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Red Sea Topic Week

Evaluating the Naval Response to the Red Sea Crisis

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Red Sea Topic Week

By Colin Barnard

Though Alfred Thayer Mahan is famous for his advocacy of strong naval fleets to win decisive battles at sea, he saw the enduring purpose of navies as something much broader and not constrained to war: enabling and, if necessary, disrupting maritime trade. Even though Mahan could not have imagined autonomous weapons, the Houthis’ campaign against merchant shipping in the Red Sea would have been familiar to him. Whatever technology is used, however, maritime trade has been disrupted before; and, as before, the U.S. Navy and several of its allies are fighting to enable it, demonstrating the Navy’s enduring purpose for all to see. This analysis evaluates the naval response so far, from cooperating with merchant shipping, the cost effectiveness and vulnerabilities of using warships and missiles to counter drones, and the role of allies, to the potential implications for a future conflict with China and current efforts in defense innovation to prepare for it.

Cooperating with Merchant Shipping

Threats against merchant shipping are not new: pirates, German U-boats, and even other merchant ships have disrupted merchant shipping in the past. Navies, coast guards, and the international shipping community have long feared the potential for terrorists to exploit the vulnerability of merchant ships in one of the world’s many maritime chokepoints, of which the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea is one of the most critical. A terrorist group backed by Iran, the Houthis have exploited the geography of the Red Sea to their advantage, targeting shipping to disrupt trade with disproportionate impact in order to effect political change–i.e., hindering Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Protecting shipping from such terrorism is a job for naval forces, but they must cooperate with merchant shipping in doing so, as they have in the past.

Enter Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping (NCAGS). An important NATO doctrine, NCAGS provides NATO navies with the tools to cooperate and guide merchant shipping during crisis and conflict. Its shortfalls arise because of the voluntary nature of this relationship. Though shipping can never be guaranteed full protection–especially without troops on the ground to mitigate land-based threats–navies must provide value to the shipping industry if it is to trust and rely on them for what protection they can provide. While the NCAGS doctrine has been practiced by NATO navies for decades, it does not seem to have worked as designed in the Red Sea. Early in the crisis, Reuters reported that shipping was “in the dark” on U.S. and allied naval efforts to counter Houthi attacks. The always candid John Konrad, founder and CEO of gCaptain, took to Twitter to highlight the perils of this apparent disconnect.

While communication between the NCAGS enterprise and shipping was likely better than publicly available information suggests, as Nathan Strang claimed, it would not be unreasonable to suggest the need for a closer relationship between the two. If they are not already, industry liaison officers could be used to better link the U.S. Navy and shipping, and foreign area officers could help allies get on the same page. Public affairs officers also have a role to play. If the NCAGS enterprise was doing its job per Strang, but efforts were difficult to surmise because of classification, carefully crafted news releases about these efforts could have helped put shipping at ease. Depending on NATO’s role in such a crisis, the NATO Shipping Center, NATO’s single point of contact for the international shipping community, would be the best link between the two. NATO has come to aid of merchant shipping before, even when the threat was outside its area of responsibility; and crises like this would help shore up its relationship with shipping in the event of crises or conflict closer to home.

Cost Effectiveness and Vulnerabilities: Destroyer vs. Drones

At the same time naval forces are demonstrating their enduring purpose in the Red Sea, outsiders are questioning the sustainability of manned, multi-billion warships facing off against much cheaper, unmanned drones. The missiles used to shoot down these drones cost upwards of $4 million, while the drones themselves cost only hundreds of thousands. But the issue of cost effectiveness in asymmetric warfare is not new. In the land campaigns of the Global War on Terror, for example, costly munitions were expended in the targeting of much less costly targets. That cost effectiveness is suddenly an issue for public discussion during a maritime campaign is yet another example of seablindness, but the concern is reasonable. Unmanned and easy to replicate, drones can be used to exhaust more expensive naval munitions before attacking warships directly without putting the drone operator at risk. The discussion of cost effectiveness has, therefore, extended to the vulnerability of warships.

This vulnerability was the subject of a recent article by Brandon Weichert, who bemoaned the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer as “a great navy warship past its prime.” Current and former naval officers were quick to criticize the article, which uses the 2000 attack on USS Cole as its prime example of such vulnerability but says nothing about weapon posture or layered defense (the Cole was moored in Yemen for refueling and unready when the attack occurred). While warship vulnerability against drones is concerning, all of history’s advances in weapon technology elicited similar concern. From the longbow and machine gun to the submarine and nuclear bomb, these advances created asymmetry even among peers, and only democratization of these technologies restored the balance. In the meantime, it should be obvious that the best course of action, as the United States (and now UK, too) is following, is to target bases and operators before drones become a threat–though it is doubtful that such strikes alone will be enough to make a difference.

While the Houthi’s use of autonomous systems is the latest example of their democratization, the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was the first indication of such democratization on a mass scale, as well as the first instance of these systems being a decisive factor in war. Prior to the 2020 conflict, autonomous systems—drones—were the purview of major powers with the money to procure and employ them. In Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan employed them as a force of their own, devastating Armenian air defenses, tanks, artillery, and supply lines without putting traditional aircraft or their pilots in harm’s way. Similarly, in the Russo-Ukrainian war, Ukrainian forces have all but stopped the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, using drones to disrupt and in some cases destroy Russian warships. As John Antal warned in his detailed analysis of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, autonomous systems, now employed by state and non-state actors alike, are here to stay. 

