Some Observations about Network-Enabled Over-the-Horizon Attacks

Norman Friedman’s 2009 book Network Centric Warfare is one of the principal influences upon my thinking about 21^st Century maritime combat. It is a seminal recounting of the evolution of modern maritime warfare systems, the ‘systems of systems’ they fit in to, and the doctrines developed for employing them. It also serves as a core reference for researchers seeking to discover the fine (declassified) technical and operational details of the Cold War competition between U.S. and Soviet maritime ‘battle networks.’

One of Friedman’s most interesting observations in the book pertains to network-enabled attacks, especially from ‘over-the-horizon.’ A ship targeted using remote surveillance sensors, for example, might not realize it had been targeted until it detected inbound weapons. Friedman notes that the multi-source Soviet Ocean Surveillance System (SOSS) couldn’t enable true surprise attacks because Soviet anti-ship missile doctrine was predicated on the use of ‘pathfinder’ and ‘tattletale’ scouts for visual confirmation and classification of targets. Detection of these scouts by U.S. Navy or NATO battleforces (or theater/national surveillance systems) would provide the defenders warning that Soviet anti-ship missile platforms were nearby or that a raid was inbound. (Pg. 217-239)

In contrast, the U.S. Navy of the late 1970s and early 1980s sought to use its Ocean Surveillance Information System (OSIS) network of signals intelligence sensors and fusion centers to provide targeting cues to Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile (TASM)-armed submarines via an effort dubbed Outlaw Shark. Since its advent a decade earlier, OSIS had been used to detect, classify, and develop “track histories” for Soviet ships in support of Navy operational-level planning. The experimental Outlaw Shark targeting capability stemmed from using OSIS’s track histories to dead-reckon Soviet ships’ geolocations at future times, then transmitting those cues to patrolling submarines. Unlike SOSS, though, OSIS did not use active surveillance or reconnaissance sensors to supplement its passive ones. As a result, Outlaw Shark targeting would have been unavailable if Soviet ships maintained disciplined Emissions Control (EMCON). (Pg. 206-209)

In the event of exploitable Soviet EMCON indiscipline, however, Friedman observes that Outlaw Shark targeting would in theory have denied a Soviet surface force any warning of an impending U.S. anti-ship attack. This is because the OSIS-TASM tandem’s lack of a scout meant that there would have been no discernable U.S. Navy ‘behavior’ to tip Soviet ships off that they had been targeted. Friedman concludes with the thought that even if a TASM attack had landed no blows, it nevertheless might have disrupted a Soviet surface force’s plans or driven it to take rash actions that could have been exploited offensively or defensively by other U.S. or NATO forces. (Pg. 210)

The obvious limitations of relying almost entirely upon non-real-time signals intelligence for over-the-horizon targeting contributed greatly to the Navy shelving its TASM ambitions during the early 1980s. The Navy’s own mid-to-late Cold War countertargeting doctrine and tactics made great use of EMCON and deceptive emissions against SOSS, so there was no fundamental reason why the Soviets could not have returned the favor against OSIS. Moreover, TASM employment depended upon a Soviet ship maintaining roughly the same course and speed it was on at time of an OSIS-generated targeting cue. If the targeted Soviet ship maneuvered such that it would not be within the TASM’s preset ‘search basket’ at the anticipated time, then the TASM would miss. Nor could Navy shooters have been sure that the TASM would have locked on to a valid and desirable Soviet ship vice a lesser Soviet ship, a Soviet decoy ship, or even a non-combatant third-party’s ship.

Friedman’s point remains, though: a network-enabled attack that results in a physical miss could nevertheless theoretically produce significant tactically-exploitable psychological effects. This concept has long been used to forestall attacks by newly-detected nearby hostile submarines, even when the submarine’s precise position is not known. An anti-submarine weapon launched towards the submarine’s vicinity at minimum complicates the latter’s tactical situation and potentially forces it into a reactive and defensive posture. This can buy time for more effective anti-submarine measures including better-aimed attacks.

