Tag Archives: VBSS

Arctic, Capability Analysis, Global Analysis

A Retired Coastie’s Perspective on the Revised Strategy

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AN OVERVIEW:

IHMAS Success refuels USCGC Waesche RIMPAC2014n considering this strategy, it is clearly not a strategy for war; it is a strategy for maintaining the peace, the sometimes violent peace that has become the new norm. As such, it assumes the Coast Guard will continue exercising its normal peacetime priorities. Still I feel it should provide a guide for transition to a wartime footing. Unless it is in the classified annex, that guidance is missing, in that it does not define Coast Guard wartime roles or suggest how the Coast Guard might be shaped to be more useful in wartime.

The Coast Guard is, potentially, a significant Naval force. It currently has more personnel than the British Royal Navy. Effectively, the Coast Guard is the low end of the American Naval Forces’ High/Low mix, bringing with it significant numbers of patrol vessels and aircraft. At little marginal cost, it could be made into an effective naval reserve that would serve the nation well in an intense conventional conflict.

If you look at the title, “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged, Ready,” the words cooperative, forward, and engaged are particularly relevant in describing the thrust of the strategy.

It expects US naval forces to cooperate and engage with allied and friendly forces both to improve relations and strengthen and encourage those friendly forces. The Coast Guard has a major role in this, in bringing expertise in a board range of governance functions that friendly navies and coast guards can relate to.

The Navy also expects to have a substantial part of its force “forward.” Not only forward but also geographically widely distributed. This violation of the Mahanian maxim to keep your battle force concentrated has been the norm for decades, but it has been a reflection of the preponderance of the US Navy that may be eroding. It is a calculated risk that, the benefits of working with and assuring allies and being on scene to deal with brush fires, outweighs the potential risk isolated, forward deployed Carrier Strike and/or Amphibious Ready Groups might be overwhelmed in a first strike by a concentration of hostile forces.

The strategy talks about surge forces, but frankly the potential is far more limited than it was when the Navy was larger. For the Coast Guard this “forward” strategy, combined with the apparently ever increasing concentration of US Navy forces in only a few homeports, including foreign ports, has important implications. There are long stretches of the US coast that may be hundreds of miles from the nearest US Navy surface combatant.

If a suspicious vessel is approaching the US, that must be boarded to determine its nature and intent, the boarding is most likely to be done by a Coast Guard cutter, and not by a National Security Cutter, but most likely by something much smaller. The cutter is also unlikely to have any heavily armed backup.

WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THE STRATEGY?

The strategy recognizes and explicitly states an intention to exploit, “…the Coast Guard’s unique legal authorities…(to)…combat the illegal drug trade, human trafficking, and the unlawful exploitation of natural resources…”

In several places there is recognition of the Coast Guard’s potential for capacity building with navies and coast guards of friendly nations.

There is also an apparent commitment to an improved and shared Maritime Domain Awareness.

The apparent intent to increase the availability of modular systems provides a means of quickly adapting Coast Guard assets to wartime roles, but thus far I have seen no official interest in exploiting this possibility.

The Middle East Section seems to suggest that the six Coast Guard patrol boats and their augmented crews, currently stationed in Bahrain, will remain there and, given their age, they may require replacement as the new Webber Class WPC, Fast Response Cutters, come on line. In fact these Webber class patrol craft could be very effective in combatting piracy off Somalia.

These patrol craft essentially fill the same role and face the same threats as the Navy’s Cyclone class patrol craft. Will they receive any of the weapons upgrades that the Navy’s Cyclone class PCs have been given?

WPC Kathleen_Moore

A Webber Class WPC, Fast Response Cutter

Looking at the section on the Western Hemisphere, there is a commitment to, “…employ amphibious ships and other platforms, including Littoral Combat Ships, Joint High Speed Vessels, Afloat Forward Staging Bases, hospital ships, other Military Sealift Command ships, and Coast Guard platforms, to conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster response missions. We will also employ maritime patrol aircraft such as the P-8A Poseidon and unmanned aerial vehicles. Other ships and aircraft will provide periodic presence for recurring military-to-military engagements, theater security cooperation exercises, and other missions.” But there is no specific commitment to employ Navy vessels for drug enforcement. Was this omission intentional?

