Maximize Maritime Partnerships
By By Vice Admiral Robert J. Papp Jr., Lieutenant Fred Bertsch, and Commander Bill Csisar, U.S. Coast Guard; and Joe DiRenzo III
The 2007 Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, signed and released by the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, mandates the employment of maritime forces as "a unifying force for
building a better tomorrow," in particular to "build confidence and trust among nations through collective security efforts that focus on common threats and mutual interests in an open, multi-polar world." This will involve unprecedented cooperation and joint activity, both nationally and internationally.
As the global economy continues to mature, international partnerships are critical for everyone's prosperity and security, especially in the maritime domain. New and expanding challenges such as shipping, energy development, resource extraction, and the opening of new shipping lanes add to the demand on maritime forces.
The threats associated with these changes will increase the potential risk in the maritime environment and must be addressed in one of three methods: make no additional effort and accept the increased risk; mitigate the risk through resource growth; or, in the absence of service-specific growth, mitigate the risk through developing and promoting maritime partnerships at all levels of government, including internationally and with industries that enhance the effectiveness of actions from all stakeholders.
Partnering Up
Collaborations are nothing new for our maritime forces. The U.S. Coast Guard was built through partnerships of multiple organizations, as is well known. Because of this history of merging agencies, today the Coast Guard has several missions and roles. Partnerships were again prominent when the organization was one of the original 22 that were transitioned into the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to provide "a single, integrated agency focused on protecting the American people and their homeland" (Department of Homeland Security, www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/).
The Coast Guard plays a critical role in maritime defense partnerships, serving under the Department of the Navy upon declaration of war, or when the President directs. Combined U.S. maritime forces have played an integral part in major wars and conflicts around the world, ranging from convoy escorts during World Wars I and II to current tasks such as maritime security operations in the Persian Gulf. These partnerships routinely combine the abilities of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.
Joint Maritime Effectiveness
Although the 2007 strategy is only a year and a half old, implementation has benefited from other recent joint efforts. Operation Iraqi Freedom continues to involve the partnership of maritime forces; Coast Guard patrol boats and Navy patrol craft work together to provide security for Iraqi interests in the Persian Gulf.
Joint service members conduct training for Iraqi sailors to aid in the eventual transition of responsibility for security operations. These combined training and support efforts are not new. Navy and Coast Guard forces routinely participate in military exercises and training with multiple nations around the globe to build host nations' maritime capabilities and promote collaborations.
As part of a 2008 naval squadron deployment, the USCGC Dallas (WHEC-716) conducted the first maritime law-enforcement operations of their kind with Cape Verde. Then, along with the USS McFaul (DDG-74), the Dallas delivered humanitarian relief supplies to the Republic of Georgia in August 2008.
Partnerships are manifested in ways other than combined squadrons of ships. Collocation of the maritime services' intelligence capabilities at the National Maritime Intelligence Center promotes unity of effort for collection, analysis, and dissemination of information. Coast Guard port security units deploy with Navy personnel to provide security and training in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. A partnership between the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command and the Coast Guard's Deployable Operations Group is under development to promote joint efforts in training, research and development, and operations. Coast Guard specialized law-enforcement detachments (LEDETs) have long been used on Navy vessels to carry out counter-drug efforts in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
This joint capability is even more critical given the emerging threat of self-propelled, semi-submersible vessels. Recently, LEDET 404 and the USS McInerney (FFG-8) interdicted a semi-submersible carrying seven metric tons of cocaine. The pairing of LEDETs with Navy vessels has also effectively bolstered anti-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa, with two separate seizures by LEDET 405 in August 2008. These examples demonstrate synergy between U.S. maritime services.
Moving Beyond Maritime Agencies-And Borders
Other emerging partnerships are critical to achieving the overall goals of the new maritime strategy, which clearly articulates that forging and fostering partnerships with special operations forces, other interagency partners, international partners, and other U.S. services and government departments will be vital.
To fulfill the roles of Homeland Security and Homeland Defense, collaboration inside and beyond the Department of Homeland Security must be established. Consistent with the National Strategy for Maritime Security, to establish a layered defense, the Coast Guard and Navy must be able to combat threats as far from shore as possible.
Inspections of port facilities, vessels, and cargo in foreign ports through programs such as the Coast Guard's International Port Security Program or Customs and Border Protection's Container Security Initiative and National Targeting Center provide advanced information and analysis. This increases the likelihood of identifying and mitigating a threat without hindering the flow of commerce.
Extending the outer layer of security also requires increased interaction and coordination with international partners. Commands such as Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) South facilitate international, interdepartmental, and interagency coordination to counter smuggling efforts in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Continued joint efforts of U.S., Bahamian, and Turks and Caicos agencies counter illegal human and drug smuggling in the Straits of Florida, while cooperation between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and U.S. agencies do the same along our northern border.
