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THE M/UWIED DEFENSE CHALLENGE
The United States confronts the daunting task of protecting, as noted, some
ninety-five thousand miles of coastlines, as well as thousands of miles of inland
and Great Lakes waterways, 361 ports, and a territorial sea/exclusive economic
zone that comprises more than 3.4 million square miles of ocean space and at
any time is cluttered with thousands of warships, commercial vessels and fishing
boats, tugs and ferries—not to ignore millions of private pleasure craft. Sorting
the legal fromthe illegal in such a complex maritime domain is aHerculean task
that challenges federal, regional, state, and local agencies, as well as commercial
entities and other nongovernmental organizations, to work hand in glove and
also to collaborate with allies and friends to safeguard maritime security at
home and abroad.
Maritime domain awareness—what the 2005 National Strategy for Maritime
Security describes as the “effective understanding of anything associated with
the maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy, or environment
of theUnited States, and identifying threats as early and as distant from
our shores as possible”—will thus be absolutely necessary for success against a
broad spectrum of maritime threats, including mines and underwater IEDs.34
Exacerbating the M/UWIED challenge for federal, state, and local actors is
the fact that no two ports are alike. Each differs in geography, channel layout,
bathymetry, wind, tide, current, bottom sediment, turbidity, climate, and critical
infrastructure—piers and wharves, moorings, navigation markers, cables,
pipelines, and more, with most bottom infrastructure uncharted or its location
long forgotten. That fact will make the already complex problem of detecting,
identifying, and defeating M/UWIEDs even more daunting. Questions begging
answers include:
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• What is already on the bottom?
• How do we know when something new is there?
• What is the local oceanographic and environmental situation?
• What port or waterway infrastructure needs to be protected from M/UWIEDs,
as well as from the Navy’s countermine operations?
• In a crisis, could we quickly and effectively tell the difference between a refrigerator
or a fifty-five-gallon drum—what in the MCM trade is called a
“nonmine/minelike bottom object” (or “NOMBO”)—and the real thing?
The bestMCMis to interdict the minelayers before the weapons can be put in
the water. If that fails, the Coast Guard, Navy, FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives, and other federal and nonfederal first responders will
need to understand what theNaval Oceanography Program describes as the “intelligence
preparation of the environment.”35
First, strategic, operational, and tactical intelligence about the mine/UWIED
threat is absolutely essential: What terrorist groups are active? What weapons
might they have? Are there any indications and warning that they are planning
single ormultiple strikes in U.S. waters?What tactics might they employ? In addition
to good strategic and operational intelligence, existing and future MDA
vessel surveillance, identification, and tracking systems and organizations, such
as the Coast Guard/Navy JointHarborOperations Centers, need to be “attuned”
at the tactical level to the potential need to detect, control, and engage minelayers
before they start their tasks.
Second, and of equal but different importance, there must be environmental
awareness of potential mining areas and data of sufficient quality and currency
to support MCM operations. At least for each of the seventeen tier-one ports
these data must be available and up to date:
• Port geography and infrastructure from the high-water mark seaward
• Climatic, environmental, and oceanographic factors and their daily/
monthly/yearly variations
• Detailed sonar bottom maps and surveys, at high precision and accuracy, to
determine clutter and known NOMBO contacts for change detection and
possible channel conditioning before a crisis erupts.
It has been years since the U.S. Navy, developing port-breakout concepts in
the ColdWar, conducted routine bottomsurveys and mapped “Q-routes” to ensure
the safe egress of warships and auxiliary and sealift vessels in support of national
strategies and war plans.While there might well be databases for selected
ports, waterways, or estuaries that could satisfy some (but certainly not all) port
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geography and environmental data needs, the reality, as former defense secretary
Donald H.Rumsfeld acknowledged, is that “we don’t knowwhatwe don’t know.”
Who has what data and information today? The Oceanographer and Navigator
of the Navy? The Meteorology and Oceanography Command? The Coast
Guard? National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)? The
Corps of Engineers? State or local agencies, or regional authorities? Local pilots
and the maritime transportation industry? Sea Grant colleges and marine environmental
groups? Whoever has these data, are they good enough to support MCM
operations?Where are the gaps in our knowledge?Who should have the responsibility
to fill them?
Some have suggested that the Navy revisit its port-breakout model for key
commercial and military ports to identify critical routes and other areas needing
attention and to conduct channel-conditioning operations that would in essence
wipe clean selected areas to facilitate subsequent change detection. (By 2006, the
Royal Navy had already embarked on such an effort in several British ports.)
Others have proposed resurrecting the ill-fated COOP—Craft of Opportunity—
programof the mid-1990s and having Navy Reserve units conduct periodic surveying
and sonar mapping of bottoms. Still others have recommended that the
maritime transportation industry and port authorities take the lead for local
areas. Or the survey and mapping responsibilities could be outsourced to commercial
contractors. In short, in mid-2007 there was no coherent plan, staffing,
or program—except perhaps for references to the USCG’s sector/COTP responsibilities
for port maritime security plans, area security assessments, and area
maritime transportation plans, in addition to the efforts of the Maritime Security
Policy Coordination Committee—to address this threat and port geography
and environmental data requirements. Even then, Captain Davilli’s concerns
loom large.
