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Future Tech

Dual-Use Drone Swarms

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Weaponizing individual drones is just the beginning…

By Chris Rawley

Last winter over at Information Dissemination, I made the observation that swarming robots will irreversibly transform warfare, and I hold to that argument.  The discussion and progress in this area is developing quickly.  Much of this conversation involves non-military uses for drone technology, but as with many tools, there are also applications for warfare.  A host of militarily useful scenarios can be envisioned to employ very small unmanned naval platforms in a non-lethal fashion.

In the videos below, quadrotors are used to perform simple construction tasks. The technology that is today viewed as modern performance art could some day be utilized to build an expeditionary forward operating base remotely.  A C-130 would fly over a likely FOB site and deploy hundreds of UAVs, which would quickly go to work filling Hesco Barriers and building fighting positions all night long based on a pre-programmed design, a scoop of sand at a time.  Out of power, the drones could then land on the FOB and relay observations to the incoming troops. The site would be defensible as soon as the first Marines arrived, leaving Sea Bees for more valuable construction projects.

 

Researchers in the UK are developing autonomous vehicles which will replace the tedious role of scuba divers who painstakingly seed damaged coral reefs.  The alternative being worked is to allow “multiple small autonomous robots following a simple set of rules and seeking out coral fragments and re-cementing them to the reef.  But first the robot needs to be driven by a computer ‘trained’ to recognise coral fragments from other objects such as rocks, litter, sponges and other sea creatures… The swarm of autonomous underwater robots will operate according to a simple set of ‘micro-rules’ to seek out coral fragments and re-cement them to the reef.”

A swarm of nano-UUVs similarly equipped as the “coralbots” could quietly infiltrate an enemy naval port and use sensors and algorithms to recognize seawater intakes on ships.  These intakes are indispensable on just about every vessel and are used for heat exchangers cooling engines and various pumps, to make fresh water for the crew, and to propel water-jet equipped ships like the LCS.  The UUVs could inject a combination of mud or sand scooped up from the harbor with epoxy into these intakes, effectively rendering the fleet useless and unable to get underway.  A similar attack could gunk up the intakes to power plants, refineries, and other coastal infrastructure.

 

The idea of drones mimicking insects might have other applications.  Like bees or fire ants who can subdue a much larger predator, disposable micro-UAVs – too small to defeat with CIWS or other weapons systems – might swarm an Aegis combatant, each spraying a tiny amount of radar absorbent paint on the SPY array, achieving a mission kill of the most powerful air and missile defense system in the world. 

Of course, these sorts of aerial swarms might be vulnerable to jamming, EMP, and the like, but here, LT Matt Hipple offers some recommendations to build resiliency into drone swarms.  The rapid evolution of drone swarm technology can be expected to continue until concepts like these are deployed operationally; likely sometime in the next decade.

This article was re-posted by permission from NavalDrones.com

Strategic Outlook

Breaking The Bottleneck: Maritime Terrorism and “Economic Chokepoints” (part 1)

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By Andrew Walker

“Despite the inherent challenges, al-Qaeda can attack, has attacked, and will again attack maritime targets.  Indications point to an acceleration of the pace of maritime terrorism, heralding a coming campaign. The propensity of al-Qaeda for patient and intricate preparation augurs a future sustained maritime terrorism campaign, rather than a continued irregular pattern of attacks” – (Ret) Captain Jim Pelkofski (Joint Operations Directorate at US Fleet Forces Command; Current Pentagon Force Protection Agency’s director of anti-terrorism and force protection)

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The American naval historian and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) claimed in his Influence of Sea Power on World History that strong naval and commercial fleets are essential to the nation’s military power. In a post September 11th society, governments have dedicated heavy resources to assessing the vulnerability of their homelands to acts of terrorism. The number of terrorist attacks in the maritime environment is proportionally small in comparison to the overall number. However, (Ret) Admiral Sir Alan West, The UK’s First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff deemed maritime terrorism “a clear and present danger” that may “potentially cripple global trade and have grave knock-on effects on developed economies.” The probability of a terrorist attack on a major North American port may be low for some security analysts, but given the catastrophic effect an attack via improvised explosive devices (IEDs), hijacking and using a ship as a weapon, or biological weapons could have on such “economic chokepoints,” significant focus must be placed on the subject.

As 95 percent of all global trade is shipped on water, great effort have been made to ensure that the maritime shipping system is as open and fluid as possible to guarantee a healthy and growing global economy. Ironically, the measures put in place to maintain an efficient maritime transport system also allow for glaring security gaps to be exploited by terrorist groups.

