"A New System for Vessel Tracking"
(See G. Lynch and N. Corbin, pp. 40-42, August 2004 Proceedings)
Lieutenant David S. Crestin, U.S. Naval Reserve-This piece is well written, as are most of the articles in Proceedings. However, I wonder how wise it is to continue to publish in the open literature the extent of shortcomings in our port security apparatus. It seems to me sufficiently questionable to conclude that we will never have 100% secure ports or other infrastructure, let alone putting into print our current specific loopholes. I am sure the Editorial Board has considered this issue. Nevertheless, given the actual and potential threat to our homeland, I urge the Naval Institute, and others, to review this question in depth.
"Multimission Costs Too Much"
(See B. Stubbs, pp. 30-34, August 2004 Proceedings)
Tim Colton, President, Maritime Business Strategies, LLC, and lieutenant Brian Moore, U.S. Coast Guard-Captain Stubbs makes a number of excellent points, not least of which is that the Coast Guard is spread too thin. Times have changed significantly in the past three years, and it may be that the Coast Guard needs to reevaluate its mission to optimize its limited resources. This challenge may, however, provide an opportunity for a long-overdue revitalization of all federal maritime support activities.
Five federal agencies control and support commercial maritime activity in the United States:
* The U.S. Coast Guard, now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is responsible for numerous commercial regulatory activities that have nothing to do with "guarding the coast" and that will, inevitably, be treated as low priority in the DHS.
* The U.S. Maritime Administration, (MarAd), part of the Department of Transportation, is a promotional rather than a regulatory agency, the primary roles of which are to fund commercial marine construction projects and to maintain the Ready Reserve Fleet. Over the years, MarAd declined in size and significance to the point that some Washington insiders propose its abolition.
* The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), an independent agency, regulates shipping tariffs. It has long been a candidate for abolition.
* The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a unit of the Department of Defense, keeps the nation's ports and waterways open to shipping. These activities often overlap with those of the Coast Guard, which is responsible, for example, for marking the waterways the Corps keeps open. Having the U.S. Army in charge of our waterways may have made sense during the Civil War, but does it today?
* The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a part of the Department of Commerce, is responsible for all ocean research, ocean surveying, and fisheries research. These are maritime activities, wholly unrelated to NOAA's other activities. NOAA produces charts of the waterways that the Army keeps dredged and the Coast Guard keeps navigable.
So here is one suggestion. Combine all activities of these five agencies that relate to the efficiency of our maritime infrastructure (and do not relate to either national defense or homeland security) into a single agency under the Secretary of Transportation. Combining these functions would result in greatly improved operational efficiency. Using one agency to dredge the channel in a port, another to place the buoys and day boards marking that channel, and a third to survey and chart the channel (each using separate vessels and crews) is so wasteful as to be irresponsible. Significant cost savings would also result from the removal of redundancies of personnel, training, and expensive equipment. In addition, this new agency would have sufficient heft to hold its own with the Federal Highway, Railroad, Aviation, and Transit administrations, and attract a significant political constituency.
This agency's activities would include:
* Marine safety: mariner licensing; vessel documentation; vessel inspections and investigations.
* Marine environment: pollution education, prevention, response, and enforcement; living marine resources protection; marine and environmental science; National Marine Fisheries enforcement functions and research.
* Maritime industry promotion: Maritime Academy curricula; merchant vessel construction assistance program; Ready Reserve Fleet management; tariff administration.
* Ports and waterways: navigation projects and maintenance; flood control projects and maintenance; environmental protection projects and maintenance; ice-breaking; vessel traffic/waterways management; aids to navigation; bridge administration; rules of the road; charting.
If that suggestion is not daring enough, here is another. Let the Coast Guard run this consolidated agency. Put an active-duty, four-star Coast Guard admiral in command and create a second officer career track for Coast Guard officers. Much as the U.S. Navy has both line officers and engineering duty officers, let the Coast Guard have a "white hull" track for activities related to national defense and homeland security, and a "black hull" track for activities related to our Maritime Transportation System (MTS). In this approach, expensive professional training and invaluable experience in each of the two tracks will be retained and expanded by allowing members to remain in their field. There is little value in having pollution investigators trained in firearms use, law enforcement tactics, and rules of engagement. Similarly, accessing the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund is complex enough that considerable training and experience is required before one is allowed to do so.
