New Initiatives

April Analysis Week

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DDG Flights of Fancy
                                                                                DDG Flights of Fancy

 

The votes are in and the topic for our April Analysis Week will be “Alternatives to the DDG Flight III” (full results below). Please help make this week a success and consider jotting down and submitting a few thoughts on the possibilities – in this case for the U.S. Navy – whether it be alternative platforms, technologies, organizations, tactical concepts, or something else entirely. If you’re interested in submitting or have any questions, please email me at director@cimsec.org.

The week will kick off April 29th. 
 
Alternatives to the Flight DDG III:                                                          25%
Lack of an amphibious navy and IR policy implications:             19%
What would a drone-carrier look like:                                                 19%      
Shaking up a Navy’s personnel system:                                                14%
Replacing the function/role of a carrier with a system of tech: 7%
What are the navy’s core capabilities:                                                   7%
Russia:                                                                                                                  7%
Directed energy weapons – second-order effects:                           4%
Cyber security:                                                                                                 0%

Events, New Initiatives

Constructive Disruption: The Defense Entrepreneurs Forum

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DEFOne year ago today, an oft repeated, maligned and admired phrase kicked off a broad dialogue, bringing together a growing, widespread, and once-disparate community of defense innovators. Put simply, the idea of Disruptive Thinking was a call to question the status quo, to leverage existing innovative civilian institutions and to find crossover applications for use by the military. In the year since, however, a necessary question has been asked many times: What is Disruptive Thinking, really, and how do you put it into action? How do we link creative, emerging military leaders with the senior decision makers that can actually put their ideas to use?

We believe a compelling answer is the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum. Rank has no monopoly on innovative solutions, and DEF2013 will be the engine to match warfighters “in the arena” with senior mentors hungry for ideas generated by creative, emerging leaders. This three day event, to be held at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business over Columbus Day Weekend 2013, will be a significant departure from conventional military conferences.

The Forum

DEF2013 is not associated with any traditional Defense entities, but instead produced of, by, and for emerging military leaders. The only agenda is creating practical solutions to enable more flexibility for senior commanders, and to impart a sense of involvement and empowerment to warfighters brimming with valuable tactical and strategic contributions. It leverages the power of diverse, short presentations with the creative ideation of hack-a-thon weekend events. These aspects are designed to tackle those issues most pressing to the current generation of military leaders and veterans.

There are two main elements to the weekend: The first consists of 20-30 minute talks by emerging military leaders, both officer and enlisted, with robust audience engagement. The Saturday morning session will feature a variety of topics presented by a diverse crowd of Disruptive Thinkers. Sunday’s morning session will showcase military entrepreneurs – both veteran and currently serving servicemembers – as they explore the connection between building an actual business and serving one’s country.

The meat of DEF2013, however, is in the hack-a-thon like afternoons. Ideas, generated pre-conference by actual attendees, will be discussed at length, and solutions proposed in a collaborative, freeform way. To support these breakouts, professors from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business will give two roundtables on marketing and sales, as well as be placed as mentors within the ideation groups. At the end of the weekend, each of the self-assembled teams will have come up with a comprehensive, relevant solution to whatever military problem they set out to tackle.

Integral to this is the engagement of senior leaders. Coming up with good ideas by emerging leaders is one thing – but guiding them through institutional inertia to reality, and providing mentorship to ensure they are implemented, is something uniquely suited to tested leadership. We are recruiting current and recently retired senior mentors to come on board to hear out, and perhaps champion, the ideas generated from the deckplates. Such great minds as LTG (ret) James Dubik and LTG Frederick “Ben” Hodges have already joined up, and we’re working to bring two to three more flag officers from each service.

Finally, Monday morning will culminate with a venture capital-like panel of local, Chicago-based entrepreneurs and Flag Officers. They will judge the best idea, solution and presentation, and in return for identifying the best solutions, engage on behalf of the winning team to get their project implemented.

The Reason

Why do we believe this is needed? What value does this add to the already ongoing discussion?
More than ever, recent battle-tested leaders, both emerging and senior, have had to adapt under incredibly challenging and unforeseen circumstances. Capturing their agile minds and putting them to use in solving current fiscal and strategic problems is necessary for the continued progression of our services. Without a doubt, the current century will become more complex as technology evolves, unforeseen threats emerge, and fiscal constraints set in. More importantly, we need to create a dialogue that elevates the professionalism and creative capabilities of our services as a whole.

