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Cyber War

Surviving the Invisible Commons

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This article originally featured at the USNI Blog

In his piece, “Imminent Domain,” ADM Greenert suggests that the EM and Cyber spectrums need now be considered a stand-alone domain of conflict. Respectfully, we’re already there. The electronic environment, wired and unwired, is an obsession for defense planners. In CYBERCOM, the EM-Cyber spectrum practically has its own unified command. The navy’s component of CYBERCOM, the “10th Fleet,” in name harkens back to ADM Greenert’s example of the rise of sub-surface warfare. From the military’s fears over an assassin’s mace style EMP attack to the public’s obsession in movies like Live Free, Die Hard and games like Black Ops 2, the awareness is more than there. While we may have recognized this new environment, ADM Greenert is right in that we have not taken this challenge to heart.  If forces are going to operate as if the EM-Cyber spectrum is a domain of warfare, they must act as they would in the physical battlefield on the tactical level, not just the strategic: take cover, stay organized, and interrupt the enemy’s OODA loop.

 

TAKE COVER

 

In a battlefield, soldiers take cover to avoid detection and enemy fire. In the EM-cyber realm, we’ve made a habit of unnecessarily exposing ourselves to vulnerability. The US Navy has created an entire web of centralized databases that require not just mere control of the EM environment, but also a stability that often doesn’t exist at sea.

The Ordnance Information System-Retail (OIS-R) is the perfect example of unnecessary exposure to EM spectrum weakness. The system, designed to manage all ordnance administration, accounting, and inventory, requires a command to sign in to a shore-side database requiring uninterrupted connection through a Java interface. To access a ship’s ordnance data, one MUST have a functional internet connection either hard-wired or satellite. If account problems exist, troubleshooting must be done through other wireless means (phone, email, etc…) with land-based facilities. Each step requires a series of exposures to a very particular type of EM-Cyber connection to operate effectively.

The old system, Retail Ordnance Logistics Management System (ROLMS) was a stand-alone database that would update parallel shore-side databases through message traffic. The old system, while potentially harder for a single entity to manage, didn’t open the whole system to multiple weaknesses by environmental interference, enemy interference both kinetic and cyber, and equipment errors shore-side that a ship cannot trouble-shoot. It might be easier to keep all your ordnance (admin) in a huge pile, but to require warfighters to make a run through the open plains of TRON to get it is not a good idea.

 

STAY ORGANIZED

 

The drive to create centralized databases is often driven by a lack of organization on the part of the end-user. Properly organized supplies (data) minimize loss and the need to reach back into the logistical chain for material already packed. If the networks on ships are any indication, the average sailor enters the EM battlefield with absolutely no organization whatsoever. Sign in to a ship’s NIPR network and one will likely find  decade old files, repeated, in over a dozen similarly named folders: Operations Department, Ops, Operations, Ops Dept, OS1’s Folder, etc… Perhaps, those folders will have subfolders of the same name down 20 deep in series. Poor organization leads to inefficiency; inefficiency requires time, bandwidth, and exposure that should go towards the survival of the force and the success of operations. Ships need to treat their networks as they do their home desktops, organizing their material in a sensible way and deleting wrong, obsolete, or useless files.

Organization becomes the key to minimizing the need to go off-ship: well organized tech pubs, updated instructions in intuitive places, and personnel willing to spend the minute to search . A badly organized NIPR network is a reflection of how the navy treats the rest of its data: sloppily. We have seventeen sources pinging a ship for the same information that is held in 8 PowerPoint trackers, 2 messages, at least one call over the voice circuits, and 30 emails. Today, we expect every sailor to be at least an LS1 of the data-GSK, without giving them the tools or support to be so. One could drastically decrease the need to go off-ship for information by teaching sailors how to do a proper “ctrl-f” search or assigning an IT2 to deleting the ¾ of the network dedicated to obsolete files, animated .gifs, and 12 years of sea-and-anchor PowerPoints. Better training must exist not only in how to use data and of what kind, but how to properly disseminate/find it as well.

The battlefield equivalent of how we treat our data is sending soldiers into combat with a dozen different weapons from over the past century, but hiding them, their magazines, and their ammunition randomly throughout the base in mis-labeled boxes.  Like a poorly organized supply system, perceived “lost items” that are merely hidden end up wasting bandwidth on downloads, emails, and voice traffic as sailors work to solve the problems whose answers are merely in the 20th sub-folder down or in the inbox of the department head who doesn’t read his email. We must worry almost as much about the organization of our data as we do our organization of physical objects.