The North Atlantic and Pacific Coast Guard Forums promote international maritime partnerships and facilitate combined efforts dealing with the global transportation system. Working with individual countries and the International Maritime Organization, the Coast Guard develops vessel safety and security standards. These collaborations also promote technological improvements such as requirements for the Automatic Identification System.
Multi-Tiered Defense Systems
These types of partnerships constitute outer layers of defense. But with more than 95,000 miles of shoreline to secure, we must also work jointly with state and local governments and industry to provide an inner-core layer. As the first of its kind, the Puget Sound Joint Harbor Operations Center, Seattle, serves as a central fusion point for Coast Guard, Navy, Customs and Border Protection, Washington State Patrol, and local police and emergency service providers to monitor and coordinate maritime activity in Puget Sound.
Given the sheer scope of facilities and operations throughout the maritime transportation system, providing continuous individual security and surveillance is beyond the capabilities of the maritime forces alone. Collaborations with local agencies and industry are necessary. Initiatives like the Coast Guard-led Area Maritime Security Committees promote unity of effort at the port level to efficiently establish the local layer of defense.
Our challenges are complex, immense, and continually changing. Individually, no service can meet today's ever-expanding demands. Without partnerships, unconnected efforts create an ineffective security system that does not meet our national-security goals. The strong history of accomplishment of these maritime partnerships provides the framework to develop an improved force multiplier. Only through cooperation and unified efforts will the maritime services be able to accomplish the goals of the National Strategy for Maritime Security and Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.
Modernize USCG Leadership Development
By Lieutenant Commander James Zawrotny, U.S. Coast Guard
In 2008, Leadership Excellence magazine ranked the Coast Guard last among the military services in developing leaders. The service's program for officers lags behind the others in availability, curriculum, and executive focus. Its Leadership Development Program identifies 28 competencies that officers must have, yet does not include a formal training component. This is partly because of sparse resources, but even so, the current model is inadequate to meet the training needs of an operationally diverse service.
We need a system that uses a layered, progressive approach of four leadership models built on the 28 competencies divided into four groups: Leading Self, Leading Others, Leading Performance and Change, and Leading the Coast Guard. These are the guiding principles for the service's officer leadership development curriculum.
The Leadership Development Center now offers nine courses to all officers, but none of them is available enough. Of the 6,000-plus officers in the Coast Guard, from ensign to captain, less than 5 percent now receive any training from the Leadership Development Center. According to the Coast Guard Training Quota Management Center, completion has fallen from 4.75 percent in 2006 to 2.92 percent in 2008.
How Other Services Train
The Army recognized its deficiency after a 2002 study concluded that the system was inadequate for training in all kinds of operations. Adopting a three-phased Officer Leadership Course, the Army now teaches the basics followed by instruction specific to various specialties. Soldiers are sent to complete the final phase at their commander's discretion, after observation of their development in the field. They return to the field equipped to face the leadership challenges of modern, asymmetric warfare.
The Air Force, ranked highest in leadership training among the military services, has a formal instruction system for all officers at the Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base. This is the primary training command for development of officers, tracking their progression as they rise through the ranks. This structured training equips officers with the skills to lead squadrons.
In the Coast Guard, the current program suggests that good leadership training can only be acquired through experience. But formal study and experiential learning must be complementary, not mutually exclusive. We must determine what type of study will allow officers to learn critical lessons from their experience. Training less than 5 percent of the officer corps is not an adequate tactic to meet that goal.
Flaws in Proposed Improvements
The Coast Guard's Mid-Grade Officer Leadership Gap Analysis (MOLGA) study recommends improvements through the creation of a basic course targeted for junior officers, followed by the opportunity to attend a higher-level course. But the proposed solution is based on three points of faulty reasoning: accountability, operational pace, and wishful thinking.
The MOLGA report identifies a lack of accountability for use of the leadership development plan-and that means it cannot be monitored or measured. The high pace of operations and need to train more officers each year is not addressed in the report, as any realistic solution to the Coast Guard's issues must do through the Leadership Development Center.
Finally, the MOLGA report relies on the unit and the individual to supplement the lack of formal training. This means using informal mentors, on-the-job training, and the unit leadership development program, hoping that a groundswell of enthusiasm will permeate through the organization. The operational pace and service tradition both help to proliferate the myth that on-the-job training is an adequate platform for developing leaders.
How to Do It Right
Proper development of leaders in a succession-based organization like the military is based on formal as well as experiential learning. There must be a strong executive commitment to leadership development, or the priority for it at the unit level will slip. The relentless pace of operations, administrative processes, and mandated general training all trump "softer" pursuits such as leadership development.
