Modularity Will Help Protect the Maritime Commons
an in 2007, there is every indication that the global maritime commons will figure even more prominently in international commerce than it does today. The need to ensure free and open use of the seas will only increase in importance. That job demands the presence of ships if not across the full expanse of the maritime commons, at least in each choke point. However, the Navy is unequipped to handle the wide-ranging problems that this involves today.Intel co-founder Andrew Grove discusses a concept called “strategic inflection points” in his book Only The Paranoid Survive. Leaders must identify these points, he explains, and guide their teams through them. Grove characterizes them as times when fundamentals are significantly changing.1 A growing number of factors indicate that the U.S. Navy faces such a situation today, a “salt-water” inflection point.
We Must Prepare for Irregularity
The U.S. Navy’s Vision for Confronting Irregular Challenges claims they will be met “through a flexible, agile, and broad array of multi-mission capabilities.”2 The short publication focuses primarily on political, strategic, and operational outcomes such as increasing effectiveness in stabilizing and strengthening regions, regional awareness, regional and partner capacity, and coordination and interoperability with partners. The Navy will confront evolving irregular and conventional challenges, it says, by “maximizing the multi-purpose effectiveness of our Navy’s capabilities, personnel, and platforms.”
Current battle forces do include many multipurpose ships, but this new doctrine also calls for the service to “enhance and broaden the multi-mission capabilities of today’s force” (p. 5). The Navy has already completed a detailed Implementation Planning Guidance to address irregular threats, and last fall it conducted an extensive war game to address how the service will handle the 28 specific tasks noted in the guidance. But there is little evidence that the Navy, with the single exception of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), is building or even considering an irregular Navy to confront these challenges. Nevertheless, there is a way to build a future service, and even one after that, better equipped for this situation.
The Mantra of Modularity
Today’s deployable battle force comprises about 280 ships, with roughly half of those under way at any given time. Over the past three years, the number of combatant-commander requests for naval support has markedly increased: “up 29 percent for carrier strike groups, 53 percent for individual amphibious ships, 76 percent for frigates and destroyers, and 86 percent for amphibious ready groups and their embarked Marine Expeditionary Units.”4 The demand for “more” is apparent. With the global economy depending on the seas and the role navies play in ensuring that, how can the U.S. Navy do more without having more?
Former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead insisted that the Navy had to have “a minimum of 313 ships to meet operational requirements globally,” and the new CNO, Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert, agrees.5 To help realize the goal, in December 2010 Admiral Roughead shepherded through the Pentagon and Congress the purchase of 20 LCSs evenly divided between the Freedom and Independence classes.6 The decision to acquire both versions is a clear signal that a more flexible battle force is sought.
On more than one occasion, Under Secretary of the Navy Robert Work has characterized naval forces as “boxes” of different size, with the LCS being a small one in which to put things and a nuclear-powered carrier an “extra-extra large box.”7 This kind of modularity cries out for formal characterization, not just of surface ships but also of the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) technologies underpinning today’s and tomorrow’s Fleet. Not only will the modularity concept allow the Navy a more flexible approach to irregular challenges, but, in aggregate, these forces can combine into formidable power-projection assets when needed.
For the U.S. Navy to be truly prepared for tomorrow’s threats, only some of which are even anticipated today, the Navy must embrace modularity as a primary design criterion, as well as a services-oriented architecture (SOA) to ensure that modular ships will plug-and-play into the C4ISR backbone. Both of these must be key performance parameters for every ship the Navy builds in the future.
Computerized Complexity—And Usefulness
It is well understood that software has become a critical component of modern weapon systems. As systems have become more capable, they have also become more complex. The number of lines of code in a given military system has risen from a few thousand to a few million. Accompanying this complexity is the opportunity to more fully leverage individual systems in concert with each other (i.e., become modular). Substantial cost savings can be realized through the reuse of existing software, as well as by making particular services such as weather data or mapping displays readily available to other systems as needed.
In SOA, a system can package several interoperable services. It can dynamically configure itself based on different situations and draw upon necessary services. SOA and its accompanying technologies and architectures have a strong record for producing substantial cost and efficacy benefits within the private sector. Many in the private sector have made it the key performance parameter. The DOD and Navy have made inroads into adopting it in program design. Insofar as top-level guidance is pushing toward adoption of modularity within the software and C4ISR realms, it appears the Navy is headed in the right direction.
