The late Professor Michael Handel codified the “principle of continuity,” rebranding the Prussian soldier-scribe Carl von Clausewitz’s dictum that to win decisively on the battlefield, a field commander should land “blow after blow” against the enemy “in the same direction,” striking repeatedly “with all his strength.” Bucking that principle—failing to hammer away without surcease—grants the foe a respite to recover from a tactical defeat while attenuating the average magnitude of combat power aimed at it over time. In short, intermittent or desultory operations enfeeble the war effort.

And court defeat.

The U.S. Navy has been breaching the principle of continuity for decades, and to its own peril. At present, for example, surface combatants—guided-missile destroyers and cruisers—have to withdraw from a battle zone when they exhaust their missile inventories. They have to steam back to a specially equipped port to rearm. The logistics fleet cannot rearm them at sea for fear of damaging munitions or vertical launchers as the recipient and delivery ships sway with the waves. Depending on where the theater of........

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