Beware Early Reporting

As we are reminded time and time again, early reporting often gets it wrong. The same is true with the events involving the flotilla engaged by the IDF.

Apparently the peaceful activities of the folks on the flotilla included the stabbing of an IDF soldier in the back - for example, meaning any attempt to quickly presume anything is foolish. We won't know for a few days what actually took place.

Am I surprised people died? Nope, if you recall my comments the other day I somewhat expected exactly what has happened. 10 dead and injuries on both sides. It is hard for Americans to draw any analogies, because we don't have a relationship like the one between Israel and Palestine.

But if 1000 people from Mexico, whom our government presumed was mostly made up of drug cartel supporters, tried to sail into San Diego with the expectation of running the blockade of the Coast Guard and creating a political demonstration through confrontation - I assure you the odds of people getting killed would be pretty high.

Just like they were in this situation.

071 deploying to Aden + More photos

I've noticed on CDF that they posted a blog entry on 071 possibly going down to Gulf of Aden. There are some photos here showing a PLAN Z-8 helicopter pilot leaving his 1-year old son to "train for a long range" mission. At present time, Z-8s are pretty much only operating on the large ships like 071 and the new hospital ship. It also makes sense that they would want to send 071 down there to test it out a little bit in a long range deployment. They have already sent all of their other new toys down there. We have seen recent photos of gun pod armed Z-8s flying around. This is similar to the modifications they made on Z-9s that were part of the Gulf of Aden expedition. Here are some of those photos:



As a sign of confidence to the 071 platform, they are building a new ship that looks like another unit or a successor of 071 in HuDong shipyard. Here are some of the pictures of its modules. We should have a better idea of its configurations in a few months.




Now, we have a bunch of photos from different shipyards recently. Most of these are coming from HuDong shipyard in Shanghai.
Here is the photos of the recently launched 054A. It is the 4th unit launched from HD shipyard. I don't think there are any new units currently under construction, so this is probably the last 054 series ship we see for a while (like a year). They normally build in bunches of 4s. The next 4 might just have minor improvement on this 4 or might have major changes to become 054B. We will see.
I do find the development for this ship kind of amazing because it was actually launched last week. Meaning, we went from the last set of pictures (which was still unpainted and without many sensors) to launched in 10 days.




Here is the final one of the 3 F-22Ps being built for the Pakistani Navy. It's given the number 253. And it should be sailing off to PN sometimes this year.



Also, we have elint ship 853 getting all of the sensors added and scaffolding removed. This is an improvement upon the current elint ship 851. This ship should be going on sea trials any day now.



And finally, we have some updated photos of Varyag. The sensors still have not been installed on the island yet. And there are still plenty of sheds on the deck indicating the amount of work left to be done.

NGOs vs. Navies

Here’s a great example an asymmetric operation by humanitarian or other NGOs to overcome a superior naval force. Tactics such as these and a similar maritime flash mobs can be used to break a blockade (as in this case), hamper the movement of commercial or naval shipping, or stage a protest at sea. Of course if a boat carrying school supplies and cement can avoid a blockade in this manner, so can one carrying smuggled weapons.

Also interesting to note are the Hamas Naval Police, pictured here, preparing for this encounter.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

Obama's Brave New Strategy

From the Huffington Post, by Stephen Goldsmith and Daniel Wagner.

Apart from the issues of Taiwan and the Spratly Islands, China lays claim to much of India's state of Arunachal Pradesh, and caused major jitters in 2009 with incursions into the territory combined with strident rhetoric. It has blocked Asian Development Bank projects approved for India over the issue. It helped Pakistan develop its nuclear arsenal and ballistic missile technology. Currently, the largest recipients of Chinese military aid are India's neighbors, including Burma, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka in addition to Pakistan; India fears that China is engaged in a concerted campaign to undermine and contain it. In addition, China is rapidly developing its "string of pearls" strategy in the Indian Ocean, investing significant resources to develop deep water ports in the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Seychelles. These appear to be a basis for the projection of a powerful naval presence into what India considers its backyard.

I want to ask a serious question - how worried are you about China's "String of Pearls" (PDF) strategy? If you wargame CS-21, the NSS, or virtually any strategic document to be found coming out lately, what does it tell us about China's "String of Pearls" strategy?

If the United States is pleased to have China contributing maritime security towards piracy, indeed if this responsible contribution to global security is encouraged and desired under our nations maritime strategy (and National Security Strategy 2010), then why would a "String of Pearls" activity by China be undesired?

The United States rightfully points to the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean as the regions where security challenges are most likely to develop, and where our military forces must be prepared to operate towards the security of our national interests. As a result, we have naval bases in Bahrain and Japan, among many other places, to support our military activities promoting regional security in these regions. If we expect China to be a responsible contributor to security as well, as is the case with their anti-piracy forces, then why would the development of forward bases to support those security efforts be an unexpected or undesired outcome?

Indeed, a better question might be, isn't the establishment of a "String of Pearls" strategy by China directly in line with our emerging national security strategies built on the idea of responsible cooperative security and regional participation? Isn't the shared responsibility of the global commons one objective of the Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower? Wouldn't a Chinese base in Sri Lanka or Pakistan be a positive development under our National Security Strategy because it ties together our stated strategic interest that China becomes a responsible stakeholder in the security of the maritime domain, and that it ties together our strategic interest in cooperation by countries in regions where contribution towards security is mutually beneficial?

I highlight the "String of Pearls" example as one of several major differences I see emerging under the Obama administration that can be contrasted with the Bush administration when it comes to national security. It surprises me that some have read the National Security Strategy of 2010 and can't tell the difference or can't identify what has changed between the 2006 and 2010 NSS. The debates the National Security Strategy concludes are now about five years old, have been incrementally evident in documents like the Navy's Maritime strategy, but for the most part those debates have always been discussions on what policy should be in the 21st century - where NSS 10 is the governments statement of what our policy and strategy is.

The distinctions of what has changed are easier to observe when they are applied to specific events or examples. For example, Progressive National Security policy under the Obama administration changes the context of a "String of Pearls" strategy by China. Under the Bush administration, "String of Pearls" represented the expanding threat of China, but within the context of the National Security Strategy 2010 - a "String of Pearls" strategy by China would be an expected behavior of China as they exercise the responsibilities we expect from them towards the shared goals of security built in cooperation with regional partners.

I find it noteworthy that under the same strategic blueprint (NSS 10), it is the responsibility of the broader foreign policy establishment of the US government to insure India is OK with any "String of Pearls" strategy by China towards the Indian Ocean.

Whether you agree or disagree with the strategic approach chosen by the Obama administration, I believe I have fairly represented the distinction between the Obama administrations National Security Strategy 2010 and the Bush administrations National Security Strategy 2006. This new way of thinking about the 21st century security environment is not going to happen overnight, and won't be easy.

Five Thoughts on Friday

I have been disappointed by Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano, and Tim Geithner. For me, they represent the trilogy of spectacular failure for the Obama administration in my opinion. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton quietly continues to be brilliant.

Paul McLeary is discussing the Navy and Climate Change over at Ares (the Aviation Weekely blog). This is an issue he has been monitoring closely, also check out his article on World Politics Review regarding China and the Arctic.

A huge congratulations to Noah Shachtman of Danger Room - well deserved. My first thought was similar to the observation made by James Joyner.

Good article in the Washington Post describing the Korean Peninsula situation leading into Memorial Day weekend.

I enjoyed Christopher Albon's article and Kyle Mizokami's article discussing Japan's role in Pacific Partnership 2010. The involvement of JDS Kunisaki (LST-4003) represents a natural evolution in the global trend of utilizing the flexibility of amphibious ships in efforts of state soft power.

Cultural Differences

Check out this well written, interesting story worth reading in full.

During off-duty hours, the sauna is at the heart of socializing on the ship. Spanish, German and Norwegian officers meet their Swedish colleagues there after long days in the Indian Ocean searching for pirates, responding to their attacks and planning escorts for ships.

Of course, in the waters off the sweltering Somali coast, sailors can work up a good sweat by simply doing nothing. Temperatures often hover around 100 degrees (37 degrees Celsius).

