Admiral Raoul Castex And Small Navies: Some Strategic Lessons For Sri Lanka – Analysis
The navy is indispensable for islands as the pinnacle of its security. Navies are often resonated with the pride of a country from one side and simultaneously they enable the modern states to be much more dominant in global governance. It was by no means an exaggeration that Alfred Thayer Mahan, the prominent naval strategist advocated for complete supremacy at sea as a vital tool for any country that seeks hegemony over its rivals.
The examples Mahan portrayed in his classic text “ Sea Power “refer to the triumphs of the Romans, and British at sea followed by their emergence to the status of Global superpower. His British counterpart Julian Corbett had a more nuanced approach to the naval strategy than Mahan in which Corbett did not only write about the complete domination at sea, but he acknowledged the imperative of involving in joint operations at sea while sustaining maritime communications.
Both Mahan and Corbett were Anglo-American naval strategists who solemnly stand in the pantheon of the Anglo-American tradition of blues water navies. Perhaps their insights become redundant for inculcating a strategic culture for small navies where Sri Lanka stands as a classic example. Sri Lanka Navy was established in 1950 by the Ceylon Navy Act and it played a crucial role in the island’s 30-year civil war. Despite the gallantry shown by the Navy at sea, its current structure gives a realistic picture of the Sri Lankan navy as a typical example of a small navy with its five advanced offshore patrol vessels and nine fast attack crafts.
When Mahanian or Corbett’s wisdom does not provide salient guidance for small navies such as the Sri Lankan navy, one can look beyond the traditional Anglo-American school. The name of Admiral Raoul Castex comes to the fore in searching for such guidance. Yet his name remains below the periphery or has been lurked under the fame of Mahan and Corbett. Perhaps Admiral Raoul Castex was the greatest naval strategist that one has never heard of. Castex’s advice for smaller navies boils down to understanding how best to work with what one has, largely to undermine the adversary navy’s confidence. He cautioned against seeking decisive battles — a priority for Mahan — and instead counselled what amounted to naval guerrilla warfare. The key for Castex was seeking always to act offensively whenever possible and to engage in constant activity, powered by creativity, within reasonable limits.
Raoul Castex was a Frenchman who served his country when French power was eclipsed by the British and the US. Therefore his analysis of sea power was not coloured by imperial grandeur and it essentially addressed the existential needs of France in the advent of the Second World War. While serving the French navy Castex devoted his time between 1929 to 1939 to author a mammoth work called “ Théories stratégiques‘ which depicts the strategic vision that Castex developed as a counter-theory challenging the Mahanian-Corbett’s naval strategies.
His message in “ Theories Strategiquies” was an appealing one. By emulating the core of Mahan’s strategy Castex admitted the importance of sea power for any country who aspires to be a global power. Contrary to this axiom developed by Mahan, Castex went one step further as he critiqued the second principle of Mahan’s sea power, which tried to rationalise the idea of crushing the rival’s fleet in the high sea. Castex argued that small navies can reign at sea along with the blue water navies if they prudently adopt their strategic position.
Castex argued that sea control or command of the sea, however desirable an ambition, was always at best relative even for the most powerful navies. Fleets may control the waters where and when they are present, but then they move on. Besides, submarines exist. “If I have ten submarines and my adversary 50,” he wrote, “he does not have mastery, for his submarines in no way prevent mine from circulating in the water.” The implication was that command of the sea was not the end-all, be-all of naval strategy. Again, this gives weaker navies a break: He’s signalling that they need not fret about their inability to impose sea control.
It seems to indicate, that more than a strategist Raoul Castex provided an aesthetic value for designing certain naval strategies when he highlighted some concepts like “manoeuvre” in a creative manner. For Castex manoeuvring in naval operation is akin to taking control of events or determining the course of events, to dominate destiny and not abandoning oneself to it, to engender and give birth to facts.
What Castex authored before the Second World War and after the war on the small navies can provide remarkable assistance in building the strength of a small navy like Sri Lanka. Mainly one of the prime lessons related to manoeuvre denotes what sorts of advancements the Sri Lanka navy can acquire without a solid fleet.
Naval diplomacy is relatively new among the much-celebrated terms such as naval diplomacy and public diplomacy. Naval presence is the basic action in the context of naval diplomacy; without presence, there is no diplomatic effect. Naval diplomacy and presence can cover a range of actions that are not clearly defined from one another, and may be engaged in simultaneously. Naval diplomacy fosters the partnership among the nations and it leveragesg the visibility of the sea . Even a country like Sri Lanka with its small navy can involve in naval diplomacy.
Sri Lankan navy’s participation in the Operation Prosperity Guardian last January envisaged the future opportunities that Sri Lankan navy can use to augment its status . His insistence on continuous interaction between the navy and infantry is another notable merit that small navy can adopt in Sri Lanka where the land forces carry higher weights in the national security.
One of the most striking features of Admiral Castex’s naval strategy was its special emphasis on submarines in an era the usage of submarines was not attracted by the theorists as the centre of gravity. For the weaker navies, Castex introduced a doctrine called “ minor counter offensive “ which dealt with submarines and aircraft. All in all Admiral Rauel Castex was man ahead of his time as he aptly forecasted how future of navies would be. When the geopolitical dynamics of Indian Ocean changes with the currents of the Sino- Indian rivalry where the US engages in a proxy war, the use of some of strategic insights from Admiral Castex would be appropriate for a small navy beyond doubt .
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