However, there remains some disconnect. Today’s capabilities are funded at the “local” system level, with the commensurate less-than-ideal efficacy of the overarching system. Until a more comprehensive approach is taken to both designing and funding requirements, the stovepipes will continue, with a commensurate lack of capability delivered to the warfighter.
Learn from the Danes
The LCS is a good start in the quest for modularity, but it is only one class. The Navy can learn much from others. The flexibility to accommodate disparate missions is an especially important issue for small navies in ship design, which drove the Danish Navy to adopt the modularity concept several decades ago. By specifying common standards and interfaces, it provides navies with potential benefits in terms of mission flexibility, upgradability, and overall cost. Benefits range from ease of refreshing technology to decreased total ownership cost to increased operational readiness.
Aircraft carriers have used the concept for years. The module that is replaced or upgraded is the air wing. The USS Midway (CV-41), commissioned in 1945, fielded several generations of Navy aircraft before being decommissioned in 1992. In similar fashion, the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) replaced her fighter air wing with Army and Marine helicopters for Operation Enduring Freedom. Modularity enables aircraft carriers to remain relevant and flexible for 50 years.
The same is true for the Mk 41 vertical launching system installed in 23 classes of surface combatants in 12 navies. It allows them to change the embarked weapons based on changing operational requirements. For one deployment a ship might load mostly antisubmarine warfare weapons, while for a different one it could load primarily antiair warfare weapons.
But at the very point when the Navy is needed to ensure freedom of the maritime commons and be capable of projecting power ashore, we face tightly constrained defense budgets that likely will limit our ability to build the needed number of ships. Applying the modularity principle will gain maximum flexibility from each vessel, facilitating the Navy’s ability to fulfill the requirements of the salt-water inflection point. The Littoral Combat Ship must not be the only example of the type of modularity that should incorporated across the Fleet.
1. Andrew Grove, Only the Paranoid Survive (New York: Doubleday, 1996), pp. 32–35.
2. The U.S. Navy’s Vision for Confronting Irregular Challenges (Washington, DC, Department of the Navy, January 2010), p. 3.
3. Ibid., p. 5.
4. “Global Outreach: U.S. Engages with Its Partners Overseas,” Jane’s Navy International, 29 December 2010.
5. CNO Guidance for 2011 (Washington, DC, Department of the Navy, October 2010), p. 5. U.S. Senate Armed Forces Committee transcript of the Confirmation Hearing for Admiral Jonathan Greenert to be reappointed to the grade of Admiral and to be Chief of Naval Operations, 28 July 2011.
6. Loren Thompson, “Low-Cost Warship Rescues Navy from Shrinking Fleet,” Business in the Beltway, Forbes magazine, 3 January 2011.
7. Robert Work, The U.S. Navy: Charting a Course for Tomorrow’s Fleet (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, February 2009).
Captain Harris works for Lockheed Martin (which was awarded the contract to build LCS-1). His previous posts included commanding the USS Conolly (DD-979) and DESRON 32, serving on the CNO executive panel, and directing programs in the Secretary of the Navy’s Office of Legislative Affairs.
Mr. Siordia is on the net-centric engineering and integration staff for SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific, where his current research focuses on solving interoperability and integration challenges in the Navy. He previously served on the CNO Strategic Studies Group.
Offensive Cyber Warfare
We are moving our combat systems toward a net-centric architecture, which means adversaries in future conflicts will attempt to attack our networks. This has been proven by the probing and attempts at disruption during the attacks on Georgia by the Russians, on Pentagon systems by the Chinese, and on the United States by the North Koreans. The news is full of stories about hackers and criminal elements who are phishing, sending Trojan horses, and deploying worms and the Conflictor virus to attack everything from banks to the electrical grid. The Pentagon is hit numerous times every day.
Indiscriminate bombing campaigns in Iraq, Israel, and Northern Ireland targeted mostly civilian populations in the name of war. Why would anyone realistically believe only military targets to be subject to cyber-warfare aggression?
Get Off the Defensive
Those with fortress mentalities recommend only defensive measures to prevent attack, along with a wait-and-see posture to combat cyber warfare with extensive firewalls and defense-in-depth systems. That approach is diametrically opposed to all of classic warfare theory. As Sun Tzu said, “Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.” Wars are won on the offensive.