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Competing claims in the Antarctic

Looking at section on the Arctic and Antarctic,  There is no specific commitment by the Navy, although the DOD does have an Arctic strategy that includes better hydrography and Maritime Domain Awareness. It looks like the Navy is content for the Coast Guard to be the face of US naval presence in the Arctic. There is reference to the use of the Nation Security Cutters (NSC) in the Arctic, but surprisingly no mention of the planned 25 Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPC) even though the OPCs will be ice-strengthened, while the eight planned NSCs are not.

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A model of Eastern’s proposal for the Offshore Patrol Cutter. Eastern is one of three shipyards still in contention to  build the 25 ships planned.

In the Deterrence section, the strategy states, “The Coast Guard maintains a continuous presence in our ports, internal waterways, along our coasts, and offshore, providing an additional layer of defense against maritime threats.” But there is no definition of what threats the Coast Guard is expected to respond to and no definition of the capabilities the Coast Guard is expected to provide to deal with these threats.

A Major Omission:

USCGC_Owasco_(WHEC-39)_conducting_UNREP_Market_Time
Cutter Owasco (WHEC-39) unreps while engaged in Operation Market Time off the coast of Vietnam.

In the Sea Control section there is no mention of a Coast Guard role in Sea Control. There should be. Sea Control frequently involves Visit, Boarding, Search and potentially Seizure of non-military vessels, e.g. merchant and fishing vessels. The Coast Guard is ideally suited for this role and has conducted this type of operation in war zones in the past, notably the Market Time Operation during the Vietnam War. In fact, the common Coast Guard missions of drug and alien migrant interdiction are forms of sea control that potentially protect the US from non-state actors. The strategy does address these particular elements of Sea Control in the Maritime Security section.

When it comes to counting assets that might be used to exercise sea control, the Navy has roughly 110 cruisers, destroyers, frigates, LCS, and patrol craft and most of these, particularly the 85+ cruisers and destroyers, will almost certainly have higher priority missions. The Coast Guard includes over 100 patrol boats and about 40 larger patrol vessels that routinely exercise sea control on a daily basis.

121203-G-XX000-001_CPO Terrell Horne

EVALUATION:

From a Coast Guard perspective, this strategy has largely canonized the status quo and the existing recapitalization program of record. It recognizes the Coast Guard’s unique authorities and its ability to contribute to capacity building. It seems to promise greater integration of a multiservice Maritime Domain Awareness.

On the other hand it does nothing to define Coast Guard wartime missions or how the Coast Guard might transition to a wartime footing. The force structure section does nothing to inform the design of Coast Guard equipment so that it might be more useful in wartime. It also does nothing to help that Coast Guard patrol boat I talked about at the beginning that is about to attempt to stop and board a potential hostile vessel that may be about to make an unconventional attack on a US port.

This is only the second iteration of the three service cooperative strategy. It is a marked improvement in specificity over the previous document. Hopefully there will be a process of continual improvement in succeeding editions.

This post appeared in its original form at Chuck Hill’s CG Blog. Chuck retired from the Coast Guard after 22 years service. Assignments included four ships, Rescue Coordination Center New Orleans, CG HQ, Fleet Training Group San Diego, Naval War College, and Maritime Defense Zone Pacific/Pacific Area Ops/Readiness/Plans. Along the way he became the first Coast Guard officer to complete the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) course and also completed the Naval Control of Shipping course. He has had a life-long interest in naval ships and history.

