Hitting a Bullet with a Bullet
Missile Defense from the Sea

by Edward Lundquist

As more nations acquire a menacing ballistic missile capability in all ranges and phases of flight, the need to be able to counter the threat is also growing. While shooting down a ballistic missile in space is not easy, the U.S. Navy, in cooperation with the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and with technology developed by the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program Office, has proven that it is possible to intercept ballistic missiles using a weapon fired from a ship at sea. This ability is derived from the Aegis Combat System and the latest version of the Standard Missile, the SM-3.

In recent tests aboard USS Lake Erie (CG 70) and other surface combatants, the U.S. Navy’s Aegis Weapon System demonstrated the ability to track a target, develop a fire control solution, and launch a Raytheon RIM-161A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IA, with an Exo- Atmospheric Projectile Kinetic Warhead. The SM-3 has successfully intercepted its targets in the exoatmosphere—at altitudes of more than 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean.

The Navy has demonstrated this capability in multiple exercises, and in February 2008, the crew of USS Lake Erie scored a perfect “bull’s-eye” on an errant bus-sized spy satellite. The operation was called “Burnt Frost.”

The ability to counter medium- and long-range ballistic missiles is becoming more important as more countries acquire them, says Rear Admiral Brad Hicks, who heads up the Aegis BMD Program Office within the Missile Defense Agency. “Lots of nations have expressed an interest in acquiring a ballistic missile defense capability,” said Hicks. “We have agreements in place with a number of nations to discuss the technical requirements of achieving a BMD capability. But only one nation has come forward and actually acquired the capability, and that is Japan.”

Lake Erie and Japanese Ship (JS) Kongo participated in the November 2007 Flight Test Mission-13 (FTM-13), in which two ballistic missile targets were successfully intercepted by two SM-3s during a “hit-to-kill” intercept flight test conducted jointly with the U.S. Navy at Pacific Missile Range Facility on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. During FTM-13, nicknamed, “Stellar Gryphon,” Lake Erie engaged the targets independently, while Kongo took advantage of the test to prove its successful tracking capabilities. Less than one month later, in JFTM-1, or “Stellar Kiji,” Kongo was the launching ship with Lake Erie providing support.

The Kongo test signaled a dramatic new capability for Japan, while affirming a significant commitment for Japan to defend against this growing threat. While the Kongo is not a new ship—it entered service in 1993—its new capability makes it a much more formidable asset.

“Japan had the forethought to build the multi-mission Kongo class with enough margin so that after 15 years of service it could be upgraded for a whole new mission,” Hicks pointed out. Kongo retains her multi-mission capability, including her self-defense ASW and AAW capability. “It is a real tribute to the Aegis combat system that we are able to upgrade it with an entirely new capability,” said Hicks.

OPERATION BURNT FROST

“We learn a tremendous amount every time we do this,” said Captain Randy Hendrickson, who was Lake Erie’s commanding officer until reporting to the Pentagon in June. “The Navy and MDA are leveraging the existing Aegis and standard missile technology and are growing it, stressing it, and getting it to do things that it was not originally designed to do,” Hendrickson said. “Aegis missile defense is a powerful tool the Navy brings to the joint fight.”

The Burnt Frost event was not a typical intercept. Unlike the ballistic missile targets that Lake Erie is equipped to track and destroy, the satellite was a cold object in orbit and less likely to be seen by the infrared (IR) seeker in the warhead of Lake Erie’s SM-3 missile.

Ballistic missiles get hot as they travel up through the atmosphere, and a fire control solution can be computed to hit the target while near the apogee of flight, where the weapon’s IR seeker can maneuver for intercept. But the satellite was much faster as it traveled in its relatively flat orbital trajectory, making it a much harder target to hit. In fact, the target was traveling so fast the ship had to launch the weapon before it ever acquired the target on its SPY 1-B radar. Other networked sensors tracking the target were used to help Lake Erie place the missile in the right spot to be able to knock down the target.

In a normal intercept, the goal is to have the SM-3’s kinetic kill vehicle (KKV) warhead hit the ballistic threat nose-tonose. But for this shot, dubbed Operation Burnt Frost, the KKV had to hit the target on the side, further aft, where the spherical fuel tank was. Thanks to the computations and modifications by a government-industry team that included U.S. Strategic Command, Missile Defense Agency, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the Navy, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, Lake Erie’s combat system was able to put the missile in the right place and direct the warhead to seek the target at the precise moment to execute an interception.

USS Decatur (DDG 73) and USS Russell (DDG 59) also took part in the event, tracking and able to engage the target if needed. Three missiles were modified for Burnt Frost, but only one was required and the other two were returned to operational configuration.

“The satellite was a significantly different target than the ballistic missiles that Aegis BMD is designed to engage,” says Rear Admiral Joe Horn, a former commanding officer of Lake Erie and Hendrickson’s predecessor before reporting to the Pentagon as director of surface combat systems. “It was traveling over twice as fast as the typical target, and we needed to intercept it at a higher altitude than is customary. We had done modeling and simulation, which featured launching the missile prior to radar acquisition but had never done that before in a live fire setting. This resulted in software algorithm changes both in the missile and the supporting combat system equipment, which is supported by the firing ship’s computer program. It’s pretty technical stuff, but all very important in ‘hitting a bullet with a bullet.’”

GET IT EARLY. GET IT ALL.

Shooting down an incoming missile in space is hard, but not impossible. Chris Taylor, deputy director for public affairs, Missile Defense Agency, said that an Aegis warship is a good platform to conduct ballistic missile defense. “To begin with there is the mobility of destroyers and cruisers. More specifically, the ballistic missile defense capability leverages the extraordinary versatility of the Aegis Weapon System and is very compatible with the futuristic open architecture.” Taylor said the key to a successful intercept of an incoming ballistic missile target is twofold. “Get it early and get all of it.”

Geography matters, Taylor pointed out, and the earlier a threat is intercepted, the greater the probability that if there are any accompanying chemical, biological or nuclear agents, they, along with any other debris, will fall back upon whence it came. He added, “The sheer impact of hit-to-kill technology is that it is like a 10-ton truck hitting a concrete wall at 600 mph.”

