The hearing announcement can be found here, along with a link to watch live.
I will post my oral and written statements when the hearing has concluded.
Bryan McGrath
Update: Below please find both my Oral and Written Testimony
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Opening Statement of Bryan G. McGrath
Before the House Armed Services Committee
Sub-Committee on Seapower and Power
Projection
9 December 2015—As prepared
Chairman Forbes, Ranking Member Courtney, and members of the
sub-committee, thank you for the opportunity to once again testify before you
on a matter of importance to our Nation and our Navy.
Our discussion today revolves around “game changing
innovation and the future of surface warfare”. In my written testimony, I have
mentioned several examples of game changing innovations that are either
underway in the surface force or are essential to soon be underway. I look
forward to more deeply outlining several of them, including distributed
lethality, long range surface to surface weapons, multi-source maritime targeting
and tracking, real-time ISR vulnerability assessment, electromagnetic spectrum
warfare, and medium altitude long endurance UAV’s.
But before we dive headlong into the concepts and tactics, perhaps
a word or two on first things.
I realize that no one sought to be glib in the choice of the
title for today’s hearing, but I think it important to specify what the “game”
is that we seek to change. And as we watch China aspire to reprise its ancient
role of dominance in the East, while Russia exhibits a modern version of its
own historic geographic paranoia, we are confronted with the obvious and
growing reality of multi-polar, great power competition. This reality leads me
to conclude that the “game”—for want of a better word, is the conventional
deterrence of great power war. And this game is something for which the United
States Navy is somewhat less prepared than I would like. There are many reasons
for this lack of preparedness, and we can discuss them today if you’d like.
Among them is the accreted effect of decades without a blue water competitor
and the organization’s slow realization that this no longer is the case. That
this realization has occurred late in the game is bad enough, but it is
compounded by the ruinous impact of insufficient resources to address it.
A second issue worth discussing is a sense of unease I get
from our collective fascination with technology. Senior officials in the
Defense Department will tell you with a straight face that the “third offset”
strategy is not all about technology, and then spend forty minutes explaining
all the technologies that underpin it. Offset Strategies 1 and 2 occurred
during an age in which the United States essentially monopolized technology,
and within the United States, the government presided over much of it. This is
no longer the case—technology has been commercialized and globalized, and
trying to pull a rabbit out of the technology hat will prove far more difficult
this time.
There is no substitute for this nation spending what is
required in order to see to its security and prosperity. There is no substitute
for the time-honored contributions of stockpiled weapons, and powerful, forward
deployed warships backed up by combat ready surge forces. There is no
substitute for the psychology of conventional deterrence, one which directly
suggests to a potential aggressor that not only will your aggression bring
devastating results to things you value, but that your aggression will likely
not achieve its desired result. I counsel against ignoring these simpler
notions while we search for technological and conceptual silver bullets. World
leadership cannot be had on the cheap, and we must decide whether we continue
to value our position and role in the world—and then resource it accordingly.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
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December 9, 2024
Testimony before the
House Armed Services Committee
Subcommittee on
Seapower and Projection Forces
Prepared Statement of
Bryan McGrath
Managing Director,
The FerryBridge Group LLC and Assistant Director, Hudson Institute Center for
American Seapower
All testimony herein
submitted represents the personal views of Bryan McGrath
Thank you Chairman Forbes, Ranking Member Courtney and
members of the Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee for the opportunity
to testify and to submit this written statement for the record.
In April of this year, I was honored to testify before you
on my views of the role Surface Forces in presence, deterrence, and
warfighting, and today I have been asked to provide views on “Game Changing
Innovation and the Future of Surface Warfare”.
It is particularly gratifying to testify alongside Mr. Jon
Solomon, whose thinking about the employment of naval forces at the operational
level of war is of unparalleled quality and depth.
I served for 21 years in our nation’s Surface Forces, from
1987 until 2008, with tours in frigates and cruisers and command of the
Destroyer BULKELEY out of Norfolk. It
was an honor and a privilege to take to sea under our nation’s flag, and in my
present-day work, I continue to advocate for powerful and numerous Surface
Forces as part of our Navy’s approach to meeting its global commitments.
This hearing is forward looking, and asks Mr. Solomon and me
to think and speak about “game changers” and innovation as they relate to
surface warfare. The timing of this hearing-one month before the annual Surface
Navy Association Symposium—could not be better, as there is a great deal of
intellectual ferment underway within the surface warfare community, spurred
largely by its leaders’ visionary concept of “Distributed Lethality”.