Capability Analysis, Strategic Outlook

Corps Existentialism: Ensuring a Future for the Marines

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After more than a decade of overwhelming success in combat operations ashore, the United States Marine Corps is mounting a very public return to its sea faring roots—and the timing could not be worse.  The defense budget is shrinking by billions of dollars each fiscal year, impacting everything from amphibious ship maintenance / readiness / modernization and interoperability to Marine acquisitions and end strength.  In the midst of all this fiscal turmoil, the Department of the Navy (DoN) is further handicapped by an absence of Department level strategic communications coordination evidenced by the distant narratives being communicated from the Blue and Green sides on amphibious operations. With America’s largest Global War on Terror land campaigns wrapping up and with it a shrinking appetite to maintain two land armies, the lack of a coherent, unified justification for the future employment of Marines aboard Navy shipping existentially threatens the Marine Corps. Below are eight major items that the DoN must internally reconcile in this budget cycle to further guarantee future relevancy of the US Marine Corps:

1.       DOCTRINE: Reconsider the Marines new Capstone Document, Expeditionary Force 21 (EF-21).

“EF-21 will not change what Marines do, but how they do it[1].”  To this I would add “and when they will do it, and why they will do it.”  EF-21 represents a unilateral, fundamental paradigm shift in Joint Forcible Entry Operations (JFEO) doctrine that disconnects with existing concepts such as the Joint Operational Access Concept and the Army – Marine Corps Access Concept.  EF-21 asserts the Marine Corps’ preeminence in conceiving Amphibious Doctrine and announces dramatic changes in USN shipping standoff ranges during landing operations (an almost unfathomable 65 nautical miles) as well as a novel sequencing of operations—landing Marines prior to cyber, naval, or air preparation of the battle space in order to conduct USMC counter anti-access and counter area-denial operations.  The Marines have blazed a new doctrinal path, replete with unique assumptions on surface ship missile defense capabilities (underestimated) and surface connector capabilities (overestimated). With EF-21 they have created a schism that—left unreconciled —will call into question Naval / Joint doctrine and acquisitions to support amphibious entry operations.

2.       ORGANIZATION: Re-evaluate the ARG MEU and MAGTF

For well over a decade, the Amphibious Ready Group / Marine Expeditionary Units (ARG MEU) have been operating outside of their normal 3 ship formations. “Split Force Operations” and “Distributed Operations”[2] have been directed by Geographic Combatant Commanders, thereby breaking up the traditional ARG MEU formations in order to distribute the ships and personnel where operationally required.  While the ARG MEU has been historically conceived as an amphibious, expeditionary rapid reaction combined arms force capable of self-sustainment, the proliferation of lesser contingency operations has resulted in the placing of greater preeminence on the pieces parts vs. the whole.  This trend of separating not only ARG-MEUs but also and their Marine Corps combined arms Marine Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTF) will likely only increase in the future (especially with game changing acquisitions like the 5th Generation F-35B Lightning II coming to the Fleet in FY-17).  The cross domain synergy envisioned in the JOAC—“…the complementary vs additive employment of capabilities which enhances the capabilities and compensates for the vulnerabilities of others”—will drive independent elements of the MAGTF further into the Joint arena, and may precede a paradigm shift fundamentally altering the current ARG MEU and MAGTFconstructs.  Getting in front of that bow wave will be essential to maintaining both the MAGTF’s integrity, its capability set and its Joint Force relevency in both fully integrated and split/disaggregated instantiations throughout the range of military operations.

3.       TRAINING: Refine the agility instead of preparing for Tarawa II

Exercise BOLD ALLIGATOR is as much about domestic and international strategic communications as it is a Marine Expeditionary Brigade level exercise.  The Navy – Marine Corps team has used the exercise to host many distinguished visitors (DVs) to demonstrate the capability of amphibious forces to conduct forcible entry operations even after a decade spent waging two land wars and a significant curtailment of practiced amphibious landings on both coasts.  MEB level landings haven’t been employed operationally since the Gulf War—and in that case it was a pump fake at Ash Shuaybah.  What the Navy-Marine Corps Team has done plenty of is split/disaggregated operations, and despite their prevalence over the last decade, there has not been enough concept refinement and exercises to perfect the planning, combat cargo loading, disaggregating and (most importantly) re-aggregating of the force in order to conduct larger scale operations.  Real emphasis on these modern deployment dynamics have to become a priority so that Navy-Marine Corps amphibious forces can maintain their relevance as a scalable, agile force capable of deploying to conduct both distributed, lesser contingency operations and focused, combined arms major combat operations.