Taking a steam together is an essential way of getting to know someone in much of Scandinavia, said Mika Raunu, a sailor in the Finnish navy. It's in the same tradition of Scandinavian egalitarianism that sees officers sharing rooms with lower-ranking sailors.

It also has led to a few cultural misunderstandings.

Lt. Cmdr. Carl Sjostrand told of a Swedish captain who invited a U.S. admiral to meet his senior officers after a formal ship's dinner. The American was led down to the sauna in full dress uniform - only to end up shaking hands with a line of sweaty, smiling and naked Swedish sailors.

Like all facilities, the saunas are used by both men and women, and the Swedish military does not segregate living quarters or bathrooms.

The repeal of DADT will introduce some form of cultural change. No one can say with any accuracy how much, but since all change is difficult in military culture - it can be safely expected that this change will be hard as well.

But like any challenge, opportunity exists, and it should be noted that DADT repeal is not the only cultural change being introduced to the military these days. There is now a strategic focus on developing broader cultural understanding among our soldiers, sailers, and airmen. This process essentially involves preparing our service folks to manage situations where human interaction falls outside an existing cultural norm.

Something tells me the Admiral in the story above may have felt uncomfortable being in that situation, and yet something also tells me that Admiral was able to adapt to the cultural differences that exist in the human interaction described. Given the Carlskrona is acting as the EU Flagship fighting pirates, it is not unreasonable to assume that one day LT Jane American will be serving on that vessel. To improve relations and become accepted among her culturally different shipmates, she could very well end up being one of those sailors standing naked in line shaking hands with Admirals outside the sauna.

The same professionalism, discipline, intelligence, and control of instincts come into play regardless of the cultural situation being discussed - whether one is discussing DADT or serving on a Swedish warship. The military is moving forward with both eyes wide open regarding the challenges that come with operating in the diversity of cultures that exist in the world. Those same skills will be necessary in dealing with any cultural diversity that exists within the military services.

I for one believe that the soldiers, sailors, and airmen in the military can meet this challenge, but I strongly believe the unpopularity and divisions that result from the diversity industry in the DOD may be the biggest challenge to overcome - a bigger challenge than any particular policy change. When the focus of diversity deviates from the development of professionalism, discipline, training, and education - the foundation in addressing cultural understanding and strengthening human self control - the efforts become counterproductive to the organization because they act as a segregation technique, rather than an education technique.

NOC Nuggets

Still working my way through the NOC. I was happy to see a recognition of non-state threats to maritime security, an issue that was not adequately addressed (in my opinion) in CS-21. Among them:

We believe that both state and non-state adversaries are likely to employ a hybrid of and irregular methods to counter the United States’ advantage in conventional military operations. Thus, we must be prepared to overcome a range of adversaries employing a variety of capabilities and tactics.

And…

Many of today’s maritime threats come from non-State actors that do not respect national borders, are not military in nature, and seek to blend into the normal course of legitimate activity in the maritime domain. Criminal actors are constantly learning, adapting and growing as they use the vastness of the oceans to their advantage, cloak themselves within the anonymity afforded to most maritime activities, exploit advances of globalization, and flourish in weak coastal States with poor governance.
—Admiral Thad Allen, USCG, 2007

As one would expect, the NOC frequently refers to deterrence. Naval forces clearly play a role in deterring conflict with other nation states. But without evidence of decisive kinetic action to back up forward deployed naval presence, any number of surface combatants or even CSGs sitting off a coast is unlikely to deter terrorists, insurgents, or criminal actors exploiting their own brand of sea power. Just ask these guys.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

National Security Strategy Released

The Obama administrations National Security Strategy 2010 has been released, and the discussion has already begun. I grabbed it off the White House website, but it may be available elsewhere.

Look for plenty of political spin in the early reporting as the political talking heads give their opinion. I intend to read it over a few times and watch the discussion unfold before diving in too deep.

I will only make one observation at this point - it is absolutely clear to me that while Congress may have been quick to dismiss CS-21 when it was released, those who have become the decision makers in the Obama administration have basically taken the Navy's Maritime Strategy and incorporated those themes into our broader Grand Strategy. We saw it with the QDR too, and now we see it with the National Security Strategy.

Bryan McGrath and others involved in the development of CS-21 have previously mentioned how a small part of their intent was to 'push up' strategic thinking from CS-21. There can be no question about it now - the CS-21 strategy group HAS in fact set the foundation for the 21st century strategic thinking in the United States.

Does a Naval War Loom Out East?

Interesting times...

South Korea's military was tracking four North Korean submarines which disappeared from their east coast base after conducting naval training in the East Sea earlier this week, a military official in Seoul said Wednesday.

Locations of the North's four 300-ton-class submarines have been unknown for two days, the military official said, noting, "We are tracking the four submarines by mobilizing all naval capabilities in the East Sea."

The submarines left the Chaho base located near the Musudan-ri missile launch pad site in North Hamgyong province in North Korea's northeast coast, according to the official.

They can't go too far for too long though, they lack range, speed, and endurance. If they deployed Monday they will probably be home by Friday - unless they have a secret home somewhere in the East Sea or a nice little supply ship with a big ass battery recharger.

The real concern for South Korea is how - at least on paper - these 4 mini-subs makes for a good squadron of small covert vessels for purposes of laying mines.

Naval Diplomacy, Strategic Communication, and the NOC

Naval Operations Concept 2010 (NOC 10) describes when, where and how U.S. naval forces will contribute to enhancing security, preventing conflict and prevailing in war in order to guide Maritime Strategy implementation in a manner consistent with national strategy. NOC 10 describes the ways with which the sea services will achieve the ends articulated in A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower (CS-21).

Above is the stated purpose of the new Naval Operations Concept 2010.

I have a lot to say about the NOC, but instead of a broad look I have decided to discuss one small point at a time. Generally speaking, I beleive the NOC achieves its stated purpose with clarity. The NOC can be quoted easily but does not come off as Cliche - and that isn't easy to do. This represents the first in what will be several discussions inspired by the NOC.

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I'm a big Lindy Kyzer fan, because as communication specialists go in the armed services - she is one of the best. I'm a bigger LT Jennifer Cragg fan - but that's more of a Navy > Army thing. Lindy has a post up on the Official Army blog worth noting, because it discusses a topic I've been thinking about as I read through the NOC for the third time. It is very nice that the official Army blog is dynamic enough that one can find someone who isn't a flag officer giving a strong opinion. Perhaps if the official Navy blog was similar I'd think it was worth a link...

Lindy has a strong opinion on the term strategic communication, indeed on the larger concept related to the DoD.

The term strategic communication has been around for awhile, and gained traction around 2002. And it’s almost always been tied to the military and State Department in our roles of communicating issues related to national defense and public diplomacy. Then National Security Advisor Condelezza Rice even established a Strategic Communication Policy Coordinating Commitee in 2002 (word is they’re still out there somewhere, debating the definition of the term strategic communication).

As a social media maven, I feel the pain of the strategic communication community. A well intentioned military community too easily latches on terms or initiatives as easy fixes for more complex problems. Both terms are means to an end, rather than the end themselves.

I think in the social media community, we definitely need to stop and take the time to learn from the past to set the stage for evolved, developed social media implementation and engagement. When the social media train first knocked us in the military and government community off of our feet several years ago, most folks were simply scrambling for a presence - everyone felt a burning need to be on Facebook, Twitter and You Tube - simply because everyone else was. Hopefully our social media efforts have evolved and we’re stepping back to really think through the value of all of our online engagements and interactions. And taking the time to see how social media can truly fit into our larger organizational goals (perhaps a meeting with our strategic communication team is in order).

This post fits nicely with a recent article in the March 2010 issue of Proceedings by Lieutenant Robert McFarlin, USN. The article is found in the Professional Notes section (members only) and has some observations regarding strategic communication he experienced while serving as operations officer on the USS Farragut (DDG-99) during a recent Partnership of the Americas (POA) deployment.

The term strategic communication designates much more than only press briefings and talking points. Its official DOD definition is "focused United States Government processes and efforts to understand and engage key audiences in order to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable to advance national interests and objectives through the use of coordinated information, themes, plans, programs and actions synchronized with other elements of national power." Note the word actions. Indeed, senior Defense Department officials have said that SC is "80 percent action and 20 percent words."