Taylor said the Aegis BMD upgrade does not diminish any of the existing warfighting capability of the Aegis Combat System. “It enhances and leverages the Aegis Weapon System. It’s like another arrow in the quiver.”

Taylor said the next step in Aegis BMD is the co-development of the next generation of missile, the SM-3 Block IIA, with the Japanese. “The potential exists for Aegis BMD-equipped ships to address short-intermediate and extended-ranged threats in all phases of flight.”

“This means,” he added, “that Aegis BMD-equipped ships will be able to handle threats from short to intercontinental ranges and in all phases of flight. The potential will exist by 2015 for surface Navy platforms to handle all kinds of threats.”

Now that a system exists to address unitary threats, I asked Taylor about warheads that release multiple re-entry vehicles. “A multiple kill vehicle is in development for inclusion on existing and future U.S. iterations of the SM-3. The bottom line is volume kill against multiple re-entry vehicles.”

Taylor describes the kinetic warhead (KW), which rides atop the SM-3, as “about the size of a 40-pound turkey.” Against a ballistic missile, the infrared- guided kinetic energy warhead is traveling at more than 3.7 kilometers per second at time of intercept.

“In the final moments of flight,” Taylor said, “it diverts itself to the threat and destroys it with sheer kinetic energy … or in other words, like a bullet hitting a bullet. The impact obliterates the threat.”

SM-3 MISSILE

The SM-3 first flew successfully in 1999, and its first successful intercept was made in 2002. The Navy and MDA are now 13 for 15 in successful BMD SM-3 intercepts. Add in the two successful SM-2 terminal phase test intercepts, and the program overall is 15 for 17. And that’s not counting the “real world” Burnt Frost effort.

Horn noted that the unique success of the Navy’s sea-based BMD capability figures prominently in the sea service’s shipbuilding and modernization plans. With MDA funding, the Navy is equipping 15 guided missile destroyers and three guided missile cruisers for BMD by 2009. While most of these ships are based in the Pacific, the capability will be installed on Atlantic Fleet ships, too, with Norfolk-based USS Ramage (DDG 61), now BMD capable, and USS Stout (DDG 55) soon to follow. All of the Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyers will eventually be BMD capable, and the Navy is looking to fund upgrades for all of its 22 Aegis guided missile cruisers.

Horn says the assignment shows the incredible confidence that leadership has in the system’s abilities. “The fact that the Aegis system has the performance margin to do jobs like this—jobs that weren’t even imagined when the designers engineered it in the 1970s—is also testament to their vision at the time. The nation has invested wisely in the Aegis Fleet.”

“The investment to upgrade an Aegis surface combatant to the BMD capability over the 40-year service life of the ship is less than a decimal point. It’s in the noise. Yet it’s a huge increase in capability,” says Hicks. “There are some launcher modifications and upgrades to the computer, and there are some adjunct computers that are required. It costs about $30 million to upgrade a ship, and the SM-3 missiles cost about $10 million each. That’s very reasonable when you consider the capability the combined ship’s weapons system and the missile provide.” The Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) Block IV is a shorter-range missile and has been demonstrated against shorter-range ballistic missile threats.

According to Taylor, both the Navy and MDA acknowledged the need for a sea-based terminal capability, even after the Nunn-McCurdy breach of the old Navy Area program in 2001. Tests in 2006 and again in June 2008 validated the near-term fix with the Navy modified SM-2s and the MDA modified Aegis BMD capability. With certification by the Navy, expected later this fall, installation of the terminal phase capability will begin on the 18 BMD configured ships. A farterm terminal phase capability is under review, and a path ahead is expected to be announced shortly.

PREEMINENT MISSILE SHIP

Lake Erie may be the preeminent ship for missile defense, but it is also an operational unit of the fleet and maintains all of its warfare certifications. “We’re taking the BMD capability from the demonstration stage to being a core capability of the U.S. Navy,” said Lieutenant Commander Drew Bates, of Indianapolis, Ind., who served as combat systems officer on Lake Erie. He has participated in several firing missions. “Each one is different,” Bates reflected. “Each one has built upon the others. There’s been no treading water. There has been progress with each exercise.”

Bates said Lake Erie builds upon a capability the Navy has had for years. “The tactics, techniques and procedures, watch organization, and the command and control are already in place.” “But we do things differently,” added Hendrickson. “The engagement timeline is so quick in space. We are trained this way, and we operate this way all of the time.”

Bates agreed. “It takes upfront planning to ensure proper execution. There’s no time to ask for permission during the mission.” ♦

(Editor’s Note: Captain Edward Lundquist, U.S. Navy (Ret.) is a senior science adviser for Alion Science and Technology. He supports the U.S. Navy’s Surface Warfare Directorate (OPNAV N86)).

Military Space and Missile Forum – KMI Media GroupMSMF 2008 Volume: 1 Issue: 3 (December)
http://www.kmimediagroup.com/msmf-archives/67-msmf-2008-volume1-issue-3/522-hitting-a-bullet-with-a-bullet.html

The Navy’s “Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower” is a year old, setting the sea service on a new course. The Navy’s Cold War focus has been overtaken by a fresh global mindset that stresses engagement, partnerships and capacity building with maritime countries around the globe. But many obstacles stand in the way.

The new strategy acknowledges that the Navy must still be able to fight and win a major conflict in the “blue water” open ocean environment. Although there is no contentious peer competitor today, strategic planners are still watchful as rising powers aspire to larger and more capable fleets. Since the start of the Cold War, longtime allies — such as NATO members — have banded together to secure their vital strategic sea lines of communication. Many of them have blue-water navies. However, the numbers of these forces have been dwindling in recent years as costs to keep big fleets at sea escalate and the phantom of large-scale naval conflicts looming in the future becomes harder to imagine in a globalizing world. Indeed, the U.S. Navy faces a similar challenge with regard to recapitalizing its own force. The new strategy acknowledges that the likelihood of a major blue-water conflict is smaller than a conflict or incident in the littoral or coastal waters of the world — at least for now.

