National Capabilities for Maritime Security

The likelihood of major combat operations at sea has diminished significantly for the next two to three decades. In its place, maritime security operations against numerous non-military, non-traditional, asymmetric threats-terrorists, criminals, pirates, smugglers, and assorted miscreants-are highly likely. These threats must be defeated, preferably at their origin, or well before they reach America's shores. This new national security environment places much greater emphasis on maritime security or constabulary operations for the purpose of "good order and discipline" at sea.

The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard are among the federal agencies addressing these threats to America's maritime security. The Navy will conduct increased global maritime security operations in regional coop­erative agreements, primarily against the terrorist threat, while still addressing military threats from hos­tile nation-states as well as warfighting and deterrence responsibilities for dissuasion, contested access, and power projection[1] purposes. The Coast Guard will concentrate on maritime security operations against terrorist and criminal threats in America's maritime domain while still addressing its responsibilities for maritime safety, mobility, protection of natural resources, and national defense.

Current Coast Guard maritime security capabilities are a unique blend of military and constabulary means, and its capabilities for terrorist and civilian threats are one and the same, whereas current Navy mari­time security capabilities are purely military and do not address civilian threats since, by policy and cus­tom, the Navy does not have the authority to enforce U.S. law.[2] However, both the Navy and Coast Guard must be able to detect, intercept, and board ships in the ocean expanses as well as the lit­toral. They both need to conduct, at long range and for long periods of time, single-ship interdiction, escort, presence, surveillance, patrol, peacekeeping, international engagement, and other low-level sea-control/denial missions. Navy and Coast Guard ships conducting maritime security duties need speed, endurance, and sea-keeping for multiple small boat and helicopter operations; self-sufficien­cy for independent operations, broad area coverage, and rapid reaction; and adequate C4ISR (Com­mand, Control, Communications, Computer, Intel­ligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) and combat systems.

Despite great commonality in how both services conduct maritime security operations, the Navy and Coast Guard are headed in different directions to provide this capability. The Navy plans to adapt its sophisticated warship, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), and the Coast Guard is building purposely designed maritime security ships. In an era that plac­es great emphasis on inter-service "jointness" as dem­onstrated by the Joint Strike Fighter Program, along with the very real reality of austere defense procure­ment budgets, the nation can no longer afford this bifurcated approach to its maritime security.

Two Separate Solutions for One Common Goal

Navy and Coast Guard capabilities for mari­time security share a common mission-functional sequence for all terrorist and civilian threats- detect, intercept, and board civilian ships in the ocean expanses and littorals. Examples of maritime security operations are, for the Navy, interdiction of weapons of mass destruction under the Proliferation Security Initiative[3] and, for the Coast Guard, inter­diction of illicit drug smugglers and illegal high seas fishermen. For both the Navy and Coast Guard, these maritime security operations include the need to conduct, at long range and for long periods of time, single-ship embargo, interdiction, escort, pres­ence, surveillance, patrol, blockade, peacekeeping, international navy/coast guard engagement, and other low-level sea-control/denial missions.

The Navy and Coast Guard maritime security capabilities for these missions share the same key ship design parameters-endurance, sea-keeping for multiple small boat and helicopter operations, and self-sufficiency for independent operations. Additionally, they share the need for "broad area coverage, rapid reaction, less capable combat sys­tems, and austere self-defense suites."[4] Endurance and self-sufficiency for independent operations are especially important because these ships will oper­ate without a dedicated logistics train of replenish­ment ships and far from the battle group. Such similarities raise the issue of common ships and systems, for both Navy and Coast Guard maritime security operations, for savings through economies of scale and elimination of duplication, especially in light of today's fiscal realities.

The Navy and Coast Guard are headed in differ­ent directions with regard to building ships for maritime security duties. The Navy plans to adapt a future combatant for maritime security duties by altering its new, special-purpose, anti-access com­batant, the Littoral Combat Ship, which is being designed in two variants-a 340-foot, 1,500-ton combatant and a 430-foot, 3,000-ton warship. Both variants will be speedy, optimally manned combatants, designed primarily to perform "focused missions" along the enemy's coastlines- neutralizing mines and defeating submarines and fast attack craft in relatively shallow coastal waters. Optimized with stealth and command-and-control technologies for focused warfare, and possessing robust self-defense capabilities, a maximum speed of 40 to 50 knots, a 21-day endurance and a 4,500-nautical-mile range at 22 knots, and only around a 1,500-nautical-mile range at high speed, the LCS design uses modular "plug and-fight" mission pay­load packages for each mission.

In October 2004, Paul McHale, Assistant Secre­tary of Defense for Homeland Defense, and John Young, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, dis­cussed employment of the LCS in homeland secu­rity missions, and since then it has become apparent that the U.S. Northern Command expects to use the LCS in homeland security missions.[5] The Navy wants to modify the LCS and not use com­mon ships with the Coast Guard, because the Navy believes the LCS's modularity concept lends itself to maritime security duties. Others, such as the Con­gressional Budget Office, are not so sure that the modularity concept is practical.[6]

Service leaders have consistently stated that the LCS program is their number-one budget priority.[7] Moreover, given the close relationship between the Navy and the Coast Guard's programs, with two Memoranda of Understanding put in place to ensure collaboration, some see the LCS as the answer to the Coast Guard's "high-end" maritime security cutter needs.

