Then-Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Mike Mullen introduced the notion of what is known today as the Global Maritime Partnership at the 2005 International Seapower Symposium in Newport, Rhode Island, as the 1,000-Ship Navy. Later enshrined in the new U.S. maritime strategy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st-Century Seapower, the partnership is rapidly gaining worldwide currency, as like-minded nations and navies seek to work together in the maritime environment to combat global terrorism and resolve a host of other issues.
One of the biggest obstacles to realizing an effective partnership is technical. How do navies of various nations, aiming to operate together at sea, secure compatible command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems that will facilitate a true network and make the partnership a reality? Unless or until the U.S. Navy and likely coalition navies address these challenges, such a partnership will never be achieved.
In introducing his original concept—a global navy composed of 1,000 or more ships from various nations working cooperatively—Admiral Mullen stated:
As we combine our advantages, I envision a 1,000-ship navy—a fleet-in-being, if you will—made up of the best capabilities of all freedom-loving navies of the world. . . . This thousand-ship navy would integrate the capabilities of the maritime services to create a fully interoperable force, an international city at sea.1
What's in a Name?
Subsequent to this, U.S. Navy representatives, including the CNO himself, extolled the virtues of such a maritime partnership at national and international security conferences, and articles about it began to appear in national and international professional journals.2 Concurrently, like-minded nations and navies embraced this concept along with the general recognition that globalization required a concerted team effort to police the maritime commons and that no nation could do it alone.
The U.S. Navy's new maritime strategy, unveiled in 2007, notes that "No one nation has the resources required to provide safety and security throughout the entire maritime domain."3 These words aptly summarize the intent of this new strategy—to encourage and sustain a maritime partnership of the world's navies to maintain the freedom and security of the seas. The strategy's unveiling in front of an audience of more than 100 representatives of international navies and coast guards emphasized the theme of international cooperation on the high seas.4
Officials were quick to point out that the U.S. Navy does not intend to lead this partnership but will be a willing partner with other nations and navies—especially regional navies—operating on the global commons to defeat international terrorism.5 As the current CNO, Admiral Gary Roughead, noted at the 2007 Newport symposium, "The key to all of this is trust. We believe that trust is something that cannot be surged. Trust is something that must be built over time."6
With the international groundswell the United States created in promoting the value of such a partnership, expectations are high that the U.S. Navy will be an important contributor to this effort, and its ships will be able to operate effectively with likely coalition partner navies. This expectation has also created the assumption that the U.S. Navy will be able to network effectively with navies that have disparate—often widely disparate—C4ISR capabilities.
The technical challenges posed to networking navies at sea are not trivial, and unless all navies involved perform the significant technical work required to fashion compatible C4ISR systems—with the U.S. Navy a major contributing partner—the dream of such a global partnership will never be achieved.
Networking and international maritime partnerships are not new concepts. Understanding some of the history—and challenges—navies have confronted in the past can help chart a course for a truly networked partnership.
Coalitions, Networking, and Technology
Some believe that networking—especially at sea—was a new concept introduced by the late Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski and John Gartska in the Naval Institute's January 1998 Proceedings.7 Some also believe the concept of the Global Maritime Partnership was unknown until Admiral Mullen unveiled it and Vice Admiral John Morgan and Rear Admiral Charles Martoglio elaborated on it in the November 2005 Proceedings.8 Nothing could be further from the truth.
Maritime coalitions have existed for two-and-a-half millennia, and navies have communicated at sea for at least that long. As far back as the Greco-Persian Wars (over the period 499—431 B.C.), naval coalitions have come together—often on a short-notice, ad hoc basis—in much the same way the U.S. Navy envisions the Global Maritime Partnership today.9
These coalitions have changed over time, and technology has often aided navies seeking to operate together. For example, the invention of the telescope and binoculars in the early 1600s facilitated the ability of ships to communicate with each other at great distances.10 But by the end of the 19th century, with ships becoming so technologically complex that entire armadas could literally circle the globe, the need to communicate at sea—something navies working together could do somewhat effectively—morphed into the need to network at sea.
