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Current Operations

Covert Maritime Intelligence and Russia’s Shadow Fleet

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By Catherine Marie Abbott

Introduction

It is widely documented that Russia has leveraged various threat vectors to employ coercive and ancillary irregular tactics against allied nations, including the pervasive use of sanctioned shadow fleet vessels. Acting as a threat multiplier through decentralized and opaque ownership structures, these ships have operated in concert with Russian intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) assets. Western and Ukrainian intelligence sources note that crew composition varies considerably. Some vessels reportedly operate with supernumerary Russian personnel with documented security or military credentials. This includes individuals affiliated with Russian private military companies (PMC) such as the Moran Security Group and the Wagner Group, as well as with the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).

To address Russia’s sanctioned fleet, many allied nations, including the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union have enacted legislation barring such vessels from entering their ports. However, despite proactive measures, the adaptive nature of shadow fleet networks sustains ships’ ability to evade detection and exploit enforcement gaps. At a systemic level, seaports generally serve as tangible operational conduits for the modus operandi of trafficking networks, enabling the smuggling of illicit goods through vulnerable entry points. Reportedly, 90% of the world’s cargo is transported via maritime corridors and containers, with only a segment of goods physically inspected by customs authorities, allowing for clandestine behavior from traffickers or Russian covert operatives.

At present, Russia is exploiting European seaports and maritime infrastructure. Despite port interception and seizure operations from allied nations, Russia’s acquisition of ghost vessels continues in an upward trend. While primarily used as a strategic tool to augment sanctions evasion and sustain defense expenditures, Russia’s irregular tactics, alongside vulnerable seaport ecosystems, create conditions that could facilitate covert human movement under commercial cover for the Russian Federation.

Russian Covert Human Intelligence in the Modern Era

Moscow’s use of clandestine human intelligence assets relies on deniable human networks embedded within state operations, an act synonymous with Cold War-era tactics. In 2022, the Slovenian Security and Intelligence Agency found Russian illegal spies, Artyom Dultsev and Anna Dultseva, masquerading as Argentinians and acting on behalf of the Kremlin. A fundamental espionage tool since the Soviet Era, illegal spies have reportedly remained a critical asset to Moscow’s intelligence architecture against the West, leveraging international vulnerabilities and infrastructure gaps to gain a strategic advantage. This is exemplified in the case of Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, a Russian illegal operative turned NATO-affiliate socialite.

Though not isolated incidents, Russia’s non-ephemeral strategy has leveraged irregular clandestine methods to infiltrate and destabilize the Western world. During the Soviet era, clandestine volunteer forces, state-run proxy units, and disguised military personnel conducted covert operations while maintaining plausible deniability. Today, PMCs have emerged within a similar structural framework in the Russian Federation, with syndicates such as the Wagner Group internationally executing state security objectives in the application of the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare doctrine. Although not officially recognized as acting under the Federation, PMCs maintain an intimate relationship with the GRU, supporting its intelligence and military agencies.

As a segment of Russia’s state-sponsored irregular operations, gray-zone activity has shifted toward more decentralized hybrid structures, integrating formal intelligence services with semi-commercial and proxy networks. Reporting on Russia’s wartime intelligence activity in Europe indicates increasing reliance by the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the GRU on intermediary facilitators and autonomous operatives to conduct surveillance, targeting, and influence operations across multiple jurisdictions. Parallel training pipelines within Russian academic and military structures institutionalize asymmetric warfare competencies, including cyber operations, disinformation, and reconnaissance tradecraft within distinctly identifiable recruitment pathways into intelligence services. These networks operate through formal state structures and semi-private intermediaries within permissive civilian environments, maintaining plausible deniability for Russia’s intelligence apparatus.

Maritime Shadow Networks and Port Vulnerabilities

Operating under opaque and decentralized ownership structures, shadow vessels have since emerged as an adaptation to international energy sanctions following the onset of the Ukrainian-Russo War in 2022. Though a maritime security threat across all sectors, they elude maritime detection through highly coordinated concealment tactics. Among the most salient of these obfuscating tactics are AIS data manipulation, ship-to-ship transfers, frequent reflaggings and name changes, and falsified vessel documentation, including shell corporations and a lack of P&I insurance. Notably, reports indicate that over 70% of sanctioned vessels changed flags in 2025, complicating allied interdiction and seizure efforts. The synthesis of these arrangements, as well as the Russian Federation’s acquisition of new tankers, has impeded allied nations’ effectiveness in addressing shadow vessels.

Transgressing beyond vessel identification ambiguities, open-source reporting indicates discrepancies between declared crew manifests as well as individuals observed aboard shadow vessels in Northern European waters. For example, in December 2025, Danish maritime pilots reported uniformed Russian Navy personnel not reflected in official manifests in the Danish Strait. Three months prior, French authorities boarded Boracay (IMO 9332810), a Russian-affiliated sanctioned ship operating under multiple aliases and flags. Boracay aliases include Kiwala, Pushapa, and most recently, Feniks. Authorities observed two men with a background in the Wagner Group and the Moran Security Group, both of which are widely assessed to maintain links to Russia’s FSB.

Generally designed as controlled zones, seaports, aside from their vulnerable cyber landscape, remain tangibly susceptible to opportunistic threat vectors. Despite strengthening port security infrastructures and inspection methods, maritime smugglers continue to pursue adaptive concealment measures by hiding illicit cargo in anchors, vents, hull compartments, fuel systems, and underwater attachments, with 85% of seizure events involving shipping containers and 80% of seized narcotics by volume linked to containerized cargo. Meanwhile, 68% of detected cases involve internal conspirators within the maritime cargo supply chain.

Earlier assessments of maritime security governance identified seaports as structurally constrained systems that have a fragmented authority apparatus and disjointed security standards across federal, local, and private actors, often relying on risk-based rather than comprehensive inspection regimes and selectively inspecting cargo. Given the role of seaports as high-volume logistical hubs embedded within urban infrastructure, ports must sustain the continuous movement of cargo, personnel, and vessels, limiting the feasibility of maintaining fully restrictive access control and comprehensive screening measures. Additionally, despite sanctions, some shipments coming from Russian ports have successfully docked and unloaded at ports in the European Union and allied coastal states.

Online reports have noted alleged infiltration by Russian covert operatives into the United Kingdom via commercial cargo ships and lenient border surveillance and security checks, which are reportedly less rigorous than other ports of entry. Although the vessels used were not Russian-flagged and were not listed in current sanctioned shadow fleet listings, access was obtained through ports including Torquay, Middlesbrough, and Grangemouth.

