The reply I was composing in my head as I was reading this was summed up in your last paragraph - there's no point attempting to convince people of this reality. They're the most conservative branch of a highly conservative institution, and there's far too much money and prestige on the line.
Naval bases deserve a paragraph of two of their own. They are inherently immobile and good locations are scarce. Sevastopol is now barely usable. The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad (formerly Koenigsberg), the only ice-free base for the Russian Baltic Fleet, is surrounded by NATO air and land forces which would in a shooting war reduce the fleet to a submarine museum in an hour. All the exclave is within artillery range (40 km).
I would not like to be the Russian admiral responsible for defending Vladivostok against land attack from China or (North) Korea - pick a date for reunification - or air attack from Japan. Look at the map, worse than Kaliningrad. Japan is in the middle of a $320 bn five-year rearmament plan, responding to Putin's brilliant strategic plan of threatening everybody. Pro tip: the Japanese navy and air force buy stuff that works.
I hadn't looked at the map until now. Even if Vladivostok can be defended, getting the Pacific Fleet into the Pacific requires getting out of the Sea of Japan through a bunch of narrow exit straits.
The USSR did move its nuclear subs to the strategically much better Petropavlovsk near the southern tip of Kamchatka, no doubt for John's reasoning. Russia has failed to have moved its surface fleet to join them, cheaping as usual with Putin. Admittedly Petropavlovsk is at the back of beyond even by high Siberian standards. There is no railway and no realistic hope of building one.
Modern naval power was always of marginal value. In WWI, Gallipoli was a famous failure. The success of the WWII amphibious assaults relied on half beaten, overstretched defending forces, complete air dominance, and accepted material and human loses that would be unacceptable now and were bearly acceptable then.
Engagements between navies usually involved massively expensive capital ships hiding from each other (Jutland) or large squadrons hunting down single ships (Hunting of the Bismark, Battle of the River Plate). The WWII Pacific War was an air war using navies as floating runways and a ground war using navies as taxis. When the battleships could have helped with bombardments before amphibious landing they overestimated their effectivenessand⁷ quit well before the defencive forces were supressed (Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal). Conventional bombing would have ultimately brought about Japan's surrrender given that Kobe, Tokyo and Osaka were as flattened as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Atlantic blockade was defeated by air power and computering power.
Navies' relevance has been declining since the advent of ironclads and explosive shells.
Agreed. The reach of aircraft carriers, the last major function of a surface navy, declines as the range of landbased planes and missiles increases.
The Falklands war ought to have been conclusive. The Argentine air force (a third-rate power at best) hadn't prepared for war, even to the extent of checking that their bombs were working, let alone stocking up on missiles. And they were operating far from the mainland. Still, they came close to defeating the Royal Navy.
It’s not only navies that are threatened by the new drone warfare on display in Ukraine. Kyiv does not officially confirm attacks on Russian soil, but off the record has claimed recent strikes against Russian air bases. The most successful was against the Morozovsk base near Rostov, where six SU-34 and SU-35 fighter-bombers were claimed destroyed and another eight damaged. The most interesting one was on the Engels airbase on the Volga, 750 km from the front line, where three TU-95 heavy bombers were claimed damaged
The TU-95 is an ancient 1950s strategic heavy bomber, the Soviet counterpart to the American B-52. Both have been repurposed as bomb and now missile trucks – launching these at height gives the missiles extra range and can be done from a very safe distance, in Russia’s case from over the Caspian Sea. But like naval bases, airfields for heavy bombers are large, complex, unconcealable, and immobile. The Ukrainians have clearly found ways of defeating the strong air defences. The bombers could be moved even further east, reviving disused Soviet airfields, but this would be expensive and time-consuming. Besides, the Ukrainians are working on 3,000-km drones that could reach half of Siberia, so safety is not assured. The longest-range drones are currently just converted light commercial aircraft: cutting out the pilot and passengers, and forgetting about safety, saves a lot of weight. https://www.technology.org/2024/04/07/ukraine-now-has-drones-with-a-very-long-operational-range/ It looks as if heavy bombers, as it were aerial battleships, have finally had their day.
