Professional Notes

Encrypt Naval Communications with Merchant Ships

idance, recommended routing, and threat assessments when they send an initial report to the UK Maritime Trade Operations office in Dubai.

However, wireless systems to communicate such unclassified sensitive information to merchant ships do not always provide protection against unauthorized disclosure. Naval authorities should be aware of this risk: Information that reaches pirates and terrorists may lead to attacks on merchant ships. Therefore, communication methods between naval authorities and merchant ships must be improved to enhance—not further endanger—merchant-vessel safety.

Inmarsat C Is Not Secure

Several Internet sites offer decoding software for the digital satellite communication system Inmarsat C, with the ability to fully reconstruct all Inmarsat C messages sent to ships by a land earth station (LES). This is disturbing, as Inmarsat C, launched in 1991 to provide low-cost data communication and Global Maritime Distress and Safety System services, comprises an estimated 125,000 maritime terminals.

To examine the seriousness of this threat, I purchased the most promising Inmarsat C decoding software and tested it on an ordinary personal computer that was connected to L-Band radio receiving equipment. Tuning in on LES Burum, the test showed that the decoder met its specifications. The software flawlessly decoded the Inmarsat C frames, assembled the messages, and logged them. This effectively means that maritime criminals with no more than a basic knowledge of radio technology and computers can read all Inmarsat C messages sent from an LES after an investment of $3,400 on equipment and software.

So the threat is real. But how, then, to communicate unclassified sensitive information to a merchant ship when Inmarsat C and medium/high frequency radio are the only communication systems available to reach the ship at great distances? The answer to this question is, obviously, to use encryption on Inmarsat C. However, that is only possible when the merchant ship is able to decrypt the information sent. This is a challenge that needs consideration—not only to eliminate the threat on Inmarsat C, but also to find a structural solution for the protection of unclassified sensitive information sent to commercial vessels.

Protecting Unclassified Sensitive Information

The solution provided by the Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping (NCAGS) manual, ATP-2(B) vol. 1, is to distribute military cryptographic material to merchant ships and embark NCAGS liaison officers on the ships as needed. This allows for secure communication, but it is expensive—and overkill. Unclassified sensitive information can be protected with unclassified cryptographic products. Moreover, it is doubtful whether the logistic requirements involved can be met in naval operations situated in large areas with relatively high merchant-shipping density, like the Gulf of Aden. Hence, another solution must be sought. To reduce the needs of logistics, an unclassified cryptographic product can be distributed without military-security restrictions.

Although several products qualify, preference should be given to those using the cryptographic algorithms recommended by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology for non-military governmental use. Those algorithms have been tested thoroughly and hardly limit the options available, as they have been implemented in most cryptographic products. It is also important to distinguish between commercial and free products. The free ones, delivered under the GNU General Public License (as published by the Free Software Foundation), have the advantage that they can be distributed without license costs. However, they give no guarantees that the cryptographic algorithms recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology are correctly implemented, as do some commercial products.

Another factor to be considered in the selection process is the communication and computer systems on board merchant ships. These may be rather rudimentary by modern standards: encrypted naval communications received on an Inmarsat C terminal may have to be put on a 3.5-inch floppy disk and transferred to a personal computer for decryption. To facilitate such basic use, the product should be standalone software, support offline use, and preferably have low system requirements.

Distributing Cryptographic Material

The cryptographic material that needs to be distributed to merchant ships will depend on the unclassified cryptographic product chosen. With some, it is sufficient to dispense the software only; with others, cryptographic keys must also be distributed. The software can be delivered via the Internet and compact discs, provided the terms and conditions of the license are respected. Distribution of cryptographic keys, if needed, needs confidential transfer. This can be achieved by physically sending to shipping companies letters containing, among other things, a Web site address where the unclassified cryptographic product can be downloaded and, for each merchant ship in the fleet, a list of cryptographic keys with the validity period. This can be a costly solution, especially when restricted mail-delivery services with signature confirmation are used, permitting direct delivery only to company security officers.

