thesis-2018

Strength in Numbers: Mapping U.S. Naval Diplomacy, 2012-2018

Global seapower competition is intensifying. As China dredges up ≈3,200 acres of territory ex nihilo in the South China Sea and emplaces sea missiles astride the Philippine archipelago, and as Russia disperses its submarines more widely across the Mediterranean as it conducts simulated attack strafing runs against NATO vessels in the Baltic Sea, the Obama and Trump national security teams have faced increasingly intricate naval diplomacy and maritime security challenges in recent years.

With these shifts in mind, this thesis examines the overall patterns in U.S. naval diplomacy worldwide from 2012 to 2018, querying diplomatic tension in the STRATFOR dataset under both the Obama and Trump administrations and comparing them to vessel movements as well as freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS). In addition, this thesis examines the geostrategic impact of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s diplomatic pivot to Asia in 2011 and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s decision in 2012 to move 60% of the U.S. fleet to the Pacific, breaking with decades of a roughly even 50%-50% Atlantic-Pacific force posture.

Keywords: seablindness seapower competition thalassocracy naval diplomacy U.S. Navy aircraft carriers amphibious assault ships sea lines of communication (SLOCs) international sea lanes (ISLs) freedom of navigation (FON) regional security net assessment South China Sea (SCS) Pivot to the Pacific “The Pivot Before the Pivot” Rebalancing to Asia new National Defense Strategy (NDS) eastern Mediterranean Thucydides trap multilateralism Trump Obama

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