If we consider cyber warfare to be real, how can we exclude the potential for an offensive capability? If we concentrate only on our own defensive actions, we will always be reactive and will abandon possibilities of winning the contest. The offensive nature of war dictates the necessity of preempting attempts against our networks. If we continue to move toward net-centric warfare, offensive capabilities become even more imperative, both tactically and strategically.
The questions to ask are what is the offensive approach to cyber warfare, and what factors make this either feasible or impossible. Some characteristics of cyber attacks must be addressed to formulate an offensive strategy for evaluation.
Aggressive technology engagement: This is the process of actively engaging in strong relationships with non-traditional commercial players who in the past have not played significantly in defense technology development. This is a requirement in the new era of combat, with boundaries blurred between military and civilian attacks, especially in the cyber arena.
Before the Russian invasion of Georgia, the Russian mob helped hackers execute extensive cyber attacks on both military and commercial targets to disrupt electrical grids and communications networks.1 This should cause us to reflect on how the United States might come under attack.
Larger bull’s-eye: Civilian and military targets were distinctly separated in previous eras and conflicts. Even in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military is routinely criticized for civilian casualties. In the future, we may very well be attacked in every sector from banking to the electrical grid. Defending our national assets abroad or those of our allies will become far more complicated. The division between civilian and military cyber assets has effectively evaporated.
Any probing of our systems for vulnerabilities must be met with the full force of our offensive capability, but we must also consider the implications of collateral damage. Russian attacks on Georgia were launched from U.S. civilian computers that had been hacked into without the owners’ knowledge, according to news accounts. In future scenarios where similar attempts are suspected, will the correct response be to attack our own civilians’ computers? Should we warn them? Should we network more forcefully and more comprehensively as a nation? The hardest issue to solve in this new form of warfare is attribution. When attacks are launched from multiple locations, even servers inside the targeted nations’ own networks, counterattacks may in fact generate more collateral damage on the target than on the aggressor.
In warfare, assaults on military targets are traditionally met with strikes on the opponent’s military. In the terrorism war, suicide-bomber hits on purely civilian objectives have become routine. This makes cyber attacks on civilian targets conceivable in any future warfare against these opponents. As we become more sophisticated in our ability to detect, counter, and take down the cyber warrior, we must determine the level of collateral damage that is acceptable.
Quicker than lightning: The characteristics of this new warfare include its speed. In cyberspace, an aggressor can attack, withdraw, and cover his tracks in nanoseconds. This machine speed makes defense a necessity, and an offensive proactive counterattack capability is the only method of response that has a chance of success.
Defense in Depth
This phrase takes on a whole new meaning for future combat, when we will have to include not only defense of our forces but also that of all commercial and economic assets. A number of commercial partners lead the Defense Department in their capabilities in these cyber areas of expertise. Carolyn Duffy Marsan lists ten characteristics of this type of warfare:
1. You need to win the first battle.
2. The first battle could be over in nanoseconds.
3. Cyber warfare may involve subtle, targeted attacks rather than brute force.
4. The enemy’s goal may be to cause chaos rather than destruction.
5. Data manipulation—rather than data theft or destruction—is a serious threat.
6. Private networks will be targets.
7. When private-sector networks are hit, the Defense Department will assume control.
8. Private networks might be used to launch a cyber attack.
9. Don’t ignore the insider threat.
10. Cyber warfare is warfare.2
To aggressively engage the enemy in cyber warfare in the next generation, we must form alliances with industry partners who are leading the charge against current attacks on the Internet. Attempts on these assets now are a good model for those against the military in future conflicts. With the dissolution of the boundary between military and commercial or civilian holdings, we should not expect a strike on military-only targets. The power grid for the military base or region is just as likely an objective as the base itself. The vulnerability of many of these assets may make them softer targets than military facilities.
Bot Attacks
In mechanisms such as the Conflicter worm, sleeper attacks can be orchestrated by inserting malware with a timed function. This is the equivalent of having enemy troops on your base embedded in your safe areas. With much of our electronic equipment in support and even combat systems having foreign elements, we must begin screening these systems for sleeper bots. Since coalition warfare is now the normal mode of operation, touching our allies’ systems with our data networks is an open door between their vulnerabilities and ours.