Collecting such MCM data for even a handful of ports and keeping it up to
date will not be inexpensive. InMay 2007, for example, NOAA estimated that it
could conduct a survey program that would support draft Navy–Coast Guard
operational concepts—twenty ports per year and relooking every three years—
at a cost of approximately $14 million per year. This figure is well below an “educated
guess” that Los Angeles/Long Beach alone would require about $10 million
annually, raised during a December 2006 technology war game.36 In any
case, compared to the $60 billion economic impact if major ports were closed
for a couple of weeks or more, several million dollars each year seems to be an insurance
premium that the nation could and should afford.
Still, the operational challenge should not be underestimated. An April–May
2007 San Diego mine warfare harbor survey conducted by Third Fleet and supported
by the Naval Oceanography Operations Command, the Naval
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Oceanographic Office, EOD Group 1, U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Diego, and
NOAA provided a real-world look at the complexity of the problem. According
to Captain James Berdeguez,Director,OceanographyOperations forMineWarfare
at the Naval Oceanography Operations Command, the survey of eleven
nautical miles of channel and secondary areas required nearly six hundred
man-hours to complete—350 hours for the actual survey and about 230 hours
for analysis of the data collected on the more than six hundred minelike and
nonminelike contacts detected.37 Clutter, bottomroughness, sediment burial, in
situ optics, currents, bathymetry, sound-velocity profiles, and infrastructure
significantly complicated the survey effort.
However any focused domestic mine survey program is undertaken, a consensus
is growing that there must be a central database of American port infrastructure
and environmental survey data that can “set data standards, conduct
critical analysis to produce tactical decision aid products, and hold this information
centrally,” according to Commander Robert Witzleb, Deputy Director,
Oceanography Operations for Mine Warfare.38 “Such a centralized data repository
exists in practice at the Naval Oceanographic Office, which has the largest
oceanographic holdings in the world, but is nonetheless very weak in US waters.
For that reason,” he continued, “Navy METOC [theMeteorology and Oceanography
Command] has prepared a draft technical instruction,MineWarfare Survey
in Support of Maritime Homeland Defense, that explicitly details how we
would collect environmental data to support domestic MCM operations.”
“We need that information now, not when the act takes place,” Tony Fuller,
who supports concept development and experimentation for Navy mine warfare
sea trial initiatives, noted in a March 2007 e-mail exchange. “There is a significant
amount of gap analysis that will need to be conducted, probably
followed by substantial programmatic issue work. In simplest deck-plate terms,
the direction as to what has to be brought to bear in a port to beginMCMin how
much time, culminating with what has to be accomplished, in how much time,
to make the call that all, or part, of a port is ‘open’ is needed.”
Finally, there are operational and tactical issues that need to be addressed.
The Coast Guard and Navy in the spring of 2007 were developing a domestic
MCM concept of operations within the MOTR framework. These concepts and
associated response plans, which will involve relevant state and local actors,
must be specific to and in place for selected ports and waterways well in advance
of the first “flaming datum.” The two services are building upon recent war
games and exercises—for example, LEAD SHIELD III in 2005, which brought together
a broad spectrum of federal, state, and local agencies and organizations to
deal with terrorist mines in the port of Los Angeles/Long Beach—and upon the
Navy’s real-world experiences of clearing the port of Umm Qasr, Iraq, in 2003.
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Coast Guard, Navy, and other participants must equip for, train to, and exercise
the plans; analyze and share the results of the exercises and war games; refine
concepts of operations and “TTPs” (tactics, techniques, and procedures); incorporate
new technologies and systems—and then plan and train and exercise
again, and then again.
“The Umm Qasr port MCM ops show what we might confront in a domestic
mining incident,” said Captain TerryMiller,who has more than twenty years’ experience
as a surface mine warfare officer and commander, including in DESERT
STORM mine-clearance operations.39 An international MCM force comprising
Royal Australian Navy and Royal Navy explosive-ordnance-demolition and
mine countermeasures specialists and American NSCT 1 divers, aided by marine
mammals and UUVs, cleared some nine hundred square miles to enable the
landing ship RFA Galahad to delivermuch-needed humanitarian-relief supplies
at the outset of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
“The Australians worked in some very confined areas, alongside piers, and
among numerous obstacles and clutter,”Miller noted, “and were aided by their
extensive HLS planning and training for the 2000 SydneyOlympics.”The lack of
prior knowledge of the port and its approaches, however, contributed to the fact
that nine days of intensive underwater MCM operations were needed to clear
the channel for Galahad and follow-on shipping. Closing Los Angeles/Long
Beach for nine days could cost the American economy as much as $18 billion.
