In the spring of 2019, then-Navy Secretary Richard Spencer publicly released the “Navy Cybersecurity Readiness Review.”1 Conducted in the tradition of earlier reviews commissioned by Navy Secretaries such as the Chambers Board and the General Board Studies of 1929-1933, this report, led by the now-Under Secretary for Intelligence Ronald Moultrie, concluded that the Navy’s cybersecurity shortfalls were “an existential threat.”
Following its release, Secretary Spencer summarized the review’s findings during Congressional testimony: “…[O]ne of our battles is going to be just getting off the pier because [of] cyber…” After over two years in the position, the civilian leader of the Navy and Marine Corps had become convinced that the cyber-related reforms and force structure changes outlined in the Review were required to remain a viable naval power.
Due to his untimely dismissal in November of that same year, however, Secretary Spencer was never afforded the opportunity to see his proposed cyber reforms through. In his wake, the “existential” cyber matters described in the report have been largely left unaddressed. Three years later, Congress started to demand significant reforms to Navy cyber force structure in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). These NDAA mandates suggest that Congressional defense committee leadership has concurred with Spencer’s conclusions—so much so, in fact, that they are willing to force the matter on Navy leadership.
While the 2019 report, prompted by over a decade of cyber incidents resulting in the “loss of significant amounts of Department of the Navy data,” makes it clear that the Navy is “losing the current global, counter-force, counter-value cyber war,” it never describes the strategic or operational naval implications of losing this “war.” The report notes that “[cyber] war is manifested in ways few appreciate, fewer understand, and even fewer know what to do about it.” But it leaves translating such proclamations into tangible guidance to the imagination of the (presumably “few”) readers capable of doing so. High-profile cyber warfare events over the last five years, however, have made understanding the strategic implications of the Navy’s cybersecurity readiness shortfalls far more apparent. The “how” and “why” of Spencer’s “battle to get off the pier”—and what it means for the Navy’s strategic reality—demands the attention of more than just Congress.
Introducing Schrödinger’s Fleet
The strategic reality described by the 2019 Cybersecurity Readiness Review is best analogized by Erwin Schrödinger’s “cat” thought experiment, which describes a situation where it is impossible to know whether a cat—imperiled by the superposition aspect of quantum dynamics—is either alive or dead until someone goes to observe the state of the cat. In this way, the cat is effectively both alive and dead prior to direct observation.
In the case of Schrödinger’s Fleet, the uncertainty is the unclear combat readiness of a naval fleet whose supply chains have suffered a thorough and prolonged period of cyber exploitation by sophisticated adversary actors. Given an indefinite period of access to the key portions of the defense industrial base responsible for the provisioning of all U.S. Navy platform and weapon systems, these actors are afforded countless opportunities to insert malicious code into software and firmware that eventually is built into one or myriad platforms, systems, and networks. The added code then lies effectively dormant until such a time or condition that it is activated to disrupt the availability of a weapon system, network, and/or platform. From a readiness perspective, the naval fleet appears operationally ready in peacetime, but the adversary knows that at the intended moment of action, the imperiled fleet will struggle to “just get off the pier.”
Had the 2019 Review been written 18 months later, it would have benefitted from the ready example of the SolarWinds cyber breach that made the term “software supply chain compromise” common parlance. The SolarWinds2 event was revealed by the cybersecurity firm FireEye, which discovered malicious cyber activity on its own network in December 2020.3 Further analysis revealed that beginning in the spring of 2020, this Russian cyber campaign had first compromised the software development environments of a prominent vendor of IT management tools, SolarWinds. They then modified code in its products to allow themselves access to its customers, leveraging SolarWinds’ otherwise legitimate software update processes to spread ‘poisoned’ updates across the networks of approximately 18,000 entities. Amongst the victims were the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, and State, as well as defense-linked Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Deloitte, and Intel.4
SolarWinds was nowhere near the first supply-chain compromise used by adversary cyber actors. The NotPetya cyberattack by Russian military cyber units in 2017, for example, used a similar supply-chain infiltration tactic to infect Ukrainian accounting software updates to pre-position the virus across Ukraine before activating its worming and data destruction capabilities on the eve of Ukrainian Constitution Day. Once activated, its global spread and effects were the results of automatic spreading and attack processes in pre-positioned malicious code causing at least $10 billion of damage—the most financially destructive cyberattack ever.5,6
China is also a prolific software supply chain compromiser. In 2017, Chinese cyber actors compromised the development environments of the company responsible for the CCleaner software utility, subsequently inserting malicious code into software updates for that product, eventually spreading to over 2.3 million computers worldwide.7 This campaign lasted about six months, and subsequent analysis revealed that the Chinese ultimately only leveraged access to 40 organizations in the pursuit of further targeted activities against dissident groups and other Chinese security priorities.
Taken in totality, SolarWinds, NotPetya, and CCleaner represent the wavetops of what has now become a go-to tactic for nation-state and criminal actors alike—subvert the software supply chain to get to higher value targets with latent, malicious code. Then, at a time and place of the adversary’s choosing, activate the malicious code.
Adversary actors need two things to leverage such capabilities: First, they need ready access to a target’s supporting supply chains—the type of prolonged access to the Navy’s supporting vendors that prompted the commissioning of the 2019 Cyber Readiness Review. Second, the adversary needs to have some advanced idea of what type of outcomes it wishes to achieve with such operations. Adversaries with focused strategic or operational objectives—an invasion of a nearby island, for example—for which they control the notional timing and tempo, can engage in prolonged supply chain subversion campaigns to ensure that opposing forces are disadvantaged at the outset of a conflict. In the opening hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for example, (presumably Russian) hackers brought down satellite communications run by Viasat, upon which the Ukrainians were operationally reliant.8 While not decisive due to Russia’s conventional military failings, this type of cyberattack demonstrates that peer competitors can use pre-positioned cyber capabilities as part of a combined arms assault.
The 2019 Cybersecurity Readiness Review suggests—but did not state outright—that at least some of the Navy’s myriad acquisition programs may have been victim to this class of long-term compromise. The risk to an unknown number of Navy platforms and weapon systems remains critical. As recently as this year, “nearly nine out of ten US defense contractors fail to meet basic cybersecurity minimums,” as defined by the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS).9 Even generously assuming perfect contractor cyber defense thereafter, when the updated DFARS cybersecurity requirements finally are enforced (via the oft-delayed implementation of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification [CMMC]), whatever latent compromises that Spencer alluded to in his Congressional testimony—as well as at least four additional years of continued near-peer cyber activity against Navy supply chains will remain. And the U.S. Navy will be left operating Schrödinger’s Fleet through the duration of the so-called Davidson Window and beyond.10
Cousin Cats: “Schrödinger’s Infrastructure” and “Schrödinger’s ICS”
The Navy is not the only entity faced with strategic cyber uncertainty. In a recent speech at NATCON 3, Joshua M. Steinman, the senior-most cybersecurity official in the Trump administration, described what he called “Schrödinger’s Infrastructure”: “…[A]n industrial base that is simultaneously compromised and not compromised… We find out which it is once the [People’s Liberation Army (PLA)] departs for Taipei.”11
Steinman’s description is significant to the U.S. Navy for two reasons. First, it identifies that the threat of latent Chinese cyber capabilities embedded in U.S. industrial infrastructure may only be fully realized when it is leveraged in support of a major PLA operation such as invading Taiwan. Perhaps less obvious—but just as significant—is that Steinman identifies an issue with a class of technologies that are just as critical to naval operations as they are to U.S. critical infrastructure. Namely, Steinman’s comments specifically addressed the cybersecurity vulnerability of “Operational Technologies” (OT), which describes the class of computers, controllers, networks, and embedded systems associated with the control of physical things such as power grids, factories, ship propulsion plants, and weapon systems.