Winning wars is still important, the new strategy says, but now preventing them is just as important. Plus, there is a new sense of urgency to be able respond to disasters and provide humanitarian assistance, as well as assure maritime security around the world.  

Answering these new challenges, the Navy is looking beyond its traditional allies. It is seeking to build an even broader base through cooperation with nontraditional maritime partners. Growing appetites for scarce resources and the need for secure global markets are reshaping the strategic landscape. The interests of many countries have become ever more intertwined in the world economy. No nation, no matter how far away from the ocean, is unaffected by global seaborne commerce. At the same time, piracy, drug running and other seaborne crime, once contained as local problems, are on the rise.

With everything increasingly connected to everything else, local maritime security challenges, even in the most remote regions, are having far-reaching repercussions — an observation not lost on international terrorist groups. The maritime strategy puts dealing with these effects squarely in the fore of the maritime services’ missions. Building new partnerships is at the core of Navy international efforts to bring order and stability to the world’s ungoverned and undergoverned seas. Security cooperation activities are an essential means to this end.

The Defense Department broadly defines “security cooperation” as those activities conducted with allies and friendly nations to:

• Build relationships that promote specified U.S. interests.

• Build allied and friendly nation capabilities for self-defense and coalition operations.

• Provide U.S. forces with peacetime and contingency access.

Foreign military sales (FMS), training and cooperative development programs have been around for a long time. Looking across the globe, many of the weapons and platforms developed for the U.S. Navy can be found in allied navies around the world. In terms of volume, more than 90 percent of international spending on U.S. Navy equipment and services is done by just 15 percent of the countries who buy their maritime defense articles from the U.S. These countries have the means to buy the most modern capabilities available and, in many cases, they have been doing so for a long time. In addition to the benefit of a reliable, interoperable network of capable allies, the economies of scale achieved by producing for this market have helped sustain the U.S. defense industrial base and America’s technological edge for many years.

An example of how this market benefits the U.S. is the Harpoon anti-ship missile program. The Navy has not bought a new Harpoon missile for itself in more than two decades. However, with 27 other countries buying Harpoon missiles over the years, the production lines are still open. Now, as the Navy embarks on a new program to build an updated Harpoon Block III, it will have a hot production line for that program to start on. The Aegis combat system that forms the core of the Navy’s most capable cruiser and destroyer force is another good example. Japan, Korea, Norway and Spain have adopted the system for their own frontline ships, with more countries to follow. Likewise, the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile program is the result of a cooperative development effort. Each of the 11 partner nations has contributed in some way to realizing large cost savings through economies of scale, and shared development and production costs. In another cooperative effort, the U.S. and Japan are funding the development of Ballistic Missile Defense capabilities for their Aegis ships, something neither country would likely have done on its own. Through years of working together, large bodies of policy and experience have evolved to support growing relationships and in-depth cooperation with these traditional partners.

As evidenced by the rising prominence of security cooperation programs in U.S. theater engagement efforts, foreign military sales and training are especially well-suited to growing security relationships. They build capacity, improve interoperability and provide a basis for professional relationships which lead to mutual understanding and respect. However, developing security cooperation relationships with nontraditional partners has proved to be challenging. These countries come in two categories: regional powers such as India and Brazil, and strategically significant nations such as Nigeria, Indonesia, Djibouti and Yemen that are limited by resources and equipment.

The U.S. defense industry has a strong incentive to support partnership-building efforts, especially in the case of the emerging regional powers. India and Brazil are coming of age as their economies reap the benefits of the global marketplace. With expanding interests and growing defense budgets, they aspire to larger maritime security roles in their regions. There are unprecedented opportunities for policymakers to advance America’s security objectives by actively seeking ways for them to fill larger roles in the maritime security community. In terms of security cooperation, the Navy can support their efforts to build up their maritime capabilities by providing them access to modern systems and engaging them in exercises and training to build proficiencies. But first things first.

U.S. security cooperation with India has only recently been resumed after a falling out over nuclear testing, for example. The lack of historical precedent and experience saps enthusiasm and momentum from efforts enabling such relationships. Trust and mutual understanding are built up over time, with one thing leading to the next. Unfortunately, in the case of emerging regional partners, the process for approving technology transfers needs work. The existing system grew over time from the need to protect individual interests across the Defense Department and the interagency. A more holistic approach, with scalable scrutiny and equal treatment of policy implications, would be more powerful and agile. A process is needed that can flexibly consider the relevant factors in cases involving technology transfer and make determinations expeditiously by balancing risk and policy objectives. At the end of the day, our goal should be deep and meaningful relationships with these countries, based on shared interests.

Local partners

Efforts to build maritime partnerships with countries such as Nigeria, Indonesia, Djibouti and Yemen are a different matter and carry different expectations. Security cooperation can help align local and global maritime security interests. Nigeria is central to efforts to preserve safe access for shipping to the resource-rich Gulf of Guinea on the west coast of Africa. Indonesia, Djibouti and Yemen flank choke points along vital sea lines of communication for global shipping. These countries are constrained by scarce budget resources for maritime security. But small investments can yield major gains. These countries don’t want Aegis weapons systems or F/A-18 Super Hornets, nor do they need these capabilities to do their part. They need coastal radars and automated tracking systems, and small boats and patrol craft to provide for their own security and to prevent the use of their territorial waters and exclusive economic zones by terrorists, smugglers, poachers and other criminal elements. Despite their relatively low costs, the high-volume boat and small-craft market is adding up to an almost $2 billion business for U.S. industry. These investments by the countries and a range of U.S. assistance programs are improving maritime domain awareness around the globe and are making enormous strides toward enabling global maritime partnerships as envisioned in the Navy’s maritime strategy.