Admiral James Stavridis, Commander of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, characterizes it as providing audiences with "truthful and timely information that will influence them to support the objectives of the communicator." He identifies strategic and tactical SC levels. Planners operate at the former; at the tactical level the mission is accomplished. "Public affairs and all of the associated efforts are linked together and the execution . . . occurs."

The strategic level sets the course, but the tactical is most significant to ships on deployment because ultimately, SC is not about words or PR. It's about real people on real ships conducting real-world operations with our partner nations. Only through action can we foster and sustain relationships with our partners.

Both Lindy Kyzer and LT Robert McFarlin are discussing tactical viewpoints of strategic communication - Lindy from her perspective as the social media expert in the US Army and LT McFarlin as an officer aboard a US Navy ship making port in foreign countries. They both represent soldiers on the same information battlefield that competes to shape perceptions and influence.

Both observations are important to think about in the context of the NOC, because they highlight the absence of clarity and definition still present in the military services at the strategic intersection of organizational goals and the synchronization of activities. I think the combination of both opinions also suggest that at the tactical level - proficiency isn't the issue - suggesting the problems are top down, not bottom up.

The NOC discusses communications within the context of an information system, and does not discuss communications in the context of influence. The NOC never uses the phrase "strategic communications," for better or worse. Indeed, in the NOC, influence is only discussed in the context of a shaping operation or in the context of deterrence. The NOC spends a great deal of time and effort distinguishing the unique character of the 'Naval Service' as a maritime centric collection of services, and goes on to describe the unique nature of the maritime domain. Throughout the NOC I note a theme of distinction - or uniqueness - that is expressed to the reader as the document touts what can be described as an expected set of combat and non-combat capabilities provided by the Naval Service.

What is missing is perhaps what could make the NOC transformational, or at minimum relevant in the context of a Clausewitz view that suggests war is an extension of politics. The NOC does not integrate the Navy as part of a larger system of political influence, or the Navy as an influence enterprise. According to the NOC, the Navy is an instrument of political influence by shaping a permissive environment, or by acting as a deterrent with credible combat power. If the NOC is intended to guide the 'Naval Service' on how to implement Maritime Strategy, shouldn't there be even a nod in the direction of strategic communications?

The presence of a US Navy ship anywhere on the globe is a form of communication.

For example, we are currently conducting an ASW exercise with South Korea because of political objectives desired between Seoul and Washington, DC. It is one step in the escalation control taking place on the Korean peninsula - and that politically specific escalation control is leveraging the use of naval forces. The actions send clear signals to the DRPK; a communication element the US Navy can uniquely provide at this junction in the political posturing currently taking place. Yes, there are clearly unique and distinguishing aspects of the 'Naval Service' at work here, but more critically to the National Defense Strategy of the United States - the US Navy is an important piece of the whole of government approach that integrates unique options to an influence enterprise being directed towards North Korea - indeed the US Navy is an influence enterprise in and of itself.

The absence of describing the Navy as an influence enterprise in the NOC or even nodding in the direction of naval forces as an integrated part of influencing political objectives outside the context of permissive shaping operations or combat power deterrence bothers me, because the absence of Strategic Communications generally in the NOC highlights the absence of the entire concept of the Navy as an influence enterprise in CS-21.

Where is the chapter on Naval Diplomacy? Even though naval diplomacy is practiced ten thousand different ways by the US Navy every day, the broad range of capabilities it represents barely gets a nod in the NOC. Chapter 6 should have been titled Naval Diplomacy instead of HA/DR, because the story of Navy HA/DR in history suggests HA/DR is one of several categories of Naval Diplomacy.

And had the NOC also put Strategic Communications as one of the categories of Naval Diplomacy, the Navy might find a good starting place for discussing and integrating their influence enterprise.

Africa Hearts America

Gallup has some very interesting poll results up today.

Across 110 countries Gallup surveyed in 2009, median approval of U.S. leadership was 51%, up from 34% in 2008. Approval topped 75% in 20 sub-Saharan African countries, with Kosovo, Ireland, and Albania joining them as most approving.

18 of the top 20 countries are in Africa. Below is the top 20 nations:

Country | Approve | Disapprove | Don't know/Refused

Ivory Coast 94% 5% 2%
Kenya 93% 5% 2%
Uganda 91% 8% 1%
Zambia 90% 9% 1%
Mali 89% 7% 4%
Tanzania 89% 11% 0%
Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) 89% 9% 2%
Kosovo 88% 9% 3%
Rwanda 88% 6% 6%
Cameroon 88% 4% 8%
South Africa 87% 10% 2%
Senegal 87% 11% 2%
Chad 86% 13% 1%
Burundi 86% 9% 5%
Niger 83% 15% 2%
Malawi 83% 17% 0%
Zimbabwe 82% 12% 6%
Djibouti 81% 18% 1%
Ireland 80% 9% 11%
Ghana 80% 5% 16%

Noteworthy and critically important to blog readers involved in policy for Horn of Africa piracy: the Somaliland region of Somalia is ranked #21. Also noteworthy is India at #97. Too bad they didn't poll China.

Observing Poor Execution

After reading this article in Popular Mechanics, I've been thinking about just how much of a threat Midget Submarines are.

We have such a difficult time detecting these mini-submarines that continue to deliver drugs to continental United States from Central and South America that I do wonder how effective anyone can be in detecting and protecting themselves from these types of littoral weapons when they are deployed with purpose.

Given our questionable track record protecting our own shores from mini-submarines, it raises questions how effective we will be attempting to give South Korea a crash course in the identification of mini-submarines. I also find it noteworthy the Popular Mechanics article ends by discussing the Advanced Deployable System (ADS), which represents one more Littoral Combat Ship module system that gave a lot of credibility to the Littoral Combat Ship at one time, but last I heard ADS was canceled as a program.

While watching events on the Korean peninsula unfold from afar, it is important we keep the eye on the ball at home. There has been plenty of rhetoric regarding the threat of littoral submarines (including mini-submarines), small boats, suicide divers, and shore based anti-ship missiles - but are the programs intended to address these challenges given proper priority in the US Navy? When the Army canceled the Netfires system, the Navy took over development of the system - but was any funding or priority directed towards the program as a result? When ADS was canceled, no replacement system was announced. How many different MIW systems intended for LCS have had nothing but problems? How many different Littoral Combat Ship module systems have experienced funding cuts or delays primarily because of the problems developing the technologies?

It is understandable when some of these systems have problems in development, but when it comes to the LCS modules specifically intended to address these irregular challenges - virtually every system has run into development problems. Now that we need these systems, where are they? Where is the focus? Where is the leadership?

The disconnect worth noting is the amount of emphasis made in the words of naval leadership in testimony and speeches over the last decade and the lack of results continuously demonstrated on the programs intended to address the threats emphasized. I would ask about accountability, but because I do not believe the Navy is a results oriented organization, I won't even bother with such rhetorical questions.

Our ships will be sailing today into an area where mini-submarines do shoot torpedoes and has sunk a Navy ship, and the purpose for sailing into those waters today is to train against mini-submarines shooting torpedoes at Navy ships. Noteworthy we take this action without the technologies and systems discussed, funded, but never completely developed over the past decade - technologies and systems that were intended to help the US Navy address mini-submarines shooting torpedoes.

It is remarkable to me how good the Navy is at identifying the challenges of the future, and how consistently terrible the Navy is in executing program plans for the systems intended to address those challenges. It is a reminder that information alone is not enough, and an observation that the story of the 21st century is one of the Navy relying on the skills of the sailors at sea to make up for the failures of the sailors on land.

On Secretary of the Navy....

There is a Navy related issue circulating the political blogosphere in regards to Joe Sestak and how he was somehow offered the position of Secretary of the Navy instead of Ray Mabus last year.

Uhm, no chance in hell - the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff fired Joe from the Navy when Mike Mullen was CNO - Joe never had a prayer on Sunday of being SECNAV. But if we are going to entertain the political discussion even a little, I want to point out that there is another good reason he was never a serious candidate and why the Obama administration almost certainly never offered him the position.

According to law:

A person may not be appointed as Secretary of the Navy within five years after relief from active duty as a commissioned officer of a regular component of an armed force.

