Maritime Strategy and Wargaming

I blogged heads with Justin Logan of Cato yesterday, and discussion drifted to Asia and maritime strategy:

 

 In other news, my column this week dealt with wargaming and policy simulation:

War games have played a role in operational and strategic training for a very long time. The purpose of a war game is twofold. On the one hand, it produces data on a proposed course of action, with the quality of data dependent on the expertise of the players and the verisimilitude of the simulation. War gaming may reveal, for instance, that an invasion or offensive makes little sense given the options and resources available to both sides. On the other hand, war gaming provides training in strategic and operational thought under relatively safe and controlled conditions. A war game cannot replace the tension of battle or the responsibility of genuine decision-making, but it can help remedy certain kinds of common errors. Consequently, war games have been part of military training since at least the Napoleonic Wars. In a recent Naval War College Review article, Peter Perla and Ed McGrady argued that the power of war games stem from their association with narrative and storytelling. In a good war game, victory, defeat, gain and loss carry psychological weight that gives the players a stake in outcomes and makes their decision-making more realistic. 

What goes for war goes for policy other than war. Public and foreign policy programs have increasingly used simulations as training and teaching tools. Policy initiatives, whether foreign or domestic, generate strategic dynamics; players respond to how other players have changed the game environment. Consequently, playing games can help students develop expertise regarding how to manage strategic dynamics, as well as more specific skills such as crisis negotiation.

Chinese Energy Security Policy

Interesting passage from Mikkal Herberg at the New America Foundation:

Where the leadership’s perceptions and the commercial interests of the NOCs do converge is the extensive direct political and financial support Beijing provides their NOCs to get ahead, i.e. to “catch-up”, in the highly competitive global oil industry. To outside observers and oil company competitors this collaboration, whether state or NOC-led, has all the markings of “China Energy, Inc.” Nevertheless, what the leadership perceives as an energy security policy is, in practice, more an outcome of Beijing’s reflexive reliance on industrial policies and strong state support to build global national champions, as it does in other industrial sectors, from vehicles to the electronics industry to clean energy to the nuclear industry. The persistence of this approach is reinforced by other industries and bureaucracies which have learned to use the language of energy security to promote state support for their own global competitive advantage. For example, the Chinese tanker/shipbuilding industry has convinced the leadership that Chinese oil and natural gas imports will be more secure if carried on Chinese tankers, therefore justifying subsidies and cheap loans. As Erica Downs suggests in an excellent recent Brookings report, the China Development Bank (CDB) has strong converging interests with China’s NOCs insofar as large loans to support NOC overseas investments and loans to secure long-term oil and gas supply arrangements from key exporters like Russia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and others, all handled through China’s NOCs, provides the CDB with badly needed credit-worthy opportunities to lend out its huge hoard of Chinese state foreign assets.11 The PLA Navy (PLAN) has also begun to cast security of China’s energy sea lanes as an increasingly vital PLAN mission helping to promote growing budgets. In some cases even provincial governments have employed the language of energy security to help promote provincial economic development, such as Yunnan’s promotion of an oil import pipeline across Myanmar, which in reality was mainly aimed at boosting Yunnan’s provincial economy. This suggests that the prevailing NOC-based, mercantilist character of China’s energy security policies is more deeply rooted than commonly understood. It is industrial policy masquerading as an energy security strategy. And a wide range of important industrial, financial, and bureaucratic interests have a stake in continuing along this path.

A couple thoughts:

1. This serves as a good reminder that no government is monolithic, and that bureaucratic infighting and policy-shaping characterize the foreign policy apparatus of every state. Organizational relationships matter, organizational culture matters, and problem framing matters.
2.  More than a few people argue that the mercantilist-light energy security approach makes little sense in context of the realities of the global energy market. If bureaucratic incentive (and momentum) is the real answer, then we may see China maintain broadly sub-optimal energy security policies for a long time. 
3. The implications for the Cooperative Strategy are very interesting. On the one hand, the extent to which the PLAN is arguing for resources based on a mission that is broadly compatible with CS-21 would seem to make continuing maritime cooperation between the USN and the PLAN possible. However, to the degree that the PLAN sees this mission mostly as a resource magnet rather than a genuine problem to be solved, cooperation would suffer.

All Iran, All the Time

This week's installment of Foreign Entanglements pitted the Center for American Progress' Matt Duss against the Heritage Foundation's Helle Dale in a high stakes bloodfest over the future of the "Shall we bomb Iran?" conversation:
 


 Along similar lines, my WPR column this week argued that there is nothing inevitable about war with Iran:

The case for attacking Iran relies overwhelmingly on the concept of uncertainty. We don’t know if the Iranians want to build a bomb, or whether they can build a bomb, or when they might be able to build a bomb. Even if they build one, the consequences will remain unpredictable, because we don’t know what they would do with a bomb, or how their neighbors would react to an Iranian bomb. The deterrent effect of an Iranian nuclear weapon might prevent us from seeking regime change or some other aggressive military option, thus creating even more uncertainty. Containment might be possible, but the costs could be high and much would remain out of U.S. control. It’s understandable how so much uncertainty can trigger anxiety. What is less clear is how we arrived at the notion that airstrikes against the Iranian nuclear program can eliminate this uncertainty. Prospects for success of an Israeli strike remain iffy, and U.S. estimates suggest that an attack would only briefly delay Iran’s nuclear program. Indeed, it's difficult to say what precisely would count as "success" or how the Israelis would measure the effectiveness of their attack. Tehran would certainly declare victory as soon as the last Israeli aircraft left its airspace, and the Iranians would control public assessment of the damage to their nuclear facilities.

