6th Fleet Focus: Security Does Not Substitute Defense

Eagle1 spotted an excellent article by Thomas P.M. Barnett regarding a global maritime network for sea born traffic monitoring and information sharing strategy being forwarded by Admiral Ulrich. The analogy is described as:

Worldwide, aircraft are transparent, because they're all required to carry an "identification friend or foe" beacon that allows them to be tracked leaving and entering airports by aircraft-traffic-control systems and monitored between airports by sensors distributed across a global network. Trip the wire that defines "suspicious activity" and somebody's fighter aircraft will soon be on your tail. NATO alone routinely launches two or three fighters a week to identify unknown aircraft.

No such pervasive system currently exists globally for maritime traffic. If a ship any bigger than a small freighter is flagged by a nation belonging to the International Maritime Organization, it carries an ID beacon similar to aircraft. But without a shared monitoring network, that's like tracking only selected commercial jets part of the time and giving everyone else a pass.

This blog is in full support of this initiative, I believe it is a key enabler for security across the spectrum for maritime commerce, and I think Admiral Ulrich deserves credit for pushing the concept, particularly in the African maritime domain, where it can do a lot of good.

Then I read this quote, and can't shake that tightening feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"I don't do defense; I do security," he (Ulrich) says. "When you talk defense, you talk containment and mutually assured destruction. When you talk security, you talk collaboration and networking. This is the future. This is the thousand-ship navy, except there are no ships."

In any context, that is a scary statement. Not only do I disagree with his simplistic characterization of what defense is, I think he is clearly saying something profoundly...dumb, since he is substituting security for defense.

I'm not really sure what "collaboration and networking" means, but security is not a substitute for defense. If "collaboration and networking" means anything similar to international partnership in mutually agreed cooperation, and security provided by such framework is being treated as a substitute for defense, then I have a serious problem regarding what he should be doing compared to what he is doing.

With the rhetoric regarding Iran hitting a fever pitch, we have the top guy in U.S. Naval Forces Europe claiming he doesn't do defense? We could potentially be months away from the largest naval actions since the Battle of Leyte Gulf, with economic ramifications well beyond the impact of 9/11, and Ulrich thinks his role in defense is limited to containment and mutually assured destruction? Sir, your articles in Proceedings have shown you to be a thoughtful person, but in the media you give a completely opposite persona.

This doesn't give me much confidence, in fact it is flat out frightening that the Navy would have a 4 star Admiral seemingly repeating the same mistakes thought to be lessons learned by the 1930s era Navy. History is full of examples where mutually agreed security failed to provide for defense, examples for the United States would include Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, among others. If US Navy leaders, and it is hard to call Admiral Ulrich anything but a naval leader due to his command, are seriously treating global mutually agreed maritime awareness of commercial traffic security initiatives or the 1000-ship fleet security initiative as a substitute for defense, they are building a Maginot Line at sea in false belief they are defending the nation.

Am I making something out of nothing? Maybe, but it is a bit troubling that the last merchant ship and the last warship to get hit by an anti-ship missile happened in Ulrich's area of responsibility, just last year and by a group closely associated with the before mentioned Iran. It was just last month the most recent sea mine was found and destroyed, also in his area of responsibility. Those aren't "security" issues, those are "defense" issues, and no amount of security substitutes exist as substitutes for the defense strategies required to counter these real and present dangers,

We don't live in an 'either/or' world. The Navy and its leaders had better be taking serious both security AND defense, or the strategy is wrong, and we are on a road of surprise not seen in the Navy since 1941. How Ulrich allowed such a stupid thing to not only fly out of his mouth, but get reported by a reporter who is clearly sympathetic to him leaves me searching for the confirmation of Vice Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, which in my opinion, can't come soon enough.

Admiral Ulrich deserves credit for his security initiatives which are very smart and will make a positive impact if implimented, but he is first and foremost a US Navy 4 star Admiral. If he has lost focus on his primary responsibility, which would be the defense of the United States of America and our interests, it may be time for him to move into a more academic role where his ideas can be promoted without the apparent distraction of his primary responsibility.