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Capability Analysis

The Final Frontier – The Future of Defending Space as a Global Commons

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Space is big enough for everyone and it is in everyone’s best interest to keep it free for exploration and use by all. This is part 1 of a two-part series that outlines a conceptual framework characterizing the dynamics that contribute to instability and stability in the space domain. Part 2 will examine the ways and means the United States can lessen the former and strengthen the latter while maintaining space preeminence into the 21st century. Both parts are follow-on articles to a previously published piece on policy considerations for a deeper and more balanced U.S. space posture.  

By Tuan N. Pham

Many Americans view space through the prisms of history, entertainment, and exploration. Our parents grew up during the space race between the United States and the former Soviet Union, culminating in Neil Armstrong’s historic landing on the moon. We spent our youth watching popular movies and shows like Star Wars and Star Trek, while witnessing the realization of science fiction into science fact in the forms of the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and unmanned interplanetary space travel. Our children may be the first space tourists, traveling to the heavens in commercial space vehicles. Our grandchildren may become the first space colonists, living in space and on the moon, an asteroid, or perhaps Mars. Our great grandchildren may even become the first interstellar space explorers, venturing beyond our solar system and possibly to the stars. Yet despite this popular conception of space, very few Americans know, understand, and appreciate the stark reality that we now live in a world where “space systems allow people and governments around the world to see with clarity, communicate with certainty, navigate with accuracy, and operate with assurance.” Space must be understood as a global commons – much like airspace, the oceans, and perhaps even cyberspace – where secure access and established norms ensure economic growth and political stability.

Indeed, the rapid growth and development of the global economy has heralded a new era where an ever-increasing number of nations and organizations use space for military, economic, commercial, and scientific benefits – making it more “congested, contested, and competitive.” The now pervasive and interconnected nature of space capabilities and the world’s growing dependence on them also mean that “irresponsible acts” in space can have worldwide, indiscriminate, and damaging consequences on earth. Therefore, space preeminence is that degree of preeminence in space of one force over another that permits the conduct of operations by the former at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force (freedom of action). Such a preeminent position does not imply space dominance, a far more demanding position that would be difficult to sustain in any event, given globalized technology growth and offsetting space countermeasures.

Many space observers and pundits believe that within the next 5-10 years the evolving space environment may become increasingly destabilized due to the continued development, deployment, and proliferation of offensive counter-space (OCS) capabilities by various nations and perhaps some organizations. The unique dynamics of competition and cooperation in space must be thoroughly understood in order to shape a sustainable future in this domain that will be so critical to humanity’s future.

Dynamics of Space Instability

Instability arises when there is a real or perceived lack of order and security with the worst possible outcome being the “Thucydides Trap” – a rising power opposes a dominant power leading to great-power competition for space preeminence. The principal drivers of space instability include (but are not limited to) competing space powers, space-terrestrial preeminence linkage, the offensive-inclined nature of space warfare, and destabilizing partnerships.    

Competing Space Powers. The United States is the preeminent space power, and enjoys unprecedented and unrivaled national security advantages derived from its space capabilities. Other space powers have taken notice with some potential competitors (and possible future adversaries) developing significant capabilities to erode the U.S. strategic advantage in space and protect their own growing reliance on space capabilities. According to the 2015 United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s Report to Congress, Chinese military leaders regard the freedom to use space-based systems and deny the adversary access to space-based systems as central to enabling modern informationized warfare.

Space-Terrestrial Preeminence Linkage. Potential competitors are also acutely aware of U.S. terrestrial preeminence enabled by space preeminence, and see an opportunity to undercut the former through the latter. Of particular concern is a rising China, who appears to be asymmetrically targeting American dominant warfighting capabilities and exposed dependency on space assets. This is problematic for the United States who has more vulnerable high-value space assets and is more reliant on space capabilities than the other space powers. America has a disproportionate amount of vulnerable high-value space assets. Of the 1419 active satellites orbiting the earth, 576 are owned or affiliated with the United States. The next closest competitors are China (181) and Russia (140) with the former increasing rapidly in terms of quantity, quality, sophistication, and capability. America is also disproportionately dependent on space capabilities with its 278 government- or military-operated satellites, providing unmatched national security advantages in worldwide situational awareness, decision superiority, and military capability. Therefore, U.S. deterrent or response actions limited to just the space domain where the stronger power has more to lose than a weaker power may not be practical, sustainable, or even desirable.

View of LEO Satellites (green) and Debris Ring (red) from the 2007 Chinese ASAT Test (AGI)

Offense-Inclined Nature of Space Warfare. “A space power that strikes aggressively should, in theory, have the advantage, or at least get the greatest possible use of whatever OCS capabilities it has invested in.” Ambiguous indications and warning, attack attribution, and battle damage assessment; uncertain resiliency and assured retaliation; and vulnerability, predictability, and fragility of space assets give the operational and tactical advantages to the attacker and increase the strategic temptation to attack. All in all, OCS capabilities are attractive options for a weaker power because they offer asymmetric means to undermine the terrestrial preeminence of a stronger power by exploiting its reliance on critically-enabling space capabilities.      

