Joint Maritime Operations - Engagement

This post continues the Developing Joint Maritime Operations series by examining engagement as a category of military activity within the context the Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower. From section 5 in the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations Version 3.0.

Engagement activities seek to improve the capabilities of or cooperation with allied and other partners. They may be conducted as a complement to broader diplomatic or economic engagement, in aid of a friendly (and sometimes not so friendly) government’s own security activities, and even during war itself. They are the primary military contribution to the national challenge of establishing cooperative security. Engagement activities typically are long-duration undertakings, ending only when they have achieved their goals or when either the U.S. or partner government concludes that they have become unnecessary or unproductive.

The scope and nature of engagement activities can vary enormously, reflecting differing strategic relationships between the United States and partner nations. Each engagement effort will be unique and must be framed to accommodate both U.S. objectives and the concerns of and constraints on the potential partners.

Even more than other categories of joint activity, engagement is subject to a myriad of laws and regulations governing everything from limits on funding and the deployment of military personnel to legislative restrictions on the tasks to which military assistance may be applied. Given these complexities, nothing can compensate for close and continuous interagency coordination at the individual country level. The key to that coordination is the country team and the U.S. Ambassador to whom it answers. As the permanent agent of the U.S. government’s diplomatic relationship with the host nation, the country team alone can negotiate the access essential to effective engagement. And as the President’s personal representative, only the ambassador has the authority to insure synchronization of interagency operations. Above all, by virtue of its routine political contacts with the host government and its familiarity with local conditions, the country team is uniquely placed to assess the partner nation’s ability and willingness to accept military engagement and, where those differ from the U.S. appraisal, to convince the host government to modify its views. For all these reasons, the country team will be the coordinating authority in most engagement efforts, and the success of those efforts will depend on the effectiveness of the liaison between and among the regional combatant command and the country teams in its area of responsibility.

Trends suggest that engagement requirements increasingly will exceed the capacities of specialized but manpower-limited organizations such as special operations forces and permanent military assistance groups. The unique capabilities of those forces remain vital, and their capacities may well expand. But the reality is that a growing share of joint engagement tasks will fall to general-purpose forces. Accomplishing those tasks without unacceptable penalty to their combat capabilities will require innovative adjustments of joint and service doctrine, organizations, and training.

Finally, not least of the challenges associated with engagement is measuring its impact. Because engagement is for the most part a long-term undertaking, the most important results may not be visible until long after it begins. Indeed, in some cases, as for example when undertaken to help a partner nation improve its ability to deter external aggression, effects may never be clearly measurable.

Since engagement imposes both direct budget costs and opportunity costs with respect to the joint forces that conduct them, that inability to measure their impact risks undermining the legislative and political support without which no engagement is feasible. Even more than other joint activities, therefore, engagement depends crucially on the persuasiveness of the strategic narrative underwriting it, and on the active sponsorship of political, diplomatic and military leaders. In the end, however difficult its results may be to quantify, joint engagement may be the most cost-effective of the Nation’s military investments.

The US Navy is The Global Force for Good. Africa Partnership Station, Pacific Partnership, Southern Partnership Station, to name a few... have demonstrated that the US Navy can work with host nation ambassadors to develop coordination and synchronization for a joint agency and even international engagement. Global Fleet Stations is still a relatively new concept, but there are signs that something special is developing.

How do you measure the growth of a deployment designed with engagement in mind? Well, I measure it two ways. Pacific Partnership is a humanitarian deployment, and when USNS Richard E. Byrd (T-AKE-4) was making the rounds in the Pacific islands last year, there was news about the activities everywhere (nearly 10K Google Returns for a 3 month deployment).

Anyone who claims they can't find information about that deployment never looked, because by the end of deployment I felt like CHINFO had introduced me to the entire crew, including all the foreigners. I don't know how effective it was, but there is no question the Navy did everything possible to align strategic communications to the intent and actions of that deployment, and the statistics are impressive.

But there is more than one kind of Global Fleet Station. The USS Wasp (LHD 1) returned just in time for Christmas from a three month Southern Partnership Station deployment for SOUTHCOM. Did you keep track of it? Probably not. The reason you didn't is because there was a remarkable absence of public affairs information from that deployment - and I mean almost none. Actually, that isn't entirely true. There may not have much of a CHINFO media effort associated with that deployment, but if you follow Hugo Chavez like I do, you would have noticed he spent considerable time whining about the USS Wasp (LHD 1) every week for three months.

I have a simple analyst rule. When a fully loaded LHD deploys no more than a couple hundred miles from the US for three months and Hugo Chavez complains more times than CHINFO writes feel good stories, my basement level analysis suggests sailors are doing same damn fine work. I have no idea what the specifics are, but my bet is the classified AAR is worth reading as there are engagement lessons to be learned in that report.