Reliance on the unit decentralizes the mechanics for leadership training, diluting acceptance of the program. Without an effective accountability instrument, the unit-level program will continue to be little used, and leadership development will still lag, left to the initiative of individuals.
Instead, we need to implement the four-tiered leadership process described earlier. This will indoctrinate the Fleet with the 28 required competencies, train the officer corps how to use them, refine their use, and develop transformational leaders. The competencies provide ample academic material with which to design leadership education modules. At the same time, officers must be given relevant, real-life situations to which they can apply their education.
Specifics of the New Process
The process approach to leadership development takes on-the-job training to a formal, structured level. It starts simple, increasing in complexity as the officer's career progresses. Four tiers are designed to allow the officer to apply learning and become equipped to handle future leadership challenges. In this carefully planned environment, each tier is tied to experience and the skills required for specific ranks.
The first tier can use courses currently offered during Coast Guard accession programs, focusing on indoctrinating officers with the competencies, emphasizing Leading Self. Next comes Leading Others, a basic officer leadership course that examines in detail the needed competencies, using situational exercises. This second-tier course should be offered to residents at the Leadership Development Center, and to non-residents as "road shows" to maximize participation.
The third tier, for mid-grade officers, inexpensively and effectively fills the gap that the MOLGA report identifies in the leadership continuum. The creation of a mid-grade officer course will reinforce the competencies and bridge the transition from trainee to practical leader. Because of the Coast Guard's resource limitations and high operational pace, this course should be offered through distance learning with a fixed timeline for completion.
Officers will have to complete assigned reading, participate with cohorts in online discussions, and choose a leadership challenge that they are facing in their real lives. They must then research the issue and make a recommendation through a written assignment. The Leadership Development Center will review all cohorts' papers and publish the best.
The final tier, also provided online, addresses the last group of competencies needed for Leading the Coast Guard. Here officers receive training that focuses on transformational leadership, as they are introduced to tools that broaden their strategic-thinking horizons. In a group assignment, analyzing and solving a real Coast Guard problem is the capstone project. The success of these initiatives will create buy-in to change, and this will permeate the officer ranks as the corps sees its personal stamp on the modernization of the service.
Surmount the Obstacles
The limitations to implementing these new processes are daunting. But accredited online universities have demonstrated that quality training and education can be delivered through innovative media. The Coast Guard can take advantage of the Internet classroom in the final two tiers of its leadership-development program to drive the process. Using the distance-learning option solves the low student throughput and operational tempo problems.
The U.S. Coast Guard's Leadership Development Program needs to work for an asymmetric and operationally diverse service. Modifying our leadership development so that it becomes an ongoing process is an inexpensive and realistic solution. We need to overhaul the program, moving from dependence on the skills approach to a progressive, four-tiered process. This will create a continuum in leadership development and establish a viable program for future generations.
Integrate Providers for Best Logistics Support
By Rear Admiral Donald R. Eaton, U.S. Navy (Retired); and Kenneth Doerr
According to the life-cycle support strategy known as performance-based logistics (PBL), warfighters should specify measurable outcomes such as improved reliability and leave to vendors the methods to achieve them. In this way, PBL represents a shift from managing supplies to managing the suppliers. It is a move from managing maintenance to maintenance vendors, from the support process to performance outcomes. Successful PBL accomplishes improved readiness, increased agility, and reduced cost. Its key characteristics are assured funding, focus, and control of priorities and resources. But PBL logistics has its limits.
Complex Jobs, Complicated Finances
In organic legacy support, a logistics manager for a given program has to deal with a range of issues that subvert focus. Often the manager becomes engulfed in a reactive mode, from one crisis to the next. The problem is exacerbated by aging systems. But under a PBL contract, a vendor assumes control of process priorities and is free, within contractual bounds, to direct efforts.
For example, if future funding for an engineering change had been in the queue along with other proposals and priorities, a PBL contract would allow a vendor to invest in this without worrying about financial issues or entering another priority competition. On the other hand, DOD internal logistic funds are one-year money, discretionary, and not tied to any system. The claimant in internal systems apportions logistics funds, which are subject to reprogramming decisions that would reallocate these funds based on changing priorities. Once a PBL contract is in place, the money is protected.
So even though the goals of PBL are the same as those of legacy organic logistics, the control mechanisms are different. Funding and other resources are dedicated contractually, and the vendor has the autonomy to manage the process efficiently, without conflicting priorities.
The Limitations of PBL Support
A wide variety of PBL approaches can be found, from a complete platform (DDG-51) to component-level stock support such as the close-in-weapon system on Aegis. Likewise, though "Performance Based Service Agreements [like PBL] can also be applied to business relationships between program managers and internal DOD PBL providers," there is a widespread belief that PBL is an outsourcing program.1 And indeed, while PBL agreements have been signed with internal providers, the majority are outsourcing contracts.