Synthesis: Mechanisms of Potential Covert Human Movement via Maritime Channels

Viewing itself as diametrically opposed to the West, the Russian Federation will capitalize on vulnerabilities to destabilize and polarize allied nations and has exploited sub-Article-5 thresholds using various modes, notably underwater infrastructure mapping, pre-emplacing explosives near subsea assets, and habitual drone incursion operations in allied airspace. Although operating outside standard maritime compliance, current observable indicators do not conclusively demonstrate a systemic, covert infiltration from Moscow through shadow fleet vessels. However, the fleet’s adaptive characteristic, in concert with existing vulnerable physical port security, creates exploitable conditions under which clandestine infiltration could very likely occur.

Arguably, Russia may not extensively use sanctioned vessels to conduct clandestine human operations given their compromised status, but with the acquisition of new auxiliary vessels, the Federation may increasingly rely on a secondary, more adaptable shadow fleet to do so. For example, targeting efforts by allied nations have highlighted frequent renaming and reflagging of select vessels, and despite these evasive tactics, allied states generally maintain a unified, restrictive port-access strategy toward known shadow fleet assets. In the case of the Feniks, while operating under the name Kiwala, the vessel was reportedly linked to Djibouti. However, when later sailing as Boracay, it was observed sailing under a falsified Benin flag and now sails as the Russian-flagged Feniks. Presently, reports indicate that Russia is re-registering and absorbing approximately eighty previously identified sanctioned vessels into its domestic registry. Concurrently, Russia continues to acquire additional auxiliary vessels that fall outside existing sanctions designations. This maritime restructuring may be linked to allied interdiction strategies targeting older Generation 1 sanctioned vessels, which have reduced their operational flexibility and maneuverability. This may also indicate the emergence of lower-signature adaptive configurations consistent with a Generation 2 shadow fleet architecture of newer vessels within Russia’s maritime network.

While Generation 1 vessels have restricted access to port infrastructure, the newly acquired Generation 2 fleet may provide the Kremlin with operationally clandestine flexibility and intangible, non-kinetic tactics required to gain access to allied ports until such vessels are identified, sanctioned, and barred from seaport entry. Preliminary reports already allege Russia’s intention and use of foreign-flagged vessels to gain entry in vulnerable ports varying in size and capabilities for covert motives, so the possibility of using unknown foreign-flagged vessels for such purposes remains considerably likely. Especially given that such vessels have been a notable mechanism for intelligence gathering and hybrid applications.

Conclusion

The Russian shadow fleet has transformed into a tool functioning outside the legal standards of maritime compliance and will almost certainly continue to do so with a new generation of shadow vessels. Though the development of a Generation 2 shadow fleet remains undetermined, the inherent restructuring and acquisition of various vessels indicate the likelihood that Russia may seek to operationalize newly acquired and lesser-known auxiliary vessels in a manner consistent with the evasive and irregular characteristics previously observed across the Generation 1 fleet. This strategic adaptation has been met with minimal resistance, signaling to the Kremlin that its actions carry few geopolitical penalties. The perceived permissiveness of allied states’ reluctance to definitively interdict on sub-Article 5 irregular tactics has incentivized adversarial states to escalate engagement of hybrid warfare strategies against allied nations, both within and outside of the maritime domain. However, under international maritime law, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), port states have significant authority to regulate and intervene in the activities of shadow vessels.

Because port access remains subject to coastal state discretion under international maritime law, port states retain significant authority to condition or deny entry to vessels assessed as part of the Generation 2 fleet. Under such a context, port states may further condition clearance on pre- and post-berthing inspection access, enabling customs and maritime security teams to verify declared cargo against physical inventories and identify discrepancies indicative of sanctions evasion or covert logistical activity. Port authorities may also restrict or prohibit disembarkation of individuals not explicitly listed on the vessel’s official crew manifest, pending identity verification and security screening.

Notably, seaport heterogeneity in function, governance, and security structures creates varying operational conditions across maritime infrastructure. Allied states targeting Generation 2 shadow vessels can leverage historical context and preexisting navigational patterns associated with the Generation 1 fleet to determine which terminals contemporary ships will almost certainly use and prioritize enhanced monitoring and port security apparatus accordingly, including stricter inspection regimes and controls on disembarkation for individuals not verified against official crew documentation.

Catherine Marie Abbott holds a master’s degree in security policy studies from the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, specializing in maritime security and intelligence analysis. Her research primarily focuses on maritime logistics, emerging technology, and intelligence processing. The views and opinions expressed by her do not reflect or represent those of her employer or affiliated organizations.

Featured Image: “Moscow Kremlin at Night” by Pazel Kazachkov (Wikimedia Commons)

Current Operations, Force Structure

Lost in the Small Surface Combatant Wilderness

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By Kevin Eyer

Between January 13 and 15, the 38th Annual Surface Navy Symposium convened in Crystal City, Virginia, offering a detailed look at the state of the surface fleet. Senior leaders—from the Secretary of the Navy to the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commander of Fleet Forces Command—delivered formal presentations outlining priorities and challenges.

On the final morning, a closed session was held exclusively for active-duty and retired captains and commanders. The premise was clear: a room limited to officers who had commanded at sea would allow for a more candid, less scripted discussion. Four senior captains from the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations delivered brief, upbeat remarks before opening the floor.

Soon, a retired captain stepped to the microphone and asked:

“What is the difference between the Littoral Combat Ship and the ‘Future Frigate’ now under development?”

It was, upon consideration, a troubling question. The Littoral Combat Ship program has become, in many respects, a relic—originally planned for 55 ships, later reduced to 35, and widely viewed as misaligned with the Navy’s operational needs. The program endures largely through institutional momentum and the absence of ready alternatives.

By contrast, the Future Frigate—the FF(X) —is presented as the way ahead. A central element of President Trump’s “Golden Fleet” modernization initiative announced in December 2025, it is intended to contribute to a faster, more capable Navy and sustain maritime superiority. The frigate represents an effort to correct decades of uneven performance in designing smaller surface combatants and to expand a segment of the fleet long criticized as both undersized and underpowered—the Small Surface Combatant (SSC) element.

The relationship between the two ship classes had, in fact, been addressed earlier in the symposium by Rear Admiral Derek Trinque, Director of the Surface Warfare Division in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. He distinguished the Littoral Combat Ship’s mission-module concept from the frigate’s proposed approach. One of the Littoral Combat Ship’s program difficulties, he explained, was attempting to integrate systems that did not yet exist with a hull still under construction—an ambitious concept that proved harder in practice than in theory. The Future Frigate, by contrast, will incorporate existing systems packaged with defined interfaces to the ship’s combat system, allowing more reliable and rapid changes in capability.

