Is this a War, or Not?

1942 was a terrible year for the US Navy. The nation had just begun its endeavor in the Second World War, and Imperial Japan was going head-to-head with the American Pacific Fleet. The merchant fleet fared even worse. U-boats menaced shipping and cut off the northeastern states from Texas and California fuel supplies. Cargo runs to Europe, especiallly the run to Murmansk, USSR, were exceptionally perilous. Lend-lease and war preparations such as the 1940 Selective Service Act should have prepared the nation for combat. It took battle testing to turn military theories into successful strategies. We face the same predicament in the Persian Gulf at this moment. We have spent years talking of the Contested Maritime Environment, and of near - peer adversaries. We know how to sweep a minefield, and we know how to engage aerial threats. But putting both threats together? “It’s too dangerous right now”, reports the Secretary of Defense. “Later this month”. Having seen the damage wrought on world-class cities like Dubai, and the port facilities of friendly nations, there is no exit strategy but victory. Restoring our allies will not be complete with an apology and reconstruction loans; it requires achieving a peace that is superior to the previous status quo of a menacing but stalemated Iran. While the presence of a prepositioned logistics fleet, established after the First Gulf War, reduces the merchant shipping crunch at the onset of conflict, we need to replenish the warfighter with “beans, bullets, and bunker fuel”. Concerningly, there has not been a call by shipowners and unions to “man the fleet”, brining mariners working ashore back into shipboard roles. What happens if we must stop the fight, not out of a peace deal, but for lack of manpower and material? That would present a tragedy of American lives lost without reason or closure. Optimistically, it would prove to be an expensive test, in economic and human costs, of near-peer warfare. “Run as to win the race”.