The NOAA corps and the Army Corps of Engineers' commissioned officers could be laterally transferred to their equivalent U.S. Coast Guard grade and would retain duties equivalent to the role they were performing in their respective services.
Long have the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, NOAA, the FMC, and MarAd languished in the federal budgetary process as a result of being too small or specialized to compete with larger, higher-profile entities such as the Surface Navy and the Federal Highway Administration. One example of the effect of this is that the Corps' current backlog of maintenance work stands at more than 50% of its total responsibility; as a result, the inland waterway system is under considerable strain and operates with many bottlenecks-to the detriment of the U.S. economy. Our ability to compete with foreign economies depends in large part on the efficiency of the MTS. This new, robust Federal Maritime Administration would have sufficient breadth and depth to win realistic funding for crucial infrastructure maintenance and upgrades.
Yes, it will be difficult and confusing at first, and having the Coast Guard straddling two departments will probably require rewriting several laws. But we must do something. What we have now isn't efficient, lacks an overall MTS perspective, and hamstrings our economy in an area in which we once led the world.
"Navy Strike Role Threatens Sea Control"
(See P. Donahoe, p. 2, July 2004 Proceedings)
"LCS Parts from the Past to Meet Today's Needs"
(See T. LaFleur, pp. 32-37, July 2004 Proceedings)
"Red Aegis"
(See D. DeScisciolo, pp. 56-58, July 2004 Proceedings)
Captain Frank E. McKenzie, U.S. Navy (Retired)-On page 2 in the July Proceedings I learned that the Navy is planning to retire five Ticonderoga (CG-47)-class cruisers and other fleet ships early. I also learned, starting on page 32, about the remarkable flexibility of the littoral combat ship that presumably will replace these high-seas ships. Turning to page 56, I found the navy of the People's Republic of China is hard at work developing its version of an Aegis-like guided-missile cruiser or destroyer and taking other steps to develop a high-seas capability.
Can it be that these two possible future adversaries are planning to fight very different naval wars?
Captain Robert O. Strange, U.S. Navy (Retired)-Vice Admiral LaFleur suggests there are challenges and risks that lie ahead in implementing the evolutionary concept of the littoral combat ship (LCS). It is all well and good to preposition LCS modular packages in worldwide areas of likely conflict, but one wonders if future budgetary considerations will enable the Surface Navy to afford sufficient sets of mission modules strategically placed to meet any worldwide exigencies. If I interpret this article correctly, it would mean several types of mission modules must be made available, dependent on the circumstances of the mission, for neutralizing or defeating a specific threat in a given area. When these mission packages are positioned throughout potential worldwide strategic regions, there would need to be some form of infrastructure available to maintain these packages fully combat ready when the time comes for mating with the LCS, and to assist the ship with her limited crew size in the installation and checkout phase. We will need to store these mission packages in environmentally controlled conditions and periodically conduct routine maintenance and/or upgrades to the mission packages while they are awaiting employment.
With the rapid technology changes in the recent past and the likely continuation of such changes in the future, one wonders how they will be implemented into these LCS mission packages in diverse worldwide storage locations. Admiral LaFleur's article suggests that current platform centricity has led to an abundance of command, control, communications, computers, combat, and intelligence baselines and variants in our legacy surface combatant force and is something we have to get away from in the future. However, if LCS mission modules are to be maintained at a current, state-of-the-art condition in storage awaiting use, their own set of baseline and variant problems could evolve unless long-range logistics planning is initiated from the start in this concept. Will it be left to the life-cycle contractors to maintain and upgrade these mission modules? Is this something the Navy can afford over the expected service lives of these ships? Has this cost been factored into the overall cost of the LCS?
Something must be done to provide the Surface Navy with assets to affordably and effectively meet its worldwide commitments in the future. There will be challenges and risks associated with any such venture, as suggested by this article. One wonders if life-cycle costs for this concept with all of the other tangibles, including infrastructure costs for maintaining the readiness of these mission modules whenever and wherever they are needed, have been fully evaluated.