In essence, according to Rear Admiral Trinque, the Future Frigate—like the Littoral Combat Ship—will rely to some extent on modular mission packages. The difference lies in execution: a more disciplined, technically mature integration model.

Yet the retired captain’s question reached beyond a simply question of architectural integration. The deeper issues he posed with his question remained unaddressed: What missions are assigned—or will ultimately be assigned to the Littoral Combat Ship? Will the Future Frigate assume those same roles? What is the envisioned division of labor between these two small surface combatants? What, if any, differences exist in their limitations—and how should those limits shape the missions they are given?

Perhaps most importantly, what can these ships do or not do?

The Future Frigate and the Golden Fleet

On 19 December 2025, Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan stated: “To deliver at speed and scale, I’ve directed the acquisition of a new frigate class based on HII’s Legend-Class National Security Cutter design: a proven, American-built ship that has been protecting US interests at home and abroad. President Trump and the Secretary of Defense have signed off on this as part of the Golden Fleet. Our goal is clear: launch the first hull in the water in 2028. To expand capacity and production across our maritime industrial base, we will acquire these ships using a lead yard and competitive follow-on strategy for multi-yard construction. Shipyards will be measured against one outcome: delivering combat power to the Fleet as fast as possible.”

As part of the President’s recently advertised “Golden Fleet,” the Navy plans a “high/low” mix of ships, featuring several new classes in addition to combatant classes already in the fleet. On the “high” end, the Navy intends to maintain a Large Surface inventory, including a new guided missile battleship class, supported by both existing and planned Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, which have been and continue to be built in multiple “Flights.” According to Issues for Congress, the goal is to maintain approximately 87 large combatants. These large combatants are intended for assignment to complex mission sets, potentially involving multiple warfare areas in the most heavily contested waters. For example, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer operating in the Red Sea is fully capable of simultaneously escorting merchant ships, providing on-call Tomahawk land-strike capability, and offering the most-sophisticated air defense umbrella for an entire region of the battlespace.

On the “low” end of the spectrum are Small Surface Combatants which include the Navy’s frigates, like the Future Frigate, and the Littoral Combat Ships, as well as mine warfare ships. With the retirement of the Avenger-class there are no more dedicated mine warfare ships in the Navy These ships are smaller, less expensive, manned by smaller crews, and less capable than Large Surface Combatants. While they can operate in conjunction with Large Surface Combatants and other Navy vessels, particularly in higher-threat environments, they are also designed to operate independently in lower-threat settings.

As specified at the Symposium, missions assigned to Small Surface Combatants – including both the LCS and the FF(X) – may include Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW), Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Mine Countermeasure Operations (MCM). According to the briefings, these ships will enable a significant expansion of the Navy’s worldwide footprint while increasing fleet capacity in areas of active combat operations. To fill the ranks of these small combatants, the Navy plans to rely on a combination of existing Littoral Combat Ships and the now-planned Future Frigate class.

So, how many Small Surface Combatants does the Navy plan on fielding? 

The Navy’s Fiscal Year 2025 30-year shipbuilding plan calls for a future force of 381 manned battle force ships, including 73 Small Surface Combatants. Of these, 15 are Littoral Combat Ships capable of conducting mine warfare operations, while 58 are designated as guided missile frigates — meaning frigates built to either the original or a modified Flight II design. (A Flight II FFG was, until recently cancelled, the Constellation-class). Under its 2025 budget submission, the Navy proposed maintaining a force of 25 Littoral Combat Ships instead of 15. This adjustment would imply a total of 48 frigates, rather than 58.

However, the Navy has reportedly prepared a new ship force-level objective which will succeed the existing plan. This new objective is predicated upon the requirements outlined for the “Golden Fleet.” As of late December 2025, the force composition of this new objective had not been announced. Still, considering that multiple speakers at the Symposium firmly indicated the Navy intends to maintain 35 Littoral Combat Ships while building perhaps as many as 50 Future Frigates, one might sensibly suppose that the small and large combat fleets will be roughly equal in size – somewhere around 85 hulls for each.

Unclear Missions

It is curious that the Symposium suggested that the ships of the SSC classes may…may…contribute to ASuW, ASW, and MCM. While that seems worthy, RADM Trinque also outlined another, entirely more nebulous, role for the Future Frigate: That ship, he said, is explicitly intended to help alleviate the workload on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. He framed this need within the perspective of Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle, as outlined in his “Fighting Instructions.”

Published after the Symposium, on February 9, the Fighting Instructions introduce the “Hedge Strategy,” which calls for a balanced, scalable force mix rather than reliance solely on expensive, high-end formations like carrier strike groups. The strategy emphasizes tailored forces—combinations of ships, aircraft, unmanned systems, and other capabilities—that can be adapted for specific missions and crises, instead of a brittle model optimized only for high-end conflict but with capabilities underutilized in day-to-day operations.

Problematically, the Fighting Instructions are more strategic philosophy than technical manual. They do not prescribe specific weapons, sensors, or deployments, but rather articulate principles for how the fleet should organize, operate, and fight in a complex global environment. While the guidance supports a shift away from using Arleigh Burke-class destroyers as the default solution for every mission – favoring distributed, purpose-built packages – the Littoral Combat Ship and the Future Frigate are not mentioned as relieving the overburdened Burkes.

This raises a key question: where is the Future Frigate’s role—and particularly with regard to relieving the burden on Large Surface Combatants—explicitly defined? Where is this requirement laid down?

The answer is that it is not, which begs the question, what is the real purpose of the ship? Is it ASuW, ASW, or MCM? Is it there to relieve the Arleigh Burke-class? Of what? Or is it something else, as of yet unspecified?

Ambition Beyond Need?

The Navy appears to be aiming for roughly 85 small surface combatants. What is the origin of this number? More important, is that number the correct one to ease pressure on the Arleigh Burkes, and how will that relief be operationalized?

Determining deployable force size requires the application of the Navy’s standard availability model: at any given time, roughly one-third of ships are deployed, one-third are in training and certification cycles, and one-third are in maintenance or modernization. 

Applied to an 85-ship Small Surface Combatant fleet, that model would yield approximately 28 ships deployed at any given time. That is a striking figure. Some estimates put the total number of active destroyers in the future at 94. 

Ninety-four destroyers and 85 frigates would create an essentially one-for-one situation. Granted: such comparisons are inherently imprecise; however, the implication is notable and suggest a strategic ambition that goes well beyond merely alleviating pressure on the destroyer force.