Networking at sea—the ability of naval commanders to have a cooperatively created tactical picture—had long been the dream of naval commanders who wanted to be able to see over the horizon.11 At the dawn of the 20th century, evolving technologies laid the foundation of networking at sea.
Fisher's View
In 1904, Britain's First Sea Lord, Admiral John Fisher, took advantage of the new technology and developed what Dr. Norman Friedman dubbed "picture-based" warfare.12 Admiral Fisher used the information gleaned from shipping and fleet reports to build a tactical picture of where pirates were attacking British merchant ships. Information from these sources then was fed into two different war rooms—the first tracked ship movements around the world while the second tracked ship movements in the North Sea. Armed with this "picture-based" view of the world, Admiral Fisher was able to direct warships to the spots where British ships were being attacked.
As technology evolved, so did the ability of navies to use this new concept of networking to achieve decisive results. For the U.S. Navy, this ultimately evolved in the 1990s to the Copernicus C4I initiative primarily designed to create a common tactical picture.13
When nations, and especially navies, adopt new technologies to enhance their networking capabilities, they often find some unintended consequences mixed with the technological promises of the new system. For the Royal Navy, the telegraph proved to be an important tool in communicating with its global fleet, but that ease and speed of communications came with a price. In times of tension, fleet commanders were often on their command ships, docked at port to have access to telegraph messages, rather than out at sea with their ships.14
The advent of wireless technology promised better and faster communications between commands and fleets at sea. Navies could reach out into the vast expanse of the sea, allowing for central command to better track their forces. But this also made it harder for fleet commanders to manage their ships. University of Exeter Professor N. A. M. Rodger tells of an incident in 1942 when the commander of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet, Admiral John Tovey, asked the Admiralty to take command of his ships because he had lost track of them while at sea.15
Naval forces today, particularly the U.S. Navy, have embraced current communication technologies like the Internet and satellite communications to maintain situational awareness and track its global fleet. The challenge now is how the Navy—which is committed to effectively networking at sea through FORCENet—can ensure that this multi-billion dollar initiative enhances U.S. Navy participation in the Global Maritime Partnership rather than impedes it.
How Hard Is Naval Coalition Networking?
The U.S. Navy has a strong desire to network effectively at sea. Writing in the capstone publication of the Office of Force Transformation within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Vice Admiral Cebrowski noted: "The United States wants its partners to be as interoperable as possible. Not being interoperable means you are not on the net, so you are not in a position to derive power from the information age."16
Unfortunately, that want is not being realized today. Each year, the U.S. Navy's five numbered fleet commanders submit their "top ten C4ISR requirements." Today, they are universal in identifying one issue as their top priority—coalition communications.17
The imperative to provide the Navy's operational commanders with better tools for coalition communications has percolated to the highest levels of the Department of the Navy. Deputy CNO for Communications Networks Vice Admiral Mark Edwards has stressed the crucial importance of networking coalition partners, directing his staff to:
Lead an effort to articulate the strategy to network the 1,000-ship navy . . . identify the funding, personnel, organization, and processes for ensuring interoperability with coalition navies at the sensitive but unclassified level where possible . . . ensure coalition interoperability is considered at the earliest stages of capability development.18
The challenges for the U.S. Navy as it attempts to network with coalition partners is gaining increased worldwide recognition. Writing in The Naval War College Review, Professor Paul Mitchell, Director of Academics at the Canadian Forces College, asked the key questions:
Is there a place for small navies in network-centric warfare? Will they be able to make any sort of contribution in multinational naval operations of the future? Or will they be relegated to the sidelines, undertaking the most menial of tasks, encouraged to stay out of the way—or stay at home? . . . The 'need for speed' in network-centric operations places the whole notion of multinational operations at risk.19
Efforts are currently under way at the technical grassroots level to provide solutions to networking between partner navies. One example is the development of the Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System (CENTRIXS)—a global information-sharing network established in 2002.20 This system has helped solve current networking issues. But a need remains for more permanent, long-term efforts to deal with issues like building a network that can sustain the massive data rates required to truly network in the future.21
A Way Forward?
