Current Strategy Forum: "Maritime Strategy: Maintaining America’s Enduring Strategic Advantage"

Maritime Strategy: Maintaining America’s Enduring Strategic Advantage

The Interim National Security Strategic Guidance recently released by the White House calls for the United States to strengthen our country’s enduring advantages to prevail in strategic competitions with China or any other nation.

Throughout our Nation’s history, in peace and in war, a strong Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard have conferred important strategic advantages on the United States in the competitive realm of international relations. The Maritime Services have long served to protect the American people, to promote their wellbeing, to preserve their liberties, and to provide a sure foundation for world order.

The liberal world order established by the United States and its international partners after the Second World War is now challenged by a powerful strategic competitor in China. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III in his “Message to the Force” has highlighted that the “Department will prioritize China as our number one pacing challenge and develop the right operational concepts, capabilities, and plans to bolster deterrence and maintain our competitive advantage.”

The competition with China will require that the United States work with a global network of coalition partners who share Washington’s security concerns about how the growing ambitions of China’s rulers will play out on the world stage.

In addition to the accelerating competition with China, the United States confronts advanced and persistent threats from Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The strategic challenges posed by these state actors further complicate our country’s ability to protect allies and international partners in vitally important regions of the globe. Nor can the United States ignore the continued danger posed by violent extremist non-state actors.

To meet the multiple security challenges confronting the United States in the years ahead, our Maritime Services published “Advantage at Sea” – a Tri-Service Maritime Strategy – that presents an “Integrated All-Domain Naval Power” approach to compete, deter, and if necessary defeat aggressors.

This year’s CSF will offer a better understanding of the international security environment in this era of increasing strategic competition and explore the Maritime Services’ strategy to achieve national objectives.

About the Current Strategy Forum

This year marks the 70th annual CSF at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The first CSF was held on May 9, 1949 under the title “Round Table Talks.” This upcoming event offers an opportunity for the Nation’s public servants, scholars and senior military officers to join the faculty and students to discuss the future strategy of the United States.

Over the years, CSF has expanded to include a cross section of America’s civilian and military leadership to encourage a wide-ranging debate on national and international security issues. This year’s theme is titled “Maritime Strategy: Maintaining America’s Enduring Strategic Advantage.”