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While still serving in my first ship, I read a twelve-page article in the Naval Institute Proceedings entitled "National Policy and the Transoceanic Navy." Written by Samuel P. Huntington, this durable and popular essay has stuck with me ever since. As a source of wisdom for confronting both international communism and the Soviet Union, "Transoceanic Navy" is not as incisive as public servant George Kennan's Long Telegram or as sweeping as theologian Reinhold Niebuhr's book The Ironies of American History. Nevertheless I believe Huntington's article, written in 1954, rivaled them as a guide for the Cold War.
1950: The Navy in the National Strategy of Forward Defense
What were the strengths of Huntington's description of a "transoceanic navy" for the American nation? They were three. First, he did not speculate on a new direction for the American navy. On the contrary, he described with a clarity all might grasp the changes actually under way both in purpose and composition, and why the changes of strategy and supporting forces should be stable, enduring across changes of administration and military leadership.
Second, Huntington went beyond describing the new maritime strategy then being embraced by the U.S. Navy. He described the national strategy of forward engagement that was being fulfilled by the Marshall Plan for Europe, the restoration of Japan, the fight against communist expansion in Greece, and the establishment of the NATO alliance. He pointed to the creation of the Sixth Fleet in 1948 as the most important arrow of seapower's transoceanic influence, an arrow sunk deeply into the eastern Mediterranean. He emphasized what was increasingly being taken for granted, namely, the exploitation of naval supremacy as the cornerstone of a policy of containment and forward defense. He expressed a national maritime strategy.
Finally, Huntington was explicit that an armed force must be seen by the American people as relevant and worth supporting financially. He hinted at, though he did not explore, how the investment in military capability must be weighed against present and future national and international economic circumstances.
By the 1960s the roles of the Navy in the forward strategy had become multifaceted. The Soviet Union had achieved its own nuclear weapon capability, and the bipolar U.S.-Soviet Cold War competition had reached a wary stalemate...