The Analysis of the U.S. Navy Surface Forces Strategy and the implications to Republic of Korea Navy

미(美) 해군 수상함부대 전략 평가 및 한국 해군에게 주는 시사점

After finishing Cold War, the U.S. Navy's ability to Sea control has been gradually eroded last 15-20 years. The global security environment demands that the surface Navy rededicate itself to sea control, as a new group of potential adversaries is working to deny U.S. navy command of the sea. China has been increasing their sea denial capability, such as extended anti-surface cruise missile and anti-surface ballistic missile. To cope with this situation, the U.S. Naval Surface Forces Command has announced Surface Forces Strategy: Return to Sea Control. It is a new operating and organizing concept for the U.S. surface fleet called 'distributed lethality'. Under distributed lethality, offensive weapons such as new ASCMs are to be distributed more widely across all types of Navy surface ships, and new operational concept for Navy surface fleet's capability for attacking enemy ships and make it less possible for an enemy to cripple the U.S. fleet by concentrating its attack on a few very high-value Navy surface ships. By increasing the lethality of the surface ships and distributing them across wide areas, the Navy forces potential adversaries to not only consider the threat from our carrier-based aircraft and submarines, but they now consider the threat form all of those surface ships. This idea of using the distributed lethality template to generate surface action groups and adaptive force package and to start thinking about to increase the lethal efficacy of these ships. The U.S. Navy believes distributed lethality increases the Navy's sea control capability and expands U.S. conventional deterrence. Funding new weapons and renovated operating concept to field a more lethal and distributed force will enable us to establish sea control, even in contested area. The U.S. Navy's Surface Forces Strategy provides some useful implications for The ROK Navy. First the ROK Navy need to reconsider sea control mission. securing sea control and exploiting sea control are in a close connection. However, recently the ROK Navy only focuses on exploiting sea control, for instance land attack mission. the ROK Navy is required to reinvigorate sea control mission, such as anti-surface warfare and anti-air warfare. Second, the ROK Navy must seek the way to improve its warfighting capability. It can be achieved by developing high-edge weapons and designing renewed operating concept and embraced new weapon's extended capabilities.