to this view of the globe and giggle a little bit.

As it was in the past, so it shall be in the future - a war in the Western Pacific will be primarily a maritime and aerospace fight. Army will the supporting service, not the supported.

Not that our ground forces don’t have an important role. Someone has to take and hold islands, to reinforce allied forces ashore when needed … but regardless of how many times you like to Joint-up your discussions - never forget the entire “Joint” cult is nothing but the Army trying to keep the USN and USAF inside Army fencing.

So, what should Army do? What is old is new again … but I’d like everyone to stick with me a bit…as we’re going to take a couple of turns.

First I will be positive and supporting of the article, which at first reading gave me a tingle up the leg in parts … but then I need to take it apart.

Over at MWI, Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Jennings, USA, PhD, (or whatever order the latest iteration of the style guide demands) an associate professor and Army strategist at the US Army Command and General Staff College, put out an article yesterday, The Army and the Fortress Fleet: Reimagining Landpower in Maritime Warfare.

As the title suggests, there is a pedigree to the name that I’ll get to later on in the post. Jennings’s timing is good on the topic, and here is what he wants to bring for you to consider;

…the dramatic expansion of long-range strike by land-based batteries with advanced detection and targeting mechanisms invites reconsideration of a fortress fleet strategy. This more robust approach to maritime affairs would allow the Army, as mandated in its capstone doctrine, to better “support joint defeat of enemy integrated air defenses, fires and strike complexes, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and integrated C2 networks to enable success.” It would enable, if optimized for the coastal mission, the landpower institution to protect maritime decisive points and forward basing while ultimately facilitating survivable naval offensive maneuvers at a larger scope and scale.

…

Seeking to neither replace nor displace the traditional roles of the US Navy and US Marine Corps, America’s primary landpower institution could rather invest in twenty-first-century coastal fort complexes in forward areas that mitigate vulnerabilities and amplify strengths in order to enable joint protection and maneuver in increasingly lethal maritime environments.

This evolved approach centers on the age-old role of coastal forts in both antiaccess and protection operations, which continues to be a primary responsibility for Army forces in littoral settings.

…

Representing an extension and evolution of the fleet-in-being concept, where the very existence of premier naval power affects adversary calculus, the development of twenty-first-century coastal forts would assure allies of American political resolve and signal coalition reliability in expeditionary theaters. Similarly, and equally valuable, the long-term military investment in forward areas would deter adversaries by constructing reciprocal antiaccess architectures that not only dramatically raise the cost of territorial aggrandizement, but also counter malign informational designs by presenting visible and credible intent to defend national interests.

OK, there’s the good bits. US Army taking back their coastal artillery heritage and mission, but with new weapons and tactics. I can sell that…but as I read that and saw our friend James Holmes mentioned a few times … I started to think … wait. This isn’t a new reboot idea … at all … and I’m not sure “fortress fleet” - a passive and defensive CONOPS - is at all inline with the US Navy’s mission should war come west of the International Date Line. I’m all about the US Army building a whole string of porcupines across the Pacific … but not in a “fortress fleet” manner.

Remember back in 2012 when Holmes wrote on the historical example of “fortress fleet?” Holmes explains well how, yes, “fortress fleet” might just be the right idea for the People’s Republic of China;

…if Fortress China … could use inexpensive shore-based weapons to clear adversaries from a massive offshore zone, think about what that would mean for its navy. …So long as Beijing confines its political ambitions to places within reach of systems like anti-ship ballistic missiles—namely the China seas, a sizable swath of the Western Pacific, and parts of the Indian Ocean—it can content itself with a navy of second rank. Good enough to accomplish its goals is, well, good enough.

A “fortress fleet” CONOPS is a good idea for a land power, like the PRC, that has maritime concerns. It is not well suited to a maritime and aerospace power, the USA, that has concerns ashore.

Holmes has more information on the “fortress fleet” back in 2010;

For the USA though?

Let’s go back to Jennings’s article. He got the right idea - but he’s over-thought it - and is being a bit too service-centric about it. Have the US Army get back in to land based coastal defense? With modern systems, superb idea. Nice set of tools to have in the box.

The “fortress fleet” CONOPS though? No, wrong nation.

That is the substantive critique, but here is a bit of a harsher one.

As he shapes it in a way to leverage it as a tool of one service stealing a march on another…a bit too far.

I’ve got some concerns I’m not quite sure how to deal with, but I’ll give it a shot.

He has some HUGE historical errors - easily avoidable ones.

1. The Ukrainian Navy, not Ukrainian Army, operates the Neptune ASCM batteries. Twice he says Ukrainian Army did this. Any simple google search shows you that. Heck here they are. Heck, if he read my substack two years ago he’d know that. That’s navy:

   

2. He bunches in Russian/Soviet Kaliningrad with British Gibraltar and pre-WWII Manila Bay. I'm sorry ... but "Kaliningrad" has no such similar connection to Gib or Manila Bay. Prussian Königsberg maybe ... maybe ... but its defenses were almost exclusively designed to repel armies from land, not from sea. Kaliningrad is a post-WW2 creation following a wave of murder, rape, and 100% ethnic cleansing of East Prussia ... that was FAR behind the Warsaw Pact front lines in the Cold War. There were zero plans to send surface forces in to the eastern Baltic during the Cold War. None. I know, I saw the OPLANS.

3. It is a cumbersome read, written in a buzzword festooned manner like an overly eager O3, not an O5 with a PhD. I don’t want to be mean, but … just read it compared to Holmes’s source material linked above.

4. It is almost a “Ref. A” example of how the Army uses “Joint” as both a weapon and an argumentative smoke screen to find a reason to shoe-horn Army from the supporting service to the supported - regardless of how oblique the logic is. Just catch the last paragraph, in part;

…the fortress fleet concept can redefine the interplay of landpower, airpower, and seapower in maritime conflict. Seeking to fulfill the US military’s mandate to, as described in the 2022 US National Security Strategy, employ “integrated deterrence” to “shape adversary perceptions of risks and costs of action against core U.S. interests,” a revolutionized commitment by the Army to deny enemy access, safeguard national interests, and enable naval position and maneuver in competitive maritime environments promises to enhance, and potentially even transform, the projection of joint seapower. This reimagined contribution, representing just the next iteration in the ever-changing character of warfare, may provide a critical, and even vital, military capability for the American republic to compete and win in the twenty-first century.

Here is what the Army likes to whisper to itself during solo quality time, “…enable naval position and maneuver…joint seapower…“

You see, in the Joint worldview, a Navy cannot do anything at sea without the Army. Heck, there isn’t even naval power, there is only joint seapower … enabled by the Army … and preferable under OPCON if not OPCOM of an Army General.

Sadly, that is what I realized after the second reading. This isn’t really about the Army recapturing a lost warfare area given a new life via newly capable weapons development. No. This is just service rivalry butched-up with a doctrine references and leavened with a jumbo sprinkling of “joint.”

I think everyone would have been better served if Jennings would have done two articles. First, he could have updated Holmes’s “Fortress Fleet” retrospective with the last dozen-years’ PRC developments since his 2012 article. Second he could have outlined the possibility of the return of a robust, deployable Army coastal defense branch and how that would help secure the Western Pacific.

…and write like a normal human. Please.