Plus ça change: A French Approach to Naval Warfare in the 21st Century
The literature on 21st-century naval warfare has been dominated by discussions focused on technology, discussions that consistently have lauded technology, argued for its inevitability, and fretted that China might already have an edge in it. One finds technology-related debates about the Third Offset, multi-domain operations, and anti-access/area denial capabilities, not to mention the prospects for artificial intelligence, digital networking, precision-guided weapons, and drones. When the literature expresses hesitations, it does so largely out of ethical concerns and worries about the resilience of information networks. One finds examples of all the above in the work of Paul Scharre and RAND studies, not to mention publications generated by numerous conferences on the subject.
One common theme is that “the Navy must learn to operate at the speed of AI.” This means navies should change how they do just about everything in light of new technologies, even if only to keep up with peer adversaries. Besides, as advocates of multi-domain operations point out, fusing “multi-domain” capabilities requires enormous investments in technology. Otherwise, it will not work. This is the spirit animating the American concept of “Joint All-Domain Command and Control.” A key premise of this is that the flood of data coming in from networked sensors “complicate” decision making, and the “complexity and speed of the technology being used can exceed the ability of human cognition,” to cite the Congressional Research Service. In effect, technology begets the need for more technology.
Against this backdrop, a recent contribution by two French naval officers, Thibault Lavernhe and François-Olivier Corman, stands out. Seeking to refocus discussion naval warfare on naval tactics and reconnect with naval doctrine, they push back against what one might refer to as technological determinism. In the process, they offer a highly informative take on naval warfare that makes the case for keeping humans in the loop for tactical rather than ethical reasons. Their concern is not that automation is dangerous, but that humans are ultimately more effective. They make the case for the art of command, an essential human (even divine) and creative function that machines, they insist, cannot reproduce. In this, they place themselves in opposition to the consensus while adopting a position that is distinctly French. The book implies the need not to rush headlong into the embrace of advanced technologies and offers instead a vision that emphasizes the training and professionalism of a ship’s commanders and crews. Naval warfare has changed less than one might imagine, the authors argue, and therefore the qualities of commanders and the art of command, which in their view have been critical for victory in the past, will remain so for the foreseeable future.
As we shall discuss, they overstate the case. They offer an almost romantic vision of command at sea while also understating the ramifications of new technologies and the pressures to embrace them. Nonetheless, they help us shift away from a focus on technology toward the question of the virtues of the art of command. In doing so, they encourage a debate that is barely happening, as chatter about technology eclipses discussions of fundamentals such as the art of command. They also restore some credibility to the venerable “Historical School” of naval strategic thinking, reminding us of the deep continuities that continue to define naval strategy across changing technological eras.
Winning at Sea
The book in question is Vaincre en mer au XXIe siècle: La tactique au cinquième âge du combat naval (To Win at Sea in the 21st Century: Tactics in the Fifth Age of Naval Combat). Lavernhe and Corman appear to have set out to write a book that might be used as a key textbook and reference for naval officers. In its ambition and scope it resembles greatly Gen. Michel Yakovleff’s immense and encyclopedic Tactique théorique (Theoretical Tactics), which is an important reference for the French army today. Like Yakovleff, they draw heavily on military history and fold into their discussion numerous fascinating and informative vignettes about historical battles and the tactics used in them. They dissect fleet actions during the War of American Independence, the massive naval clashes of the two World Wars, the Franco-Thai War of 1940-1941 (who knew?), the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and in the Falklands War of 1982. Lay readers will learn a great deal.
The book has, however, several broad arguments, which emerge as Lavernhe and Corman set out to define what makes naval warfare distinct from land warfare and to make a case for key periods in its evolution. They identify five ages of naval warfare: sail, cannon, aircraft, missiles, and robotization, the last being the age that the world’s navies, they assert, have recently entered. Some things have changed, but their real interest is in that which, they argue, has not. Indeed, they are quick to identify themselves with the so-called Historical School of naval thinking often associated with the Holy Trinity of modern naval theorists, Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914), Julian Corbett (1854–1922), and Raoul Castex (1878–1968), which stood opposed to the “Material School.”
The Material School, briefly, held that new technologies fundamentally changed the nature of naval warfare — its advocates eschewed historical lessons. What could we possibly learn from the maneuvers of French naval hero Adm. Pierre André de Suffren in the 18th century? They questioned the perennity of abstract principles. (For a good discussion of the Historical versus the Material Schools, see Kevin D. McCrainie’s excellent Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought.) In France, the Material School is usually associated with the Jeune École, which the authors mock. The Jeune École was a movement in naval thinking frequently associated with theorist Théophile Aube (1826–1890) that, at the end of the 19th century, argued that torpedoes and modern artillery made large warships and their associated tactics obsolete. Besides, the new technology offered the possibility of saving money by obviating the need to match the mighty Royal Navy’s battleship fleets. The idea was to avoid fleet actions in favor of what historian Martin Motte has described as a “naval techno-guerilla” campaign against British shipping. This view prompted the French navy to invest in small, cheap, and fast boats armed with torpedoes or just a few large-caliber guns. These, it was thought, would be able to outmaneuver and swarm much larger warships. History would prove that such vessels might have been of use for coastal defense but not for blue-water fleet actions.
