On 13 October 1775, the Continental Congress ratified the creation of the Continental Navy, the ancestor of today’s US Navy. The US Navy recognizes this date as its founding date, although the Continental Navy was dis-established after the Revolutionary War and a new navy had to be built following the Navy Act of 1794.
When people think of American military power, they’d just as likely to think of the giant US Army, or perhaps the US Air Force, the preferred weapon of political planners. But throughout its history, America has really been a naval power. Up until World War II, the US Army was small, often poorly equipped and even a little backward by European standards. It temporarily expanded in times of crisis, like the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, or the First World War, but these were aberrations. The Americans entered the Second World War with one of the smallest, most poorly-equipped armies in the world.
The real muscle of American military force was the Navy, of course. The modern navy has its roots with the 6 frigates of the Naval Act of 1794, commissioned because Barbary Pirates from North Africa had been preying on American shipping. So yes, the Americans had dealings with the Muslim world very early in their history. The fighting with the pirates produced a naval hero: Stephen Decatur, and the ships involved, like the Constitution, United States and the Constellation are now part of American naval legend. The USS Constitution is still afloat and is still a commissioned US Naval vessel, the oldest commissioned ship in the world.
The US Navy eventually grew in size and power throughout the 19th century. The isolationism of pre-World War 2 America fostered this expansion since the Navy was the logical first line of defense, precluding the need for a large army. From almost nothing, the US Navy quickly became one of the largest in the world, rivaling the British Navy.
The Americans were also at the forefront of some key naval innovations. The Americans were not the first to commission the ironclad ships– the French Gloire has that distinction– but the first battle between two ironclads was fought by Americans in the famous Battle of Hampton Roads, when the CSS Virginia fought the USS Monitor in a no-decision engagement.
Later, the American navy produced the foremost naval strategist of the 19th century– of all military history, even. He was Alfted Thayer Mahan, and his famous book The Influence of Seapower in History articulated concepts of sea control and power projection that are now standard ideas of naval strategy. His book had such a profound influence on naval strategy that he probably contributed to the expansion of both imperial colonialism and World War I: he noted that colonies and battle fleets were a source of economic, diplomatic and military strength, thereby encouraging the German Kaizer Wilhem (who was devotee of Mahan) to embark on a fleet building program.
It was possibly Mahan’s ideas of sea control that encouraged the Americans to attack the Spanish fleet in the Philippines in 1897. The Philippines had not been directly involved in the Spanish-American War, which was primarily concerned with Cuba. However, the aggressive, engagement-inclined culture of the Navy encouraged them to seek out the Spanish fleet wherever they could be found. After Commodore George Dewey’s victory over Montojo in the Battle of Manila Bay, the Americans suddenly found they had strategic control over the Philippine Islands. This would lead to the Philippine-American War so, yes, the Philippines was conquered by the Yanks as a side-growth of naval strategy.
"Gridley, there appears to be a country behind that Spanish fleet. Well I'll be deuced... we'll have to figure out what to do with it!"
The Spanish-American War was America’s “coming out” as a major world power at the end of the 19th century. It pushed the country to the forefront of global affairs, and fittingly, American naval power led the way. The traditional European powers continued to dismiss the US Army, but the US Navy was now acknowledged as one of the major naval forces in the world. To more vividly illustrate this point, President Theodore Roosevelt sent the bulk of the US Navy out on a global trip– this was the Great White Fleet, America’s first “showing the flag” expedition.
Ironically, the Great White Fleet was largely outdated by the time it sailed– the HMS Dreadnought, launched in 1906, had made the pre-dreadnoughts obsolete. America was quick to adapt– its own officer William Sims had been closely associated with the gunnery experiments of British officers like Jacky Fisher and Percy Scott. The Americans launched their own dreadnoughts soon after and soon had a sizeable fleet of these doubtfully-useful ships. American naval power was such an established fact that in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, the US Navy was put on a level of parity with the British Navy.
The Americans were also at the forefront of aircraft carrier technology and tactics prior to World War 2. The Japanese were building up a carrier force that could rival the Americans, but the American carrier force was one of its best-trained and best-equipped during the lean years of the Great Depression. It was the Americans who fully developed dive-bombing, for instance. The Navy saw dive-b0mbing as a good way to accurately place heavy bombs onto moving, ship-sized targets using the primitive bomb sights of the day. The Germans were so impressed with American experiments that they purchased American dive-bombers to use as models when building their own dive-bombers.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, the US Navy had a cadre of experienced sailors, fliers and captains that were able to eventually stop the Japanese onslaught with the resources they had on hand. For instance, the standard American carrier fighter, the F4F Wildcat, was clearly inferior to the Japanese A6M Zero, but the highly trained American pilots eventually formulated tactics to counter it (the Thach Weave being the most famous, named after its creator, John Thach and for those who like trivia, he enlisted the help of “Butch” O’Hare, the first US ace of World War 2 and after whom O’Hare Airport in Chicago is named).
The US Navy massively expanded during the Second World War. Naval supremacy was the first crucial step on the long road to Western ascendancy over their Axis enemies. The Americans had to help the British defeat the U-Boats and secure the supply lines across the Atlantic, and they had to secure their power in the Pacific as they advanced into Japanese-held waters. For most of the early part war, the bulk of combat was borne by the US Navy and the US Marines.
Eventually, the US Navy would expand to gigantic levels. American submarines largely secured the isolation and economic defeat of the Japanese long before the atomic bombs were ever dropped– they achieved what the German U-Boats failed to do. The Americans would end the war with the largest aircraft carrier force in the world. Perhaps the most important class of American capital ships, the Essex-class were launched in World War 2. These carriers would provide the backbone of American power well into the 20th century.
The US Navy remains America’s main means of power projection. Her aircraft carriers continue to provide mobile air power–during Operation El Dorado Canyon, carriers were used to strike at Libyan forces, and American carriers were used to enforce freedom of navigation during the Iran-Iraq War. The Chinese are obsessed with destroying carriers, they know full well that any of their attempts to take Taiwan or the Spratleys will run into American carriers.
The US Navy also has missiles– nuclear and non-nuclear. Before “drones” were ever known to the public, Tomahawk cruise missiles were the weapon of choice of presidents who wanted to strike at targets without sending in soldiers. Bill Clinton almost killed Bin Laden with a Tomahawk strike. Currently, America’s nuclear deterrent is primarily its SLBM– Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Force. Indeed, the modern GPS system was first designed to help SLBMs hit their targets. So we owe that little bit of innovation to the US Navy.
I haven’t even mentioned the Navy SEALS.
The US Armed Forces is hopefully about to enter a period of retrenchment and reduction. From its Iraq and Afghani War highs, its about to cut down on size and budget. Hopefully, at least.
So if this military reduction does happen, the US Navy will probably shoulder more and more of America’s strategic burden– it will continue to fulfill the mission it had since the days of Decatur: power projection, defense and acting as America’s long-range muscle.