 

DOMINATE THE OODA LOOP

 

Survival often depends on an ability to use the enemy’s expectations of your methods against them. Some have suggested the navy embrace a wider range of bandwidths for communication; while true, more drastic measures are necessary to navigate the EM-cyber commons. In 2002, LtGen Paul Van Riper became famous for sinking the American fleet in a day during the Millennium Challenge exercise; he did so by veiling his intentions in a variety of wireless communications. We assume wireless to mean the transfer of data through the air via radio signals, but lights, hand signals, motorcycle couriers, and the like are all equally wireless.  These paleo-wireless concepts are just what we need for flexibility and security in the EM environment.

Combot vulnerabilities to wireless hacks are of particular concern to warfighters. Data connections to operators or potential connections between combots and ships serve as a way for enemies to detect, destroy, or even hijack our assets.  While autonomy is the first step in solving the vulnerability of operator connections, combots in the future must work as communicating teams. Fewer opportunities should be provided for subversion by cutting the long link back to the operator while maintaining the versatility of a small internally-communicating team. However, data communication between combots could still be vulnerable. Therefore, combots must learn from LtGen Van Riper and move to the wireless communications of the past. Just as ships at sea communicate by flags and lights when running silent or soldiers might whisper or motion to one another before breaching a doorway, combots can communicate via light, movement, or sound.

Unlike a tired Junior Officer of the Deck with a NATO code-book propped open, computers can almost instantly process simple data. If given the capability, a series of blinking lights, sounds, or even informative light data-transmissions  could allow combots of the future to coordinate their actions in the battlefield without significantly revealing their position. Combots would be able to detect and recognize the originator of signals, duly ignoring signals not coming from the combot group. With the speed and variation of their communications, compressed as allowed by their processing power, combots can move through the streets and skies with little more disruption than a cricket, lightening bug, or light breeze. High- and low-pitch sounds and infrared light would allow for communications undetectable to the average soldier or an enemy EW platform.

One must also accelerate faster than the enemy’s OODA loop can process. In the cyber realm, the enemy is often software long-ago released by its human creators. Like the missile warfare that inspired AEGIS, cyber warfare is both too vast and too fast for human reaction. Capital investment would concentrate more money in autonomous and innovative defensive programs: 10th Fleet’s AEGIS. Proactive patrol and detection can be done with greater advancements in adaptive self-modifying programs; programs that can learn or understand context are far more appropriate.  Recent developments in computing systems point to organic systems that could “live” in the systems they defend. Biological processors and organic computing allow for hardware that thinks and learns independently, potentially giving defensive networks the added advantage of an instinct and suspicion. Imagine the vast new horizons in the OODA loop of defensive cyber systems with hubs sporting the defensive animal instinct and the ability to re-wire their own hardware. Quantum computing also hovers over the horizon, with not only vast consequences for computing speed, but he whole cryptological offense-defense equation. The image painted is dramatic and far-off, but modest investment and staged introduction would serve as a better model than the dangerous possibility of a “human wave” mode of thinking. With fluid cyber-defense systems guarding more disciplined communicators, the US Navy can crush ambushes in the invisible commons.

 

ACTING LIKE IT

 

We will never be able to completely control the invisible commons; it is too heavily populated and easily influenced. Those conflicts held within vision are often confusing enough; the invisible becomes infinitely harder to master. However, if we minimize unnecessary exposure, organize ourselves well, and move with aggressive speed and unpredictability, our convoys of data will survive their long mili-second journey across the EM-cyber sea. ADM Greenert is right in saying the EM-Cyber world is a new field upon which battle must be done. However, while we may have realized it, we must start acting like it.

Matt Hipple is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy.  The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity.  They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.

 
The Lighter Side

Global Warming Warms U.S. and DPRK Relations

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Maritime Satire Warning: The following is a work of satire in the spirit of our International Maritime Satire Week. It is a piece of fiction intended to elicit insight through the use of satire and written by those who do not make a living being funny – so it’s not serious and very well might not be funny.

U.S. and DPRK relations improve after North Korea unexpectedly attacks rising sea levels in the Sea of Japan with short-range missiles.

Kimg Jong-Un plots his move as the sweltering environment mocks his national sovereignty.
Kimg Jong-Un plots his move as the sweltering environment mocks his national sovereignty.

In a surprise development, North Korea has made the first move towards peace amid deteriorating relations. Over the past month, as the U.S. and China appear to have come to a consensus over North Korean sanctions, the regime’s vitriol has convinced some North Korea’s intentions for its nuclear program have turned ominous. Early on Friday the 15th, Kim Jung-un was seen to have extended an olive branch to American policymakers through unilateral military action against the rising sea levels in the Sea of Japan.