Destabilizing Partnerships. Exclusive enterprises can be perceived by excluded parties as indirect efforts to isolate and undermine them. Look how Beijing perceives Washington’s rebalance to the Indo-Asia-Pacific, Trans-Pacific Partnership, and efforts to strengthen and expand the principled network of economic and security relationships as part of the greater U.S. containment policy of China’s rise, and to a certain extent, justification for its regional assertive actions and validation of its sense of aggrieved historical victimhood (strategic narratives).     

Dynamics of Space Stability

Stability arises when there is a real or perceived sense of order and security with the best possible outcome being the universal acceptance that space is big enough for everyone and it is in everyone’s best interest to keep it free for exploration and use by all. The principal drivers of space stability include (but are not limited to) stabilizing partnerships, common space dangers, space deterrence, and space governance.     

Stabilizing Partnerships. The ubiquitous benefits of space affect the everyday lives of people around the world. Hence, multi-national corporations are collaborating more and more in space. They see vast business opportunities for shared profits and shared costs in the lucrative areas of space situational awareness, scientific exploration, commercial ventures, and space tourism. In the geopolitical realm, inclusive enterprises share risk and promote mutual trust and cooperation amongst the parties involved. If all share the same risk, then a space attack on one is a space attack on all.    

Common Space Dangers. There are over 60 nations and government consortia that own and operate satellites. All of whom share the same domain; common interest of stability, security, and sustainability; and desire for free access to and use of space for all. Space debris accumulated over six decades of space activities impacts current and threatens future space operations and activities. The U.S. Department of Defense tracks approximately 22,000 “man-made” objects in addition to the 1419 active satellites. Nonetheless, there may be as many as hundreds of thousands of additional pieces of debris that are too small to track with current sensors. There is also an increasing global awareness of potential catastrophic space threats (asteroid, solar events, cosmic radiation, etc.) and a growing interest for global contingency planning and preparedness.

Space Deterrence (Keeping the Peace). Many space strategists view deterrence through the doctrinal lens of imposing costs, denying benefits, and encouraging restraint to deter or make an adversary believe that starting a war or escalating a conflict would be worse than not doing so.     

Imposing Costs. OCS capabilities are necessary at some level to enable deterrence and retaliation if deterrence fails, unless space assets can be given far greater resilient capabilities than the little they have today. Moreover, OCS capabilities like nuclear and cyber (and developing hypersonic) weapons are now permanent fixtures of the strategic arsenal. In other words, the genie is out of the bottle. Those who possess OCS capabilities are unlikely to surrender them. Those who do not have OCS capabilities will try to acquire them, while those who do have OCS capabilities will try to prevent others from getting them.

U.S. ASAT (Anti-satellite) missile launch on Sep. 13, 1985. Taken at the Pacific Missile Test Range in California. (USAF/Paul E. Reynolds)

Denying Benefits. Resilient space architecture “may” be able (in varying degree) to blunt the effectiveness of OCS capabilities; offset the offense-inclined nature of space warfare by lessening the vulnerability and fragility of space assets; reduce the temptation for a first strike; and assure a second strike capability.

Encouraging Restraint. Uncertain consequences in terms of second- and third-order effects and uncontrolled escalation may give pause to the attacker and possibly decrease the temptation to attack. A space attack can inadvertently impact the attacker as well in terms of degraded or lost global services, space debris, political costs, and indirect economic costs.     

Space Governance (Managing the Peace). An extant body of international agreements (treaties) and legal principles forms a framework of accepted norms of behavior for the space domain. However, more diplomatic and legal conventions are still needed to manage the constantly evolving strategic, operational, and tactical landscapes in space; and enhance the space stability thereof – particularly in the areas of space debris, space traffic regulation, resource exploitation, OCS capabilities, arms control, and arms reduction.

Conclusion  

This concludes the short discourse on the dynamics of space instability and stability; and sets the conditions for further discussion in Part 2 on the ways and means the United States can employ to reduce instability and strengthen stability in the space domain while maintaining space preeminence into the new century. Decline is a deliberate choice, not an inevitable reality.    

Read Part 2 here.

Tuan N. Pham has extensive and diverse experience in national security affairs. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Government.

Featured: GULF OF ADEN (June 1, 2016) Guided-missile destroyer USS Gonzalez (DDG 66) transits the Gulf of Aden. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Pasquale Sena/Released)

Capability Analysis

Naval Mines and Mining: Innovating in the Face of Benign Neglect

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This commentary is based on Dr. Truver’s remarks at the Future Strategy Forum 2016, Undersea Warfare panel, hosted by the Center for Naval Analyses, 5-6 December 2016.

