The era of the Transoceanic Navy, focused on power projection from uncontested seas, is over, Commander Jeff Vandenengel argues, and the era of the Panoceanic Navy, focused on sea control and sea denial, has begun:
In the Continental Phase, from the nation’s founding until the 1890s, the United States fought for North American dominance. Because most threats were on land, the Navy played a subordinate role to the Army and focused primarily on coastal defense, commerce protection and raiding, and support of forces ashore, earning weak public support and limited resources as a result. The Oceanic Phase, from the 1890s until the end of World War II, focused on national efforts to achieve supremacy against threats emanating from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Based on that national aim and shaped by the writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan, the Navy sought to achieve command of the sea through the construction of a powerful battle fleet, giving it a convincing strategic concept that earned the service great public support and resources. Finally, Huntington introduced the Eurasian phase of national policy that started at the end of World War II and featured the replacement of oceanic threats with a new continental threat, the Soviet Union. He then introduced the transoceanic Navy, which would use command of the sea to influence events ashore and give it a new strategic concept to earn public support and resources.
Today, the nation’s primary threat has shifted from the Soviet Union to China, which has an economy, military, and set of ambitions that make it a fundamentally different and more menacing adversary. As a result, Huntington’s Eurasian Phase is over and a new phase of national policy has begun, to be dominated by diplomatic, informational, military, and economic competition between the United States and China. Within that competition, China’s construction of a fleet and military designed to challenge the U.S. Navy has degraded U.S. command of the sea to its lowest point in 80 years, undermining the transoceanic Navy’s strategic concept and ability to contribute to national policy.
In its place a new doctrine is taking shape, the theory of the panoceanic Navy, shifting away from projecting power ashore and toward reestablishing command of the sea to enable the flow of friendly military forces and trade while denying that movement to the adversary.
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The U.S. Navy established command of the sea following World War II. That victory, Huntington showed, created a paradoxical crisis: The Navy had built a fleet to establish command of the sea and then achieved just that. Its success meant there were no credible adversaries at sea, undermining the service’s long-held strategic concept that it would guard against oceanic threats and needed a large fleet to do so. The Navy’s ability to win public support and earn the resources necessary to contribute to national objectives suffered as a result.
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The primary challenger to that command is the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), now the world’s largest navy by hull count—if not yet by tonnage—with approximately 25 percent more warships than the U.S. Navy, a disparity expected to grow to almost 50 percent by 2030. Approximately 70 percent of those PLAN warships have been launched since 2010, compared to just 25 percent of U.S. warships, meaning it is no longer a fleet of old, obsolete coastal vessels.
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The Navy’s strenuous submarine production efforts and the Marine Corps’ Force Design are implicit acknowledgements that the United States no longer enjoys uncontested command of the sea. Large numbers of fast-attack submarines are only necessary if there are large numbers of warships for them to sink and large areas in which surface ships would be at too great a risk to operate. Similarly, Marine littoral regiments are only necessary if Marines must “stand in” a high-threat zone, at risk of being cut off from naval support; medium landing ships (LSMs) are only desirable if large amphibious warships cannot deliver Marines where and when desired; and the Marine Corps’ sea control efforts are only necessary if that control is contested.
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Even nonstate actors, because of the proliferation and democratization of long-range sensors, networks, and weapons, are able to contest that command, at least on a regional basis. The Houthis launched more attacks on U.S. Navy ships in two years than all other adversaries had in the preceding 79 years.
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Today, the Navy is built to project power ashore against continental threats but no longer enjoys the command of the sea necessary to do so.
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China now has the world’s second largest economy, manufactures more goods than the next four leading countries combined, and is a global leader in research, innovation, and patents. It has the world’s largest navy, army, conventional rocket force, merchant marine, maritime law enforcement fleet, and the Indo-Pacific’s largest aviation force.
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Whereas the transoceanic Navy shifted focus “away from the oceans and towards the land masses on their far side,” the focus now returns to the sea. The proliferation of long-range sensors, networks, and weapons, however, means it is increasingly difficult for any fleet to achieve sea control—never mind command of the sea. In addition, while conflicts in the Oceanic Phase were primarily decided by fleet-on-fleet actions, the proliferation and democratization of technologies means non-naval forces (Houthis with land-based antiship missiles on the low end of the spectrum and the PLARF on the high end, for example) now have an unprecedented ability to engage fleets, greatly expanding the range and scope of the naval battlefield. What results is the theory of the panoceanic Navy.
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The Pacific phase now features competition between two nations with powerful fleets and large maritime trade flows, and so the site of decisive action has shifted back to the sea. Whoever prevails there will win the ability to influence events ashore, whether through military functions, such as power projection and deterrence, or through the protection and denial of trade and accumulation of national wealth and power. Even the simple viewing of a map makes it obvious: The two competing superpowers are separated by the world’s largest ocean, and it is here that the military competition will be decided.
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At sea, the PLAN has equipped most of its warships, aircraft, submarines, and larger robotic and autonomous systems (RASs) with antiship missiles, meaning almost every platform in its fleet, not just capital ships, poses a significant threat. Even if Chinese aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers could be defeated, clandestine forces such as the world’s largest submarine fleet, PLA mining—forces, and the Chinese maritime militia—could significantly delay if not prevent U.S. sea control.