Absent Allies and Coalitions of the Willing

Due to the impact of Houthi attacks on world trade, the U.S. and several of its allies formed a coalition of the willing to respond to the crisis. Like the international response to piracy in the Horn of Africa, international naval cooperation has become a rule rather than an exception in the post-Cold War era. Globalization has necessitated this cooperation, increasing the impact of the threats to, and mitigations of maritime security relative to more traditional threats. But unlike the response to piracy, which saw NATO, the EU, and even China, India, and Russia deploy forces to protect maritime trade, NATO is notably absent from this crisis. The Israel-Hamas conflict has divided many allies on their response to the Houthi threat, even if all are affected by the disruption of merchant shipping in the Red Sea. NATO has the means to make a difference in this crisis, but politics as usual are in the way.

As of this writing, 14 states are supporting the U.S.-led Operation Prosperity Guardian. Of these 14, only eight are NATO members–the United States included. The EU’s Operation Aspides has even fewer supporters, though they include some of the NATO members absent from Prosperity Guardian. Of course, not all states supporting Prosperity Guardian are contributing warships; but the presence of staff officers, as Norway is contributing, will enhance cooperation. One of the merchant ships attacked early on in this crisis was Norwegian-flagged, incentivizing this contribution, but the general threat posed to freedom of navigation in the Red Sea should be incentive enough for all capable states to contribute. As should be obvious even to the seablind, the impact of supply chain disruption as seen during COVID, the grounding of the Ever Given, and, more recently, the destruction of the Francis Scott Key bridge, necessitates their contribution.

Whether or not it ultimately contributes to the crisis response, NATO must once again confront the challenge of deterring and defending against its perennial foe, Russia, while also contributing to maritime security. Worrisomely, NATO’s Allied Maritime Strategy is out-of-date. Its latest Strategic Concept, released in 2022, refocuses on Russia while maintaining NATO’s role as a maritime security actor; but it poorly articulates the maritime dimensions of NATO’s security environment. NATO is, first and foremost, a maritime alliance, and it needs a maritime strategy to guide its force structure and operational concepts. Such a strategy is more important considering the potential for a future conflict with China. If the U.S. Navy and potentially other NATO navies must surge to the Pacific, alliance buy-in will be needed to manage the varying threats to maritime security in and near NATO’s area of responsibility.

Implications for a Future Conflict with China 

As the U.S. Navy and coalition members stand off against Houthi drones (and missiles) in the Red Sea, the implications for future conflict are worth examining. As in the Russo-Ukrainian War, drones have reduced asymmetry in this crisis; and they were decisive in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Clearly, such technology must be at the forefront of the U.S. Navy’s planning for a future conflict with China, which has the industrial capacity to produce drones in far greater quantities than so far exhibited. Updates to strategy and the fleet design it informs need to be quick, as warships, submarines, aircraft, and their integration with this technology cannot happen overnight. The new U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations, Lisa Franchetti, called this state of affairs a “1930s moment.” In the 30s, the U.S. Navy was too small and insufficiently resourced for the coming Second World War, and the U.S. Navy is not much different today (shipbuilding delays being one of the most troubling examples).

While the U.S. Navy’s strategy prior to the Second World War was centered on battleships, as Franchetti explained, it shifted from this platform-centric strategy to one integrating naval forces above and below the sea to defeat the Nazis and Imperial Japan. The next shift in strategy is clearly toward autonomy. The Navy is already making significant efforts to this end. The Replicator Initiative, focused on commercially sourcing and mass producing drones to take on China, is the overarching example of these efforts. The Navy’s unmanned  Task Force 59 in the Middle East is the prime example of the Navy’s role at the pointy end of this strategy, developing and implementing its tactics. Likewise, other branches, especially the U.S. Marine Corps, are making efforts to better design themselves for next generation warfare. How exactly this next generation warfare will look is still unclear, but drones are likely to be used to counter drones. The era of drone-on-drone warfare is near.

One of the biggest lessons to be learned from the drone warfare experienced so far is offense-defense balance. Drones add to an already saturated battle space, increasing the burden on layered defenses. Leveraging emerging technology to improve offensive capabilities is critical, but defensive capabilities must be given corresponding weight. Importantly, however, neither offensive nor defensive capabilities need to be wholly reliant on emerging technology; “old ways” may prove to be more effective than imagined, as they were for Lieutenant General Van Riper in the infamous Millennium Challenge. The novel 2034, co-authored by retired Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman, imagines how these old ways might make the difference in a conflict with China, should new technology be defeated. New technology might win some wars and mitigate certain crises; where it is not the deciding factor, however, old ways—or some combination of the old and new, as is currently on display in Ukraine—may be.

Conclusion

Navies are demonstrating their enduring purpose in the Red Sea Crisis, but their response has been far from perfect. The seemingly strained relationship between navies and merchant shipping evident early in the crisis is concerning, but establishing better relationships between the two using liaison officers and the NATO Shipping Center–if NATO involves itself—could help in the future. The cost-effectiveness and vulnerabilities of the naval response are also concerning, as is the absence of certain allies. Regardless, the drone technology at the center of this crisis is here to stay, and the implications for a future conflict are the most concerning of all. Defense innovation efforts are already underway to prepare for such a conflict, but over reliance on emerging technology to go on offense, without simultaneously preparing for defense, could be fatal. Going forward, navies are at the center of these challenges, especially war with China. Thankfully, the Red Sea Crisis could prove their perfect test.

Colin Barnard is a PhD candidate at King’s College London and foreign area officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, currently assigned to a unit supporting U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet in Naples, Italy. He was formerly on active duty for ten years, during which he supported U.S. and NATO operations across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. He has previously written for CIMSEC and the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings. The views expressed in this publication are the author’s and do not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of Defense or U.S. Navy.