As part of their mission to provide support to merchant shipping in peacetime and times of tension, crisis, and conflict, national NCAGS organizations could distribute cryptographic material for the ships registered in their respective countries. Details regarding where to obtain and how to use the material could also be included in the NCAGS guide to ship owners, operators, masters, and officers, ATP-2(B), vol. 2. Alternatively or in combination, distribution on request might be considered via the Web site of the NATO Shipping Centre at Northwood in the United Kingdom. This fits with the center’s mission to establish and maintain links with merchant shipping, and it has the advantage that the wider commercial shipping community can be reached.

The Way Ahead

To move forward with this idea, we must first clarify what information-security services are needed. In addition to providing secrecy, unclassified cryptographic products can also provide three significant additional benefits. Data integrity and authentication make sure that a merchant ship can be confident that a received encrypted message is authentic—that it comes from a naval authority—and that its contents have not been maliciously tampered with. These two services are must-haves when, for example, the Internet is used to enter encrypted messages into an Inmarsat service for transmission to merchant ships. Non-repudiation protects naval authorities against a ship’s false assertion that a given message has not been received. This service could be relevant under naval supervision of merchant ships, but could also complicate things significantly.

The next steps will be the selection of the unclassified cryptographic product and the distribution of the material. All of this can be achieved by following the steps laid out here. Each option has advantages and disadvantages; choosing the right one requires budgetary, organizational, and technical decisions.

 

Improve—Don’t Extend—the Army’s LCU 2000

The Army’s Landing Craft Utility 2000-class vessels, 35 of which are maintained in the service’s inventory, are coming upon the autumn of their anticipated lifespan. They make up the bulk of the Army’s fleet, ship-to-shore (lighterage) capability, and coastal sealift. A Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) is therefore wending its way through the channels of the Army’s bureaucracy and Carderrock, the Naval Sea Systems Command’s component, which the Army contracts for new-build design and engineering-modification services.

The SLEP is aimed at prolonging the operational portion of the 2000’s lifecycle. However, if the LCU is merely refurbished rather than given enhanced capabilities, the benefit to the Army and the taxpayer will be dubious at best. Instead of the SLEP, the military very much needs an LCU 2000 System Enhancement Package, or SEP.

Planning for the Future

Scanning the horizon of possible conflicts, fights in the littoral areas of Asia and Africa emerge among the most likely scenarios. Recognizing this, the Navy is investing billions into the Littoral Combat Ship (if the program survives its contract problems) and a growing fleet of small boats and inshore warfare units. These investments should stand the country in good stead for ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore shooting matches. But what about logistics in the brown-water environment?

Already the Navy is struggling to keep the numbers of its line combatant vessels from plummeting by cutting wherever else it can. As this occurs, the role of Army watercraft in providing ship-to-shore logistics will only become more important. The outcome of the LCU 2000 SLEP or LCU 2000 SEP will show whether the Army is prepared for this challenge.

Foremost in the argument for a SEP is the lack of armor and armament currently installed on an LCU 2000. If the Army has learned one tragic lesson from Operation Iraqi Freedom, it is that when you go into war, the other side uses whatever means at hand to try to kill your Soldiers and destroy your vehicles. On today’s battlefield, 7.62 x 54-mm machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are pervasive. We should anticipate that they will be used against our LCU 2000s. We should not have to respond to questions about how rogues armed with PKM machine guns and RPGs on speedboats killed LCU crew members at all, much less with overused rationales such as: “You go to war with the Army watercraft that you have.”

Use Common Sense in Design

A quick survey of recent developments indicates that we now have armor light enough for inflatable boats that can also deflect 7.62 x 39-mm threats. The interior paneling of the LCU 2000 is likely heavier than this new armor design, but not bullet-resistant. If it were installed behind the outer steel shell of the LCU house, this shielding could be effective against 7.62 x 54-mm threats.

RPGs are another matter. Heavy ceramic is one way to defeat the shape charge of these weapons; the now-famous chicken cage in place on Stryker vehicles is another. Obviously, any new package concept would need to be tested and evaluated, but the LCU SEP design anticipates such problems before needless casualties force us to adopt more rushed—and therefore more costly—armor add-ons.