By Scott C. Truver, Ph.D.

Introduction

Winston Churchill observed, “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

Looking backward, it usually comes as a surprise to learn that of the 19 U.S. Navy ships that have been seriously damaged or sunk by enemy action since the end of World War II, 15 – nearly 80 percent – were mine victims.

This vulnerability to mines has catalyzed the U.S. Navy to spend many hundreds of millions of dollars to counter a global threat that includes more than a million sea mines of more than 300 types in the inventories of more than 50 navies worldwide, not counting underwater IEDs that can be fashioned from virtually any container. More than 30 countries produce and more than 20 countries export mines. World-War I-era contact weapons bristling with “horns” can be as dangerous as highly sophisticated, computer-programmable, multi-influence mines that fire from the magnetic, acoustic, seismic, and pressure signatures of their victims. Ask Captain Paul Rinn, commanding officer of the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts, how a mine designed in 1908 can ruin your day.

Of particular concern are the mining capabilities of potential adversaries:

  • Russia reportedly has about a quarter-million mines
  • China, 80,000 to 100,000 mines
  • North Korea, perhaps 50,000 mines
  • Iran, 3,000 to 6,000 mines

Instead of discussing countermeasures to adversary weapons, this analysis is about our mines and mining in late 2016, how they might contribute to the Navy’s strategy, and where innovation might be leading us.

America’s Mines

America’s mines have been a factor in virtually every conflict since Ezra Lee navigated David Bushnell’s Turtle in a frustrated attempt to screw a “torpedo” – today what we would call a limpet mine – into the hull of Lord Howe’s flagship HMS Eagle in New York harbor on 6 September 1776. Therefore, it is not too much of a stretch to say that U.S. undersea warfare began with an IED/mine “event.”

Leaping over two centuries of U.S. Navy mine warfare history, during the Cold War, the Navy maintained a large stock of bottom mines for offense and defense. Several types of anti-submarine and anti-surface ship mines deployed by submarines and aircraft entered service in the 1950s and 1960s.

Later, mine inventories included Mark 36/40/41 Destructor shallow-water general-purpose 500/1,000/2,000-pound bombs fitted with mine target detection devices; the Destructor mines first deployed in 1967 and saw wide employment at sea and on land during the Vietnam War – some 11,000 DSTs were laid along jungle trails. The Mark 60 deepwater CAPTOR – enCAPsulated TORpedo – that encapsulated Mark 46 torpedoes within mine cases entered service in 1976, intended to block the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap to Soviet submarines in the event that deterrence failed. This was soon followed by the Mark 67 submarine-launched mobile mine – SLMM – that entered service in 1983 and could be covertly laid in vital areas.

A port view of the guided missile frigate USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (FFG-58) in dry dock in Dubai, UAE, for temporary repairs. The frigate was damaged when it struck an Iranian naval mine while on patrol in the Persian Gulf. (U.S. Navy photo PH1 Chuck Mussi)

But with the end of the Cold War, the Navy’s mine capabilities began to atrophy. Today, no conventional mines remain in service, the CAPTORs have been retired, and at one point the Navy had programmed the remaining obsolescent SLMMs to be phased out in 2012. Had that been carried out, our attack submarines would have had no mining capability at all. As it was, only direct intercession by CNO Admiral Greenert saved a handful of SLMMs until something better comes along, if it ever does given competing submarine missions and tasks.

The only other mines in service in 2016 are the Quickstrike series of aircraft-deployed, general-purpose-bomb-converted Mark 62 500- and Mark 63 1,000-pound weapons (in service since 1980), and the dedicated, thin-wall Mark 65 2,300-pound bottom mine (in service since 1983).

Remarkably, the Navy has not introduced a new mine in almost 35 years, but not without the mine warfare community trying. Various concepts for littoral sea mines were suggested in the 1990s and early 2000s – one had the U.S. Navy collaborating with the Royal Navy, and the U.S. submarine force looked into a dual-purpose convertible Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo/mine – but these were ultimately not pursued.

Even upgrades to existing mines proved to be a hard sell. Work on the “next-generation” computer-programmable Mark 71 target detection device for the Quickstrikes began in 1991, but initial procurement began more than two decades later. Other priorities competed for attention and scarce resources.

Gulf of Thailand (July 5, 2004) – A MK 62 Quickstrike mine is deployed from the starboard wing of a P-3C Orion aircraft form the Grey Knights of Patrol Squadron Four Six (VP-46). (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Journalist Joseph Krypel)

That is revealed by Navy budgets since the fall of the Berlin Wall: on average less than one percent of Navy Total Obligational Authority has been spent on MIW, total, and the author believes mine programs get maybe five percent of that.