Those of us writing today believe the next step in the evolution of Disruptive Thinking is not just through increased online interaction or relying upon status quo bureaucratic processes. Rather, it will be accomplished by bringing the most agile and innovative minds from across the military together in one place for a lively exchange of ideas and solutions. This is the heart of the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum.

The Spark

While the original article on Disruptive Thinking was focused on leveraging education, we recognize that warfighting must always come first in any conversation about innovation and the military. This is inimically tied to the fact that people, not tech, are our greatest assets.

Immediately after the publication of the aforementioned article, members of what are now the DEF Board observed incredibly informative and coherent arguments related to military strategy and innovation over social media. Through many conversations via Twitter and Facebook, it became apparent that disparate networks of individuals, spanning all ranks and services, were effectively fleshing out the most pressing issues of the day in non-traditional ways.

It also became apparent that innovators have inherent ways of finding each other. As their distributed networks grow, cross-cultural (and cross-rank) engagement increases. Though they never meet, some even become close friends. There is a unique power in informal networks created by personal interactions, even if they begin in cyberspace.

Yet something was missing in this process. That element was the intangible benefit of seeing your intellectual sparring partner face to face. The discussions on Twitter, Facebook and various national security forums for emerging military leaders needed to come out of the virtual world and into the physical one.

While discussing this power of networking and the need for an in-person forum to build the relationships required to effect change, the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum was born.
Soon after inception, our personal networks pointed us towards the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, where they not only found a world class institution, but a strong veterans group. Leveraging the military experience and entrepreneurial education of recent veterans who are still engaged in national defense dialogue was a perfect fit.

Subsequently, the Executive Board was recruited and, quite inadvertently, spanned the armed services. Many were asked to join based on their disruptive writings – others because they were known practitioners of innovation. All are focused on creating a compelling experience that will unite, excite and build relational networks that will span careers.

The Call

And so, on Columbus Day weekend 2013, Saturday October 12th through Monday October 14th, we encourage the brightest and most creative emerging and senior military leaders to descend upon the Windy City. While there, we will discuss ways to push forward innovative and disruptive ideas, while doing so alongside senior mentors willing to consider our proposals.

We’ve lined up a great cast of speakers and professors to push this event forward. What we still need is you – your intellectual capital and your time – to engage with fellow innovators. We need both senior and emerging leaders to participate.

DEF2013 will be more than a conference to mingle and hand out business cards; it will be a unique opportunity to interact and connect with fellow military and veteran entrepreneurs to push your ideas forward. Sign up today at DEF2013.com, follow us on Facebook, and become a part of putting Disruptive Thinking into action.

Capability Analysis

LCS – Playing with Modularity

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LCS: Trade-Offs and Tribulations
                                                           LCS: Trade-Offs and Tribulations

 

The U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship is now at an interesting but dangerous point of development. At least that’s one impression from reading Chris Cavas’s article in DefenseNews. The controversies surrounding LCS are not surprising taking into account the words of Sir Julian Corbett:

The truth is, that the classes of ships which constitute a fleet are, or ought to be, the expression in material of the strategical and tactical ideas that prevail at any given time, and consequently they have varied not only with the ideas, but also with the material in vogue.

LCS represents perhaps too radical a detachment from the dominating views in the Navy. So what is the right way to proceed? From the article in DefenseNews three options emerge:

1. Stop LCS orders at 25 ships. This would mean that the original need for an affordable littoral combatant, operated in packs, remains unfulfilled. This is an acceptable course if the need is no longer important, but is that the case? Some form of affordable and smaller combatant is still desired, I believe.

2. Turn LCS into “micro-Aegis”. This would mean attempting to make LCS into something it was never intended to be. Sooner or later it would lead to more balanced, but more expensive, frigate design. This would be like having an answer for a question never posed. To illustrate the problem and sharpen opinions — what attribute of the ship is more important for the Navy? One with a frigate’s capabilities, or an affordable one? Designing an affordable frigate is a very challenging task for naval architects and the history of modern Royal Navy is worth studying to understand this.