Just as relevant to understanding contemporary U.S. Navy cyber risk is a description of what Robert M. Lee, the founder of the OT cybersecurity company Dragos, calls “Schrödinger’s Industrial Control System (ICS).” In a 2019 blog post discussing the circumstances of a rumored cyberattack that had caused a fire at the Abadan Oil Refinery in Iran, Lee explains that “Schrödinger’s ICS” is a situation that exists when operators of operational technology are unable to do “root cause analysis of the event to include a cyber component.”12 Otherwise stated, another aspect of the cyber-Schrödinger condition is that any OT-controlled machinery or weaponry casualty may be a cyberattack unless an entity has the cyber forensic capabilities to “observe” otherwise.
Responding to a question in 2017 about the possibility of a cyberattack causing a ship collision involving the USS McCain, the then Deputy-Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, VADM Jan Tighe, stated that “…what if we detect a cyber intrusion into one of those machinery systems, et cetera? We need to have expertise that can respond to that… and can look for any signs of cyber intrusion or cyber malicious – malware… we will… learn from the results of the McCain investigation and just make [cyber forensics] part of the normal process of how we do mishap investigations moving forward.”13 As other observers noted,14 however, in 2017 the Navy did not have the capabilities required to do a proper forensics investigation on the McCain’s OT. VADM Tighe’s remarks suggested, at least, that a Fleet cyber forensic capability was an identified naval requirement and was to soon come online.
A recent letter from Congress to CNO Gilday sent in the fall of 2022,15 however, expressed concern that “the Navy’s cyber resiliency budget [for fiscal year 2023] equated to less than 0.1 percent of service-requested funds,” and pointedly asked, “What unit(s) will respond to cyberattacks against shipboard systems and are those units sufficient to meet wartime need?” It appears that Congress is skeptical as to whether the Navy has sufficiently developed the expertise that VADM Tighe stated was necessary two years prior to the 2019 Cybersecurity Readiness Study—the type of expertise required to resolve whether the Fleet is “cyber alive” or “cyber dead.”
Schrödinger Fleet Strategy
From a naval strategy perspective, Schrödinger’s Fleet is effectively the opposite of Mahan’s “fleet in being.” Rather than an immobile fleet limiting an adversary’s maneuvers because of the risks of such a fleet mobilizing, an otherwise mobile Schrödinger’s Fleet no longer has to be respected in an adversary’s calculations. At the initiation of conflict, the antagonist can assume that an otherwise mobile fleet will be rendered moot via cyber effects, and the antagonist can maneuver their forces accordingly.
That said, because the actual efficacy of latent malicious cyber capabilities cannot be known for certain until time of activation, it cannot be expected that an adversary advantaged by such capabilities will necessarily conduct its ante bellum activity noticeably different than they would if they did not possess such advantages. It is worth considering, however, that having such cyber capabilities may incline adversarial leadership to perceive a decisive strategic advantage, further easing their path towards initiating hostile actions.
This risk—that cyber effects at the outset of conflict used to undermine the military capabilities of the opposite side will ultimately be destabilizing and make conflict more likely—is described by another former Navy Secretary, Dr. Richard Danzig, as “mutually unassured destruction” (“MUD”). In a 2014 essay, Danzig specifically points out that should nuclear command, control, and warning be degraded by cyberattack, this could lead to a situation where the strategic deterrence inherent to mutually assured destruction deteriorates, leading to strategic instability.16 Danzig’s point might be extended, however, to consider the advantages conveyed if only the conventional defense capabilities of an adversary are disrupted.
Danzig’s explanation of cyber-induced MUD suggests that there may be a fundamental strategic difference in degrading conventional rather than nuclear forces. Namely, whereas there may be destabilizing risks in placing nuclear forces into Schrödinger Fleet conditions, this does not necessarily hold true for conventional forces. Consider two adversaries who have both compromised the software supply chains of the conventional forces of the opposing side. Each is faced with uncertainty regarding what forces will and will not be impacted at the point of initial aggression and therefore face an incalculable risk toward their respective chances of success. This condition—when Schrödinger Fleet-conditions call into question the viability of conventional military success—can prove deterring and thus potentially stabilizing. And this form of cyber deterrence need not be symmetrical or mutual. Should one side be able to demonstrate that they have created Schrödinger Fleet conditions inside of the aggressing force, the aggressor may hesitate to act, especially if the aggressor’s theory of victory requires a full complement of combat-available forces.
Spencer’s Congressional statements suggest that he believed the Navy may be at such a conventional disadvantage—potentially deterring U.S. strategic or operational action at a future moment of crisis or conflict. A Navy composed of a Schrödinger’s Fleet is not merely a force in an “existential” crisis. It is a critical national security liability.
Resiliency and MUD: A Quantum of Solace
Assuming that the strategic implications of the U.S. Navy operating a Schrödinger Fleet are anywhere near as dire as what Spencer’s Review and further analysis suggest, what is to be done?
Commercial OT cybersecurity suggests two partial remedies. First, after the SolarWinds event, public and private sector cybersecurity leadership began calling for the use of “software bills of material” or “SBOMs.” These are lists of software components used to create applications or systems that are provided upon the delivery of a product or service. While not a defensive cyber capability per se, they do allow entities to understand the degree of risk incurred when a subverted IT or OT component is revealed via a breach disclosure or some other sort of reporting.
In 2021, the Biden administration tasked the Department of Commerce to develop government-wide guidance mandating SBOMs for all IT and OT used by the federal government.17 The Senate’s version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act also contained an SBOM mandate for the Department of Defense, but this language did not make it into the bill’s final form.18 It remains prudent, however, for the Navy to require SBOMs from all its IT and OT suppliers.
Second, as Rob Lee and VADM Tighe both suggested is required, the Navy needs a rapidly deployable expert forensics capability that it can deploy to its ships and platforms to quickly determine whether or not the root cause of a system failure or casualty is or is not cyber-related. As VADM Tighe noted in her 2017 comments about the USS McCain cyber investigation, one of the most urgent second-order questions the Navy would have had to determine was that, if the McCain collision had been revealed to have a precipitating cyber cause, were other ships – to include the earlier collision of the USS Fitzgerald – also liable to a similar notional cyber effect?
Some of this forensic capability can be provided by additional cybersecurity sensors integrated into platforms. In Congress’ 2022 letter to Admiral Gilday, for example, Congress notes the existence of two Navy programs that address some of this risk. Some of this enhanced forensics capability will also require the types of teams that Congress inquired about in the same letter. As the Navy considers how to implement the reforms mandated in the 2023 NDAA, manning and equipping these sorts of teams should be top of mind.
A notional Navy cyber response team. (Artwork created via Midjourney AI)
While SBOMs and operational forensic capabilities reduce the uncertainties associated with Schrödinger’s Fleet, they do not meaningfully address the waxing strategic risk of systemic platform and weapon system casualties caused by latent malicious code. For this, two further compensatory mechanisms are necessary.
First, the Navy must have the capacity to recover compromised systems to secure baselines in operationally relevant timeframes. Assuming that the advance detection of latent malicious code is nigh impossible given the volume and complexity of the systems-of-systems in a naval platform and each of those systems’ respective supply chains, quickly recovering from the unpredictable impacts of such malicious code becomes a critical “fight through” enabler.
