By Dmitry Filipoff

For the past two weeks, CIMSEC featured writing sent in response to our call for articles on strategic sealift, issued in partnership with U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM). The response we received was outstanding and illuminating.

American military power remains heavily dependent on sealift to surge and sustain significant operations. Yet sealift is under significant strain. From aging vessels to manning shortfalls, the overall readiness and capacity of the sealift fleet is far from ideal. Authors put forth innovative concepts to mitigate shortfalls and improve sealift capability. But whether there is enough funding and flexibility to implement some of these solutions remains an open question. What is more clear is that sealift will be indispensable in any great power conflict, and will be a prime target of interest for any adversary seeking to slash U.S. strategic- and operational-level maneuver.

Below are the authors and their articles that featured during the topic week. We thank them for their excellent contributions.

“The Fourth Arm of Defense: America’s Merchant Mariners,” by James Caponiti

“Throughout American history, the one constant has been that a strong commercial maritime capability enhances national security. This is as true today as ever. The Maritime Security Program remains the most important of the federal programs that assist U.S.-flag ships in foreign trade, and it should be supported, fully funded, and modified as necessary to keep pace with economic conditions affecting U.S.-flag shipping.”

“Across the Expanse: The Sealift Dilemma in a War Against China,” by Major John Bowser, U.S. Army

“While the MSC and MARAD aim to ensure the U.S. military is prepared to win expeditionary warfare, they feature critical vulnerabilities with respect to competition with China. The DoD’s critical sealift vulnerabilities against China include fuel distribution capacity, operational security, and vulnerability to partnerships to establish seaports of debarkation and fleet logistics centers. By focusing on these areas DoD will become more able to prosecute expeditionary conflict against China should the need arise.”

“Obsolescence, Chokepoints, and the Maritime Militia: Facing Primary Threats to U.S. Sealift,” by Nicholas Ayrton and Brandon Walls

“Challenges USTRANSCOM could face in this regard are threefold—the aging and inadequate nature of the American sealift force, the vulnerability of said forces to strategic chokepoints in the event of conflict, and the versatility and strength of the Chinese People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM).”

“Recapitalizing Strategic Sealift Should Be DoD’s Number One Modernization Priority,” by Dr. Daniel Goure

“It is difficult to overstate the dependence of the U.S. military on strategic sealift to both reach the fight and sustain itself during a crisis or conflict. Personnel and some critical equipment and supplies can be moved by aircraft. But for any major deployment overseas, much less a high-end conflict, the U.S. military is and will remain dependent on sealift.”

“American Strategic Sealift in Peer-to-Peer Conflicts: A Historical Retrospective, Pt. 1,” by Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Ph.D.

“…should the United States become engaged in another peer-to-peer conflict, they may lack the requisite sealift, merchant marine, and maritime industrial base to support the Department of Defense. Current plans include a sealift recapitalization scheme that provided funds for two used ships last year, and five more this year, but none have yet to be purchased. The current situation is unsustainable. An examination of the past can provide some alternatives and solutions to the current dilemma the United States finds itself in.”

“For a Greener, More Lethal Force, Look to Strategic Sealift Recapitalization,” by Joshua Tallis and Ronald Filadelfo

“A greener merchant fleet, enabled by technology developed during the recapitalization of the aging sealift fleet (the vessels that bring US troops and materiel to foreign shores) would address an important source of climate change and increase the sustainment reach of the logistics fleet (the auxiliary vessels that keep warships on station). Such a maritime green revolution might even improve lethality.”

“Solutions to Revitalizing America’s Strategic Sealift,” by Todd M. Hiller, P.E.

“With a bi-polar hegemonic world, the U.S. needs to take an immediate and serious deep dive into guaranteeing commercial cargoes for U.S.-flag carriers. This is not a new idea, but one worth revisiting. This proposal, if enforced by treaty or legislation, would have negligible impact on shippers while significantly improving the capacity and number of both the U.S.-flag fleet and U.S.-mariners.”

“American Strategic Sealift in Peer-to-Peer Conflicts: A Historical Retrospective, Pt. 2,” by Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Ph.D.