"Ask the Warriors about Iraq"
(See S. Coerr, p. 2, August 2004 Proceedings)
Herman Archer-I have nothing but the greatest respect for the skill, courage, and patriotism of Colonel Coerr and all the fighting men of all the branches of all the services of all the nations in the coalition who have served, are serving, and will serve in Iraq. I also support wholeheart-edly Colonel Coerr's admonition that we must stay the course in Iraq-we have no choice. But beyond that, I have serious concerns over Colonel Coerr's perception of the justifications for that war-because, should that perception come to represent our nation's and our government's appraisal of what went on and is going on in Iraq, I believe we will be putting our nation at even more serious risk from continuing terrorism than it is at now.
At the end of his commentary, Colonel Coerr says that at no time did anyone say to any of his fighters that they were in Iraq to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction or to avenge 11 September 2001. Well, they weren't listening. President George Bush, secretary Colin Powell, and Vice President Dick Cheney all have given these reasons for the war. It is the worldwide recognition of the lack of foundation for those reasons that has compromised the virtue of America's cause.
Let us be clear: If any president is to put his military and his nation in harm's way, he must do so with clear and honest justification. This was not the case for the war on Iraq. I say this not with 20/20 hindsight of the congressional commission-it was obvious to many before the fact. Colonel Coerr vaunts his knowledge of the Arab world. Based on what experience? His accompanying the British into Basra-home of the Shiites, who were most oppressed under Saddam? I spent most of my working life in that part of the world. Iraq is an artificial construct, less than 100 years in existence, cobbled together by the British from three very disparate Ottoman provinces solely to control that land's oil. For centuries, and to this day, the three peoples of those provinces, Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, have detested, fought, and killed each other. Does anyone really think these adversaries-to-the-death can be glued into a democracy with American blood?
Our security lies in the willingness, even in the desire, of the rest of the world, certainly the mass of the Arab/Islamic world, to work with us, but not for us, and certainly not under us, in defeating the scourge of terrorism, Islamic and other. Our Iraq unilateralism was the culmination of a series of arrogant disregards for what others may think of us: renunciation of the antiballistic missile treaty, scorn for the Kyoto Accord, and rejection of the International Criminal Court. Schadenfreude is alive and well in international relations. Unfortunately, those we casually blow off will watch our distress with satisfaction. Too bad, but true.
The United States is at greater danger from terrorism today than before we launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. Why? Because the chaos of today's Iraq is nurturing terrorists. Why? Because we have ignored the inferiority/paranoiac complexes of the Arab world, subdued for centuries by the Turks, then exploited for decades by France and England, and now marched over by us. Why? Because the next time that we ask international support against terrorists (hopefully for better reasons than the last), we will have the credibility gap of the hyped and spun blue smoke and curved mirrors of the Iraqi adventure. Arrogant disregard is poor preparation for future support.
So now here we are, with our Iraq. We broke it; we will have to fix it. As Colonel Coerr says, we have to stay the course-to do otherwise would only compound the present problems. Indeed, we do owe it to the Iraqis; we can't leave them with our mess. We owe it to the world, on which we depend to supply intelligence, raw materials, and the underwriting of our huge deficits, and on whose support we will surely have to call in the future. But most of all we owe it to ourselves, to our principles and self-respect and to the hundreds of our dead, the thousands of our wounded, the tens of thousands of our veterans, for whom we must keep the faith.
Let's not forget how we got where we are. Let's not let after-the-fact spin such as Colonel Coerr's blind us to mistakes we have made and to lessons we must learn. Honesty, transparency, and accountability must guide us.
Lieutenant Colonel John Mosiuk Jr., U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)-Major Coerr's commentary offers important insight justifying military operations in Iraq. However, he included a short, inflammatory phrase about our right to bear arms. This is not so much a National Rifle Association (NRA) "mantra" as it is an inalienable right delineated in the second Amendment of our Constitution. Major Coerr would do well to read the Constitution he has sworn to support and defend.
The appropriateness of carrying a government-issued rifle in combat and expending the rounds against enemy combatants would seem intuitively obvious to the readers of this publication and needs no justification. This is the proper thing to do. Sergeant Alvin York and many others have done so-NRA members and nonmembers alike.