The CCJO discusses measuring success for engagement. I have asked this question to several Navy leaders associated with engagement opportunities, and many have admitted this is difficult. Polls of people are conducted and used to develop local impact, but so are government level responses. Should medical diplomacy missions measure the impact of immunizations of a country over time? The good news is, it should be the State Department that develops the measurements for influence. The bad news is, relying on the State Department is never a popular idea.

I do not believe Global Fleet Stations has evolved far enough yet to answer all the engagement concepts discussed in the CCJO. Remember, we have sent USS Annapolis (SSN 760) to the Ghana as part of an African Partnership Station 2007, so we know there is an innovation process associated with Global Fleet Stations and other naval engagement operations. The continuing evolution of Global Fleet Stations insures that the Navy is a leading service in executing the engagement vision outlined in the CCJO, but even since the beginning of Global Fleet Stations the discussion on force structure has existed.

The question is not whether amphibious ships are capable of performing as Global Fleet Stations, because I believe the answer to that question is always yes. Amphibious ships are expensive to operate and deploy, particularly and including the Wasp and San Antonio classes which are the newest amphibious ships in the fleet. The Wasp class is over 40,000 tons while the San Antonio class is over 24,000 tons - these are big ships. Other big ships like USNS Richard E. Byrd (T-AKE-4) are much less expensive to operate, but they can't carry a lot of people, so T-AKEs aren't really well designed for Global Fleet Stations. I need significantly more information on how a JHSV fits into the GFS picture, because as a solo ship I don't understand how that fits. Seems to me if a JHSV works, then a much cheaper merchant charter would.

Are Global Fleet Stations a priority in the Navy to the point where a dedicated ship is worth the investment? I participated in a wargame this past summer that looked at alternative fleet structures, and the specific alternative fleet structure examined included a Global Fleet Station ship. In beating around the force structure being examined, one idea emerged that a more optimal GFS ship would be a mothership/tender that would include the workshops and C2 of a tender but include the desirable characteristics of a GFS ship (including a large heavy crane) - which in my mind was like a "LPD-17 light", and by that I mean a Bay class type ship but reusing the LPD-17 hull for its size.

The idea was for the GFS ship to operate on a circuit in a region hitting each stop over a period of 7-10 days supporting multiple 250 ton ships (~170 ft types) in theater security operations with regional naval forces and multiple smaller boats (25-ft types) working with regional coast guards. The basic idea was to have these small vessels in a distributed operational model working in several countries at the same time while the GFS ship sails in circuits hitting all the stops to supply/support training, and by training the regional nations officers together on the GFS ship, with stops in each country in the circuit, the idea was it would build regional cooperation. In my concept of operations of this engagement idea, I was thinking along the lines of 4 ships of each type per engagement, and the circuit would support as many engagements per nation (CG or Navy) in different ports as possible at once. In wartime these GFS ships would be used for logistics support, harbor security, regional MSO, and where to develop Coast Guard post military operations. With the inclusion of a large heavy crane, the ship could potentially be used as a tender to reload VLS for primary fleet forces.

Should Global Fleet Stations drive requirements for future hospital ships, future salvage ships, future tenders, or other future vessel types designed and built for the MSC? Part of developing strategy on a budget is consolidating capabilities where possible. If there isn't enough money to build different types of specialized vessels, perhaps the Navy needs to examine adding specialized capabilities to a single larger ship type that is used for Global Fleet Stations. A ship built with the T-AKE hull might support several specialized capabilities consolidated from numerous specialized ships, and those large ships with diverse specializations might be well suited for GFS operations?

Are partners avoiding engagement with us because we do not have small boats, PCs, or corvettes to work with small coast guards and mid-sized Navy's for surface warfare training? An amphibious ship that deploys to the Gulf of Guinea can fill 6 months with regional engagements, as the USS Fort McHenry did, but did critical countries in that region like South Africa and Nigeria decide not to engage because we don't offer surface warfare capabilities at a similar level they operate?
Should Global Fleet Station ships be generic or specific, designed as a one-ship-fits-all vessel or specialized vessels based on the maritime environments globally? Not all maritime environments are the same. West Africa may require a greater humanitarian approach while East Africa requires a theater security cooperation approach. The global coast guard sucks, so does the US Navy need to think about a ship designed to support and deliver Coast Guard capabilities globally - perhaps a hybrid cutter tender/training ship?

These are only a handful of potential questions the Navy might consider while they continue to evolve regional engagement operations. I think the CCJO section on engagement is speaking directly to the US Navy as a primary capability, and I also think future CCJO versions can improve by learning from the Navy on this subject.