A variety of programs, such as the authorization by Congress of National Defense Authorization Act Section 1206 funds, are providing needed resources to get friendly countries off to a good start when they lack the resources to build up capabilities on their own. So-called Section 1206 funds give theater commanders the tools they need to build partner capacity quickly to conduct counterterrorism operations, support stability operations and build the capacity of international partners’ maritime security forces to conduct counterterrorism operations. Congress authorized $350 million for fiscal 2009, an increase of $50 million over last year.

This money is working to good effect. In the case of the small nation of Djibouti, strategically located at the straits between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the Djiboutian Navy now has two 55-foot boats to patrol that critical choke point. Djibouti understands its big role in defending the Bab el Mandeb, agrees to do its part and simply needs the tools to do the job. In the new security landscape, providing a small boat to a country trying to do its part for regional security and stability may be just as important as selling an Aegis weapon system to a longtime ally.

Red tape

Judging by the large and growing number of requests for FMS equipment and services, training, and exchange programs from countries aspiring to play a greater role in their own security, the effort to promote global maritime partnerships is making headway. But the process of doing business with the U.S. can be complicated. For nontraditional partners, there is too much red tape, too much bureaucracy and too little consensus between policy and acquisition communities about what we should be doing with our new partners.

Most solutions to these issues lie beyond the Navy’s authorities, involving stakeholders throughout the Defense Department, the interagency and Congress. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, charged with management and execution of the department’s security cooperation policy, oversees a patchwork quilt of interagency processes, many of which have their roots in the Cold War. Although high-priority efforts are often “fast tracked” by senior leadership, international customers still frequently voice concerns about the speed of the U.S. bureaucracy. Streamlining this system will be a major challenge for the next secretaries of state, defense and the Navy if we are to fully realize the value maritime partnerships with nontraditional countries can bring to our security.

A new paradigm is needed. From industry to policymakers to war fighters, we all need to change our ways of thinking to meet the maritime security challenges that lie ahead. The maritime strategy lays out the course. Now we need the policy and program reforms to get our security cooperation programs moving smartly in this new direction.

What can you learn from command?  How about humility?<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />

Destroyer Captain: Lessons of a First Command

By Admiral James Stavridis, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />U.S. Navy

Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland

ISBN 978-1-59114-849-4 / 224 pages / $22.95

Reviewed by Edward Lundquist

Senior Science Advisor

Alion Science and Technology

Admiral Jim Stavridis knows a thing or two about command.  He’s commanded a guided missile destroyer, a destroyer squadron, a battlegroup, and now a unified command.  The lessons he learned in his first command, however, have helped him lead and manage the people and problems of the subsequent commands.  And the biggest lesson of all, he says, is humility.

“This book started as a journal, kept between 1993 and 1995, with no initial intent to publish,” Stavridis says.  “With the perspective of 15 years, I re-read it and thought ‘here is a very honest book about command—both the highs and lows.’”

The lessons he refers to in the subtitle were many, he says, but “Mostly about myself.”

Stavridis doubts there are many new lessons about a profession that stretches back centuries.  There is, he says, “room for a book about commanding a ship in this modern world.”

What he learned while in command of USS Barry (DDG 52) has helped him in later years.  That experience has taught him to keep calm, stay reflective, and to believe in the people around him.  “So often our Sailors will rise to exceed our most optimistic expectations when given the right tools and environment.”

One lesson from his days in command at sea that has stayed with him until the present is how fast the world can change.  “When I think about driving the Barry between Haiti, the Balkans, and the Gulf in two years—and how the geopolitical situation in each place changed dramatically and rapidly—helps me work through similarly paced changes in Latin America and the Caribbean.  The old static situation of the Cold War is long, long gone, and the deconstructed world of today moves at the speed of light.  We need flexibility above all, and I first came to truly understand that in my tour in Barry.”

While skipper of Barry, Stavridis worked with other navies and nations, and these interactions have proven to be instructive to him regarding his approach today with his responsibility for many nations?

“When I look around my world of Central and South America and the Caribbean, I see that same sense of partnership and working shoulder-to-shoulder with our friends and allies as being central to all we do,” he says.  “Our ability to be part of the international team is key to national security in this unfolding 21^st century.”

At Southern Command, Stavridis is responsible for men and women from all of the services.  He says the universal lessons of leadership he learned—while in command of Barry—could be applied by military leaders in all services, and even people in industry, academia or public service.

“Everything we do on a ship can be applied throughout all sectors of life,” he says, “when we do it well.  To me, civility, quiet confidence, creativity, teamwork, determination and honesty—qualities that became touchstones of Barry and her crew—are exactly right in every walk of life.”

Above all, Stavridis says, it is helpful to have a sense of humor, and not take yourself to seriously.  “In the end, the world will move on and we need to keep a perspective on the small place in time we occupy.”

Those naval officers looking forward will appreciate a book that recounts an experience they can expect to undertake.  It might be reassuring to know that someone who is acknowledged to be a successful commanding officer had his own share of uncertainty and self-doubts.

“I thought it was neat that someone in such an important position wrote with such deep-seated humility,” said Captain Charles M. Gaouette, who recently commanded the guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG 52), and whose article, “What I Learned in Command at Sea” was published in the January 2007 issue of the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings.  “I enjoyed his self-deprecating humor throughout the book.  The fact that he repeatedly questioned himself in command is very disarming and, in my opinion, is key to success in command.” 

Gaouette found the book to have a Winds of War quality about it, with well-known people coming together under challenging circumstances.  “There is a constant stream of reunions with officers from his days at the Naval Academy and early days as a junior officer.”

Gaouette recommends Destroyer Captain as a terrific read, either for someone unfamiliar with the Navy or for someone who is aspiring to command a ship.  For the uninitiated, it is a baptism of fire of the events and milestones that our crews tackle every day.  And for a future captain, the book is replete with tips on how to do things right—with all the humility that Sailors will appreciate.”

-30-

Captain Edward Lundquist, U.S. Navy (Ret.), is a senior science advisor with Alion Science and Technology in Washington, D.C.  He supports the Surface Warfare Directorate on the CNO’s staff.