And, while small combatants may be able to execute ASuW, ASW, and MCM, they are absolutely not a one-for-one replacement for a Large Surface Combatant.

So, what does the term “relief” actually mean, and how does that square with other mission sets mentioned for these ships at the Symposium? And why so many FF(X)s?

The Unexpected Future Frigate Mission

Curiously, at least one slide presented during the Captain/Commander session suggested that the Future Frigate might eventually assume “Anti-Air Warfare Mission Sets.” This raises a significant issue. Neither the Littoral Combat Ship nor the Future Frigate possesses—nor are planned to possess—an organic air defense capability beyond point defense.

Point defense protects only the ship itself. Area-air-defense, by contrast, protects groups of ships or an entire task force.

The proposed baseline armament for the Future Frigate includes a 57mm main gun, a 30mm auxiliary gun, and a Mk-49 launcher carrying 21 Rolling Airframe Missiles, supported by AN/SLQ-32(V)6 electronic warfare systems and Nulka decoy launchers. The ship is expected to carry an AN/SPS-77 air and surface search radar. Mission modules may include containerized weapons such as Naval Strike Missiles or Hellfire missiles installed in a stern payload space. As of now, no specific Combat Management System has been identified. 

This configuration essentially mirrors the air-defense capability of the Littoral Combat Ship: 21 Rolling Airframe Missiles, and a surveillance radar. It is important to note here that while Rolling Airframe Missiles provide effective self-defense, they cannot perform area air defense. The system is effective only at ranges out to 10km, and for threats below Mach 2. It is not, for example, capable against several classes of air threats, including ballistic missiles, Hypersonic Glide Vehicles, and high and medium altitude aircraft. Further, low magazine depth means that the system may be overwhelmed by saturation.

Modern area defense requires Standard Missiles, a vertical launch system, and a powerful radar integrated with a combat system such as Aegis and AN/SPY-6 radar. Without these elements, a ship cannot reliably counter the full range of modern aerial threats. These are the facts, and they are not in dispute.

Nor is such an upgrade feasible. The Littoral Combat Ship already operates near the limits of its stability, while the Future Frigate is derived from the Legend-class National Security Cutter, a design of roughly 4,500 tons displacement. By comparison, the now-canceled Constellation-class guided-missile frigate, the smallest modern Navy design intended to carry an area-air-defense system, displaced over 7,000 tons. The radar, launch systems, missiles, and supporting equipment required for area defense simply exceed the weight and space margins of a 3,500-ton Littoral Combat Ship or a roughly 4,700-ton Future Frigate.

This reality matters. In U.S. Navy classification, the “G” designation—as in guided missile destroyers or frigates—indicates a ship capable of guided-missile . Suggestion that the Future Frigate can perform Anti-Air warfare missions without such capability is therefore misleading.

Historically, frigates served as ocean escorts, but ships equipped only with point defense cannot safely escort other vessels where air attack is possible. They can defend themselves, but not the ships around them. For the Small Surface Combatants, this obviates escort of merchant shipping or amphibious forces. That mission must fall to the Large Surface Combatants—Arleigh Burkes.

The importance of this distinction—point and area defense capability—is growing as air and missile threats proliferate. A decade ago, it would have seemed implausible that the Houthis in Yemen could challenge shipping with anti-ship ballistic missiles—yet that has been reality since 2023. Meanwhile, advanced systems such as Russia’s Tsirkon and China’s DF-21D anti-ship missiles continue to expand the threat environment in genuinely

The conclusion is unavoidable: Small Surface Combatants cannot operate independently against peer adversaries in high air threat environments. As for missions like Anti-Submarine or Anti-Air Warfare, those missions can only be carried out under the area-air-defense umbrella provided by guided missile destroyers.

Which raises the central question, yet again: if Arleigh Burke destroyers remain the only ships capable of protecting the fleet from the air, what does it truly mean to “relieve the burden” on the destroyer force?

The One True Mission

A major problem for the Navy today is a reliance on sledgehammer solutions for problems that may only require a tack hammer. For example, in 2009, USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) was assigned to anti-piracy operations off Somalia. In March 2025, USS Gravely (DDG 107) was sent to the Gulf of Mexico for a maritime border mission under US Northern Command, helping to deter illegal sea crossings and drug trafficking. Simultaneously, USS Stockdale (DDG 106) deployed off the US–Mexico Pacific coast to support the same operation, with a Coast Guard detachment embarked.

It is troubling that these ships—the critical core of the Navy’s Large Surface Combatant power for the next 50 years—are being expended on missions more appropriately suited to smaller, lightly armed and manned ships. Ships can only accumulate so many operational miles; once Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer miles are used for counter-drug or other low-end tasks, they cannot be reclaimed.

Rear Admiral Trinque touched upon this critical dynamic. According to Trinque, with destroyers focusing on “high-end” missions, there’s room for the Littoral Combat Ship to do the less involved work of countering narcotics trafficking, which has shot to the top of national security priorities in the past year. “If it’s defending the territorial integrity of the United States against illegal trafficking, counter-narcotics, if it’s controlling sea lanes in a lower threat environment, then a small surface combatant should be in your toolkit.”

Rear Admiral Trinque was referring to a mission set known as Maritime Interdiction Operations. However, today, and as noted above, maritime interdictions is not a mission exclusively assigned to Littoral Combat Ships

So, what specific missions should these Small Surface Combatants perform? How can they relieve the Arleigh Burke-class? The answer lies in straightforward yet fundamental Navy tasks that lie below the heavy combat requirements assigned to the destroyers:

Maritime Interdiction Operations: This includes interdiction of drugs, weapons, and human smuggling; enforcement of sanctions and embargoes; counter-piracy; interdiction of terrorist movements and logistics; and prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) proliferation.

Mine Countermeasure Operations: With the retirement of the Avenger-class, there are no purpose-built mine warfare ships in the fleet. For years, the Navy has relied on NATO to provide these capabilities. However, any fight in the Western Pacific cannot be assumed to be mine-free, nor can NATO be expected to supply mine warfare ships. Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers have no such capability; this gap must be filled elsewhere to ensure access for operations such as the defense of Taiwan or Korea.

Multinational and Presence Operations: The Navy routinely operates with allied navies in exercises such as BALTOPS (Baltic), UNITAS (South Ameria), CUTLASS EXPRESS (East Africa/Western Indian Ocean), and FOAL EAGLE/FREEDOM SHIELD (Korean Peninsula). These missions involve dozens of ships annually. Assigning Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers to such low-threat demonstrations is equivalent to sending a sledgehammer to perform tack-hammer work.

of these missions require sophisticated combat systems, larger size, or large and complex crews. Except for Mine Countermeasure Operations, none require operations in high-threat waters. Yet these missions remain core Navy responsibilities. This is not to say that the inclusion of a Large Surface Combatant would not have the value of sending a powerful message to both allies and adversary; however, that choice should be optional.

