Making waves - Naval power evolves for the 21st century

As the post-Cold War environment has evolved, so have the range and scope of perceived threats, providing navies with a range of missions that ensure their continued relevance to military operations. The challenges facing naval planners can be boiled down the state-centred 'modern' and the system-centred 'postmodern'.

The former reflects the traditional, industrial- and modern-era preoccupations of navies with state-to-state conflict and balancing naval power. This is perhaps most evident in the Asia-Pacific region, which has surged forwards in every dimension of sea power.

The latter derives from the necessity of defending the global sea-based trading system either directly or indirectly.

Postmodern navies have five tasks, some of which also overlap with modern, state-based roles: preventing conflict; maintaining sea control and the capacity to manoeuvre; maintaining good order at sea; projecting power ashore; and maintaining the necessary maritime consensus.

However, the naval qualities required for these five mutually dependent tasks do not necessarily coincide. Quite often they conflict, suggesting that navies will experience various difficulties in adapting to the postmodern roles they are increasingly being asked to perform.

Given the desire to maintain state-centred capabilities for the long term, while also tackling system-centred threats immediately, the most likely outcome in defence planning is likely to be a balance between the two.