Even if resources could be found, however, the availability of aircraft, airborne tankers, and defensive escorts for mining campaigns is uncertain. There will certainly be intense competition for such aircraft in future crises and conflicts.

The 1991 Gulf War was the last time that the Navy deployed mines in combat. Four A-6 Intruders planted a tactical minefield of Quickstrikes at the mouth of the Kwahr az-Zubayr River to deny Iraqi access to the northern Gulf. One aircraft was lost to ground fire, and there were no indications that the mines actually sank or damaged any vessel. Aircraft-deployed Quickstrikes have less-than-optimal accuracy, even less precision, and are best deployed in less-than-contested environments and at dangerously low altitudes. Innovation in mines and mining directly addresses these operational challenges.

Reinvigorating the Mine Warfare Enterprise

As Major General Chris Owens, USMC, Director Expeditionary Warfare (N95) has underscored, “the strategic objective should be to make our adversaries worry about our mines as much as their weapons concern us.”

In September 2014, U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) demonstrated an extended-range Quickstrike-ER – a modification of the 500-pound winged Joint Direct-Attack Munition (JDAM-ER) – dropped from an Air Force B-52H bomber at 35,000 feet. According to Air Force Colonel Mike Pietrucha speaking at the Mine Warfare Association seminar in November 2016, this was the first-ever deployment of a precision, standoff aerial mine. A subsequent effort among PACOM, the Navy, and the Air Force successfully tested a 2,000-pound Quickstrike-J deployed by a B-52H.

“This effort marked the first advance in aerial mine delivery techniques since 1943,” Pietrucha continued, “and demonstrated a capability that substantially changes the potential of aerial mining in a threat environment.”

This QuickStrike/JDAM innovation could have a revolutionary impact on U.S. mines and mining, as Colonel Pietrucha underscored: “The mines have JDAM accuracy with respect to their selected impact point on the water surface, and the ability to place a 2,000-pound mine within six meters of a specified aimpoint on the bottom at ranges greater than 40 nautical miles is unprecedented.”

The takeaway from these tests is that any pilot trained for and any aircraft equipped to drop the JDAM can be a mine-layer, not just once, but many times. And, in the case of USAF bombers – our only high-volume mine layers – an entire minefield can be laid in a single pass without directly overflying the minefield.    

Important for a Navy warfare area that sees its weapons and systems delivery stalled, Pietrucha noted, “Both variants are assembled entirely out of components already in the U.S. inventory, making these weapons possible without a protracted acquisition process.” The JDAM conversion kit costs about $20,000.

Future Smart Mines

Looking farther into the future, boffins at the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Navy’s Surface Warfare Center, Panama City (NSWC-PC) are working on several innovative advanced undersea warfare systems (AUWS) that can be delivered by unmanned surface or submarine vehicles. 

In October 2014, Admiral James Winnefeld, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Panama City to learn more about remote-controllable “smart mine” innovations. In January 2015, he accompanied Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work to explore how future smart mines could contribute to the Third Offset Strategy. Responding to such high-level DoD interest and a mining joint emergent operational need statement, investment in AUWS and something called the Modular Undersea Effectors System – MUSE – is ramping up.

Panama City’s MUSE envisions innovative mining using “encapsulated effectors” to carry out important tasks, in addition to mining.  The concept sees forward-deployed ­– on the seabed in international ocean space, much like SOSUS or CAPTORs – unmanned stationary nodes for remote or autonomous unmanned air/surface/undersea/seabed vehicles (UxVs) to populate the “encapsulated effectors.” These “effectors” include mines, torpedoes, missiles, decoys, jammers, communication nodes, electronic warfare payloads –virtually anything that can be packaged in UxVs and launched from seabed encapsulation nodes.

(November 1, 1989) – Airmen from the 42nd Munitions Maintenance Squadron prepare to load a Mark 60 CAPTOR (encapsulated torpedo) anti-submarine mine onto a 42nd Bombardment Wing B-52G Stratofortress aircraft during Ghost Warrior, a joint Air Force/Navy exercise conducted during the base’s conventional operational readiness inspection. ( USAF photo STAFF SGT. RUSS POLLANEN)

According to Panama City engineers, MUSE will be an “integral element of the kill web, offering distributed, forward, persistent, autonomous lethal and non-lethal undersea/seabed scalable effects across all phases of operations.” An encapsulated effector can achieve two orders of magnitude increase in effective range compared to Quickstrikes and SLMMs, greatly reducing the sortie burden on aircraft, submarines, or large UxVs.