By aligning with the Historical School, Lavernhe and Corman signal their embrace of continuity and the eternal validity of principles of war unaffected by new technologies. In this, they are knowingly following the path of the grandfather of modern French military strategy, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, whom they cite copiously, not to mention the doyenne of French naval thinking, Castex, who also is a key authority for them. They are signaling their conservatism vis-à-vis the impact of technology.
Drawing heavily on naval history and published historical and contemporary American and British naval doctrine, Lavernhe and Corman try to define the specificity of naval warfare, which, they argue, is unchanging across centuries. Naval warfare, they assert, is defined above all by three characteristics: rapidity, destructiveness, and decisiveness. Battles are, once joined, exceedingly brief, a matter of hours at most, but often minutes. They also often are massively destructive. Battles are won through attrition: The ships of one side sink the others. Naval warfare of late has become less bloody simply because fewer people crew contemporary warships compared to the ships-of-the line of old wherein a dozen sailors manned each gun, or the behemoth battleships of World War II. They are decisive not in the strategic sense, but in the sense that the damage done to vessels sinks them or knocks them clearly out of the fight, forcing them to withdrawal and refit. Stricken vessels generally cannot reverse their declining fortunes mid-battle.
From there, Lavernhe and Corman develop an insight that seems self-evident but bears reflection: In naval warfare the clear advantage goes to the side that fires first (assuming they hit their target) because those first hits will likely be decisive. Indeed, that is a if not the primary objective of ships at war: scoring a knockout blow with the first strike. This has become more pertinent with modern warships and modern anti-ship weapons. Modern warships compared to their predecessors are fragile things stuffed full of even more fragile equipment. They cannot trade broadsides. Modern anti-ship missiles, moreover, given the power of their warheads, the presence of leftover propellant, and the kinetic energy with which they strike, are devastating.
All this places crucial importance on “scouting” and speed. Everything must be done as fast as possible. You need to detect the enemy. Identify it. And fire effectively at it, ideally before the adversary even sees you. Among other things, their arguments present a damning rebuke to the Royal Navy’s lack of fixed-wing early-warning aircraft, planes like the E-2s that the Americans and French operate from their carriers, but that the British, with their ski-jump carriers, cannot.
This brings the authors to an extended discussion of the tension between dispersion and concentration. Dispersion is necessary both for scouting and for hiding one’s ships from the enemy. Essential for dispersion is a robust command-and-control capability to ensure that dispersed elements communicate and coordinate. Concentration — at least of effects — is also necessary. Moreover, modern warships, manned or otherwise, often work best when working together so that they can complement each other’s capabilities. The classic example they cite is the British adaptation during the Falklands War, when British commanders learned to pair two different kinds of frigates together, the Type 22 and the Type 42, rather than have them operate alone. One was equipped with missiles that were best against distant air threats, the other with missiles that were best against near threats. The implication is that dispersion has clear limits.
The Art of Command: Audacity and Subsidiarity
Whether dispersed or concentrated, Lavernhe and Corman place great emphasis on the necessity of a culture of “mission command,” which the French often refer to as both “command by intent” and “subsidiarity.” This is a common theme of French military writing at least since Foch and ostensibly a distinguishing feature of the French army. The idea, basically, is that subordinate commanders should understand the intent of the commander but be willing and empowered to act as they see fit to fulfill that intent. The implication is that the robust command-and-control capabilities that are essential for naval operations should not translate into overly centralized command wherein subordinates must follow their orders to the letter. Thus there should be a balance between centralization and decentralization. Ultimately, however, the authors believe that decentralization enables commanders to respond more quickly to changing circumstances than otherwise — speed is everything — and to be able to improvise in the face of the inevitable friction of war.
Here is where Vaincre en mer is most unlike other literature on modern, computerized warfare. And where it is most distinctly French. The argument is this: Notwithstanding the speed inherent to digital communications and weapons, the massive flow of data, the advent of artificial intelligence and the robots that, the authors say, define the new era of naval warfare, the commander — the human commander — remains the key to success.
In the pages of Vaincre en mer one finds a long elegy to the virtues of the commander, compared to whose intuition, creativity, and judgement, nourished by the study of doctrine and naval history, everything else is of secondary importance. Technology, far from replacing human commanders, makes them more critical. “If the role of the commander is decisive, it’s notably because it depends on him to transpose in reality the theoretical tactical construction.” This is because decisions in battle are not rational: “it is above all the uncertainty of combat that makes the role of the intellect (esprit) more decisive.” The authors, echoing Castex, cite Napoleon’s concept of the “divine part” of leadership that requires a particular “glance” (coup d’œil) that draws on instinct informed by training and reflection. There also is the quality of audacity (audace), which the authors associate with quick-thinking commanders who recognize an opportunity to take the initiative and act decisively.