“The challenge for the United States in a fourth peer-to-peer conflict would be the same in the previous three: to ensure that there was a requisite force of merchant ships to support their maritime strategy…based on history, it appears that the United States is ill-prepared to sustain a large military force overseas, across a contested sea. “

“One Fleet, One Fight: Four “Fs” to Give About Sealift,” by Benjamin Clark and Gregory Lewis

“MSC’s ships are too big and too tired – and those are the ships that work, but they must fight with the fleet they have, not the fleet they want. It is time for Congress and the Defense Department to build a sealift force capable of handling the multiplicity of challenges presented in competition, crisis, and conflict by giving MSC warfighters, a fleet, fuel, flexibility, and friends.”

“Sealift Forces for the Future Operating Environment: An Airlifter’s Perspective,” by Phillip Amrine

“…no one can deny that the environment in which U.S. forces operate is fluid and unpredictable; counting on the threats to remain at their current level would be both foolish and irresponsible. As the long arm of American military power, USTRANSCOM must have the capability to deliver forces anywhere in the world at lightning speed. Maintaining this capability means deliberately monitoring competitors’ capabilities and countering them when they threaten the ability to deploy military force.”

“Strategic Sealift is Broken: Which Direction Are We Headed?” by David Sloane

“It is very clear that the current model is not working. The continued use of the current model will only lead to a fleet that is less ready with fewer mariners who are capable of operating and maintaining this critical defense capability. A change in direction must be made soon and the clock is ticking.”

“Beyond MSC and Amphibs: Unconventional Sealift,” by Benjamin DiDonato

“…warships can provide sealift support for EABO forces. This would naturally have to fit in with other tasking for these ships, so it generally won’t provide predictable resupply, especially when using high-demand assets, but it would still provide additional sealift capacity at essentially no cost.”

“Strategic Sealift’s Merchant Mariner Problem,” by Geoffrey Brown

“Rear Adm. Buzby stated publicly that the Merchant Marine is at least 1,800 officers short of what would be necessary in wartime. Furthering the problem is the lack of places on a dwindling number of ships, leaving 1,100 merchant marine academy graduates worrying about their future job prospects. Given that the average age of a merchant mariner is 47, it is clear that this manpower problem will only get worse if left alone.” 

“Don’t Overlook the Medical Fleet in Distributed Maritime Operations,” by Misty Wilkins

“The medical fleet is often overlooked in discussions about Distributed Maritime Operations (DMOs). The goal of DMO is to keep warships in the fight and use all available means necessary to prevail in a modern conflict against a near-peer adversary. But what happens when all available means are simply not enough and fleet assets suffer losses? How will the U.S. Navy get personnel out of the water, into the appropriate medical care, and back in the fight when faced with an impermissible environment and large numbers of potential casualties?”

“The Future of Sea Basing for U.S. Army Transportation,” by Mike Canup, Tim Fitzgerald, and Tim Owens

“Shrinking the gap between early entry forces and the buildup of more robust forces will require the Army to develop innovative approaches to surface and vertical sea basing connectors. Doing so will allow US forces to seize, maintain, and exploit the initiative.”

“The Glutted Mariner Shortfall,” by LCDR Adena Grundy

“From the perspective of the individual U.S. mariner seeking a reliable career path, there is no real shortfall. Within the economically-driven mariner job market, there is actually a glut of mariners in the current workforce, especially in the officer ranks. Without recognizing this current condition, attempts to increase pool size could initiate a vicious circle of issues that will actually drive people from the Merchant Marine, thereby exacerbating the problem.”

“Clandestine Cargo: Hiding Sealift in Plain Sight,” by Christian Morris and Heather Bacon-Shone

“Secretly loading containerized military equipment among the millions of TEUs processed annually at key U.S. ports such as Los Angeles/Long Beach, New York/New Jersey, Houston/Galveston, and Savannah could help military sealift hide in plain sight.”

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at [email protected].