Finally, the Navy should pursue and maintain the ability to hold potential adversaries’ conventional naval capabilities at equivalent cyber risk. Expanding Secretary Danzig’s “MUD,” we should consider how much can be gained from developing an ability to call into doubt the wartime availability and reliability of an adversary’s conventional naval forces. This would create a credible, likely stabilizing deterrent that is not dependent on ensuring the cyber survivability of our own navy. This is a necessary approach when addressing the need to maintain strategic balance—if not outright advantage—over great naval powers.
LCDR Tyson B. Meadors is a Navy Cyber Warfare Engineer. He previously served both afloat and ashore as a Surface Warfare Officer and Naval Intelligence Officer. From 2017-2018, he was a Director of Cyber Policy on the National Security Council Staff, where he advised the President, Vice President, and multiple National Security Advisors on cyber operations policy, technology, and threats and helped draft multiple national-level strategies and policies. Prior to commissioning from the U.S. Naval Academy, he worked as a journalist and taught English in the People’s Republic of China. He is the only U.S. naval officer to ever defeat a guided missile destroyer in a real-world engagement and is also the founder and CEO of Ex Mare Cyber, a cybersecurity consultancy. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, or other parts of the U.S. government.
References
1. No longer accessible via official Navy portals, but it remains accessible via that Wall Street Journal here: https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/CyberSecurityReview_03-2019.pdf?mod=article_inline
2. While this event is commonly referred to as “SolarWinds” because the compromise of Solar Winds’ network administration suite allowed the malicious actors to compromise such a large number of government and commercial entities, product lines from both VMWare and Microsoft were also compromised during this event.
10. A period defined by ADM Phil Davidson as period between 2021 and 2027, which he identifies as the period when China is most likely to attempt to take military control of Taiwan; see https://news.usni.org/2021/03/09/davidson-china-could-try-to-take-control-of-taiwan-in-next-six-years.
15. See Golden, et al., Congressional letter addressed to Admiral Gilday, which begins, “We write to express our significant concerns regarding the cybersecurity of combat systems utilized by the U.S. Navy on its surface ships and submarines…” dated 3 October 2022.
18. See “JOINT EXPLANATORY STATEMENT TO ACCOMPANY THE JAMES M. INHOFE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023”, pp 353. https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-117HR7776EAS-RCP117-70-JES.pdf
Featured Image: Artwork created via Midjourney AI.
Much has been made about the threat of the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) and its contributions to the burgeoning People’s Republic of China (PRC) maritime enterprise. However, the United States has an equally deep bench of maritime capacity in its troves of commercial and recreational mariners. The U.S. recreational boating community infamously entered the international zeitgeist ahead of the 2020 U.S. Presidential elections with the so-called “Trump Boat Parades.” In South Florida, hundreds of privately-owned civilian boats transited the Intracoastal Waterway to show their support for the one-time President. Similar protests in the Great Lakes and California followed suit. Many saw these demonstrations as political rancor manifest, however they illustrate latent maritime power within the United States. As the geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific region coalesce into a fully-fledged maritime flashpoint, maritime capability across the conflict spectrum is exactly what the United States needs.
While the suggestion that 30-ft recreational center consoles with price tags upwards of a half-million dollars would form maritime militias might seem ridiculous, there is well-trodden historical precedent. There are myriad suitable missions suitable in a conflict or near conflict for such a force. Missions could range from the conventional: intelligence gathering or the insertion of special operations forces, to the novel: anti-submarine warfare (ASW) or even electronic warfare (EW). In South Florida, where many of these capable recreational and commercial mariners have extensive experience navigating the labyrinthine cays and reefs that comprise the Bahamian archipelago (just 50 miles away from the United States), the littorals of the Indo-Pacific would be familiar territory.
Thanks to the flexible statutory constraints of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and the surprisingly low threshold of converting commercial and private ships to armed combatants, it is clear is that with minimal effort, the United States can tap into a significant reservoir of maritime competence and capital to bring to bear in the Indo-Pacific. This piece is not intended to be prescriptive, but rather, in light of the prolific activities of the PAFMM in the South China Sea highlight that there is historical precedent for mobilizing its own unconventional maritime auxiliaries and highlight areas where such a force could be useful in the Indo-Pacific.
Historical Precedent
History is replete with examples of incorporating civilian vessels into naval operations from the celebrated to the obscure. Famously, in World War II during the evacuation at Dunkirk, thousands of “little ships” were called to action to evacuate Allied forces from the jaws of the Nazi war machine in continental Europe. Less prolific, but equally as substantive, the “Shetland Bus” saw Norwegian fisherman employed as smugglers for vital materiel from Scotland to Norway to aid resistance there throughout WWII.
At the same time across the Atlantic, writer Ernest Hemingway added another chapter to his larger-than-life persona by hunting German U-boats in the Straits of Florida from his custom sport fishing boat, Pilar. Armed with a radio, several rifles, and home-made depth charges, Hemingway trolled the Straits of Florida ostensibly fishing, while on the prowl for U-Boats.
This phenomenon extended to the rich, as well as the famous. In 1938, Vincent Astor used his 263-foot yacht, Nourmahal, to scout the Japanese defenses of the Marshall Islands under the guise of an oceanic expedition. He wrote a detailed report on yacht stationary and dispatched it to the White House to his friend President Roosevelt. By this time, President Roosevelt was no stranger to cloak and dagger activities by civilian mariners. At the precipice of American involvement in World War I, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt undertook a quiet campaign “procure seagoing yachts for immediate war duty.” He sought to convince his well-heeled New York society peers and was by all accounts successful; 90 members of the New York Yacht Club donated their yachts to the U.S. and British Royal Navy.
During the Falklands War, several United Kingdom commercial fishing trawlers were hastily converted to makeshift minesweepers under “Ships Taken Up From Trade” or STUFT. STUFT was the legal mechanism used by the Admiralty to acquire British flagged ships for government use during the conflict to move men, materiel, and stores. From luxury liners converted to troop carriers to fishing trawlers converted to sub-hunters, 47 British commercial vessels were activated at the behest of the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Henry Leach who stated, “Man and support the Fleet. Money is no object.”
Modern Applications
There are numerous missions that a maritime militia force would be able to “plug in” and add instant value across the conflict spectrum. As luxury civilian small craft were once made with low-signature wood, today’s fiberglass vessels are also small and have a low-signature compared to most metal military vessels. By adding a simple towed array − especially the new generation of compact lightweight arrays like the thin line towed arrays − a civilian vessel could be leveraged as a remote sensor. Coupled with narcotics smuggling techniques such as tarping during daylight hours, maritime militia forces could be highly distributed, hard to find, and extremely useful, especially in a high-end conflict where a premium will be placed on capital assets.
Additionally, the low profiles, high maneuverability, and shallow drafts make militia forces well suited for special forces work. Here, vessels might be used to insert special forces with little to no modifications. While there are existing special forces delivery platforms that are meant to be clandestine, they tend to be overwhelmingly expensive. For a fraction of the budget, relatively low-profile fiberglass civilian vessels could undertake similar missions.