I offer one initial caution, however. The Secretary of
Defense’s “Third Offset Strategy” effort is in the news quite a bit these days,
and despite senior officials’ continuing denials that it is NOT primarily about
technology, it appears that most of the narrative does indeed revolve around
technology. Given the globalization and commercialization of technology, any
sense that the U.S. military is likely to or capable of gaining advantage
through technology alone must be eyed warily. We are just as likely to be
scrambling to counter technological advantages GAINED by adversaries as we are
to force them into countering us. What will ultimately be determinative is not
technology per se, but the speed and ease with which technology and advantage
can be put in the hands of the war-fighter. Put another way, the 80% solution
tomorrow is better than the 100% solution next month. I would urge this
committee to do all it can to remove impediments to this sense of urgency.
Distributed Lethality
In January of 2015, VADM Tom Rowden—Commander of Naval Surface
Forces—debuted new thinking about how the Surface Force would be organized,
trained, equipped, and operated—both as a peacetime conventional deterrent and
as an element of the Joint war-fight. This relatively simple idea--branded
“Distributed Lethality—holds that if unit level lethality were increased across
the surface fleet, and that fleet were then operated differently, a greater
number of adversary targets could be held at risk, a larger cost would be
imposed on adversary intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR)
systems, and adversary weapons loads would be diluted as a function of
individual attack density.
It is my view that this single idea represents the most
important “game changer” or innovation pertinent to the Surface Force. From it
are derived a number of concepts and capabilities that should be prioritized in
order to realize the benefits of a more lethal and distributed fleet. First
though, some background is provided.
The concept of Distributed Lethality was an outgrowth of the
March 2014 LCS wargame conducted as a result of then Secretary of Defense
Hagel’s direction to truncate the LCS program and evaluate options for a
follow-on frigate program. The wargame at the Naval War College revealed that
the addition of even a modest, medium range surface to surface weapon system to
existing variants of the LCS caused behavioral changes in both the adversary
team and the “Blue” or U.S. team. On the adversary side of the equation, ships
that could earlier be ignored—that is, remain only loosely targeted (because
they were unthreatening)—had to remain tracked and targeted on a more
continuous basis. These requirements resulted in a larger drain on adversary
ISR forces, which in turn precluded them from as effectively locating and
targeting high value units. Additionally, since these modestly enhanced LCS
could now engage adversary fleet assets, the costs associated with initiating
combat were raised. This of course, is the essence of conventional deterrence.
On the “Blue” side of the conflict, operational commanders
had at their disposal in pre-conflict phases, a platform that did not have to
be retired at the first sign of violence. Blue commanders actively employed
these “up-gunned” assets in important roles including chokepoint patrols and
high value unity area defense. The psychology of this employment is important
to grasp. The ships were not any more capable of sustaining damage; they were only more capable of delivering it.
This more lethal stance created in the minds of Blue commanders the perception
of an altered risk environment. In other words, they believed that in
pre-hostilities phases, these more powerful ships would act as a greater
inducement to the adversary to postpone aggression.
As a committed navalist and former surface warrior, I am
grateful for the attention that the Chairman, the Ranking Member, and this
entire Subcommittee have drawn to the problem of our Surface Force being
“outsticked” by adversary surface to surface weapons. The unfortunate fact that
this disadvantage has grown as the result of conscious decisions made in
harvesting the “peace dividend” of the 1990’s makes it no easier to bear.
Simply put, the U.S. Navy has not fielded a surface warship capable of
organically neutralizing another surface warship over the horizon since the
commissioning of the USS PORTER (DDG 78) in 1999. This was the last ARLEIGH
BURKE class destroyer to be fitted with the Harpoon Anti-Ship Missile System,
which was useful at ranges of up to about 70 miles. Since that time, not only have no other ships
been built that employ an over the horizon surface to surface missile, but the
U.S. Navy variant of the Harpoon has declined in effectiveness versus the
threat.
The Surface Force leadership evidently also looked at this
growing deficit and realized that if a modern ASuW weapon employed by a
modestly capable ship (LCS) could cause notable, desired behavioral change in
Blue and Red commanders, then even more capable weapons employed by even more
capable ships could further this phenomenon. Furthermore, if taking relatively
non-lethal ships and increasing their lethality worked for small combatants,
would not similar initiatives create similar effect when affixed to other ships
that are not traditionally thought of as “surface combatants”—such as
amphibious ships, or even ships of the logistics force? This thinking animates the core of
Distributed Lethality.