The Navy intends to put in place an “Encapsulated Effector” program that would integrate the AUWS, MUSE and smart mine technologies into incrementally fielded capabilities. In short, the Navy’s mines and mining laboratory sees next-generation smart mines to be critical elements in what some observers call “sea-bed warfare”:

  • Deliverable by autonomous unmanned vehicles as well as manned aircraft, surface ships, and submarines
  • Remote controllable via wireless secure communications
  • Discriminating against an expanded target set

Conclusion

Churchill’s exhortation to look backward to see forward framed this discussion, so therefore, “Torpedoes [mines] are not so disagreeable when used on both sides,” Admiral David Farragut wrote to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles on 25 March 1864, several months before he damned the torpedoes in Mobile Bay, “therefore I have reluctantly brought myself to it. I have always deemed it unworthy of a chivalrous nation, but it does not do to give your enemy such a decided superiority over you.”

Perhaps with strong support and such asymmetric innovations as the extended-range JDAM-guided Quickstrike mines and MUSE, the U.S. Navy will enjoy “a decided superiority” over our adversaries – whether our mines are show stoppers or just speed bumps in future conflicts.

Scott Truver is a senior advisor to CNA and directs Gryphon Technologies’ TeamBlue national security programs.

Featured Image: BALTIC SEA (May 25, 2015) Members of a Latvian explosive ordnance disposal team use demolition charges to detonate a World War II-era German bottom-mine while conducting mine countermeasures operations in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Estonia during Exercise Open Spirit 2015. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Patrick A. Ratcliff/Released)

Asia-Pacific, Capability Analysis

Catch of the Day: Reflections on the Chinese Seizure of a U.S. Ocean Glider

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By Heiko Borchert

On 15 December 2016, China seized an Ocean Glider, an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), used by the U.S. Navy to conduct oceanographic tasks in international waters about 50-100 nautical miles northwest of the Subic Bay port on the Philippines. Available information suggests that the glider had been deployed from USNS Bowditch and was captured by Chinese sailors that came alongside the glider and grabbed it “despite the radioed protest from the Bowditch that it was U.S. property in international waters,” as the Guardian reported. The U.S. has “called upon China to return the UUV immediately.” On 17 December 2016 a spokesman of the Chinese Defense Ministry said China would return the UUV to the “United States in an appropriate manner.”

Initial legal assessments by U.S. scholars like James Kraska and Paul Pedrozo suggest the capture is violating the law of the sea, as the unmanned glider can be defined as a vessel in international maritime law that enjoys U.S. sovereign immunity. China, by contrast, justifies the capture with reference to its national security. According to Senior Colonel Zhao Xiaozhuo of the PLA Academy of Military Science, the glider “could have threatened the interests of China’s islands, or China’s ships and submarines. It must have damaged Chinese interest that caused the seizure.”

As this incident evolves and more information will become available, it might be useful to start thinking about some of the more long-term consequences of this UUV seizure. Building on a previous analysis of the impact on UUV in the Asia-Pacific region, I would like to suggest three observations for further consideration:

Unmanned Assets are Attractive Targets that Challenge Strategic Communication

This is not the first time an unmanned asset has been captured. Defense News reported that “an ‘unknown vessel’ grabbed another underwater vehicle operated by a U.S. ship near Vietnamese waters, but the vehicle was recovered.” In 2011, Iran seemed to have downed a RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by jamming its radar system in order to force the UAV to land in an area it was not supposed to land.

In line with these incidents, the most recent UUV capture reinforces the message that unmanned assets that have been designed with benign operating environments in mind and are attractive targets that can be easily captured or attacked. This is a prime challenge for strategic communications.

Seizing a U.S. UUV during the transition phase of the U.S. administration is a first rate headline grabbing media event, which might explain why it occurred now. It illustrates, as a Chinese scholar quoted by the South China Morning Post said, “the power of the Chinese army.” However, a UUV that hovers at the surface can be more or less easily captured. This time no one shot a picture of the “catch”, but this could be different next time. This might prompt a rethink of the media-related cost-benefit analysis of deploying UUVs in hotspots, which leads to the second thought.

Ready to Catch and Ready to Lose?

Testing the U.S. response certainly was a motive in the UUV capture. As Michael S. Chase et. al. have shown, China closely follows the U.S. use of unmanned assets also in view of justifying its own action and developing its own policies and concepts. The incident underlined China’s growing self-confidence and readiness to seize UUVs. But what about the U.S.?

At first sight, the U.S. response was measured and adequate by prompting China to return the captured asset to comply with international law. ‘We play by the rules, you don’t’ – this was the U.S. message. Apart from the question, if you can deter someone who just broke the rule by reminding him not to do so, there is a more trenchant issue at play.

Unmanned systems are attractive because they are easy pickings, but the emphasis on the need to return the U.S. UUV could undermine this very key advantage. In this case the UUV is treated like a manned asset because the overall message is about norm compliance. However, if you want the other side to hand back a relatively low-cost glider, can you credibly convey the message you would be ready to lose a much more sophisticated Large Displacement UUV?