Maritime Domain Awareness:
To Know and To Act
by Edward Lundquist
RUSI DEFENCE SYSTEMS FEBRUARY 2010
Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) , Whitehall, London, UK
Edward Lundquist retired from the US Navy in 2000. He is
currently a senior science advisor with Alion Science and
Technology where he supports the US Navy’s Surface Warfare
Directorate in the Pentagon. In this article he discusses the
importance of information and intelligence as an essential
element in taking action against anything in the global
maritime domain that could adversely impact security, safety,
economy or the environment
 
Most of the Earth is covered by water, and the global economy
is connected by the oceans, not separated by them. There are
more than 20,000 ships over 300 tons under way right now. Add
to that pleasure boats, fishing boats and other smaller craft.
The amount of petroleum, bulk commodities, or containerized
cargo at sea at this very moment is staggering. But there is
also human smuggling, drug trafficking, gun running, weapons
proliferation, crime, piracy and terrorism. How do we really
know what’s out there, and what do we do about it?
Maritime Domain Awareness, or MDA, is the effective
understanding of anything associated with the global
maritime domain that could impact security, safety,
economy or the environment.
 
MDA is both surveillance and intelligence, and requires a
fundamental and thorough understanding of the maritime
domain and its many dimensions. It does not merely focus on
the thousands of vessels and boats at sea, but the cargos and
crews, as well. Most importantly, MDA must tell us what doesn’t
belong on those ships, so that appropriate action can be taken.
The US National Strategy for Maritime Security (NSMS) looks at
MDA as “the ability to know, so that preemptive or interdiction
actions may be taken as early as possible”.
Most of these vessels are involved in international
commerce, so the problem cannot be isolated as a national
issue. Through a cooperative network that brings together
human intelligence, imagery, communications and other
sources of information, a problem may be discovered on a
vessel far from home waters. While it may appear to be a
distant threat, it may transit through domestic waters or be
bound for a domestic port. That problem must be dealt with
as far from the home waters as practical.
The 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that surrounds
the continental US, Alaska, Puerto Rico and a number of Pacific
Islands such as Hawaii and Guam, is the world’s largest EEZ. “A
variety of sensors, analysis tools technologies and partnerships
combine to guard our waters”, says Curtis Dubay, the Coast
Guard’s director for MDA programme integration.
 
The US Coast Guard is one of many agencies that participate
in this layered approach to MDA. “We need to increase
discoverability and access to information, to improve decisionmaking.
Achieving and maintaining MDA is a complex process
of observation, collection, fusion, analysis, dissemination and
decisions, all of which must extend far beyond our borders, and
even far from the edges of the US EEZs,” Dubay says.
The Maritime Security and Safety Information System (MSSIS)
shares non-classified Automated Information System (AIS) data
between participating agencies and nations, using a simple but
secure web-based, real-time data sharing system to enhance
maritime safety, security and commerce.
Automated Information System
Today, all vessels of 300 tons and greater must have AIS, a
maritime version of the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF)
systems used to track aircraft movements. The AIS transponder
provides information about the ship, course, speed, and
destination. The transponder can be queried by other ships,
satellites or land-based transceivers. Long-range identification
and tracking (LRIT) systems help monitor the positions of
40,000 large commercial vessels anywhere in the world by
satellite, and vessels of interest can be closely monitored for
abnormal behaviour.
AIS is one tool that can be coupled with other information
and intelligence to build an understanding of what is going on
around an area of interest in the maritime domain. Dubay says
AIS is a cooperative system, established under international
standards, that provides a vital capability that can be used
to enhance safety, improve security and enable better
stewardship of the maritime domain. As an open broadcast
system, it takes one of the first major steps in improving
transparency. The recent advent of a commercial capability for
receiving AIS from space will be an extremely valuable tool.
“Although we know we won’t see all vessels, AIS can help
us better focus our efforts on the vessels that may pose the
greatest threat. But AIS does not reveal their intentions. That is
a more complicated problem,” Dubay says.
And there are new technologies becoming available, including
space-based systems. “We know what the technology is,” says
Guy Thomas, science and technology advisor for the National
Office for Global Maritime Situational Awareness (OGMSA)
and the Global Maritime and Air Intelligence Integration office
(GMAII). “We just need the political will to do it.”
 
The various sensors, tools, systems and decision-making aids
can be developed to look for anomalies in traffic patterns
to identify suspicious contacts which might indicate a vessel
involved in illicit trading activities. But many vessel movements
look like anomalous behaviour at one time or another.
Taking Action
Rear Admiral Robert Parker, USCG, director of security and
intelligence for the US Southern Command, says MDA requires
operational knowledge and battlespace awareness across all
four domains: maritime, air and space, land and cyberspace.
Even with a great deal of very good intelligence, Parker says,
there is still the matter of getting the right information to those
who must act upon it. “How do we get the information you
need to you when you are in a rigid hull inflatable boat moving
to board a target of interest?”
What constitutes a threat? Is it one container carrying a dirty
bomb on a ship with 5000 other containers? Is it a terrorist
masked as a crew member on a supertanker? Is it a waterborne
improvised explosive device on a pleasure boat in a busy
harbour? The answer is that each of these is a true threat, but
each carries unique challenges.
The maritime industry not only has a major stake in safety
and security on the oceans, but the men and women at sea
are a vital source of information. While many mariners are
entrepreneurial, competitive and independent to the point
of being ‘libertarians’, they do have a good sense for what
does and does not belong at sea, as well a strong desire to
keep the sea lanes safe and secure, says Captain Gordan Van
E. Hook, US Navy (Retired), a senior director for innovation
and concept development with Maersk Line Limited, the US
flag entity of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group. According to Van
Hook, there are a million professional seafarers. Wherever
there are professional mariners on the sea, there is a bubble
of awareness of what is within their visual and radar range.
“A company such as Maersk, with a thousand ships, each a
bubble of awareness, can contribute to the overall maritime
domain awareness.”
“The mariners at sea are the first line of defence for safety,
security and the environment,” says Kathy Metcalf, director of
maritime affairs for the Chamber of Shipping of America.
“We rely on the people who live and work here, the way a
community relies on a neighbourhood watch,” says Captain
Leon Nixon, chief of the Port of Los Angeles Police Department.
“We visit the bait piers and talk to the fishermen. We hear
from the residents who live aboard their boats in the marinas.
They’ll tell us if something doesn’t look right.”
Fusion Centre
The National Maritime Intelligence Center (NMIC) is the
central point of connectivity to fuse, analyse, and disseminate
information and intelligence for shared situational awareness
across classification boundaries.
Smaller commercial vessels and pleasure craft less than 300
tons represent a different and more pressing challenge.
While there are about 80,000 ships above 300 tons operating
in some capacity today around the world – mostly registered,
regulated, inspected and tracked – there are nearly 13
million registered recreational vessels and another 8 million
non-registered recreational vessels in just the US alone,
along with another 80,000 fishing vessels and thousands
of other commercial vessels. The overwhelming majority
of pleasure craft and small commercial vessel operators
are responsible and law-abiding. But a small, seemingly
innocuous vessel has tremendous potential to deliver
dangerous people, or weapons of mass destruction.
 
