Building and sustaining a naval force capable of operating at great distances from home port is an immense, multifaceted undertaking. A navy can be many things. Many of the world's navies are little more than coast guards, equipped for and capable of only the most basic maritime security operations along their shores. Even more-developed nations feel that they can only muster the resources to field what is essentially a coastal defense force. Such a navy might be technologically advanced or even large, but might lack the tools and skills to operate particularly far from home port for extended periods. For instance, though the Chinese fleet is immense, its capability to project force far afield is far from proven, despite the symbolic deployment of the guided missile destroyer Qingdao and an auxiliary to San Diego in 2006. U.S. Navy Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan argued in his seminal work "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783" that a strong commercial shipping tradition and vibrant maritime economy were the resource bases and essential underpinnings of a strong navy. Although the United States imports a truly massive quantity of goods and raw materials by sea and remains the foremost naval power in the world, there is good reason to think that Mahan would find the decline in the size of the U.S. merchant fleet and the rise of a vibrant, affordable shipbuilding base in East Asia as matters of concern. Nevertheless, factors other than manpower are needed for sustained overseas operations, especially in modern times. The first factor is a naval tradition. More than simply the esprit de corps that binds a military organization together, a strong naval tradition includes the leadership and experience of senior officers and chief petty officers who sustain institutional knowledge and provide the underpinning expertise to train each subsequent generation of sailors. Interrelated with the naval tradition is the need for educated personnel and a professional ethos. Modern naval weapons are technically complex, and the more advanced a warship is, the more challenges there will be in keeping its subsystems operational on a long deployment. The establishment and maintenance of a professional ethos is partially a function of a strong naval tradition, but it also depends on the quality of the young petty officers and junior commissioned officers. Although manpower is not everything, there is also a quantitative element to building and sustaining an effective expeditionary naval force. For example, Australia has struggled to fill the ranks of its modest 13,000-strong navy. These numbers are required to man multiple squadrons of ships if a naval presence is to be sustained beyond the deployment of a single group of ships. Numbers are also important for damage-control functions. Although the U.S. Navy in particular is seeking to reduce the manpower requirement for effective damage control in its next-generation warships, the capability to deploy fully manned, disciplined and well-trained damage-control parties is still essential. These sailors must have reasonably well-maintained ships to operate. Long overseas deployments are hard on ships. If a squadron sets out on a deployment in a poor state of repair, it might not reach its destination, much less be able to sustain operations once it arrives. These things happen anyway, of course. But if this is the rule rather than the exception, then that navy has no meaningful capability to deploy and sustain naval force beyond its own waters. Increased Russian naval activity in late 2007 and 2008 has demonstrated that the state of repair of the Russian fleet's few remaining frontline warships has seen meaningful improvements since the darkest days of the late 1990s. For the capability to not only deploy a single squadron far afield, but also sustain that squadron's presence, many more ships are required — on the order of three warships or auxiliaries of comparable capability for each one deployed. This allows for sufficient numbers to regularly rotate out the individual ships and sailors and leave space for the repair (and potential refit) of the returning ships. Increased distance from home port increases both the wear and tear and the time of the transit. Ships also need to be capable of underway replenishment — the transfer of fuel, ordnance and supplies from auxiliaries to frontline warships while at sea. While not absolutely necessary in the strictest sense, it represents huge inefficiencies if the warships themselves (rather than their auxiliaries) must regularly break off from conducting patrols or other operations to transit to and from a safe port, and then fend for themselves for supplies. Depending on that distance, this requirement could cut deeply into effective on-station time. Underway replenishment is a complex and highly refined naval maneuver, requiring one ship to maneuver alongside or behind another (though the astern method is less efficient), with only dozens of yards separating the two ships, and then hold course in careful coordination while sustaining speeds of up to 16 knots. The capability of a warship to receive fuel and supplies this way by various methods can vary, but it generally requires at least some capability to receive a tensioned line to transfer fuel — and potentially multiple lines to transfer different types of fuel along with ordnance and other dry goods. For supplies other than fuel, helicopters are also used. But far more complex than the receiving station on a warship is the highly specialized and expensive replenishment station aboard the auxiliary. These ships are generally designed and built specifically for this role. Even the British Royal Navy has to work to squeeze its next replenishment ship class into the budget. The United States has refined this capability to a high art over decades upon decades of experience. While the technical complexity is a noteworthy requirement, it is the underlying implementation of these maneuvers by trained and experienced personnel that warrants perhaps the most emphasis, along with the underlying logistical complexity. Thus, STRATFOR has long considered the assistance with underway replenishment that the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force provided NATO warships operating in the Indian Ocean to be most significant for the Japanese navy, because of the hands-on operational experience that it was garnering. Taken as a whole, these factors require an immense investment in terms of both financial resources and training — especially when attempting to build this capability largely from scratch. Ultimately, it is no one ship or skill that imbues a navy with the capability to operate meaningfully far afield. Rather, it is a synthesis of deliberate efforts and investments that take many years to mature.