There is a question mark over the fighter-bombers too. And where are all the Abrams main battle tanks finally released to Ukraine after a noisy information campaign? They have not shown up much in the positional defensive battles currently filling the news. It looks if the Ukrainian army has decided not to risk them for now against Russian artillery, mines, trenches and antitank missiles. They are being hoarded for a blitzkrieg that keeps being postponed, rather as the opposing armies in WW1 maintained cavalry regiments behind the front lines to exploit the breakthrough that never came. Except at Megiddo, and that was with camels.
Russia was never a major naval power. Their problem is that too much of their coastline is in the Arctic region to be navigable year-round. The Black Sea is also governed by the Montreux Convention, which has effectively prevented the Russians from adding to their existing fleet as it has shrunk to a flotilla.
If Russia wanted to secure the Black Sea for their purposes, bad own goal.
Benefit of hindsight here. On the assumption that the Black Sea Fleet only had to fear other navies, the Montreux Convention ensured Russian control of the entire Black Sea by keeping potential naval adversaries out. No one anticipated that drones and missiles would, as you say, reduce it to a flotilla.
Surely* this line of thinking has huge implications for Australia's defence policy? It implies we don't have any great need of strategic alliances, as it will be relatively inexpensive to maintain sufficient sea and air defences to effectively preclude the possibility of invasion. Indonesia and New Zealand must be in the same boat (!). Autarky here we come!
I'm aware of your view that people who say "surely" are never sure, but I've come to the conclusion there are too many sure people in the world already.
For any readers still keeping score, Robert Farley gives the aggrieved expert rejoinder here: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/04/on-naval-power . I am miffed that he completely ignores my modest contribution on naval bases. I doubt if the Russian Navy is quite so sanguine. Sevastopol, Kaliningrad and Vladivostok are very vulnerable, Petropavlovsk is inaccessible and Kronstadt ices up., leaving only Murmansk as unproblematic.
The reply I was composing in my head as I was reading this was summed up in your last paragraph - there's no point attempting to convince people of this reality. They're the most conservative branch of a highly conservative institution, and there's far too much money and prestige on the line.
Naval bases deserve a paragraph of two of their own. They are inherently immobile and good locations are scarce. Sevastopol is now barely usable. The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad (formerly Koenigsberg), the only ice-free base for the Russian Baltic Fleet, is surrounded by NATO air and land forces which would in a shooting war reduce the fleet to a submarine museum in an hour. All the exclave is within artillery range (40 km).
There’s still Vladivostok, I guess
I would not like to be the Russian admiral responsible for defending Vladivostok against land attack from China or (North) Korea - pick a date for reunification - or air attack from Japan. Look at the map, worse than Kaliningrad. Japan is in the middle of a $320 bn five-year rearmament plan, responding to Putin's brilliant strategic plan of threatening everybody. Pro tip: the Japanese navy and air force buy stuff that works.
I hadn't looked at the map until now. Even if Vladivostok can be defended, getting the Pacific Fleet into the Pacific requires getting out of the Sea of Japan through a bunch of narrow exit straits.
The USSR did move its nuclear subs to the strategically much better Petropavlovsk near the southern tip of Kamchatka, no doubt for John's reasoning. Russia has failed to have moved its surface fleet to join them, cheaping as usual with Putin. Admittedly Petropavlovsk is at the back of beyond even by high Siberian standards. There is no railway and no realistic hope of building one.
Modern naval power was always of marginal value. In WWI, Gallipoli was a famous failure. The success of the WWII amphibious assaults relied on half beaten, overstretched defending forces, complete air dominance, and accepted material and human loses that would be unacceptable now and were bearly acceptable then.
Engagements between navies usually involved massively expensive capital ships hiding from each other (Jutland) or large squadrons hunting down single ships (Hunting of the Bismark, Battle of the River Plate). The WWII Pacific War was an air war using navies as floating runways and a ground war using navies as taxis. When the battleships could have helped with bombardments before amphibious landing they overestimated their effectivenessand⁷ quit well before the defencive forces were supressed (Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal). Conventional bombing would have ultimately brought about Japan's surrrender given that Kobe, Tokyo and Osaka were as flattened as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Atlantic blockade was defeated by air power and computering power.