A small boat, packed with explosives, was responsible for the
damage to USS Cole in Yemen, and the French supertanker
M/V Limburg in the Gulf of Aden. “If you consider what a small
boat did to the USS Cole, then you can understand why I say
there is nothing that worries me more than a waterborne
improvised explosive device in one of our ports,” says Admiral
Thad W. Allen, Commandant of the Coast Guard.
 
“Every Coast Guardsman is a potential sensor,” says Dubay.
“MDA supports operational decision-making across every
mission area of the Coast Guard – from saving people at
sea and enforcing laws and treaties to securing our ports
and waterways from maritime threats. Helping to increase
our understanding of activities in the maritime domain is
everyone’s job. Sensors and technology provide an important
part of the picture, but the observations, knowledge and
experience of our people in the field and in our operations,
analysis and fusion centres are absolutely crucial to success.
Maritime domain awareness is all about building a better
picture – and then using the picture better,” Dubay says.
“Situational awareness alone doesn’t provide complete and
effective understanding, nor does it allow a commander to
position forces optimally to meet a potential or emergent
threat. Rather, this awareness must be combined with up-todate
intelligence and threat analysis. In that way, we hope to
respond to threats before they occur and as far away from our
shores as possible”.
“It isn’t enough to know what’s out there at any given time. To
be effective, we must be able to conduct persistent monitoring
of the maritime domain anywhere on the globe,” says Dubay.

http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/lundquist_RDS_feb2010.pdf

“Old Tar” Impressed with New Leaders

Book Review:  SHIPS AND AIRCRAFT OF THE US FLEET 18TH EDITION

By Norman Polmar

Let me get this part out of the way: This is an absolute must-have book if you have any books in your home library about the US Navy today. Even if you have an old edition, you need the new one. If you don't have your own personal library, then you need to be able to read it in the reference section at your local library, and that means you need your library to buy it.

This is not a coffee table book, although it's big (672 pages), dramatic, and full of pictures – more than 900 of them, along with copious drawings. But I say it isn't a coffee table book because your coffee table probably can't support it. This is an industrial-size book.

I found Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet to be an instrumental guide when I was at sea. A copy should be readily available on every bridge, in every Combat Information Center, and in every wardroom. I still have my copy of the 1976 edition, which I used when I was an ensign aboard the USS Tawakoni. And I cherish the copy of the 14th edition with my photo in an F/A-18 on page 367.

Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet was first published in paperback in 1939, edited by James C. Fahey. There were wartime editions, twoocean fleet editions and a victory edition (the Naval Institute republished the entire set some years back and I retain mine as a valuable reference). The esteemed Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison edited a few editions and his grandson, Samuel L. Morison, heads up Polmar's ships' data research team today.

Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet covers ships major warships built since WWII. Ships built before or during WWII are found in earlier editions. Naval aircraft or organizations are displayed, including those discarded or disbanded in the last decade. They come out with a new edition about every three years. And a lot has happened since the last one.

“There's a big problem with the rate of change,” Polmar told me. “This book went to press on a Monday, and we were making changes right up to the weekend before the press run.”

This edition has more than just ships and aircraft. It includes organizational charts of the Navy, Marine Corps, Department of Defense and the Unified Commands to whom the operational Naval forces report. It explains weapons, sensors and people, as well as the ships and aircraft that make up the Navy, as well as how the fleet is structured.

This edition has a chapter on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are playing and increasingly important role in Naval warfare. Polmar also explains that this edition has some special “sidebars,” about the Tactical Air Reconnaissance Pod System (TARPS) found on F-14s and the Shared Reconnaissance Pod (SHARP) used on F/A 18 Hornets in the Naval Aircraft chapter, and the Remote Gun Mount and advanced munitions in the Weapons Systems chapter.

I asked Polmar what he learned in editing this edition.

“The US Navy does not have a realistic long-range plan for shipbuilding, technology, personnel or concepts of operations,” he told me. “Rather, the Navy works from fiscal year to fiscal year, more concerned about budgets than efficiently managing and retaining key personnel skills.

“There is a 30-year shipbuilding budget that is an absolute farce in that it simply points out how to replace the fleet we have now. If the Navy had a true long-range plan, we wouldn't see this continued delay of the DD(X) and other programs because these delays and their impact would be readily apparent,” Polmar says.

Polmar told me that he finds submarines to be the most interesting ships to write about, but he says the Navy tends to ignore the technology available. “We're stuck in a paradigm about submarines.” He says that the USS Los Angeles, lead ship in a large class of attack submarines which first joined the fleet in 1976, has a crew of 143. Two Seawolf-class submarines have been built, with crews of 138. The new Virginia-class boats have a crew of 134. “Every other Navy has been able to effectively reduce submarine manning,” he notes.

