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Navies will be almost exclusively for power projection for those nations large enough to need it (the United States and MAYBE the PRC), leverage in maritime boundery disputes (Russia, Korea), or denial forces to keep nations with power projection capabilities from their shores (Iran). None of these purposes lend themselves to fleet actions. Power projection forces are for supporting land campaigns, maritime boundary forces are skirmishers with conflicts rarely growing into expensive wars whos cost greatly exceed the gains in a maritime boundary, and denial forces generally rely on small, disbursed coastal defense forces. The most likely major conflict is between the power projection forces and the denial forces, where the name of the game is assymetry. By the way, the ability to deploy a small group of ships around the world is only borderline "blue water" capability in my opinion. The true measure of naval power is the ability to conduct a naval campaign, where naval forces are used to gain access for land campaign forces and are able to dominate the sea lines of communication. Lacking a maritime strategy, most navies around the world are means to be involved in larger geopolitical initiatives without a large expense of footprint, or worse, are just expensive examples of national power with little true purpose.
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The SWO
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