Navies' relevance has been declining since the advent of ironclads and explosive shells.
Agreed. The reach of aircraft carriers, the last major function of a surface navy, declines as the range of landbased planes and missiles increases.
The Falklands war ought to have been conclusive. The Argentine air force (a third-rate power at best) hadn't prepared for war, even to the extent of checking that their bombs were working, let alone stocking up on missiles. And they were operating far from the mainland. Still, they came close to defeating the Royal Navy.
It’s not only navies that are threatened by the new drone warfare on display in Ukraine. Kyiv does not officially confirm attacks on Russian soil, but off the record has claimed recent strikes against Russian air bases. The most successful was against the Morozovsk base near Rostov, where six SU-34 and SU-35 fighter-bombers were claimed destroyed and another eight damaged. The most interesting one was on the Engels airbase on the Volga, 750 km from the front line, where three TU-95 heavy bombers were claimed damaged
https://kyivindependent.com/source-russias-engels-air-base-was-hit-by-ukraine-heres-why-its-important/
The TU-95 is an ancient 1950s strategic heavy bomber, the Soviet counterpart to the American B-52. Both have been repurposed as bomb and now missile trucks – launching these at height gives the missiles extra range and can be done from a very safe distance, in Russia’s case from over the Caspian Sea. But like naval bases, airfields for heavy bombers are large, complex, unconcealable, and immobile. The Ukrainians have clearly found ways of defeating the strong air defences. The bombers could be moved even further east, reviving disused Soviet airfields, but this would be expensive and time-consuming. Besides, the Ukrainians are working on 3,000-km drones that could reach half of Siberia, so safety is not assured. The longest-range drones are currently just converted light commercial aircraft: cutting out the pilot and passengers, and forgetting about safety, saves a lot of weight. https://www.technology.org/2024/04/07/ukraine-now-has-drones-with-a-very-long-operational-range/ It looks as if heavy bombers, as it were aerial battleships, have finally had their day.
There is a question mark over the fighter-bombers too. And where are all the Abrams main battle tanks finally released to Ukraine after a noisy information campaign? They have not shown up much in the positional defensive battles currently filling the news. It looks if the Ukrainian army has decided not to risk them for now against Russian artillery, mines, trenches and antitank missiles. They are being hoarded for a blitzkrieg that keeps being postponed, rather as the opposing armies in WW1 maintained cavalry regiments behind the front lines to exploit the breakthrough that never came. Except at Megiddo, and that was with camels.
Russia was never a major naval power. Their problem is that too much of their coastline is in the Arctic region to be navigable year-round. The Black Sea is also governed by the Montreux Convention, which has effectively prevented the Russians from adding to their existing fleet as it has shrunk to a flotilla.
If Russia wanted to secure the Black Sea for their purposes, bad own goal.
Benefit of hindsight here. On the assumption that the Black Sea Fleet only had to fear other navies, the Montreux Convention ensured Russian control of the entire Black Sea by keeping potential naval adversaries out. No one anticipated that drones and missiles would, as you say, reduce it to a flotilla.
Surely* this line of thinking has huge implications for Australia's defence policy? It implies we don't have any great need of strategic alliances, as it will be relatively inexpensive to maintain sufficient sea and air defences to effectively preclude the possibility of invasion. Indonesia and New Zealand must be in the same boat (!). Autarky here we come!
I'm aware of your view that people who say "surely" are never sure, but I've come to the conclusion there are too many sure people in the world already.
This reasoning has been spelt out in Sam Roggeveen's <i>Echidna Strategy<i>
For any readers still keeping score, Robert Farley gives the aggrieved expert rejoinder here: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/04/on-naval-power . I am miffed that he completely ignores my modest contribution on naval bases. I doubt if the Russian Navy is quite so sanguine. Sevastopol, Kaliningrad and Vladivostok are very vulnerable, Petropavlovsk is inaccessible and Kronstadt ices up., leaving only Murmansk as unproblematic.