Featured Image: The British-registered cargo ship Rubymar sinking, after it was targeted by Yemen’s Houthi forces in international waters in the Red Sea, on March 3, 2024, in the Red Sea. (Photo by Yemeni Al-Joumhouriah TV)

Strategy

Asymmetric Naval Strategies: Overcoming Power Imbalances to Contest Sea Control

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By Alex Crosby

According to Julian Corbett, “[T]he object of naval warfare must always be directly or indirectly either to secure the command of the sea or to prevent the enemy from securing it.”1 However, naval warfare innately favors stronger naval powers in their pursuit of command of the sea. This institutional bias can drive weaker naval powers to act in less traditional manners, with the effects bordering on dangerously destabilizing to the involved security environment. Likewise, weaker naval powers can become increasingly receptive to the establishment of innovative and unique options to achieve the relative parity necessary for contesting command of the sea.

First, weaker naval powers can use asymmetric naval warfare in the form of devastating technologies and surprise shifts in strategy. Second, weaker naval powers can leverage coalitions to increase relative combat power and threaten secondary theaters to diffuse the adversary’s combat power. Finally, weaker naval powers can inflict cumulative attrition along distant sea lines of communication. These options, singularly or together, can enable a weaker naval power to contest command of the sea against a stronger naval power.

Asymmetric Naval Warfare

A weaker naval power can use asymmetric naval warfare to contest the command of the sea through the integration of devastating technologies. For example, during the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese leveraged two unique warfighting capabilities to undermine relative Russian naval superiority. First, the Japanese Navy used naval mines to offensively damage or destroy Russian ships attempting to leave Port Arthur.2, 3 Additionally, the placement of mines provided a means of sea denial, allowing Japanese ships to contest and control the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula with limited demand for direct naval engagements.

Second, the Japanese Navy used destroyers armed with torpedoes in close-proximity attacks on the Russian battleships of Port Arthur.4 This asymmetric employment of small naval assets with lethal firepower proved to be a devastating surprise against Russian ships expecting significant force-on-force engagements. This technology combination, mines and torpedo-equipped destroyers, is an example of how a relatively weaker naval force can contest command of the sea, especially in littoral waters.

Another means of asymmetric warfare that a weaker naval power can leverage for contesting command of the sea is a surprise shift in strategy. An example of this is the strategy of unrestricted submarine warfare focused on commerce targets that the German Navy used during the early stages of the Second World War. Early in the conflict, Germany identified the sea lines of communication crossing the Atlantic Ocean from the United States as critical for continued Allied efforts in the European and North African theaters.5 Germany concentrated its well-trained and disciplined submarine force and associated combat power into wolf packs to target this vulnerability. The primary objective of these wolf packs was to attrit as much tonnage of Allied shipping as possible, with the desired effect of exceeding the rate at which the Allies could replace their respective shipping fleets.6, 7 Germany was able to have significant successes during the early stages of the war, particularly by focusing these wolf packs off the east coast of the United States. This placement and intensity of submarine forces instilled a corresponding fear into the American populace and directly contested command of the sea.8, 9

In the early period of the war, the German strategy was definitively effective against the desired target set. Thus, a strategy such as unrestricted submarine warfare can be particularly useful in contesting command of the sea when the adversary is unsensitized to that type of warfare and remains slow in implementing tactics or technology necessary for countering.10 Asymmetric naval warfare, either through the employment of devastating technologies or the employment of surprise strategies, has the potential to be a force multiplier for weaker naval powers in contesting command of the sea.

Leveraging Coalitions

A weaker naval power can further contest command of the sea by leveraging coalitions, mainly through the increase of combat power parity to surpass that of an adversary’s superior naval strength. During the Peloponnesian War, Sparta represented a predominantly land-centric power compared to the naval-centric Athens in a conflict dominated by the maritime domain. Assessing its accurate position as the weaker naval power, Sparta sought allies that possessed naval strength to increase the combined power of the Peloponnesian League to contest Athens’s claim on command of the sea.11 Additionally, Sparta leveraged the Persian willingness to export naval capabilities in exchange for economic and diplomatic trades further to increase the naval strength of the Peloponnesian League.12 The Spartan increase in maritime power through a combination of direct and indirect coalitions had the additional effect of instilling strategic paranoia in Athenian leadership. This fear of Sparta, and more specifically the fear of Sicilian states joining the Peloponnesian League, caused Athens to overextend its naval power for a resource-draining expedition.13 The alignment of combined naval strength against the Delian League ultimately proved decisive for turning the tide of the Peloponnesian War in favor of the Spartan-led coalition.

A weaker naval power can also leverage coalitions, and the increase in combined naval power, to threaten a stronger adversary in secondary theaters and diffuse their combat power to more manageable levels. The American Revolution is an example of this situation, where the American colonies gained the critical maritime support of France. This coalition represented relative combined naval power that exceeded that of the British Navy and continued to increase throughout the remainder of the war.14, 15 Additionally, the France’s colonial garrison forces and associated sea lines of communication in proximity to British global equities diffused British naval power to relatively weaker concentrations.16 This reduction in the British Navy’s ability to mass combat power was further compounded with France’s entry into the conflict. The threat posed by France spurred Britain to allocate significant naval power for the defense of the British Isles from invasion, altering the primary strategic objective of the entire war.17, 18 The combined effort of France and the Thirteen Colonies displayed the importance of several weaker naval powers forming a coalition against a stronger naval power and the strategic dilemma it can manifest for an overextended adversary.

Inflicting Cumulative Attrition Along Distant Sea Lines of Communication

Finally, a weaker naval power can contest command of the sea by inflicting cumulative attrition along distant sea lines of communication. During the Second World War, the Japanese Navy identified the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean as a critical operation factor that presented several advantages to achieving command of the sea. The tyranny of distance associated with any sea lines of communication required by a transiting American force would be vulnerable to Japanese exploitation. Specifically, Japan planned for the expected significant quantities of merchant shipping to be a central target set of its strategy for degrading American naval power to more manageable levels.19 Additionally, the extreme distances of the Pacific Ocean would, at least in the initial stages of the conflict, prevent the American Pacific Fleet from massing to its maximum combat potential. Based on the detriments the distances would inflict on American naval operations, the Japanese aimed to inflict cumulative attrition with a defined strategy.