Xena the Non-State Maritime Princess

Activists, in all their forms, are an interesting sub-species of non-state maritime actors. We’ve discussed the Sea Shepherds here extensively, who have the closest thing to a fleet of any of the non-state maritime actors. Greenpeace, the Sea Shepherds' older, but slightly more docile sister organization, has also engaged in aggressive tactics throughout its history. Greenpeace's most recent campaign is designed to stop Arctic drilling. The involvement of Lucy Lawless, actress-turned-boarding officer, demonstrates how these direct action organizations have embraced celebrity endorsers to promote their cause, which is no different than many other political or environmental NGOs.



These deliberate acts are designed primarily to draw attention to a cause. In some cases, they are meant to invoke an intentional reaction, or better still, over-reaction, by corporate entities or maritime law enforcement agencies, coast guards, or navies. Here, a dozen or so Greenpeace small craft mix it up with a Deutsche Marine CB-90 and RHIBs at the 2007 G-8 Summit. (Edit: I've been corrected by a reader who notes that these craft were German Police, not Navy... Danke Herr Bruns.)



Given their fleets and scope of activities at sea, Greenpeace and Sea Shepherds might best be characterized as non-state navies.

At the other end of the maritime activists’ spectrum are less organized, ad-hoc demonstrators. Some of these are innocuous political protesters. Many years ago, I was caught in a such an event while on a ferry crossing Galveston Bay. A large group of shrimpers sortied their vessels to surround and block the Bolivar Ferry for several hours, in protest of new laws requiring turtle exclusion devices on their nets. At best, it was an inconvenience to those involved, but certainly not violent. Other protests at sea devolve into more lethal and chaotic events such as the May 2010 Gaza Flotillas. The ferry protest I experienced was a crude form of non-violent flash mob. As yet, we haven’t seen self-organizing violent or criminal flash mobs at sea like these on land or the more protracted Occupy movements. But it’s probably only a matter of time until we do. How would a navy or coast guard deal with such an event?

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, the US Navy, or any other agency. Note, the author does not endorse or otherwise support any of the organizations discussed in this post.

News You Can Use

Because I think several of you would be interested to know, George Galdorisi set up his blog on Monday. I heard about from his new Twitter account.

We all have favorite authors, and George Galdorisi has long been one of my favorite periodical authors for over a decade. Yes, I guess I am a stalker because I think this is an interesting development, and no I didn't ask his permission to discuss it. (full disclosure, I've never met Captain Galdorisi nor ever communicated with him via email that I am aware, but I've read almost everything he has written and published in the open source).

As an aside observation, is it just me or is there something about the RW and P-3 community of naval aviators where to an outsider like me it seems they more committed to writing down big, even sometimes controversial ideas than the other, larger communities? I wonder if it is cultural. This isn't a scientific observation.

Seapower in Culture: Final Countdown

In 1980, the USS Nimitz sails out of Pearl Harbor and into a strange storm.  On the other side, the crew finds itself in December 6, 1941. After coming to terms with the basics of the situation, Captain Yelland (played by Kirk Douglas) decides to destroy the Japanese strike force before it can attack the Pacific Fleet at Pearl.  However, the storm returns just before the Nimitz' airgroup encounters the first Japanese wave, and the Captain decides to take the ship back into (what he presumes to be) the present without changing history.  Martin Sheen plays Warren Lasky, an annoying civilian contractor dispatched by DoD to observe ship operations.

And thus, Final Countdown. Alas, while time travel is certainly a fun plot device, the film doesn't really develop any memorable character-driven conflict.  A crew mutiny scenario is mooted, but then left to lay fallow.  The end resolves the basic plot conflict (Nimitz returns home), but opens a host of other questions (how does the Captain explain the loss of a helicopter and nine crewmen, including his Chief of Air Group? Does he try to lie, or just put everything on the table?). Dialogue is by and large terrible (although I acknowledge the difficulty of writing plausible dialogue about the situation). The acting isn't particularly good, even from Sheen and Douglas, because they simply aren't given much to do. Another scene of the major characters working through the implications of what they were about to do would have added to character depth and given the principals a chance to work, even if (I hesitate to add) it had come at the expense of reviewing the weapons load procedures on an A-6 Intruder.

Final Countdown is interesting largely because of the role played by the Navy in its production.  Filming was conducted on board USS Nimitz, and numerous naval aircraft were depicted in flight, landing, etc.  In an important sense, Final Countdown was part of the Navy's post-Vietnam effort to control its own brand.  Top Gun would represent a later, and much more successful effort in this regard.  

Theory of Seapower

There's a lot to this movie that's fun for the naval aviation fanatic.  We get to see Hawkeyes, Tomcats, Intruders, and Corsairs engage in a variety of different missions, including recon, intercept, air refueling, and strike. The sheer amount of time spent launching, arming, fueling, and recovering aircraft is remarkable. The most memorable sequence from the film comes when a pair of F-14s intercept a pair of Japanese Zeros.  There's not much to say about this sequence beyond the obvious; it's incredibly awesome, up to and including the point at which the F-14s splash the Zeros. From a dramatic point of view, the basics of carrier operations take up a lot of screen time, and I can appreciate why the film wasn't particularly successful.