Major global trade routes and geographic chokepoints.

Historical Precedence

The bulk of historical analysis and research performed on maritime shipping has revolved around the risks that encompass containerized shipping, the likelihood of an attack on a shipping vessel, and the potential outcomes of these attacks. What complicates the assessment of potential attacks is the fact that there are seemingly countless avenues upon which to mount an operation; for example, attacks may range from the contamination of physical cargo on a vessel with biological or nuclear materials to the shipping of goods in order to finance terrorist activities. As such, maritime infrastructure and systems are both targets of, and potential shuttles for, maritime terrorism. Paramount to the study of an attack on the maritime trade industry is the understanding that an attack on a major port or shipping route could incapacitate the global economy.

The most notable historical examples of maritime terrorism come from the attacks on the USS Cole and the MV Limburg.

USS Cole

On October 12, 2000, while refueling in harbor in the Yemeni port of Aden, the USS Cole was the target of an al-Qaeda suicide attack delivered by a small vessel filled with explosives. Seventeen sailors were killed, and 39 were injured, making it the deadliest attack against the US Navy since Iraq struck the USS Stark in 1987. Through careful planning, al-Qaeda developed substantial on-shore infrastructure in order to train for the attack, ensuring training grounds were surrounded by fencing in order to shield the illicit activities from neighbours. Furthermore, al-Qaeda rented a harbor-front property to act as an observation post. Learning from past foundational mistakes of the failed January 3, 2000 attempt on the USS The Sullivans, where the explosives-heavy boat sank almost immediately upon launch, al-Qaeda properly modified the new suicide-vessel, painted it, laid a new floor, and refitted the insulation. The important lesson to derive from this attack was that al-Qaeda would learn to rehearse their operations, ensure their vessels had the appropriate arms, and would even conduct test runs, learning from past operational failures.

MV Limburg

The attack on the  MV Limburg was an act of opportunity, as the initial plan targeted a US warship that did not arrive as expected. On October 6, 2002, two years after the attack on the USS Cole, the Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) weighing 300,000 dead weight tons (DWT) with a 2.16 million barrel capacity (carrying roughly 397,000 barrels from Iran to Malaysia) was unexpectedly attacked. The explosives-laden dinghy rammed into the starboard side of the tanker and caused extreme environmental and economic damage. Although the attack on the Limburg only resulted in one death, it caused insurance rates of Yemeni shippers to rise 300 percent and cut Yemeni port shipping volumes by 50 percent for a month after the attack. Consequentially, the attack caused the short-term collapse of shipping in the Gulf of Aden, ultimately costing Yemen to lose $3.8 million a month in port revenues. Additionally, the Limburg would spill 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden, causing great damage to the surrounding maritime environment. On a relatively small scale, the economic impact of the Limburg attack served as an indicator of the widespread effects an attack on maritime trade can have.

Rescue vessels attempt to contain the fire on MV Limburg.
 
 Supporting the contention that most terrorist groups are not “innovative but imitative,” often learning through emulation and technology transfer, the attack on the USS Cole can be seen as a copycat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) May 4, 1991 attack on Abheetha, a Sri Lankan Navy supply ship. Given the devastating impact of the attack on the Limburg, it came as no surprise when the documents seized during the May 2, 2011 Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan indicated that bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda leaders had developed future plans to hijack oil tankers and blow them up at sea, aiming to harm the American economy in a period of already soaring oil prices.

Since 2004, actions have been implemented, predominantly through the International Maritime Organization, to limit the threats to notable security gaps in the maritime shipping system. Still, numerous openings exist, such as America’s priority on securing its Naval vessels rather than its comparatively unprotected shipping industry and the lack of communication between ports regarding cargo inspections. Although the measures in place to ensure a safe and functioning shipping network come at a high price, the meticulous preparation of modern terrorists, the variety of targets, and the catastrophic effects an attack on an “economic chokepoint” could have should provide substantial motivation to ensure that all bases are covered.

Choke Points

Although geographical bottlenecks or ‘chokepoints’ like the Straits of Malacca leave shipping vessels susceptible to attack, ports are the real ‘chokepoints’ in global trade.

Consider these facts, vessels as large as 5,000 TEU (Twenty Foot Equivalent) currently call Halifax to take advantage of the deep draft and easy year round access to port. Halifax is ideally located as the first port inbound to North America from Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Suez Canal; it is also the last port outbound from North America.

As various shipments reach the Canadian port, Halifax then acts as the strategic rail gateway to key Canadian, U.S., and Mexican markets.