 

4.       MATERIEL: Preserve the Assault Echelon by ensuring that the ACV does not become a “Ship to Objective Commuter[3]”

With the current Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) fleet nearing 50 years of age, the Marines are in desperate need of a replacement.  The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle—previously the heir apparent to the AAV—was cancelled in 2011 after $3 Billion was spent and $15 Billion more required.  The successor to the EFV, the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV), is reported to lack an amphibious capability (it will not swim unlike its predecessors) and will instead rely on US Navy surface connectors (Landing Craft Air Cushion [hoovercraft] and Landing Craft Utility [regular displacement craft]) to get ashore. As stated by LtCol Howard F. Hall in the Marine Corps Gazette, “… regardless of its land capabilities, the [non amphibious ACV] lack of personnel carrying capacity, reliance on connectors, and delayed transition from those connectors once ashore exacerbate operational risks.” Those risks include surrendering the assault echelon writ large: without amphibious capability, the connectors—which are very vulnerable to small arms, coastal artillery / mortars—would be stuck depositing ACVs instead of follow on logistics and supplies.  Once ashore, the ocean becomes a brick wall to Marines embarked in ACVs instead of maneuver space.  EF-21 envisions a 65 nautical mile standoff between Marines on the beach and Sailors on the amphibs.  If that distance is to be honored, an “amphibious combat vehicle” that lives up to its name must be fielded.

5.       LEADERSHIP: Challenge convention, support the Joint Force and the Corps will continue to thrive

The Marines are famous for their institutional paranoia on both Navy support and Army efforts to subsume them.  This paranoia, however, is detrimental to effecting needed change, and often causes a reflexive opposition to anything which threatens existing Marine Corps doctrine—seen as the Corps’ existential guarantor.  The Corps is not without their own innovators, however.  Earl “Pete” Hancock Ellis, as a Major in the Marines, conceived and developed the innovative Operations Plan 712—the basic strategy for the United States in the Pacific that led to the Corps’ modern day monopoly on Amphibious Assault (and in no small part its survival through the twentieth century). If not for Ellis’ own benefactor, General LeJeune, OPLAN 712 may never have received the vetting that drove it to become foundational to the Pacific Campaign.  This same kind of innovation and support, and not just doubling-down of core competencies in more difficult settings, must take place with Marine leadership going forward to ensure that the Corps is positioned strategically to act when the Joint Force requires.

6.       PERSONNEL: Bring back Marines assigned to Navy ships at the platoon level to augment Navy VBSS, security, small arms, ATFP capabilities

The Marines had an illustrious 223 year run on Navy capital ships, which ended in January 1998 as the defense department drew down its end strength as part of the Clinton era peace dividend.  Today, as the Corps is set to shrink once again post Afghanistan and Iraq, there is ironically a pressing need for Marines to return to Navy ships.  Anti-terrorism / Force Protection (ATFP) requirements—sentries, crew served weapons and quick reaction forces—have been on a steady rise since the 2000 USS Cole suicide bombing in Yemen.  These watch stations strain Navy crews and are manned by personnel whose primary responsibility is not the handling of small arms.  Likewise, Navy Visit Board, Search and Seizure teams—while more proficiently trained than their ATFP counterparts—are principally manned and trained for inspection and self-defense; they do not have an assault / counter-assault capability and therefore usually rely on heavily tasked special operations forces (SOF) to conduct opposed boardings.  Returning Marines to Navy ships will bring additional ATFP and VBSS capabilities to the Fleet while insulating the Marine Corps from additional manpower cuts.

7.       FACILITIES: Prepare special units to embark non-traditional shipping (and keep them light)

Commandant of the Marine Corps General James Amos testified in front of Congress on 01 October on his initiative to form a Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force (SP MAGTF) in Kuwait to provide regional Quick Reaction Force (QRF) capability.  Retired Captain Jerry Hendrix of the Center for a New American Security endorsed the innovation in the Wall Street Journal.

“Looking at the Marines as a crisis response force is good in the sense the Corps knows it must develop an alternative mission and a new future.” [4]

However, Amos believes that his efforts are being hamstrung by the lack of amphibious shipping.

