Sea denial

Sea denial is a military term describing attempts to deny the enemy's ability to use the sea without necessarily attempting to control the sea for its own use. It is a parallel concept to sea control. The two concepts: sea control and sea denial are not mutually opposed, but whereas the object of sea control is to use the sea for oneself, the object of sea denial seeks to deny the enemy effective use of the sea. According to Corbett the object of sea denial, therefore, is negative and defensive in nature. It is a less ambitious strategy than sea control and is often carried out by the weaker power (Corbett 2018, p. 144). Sea denial can be an alternative to sea control, or can work in concert with it. A navy is bound to have different objectives across different theatres of operations. It is possible to pursue sea denial in one area of operation while at the same time pursuing sea control in another. Sea denial can even act as a direct complement to sea control. It is possible for a nation to aspire to a high degree of sea control in their littorals, whilst at the same time pursuing sea denial outside the littorals, as was seen with the Soviet Union during periods of the Cold War. This kind of zone defence strategy is popularly called Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) in modern terms (Till 2018, pp. 193–197; Speller 2019, pp. 118–132). Sea denial is achieved in many different ways. The method chosen might depend on various different factors such as geography, ambition and capabilities being some of the key factors. Geographically it is easier to conduct sea denial operations in choke points (narrow waters, straights or congested waters for instance) or one’s own littorals. In relation to ambition it is important to be mindful of the objective, both one’s own and the opposition's. The greater an opposition's dependency on the sea the greater the effect of successful sea denial operations. In order to succeed with sea denial operations, the right capabilities are needed, some examples are naval mines, anti-ship missiles and submarines.