Russian Fleet Gathers in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Yaroslav Mudry

Despite the very interesting developments this week in Mali, I continue to keep one eye on events in Syria.

By now you may or may not have heard the rumor going around that Assad has relocated himself and his family to a naval vessel offshore. I do not believe this rumor, so stop sending me links. The thing is - this is the kind of thing that the US Navy is actually really good about tracking, and I am of the belief that if Assad was managing the government from a Russian naval vessel we would know, and it would be leaked to a CNN, ABC, or MSNBC Pentagon correspondent no matter how "secret" such information was supposed to be.

The event that I did see today and caught my attention was reported by Reuters and carried on the invaluable Al Jazeera Blog that is monitoring events in Syria. For those who watch too much Fox News, let me assure you it is passed time you revisit your evaluation of Al Jazeera, because in my opinion the quality of their professional journalism - including investigative journalism - is getting better while the quality of western professional journalism - particularly investigative journalism - is slowly decaying in value with heavy reliance on GoogleFu Wikipedia style fact checkers.

So this was reported today.

Two Russian ships heading for a naval exercise off Syria this month are picking up munitions to drop at the Syrian port of Tartous, news agencies reported on Thursday.

Russia has been Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's main foreign protector during a 22-month uprising against his rule and is its biggest arms supplier.

It leases a naval maintenance and supply facility at Tartous that is its only military base outside the former Soviet Union.

A Russian General Staff source told the Itar-Tass news agency that the landing ship Kaliningrad had docked at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk to pick up munitions and another landing ship, the Alexander Shabalin, was due there for the same purpose.

It was not clear who the munitions were for, however.

Kaliningrad and Alexander Shabalin are both Project 775 Ropucha I class LST type vessels. Both ships transited the Bosphorus Strait heading north on Monday. The Bosphorus Naval News blog (which is great btw, and can be followed on Twitter here) is doing a brilliant job providing open source intelligence tracking the Russian Black Sea Fleet:

The following warships are in the Eastern Mediterranean according to my tally:
Slava class cruiser Mosvka
Kashin class destroyer Smetliy
Alligator class landing ship Saratov
Amur class repair ship, PM-56
Boris Chilkin class tanker Ivan Bubnov.
Uda class tanker Lena
Neustrashimyy class frigate Yaroslav Mudryy
Sliva class tug SB-921

And this is the list of the warships recently returned to the Black Sea:
Ropucha class landing ship Azov
Ropucha class landing ship Novocherkassk
Alligator class landing ship Nikolay Filchenkov
Ropucha class landing ship Kaliningrad
Ropucha class landing ship Alexander Shabalin

Since that post the Ropucha class landing ship Azov has returned to the Mediterranean Sea heading towards Syria. Russia has been, for a few weeks now, using their Black Sea Fleet amphibious ships to move men and material to the Russian base at Tartous. Russia announced earlier this year they will be holding a large-scale naval drill in the Mediterranean and Black Seas in late January with warships from the Northern, Baltic, Black Sea, and Pacific Fleets.

“The Russian Navy’s drills of this scope will be held for the first time over the past few decades and are designed to improve control, ensure and practice multiservice force interaction of the fleets in the far-off maritime zones,” the press office said...

The drills will also simulate operations to load marine troops and paratroopers from the rough coast of the North Caucasus onto amphibious ships and will help the Navy’s personnel acquire necessary marine practice skills during the performance of “combat training missions in the Black and Mediterranean Seas,” the press office said.

Is Russia arming the Syrians? I do not think the Russians are doing so with these men and munitions being reported by Reuters or with these ships that are carrying all kinds of equipment to Tartous for the upcoming major exercise. Earlier this week Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov dismissed media reports that the Black Sea ships are carrying commando units and military equipment for use in Syria on the amphibious ships, and to be honest I tend to believe him.

