While the United States remains the world’s sole superpower, the current fiscal and political environment dictates that we pursue innovative solutions to ensure global stability and defense. The United States must foster partnerships and leverage the globalizing defense market to facilitate the “crowdsourcing” of global defense.
Crowdsourcing
This term refers to obtaining required services by soliciting contributions from a large group of volunteers. For the following discussion, it describes a “coalition of the willing,” where nations participate because their interests are aligned with a common mission and benefit. Beyond traditional alliances and partnerships, the United States must support such an environment with a low barrier to entry that allows contributions of any size or duration from any nation, a concept frequently described by the Chief of Naval Operations as the Global Network of Navies. We must work toward establishing a framework that allows the integration of various member capabilities. This loose “scaffolding” must be facilitated by predetermined “plug-and-play” procedures, communications standards, and data-exchange formats that will allow participants to join operations when required. This pre-coordination will yield flexible and scalable collaboration.
The United States must continue to invest time and energy into creating and maintaining partnerships. Using partners’ collective systems and capabilities, a coalition or task force can be tailored to the mission at hand, whether it is antisubmarine warfare, ballistic-missile defense (BMD), humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, counterpiracy, or counterterrorism. To fully take advantage of these partnerships, members must ensure that their equipment, operating procedures, and communications are compatible.
The only way to achieve proficiency operating together is to practice. Multinational exercises allow partners to train together, identifying what works and what needs improvement. The United States routinely trains with partner nations to ensure interoperability and build confidence. When available, foreign participation is built into joint task force exercises, a U.S. Navy predeployment certification. Taken a step further into operations, in April 2014 the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group returned from a nine-month deployment with the first combined destroyer squadron commanded by a Royal Navy officer.
In this context, the United States must act more as a partner instead of sole provider. That does not preclude a leadership role, but partner nations must be expected to contribute and have “some skin in the game” instead of being freeloaders. As seen in the first Gulf War, the United States built a coalition in which many nations contributed forces. In most cases, it is not in U.S. interests for partner nations to forgo their own national capabilities because they expect to rely solely on ours.
Likewise, the United States is happy to leverage the niche capabilities and unique strengths of partner nations, but will never fully depend on them to the point that we would completely abandon our own. Arctic icebreaking falls into this category. In general, as a partner you retain some capability. This could be critical if your partner with a certain resource cannot participate in an operation for political reasons. We have allies, but typically they, as we do, will only act in their nations’ best interests.
Interoperability is critical for success and we must practice it before crises occur. Some missions such as counterpiracy have a low threshold for interoperability. Others, such as strategic deterrence, air defense, or BMD involve much more complicated systems. Addressing this type of interoperability during the acquisition of technology is highly preferred. For example, the F-22 Raptor and Europe’s latest warplane, the Typhoon, lack compatible secure communication systems. Despite their cutting-edge radar and weapon systems, American and British pilots are forced into one-way communication, from the Typhoon to the Raptor, unless they want to broadcast in the clear, which negates the F-22’s stealth advantage. This issue undermines their ability to go to war together.1 But there is hope. The increasingly globalized defense market can help achieve interoperability in a crowdsourced world.
Global Defense Market
Crowdsourcing relies on a “lowest common denominator” that allows maximum participation. The United States and its partners must drive the defense market toward the use of open standards, baselines of interoperability, and modular construction. The mass production of common platforms will drive down research and development (R&D) and procurement costs, while the payloads they carry can be either standard or customized by a particular nation for its needs. The more similar our platforms, the more we can also share the common burden of supply, logistics, and sustainment.
Much like the distribution of missions for global defense, in the globalized defense market you can be a supplier, a customer, or a partner. The supplier develops technology and equipment while the customer purchases them from someone else. The partner works in concert with other nations, cooperatively funding and executing programs to achieve a common solution. The United States is already taking advantage of the global defense market, but there is always room for improvement.
Supplier. Being a supplier has a certain appeal. The first benefit is financial, as you make money from sales, which also support a country’s industrial base and provide jobs and capital. Furthermore, foreign military sales provide an element of influence that can be used as political capital when a nation makes a sale contingent on some other behavior. Additionally, there is a certain built-in interoperability; you know that any military using your equipment should, in theory, be able to seamlessly integrate with your own. Most military sales also include a training component, which fosters personal relationships between organizations and allows the participants to learn from each other, building understanding and empathy.
The downside of being a supplier is that the market is competitive. Sales can fall through or be canceled. As orders decrease, it becomes difficult to maintain production lines, which become too expensive to maintain. Furthermore, you bear the complete and total burden of R&D. If a capability does not mature, there is no return on investment and a fortune may be lost. You also face the dilemma that with limited resources, you cannot fund every technology you would like, and if your portfolio is not diverse enough, you may be caught without a needed capability and lag behind other nations.