Three critical missions to ease the burden on the Large Surface Combatants. While these small ships can augment that force in combat areas, without area air capability, they absolutely cannot relieve a single Large Surface Combatant of its duties.

Is This About Shipbuilding?

What stands behind the Secretary of the Navy’s push get the first of very many Future Frigates into the water by 2028 – an extraordinary number since the shortest time recorded for a Littoral Combat to go from keel laying to commission was 36 months.

Is it the need for a significant small combatant force?

In truth, this rush may well be more connected to national shipbuilding concerns that it is to the specific force structure needs of the Navy. The president has repeatedly emphasized the need to revitalize US shipbuilding, which is critical to national security. During World War II, the US outbuilt adversaries and achieved naval dominance; today, fewer than two Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers are delivered per year. The United States has arguably lost the ability to build ships in numbers, and that may tell in a war situation with a peer competitor, like China. 

This is not to say that an American ability to build ships and submarines in number is not a national imperative—it is. It is, in fact, a key element of the National Security Strategy. The published document makes clear that cultivating a strong American industrial base—including critical production capacity – is fundamental to national power and security. This implies that building the capacity to produce ships and other systems is part of national strategy, not just defense programs.

But is building the Future Frigate, at least in part, to stimulate this industrial imperative enough. It is not. The Navy needs to build the right ship, not just a ship. With respect to fleet needs, 85, point defense-equipped frigates is many more than required to either execute the destroyer-relieving missions of Presence, Mine Warfare, Maritime Interdiction, or even combat augmentation.

While building the Future Frigate may be an indispensable win for US shipbuilding, the cost —in money, resources, fleet coherence, and the opportunity to build the next, right warship —remains significant.

What are we Doing and Why?

The central point is this: the Future Frigate is being pursued less as a decisive warfighting innovation than as a means to stabilize a shipbuilding enterprise in distress. Its secondary purpose is to relieve the operational burden on the Arleigh Burke–class destroyers. Beyond that, it functions as a stopgap—bridging the gap until the Navy can define and build the “next” truly capable surface combatant. That ship is not the Future Frigate.

As for the cancelled Constellation-class, which the Secretary of the Navy deemed too expensive, too far behind schedule, and abutting the fleet space occupied by the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, that ship most likely would have filled the need for a modern, area air defense capable frigate. The net result of the cancellation is a faster, cheaper solution which can be quickly built in numbers—the Future Frigate—even if that solution is far less capable than the Constellation. But then, this appears to be more about stimulating the industrial base than it is about the warfighting mission.

In the near term, the Navy should take practical steps to maximize the utility of its existing and planned Small Surface Combatants. This is not to argue against making these ships as capable as possible within clearly defined limits. The strategic environment is increasingly unpredictable; even a vessel assigned to counter-piracy could find itself drawn into a broader conflict. Small combatants can and must contribute meaningfully to high-end warfare—but only if their limitations are clearly understood and accepted.

With respect to the Littoral Combat Ship classes, two viable paths present themselves. First, the Independence-class should be rationalized into a single-mission platform focused on mine countermeasures. These ships should be forward-deployed to the Arabian Gulf and Western Pacific—Japan or Guam—along with the necessary shore infrastructure. There, they would provide a credible and responsive mine warfare capability in the theater of greatest risk. While the mine countermeasures module remains immature, the absence of alternative dedicated capability in the fleet makes these ships indispensable. Further, their large flight decks and speed also make them well suited to operate unmanned aerial systems, extending surveillance, reconnaissance, and limited strike capacity across the battlespace, albeit not concurrently with mine operations.

The Freedom-class, by contrast, should be based on the U.S. East Coast and tasked with maritime interdiction operations that currently consume high-end assets. These missions—ranging from counter-narcotics to presence operations—do not require robust air defense and are ill-suited to Arleigh Burke–class destroyers. In peacetime, the forward-deployed Independence-class could supplement these roles as needed. While both Littoral Combat Ship variants are more complex and manpower-intensive than ideal for such missions, they are available and sufficient.

As for the Future Frigate, the Navy must resist the temptation to expand its mission beyond its inherent limits. It will not be, and cannot be, a “pocket destroyer” capable of full-spectrum air warfare. That kind of mission creep—allowing requirements to exceed the physical and power constraints of the hull—was a central factor in the Littoral Combat Ship program’s difficulties.

Anti-Submarine Warfare capability remains particularly uncertain. Senior officials have suggested that more advanced Anti-Submarine Warfare systems may be deferred to later increments, leaving early ships reliant primarily on embarked helicopters. Proposed modular solutions—containerized towed arrays or unmanned systems—remain undefined. Given the cancellation of the Littoral Combat Ship Anti-Submarine module, following years of delay, expectations for a near-term frigate-based solution should be tempered

Consequently, the Future Frigate, with limited point-defense air warfare capability and no clearly defined organic Anti-Submarine Warfare suite, will not be suited to escort duties in contested environments. Missions such as convoy escort, amphibious protection, and area air defense will remain the responsibility of the destroyer force.

Instead, the Future Frigate should be designed to replace the Littoral Combat Ship fleet over time while sustaining the industrial base and maintaining hull numbers for low- to – medium intensity missions. Conceptually, it should resemble an enhanced Coast Guard cutter: equipped with a medium-caliber gun, point-defense missile systems, modest Anti-Submarine Warfare capability, and possibly an over-the-horizon strike weapon, but nothing more ambitious. These ships can augment deployed forces—but only under the protective umbrella of destroyer-provided air defense.

Ultimately, the restoration of U.S. shipbuilding capacity may itself justify the program, even if the resulting force structure exceeds the strict requirements of the Small Surface Combatant mission set. This industrial imperative likely explains the urgency behind the 2028 timeline, despite the lack of fully defined requirements.

The Navy’s enthusiasm for the broader fleet expansion, and for the Future Frigate in particular, appears driven in large part by the need to relieve the unsustainable operational tempo imposed on the Arleigh Burke force—tasked with everything from high-end combat to routine patrol duties.

In that sense, the current leadership has been charged with addressing the cumulative consequences of several troubled acquisition efforts, including the Littoral Combat Ship and the Zumwalt-class destroyer. Yet it is essential to recognize the Future Frigate for what it is: an interim solution, intended as much to sustain shipbuilding as to enhance combat capability.

