I’m not sure I buy that this strategy reflects a pragmatic approach combined with an innovative approach though. It is pragmatic in that it addresses the causes and effects of wars large and small, and sets a coarse in prevention of them but only by dealing with the causes other than human competition (humanitarian). I do not agree the Navy doesn’t have a role in contributing to addressing the roots of energy demand, the Navy already trains the vast majority of the nations nuclear experts.

Additionally, none of the approaches are innovative, even the new discussion on soft power is only acknowledgment of what the Navy has already been doing. It may be in the cla**ified doc, but the uncla**ified version is searches for innovation in approaches and methods, it doesn’t define a single innovative purpose or process.

I’d argue the Navy should have taken a pragmatic approach based in innovation in the strategy, and I predict that someone like Bob Work named above is going to produce an alternative strategy concept in the next 12 months that illustrates my point.

My case is flawed, I give the impression more ships is a requirement for extending superiority, but I don’t think more ships has to be. The historical presidence for our position today in the Royal Navy after 1815, and they reduced ships while extending their superiority. I don’t see the new MS building on the lessons of history in its approach to the new strategy.

Either way, as you can tell, I’m just being critical at this point, we have what we have and now its time to look for best approaches to implement, I thank you very much for your insights over the last week.

His view–to paraphrase, is that the strategy (which he accepts as a strategy) reflects a mindset in the Navy of acceptance of US decline. That the very “cooperative” nature of the strategy signals a comfort with and acceptance of the erosion of US primacy in the world. I am drawn to his criticism primarily because it questions the very foundations of the strategy–a meaty criticism worth thinking about and responding to.

And after thinking a great deal about it, I believe he is generally correct in his thinking. This strategy would clearly have been inappropriate to promulgate in 1992 (which is I think when “…From the Sea” came out). That was a vision of Primacy–a Navy that had gained pretty much total dominance everywhere, and so had turned its attention full bore to the littorals and supporting the land battle. It was a vision/strategy for a world hegemon, a “hyperpower” as the French would put it, and it fit well with the post-Cold War unipolar world.

Problem is, we don’t live in that world now. The fall of Communism and the rise of the internet helped unleash potential throughout whole new parts of the world. At the same time, the world’s sole remaining Communist super-power decided to learn from the mistakes of its crumbling older brother in the Soviet Union by harnessing its planned economy to the yoke of world capitalism rather than fighting it. So where are we now? We have a rising China that some believe will bypa** us economically sometime this century. We have a powerful bloc of European nations increasingly ceding their own power to a regional structure. We have an unsteady Russia, gifted with natural resources and cursed with low-birth rate. We have India moving aggressively into major power status, and Brazil thinking quite a bit about what being a world power would be like.

The result is that we live now in what some international relations theorists call an “unbalanced multi-polar” world. Many realists (which is where I fall in the International Relations spectrum) believe unbalanced multi-polarity is the most dangerous state of international affairs. The question, and the central question I think for me when I review Galrahn’s work, is what we should have done about it. In order to produce a strategy consistent with what I a**ume Galrahn’s a**essment of our rightful place in the world is, we would first–as a nation–have to actually start to act like we actually want to a**ume that place; and unlike Galrahn, I see little evidence of that. We are the most powerful nation in the world–I believe Americans continue to want that. I don’t think that they want that position to be gained by some kind of strategy designed to hold down the emergence of others on the scene. And I certainly don’t think they are willing to undertake the sacrifice necessary if we were to seek to create a unipolar world again. Putting that aside for a second, I truly believe that while we certainly weren’t shying away from exerting upward pressure on national policy with this document, it clearly is not the place of the maritime services to create national Grand Strategy. What Galrahn is pointing to is a yearning for a Grand Strategy designed to return the US to a position of unquestioned world dominance across the spectrum of power. Were there ANY evidence that this is where the nation was headed, I agree that “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower” would be inappropriate. There just isn’t any convincing evidence.

I agree with all the things Galrahn says about the American people–but I would also add that they are pragmatic, and they are innovative. They stole capitalism from their masters and made it the way of the world. They studied democracy where it had been before and created a democratic government upon which no one has improved. I think that they want us to be pragmatic and innovative about how we work to protect, sustain, and extend our position in the world. I believe this strategy does just that.