By James R. Holmes
Over at The National Interest last month, the Naval Diplomat reviewed the debate over the U.S. Navy's new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). My goal was less to rehash the ship's design than to puzzle out why the LCS debate— a debate, after all, over a mere hunk of machinery — is not just fiercely contested on the merits but often venomous.
I traced the confusion in part to Sir Julian Corbett, who a century ago bemoaned the technological revolution that rendered the old vocabulary for discussing the components of fleets suspect if not entirely moot. With the advent of the torpedo and the sea mine, small, unsexy craft like submarines and patrol craft could land heavy blows against the battle fleet, the mistress of the seas. Tacticians found themselves inhabiting a bizarro world where battleships had to go to elaborate lengths to shield themselves from vessels they were accustomed to swatting aside.
Perversely, then, technological progress impoverished our vocabulary for designing and wielding fleets. With no common lexicon for shaping tactics, doctrine, and operations, the LCS debate quickly degenerates into claims and counter-claims about whether newfangled bits of hardware will perform as advertised. It takes on the "uh-uh!" and "uh-huh!" quality familiar to all ex-schoolboys.
Read the full story at The Diplomat