It therefore might be reasonable to use some longer-ranged weapons to “shock” an opponent’s forces along the lines Friedman outlines, even if the weapons’ hit probabilities are not high, if it is deemed likely that the targeted forces will react in ways that friendly forces armed with more plentiful and producible weapons could exploit. For example, an opponent’s force might light off its air defense radars upon detecting the attacker’s weapons’ own homing radars. Or perhaps the opponent’s units might distinguish themselves from non-combatant vehicles/aircraft/ships in the battlespace by virtue of their maneuvers once they detect inbound weapons. Either reaction might provide the attacker with definitive localization and classification of the opponent’s platforms, which in turn could be used to provide more accurate targeting support for follow-on attacks. Depending on the circumstances, expenditure of a few advanced weapons to ‘flush’ an opponent’s forces in these ways might be well worth it even if none hit.

But would doing so really be the best use of such weapons in most cases? We must bear in mind the advanced ordnance inventory management dilemma: higher-capability (and especially longer-range) guided weapons expended during a conflict likely will not be replaced in the attacker’s arsenal in a timely manner unless they are readily and affordably wartime-producible. Nor will weapons launched from surface ships’ or submarines’ launchers be quickly reloadable, as these platforms will have to retire from the contested zone and expend several days of transit time cycling through a rearward base for rearmament. The force-level operational tempo effects of this cycle time will not be insignificant. A compelling argument can be made that advanced weapons should be husbanded for attacks in which higher-confidence targeting is available…unless of course the responsible commander assesses that the situation at hand justifies firing based on lower-confidence targeting.

There is another option, however. Instead of expending irreplaceable advanced weapons, a network-enabled attacker might instead use decoy weapons that simulate actual weapons’ trajectories, behaviors, and emissions in order to psychologically jar an opponent’s forces or otherwise entice them to react in exploitable ways. This would be especially useful when the attacker‘s confidence in his targeting picture is fairly low. SCATHE MEAN comes to mind in this respect. This is probably more practical for aircraft and their deep munitions inventories in aircraft carriers or at land bases. Still, it might be worth exploring how a small number of decoy weapons sprinkled within a Surface Action Group or amongst some submarines might trade operationally and tactically against using those launcher spots for actual weapons.

As for the defender, there are four principal ways to immunize against (but not decisively counter) the use of actual or decoy weapons for network-enabled ‘shock or disrupt’ attacks:

• Distribute multi-phenomenology sensors within a defense’s outer layers in order to detect and discriminate decoy platforms or weapons at the earliest opportunity. The sensors must be able to communicate with their operators using means that are highly resistant to detection and exploitation by the attacker.

• Institute routine, realistic, and robust training regimes that condition crews psychologically and tactically for sudden shocks such as inbound weapons “out of nowhere” or deception. This might also lead to development of tactics or operating concepts in which some or all of the defender’s units gain the ability to maintain restrictive emissions, maneuvering, and firing discipline even when an adversary’s inbound weapons are detected unless certain criteria are met.

• Field deep (and properly positioned) defensive ordnance inventories. Note that this ordnance does not just include guns and missiles, but also electronic warfare systems and techniques.

• Embrace tactical flexibility and seize the tactical initiative, or in other words take actions that make it far harder for an adversary to attack first. A force’s possession of preplanned branching actions that cover scenarios in which it is prematurely localized or detected by an adversary can help greatly in this regard.

Friedman’s observations regarding the psychological angles of network-enabled targeting are subtle as they require thinking about how the technological aspects of a tactical scenario might interplay with its human aspects. We tend to fixate on the former and overlook the latter. That’s an intellectual habit we’re going to need to break if we’re going to restore the capacity and conditioning we possessed just a quarter century ago for fighting a great power adversary’s networked forces.

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.

“Raid Breaker” and the Restoration of U.S. Navy Electronic Warfare Prowess

It’s pretty widely known that radars, voice and data communications, GPS signals, and the like can be jammed. It’s another thing entirely to experience intense (or subtle) jamming firsthand; to be forced to operate ‘degraded’ without seamless external connectivity or a clear and trustworthy situational picture.  

It’s also pretty widely understood that one’s radio and radar transmissions can be detected at considerable distances by an opponent. It’s another thing entirely to review a 'hygiene' report detailing all the exploitable radiofrequency emissions friendly signals intelligence assets detected seeping out of one’s unit or battleforce, with each essentially representing a self-inflicted crosshair.