As John Baumgarner, research director for the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, put it: “Cyberwarfare is a global chess game in which citizens, governments, and corporations are the pawns. In the past an enemy came over the ocean to attack; now they come over the Internet.”3
Cyber Warfare Is Winnable
In this new era of net-centric and net-dependent systems, some vulnerabilities are inevitable. When we broadcast our data streams to remote authorized users, we will always have issues of information assurance, data validation, and network security. Denial of service such as brute-force jamming of our data links may be the easiest of our issues. Data validity is a major problem when the information is used for targeting in a combat engagement.
The cyber war is just beginning. Defense in depth is definitely required, but an offensive take-the-fight-to-the-enemy strategy is the only option that can win. And victory in combat is the only acceptable result.
1. Mark Rutherford, “Report: Russian Mob Aided Cyberattacks on Georgia,” CNET News, 18 August 2009, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13639_3-10312708-42.html?tag=mncol;2n.
2. Carolyn Duffy Marsan, “Ten Things You Didn’t Know about Cyberwarfare,” Network World, 8 June 2009, http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/060809-cyberwarfare.html.
3. John Baumgarner, ThinkTEC Homeland Security Conference, Charleston, SC, May 2010.
Dr. Jarrett, president of Dolphin and Eagle Consulting, was formerly chief technology officer for the intelligence and information warfare department at Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic. His dissertation covers the factors affecting the adoption of innovative technology in the aerospace industry.
A (Big) Step Farther
The terms “open architecture” and “open systems” define technology of products as diverse as Apple iPods and the most modern shipboard weapon systems. Apple’s communication and music suite interoperate in a process known as product-line architecture, which has become a mandatory design requirement for Navy systems acquisition. Open architecture means systems with similar structures can exchange data through a publish-subscribe interface. This allows myriad functions to be performed automatically, including multiple-systems data sharing and remote monitoring of performance. A ship fully outfitted with open architecture may sound far-fetched, yet it is in the near future.
Somewhere at Sea . . .
Topside radars detect opposition units while passive sensors intercept radar and communication emissions. This information is processed and sent below to the combat direction center (CDC) where it is automatically displayed on all monitors and disseminated to other battle group units. Simultaneously, weapon systems receive and evaluate the same data, perform localization and tracking functions, and generate automated visual recommendations to the tactical action officer, the lone CDC watchstander.
When an equipment malfunction is indicated by the continuous built-in test of a sensor, the commanding officer, tactical action officer, and one of three electronics technicians on board receive a text-message alert that includes the system and component affected. The tech picks up the required part from the on-board spares center, enters the CDC, and removes and replaces the faulty unit.
An immediate text message notifies decision-makers that the repaired system is now 100 percent functional. The same information is received at shoreside in-service engineering, generating an automatic request for replacement of the onboard spare that is now in use.
‘Stand By for Heavy Rolls’
At this time, the U.S. national debt exceeds $14 trillion. Economic uncertainty and political instability reverberate around the globe. We must make drastic changes to maintain our status as a world power. Open architecture, in the not-too-distant future, can make it possible for ships at sea to perform the same missions they do now with perhaps just 50 percent of the current manpower.
The mere mention of significant manpower cuts generates resistance and well-timed political pressure, sending problem-solvers back to their models. Tweaks in numbers may result, with an eventual conclusion that such actions were pursued too aggressively and would actually result in additional costs and forces that would be too thinly dispersed. Yet these technological advances offer savings in manpower, maintenance, and training.
When a ship at sea prepares to make a 180-degree turn, the following warning sounds from the announcing system: “Stand by for heavy rolls while the ship comes about!” To right our national ship, we must come about and display the fortitude to persevere. Open architecture points to the way ahead, not only for systems. We should extend the concept to an organizational level.
Convey the Big Picture
Implementing open architecture (an initiative that is already under way) requires an aggressive effort across all phases of the acquisition cycle. Logisticians, engineers, technicians, provisioners, trainers, and maintainers must grasp the importance of designing systems for interoperability and supportability. Narrow spheres of specialization will have to be eliminated through broadening the scope of understanding across the organization. Comprehending the functional relationship of each acquisition logistics element will ensure that all tasks are approached with a focus on successful system design..