Featured Image: USS KITTY HAWK, Pacific Ocean, (June 26, 2008) The aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) receives fuel from USNS Guadalupe (T-AO 200) while steaming through the central Pacific Ocean. (U.S. Navy photograph by Mass Communication Seaman Anthony R. Martinez)

Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Christian Morris and Heather Bacon-Shone

Introduction

Insulated by oceans to the east and west, and friendly neighbors to the north and south, America will always have to concern itself with sealift when fighting. It is well-acknowledged that while for some eight decades the U.S. has been able to move military materiel largely without contest from one theater to another. But this will likely not be the case in some future fight. This concern has dredged up, in memory and in practice, tactics employed decades ago to defend against contested oceans.¹ To pace threats and ensure sealift survivability, America could relatively safely “smuggle” a certain amount of clandestinely loaded military materiel across contested oceans and through contested chokepoints, until reaching friendly offload destinations in theater.

Devising A New Approach to Sealift 

In a 21st-century world of over-the-horizon ballistic missiles, cloud-penetrating synthetic aperture radar, and global satellite imagery, where remarkable resolution and coverage are available even from open sources, we can no longer rely upon 20th-century tactics to “hide” sealift, whether solo or convoyed, in transit. While certain elements of emissions control (EMCON) and operational discipline can complicate adversary firing solutions and enhance escorts’ ability to shield high-value assets from attack,² we must assume the adversary will be attentively watching every step of loadout, transit, and offload and in near-real time.

America’s hope is that its large network of allies and coalition partners worldwide, a small handful of Afloat Prepositioning ships, and a scattering of vestigial bases largely left over from previous generations’ conflicts, will provide sufficient maritime resupply and security in case of conflicts across contested waters. Though such friendly ports may wait with welcome roads, railways, and runways at the end of an arduous maritime journey, sealift ships still have to get there safely. For those early stages of overseas conflict, before America has gained control over her sea lines of communication (SLOCs), she still lacks a 21st-century secure sealift solution.

If the Chinese Communist approach to contested oceans is state ownership and control of resources, it seems the capitalist, democratic approach would be to embrace the natural camouflage of a heterogeneous, profit-driven, highly international containerized shipping industry. For example, a vessel’s owners may be Greek, the company Danish, the insurers British, the officers Eastern European, the unlicensed mariners Filipino, the embarked security American, the cargo from a half- dozen countries in Southeast Asia and Africa, and bound for customers throughout the Americas. And that is just one ship among thousands. For locating military sealift cargo that was clandestinely loaded, it would be fiendishly difficult to find one particular ship in the company of hundreds of lookalikes.

While sealift is often thought of in the context of sustainment, it is often also the precursor to initial intentional action. While existing national sealift assets – the Ready Reserve Fleet (RRF), Military Sealift Command (MSC) ships, and Maritime Security Program stipend ships – all play a valuable role once combat is engaged and SLOCs secured, the U.S. still lacks a good way to move assets into theater securely and discreetly at the start of hostilities or before opening a new front in the conflict. Secretly loading containerized military equipment among the millions of TEUs processed annually at key U.S. ports such as Los Angeles/Long Beach, New York/New Jersey, Houston/Galveston, and Savannah could help military sealift hide in plain sight.

The aging RRF ships, which struggle to maintain readiness despite heroic efforts from crews, could still be employed as decoys. These ships could make a big show of loading dummy vehicles, empty fuel bladders, and aircraft aboard them and sending them out in convoys, communicating in codes that are known to be compromised. Meanwhile, the actual critical materiel can move invisibly aboard MSP ships (provided their “cover” of commercial shipping remains unbroken) and in contracted spaces on other containerized vessels flagged under friendly nations.

To shepherd the cargo’s movement into theater, a plainclothes Navy Tactical Advisor (TACAD) could be hired, on articles, as an unassuming member of the ship’s company – since all TACADs, commissioned as Strategic Sealift Officers in the Navy Reserves, carry unlimited-tonnage deck or engine licenses. (TACADs, who currently conduct secure Navy communications and train for convoy operations aboard civilian vessels carrying military cargo, are well-suited for such duties.) Alternatively, with sufficient time to prepare, TACADs could be embedded unobtrusively as employees throughout international shipping fleets, similar to their natural civilian-job distribution in U.S. commercial shipping; and TRANSCOM could prioritize ships with TACADs in the crew for surreptitious military cargo movement.

To avoid concerns about their combatant status under the Geneva Conventions and Law of Armed Conflict, such “undercover” TACADs could be required to travel with a uniform and ID card to show in case of enemy capture – a tactic similar to that used by the Merchant Marine during the Vietnam War.

