Category Archives: Capability Analysis

Analyzing Specific Naval and Maritime Platforms

Winter is Coming

Heat waves, rising temperatures, and retreating ice grab headlines today. However, receding sea ice in the Arctic and a concurrent increase in shipping traffic will intensify attention on the globe’s (still) frigid northern reaches. Though the United States issued a forward-looking Arctic policy with National Security Presidential Directive 66 in 2009, it has not seriously faced the implications of matching these policy goals to strategic ends and backing its interests in the region with capital investments. Our Canadian allies have, and we should seek to learn from their experience.

The Arctic was important to Canada and the United States well before the ice started melting.

Canada’s adaptation to the Arctic’s changing maritime geography is instructive. For starters, it serves as a reminder of Canada’s importance as an ally of the United States. Geography, heritage, and shared sacrifice have forged a special relationship between Canada and the United States and, like the Night’s Watch in the cold Northern reaches of the fictional world in Game of Thrones, I think we too infrequently give them proper credit for their support of our defense. This isn’t the first era requiring US-Canadian security cooperation in the Arctic – both countries jointly manned the “Distant Early Warning” Line of radar stations above the Arctic Circle during the Cold War.

The United States can look to Canada’s experience in matching ends, ways, and means in a new Arctic geography while under austere fiscal constraints to inform our own decisions as we contemplate our role in the region.

Canada is an Arctic nation, and this identity figures heavily in the Canada First Defence Strategy. Among the most important declarations in the strategy:

In Canada’s Arctic region, changing weather patterns are altering the environment, making it more accessible to sea traffic and economic activity. Retreating ice cover has opened the way for increased shipping, tourism and resource exploration, and new transportation routes are being considered, including through the Northwest Passage. While this promises substantial economic benefits for Canada, it has also brought new challenges from other shores. These changes in the Arctic could also spark an increase in illegal activity, with important implications for Canadian sovereignty and security and a potential requirement for additional military support.

and:

Canadian Forces must have the capacity to exercise control over and defend Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic. New opportunities are emerging across the region, bringing with them new challenges. As activity in northern lands and waters accelerates, the military will play an increasingly vital role in demonstrating a visible Canadian presence in this potentially resource rich region.

Canada First proposes Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) as the primary strategic means to accomplish the policy goal of demonstrating a visible Canadian presence in the Arctic. In early July of this year, the Canadian Government announced a preliminary contract to draft an execution strategy for the project and execute a design review of the proposed vessel, which will be based on the Norwegian Svalbard-class of ships. While representing a significant step towards realizing Canada’s goals in the Arctic, the proposed class has received a fair amount of domestic criticism. Some Canadians call the design too small, too light, and too slow. Others point to the vessel’s lack of armament, though some propose incorporating space for future weapons systems into the design. A final criticism of the class is that it is designed for light icebreaking duties, earning them the moniker “slushbreakers” in the Canadian American Strategic Review. Vessels designed for polar cruising typically conform to a “Polar Class” indicating a specific level of icebreaking capability. The proposed AOPS will be Polar Class 5, which means “Year round operation in medium first-year ice which may include old ice inclusions,” and represents the lowest year-round capability to negotiate polar waters.

A portent of future Arctic FONOPS?

The AOPS represents, as some Arctic watchers have noted, a compromise between an offshore patrol vessel and a dedicated Arctic warship. This is the essential difficulty in planning an Arctic force structure: though the ice is retreating, there is still plenty of it and significant seasonal variations present new design challenges to Naval and/or Coast Guard vessels. True Arctic vessels require completely different hull, mechanical and engineering systems that significantly impact their tactical performance. No bow mounted sonar. Poor speed and maneuverability. Et cetera. Indeed, given the fact that American and Soviet/Russian submarines have a long, distinguished history of operating under the sea ice, I would question a surface vessel’s ability to operate in a submarine threat environment while noisily plowing through ice floes. This is just one challenge among many to tactical surface operations in the Arctic, and they are probably the reason why (as noted at Information Dissemination yesterday) the US Navy hasn’t seriously considered itself an Arctic player beyond ICEX and some limited research and development projects.

There are similarities between Canadian and US Arctic policy. While, geographically speaking, Canada seems to have a stronger need for an Arctic presence due to its more extensive maritime claims in the region, the Bering Strait – a critical choke point – is in Alaska’s back yard. US policy for the Arctic includes the following as summarized in a recent report:

The USA names several military challenges with implications for the Arctic, including missile defense and early warning; deployment of sea and air systems for strategic sealift, strategic deterrence, maritime presence, and maritime security operations; and ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight.