This is why regular, rigorous, and realistic combat training under conditions of electromagnetic opposition is so critical to developing force readiness for modern war. How else are crews going to learn how to fight-through intense electronic attacks? How else are they going to learn how to safely perform complex and dangerous operations with active sensors turned off and all but the most directional of communications paths silent? How else are they going to learn how to play their individual roles in neutralizing an adversary’s surveillance-reconnaissance-strike apparatus?

As I’ve pointed out many times previously, the U.S. Navy possessed these exact competencies as recently as 25 years ago. We not only let the skills atrophy, but we also forgot as an institution how much we had achieved. Today, if you want to gain a glimpse at how good we once were at operating in severely contested electromagnetic environments, just about the only unclassified sources are the works of Norman Friedman, Mark Clemente, and Robert Angevine.

This amnesia is starting to recede, however. Despite the fact that one of ADM Greenert’s focal points as CNO has been advocacy for restoring the fleet’s electronic warfare prowess, until recently there just haven’t been many voices in the field grade officer ranks and below publicly echoing his calls. That’s what makes LCDR Jack Curtis’s excellent piece at The Bridge a few weeks ago so noteworthy. Curtis first details the U.S. Navy’s Cold War-era electronic warfare competence, then makes a compelling case that today’s fleet is neither conditioned nor organized to ‘fight in the dark.’ He also points out many of the inherent vulnerabilities of the myriad communications pathways we’ve come to take for granted over the past two decades. While I think it’s important to note that some basic approaches to force-level networking at sea are far less vulnerable to exploitation than others, I strongly agree with Curtis that naval forces employing even highly-directional line-of-sight or low probability of intercept communications pathways must be prepared for the possibility of degraded, compromised, or severed connectivity. He’s absolutely correct that this preparation demands a force command and control doctrine rooted in the philosophy of command by negation, plus a training regime that cultivates the requisite skillsets. I’d add that one of the most important of those skills is the ability to operate in spite of jamming and deception against electromagnetic sensors.

The calls to restore the fleet’s electronic warfare capacity are also starting to come from executive DOD leadership. Although electronic warfare didn’t receive marquee attention in the 'Third Offset’ initiative's kickoff statement last fall, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work made a choice reference to the Navy’s Cold War-era electronic warfare feats in his November 2014 CFR speech:

“We also need to get back in the game of demonstrating. This drives me crazy. In the Cold War, we used to demonstrate—and demonstrations were very powerful, both to assure our allies and to deter adversaries. Nifty nugget exercises. We would take carrier battle groups, go [EMCON], and we'd shut down, and we'd try to get across the Atlantic Ocean without the Soviets seeing it. And we got pretty good at it.

We did it all the time. And we would light up when we got to a fjord in Norway and said, "Here we are." And these demonstrations were a very, very important part of our global posture. And we want to get back to doing that.”

Fast forward to the DEPSECDEF’s speech at the McAleese/Credit Suisse Defense Programs Conference last month:

“So the first aspect of the Third Offset Strategy is to win a guided munitions salvo competition.  If you cannot do that, and if you cannot convince your adversary that you will dominate in that competition, then they may feel emboldened to pull the trigger, and they may feel that they can forestall us in projecting power into a theater.  A larger salvo of guided munitions generally will defeat a smaller salvo of guided munitions.  So, this competition we have to think through.

Winning that competition will keep our adversaries off-balance.  The punch of the third offset strategy is:  How are we going to change what we are going to do once we get into a theater and solve that first competition?  That is unknown.  We are still trying to figure that out.

But if anybody here -- remember the assault-breaker ACTD in the 1975s which led us to the second offset strategy?  We need a “Raid Breaker.”  We need a demonstration called Raid Breaker which can demonstrate that if someone throws a salvo of 100 guided munitions, we'll be able to ride it out.  It doesn't have to be a kinetic solution.  Hell, I don't really want a kinetic solution.  That gets into an imposing cost strategy on us.  It's got to be something else.  So if anybody in this room has an idea for Raid Breaker, believe me, we'd like to hear it.