USPACOM, Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, made statements 13 March 13 indicating global warming and rising sea levels as the U.S.’s greatest security concerns in the region. Not two days later, Kim Jong-un ordered a massive strike against the Sea of Japan with KN-02 short-range missiles. This is a particularly intriguing new development, since the DPRK has used her strike capabilities to both whip up domestic fervor and intimidate her increasing number of detractors. The use of the DPRK missile program as a tool of peace is a shock to veteran policy analysts.

Due to moves by the DPRK, plans accelerate to use the US "missile umbrella" to counter inclement weather.
Due to moves by the DPRK, plans accelerate to use the U.S. “missile umbrella” to counter inclement weather.

In an apparent sign of approval the U.S. has moved new interceptor missile batteries to Alaska, increasing the firepower aimed at the Gaian enemy. Admiral Locklear states, “Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.” As American, South Korean, and North Korean officials meet in private about the potential for coordinating military actions against threatening environmental change, word has already spread of the resumption of six-party talks next week. The U.S. and PRC have already announced that they plan to drop all talk of the new sanctions at the U.N.

Future Tech, Tactical Concepts

Laser Weapons and Naval Warfare: An Introduction

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By Paul Bragulla

To date, the story of laser weapons has been one of great promise but slow delivery. However, modern developments in the fields of materials science, optics, and computer technology are making it increasingly likely that they will reach operational status in the next decade. This realization has prompted laser weapon-development programs around the world, including Germany and China.

Progress in the development of solid state lasers (SSLs) has been especially rapid. In January 2013, Rheinmetall – a German corporation – demonstrated a 50 kW prototype capable of anti-drone and counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar (C-RAM) functions. Rheinmetall also has plans for a technology demonstrator in the 60 kW range next year and has indicated they believe there are no major technical barriers to the construction of a 100 kW device1. According to a Congressional Research Service report, 100 kW is the beginning power range at which a laser becomes an effective C-RAM battery, or can defeat subsonic anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and manned aircraft2.

Due to the great power, cooling, and volume capacity of surface warships it has been suggested that, of all the services, the U.S. Navy is the ideal “first adopter” of high-energy laser weapons in the 100+ kW range3. This implies that early laser weapons of other nations may also see their first operational use on warships. Additionally, fitting lasers to warships may counteract the offensive-defensive imbalance that has developed in the last 50 years whereby the cost of anti-ship weapons has declined while the cost of their respective countermeasures has remained high. A laser pulse capable of disabling an ASCM may cost a few dollars in comparison to the $800,000 price of a Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM). Laser weapons are also touted as simplifying logistical requirements and allowing longer time on station, as they do not require ammunition reloads.4

There has been abundant analysis of the technical characteristics of various potential laser weapon systems and their possible effects on various targets, although much more must be done before these systems can take their place alongside proven technologies. Here, however, I would like to focus on the larger-scale impact laser weapons may exert on the development of naval warfare in the 21st century. How will they affect the balance of measure and countermeasure? How might state and non-state actors respond to the development of weapons which render unfavorable the currently favorable (to them) cost-benefit ratio of their anti-ship weapons to our defenses?

I must make many assumptions, but I will do my best to ensure that these are both explicit and reasonable. My first general assumption is that within the next decade, SSLs with beam powers of up to 500 kW will be developed5. Such lasers would be able to engage UAVs, subsonic ASCMs, artillery rockets and shells, and manned aircraft. It has been estimated that the Flight III Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers (DDGs) will have the excess power and cooling capacity to support up to a 200 kW SSL , which would be capable of all of the above with the exception of engaging manned aircraft.

Lasers as counter-measure
                   Lasers as counter-measure

The possibility exists of outfitting other ship classes, such as the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers and Zumwalt-class DDGs, with greater power-requirement weapons and the Navy has expressed an interest in equipping them with free-electron lasers (FELs). I assume that FELs with up to 1 MW of beam power will prove practicable within 20 years. Compared to SSLs, installing these brings far larger weight as well as radiation shielding considerations and so are likely to be fitted to specialized laser-ships, possibly select Zumwalts built with the air/missile defense role in mind. Alternatively, SSL technology may advance in ways that make multiple SSLs firing together more economical than fewer, larger FELs.