"Serving a Nation at War-A Campaign Quality Army with Joint and Expeditionary Capabilities"-Reviews
(see F. Huffman, R. Scales, D. Zakheim, pp. 59-61, July 2004; P. Swartz, p. 64, August 2004 Proceedings)
Commander Bill Johnson, Chief of Staff, CTF-84, U.S. Wavy-The Army white paper is invaluable as far as it goes. If the intent of authors Acting secretary of the Army Les Brownlee and Chief of Staff General Pete Schoomaker is to lay out an examination of where the Army is and where it needs to be to fight and win wars as we understand them, the paper is Reference A for future discussions of how to build and implement land power component forces. Circumstances, however, render much of the message moot.
The Army, indeed all of the U.S. military forces, performed superbly during the course of military action in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, but political indecision concerning how to use the forces in periods after historically understood warfare events (like invasion) and management/ investment in manpower/materiel is leading to a potential train wreck. This crash likely won't occur on any current leader's watch. It will be 2008 when we collectively agree that military forces are in crisis. That three- to four-year gap should permit sufficient atrophy in current, underfunded infrastructure-lacking adequate replacement plans to move forward-to cause our leaky roof to sag to the point that it cannot be ignored.
Because we are unable to understand or describe the future environment, we continue to purchase, man, train, and equip in the context of historic models we can understand; or we guess which technologies will thrive in the future and which enemies will be the foci of our efforts; then we haphazardly fund programs to those ends. "Joint" and "net centric" are great concepts, but they are still unsupported in the critical area of dollars. The authors' framework is absolutely rational, but the supporting activity is inadequate.
Consider these programs that one or all services still cannot agree on in terms of infrastructure, fiscal status, and doctrine:
* Unmanned operations
* Computer network operations
* Chemical/biological/radioactive/nuclear defenses/equipment fielded for all combatants
* 21st-century weaponry for all infantry soldiers
* Manpower requirements (and willingness to optimally equip) for an array of future conflicts, including civilian
The list goes on-many will argue (from parochial, "rice bowl" perspectives) that each of the above is funded, structured, and healthy. I have yet to see "Mid-western proof." Show me that something works-not within an exercise, or on a Power Point slide, or as an element of some new or realigned command. Show me these problem areas have solutions that work-all the time-when the conflict is hot.
The white paper is a phenomenal guideline for how to invest to build an Army we understand, to fight a five-dimensional war against perfectly trained and equipped opponents. What we really need is some broad guidance from civilian leadership, some budgetary wiggle room to allow the acquisition community to respond to technological breakthroughs, and constant vigilance concerning the actual (rather than supposed) strategic and operational environments.
Analogously, imagine sitting in a room in 1985, with someone describing this new architecture called the Internet, and some of the potential (whatever would have been imaginable at the time) it might hold. Now imagine being directed to envision-much less design, build, or improve on-an interactive Web site. It couldn't be done, because our collective understanding of "Web site" has grown incrementally over time. What if we had decided in 1980 what a Web site should look like? The disconnect between the actual (if it had happened) and the possible, or even the functional, site of today would be insurmountable.
Agility and adaptability, not plans, are the keys to transformation. We need a macro vision and some more institutional freedom. Give the regional commander commands control of some of the budget, and order them to respond and adapt to their worlds. Exercise some joint oversight on the common processes and systems, and experiment with abandon-we don't know what the future force will look like, but we can be confident it will work.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Another review appears in this issue-see page 66. Read the full Army white paper on our Web site: www.usni.org/proceedings/Articles04/ PRO06armyservicenation.htm
"Ask Questions about Our Ability to Conduct Antisubmarine Warfare"
(See A. H. Konetzni, pp. 78-79, June 2004; D. Bean, pp. 14-18, August 2004 Proceedings)
Captain Viktor Toyka, German Navy-Admiral Konetzni asks important questions about the U.S. Navy's ability to conduct antisubmarine warfare. Nevertheless, many important questions are missing.