Joe retired July 22, 2005. He isn't even eligible to be Secretary of the Navy today - nor next month - so I am quite unsure how he would have thought he was going to be appointed Secretary of the Navy last year.

The guy is full of crap and probably telling lies, but in politics that doesn't really disqualify you anymore in America. Shame.

Which leads to a more serious question for this blogs readers. A year later, what do we think of Ray Mabus? I find him to be a very interesting administrator who has yet to find his stride nor put a stamp on the maritime services. That isn't really a complement nor a criticism, just an observation.

CBO Weighs in on Shipbuilding

CBO has weighed in with a timely report An Analysis of the Navy's Fiscal Year 2011 Shipbuilding Plan. In a conclusion I know all of us will find shocking - CBO finds the latest shipbuilding plan unaffordable.

The SSBN(X) section caught my attention.

SSBN(X) Future Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine. The design, cost, and capabilities of the SSBN(X), the submarine slated to replace the Ohio class, are among the most significant uncertainties in the Navy’s and CBO’s analyses of future shipbuilding. The Navy’s 2007 and 2008 plans assumed that the first SSBN(X) would cost $4.5 billion (in 2010 dollars) and that subsequent ships in the class would cost about $3.4 billion apiece.18 The 2009 plan explicitly excluded the costs of the SSBN(X) class, although it included 12 of those submarines in its projected inventories. The 2011 plan, in contrast, includes the costs of the SSBN(X) class—with an estimate that highlights the great expense of replacing current ballistic missile submarines and the effect that effort could have on other shipbuilding programs.

Specifically, the Navy now estimates that the lead SSBN(X) will cost about $9 billion and that building 12 of the new submarines will cost $86 billion, or an average of about $7.2 billion apiece. The Navy’s 2011 report states that those estimates are “consistent with the escalated cost of the OHIO class SSBN.” However, escalating (that is, inflating) the actual costs of the Ohio class submarines would produce an average cost of only about $3.1 billion per submarine in 2010 dollars. Navy officials subsequently clarified that the service’s estimate is based on the cost to build Ohio class submarines in today’s industry conditions and with today’s technology. Under the 2011 plan, however, the first SSBN(X) would be authorized in 2019 (although advance procurement money would be needed starting in 2015 for items with long lead times). The second submarine would be purchased in 2022, followed by one per year from 2024 to 2033.

In most of its recent naval analyses, CBO assumed that the SSBN(X) would be smaller and would carry fewer weapons than existing ballistic missile submarines— specifically, that it would have 16 missile tubes instead of the 24 on today’s SSBNs and would displace around
15,000 tons submerged, compared with 18,750 tons for an existing Ohio class submarine. But in a recent briefing to CBO and the Congressional Research Service, the Navy stated that an SSBN(X) would probably be about the same size and have roughly the same displacement as an Ohio class submarine, even though it might have only 16 or 20 missile tubes. Over time, technological advancements tend to add weight to a submarine design (compared with the same submarine produced 30 years earlier). If the Ohio class was being built today with the same capability to launch ballistic missiles, it would actually be much larger than 18,750 tons. Thus, a new SSBN with fewer than 24 missile tubes would probably still be equivalent in displacement to an Ohio class submarine. For those reasons, in its analysis, CBO adopted the Navy’s assumption about the size of the SSBN(X).

CBO estimates that the lead SSBN(X) will cost about $13 billion if it is purchased in 2019. Estimating the cost of that submarine is particularly difficult because it is not clear how much the Navy will need to spend on nonrecurring engineering and detail design. The Navy spent about $2 billion on those items—out of a total of more than $5 billion—for the lead Virginia class attack submarine, which is about 60 percent smaller than the first Ohio class submarine. CBO assumed that the cost of nonrecurring items would be proportional to the weight of the new submarine, so it estimated more than $4 billion for those items. (The Navy appears to have assumed that nonrecurring items for the lead SSBN(X) would cost about $2 billion.)

The historical track record for the lead ship of new classes of submarines in the 1970s and 1980s implies little difference on a per-ton basis between a lead attack submarine (SSN) and a lead SSBN (see Figure 5). If that pattern continued, the per-ton cost of the SSBN(X) would be about the same as that of the first Virginia class SSN.

Overall, 12 SSBN(X)s would cost a total of about $99 billion in CBO’s estimation, or an average of $8.2 billion each. Another $10 billion to $15 billion would be needed for research and development, for a total program cost of more than $110 billion. Those estimates appear to differ from the Navy’s mainly because the Navy priced the SSBN(X) as though it were being built today, whereas CBO incorporated the effects that higher shipbuilding inflation would have on submarines built 10 to 20 years from now.

If I was the Navy, I would welcome this dire cost estimate by the CBO for the SSBN(X).

From Future Projections to Present Reality

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah let fire an interesting threat in his speech to followers today. Given he has more credibility on the use of anti-ship missiles than say - even the United States - it is worth paying attention to.

"If you launch a new war on Lebanon, if you blockade our coastline, all military, civilian or commercial ships heading through the Mediterranean to occupied Palestine will be targetted by the Islamic resistance," said Nasrallah in a speech transmitted via video link to thousands of supporters massed in Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs.

"Whether along the northern or southern Israeli shore, we can target ships, bomb them and hit them God willing," he added, speaking on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after a 22-year occupation.

"When the world sees how these ships are destroyed, no one will dare go there (Israel)," he added. "And I am only speaking about the Mediterranean, I haven't reached the Red Sea yet."

If Hezbollah has been resupplied anti-ship missiles from Iran, which is the unspoken implication being made by this threat, then anti-access / area denial is no longer the threat of the future...

It has become the threat of the present.

Navy Releases Global Climate Change Roadmap

In addition to the release of the NOC on Monday, the Navy also released the Roadmap for Global Climate Change. According to the press release, the roadmap was actually released this past Friday, but in typical Navy communications excellence the press release was on Monday, and who knows exactly when a download will be made available.

For now, the press release is all we have.

The Climate Change Roadmap is intended to be a companion document to the Navy Arctic Roadmap, released in November 2009. While the Arctic Roadmap serves to promote maritime security and naval readiness in a changing Arctic, the new Climate Change Roadmap examines the broader issues of global climate change impacts on Navy missions and capabilities.

"We issued the Arctic Roadmap first because that is where the most significant evidence of climate change is occurring," Titley remarked, "but the Arctic is not a vacuum. The changes that are occurring there, from both an environmental and political standpoint, reflect changes that will occur in the rest of the world."

The roadmap lays out a chronological approach divided into three phases.

Phase 1, focusing on near-term goals, includes defining the requirements for improved operational and climatic prediction capabilities through cooperative efforts within the U.S. government and scientific and academic communities.

Phase 1 also calls for inclusion of climate change impacts on national security in Naval War College coursework and in strategic "table top" exercises.

Phase 2, which is targeted for fiscal years 2011 and 2012, identifies as a priority the development of recommendations for Navy investments to meet climate change challenges. These challenges include protecting coastal installations vulnerable to rising sea levels and water resource challenges and being prepared to respond to regions of the world destabilized by changing climatic conditions.

Phase 2 also calls for the formalization of the cooperative relationships defined in Phase 1, and targets incorporation of climate change considerations in strategic guidance documents and fleet training and planning.

Phase 3, looking out through fiscal year 2014, addresses the execution of investment decisions and the initiation of intergovernmental, multilateral and bilateral activities with various partners to better assess and predict climate change, and respond to the military impacts of climate change.

I don't want to be a prick, honestly, but...

The Arctic issues are not trivial, indeed with potentially 13% of the uncharted global oil reserves and 30% of the uncharted global natural gas reserves, the Arctic represents a gold mine. We already see actions by Canada, Denmark, and Russia (among others) looking to leverage the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as the legal foundation for claims to those resources, while the United States does not take that route primarily because we are not a signatory of the treaty.

That is just a sample of the mixed and confusing messages being sent by the United States on these issues. Whenever I hear someone use the phrase "whole of government" I shake my head, because on the most complicated issues we don't even have half of government on the same page in regards to the objective to be clearly articulated in communication to our friends, much less our competitors.

