It is difficult to find any record of nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) operations near the continent of Africa. Certainly traditional missions have been conducted to interdict the flow of narcotics to and from Africa, impede the operations of pirates off the Horn of Africa, or during the Cold War, monitor Soviet military activities off North Africa. Most staffs continue to regard a submarine's potential contributions to operations according to these criteria. SSNs are not generally considered to be integral instruments of global maritime partnerships. Nevertheless, they appear to be evolving into precisely that.
In recent years, global maritime partnerships have become a hot topic. In February 2008, the National Security Council's Deputies Committee endorsed them as an official initiative, with the Department of Defense as overall lead, the U.S. Department of State responsible for international outreach, and the U.S. Navy as a primary stakeholder and contributor. In a 27 May 2008 e-mail to flag officers and staffs, Admiral Gary Roughead, the Chief of Naval Operations, wrote that global maritime partnerships continue to "contribute to the safety and security of the maritime domain," providing a framework by which "U.S. maritime services will foster and sustain cooperative relationships with more international partners in concert with other U.S. services, U.S. interagency, non-governmental organizations, and private industry."
A leading example of a global maritime partnership in action is the Africa Partnership Station, or APS, which recently conducted a series of training activities in West and Central Africa (WCA), with notable success. The Navy offered courses in 15 subjects to more than 1,500 students drawn from the navies and coast guards of 15 countries. These efforts had an indisputably constructive impact on partner nations' capabilities and helped build many positive professional and personal relationships. While the lead element of the APS was the USS Fort McHenry (LSD-43), a 610-foot amphibious landing ship whose shallow draft and multiple shore connecting points facilitated concurrent operations in several locations, three other Navy ships also played key roles. One of them was the USS Annapolis (SSN-760). Its participation, however, was not achieved without some friction and broken crockery. The addition of an invisible, high-end warship to a cooperative effort involving "partnership" stirred skepticism inside Navy and submarine force circles, the requirement for openness and sharing with African partners colliding with planners who feared the menacing image of a nuclear-powered sub in the midst of maritime security education programs. Skepticism remains, but a close look at the Annapolis' contribution leaves considerably less room for doubt.
Fashioning a Partnership Role for SSNs
In early 2007, Admiral Harry Ulrich, then Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe (COMNAVEUR) challenged the Sixth Fleet staff (CNE-C6F) to think "out of the box." As the planning for what would become the APS intensified, embodied in a series of deployments to WCA, warfighters of all disciplines and various other consultants and Africa experts began conducting wargames, a process during which SSNs were widely viewed as irrelevant. At first glance, this is understandable. In a maritime domain awareness role, SSNs have a limited "awareness envelope" compared with airborne platforms or space-based systems, and at the time they could not be part of any unclassified common operating picture. Furthermore, because few ports in West and Central Africa are deep enough for an SSN, these boats would be limited in their capacity to contribute to shore-focused theater security cooperation activities.
But the greatest skepticism stemmed from a strategic communication perspective: SSNs had "threatening optics" that evoked missile and torpedo strikes, stealthy surveillance, and Cold War intelligence scenarios that militated against sharing information and creating operational partnerships. SSNs didn't take part in activities such as the West African Training Cruise and had no track record of participating in any WCA activities. While a large-deck amphib vessel conducting joint visit, board, search-and-seizure team training; delivering dual-use hospital building materials; and deploying harbor survey teams may convey an impression of theater security cooperation, a black-hulled SSN does not. And in any event, no WCA nations would be establishing a submarine force anytime soon. Of what possible utility would an SSN be in Africa's maritime domain?
Many submariners at CNE-C6F staff, including this writer, were not content to leave that question unanswered. Through fortuitous circumstances, an SSN was available in the same time and location as some planned APS activities. With the encouragement of CNE-C6F leadership, it was determined that an SSN's unique capabilities could be adapted to some of the APS activities contemplated for other ships. For example, even though it provides a smaller maritime domain awareness envelope than other platforms, an SSN can dwell for hours or days and could thus determine operating patterns in an area, for a group of ships, or follow the activities of a single ship for extended periods. What you lose in area, you might gain in duration. This potentially constructive tradeoff could interest partner nations who were trying to clamp down on illegal fishing, illegal immigration, or illicit drug smuggling.
The question became not whether SSNs could in principle make a contribution, but whether partner nations would agree to allow it and if so, whether they would be willing to share their knowledge and information to enhance the SSN's mission. For example, submarine surveillance of illegal fishing would benefit from having the partner nations' fishing license lists. Likewise, local knowledge of illegal drug activity in home waters, or any evolved understanding of human smuggling enterprises near the coast, would facilitate the monitoring of an area for drug or human trafficking.
