Three Bits

1. My book manuscript is finished (for better or worse), so I soon hope to be using the space that Galrahn has graciously granted for something more than self-promotion. In particular, I plan to return to the idea of writing a series on seapower in fiction. However, also expect some more book reviews, mostly associated with recent work on the airpower manuscript.

 2. Until then, self-promotion #1: I jabber about airpower and Syria with Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network, in Episode III of Foreign Entanglements: If you're interested, you can also "Like" Foreign Entanglements on Facebook.

 3. Self-promotion #2: In this week's WPR column, I think about how a 1947-style restructuring of the national security bureaucracy might go down:

Most of the time, when confronted with the clear shortcomings of the system in place, we choose to muddle through. Since 1947, the United States has undertaken a series of minor revisions to the national security bureaucracy. The most significant change came with the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which affirmed the value of jointness and attempted to remedy the problems of inter-service conflict created by the National Security Act. After Sept. 11, the United States tweaked its intelligence bureaucracy by creating the position of Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, although these latter reforms represented more an effort to create cover for the intelligence failures associated with Sept. 11 than a genuine reform. On rare occasions, however, we have the opportunity to revisit national values and to redesign the institutions that constrain our policy choices. These contingent moments come when the accumulated weight of years of muddling, combined with geopolitical and technological changes, leave us with institutions fundamentally out of sync with the strategic environment the nation faces. There is reason to believe that the United States now faces such a moment. The strategic, political and technological challenges facing the Obama administration -- and potentially a successor Romney administration -- differ so dramatically from the environment that faced Harry Truman and Acheson at the time of the “creation” that they now risk pulling the national security bureaucracy out of shape.

UAV Swarms Will Change Warfare Forever

Those who aren't convinced that UAS will change warfare permanently need to watch this video, posted yesterday:


Pardon the cliche, but this technology is truly transformational. For some interesting commentary on swarms, check out John Robb.

The naval applications are there, too. How could AEGIS, RAM, ESSM, CIWS, or any other envisioned air defense system defend against a lethal "suicide" drone swarm aimed at a ship, especially when they come in from all directions and mass before attack? Jamming might work to some degree, but there are countermeasures for countermeasures. What about swarming surface or undersea weapons? The fact that this technology was developed by a university, not by DARPA, NAVSEA, or a major defense contractor, demonstrates that open source systems such as these will soon be available to non-state actors, some of them with malevolent intent.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

UK Libya Lessons Observed & Sea-based ISR

From Think Defense , a discussion of UK lessons from Libya and a detailed run down of some possible solutions to fill the gaps: two things the UK effort lacked was organic shipboard unmanned ISR and precision land attack. We've discussed the US shortages of those assets here and several times previously. As acquisition choices are made on platforms such as the F-35C versus say the Sea Avenger or other strike-capable ISR aircraft, it would be wise to heed these observations as well as our own recent combat experiences in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. We cannot kill what we can't find, and scouting in modern warfare -- IW and otherwise --is about finding discrete targets that are positioned in a way to exacerbate collateral damage and use our ROE against us. The global instantaneous news cycle permits little leeway from this truth. Targets hiding in plain sight in urban environments or among fishing fleets are now the norm as are those that do not otherwise seem as they appear (decoys and military units disguised as civilian platforms). High value targets in future asymmetric fights against state or non-state actors are as likely to be key individuals or civilian looking maritime collection platforms as they are tank divisions and enemy capital ships.

The way to overcome these challenges is through persistent stare intelligence -- and fast moving TACAIR just doesn't provide it. The foregoing isn't intended to come across as as an anti-CVN position. It is however, an indictment of the acquisition of new sea-based TACAIR for the mid-to-long term.

As we've noted before, these sorts of capabilities enable even smaller ships to participate in a larger fight by extending the range of sensors and an ability to engage what they find. As the author notes:

The need to extend the reach of surface vessels, I carefully avoid the use of the term major combatant because vessels lower down the flightiness ladder can equally benefit, with both ISTAR and attack capabilities is obvious.

We could still deliver improved land attack capabilities without an investment in maritime UAV’s because target identification and guidance can come from other ‘platforms’ but the availability of an organic UAV would greatly enhance the ability of a frigate or destroyer without requiring others or relying on a manned helicopter where it might be difficult to deploy.