Now we are looking at the broader issues of Climate Change, and again, what are we telling our friends, allies, competitors, and even the American people here? Do we intend to study the problem, or simply prepare for a series of contingencies? How does one tell the difference between a weather phenomenon related to climate change and one that is not related to climate change? Does it really matter to the Navy?

What exactly is the Navy planning for? Flood response? Hurricane response? How one country might leverage water access over another country? Resource wars? Is any of this something new the Navy has never considered or planned for, or simply a new context to study age old issues that might call upon military power?

Sorry, but absent significantly more information than has ever come forth through traditional communication channels of the Navy, I find Task Force Climate Change to be nothing more than another example of the Navy Redundant Department of Redundancy Department spending money on studying activities the Navy has been capable of managing for scores of decades, if not almost two centuries.

Seems to me building a new Icebreaker able to support oceanography and sea floor mapping for the Arctic Ocean would have been a better use of money than to put a bunch of sailors in a box to ponder the absence of any specific unique behavior associated with events that might result from global climate change.

After all, what is important to the Navy in regards to events that might be associated with Climate Change is the unique behavior governed by geography and the human terrain of the places a climate change event may occur. Other than Arctic areas that might represent new operating environments for the surface Navy, it seems to me Task Force Climate Change is a huge waste of time and money.

The NOC is Out

The long awaited Naval Operations Concept 2010 was released today.

I've quickly read it through, and I have two immediate thoughts:

1. The NOC is--as it was intended to be--a document that lays out the "ways" the Naval Service will attain the "ends" laid out in CS21. To that end, I would say that it succeeds. It is a well-written companion volume to CS21--and it does an excellent job of answering many of the "how" questions that were asked in response to CS21's release. It is well-organized, and it succeeds in adding operational context to the strategic imperatives laid out in CS21. It defines its overarching concept as "The Sea as Maneuver Space", and it ably lays out this concept.

2. The document does not contain a recommended force structure to support CS21, though it does have a section devoted to the "Future Force Structure"--primarily a discussion of the mix of vessels the fleet will field. CS21 was planned from the beginning NOT to contain a force structure--the NOC (begun in early 2008) was generally thought to be planned to include one. Whether it was the desire not to be seen as "tying a new administration's hands", the looming threat of the QDR, both, or some other reason I haven't considered, momentum built over time to delay release of the NOC until today, and to do so with no force structure. At this point, an argument can indeed be made that the QDR has rendered its judgment on Naval force levels and so inclusion of such a force structure would be either redundant (if it parroted the QDR line) or disloyal (if it stated a requirement different than that cited elsewhere). I remain of the opinion that it would have been useful for the Navy to publicly define the CS21 requirement--even if it were unaffordable--in order that policy makers and those on the Hill would have an idea what it was they weren't buying with the resources provided.

That said--I wouldn't let the lack of a force structure be the takeaway from reading this document. One should judge it by the standard of whether or not it operationalizes its parent strategy--and I suggest it does that quiet well.

Bryan McGrath

Last Call

As I finalize my new link list, I wanted to do one final check in with the readers and have them offer any last second suggestions.

The link list is about to change, for example, it currently does not include Andrew Erickson's blog - which I read every day. If there is a website or blog missing you think needs to be linked from Information Dissemination - speak now. Recommendation does not insure the site will be linked, but it won't hurt either.

On Lessons of History

There were lots of interesting comments following the recent speeches by Secretary Gates regarding the US Navy, but I wanted to highlight my favorite comment before too much time passes. Did you catch this one by Daniel Goure at the Lexington Institute blog?

Towards the end of his speech, Secretary Gates made reference to one of his most distinguished predecessors, our first Secretary of War and the man who founded the U.S. Navy, Henry Knox. He noted that in order to garner congressional support for his shipbuilding program, Knox had to spread his program out among different yards in multiple states. According to Gates congressional support for the alternative engines and C-17 programs are modern examples of the same problem.

Unfortunately, Gates chose to emphasize the least remarkable feature of his predecessor’s tenure. The more remarkable feature was Knox’s understanding that the fledgling country needed a navy not just to protect its shores to deal with pirates (the irregular warfare problem of his day) but to project power globally against all threats. As he declared in 1794 on the passage of the act to construct the first six frigates: “. . .this second commencement of a navy for the United States should be worthy of their national character. That the vessels should combine such qualities of strength, durability, swiftness of sailing, and force, as to render them equal, if not superior, to any frigates belonging to any of the European Powers.”

Secretary Gates is no Henry Knox. He has no strategic vision for the Navy of the future. His focus is purely tactical and technical. He does not appreciate what Knox understood more than 200 hundred years ago, that the U.S. Navy has to be a strategic capability that can sail on an ocean and face any threat. Knox built a Navy to go in harms way; Gates wants to build one to avoid being sunk.

The "tactical and technical" observation was a necessary criticism regarding the Gate's view of Naval Power, but it was only when that observation is combined with the last sentence that I fully appreciated how on target this comment was.

Budget Issues Worth Highlighting

My absence has disrupted the usual March through May budget discussion on Information Dissemination, so this year we get to skip the discussion period pointing out the good and bad of the administrations budget release and go straight to the nuts and bolts debate of Capitol Hill defense budget bill discussions.

I was looking over the details of the House Armed Services Committee's new authorization bill, and several things stood out. We'll come back to the addition of more Super Hornets later, because two other issues jump out as more interesting discussion.

The first is on Ohio class SSBNs:

OHIO-CLASS REPLACEMENT PROGRAM
The fourteen ships of the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine fleet are a national treasure and have helped maintain our nation’s safety for more than two decades. The Committee remains concerned about unanswered questions regarding the current program to replace the Ohio-class ships. To address these concerns, the bill limits the obligation of authorized funds to fifty percent until receipt of a report from the Secretary of Defense outlining various alternate platforms and weapons systems considered as replacements for the sea-based strategic defense currently provided by the Ohio-class force.

This is a pretty strong signal by the House that they have every intention to be directly involved in defining the requirements for sea-based strategic defense provided by the ballistic submarine fleet. I think that is a very good thing, even if it takes longer to find a policy everyone agrees with and makes the entire process more expensive. Nuclear deterrence isn't an issue any single administration - or leadership group in the Pentagon - should have sole jurisdiction of.

The second issue is a great discussion topic.

SHIPBUILDING PLANS
The Committee believes that the Navy’s shipbuilding plan should reflect the shipbuilding requirements that are outlined in the Quadrennial Defense Review. To better align the Navy’s plans with the QDR, the bill changes the reporting requirements of the 30-year shipbuilding plan to be delivered to Congress every four years with the Quadrennial Defense Review. It also prohibits any changes during the intervening years that would decrease planned ship procurement without an addendum to the QDR.

There are several issues here worth examining.

I was not very impressed with the Quadrennial Defense Review this year, so I am having a hard time keeping a straight face on this one - indeed my first reaction was to laugh out loud. It isn't a bad idea per se; it is just that I don't see how the QDR is the appropriate strategic document to drive shipbuilding requirements.

But the idea shouldn't be dismissed outright, because the idea is founded on a fair assessment of the shipbuilding issues. Inconsistency from year to year by administrations is an important part of Navy shipbuilding. The US Navy is the US shipbuilding industry's biggest customer, and the constantly changing shipbuilding plan does not allow industry to properly forecast labor and training requirements for future ships. A consistent shipbuilding plan allows for better budget forecasts and helps both industry and Congress understand the needs of the Navy both financially and industrially. With a 4 year frequency the QDR does force some stability into shipbuilding plans.

But is the QDR the right strategic document to tie shipbuilding? I do not think so, indeed I believe shipbuilding should be driven by Maritime Strategy - which is built upon National Defense Strategy. What does this addition to the House bill tell the Navy regarding their Maritime Strategy? What does it say regarding Congressional opinion regard the absence of an Obama administration National Defense Strategy?

I think this is a great shipbuilding issue for debate and discussion, and I will likely follow up with several posts on the subject in the near future. There are several aspects of the House details document linked above that we will be discussing on the blog - I encourage folks to take a look at the document.

Speculating on Yoda's Career

Spencer Ackerman is focusing on a Q&A exchange from a Pentagon press Conference last week with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Speculation about the Secretary's future is a common discussion topic among DC defense observers like Ackerman.