“In a perfect world we would rather have these teams sea-based, but we don’t have enough ships.”[5]

Not every contingency warrants a warship.  For lesser contingency operations—everything from embassy reinforcement, snatch-and-grabs to theater security cooperation—the Navy is looking towards employing ships from its “Moneyball Fleet”.  Joint High Speed Vessels, Afloat Forward Staging Bases, Dry Cargo Logistics Ships and Littoral Combat Ships are considerably cheaper to build and operate than their USS cousins, boast considerable cargo space, have sufficient flight deck / boat deck facilities while operating with a considerably smaller “signature.”  In order to ensure that these vessels do not become the exclusive domain of lighter / sexier Special Operations Forces (SOF), Marines must build tailored, scalable packages that can rapidly deploy, integrate, conduct operations and debark as cheaply and as expeditiously as possible.  Throwing down similar communications integration, berthing, and command and control requirements on non-traditional shipping as amphibious shipping is a surefire way to get priced out and left on the pier.

8.       POLICY: A greater role for the Secretary of the Navy in ensuring unity of effort / purpose within DoN DOTMLPF

At the end of the day, Title 10 authority to man, equip and train the members of the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps is invested in the Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Ray Mabus.  The department’s strategic vision must be clearly defined and communicated at the Secretariat level.  There is no room for competing narratives, especially in an era of ever shrinking fiscal resources and ever expanding operational requirements.  It must become the policy of the Department of the Navy that all Navy / Marine Corps Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities conform to the department’s strategic vision and serve in promoting its unity of purpose.  Anything less introduces risk and presents an existential threat to the Marine Corps.

 

Nicolas di Leonardo is a member of the Expeditionary Warfare Division on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations and a student at the US Naval War College.  The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Expeditionary Warfare Division or the Naval War College.

[1] Amos, General James E. et al.  “EF-21,” Headquarters Marine Corps, 04 March 2015, p.5
[2] Disaggregated Operations are defined in EF-21 as “…requiring elements of the ARG/MEU to function separately and independently, regardless of time and distance, with elements under a command relationship that changes/limits the ARG/MEU commanders’ control of their forces.  Distributed Operations / Split Force Operations are defined as “…requiring elements of the ARG/MEU  to function separately for various durations and various distances with the ARG and MEU commanders retaining control of their forces under the Geographic Combatant Commander.”

[3] Hall, LtCol Howard F.  “Ship to Objective Commuters: The Continuing Search for Amphibious Vehicle Capability.”  The Marine Corps Gazette, August 2014
[4] Barnes, Julian E.  “Marines Deploy New Quick Reaction Force in Kuwait.”  The Wall Street Journal, 02 October 2014.
[5] Barnes, Julian E.  “Marines Deploy New Quick Reaction Force in Kuwait.”  The Wall Street Journal, 02 October 2014.

Africa, Capability Analysis, Current Operations

OBANGAME EXPRESS 2014: Together. Forward. Slowly.

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Background

(April 2, 2014) - U.S. Sailors, U.S. Coast Guardsmen and Ghanaian maritime specialists, all embarked aboard joint, high-speed vessel USNS Spearhead (JHSV 1), ride in a rigid-hull inflatable boat (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jeff Atherton/ Released)
(April 2, 2014) – U.S. Sailors, U.S. Coast Guardsmen and Ghanaian maritime specialists, all embarked aboard joint, high-speed vessel USNS Spearhead (JHSV 1), ride in a rigid-hull inflatable boat (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jeff Atherton/ Released)

The Gulf of Guinea has a problem: Nigerian-driven maritime crime. Nigeria’s problem in turn is a thoroughly criminalised political and commercial elite and a largely disenfranchised electorate. The fallout of that state of affairs has an impact on the region’s security and stability. There is no short-term fix and it has become fashionable to recommend “improved governance” and anti-corruption measures to remedy the situation in the long run. This sort of advice is cheap. Beyond the obvious truth contained in them, there is little in such recommendations as to how to operationalise them or how to address the situation in practical terms as it is and will likely remain for the next years if not for decades.