What implications for seapower? Because the focus lies squarely on carrier operations, this is less a film about airpower than, say, Top Gun.  However, it doesn't really have much to say about seapower. The utility of the Nimitz is evaluated solely in terms of its ability to stop the Japanese strike, up to and including destruction of Nagumo's task force (this is presumably the purpose of the A-6s and A-7s in the strike force). Sheen suggests that Nimitz has the opportunity to change history, and right "all the mistakes" of the past half century, but there's no clear theory of how Nimitz would effect that change. Destroying the Japanese military? Giving the US the means the break the Soviet Union? Giving the US a critical early technological advantage?

Final Countdown is really more about civil-military relations than about seapower. After losing communications with the rest of the world, Captain Yelland naturally wonders whether nuclear war has precipitated the event. In this sense, the idea of an aircraft carrier captain being forced to act without any guidance from either USN or civilian authorities is not absurd. Once the situation becomes clear, Yelland reaffirms the supremacy of civilian authority, arguing that the crew of Nimitz is responsible for the defense of the United States past, present, and future. The extant President of the United States would surely desire to use the power of the Nimitz to defeat the Japanese task force.  But on the other hand, while we could expect that President Roosevelt would have few qualms about ordering Nimitz into action, I suspect that civilian authorities in 1980 would be exceedingly ill tempered about the notion of transforming world history.  Thus, even a decision to abide by perceived civilian authority would require Captain Yelland to make a critical decision.

Given the confidence that the Yelland and Lasky have regarding the gravity of the decision to engage the Japanese, however, we can assume that they believe Nimitz intervention in the war would be decisive, although the film doesn't work through that belief in any detail. Moreover, given that the first action of Nimitz would be to intercept and defeat a Japanese attack, we can also assume that they believe that Nimitz decisiveness would to at least some extent come in operational terms. Unfortunately, all we can do for most of this is assume; the characters have a few simple, not terribly interesting conversations about their role, but give little indication of how they would conduct the actual intervention of the Nimitz in World War II.

The Fun Part

Now the fun part; how would the presence of Nimitz affect World War II? We can start with the assumption that Nimitz could have destroyed the Nagumo's carrier task force and its aircraft without great difficulty.  While the F-14s would have run out of missiles before shooting down the entire first wave, they could certainly have disrupted the attack and done further damage with their cannon.  The A-6s and A-7s carried enough ordinance to destroy the six Japanese carriers, although to my understanding they would not have carried Harpoon missiles; the bombing would have to be straight and level.  But then they'd get a number of chances at it, given that the A-6s could carry a lot of bombs and considerably outranged the Japanese aircraft.

Beyond that the USN would face some interesting choices.  Integrating Nimitz into the fleet would have taken a while ("We're here from the future!") and it's not obvious what the most efficient way to use Nimitz would have been.  One option would be to have Nimitz spearhead a task force to turn back and defeat the IJN invasions of the Dutch East Indies. With history driven intel, the obvious technological superiority of Nimitz, and the rest of the USN carrier fleet, the IJN would have been hard press to carry out operations with any degree of success. Nimitz would have been nearly invulnerable to Japanese air attack, assuming that A-7s and F-14s could be kept in the air for CAP.  A successful attack would require waves of aircraft and suicidal tactics (press forward until Nimitz and her CAP ran out of missiles), and even then might not disable the carrier.  A Japanese submarine could certainly give Nimitz a very bad day, but against sufficient escort and modern ASW, getting into firing position would be difficult.

An alternative use of Nimitz would involve trying to end the war right away by sustained air attacks on Tokyo.  Nimitz would have carried a dozen or so A-6s, which in a sustained operation could have dropped a lot of bombs on Tokyo.  The rest of the USN would either support Nimitz or concentrate on the DEI invasions.  I'm no fan of strategic bombing, but on the heels of the sudden destruction of the IJN carrier fleet, the likely impending defeat of the IJN in SE Asia, and an essentially unstoppable bombing campaign over the capital, it wouldn't be terribly surprising to see the Japanese sue for peace. Of course, even the Nimitz couldn't stay on station indefinitely; eventually ordnance and jet fuel would run short, forcing Nimitz to retire (potentially for an extended period of time).

In a longer conflict, complications ensue.  The USN of 1942 was not the USN of 1944, even without Pearl, and would have been hard pressed to carry out offensive operations in the Western Pacific.  There was no fleet of B-29s to bomb Japan, and the prospect of fighting the Japanese on mainland Asia wouldn't look any better in this scenario than it did in real life. The USN probably would have been able to cut Japan's economic lifeline, however, eventually rendering the Japanese military toothless.  This could have rendered the question moot from a strategic point of view; badly wounded and without oil, Japan could be hemmed in by extant USN and USAAF forces, allowing the US to concentrate more heavily on the ETO.

And what to do with Nimitz in such a campaign? The F-14 squadrons would prove devastating in any tactical situation, but amounted to only 36 aircraft.  As the F-14 was notoriously unreliable, use of the fighter in support of the Combined Bomber Offensive would likely have led to some attrition, especially given a shortage of spares and jet fuel (although I assume the latter could be remedied without great difficulty).  Retooling American industry to produce either missiles or more F-14s would have been a complicated undertaking, manageable in the medium but probably not the short term.  Of course, the E-2 Hawkeyes could have made a big difference in the air war in Europe, and the A-7s could would also have proven extremely capable air superiority fighters against the Luftwaffe of the time.