What follows from these assumptions? First, it is very unlikely that laser weapons will largely replace missiles or guns in the world’s naval arsenal. Instead they will add more arrows, with unique advantages and limitations, to the naval commander’s quiver. There are some things, like C-RAM and anti-UAV, which are within the capabilities of even the relatively lower power lasers that can be mounted on the Flight III Arleigh Burkes. The advantages of such a laser-based Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) are magnified by the fact that an opportunistic attack by means of rockets, artillery, or mortars against an American ship in a foreign port or naval choke point – whether by state or non-state actor – is a far likelier near-term danger than an attack on the high-seas by supersonic ASCMs. Compared to an expensive interceptor missile or collateral-damage-causing gun-based CIWS, the superiority of using a few dollars’ worth of electrical power to destroy an incoming threat is apparent. Such a system adds another layer to warship armaments, freeing missiles and guns to concentrate on targets more suited to their particular capabilities.

However, to fully appreciate the implications of this technology we must build a conceptual framework that integrates lasers with extant weapons systems. The two primary types of weapons systems currently available to the world’s navies are guns and missiles. The distinguishing features of gun-type weapons systems are that they employ an unguided projectile which lacks an on-board propulsion system, while those of missile-based systems are that they use a guided projectile which is propelled to the target by an on-board propulsion system. Like all weapons, both seek to disrupt the functions of a target by depositing energy within it.

The traditional weapon spectrum
The traditional weapon spectrum

If we consider these two types further we see that they can be viewed as points along a spectrum, upon which there are many possibilities. For instance, rocket-assisted artillery shells and guided artillery shells have characteristics of both guns and missiles; they mix the advantages and limitations of the two extremes.

The advent of lasers and other Directed-Energy Weapons (DEW) adds a third vertex to our diagram, and expands the spectrum of possibilities into a two-dimensional field.

The new playing field
The new playing field

Lasers excel at destroying lightly-armored targets which move or maneuver rapidly within line of sight (LOS) of the weapon. Thus, they complement rather than replace the other two approaches. Missiles and guns are better used to engage non-LOS targets, which may be slower moving and more heavily protected, or under meteorological conditions unfavorable to lasers.

Another use of this diagram is to explore the possibilities for new weapons systems that may or may not currently exist. Weapons along the gun-missile edge have been identified, but what of the other two? Are there possible weapons which combine aspects of all three vertices, and so fall in the space between the edges? Boeing’s new Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile (CHAMP)6 is a cruise missile that carries a microwave DEW capable of disabling electronics near its flight path, and so would seem to occupy a spot along the Missile-DEW edge. This space is also shared by various “bomb-pumped” DEW concepts that use the energy of a nuclear initiation to excite an X-ray lasing medium, as in Project Excalibur, or generate a plasma jet like the “casaba howitzer” developed through Project Orion.

The introduction of powerful laser weapons will likely cause a tumult in weapons development as both the particular abilities of various laser configurations are tested and countermeasures developed. In addition to armoring conventional missile designs, is there the possibility of developing a new type of gun-missile hybrid to exploit the particular weaknesses of laser weapons? An ASCM variant which, from beyond LOS, launches one or more solid depleted uranium or tungsten penetrator darts at high-supersonic velocity towards a target ship might fit this role. Such a penetrator would be more difficult for a laser to deflect or destroy than any missile, though a conventional interceptor might find it less challenging.

In following segments, I will explore more aspects of the possible development of laser weapons and their countermeasures. What scenarios emerge from a future in which high-energy FELs advance faster, or slower, than expected? What strategies, technological and otherwise, might various potential opponents of the U.S. Navy take to counter such weapons? What does a scenario in which MW-range laser weapons and railguns advance rapidly mean for the future of missiles and aero-naval warfare as a whole? We cannot know what is to come until we experience it, but with careful forethought we may prepare the conceptual foundation for rapid and effective responses to future challenges.

Paul W. Bragulla is the recent cofounder of Prokalkeo, an emerging technology consulting company headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area. He holds a BS in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is an enthusiastic scholar of military affairs. His scientific experience is primarily in the fields of high-energy lasers and aerospace technology.

1. Peter Murray, German Military Laser Destroys Targets Over 1Km Away.
2. Ronald O’Rourke collects the results of several studies on laser effectiveness into a single table in Navy Shipboard Lasers for Surface, Air, and Missile Defense: Background and Issues for Congress (Congressional Research Service, 2013), table A-1, 36.
3. Mark Gunziger and Chris Dougherty specifically suggest high energy SSLs as the technology of interest in their Changing the Game: The Promise of Directed Energy Weapons (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2012), but point out that the Navy is also strongly focused on Free-Electron Lasers (FELs) which promise multi-megawatt outputs suitable for the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) role as well as the ability to tailor the frequency of their output to local meteorological conditions.
4. The notable exceptions to this rule are chemical lasers, which utilize the energy of a chemical reaction to generate their beams. They are also the only lasers currently capable of producing megawatt-range outputs.
5. Changing the Game: The Promise of Directed Energy Weapons, 25.
6. Randy Jackson, CHAMP – Lights Out.

