Mexico’s new Naval Operating Concept

By Christian J. Ehrlich (translated from the original post)

On June 6, the Secretariat of the Navy (Secretaría de Marina–Armada de México) unveiled what it has called its New Naval Operational Concept (that I will refer to as NNOC-MX). According to the institution itself, the new vision rests on two pillars: vertical defense of the maritime airspace, and defense in depth that projects Mexican naval power out to sea. This is, without question, a commendable and necessary conceptual effort: for the first time in decades, the Navy is publicly articulating its own doctrine, with modern naval-technical vocabulary and a narrative integrating intelligence, readiness, and naval power. That exercise deserves recognition.

However, with all due respect to an Institution that I certanly admire, it must be noted that the NNOC-MX is a flawed concept. The core reason is simple: the term “defense in depth” that has been adopted does not match the means and capabilities the Navy itself has announced to underpin it. 

A Concept Without the Capablities’ Deployment to Back It Up

According to the official presentation, beyond the 200 nautical miles that delimit Mexico’s Exclusive Economic Zone, the Navy plans to deploy the future Multipurpose Patrol Vessels (MPVs), units that have not yet been built and are slated to enter service by 2029 -if construction goes according to plan. These are vessels with limited amphibious landing capability and a flight deck for, at most, two helicopters — far from an amphibious assault ship (LHD) or a full-armed combat unit. Their stated missions —long-range surveillance, HADR and logistical functions— are, in themselves, valuable and necessary for a country with Mexico’s coastlines and commitments. But this falls significantly short from what the concept “defense in depth” really entitles.

It is neither possible nor conceptually sustainable to present an MPV —a multipurpose patrol vessel of limited capability— as the load-bearing component of a “defense in depth” naval posture. Defense in depth, as a naval doctrine, is a strategy of successive layers in which each defensive ring performs a specific combat function, and whose outer layer —the one that confronts the threat before it reaches the Nation— requires, among other elements, battle-ready ships capable of sustaining the three classic components of naval warfare: anti-surface, anti-air, and anti-submarine. 

An MPV, by design, does not possess those combat capabilities, because it was never meant to.

That role calls for frigates, and Mexico already has a project — known, and partially armed — that answers precisely to that need: the Sigma 10514 frigate program, today stalled after the delivery of a single, partially-armed unit, the POLA ARM Juárez 101 (originally named ARM Reformador).

What “Defense in Depth” Actually Means: The Chinese Example

It is useful to contrast the NNOC-MX with a case where defense in depth has genuinely been developed with coherence between doctrine and capability: the Chinese Navy (PLAN). China’s naval posture is built around three successive geographic layers, corresponding to what the country calls “island chains.” This posture is not new; it stems from a design that has evolved since the 1980s, when Admiral Liu Huaqing laid out China’s path of naval modernization towards the 21st century.

The first layer corresponds to the First Island Chain, where Beijing has built a robust anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) system, combining long-range anti-ship missiles, sensors, submarines, and naval aviation, designed to deny or raise the cost of entry for adversary forces into that zone. The second layer projects toward the Second Island Chain, sustained by a growing surface combat fleet —destroyers, frigates, and, increasingly, carrier strike groups— with genuine sea-control capability. The third layer corresponds, at least in doctrinal design, to the Third Island Chain and to a global deployment capability across the entire Indo-Pacific, sustained by high-endurance line-of-battle ships, long-range logistics, and a growing carrier presence.

That is true defense in depth, not just a fancy concept lacking the means to sustain it.

From my perspective, what matters about the Chinese case is not the scale —obviously incomparable to Mexico’s— but the logic: each layer of China’s defense in depth is underpinned by combat platforms with growing lethality, or at least enough to impose costs on an adversary at that specific layer. It is precisely that correspondence between concept and capability that, today, does not exist in the NNOC-MX.

As Rear Admiral (Ret.) PhD. César Olivares Acosta has noted, it would be more accurate to describe what was presented on June 6 as a “naval presence in depth” — a legitimate and useful concept for surveillance, interdiction, and flag projection, but distinct, in doctrinal essence, from a true “defense in depth.”

A Proposal

None of the above diminishes the merit of introducing the MPVs. In fact, they are a welcome addition: they could finally replace the now-aging ex-Newport-class ships —ARM Papaloapan and ARM Usumacinta— which, for decades, have sustained logistical and amphibious capabilities the Navy urgently needs to renew. 

My full respect for that decision, provided construction moves forward.

But if the institutional intent is, as has been declared, to develop a genuine defense-in-depth posture —something I applaud, given Mexico’s enormous maritime potential— the logical path does not run through experimenting with a new class of vessel still on the drawing board, but through reviving and reactivating the Sigma 10514 frigate program. It is an already proven design -built by and for Mexicans- that has performed quite well in international naval exercises as demanding as RIMPAC. These are not times to experiment with new concepts on platforms that were never designed to support such; these are times to consolidate what already worked once.

In sum: the NNOC-MX is a valuable doctrinal step for the Mexican Navy, but its material pillar does not yet match the name it has been given. Closing that gap between discourse and capability —by reviving the Sigma 10514 program as the backbone of the outermost defensive layer— would be the most coherent step toward making Mexico’s “defense in depth” more than a well-named aspiration, and a true operational reality.