Details of the Sea Basing Evolution Off Monrovia

The full transcript is here (PDF). This was the question I've been wanting to ask since we first observed the evolution, because the answer tells the story of a capability that expands the possibilities for addressing disaster relief and humanitarian operations in the future.

Galrahn: This is a great conversation. I want to talk about the evolution of Liberia, which has got a lot of attention. It seems that -- five ships, sounds like $3.4 million worth of equipment, $100,000 worth of humanitarian. Can you describe in detail a little bit of the why you did it, how you did it, and what you accomplished there?

CAPT. NOWELL: Sure. And that is a really good question.

There's some elements of Liberia that probably have not gotten as much exposure as they could. But first of all, certainly we believe that Liberia has a special relationship with the United States. And I probably don't need to expand any more than saying that with you, because I'm certain that you get it. And they are eager to continue that partnership.

And so as we look -- one of the things that we talk about with APS is that we're not just engaging with folks wearing navy uniforms or coast guard uniforms, because maritime safety and security is very, very broad. Now, right now Liberia does not have a coast guard, but they are in the process of kind of conceptualizing and looking at how they are going to here, near-term, start their coast guard back up. But what they do have is a very -- you know, some very positive progress from the Armed Forces of Liberia side with respect to their soldiers.

So the ambassador had asked us to engage with Africa Partnership Station as a show of partnership, had asked us what areas we might be able to do training for those soldiers that the U.S. government has been working very hard. And as you look at some of the training that we're able to provide, such as noncommissioned officer leadership training, officer leadership training, logistics or the martial arts -- there were many areas where we able to provide training and in fact did for about a hundred AFL students, as well as the ability to take this multi-agency and multinational team and talk to some of the ministries that were there in Monrovia, like the ministry of fisheries or customs, about what they needed to key on as they look at the refurbishment of the port, as they look at putting protocols in place, you know, for environmental protection, for protection of the fisheries and as they look at forming a coast guard.

Now, the other piece that we executed, while off of Monrovia, was a seabasing demonstration. And the Navy has a new system. It's called the Navy's Improved Navy Lighterage System.

And in simple terms, this is a floating dock, that you can build offshore and you can then use to take stuff off, maritime prepositioning ships, and then get them on to, you know, connectors, high-speed connectors notionally to then get them to the beach. And so we wanted to do a demonstration there, where we also use that capability to get some of this humanitarian assistance type of equipment inland.

And so just to expand on that a little bit for you, we pulled two maritime prepositioning ships, plus Fort McHenry and Swift. We all converged -- it was right around Easter -- off of Monrovia. The prepo ships offloaded this floating -- these floating dry-docks. We put them together.

And then the day before Easter Sunday, we moored one of the maritime prepositioning ships. And we had the Bobo and the Wheat there. They were the MPS ships. But we offloaded seven Marine vehicles, humvees and trucks onto -- they call it -- an RRDF, which is really just a -- now that I'm saying it, I can't think of what the acronym stands for.

But the bottom line is, it's a roll-on, roll-off discharge facility, so RRDF. And we then take them, using a powered section of that, into the well deck of the Fort McHenry. We put those vehicles together, married them up with their Marines, who had flown into Senegal and then come down on the prepo ships. And we sent the Swift up to get them.

So we then finished putting the vehicles together, married them up with their Marines and then took them back out, got them on the RRDF. Swift pulled up to the RRDF. The vehicles went onboard Swift and went into the Port of Monrovia.

And then the next morning, we did a convoy to four different sites, hospitals and schools there in Monrovia, to drop off this equipment.

So we think that it's a great example of a capability that you could use in an austere environment. Again, if you had a -- some kind of a natural disaster, you know, or any other event that made the ability to bring things like the prepo ships into port, the ability to do that seven miles out worked and it worked well. And so we layered that as part of the whole APS engagement there.

And so as we look at that in general -- again the, you know, more than 100 AFL soldiers trained, $3.4 million worth of, you know, HA equipment. You know, we had the president -- President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf actually came out and spent a half-day on Fort McHenry and had the chance to participate in the graduation ceremony for her soldiers. And in fact, she said it was the first time that she'd ever seen her country from the sea.

So we're pretty proud of what we did in Liberia. Again, it shows you that the inland reach that you can get from something like an APS effort is pretty substantial. I mean, I just kind of gave you that example. In some other places we might have Fort McHenry or Swift at anchor or in-port. And for instance, in Cameroon we did maritime law training in the capital of Yaounde, which is more than five hours inland from where the ship was anchored in Limbe. So a lot of flexibility there.

But at any rate, those were some of the details from the Liberia piece. Does that help a little bit?

Galrahn: Very much. Those ships couldn't make port in Monrovia; is that true?

CAPT. NOWELL: The Swift could. The Fort McHenry could not, nor could the MPS ships.

Monrovia has about half a million people, no port facilities for large ships, and yet the Navy became the logistical enabler for a non-governmental organization that delivered massive loads of material, including the vehicles for distribution of the material.

This evolution highlights an interesting technology and technique towards the ends of connecting to otherwise disconnected large coastal cities and populations. In this case the Navy prepared the materials that were delivered in Monrovia by HSV Swift 7 miles off the coast.

The application of this technology for military purposes is interesting on its own, but the seven vehicles could have just as easily not been military, and the materials were prepared and donated by a non governmental organization, being both medical and humanitarian in nature. The potential for using sea power for this type of proactive engagement is limited only by the imagination, desired payloads, and available skill sets of the planners and participants for each specific evolution.

It has been suggested the NGOs only participate with the Navy so they can use the Navy for their logistics capabilities. My answer to that is... so what? The Navy doesn't need credit, the NGOs do because their donations are primarily driven by accomplishments. The Navy's objectives are met if the NGOs are effective, not whether or not credit is duly given to the Navy for being the logistical enabler.