Change Meets Resistance
After considering the ways in which SSNs could, in theory, add to the APS' value, some opposition concerning their use persisted. The global force management process, the annual mechanism for globally allocating military assets, did not anticipate SSN operations supporting maritime surveillance in Africa. Worldwide SSN allocation is tightly controlled, and missions in CENTCOM and the U.S. Pacific Command's areas of responsibility remain a high priority. However, although initially lower-level staff raised concerns, once they understood the concept of operations, consensus was achieved. At the time, the Navy's global maritime partnership strategy was in its formative stages, and beltway stakeholders were already dealing with other non-traditional APS demands.
The remaining problem involved the release of information. The first answer from OPNAV staffers was that information concerning submarine operations could not be disclosed to any African partner nations, which have no agreements with the United States to share such information. The traditional submarine and intelligence community perspective on sharing would be "don't, at any level." Strategically, the operational stealth of a submarine mission would preclude sharing the plans, operation areas, and missions with any partner whose information security was unproven. Tactically, a partner who would cooperate with the Navy on, for example, a counter-drug mission and expect to receive details on tactics, techniques, and procedures in return could be co-opted by corrupt individuals or institutions, thereby supporting the very corruption that was being targeted. Senior command-level appreciation of the risk involved and a decision to press forward was required.
In the development of APS and the intention to establish a meaningful partnership, early planners recognized the importance of maximizing the exchange of as much information as possible. The organizational red tape required to allow this release of information to African partners threatened many aspects of APS; ultimately, Admiral Harry Ulrich, Commander CNE, and the CNO's guiding principles for global partnerships provided the top cover. When the leadership became convinced that the potential gain from sharing information was worth the risk of exposing the mission, the bureaucracy followed. Intelligence gleaned from SSN operations conducted against illegal activity, with the collaboration of partner nations in international waters, became a lucrative goal. At the end of the day, there wasn't really that much china to break.
The deployment of the Annapolis as part of the APS afforded the Navy, beyond the substantive gains from information-sharing, a direct opportunity to interact with partner-nation military and civilian leadership. During early APS activities, Commodore John Nowell, Commander of APS, invited fisheries enforcement officers, regional security officers, military commanders, and political leaders from WCA nations out to sea on board SSNs to observe the intelligence-gathering process. The intention was to give them an improved situational awareness of maritime activity. Five successful SSN embarks with officials from as many countries, several of which lasted two days, were executed in the face of the daunting logistical challenges of operating in WCA waters. These embarks enhanced the sense of partnership, transparency, and purpose that the U.S. Navy and regional leaders alike wanted to generate.
Measuring the Results
Over the past year SSNs have conducted multiple patrols in international waters of partner nations, complementing other APS activities, even occasionally operating with U.S. and allied maritime patrol aircraft and surface ships. These patrols have been conducted with the knowledge, encouragement, and informational assistance of partner nations and have indeed provided robust real-time feedback to our WCA partner nations and improved the situational awareness of both the U.S. and its partners. But how is the value of such activity measured? By kilograms of drugs intercepted or tons of fish prevented from being taken illegally? By the number of unique events observed, or by the amount of time spent observing those events?
None of these rather narrow quantitative metrics quite fits the bill. The Navy receives the full benefit from a mission if it meets the commanders' objectives. In West Africa, sharing information and building partnerships is one of the main objectives, intended to serve the long-term political-military aim of consolidating the region's strategic alignment with the United States. Participating APS nations are seeing new partnerships being forged and expanding in a cooperative rather than a hegemonic spirit, and as a result, their initially wary reactions to U.S. Africa Command are softening. Additionally, improving mutual appreciation of the maritime domain in WCA while encouraging the development of partner nations' capabilities are part of the APS commander's guidance and are certainly enhanced by SSN operations there.
APS activity was conducted with 15 African nations, and all 15 nations want APS to return. The APS's appeal only reinforces the United States' strategic commitment to the continent. Given this success, the SSN deployment was well worth the effort.
On the operational and tactical levels, information derived by SSN activity and shared with some West African nations undoubtedly has strengthened the character and depth of combined APS operations. While it may be too early to decide on the optimal mix of forces, resources, and training to maximize the return on our investment on GMP in general and APS in particular, assuming that supporting GMPs remains a key component of our maritime strategy, SSNs will play an important role in them.