The efforts of the African Partnership Station (APS) and the Africa Maritime Law Enforcement Partnership (AMLEP) are two military-political initiatives that seek to overcome the lack of practical value of general policy recommendations and to utilise the will and the resources that exist in the region to make the best of it in the maritime environment. Within this setting OBANGAME EXPRESS is an annual test since 2011 of what has been and what still needs to be achieved in West Africa’s maritime domain. APS and AMLEP, together with the French “Operation Corymbe” are the only sustained efforts to build and maintain regional maritime security capabilities in a region characteristic for its sea blindness and mutual distrust.

With the emergence of the Gulf of Guinea Code of Conduct in 2013 and subsequent agreements between various signatories, such as the Zone E Agreement between Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Niger, West Africa makes an attempt to replicate some of the hot pursuit agreement already in existence between Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon in the borderlands of the Nigerian North and North-East and transfer that model to a maritime environment. The chief difference is that the Gulf of Guinea Code of Conduct provides a multi-lateral approach with obvious political advantages, but equally obvious operational challenges given the widely divergent maritime security agendas (where they exist) of the signatories. This problem has been circumvented for the time being by breaking down the entire region encompassing the states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) into manageable “zones” in order to be able to implement practical measures on the basis of the Code of Conduct more rapidly instead of having them negotiated by the entire forum. The zonal approach also allows individual states to shape the Code of Conduct according to their specific maritime security needs.

It is important to point out that maritime piracy (of whichever definition) is only one of many issues and for many regional states it is not even the most important or pressing one and thus not the driving force behind the Gulf of Guinea Code of Conduct. While piracy is costing the shipping industry and the region millions every year, the annual lost revenue from illegal fishing probably ranges in the several hundreds of millions while Nigeria alone loses approximately US$ 8bn per year from illegal bunkering and illegal crude oil exports. Much of the stolen oil leaves Nigeria by sea. The nexus of those criminal activities is transnational crime, often under the patronage of Nigerian elites. This makes it even more sensible to address the entire complex of maritime security as one and not just focus on a single symptom, however much this may exercise the pundits in the shipping journals and maritime security blogs.

OBANGAME EXPRESS 2014

Purpose

Cameroon Navy patrol boat LE LOGONE (foreground) and the Nigerian flagship NNS THUNDER during Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2014 (Photo: Dirk Steffen)
Cameroon Navy patrol boat LE LOGONE (foreground) and the Nigerian flagship NNS THUNDER during Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2014 (Photo: Dirk Steffen)

This year’s exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS was meant to be a litmus test of the applied Zone E Agreement, both on a command & control (C2) level as well as on a tactical level – chiefly by rehearsing vessel board seize & search (VBSS) procedures, rules of engagement (ROE) and maritime interdiction operations (MIO) with boarding teams. The purpose of OBANGAME EXPRESS 2014 was thus “to exercise and evaluate the regional interoperability, multinational command and control relationships, and proficiency of the regional maritime partners in the Gulf of Guinea.”

West African statesmen like to ascribe many if not all of the region’s maritime security woes to external factors and routinely call on the international community for support to resolve the problem. This year, their call was answered during OBANGAME EXPRESS 2014 which lasted from 16 April to 23 April 2014 and included extra-regional support beyond APS from Belgium, Germany, Turkey and Spain. “During the at-sea phase of the exercise, 11 nations, including were represented on board 36 different vessels hosting 20 different boarding teams. The boarding teams completed 47 boarding drills during three days of operations” summarised Exercise Director, Captain Nancy Lacore. Several Maritime Operation commands (MOC) were involved, specifically the Regional Maritime Awareness Centre (RMAC) at the Nigerian Navy’ Western Naval Command in Lagos, the ECCAS Centre pour la Coordination Multinationale (CMC) in Douala (Cameroon) and the Battalion d’Intervention Rapide MOC in Idenau (Cameroon). This was augmented by an embarked staffs, including a regional staff led by a Ghanaian admiral on the German combat support ship Bonn.

