American Naval Policy, Strategy, Plans and Operations in the Second Decade of the Twenty-first Century

This paper provides a brief overview of U.S. Navy policy, strategy, plans and operations. It discusses some basic fundamentals and the Navys three major operational activities peacetime engagement, crisis response, and wartime combat. It concludes with a general discussion of U.S. naval forces. It was originally written as a contribution to an international conference on maritime strategy and security, and originally published as a chapter in a Routledge handbook in 2015. The author is a longtime contributor to, advisor on, and observer of US Navy strategy and policy, and the paper represents his personal but well-informed views. The paper was written while the Navy and Marine Corps and Coast Guard were revising their tri-service strategy document A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, finally signed and published in March 2015, and includes suggestions made by the author to the drafters during that time.