This is the policy question the new U.S. administration and other governments using unmanned assets will need to work on, because a similar incident could occur in the Arabian Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, or the Baltic Sea.

Catch Me If You Can: Thinking About More Nuanced Counter-Responses

 Emerging powers have had enough time to study the use of unmanned assets in particular by the U.S. Their first line of defense focused around mimicking U.S. practice in order to catch up. The second line of defense evolves around counter-measures. The seizure of the U.S. glider clearly signals that UUVs need to be prepared to fend off counter-measures as well. Thus more nuanced responses will be needed.

First, more thought needs to be given to when and where to deploy UUV in a non-benign naval environment. The current incident clearly shows that the tactical and strategic benefits of UUVs can quickly turn into a strategic liability if other actors are not willing to back down on their own policy line.Second, this incident should accelerate the development of swarms of Extra Small UUV (XSUUV) that would be radically smaller than current gliders and more difficult to track and trace.

Third, the XSUUV swarm could also help deconflict the policy dilemma. XSUUVs would hardly qualify as vessels enjoying sovereign immunity. Other forms of countering XSUUV notwithstanding, the risk of losing them would be much lower, which could make it far less attractive to catch them.

Fourth, self-protection will become more important in particular for more sophisticated UUVs that execute different missions at the same time. However, solutions should keep the above policy dilemma in mind: if measures to protect the UUV from adversarial interference become too demanding and thus might outstrip the benefits of using UUV, something is probably wrong about the operational concept guiding the respective UUV use.

Dr Heiko Borchert runs Borchert Consulting & Research AG, a strategic affairs consultancy.

Featured Image: A Littoral Battlespace Sensing, LBS, glider (U.S. Navy)

Capability Analysis, Europe

The Ambitions and Challenges of Russia’s Naval Modernization Program

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Russia Topic Week

By Steve Micallef

Introduction

A lot has been said about Chinese naval modernization in recent years. However, China is not the only country that is currently investing in a modern naval force. Since 2011 Russia has been implementing its own naval modernization program. This comes after a period of neglect the as Russia Federal Navy (Russian Navy) is looking to build as many as a 100 new warships by 2020.

Sailing Under the Soviet Navy’s Shadow

At the end of the Cold War in 1991, the Soviet Navy consisted of about 1000 warships from the smallest patrol craft and missile boats to the large helicopter and cruise missile-caring carriers. Indeed, during the Cold War, the Soviet Navy had an important strategic role in a potential hot war with the west. Besides being in charge of one of the legs of the nuclear triad in the form of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the Navy was also expected to protect Soviet SSBNs, find and destroy Western SSBNs, and neutralize carrier groups. Where possible, the Navy was also expected to interrupt NATO sea lanes of communication and support ground forces in amphibious operations and other offensives.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Navy was dissolved and reformed into the modern Russian Navy. After 1991, limited funding was available and as time passed, capabilities decreased, platforms retired, and construction programs were cut. The situation grew so bleak that in the mid-90s it was reported that the Russian Navy was unable to mount more than 10 deterrence patrols per year. This decline continued until 2002 when no patrol was conducted at all. Russian naval aviation suffered similarly and is still suffering from a lack of trained aircrews. In 2009 former commander of the Northern Fleet Admiral Vyacheslav Popov (ret.) stated the Russian Navy would experience a sharp decline in capability by 2015 unless current shipbuilding plans are grown and new vessels introduced.

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Soviet warships conduct an at-sea replenishment in July, 1985 (Soviet Navy)

This situation persisted even after Vladimir Putin came to power. Whilst he advocated and funded large modernization programs for the Army and Air Force, the Navy did not benefit much initially. This remained the case until August 2000, when the Oscar-class submarine Kursk sunk with all hands in a disaster. In a sense, the tragedy represented the decline of the Navy and was a wakeup call for the Putin administration. Lack of discipline, shoddy, obsolete and poorly maintained equipment; negligence, incompetence, and mismanagement were all blamed by the investigation for the loss of the submarine.

Since the unfortunate disaster, the Navy has enjoyed renewed attention and efforts have been made to modernize starting in the early 2000s and expected to run through the 2030s. Notwithstanding, the more pressing problem facing the Russian Navy today is shipbuilding capability and low build rate.

Aims and Objectives

The Russian Navy today is a very different force than its Soviet counterpart; this can be seen both in its structuring and its missions.

The biggest challenge that the modern Russian Navy faces is the fact that it has fewer ships. The size of the Navy has shrunk to a quarter of its predecessor. Additionally, the ships of the Navy are divided between the five fleets (Northern, Pacific, Black Sea, Baltic and Caspian fleets) which operate in areas that are geographically separate. It is easy to envisage that the Russian Navy today cannot hope to compete with the sortie rate or activity levels that the Soviet Navy maintained. Despite this, its mission has remained similar to the Soviet Navy. Today, the Russian Navy is still expected to carry out the tasks its predecessor did.