The other big question (which Final Countdown does not touch upon) would be the availability of nuclear weapons onboard Nimitz.  I simply don't know enough about nuclear weapons policy on USN carriers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but it wouldn't be terribly surprising to find that Nimitz carried nukes. This would pose very interesting challenges; with sufficient weapons, Nimitz very likely could end both the Pacific and European wars before the end of 1942. Explaining the power of nuclear weapons to Roosevelt would be a challenge, as would convincing him not to use them, if Yelland and co. were even interested in going that direction.

Conclusion

Final Countdown is a fun movie for people who love naval aviation. The scene of the F-14s splashing the Zeros is itself worth the price of admission. As a film, it's lacking; the characters aren't strong enough to support the plot. From a seapower point of view, the film's assumptions are incomplete and poorly specified.  The Navy devoted considerable resources to making this film look good; most of the extras were Nimitz crewmen. Exchanging three minutes of shipboard operations for three minutes of conversation about the actual role that Nimitz might play in a war would have been more than worthwhile from both dramatic and public relations points of view. And really, you generally hire Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen for a reason; it wouldn't have killed the director (Hollywood vet Don Taylor) to give them a few more minutes of conversation. A work about time travel is neither inherently absurd nor without potential lessons, and it would have been better if Taylor had allowed the premise some space to breathe.

The Posture Hearing

Galrahn alludes to the HASC Navy Posture Hearing yesterday, something I found interesting for many reasons, but especially these two:

1.  Under questioning from Representative Forbes, SECNAV made the statement that "...we have 36 ships under contract, all under fixed-price contracts".  It is difficult for me to find any rigor behind that number, though it may exist.  It looks to me like SECNAV is counting the LCS acquisition strategy, which negotiated FIXED PRICES for  20 or so ships, but did not obligate the government to actually purchase any of those (except 2 hulls the year it was negotiated).  Actual acquisition of the remaining ships is done year to year.  But, I could be wrong on this.

2.  SECNAV took a pounding on his energy priorities, and deservedly so.  That the Navy is taking a lead in attempting to move away from petroleum is not objectionable.  What I do find questionable is his utterly marginal capacity and willingness to make coherent arguments for the value of that which the energy sources he champions propel--the instruments of American Seapower.

Bryan McGrath

Hmm

I rarely post a blog entry from my phone, but this time I'm making a 'just in case' exception.

There is a lot of unusual chatter leading into the House hearing with the Navy at 1:00pm EST. Some are suggesting a very unlikely scenario of the political equivalent of fireworks.

Guess we'll all know in less than an hour.

Strategic Raids... From the Sea

LCDR Benjamin Armstrong, one of the up and coming naval officers who truly gets irregular warfare, has written a fine article on maritime raids for this month's Proceedings. His recommendation to expand the utility of carriers by adding small Marine landing teams and MV-22s makes a lot of sense. CVNs can easily augment our amphibious capacity and provide significant flexibility to conduct raids and other ground-centric missions when gators are not around. This move could be compared to the addition of F-35Bs to large deck amphibious ships to augment our CSGs striking power. In other words, our CSGs should become more ARG-like and our ESGs/ARGs can become more CSG-like. If our gator fleet shrinks further, we’ll need to get creative in how we employ all ships in support of objectives ashore, and implementation of BJ’s suggestions would be a smart step in that direction.

On a related note: MARSOC, approaching its sixth anniversary, has operated almost exclusively in land-locked in Afghanistan until recently, when teams were utilized in an amphibious capacity in the Bold Alligator exercise. MSOR elements have excelled ashore in direct action and foreign internal defense missions, but their potential for maritime use has yet to be fully realized. Their role in Bold Alligator provides some clues as to how they might be used to prep the environment for their larger MEU brothers conducting an amphibious raid.

“Those forces were used for "shaping" operations, or for missions designed to prepare the shoreline and areas inland for the arriving Marine Corps. Those troops also provided intelligence for a planned deep insert air assault against an enemy encampment at Ft. Pickett, VA, Aiken said.”

It has been said that these types of tactical operations - even those using only a handful of troops, can have strategic effects. Counter-terrorism operations the past several years have borne this proposition out to a degree, and some of these operations have been supported or even conducted entirely from the sea. Yet CT is only one of many types of raids that the sea services conduct. The list includes NEO, personnel recovery, port seizure, and punitive expeditions, to name just a few. Another timely article here discusses strategic versus tactical raids in relation to the IDF.

Regardless, discussion of the maritime raid is important if for no other reason that we seem to have forgotten why we do these “hit and run” sort of operations. It’s worth remembering the value of short term military interventions with finite objectives as we consider the myriad of negative impacts to the force from long term deployments for stability operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, the Philippines, and Horn of Africa.

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, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Ekaterinburg

Dmitry Gorenburg has more details on the Ekaterinburg submarine fire. Long story short: It could have gotten very ugly.