In addition to more “traditional” uses of maritime militia forces, the advent of surveillance and electronic warfare technology is an area where militia forces might also excel. With minimal “missionizing,” by adding small but robust sensor packages, these small platforms could be a boon to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) work. Additionally, as electronic warfare grows more ubiquitous, the size of equipment is decreasing substantially, which may allow smaller platforms to perform similar missions, distributing risk and capability across less visible assets. Adding electronic warfare suites to small militia craft would be a game-changer when considered in concert with their ability to blend in in the “gray zone,” where they could deliver decisive blows to critical enemy systems. While militia forces may not directly match local small vessel traffic, by virtue of their size, they would blend in with the mass of smaller vessels in hot spots such as the Strait of Malacca.One need only consider the density of maritime traffic U.S. ships must navigate in the Indo-Pacific to appreciate the costs U.S. maritime militia assets could levy were they properly outfitted with offensive electronic warfare and ISR equipment.
The current Commandant of the Marine Corps, General David H. Berger, has presided over transformational changes to the U.S. Marine Corps operating model since his tenure began in 2019. He has a knack for making headlines every time he gives an interview or speech due to his penchant for innovation. One of the particularly interesting comments he made within the context of his signature “Expeditionary Advanced Basing Operations (EABO)” concept and the geography of the Indo-Pacific, was the need for “our forces to forage.” This notion has not been explored deeply, but a U.S. maritime militia force could present an interesting intersection with EABO. Theoretically, maritime militia forces would be drawn from highly competent civilian and commercial fishermen. They could act as “fleet foragers,” leveraging their existing fishing prowess to succor both stand-in forces or larger elements in the fleet. They could fish while simultaneously conducting sensor reliant reconnaissance or ASW missions, affording them a credible cover for plying the waters of the Indo-Pacific than as conspicuous combatants.
A Ready-Made Solution
Fortunately, the legal underpinnings for galvanizing a flexible volunteer maritime force capable of operating in distant waters and executing low-end missions in concert with the broader U.S. joint force are readily found in U.S. Code Article 14 Section 3902:
(a)In General.— The purpose of the Auxiliary is to assist the Coast Guard as authorized by the Commandant, in performing any Coast Guard function, power, duty, role, mission, or operation authorized by law.
(b)Limitation. —The Auxiliary may conduct a patrol of a waterway, or a portion thereof, only if—
(1) the Commandant has determined such waterway, or portion thereof, is navigable for purposes of the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard; or
While the Coast Guard Auxiliary is currently limited in its range of Commandant-approved missions and functions, its underlying authorities essentially allow it to mirror the capability of its Active Duty and Reserve counterparts, given the right training and resources. In short, a combatant or theater commander need but ask the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and the basic legal authorities and organizational structures already exist to quickly develop an operational maritime militia. Notably, this maritime militia would be capable of performing any Coast Guard function wherever operations were authorized by law.
The requirements for operating under a flag as a combatant are by no means beyond the administrative capability of any private citizen. Convention VII of the 1907 Hague Conference articulates six-point criteria for any private or merchant ship to serve as a flagged warship:
Article 1 – The converted ship must be placed under direct authority of the Flag State it represents.
Article 2 – The converted ship must bear the distinguishing marks of a warship.
Article 3 – The ship’s commander must be duly commissioned in service to the state and listed among fighting fleet officers.
Article 4 – Crew members must be subject to military discipline.
Article 5 – Ship operations must follow the laws and customs of war.
Article 6 – Belligerents must announce ship conversions in their official list of warships as soon as possible.
In the event of a crisis, these criteria, alongside the statutory authorities granted to the auxiliary by Federal Code, could streamline the conversion of any number of private vessel types for use by the United States. Current strategic guidance indicates that the 23,500-member auxiliary prioritizes the augmentation of under-served administrative and operational roles, such as operational boating safety, incident management, and cyber.
Despite this inherently domestic maritime focus, these forces could be readily augmented and redirected such that the Coast Guard Auxiliary could serve as a “break glass” maritime militia force. If prepared in advance, operational plans and administrative procedures would smooth the transition for operational forces that are ready to “plug in” to a joint task force or fleet architecture. Central to this, the important infrastructure – vessels, manpower, and most importantly, statutory authority to do so, are all prepared.
Wrap-Up
Obviously, a proposal for a maritime militia is likely to have numerous objections, chief among them:
Why would the United States back such a fanciful proposal when there are plenty of maritime roles and responsibilities that will need filling in the advent of war?
Enemy combatant implications: Forces may be labeled as enemy combatants outright and therefore risk immediate destruction or capture.
Despite outward appearances, the historical record of using militia forces cleanly converges with modern needs in the Indo-Pacific region. To the first point, though there will undoubtedly be a need for maritime expertise in the advent of a conflict, the program outlined here would represent respectable savings in both time and money. A maritime militia force would leverage the existing expertise of patriotic mariners where they are, instead of forcing them into existing pipelines and structures, which would both cost money and take time. Essentially, they could function as a “ready-made” maritime force capable of filling gaps in the lower end of the conflict spectrum, which seems prescient, given the scheduled decommissioning of small surface combatants in the U.S. Navy.
To the second point, the designation of a maritime militia as enemy combatants is a possibility, though hard to gauge without understanding the character of the conflict. It is unlikely that an association with troop foraging would keep them out of the fight completely. However, if U.S. maritime militia forces were targeted, the People’s Republic of China assumes significant risk. Proportional responses will instantly place a target on their vast distant water fishing fleets and their less innocuous PAFMM. The decimation of their fishing fleet would exert intense pressure on the Chinese homeland which already struggles to meet growing protein demands, in conjunction with other domestic maladies.
Perhaps the counter to “why on earth would the United States undertake such a program?” is why would the United States not undertake such a program? Not making modest investments in such a program creates two significant risks. First, China is using their PAFMM to distinct advantage in gray zone operations. By neglecting to form similar capabilities, the U.S. loses the opportunity to meet PAFMM efforts and effects proportionally. Second, there are currently nearly twelve-million recreational motor vessels registered in the United States. While only a fraction of those vessels may be functionally useful within the envisioned context, if the robust size and capability of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary is any indication, many hundreds, if not thousands of capable, motivated mariners and vessels could be rapidly acquired and fielded.
A U.S. maritime militia force in the Indo-Pacific will not win a war outright, but it does offer the low-cost ability to impact the balance of power at sea. As storm clouds brew in the Indo-Pacific and long-term planning within the U.S. defense establishment continues to be fraught, low cost, high yield maritime capacity of any stripe should not be left on the table.
Jasper Campbellserved on active duty for six years in the afloat and C5I communities. He is the cofounder of simplevideo.io, a technology company that offers solutions for public safety and healthcare markets. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
Featured Image: Marina del Rey, California. (Photo by Pedro Szekely via Flickr.)
“Why study tactics? It is the sum of the art and science of the actual application of combat power. It is the soul of our profession.” –Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski, foreword to the second edition of Fleet Tactics by Captain Wayne P. Hughes, Jr.
In the Western Pacific, the U.S. Navy is facing one of the most powerful arrays of anti-ship firepower ever assembled.1 The Navy is attempting to evolve its capabilities and doctrine to meet this challenge and transform the future of naval warfare. In this pursuit, the U.S. Navy has made the Distributed Maritime Operations concept (DMO) central to its evolution and relevance, with DMO being described by the Chief of Naval Operations as “the Navy’s foundational operating concept.”2 DMO can serve a defining role in guiding the development of the U.S. Navy and how it will fight for years to come.