The ports of Halifax and Prince Rupert are both extremely important to the economic well-being of North America.
  

 Citing the historical evolution of maritime terrorism, and the internal growth and preparation of organizations such as al-Qaeda, assessing port security vulnerabilities would serve as a prudent insurance policy.

A troubling reality is that the direct and indirect violence caused by such an event would be difficult to quantify due to the extremely far reaches of the maritime trade network. One thing is for certain; the cost of inaction would be unquestionably greater than the current funding efforts to secure global ports[1].

This “Primer” serves as the introductory piece on a series concerning Maritime Terrorism in a North American context. As such a strategically important environment, the debate between the importance of economic fluidity and homeland security in the maritime domain must continue…
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[1] Since 2004, port-related security costs in the United States have been estimated at roughly 2 billion (USD). Although it is difficult to fully measure the costs of further developing maritime port security. (OECD)

This article was first published on the website of the Atlantic Council of Canada’s: http://atlantic-council.ca/publications/theme/maritime-security/

About the Author, Andrew Walker

Andrew Walker is a Maritime Security Analyst with the Atlantic Council of Canada. He is a recent graduate of Dalhousie University’s History and Political Science program, where he focused on Cold War History and International Security. Through this appointment, Andrew hopes to develop his skills in the fields of maritime security and intelligence studies, focusing in particular on maritime terrorism, homeland defence, and economic “choke points”. Any views or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and the news agencies and do not necessarily represent those of the Atlantic Council of Canada. This article is published for information purposes only.

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Strategic Outlook

More Mahan and Corbett

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The Battle of the Nile, 1798

In my last post I criticized those who overemphasize the size of a fleet as a measure of its operational effectiveness, using the historical example of the Royal Navy’s fleet modernization efforts prior to the First World War.  I did not offer any alternate criteria by which to judge what an optimally sized U.S. Navy would look like.  With discussions of what insights turn-of-the-century theorists such as Alfred Thayer Mahan and Julian Corbett would have on modern maritime strategy so popular right now, however, I thought there might be value to apply their models of sea power to evaluate the composition of today’s U.S. Navy.

Responding to a critique that the current fleet is the smallest it has been since 1917, Under-Secretary of the Navy Robert Work noted that the ability of the current fleet to accomplish its missions is as great as it has ever been, arguing that at a century ago “we didn’t have any airplanes in the fleet.  We didn’t have any unmanned systems.  We didn’t have Tomahawk cruise missiles.”

Critics of what they perceive as a too-small fleet claim that quantity is important because “presence” is necessary for command of the sea.  On its face this is logical, as without enough combat power at the right spot and right time, victory is impossible.  Having more ships makes it theoretically possible to concentrate a larger force at the decisive point, as well as providing more resources in more places to deter against the enemy, wherever they may be.  The only restriction in a navy’s ability to provide presence is the amount of resources that a state has at its disposal.

Mahan was opposed to any notion of presence itself providing any particular utility, expressing a preference for offensive fleet action, even when that end was accomplished by a fleet inferior in total size to that of its foes.  His optimal navy was “equal in number and superior in efficiency” to its enemies at the decisive point within “a limited field of action,” not necessarily everywhere.  It protected national interests “by offensive action against the fleet, in which it sees their real enemy and its own principal objective.”  Mahan would have not approved of an emphasis on presence as an objective, for his description of the undesirable alternative to his above strategy was one which requires the “superior numbers” needed to provide “superiority everywhere to the force of the enemy actually opposed, as the latter may be unexpectedly reinforced.”  Trying to outnumber the enemy everywhere at sea is an impossible end state in any situation in which a pair of opponents have remotely comparable resources upon which to draw.

Corbett’s view of sea power is more compatible with the notion that presence is important.  Corbett felt that what he called “Command of the Sea” was “normally in dispute” and that the most common state in maritime conflict was that of “an uncommanded sea.”  In that context, presence in terms of more ships means that a navy can employ its forces in more places, with command thus achieved.  It would be easier to achieve this state of command through presence in asymmetrical situations in which the smaller force is overmatched both in terms of quantity and quality.

War at sea often revolves around two factors: the ability to locate the enemy, and the ability to employ decisive force against the enemy first.  Until navies began to use aircraft in the early twentieth century, the only way to locate an enemy fleet was to actually see it from onboard ship (or ashore).  Until the introduction of wireless communications, the ability to pass any intelligence thus derived was also restricted to line-of-sight or the speed of a ship.  Mahan noted the difficulty to locate and track a fleet when he said that they “move through a desert over which waters flit, but where they do not remain.”