The Japanese Navy implemented a wait-and-react strategy, which was planned to involve a series of naval engagements far from Japanese centers of gravity to attrite the American Pacific Fleet.20 In addition to these minor naval engagements, the wait-and-react strategy relied upon the garrisoning of island strongholds. These strongholds would allow the concentration of air and naval offensive combat power to attrite a westward-moving American naval force further. The projection of Japanese combat power would have directly threatened the massing of American naval strength, both of warships and the associated merchant shipping.21 Through this added attrition of sea lines of communication, the American naval power was intended to have been decreased to matching or weaker status than the Japanese Navy. This risk reduction would then have enabled a decisive fleet-on-fleet engagement, allowing Japan to gain command of the sea.22 Despite the distances of the Pacific Ocean and its status as a relatively weaker naval power, the Japanese Navy formulated a strategy with the potential to inflict enough cumulative attrition for decisive effects.

An Argument For Joint Force Integration

Some might argue that a better option for a weaker naval power to contest command of the sea would be the integration of the joint force against the threats posed by a stronger naval power. Julian Corbett in particular proclaimed the value of joint integration to achieve maritime objectives such as contesting command of the sea.23 The coordination of joint firepower is critical to mass enough effects to contend with a stronger naval power, which is especially pertinent with the introduction of modern technology.24

Additionally, the influence of devastating offensive firepower, including over the horizon targeting capabilities, validates the insufficiency of mono-domain action from the sea. The combination of a multi-domain aggregation of firepower is a near necessity for a weaker naval power to have any legitimate chance at contesting command of the sea.25

Conclusion

Joint operations, while important in a general sense, and critical for first rate navies, are not the best option for weaker powers to contest command of the sea. Joint operations are resource-intensive and could prove more burdensome than helpful for a weaker naval power. Additionally, joint interoperability would likely be nonetheless reliant on the previous factors of asymmetric naval warfare, coalition leveraging, and attrition of distance sea lines of communication in order to be effective. Conversely, joint interoperability is not a prerequisite for those different factors. Asymmetric naval warfare can be conducted regardless of a joint force in a variety of ways, especially when possessing devastating technologies and employing surprise shifts in strategy that undermine an adversary’s understanding of the maritime environment.

Coalitions can be leveraged to increase relative combat power and threaten an adversary’s secondary theaters without the demand of a joint force. Distant sea lines of communication can be harassed and attacked to inflict cumulative attrition absent a joint force. Even a small, unique advantage has the benefiting possibility of supporting the instillment of innovation and growth towards multilateralism, all caused by existential concerns with the maritime domain.

Ultimately, a weaker naval power has a multitude of options when it comes to contesting command of the sea against a stronger naval power without needed to rely on joint operations. 

Lieutenant Commander Alex Crosby, an active duty naval intelligence officer, began his career as a surface warfare officer. His assignments have included the USS Lassen (DDG-82), USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), U.S. Seventh Fleet, and the Office of Naval Intelligence, with multiple deployments supporting naval expeditionary and special warfare commands. He is a Maritime Advanced Warfighting School graduate and an Intelligence Operations Warfare Tactics Instructor. He has masters’ degrees from the American Military University and the Naval War College.

References

1. Corbett, Julian S. “Some Principles of Maritime Strategy.” London: Longman, Green, 1911. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, reprint, 1988. 62.

2. Mahan, Alfred Thayer. “Retrospect upon the War between Japan and Russia.” In Naval Administration and Warfare. Boston: Little, Brown, 1918. 147 

3. Evans, David C. and Mark R. Peattie. “Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941”, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997. 101.

4. Corbett, “Some Principles of Maritime Strategy,” 149.

5. Matloff, Maurice. “Allied Strategy in Europe, 1939-1945.” In Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Peter Paret, ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. 679.

6. Murray, Williamson and Alan R. Millett. A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. 236.

7. Baer, George W. “One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The U.S. Navy, 1890-1990”. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. 192.

8. Ibid., 194.

9. Cohen, Eliot A. and John Gooch. Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War. Paperback edition. New York: Free Press, 2006. 61-62.

10. Murray and Millett, A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War, 250-251.

11. Strassler, Robert B., ed. The Landmark Thucydides. New York: The Free Press, 1996. 1.121.2.

12. Nash, John. “Sea Power in the Peloponnesian War.” Naval War College Review, vol. 71, no.1 (Winter 2018). 129.

13. Strassler, ed. “The Landmark Thucydides,” 6.11.

14. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, 505.

15. O’Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson. The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. 343.

16. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, 520.

17. O’Shaughnessy, “The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire,” 14.

18. Mackesy, Piers. “British Strategy in the War of American Independence.” Yale Review, vol. 52 (1963). 555.

19. James, D. Clayton. “American and Japanese Strategies in the Pacific War.” In Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Peter Paret, ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. 717.

20. Evans, David C. and Mark R. Peattie. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997. 464.

21. Lee, Bradford A. “A Pivotal Campaign in a Peripheral Theatre: Guadalcanal and World War II in the Pacific.” In Naval Power and Expeditionary Warfare: Peripheral Campaigns and New Theatres of Naval Warfare. Bruce A. Elleman and S. C. M. Paine, eds. London and New York: Routledge, 2011. 84-85.

22. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941, 464.

23. Corbett, “Some Principles of Maritime Strategy,” 15. 

24. Corbett, Julian S. “Maritime Operations in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905”. Vol. 2. Annapolis and Newport: Naval Institute Press and Naval War College Press, 1994. 382.

25. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941, 484.