Conduct at sea

(July 17, 2011) - Petty Officer 2nd Class James Haurand (LEFT) takes an identification photo of a crewmember aboard a Senegalese fishing vessel as part of an African Maritime Law Enforcement Partnership (AMLEP) boarding mission with Coast Guard and Senegalese boarding teams. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Etta Smith/RELEASED)
(July 17, 2011) – Petty Officer 2nd Class James Haurand (LEFT) takes an identification photo of a crewmember aboard a Senegalese fishing vessel as part of an African Maritime Law Enforcement Partnership (AMLEP) boarding mission with Coast Guard and Senegalese boarding teams. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Etta Smith/RELEASED)

The at-sea phase was preceded by a pre-sail training for the MIO-teams by US, German and Spanish instructors. The at-sea phase from 19-21 April 2014 covered a range of scenarios including illegal fishing, arms smuggling, human trafficking, illegal bunkering and piracy. With the exception of the Bonn, which served as the embarked staff’s flagship, all extra-regional warships and some Nigerian Navy vessels served as target ships for the MIO-teams.

The experience made on board the German frigate Hamburg was representative for the conduct of the exercise and challenges experienced by the MIO teams and their proficiency. Teams from Benin, Nigeria and Togo boarded the Hamburg which alternatingly assumed the role of an illegally fishing vessel and a gun runner. The scenarios had been scripted by the American-led exercise control staff.

Of the three MIO-teams the Nigerian Special Boat Service (SBS) team deployed from NNS Thunder displayed the highest degree of professionalism, tactical acumen and ability to graduate their approach. Although clearly trained and conditioned with the hostile opposition of illegal bunkerers, kidnappers and hijackers in mind they were able to exercise restraint and judgement appropriate to the situation. In spite of good tactical procedures their primary challenge was communication between team elements as well as with their mothership. The latter in turn suffered from poor responsiveness of the MOC, which resulted in the SBS team being “stranded” on the target vessel for 2 hours until a decision to detain the suspect vessel and provide back-up for the team could be obtained.

The Beninese boarding team from the patrol boat Oueme was representative of the average MIO teams deployed by minor West African coastal states. The recent expansion of Nigerian piracy into Beninese waters and the aggressive response that Benin launched together with Nigeria in the form of “Operation Prosperity” had shaped their approach to VBSS. The team carried out the boarding with a high degree of pre-emptive violence including death threats. Modestly equipped and with poor communications to their own ship, the team was clearly aware of its vulnerability and consequently tense throughout the scenario.

The Togolese team, finally, represented the low end of experience found amongst some of the very small and unseasoned West African navies. The absence of even the most basic equipment for VBSS operations was reflective of the Togolese Navy’s operational readiness for this type of maritime security activity. When the team boarded the Hamburg it was only their third boarding (in the course of the exercise) and the third boarding of this kind ever conducted by the Togolese Navy. At that point all equipment – weapons, helmets, life vests and RHIB (including coxswain) had to be borrowed from the German Navy. Consequently they were tactically unready, though clearly willing to learn. Nevertheless, at that point they were overwhelmed by the scenario originally envisaged for them and ended up conducting a boarding of a very compliant fishing vessel under supervision of their instructors.

Conduct on shore

A Spanish instructor from ESPS INFANTA ELENA provides classroom training to Equatoguinean naval personnel in the pre-sail phase of OBANGAME EXPRESS 2014. (Photo: Alexander Drechsel/Adrian Kriesch)
A Spanish instructor from ESPS INFANTA ELENA provides classroom training to Equatoguinean naval personnel in the pre-sail phase of OBANGAME EXPRESS 2014. (Photo: Alexander Drechsel/Adrian Kriesch)

Command and Control – and the inadequacy of it as it was displayed during the exercise – was a recurring theme. This was not just a view of the exercise controllers but an almost universal complaint by commanding officers of most participating units, who felt they received neither the guidance nor the information they expected and needed to carry out their mission.

The exercise exposed significant deficiencies in the MOCs’ (especially RMAC’s) ability to build and maintain a situation picture and to share maritime domain awareness (MDA) information and to process requests for decision-making. Although technical shortcomings were cited during the debrief it was clear that the issue was really an organisational and training shortfall. This includes to some extent the ability to utilise technology at hand.