So how long will Robert Gates be around? Well, if Gates is truly "Yoda" like the Politico claims, then the great Jedi plan isn't very complicated.

Gates will stay as Secretary of Defense long enough to replace Adm Mullen, because only that will insure that the vision of the Pentagon he has worked so hard on since 2006 is passed on for another 4 years. The only way to do that is to make sure he recommends the appointment of the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

So who might that be? If I was laying Vegas odds I'd bet heavy on a techno centric PH.d. whose credentials are not in debate, who has had direct involvement in building alliances for the current military campaigns, and influence on US military strategy has endured the test of 21st century irregular warfare time. He must have experience leading a successful counterinsurgency, and as a bonus, will not be a Washington DC insider.

There are only two choices, and because these selections are political - I would bet choice one instead of choice two.

In that context, we know for about how long Robert Gates will be around the Pentagon - another 14+ months. The real question is - who replaces him? Even if the replacement has specific roots, there are still multiple good choices.

Farewell to Americas Admiral

I've been thinking about the phrase "the right man in the right place at the right time." It is overused jargon, and yet is a phrase that can accurately describe the factors that influence how opportunity bestows itself upon certain people. The thing about opportunity is that it never guarantees success or failure, rather represents the intersection of circumstances by which one may achieve great things - and in the case of our national leaders - opportunity for genuine impact often comes in the midst of tragedy.

On Tuesday Adm. Thad W. Allen will be relieved by Adm. Robert J. Papp, Jr. Adm. Thad W. Allen was the 23rd Commandant of the United States Coast Guard, but I think there is a good case to be made that Adm. Thad W. Allen has also been the most influential Admiral of the early 21st century in the United States. Having spoken to Admiral Allen, and followed him nearly daily over the last several years, I don't doubt that being the 23rd Commandant of the United States Coast Guard will always be considered his highest privilege and honor, but I would suggest he has been a great deal more than simply a service Commandant.

In September of 2001 when airplanes were crashing into buildings of national importance on the east coast, jurisdiction for all Coast Guard operations over that entire area falls under Commander, Atlantic Area and U.S. Maritime Defense Zone Atlantic. Thad Allen was that Commander.

In August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina caused devastation across the Gulf Coast, the Chief of Staff of the Coast Guard was appointed in charge of search-and-rescue and recovery efforts. Again, that person was Thad Allen, and when the Bush administration finally realized Michael Brown was incapable of leading overall relief efforts, Thad Allen was promoted to assume that responsibility.

When he became the 23rd Commandant of the United States Coast Guard in May of 2006, he inherited several major problems - including the troubled Deepwater program. In April of 2007 Commandant Thad Allen announced major reforms for Deepwater, and throughout 2007 the US Coast Guard made several additional reforms including an internal Command reorganization, hiring more experienced acquisition folks, and adopting several recommendations made by the GAO in regards to the program. It is noteworthy how Deepwater was the biggest challenge facing the US Coast Guard in May of 2006, and yet today we almost never hear about problems with Deepwater today - mostly because everyone (including lawmakers) appreciate the processes of the US Coast Guard established under Commandant Allen related to the Deepwater programs.

I know almost nothing about Adm. Robert J. Papp, Jr., but I do know he has enormous shoes to fill when taking over for a man like Thad Allen as Commandant of the United States Coast Guard. Information Dissemination is a running dialog of modern maritime commentary, but all of the authors here try to relate current events through the prism of history. I strongly believe history will look on the first decade of the 21st century and remember Thad Allen as the most influential Admiral of that first decade. In an era of environmental focus, technological innovation, strategic communications, climate change, sea based economic activity, more efficient government spending, and leadership during times of tragedy and disaster - Admiral Allen stands out as a rare figure in US government who always led from the front on these issues.

Politicians talk a lot - often blame others for failure and often take credit for successes they often have little direct influence over - but in reality any government success is only possible when leaders like Admiral Allen are willing to go to the scene of disaster or turmoil and produce positive accomplishments during the most difficult and challenging situations. Admiral Thad Allen's record is one of a leader doing exactly that during every difficult situation where the US Coast Guard was present over the first decade in the 21st century.

We honor and appreciate his service to our country. We wish the very best to you Admiral Thad Allen; you have represented America brilliantly in your career and we at ID salute you for it sir.

Nuclear Numbers

An interesting proposal for pairing down our strategic nuclear forces to 311 warheads. I have little background in these matters, and I question retaining all that force structure in order to employ so few warheads, but this idea strikes me as a serious option to consider.

Bryan McGrath

Distributed Operations in Narrow Seas

Wars on multiple fronts and irregular threats have forced the US military to evolve some unique command and control structures and atypical deployments. Even the Army is thinking about decentralized C2. Anyone who has worked with conventional army forces at the operational level knows it’s a major stretch to have them think in term of deploying anything smaller than a BCT.

The past 8+ years of war has taught us many things as an Army.

One particular lesson we’ve learned is that decentralized threats

are best countered by also decentralizing our own capabilities. To

adapt to what we’ve learned, the Army is training its leaders to

think, act, and operate more decentralized. Now, through the

promotion of mission orders, commander’s intent and a new pilot

program titled “The Army’s Starfish Program”, we are taking additional

steps to promote decentralization as yet another tool to counter

decentralized and networked threats.

- LTG Martin Dempsey, Commanding General, Army TRADOC

At this point, the average naval observer is probably thinking “so what; the navy has always done distributed operations; that’s just the way we deploy.” And of course that thought would be spot on - to an extent. The Navy employs ships independently, over expansive ocean areas. But the majority of these ships are commander commands containing hundreds of Sailors (equivalent to an Army battalion); not exactly a force construct one would consider especially nimble or adaptive. And it’s only been fairly recently that naval planners have begun to deemphasize deploying ships via the CSG/ESG construct. The chaos of an irregular environment calls for decentralization at a much lower level of both force structure and leadership autonomy. A military force’s ability to successfully combat irregular threats directly correlates to the decentralization of that force. In recognition of this environment, the Marine Corps is experimenting with company-level distributed operations, which could some day supplant, if not replace the MEU construct. Special operations forces are traditionally even more decentralized, with 12 man ODAs and 16 man platoons as the typical unit for force application.

Littoral fighting requires decision making condensed in time and space. Operations in confined sea spaces require acquiring, tracking, and when necessary, engaging numerous mobile targets on land and afloat. Simultaneously, naval operators must discern which targets are legitimate combatants and which are fishermen, merchants, or enemies masquerading as the above. In short, the fog of war thickens in near-shore environments. These dynamics apply whether one is fighting conventional coastal navies or non-state maritime actors. However the latter often enjoy advantages that a conventional navy cannot, primarily in that they blend in with local traffic.

Certainly these sorts of operations aren’t new. The pages of naval history are replete with battles in near shore areas - from Mosquito Fleet engagements in the Everglades during the Seminole Wars, to Savo Island, to the Gulf of Tonkin. Is today’s US Navy configured and trained to fight tomorrow’s littoral battles? Yes, we have built the littoral combat ship (sort of), a fairly robust NECC, and some other capabilities that enhance the Navy’s ability to operate where the sea meets the land. But other areas, such as surface navy force structure, command and control, and TTPs are not optimized to succeed in coastal regions. I don’t see much here that indicates that the Navy, or at least the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee, is emphasizing irregular challenges.

It’s likely that future terror and insurgent groups will recognize the operational and strategic advantages sea power brings to their movements. To fight a persistent campaign in this sort of environment requires unconventional approaches. Navy command and control schemes must be flattened and better networked. The more independently deployed vessels can operate, the faster they can react to dynamic situations. If the US Navy is to remain relevant against decentralized threats and still be able to cover a wide number and variety of distributed missions globally, it will have to build a larger quantity of less expensive surface vessels to complement the high end capabilities such as DDGs. These ships will be much smaller, less expensive, and hence more numerous than the LCS; ie, something like the “Fords” of the Henry Hendrix’s Influence Squadrons. And optimally, we would not be fighting alone in the littorals even when engaging an enemy nation state. When at all possible, surrogates or partners familiar with the battle space should be employed. These relationships must be developed and nurtured.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

More Cheonan...