3. Fine-tune LCS’ design and concepts, aiming to minimize identified deficiencies while preserving affordability. The most criticized features seem to be weak armament, excessive modularity, and the inefficiency of having two different designs. Choosing this option would mean improving the answer for the known need. It is also an attempt to converge the concept of the littoral corvette with the “prevailing strategical and tactical ideas” within the Navy.

The proposal below is the result of admittedly amateurish play with module-like LEGO bricks and intends to achieve the desired effect by changing the base configuration as well as assigning missions in pairs to two different platforms. It means that instead of multi-mission or reconfigurable-but-single-mission ships, there would be “1.5 – 2 mission” ships, with one mission permanent and one modular. Which module should be assigned to which platform is a question of not only effectiveness but also safety. The following statement comes from an analysis of the U.S. Navy’s experimental twin-hull Sea Fighter (FSF-1):

The RHIB is launched and recovered at ship speeds not exceeding 5 kts. At speeds less than 15 kts Sea Fighter’s ride quality is reduced. Ship motions at 5 kts sometimes causes the end of the stern ramp to emerge from the water, which makes recovering the boat a challenge at best and dangerous at worst. A missed approach (to the ramp) could result in the boat being trapped under the water-jet guards.

If that is an inherent feature of multi-hull ships, then launch and recovery of Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) or Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (UUVs) should be the domain of the classic monohull design, in spite of the larger bay in the trimaran. Based on such an assumption, Independence would perform two roles – Maritime Security Operations in low-level threat environments and ASW corvette in wartime, while Freedom’s envisioned role would be anti-surface warfare (ASuW) and mine warfare. Both versions could operate together in pairs. I propose extending the base configuration of the trimaran including SeaRAM along with 30mm guns and a mine reconnaissance UUV like Bluefin 21. Replacing the Griffin launcher with vertically launched RAM Block 2 in the extensible launching system (ExLS) offers improved self defense against multi-axis attacks while retaining flexibility in mixing RAM with Griffin, which is possible to fire from modified Mk 49 launcher.

For Freedom, I propose replacing the 30mm guns with Harpoon missiles, an action already put forward by both Chris Cavas and Bryan McGrath in Information Dissemination. Such configuration is intended to be fixed, while ASW and MIW remain in module form. This way we get a classic ASW corvette and much bigger Visby-like littoral combatant. Applying 8- or 16-cell vertical launchers is welcome, but its cost should be checked against affordability criteria. In fact such a move means extending modularity into the ammunition area rather then limiting it. This is a case for developing a VLS Harpoon and Bryan McGrath makes a good point about it in Information Dissemination. It makes sense however only if there is a large number of smaller combatants to carry such weapon.

Operating two different variants may be a “glaring inefficiency”, but only from an economical point of view. Tactically, having a variety of features could be advantageous. The interesting side effect of above LEGO bricks play is turning LCS into a model littoral corvette, which could become of some interest for other navies considering procurement options.

Przemek Krajewski alias Viribus Unitis is a blogger In Poland.  His area of interest is broad context of purpose and structure of Navy and promoting discussions on these subjects In his country

Current Operations

An Unlikely Alliance: Ukraine and NATO in the Battle Against Maritime Piracy

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The Atlantic Council of Canada’s Aaron Willschick examines the unlikely partnership between Ukraine and NATO on maritime piracy, but warns that the former Soviet state has a long way to go if it wishes to be accepted into the West.

When it comes to maritime security, piracy has become one of the most prevalent issues for NATO to deal with. In considering which nations are most involved in combating maritime piracy, Ukraine is probably not the first name that comes to mind. As it turns out, this non-NATO, non-EU Eastern European nation is heavily involved in the fight against piracy at sea. Ukraine has even become a valuable ally to NATO in anti-piracy campaigns, something not exactly expected from a nation so closely aligned with Russia on the geopolitical map.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen signs an exchange of letters with Ukrainian Defense Minister Pavlo Lebedev
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen signs an exchange of letters with Ukrainian Defense Minister Pavlo Lebedev

