Distributed Lethality is About Far More Than Just Ships Shooting Ships

Much of the public commentary on the Surface Navy’s distributed lethality concept focuses almost exclusively on the offensive anti-surface warfare aspects. It’s true that a large portion of the concept is dedicated towards providing as many surface combatants as possible with modern over-the-horizon anti-ship capabilities in order to increase the threats confronting an adversary's surface operations and correspondingly complicate his surveillance and reconnaissance problems. Indeed, last fall’s launch of a Naval Strike Missile from USS Fort Worth and this January’s demonstration of a Tomahawk Block IV missile in an anti-ship role have been the Navy’s most widely-referenced efforts to date in demonstrating aspects of distributed lethality.

But distributed lethality in the surface fleet is not solely about shooting other ships. Let’s revisit the January ‘15 Proceedings article by VADM Rowden, RADM Gumataotao, and RADM Fanta. In the hypothetical scenario they used to illustrate distributed lethality, a U.S. Surface Action Group (SAG) was assigned offensive anti-surface and anti-submarine tasks during the first phase of an operation to secure an unoccupied island for use as an austere forward airbase. The SAG was further tasked with defeating any adversary attempt to insert ground forces on the island in advance of the arrival of a U.S. Marine force; if any adversary ground forces did manage to get ashore the SAG would no doubt be tasked with pinning them down or destroying them via naval bombardment. Lastly, the SAG was tasked with providing Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) for the U.S. Marine lodgment once it was established. While the aforementioned scenario was likely intended by the authors to illustrate a broad spectrum of tasks a SAG might be assigned in a war, they consistently asserted throughout the article that expanded ASW and land-attack strike capabilities are just as central to distributed lethality as expanded anti-surface capabilities. I would add expanded offensive anti-air capabilities to their list, as a SAG would have to see to its own outer layer defense against an adversary's scout, standoff jammer, and missile-armed strike aircraft during periods of time (or entire operations) in which fighter support from carriers or land-based air forces was limited or unavailable. I would further add that the deeper a future SAG might operate within a contested zone, the more the SAG might need to contend with an adversary's ballistic missiles (whether they are of the land-attack or anti-ship variety).

Distributed lethality, in other words, is really about expanding the surface fleet’s capacity for offensive operations in general. Not every SAG operation would involve ships trying to shoot other ships.

It is conceivable that an adversary might curtail his surface forces’ operations within hotly contested waters outside some distance from his own coast after suffering some painful initial losses. It is also conceivable that the threats posed by both sides’ air, submarine, and land-based missile forces to each other’s surface forces might bound the locations, timing, and durations of where each side operates SAGs. This in turn might drastically reduce the frequency of SAG versus SAG engagements (or prevent them entirely, at least for a time).

U.S. SAGs might find themselves principally performing offensive anti-submarine, anti-air, or land-attack tasks for much of a campaign. U.S. SAGs might just as easily find themselves performing defensive tasks in these warfare areas, not to mention ballistic missile defense, in support of offensive (or even defensive) operations by other friendly forces. Cost-efficient offensive and defensive capability improvements that promote distributed lethality would be crucial for performing each of these tasks.

None of this should be interpreted to mean that providing our surface force with longer-range anti-ship cruise missiles (as well as the requisite over-the-horizon targeting capabilities) is unnecessary. Those specific improvements are desperately needed for restoring the surface Navy’s offensive anti-ship clout—and buttressing its conventional deterrence credibility in turn. They just aren’t the only improvements necessary to make distributed lethality viable across all the missions SAGs would probably be tasked with in a major maritime war.

It’s also worth noting VADM Rowden’s observations earlier this month regarding the two aspects of distributed lethality concept development that require the most analytical attention going forward: how SAG operations will be logistically supported, and how they will be commanded and controlled. CIMSEC has published some great pieces exploring these two critical topics, and I hope others in the naval commentary community will join in as well.

I’d also argue that more analysis needs to be done on the doctrinal relationships between SAGs and land and carrier-based aircraft. It must be understood that, contrary to some commentators’ opinions, SAG distributed lethality is not indicative of the large-deck aircraft carrier’s declining relevance or obsolescence. While there are many circumstances in which a well-outfitted SAG would be able to sustain the margins of temporary localized sea control needed to operate within opposed waters at a tolerable degree of risk without external air support, there are also plenty of circumstances in which even the most powerful SAGs would need help from ‘outer layer’ fighter screens, Airborne Early Warning aircraft, or long-range scout aircraft. Distributed lethality reflects a return to how the Navy envisioned carriers and SAGs working together at the end of the Cold War. What’s needed now is more thought regarding the specifics of how those relationships ought to be doctrinally structured under contemporary conditions, and what that ought to mean to U.S. Navy operating concepts.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.