While increasing the lethality of individual ships is
necessary, it is insufficient to realize the full value of that investment. In
order to do so, the Surface Force must be operated differently, in a more
distributed manner. By doing so (therein limiting concentration of naval
forces) the fleet thins the surveillance network and brings its offensive
capabilities to bear across a larger geography threatening a larger number of
adversary targets. This does not mean that the Surface Force can or should
diminish its role in providing support to high value units. Quite the contrary.
It must continue to do so. However, by spreading its own ability to threaten
adversary capabilities, it reduces the adversary’s capability to concentrate
its efforts largely or solely on high value units, thereby increasing their survivability
and combat effectiveness.
Distributed Lethality
and Conventional Deterrence
The most important quality that Distributed Lethality brings
to the Surface Force is the degree to which it presents a potential adversary
with a more potent conventional deterrent; this is why I believe Distributed
Lethality to be a “game changer”.
Clearly, an all-out, high end war with a peer or near peer competitor
would result in devastating combat losses on both sides. Anything operating on,
under, above, or next to the ocean and within adversary weapon and sensor range
will be at risk once open conflict begins. Critics often point to the risk to
the Surface Force in such warfare as justification for reducing its prominence
in Navy force structure, preferring to redistribute harvested resources into
other elements of the fleet design, primarily undersea warfare which is deemed
to be less at risk in “Phase 3 Operations”.
There is little doubt that our nation’s dominance in
undersea warfare is one of the crown jewels in both our ability to gather
intelligence and in our ability to wage unrestricted warfare—when that time
comes. Submarines are however, relatively ineffective instruments of
conventional deterrence when compared to surface ships. The quality of being able
to be seen by a potential aggressor cannot be underestimated in its
contribution to deterrence by denial or punishment. This is not to say that
un-located U.S. submarines are without deterrent value; only that their
deterrent value is less relative to that of a visible and continuous surface
presence.
However, (and as indicated earlier) the quality of that
surface based deterrent has declined in the past fifteen years as the Surface
Force largely abandoned the ASuW mission area in the face of a declining threat
to blue-water operations. Without a peer threat on the open ocean, the Navy
could concentrate its ASuW capability in the carrier air wing and to a lesser
extent, the submarine force. This was a prudent path to take in the post-Cold
War era, and it was likely a source of savings that went into other
capabilities. But the result is that now—in an era of increasing great power
competition—our Surface Force is at a decided disadvantage, which in turn
diminishes its value as a deterrent. Put another way, exactly at the time when
we need once again the capacity to deter great powers conventionally, our
primary naval conventional deterrent—the surface ship—has been diminished.
If the Navy moves forward with a robust instantiation of
Distributed Lethality, the deterrent quality of its forward presence will
increase. By increasing that conventional deterrent posture, the ruinous war it
is meant to deter becomes less likely to happen. Not only is this a “game
changer”, but it is a prudent, necessary, and economical one. The remainder of this written testimony
consists of a series of desired capabilities that would enable this innovative
new concept.
Long Range Over the
Horizon Surface to Surface Weapons
No ship in our inventory can disable another ship with its
organic weapons at ranges greater than approximately 70 miles (the range of the
Harpoon missile), and no ship has been added to the inventory since 1999 that
can fire the Harpoon missile. In order to raise the level of conventional
deterrence represented in our forward deployed surface vessels, the Navy must
move quickly to close this gap. The pursuit of an elegant solution for the
future should not preclude the immediate fielding of useful weapons available
on the world market.
First, no new LCS should be built without a surface to
surface missile system that is at least as capable as that which is desired for
the FF class. When that missile is decided upon, it should be backfit into
every LCS at its first major maintenance availability.
Second, the Navy should capitalize on ongoing testing of the
Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) in the Anti Surface Mode and move to
production of dual use TLAM’s, effectively taking over 3000 land attack
missiles (employed by nearly 90 surface ships from over 8000 vertical launch
cells) and turning them into ship killers out to approximately 1000 miles. This
single act will bring the most return on investment the fastest, and will
guarantee that both the Flight III DDG and the DDG 1000 are also capable of
firing this extended range surface to surface missile. Some analysts believe
that against the most capable air defense units in potential adversary fleets,
the subsonic TLAM will lack necessary capability. It must be remembered
however, that not all adversary platforms are that capable, and the most
capable units can be targeted and neutralized by other portions of the fleet
architecture (carrier air wing, submarines).
