Can Naval Power Alone Win Wars?

[Bigfella]

Blidgepump,

To your point....

Anyone remember the name Biamby? I was his cosponsor in the Infantry Officers Advanced Course 1984-1985. He went on to become BG Phillip Biamby, the #2 bad guy in Haiti.

Also, in my squad we had a Filipino major named Dulos. After he graduated the time I saw him was on CNN in 1989 when he came off the back of a C130 in Manila leading a bunch of Rangers with red neckerchiefs....they were there to support President Aquino in the coup against here.

I like to think the 2 balanced each otehr out!

Also had several Lebanese 2LTs in my Infantry Officer Basic Course in 1981...not a lot of them survived the wars of the 1980s.

AR,

I suspect there is a GREAT book (probably in several volumes) about guys who trained in US military academies or served in US units. It would be a real mixed bag. Certainly lots of Latin American officers who might not be fondly remembered, but no doubt plenty of others with better stories & a few real surprises.

As an example from a different military, when I was in Oman recently I discovered that the Sultan graduated from Sandhurst in 1960 & spent a year in Germany with the Scottish Rifles & then some time as a staff officer. Less than a decade later he returned home, overthrew his father in a bloodless coup & modernized his nation. I'm sure his portrait is displayed with pride by the Regiment.

[desertswo]

AR,

I suspect there is a GREAT book (probably in several volumes) about guys who trained in US military academies or served in US units. It would be a real mixed bag. Certainly lots of Latin American officers who might not be fondly remembered, but no doubt plenty of others with better stories & a few real surprises.

As an example from a different military, when I was in Oman recently I discovered that the Sultan graduated from Sandhurst in 1960 & spent a year in Germany with the Scottish Rifles & then some time as a staff officer. Less than a decade later he returned home, overthrew his father in a bloodless coup & modernized his nation. I'm sure his portrait is displayed with pride by the Regiment.

The Sultan makes it safe for people like me to have a nice, little bit of R&R, after long stretches of patrolling the Straight of Hormuz, in his country as well. Muscat is no garden spot, but the hotel-resorts on the beaches are very nice and secure and Westerners are free to have some good down time, often with their loved ones, in as secure an environment as it is possible to have in that region. Then again, there are a lot of dark tales about pedophilia and other assorted activities inside his palace that Americans find reprehensible, yet he is our one reliable friend in the region and has been for 50 years. Politics, most especially Realpolitik, makes for very strange bedfellows indeed. And not to put too fine a point on things, without access to Masirah Island, as well as the port of Manama, Bahrain inside (another Sheikdom with more than a few screws rattling around loose) the Gulf proper, the US Navy has a much more difficult time operating in that little corner of the world than it does.

As far as other vipers the US has suckled at its breast, this organization has been keeping tabs on things for a while now with regard to Latin America in particular. Additionally, my Professor back in the early-70s, and now Professor Emeritus of Latin American Studies at San Diego State University, Dr. Brian Loveman, has written a compilation of articles by others as well as his original works entitled For la Patria that pretty much serves as that one stop shopping for everything you ever wanted to know about such characters in Latin America. Loveman is decidedly left leaning, but the articles he includes cover the entire political spectrum and include works by people like Professor John Waghelstein, who was my Professor of Joint Military Operations at the War College. Loveman was in Chile working on his doctoral studies when Allende was overthrown, and in another lifetime, Waghelstein, who had a long career in the US Army's SOF community before retiring as a Colonel, led the Green Beret A Team that trained the Bolivian National Guard Unit that captured one Ernesto Guevara de la Serna y Lynch, aka "Che." They both have interesting things to say about the Latin American graduates of such institutions as the School of the Americas. Waghelstein had this photo prominently displayed on the wall behind his desk at the War College.

[desertswo]

My point was, if you simplify things, China is enjoying free trade on expense of USN just like USA did on RN in the past.

Without question, but it isn't an "America only" show these days. All of the developed nations have contributed to that security model since the end of WWII. One interesting example sort of lost in the detritus of the events of 1990-1991 vis-a-vis Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm is that the major security concern with regard to the logistics train to the Persian Gulf for prosecuting the war wasn't Iraqi sea mines, etc. It was piracy occurring east of the Straights of Malacca. That became a major, albeit highly localized and not well reported on (by design), theater of operations for USPACOM as the "supporting command" in the CONOPS/TOE. A commercial ship every 50 miles, sliding past Singapore, and every one just chock full of all kinds of interesting and expensive things. Now, no one was going to take down one of USTRANSCOM's "ro-ro" ships full of M1A1s, but there were other, smaller, vessels with very valuable cargoes on which the USN, RAN, et al. were minding the herd like one of Queen Elizabeth's (and mine) energetic little Corgis, that were much more manageable nuts to crack had we all not been doing the job described in the cartoon below. We had to because that area was Somalia before Somalia became famous for skinny pirates. Regardless, much like Ralph the Wolf, the pirates soon came to believe that Sam the Sheepdog (substitute a Corgi and the mental picture really is better), like so . . .



was omnipresent . . . even though he wasn't. It's all about appearances.

[zraver]

It was piracy occurring east of the Straights of Malacca.

With and end point in Communist China...

[Albany Rifles]

Albany... a good point you make about the fate of a foreign officer and which side of the fence he is called upon to defend.

The Hall of Fame in the Lewis and Clark building is decorated with the inductees who attended CGSC and later became leaders in their own countries.
I have never asked about the ones that were never heard from again.

Walked that hallway a few times and wondered the same!

[FJV]

The closest case I can think of is the Japan Russia war, where the Japanese navy fought the Russian Baltic fleet.

[gf0012-aust]

The closest case I can think of is the Japan Russia war, where the Japanese navy fought the Russian Baltic fleet.

Tsushima was about winning a battle though - as opposed to a deciding a war

they (russians) probably still hold the record for sailing a battle fleet to a battle. IIRC it set sail from the UK to go to the battle loc - close to 18,000nm or 33-34,000km

[Bigfella]

The closest case I can think of is the Japan Russia war, where the Japanese navy fought the Russian Baltic fleet.

Even then the Japanese had to send armies into Manchuria to take & hold territory.

[zraver]

The closest case I can think of is the Japan Russia war, where the Japanese navy fought the Russian Baltic fleet.

I've given multiple examples where navies won wars. Here is another- WWI. The Allied Armies were able to check German ground power but were not able to push them back. At least not until massive American aid and manpower arrived from the US escorted across the Atlantic and after the RN blockade had crushed the German economy and unleashed famine. No Royal Navy, or a defeated Royal Navy and WWI ends differently.