This is a common theme in French military writing. Foch insisted that “of all faults one alone is infamous: inaction.” Contemporary French military publications similarly promote the idea that it is better to decide quickly and risk making the wrong decision than to hesitate. The ideal is the quick-thinking commander guided by intuition and empowered by subsidiarity. In the words of the French Army’s 2008 publication FT-02, Tactique Générale (General Tactics), “It is audacity encouraged by subsidiarity that makes it possible to seize opportunities,” presumably by deciding fast and acting fast.
The authors go so far as to insist that having human commanders “in-the-loop” ultimately facilitates speed, meaning that humans capable of understanding the situation and deciding quickly have a decided edge against computers. Modern commanders have minutes if not seconds to respond to multiple threats in multiple domains. They should be able to orchestrate responses drawing on multiple capabilities increasingly in multiple domains. In this context, it seems almost implausible that one might resort to almost romantic ideas about leadership in war, which is precisely what Lavernhe and Corman do.
Reservations
If there is a flaw in Vaincre en mer, it is that after having presented the idea of a “robotic age” of naval warfare, they in fact have remarkably little to say about what that means, or how the robot age differs substantively from the “missile age” that preceded it. It is almost as if they fear engaging too much with the topic for fear of giving attention to technology the importance of which they wish to diminish. Instead, they cite Castex:
We are suspicious of alternating and successive crazes, a little ridiculous, that tend to make us pamper one weapon, and then another, in this perpetual oscillating movement that betrays the absence of a strong doctrine, a tactical philosophy, and the versatility of intelligences.
Lavernhe and Comran similarly offer little reflection on the significance of satellite coverage, which makes the high seas considerably more transparent for surface vessels and perhaps more than anything challenges ideas about dispersion or maneuver. Indeed, if there is any one thing that may make Mahan, Corbett, and Castex fatally out of date, it is the ability of modern fleets and their adversaries to know where the enemy is. They also do not dwell on new developments in naval drones, which, as Ukraine has shown, can at least in some contexts make up for the lack of surface ships and perhaps breathe new life into the old vision of the Jeune École. The authors note developments associated with the Ukraine war, but understandably were unable fully to digest its import at the time they were writing. Hopefully a future edition will have more to say on the subject.
Given modern navies’ rush to digitize and the proliferation of sensors and drones, it seems likely that pressure to automate at as high a level as possible will be nearly insurmountable. The more vessels and airborne and undersea threats involved in any one action, the greater the need to orchestrate responses on the fly that make optimal use of resources at hand. One has to detect and identify objects, deal with electronic and cyber threats, and respond with multi-tiered capabilities that include electronic and other countermeasures and various kinds of munitions tailored for specific threats. This all will become more challenging as aircraft and surface vessels become platforms for drones, and drones themselves carry drones, drones that might have multiple functions. Robots inevitably will play a greater role in modern conflict if for no other reason than that it is the only economically and politically feasible way to compensate for modern militaries’ lack of mass, which, as Ukraine has reminded us, remains essential for high intensity warfare.
The bottom line is that while Royal Navy frigates once had only to contend with two Argentine aircraft each armed with one anti-ship missile, future warships will have to contend with far more crowded skies, not to mention simultaneous surface and underwater threats. Next time attacking fighters might not be more numerous (today’s combat jets cost far more than Argentina’s 1970s-vintage Super Étendards), but they will carry drones, or be accompanied by drones — perhaps swarms of them, and they may attack at the same time as drones on or under the water. The challenge of responding in mere moments to fast-moving multiple simultaneous threats — to know how to prioritize targets and assign to each the most appropriate counter — seems implausibly large without a tremendous amount of the work being off-loaded to computers. Besides the drone issue, one’s adversaries, too, presumably have access to the new technologies, and as Lavernhe and Corman have argued, in naval warfare a great deal hinges on being able to get off the first shot and hit one’s targets first. Seconds will count both for the attacker and the defender. It stands to reason that in such a context, vessels or fleets that are more heavily automated will act quicker than those that are less automated.
Lavernhe and Corman know this but still insist on carving out as much space as possible for the proverbial “man-in-the-loop.” Their arguments perhaps are self-serving on the part of two naval officers who naturally do not wish to contemplate being made obsolete by computers any more than fighter pilots wish to endorse the virtues of unmanned combat aircraft. The book might represent a last-ditch effort to justify a profession that may soon prove an anachronism.
For the time being, the technologies now being developed are far from maturation, and humans will remain very much “in-the-loop” regardless of the Department of Defense’s breathless enthusiasm or the ad copy of big military contractors that stand ready to make Joint All-Domain Command and Control a reality. Lavernhe and Corman insist that is not a bad thing and, for now, they may be right. Likewise, they are right to remind us that the art of command and the quality of leadership still count for something and probably will continue to do for the foreseeable future.
Michael Shurkin is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the director of global programs at 14 North Strategies. He was a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and also served as a political analyst at the CIA. He has a Ph.D. in modern European history from Yale University.
Image: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Bela Chambers