But while DMO has lasted longer than other recent Navy warfighting concepts, it is still relatively new and much work remains to be done on its practical implementation.3 What exactly does DMO mean for the Navy, how is it different than current naval operations, and how could a distributed force fight a war at sea? This series focuses on these questions as it lays out an operational warfighting vision for how DMO can transform the U.S. Navy and be applied in modern naval warfare.
Part 1 will focus on defining the DMO concept and illustrating core frameworks of distributed warfighting.
Part 2 will focus on the U.S. Navy’s anti-ship missile shortfall and the implications for massing fires.
Part 3 will focus on assembling massed fires and modern fleet tactics.
Part 4 will focus on weapons depletion and the last-ditch salvo dynamic.
Part 5 will focus on missile salvo patterns and their tactical implications.
Part 6 will focus on the strengths and weaknesses of platform types in distributed warfighting.
Part 7 will focus on revamping the role of the aircraft carrier for distributed warfighting.
Part 8 will focus on China’s ability to mass fires against distributed naval forces.
Part 9 will focus on the force structure implications of DMO.
Part 10 will focus on force development focus areas for manifesting DMO.
This series will mainly focus on how the U.S. Navy can apply DMO and mass fires, but important fundamentals of the concept apply to other services and militaries as well. In crucial respects, China’s military is far closer to realizing the potential of DMO and mass fires than the U.S. Navy. What will be analyzed does not only apply to how the U.S. Navy can use DMO to fight adversaries, but how adversaries can use DMO to defeat the U.S. Navy.
Why Define a Warfighting Concept?
Warfighting concepts can mean many things. They can espouse lofty operational goals, cutting edge capabilities, and extraordinarily complex tactics. Public definitions can feature broad principles and vague points but little substance. Meaningful specifics can be relegated to the labyrinth of the classified world, which is hardly a guarantee of actual utility or force-wide understanding. An official concept can suggest more organizational and intellectual coherence on future warfighting than what may actually be the case.
Warfighting concepts can be abused, acting as little more than bumper stickers attached to initiatives in service of preconceived interests.4 Some concepts can be more politics and marketing than real change agents, such as by serving as budget battle weapons rather than drivers of genuine reform or operational innovation. The rapid rise and fall of various naval net-centric warfighting concepts in recent decades suggests a lack of clarity on what is desired or sustainable. This regular procession of short-lived concepts has taken a genre of thinking that once seemingly sparkled with transformational promise and often relegated it into stale generics.
Yet warfighting concepts are absolutely necessary. Militaries must have a vision for the overarching frameworks of how they intend to fight and compete. Concepts are needed to combine various capabilities and tactics into a conscious integrated whole, rather than letting individual elements yield disjointed operational designs. Concepts offer holistic frameworks for valuing the combat power of force structure, and evolve analysis beyond more superficial measures of capability such as hull counts, launch cell quantity, or reputation. Concepts serve critical functions in guiding force development toward earning distinct advantages, and providing a common point of departure for how operational commanders can tailor the employment of forces.
To provide clarity and to prevent misuse, warfighting concepts require careful definitions and measured expectations. Actionable coherence requires specificity. Concepts require that key effects and capabilities be defined as priorities to organize focus. They must have specifically defined features that distinguish them as unique and evolutionary. Warfighting concepts demand discipline of vision, pinning success more on plausible attainability rather than breathtaking transformation. A critical part of examining the promise of DMO is considering whether it may be too good to be true.
The way the Navy has defined DMO deserves careful assessment. Core tenets of DMO and distributed warfighting need to be described and evaluated through the fundamentals of modern naval warfare. How exactly do these concepts expect to create advantage? Central terms need to be established to create consistent understanding of how to define warfighting success and how it can be achieved. All beliefs about future conflict reflect implicit assumptions on the theory and practice of war, and what theory of victory is superior. These underlying assumptions need to be made explicit to acknowledge limits and respect much of warfighting’s fundamental unpredictability.
Ultimately, achieving sharper clarity will give more shape and form to this warfighting concept that could define the future of naval warfare for years to come.
Defining DMO and Core Warfighting Lexicon
DMO is happening for several reasons, where the drive toward distributed warfighting is part defensive reaction and part offensive evolution. The considerable missile firepower fielded by China especially has encouraged distribution for the sake of survivability. But offensive developments on the part of U.S. services are also driving distribution. DMO is poised to harness a major transformation in the anti-ship firepower of the services, with each service now beginning to procure weapons that will bring substantial anti-ship missile firepower to U.S. communities that have never fielded it before, including surface warships, submarines, and land-based aviation and launchers.5 Fielding this major expansion of anti-ship firepower across the fleet and the other services will significantly elevate the maritime threat posed by a broad swath of force structure, and allow far more forces to disperse across greater distances and still combine fires. In this sense, DMO and the overarching Joint Warfighting Concept are an attempt to manage a defensive problem while seizing an offensive opportunity.6 The problem is the considerable missile firepower of competitors, and the opportunity is the major expansion of anti-ship missile firepower across U.S. force structure.
In this context, Navy leadership has communicated central tenets of the DMO concept with some consistency. These definitions provide a helpful point of departure in understanding the concept and going from theoretical understanding to practical implication. These definitions also suggest how Navy leadership believes that realizing the DMO concept is critical to securing the Navy’s future. CNO Admiral Gilday captured defining features of DMO in testimony before Congress:
“Using concepts such as the Joint Warfighting Concept and Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO), we will mass sea- and shore-based fires from distributed forces. By maneuvering distributed forces across all domains, we will complicate adversary targeting, exploit uncertainty, and achieve surprise…Navy submarines, aircraft, and surface ships will launch massed volleys of networked weapons to overwhelm adversary defenses…Delivering an all-domain fleet that is capable of effectively executing these concepts is vital to maintaining a credible conventional deterrent with respect to the PRC and Russia.”7
In the tri-service maritime strategy Advantage at Sea, DMO is defined as:
“[a concept] that combine[s] the effects of sea-based and land-based fires…[and] leverages the principles of distribution, integration, and maneuver to mass overwhelming combat power and effects at the time and place of our choosing.”8
The concept has featured some consistency across Navy leadership turnover. CNO Gilday’s predecessor Adm. Richardson stated in A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority (2019):
“We will fully realize the inherent flexibility of DMO when we provide the capability to mass fires and effects from distributed and networked assets.”9
These explanations of DMO contain several defining traits that have consistently featured in the Navy’s public definitions of the concept. They include the massing and convergence of fires from distributed forces, complicating adversary targeting and decision-making, and networking effects across platforms and domains.
These elements of DMO encompass a broad multitude of naval tactics and capabilities. This series will anchor its focus on one of the defining features of DMO – massing anti-ship missile firepower from across distributed forces. It will concentrate on this core tactic of massing fires as an organizing framework for analyzing DMO. Developing the ability to execute this tactic has profound implications for the transformation of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. military writ large. It is one of the most critical features that distinguishes the evolutionary character of DMO from what the U.S. military is capable of today. By focusing on this central tactic, this series hopes to give more concrete precision and practical clarity for how this concept can work in practice.
Concepts of massing fires strongly apply to how forces can threaten well-defended land targets as well. Whether the targets or the attacking forces are on land or sea, a central operational challenge of high-end warfare is how to mass enough missile firepower to break through strong air defenses and achieve effects. Using distributed forces to launch massed fires against land targets is also a far more developed capability for the U.S. military and U.S. Navy than anti-ship fires.