Firstly, the Russian Navy is still expected to maintain its deterrence patrols and the submarine-based part of the nuclear triad. Together with this, it must also provide protection for its SSBNs. During the Cold War, as missile range and accuracy increased, Soviet SSBNs did not venture further out at sea but instead stayed closer to home where they could be better protected by other naval assets. There is no reason to believe that this will change at least until more capable and silent submarines like the Borey-class become fully operational. It has been suggested that these boats might give Russia the capability to patrol the southern oceans, something that it has not done in 20 years.

Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, the Russian Navy is expected to protect the Russian coastline. This means protecting from intrusions by any hostile power and making sure that Russia is not attacked from the sea. In this regard, the surface force has been particularly hard hit due to a number of shortcomings. Russia’s shipbuilding programs seem unable to meet the Navy’s demands. Beyond this, Russian shipyards are in need of modernization and rely heavily on foreign components for construction of Russian vessels. The sanctions imposed on Russia due to the Ukrainian Crisis have been particularly devastating both to the Navy and the shipbuilding industry. In particular, Ukraine has stopped selling ship engines to Russia, resulting in Russia having to find a substitute. The sanctions on Russia have also resulted in cuts to the Navy’s budget and orders for new ships.

Thirdly, the Russian Navy is a tool through which Moscow will project its power worldwide. Again, in this area, the Russian Navy is somewhat lacking. Beyond its ballistic missile submarines the Navy has very little in the way of long-range power projection. These include Russia’s sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov,  Tu-95s patrol aircraft, and its forward naval base in Tartus, Syria. Deployments to the Atlantic and military adventurism off the coast of Syria are demonstrations of the Navy’s ability to project power. However, the Navy also recognizes that it is lacking in this department; various naval strategies since the 2000s have called for Russia to acquire between three to five aircraft carriers. Due to financial difficulties this order had to be cut to one.

These shortcomings have meant that Russia has had to adopt an A2/AD approach in naval matters in the face of overwhelming NATO sea power. This approach will continue into the foreseeable future, or at least until Russia can field a fleet that can impose sea control. The Navy’s insistence on submarines (with many labeling the Russian Navy as a ‘Submarine Navy’) and long-range missiles is the manifestation of this A2/AD approach. Needless to say, today we are witnessing the return of Russia’s ‘bastion’ mentality where certain maritime areas are a no go zone for any hostile force, yet Russian forces are unlikely to project power beyond such ‘bastions.’

Despite the fact that the Navy has to cover various regions (Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific, Caspian Sea, Indian Ocean as well as the Antarctic), two areas in particular have seen more focus than the others, the Atlantic and Arctic regions. The Atlantic is seen as a potential battleground due to NATO expansion and renewed tensions with the West, whilst the Arctic is seen as a vital strategic region due to its untapped economic/resource value and its free access to both the Pacific and the Atlantic.

Shipbuilding Programs

Russian naval modernization has followed two main paths: extensively upgrading existing platforms and building new ones. Many of the old soviet-era platforms have been retired and those left in service have been extensively retrofitted to prolong their service lives. Despite tough economic times Russia has also managed to commission a number of new platforms. The main driving force behind these programs seems to be avoiding a situation where the Russian Navy would shrink to insignificance in the 2020s.

The Kirov-class battlecruisers are an embodiment of this philosophy. Of the four nuclear battlecruisers constructed for the Soviet Union, two had to be scrapped because they fell into disrepair and were beyond saving, one is in active service (the Pyotr Velikiy) and the other (Admiral Nakhimov) is undergoing an extensive refit which includes upgrading anti-ship and anti-air weaponry before returning to the fleet in 2018. The Pyotr Velikiy will also be refitted and both battlecruisers are expected to be in service into the early 2020s. The aim is to prolong the service life of both ships until their replacement is in service.

The expected replacement for the Kirov­-class is the 18,000 ton Project 23560E Shkval  Lider-class (Leader-class in English). Equipped with the S-500 air defense system and P-800 supersonic anti-ship missiles it is envisioned to carry around 200 missiles of different types. The ship will likely be nuclear powered and will carry helicopters for anti-submarine operations. The propulsion system installed in the Lider-class will likely be used in prospective Russian aircraft carrier designs. Despite the unveiling of the project in July 2016, there are still doubts whether Russia is able to actually construct such a ship. The first ship is expected to be laid down in 2019 at the Severnaya Verf Shipyard in Saint Petersburg. A more conventional destroyer design, the Project 21956, is also under consideration to compliment the development of the Lider-class.

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A concept model of the Lider-class destroyer.