Featured Image: Laser weapon prototype (U.S. Navy)

3D Printing

Call for Input: Establishing the 3-D Printing Beachhead

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Scott Cheney-Peters and I had the chance to join Ben Kohlmann, of Distruptive Thinkers, and the U.S. Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC), for a conference call on 3-D printing‘s potential in the fleet. The conver sation, in terms both of research beforehand and its execution, was quite informative for we two amateurs.

A Beachhead… On The Beach:

The challenges of 3-D printing will define the nature of its deployment.  One problem I arrived upon after some research for the talk was the potential issue with stability.  One of the potentially most useful technologies for ships, Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) uses layers of metal dust layered meticulously one-over-the-other as an object is produced.  Despite my earlier enthusiasm for putting 3-D printers on everything – from destroyers to cruiser to potentially even larger ships – some may be inappropriate as platforms for a process that will depend on precision due to their instability. No one wants to destroy 30 hours of work on a pump body with one good roll from sudden heavy seas.  This makes shoreside facilities the most appealing venue for 3-D printing’s initial beachhead.

Critical Questions:

To build a better catalog of stakeholders for NWDC and to get critical technical advice, I’ve been contacting the fleet’s Regional Maintenance Centers and some assorted other support facilities for input.  However, our community here at CIMSEC is just as rich in professional expertise, experience, and insight.  Therefore, we’re hoping to leverage the input of you, our readers, just as we’ve been able to build off the expertise of the others working on this issue.  Here are our questions:

Help us fill in the 3D printing blanks!
                                                            Help us fill in the 3-D printing blanks!

1.) What kind of maintenance problems are most frustrating, that involve mass part replacements or high-fail items?

2.) Which kinds of parts are hardest to find or build?  Are there any small-to-medium-sized parts that you’ve found expensive or difficult to replace? 

3.) If so, what materials are they made out of?  We are particularly interested in mono-material items.

4.) Is there anything the Intermediate Maintenance Activities (IMA) can’t do that 3-D printing might facilitate beyond merely producing new parts?

Scott has brought up other challenges with 3-D printing: the quality and limitations of usable materials, training and operations, and certification of the printed products for use (due to variability of quality).  These administrative and manning details are worth considering as well if you have additional input, concerns, or suggestions.  One particularly helpful IMA head suggested that the Navy’s many CNC-mill operators already have the technical knowledge to operate 3-D printers.  Some of the solutions for figuring out how to best use these technologies as they mature may well involve just realigning existing capabilities.  

Welcome to Sequestration: Making the Business Case

The story of one particularly frustrated program office head reminded me that sequestration will have a real effect on a potential roll out.  While we once may have said, “millions for defense but not one cent for tribute,” we must now pay tribute to our financial constraints.  The objective is to find the greatest savings or capability margin that 3-D printings can give us.

The business case is absolutely critical to this technology being taken seriously.  There will be no grand LCS-style science project.  If the best answer is a Portabee or Replicator 2 reproducing broken belt clips, buckles, and assorted other tertiary gear, so be it.  While we’d love to roll in a 900K duel-laser DMLS machine to print whole pump bodies, the likelihood that such funding is available is marginal… unless the case can be made for it.  Being able to replace GTE turbine-blades on demand would be a nice trick.  If we can certify it for commercial aircraft and human skulls, maybe it won’t be so hard to certify for load-bearing use.  However, clearly laying out the advantages in flexibility, cost, and time that 3-D printing could create over the short- and long-term, and the viable procedures for leveraging those advantages, are the keys to making a prototype deployment of 3-D printers a reality.

Engineers talk to CIMSEC about what they want from 3-D Printing.
          We need to tame our untrammeled enthusiasm with marketable practicality.

 

We look to you, CIMSEC members and friends, to help us push this project forward.  If you know likely interested parties, let me know.  If you have a solid business case, or problem that 3-D printing could solve, write and submit your findings to the editorial board.  Of course, you can always comment below to add to the conversation.  We think 3-D printing is likely to be a valuable step forward in the Navy’s future, and a few non-engineer amateurs can only go so far.  

Matt Hipple is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy.  The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity.  They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.