Featured Image: SOUTH CHINA SEA (April 22, 2023) – F/A-18F Super Hornets from the “Mighty Shrikes” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 94 fly in formation above the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68). (U.S. Navy photo)

Tactics and Warfighting

Make ASW Joint: Integrating the Joint Force into Full Spectrum ASW

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By Jason Lancaster

Winston Churchill once stated that the only thing that scared him during the Second World War was the subsea aspect during the Battle of the Atlantic. Ant-submarine Warfare (ASW) was a paramount focus early in the war. Victory in the Atlantic required a whole of government effort from the Allied powers at the war’s strategic, operational, and tactical levels. At the strategic level, national shipbuilding industries designed ships like the Flower-class corvette and Liberty cargo ship for mass production. At the operational and tactical level, Allied air forces and navies were forced to operate jointly to hunt submarines and defend convoys.

During the Cold War, NATO maintained anti-submarine competency and internalized lessons learned during the Second World War. The collapse of the Soviet Navy during the 1990s shifted the U.S. focus to power projection ashore in the Balkans and the Middle East, and anti-submarine warfare competencies across the joint force atrophied. As the era of near-peer competition began, the Navy looked at ways to recapture the hard-fought competencies and lessons lost since the end of the Cold War. In particular, the whole government approach to anti-submarine warfare (ASW) was reintroduced, known as “full-spectrum ASW.” The Navy is the domain owner for undersea warfare. As such, the Navy must be prepared to educate and explain undersea warfare doctrine and its roles to the rest of the joint force so that lessons written in blood are not repeated.

A Disappointing Tale of Disjointedness

As a young lieutenant serving at Naval Forces in Korea, I received a frantic call from a United States Forces Korea staff officer to come over for a chat. Once there, an Air Force officer asked me how to make anti-submarine warfare a joint activity. Inadvertently, my recommendations aligned with the concepts of “full-spectrum ASW,” first described by retired Navy captain William Toti. During the meeting, I detailed several ways to accomplish anti-submarine warfare as a joint activity. A few hours later, I received a call from an Air Force officer stating that headquarters decided that anti-submarine warfare was a Navy problem, a position reminiscent of the historical friction between the Army Air Corps and the Navy in 1942. History has a way of repeating itself.

Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) is All-of-Government and Joint

Full-spectrum ASW breaks down the different ways to defeat a submarine threat. There are offensive and defensive lines of effort or threads. The threads cover the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war. These threads require an all-of-government approach to recognize their full benefit and potential. Captain Toti was inspired by the Army’s combined arms tactics and use of kill zones to approach anti-submarine warfare. Using my previously mentioned conversation as an inspiration, this paper journeys through the different threads of integrating full-spectrum ASW into the joint force and not leaving it just to the Navy.

Strategic Threads

The joint force contributes variously at the levels of war for full-spectrum ASW. There are only two threads at the strategic level of war. If used aggressively by joint force commanders, those two threads can end a submarine threat before it has begun.

1. Discourage enemy submarines before leaving the harbor. Discouraging enemy submarines from leaving port occurs at senior levels of government and the combatant command through overt and covert means. Commanders and the government should conduct studies to determine enemy submarine force capability gaps to exploit. This should be all-encompassing and explore everything from adversary submarine force leadership, command and control, tactics, training, parts and maintenance, and morale. Discouraging an enemy submarine from leaving port would focus on deterring its leadership, disrupting command and control, and exploiting any issues with submarine force morale. Many of these efforts can be considered part of information operations or operations designed to influence the decision calculus of enemy leadership and crews to create favorable outcomes for the joint forces.

2. Defeat submarines in port. The adage is that the best time to eliminate a submarine is when it’s stationary alongside a pier. In 1982, the ARS Santa Fe was sunk alongside a pier on South Georgia Island by a Royal Navy helicopter. This reduced the Argentine Navy’s submarine fleet by a third before the amphibious landings in the Falklands began. The remaining two Argentine submarines proved troublesome for the Royal Fleet. The Royal Navy expended significant quantities of sonobuoys, torpedoes, aircraft sorties, and ships hunting the other submarines. On several occasions, Argentine torpedo failures proved to be the only thing that prevented successful submarine attacks on Royal Navy ships. Although the Royal Navy never located the other two submarines, their efforts proved it was easier to kill submarines in port than at sea.

Defeating submarines in port is more aggressive and highly escalatory if done during peacetime. However, diplomacy and sanctions can restrict the flow of required parts and supplies, affecting readiness and preventing a submarine’s departure from port. Such strategies are hard to implement for adversaries with strong indigenous supply chains. During wartime, special operation raids and time-sensitive targeting can help disable vessels in port.

Infrastructure strikes on piers, warehouses, fuel storage, ammunition magazines, and communication nodes can hobble sustainment capabilities. An enemy submarine can return to port but cannot be redeployed. Mining the entrances or approaches to harbors can quarantine the threat, at least temporarily. Defeating submarines in port simplifies theater ASW and enables logistics to flow into the theater with less risk.

Russian Navy nuclear-powered submarines at a base in Russia’s Murmansk region. (Photo via Lev Fedoseyev/TASS)

Operational Level of War

Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) is a resource-intensive fight. The time to learn and prepare is before hostilities break out. The combatant commander should support joint operations at the operational level of war by prioritizing and resourcing ASW as a key mission and emphasizing routine training requirements. ASW exercises illuminate the gaps in coverage within the operating area. Once those gaps are identified, the command can submit an urgent needs request to acquire additional capabilities to support the ASW mission. Urgent is relative to the budgeting time frame, so the joint force commander should identify these needs early to build a case for how these capabilities are required in the theater.

3. Defeat the submarines’ shore-based command-and-control (C2) capability. Severing leadership’s communications with their operational units ranges from destroying nodes, jamming channels, hacking command and control systems, and targeting leadership. Submariners embody mission command, but disrupting the command-and-control capability reduces the effectiveness of over-the-horizon targeting. If the enemy submarine does not have third-party sensor cues for the location of our ships, the submarine is forced to approach the strike group for organic acquisition. As a submarine draws closer to a protected entity, its advantages are eroded, and its chance of discovery is elevated. Disrupting communications also adds a layer of distraction, forcing adversarial crews to make efforts to restore communications.