The Coast Guard is building two new types of maritime security ships as part of its Integrated Deepwater Project-a 421-foot, 4,200-ton ship and a 350-foot, 3,200-ton ship. With its 12,000-nautical-mile range, 60-day endurance, and 29-knot sprint speed, the "high-end" maritime security ship (WMSL) can provide a security presence throughout America's maritime domain, as well as operate overseas. The smaller maritime security ship (WMSM), with its 9,000-nautical-mile range, 45-day endurance, and top speed of 28 knots, can also provide a security presence in almost all parts of America's maritime domain. In a pinch, the WMSM could also deploy to forward areas.

The Coast Guard is currently planning to pro­cure around 33 of these ships: eight large maritime security ships at about $280 million each and 25 medium maritime security ships priced at $200 million each. The Coast Guard is also ensuring that these two classes of ships can operate in the post- September 11 security environment.

In late January 2005, the Department of Home­land Security (DHS) approved a revised Deepwater mission needs statement that incorporated home­land security and defense requirements. These two ship classes will have improved capabilities to defeat terrorist attacks, engage in opposed board­ing, and conduct operations in a chemical, biolog­ical, and radiological (CBR) environment. The Coast Guard FY 2006 budget submission reflects the Administration's support for more capable, responsive, and survivable ships to perform high-risk maritime security operations.

The Navy and Coast Guard are well aware of each other's efforts in regard to maritime security capabilities. The two services are focusing their col­laborative and coordination efforts not on common hulls, or mechanical and electrical systems, but on C4ISR systems commonality and interoperability. The Navy and Coast Guard want their ships to be able to make use of each other's onboard and off-board systems when they find their ships working together in a homeland or overseas operation. (From a security standpoint, there are no longer any "home games" or "away games." Both services see homeland security, homeland defense, and overseas operations as key elements of their "port­folios" for the 21st century.) Undoubtedly, their approach is reasonable given the different originat­ing context and timelines associated with LCS and Deepwater. However, this de facto joint Coast Guard-Navy approach is not mandated or over­seen by Congress.

Questions About the Navy's Solution for Maritime Security

While there is little doubt that the LCS-or, for that matter, all classes of Navy surface combat­ants-could conduct the Navy's maritime security role, questions exist about whether other non-LCS options that place greater emphasis on mari­time security capabilities may be more suitable, effective, and affordable for the Navy. Unfortu­nately, there is no original Analysis of Multiple Concepts to draw upon for supporting an evalua­tion of the LCS's role in maritime security mis­sions, which some analysts and observers have decried. [8]

Despite the absence of such a formal assessment, it is possible to offer some analytical parameters. The Navy needs to consider whether the LCS plac­es sufficient emphasis on maritime security capa­bilities for regional acceptance of its presence, international engagement and operations, and the security environment of the next two to three decades. Additionally, the Navy must consider whether the LCS has too much capability for home­land security duties.

Question 1: Is the U.S. Navy confident that the LCS's presence will be accepted by all regional nation-states?

Haze-gray U.S. Navy warships, with their inher­ent national orientation, cannot shake off their ominous appearance or disguise their primary pur­pose as combatants expressly built for offensive military missions such as power projection and forcible-entry operations. The experience of Admi­ral Thomas Fargo, Commander, U.S. Pacific Com­mand, underscores this issue. In the spring of 2004, he attempted unsuccessfully to implement his Regional Maritime Security Initiative in the Straits of Malacca by employing naval capabilities optimized for major theater war-U.S. Navy com­batants with embarked U.S. Marines. U.S. Navy warships, designed for high-intensity war against a major opponent, when used for maritime security duties are just too menacing in regions sensitive to sovereign rights and may not always be the most politically acceptable means for duty against mari­time criminals and terrorists.[9]

Recent diplomatic activity by the Japanese gov­ernment underscores this issue of "acceptable pres­ence" by the U.S. Navy. For the October 2004 Proliferation Security Initiative exercises held off Tokyo, the Japanese government formally requested that the United States include Coast Guard forces in the American contingent. The Japanese wanted the Coast Guard present primarily to emphasize the law enforcement nature of the exercises, as well as to draw upon the Coast Guard's unexcelled reputation and skill in boarding, conducting maritime search­es, and constabulary duties.[10]

Question 2: Is the U.S. Navy convinced that the LCS is the most appropriate naval ship to engage and operate with the majority of the world's navies and coast guards in a meaningful manner?

The overwhelming majority of the world's navies and coast guards are not blue-water, power-projec­tion, sea-control navies, but coastal forces con­cerned about maritime security threats. Regional maritime security operations are the most likely and probable U.S. Navy activity with the interna­tional naval community.