Make no mistake, Russia is almost certainly providing military support to the Syrian military as Assad tries to beat back rebel forces, but they are doing so in ways that create political deniability, because that is how every nation - including the US - does shady business when supplying arms to conflict zones. While we don't hear about it, the CIA does a pretty good job tracking vessels and aircraft smuggling arms into Syria, although the identification process is usually an after the fact process, not a 'catch them in the act' process.

Russia really can't afford to cancel this enormous exercise that has probably been in planning for a long time - potentially even predating the Syrian rebellion. It is a pretty big deal for the Russian Navy to coordinate deployments of over a dozen ships in all four fleets, not to mention all the ground personnel and equipment, and have them converge on a single location at a specific point in time. As Americans we tend to take that type of global operational planning for granted because it is how the US military has operated for decades, but it really is a big deal for everyone else in the world.

This article has a list of ships from all four fleets that will be participating in the upcoming exercise near Syria.

Clear Public Commentary Why the Surface Force of the US Navy is Hollow

MEDITERRANEAN SEA (Jan. 11, 2013) The guided-missile destroyers USS Laboon (DDG 58) and USS Forrest Sherman (DDG 98) transit alongside the Military Sealift Command fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Lenthall (T-AO 189) during a replenishment-at-sea. Laboon and Forrest Sherman, homeported in Norfolk, are on deployment supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo/Released)

There is an unfortunate pattern Admirals in the US Navy seem to always follow. First, they will cite specific details that outline that there is clearly a serious problem, and then they will suggest that the problem is actually over the horizon. Vice Admiral Tom Copeman did exactly that today at the Surface Navy Association's annual symposium when he discussed surface fleet readiness.

“When a combatant commander says a ship’s supposed to leave on deployment and it doesn’t leave on time for whatever reason, then we know we’ve probably gotten there,” Copeman told an audience of hundreds of officers and industry leaders. “And there’s ships right now that aren’t doing it.”

In a speech that centered on the challenges of shrinking budgets, Copeman warned that the surface Navy may need to sacrifice ships in the coming budget battles to ensure the ones it keeps are fully manned and equipped.

“We’re not getting ships through the basic training phase as quickly and easily as we have,” the head of Naval Surface Forces said. “We’ve got amphibs that are getting out of the yards and deploying nine weeks later after extended yard periods. We’re cross-decking people like crazy to get ships on deployment, out the door. And what does that do? It allows the ships that are deployed to do their mission, but the ones back home — we can’t certify them because we took the people off of that team.”

I think it is interesting that VADM Copeman can simultaneously note the cross-decking shell game taking place all over the surface force and even acknowledge the incredible strain it puts on the ships back home, but also suggest the Navy is somehow not yet but close to being hollow. I guess I do not understand why the cross-decking shell game isn't the sign the fleet is hollow and instead the Navy has to wait until something is broken or someone is killed before acknowledging the condition of the fleet.

I think it is a serious concern that an Admiral would acknowledge a shell game like cross-decking sailors so that ships can meet deployments as part of business as usual (or an unofficial, new accepted lower standard) instead of that being the gigantic red flag it should be, because quite honestly I fail to see how standard isn't recognized as lowered when that shell game is business as usual for the surface force. Don't give me an excuse suggestion that because cross-decking has been taking place for a decade it isn't a sign of a hollow fleet when - that's the point!

The surface warfare community ha been behind the eight ball on maintenance before the most recent fiscal challenges even began according to Balisle Report, which suggested it was possible that nearly every surface combatant in the fleet was underfunded on maintenance for over a decade or more. Now the Navy compounds the historical maintenance shortfall of nearly every warship by undermanning the ships when they are in home port and further complicating that shortage with the now completely integrated and acceptable cross-decking policy.

The surface force isn't about to be hollow, the surface force is a hollow shell today that accepts shell games as an acceptable standard of readiness. Cross-decking is a shell game, and I'm not even going to detail how the entire INSURV process represents the ultimate shell game in the surface warfare community.

On July 26, 2024 in his last Congressional hearing before Admiral Greenert became CNO, Admiral Greenert gave testimony that seemed very relevant today as I watched VADM Copeman speaking at SNA.