It’s possible to fulfill many of these goals with submarines, but once the discussion veers towards sealift, missile defense, and freedom of navigation, a polar surface combatant seems a necessary part of an Arctic force structure. The United States will have to answer many key questions raised by these stated goals:

  1. Should Navy, Coast Guard, or joint assets fulfill these roles?
  2. How important is it to the United States to lead the exploration and militarization of the Arctic?
  3. What metrics of civil use and sea ice change will determine the extent and timing of the United States’ Arctic presence?
  4. What functions can/should an Arctic ship fulfill?
  5. How does receding ice impact the existing Polar Classification system? What baseline of Polar Class is appropriate to Arctic warships/coast guard cutters?

Answering these questions is the work of strategy, and it’s telling that a recent letter signed by both of Alaska’s senators requested just such a strategy. If the United States does forge a detailed Arctic plan, it would do well to consider the experience of Canada’s government. Canada has pioneered the militarization of the Arctic region and revealed many of the challenges inherent in operating beyond “The Wall.”

LT Kurt Albaugh, USN is President of the Center for International Maritime Security, a Surface Warfare Officer and Instructor in the U.S. Naval Academy’s English Department. The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.

The Maple Leaf Model

A Canadian in the Caribbean: Haiti, 2010.

Canada’s Plans for Power Projection

For nations with a global outlook, the ability to respond to contingencies around the world has often been a mix of necessity and choice. Nations dependent on overseas trade or empires for their livelihood have found it a requirement to establish on distant shores the means to protect their prerogatives. Such foreign footholds have proved no less useful to nations that choose to pursue active foreign policies driven by humanitarian, religious, ideological, or expansionist aims. Imagining a country that requires extra-territorial basing for both reasons likely doesn’t conjure up images of moose and ice hockey, yet 21st-century Canada definitively qualifies on both counts. And it’s got a plan to secure that capability.

 

Canada is a maritime nation. While admittedly three quarters of Canada’s trade is still with the U.S., 20% of that travels by sea – as does 97% of the rest. However, it’s Canada’s foreign policy choices and commitments that makes it stand out as a truly global nation. In the past decade alone Canada has been involved in combat and peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan and Libya, counter-piracy missions off the Horn of Africa, non-combatant evacuation (NEO) operations in Lebanon, and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) in Haiti. The experiences of the new century have left a legacy of lessons the government is eager to leverage.

 

In 2008, Canada’s military set out to determine how it could quickly and efficiently ratchet up to full-scale crisis operations in the far-flung corners of the globe, yet do so in a manner befitting Canada’s fiscal and resource realities. The solution hit upon in 2010 was a constellation of “operational support hubs,” to be established in up to 7 worldwide locations where existing transportation facilities and infrastructure could support a contingency influx of Canadian troops and logistics. 4 C-17 Globemasters acquired by Canada’s armed forces in 2007 provide the rapid airlift capabilities while the storage facilities nearby will be rented to preposition equipment.

 

In tangible terms the plan really requires only a few dedicated personnel stationed at each port to maintain relationships, monitor the conditions of the facilities and equipment, and act as advanced husbanding agents in the event of a crisis. The heavy lifting is the advanced diplomatic work of brokering the deals. So far Canada has 3 deals in hand: Kuwait has agreed to act as an intermediate staging terminal allowing up to 3,000 troops, Germany is making available a portion of the Cologne-Bonn International Airport, and Jamaica has signed up for a yet-to-be-named location. Additionally, Singapore has been mentioned as a likely location, which would accord with its recent granting of foreign basing rights to others. There has been more difficulty for Canada in securing an agreement in Africa, as some reports indicate an East African hub (in Kenya or Tanzania) has run into the same fears of colonial permanence that sent the U.S. military’s AFRICOM HQ to Stuttgart, Germany. A West African hub may prove more welcoming, as other reports also suggest unnamed potential hosts look forward to possible training opportunities, but that would bring the count only up to 5 and leave ready access for counter-piracy missions in the Indian Ocean noticeably lacking.