Additionally, TACADs could be required to surrender their civilian salaries to the government while on simultaneous orders, avoiding conflicts of interest while keeping the arrangement opaque to the ship’s crew. Finally, the U.S. government would need to be prepared to reimburse vessel owners for any loss or damage during transit; since the charter party contract, to maintain proper “cover,” likely would not specify the carriage of military cargo or employment of personnel under military orders.

It would be both unnecessary and unwise for such undercover TACADs to communicate updates on their secret cargo regularly, even by secure means. With the location and identity of those vessels easy to track via satellite imagery and cloud-piercing synthetic aperture radar, and with the elementary algebra of cryptanalysis resting on using knowns (vessel name and location) to guess unknowns (the method of encrypting that information), those codes, and all they protect, would be unnecessarily exposed. Nor should these vessels attempt to mask their location or identity; in a commercial shipping world where deck officers largely “drive by AIS,” being a dark target draws unnecessary navigational danger and sound Bridge Resource Management principles require deck officers to maintain a proper lookout by all available means, commercial shipping’s dependence on AIS as a near-sole means of collision avoidance creates significant risk of collision for even the most attentive mate aboard a non-transmitting vessel in a busy shipping channel. Modern deck officers often assume non-AIS radar blips are tiny pleasure craft or fishing vessels; unused to looking out the window to visually confirm, and assuming they are passing something small, they can create dangerously close CPAs – particularly hazardous in congested shipping lanes. Indeed, the lack of Navy ships’ AIS signals contributed to the 2017 collisions, spurring the Navy’s policy change to allow AIS transmission in crowded shipping lanes.

At the same time, coastal nations tracking marine traffic assume non-AIS targets are either warships or bad actors engaged in illegal activity – either way, drawing outsized attention, and potentially even aggressive engagement. “Going dark” might as well be wearing a giant “Look Here!” signboard in today’s operational intelligence world. It would be better to keep the civilian crew unaware of their clandestine military cargo, so the ship, operating normally, unwittingly, and safely blends into ordinary commercial traffic.

Conclusion

These clandestine solutions offer more flexibility for sealift and could help mitigate capacity shortfalls. They could also stretch adversary intelligence capabilities and dilute assets allocated toward finding and targeting sealift.

If, as Sun Tzu said, “All war is deception,” we should seek more ways for our 21st-century sealift to hide in plain sight.

Lt. j.g. Christian Morris, a graduate of Great Lakes Maritime Academy, sails commercially on the Great Lakes. He is a warfare-qualified Navy Reserve Strategic Sealift Officer who has twice served as a TACAD aboard commercial ships, in addition to assignments aboard Ready Reserve Fleet and Military Sealift Command ships. He holds an unlimited-horsepower 2nd Engineer’s license for steam and diesel.

Ens. Heather Bacon-Shone is a prior-service Coast Guard officer who sails as a civilian mariner with Military Sealift Command. A warfare-qualified Navy Reserve Strategic Sealift Officer, she has deployed twice as a TACAD and assisted the SSO Force with strategic planning and public affairs. A former member of the Chief of Naval Operations’ Rapid Innovation Cell (CRIC), she holds an unlimited-tonnage Chief Mate’s license and is a Coast Guard Permanent Cutterman.

The opinions in this article are made in the authors’ personal capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or the authors’ civilian employers.

Endnotes

1. “The positive necessity for radio silence on the part of vessels engaged in naval operations during war cannot be emphasized too strongly.” J.M. Lewis, A digest of naval communications, US Naval Institute, 1928. In addition to emissions control, Lewis also champions the use of tactical signals passed through visual communications, including semaphore and flashing light. The use of emissions control to evade radio direction-finding dates to WWI; so does zig-zagging to avoid torpedoes. See Remarks on submarine tactics against convoys, Office of Naval Intelligence, 1917. Within a year, the Navy questioned the value of the zig-zag: Analysis of the Advantage of Speed and Changes of Course in Avoiding Attack By Submarine, Office of Naval Intelligence, 1918.

2. That is, if escort combatants are even available. See https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/10/10/youre-on-your-own-us-sealift-cant-count-on-us-navy-escorts-in-the-next-big-war-forcing-changes/. 

Featured Image: The Port of Singapore. (Photo via Reuters)