I can't tell you for sure, Mr. Chairman, if we're at an inflection point or a tipping point. But I can't -- but I don't see how we can sustain this pace of operations indefinitely and meet the readiness standards.

If we try to do so, I think it'll consume the expected service life of our force structure earlier than designed and planned, and we'll face a cascading increase in the cost to achieve the expected service life for those ships. And reaching that expected service life is a foundational element of our future ship inventory and, accordingly, our shipbuilding plan.

Look at the length of carrier strike group and amphibious ready group deployments. The Navy is breaking records regarding deployment length - see the recent Bataan ARG deployment. Ships are about to lose maintenance periods due to the continuing resolution and the sequestration debate, the surface force can't fully man ships at home, the Navy still hasn't caught up to the issues outlined in the Balisle Report, and apparently after an 18 month inflection point the Navy can't even admit they passed the tipping point and have been a hollow force with reduced standards for some time.

When Vice Admiral Copeman is willing to talk about the shell game of cross-decking sailors to get ships out for deployment at the Surface Navy Association symposium but doesn't seem to recognize that is a critical sign of the fleet being hollow (because he has already willingly, culturally accepted the lower standard), there is a big f-in problem in the surface warfare community that starts at the top. Why? Because that specific detail is clear evidence that in the view of the community leadership, the value of people in regards to ships isn't legitimately the foundation of a ready surface force, it's simply a CNO slogan.

Upward Falling Payloads (UFP)

This is very interesting.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of distributed unmanned sensors and systems for maritime applications. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice. Details are contained in the attached Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) DARPA-BAA-13-17. 

Basically DARPA wants to have a magazine of unmanned systems that can be called upon and deployed. It is worth reading the detailed announcement at the link if you want to get your juices flowing.

As long as we are dreaming up ways to do cool things, I'd like a box of 36 Tomahawk missiles and 12 Harpoon missiles that can be towed into position by a submarine and left suspended at around 100 meters depth until called upon. 

The LCS News

SAN DIEGO (Nov. 26, 2012) The littoral combat ship USS Freedom (LCS 1) departs San Diego harbor to conduct operations off the coast of Southern California. The littoral combat ship is a fast, agile, networked surface combatant designed to operate in the near-shore environment, while capable of open-ocean tasking, and win against 21st-century coastal threats such as submarines, mines and swarming small craft. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class John Grandin/Released)

Chris Cavas apparently spent some time on USS Freedom (LCS 1) last week and has a few new items of interest regarding the upcoming deployment. The first item of news is the crew size has been increased and we for the first time we have an actual number.

Some modifications already have been made to Freedom to prepare for the deployment. One of the most significant was a decision to increase the ship's core crew and provide additional berths for the detachments and other teams. Several berthing areas that previously featured two-high “racks” now are fitted with three-highs, and some two-person officer staterooms have had a third berth installed.

Overall, 20 new berths were installed, bringing the total berthing capacity to 98. More can be accommodated in “berthing modules” installed in the mission bays.

When fully manned, the former 40-person core crew will have 50 sailors, plus racks for three junior officers learning the ship. Three “prospective” officers set to join the crew in a few months already were on board to prepare for LCS duty handling main propulsion and combat systems.

 I am unsure how the numbers break down in all areas, but an increase from 40-person core crew to a 50-person core crew is a 25% increase, plus three officer berths which can and will be used for many things - including I suspect contractor support. That also means there are 10 additional berths for mission module crews.

I don't believe anyone is surprised to see the final number of sailors for LCS is around 100 people. In the end success of the LCS manning initiatives will have to be proven, and the bet here isn't necessarily the number of sailors on the Littoral Combat Ships, rather the quality of contractor maintenance support will be decisive regarding the manning scheme for the platform.


The second item involves the much troubled launch ramp.

During the upcoming yard period, a new steel launch ramp will replace the original aluminum ramp in the waterborne mission zone. The lightweight ramp was not intended to store an RHIB, but crews operating Freedom greatly preferred leaving the boats in a ready position on the ramp, and a heavier installation was needed.