4. Defeat submarines near ports and in denied areas. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, anti-submarine aircraft operated in spotter-killer groups. One carried the sensors, and the other carried the torpedo. Today, General Atomics builds the sensor-laden MQ-9B capable of carrying side-scanning maritime radars and 40 sonobuoys. Another unmanned aerial system, the T600, successfully launched a Stingray torpedo during a NATO exercise. While U.S. maritime patrol aircraft like the P-8A Poseidon are adept submarine hunters, there are too few of them.

British Aerospace’s T600 prepares for takeoff with a torpedo. (Photo via DroneXL)

Hunting submarines is an excellent area where the joint force can shine. The Marine Corps should invest in the MQ-9B to support their Marine littoral regiments’ domain awareness and anti-submarine warfare initiatives. These aircraft could operate from expeditionary advanced bases near a hostile country to detect, track, classify, and engage hostile submarines.

5. Defeat submarines in chokepoints. Chokepoints are dangerous for warring sides depending on who has the preponderance of forces and who can position first. Diesel-electric submarines are slow and cannot easily close on a maneuvering carrier strike group. Instead, diesel-electric submarines prefer to lie in wait. Chokepoints are key maritime terrain to funnel forces and favor ambush predators. This is an area where the Marine Corps littoral regiments and the Army multi-domain task forces can play a decisive role with the proper weapons.

The Marine Corps littoral regiments and multi-domain task forces expect to operate near chokepoints, providing sensors and fires for the maritime fight. Equipping them with weapons and sensors that support anti-surface and submarine warfare would increase their lethality and utility in chokepoints. Equipping these units with MQ-9B Sea Guardians would provide persistent maritime domain awareness for the joint force. The Department of Defense should develop an extended-range dual-use anti-submarine/anti-ship cruise missile for the joint force like the Russian SS-N-14 Silex. These units could rely on inorganic sensors or be equipped with periscope detection radars, sonobuoys, and sonar processing systems to direct their maritime fires.

These units are already equipped with anti-ship missiles such as the SM-6, Block V Tomahawk, and Naval Strike Missile (NSM). Increasing the variety of weapons and capabilities makes these forces more lethal and forces the enemy to develop countermeasures, diverting resources from offensive weapons.

Two towboats attached to a submarine flotilla under the PLA Northern Theater Command jointly tow a submarine off a port during a maritime combat training exercise on April 19, 2022. (Photo via eng.chinamil.com.cn/photo by Shi Jialong)

6. Defeat submarines in the open ocean. There are two key ways that the joint force can support the open ocean ASW fight. One is through providing additional intelligence support. Cryptologic Task Group (CTG) 101 is collocated with the Air Force, Space Force, and other agencies. It provides timely, accurate, and relevant target quality data on dynamic targets to enable weapons engagement at range. If the next fight is maritime, CTG 101 mission priorities should be increased to provide improved targeting and tracking of opposing submarines.

The other way to support ASW in the open ocean is by utilizing MQ-9Bs to support long-range maritime patrols, and there is precedence. During the Second World War, the Army Air Corps utilized B-17s and other aircraft to support ASW patrols from Iceland to the Caribbean to deter German submarines from surfacing. Air Force battle management and other special mission aircraft could play a similar role in finding submarines. Air Force “Compass Call” aircraft could support jamming enemy submarine communications, targeting, and scouting channels. Most submarine over-the-horizon targeting comes from satellite communications. Without those communications, the range of a submarine-launched missile is reduced to the organic targeting distance. This potentially reduces the range from 300 nautical miles to under 50 nautical miles. At those ranges, a carrier strike group’s organic ASW assets have a chance at locating and defeating an enemy submarine.

7. Draw enemy submarines into ASW “kill boxes.” Drawing the enemy into “kill boxes” utilizes joint force capabilities. The theater anti-submarine warfare commander should design kill boxes based on chokepoints, bathymetry, acoustic profiles, and the location of ASW-equipped friendly forces. Integration should be based on sensor and weapons capabilities.

8. Mask our forces from submarine detection or classification. There are several ways that the Navy masks forces from submarine detection or classification. Some of the easiest ways include operating in areas of the ocean with a large amount of acoustic noise, in areas with poor acoustic conditions for the spread of noise, and operating the engineering plant to present different acoustic profiles. Air Force aircraft could drop large noisemaking decoys offset from naval assets to drive enemy submarines away from the naval force. These self-propelled noisemakers are already in the Navy’s inventory as training tools. Noisemakers could also be configured to serve as lures, mimicking the acoustic profiles of worthwhile targets to entice submarines into kill boxes for joint fires prosecution.

Tactical ASW

The joint force plays a role in tactical anti-submarine warfare. The joint force assets used to detect, classify, and track submarines in chokepoints, the open ocean, and kill boxes must also be able to engage the submarine. Equipping littoral regiments and multi-domain task forces to engage submarines is vital as it might represent the last opportunity before the submarine can break into the open ocean.

Task forces comprised of escort carriers played several roles during the Battle of the Atlantic, escorting convoys or participating in hunter-killer groups. World War II task forces utilized signals intelligence to locate and attack German U-boats. Modern reincarnations of the hunter-killer group might include allied frigates, destroyers, and composite squadrons specialized for ASW. For example, the Japanese Mogami class frigate and squadrons composed of MQ-9Bs or MH-60R helicopters operating from Navy flattops like amphibious assault ships or expeditionary sea bases. Queuing would be supported by the federated intelligence apparatus in addition to the organic scouting capabilities of the group.