Another big area of concern is the electromagnetic spectrum.  Electronic Warfare (EW) is often regarded as a combat-enabler.  Our adversaries don't think so.  They believe it is an important part of their offensive and defensive arsenal.  And it's going to be in the forefront of any initial guided munitions salvo exchange.  For relatively small investments, you get an extremely high potential payoff.  And our competitors are trying to win in the EW competition.

Now, we still have a lead, I think.  That lead is diminishing rapidly.  I worry about it.  Today, I'm signing a memo that establishes an Electronic Warfare Programs Council which starts to take a look at all of our investments across the Department and makes strategic recommendations to the Secretary and I on how we change that portfolio.  This was a recommendation of the Defense Science Board and I thought it was a good one.”

He leaves no question in my mind that electronic warfare is at the heart of any ‘raid breaker’ concept. I couldn’t agree more.

To be clear, electronic warfare on its own would not be sufficient to defeat an adversary’s ability to hurl long-range guided munitions at U.S. forces—especially at sea. Kinetic weapons would still play important roles in offensive sweeps and outer-layer defenses against an adversary’s warships and aircraft. Kinetic weapons would also be needed in inner zone defensive backstops. Kinetic weapons might additionally be useful in suppressing an adversary’s striking forces’ operational tempos (such as sortie/salvo sizes and rates) via U.S. strikes against their bases and supporting logistical infrastructure. But all of these kinetic aspects of a ‘raid breaker’ concept would still lean heavily on the use of electronic warfare against the adversary’s surveillance/reconnaissance apparatus. Just about any operation deep within a contested zone, let alone a strike deep within an adversary's territory, would depend heavily on comprehensive electronic warfare support. Which makes it all the more noteworthy that the DEPSECDEF said what he did.

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.

Honeypots: An Overlooked Cyberweapon

Most discussions of the use of ‘cyber’ as ‘fires’ supporting conventional forces focus on penetrating an enemy’s systems or networks to ‘see’ or manipulate what he ‘sees,’ disrupt or corrupt his communications, disable or damage select systems, and so on. However, there is no assurance that the specific system or network vulnerabilities attacks are designed to exploit will still be available when needed during combat. Vulnerabilities are discovered and patched all the time (though practically speaking, it is impossible to identify every single vulnerability that actually exists in a complex system). An adversary can also change his network topology or close off access points needed by the attacker at inopportune times. Lastly, an exploit is a precious thing: a single use may alert the adversary to a particular vulnerability and may even help the adversary discover new techniques or components that he can reuse in his own arsenal of exploits. Penetrative cyberattacks cannot be assured under all conditions, and may not be worth burning a relevant exploit under some conditions. This hardly means that they are impossible or not worth the costs. It does mean that we must be sober about their combat potential.

It is a given that adversaries will attempt their own wartime penetrative cyberattacks on our military systems and networks. We generally view this as a defensive problem. We often forget that their attacks can also provide us with (passive) offensive opportunities.

Counterintelligence operations and military deception efforts have long used the tactic of feeding disinformation to an adversary’s intelligence collection apparatus. This generally involves knowing at least some of an adversary’s preferred intelligence collection points as well as what kind of ‘evidence’ is best suited to sell the adversary the desired deceptive ‘story.’ Or if it isn’t clear how to convincingly sell a story, the deceiver can conceal accessible ‘real’ information (or make it appear fake) by surrounding it with ‘haystacks’ of false information.

The tactic made a seamless transition into the network age via the honeypot concept. One of the earliest honeypot examples I know of dates back to 1986 when astronomer Cliff Stoll populated one of the mainframes he administered at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory with entire directories of fake files made to appear related to the Strategic Defense Initiative to help entrap a KGB-sponsored hacker. Stoll had monitored the hacker for quite some time, so he knew exactly what kinds of disinformation would serve as ideal bait. As computing and networking technology has advanced, so have the honeypots (and honeynets).