The terms used to describe these fires can include massed, combined, or aggregated. Distributed forces are looking to combine their missile salvos to build massed fires. These salvos are combining and aggregating with one another into a larger salvo, where the term aggregating means “to collect or gather into a mass or whole.”10Contributing fires are individual missiles and salvos that aim to increase the overall volume of the primary aggregated salvo. Aggregation is the main term used here to frame how fires can be combined, and aggregation potential is the ability of different types of platforms and payloads to offer contributing fires.
As opposed to massed fires, standalone fires describe independent salvos that are launched from an individual unit, force package, or force concentration. Standalone fires can still feature considerable mass and volume of fire. But standalone fires have no expectation or intention of combining with the fires of outside, non-organic forces.
Overwhelming fire is the goal of aggregation, and it achieves this through mustering enough volume. Contributing fires come together through aggregation to increase the volume of fire until it is enough to be overwhelming. Forces are attempting to mass enough missile firepower to break through strong missile defenses, and once broken through, score enough hits to achieve the desired effect.
The term “overwhelming” can still describe volumes of fire that go far beyond what is necessary. Therefore the specific goal of overwhelming a target is understood as massing the minimum amount of firepower required to confidently surpass a defensive threshold and then score enough hits. Overwhelming fires that go well beyond these thresholds are termed overkill, which can be difficult to predict and is highly likely given the natural combat dynamics involved, such as how only one missile hit can easily be enough to put a warship out of action.11
The ability to overwhelm a target with missiles will be described as mainly a function of achieving enough volume of fire. This is a central assumption because defenses can be overwhelmed not so much by pure volume, but by advanced capability. Specific capabilities can improve the ability of a missile to find and discriminate targets while enhancing the ability to penetrate defenses. Hypersonic weapons are more difficult to defend against by virtue of their speed and flight profiles. Outside capabilities and tactics such as jamming and deception can also serve as force multipliers to a missile salvo. But even though high-end weapons and force multiplying tactics can lower defensive effectiveness, these weapons may be fired in salvos because some level of payload attrition is still expected. Modern warship defenses are relatively dense and consist of multiple layers and varieties of capability, suggesting there is still a role for volume of fire even for higher-end weapons and tactics.
It is true that large anti-ship missile salvos have never featured in the modern history of naval warfare, despite the capability existing for more than half a century and numerous sunk warships.12 The history of warships being struck by anti-ship missiles, whether they be the Moskva, the Sheffield, or the Stark, is mainly a history of poor situational awareness and woefully unprepared crews.13 The naval missile duels of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war featured decently ready warships, but were primarily small salvos exchanged between small combatants.14 Salvos fired at warships that resulted in no hits, such as in Operation Desert Storm or in the Red Sea in 2016, also consisted of very few missiles.15
A port quarter view of the guided missile frigate USS Stark (FFG-31) listing to port after being struck by an Iraqi-launched Exocet missile, May 17, 1987. (U.S. Navy photograph)
All of the historical experience to date of warships being attacked by missiles, successfully or not, consists of extraordinarily small volumes of fire. Despite this being the case, for decades the design of high-end naval capability has long been predicated on launching and defeating volumes of missile firepower that are far larger than the historical experience so far. This is not to suggest that naval capability design could be deeply misguided. Rather, the historical circumstances that yield large naval missile exchanges have yet to manifest. But the contours of those capabilities and circumstances are plainly visible today. Therefore this series assumes that much of the combat effectiveness of modern naval forces in high-end warfighting will continue to be predicated on their ability to launch and defeat large volumes of missile firepower. It also assumes that crews, platforms, and capabilities will mostly function as intended, a core assumption that cannot be made lightly.
In terms of force packages and geographic dispositions, the term distributed forces is not used here to describe the disaggregated U.S. naval formations of the past few decades. A distributed naval force is not envisioned here as a force where each element is almost completely independent, and operational effectiveness is mainly a function of accumulating individual, unit-level victories. Rather, a distributed force is a collection of forces that are widely separated yet generally still acting in concert in key respects. Unity of action is still a fundamental requirement for critical warfighting functions, especially for massing fires. As Vice Admiral Jim Kilby described it:
“Distributed Maritime Operations is fleet commanders controlling ESGs, CSGs, SAGs, individual units, that’s a little different for us…At a very simple level [DMO] is many units in a distributed fashion, concentrating their fires and their effects.”16
This complements guidance published by the previous Chief of Naval Operations on the need to “master fleet-level warfare” and that “Our fleet design and operating concepts demand that fleets be the operational center of warfare.”17 The current CNO has continued to emphasize the fleet-level imperative, stating that “If we’re going to fight as a fleet – and we moved away from fighting just as singular ARGs, as singular strike groups, to fighting as a fleet under a fleet commander as the lead – we have to be able to train that way.”18
DMO is a form of fleet-level warfare, and it is closely connected to the U.S. Navy’s push toward wielding larger-scale naval formations. A distributed naval force is a coordinated fleet, and a fleet is something larger in scale than the typical naval formations of the past few decades, such as carrier strike groups.
A carrier strike group can still be an appropriate formation to use in a distributed force if it is a component of a larger fleet. Distribution can be achieved not only by spreading formations, but also by increasing the overall number of forces within a theater of operations. This series envisions a distributed force as mostly consisting of large numbers of surface action groups, naval aviation, bombers, and land-based forces acting together to mass fires, with other formations and platforms featuring as well. Many of this series’ concepts are also ungirded by the critical assumption that the U.S. can surge enough forces to field enough platforms and firepower to pose a distributed threat and mass fires.
Central Frameworks of Distributed Naval Warfighting
DMO marks a departure in being a network-centric warfighting concept instead of a platform-centric concept. The latter requires that platforms be closely co-located in order to mass their firepower, which is concentrated, not distributed, warfighting. In network-centric warfare, firepower can be massed without co-locating the launch platforms themselves. This capability is a product of increased weapons range and the networks that allow widely separated forces to coordinate their fires across great distances. Massing firepower in this way can be described as an attempt to earn the benefits of concentration without incurring its liabilities. Distributed warfare is therefore distinct from what could be termed as concentrated warfare. Distributed warfare is now being regarded as the superior method by the U.S. Navy, which is a marked departure from millennia of high-end naval battles often characterized by decisive clashes between heavily concentrated main battle fleets. A framework is needed to differentiate what is distributed from what is concentrated, and how these different configurations affect advantage.
The question of what is distributed or concentrated is often centered on how to arrange the density of capability. This can include the density of capability in individual payloads, platforms and force packages, and how the density of capability is spread across an entire force structure or theater. At first, the definition of distribution may be interpreted as lessening density, where distribution is seen as the act of spreading capability outward and more broadly. But distribution does not inherently imply a stretching or dispersal of capability. Rather, this perception is often based on the traditional force employment and force design of a service, and what direction it must take to achieve better distribution. A force that is stretched thin could certainly achieve a better state of distribution by slightly concentrating itself.
Distribution is better defined as an ideal balance in the spread of capability. In this sense, distribution is at the center of a spectrum (Figure 1). On one end of the spectrum is the concentrated force, in the center is the distributed force, and at the other end is the force that is stretched thin. Being stretched thin can be defined as the spread of capability being too wide to be mutually combined and reinforcing, when those capabilities were meant to be combinable. Being concentrated can be defined as the spread of capability being so dense that it incurs more liability than benefit. Distribution implies an ideal balance in the spread of capability, a happy medium between the two extremes of overconcentration and being stretched thin.