9. Defeat the submarines in close battle. With the advent of anti-ship cruise missile-armed submarines, the close battle can be anywhere from a few hundred yards to over 300 nautical miles. Supporting the force with ASW-capable aircraft, deploying missile countermeasures, jamming submarine communication and datalink capabilities, or providing intelligence of a missile launch must not be overlooked as meaningful contributions by the joint force. This weaves into the next thread.

10. Defeat the incoming torpedo. This thread should be updated to include defeating incoming missiles and torpedoes. If all else fails, defend. This thread is primarily a local force action, but there are ways the joint force can still contribute. Mines and submarine nets deployed by littoral regiments and other forces around chokepoints or vulnerable waterways can complicate adversarial targeting. Utilizing soft kill options like decoys or tactical air defenses to engage a missile at range can help thwart a long-range missile attack. Lastly, the joint force can provide indications and warnings of adversarial weapon launches to help friendly assets prepare to defend.

Conclusion

The ten threads of full-spectrum ASW provide an excellent path for joint force integration into the ASW Fight. Some retooling may be required to become effective. As the joint force girds itself for a maritime fight, new units in development to support local sea control or denial should not overlook ASW and invest accordingly.

As in the Second World War, defeating the submarine threat would require a whole-of-government approach in close coordination with allies and partners. It is better to start communicating and training for anti-submarine warfare during peacetime rather than unnecessarily expending blood and treasure in wartime. As the military gears up to fight a maritime fight in the Pacific, every service is eager to play a role. There are roles for the joint force, and the U.S. Navy should take advantage by steering other service resources in ways that improve the Navy’s lethality and help win the ASW fight.

LCDR Jason Lancaster is a Surface Warfare Officer. He currently works at OPNAV N5. His last sea tour was as C5I Officer aboard USS AMERICA (LHA 6).  Afloat he has also served as a Destroyer Squadron Operations Officer, Weapons Officer on a DDG, with division officer tours aboard an LSD and an LPD.  Ashore, he has worked in the N5 at OPNAV and Commander, Naval Forces Korea. He is an alumnus of Mary Washington College and holds an MA in History from the University of Tulsa.

The views presented are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official view of the U.S. Government or the Department of Defense.

Featured Image: A PLA Navy submarine attached to a submarine flotilla under the PLA Northern Theater Command bears off a port for the maritime combat training drills on March 23, 2022. (Photo via eng.chinamil.com.cn/photo by Wu Haodong)

Information Warfare

Information Warfare is Integrated Warfare

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By Corey Grey

When the USS Carney (DDG-64) downed the opening salvos of Houthi land-attack cruise missiles and drones over the Red Sea in October, the Pentagon hailed the feat as a “demonstration of the integrated air and missile defense architecture.” It was much more than that. Long before Carney’s medium-range Standard Missile-2s (SM-2s) erupted from their launch cells, Information Warfare (IW) capabilities provided crucial combat support to neutralize the inbound threats, enabling these shots with critical IW equipment, intelligence, internal communications, and electronic support. In short, naval IW—with the exception of launching the SM-2s— ensured critical strategic objectives. This event, and many others like it, demonstrates the underappreciated depth of IW for the current and future fight.

As the military grapples with recruiting shortfalls, the IW community has a compelling story to counter: integrated warfighting. This narrative, epitomized by Carney and other units’ recent successes, covers efforts across a diverse range of specialties that are too often seen in isolation: meteorology/oceanography, cryptology, intelligence, communications, space, and cyber operations. As important as the success of these individual elements are for the U.S. Navy, the real impact relies on the full integration of information forces and capabilities through improved recruiting, training and career paths integration, as underscored by the recent Department of Defense Strategy for Operations in the Information Environment (SOIE).

With this in mind, the U.S. Navy should take concrete steps to further promote an integrated warfighting ethos which better incorporates all elements of the IW community, starting from initial officer training to senior level carrier strike group operations. By defining what it means to be an integrated information warfighter rather than just being an Intelligence Specialist, Cryptologist, Meteorologist, or Information Professional, the IW community will better educate, train, and most importantly, recruit the next generation of IW personnel. Equally important is the need to enhance retention. To further maintain the impressive cadre of IW personnel in service, the Navy should improve its career opportunities with better advanced training and cross-detailing availability. In the aftermath of these changes, IW will be better positioned to dominate the information environment and enable mission success.

Shared Identity

The Navy’s IW community currently boasts favorable recruiting but should do more to meet the growing demand from supported operational forces. Vice Admiral Kelly Aeschbach, Naval Information Forces commander, recently confessed that “our biggest challenge right now is facing demand. We are needed everywhere, and I cannot produce enough information warfare capacity and capability to disrupt it everywhere that we would like to have it, and so that remains a real pressing challenge for me: how we prioritize where we put our talent and ensure that we have it in the most impactful place.”

Better recruiting starts with stronger, more compelling messaging. Aviators join to fly, submariners join to drive boats, surface warfare officers to drive ships, but there is less consistency in why each IW officer volunteers for service. Future IW candidates require a holistic message that knits together the disparate range of specialties that encompass the community.

The Navy’s maritime sister service provides a clear model for messaging, encapsulated in five simple words: Every Marine is a Rifleman. This iconic phrase is based on the foundational infantry skills every Marine receives, regardless of their specialty, and the expectation that every Marine can serve in the capacity of a rifleman if called upon to do so. This narrative and ethos is so effective that last year, without any substantial increase in compensation or incentives, the Marine Corps exceeded its recruitment goals while the other services experienced shortfalls not seen in decades. Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Smith said it best: “Your bonus is that you get to call yourself a Marine.”

