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Why the US Navy revived its Second Fleet
Summary
A look back at the May 2018 decision to re-establish a command disbanded in 2011, and the NATO-Russia tensions cited for it.
What did it mean when the United States Navy brought back a fleet it had shut down seven years earlier? The question stood behind the news of 10 May 2018, a few days after the announcement on 4 May 2018 that the United States Second Fleet was being re-established.
The Second Fleet had been disbanded in 2011. Its return was justified by the US Navy with reference to recent heightened tensions between NATO and Russia. That stated reason is the core of the decision: a command abolished in one security climate was restored in another.
A label for the tension
The move was soon read as part of a wider pattern. Scholars and journalists have used terms such as Second Cold War, Cold War II and New Cold War to describe heightened geopolitical tensions in the 21st century, usually between the United States and NATO on one side and Russia or China on the other. Some commentators have used these terms as a comparison with the original Cold War, while others have discouraged applying them to ongoing tensions.
What can be said
The measurable fact is narrow: a fleet disbanded in 2011 was re-established in May 2018, and the stated cause was friction between NATO and Russia. For Kyiv and other capitals in the region, the decision was one more marker of how Western military planning described the security environment at that point.