Many who work with Army boats do not see the lack of LCU 2000 armor and armament as a problem, stating that the LCU will never be used in roles requiring them. But consider the Humvee. Designed as a soft-skinned vehicle for troop transport, it served as the bulk of Army ground transportation in hostile areas. When it started fighting its way through Baghdad, the Army quickly realized its defensive and offensive shortfalls and rushed add-on armor and turrets.

Moving to the Offense

Offensive capability is just as important to combat-support vessels on the water. If a turret weapon system is not developed for the LCU retrofit, it will be an opportunity lost. Currently the LCU is armed with only two .50-caliber, deck-mounted machine guns, one on each side of the house, in a configuration that is not ideally suited for many defensive situations, let alone one that calls for offense.

The MK44 30/40-mm cannon system in an MK46 turret, which is now installed on the Marine Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, would make an excellent addition to the bow of the LCU 2000. It would certainly give the Army boats an advantage, should they come into contact with hostile shore fire or small boats. Twin .50-caliber turrets should also be installed on either side of the LCU 2000 bridge wings to deal with threats from abeam and astern.

Other relatively inexpensive advances that could make the LCU a better platform include installing a forward-looking sonar device for spotting obstacles, both natural and manmade. This would be an excellent addition to a vessel that may have to make an entry through a mined approach. A hard point forward of the MK 46 turret could be used for a mine-clearing line-charge device. Finally, a system to deactivate fuel tanks during an emergency, along with modifications to ensure that interior spaces throughout the hull are completely segregated for greater reserve buoyancy, would dramatically improve survivability.

Any landing craft worthy of its name should be able to pull onto an average beach gradient and discharge or load rolling stock from its ramp. The LCU fails in this regard, with a ramp hinge too high above the waterline and a ramp too short to allow for operations at any but the most ideally suited shorelines. When beached, the angle is more suitable for rappelling than driving up or down.

To compensate for this shortcoming, the vessels use floating causeway systems that extend beyond the shoreline. Building a causeway doesn’t do much for the element of surprise, and is yet another example of a logistics activity that requires an expansion of footprint to sustain itself. A more sensible approach would be to retrofit the LCU 2000 with an articulated ramp that would provide double the length. The new version of the Army’s Logistics Supply Vessels has such a ramp, and the Army has been using the concept for vehicle-launched bridges for decades.

Aside from its beached angle, the LCU ramp is too narrow. Twenty-foot containers are the standard for logisticians everywhere. The LCU 2000 ramp opening is currently 16 feet wide, meaning containers placed on the deck must be lifted with a crane. If the LCU is to grow in capability, a bow-and-ramp configuration sufficiently wide to allow for a standard container handler to pick up a 20-foot container and discharge it directly to the shore must be included in the SEP.

Pick It Up

Finally, the hull configuration and propulsion machinery of an LCU 2000 make it a relatively slow vessel in the water. More powerful engines are no doubt being envisioned for the SLEP upgrades. They will be marginal improvements, but modifications in the hull and propulsion machinery would do more to yield increases in speed and efficiency.

The LCU’s bow is designed to ride up on the beach, but that means it travels through the water like a coal shovel. Modern hull designs use bulbous bows, or catamaran or trimaran designs, in an effort to cancel efficiency robbing bow wake. These have to be tested, of course, but the forward profile of the LCU 2000 SEP should be an area of focus. Even if wake-canceling appendages increase forward draft slightly, gains in speed and efficiency would be worth it. This effect may even serve to diminish the now-problematic bow-ramp angle upon beaching.

The LCU 2000 is on its second propeller design; the first four-bladed propellers apparently created heavy vibration. They were replaced with a highly engineered and skewed five-bladed design that looks as though 75 percent of its blade provides thrust ahead, even while 25 percent thrusts astern. For vessels of a designated hull speed around 10 knots, the increases in thrust and efficiency gained by adding a kort nozzle are well documented. In this vein, a nozzle arrangement should be investigated.