The real challenge remains the development of the next-generation surface combatant—a ship with the size, power, and growth margin to accommodate future weapons and sensors. That search has eluded the Navy for decades. The Future Frigate is not that answer. Achieving it will require a clean-sheet design, sustained discipline, and a willingness to align ambition with technical reality. Until then, the frigate program represents not a destination, but a holding action.

Captain Kevin Eyer is a retired Surface Warfare Officer who served on active duty for 27 years. He deployed in seven cruisers and commanded three Aegis cruisers; USS Thomas S. Gates (CG 51), USS Shiloh (CG 67), and USS Chancellorsville (CG 62). Captain Eyer completed tours on both the Navy Staff and Joint Staff and attained a master’s from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tuft’s University. He was the US Naval Institute Proceedings Author of the Year in 2017, and three-time winner of the Surface Navy Literary Award.

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (Feb. 27, 2019) The Independence variant littoral combat ships USS Tulsa (LCS 16), right, USS Manchester (LCS 14), center, and USS Independence (LCS 2), left, sail in formation in the eastern Pacific. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Shannon Renfroe/Released).

Current Operations

A Looming Calamity: Will Secretary Pompeo Seal the Fate of the Red Sea?  

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By Dr. Ian Ralby, Dr. David Soud, and Rohini Ralby

Over the past five years, the people of Yemen have endured famine and warfare. Now, as they and their Red Sea neighbors face the imminent likelihood of overwhelming oil spillage from the abandoned tanker FSO Safer, the means to avert a regional catastrophe may be stripped away.

It has been reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is about to designate Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement, better known as the Houthis, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Doing so will not only complicate prospects of peace in Yemen, but potentially catalyze one of the worst humanitarian and environmental disasters in modern history.

For two and a half years, we have led a team of experts in a range of fields, working pro bono, to game out and highlight the threat of the Safer while also proposing achievable approaches to reducing or eliminating that threat. The Safer is a rapidly deteriorating tanker that, before the Yemeni civil war, served as the export terminal of the country’s main crude oil pipeline. Permanently moored less than five miles off the Red Sea coast of Yemen with a cargo of 1.14 million barrels of oil, the vessel is linked with an undersea pipeline that holds nearly as much crude as the Safer itself. As the tanker has deteriorated, the threat of a catastrophic spill – four times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill – has only increased. A burst pipe in the engine room in July was only one of many signs that the 45-year old Safer is not going to hold together much longer. Not only is the vessel owned by SEPOC, a state-owned company of the Hadi Government – effectively trapped in Houthi-controlled territory, but for the past six months, armed Houthi militants have been stationed onboard the vessel, which is being kept intact by a resourceful skeleton crew of SEPOC personnel.

Just this summer, at a special session of the U.N. Security Council regarding the FSO Safer, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft cited our work while urging resolution of the danger posed by the tanker. In recent months, we have been making steady progress toward a two-phase option: first to install devices in the area to contain a spill, and then to replace the dying tanker and transfer its cargo to a new, seaworthy vessel. Designating the Houthis as an FTO would close off avenues for negotiation with those who control access to the tanker, and thus end any hope for either of those measures. Time is our enemy, as the tanker is rapidly deteriorating and will, at some point, break apart.

While the Houthis have recently signed an agreement to allow a United Nations inspection team on the vessel, it will still take months before such an inspection could actually occur, and by that point, it may be too late. Furthermore, this is not the first time permission has been granted. Past reversals by the Houthis raise the question of whether that permission will still be in place when an inspection team is ready to board. And even then, an assessment is just the first step. The FTO designation would only diminish the chance of this long and arduous process of having any meaningful impact.

A spill of the Safer’s cargo could mean the destruction of Red Sea fisheries vital to human security in the region, as well as irreversible damage to the only coral reef systems known to be able to withstand warming seas. The consequences on land are no less extreme, beginning with the devastating impact of a spill from the Safer on water security. Millions of inhabitants of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and other nearby states, including Egypt and Sudan, get their drinking water from desalination plants along the Red Sea coast. If oil contaminates those plants as it spreads along the coast, the remaining supply of drinking water will last only days. Even in the best of times, that is not enough time to mobilize a major humanitarian relief effort to make up the shortfall. Now, in the face of conflict, famine, and the likelihood that a spill would constrict (and in some places, close off) shipping, such an undertaking would require far more time, coordination, and ingenuity. There would be no realistic chance of avoiding a calamity.

Yemen is already at risk of losing an entire generation to famine. Roughly 80 percent of the aid for Yemen’s starving population comes through Hodeidah. Even a temporary closure of the city’s port due to the toxicity from a spill would increase the death toll.

Even on purely economic grounds, the Safer could cause long-term harm to the region and to key U.S. allies. The Red Sea is narrow and semi-enclosed, and seasonal currents and winds will alternately spread the oil southward toward the Horn of Africa and northward toward Israel, Jordan, and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. With oily water up and down the coast, devastating coral reefs and islands, and decimating fish and wildlife populations, the Safer’s spill could ruin coastal tourism for Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Eritrea, and Djibouti for years to come.

In light of this predictable and preventable scenario, there should logically be a highly compelling set of foreign policy benefits deriving from the FTO designation that would offset the huge risks of designating the group that controls much of Yemen and the FSO Safer. The benefits should outweigh the costs, but in this case they do not. We see great risk to the critical operational work we now have underway to head off a humanitarian and environmental disaster of massive scale. For anyone attempting to provide aid to Yemenis in Houthi territory, the designation would add layers of difficulty and risk, and at tremendous human cost. Beyond that, our experience leads us to conclude that designation would do nothing to pressure the Houthis. On the contrary, it would let them further off the hook in terms of their responsibility for governance writ large and for this issue in particular which impacts so many countries in the Red Sea region.

Some may argue that a U.S. move would simply replicate the Saudi government’s own designation of Ansar Allah as a terrorist organization, establishing a united front. In reality the Saudis operate by their own rules and are still negotiating with the Houthis regardless. Such engagement would be barred for the U.S. government, or other U.S.-linked entities, and virtually impossible for a range of international actors, including private sector experts like us.

In the years leading up to the disastrous port explosion in Beirut on August 4, 2020, customs officials and international experts warned Lebanese authorities about the possibility and were ignored. In the same way, the demise of the Safer and the fallout of that event are eminently foreseeable and will almost certainly have an impact far wider and more extreme than the Beirut blast.

Designating the Houthis as an FTO may look and feel like an assertive, decisive application of pressure. In concrete reality, its practical consequences would be dire, not only for Yemenis, their neighbors, and the critical natural infrastructure of the Red Sea, but also for U.S. credibility on the global stage. We strongly encourage the Secretary of State to reconsider imposing this designation.

