Navies are all the rage, and Canada has decided to go shopping. Don’t we have one, you may ask? It’s not that simple, and that’s why we should give this some thought.

Let’s establish some fundamentals. First, there are two types of navies: Blue Water and Brown (or Green) Water. The former is what a country needs to project power and usually comprises large warships and at least one aircraft carrier. These fleets roam the seas at will and appear off the shores of adversaries either to menace or to warn. They “fly the flag.” Think of the USS Gerald Ford sitting “peacefully” off the shore of Venezuela. The latter may have sea-worthy ships, but their primary purpose is to enforce sovereignty, (assist in coalition operations, protect coastal waters, work with the Coast Guard etc.). Both types of navies may have submarines, but like their surface counterparts, they perform different functions.

There we go. Two millennia of naval power theory in one highly oversimplified paragraph. Time to plumb the depths (sorry, can’t help myself). There are, of course, many gradations in the two types of navies and ironically, size is not a major consideration. The Royal Canadian Navy ended WW II as the 4^th largest on the planet and was in every sense a Blue Water Force. As it shrank to its current sad state, it none-the-less worked hard to maintain many Blue Water skills and capabilities. No mean feat, considering that these skills are generational and once lost, take decades to regain.

This brings us to how countries decide what type of navy is best for them. Do you want to control sea lanes? Do you only want to deny those same lanes to adversaries? Do you wish to project power abroad or merely guard your own coastlines? Do you wish to guarantee (or deny) commercial oceanic transport? These, and several dozen more considerations determine what type of navy to build. Strategic analysis leading to the application of strategic patience (see my post of 26 May 2025) is a basic requirement and plays a major role. Has Canada done this? I have no answer. Certainly, governments have given this some thought, but has there been a thorough strategic review? If there has, I somehow missed it.

This brings us to China, which has just commissioned the apparently sophisticated, and huge, aircraft carrier, Fujian. Looks impressive, and we’ll return to that later. Has China done an in-depth strategic analysis? Bet the farm that they have. Do we know what they concluded? Up for debate.

Many western Intelligence agencies have decided that China is bent on world dominance, and the latest signal is the Fujian. By the way, these are the agencies that said the USSR was on that same path, that Sadam Hussain had nuclear weapons and that Russia would take Ukraine in weeks. All of these analyses were predicated on how advanced their growing arsenals of weaponry were. But as I repeatedly told my officers and students when they briefed me, “Never conflate troop disposition with intent.” Parking a Ferrari in your driveway doesn’t make you an F1 driver.

Make no mistake; we have labelled China correctly. It is clearly a “disruptive power” but that does not have to mean that we shouldn’t have relations — trade, diplomatic, and social. Unlike our neighbour to the south Xi Jinping will never announce his intent and neither, when Xi departs this veil of tears, will his successor. We are left to surmise intent and that is why we pay analysts. But we can’t expect these benighted souls to give us accurate outputs if they are not given solid direction from political leaders.

Time to return to the Fujian. Arguably, there is nothing in warfare are complex as carrier operations. I’m not talking about moving the ship, or launching and recovering its aircraft — although that alone makes this old cavalryman gawp in amazement. I’m talking about moving the carrier, its air arm and air defence “bubble”, its surface escorts, its submarine screen and so on. These operations take decades to understand and then decades more to master at the institutional level.

Carrier operations are fraught with political significance and signalling. Is China building a Blue Water fleet? Brown Water? Green Water? Contrary to what many believed, the Soviets never had a Blue Water navy (subject for another post) and in my humble opinion, neither will the Peoples Liberation Army Navy.