The crew quickly realized the danger that extreme heat just on the other side of the inner hull might cause the torpedoes to explode. Since the hydraulic systems for torpedo removal were not functioning, they risked their lives to manually remove the torpedoes from the first compartment. According to Novaia Gazeta, three torpedoes were removed in this way. Had the torpedoes exploded, dozens of crew and firefighters would have been killed. Depending on the number of torpedoes affected, the authors of the Kommersant article raise the possibility that the explosion could have destroyed the floating dock and the Admiral Kulakov and might have led to radioactive contamination from the nuclear missiles or the two nuclear reactors onboard. I have no way of judging how serious that threat was, but whether or not it was real, a torpedo explosion would have certainly led to panic not just in Roslyakovo but also in the nearby cities of Severomorsk and Murmansk, which have a total population of almost 400,000 people.

Gorenburg suggests that while the Ekaterinburg may be repairable, unless the bow is replaced she will be unsafe at significant depth.

New Series: Seapower in Fiction

This post serves as introduction for a new series of posts: Seapower in Culture. Inspired in part by Alyssa Rosenberg's work at the Center for American Progress, but also by a recent David Sirota column attacking my beloved Top Gun and by the imminent arrival of this horror, Seapower in Culture will investigate (unsurprisingly) the depiction of seapower in modern pop culture.

I'm approaching this series with a broad definition of seapower, which I'll conceptualize as the ability of actors (governments, NGOs, etc.) to shape political and economic outcomes through employment of maritime means.  This leaves a great deal of latitude, which is appropriate for a series of this nature.  The series will range widely into science fiction and fantasy. Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice are all in the lineup. However, I'll also include more conventional depictions of seapower, including Final Countdown (the first entry in the series) Riddle of the Sands, Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, Top Gun, and the like.

Each entry will contain the following elements, roughly in this order. A plot summary will either introduce the work or remind readers of the general series of events. I'll then examine the theory of seapower (or lack thereof) that animates the work.  A discussion of other interesting, related bits (depiction of civil-military relations, historical antecedents and influence, position within the canon, influence) will follow. Let's be clear: There will be spoilers.

I plan to cross-post this series at both LGM and ID.  In part this is to justify the workload to my self; essays like these require more time and attention that a simpler link-and-comment post. However, given that the commenting communities are so radically different at LGM and ID, I think it's worth getting reactions and feedback from both groups. Indeed, I encourage the readers of one blog to take a look at the comments on the other (and not just for this series).

I'll be writing this series every other Sunday, with the intervening Sundays normally reserved for a book review (I have lots of airpower book reviews essentially in the can). Next week's entry will, as noted, be Final Countdown, the 1980 Kirk Douglas-Martin Sheen film featuring a time-traveling USS Nimitz. It's streaming on Netflix, so anybody who's interested should take this opportunity to give it a viewing...

On The Naming of Ships

I will begin this post by conceding that it is internally inconsistent.  I make this concession for two reasons, the first, to ensure that readers are able to discern that I have thought the matter through, and the second, so that those who delight in pointing such things out in the comments section are denied the opportunity.

I believe one of the enduring strengths of our Navy is its reverence for tradition.  However, this blog post will advocate for an alteration of one of them; namely, the nearly complete power and authority of the Secretary of the Navy to name ships.

For those interested in a deeper understanding of the issues and history, I refer you to the indispensable Ron O'Rourke of the Congressional Research Service, whose April 2011 report "Navy Ship Names: Background for Congress" is a concise and complete summary of the subject.

The matter arises (again) in response to Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus' decision Friday to name the latest LCS after former Member of Congress Gabrielle Giffords.  The blogosphere is aflame with negative reaction to this act, though I have seen no one speak ill against Mrs. Giffords personally.  The complaints are generally of two varieties; the first, that in naming the ship after a person, the convention of naming LCS after small/medium US cities has been broken after only 5 ships.  The second is a sense that while her brave recovery from an assassination attempt last year is something for all Americans to cheer, the naming of a ship for her is inappropriate given the number of what many consider to be "more deserving" military heroes, both alive and dead.  I agree with those who disagree with the Secretary's decision, and I do so on both grounds cited above.

Secretary Mabus has shown a propensity to break tradition in ship names in his tenure, breaking the string of naming LPD-17's after US cities in order to name one of them after a controversial member of Congress who is now deceased.  Additionally, the Secretary selected T-AKE-14 for the name "USNS CESAR CHAVEZ" after a leading Latino civil rights figure, who described his two years in the Navy as "the two worst years of my life".  Yet anyone who believes that Secretary Mabus is the first to politicize the naming of ships would be sorely mistaken.  Two weeks prior to the end of the second Bush Administration, Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter announced that the heretofore state-named VIRGINIA Class Submarines would have one named for retired Republican Senator John Warner.  Reading Ron O'Rourke's summary (linked to above) provides ample evidence of the frequency with which past Secretaries of both parties have broken with tradition.

In a conflict between the tradition of the Secretary of the Navy having the authority to name ships, and the tradition of having ship classes with coherent and integral naming conventions, I come down in support of the latter.   And as the current process for naming ships is almost exclusively governed by tradition (the Secretary of the Navy having been removed by name from the responsibility in US law in 1925), I would urge the Congress to bring order and rigor to this process in the following manner:

1.  The Congress should direct the Secretary of the Navy to create and maintain a standing board whose job it would be to make recommendations to the Secretary on ship class conventions and individual ship names.  The board would be Co-chaired by the Director of Naval History and the President of the Naval Institute (subject of course, to overcoming other legal impediments that could preclude either from participating), and would contain an additional five members, three of which would be appointed by the CNO and two of which would be appointed by the CMC.  If a member had to leave the board, the Service that had appointed him or her would select a replacement.