Honeypots could be outstanding assets for helping to thwart an adversary’s military surveillance and reconnaissance efforts. I outlined how this might be done in my 2013 maritime deception and concealment article; a peer reviewer suggested that I call the technique “Computer Network Charade” (CNC) to line up with the Defense Department computer network operations terminology of the time:

CNC takes advantage of the fact that timely fusion of intelligence into a situational picture is exceptionally difficult, even when aided by data mining and other analytical technologies, since a human generally has to assess each piece of “interesting” information. Once counterintelligence reveals an adversary’s intelligence exploitation activities within friendly forces’ networks, CNC can feed manipulative information tied to a deception story or worthless information meant to saturate. This can be done using the existing exploited network elements, or alternatively by introducing “honeypots.” Massive amounts of such faked material as documents, message traffic, e-mails, chat, or database interactions can be auto-generated and populated with unit identities, locations, times, and even human-looking errors. The material can be either randomized to augment concealment or pattern-formed to reinforce a deception story, as appropriate. A unit can similarly manipulate its network behavior to defeat traffic analysis, or augment the effectiveness of a decoy group by simulating other units or echelons. All this leaves the adversary the task of discriminating false content from any real items he might have collected… this hypothetical CNC tactic is envisioned for the Nonsecure Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet) and perhaps also the Secure Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet). It is not envisioned for operational or tactical data-link or distributed fire-control networks.

Regardless of CNC method, it can be determined whether or not planted disinformation has been captured by the adversary. The commonalities of CNC with many communication-deception tactics are not coincidental. In fact, civilian mass media, social networks, and e-mail pathways can also be used as disinformation channels in support of forward forces.

CNC’s relative immaturity means that its viability must be proved in war games, battle experiments, and developmental tests before it can be incorporated in doctrine and operational plans. CNC may well prove more useful for concealment (saturating adversary collection systems and overwhelming decision makers with sheer volume and ambiguity) than for outright deception. A potentially useful way to estimate its combat efficacy would be to study historical cases of equivalent communications deception. For example, in spring 1942, U.S. naval intelligence used a false, unencrypted radio message about Midway Island’s water-purification system to elicit enemy communications activity that helped verify that Midway was indeed the Imperial Japanese Navy’s next target. There is little conceptual difference between this episode and how CNC might be used in the future. (Pg. 94, 111-112)

CNC (or whatever else you might prefer to call it) therefore represents a form of anti-intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance.

Another potential use of honeypots is to attack the adversary’s warfare systems or military support infrastructure indirectly and over time. As CFR’s Adam Segal pointed out earlier this month, during the early 1980s French intelligence granted the CIA use of a KGB defector-in-place to funnel disinformation into the Soviet program to collect information on sensitive Western technologies. This ‘Farewell dossier’ not only led to the rolling up of the KGB’s technology transfer operations against European targets, but also ended up inducing the Soviets to use flawed designs and defective components in a wide range of military and industrial systems. It has long been rumored that a section of the Trans-Siberia oil pipeline suffered a massive explosion in 1982 due to ‘tailored’ industrial control software exposed to KGB collection assets.

Segal is absolutely correct about how Farewell could apply in the network age. If a given opponent is striving to advance its national technology base by stealing U.S. data, then it makes great sense to use honeypots and honeynets to pump false information to the opponent. The opponent’s use of such reverse-engineered technologies in his own systems could create vulnerabilities the U.S. could exploit. Similarly, if an opponent’s collections against U.S. military technologies are intended to find exploitable vulnerabilities for use in the event of a crisis or war, then the U.S. could disclose false vulnerabilities in order to induce the opponent to waste precious resources developing and stockpiling worthless exploits. Even if planted data was discovered by the opponent to be deliberately misleading, his realization of the scale of the use of honeypots might cause him to doubt the legitimacy of other 'true' data collected by his hacking and exfiltration operations. The return on investment could be incalculable.

Honeypots and honeynets may not be as direct as penetrative cyberattacks, and their effects would most definitely not be immediately observable. All the same, they would likely be more available in war as they would have the advantage of the adversary ‘running straight into the weapon.’ The nascent Long Range Research and Development Planning Program (LRRDPP) under the ‘Third Offset Strategy’ initiative ought to encourage development of technologies that could support creation of honeypots and honeynets that exhibit highly realistic behaviors and can automatically generate massive amounts of highly realistic but misleading, useless, or fault-laden information while simultaneously distracting attention from a network's actual elements of value.

