WOTR Air-Sea Battle Twofer
The Simmering Pottage: Air Sea Battle and QDR 2014 by Frank Hoffman, War on the Rocks.
The Air Sea Battle (ASB) debate continues to simmer in a variety of forums. Over at the National Interest Sean Miski expounds on his theory of how a war with China might be won via blockading. Young Marine officers challenge the need for the concept at the U.S. Naval Institute’s blog. RAND has issued an interesting counter that emphasizes “far blockades” with land-based anti-ship missiles. Our friends at the Small Wars Journal have recently posted an interview with an ASB proponent, Elbridge Colby of the Center for Naval Analyses. I recently attended a lively debate between Mr. Colby and Dr. T.X. Hammes of the National Defense University, a critic of ASB. Both sides gave as good as they got…
Air-Sea Battle: Do the Footnotes Matter? By B.J. Armstrong, War on the Rocks.
Over the past several months there has been a lot of earnest discussion of the potential risks and rewards of the Pentagon’s concept called Air-Sea Battle (ASB). Many national security thinkers, pundits, and both active and retired officers have weighed in with what they think ASB means for our future.
Despite all of the writing and discussion, very little of it engages directly with a search for source literature on the subject. The debate over “concept” versus “strategy” devolves into something akin to a theological discussion. Maybe we should start asking for footnotes in these discussions to get back to the basics of what ASB is and is not…