Phase 0 Operations For Failed States MIA

The question continues to be asked, what is the solution to the piracy problem? The question was posed by the Senate during the nomination process of Ray Mabus and Bob Work, just like it is continuously asked every where else. I think there are plenty of good ideas, although I am not sure which ideas would be seen as compelling at this time. For example, I think as part of the arsenal of soft power, the United States maritime services need to have the strategic capability to organically establish a Coast Guard, but all of the supporting reasons and analysis of this idea would take three thousand words, at least. Perhaps some other time.

What the question reveals is what bothers me. First, the question reveals the reality that the answer doesn't exist. Nobody in the Navy knows, and before that is considered a problem it is still being debated whether this is a problem to be solved by the Navy, or the Coast Guard. The policy suggests this is law enforcement thus a Coast Guard problem, because if it was a Navy problem we would be discussing use of force and rules of engagement, a conversation I have not seen in public.

What the question also reveals however is even more troubling. The United States National Defense Strategy, National Security Strategy, Cooperative Maritime Strategy, and virtually all operational guidance produced for decades has never specifically addressed how the military would manage this issue. Cooperation with allies is not an end of strategy, it is a way to execute a strategy. There is no strategy for piracy with an end that is currently possible under the limitations of current policy.

Somalia is a failed state, which leads me to a question. Where is the PPT that discusses Phase 0 shaping operations for failed states. I have spent considerable time lately researching Phase 0 concepts for both the Navy and Marines, and I have not seen any analysis regarding shaping operations, what is called Phase 0, for failed states. None.

Piracy is a symptom of a failed state, just like hunger, violence, drugs, and an abundance of other illegal activities. If the Navy or Marines had Phase 0 plans for a failed state, then those plans would be in motion right now. For whatever reason, all Phase 0 planning conducted by the Navy and Marines has been based on a Westphalian system of sovereign states assuming governments that could be worked with.

If I was the Navy, I would be calculating the cost of developing, building, deploying, and sustaining at sea for an extended period of time a Coast Guard in the ungoverned waters off a failed state. A cost comparison of that effort against what it is currently costing the international community in their anti-piracy efforts would determine whether that idea is even realistic. I would suggest that because there is no plan to organically generate a Coast Guard for a foreign country, the process of building the Iraqi Coast Guard has been a painfully expensive and time consuming exercise.

If I was the Marines, I would be asking whether the SC MAGTF has properly accounted for the conditions of a failed state for Phase 0, because from everything I have read it does not. This raises an important question, if Phase 0 is the population engagement to build working relationships and partnerships, does Phase 0 for the Marines in regards to a failed state begin at sea? After all, there is a population at sea who as recently as Tuesday, appears to have segments fed up enough with the troublemakers that they are willing to confront them. That suggests there is something to be gained by a population engagement exercise at sea, if we had the distributed, persistent presence to actually engage the population in a meaningful way.

The case for small ships that can support squads of Marines, and enough of those small ships to insure the integrity of platoons, perhaps even company's of Marines can be made, but first we have to accept the possibility that a requirement for Phase 0 operations for failed states exists. As of today, as evidenced by our mostly unsuccessful reaction to Somalia piracy, the possibility that a requirement for Phase 0 operations for failed states does not appear to exist in either the Navy or Marine Corps.

It is one thing to suggest the need to address piracy specifically is not a strategic priority for the maritime services, but it is strategically unsound to suggest that the absence of Phase 0 strategic, tactical, and operational capabilities that curb symptoms of failed states is an acceptable condition.