Add It On

If thrust increases with improved propulsion machinery, and hull speed increases with a reconfigured forward hull, the Army should take advantage by extending the cargo deck by 20 feet. This would allow for greater cargo capacity. The house on the current LCU 2000 is nearly as big as the cargo deck. Small and maneuverable is good, but in the shipping business, capacity is essential. Adding 20 feet by inserting a modular section would not be difficult. Many commercial ships are retrofitted in this manner quite successfully.

The new class aimed at replacing legacy vessels like the LCU 2000 will no doubt be quite different from the workmanlike LCU 2000s. Fast and agile, joint high-speed vessels (JHSVs) will play a valuable role in inter- and intra-theater sealift. However, the traits that will make JHSVs successful in their fast-sealift missions are the same as those that militate against persistence in an austere and possibly hostile delta or archipelago. An LCU 2000 SEP with increased firepower, speed, and the ability to discharge equipment onto undeveloped shores should be a near-term priority to bridge the force until there is a sufficient fleet of JHSVs. The Army may even find that when reconfigured, this slower and more rugged platform for costal operations is a long way from outliving its utility.

[Editor’s note: At press sime, the Army and Navy had begun discussing possibilities of transferring the Army’s vessels and maritime part of its mission to the Navy.]

 

Building Staff Expertise at the Operational Level

Ever since its establishment on 6 October 1884, the Naval War College (NWC) has been at the forefront of the Navy’s strategic and operational thought processes. But it has never played as prominent a role as it does today, by offering a broad, diverse range of operational-level education opportunities to help develop leaders.

Through prestigious resident programs and exceptional nonresident programs offered by the College of Distance Education, NWC continues its legacy of educating the military’s best and brightest leaders. But a large percentage of the Navy’s officer and senior-enlisted ranks, who enable Navy component commanders and fleet commanders to operate effectively in an increasingly complex, challenging global environment, do not get the opportunity to participate in these programs.

Facilitating Command and Control

The Navy has expended an enormous amount of intellectual energy on determining how to transform and align maritime staffs so they function better at the operational level of war. The cornerstone of this concept is the Maritime Operations Center (MOC), which streamlines and parallels efforts with other service initiatives and best practices. This allows the Navy to improve the organizing, manning, training, and equipping of numbered fleets, component commands, and principal headquarter staffs. It also synchronizes day-to-day maritime-security activities and integrates maritime functions into joint, multinational, and interagency operations.

The MOC offers highly flexible and scalable organizations and processes that, along with a staff that is educated and practiced, support all potential roles that a joint-force commander may assign to an operational-level maritime commander. More than only an operations center, the MOC represents a focus on the people, processes, procedures, and systems that are used to operate effectively throughout the range of military operations.

The Decisive Human Factor

The functions of each MOC are centered around the staff’s organization to support commanders in their various joint warfighting roles across the range of military operations. This is the commander’s decision cycle. The actions that it involves provide a framework in which commanders control forces, maintain alignment, provide situational awareness, focus efforts to advance the plan, ensure compliance with procedure, respond to the adversary’s actions, and adjust force apportionment—all of which is detailed in Navy Warfare Publication 3-32, Maritime Operations at the Operational Level of War (October 2008, pp. 6-17).

As described in “Joint Operations: Insights and Best Practices,” a July 2008 Joint Warfighting Center paper written by retired Marine General Gary Luck and retired Army Colonel Mike Findlay, in operational-level headquarters, decision cycles are executed simultaneously for the far-, mid-, and near-term horizons. The level of staff participation, focus of effort, and resulting products will differ across these three horizons.

Despite the seemingly boundless and rapid advances in technology, it is the human element, combined expertise, and cohesive teamwork—empowered by the collective abilities inherent in the operational-level staff—that allow the commander to act decisively and correctly after considering the broad range of potential courses of action that will achieve national and military strategic and operational objectives.