Customer. Being a customer has its benefits. You can purchase existing equipment on a much shorter time line by getting it “off-the-shelf” (OTS). This is particularly valuable when attempting to fulfill an urgent operational requirement or when seeking to experiment with a new technology. High Speed Vessel Joint Venture (HSV-X1), a former Australian high-speed ferry, was leased by the United States as a test vehicle and paved the way for the 11-ship JHSV class. These ships are now built in U.S. shipyards and the fifth ship was delivered to the Navy in April 2015.3 As a customer, you do not bear any of the cost or risk associated with the R&D—except what is passed along in the final cost of the product. You have the opportunity to “shop around” and find the best deal. You can buy one or two of a platform without having to commit to ordering a large lot. Most of all, you can procure cutting-edge equipment without the need to establish or maintain the costly infrastructure, expertise, or industry required to develop it.
However, a customer is always at the mercy of its supplier. Due to possible increased costs, customers might have to buy the basic OTS equipment rather than a tailor-made variant with the exact capability they require. Alternatively, a planned sale can be suspended for political reasons, leaving you without expected capability. This was the case during the 2013 Arab Spring, when the United States delayed delivery of four F-16 Fighting Falcons to the Egyptian Air Force because U.S. law does not allow aid to be provided to a country that is undergoing a military coup.3 Likewise, the French government has suspended the sale of two Mistral-class amphibious ships to Russia as a result of activity in the Ukraine.4
Likewise, you can be denied upgrades as your equipment becomes obsolete. Prior to the Iranian revolution, the United States sold several types of combat aircraft—F-14 Tomcat, C-130 Hercules, P-3 Orion, etc.—and repair parts to the Imperial Iranian Air Force. After the regime change, the United States stopped providing spare parts and the new Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force was forced to cannibalize aircraft to keep its fleet flying. In the late 1980s the Iranian government was forced to develop its own aerospace industry to support its military.5
Partner. Being a partner is a sort of middle ground. You share the investment, costs, and risks of cooperative R&D. Interoperability is expected, with common equipment, data formats, and supplies. You can leverage the unique strengths and capabilities of one another while still preserving some of your industrial base. Furthermore, by producing more copies for multiple countries, you can achieve an economy of scale, which can rapidly drop the per-unit price by distributing the costs of R&D as well as the production facilities. For example, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will be a leap ahead to the next generation of capability, and eight nations share the long-term program costs.6 Department of Defense plans call for the United States to acquire 2,457 fighters. It has been speculated that foreign sales might ultimately account for 2,000 to 3,000 more, allowing development and production costs to be distributed across twice as many platforms.7
However, one must also choose one’s partners wisely, as partners can disagree or be unhappy with their assigned workload or the location of manufacturing sites, as has happened in the JSF program. A nation could also bear the indirect consequences of its partner’s internal political turmoil. U.S. sequestration almost delayed the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter (STOVL) program, which panicked the Royal Navy. The Royal Navy had gone “all in” on the F-35B by designing their Queen Elizabeth–class carrier without traditional catapult and arresting systems, locking them into the requirement for a STOVL aircraft. As the Royal Navy had already sold off its legacy Harrier force and without the F-35B delivered on time, they would receive the Queen Elizabeth carrier without the supporting air wing for which it was built.8
Collaboration
To help carry out its missions, the United States has played all three roles in the marketplace, acting as frequent supplier, partner, and at times customer. The global defense burden and global defense market intersect in some of our most important missions, including strategic deterrence, air defense, BMD, and electromagnetic-maneuver warfare (EMMW).
In the world of strategic deterrence, we are both a mission provider and a market partner. With our capability, we extend a guarantee to allies so they don’t need to develop a capability of their own, supporting nuclear counter-proliferation goals.9 In the marketplace, we partner with the Royal Navy as we look to replace the aging Ohio and Vanguard classes of ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs). The common missile compartment will be produced in blocks of four missile tubes, allowing each Navy to tailor the final number of missiles for their individual submarine designs.10 Additionally, the Royal Navy depends on the United States for technology transfer for both the warhead and missile that its SSBN will carry.11
In air defense, we are a mission partner and supplier of the Aegis combat system to Australia, Japan, Norway, South Korea, and Spain. These systems allow interoperability and mutual support, extending reliable air-defense coverage and their ability to integrate into U.S. carrier strike groups. The United States has also invested $900 million in the Israeli Iron Dome air-defense system with U.S. defense companies currently producing several critical components.12
The United States is an operational provider and market partner in BMD. In addition to rotational presence, with the home port shift of four destroyers to Rota, Spain, we will provide forward-deployed Aegis BMD protection for Europe. Aegis ashore will also be located in Romania as part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA).13 In the Pacific theater, we are a market partner with Japan, jointly developing the advanced Standard Missile (SM-3 Block 2A) interceptor.14 The SM-3 Block 2A is the key component of the EPAA for defending NATO allies using the Aegis weapon system for BMD.15 U.S. companies and the Missile Defense Agency are also working with Israel to provide the David’s Sling and Arrow III for their protection.16
In EMMW, we have developed the Nulka missile decoy in a partnership with Australia, which developed the hovering rocket, while the United States developed the electronic payload, and each country developed its own fire-control system.17 The United States and its allies must continue to leverage and expand partnerships in the marketplace to ensure that high-end operational partnerships are fully realized and exploited.