Two main challenges face the U.S. Navy to effectively network with likely coalition partners: quantifying the operational effectiveness of a coalition force networked by FORCENet against one that is not; and finding a way for likely coalition partners to put maritime networking systems in place that allow for maximum networking among partner ships and other platforms.22
The issue of co-evolution is an important one, because for a U.S. Navy determined to be a global maritime partner, and not just a naval power that dominates partners with U.S.-centric solutions, a cooperative technological arrangement is crucial.23 This implies early and frequent cooperation and collaboration at the grass-roots level—scientists and engineers working in partnership to solve challenging networking problems.
Bringing these experts together, from different international technical communities, may seem at least as challenging as pulling together a coalition of naval ships and aircraft. But it has been done under the auspices of The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP).
TTCP is a forum for defense science and technology collaboration between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and it is probably the largest such collaboration in the world, a formal framework for scientific and technological information-sharing among all the countries involved.24
In this forum, the Maritime Systems Group has been working on the issues of "Networking Maritime Coalitions," and "FORCENet and Coalition Implications." Its analytical, modeling, and simulation data demonstrate that, if the U.S. Navy's FORCENet includes likely coalition partners who will make themselves FORCENet-compatible, all naval forces involved will realize a quantum increase in capability.
The group's efforts are now evolving to a third, and perhaps most important, stage—informing national naval C4ISR acquisition programs so that the five participating nations can co-evolve their systems in a way that will allow them to network seamlessly at sea. This includes identifying "technology on-ramps" within the acquisition commands of each nation. This will ensure that the right systems can be procured and subsequently installed on each nation's ships at the right time to grow compatible C4ISR systems in concert.
But TTCP represents only five nations. And as good as the group's work might be, the circle of influence of their products is limited to just those five. For the envisioned partnership to succeed, a variety of navies must be capable of operating together on short notice and across a wide span of missions. And similar analytical work will need to be undertaken, and soon, in other venues. NATO offers one potential forum, as does the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the nations in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility.
Challenge and Opportunity
The groundswell of enthusiasm among peace-loving nations to forge an effective maritime partnership is palpable. But the hard technical work—at the laboratory level—needs to begin now. Without the rigorous analytical underpinning that conclusively demonstrates the enhanced operational effectiveness one navy gains by networking with its coalition partners, naval leaders will not be convinced to provide the resources necessary for this networking at sea. And if the technology is not infused within all of these navies, the dream of a partnership will never be realized.
1. "A Global Network of Nations for a Free and Secure Maritime Commons," Report of the Proceedings of the 17th International Seapower Symposium, 19-23 September 2005, .
2. See remarks by U.S. Chief of Naval Operations ADM Mike Mullen at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies Future Maritime Warfare Conference, London, United Kingdom, 13 December 2005, accessed at: www.rusi.org; George Galdorisi and Darren Sutton, "Achieving the Global Maritime Partnership: Operational Needs and Tactical Realities," RUSI Defence Systems, 15 June 2007; VADM John Morgan, USN, "A Navy of Navies," RUSI Defence Systems, summer 2006, pp. 66-68; and VADM J. Morgan and RADM C. Martoglio, "The 1,000-Ship Navy: Global Maritime Network," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, November 2005, pp. 14-17.