To better understand the big picture, all involved personnel should undergo training through the Defense Acquisition University’s Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA). The curriculum provides designated employees with three levels of acquisition courses. Most are completed online; a few require attendance at one of three training sites.
Some level of DAWIA qualification is already required for most in the acquisition workforce, but expanding the mandate to those who typically operate on the periphery of the process—engineers, configuration personnel, trainers—will promote an organizational mindset that embraces the importance of open architecture in design, development, fielding, and supportability throughout the lifecycle.
Reduce and Consolidate
Even though systems that use open-architecture capability allow for reductions of personnel in operations, maintenance, training, and logistics, the cuts must be actually implemented to realize the savings. If we immediately evaluate potential cutbacks, we will be positioned to take advantage of the opportunity quickly as open systems, once fielded, prove their worth.
Manning levels are not likely to diminish significantly in the near future, but Navy leadership must come to grips with this future imperative. Our biggest expense is personnel and training. Refusing to take advantage of cost savings that are available through appropriate, well-planned, honest reductions is nothing short of poor stewardship of taxpayer dollars.
As open architecture becomes more prevalent in newly acquired systems, technicians will require less training to maintain systems, because the as-needed-maintenance concept emphasizes repair by changing out faulty units and circuit cards identified by a continuously functioning built-in-test. This capability replaces archaic troubleshooting methods. High-level signal-flow training will equip technicians to maintain any electronics system after they have learned how to use an Interactive Electronic Technical Manual.
Designers—primarily software engineers—will know the details of system functionality. Shipboard technicians will not know the systems as in-depth as they have in the past, because that level of understanding will far exceed what is required to maintain the systems on board with the new maintenance concepts enabled by advanced built-in-test capability and commercial-off-the-shelf technology.
Enlisted classification codes should be streamlined as personnel are trained for interoperability. Less training will expedite opportunities to consolidate technical schools that have in the past been highly specialized. Merging of enlisted ratings has taken place frequently in the past decade, and new technologies will make this not only viable for highly technical ratings, but also practical and cost-effective.
Streamline our Defense Force
All five branches of U.S. military service—the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard—should be consolidated into one National Defense Force. On 1 February 1968, the Canadian military unified its branches into a single force. Because implementation failed, some say the attempt shows the flaws of such a concept. However, the reasons for the failure are easily, if painfully, addressed.
The first was lack of policy direction from the government, a situation that can be mitigated by taking the steps proposed here. The second was resistance in the old services. This will always be a factor when major change is considered. But our armed-forces societal structure has undergone paradigm shifts before, including in the areas of accepting women at sea and homosexuality. We can adapt, improvise, and overcome.
The stovepipes that affect each of the five DOD services continue to restrict the flow of information, methods, lessons learned, and specialized expertise. As just one small example, since becoming involved in acquisition logistics last year, I have heard numerous times that “the Army has a great tool for capturing that data.” So why don’t we obtain the tool?
The unfortunate answer is that each branch of service remains separate not through design or competition, but by mere tradition. Consolidation of the services would eliminate inconsistencies such as this in all aspects of administration, training, and operations.
We cannot afford to continue to allow (and enable) our armed forces to carve out five separate paths into the uncharted future. We must begin to seriously consider conceptualization and analysis of consolidation. Hundreds of millions of dollars would be saved in administrative functions alone. Eliminating service-specific uniforms, maintenance, training, equipment, and logistics would offer significant and permanent reduction in DOD expenditures. The new U.S. National Defense Force could comprise aviation, ground, surface, subsurface, and cyberspace components. The leader of each would report to a chairman, much like the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The global economy is in dire straits, and our country’s financial state is such that we are no longer immune to the potentially catastrophic consequences. DOD spending is one of the biggest contributors to the upsurge in our national debt. The necessity for a strong national defense force for both deterrence and power projection is not in question. But we have an obligation to hard-working, tax-paying U.S. citizens to provide security in a fiscally responsible manner.
It’s time to stop talking about jointness and spouting catchy phrases about inter-service unity. Refusing to put our money where our mouth is may bring more than just heavy rolls of change. It could cause a rogue wave of economic paralysis that forces our military into a mark-time march or, worse, a financial-crash-induced tsunami that renders our forces obsolete and irrelevant on the global stage.