Figure 1. A spectrum of the spread of capability. (Author graphic)
As will be demonstrated throughout, the core aspect of being distributed, concentrated, or stretched thin applies to many realms of naval capability besides spatial and material factors. These aspects can apply to firepower, timing, and other elements. Each can describe a separate manner of configuring missile loadouts, of sequencing fires in time, or of spreading weapons depletion across a force during mass fires. These recurring themes will provide a common frame of reference for describing the configuration of various operational elements and their state of advantage.
Spatial factors can help with distinguishing these configurations. In spatial terms, concentration means the area of overlapping capability and influence between assets is nearly one and the same. Distribution means there is still a substantial area of capability overlap between assets, but also a substantial separate area of influence (Figure 2). These two areas can complicate an adversary’s decision-making because these distributed assets maintain options for combining their fires, but also options for exercising initiative independently of one another in distinct areas. The geographic space between distributed units can blur the perception of which forces constitute distinct force packages. This makes it less clear to the adversary how distributed forces will behave and support one another operationally, and can obscure which assets are the leading elements or the supporting elements. This overlap of distributed capability creates more vectors of attack, and the more viable options that are available to a commander, the less clear the next moves will be to the adversary.
Figure 2. Click to expand. The spectrum of the spread of capability represented spatially, with each warship fielding a weapon of similar range, denoted by range rings. (Author graphic)
Distribution is distinct from being stretched thin, which is a vulnerability that is incurred when the spreading of capability is taken to an extreme. Being stretched thin suggests that weakness can be exploited at the capability gaps between forces. Stretched forces struggle to support one another and combine their effects. Commanders must use discretion to limit distribution so that widely spaced forces are still able to support one another or combine effects to support an overall operational design.
Offensively, the amount of maneuver that is required for distributed forces to initiate massed fires against a shared target can represent how stretched these forces are. A force with long-range weapons would require less preparatory maneuver than a force with short-ranged weapons. It takes far less space to stretch thin a force trying to combine Harpoon missiles compared to longer-ranged Tomahawks. With respect to offense, forces are more stretched the more they must maneuver to create overlapping fires, with weapons range being a key limiting factor in identifying the gaps.
This spectrum highlights a central paradox of distributed warfighting and the arguments that are often made in favor of it.19 Why is it favorable for a force to proactively distribute its own assets and platforms, but unfavorable to cause an adversary to do the same? The answer may lie in the distinctions that occur on the ends of this spectrum, that one force’s distribution can cause its adversary’s to become stretched thin. This paradox also applies to the decision-making advantage that is central to success in distributed warfighting. Concentration simplifies command and control, but distribution complicates it. Some of distribution’s effectiveness is therefore predicated on the belief that the command-and-control burden of wielding a distributed force can be more manageable than the C2 burden of targeting that force.
The nature of being concentrated, distributed, or stretched thin does not hold evenly across functions, especially offensive and defensive warfare. A configuration that appears distributed for one way of combining capability can be stretched thin for another. When forces are to mutually support one another, it is far easier in naval warfare to be distributed and combine offensive missile firepower than it is to combine defensive firepower. In the case of defense, even naval formations that seem heavily concentrated can have their defenses stretched thin by the fundamental dynamics of naval warfare.
Since many radar systems cannot see through the curvature of the Earth, the radar horizon limit has an intensely isolating effect on naval defense. The low-altitude, sea-skimming flight profiles of many anti-ship missiles take advantage of these radar horizon limits to tightly compress the amount of time and space warships have to defend themselves. Much of the advantage offered by long-range sensing and defensive weaponry is negated by sea-skimming flight profiles that force defensive engagements to begin mere miles away from warships (Figure 3).
Given how the limits of the radar horizon can typically be as little as 20 miles away, warships will have their mutual defenses stretched thin by the radar horizon dynamic unless proximity and concentration is taken to extreme lengths.20 Ships that are close enough to help defend one another against sea-skimming threats are likely to be concentrated enough that they can be threatened by the same individual salvo, removing distribution’s key advantage of diluting fires. Networking capabilities like the Navy’s Cooperative Engagement Capability will only marginally increase the potential for defensive concentration, given how incoming missiles can still be tens of seconds away from impacting the warship illuminating the missiles for outside defensive fires.21While some environmental conditions can allow radar to bend around the horizon, this adds more complexity to the engagement and is not a panacea for mitigating sea-skimming threats.22 When sea-skimming salvos break over the horizon and are only tens of seconds away from impact, warships are more likely to fight alone.
Visualization of the radar horizon limitation. (Source: Aircraft 101 Radar Fundamentals Part 1)Figure 3. Click to expand. A visualization of three layers of ship self-defense capability: The outer ring of radar range, the middle ring of air defense weaponry range, and the innermost ring of the radar horizon limit.23 (Author graphic.)
Even if missiles attack from higher altitudes that give warships more scope for mutual defense, the act of combining defensive fires from multiple warships can incur major inefficiencies in weapons depletion. If incoming missiles penetrate into the overlapping air defense zones of a fleet, the pre-programmed doctrines of heavily automated combat systems could easily generate defensive overkill. If multiple Aegis warships reflexively execute the standard “shoot-shoot-look-shoot” doctrine against the same missile, far more anti-air weapons than necessary could be wasted against individual targets.24 The fleet’s magazines would be depleting at a disproportionate rate relative to the number of missiles being shot down, and the attackers would be operating at a more favorable exchange ratio. Simply depleting magazines of anti-air weapons can be more than enough to put commanders in untenable positions and force ships out of the fight as they retreat on a long journey home to rearm. Tightly coordinated networking and automation would be required to efficiently expend defensive fires across multiple platforms, especially for a concentrated fleet. Yet there would also be an especially strong incentive to do everything possible to preserve a concentrated fleet, since it likely represents a major center of gravity whose loss cannot be afforded.
Click to expand. Three warships, each using a firing doctrine of two interceptors per incoming missile, defeat a small salvo with highly inefficient expenditure. (Author graphic via Nebulous Fleet Command)
Concentration does offer several advantages in naval warfare compared to distribution. One of the hallmark advantages of concentration is simpler command and control, which could prove invaluable in a heavily contested electromagnetic environment. Concentration allows for offensive fires to be launched with less networking and communication demands compared to distribution. The contributing fires of a concentrated force can also become aggregated and massed shortly after launch, where the salvo takes on overwhelming volume early in its creation. Because there is less need for follow-on salvos to grow the volume of fire, the adversary’s options for preemptively destroying follow-on shooters is diminished. However, a salvo that combines into an overwhelming mass early in its creation can also present a distinct center of gravity. This creates clearer and more timely opportunities for an adversary to apply defensive countermeasures against the salvo, such as airpower.
By comparison, a distributed force is more challenged to ensure its various contributing fires combine over the target. This can require sequencing launches, which creates opportunities for adversary preemption during the course of building an aggregated salvo from contributing fires. But by combining fires from distributed forces, the aggregated salvo does not necessarily combine into a distinct mass until it is near the target, which complicates the defender’s options. The visuals below show the difference in how the salvos of concentrated and distributed fleets can develop overwhelming mass.
Click to expand. A concentrated fleet launches a large salvo, which develops into a distinct mass shortly after being fired. (Author graphic via Nebulous Fleet Command)
Click to expand. A distributed fleet launches an aggregated salvo through a firing sequence, where the contributing fires coalesce into an overwhelming mass shortly before reaching the target. (Author graphic via Nebulous Fleet Command)
Distribution and Decision-Making Advantage
When it comes to massing fires, distribution offers many more options for combining offensive capability than defensive capability. Distribution reaps defensive benefits not by facilitating mutual kinetic support between warships, but by complicating the adversary’s decision to strike.