The RMAC used a commercially available AIS-tracking programme called Sea Vision in order to maintain a situation picture. Because many vessels in Nigerian coastal waters do not send AIS signals, it was to be augmented by an integration of radar pictures from coastal stations and assets afloat. This solution was only implemented belatedly (with the assistance of U.S. Navy personnel) and in the meantime the Nigerian Navy resorted to only monitoring AIS signals.

The effectiveness of the RMAC suffered further from a staff organisation that in addition to not having been prepared for the exercise also appeared to be less than capable of dealing with real world incidents and reports, some of which were forwarded directly to the RMAC by participating units or MOCs. Decision-making, even for pre-authorized scenarios, was routinely escalated to flag-officer level resulting in considerable delays or even in no decision being taken at all. Interagency information sharing and exchange of maritime domain awareness information, such as with NIMASA or NPA, or the Maritime Trade Information & Security Centre (MTISC) in Ghana, which was part of the exercise brief, was not evidenced – be it for exercise purposes or in real life.

Hot wash

(April 20, 2014) – Nigerian Navy Rear Adm. S. I. Alade, flag officer commanding Western Naval Command, arrives by helicopter to the German ship FGS Bonn (A-1413) during Obangame Express 2014. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class John Herman/Released)
(April 20, 2014) – Nigerian Navy Rear Adm. S. I. Alade, flag officer commanding Western Naval Command, arrives by helicopter to the German ship FGS Bonn (A-1413) during Obangame Express 2014. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class John Herman/Released)

The exercise ended, predictably, with much back-patting of (especially Nigerian) top brass for a job well done. Clearly, the conduct of the exercise in itself is valuable and necessary, and arguably holding the exercise in that form was no mean feat (though the credit belongs mostly to the organisers from the U.S. Navy) however, more work needs to be done to achieve even a basic maritime security capability in the region. Beyond the preening of the Nigerian flag officers at the closing ceremony this challenge is largely understood and accepted on a working level of most Gulf of Guinea navies (ships’ commanders and exercise observers), many of whom expressed a genuine desire to continue their working relationships with the extra-regional navies. It will take time for this insight to permeate into the West African navies and until then it will need to be constantly refreshed in the minds of the West African senior naval officers and politicians.

Frustration over perceived African nonchalance or foot-dragging will continue to be a key experience for many U.S. and European participants in OBANGAME EXPRESS exercises in the foreseeable future. “FUBAR” as an American exercise staff member put it was probably the strongest characterization of what went during the exercise on at times, but as a Nigerian participant pointed out: just putting Nigerians and Cameroonians into the same room would have been unthinkable a year ago. So, is there hope after all?

Conclusion

The Gulf of Guinea continues to present the vexing challenge that those countries that jealously guard their right to establish maritime security are singularly incapable of doing so. Nevertheless, continual efforts like APS, AMLEP and Corymbe will provide incremental improvements or provide support for regional initiatives aimed at improving regional maritime security. Better operational maritime security capabilities will not address the problems of corruption, lack of prosecution or even the underlying transnational criminal structures, but as one of several practical measures for improving security they can encourage the willing and contain the unwilling and contribute to an improved security environment. Experience from other theatres, not least the Indian Ocean, have shown that such measures, while not eradicating the symptoms, can at least ameliorate them. While the complexity of this year’s OBANGAME EXPRESS may have overwhelmed some of the regional participants, it is important to keep the momentum going. Equally, extra-regional participants should not be discouraged by what may be perceived as slow (or non-existent) progress. It will be a long haul, measured in decades rather than years.

Dirk Steffen is a Commander (senior grade) in the German Naval Reserve with 12 years of active service between 1988 and 2000 and was assigned to the German Battlestaff of TG 501.01 on board FGS HAMBURG during Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 2014. He is normally Director Maritime Security at Risk Intelligence when not on loan to the German Navy. He has been covering the Gulf of Guinea as a consultant and analyst since 2004. The opinions expressed here are his alone, and do not represent those of any German military or governmental institutions.