Competition and Politics
By leveraging the global rather than the domestic defense marketplace, a nation has many more options. Weighing the wider option would spur competition, as customers are no longer looking for solutions that are “best in breed” (national), but rather those that are “best in show” (international). Competition is good for the marketplace and drives innovation and efficiencies.
One issue that has greatly affected the U.S. Navy has been the inability of our shipyards to meet required maintenance schedules and deadlines. The Navy’s new Optimized Fleet Response Plan (O-FRP) aims to provide stability to deployment schedules over a 36-month cycle. One of the goals of O-FRP is to return a sense of predictability and normalcy to a sailor’s family life and thus increase retention rates. The success of O-FRP depends on U.S. shipyards’ ability to meet their maintenance and construction milestones. It may soon be time for the Navy to shop the global market for ship repair as shipyards in Singapore, Japan, and Jebel Ali all perform high-quality work. This course of action would have to be carefully considered and could ultimately be politically untenable as the flow of Navy projects, coupled with the commercial provisions of the Jones Act (which protects domestic shipbuilding by requiring goods shipped between U.S. ports to travel on American-built vessels) does play a role in sustaining the domestic industrial base. However, the threat of possible competition from abroad might be enough to boost performance at home.
Unfortunately, some of our defense procurements are driven by neither the threat environment nor the marketplace. Such is the case with the U.S. Army not requiring additional M1 Abrams tanks, yet Congress keeps funding them. In the case of the Abrams, there’s a bipartisan push to spend an extra $436 million on a weapon the experts explicitly say is not required, yet political pork keeps funding its overproduction. “If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way,” said General Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff.18 We must strive to keep politics out of military procurement.
In the past, the United States has leveraged the global defense market and integrated major foreign components into its platforms. For example, the U.S. Navy’s Pegasus-class hydrofoils, Oliver Hazard Perry–class frigates, the Coast Guard’s Famous- and Hamilton-class cutters, and over 60 other navies operate the Italian OTO Melara 76-mm gun for its ability to use a wide range of ammunition and provide superior short-range antimissile point defense, antiaircraft, and antisurface fire.19 To take further advantage of the global defense market, the United States must be prepared to seriously consider the procurement of foreign-designed or -built ships, particularly when considering special platforms. For example, the Coast Guard will spend between $800 and $935 million per ship to build a new icebreaker. This funding will include a mission analysis, studies, design, contract award, and construction.20 Would it not be easier just to purchase the designs for an icebreaker and build it? When the Chinese required an icebreaker, instead of spending money on studies, developing the technology, and designing the ship from the ground up, they contracted Aker Arctic Technology Inc. of Finland to design it and are currently building it in one of their own shipyards at a cost of $613 million per ship.21
This type of solution could still encounter political obstacles, namely being seen as taking work away from American industry (and voters). This points to a final option: Why not work to bring the global market here, analogous to building foreign cars here on U.S. soil using American workers? After all, we might be inching down that road already. Littoral combat ships are built in Wisconsin by Marinette Marine Corporation, which is ultimately the U.S. division of the Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri (with 21 shipyards on four continents) and in Alabama by Austal USA, a division of the Australian company Austal.22 Additionally, Norfolk, San Diego, Pearl Harbor, and Mayport all boast BAE Systems shipyards, which perform a lot of work for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard; BAE traces its name to “British Aerospace.”23
In the current fiscal environment we must set aside politics and get the best return on our investment—as a country, we cannot afford not to. In light of budget realities, the United States must embrace a new paradigm of crowdsourcing to ensure global defense and stability. To support this, the United States and its allies and partners must leverage the global defense market to ensure that equipment and systems are developed with interoperability built in. The United States should be prepared to play all three market roles, even that of customer, despite the possible domestic political fallout. Common platforms and systems will enable cost efficiency from procurement through sustainment, as well as continue to lower the bar for interoperability, so more nations can share more of the high-end missions. The current and projected budget just might “press gang” the U.S. Navy, writ large U.S. Department of Defense, into joining Admiral Mike Mullen’s 1,000-ship Navy.
1. David Axe, “Top U.S. Stealth Jet Has to Talk to Allied Planes Over Unsecured Radio,” WIRED, 20 February 2013, www.wired.com/2013/02/incompatible-comms-stealth.