The upcoming yard period is the last 3-4 week availability in the yard before deployment. To me this seems like a fairly significant - albeit necessary - change to the platform that probably should have been done before the last minute. 

The third bit of news is that FREEDOM is getting a new paint job.

The Navy already had decided on another basic change to Freedom for the Singapore deployment — painting the entire ship. Originally, only the steel hull was painted, and the aluminum superstructure was left untouched, primarily to eliminate the need to maintain the coatings.

Freedom's counterpart in the LCS program, the all-aluminum Independence, is not painted at all above the waterline.


But when Freedom emerges from drydock in late February, it should be sporting a new, four-color camouflage scheme conceived and designed by the Blue Crew — something not seen on a larger U.S. combatant ship in many years.

  Later in the article we get to the reason why they are apparently going with the camouflage paint pattern.

Thien pointed out several features of the camo pattern and noted how the white patterns conveyed a false bow wave on the port side, while hinting at a false bow on the starboard pattern. The black areas are strategically laid over diesel engine exhausts in the ship's side, where they might hide smudge spots.

Check out the picture of USS Freedom (LCS 1) above and judge for yourself whether the ship needs a paint job. Pretty clear to me the ship needs it, and giving the ship a coat of paint before deployment isn't really a surprise. At some point it was going to happen. I would be more impressed with this if the Navy was applying one of the more modern, experimental paint blends that add low observable qualities to a ship in regards to radar.

USS Freedom (LCS 1) is a ship funded with R&D money and the Navy is doing lots of things to make clear it is a test ship for the class. In my opinion, attempting to make the ship look like a 40-knot go fast instead of a 40-knot frigate on radar with low observable paint would have made a lot of sense for FREEDOM in conjunction with a camouflage paint scheme, but instead the paint job is to cover up the exhaust smudge from the diesel and other less sightly issues with the hull.

The ship will enter the yard by the end of the week, and 3-4 weeks later the ship will be out and prepped for deployment to Singapore.

Further to Hagel, Republican Foreign Policy, Etc.

Raymond summoned the spirit of James Joyner from the Atlantic in this piece on the Hagel nomination the other day, and Joyner has responded.  In a piece entitled "No Longer the Party of Eisenhower and Reagan", Joyner makes the case that the Hagel nomination could signal an inflection point for a moribund Republican foreign policy that seems no longer to be able to digest the likes of Hagel, Huntsman, and Scowcroft (and presumably, Joyner).  It is a good piece, well argued and with some very good points.  It deserves some discussion.

1.  First, I cannot agree strongly enough with the rising chorus of observers--some in the Republican Party and some on the outside--that Republican national security policy is adrift.  When I think about the wistful longing for Eisenhower that Joyner and others evoke, I too am transported back--back to a time when an American President truly understood strategy and then made strategic choices.  This component of national security thinking is what is MOST lacking in the Republican Party I hold dear.  I don't hear major standard bearers standing up and saying "we spend too much on our national defense because we do not think hard enough, we do not make choices, and we pay the penalty for our laziness in excessive defense budgets".  Were party leaders to begin talking and thinking like this, the "new" Republican Party would respond. 

2.  I cannot accept the view of those who see the rejection of Hagel, Huntsman et al as a sign of the foreign policy decline of the Party.  It is politics, pure and simple; you don't get to openly support Democrats and still be looked to as a grandee in the Republican Party.  Republican national security thinking is in decline for a lot of reasons, but not because some have decided criticize those who  stake out the "every Democrat's favorite Republican" territory.

3.  A new Republican Foreign Policy should also go back and review George H.W. Bush's approach, which Scowcroft and others were responsible for.  It made no bones about American leadership and primacy (from a strategic communications standpoint), but in action took a selective engagement approach with respect for international organizations in which the US exercised outsized weight.  Not only have many Republicans failed to understand the necessity to make strategic choices about what our nation invests in (in terms of its military), we (as a Party) have too many leaders who seem to be ready to jump into whatever mudpit we can find without a serious discussion of national interest.  This activist wing of the Party all too often finds succor with the "Responsibility to Protect" crowd on the other side of the political spectrum, which seems only to be able to bring itself to commit American power when there is NO vested interest at stake. 

