Maintaining the Threat of Force

Maintaining a standing naval force in the Mediterranean for months and months on end won't be easy.

So we are giving Russia's diplomatic initiative a chance in Syria. Since our 6th Fleet is pretty much a virtual flotilla sustained by Cold War memories of the armada reinforced by the presence of transiting US warships going to and from the Persian Gulf.

So any ships that are in the Mediterranean are those passing through and possibly held a little longer on the way to or from our east coast naval bases. That's how we assembled a squadron this last month.

Remember that our carrier in the Red Sea as the crisis built was scheduled to head to the Pacific on the way home to our west coast ports. I imagine it is already on the way home now.

And with only four SSGNs that each carry over 150 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, we can't really afford to keep one on station just in case we need to strike Syria. We really need these vessels within range of China to add more uncertainty to any of their notions about settling disputes by a major use of force.

So keeping a threat at sea near Syria will be a challenge for us and will upset the global synchronized peacetime naval puzzle that we use to keep our Navy forward deployed.