* Antisubmarine warfare against whom? Who or what is the target-the large, nuclear-driven boat (SSN) possessed by a few navies not allied to the United States, or the much smaller, perhaps air-independent-propulsion (AIP), electronically driven conventional submarine, which is harder to detect than the SSN and may detect the SSN earlier than vice versa?
* Is it still true that one should train against the same quality of targets one intends to fight?
* Is the SSN always the best platform to detect first a modern, AIP, electrically driven conventional submarine that may have had sufficient time to reach her patrol area undetected and well prepared, and anyway may be able to operate in shallower water than the SSN? Should that not be earnestly doubted?
If the answer to all three questions is more or less yes, the capability to conduct antisubmarine warfare must include not only the right submarines to hunt, detect, and fight enemy SSNs, but also modern AIP submarines. Also, it seems essential that own antisubmarine warfare forces have ample assured opportunity to train and perfect their trade against exactly those targets-the modern, silent, conventional submarine.
"The U.S. Military Is in Bad Shape"
(See J. Byron, p. 31, July 2004 Proceedings)
Colonel Mark F. Cancian, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Retired)-Captain Byron raises some valid points about the political debates over military readiness, but he goes too far in saying, "the war in Iraq is wrecking the Army and Marine Corps." Emotions run high over this controversial conflict, and views about stress on the force have become reflections of opinions about the war itself. To get a clearer view, we need to step back and look at the data.
By historical standards, our forces are experiencing light combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. In World War II, the United States lost 300 killed every day for 3 ½ years. In Vietnam, during the peak year of 1968, we lost 30 killed per day. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we are losing about two service members per day. Every loss is some family's tragedy and we mourn all their losses, but this should not bring a superpower to its knees.
The all-volunteer force is not starting to crumble. Recruiting and retention for all active and reserve components are holding up, though with great effort. In part this is attributable to the large (30%) increase in pay and benefits over the last few years. Desertions, though highly publicized, are actually down and run about one-tenth the Vietnam rate.
We are not strategically naked because of commitments in the Middle East. The Army, the most committed service, has 14 brigades in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom out of 34 active and 38 reserve. In other words, 80% of the Army's combat power is available for other missions. The Marine Corps has 8 of 24 active and 9 reserve infantry battalions committed, about 25% of its ground combat power.
It is not clear what "breaking our social contract" with the reserves means. If reserves do not exist to fight the nation's wars, then what are they for? If they exist only for short, victorious, politically popular wars, then we need to fundamentally rethink our force structure. Since 11 September 2001, about half the Army's reservists have been mobilized at one time or another. (Far more of the Marine Corps reservists have been called, but one hears few complaints from them.) Half the Army's reservists have never been called. How can the force be under unendurable stress when half has never been used?
Certainly, there is no cause for complacency. Our forces are under much greater stress than in peacetime. Recruiting, retention, and discipline all need to be watched closely. So far, however, our forces have borne up magnificently in the best tradition of their forebears.
"Where Are the Weapons of Mass Destruction?"
(See R. Riggs, p. 106, March 2004; P. Malone, p. 10, April 2004; F. Possen, p. 22, R. Mclley, p. 22, J. McClaran, p. 24, May 2004; W. Thielharl, p. 20, June 2004; T. Piel, pp. 20-22, August 2004 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Stuhlreyer, U.S. Coast Guard-Leutnant Piel both grossly underestimates and fundamentally misunderstands our political culture of openness, debate, and self-examination. The political traditions and experience that led Germany to the disaster of the Third Reich and those who have led the United States to where we are in our war against terrorism and radical Islamists could hardly be more dissimilar.
This war, like all those before it, is difficult, costly, and not without mistakes, but comparing our nation's political rhetoric, policy, and leaders to Hitlerian Germany is preposterous and insulting. Perhaps if the 3,000 dead on 11 September were in Berlin and Frankfurt, Leutnant Piel would see things differently.
I suggest his criticisms of the United States are based more in frustration at Europe's remarkable weakness relative to its size and wealth than from anything the United States has done or not done. The United States does not want to lose these old friends, but views such as Leutnant Piel's make it clear we are overdue in reassessing our relationship with Europe and with Cold War-era institutions such as NATO and the United Nations. I hope we can form new friendships based on our remaining common interests and reform those institutions for the challenges of the 21st century.