I think I like reading this book because of the many obscure and specialized vessels and aircraft that have found a home in Naval service. If you need to find a fact or figure about the fleet, this is your reference. Sadly, the section of salvage ships lists far too few ships in my opinion, but that's just me. If you are interested in cable repair ships, missile range instrumentation ships, or even Maritime Prepositioning Force RO/RO ships that were built in the former Soviet Union, crane ships, self-defense test ships, stealth research ships, acoustic test barges, or high speed vessels, as I am, then you can lose yourself for hours in Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet.

Author: Edward Lundquist
Publication: Sea Classics
Date: Jul 1, 2005

Armed Forces Journal
Hill how-to
Step-by-step instructions for winning defense dollars
BY EDWARD LUNDQUIST
Whether you are an experienced government relations pro or new to the business, if you want to understand the process for getting funding for defense programs, Matthew Kambrod’s “Lobbying for Defense: An Insider’s View” is instructive.

It may seem like a complicated process, but Kambrod offers a straightforward approach and suggests that there isn’t a secret creative approach to success.

Even those who have worked the “building” (Pentagon) and the “Hill” (Capitol Hill) for decades will benefit from this rational approach to understanding the military’s requirements and resourcing process, and how it fits into the congressional budget process.

 “This was written as a guide for smaller companies outside the Beltway, perhaps across mid-America, which might be interested in obtaining funding for startup military programs, and employing lobbyists or training their own company people to get the job done,” Kambrod told me. “It provides CEOs, company presidents, chief operating officers or would-be lobbyists an insight into what must be done to get an assessment of their products by the military services as to the product’s meeting military requirements, and what steps must to be taken during the budget cycle to try to secure government funding.”

Kambrod said he wrote the book because he found himself explaining the inner workings of Congress in terms of the appropriations process when dealing with staff officers in the Pentagon. At the same time, he was often asked by newer Hill staffers about what goes on across the Potomac in the formulation of budgets. “There are bits and pieces about the plus-up process [that are] of interest to both.”

As complicated as the budgeting process may seem, Kambrod said the process is the same year after year. “Lobbying for defense is largely a process of checks and balances to be sure that what a company attempts to fund is something that has been coordinated with the services and is required. In general, industry must have their product identified and approved by the services as an unfunded requirement. Points of contact within the services must be identified. It must be sponsored by the military departments when queried by professional staff members of the defense committees as to merit. It must be sponsored solidly by a member or delegation to the defense committees. Documentation or member request forms for submittal to committees have largely been now standardized for staff coordination and submittal. These just reflect some of the elements of the equation which must be put in place, and it is all rote and done by timelines.”

Kambrod said that although there is always the possibility that a lobbyist can succeed in adding a million here or there for something not expressly requested or supported by a service, it’s becoming more unlikely. “Money is so tight these days that accomplishing this sort of thing is increasingly more difficult, and, if anything, will continue to be even more so. I also think the climate on the Hill these days tends to keep people away from advancing this type activity in at least Defense.”

Lobbyists focus efforts on appropriators because the Appropriations Committees provide the funding for programs. “They sign the checks, so to speak. The authorizers do not. Authorizers simply authorize expenditures. Funding for a program found in the Authorization Act is factually no money at all, but authorization for an appropriation.”

But Kambrod said it is a mistake to ignore the authorizers with the Armed Services Committees in their quest for funding. “The mistake here lies in the perception inside the services themselves. If the service finds unobligated funding toward the end of a budget year which it wishes to direct toward another need, it is far easier to apply that funding to a program which had been authorized, though not appropriated, than to a program that has neither funds nor authorization. Those clients engaging lobbyists who dismiss the authorizers as essentially irrelevant are not being served well by those lobbyists.”

I’ve heard that lobbying is as much about “who you know” as “what you know.” But Kambrod said what you know is far more important. “The ‘who’ is important, but the ‘who’ will change, either by choice or administration. Usually, the old and new key people are generally supportive of work that is being done to factually improve the combat capability of the soldier. That is an essential and vital truth in lobbying for defense programs. But to be able to elicit that support, regardless of who the people are, you have to know what you are talking about.”

Capt. Edward Lundquist, U.S. Navy (ret.), a senior science adviser with Alion Science and Technology in Washington, D.C., supports the Navy’s Surface Warfare Directorate.

STRIKE FROM THE SEA: The Royal Navy & US Navy at War in the Middle East 1949-2003

By Iain Ballantyne

Pen & Sword Maritime Books Published in the US by US Naval Institute Press

Reviewed by Capt. Edward Lundquist, US Navy (Ret.)

Iain Ballantyne is my editor at Warships International Fleet Review magazine. I've written a number of articles for him. So when he sent me a copy of his book, I was only too happy to read and share my thoughts with Sea Classics readers.

First of all, Ballantyne writes from experience, that being several embarks made aboard ships in the region during and after the recent operations there, between 1990 and 2001. During the 2003 Iraq War he spent four weeks locked into the 'command bunker' of his UK-based magazine eating, sleeping and breathing 'Shock and Awe'. In the immediate aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom he held detailed discussions on front line operations with an SSN captain, Naval helicopter pilots and surface warship COs.

He knows what he's talking about. He also knows that what's going on over in the Gulf Region is based on centuries of history, so starting his account with much background dating from WWII makes a lot of sense and put Allied presence in the region in greater perspective.

Chapter one starts us off with the Suez Crisis as a preliminary event we need to comprehend before the later pieces of the puzzle can fall into place. In fact, many of the events in that part of the world are difficult to comprehend. Why during the Suez Crisis, the normally closely allied Royal Navy and US Navy weren't sure if they were on the same side. But the sailors in both Navies had to contend with the same long deployments in the scorching hot Middle East sun, gulping salt tablets. Ballantyne also share with us the stories of ships who spent significant time in the Gulf, like the British frigate Ashanti, or the US Flagship USS Duxbury Bay.

This sets the scene for decades of Naval presence in this hot but strategically important region.

Ballantyne gives us a very personal account of the events leading up to the first Gulf War, including the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Desert Shied build-up and the Desert Storm military action that restored Kuwait and decimated the Iraqi forces, at least for a few years. We then see the enforcement of the No-Fly zones in northern and southern Iraq and move through the build-up to the 2003 war to remove Saddam, including also an account of the post 11 September War on Terrorism from the Naval perspective.