A critical factor in determining the appropriate degree of privatization in a PBL contract is the amount of performance risk that a contractor can assume. If we say a contractor will absorb performance risk, this means the contractor should be responsible for ensuring that the mission can succeed with the logistics elements that they supervise. Many private-sector contractors would have difficulty assuming this sort of performance risk for deployed weapon systems because it would be unlikely that they could control operational-level maintenance on a deployed weapon system.
We must separate performance risk from financial risk. Under PBL, a vendor assumes the performance risk of delivering requirements, whatever their cost, subject to financial penalties. These penalties should provide some degree of remedy should the contractor fail to perform. However, no financial penalty could be designed to sufficiently compensate the DOD and its families for mission failure or combat casualties.
DOD Management Can Be Irreplaceable
PBL requires a sophisticated approach to contracting. In some cases it has been found to entail "too many metrics."
Such a situation can arise because the DOD is unsure of the metrics for key performance requirements. The DOD may be using too many because it is unwilling to give up control and continues to measure all the intermediate steps, including part-delivery times and work schedules.
Performance management is against the instincts of some budget accountants. Hence they may mandate some DOD measures of how the logistics are accomplished-for example, particular spare-parts inventory rather than performance against contracted turnaround time.3 If source-selection analysis determines that the vendor cannot assume performance risk, then it makes more sense for the DOD to continue managing the process. After all, the DOD ultimately remains responsible for preventing process problems and fixing them when they occur.
In small-scope applications such as depot-level inventory for a single spare part, the connection may be tenuous between process performance and warfighting outcomes. Process management (fill rate, for example) is necessary because that is all that can be monitored. This does not mean a PBL approach should be abandoned. Although logistic performance on single spare parts like radar or auxiliary power units may be difficult to tie to outcomes, components that are known "readiness degraders" are good candidates for PBL-the five or ten aspects most likely to make an airplane not mission-capable or cause a ship to have a casualty report.
There are many examples of successful PBL contracts on such components. The system works in these cases because of focus and control of priorities and resources. In other words, PBL should work well in many small-scope applications, but it may be less applicable to system-level logistics such as those involved for a whole aircraft, because the vendor does not have total control of all system-performance factors in a mission.
It must be admitted that many private-sector contracts written under the PBL initiative are actually outsourcing processes-not performance. In some cases, the vendor has even subcontracted the actual hands-on manufacturing and assembly of components back to the DOD! Clearly, that amounts to outsourcing management control, not logistics at all.
Learn from PBL Successes
The DOD needs to excel in more than individual logistics-process capabilities. We also need to build and maintain core competencies in the integrated management of these processes across the weapon-system lifecycle, and we should not rely on vendors for this integration.
Internal logistic support is executed under Operations and Maintenance accounts, which are single-year funds not dedicated to any specific program. PBL contracts can be dedicated multi-year contracts. But major budgetary and organizational hurdles must be overcome to provide multi-year, fenced (protected), cross-boundary funding and resources to an internal provider-which, theoretically, could also accomplish PBL's focus and control of priorities and resources, aside from historical and practical obstacles such as reprogramming.
An effective PBL support range assigns a large role for the private sector in small-scope programs and a greater role for organic support in large-scope programs. Process management continues to be necessary for weapon systems. Support roles involving a large degree of performance risk are also better managed by internal resources.
Use Both Systems to Improve Both
Partnerships between government and industry would free the sustaining of logistics from program-priority conflicts and internecine financial competition. Under PBL, we reward contractors for improved reliability, reduced footprint, reduced cost, and mitigating obsolescence. What we need to do is give organic support integrators the same autonomy and incentives-along with protected budgets so they can compete with private-sector vendors.
The DOD logistics system is stressed by reduced resources and increasing global commitments. We exacerbate the pressure on support as we prosecute our national security strategies with systems and equipment that are aging, while a sufficient replenishment rate to counter that aging is extremely expensive. To counter this situation, any change in DOD logistics that can produce greater utility at lower cost should be pursued.
To bring about the necessary improvements, we must mitigate cultural impediments and align rewards with good logistics performance across the weapon-system lifecycle. Finally, we must fully fund logistics requirements, safeguard the funding, and promote long-term agreements with both organic and private-sector logistics providers.
1. Performance Based Logistics Candidate Analysis Guidebook, Naval Air Systems Command, undated.
2. "PBL Purchasing Using Performance Based Criteria," Office of the Secretary of Defense, Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics [OSD-ATL], 2004. Proceedings of the 2004 DOD Procurement Conference, Orlando, Florida.
3. "DoD's Extensive Use of Logistics Support Contracts Requires Strengthened Oversight," Report GAO-04-854 to the House Committee on Government Reform, 2004.