3. See ADM Thad Allen, GEN James Conway, and ADM Gary Roughead, "A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, November 2007, pp. 14-20; John Lehman, "A Bravura Performance," in the same issue, pp. 22-24; and Norman Friedman, "The Real Purpose of Strategy," Proceedings, December 2007, pp. 90-91
4. Jennifer Grogan, "Seapower Symposium Focuses on Post-Cold War Challenges," New London Day, 18 October 2007.
5. Ronald E. Ratcliff, "Building Partners' Capacity: The Thousand-Ship Navy," Naval War College Review, Autumn 2007, pp. 46-49. See also Geoffrey Till, "New Directions in Maritime Strategy? Implications for the U.S. Navy," Naval War College Review, Autumn 2007, p. 36.
6. Jim Garamone, "Sea Services Unveil New Maritime Strategy," American Forces Press Service, 17 October 2007. See also, Jennifer Grogan, "Seapower Symposium Focuses on Post-Cold War Challenges," New London Day, 18 October 2007.
7. VADM Arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Garstka, "Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future," Proceedings, January 1998, pp. 28-35.
8. Vice Admiral Morgan and Rear Admiral Martoglio, "The 1,000-Ship Navy," pp. 14-17.
9. G. P. Gilbert and Lieutenant A. Argirides, "C3I in the Persian and Greek Fleets — 499 to 431 BCE: When the King of Kings and the Nauarchos Ruled the Waves," paper presented at the 2007 Royal Australian Navy King Hall Naval History Conference, Sydney/Canberra, Australia, 26-27 July 2007.
10. Linwood S. Howeth, History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Ships and Office of Naval History, 1963), p. 4.
11. For example, Admiral Nelson established a rudimentary network of ships to keep an eye on the French/Spanish fleet in Cadiz in the lead-up to the Battle of Trafalgar as his ships remained out of sight from the enemy.
12. Norman Friedman, "Netting and Navies: Achieving a Balance," paper presented at the Royal Australian Navy Sea Power Conference, Sydney, Australia, February 2006, p. 6.
13. Loren Thompson, Networking the Navy: A Model for Modern Warfare (Arlington, VA: Lexington Institute, 2003).
14. N. A. M. Rodger, presentation at the Royal Australian Navy King-Hall Naval History Conference, Sydney /Canberra, Australia, 26-27 July 2007, p. 6.
15. Ibid., p. 10.
16. Military Transformation: A Strategic Approach (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 2003), pp. 1-36, accessed at: http://www.oft.osd.mil.
17. Galdorisi and Sutton, "Achieving the Global Maritime Partnership," p. 69.
18. Deputy CNO (Communication Networks), "FORCEnet for the 1,000-Ship Navy," Memorandum for Director, Warfare Integration Division [N6F] (Washington D.C.: Department of the Navy, Office of the Chief of the Naval Operations, 24 July 2006).
19. Paul Mitchell, "Small Navies and Network-Centric Warfare: Is There a Role?" Naval War College Review, spring 2003, pp. 83-99. See also Gordon Adams et al., Bridging the Gap: European C4ISR Capabilities and Transatlantic Interoperability (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 2004); and Rob de'Wijk, "European Military Reform for a Global Partnership," The Washington Quarterly, 27: 1, 2003, pp. 197-210.
20. Brad Carter and Deb Harlor, "Combined Operations Wide Area Network (COWAN)/ Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System (CENTRIXS)," Biennial Review (San Diego, CA: Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego, 2003), p. 87.
21. Gordan Van Hook, "How to Kill a Good Idea," Proceedings, October 2007, p. 34.
22. For more on FORCENet see: FORCENet: A Functional Concept for Command and Control in the 21st Century (Norfolk, VA: Naval Network Warfare Command, 2006); available at http://www.enterprise.spawar.navy.mil/getfile.cfm?contentId=816&type=R; FORCENet: A Functional Concept for Command and Control in the 21st Century: Annex Version 20 June 2006 (Norfolk, VA: Naval Network Warfare Command, 2006).
23. Van Hook, "How to Kill a Good Idea," p. 33.
24. See The Technical Cooperation Program: TTCP document DOC-SEC-3-2005, A Beginner's Guide to the Technical Cooperation Program, 1 September 2005, accessed at: http://www.dtic.mil/ttcp/.