2.  The board would be required to submit to the Secretary in each instance (class naming convention and individual ship names), three alternatives with sufficient justification for each.  The Secretary would then make a selection from among the three alternatives presented. The board would be required by law to post on the internet the alternatives it had presented to the Secretary, with the capability for the public to comment on the alternatives.  The Secretary would be prohibited from making a decision until 30 days had passed, enabling a rich public dialogue.   In the event that the board is unable to reach consensus, the decision would then revert to the Secretary.

Bryan McGrath

PLAN conventional submarine fleet update

About a year ago, I wrote an entry on the Chinese submarine fleet. In that article, I talked about the different submarine classes in service with PLAN and a little bit on their history. When it comes to the development of new submarine classes, China typically follows the line of building one experiment boat of that class, followed by 3 or more boats that fixed the problems found in the first of the class and follows up with a slightly modified variant that gets mass produced. The change from the first unit and the 2nd batch is normally quite significant. The change from the 2nd batch and the third batch is generally quite minor from the outside, but more significant on the inside (improvements in sonar, combat system, fire control system and such). A lot of times we see two programs going on at the same time where one class is getting mass produced at the same time a follow-on class's first experimental boat is getting tested out. This development process has allowed PLAN's submarine fleet modernize at a faster rate than any other arm of PLAN (with the exception of Fast Attack Crafts).

A few years ago, most of the China threat group was alarmed at China's emerging force of conventional submarines. That has changed in the recent years as the ASBM project, the carrier project and nuclear submarines have really shifted their attention. At the same time, the growing fleet of 054As and larger surface ships like Type 071 and No. 866 hospital ship have also garnered a lot of attention. For PLAN followers like myself, it's easy to get drawn to the monthly updates of photos coming out of HD, JP and JN shipyard. Since most of submarines are produced at WuChang shipyard, we don't get as many submarine photos during production or during service. Since most of the pictures we get of conventional submarines don't have number painted on them, it's also hard for someone like myself to keep track of their numbers and their deployment. All of this leads to less attention paid to the conventional submarine program by everyone. Needless to say, the modernization of conventional sub force has not stopped in the process. So, this entry will look at some of the changes we have seen in the last couple of years.

First, I want to take a look at the structure of the conventional submarine force. There are 6 submarine flotilla split among the 3 fleets. The 2nd and 12th flotilla belong to the North Sea Fleet, 22nd and 42nd belong to the East Sea Fleet, whereas 32nd and 72nd belong to the South Sea Fleet. There is also a hierarchy within PLAN over the disbursement of the submarines. Due to its proximity to Taiwan and the proximity of the first chain of islands, East Sea Fleet is normally the first force that gets the new submarines. At the moment, all of the active submarines in ESF are what I call the 3rd generation submarines (either Song, Yuan or Kilo). All of the recent submarines from WuChang also gets tested out in one of the East Sea Fleet naval bases near Shanghai before they get commissioned. The South Sea Fleet seems to be next fleet in line. Back in the 90s, South Sea Fleet's submarine fleet was probably the weakness of the three fleets. At the time, the 52nd submarine flotilla had disbanded and SSF was left with just the 32nd submarine flotilla. This decision was probably made due to the many years of reduction in China's defense budget. The weakness of SSF's submarine fleet was one of the reasons that Vietnam was able to occupy some of the spratly islands. PLAN realized that it made a big mistake and established the 72nd submarine flotilla early in the 2000s along with the 31st nuclear submarine flotilla. The Ming class submarines from 32nd flotilla was transferred to the 72nd flotilla while it received the newer Song and Kilo class submarines. The North Sea Fleet is probably the weakest of the three fleets. For the longest time, NSF was the only fleet that had nuclear submarines, so it was always left to receive the oldest conventional submarines. With the recently modernization efforts, the 2nd flotilla is now almost completely equipped with Song class submarines. Although, the 12th flotilla probably still consists of the earliest variant of Ming class. These submarines are vastly outclassed by their Japanese or Korean counterparts.

Now, I want to look at the orbat changes in the last few years and the expected changes in the future. From what I can tell, the two flotilla of SSF has not changed recently. The 32nd flotilla consists of 4 Song and 4 Kilos, whereas the 72nd flotilla consists of 8 improved ming class submarines. The 42nd flotilla of ESF also has not changed, since the kilo submarines are still front line submarines. As Yuan class submarines have started joining the 22nd flotilla of ESF, the Song class submarines were getting transferred to NSF. The first four Yuan submarines (330 to 333) were transferred by 2009. Over the past year, there have probably been 3 or 4 more Yuans (334 to 337??) that have joined. At the current time, this flotilla has 2 song submarines and 7 or 8 Yuan submarines. By this point, the 2nd flotilla has already received 7 Song submarines. Obviously, the last 2 song will be transferred out to the 2nd flotilla at some point. One of the questions is what happened to the submarines that were previously there. It seems like PLAN has been fairly reluctant to just retire the old submarines. Some of the 033 submarines have been kept around for training purposes, but they will obviously have to start decommissioning the older 035s and 033s very soon. I think PLAN is unlikely to form a new conventional submarine flotilla, so the overall number of active submarines will be kept around 48. At current time, they have 12 kilos + 13 Songs + 8 Yuan = 33 submarines that would be considered as fairly new. If we discount the first experimental Song that was launched in 1994, they still only have to replace another 16 submarines before the Ming class submarines will all need to be retired. While up to 5 conventional submarines can be produced every year at the two shipyards, we will most likely see 3 submarines getting produced every year (due to budgetary constraints). At this pace, the replacement will be done by late this decade. The ming class submarines in 72nd flotilla were produced from 1994 to 2001. If they get replaced by 2020, they would've only been in service for 20 years. It's really hard to see PLAN take something that's only 20 years old out of service, even if it's obsolete. So, I wonder what will happen to them.

