ABSTRACT
Based on a categorization originally provided by Ken Booth (1977, pp. 15-16), navies are required to fulfil three main roles. These are:
. Amilitary or war-fighting role to defend the nation against threats, primarily of a military nature. This role requires capabilities for combat operations either at sea (e.g. surface warfare, anti-air warfare, submarine warfare, maritime strike, mine warfare, protection of shipping or coastal defence), or from the sea (e.g. amphibious operations, naval gunfire support, or land strike using cruise missiles). These may be either sea assertion operations to assert the ability to use the sea for one’s own purposes, including for power projection and expeditionary operations; or sea denial operations to deny the use of the sea to an adversary, such as maritime strike by aircraft, surface ship or submarine. Sea denial and sea assertion are basic dimensions of sea control, a classical description of which has been provided by Roskill (1986, p. 15): ‘The function of maritime power is to win and keep control of the sea for one’s own use, and to deny such control to one’s adversaries.’