The United States is pledging its support for Seoul:

U.S. President Barack Obama expressed his full backing for South Korea and its investigation into the sinking of the Navy vessel Cheonan near the inter-Korean West Sea border, Cheong Wa Dae said Tuesday.

President Lee Myung-bak and Obama spoke over the phone for about 25 minutes earlier to discuss a joint response to the naval tragedy.

"Obama told Lee that he fully trusts Seoul and backs its handling of the incident," the presidential office said in a press release.

Obama said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will fly to Seoul next week to discuss the case, adding the U.S. will closely cooperate with South Korea to deal with the aftermath. Clinton is scheduled to hold high-level meetings in Beijing from May 24 to 25.

And South Korea is preparing to formally blame Pyongyang for the attack:

South Korea will formally blame North Korea on Thursday for launching a torpedo at one of its warships in March, causing an explosion that killed 46 sailors and heightened tensions in one of the world's most perilous regions, U.S. and East Asian officials said.

South Korea concluded that North Korea was responsible for the attack after investigators from Australia, Britain, Sweden and the United States pieced together portions of the ship at the port of Pyeongtaek, 40 miles southwest of Seoul. The Cheonan sank on March 26 after an explosion rocked the 1,200-ton vessel as it sailed on the Yellow Sea off South Korea's west coast.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because South Korea has yet to disclose the findings of the investigation, said subsequent analysis determined that the torpedo was identical to a North Korean torpedo that South Korea had obtained.

Of the countries aiding South Korea in its inquiry, officials said that Sweden had been the most reluctant to go along with the findings but that when the evidence was amassed, it too agreed that North Korea was to blame. A spokesman for the Swedish Embassy declined to comment.

Will Ruger and I have an op-ed in the Korea Times:

President Lee needs to find a Goldilocks solution to the crisis.

He must craft a policy that is neither so aggressive as to provoke a spiral into general war with all of its associated human and economic costs, nor so meek that North Korea is emboldened, the demands of justice for the dead and wounded sailors unmet, and the public's security concerns undiminished.

Lee needs to send an appropriate message that answers the North Korean challenge. However, this is not merely a two party conversation. The situation is complicated by the fact that South Korea must send messages to at least three different audiences ― and they must be clear enough to be properly understood.

To the people of South Korea, the government must show that the armed forces are capable of responding to North Korean aggression.

It must tell them it will not allow their sons to be killed with impunity even if that comes at a cost in blood and treasure. To the international community, Seoul must craft a careful, measured response indicating its understanding of the delicacy of the regional situation and portraying itself as the responsible party.

The message sent to the North Korean government must be that aggression will result in painful consequences so that in the future Pyongyang will not believe that it can act with impunity.

"Supermanliness"

I'm currently in the UK doing some research at the National Archives, and I'm reminded that accidental finds are always more interesting that what you're actually looking for. Amidst the voluminous correspondence of the Viscount Trenchard, I came upon the following translation of a German prisoner of war interrogation report, for a pilot forced down behind the lines in France:

Lieutenant Cyrus Roy Hall, 20th Res: Battn, Royal Highlanders, Canada, attached R.A.F. as pilot.

Age 24. Law student in Canada (Alberta)

Joined the army in October 1914 (Infantry) Landed in France February 1915. Transferred to R.F.C. 1.6.17.

The following statements of the prisoner concerning his flying career are to be accepted with great reserve as they do not agree in any way with the many papers which he carried on him. He states that he was first with the Squadron 45 which was at the time still using Sopwith two seaters, he was then transferred at this own request to a Bristol Fighter Squadron, and after four months service at the front as Pilot, he was transferred to England for testing new types, for which purpose on specially outstanding Pilots were accepted. After short service as a ferry pilot (flying new machines from Englad to France) he then left for France at the end of March with his present unit and he accomplished the most heroic deeds there, especially upon the four occasions when, as he hints, he crossed swords successfully with Richthofen.

The facts, however, are quite different. If he was in fact at any time attached to Squadron 45, which cannot well be doubted in view of his knowledge of the circumstances, he can only have been an Observer. We trace him as having been in England on the 31st July 1917 with a unit of the R.F.C. at Wantage Hall, Reading (apparently the Cadet School); at the No: 3 Training Squadron, Shoreham, Sussex, on the 26th Sept. 1917; at the Aerodrome of Colney, near London, in December; with the 74th Service Squadron in January and February 1918. He then finished a course in photography with the XVIII Wing (hitherto unknown) which at the time was subordinate to the 74th Service Squadron (since in France.) He only obtained his pilot license (No:10706) on the 24.2.2024 which is proof in itself that he could not have been a pilot in 1917. On the 13th March 1918 he was with the 85th Squadron at Hounslow, at the end of April with the Fighting Squadron in Ayr, Scotland, and on the 14th May he finished his Machine Gun course at the No. 2 Auxiliary School of Aerial Gunnery at Turnberry, whereupon he returned to the 85th Squadron at Hounslow. It is only on the 25th May that he paid his mess bill for the first time in France and this date is important as establishing when his unit came to France....

Prisoner is a prominent example of Colonial "supermanliness". He considers Europeans as cattle, unable to think for themselves. He judged the English very harshly, especially the higher Officers, but he is also full of contempt for the men. Only Canadians and Americans are free and independent men, who know how to behave and look after themselves in all circumstances. It is apparently quite clear to him that the war has, up to the present, taken an entirely victorious course for Germany. He has, however, no doubt whatever that in the end Germany must be defeated.

Observations:

1. Was there any piece of personal paperwork that Lieutenant Hall didn't carry with him in the aircraft?

2. Do POWs have any duty to attempt to tell plausible lies?

3. The bit about Canadian "supermanliness" is utterly priceless.

I'm curious whether he ever received his law degree. It does appear that he survived the war, but I can't find anything about him after that.

X-posted at LGM.

Torpedo

We have our smoking gun piece of torpedo:

The joint investigation team has reportedly found screw pieces of torpedo, probably causing the sinking of the Navy patrol ship Cheonan, near the border waters in the West Sea where the incident took place in late March.

The Korea Broadcast System (KBS) reported Tuesday that the team has launched close checking of the findings in a non-destructive testing. "The manufacturers of the screw are shortlisted to two countries Russia and China," KBS reported, quoting government officials who were not identified.

The screw, which is a part that creates power to propel the torpedo in the tail, has been regarded as a decisive clue to the cause of the incident as it does not destruct in general even during an explosion.

The government is ready to make it clear that the corvette was sunk by the torpedo and North Korea will be responsible for torpedo attack as the government has already secured pieces of material evidence, including screw part, when it announces investigation results May 20.

Next move is anyone's guess.

Maritime Insurgents and Global Oil Disruption

While all eyes are focused on the oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, across the Atlantic, potentially more devastating spills threaten the Nigerian Delta. The MEND has resumed attacks on oil companies and is wreaking its own brand of ecological and economic warfare against the Nigerian government and the world's energy supplies. MEND's guerilla tactics against oil production include a combination of piracy and kidnapping on deepwater rigs, sabotage against coastal pipelines, and direct attacks on facilities. In 2009, 51 oil workers from Shell were kidnapped for ransom, an increase from 11 in 2008.

As can be expected in modern globalized insurgencies, additional groups with diverse motives and tactics have entered the fray against oil production in Nigeria. In the future one might expect the MEND to import additional tactics from other movements, including waterborne IEDs. And by the way, the US imports more oil from Nigeria than Saudi Arabia.

If tasked, would the US Navy be prepared to deal with this sort of problem? Are current force structure, training, and TTPs ready for a maritime-focused insurgency?

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

Filling Navy ISR Gaps

This will be a wonderful capability some day, but when, and at what price?

Without timely and accurate intelligence, regardless of source, an operator cannot maneuver his fleet or employ his weapons. Whether we want to find, fix, and finish terrorists from the sea, or engage in long range maritime scouting against a belligerent Navy, a sufficient quality and quantity of "multi-int" capable air platforms is essential. The SECDEF realized in 2008 that a shortage of airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms was hurting our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Following some prodding, the Air Force finally shifted into gear and began to build, borrow, and contract dozens of new aircraft, which are being employed to good effect on those two battlefields and elsewhere today. As Navy and Marine units find themselves dispersed wider sea and littoral areas, a sufficient quantity of supporting ISR becomes even more important.