Thirdly, I want to look at what kind of threats each fleet are facing and whether the fleet that they have is suited for that task. The East Sea Fleet will continue to be opposite to Taiwan, so it will need to be prepared to be a deterrent against possible US intervention. As such, the most modern conventional submarines will be placed in ESF for anti-shipping missions and also ASW missions. It will likely continue to receive the newest conventional submarines. At the same time, the natural barrier of the first chain island and surrounding naval forces traps in the ESF, so ESF is unlikely to have nuclear submarine fleet in the future. The North Sea Fleet is surrounded by the much superior Japanese and Korean submarine fleet. It is also trapped by the extremely well equipped and trained Japanese ASW units. I think NSF is currently woefully equipped considering it's conditions. Like the rest of the fleet, the submarine flotillas have been the last to receive the Song submarines. And even when it does receive them, it gets the submarines that ESF no longer needs. For the longest time, this was balanced by the fact that NSF was the only one that had nuclear submarines, but that's no longer the case. Going forward, it's hard to see the newer nuclear submarines getting deployed here when it is completely surrounded by Japan and South Korea. For the next decade, this situation is unlikely to change, so NSF will continue to be inadequately equipped to handle possible threats. Finally, South Sea Fleet probably faces the weakest of surrounding navies. Even the Ming class submarines are capable of handling the threats from Vietnam and Phillipines. South Sea Fleet continues to be the main blue water fleet in PLAN, so one would expect that more nuclear submarines will be deployed here. Also compared to the other two fleets, conventional submarines in SSF are not trapped by first chain of island and foreign naval force, so the current conventional fleet is actually already suitable for the threats in its area. Due to the growing influence of SSF, I think it will get newer submarines before NSF even though NSF has much greater needs for those boats.

Overall, it's to see that the modernization of PLAN's conventional submarine fleet is still going very rapidly. It will most likely complete ahead of other part of PLAN's fleet. The submarines are deployed in a very unusual manner where the elite flotillas continue to get upgraded to newer submarines while the other flotilla pick up the scraps. From the service, this seems like something that will be problematic in the future. It will probably create resentment within PLAN toward the elite flotilla, although that might be an accepted practice of PLA. The more concerning part is that different flotilla will be continually trained for newer submarines. Rather than serving 20 years on the same boat, the sailors in the 22nd flotilla are probably changing to new submarines every 10 years. When I think about the time that it takes to properly train sailors to operate a new submarine, that seems to leave not much time for routine trainings and patrols. As mentioned previously, some of the Ming submarines may be removed from active duty after less than 20 years of service. What will happen to these submarines once this happens? As we move forward, the Song submarines are still relatively loud even though they are modern by Chinese standards. Even the latest submarine that we saw out of WuChang shipyard is still behind the acoustic levels of the most advanced conventional submarines around the world. What will the next generation of Chinese submarines look like? As PLAN becomes more of a blue water fleet and expands its nuclear submarine force, what kind of roles will the conventional submarines play? Will Chinese submarines become bigger players in the export market? These are all things that I'm looking forward to see.

Foreign Entaglements IV

Matt Duss and Jamie Fly debate an attack on Iran, with particular attention to the question of regime change:



 I am... skeptical of the idea that regime change could be executed solely through air attacks.  You should be too.

This week's WPR column considered the ongoing saga of the A-10 Warthog.  I hope we can all agree that the Navy is remarkably fortunate that the USAAF gave up the mission of aerial ASW back in World War II. Otherwise, ASW might be in the same mess as CAS.

Wicked Coolness

I realize that neither of these two links have much -- if anything -- to do with things maritime, but they show coolness that must be widely shared. 



And this:

System D at Sea

At its core, Seapower involves the defense of economies - large and small. But not all markets work the way we might assume. Journalist Robert Neuwirth describes the $10 trillion globalized black market economy as System D. The concept is worth examining from a maritime perspective, if not for its size and rate of growth alone. The first point to understand is that there is a thin gray line between the informal System D economy and criminal activities. System D maritime businesses include local fishing, oil bunkering (especially in West Africa), and unregistered vessels moving goods and people to undeveloped ports. System D also includes some forms of smuggling at sea, but not obvious maritime crime such as illicit trafficking in narcotics, weapons, or piracy. Perhaps the way one defines System D depends on the scale of the activity. For example, illegal fishing is a 23.5 billion dollar global industry. Clearly, not all of this economic activity is “lost” especially to the persons profiting from it and fishermen selling their catches in local markets.

For an interesting example of System D in action, watch the “River kids” risking their lives trying to make a living in Amazonia. The first two minutes will give you the idea, but the entire story is worth watching.