By having more ships (assuming they effectively employed them), a navy would theoretically have a better chance to locate the enemy on favorable terms.  Nelson could sail across the Atlantic (and back again) and around the Mediterranean without finding the French fleet because his “sensors” were limited to the visual range of his fleet.  The conflict between the German and British navies during the First World War was largely one in which the two fleets were unable to achieve their tactical objectives because they could not find each other (at least under tactically favorable circumstances).  In a more modern example, the American victory at Midway was made possible by SIGINT.  Because the US Navy knew that the Japanese intended to attack Midway, its fleet was placed in a position where they were more likely to find the Japanese first (even then however, each fleet was limited in their ability to locate the enemy to the range of their aircraft).

A smaller fleet which is enabled in its ability to project combat power over a larger area through technology to engage the enemy on its own terms would seem to be just as important as a large fleet.  Today’s U.S. Navy, with access to a historically unprecedented web of information made possible by sensors and surveillance assets in the air, on the surface and under the water, has the ability to win battles against a capable enemy because those sensors mean it can deliver ordnance against enemy targets first.  However, one of the more astute criticisms of Under-Secretary Work’s defense of the current fleet size is that it only works in war, not other situations in which it is not clear “whether replacing ships with aircraft is a legitimate approach towards maritime battlespaces in peacetime when that same effort has been largely ineffective dealing with other low intensity maritime problems like narcotics and piracy.” 

The debate over presence revolves around strategy and objectives, and whether the size and composition of a fleet matches up with those objectives.  If the U.S. maritime objective is the ability to operate at sea in any contested theater, then having a sensor-enabled battle force in which surveillance assets make decisive action possible before the enemy can act is more important than surface presence in terms of many ships.  Conversely, if the most important objective is to provide maritime security against illicit actors such as pirates or drug smugglers, then presence is more important.  As the linked post above from Galrahn notes, a UAV can enable kinetic offensive operations from another platform located far away, but it cannot board a suspect vessel and detain the crew.

The debate between the advocates of presence and a high-end battle force is actually one over the relative importance of the Maritime Security and Sea Control missions, and the resources devoted to each at the expense of the other.  Unfortunately, without a crystal ball, there is not a straightforward answer as to which is the more necessary one for the US Navy to conduct.

Lieutenant Commander Mark Munson is a Naval Intelligence Officer and currently serves on the OPNAV staff. He has previously served at Naval Special Warfare Group FOUR, the Office of Naval Intelligence and onboard USS ESSEX (LHD 2). The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official viewpoints or policies of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Strategic Outlook

A Nuclear Reaction…

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This week the British Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, announced a £1.1billion contract to build nuclear reactors for the next generation of British submarines that will replace the current Vanguard-class SSBNs. Though he stopped short of saying that this guaranteed Britain would renew Trident, with a formal decision due to be made in 2016, it is a clear step further in that direction, despite the divisiveness of the issue within both the government and national politics. The Conservatives’ coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, are openly against renewal on cost grounds and are investigating alternative deterrent options. The Scottish National Party are ideologically opposed to the idea of weapons of mass destruction being present within Scotland, with the current Trident fleet based in Faslane, and with no alternative locations in England at present without huge financial and environmental expense. The issue is even more politically charged with a referendum on Scottish independence scheduled for 2014, where a yes vote would potentially torpedo Britain’s ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent. That is an issue in itself, with the missiles in essence leased from the United States.

Vanguard-class
How will HMS Vanguard’s successor deter Somali piracy?

Britain’s ability to construct nuclear submarines is at least being safeguarded with this investment, which as my last post suggested was one of the tough choices the government had to make, and what industries it prioritsed in the national strategic interest. On the flip-side, who loses out? The Royal Navy is overwhelmingly in favour of Trident’s renewal, as the service would be indespensable to the missile’s deployment. But with tensions rising over the Falklands, the recent fishing dispute with Spain in Gibraltar, Somali piracy, and humanitarian atrocities being committed in Syria, surely what the RN needs right now is more surface ships. The Vanguards and their successors can’t help Britain with these current flashpoints, while the vessels that could make a difference, destroyers and frigates, have been cut down to just nineteen. There are forms of deterrence other than the nuclear kind, and a more visible naval presence in the world’s trouble spots could provide that, preventing problems from escalating to a point where intervention becomes a whole lot more costly, both financially and to human lives.

Dr Daniel Owen Spence is Lecturer in Imperial and International History at Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom, and publishes on nineteen and twentieth century maritime history.