 

“Don’t mind us miss, we’re with the advance team, just making sure the beaches are suitable…”

Despite the political uncertainties (including the potential that a host government could always renege on its agreement if the crisis issue was domestically too sensitive), the “Maple Leaf Model” of basing agreements and power projection may prove ideal for many nations in the new century. It’s debatable whether countries today have more or less active foreign policies than they did, say, 100 years ago, but in the age of globalization few are without important, if not vital, interests abroad – and in many cases, overseas. The more familiar model of permanent, fully staffed, made-to-order facilities is impractical for the great majority of countries to affordably cover their bases, so to speak. The U.S. model, which mixes such bases with armadas of prepositioned equipment and its own mobile bases, aircraft carriers and amphibious ships, is even less so. The small footprint, low costs, and opportunity for increased diplomatic ties of the Canadian way should be attractive to the many countries that want to maintain an ability to protect their interests abroad and conduct an active foreign policy.

 

It is possible there may be a first-mover advantage as nations that have already signed agreements with a one or two “active” powers may not want to risk a domestic backlash against “appeasing foreigners,” but it is just as possible a few host countries may decide to make an industry out of their perceived logistical and situational attractiveness and market their services to a broad swath of interested nations. Time will tell the extent, but expect to see other nations follow in Canada’s footsteps, if not moose tracks.

 

LT Scott Cheney-Peters is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and the former editor of Surface Warfare magazine. He is the founding director of the Center for International Maritime Security and holds a master’s degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College.

 

The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy. 

 

The Sinews of War

Fleet Admiral King – probably thinking about the challenge of getting from A to B.

I don’t know what the hell this “logistics” is that Marshall is always talking about, but I want some of it.

– Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King to a Staff Officer, 1942

Carting around beans and bullets has never much interested me until recently. Of course, the Military Sealift Command has been on my mind due to the recent engagement of a suspicious vessel by the USNS Rappahannock. I’ve also been reading more about the Falklands War after my conversation with Scott Cheney-Peters on TheRiskyShift.com‘s “Debrief” and recently found an out-of-print book from the 1960s titled Conflict and Defense: A General Theory with a lot of smart things to say about military might. Finally, Undersecretary of the Navy The Honorable Bob Work has been weighing in on forward basing of ships over at Information Dissemination. Though they seem unconnected, all of this has led me to the following conclusions:

  1. You can’t claim to be a Navalist without having an interest in logistics. When we talk about future fleet composition, we’re not spending enough time talking about how we will support our combat ships and how many/what types of replenishment and pre-positioning ships we need.
  2. If you’re looking for a single measure of national power, the size of a country’s merchant marine is a good place to start, but:
  3. The globalization of the shipping industry both affects this last measure and may make large conventional wars less likely.

The Falklands War is a clear example of what Scott calls “The Tyranny of Distance.” The further a state has to go to get to the fight, the less combat power they will be able to apply in that fight. Part of the reason Argentina decided to invade the Falklands in the first place was that they believed that they were so far away from Britain, whose military power (and some would argue, national power) was on the decline. Few believed the British could sustain military operations so far from home – and with good reason. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) could only muster 22 ships with around 120,000 tons combined displacement to sustain a naval task force, a brigade of Royal Marines, an army brigade, and other ground, air, and special operations forces.

The famous RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 converted for wartime service under “Operation Corporate.” Photo: Andy Shaw.

One of the reasons for Britain’s success was the rapid signing of the Requisition of Ships Order of 1982 and the launch of “Operation Corporate” – the rapid conversion of civilian ships to aid the RFA. Virtually overnight, Britain quintupled its replenishment and sealift tonnage. These ships were indispensable to the war effort, allowing the British to concentrate far more military strength in the Falklands theater than many outside observers anticipated. This is why I think a country’s merchant marine is a critical measure of national power – military forces rarely invest enough in logistics capabilities during peacetime. Once a crisis erupts, countries with robust merchant fleets can quickly convert them for wartime use. Great powers need to respond globally, and sometimes that will require surging logistics forces during a crisis.

The United States operates under the tyranny of distance every day. Perhaps that’s why we’ve become insensitive to our logistics forces – we rely on them so often. And we have such a professional and robust force in the Military Sealift Command that the merchant marine becomes an afterthought. But our merchant marine has shrunk drastically since the 1940s. It’s telling that the United States lost 733 merchant ships greater than 1,000 tons displacement in World War II – our current merchant marine stands at only 393 ships according to the CIA World Factbook. I’m not advocating for a return to a 6,000 ship merchant marine, but this historical perspective should spur us to ask the question: do we need more sealift capability in reserve? What kinds of policies might increase our merchant fleet? And comparatively, when we talk about China, we rarely note that it has the largest merchant marine of any great power at 2030 ships.