Dr. Ian Ralby is a maritime law and security expert and is CEO of I.R. Consilium, a family firm specializing in maritime and resource security. He spent three years as a Maritime Crime Expert for UNODC and four years at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. 

Dr. David Soud is an expert in resource crimes and is Head of Research & Analysis of I.R. Consilium. 

Rohini Ralby is an expert in strategy and problem solving and is Managing Director of I.R. Consilium.

Featured Image: A satellite image of the FSO Safer taken by Planet Labs on September 14, 2020. (via Forbes)

Current Operations

Mapping Gray Maritime Networks for Hybrid Warfare

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By Chris Callaghan, Rob Schroeder, and Dr. Wayne Porter

Introduction 

In light of the current National Security Strategy and the 2018 National Defense Guidance, the impact of hybrid warfare and ‘gray-zone’1 maritime activity in support of great power competition among nations has become an increasing area of concern. This includes the need for an increased focus on the identification and tracking of vessels of interest (VOI) and their associated owners, operators, and activities. Traditionally, maritime domain awareness (MDA) has consisted of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance of activities at sea with limited cross-domain link analysis2 of events, carriers, and sponsors (Wallace & Mesko, 2013). While this methodology enables analysts and operators to sift and structure vast data from increasingly complex systems, it fails to consider how ties between similar entities create gray (non-transparent) shipping networks capable of supporting state-directed hybrid warfare. 

This is not to say that a network perspective has been absent from the maritime domain. Researchers from diverse analytic disciplines have conceptualized various constructs as networks, such as historic trade routes (Rivers, Evans, & Knappett, 2016; Wang, Notteboom, & Yang, 2016), global shipping patterns (Ducruet, Rozenblat, & Zaidi, 2010), cruise ship itineraries (Rodrigue & Notteboom, 2014), and logistics involved in global shipping (Ducruet & Lugo, 2013). Yet, much of the focus behind this work has been on understanding transparent (licit) networks.3 For their part, network researchers leveraged social network analysis to gain an understanding of dark networks – that is, covert and/or illicit organizations (Raab & Milward, 2003). This has included, for example, the study of terrorist groups (Krebs, 2002; Roberts & Everton, 2011), narcotic distribution networks (Morselli & Petit, 2007), street gangs (Papachristos, Hureau, & Braga, 2013), and cyber criminals on the dark web (Dupont, 2014) to name a few. 

We drew on network analysis (NA) to examine gray maritime networks (alternately operating licitly and illicitly) in relationship to two NATO-led exercises in 2018: BALTOPS and Exercise Trident Juncture. As previously demonstrated through research focused on mapping gray maritime networks in the South China Sea (Porter, et al., 2019), NA methods can be leveraged to develop longitudinal network depictions of vessels loitering in sensitive or disputed areas. Here, we leverage commercially available geo-temporal data, open-source databases, and home range detection algorithms to generate depictions of the subgroups of owners and operators associated with gray activities.

Although methodology driven, this research was not intended to provide solely an academic contribution but also to demonstrate how NA can improve real-time awareness and tracking for operational purposes. The methods and analysis presented here should enable a rich discussion of current and future methods for enhanced MDA. As such, we begin with a description of our data collection and methods then proceed to discuss findings and practical implications for MDA. Finally, we conclude with a series of recommendations for further research. 

Generating Networks: Data and Methods 

We use commercially available ship tracking data as the cornerstone of our analysis; specifically, in the process of identifying and tracking VOIs. Our team collected the feeds from commercial automatic identification system (AIS) transceivers from 13 March 2018 through 7 January 2019.4 These data points are particularly salient as AIS transmitters are required as navigation and anti-collision systems for all vessels exceeding 300 gross tonnage operating internationally, any vessels exceeding 500 gross tonnage not conducting international voyages, and all passenger ships regardless of size. To narrow the scope of our data set, we geofenced our data to include the Baltic Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean. The resulting daily AIS tracking logs provided both spatial and temporal variables relevant to our analysis; namely, a VOI’s date and time of transmission, maritime mobile service identity (MMSI) number, speed over ground, longitude, and latitude.  

Once the data was decoded and filtered, we proceeded to explore traffic patterns using the Time Local Convex Hull (T-LoCoH) method originally developed for the study of movement patterns in GPS-tracked ranging animals. T-LoCoH integrates time with space into the construction of local hulls (geometric shapes containing a location distribution within a home range) while accounting for an individual animal’s speed, which facilitates the use of metrics for revisitation and loitering duration (Lyons, Turner, & Getz, 2013). In our work, the AIS data that tracks vessel traffic over time and space is analogous to the GPS data used to analyze ranging animals. As such, we leveraged the application of this method to identify spatio-temporal patterns of ships loitering in areas proximal to NATO-led military exercises.  

To reduce traffic noise, we only included AIS transmissions for non-NATO nation commercial vessels transponding with a speed over ground less than or equal to two knots. We then generated spatial loitering polygons which may represent ports, anchorages, or other areas where a VOI loitered during the window of research (see Figure 1). As expected, areas exhibited differing loitering densities with some being dense (depicted as yellow on Figure 1) and others less dense (depicted in red). These loitering polygons served as the basis for developing a list of VOIs using their MMSI identification numbers as unique identifiers.

Figure 1. Loitering isopleths during BALTOPS (click to expand)

Matching loitering isopleths with the original AIS transmissions used to generate them yielded a ship-to-loitering location table (see Table 1) with a ship’s unique identifier, the AIS message date and time, and the loitering polygon identity. 

MMSI  Date-time  Polygon 
123456789  T=1  Polygon A 
987654321  T=1  Polygon A 
123456789  T=2  Polygon B 
123456789  T=3  Polygon C 

Table 1. Sample ship-to-loitering location table

From this table, we extracted a location-to-location network where loitering areas were interconnected if a VOI traveled from one location to the other location. Next, to examine the underlying organizations linked to the VOIs, the team gathered open-source information on the companies who own and/or operate these ships using the Lexis Nexis Advance Research Database. This corporate information was then joined to the ship data. The corporate information was used to create connections between companies if they were tied to the same ship, one was a subsidiary of the other, one had a major financial stake in the other, shared the same physical address, or had members of their boards of directors in common. The findings and analysis of these data follow in the subsequent section.