Sadly, the IW community lacks the clarity of the Marine Corps model. Instead, the community prescribes to an identity built around specialization. Personnel share the title of Information Warfighter, which encompasses seven officer designators and eight enlisted ratings, but the same personnel are only expected to master their own specific capability. Case in point, Congress recently compelled the Navy to produce a new maritime cyber warfare officer designator and cyber warfare technician rating due to a lack of specialization by Cryptologic Warfare Officers and Cryptologic Technicians. This change stands as criticism to the IW community as a whole as it raises questions towards their unified identity. Cyber operations cannot exist without Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) yet the Navy decided to separate the integrated IW capacity under two officer designators (1810, for SIGINT, and 1880, for Cyber Operations). Officers who joined the Navy to perform cyberspace and SIGINT functions should not have to laterally transfer to a new community to ensure they can continue to deliver and lead cyber operations. The capriciousness of this shift only leads to frustration and difficulties in recruiting and retaining talent.

Overall, the true lesson from all this is not the need to create more IW communities, but instead the need to produce a capable warfighter that can understand and provide full IW effects to the operational commander regardless of designator. Many will look to the Information Warfare Commander (IWC) position, both afloat and at maritime operation centers ashore, as the model for this vision, but how does the U.S. Navy assure future and present IW professionals that they will be properly trained to support or even become this commander?

Solutions for Integration

Although the Information Warfare Commander (IWC) for amphibious readiness groups and carrier strike groups drives the Navy towards a more integrated IW force, there is no consolidated career pipeline to properly prepare a rising officer to leverage all IW capabilities. Moreover, if that commander has done well to master his or her specialty, it comes at the opportunity cost of lesser competence in commanding an integrated force. More training is needed to ensure junior IW professionals feel competent, confident, and motivated to stay in the Navy through this milestone. Lengthening and strengthening courses that all IW officers can attend, such as the Information Warfare Officer Basic Course and Information Warfare Officer Intermediate Course, would better develop and refine how every IW specialty supports the fight while also fostering an integrated warfighting ethos, starting from the officer corps and spreading to the enlisted ratings. These trainings should highlight integrated IW operations for air, surface, sub-surface, naval special warfare, amphibious readiness group, and carrier strike group operations while leveraging evolving initiatives such as live, virtual, and constructive training. IW leaders would then be well postured to motivate and further develop the diverse cadres within the larger community.

Beyond better messaging and training is the need for increased cross-detailing, that is, assigning an officer from one IW discipline into a billet normally filled by another. The aim of this process is to ensure greater exposure and integration as IW officers broaden their experiences serving in capacities that are not traditionally aligned with their core skills. However, the IW force is not fully exposed or integrated because few leadership positions at the O-4 to O-6 levels are available for cross-detailing. These few billets are highly selective; consequently, most IW officers will never work outside their designator. The largest pool of IW officers, namely junior officers, are thus unaware of the full breadth and scope of the IW community due to a lack of experience and exposure. One especially important key to retaining talented people is to provide broader career opportunities, especially when they are most impressionable and likely to decide whether to stay in the Navy or leave for industry.

In a time when IW officers are filling senior roles once thought exclusive to unrestricted line officers, such as chief of staff, maritime operations center directors, and IWC, the question stands how they have not fully integrated within their own community. It is inconsistent to think that an Intelligence Officer can serve as the Commanding Officer of the largest Navy Information Operations Command (traditionally a Cryptologic Warfare Command) but a cryptologist cannot serve as a numbered fleet N2/N39. The same can be said for a number of other IW billets at every level. Certainly there are some positions that are best served by specific designators but this should be the exception and not the rule. The lack of cross-detailing creates identity challenges that degrade both community effectiveness and retention.

More deliberate solutions for integration, such as consolidating new accession IW officers under one broad designator and then having them select specific community tracks later in their careers, similar to the Navy’s Human Resource Officer community, should also be considered. Officer candidates would be presented with the full IW portfolio and then have the opportunity to select and support any of the various disciplines. After a set number of years being exposed to the broader community, the officer would then select a designator track from one of the IW disciplines. This could be implemented via a competency based selection process as determined from additional qualification designations (AQDs), type of assignments completed, and personal preference. The framework would enable deliberate career development, preparing officers to better succeed in more challenging IW assignments while also offering greater exposure and integration to succeed in senior level Information Warfare Commander positions.

Five Simple Words

With these solutions and more in this vein, operational commanders will be able to look to a fully pinned IW professional and receive an authoritative voice in navigating throughout the entire IW domain. This expectation should not be reserved for the select few who serve as IWC but for each individual who belongs to the IW community. IW is a compilation of many specialties in one vast domain and each sailor must be able to understand their place within it. As each member of a ship’s crew understands his or her place in maintaining a warship afloat, so must all IW professionals as they sail through the information environment.

The generalist versus specialist argument is not novel, yet these assertions go beyond that. The Navy must refit the individual IW operator’s identity towards integrated domain operations. Attracting and retaining qualified talent to meet the heavy IW demand necessitates a full commitment towards greater interconnectedness. Fourteen years have passed since the establishment of the IW community and while progress has been made, great strides still need to be achieved towards full synthesis. Without a comprehensive approach that meaningfully gets to how the IW community better integrates – from messaging, to training, to detailing. It is questionable whether the Navy will indeed be capable of recruiting and retaining forces for the many and varied challenges along the horizon. More must be done and a good place to start is by putting the community’s initiatives and visions into five simple words – “Information Warfare is Integrated Warfare.”

Lieutenant Corey Grey is a cryptologic warfare officer, qualified in information warfare and submarines. He holds a master’s degree from the Naval War College in defense and strategic studies with an Asia-Pacific concentration. He is assigned as the cryptologic resource coordinator on the staff of Commander, Submarine Group Seven.

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (Aug. 25, 2023) Operations Specialist 2nd Class Itzel Ramirez identifies surface contacts in the combat information center of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60) in the Pacific Ocean, Aug. 25, 2023. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elliot Schaudt)