Going down the rabbit hole further, I find it interesting that our National Defense Reserve Fleet – the ships in “mothballs” – is shrinking significantly. According to a report published in May, the US Maritime Administration is planning to dispose of 34 of 142 ships, with the potential for more down the road. Most of the vessels being disposed of are some kind of bulk carrier or tanker.

Forward basing definitely mitigates some logistics challenges. According to Conflict and Defense by Kenneth Boulding, a Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan in the 1960s, forward bases can actually reverse the tyranny of distance – so powerful is their influence. Students of Mahan know this argument well. Forward basing is also the sensible posture to assume in times of austerity, allowing more operational use to be had from a smaller number of ships without completely burning out equipment or people. But we must consider the future of our logistics capability, particularly the reserves from which we might surge during a crisis.

Finally, a thought on globalization: with the rise of multinational shipping companies and the prevalence of flags of convenience, I think that conventional wars between great powers – particularly invasions across the seas – might be far less likely. In this sense, the decline of national merchant marines might offer some security advantages. Famed international relations theorist John Mearsheimer coined the term “the stopping power of water.” With countries less able to mobilize the logistics capability to transport large numbers of ground troops, great powers (like, perhaps, the United States and China) will be less able to invade one another.

What do you think: does the United States need more logistics forces? Should the United States seek to grow its merchant marine? How? What does China’s large merchant marine say about its national ambitions? This is a conversation worth having…

LT Kurt Albaugh, USN is President of the Center for International Maritime Security, a Surface Warfare Officer and Instructor in the U.S. Naval Academy’s English Department. The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.

Thoughts on International F-35 Buys

This post is part of a group created in partnership with the US Naval Institute covering a Lockheed Martin media event for the F-35 Lightning II. For an analysis of the fighter’s potential as an unmanned aircraft, visit here. For my discussion of other domestic considerations with the program’s development, visit here.

Though I didn’t get my mandatory crew rest, taking a turn on the stick of the F-35 Lightning II cockpit demonstrator was a great opportunity. Even better, though, were the insights I gained regarding the international aspects of the program. International cooperation defines the F-35 in a way unlike many other acquisitions programs. As I needed to catch up on my facts and figures, I’ll include them for those who need to get up to speed:

  • Foreign sales (both contracts with international partners in the F-35 program and traditional Foreign Military Sales [FMS]) currently account for approximately three out of eight aircraft that will be produced in the program of record. This includes 700 aircraft for international partners in the program and a projected 800 to be sold through FMS. As of now, 61 FMS aircraft are confirmed.
  • Though the US remains the largest purchaser of the F-35, international sales will account for the majority of aircraft delivered between 2014 and 2017. This reflects, according to Lockheed Martin, the need of foreign militaries to recapitalize aging aircraft. I think the rapidity with which international military forces will begin fielding the F-35 is an interesting and under-reported aspect of the overall procurement plan.
  • International deliveries begin next week. A ceremony in Fort Worth, Texas and a flight to Eglin AFB in Florida will herald the delivery of the first F-35 to the United Kingdom. The next foreign delivery will occur in September to The Netherlands.
  • A major section of the fuselage – called the empennage – is produced in the United Kingdom by BAE Systems.

For all of the discussion regarding the F-35 in the US, the public often neglects the effect that changes to the F-35 program will have on other partners in the program. These partners are close allies and we have, by soliciting their funding, obligated ourselves in many ways to go the distance.

Blurring military acquisitions with diplomacy makes the F-35 program a tool of foreign policy in and of itself. Though domestic political concerns have raised valid questions regarding the future of the F-35, Americans need to consider the impact to our foreign policy caused by any changes to the program. Anyone arguing for the truncation or the elimination of the F-35 program must also explain how the United States will mitigate the damage such an act would cause to our international relationships.

As a final note, Scott Cheney-Peters and I had a great discussion – which included international aspects of the F-35 program – at TheRiskyShift.com‘s new “Debrief” podcast. Grab some coffee (or tea, for those across the pond) and take a listen!

LT Kurt Albaugh, USN is President of the Center for International Maritime Security, a Surface Warfare Officer and Instructor in the U.S. Naval Academy’s English Department. The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.