SEABLINDNESS
How
Political Neglect is Choking American Seapower
By
Seth Cropsey
“A
finely researched combination of strategy, current events, and action-packed
scenarios.”
--Former
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman
Has the U.S. Navy reached its breaking point? In Seablindness:
How Political Neglect is Choking American Seapower and What to Do About It, Fmr. Deputy
Undersecretary of the U.S. Navy Seth Cropsey
exposes how years of underfunding has left our nation’s most strategic arm of
defense - American naval power - smaller today than any point since before
World War I.
At the same time, our adversaries are modernizing their naval
forces and, increasingly, testing our will to defend the open seas. Drawing on
historic conflicts as reference points, Cropsey creates strikingly realistic
scenarios in which rival powers like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea
challenge our naval supremacy. The results will alarm anyone who recognizes
America’s moral imperative to defend itself to preserve world peace and
security in an era of emerging and multiplying global threats.
“Seablindness” is an old term to describe a maritime nation’s
forgetfulness of the oceans’ role in its prosperity and security. The U.S.
is losing the understanding that seapower is essential for protecting our
commerce and preventing overseas conflicts from reaching our shores. The U.S.
is the world’s most powerful supporter of the international order. If,
because of defense budget cuts, the growth of adversary forces, the
international order is overturned, our shipping, our ability to communicate
with allies, and our position as a great power will be at risk.
In Seablindness, you’ll learn:
· How
the international order that the U.S. has supported since the end of World War
II is threatened today by:
· China’s
actions in the international waters of the South and East China Seas;
· the
Russian navy’s forcible return to the Black Sea and its growing presence
in the Eastern Mediterranean;
· its
threats to NATO member states along the Baltic Sea; and
· Iran’s
threats to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and the virtual certainty that
Iranian naval presence will migrate into the Red Sea.
· Why
U.S. seapower has been shrinking since the end of the Cold War and how
President Obama’s administration reduced defense spending by hundreds of
billions of dollars.
· How
the defense budget may still be asked to give up hundreds of billions of
dollars if Congress and the president cannot avoid sequestration.
· How
an under-resourced and over-stretched fleet is experiencing collisions at sea.
· How
budget cuts affect all of U.S. seapower and the threats that U.S. seapower
faces.
· That
to deter a potential enemy, U.S. seapower must change its focus from attacking
land targets to commanding the seas nearest to a potential adversary.
· How
the far left of the Democratic Party believe we should substantially reduce our
global engagement; yet our potential adversaries are at or nearby the world’s
chokepoints. If we cannot assure the freedom of these chokepoints, our ability
to conduct commerce and to communicate with allies will be at great risk.
American seapower has not been as small as it is today since
before World War I. Unless reversed, it will continue its decline into the
indefinite future as politicians ignore the widening gulf between the cost of
modernizing and expanding American seapower, and the resources devoted to this
most strategic arm of the nation's defense.
Seablindness explains the dilemma. It looks at the
consequences of neglect including global scenarios set in the immediate future,
the views of America's most knowledgeable military officers, the anxious
reactions of U.S. allies, and hard facts to show how a lack of political will
is dismantling the nation's global reach and with it, our position as the
world's great power.
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