The Russian Navy also has two new classes of frigate under construction, the Admiral Gorshkov-class (Project 22350) and the Admiral Grigorovich-class (Project 11356M). Both are intended to directly replace existing Soviet-era Sovremennyy-class destroyers and Krivak-class frigates in service with all Russian fleets and are equipped with the P-800 Oniks anti-ship missile system. However, construction has been particularly slow even by Russian standards; since 2006 only two Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates have reached the fleet and are still undergoing sea trials. Construction of the Admiral Grigorovich-class (started in 2014) fared somewhat better with two ships in active service and one in sea trials. The Russians also signed a contract with the Indian Navy for four Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates. However, both classes have been particularly hard hit by the crisis in Ukraine as the engines are imported from Zorya-Mashproekt in Ukraine. Russia is trying to find an indigenous replacement, but currently all ships under construction remain without engines.

The Russian Navy is also acquiring a number of corvettes. The Buyan-class which come in two variants (Project 21630 and 21631, one armed with missiles and one not) for service with the Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla, and Steregushchiy-class, Gremyashchiy-class and the Karakurt-class corvettes. The Steregushchiy-class (Project 2038.0) was developed for littoral combat, the Gremyashchiy-class (Project 2038.5) are a larger variant with more endurance for longer missions. However, development of the Gremyashchiy-class was stopped after just two ships since the design depends on German engines, which Germany is now refusing to export in the wake of recent events. Instead, Russia has ordered more Steregushchiy-class corvettes of which it has six in service and five under construction. The Karakurt-class (Project 22800) is a blue water-capable design laid down in 2015 and four are under construction. They will be armed with P-800 medium-range anti-ship missiles and Kalibr-NK long-range cruise missiles. The first unit will be commissioned in 2017.

For power projection purposes the Russian Navy is also looking to acquire aircraft carriers and amphibious ships (LHD). Information is scarce on both projects. Currently the Russian Navy operates no LHDs. Its plans to acquire two Mistral-class LHDs from France fell through due to the conflict in Ukraine, and Russia is expected to start construction on an indigenous design before 2020. Plans for the construction of a large aircraft carrier were also unveiled in May 2015. The Project 23000E is a nuclear powered 100,000-ton carrier similar to the supercarriers currently in service with the U.S. Navy. However, it is still unclear whether financial considerations and shipbuilding capabilities will allow Russia to commission such a ship. Already, the number of envisioned aircraft carriers has been subsequently cut from one naval strategy to the next. At any rate, it will take Russia around ten years to build a new carrier and construction would start in 2025 at the earliest. Russia will still have to address its shortage of naval aviators.

Things are progressing somewhat better on the submarine front. Russia has focused its efforts on two new classes of submarines, the Borey-class (Project 955) and the Yasen-class (Project 885). The Borey-class are SSBNs intended to replace the Delta III, Delta IV and Typhoon classes currently in active service. Russia currently has four Borey-class submarines in active service and seven in various stages of construction. Initial tests of the new SLBMs, the RSM-56 Bulava, were met with failure: 5 failures in 11 tests. The failures here were attributed to poor quality control and materials which resulted in delays in attaining operational capability. The first unit of the class deployed in 2014.

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Lead ship Severodvinsk of the Yasen-class nuclear attack submarines. (Northern Fleet Press Service)

The Yasen-class attack submarines are intended to replace the Soviet-era Akula and Oscar classes. According to the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, these boats are the quietest submarines ever put into service by Russia, although not as quiet as contemporary U.S. Navy Seawolf and Virginia class subs. Despite this, they represent a giant leap in capability for the Russian Navy. Construction on the first unit of the class began in 1993 and was only completed in 2010 due to financial problems. The class is armed with torpedoes, long range anti-ship and anti-submarine missiles, and cruise missiles. The second unit of the class is estimated to cost US$3.5 billion making it one of the most expensive attack submarines ever commissioned. The high costs of each submarine has raised speculation that Russia might look for smaller, less well-armed alternatives in a bid to get more boats into service and drive costs down.

Conclusion

The Russian naval modernization program aims to transform the Russian Navy from a Cold War-era fleet into a modern 21st century navy able to project Russian power abroad and defend the Russian coast. On paper the fleet that Russia is constructing seems formidable. However, there are still doubts whether Russia will be able to actually acquire all these new platforms in sufficient numbers. The reality is that Russia is operating in an unfavorable fiscal environment. Additionally, there are serious concerns whether the Russian shipbuilding industry can deliver in its current state, both with regards to the production of indigenous components for designs and the capacity to produce large ships. Unless these key deficits are addressed Russian naval ambitions will remain on paper.

Steve Micallef graduated from the University of Malta with a B.A. (Hons) in International Relations in 2015. He also holds an MSc in Strategic Studies from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He currently works at Bugeja Geopolitical Consulting, Malta.

Featured Image: May 23, 2012, Gren LST “Ivan Gren” at the Yantar Baltic Shipyard  (TASS)