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In the land domain, the PLARF operates from mobile launchers that are difficult to find and uses weapons that outrange most of those in the U.S. fleet, giving it the ability to strike ships thousands of miles from the coast. The U.S. Marine Corps’ Force Design is focused on using distributed and hidden stand-in forces to affect events at sea, a model the Houthis used to contest U.S. sea control efforts for almost two years. A ship has always been a fool to fight a fort, and now the fort (land-based forces) is mobile, has excellent scouting, long-range communications and weapons, and may be harder to find than the ship.
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Naval history has been dominated by desperate struggles to find the enemy, but today the space and cyber domains may reduce the time necessary to do so from months to minutes.
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Whereas the oceanic Navy focused on fleet-on-fleet actions in a constrained part of an ocean and the transoceanic Navy focused on engagements between the fleet and continental forces in constrained littoral regions, the panoceanic Navy will have to strive to establish sea control against a wide array of military forces operating from multiple domains, with sensors, networks, and weapons of such long range to make it seem like the oceans are one continuous battlefield—a panoceanic arena.
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Taken together, these trends have lowered the obstacles to a credible attack and raised the requirements for credible defense, making sea denial easier and sea control harder. That has already played out in regional contests. In the Red Sea, to attempt sea denial, the Houthis needed a truck, a computer, and a RAS, whereas the U.S. Navy, to achieve sea control, needed a guided-missile destroyer with a highly trained crew, phased-array radars and satellite networks, and multiple types of advanced interceptors. The Houthis might not have known themselves whether their attacks failed; the world would have known almost immediately had U.S. defenses failed. The Houthis capitalized on that disparity to contest U.S. Navy sea control efforts for almost two years without a navy, without an air force, and without a credible industrial base. The Houthis’ sea-denial efforts must be assessed as partially successful—despite U.S. naval officers’ and sailors’ superb performance in battle—as evidenced by the significant reductions in merchant shipping willing to risk a Red Sea transit. Similarly, the Ukrainians denied the Black Sea to the Russians primarily by using land-based missiles and RASs, and in doing so established a measure of sea control for their own maritime shipping.
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Given the threats the United States now faces, the nation’s resulting strategy, and the reality of modern combat at sea, the Navy’s mission is now to establish sea control where possible and sea denial where required.
In the limit, a warship is a floating missile launch platform defended by directed energy weapons.
Until there are boots on the ground or total annihilation of the adversary there truly is no victory. War making has been democratized, politicized and monetized. There are more reasons to keep conflicts going than to conclude them.
Vandenengel is wrong on a number of counts, and the Pan Oceanic Navy is just another one of those practical jokes that the US military plays on itself from time to time.
First, the US economy is too small to sustain our current military. Hence the epidemic of deferred maintenance in all branches, the Navy especially. Deferred maintenance is capital consumption, and it is a way of disguising the actual reduction in the size of the Navy. The Stennis has been in dry dock for over 5 years.
Second, the deficiencies of the US Navy are nowhere more apparent than in its inability to suppress the Houthis. Two separate carrier strike groups were sent against the Houthis, and were forced to retire after exhausting their offensive and defensive missiles. One group lost three F18′s due to accidents and friendly fire. They left the Houthis in unchallenged control of the Red Sea. The recent embarrassing image of the USS Bush strike group circumnavigating all of Africa in order to avoid the Houthis is a further illustration of US naval incompetence.
If the US Navy has to run away from the Houthis, just how do they think they will be able to confront the Russians, the Chinese, or even the Iranians. They can’t.
Vandenengel is also wrong about the size of the Chinese economy. Its total economy is at least 50% larger than the US’, and its manufacturing economy is at least twice the size of the US’, and very much more modern and comprehensive.
He is even wrong about the relative sizes of various navies. The largest navy, by hull count, and including combat support ships, is the Russian navy, with over 700 hulls. However, the Russian navy is heavily frigate and corvette heavy, and oriented towards the defense of their enormous coast line. That said, Russian naval combatants are much more heavily armed than are American ships, and they carry hypersonic missiles, which the US Navy does not have.
Historical perspective:
The previous range was 3 miles circa 1793, then 12 miles for decades prior to 1982, then people tried to ignore the problem from 1982 to 2026. Currently, Houthis on shoestring budgets can effectively hit ships 60 to 150 miles away, and Iranians can effectively hit ships 180 miles away.
This brings us back to how a system collapses because its ruling elite obstinately clings to an ideology that is no longer fit for purpose.
The military-industrial-congressional complex was bought and paid for decades ago. The civilian and military authorities may have ideological difference, but perhaps all of their ideological positions are no longer fit for purpose.
Postscript: Years ago, a US Navy vet told me that the old Navy had mottoes like, “A sailor does the right thing, even when no one is looking, regardless of personal consequences,” but due to a zero-defects mentality and political correctness that had to be revised to something like, “A sailor must make sure the brass are not looking when he does the right thing.”