The past decade of combat has created an insatiable demand for persistent ISR by our ground commanders. In a war at sea scenario, the demand for these platforms will be equal, if not greater due to the vast distances involved. We should err on the side of acquiring as many of these scouting platforms as we can afford, even if it means trade-offs such as buying fewer BMD platforms and more smaller, cheaper ships to house the UAVs, or eliminating other high ticket programs such as the F-35C.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

H/T Lee

Foreign Entanglements Episode II, and Airpower

A couple of quick notes. First, episode 2 of Foreign Entanglements is up; this episode feature Matthew Duss of the Center for American Progress against Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of FPI: Not much maritime content, but certainly some national security talk. In the near future I hope that have a more maritime-themed episode. Second, my WPR column last week was yet another unhinged screed against airpower. Check it out.

The Proof Is In The Pudding

The details of the FY13 budget are beginning to drift out, and it seems that the much ballyhooed "pivot" to Asia--and by inference, to Naval and Aerospace power--is more heat than light.  As I discussed on last week's Midrats internet radio show, there are two ways to demonstrate budget emphasis.  One is to spend more on something, and the other is to spend less, but have the magnitude of the cut be less than other priorities, creating an "emphasis by subtraction".  This is what it appears to have occurred in the FY13 budget. 

News reports and Pentagon statements indicate that the Navy will retire 7 cruisers and 2 LSD's early, while cutting its shipbuilding totals 28% from the FY12 estimate for 2013-2017 (57 ships) to 41 ships in the same period with this budget.  Retiring assets early from a Fleet already stressed to meet its commitments, and then eating your shipbuilding "seed corn",  strike me as odd ways to demonstrate an emphasis on Seapower.  I've talked to some in the Navy who suggest that under the new plan, we'll be able to field as many ships in 2020 as we do now, which is put forward as evidence of great progress and victories within the Pentagon bureaucracy. How this reconciles with the fact that the Fleet we have NOW does not meet the needs of the COCOMS--let alone the Fleet some project to be necessary to underwrite East Asian security in the face of Chinese expansion and modernization--evades me. 

For navalists, the current Republican Presidential primary has included several references to Fleet size, some of which have had issue taken with them in the press (NOTE:  I am actively supporting Mitt Romney for President).  In this one, Walter Pincus seizes upon what he believes is a lack of detail among the candidates when discussing the Fleet.  His suggestion that Romney's use of "9 ships is a year out of date" (to summarize yearly shipbuilding levels) ignores the basic fact that in the last year in which we have complete information (FY11), the Navy procured only 9 ships.  He then goes on to point to an erroneous figure of 55 ships over the next five years (the number in the FY12 budget was 57), while hedging his criticism by saying "...the fiscal 2013 budget due shortly could change things....".  Indeed it has, again, by dramatically cutting the number of ships to be built, by retiring useful ships early, and by deferring the acquisition of critical submarines.  This again--in a strategy emphasizing an immense maritime theater and the Seapower and Aerospace power necessary to dominate it. 

Clearly, the number of hulls as a measure of Naval power ain't what it used to be.  However, the suggestion that networks and precision guided munitions make hull counts unimportant points again to the basic physics problem that Naval planners have faced since the Phoenicians--a ship can only be in one place at a time.  Quantity does have a quality all its own, and as I've advocated many times on this site, networks and PGM's are of incalculable value when the Navy is fighting; however they are less important when the Navy is doing what it does the vast majority of the time--deterring and assuring.  We are sliding into the trap of sizing our Navy to fight and win wars only, de-emphasizing the critical role of what Tom Barnett has termed "system maintenance".  The more we move toward a force designed ONLY to fight wars, the more likely such a Fleet will be to become a magnificent anachronism--powerful, networked, and top-notch--but operating largely in the Virginia Capes and San Diego opareas. 

Bryan McGrath

Costa Concordia Reconstruction

For those interested in the seamanship aspects of the Costa Concordia disaster, this may be interesting:

Reconstruction of the Costa Concordia Tragedy, Narration by John Konrad from gCaptain.com on Vimeo.

Narration by John Konrad, CEO gCaptain.com and USCG Licensed Master Mariner Unlimited.

McGrath Guest on MIDRATS Internet Radio Show

While most of you were watching the Pats/Ravens game last evening, Sal and Eagle1 were kind enough to have me on their Internet Radio Show "Midrats" for the full hour.  We cover a lot of ground here, and I hope you find the dialogue useful.