As a force surveils a large ocean space, it must find opposing naval forces and then develop targeting information that enables effective fires. The force must also decide whether the target is worth striking and worth the weapons depletion. A large concentration of naval forces that takes the form of a single force package, such as a main battle fleet, reduces uncertainty by clearly presenting a distinct center of gravity. An adversary would then feel much more comfortable investing a large number of limited munitions in attacking such a distinct center of gravity.
A distributed force complicates this calculus by presenting multiple groupings of contacts across the battlespace rather than a distinct main body. An adversary scouting an ocean could discover some individual elements of a distributed fleet much sooner than a concentrated fleet. But finding those elements may not create enough clarity to warrant a prompt attack because they represent only a portion of the force, and other unseen forces are at large. A distributed force poses a larger number of force packages than a concentrated force, and having more force packages imposes more kill chains for the adversary to manage. Adversaries would have their scouting assets stretched and tied down by these distributed force packages, since discovered forces can require regular tracking and updating of targeting information to ensure offensive options remain timely and viable. While developing a growing menu of targeting options, the adversary may feel tempted to prolong the search for information to build enough confidence to set priorities for expending limited numbers of munitions. But there is an inherent tension between taking the time to gain more information and ceding the initiative to the opponent, allowing a distributed force to pressurize the adversary’s tempo of decision-making.
While stealth enhances distribution, distribution can still act as a force multiplier even when the distributed force is in plain sight of the adversary. If an adversary has complete awareness of every distributed asset’s location, that can still not be enough to clarify intent and clearly define priorities for action. As Vice Admiral Phil Sawyer stated, DMO “will generate opportunities for naval forces to achieve surprise…it will impose operational dilemmas on the adversary.”25 What a distinct main body of forces can disclose to an adversary is the crucial insight that this main body is likely the primary element through which commanders will exercise their intent. This creates more opportunity and temptation for firing first and preempting the actions of the main body.
What a distributed force poses is a vast array of interlocking firepower, making it less clear to an adversary which elements of the distributed force could be the first to initiate massed fires, or which forces pose the most pressing threat. Distribution also makes it more difficult to ascertain which forces are peripheral to main lines of effort, since forces in peripheral positions or secondary theaters can still bolster main efforts through contributing long-range fires. When deciding what distributed targets are to be fired upon first, it can be hard to know where to begin.
Distribution allows a force to better compete for the initiative and for options to fire effectively first, which is especially crucial to succeeding in naval combat. The 2016 Surface Force strategy expressed similar advantages of distribution, in that it can “influence an adversary’s decision-making calculus” and “spreads the playing field for our surface forces at sea [and] provides a more complex targeting problem.”26
A major driver of distribution is the growing capability of powerful land-based anti-ship forces designed to counter expeditionary fleets. These forces can include anti-ship ballistic missiles, coastal defense cruise missiles, and land-based bombers and air forces, which can produce especially large volumes of standoff fires. By virtue of operating from their homeland, these forces can enjoy far quicker logistical rearming compared to expeditionary naval forces. Land-based missile forces are especially threatening by fielding some of the most powerful and long-range missiles, requiring virtually no maneuver to keep their weapons within range of targets on a theater-wide scale, and employing highly survivable launch platforms. The experience of scud-hunting in Desert Storm was instructive in showing how extremely difficult it is to target land-based missile launchers, even with exhaustive effort, highly favorable terrain, and total air supremacy.27 This makes it much more difficult to execute the favorable tactic of destroying the archer before the arrow is fired. When a fleet cannot meaningfully threaten a large scope of land-based firepower with attrition, distribution offers a way to circumvent this firepower by complicating the adversary’s decision to strike.
A Vision of Future War at Sea
Distributed Maritime Operations can provide a framework for understanding modern naval warfare and illuminate its future. While plenty of unknowns remain, the DMO concept offers an important opportunity to foster debate on how to adapt naval warfighting and translate theory into practice. Great power navies will be able to secure their relevance in a time of rapid change by establishing a clearer vision of war at sea. Those who better articulate and manifest their vision can earn the decisive edge. The U.S. Navy has no time to waste, for its competitors are already ahead of the curve.
Part 2 will focus on the U.S. Navy’s anti-ship missile shortfall and the implications for massing fires.
3. AirSea Battle was publicly promulgated in 2013 and was later incorporated into the Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAM-GC) in 2015. JAM-GC featured in the discourse for several years afterward but appears to have been subsumed under other efforts. The ForceNet concept was promulgated in the early 2000s but appeared to lose steam or was subsumed under efforts. Warfighting concepts often seem to lack definitive or declared ends.
4. The earlier era of Network-Centric Warfare (NCW) and Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) featured robust discourse on the future of warfare but also tautological discourse that affixed itself to these concepts while lacking in substance. The Distributed Lethality concept was adopted by industry to describe various efforts broadly relating to surface warfare. For a recent example on the potential abuse and buzzwording of concept language, see:
5. Relatively new anti-ship missiles include: Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST), Long-range Anti-Surface Missile (LRASM), Naval Strike Missile (NSM), and Standard Missile 6 (SM-6). The Army, Air Force, and Marines are procuring some of these weapon types.
11. Captain Wayne P. Hughs Jr. and RADM Robert P. Girrier, “Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations, Third Edition,” U.S. Naval Institute Press, pg. 157-159, 2019.
12. John C. Schulte, “An Analysis of the Historical Effectiveness of Antiship Cruise missiles in Littoral Warfare,” Naval Postgraduate School, September 1994, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADB192139.pdf.
14. Abraham Rabinovic, The Boats of Cherbourg: The Navy That Stole Its Own Boats and Revolutionized Naval Warfare, revised edition, independently published, 2019.
15. For Desert Storm attack, see:
Captain Wayne P. Hughs Jr. and RADM Robert P. Girrier, “Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations, Third Edition,” U.S. Naval Institute Press, pg. 147-148, 2019.
21. For CEC capabilities as they relate to radar horizon combat dynamics, see: Conrad J. Crane, “CEC: Sensor Netting with Integrated Fire Control,” Johns Hopkins Apl Technical Digest, Volume 23, Numbers 2 And 3 (2002), pg. 152-153, https://www.jhuapl.edu/Content/techdigest/pdf/V23-N2-3/23-02-Grant.pdf.
23. For SPY radar range estimate, see: “AN/SPY-1 Radar,” MissileThreat Center for International and Strategic Studies Missile Defense Project, last updated June 23, 2021, https://missilethreat.csis.org/defsys/an-spy-1-radar/.
27. Colonel Mark E. Kipphutt, “Crossbow and Gulf War Counter-Scud Efforts: Lessons from History,” The Counterproliferation Papers Future Warfare Series No. 15 USAF Counterproliferation Center Air University, pg. 18-20, February 2003, https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/11/2002115481/-1/-1/0/15CROSSBOW.PDF.
Featured Image: PHILIPPINE SEA (Aug. 16, 2022) Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) ships JS Yamagiri (DD 152) and JS Ohnami (DD 111) break formation in the Philippine Sea. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Scott Taylor/Released)
Dr. Elaine Murphy, an Associate Professor of Maritime and Naval History at the University of Plymouth, joins the program to discuss her research on women and the Navy in the age of sail.