A Shipwreck Story is a “Hubris Machine”

by Captain Edward Lundquist, U.S. Navy (Ret)

There are many who go down to the shore and smell the sea. Then there are seafarers who spend days, maybe weeks or months at sea, and when they finally approach the coast smell the same thing, only for them that smell is the land.

So it is with “The Tragic History of the Sea – Shipwrecks from the Bible to Titanic.” It is not so much a compendium of stories about ships that were lost at sea, but of ships that found land, and under the most unfortunate circumstances, because most of these tales take place when a ship runs aground.

A shipwreck story is a “hubris machine,” says Anthony Brandt, who edited this book. “So many of these ship-wrecks come out of someone's carelessness or over confidence,” Brandt says. “Like the old saying, pride goeth before a fall. The captain says, 'bah, there's no land for 300 miles'; then they run into a continent and 200 people die.”

This is a book about shipwrecks and tragedies of the sea. For those who have been to sea, no explanation of the hazards of the sea is necessary. For those who have not, a full explanation is not possible. Even in the loneliest oceans a seafarer can find trouble. “They run aground, but they also run into storms, icebergs, rogue waves, whales, and other hazards. I suppose running aground is the most common cause of shipwreck,” Brandt says.

Some of the accounts are old, more like legends handed down over generations. I asked Tony Brandt if these stories are to be read as something between fact and fiction, or enjoyed for the fantastic nature of these tales?

“Actually all the stories we printed are nonfiction accounts taken from a considerable variety of sources. The Bible story about St. Paul may be fiction, but it's printed as fact so I took it at face value. And I mention an ancient Egyptian source in my introduction that is obviously fantasy, as serpents aren't covered in lapis lazuli and they don't talk. The selections themselves all come from reasonably authoritative accounts, no doubt with some embellishment, but not admittedly so,” Brandt says.

Brandt decided not to include fictional accounts. He didn't need to. He wanted the reader to understand that what actually happens at sea is often as extraordinary and involving as any fictional story. Brandt says, “As for corroborating the stories, that's a modern idea that doesn't enter into it. In the case of the Titanic, for example, hearings were held to try to get the straight story of what happened. Lots of people had different experiences and different opinions and out of that various people have constructed narrative accounts. But you can't always corroborate experience. It's like the old eyewitness thing in court; different people see the same thing differently.”

The Titanic is one of the most notorious sinkings. The 882 ft. White Star liner on her maiden voyage for the London – New York trade, was a good example of the hubris Brandt refers to. The builders and owners said Titanic was unsinkable. The Captain's adherence to this belief held fast even as she was taking on water after being holed by an iceberg on April 14, 1912.

“The Cotton Mather account, to be sure, is not of this 'factual' nature. You have to believe in ghost ships to believe that story actually happened,” Brandt says of Mather's tale about sightings of a phantom ship.

Many of the stories in Brandt's book have one peril heaped upon another. So I asked him which tale had the most misfortune. “That's hard to say,” he said. “I suppose the story 1 found the most relentless in terms of bad luck was the last voyage of Sir Thomas Cavendish, known as 'The Navigator.' Their misfortunes just never seemed to stop.”

Cavendish met his end in 1592, but sailing around the world was tough business in those days, and not all that the stories might have the folks back home believe. Sure, the stories said Cavendish's ships were gilded with gold. But in 1587, while at war with Spain, Cavendish came ashore at a Spanish settlement in the Pacific (now part of Chile) with the name of Rey Don Felipe and renamed it Port Famine, a name that would be sure to spur development. His foes would include the Spanish and the Portuguese, but his biggest adversary was the elements. His 1591 expedition resulted in the small flotilla becoming scattered in a storm and seeking refuge in and around the Strait of Magellan for the better part of a year. Cavendish might well be best forgotten as the third circumnavigator of the world.

“From God's Protecting Providence, … Evidenced in the Remarkable Deliverance of Divers Persons from the Devouring Waves of the Sea … and Also from the More Cruelly Devouring Jaws of the Inhumane Cannibals of Florida,” a tale written in 1710 by Jonathan Dickinson about his 1696-97 voyage that ended up aground in Florida, is another example of “as bad as it is, it gets worse.”

Christopher Columbus made several journeys to the new world, with varying degrees of success. Columbus suffered his share of timbers that rotted, water shortages, food that spoiled, natives that turned unfriendly, masts that broke and crews that narrowly survived wrecks. Brandt points out that Columbus lost a total of nine ships in his four voyages to the New World.

I asked Brandt how many shipwreck tales didn't make it into his anthology, and what quality did they lack that caused him to not publish them?

“There are thousands of shipwreck stories,” he answered. “I made the selection based on what interested me most. I also wanted to get as many shipwreck stories that are thought to be classics in this genre as I could into the book. Length was a factor in the choices I made as well. And I wanted some historical range, because the genre is very old and it was important to make that clear. Many stories, some of them quite interesting, didn't make it into the book.”

While there are common threads in all of the accounts, each offers a unique and compelling insight in life — and death — at sea.

“Men have been sailing for thousands of years now, and foundering, and those who survive have stories to tell, all of which are oddly the same. The same things always happen,” Brandt writes. “Men break on the rocks, drown, starve, while a few live to tell the tale. And never are we not interested.”

We can't not want to hear about these stories. As Brandt says, “Life in crisis, at its extreme, is always fascinating.”

Captain Edward Lundquist, U.S. Navy (Ret.), is a senior science advisor for Alion Science and Technology in Washington, D.C. He supports the U.S. Navy's Surface Warfare Directorate and is a frequent contributor to Maritime Reporter & Engineering News & MarineNews. This book review originally appeared in the February 2007 edition of MarineNews.

The book, “The Tragic History of the Sea – Shipwrecks from the Bible to Titanic” is edited by Anthony Brandt and published by National Geographic Books, Washington, DC – ISBN 0-7922-5908-4