Impact of Piracy on Ukraine

At the end of last month, NATO announced that Ukraine would actively take part in NATO’s anti-piracy operation in the Indian Ocean. Kiev has agreed to offer a frigate and a helicopter in the second half of 2013 for Operation Ocean Shield, the mission designed to deter and disrupt pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa. While it is not readily apparent, the impact of piracy on Ukraine is very real and a significant security concern for the former Soviet nation. From 2008 to mid-2012, over 140 Ukrainian sailors were victims of piracy, many of whom suffered brutal torture and abuse at the hands of their captors. Of today’s global security challenges, piracy may have the most disproportionately large impact on Ukraine. Even though Ukraine’s merchant fleet is relatively small at 1.8% of the world total, the country has somewhere between 80, 000 and 100, 000 merchant sailors at sea, or 8-10% of the world’s total. It also supports over twenty higher education establishments that train seafarers, and Ukraine is the third largest contributor of commercial crews in the world, second to Russia and the Philippines.

When taking into account demographics, Ukraine arguably has the world’s greatest concentration of merchant sailors in its workforce and thus, the greatest exposure as a country to the human cost of piracy. In addition, the Ukrainian economy also bears substantial costs. With 2, 782 km of coastline, one of the world’s best navigable river systems and considerable maritime trade, Ukraine’s economy is very dependent on its waterways. Piracy directly affects a large amount of the country’s maritime exports, which transit through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. With such a large share of its goods exposed to piracy, Ukraine bears a disproportionate share of the estimated $7-12 billion annual cost of piracy to the world economy. With such high risks, insurance costs and protective measures add over $300, 000 to the cost of each trip. For ships that reroute around Africa, the cost is $1-$10 million per trip, not to mention additional travel time. These costs are made up for with increased transportation fees that cuts into profits for Ukraine exporters, shippers and producers and raises prices for purchasers, ultimately lowering the demand for Ukrainian products.

Counteracting the Costs of Piracy

Because of its lack of international presence, the only way that Ukraine can effectively combat the costs of piracy on its citizens and economy is through multinational cooperation. This is why Ukraine has become increasingly involved in a partnership with NATO. The first cooperation on maritime piracy occurred in October 2005 when Ukraine called to requests NATO’s assistance in responding to the capture by Somali pirates of the Ukrainian-owned vessel MV Panagia. Since then, the partnership has grown to the point that Ukraine’s Navy has deployed ships for extended operations with NATO’s Operation Active Endeavour in the Mediterranean on five separate occasions. Last summer Kiev and Brussels announced that Ukraine would join Operation Ocean Shield with the direct contribution of a ship-based helicopter and a group of naval Special Forces.

Further illustrating its commitment to counter-piracy, Ukraine co-hosted Sea Breeze 2011, the Black Sea’s largest annual multinational naval exercise, with the United States in Odessa. In response to common threats facing the world today, the exercise was dedicated to counter-piracy training operations, evacuation procedures and search and seizure training. Sea Breeze 2011 was also designed to improve regional stability in the Black Sea and strengthen maritime partnerships. Exercises such as these have helped to heighten Ukraine’s international profile and increase its credibility with western nations.

A Step to the West?

Some have interpreted Ukraine’s efforts against maritime piracy as an indication that the former Soviet state is serious about joining the West’s security framework. Not only has it become a close maritime partner of NATO, but Ukraine has also been active in the European Union’s anti-piracy campaign, Operation Atalanta. Ukraine’s work against maritime piracy is admirable and should be applauded. It also could act as a good starting point for the country to join NATO in the future and ultimately distancing itself from Russia. However, it is important to keep in mind that Ukraine is a nation that still faces many obstacles in its quest to join Western institutions. While recently praising the country for its work against piracy, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned Ukraine that it must further commit to respecting democracy and the rule of law. Counteracting piracy is one thing; building and respecting democracy is another. Despite some progress, Ukraine still has a long way to go beyond maritime operations if it wishes to be taken more seriously by the West and gain acceptance into Western institutions.

Aaron Willschick is a Maritime Security Analyst at the Atlantic Council of Canada and a recent graduate from the MA program in European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. His research interests include the European Union, European security and defense policy, NATO enlargement to Eastern Europe and democratization

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.