4.  The other marriage of convenience I reject (which the Obama/Hagel condominium represents) is that of those who wish to reduce America's influence as a policy matter derived of a sense of American over-reach (Obama) with those who wish to reduce America's influence as a policy matter derived of a sense of Allied under-reach (the Offshore Balancing/Hagel Crowd).  It matters not HOW it gets there, but the result will be a smaller, less capable, and less influential military less capable of global operations.  While I applaud Joyner for reprinting some views of Hagel from 20004, his more recent views seem to place him squarely in the Offshore Balancing crowd--an approach I find unsuitable to the issue of a rising peer competitor (and which Hagel was clearly not addressing in 2004).

So what is to be done?  What are the potential elements of a Republican National Security Policy?  How about these (I could use a foreign policy doppelganger to strengthen this).

1.  The United States position in the world is unique and it is in the interests of the American people to advance and sustain it.  We are the world's indispensable nation, and our national security policy will reflect it.  While other nations are growing in terms of economic power, no other nation combines American economic, military and political power, and no other nation can or will fill America's role in the world for decades to come.  The world needs a powerful and influential America, and this position redounds to the benefit of the American people.

2.  The United States will not shrink from its interests, and those interests are best served through a combination of forward deployed military strength, active participation in regional forums, close and mutually beneficial diplomatic relations, and free-and-open trade.  While it is comforting to consider shrinking from the world and getting others to "pay their share", it is an invitation to instability and conflict, both of which threaten our security and our prosperity.  It is in America's interest to pay the price required to lead the world, as our position of leadership works to the benefit of every American.

3.  Our strong, central, and positive role in the world is not boundless.  We will resource the world's strongest military, but we must make critical strategic choices about how that military is comprised.  We will favor mobile, flexible, forward deployed combat power suitable to protecting and sustaining our peacetime interests and our national security, while retaining the capability to mobilize for general war from a garrisoned base.  Naval and aerospace power will be favored over land power.  We will upgrade and reduce our strategic nuclear arsenal.  The nuclear triad served us well during the Cold War, but three separate methods of destroying the world is wasteful.  To this end, we will continue to operate our fleet of ballistic missile submarines until the end of their service lives, but they will not be replaced.

4.  We will be active leaders in world and regional forums.  We will work hard with friends, allies and others to reach consensus approaches to conflict.  We do not relinquish the right to act unilaterally in protecting our national interests, but our preference will always be for coalition action.  We will work with our friends and allies to increase their contributions to their own security, especially in increasing those capabilities that our strategic choices de-emphasize.  We will lead a strong team--on the field--not on the sidelines.

5.  We seek a strong military at a reasonable price.  We reject the notion that such a military deprives the nation of resources that should be applied elsewhere; rather, we believe that such a military creates the conditions for the prosperity that drives our economy forward.  Said another way, we cannot look first to cutting the defense budget to fund other domestic priorities; we should look there last.  Such a view demands that resources allocated to defense be spent wisely, and we as a party have not done this well in the recent past, preferring to overspend rather than make tough choices.  We will make those choices now. We support a consistent base level of defense spending, and we believe it should be proportional to the extent of our global interests as measured in gross domestic product.  Protecting and sustaining our enduring vital interests is what creates the minimum investment in national security, while the response to growing or actual threats creates additional requirements.  We propose to spend a minimum of 3.75% of GDP on national defense on an annual basis, and we recognize that if GDP declines, so should defense spending. 


6.  We assert that Democracy is the political system most consistent with human nature, and we will favor those nations where it is practiced.  We cannot however, create it where it does not exist, and we will not attempt to impose it where it is nascent.  The tide of history has turned, democracy and free markets have prevailed.  Our role now is to be stewards of this evolution, not guarantors.


Ok, that's a long post, so I'll stop here. 

Bryan McGrath