Analysis: Shedding Light on Gray Maritime Networks

From the AIS data on ship movements we extracted two networks for further analysis: the location-to-location network composed of loitering areas observed during BALTOPS (31 May 2018 through 16 June 2018) and loitering areas observed during Operation Trident Juncture (22 October 2018 through 25 November 2018).  Most of the VOI activity was concentrated within the Baltic Sea (see Figure 2). These findings are to be expected considering the geographic range of operations. While most VOIs in the sample set remained in the Baltic Sea, a few were also observed loitering off the coast of Norway during NATO exercise Trident Juncture.

Figure 2. Location-to-location networks during BALTOPS (left) and Operation Trident Juncture (right) (click to expand)

Upon closer examination, the VOIs active off the coast of Norway during Trident Juncture appear to have loitered near sensitive military locations and displayed abnormal movement patterns. For instance, Figure 3 illustrates the movements of two VOIs with abnormal tracking patterns. The first is an oil tanker owned by the Russian government and operated by a registered shipping company in that country. The second is a commercial chemical products tanker registered in the Marshall Islands, a country often used as a flag of convenience, shown loitering north of Norway.

Figure 3. Abnormal shipping patterns off the coast of northern Norway during Operation Trident Juncture, a Russian owned oil tanker (left) and chemical products tanker registered to the Marshall Islands (right) (click to expand)

Finally, Figure 4 is a network representation of connections between the companies associated with identified VOIs. In this graph, we see that many of the companies are related to each other, with the three largest components colored in blue, green, and orange. For instance, the large blue cluster on the right-hand side of the sociogram contains many small companies, all operating from the same address in northern Russia, each with connections to at most a few ships. The large orange component on the bottom left contains clusters of VOI-associated companies interconnected by sharing some of the same board members. In the green component, shipping companies associated with VOIs are connected by sharing parent, subsidiary, or holding companies. Companies occupying an apparent position of structural brokerage are depicted by larger nodes. One such shipping company (highlighted with an arrow), for instance, was connected to the broader family of like-companies, while also being linked to a large multinational oil company through partial ownership ties (Schelle, 2018).

Figure 4. Company-to-company network. The three largest components are colored and nodes are sized by brokerage potential.

Conclusions and recommendations for further research 

This analysis highlights the value of NA in real-time awareness and tracking of stakeholders associated with suspected gray maritime activities in a strategic era of great power competition. Using commercially available geospatial data, our team identified 56 VOIs loitering in areas proximal to NATO-led exercises in the Baltic Sea and North Atlantic. These vessels were then linked to over 196 state-owned and private companies/entities. Analysis such as this provides insight into a network of stakeholders that may support hybrid warfare, or so-called grey-zone activities, not directly attributable to a specific nation.

The use of the network analysis methodologies discussed here and the tools developed at the Naval Postgraduate School to identify, map, and track gray maritime networks can be applied to any number of threats. While our earlier research into Chinese reef enhancement activity in the South China Sea has already been cited, Maritime Operations Center (MOC) operators and MDA analysts could adapt this toolset to track and assess maritime and terrestrial networks associated with narcotics trafficking, terrorism, Illegal and Unregulated Fishing (IIU), arms and human trafficking, and other security concerns. Integrating these tools into existing MDA systems would also provide for enhanced awareness of how these networks overlap in multiple geographic areas and in malign activities. Further, and perhaps most significantly, they could provide operators timely and actionable information.   

Our research is not without room for improvement. Future iterations of this work should include a richer dataset of state/corporate linkages. This should include a deeper dive into state-sponsored (and military supported) parent-subsidiary company relationships and board memberships, or proximal geographic associations among companies, offices, and ships. Further research is also being considered through the application of system dynamics modeling, wargaming, campaign analysis, and discrete events modeling. 

Acknowledgment  

The authors would like to acknowledge that this research benefited immensely from the partnership between the Common Operational Research Environment (CORE) Lab and Littoral Operations Center at the Naval Postgraduate School, with the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (Forsvarets Forskningsinstitutt, FFI). This research builds on a joint effort to integrate network analysis methodologies into the maritime domain, which won the 2019 NCI Agency’s Defense Innovation Challenge aimed at accelerating technological solutions in support of NATO C4ISR and cyber capabilities.

With more research and interest, these methods can help us better understand the non-linear relationships and feedback mechanisms that contribute to the complexity of great power competition and its manifestations in the maritime domain.

Chris Callaghan is a Research Associate in the Defense Analysis Department’s CORE Lab at the NPS. His work leverages open-source data analytics for understanding and modeling a variety of national and homeland security problems. 

Rob Schroeder is a Faculty Associate for Research in the CORE Lab within the Defense Analysis Department and a PhD Student in the Information Sciences Department at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). He is currently researching how to use open-source information gathered largely from social media in order to understand and map the changing dynamics in conflict areas and exploring the use of network analysis to analyze maritime traffic patterns. He has presented some of this research at conferences (INFORMS and INSNA).

Dr. Wayne Porter, CAPT, USN (ret.) is a Senior Lecturer in the Defense Analysis and Systems Engineering Departments of the Naval Postgraduate School, where he also serves as Co- Director of the CORE Lab and Director of the Littoral Operations Center.  He holds a Ph.D in Information Sciences and two Masters of Science degrees – in Computer Science and Joint C4I Systems Technology – from the Naval Postgraduate School.  Military duty included Japan, England, Italy, the Balkans, Bahrain (COMFIFTHFLT ACOS Intelligence and MOC Deputy of Operations in the Persian Gulf/East Africa), and three tours on the personal staff of ADM Mike Mullen, including Special Assistant for Strategy to both the Chief of Naval Operations (N00Z) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.  He subsequently served as Chair, Systemic Strategy and Complexity at Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and retired from the Navy in July 2014 after 28 years of active service.  Dr. Porter has contributed to a number of DoD and USN Strategy projects, including serving as systems analyst for the SECNAV’s Strategic Readiness Review.

The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position or policies of the United States Navy or the Department of Defense.

Endnotes

1. The opaque area in which illicit of malign activity co-exist with licit activity.

2. An analytical method for interactively curating and querying relational databases (Cunningham, Everton, & Murphy, 2016). In a link diagram, different types of entities (e.g., ports, events, ships, operators, and personnel to name a few) are tied to each other explicitly with the goal of describing the environment.

3. Those operating overtly and legally.

4. All collected AIS logs were encoded in AIVDM (data received from other vessels)/AIVDO (own vessel information) sentences and required decoding for further analysis.

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Featured Image: OSLO, Norway (Nov. 13, 2018) Sailors and Marines man the rails as the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) arrives in Oslo, Norway, for a scheduled port visit Nov. 13, 2018. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Daniel C. Coxwest/Released)