Budding entrepreneurs or pirates in the making?

Why is it important for naval professionals to understand System D? First World Sailors might view these activities as unusual, but the fact is, paying customs fees, registering motor vessels, licensed and regulated fishing, and other rule of law issues we take for granted are anomalies for most of the world's population.

Modern navies operate around System D whether or not they realize it. MCAST Sailors or Coast Guardsmen working to develop nascent navies must understand that in many cases their counterparts are underpaid by their governments and feed their families by their activities in the shadow economy. They may even use government owned (and even US tax-payer funded…) naval vessels to support their System D businesses. In addition to patrolling coasts and rivers, small craft may be used to catch fish, smuggle goods, or provide private security. Moreover, practically every US Sailor making a port call abroad has participated in System D buying goods from street vendors; some of whom sell licit locally-produced merchandise, while others hawk pirated or counterfeit knock-offs.

In his book, Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy, Neuwirth argues that instead of attempting the impossible - to close down these informal economies - that the developed world should co-opt them. Rather than judging the débrouillards making their livings by First World standards, we should realize that the informal economy on the world's waterways is vibrant, necessary, and not going away any time soon.

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, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Africa Maritime IW Potpourri

AQIM Maritime Terror Plot Disrupted: Algerian officials recently detained three terrorists from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb plotting a COLE-like attack against U.S. or European ships in the Med. Had this attack been executed, it would have represented a significant escalation in AQIM’s tactics, which thus far have been mostly focused on kidnapping Westerners for ransom and smaller local bombings.

al Shabaab Flees to Sea: Numerous reports have discussed al Shabaab's use of the sea as a means of travel both up and down Somalia's long coast and to and from Yemen. These stories demonstrate al Qaeda's continued interest in maritime attacks and the sea as a means for movement and support. They also reflect AQ's strategic shift out of the FATA into Africa as drone strikes have successfully hammered the networks's core leadership in Pakistan.

Also from East Africa:
Pirate/Human Smuggler Nexus: This is an interesting twist on the Pirate/al Shabaab nexus and demonstrates the extent that pirates have entrenched themselves into Somalia's illicit economy.

Finally, some new news on Africa's river wars: “A new 2010 Cooperative Framework Agreement, now signed by most of the key upstream abutters, would give all riparian states (including the Congo, where a stream that flows into Lake Tanganyika is the acknowledged Nile source) equal access to the resources of the river. That would give preference to large scale upstream energy and industrial, as well as long-time agricultural and irrigation uses.

Egypt and Sudan have refused to sign the new agreement, despite years of discussions and many heated meetings. Given climate change, the drying up of water sources everywhere in Africa and the world, Egypt, which is guaranteed 56 billion of the annual flow of 84 billion cubic meters of Nile water each year, hardly wants to lose even a drop of its allocation. Nor does Sudan, guaranteed 15 billion cubic meters.”

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, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Three Bits

1. My book manuscript is finished (for better or worse), so I soon hope to be using the space that Galrahn has graciously granted for something more than self-promotion. In particular, I plan to return to the idea of writing a series on seapower in fiction. However, also expect some more book reviews, mostly associated with recent work on the airpower manuscript.

 2. Until then, self-promotion #1: I jabber about airpower and Syria with Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network, in Episode III of Foreign Entanglements: If you're interested, you can also "Like" Foreign Entanglements on Facebook.

 3. Self-promotion #2: In this week's WPR column, I think about how a 1947-style restructuring of the national security bureaucracy might go down:

Most of the time, when confronted with the clear shortcomings of the system in place, we choose to muddle through. Since 1947, the United States has undertaken a series of minor revisions to the national security bureaucracy. The most significant change came with the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which affirmed the value of jointness and attempted to remedy the problems of inter-service conflict created by the National Security Act. After Sept. 11, the United States tweaked its intelligence bureaucracy by creating the position of Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, although these latter reforms represented more an effort to create cover for the intelligence failures associated with Sept. 11 than a genuine reform. On rare occasions, however, we have the opportunity to revisit national values and to redesign the institutions that constrain our policy choices. These contingent moments come when the accumulated weight of years of muddling, combined with geopolitical and technological changes, leave us with institutions fundamentally out of sync with the strategic environment the nation faces. There is reason to believe that the United States now faces such a moment. The strategic, political and technological challenges facing the Obama administration -- and potentially a successor Romney administration -- differ so dramatically from the environment that faced Harry Truman and Acheson at the time of the “creation” that they now risk pulling the national security bureaucracy out of shape.

UAV Swarms Will Change Warfare Forever

Those who aren't convinced that UAS will change warfare permanently need to watch this video, posted yesterday:


Pardon the cliche, but this technology is truly transformational. For some interesting commentary on swarms, check out John Robb.

The naval applications are there, too. How could AEGIS, RAM, ESSM, CIWS, or any other envisioned air defense system defend against a lethal "suicide" drone swarm aimed at a ship, especially when they come in from all directions and mass before attack? Jamming might work to some degree, but there are countermeasures for countermeasures. What about swarming surface or undersea weapons? The fact that this technology was developed by a university, not by DARPA, NAVSEA, or a major defense contractor, demonstrates that open source systems such as these will soon be available to non-state actors, some of them with malevolent intent.

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, the US Navy, or any other agency.