It is usually extremely difficult for these interna­tional navies and coast guards to connect to the U.S. Navy's high-technology warships, especially the deep-draft, super-sized warships. While the LCS resembles a frigate in size, the LCS may not relate to the missions and force structures of many of these international naval organizations, and could very well intimidate them, if it cannot act in consort with them on an equal basis. In fact, according to retired Royal Australian Commodore Sam Bateman, a maritime security expert specializ­ing in Asia-Pacific affairs, coast guards are emerg­ing as important national institutions in Asia and the Pacific with the potential to make a major con­tribution to regional order and security.[11]

It is important to note that the LCS would prob­ably be highly appropriate for maritime security operations with the navies such as the Royal Navy, French navy, German navy, Australian navy, Canadi­an navy, Indian navy, Spanish navy, Italian navy, and Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force. But maritime security operations with lesser capable navies using ships purposefully built for warfare like the LCS may not be the most appropriate means.

Question 3: Has the U.S. Navy fully acknowl­edged the likely at-sea security environment for the next 20-30 years, and will it be able to buy enough LCSs to meet the majority of the mari­time security threats it will face?[12]

This future environment resembles in broad out­line the mid- to late-Victorian era when the United Kingdom faced no peer naval competitor to contest the Royal Navy's global reach, presence, and sea control.[13] With an adequate main battle fleet of capital ships and world-ranging cruisers to deter any would-be rivals, the Royal Navy, even so, fre­quently found itself conducting sea-denial opera­tions with its dispersed frigates and a host of specialized and purpose-built gunboats,[14] opti­mized for local conditions,[15] against maritime security threats-assorted miscreants, criminals, terrorists, insurrectionists, pirates, and the like who threatened the empire's interests.[16] The Royal Navy, with its ships on independent stations widely scattered around the globe, acted as the world's maritime constabulary. With the Royal Navy safe­guarding the seas, British merchant ships "upon their lawful occasions"[17] sailed without impedi­ment, ensuring regional and imperial stability and an unfaltering British, if not world, economy.

Today, the United States faces a nearly similar sit­uation. Major theater war at sea is remote, but mar­itime security operations against numerous non-military, asymmetric threats trying to harm Ameri­ca are highly likely and must be defeated before they reach American shores.[18] Such operations require the U.S. Navy to deploy to numerous dis­tant "stations" around the globe for unilateral and regional maritime security operations.

The very act of this global naval presence also benefits the world by providing protection for ship­ping. Even though the United States has a negligi­ble merchant marine fleet engaged in the international trade, the United States understands the value of safeguarding the trade, since global commerce fuels the American economy.[19] In early January 2005, the Chief of U.S. Naval Operations, Admiral Vern Clark, stated that the days of major naval engagements are past-at least for now. He continued, "Building a force set that is designed only to deal with…major combat operations…is the incorrect approach."[20]

The U.S. Navy in this future security environ­ment shares another parallel with the Victorian Roy­al Navy. Numbers count, and will there will be enough U.S. Navy ships to meet the demand gener­ated by non-military and terrorist threats, especially if the Navy must also equip itself with hugely expensive, highly capable warships for dissuasion, contested access, and power projection purposes?[21] In the Victorian era, the First Lord of the Admiralty complained about the pressures from merchants, missionaries, and the Colonial and Foreign Offices:

[F]rom Vancouver's isle to the river Plate, from the West Indies to China the Admiralty is called upon by Secretaries of State to send ships…. The undeniable fact is that we are doing or endeavoring to do much more than our force is sufficient for. It is fortunate that the world is not large, for there is no other limit to the service of the fleets.[22]

While the world has not grown smaller in the intervening 100-plus years, the size of the U.S. Navy continues to decline. The Navy wants the LCS to cost no more than $230 million in then-year dollars for the hull alone, not including the modu­lar mission packages that could cost another $80 million to $100 million per hull.[23] Can the Navy afford the numbers-50 to 60 LCSs-that its advo­cates frequently cite? At a cost that will likely exceed over $300 million a copy, the LCS may still be a Cadillac when a Chevrolet-priced ship would do nicely for maritime security duties.[24]

Question 4: Is the LCS too capable for the overwhelming preponderance of homeland secu­rity duties? And, more important, what are the homeland security requirements that offer LCS as a solution?

According to a 2004 Congressional Research Service report, Navy and Coast Guard officials:

agree that the Navy's role should be to support the Coast Guard, particularly in areas, like air defense, where the Coast Guard has little or no capability. Navy officials believe that the Navy, while contributing to maritime homeland security operations, should remain primarily focused on deploying naval forces overseas to provide a forward defense against threats to the United States.[25]

What has changed for the Navy to decide it now must employ LCS in homeland security? And will the Navy use LCS to augment the Coast Guard for homeland security missions or conduct separate, stand-alone missions? Department of Defense (DOD) officials have offered few specifics about envisioned homeland security duties and numbers needed for the LCS.[26] One defense analyst believes that LCS will be used to guard offshore infrastruc­ture, such as oil platforms or underwater fiber-optic cables.[27] Since broad area surveillance, interdiction, boarding and searching vessels, and physical pro­tection are the mainstays of homeland security duties, using the LCS in physical protection and interdiction duties means its expensive warfare mis­sion modules will find little everyday use.