Maritime Staff Operators Course

This course fills a void in preparing a critical demographic of Navy personnel for assignment to operational-level staffs. One of the most ardent proponents of creating the Maritime Staff Operators Course (MSOC) was Admiral Robert Willard, Commander U.S. Pacific Command. In November 2007, the inaugural MSOC was conducted at the Naval War College. Since then, 900 students have completed the course.

A visionary who played a vital role in the Navy’s resurgence at the operational level of war, Willard recognized and documented a need for change in the Navy as far back as October 2002. His widely referenced Proceedings article states: “We must rediscover the lost art of command and control with priority on schooling our commanders in what they must know, where to access that information, and how to act on it once they have it to guide the operation more effectively” (p. 54).

This course prepares a commander’s staff to be capable of having a profound and enduring effect on Navy’s integration into joint, multinational, and interagency operations. It teaches how to serve in operational-level staff assignments, supporting the commander’s decision cycle through staff actions.

Coursework focuses on operational art and naval-warfare theory, concepts, doctrine, organizations, capabilities, responsibilities, functions, planning and execution processes, techniques, and best practices. The course builds on planning and execution fundamentals using a combination of classroom lectures, seminar discussions, and practical-application sessions. It culminates with a week-long battle laboratory set in a fictional maritime scenario focused at the combined or joint force maritime component commander level.

Its overarching goal is to ensure that all personnel assigned as members of current and future maritime staffs have the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities to deal with the broad range of threats and opportunities the Navy faces. Students should arrive at their new assignments prepared to lead and support planning, execution, and assessment activities that facilitate rapid decision-making and decisive action at critical times of both peace and conflict.

One of the most substantial criticisms of the Navy’s operational-level prowess during the past few decades has been a lack of planning expertise among officer and senior-enlisted personnel. There is wide consensus across the services that the Navy excels at planning and execution at the tactical level—but, despite efforts to increase joint professional military education opportunities, institutionally the service continues to struggle with operational-level planning capacity for staffing critical positions in Navy and joint headquarters. The MSOC inculcates students with the skills necessary to support the commander’s decision cycle.

Bringing It to Life in the Battle Lab

The battle lab provides the capstone event to the MSOC, simulating operations in a real-world MOC during a crisis situation. Students are assigned and rotate through various staff roles. This highly dynamic and challenging command-post exercise allows them to execute and experience key positional responsibilities and apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired. The focus is on the activities, processes, products, and internal and external interactions required to employ the MOC through joint and combined operations.

At the completion of the course, students have gone through the full range of monitoring, planning, execution, and assessment activities that occur before and during crises. They have a strong baseline level of knowledge, as well as the confidence to report to their next assignments and immediately have an impact on their organizations.

While education is generally considered an investment in future readiness, the format, structure, and products of the MSOC contribute directly to current readiness. Giving graduates the knowledge and expertise usually gained only through six to nine months of on-the-job training, this course immediately contributes to helping Navy staffs deal with real-world challenges. As this advantage becomes more widely acknowledged and prevalent in the Fleet, specific Navy manpower issues such as overlapping turnover can be revisited.

As Vice Admiral John M. Bird, Commander of the Seventh Fleet, put it in an e-mail to the NWC president regarding the MSOC’s success (28 May 2009): “With the intense pace of the Forward Deployed Naval Force (FDNF), there is no time to learn the basics. I need staff officers to walk across the brow already understanding the complexities of maritime staff operations and how to best employ the functions and capabilities of the Maritime Operations Center. The FDNF demands sharp officers at the helm, and MSOC provides the whetstone.”

Creating Leaders for Future Challenges

Since its inception, the Maritime Staff Operators Course has produced both a formal and an informal network of alumni, united by their shared experiences in Newport. This provides the first vestige of the worldwide system of maritime commands envisioned in the original concept of operations.

As Navy component and Fleet commanders continue to implement and refine the MOC concept to elevate the Navy into a leading role in joint, multinational, and interagency operations worldwide, the Naval War College will continue to produce leaders who can accelerate these activities and build a truly integrated and collaborative network of operational-level staffs to address future threats and challenges.