Bryan McGrath

DOT&E FY2011 Annual Report

The DOT&E FY2011 Annual Report (PDF) is out, and I noted that Wired is focused on the LCS report (PDF). The reason the Wired article on LCS reads like it's reaching for straws to find news in the LCS report is because the DOT&E FY2011 Annual Report on LCS lacks new information. The DOT&E report basically details exactly what ADM Pandolfe told everyone at Surface Navy Association conference - in January of last year (in 2011). Hard to get worked up about issues openly discussed over a year ago.

What I did find interesting about the report is that the report heavily focuses on the MIW module problems, but only one aspect of the module - the airborne pieces expected to be used on the MH-60R helicopter (AN/AQS-20A and ALMDS). Does that mean the rest of the MIW module is doing well? I don't know what the absence of concerns for the SUW and ASW modules means either. Does that mean the program components of those modules aren't mature enough to evaluate, or does it mean they don't have any concerns right now with those components? I don't know.

About the only thing I learned in the LCS DOT&E report is that DOT&E is still actively sounding the bell on the survivability issues of LCS, and the Navy is still not ready to discuss that issue about LCS with anyone. Everything else in the DOT&E report reads like first in class ship stuff. I still think Austal should have seen the corrosion issue coming, and I don't like that there has already been a crack in LCS1, but these are issues where Navy folks involved appear comfortable with the corrections made to address those issues.

While LCS is likely to get lots of attention early (the program is the Navy's attention whore these days), there really isn't much in the DOT&E report on LCS that was new, and certainly nothing worth getting worked up about.

If you want to see what a truly damning report in the DOT&E FY2011 Annual Review looks like, check out LPD-17 (PDF). The report uses several hundred words to detail how the class is "assessed as capable of conducting amphibious operations in a benign environment, but not operationally effective, suitable, or survivable in a hostile environment due to significant reliability deficiencies on major systems affecting communications, propulsion, and self defense."

LCS has nothing even remotely close to damning as that assessment.

Another Dutch Sub To Horn Of Africa

In 2010 the Dutch deployed a submarine to the Horn Of Africa after a request from NATO. And while most newspapers focused on the lack of Dutch surface vessels around the Horn of Africa, after HNLMS Zuiderkruis left for retirement (the next surface vessel to go is HNLMS Van Amstel),  there is a Dutch vessel in the area: HNLMS Dolfijn, join operation Ocean Shield.

In 2010 the Dutch sub was 4 months away from her homeport, this time the sub will stay for 8 months. After 4 months the Dutch will rotate crews.

This means the Dutch should have 3 vessels in the area in May: HNLMS Dolfijn, HNLMS Van Amstel and HNLMS Tromp.

And while the sub will gather important information, it is general a very boring operation for the crew. Lying a couple of miles from the Somali cost, watching through a periscope, for days on is more like a police stake out and not as exciting as trying to sneak past enemy warships.

Highlight for the crew the last time a Dutch sub was off the Somali coast was seeing a vessel leave for the sea, after which HMS Montrose sent a Lynx to stop the suspected pirates.

And the information gathered is important in two ways: for operation Ocean Shield and EU Navfor on one side, and for the Dutch on the other.
It is important for the Dutch, because they can trade their intelligence with others who have intelligence they want. In 2010 they did an intellegence exchange with the USA. The USA got intelligence on Somalia, we got intelligence on Afghanistan.

And only recently the Dutch and Germans formed a Joint Investigation Team to tackle the problem of piracy in the HoA.

The old saying is still true: there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Dutch VPD vs. Somali Pirates

Yesterday  around 6.00 CET pirates in a fishing vessel attacked the MV Flintstone  93NM north east of the island of Socotra.
The pirates in their dhow where seen coming and the crew of the Flintstone went into hid in a special compartment of the ship. Meanwhile the Dutch Vessel Protection Detachment, consisting of marines, prepared for the arrival of the skiff that came from the dhow, that was being used as a mother ship.

At first the VPD fired flares at the coming ship, in which they could see several weapons including a RPG. When this RPG was aimed at the Flintstone the marines answered with direct fire, forcing the skiff to return to the dhow.

What I don't understand is the choice of the pirates to attack the MV Flinstone. Their intelligence must be lacking.

After the report of the Wijkerslooth Commission, the Dutch decided to make 50 VPDs available to protect vulnerable, Dutch owned, vessels.
And they sometimes announce names of ships which will have a VPD on board. And yes, from 2 weeks ago: the Flintstone will have a VPD on board.