Army renews focus on coastal defense

But the structures serve as a reminder that for much of its history the Army was responsible for defending the nation’s coastlines against invaders, until nuclear weapons made that role seem outdated during the Cold War.

Now some strategists are taking another look at the idea and say advances in missile technology have given it new life. Their argument: Land-based missiles can reach farther out to sea and be more easily concealed and supplied than ships or aircraft tasked with coastal defense.

It’s an idea some potential U.S. adversaries such as China already have adopted to make the Navy’s moves on the world’s oceans riskier.

“Though the heyday of the coast artillery may be long past, some of its advantages endure. In an era in which ground forces can see and strike far beyond the range of a cannon, it would be foolish for any nation to overlook the important advantages in resilience, persistence and sustainability that ground forces can bring to bear” in a contest to deny a potential invader access to a friendly coastline, wrote Eric Lindsey of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in an Oct. 29 report.

Pentagon officials, struggling with budget cuts and political distaste for getting involved in another large ground war on another continent, are willing to give it a chance.

“With our ongoing re-balance to the Asia-Pacific, the Army could broaden its role by leveraging its current suite of long-range precision-guided missiles, rockets, artillery and air defense systems,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a speech at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington on Oct. 15.

“Such a mission is not as foreign to the Army as it might seem. After the War of 1812, the Army was tasked with America’s coastal defense for more than 100 years.”

China relies on land-based missiles as part of its strategy to keep U.S. forces at bay in the western Pacific. The anti-ship version of the People’s Liberation Army’s DF-21 missile can strike U.S. carriers and amphibious ships 1,000 miles away in the ocean. Other potential U.S. adversaries such as Iran and Russia also are looking at the advantage of using land-based missiles to strike at ships that threaten their coastlines, adding to the longstanding capability of such weapons against aircraft.

Lindsey’s report and an earlier study by the RAND Corporation note that developments in missile technology such as longer ranges and greater accuracy, combined with the advantages of greater sustainability, survivability and concealment, make land-based forces better choices than aircraft or ships for deterring attacks on the U.S. coastline and those of friendly nations.

“In an era of air and maritime warfare that seems increasingly likely to be dominated by long-range sensors and precision strikes, ground forces enjoy inherent advantages over air and naval forces in the key attributes of resilience, persistence, and sustainability,” Lindsey wrote, noting that this makes them better suited to coastal defense.

The Army’s new operational doctrine, called “Win in a Complex World,” recognizes this advantage, noting that “improved range, lethality and precision of surface-to-air, air-to-surface and surface-to-surface fires may help overcome anti-access and area denial challenges, extend mutual support across long distances and permit land forces to project power into the air and maritime domains.”

This newfound emphasis on coastal defense is a “back to the future” moment for the Army after mostly neglecting the issue for almost 65 years.

The Army was responsible for coastal defense in every war the U.S. has fought through the end of World War II, manning successive chains of fortifications along the U.S. seashore for 175 years until the Coast Artillery Corps was deactivated in 1950.

Fort Hunt, begun in 1897, was part of the last major series of coastal fortifications, whose construction was spurred by the growing tensions that resulted in the Spanish-American War. Its guns were removed in World War I, and in World War II it became better known as the place where German prisoners of war were held for secret interrogations.