The Small Stuff: Under the Radar and Slipping Through the Cracks

The Washington Post had an article on smuggling submersibles from South America back on June 6th. While the small boat pirate activity off Africa gets a lot of attention, this is another area of small vessel activity that signals how the US is poorly prepared to deal with small vessel activity.

The subs are powered by ordinary diesel engines and built of simple fiberglass in clandestine shipyards in the Colombian jungle. U.S. officials expect 70 or more to be launched this year with a potential cargo capacity of 380 tons of cocaine, worth billions of dollars in the United States.

"This is definitely the next generation of smuggling conveyance," said Joseph Ruddy, an assistant U.S. attorney in Tampa who prosecutes narco-mariners.
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The submersibles are equipped with technologies that make them difficult to intercept, even though U.S. forces use state-of-the-art submarine warfare strategies against them. Authorities say most slip through their net.

"You try finding a floating log in the middle of the Pacific," one DEA agent said.

Two thoughts. First, there might be a place for a system like this for supporting Marine Corps operations ashore. Second, we need to find ways to be more successful against small platforms. I think it is interesting how small vessels force our Navy and Coast Guard to be purely reactive, because we are unable to consistently, reliably identify the small vessel threats effectively.

This is where the Navy needs to be able to set up Maritime Domain Awareness at sea in a specific area as a requirement. Basically, the ability to blockade blue water on demand over the length of 250nm in a way that absolutely nothing can get through without being seen, and searched if necessary.

H/T Mark Nolan