Limited War at Sea

Abstract

So much has been written about limited war that the failure to agree on a definition is as understandable as it is regrettable. There is a tendency, for instance, to approach the subject from the rather special standpoint of the Super Powers. This not only engenders talk of ‘limited’ nuclear wars and of the ‘inevitable’ tendency of local wars to escalate, but allows some writers to envisage a quarter of a million men and three aircraft carrier battle-groups as an appropriate force for limited war.³ Other American writers even want to see 1000 men killed before they will count a conflict as any kind of war at all.⁴ Readers with greater personal experience may be willing to accept a less stringent test. Moreover these criteria might actually exclude the only naval war of our time: one estimate puts the total killed in and around the Falklands in 1982 at 907.⁵

Soviet military doctrine also recognises the possibility of local wars arising, which will be conducted without the use of nuclear weapons.

In all these wars Soviet military doctrine assigns an important role to the armed struggle at sea. — admiral stalbo¹

Limited war means to us that our target list has limits, our ordnance loadout has limits, our rules of engagement have limits, but … not … our personal obligations as fighting men. — commander james b. stockdale²