In the meantime, every single cruiser and destroyer in the fleet would
be capable of holding targets at risk on land and at sea out to 1000 miles.
Congress should direct the Navy to fast track this missile modification with
desired deployment in the early 2020’s.
Finally, the Navy must move quickly to specify the
requirements for a 21st century ASuW weapon or weapons—but without
allowing this process to delay the TLAM modification discussed in the previous
paragraph. Commonality between air and
surface missiles should be a goal but not a requirement that delays fielding.
This missile must be capable against the world’s most advanced defense systems,
and should be targetable against fixed and moving targets, at sea and ashore.
The development effort for such a missile would extent into the latter part of
the 2020’s, which makes the TLAM modification that much more important.
However, thinking that the TLAM modification solves the ASuW problem in the
long term is incorrect. A new missile with advanced characteristics is
required.
Multi-Source Maritime
Targeting and Tracking
The Surface Force employed a comparatively long range
surface to surface missile in its past. Known at the Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile
(TASM), it was pulled from the inventory in the 1990’s. Strictly speaking, the
Navy did not at the time possess the ability to consistently and confidently
target this missile out the full extent of its range. It simply did not have
the persistent sensors nor the networking required to employ the weapon. Those
days are over, but the extended range fire control loop must still be closed.
To explain, if the Navy does indeed field the TLAM in the
ASuW role (or any long range surface to surface weapon for that matter) the
requisite tracking and targeting infrastructure to employ the weapon at its
maximum range largely exists. Overhead
assets, persistent air breathing UAV’s and manned aircraft, and a variety of
passive systems that exploit both acoustic and electromagnetic emissions all
generate sufficient active and passive targeting data to provide for effective
weapon employment. The problem to be solved, and the potential game changer, is
that all of this information/data/measurements must be analyzed to provide
target quality inputs to the weapon during the various stages of its employment
(pre-launch, in-flight, end-game).
Although it is trite to attribute all manner of miracles to “big data”,
it does not seem to stretch the art of the possible to suggest that the
considerable passive and active targeting data can be correlated, reported, and
shared in tactically relevant timelines. This data fusion effort would combine
information gathered from National Technical Means (NTM), theater assets,
strike group assets and individual units and via networks of sufficient latency
deliver target quality data to the missile.
This closed loop data fusion and targeting capability does not currently
exist.
Real-Time ISR
Vulnerability Assessment
Much of the capability of potential adversary ISR complexes
is known. Generally speaking, we know where these capabilities are, at what
frequencies they operate, what their likely effective ranges and sensitivities
are, and how weather, time of day, or sunspots impact them. One of the benefits
of forward presence is that our platforms operate day in and day out in an
electromagnetic environment much like the one they may be called to fight in
(although there will be “war-time reserve modes” in which some equipment
operates). The Navy needs the capability (again, tapping into the wonders of
big data) to “map” and display the density and effectiveness of an adversary
ISR complex in real time, taking into account the factors previously stated and
rolling into them the impact of attrition. The purpose of this capability would
be to enable risk mitigated operations within an opponent’s Anti-Access/Area
Denial (A2AD) envelope.
This capability is required in no small measure because
there are always more and less risky places and times to operate within an
adversary A2AD environment. The suggestion that the effectiveness of his
surveillance and targeting complex is equal throughout its volume simply fails
to understand the considerable variability that exists within it. What is
required is to know and understand
that vulnerability, and then use it to our tactical and operational advantage.
This requires a real-time tool that assesses the ISR environment and displays
areas of relatively greater and lesser vulnerability. These areas are then
likely areas for power projection operations and or deception operations.
Electromagnetic
Spectrum Warfare
As indicated by the suggestion that a real time ISR
vulnerability assessment tool is required, our ability to operate and exploit
the electromagnetic spectrum is increasingly important. We are fortunate indeed
that Bryan Clark and Mark Gunzinger of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments (CSBA) only last week (2 December 2024) released a superbly
informative report on the subject “Winning the Airwaves: Regaining America’s
Dominance in the Electromagnetic Spectrum” (CSBA 2015). It effectively describes Electromagnetic
Spectrum Warfare, its evolution and its challenges to U.S. forces. It further
goes on to describe a number of useful operating concepts that would enable
U.S. power projection operations in this environment and suggests new
technologies and capabilities required to achieve them. It concludes with a discussion of some of the
barriers to implementing such concepts and capabilities.
The Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) is
bringing considerably upgraded electronic warfare capability across the fleet.
Much of what is available in SEWIP Block II and SEWIP Block III is classified,
but the unclassified information available indicates that Block II brings
considerably enhanced passive sensitivity to enable ships to exploit the
emissions of other ships, aircraft, or missiles. These emissions can now be
sensed from greater distances than ever before available, and their
directionality can be more finely honed to enable target quality passive
cross-fixing. Block III incorporates all of the capabilities resident in Block
II, but then adds considerable “Electronic Attack” (or jamming)
capability.
It is advisable to have as much of the full Block III
capability as possible integrated into every surface combatant irrespective of
size. The demands of electromagnetic spectrum warfare suggest that the creation
of electromagnetic haves and have nots in the environment will limit the
utility of less than capable ships and make them more vulnerable. Additionally,
the Navy must work to fully network shipboard combat systems in a manner in
which both hard kill and soft kill options can most effectively be employed
against demanding threats while conserving consumable weapons such as missiles
and decoys. Networking a surface action group together to enable smart
employment of hard kill and soft kill options, driven by tactical decision algorithms
embedded in the network, create a “hardened”, task oriented SAG that is better
able to exploit its lethality in an A2AD environment.
Surface Ship Medium
Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV’s
Distributed Surface Force operations must be underpinned by
sufficient overhead ISR and communications relay/networking capability,
especially in a satellite denied environment.
Current embarked helicopters lack the persistence necessary to perform
these tasks (though they are vitally necessary for others), and the
current/planned generation of combatant employed UAV’s lack both persistence
and payload carrying capability.
Distributed Surface Operations require an organic, Medium
Altitude Long Endurance UAV capability such as is currently being studied by
DARPA’s Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node (TERN) Program. The following description of TERN comes from
DARPA’s web page (http://www.darpa.mil/program/tactically-exploited-reconnaissance-node):
“In May 2014 DARPA and
the Office of Naval Research (ONR) signed a memorandum of agreement making the
program a joint effort—calling it Tern. Tern builds on DARPA’s TERN program and
seeks to combine the strengths of both land- and sea-based approaches to supporting
airborne assets. Tern envisions using smaller ships as mobile launch and
recovery sites for medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft
(UAVs). Named after the family of seabirds known for flight endurance - many
species migrate thousands of miles each year - Tern aims to make it much
easier, quicker and less expensive for DoD to deploy persistent ISR and strike
capabilities almost anywhere in the world.
Ideally, Tern would
enable on-demand, ship-based unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations without
extensive, time-consuming and irreversible ship modifications. It would provide
small ships with a “mission truck” that could transport ISR and strike payloads
to very long distances from the host vessel. The solution would support field-interchangeable
mission packages for both overland and maritime missions. It would operate from
multiple ship types and in elevated sea states.
DARPA and ONR envision
Tern as improving aviation capabilities from smaller ships substantially beyond
the current state-of-the-art. The program has three planned phases. The first
two phases focus on preliminary design and risk reduction for the Tern system.
In Phase 3, a performer would be selected to build a full-scale demonstrator
Tern system for ground-based testing, culminating in an at-sea demonstration of
launch and recovery.”
Distributed surface action groups (SAG) require persistent
ISR support, and if conflict results in the reduction of satellite
communications and networking, ships operating distant from the carrier strike
group will need the ability to generate these capabilities organically.
Of additional interest is the possibility that a surface
combatant based MALE UAV could assume some or all of the UCLASS ISR requirement
currently being debated for employment from the aircraft carrier, so that the
carrier air wing would then be left to concentrate on the contested strike
requirement that exists in UCLASS.
Conclusion
The presence, persistence, and flexibility of the Surface
Force makes it a powerful component of this nation’s forward deployed
conventional deterrence posture. In order to continue to carry out this role,
new ways of thinking must be applied to its organization, training, equipping,
and employment. Distributed Lethality provides for an initial concept for
moving the Surface Force in the direction of providing such an enhanced
deterrent posture. The reality of growing great power contention demands this
kind of thinking, and whatever support this Sub-Committee can lend to ensuring
that sufficient resources are applied to support the lethality and hardening of
the Surface Force would be of great importance to meeting the challenges posed.
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