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.

A Taxonomy of Forward Naval Presence

Robert Rubel has an excellent article in this month’s Proceedings on the challenges of balancing the overseas naval presence necessary for executing America’s post-Second World War forward defense strategy with the need to restore and preserve the readiness of our war-winning surge forces. As Deputy Secretary of Defense Work observed last November, the mismatch between the strategic demand signal for peacetime presence and our supply of combat-ready deployable forces has passed the threshold of unsustainability. New strategic solutions are necessary.

There will be no ‘silver bullets,’ however. Each potential option will come with tradeoffs regarding deterrence utility, war-waging capability, peacetime operating tempo and readiness, political supportability (both here and in allied/partner nations hosting our forces), and so on.

It is therefore absolutely necessary to have precise terminology that characterizes how a given degree of forward naval presence in a given region inherently affects our approaches to deterrence and defense in that region. Robert has supplied exactly that with his article.

Robert’s taxonomy, from maximum to minimum:

·         War-winning power forward, or rather the standing presence necessary to defeat a given adversary quickly and decisively.

·         Assured defense, or rather a standing presence sufficient to successfully defend an embattled ally but not necessarily defeat the adversary.

·         Delay/Disruption, or rather the standing presence necessary to prevent a fait accompli or otherwise ‘hold the line’ in defense of an ally until war-winning surge forces arrive in theater.

·         Trip Wire, or rather a standing presence designed specifically to incur a (presumably assured) American intervention using surge forces but not to credibly achieve defensive tasks on its own.

·         Virtual Presence, or in other words the use of U.S. political or treaty commitments to surge forces in the event of a conflict in lieu of any standing forward-positioned forces to perform deterrence or defense tasks.

·         Random Deployment, or in other words the use of unpredictable deployment locations and durations to elevate potential adversaries’ uncertainties regarding opportunities for aggression.

Let’s be clear: a ‘war-winning power forward’ presence is only achievable against the weakest of opponents. Even then, the U.S. has never possessed sufficient naval forces to sustain this degree of presence for long periods of time without severe disruptions in presence or rotational deployment durations in other regions.

Assured defense and delay/disruption are consistent with our post-Second World War forward strategy. As the Navy’s force structure declines, however, maintaining sufficient presence for assured defense against a reasonably strong opponent will likely come at the expense of the presence for assured defense against opponents in other regions. We will likely find ourselves relying more on delay/disruption to succeed. This is a manageable problem, but it requires sober thinking about campaign design, operating concepts, force positioning and postures during peacetime and crises, force structure, and the like.

It should be obvious that Robert’s taxonomy is relevant not only to naval forces, but also to the land-based services. I sincerely hope that his article is used as a starting point for the much-needed tradeoff analyses regarding how our Joint forces will achieve standing presence in our many overseas regions of interest.

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. 

Rep. Forbes’s Congressional Oversight Topics for 2015

In a short piece last month, Rep. Randy Forbes outlined several topics he will explore this coming year as HASC Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee Chairman.  He has long showed great interest in UCLASS requirements definition, so it is not surprising to see that issue on his list. Nor is it surprising to see that the sequester’s continued effects on defense readiness and procurement, the overall defense budget’s adequacy for supporting U.S. grand strategy, and the Defense Department's offset strategy initiative are also on his list.

There are a few unanticipated topics, however, that I'm quite happy to see he called out:

We also need to focus on developing new concepts of operation for conducting naval resupply missions in contested maritime environments, conducting joint operations in a communications degraded or denied environment and conducting air operations from austere, dispersed, or degraded airfields. Finally, we need to develop a munitions strategy that focuses on deploying new advanced munitions for land-attack, anti-surface, and mine warfare, and, just as importantly, procuring a healthy stockpile to have in storage ashore and afloat in the region.

ID readers know that the ability to operate effectively under cyber-electromagnetic opposition is one of my own major areas of interest. So are the strategic implications of advanced ordnance producibility and inventory management; the latter aspect is inseparable from combat logistics. These topics, and combat logistics in general, simply do not receive the attention they deserve from the U.S. defense analysis community. Hopefully any hearings Rep. Forbes may be planning to hold them over the coming year will help change that.