A couple of decades ago, a typical carrier air wing had a number of organic platforms capable of collecting intelligence, including fast movers with TARPS and ES-3A Shadows for ELINT. These aircraft were supplemented by a robust ground-based P-3 fleet along with numerous FLIR and radar capable LAMPS on the small boys. Contrast this capability with today's much-reduced organic ISR capability and some long-in-the-tooth P-3s which are often being employed overland. Today's global naval missions require extraordinary amounts of ISR, but the resources just aren't adequate to source them properly.

ISR seems to be getting short shrift in the Navy's ever-changing procurement plans. Outside of the naval special operations community, the energy and funding to increase the fleet's airborne ISR capabilities seems lacking. The Navy is slowly introducing rotary and fixed-wing UAVs such as Fire Scout and BAMs, but lacks more robust collection capabilities that could be provided by manned sea-based aircraft. The P-8 will eventually bring a capable P-3 replacement to the fleet, albeit a big, expensive, noisy, and manpower intensive one. But there are numerous smaller prop-driven aircraft in use over battlefields today that provide similar, and in some cases better capabilities than the P-3 or P-8 in many ISR roles, at a significantly lower price point.

Is a Navy ISR "surge" in order to fill some of the current capability gaps in this area until more advanced programs are brought online? A major R&D or procurement effort is not necessarily required. Rather, the Navy should leverage the work of the Air Force and SOCOM to rapidly acquire both manned and unmanned platforms and adapt them for sea service. Is there a reason that an aircraft similar to the Air Force's "Project Liberty" MC-12W couldn't be retrofitted with stronger landing gear and tail hook for use from carriers or even large deck amphibs? This sort of platform would provide a number of tactical and operational advantages over our current ISR fleet, giving the Navy the ability to collect volumes of intelligence over land and water from sovereign US territory without a large expeditionary footprint ashore.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

Photos from Shanghai

I haven't posted anything recently, because I've been extremely busy at work and there is not many new extraordinary things coming out. But when I got home today, there was a host of new pictures coming out that I thought was worth sharing. Most of them come from Shanghai.
The first one is showing 092 SSBN after the major refitting that it underwent recently. It's not a new ship by any stretch of imagination, but we don't normally get to see PLAN SSBNs.


Now, we also got a bunch of pictures from Shanghai.
The first two shows the 4th 054A (or 8th overall) under construction from HD shipyard. Now, this one has actually seemed to have taken a lot longer than expected. The 4th one from HP shipyard launched a while ago and this one probably has another month to go before launching. And from that latest pictures coming out of HP shipyard, there won't be another 054A coming out anytime soon. Looks like they are continuing the policy of building ships in batch of 4s.


This ship is 112 (of 052A class). It was built in the early 90s and is powered by LM2500, which was purchased prior to the embargo. It looks like they are doing are major works on this ship by pretty much taking it apart. It has been sitting next to HD for the past 6 months. It'd be interesting to see if they will actually do anything to it.

This is PLAN's new ELINT ship. It was launched a while ago, but it looks like all of the sensors have been installed now and the scaffolding are all removed. Looks like this might be ready for sea trial soon. Unlike with frigates and destroyers, the big ships like this only get built one at a time. Or maybe they are just experimental unit until mass production. Although, PLAN doesn't really need to have the kind of numbers that would require mass production.



The pictures below are probably the most important development recently. The first one shows a module of a new LPD under construction. It looks like after all of the testings they did with the experiment class of 071, they are finally ready to mass produce it with whatever modifications they put in.

The two pictures below show the "Chinese LCAC" being delivered to PLAN. Now this is kind of interesting. We actually saw pictures of this starting in 2007. However, it took a good 3 years for it to complete all the work and testing needed to actually join service with PLAN. And with follow-ups coming in the 071 class, more of these units should join in.


And finally, more pictures of the first 071, 998 sailing around in Shanghai. 071 really represents the first major step that PLAN took in becoming a blue water fleet. So, it's quite significant that we are seeing its mass production starting and LCACs finally accompanying it.

Open Source Warfare - Navy Style

John Robb over at Global Guerrillas uses the term Open-Source Warfare to describe a shift in the monopoly of violence from state to non-state actors. This transformation is empowered by globalization and the Internet’s spread of the knowledge required to wage war into the hands of individuals. OSW in effect enables small groups or even individuals to wage war against nations. Since USS Cole was attacked by Al Qaeda nearly a decade ago, we’ve seen the entrée of a wide variety of non-state actors operating in the maritime environment. Among others:

- Lebanese Hezbollah attacked an Israeli corvette with anti-ship cruise missiles
- Drug traffickers employed stealthy semi-submersibles
- Ferocious Tamil Sea Tiger suicide attacks sunk Sri Lankan navy vessels
- Somali pirates ran amok in the Indian Ocean
- Hamas laid improvised mines near Israeli Beaches
- MEND guerrillas utilized boat swarms in the Niger Delta to disrupt oil infrastructure
- Lashkar-e-taiba high-jacked an Indian fishing vessel to infiltrate clandestinely for the Mumbai attacks

These are all tactical actions, but as special operations raids often create strategic impacts, so do some terror attacks.

So what will the next ten years of OSW bring to maritime conflicts?
- A proliferation of sea and beach-launched small (read model airplane size) UAVs utilized by non-state actors to help target their water-borne IEDS and anti-ship cruise missiles
- Small, randomly strewn maritime IEDS (mines) through vital commercial choke points - think the Verrazano Narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn vice Strait of Hormuz. Really, the whole “E” component isn’t necessarily, just some sinister looking boxes and an emailed threat alone is enough to disrupt traffic for a while in any given port
- Commercially available UUVs designed for oceanography converted into torpedoes
- Cell phones and social media used to agitate “flash mobs” of local fishing vessels in order to block the movement of navy or merchant vessels

Those are some of less nefarious unconventional threats… What is the role of sea power in waging the kind of warfare our ground components have been fighting the past decade?

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

The Stark Realities of Defense Contracting

Davida Isaacs and I have an article at The American Prospect on intellectual property, Iron Man 2, and defense contracting:

Explosions, tattoos, and Scarlett Johansson notwithstanding, the disputes between Tony Stark and his antagonists revolve around ownership of the rights to the Iron Man technology. Iron Man 2 is the most expensive movie ever made about an intellectual property dispute.

Irregular Warfare & Stuff

Hello Everybody - I’m honored that Galrahn has invited me to post here occasionally on the convergence of maritime matters and irregular warfare. By way of quick background, I’m a surface warfare commander in the reserve, and have spent about half of my career in the NECC or working with joint special operations forces. In the civilian world, I work interagency counter-terrorism issues.

What does the future threat environment look like and how should the navy balance conventional warfighting capabilities against those needed to win against non-state threats? I look forward to hearing from all those mud-sailors, frogmen, IA returnees, or just anyone interested in how the maritime services can excel in a post-Westphalian era.

-Chris

Blog Work Coming

Notice - the blog will be undergoing some much needed maintenance this weekend. If you load the page and it doesn't look right, refresh after a few minutes. I intend to change a few things - like the links - and prepare the back end for the possibility of opening up the blog to some limited advertising. I have put off or altogether ignored advertising requests on the blog for years now, and am by no means wealthy enough to maintain such a position.

A few weeks ago I conducted an open post to examine what was on the minds of the readers here. Rob and Bryan seem to have their fingers on the pulse of events (the broad coverage of both of them validates my thinking there), while Feng and GvG continue to pull together world events quite well. I personally believe LtCol Roger Galbraith has brought something unique to the blog - a voice of the Corps.

The question though is whether you, the reader, feel something is missing. If so, what? I'd still like to get a submarine expert and a Marine Corps strategist, but finding a submariner with an opinion they will actually blog is very difficult, and all the Marine Corps strategists I know have a day job that prevents them from writing.

So here is your chance. Tell me what you'd like to see. June 2nd marks the third anniversary of Information Dissemination. In such a short time, I'd say the blog has come a long way. With that said, there is still work to do.