2. U.S. Navy, “Navy Accepts Delivery of USNS Trenton,” 14 April 2015, www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=86557.
3. Phil Stewart and Matt Spetalnick, “Obama halts delivery of four F-16 jets to Egypt amid unrest,” Reuters, 24 July 2013, www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/24/us-egypt-protests-usa-f16s-idUSBRE96N0VI20130724.
4. “Mistral Amphibious Assault Ships for Russia: Deliveries Hanging,” Defense Industry Daily, 8 May 2015, www.defenseindustrydaily.com/russia-to-order-french-mistral-lhds-05749.
5. Fariborz Haghshenass, “Iran’s Air Forces: Struggling to Maintain Readiness,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 22 December 2005, www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/irans-air-forces-struggling-to-maintain-readiness.
6. Congressional Research Service, “Document: Congressional Report on Joint Strike Fighter Program,” USNI News, 1 May 2014, http://news.usni.org/2014/05/01/document-congressional-report-joint-strike-fighter-program.
7. Ibid.
8. Luke Coffey, “How sequestration budget cuts could affect U.K. defence,” The Commentator, 17 December 2012, www.thecommentator.com/article/2278/how_sequestration_budget_cuts_could_affect_u_k_defence.
9. RADM Barry Bruner and CAPT Michael Cockey, USN, “We Must Have Nuclear Deterrence,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 140, no. 2 (February 2014), 10.
10. Staff, “CMC Program Defining Future SSBN Launchers for UK, USA,” Defense Industry Daily, 14 April 2014, www.defenseindustrydaily.com/cmc-contract-to-define-future-ssbn-launchers-for-uk-usa-05221.
11. Malcolm Chalmers, “Towards the UK’s Nuclear Century,” The RUSI Journal, vol. 158, no. 6, 18–28, www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/RUSI_Jnl_158_6_Chalmers_low_res.pdf.
12. AP, Staff, “Rice: Every $1 spent on Israel’s security is an investment,” The Times of Israel, 9 May 2014, www.timesofisrael.com/susan-rice-us-committed-to-israels-security. Yaakov Lappin, “US, Israel sign deal to continue financing Iron Dome,” The Jerusalem Post, 10 March 2014, www.jpost.com/Defense/US-Israel-sign-deal-to-continue-financing-Iron-Dome-344879.
13. Sam LaGrone, “First European Aegis Ashore Begins Construction,” USNI News, 30 October 2013, http://news.usni.org/2013/10/30/first-european-aegis-ashore-begins-construction.
14. Richard Tomkins, “Navy deploys Standard Missile-3 IB.,” UPI, 24 April 2014, www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2014/04/24/Navy-deploys-Standard-Missile-3-IB/3151398347333/#ixzz30agsQcz2.
15. Mike Gruss, “Military Quarterly/ SM-3 Block 2A Passes Critical Design Review, Set for Flight Testing in 2015,” SpaceNews, 31 October 2013, www.spacenews.com/article/military-space/37944military-quarterly-sm-3-block-2a-passes-critical-design-review-set-for.
16. American Forces Press Service, “David’s Sling Antimissile System Intercepts Target,” 20 November 2013, www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121186.
17. U.S. Navy, “MK-53 Decoy Launching System (Nulka),” U.S. Navy Fact File, 15 November 2013, www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2100&tid=587&ct=2.
18. Richard Lardner, “Army Says No To More Tanks, But Congress Insists,” Associated Press, 28 April 2013, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/army-says-no-more-tanks-congress-insists.
19. Wikipedia, “OTO Melara 76mm,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTO_Melara_76_mm.
20. Ronald O’Rourke, “Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker Modernization: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL34391.pdf.
21. China awards Aker Arctic contract for icebreaker design,” MarineLog, 31 July 2012, http://marinelog.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2731:china-awards-aker-arctic-contract-for-icebreaker-design&Itemid=231. “Finland’s Aker to design China’s new icebreaker,” ScandAsia.com, 6 January 2014, http://scandasia.com/finlands-aker-design-chinas-new-icebreaker.
22. Marinette Marine, “Profile,” www.marinettemarine.com/profile.html. Christopher Drew, “Navy Awards Two Contracts to Build New Combat Ships,” 29 December 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/business/global/30ships.html?_r=0.
23. BAE Systems, “BAE Systems Heritage,” www.baesystems.com/enhancedarticle/BAES_175147/BAE%20Systems?_afrLoop=1677403607870000&_afrWindowMode=0&_afrWindowId=1btgwdivr8_565#!%40%40%3F_afrWindowId%3D1btgwdivr8_565%26_afrLoop%3D1677403607870000%26_afrWindowMode%3D0%26_adf.ctrl-state%3D1btgwdivr8_621.