These domestic plans and concepts of operations should also identify where
the Navy can sweep and where it must hunt. Constrained airspace and water
space and extensive port infrastructures will certainly affect the ability to use
traditional airborne and surface sweeping gear or to neutralize mines/UWIEDs
by hunting or sweeping.While in some cases it will be appropriate to “blow in
place” weapons that are discovered, in others critical port assets could be damaged
severely by a detonation.When “BIP” is not feasible, the Navy would have
to raise and neutralize or render safe the mines, a process that would also support
intelligence exploitation of the weapons and law-enforcement evidentiary
needs. It would also, however, increase the danger and the duration of the countermine
process.
There are, as well, logistical concerns that arise unless the mine crisis occurs
nearNavyMCMbases or home ports. Transit times will affect responses and contribute
to economic hardships until ports and waterways are declared safe. If mine
countermeasures helicopters had to self-deploy across the country, they might require
maintenance before getting gear in the water, unavoidably extending the duration
of the crisis. The physical security of MCM assets—helicopters at nearby
commercial airports and vessels in commercial berths—must also be assured,
which could put additional strains on local capabilities. Finally, the plans must
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consider “hotel” sustainment for crews—including the marine mammals, if they
deploy—and support people and maintenance support for platforms and systems
if the crisis goes on for long. In short, the Coast Guard and the Navy must start
planning notional “time-phased force deployment data” for domestic MCM
operations.
“Until we have an approved HLS/MCM CONOPS [concept of operations] it’s
hard to say what level of capability is missing,”CaptainMiller offered. “Most certainly
confined waters inside an inner harbor pose challenges for the current force
construct, although we did adapt and overcome the Umm Qasr challenge with
some innovations in systems and TTPs. Plus we have quite extensive lessons
learned from‘Down Under’ during the Sydney Olympics,” he continued. “Sydney
had an extensive harbor defense plan that accounted for mines and floating IEDs
and is a blueprint for any mine/UWIED scenario and domesticMCMplanning.”
In the spring of 2007, Rear Admiral John J. Waickwicz, Commander, Naval
Mine and Anti-SubmarineWarfare Command, directed his staff to brief him on
the operational environment and all salient issues and requirements relating to
the Navy’s support to Northern Command, the Department of Homeland Security,
and the Coast Guard in response to a mining or IED attack in U.S. ports or
waterways.40 A predecisional brief underscored the impression that the Navy’s
mine warfare community is taking this threat seriously. Indeed, for the last several
years—via conferences, full-scale exercises, and national-level commandpost
exercises—the mine force has been working to define operational response
requirements sufficiently to allow concepts of operations and port-specific response
plans to be developed and put in place. Meanwhile, “joint” Navy and
Coast Guard planning continues within the MOTR framework.
It continues in other venues as well. For one, “Charleston has created Project
Seahawk to address and implement port-security capabilities against terrorism,”
Rear Admiral Charles “Chuck”Horne, USN (Retired), has noted.41 Horne, who
served as Commander,Mine Warfare Command in Charleston and still resides
there, is helping the SEAHAWK Team to include the terrorist mine threat. “Project
SEAHAWK will be looking at ways to prevent as well as respond to a mine
threat by addressing it well ahead of time.”
“The harbor and portMCMproblemwill not ultimately be resolved using traditional
AMCM, SMCM,UMCM assets,”Rear Admiral Deborah A. Loewer, USN
(Retired), cautions, “as these tactics won’t work in the confined waters of ports,
harbors, and approaches.”42 Loewer, who was the last commander of Mine Warfare
Command before its stand-down on 1 October 2006, explained, “This problem
will be solved using a combination of small vessels and helos, towed sensors,
UUVs, EOD, change detection and a variation of the tools currently under development
for the MCM mission package for the Littoral Combat Ship.”
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“Admiral Loewer’s comments are right on the mark,” Rear Admiral Richard
D. Williams III, USN (Retired), underscores.43 “The breadth and complexity
added to the mine problem in an in-port/near-port home-waters situation, as
compared to the blue-water or assault-breaching situation, are significant. Not
only are U.S. Navy ship and aircraft MCM assets of limited utility in in-port/
near-port roles, but operationally useful environmental, bottom, and port infrastructure
data and prearranged logistical and support procedures for each individual
port of major importance will be critical to a timely, successful, and safe
response to an in-port mine/UWIED scenario.”AdmiralWilliams notes further,
“The most important issue [for] current efforts—as well as supporting efforts at all
levels and across all boundaries that need to proceed with appropriate priority—
is to define action responsibilities so that requirements can be clearly determined
and articulated and budgets aligned to ensure that the right tools and
operational support are acquired and put in place before they are needed.”
In short, once formal requirements for domestic MCM operations are established,
operational concepts and concepts of operations agreed upon, risk assessments
conducted, and priorities among and timelines for the various ports
articulated, capabilities strengths and gaps identified, and time-phased force deployment
data laid out, government and industry programs can be put in place
to ensure that strategic, operational, and tactical objectives will be met.
“Such a capability would have a deterrent effect,”Vice AdmiralHull has underscored,
“and could make our adversaries think twice before attempting to mine
U.S. waters.Why make the attempt if it will be for naught?”
A TERRIBLE THING THAT WAITS . . .
The “anonymous, loosely affiliated perpetrators” who would strike America’s
ports and waterways have no qualms about “unchivalrous” attacks against any
target that would serve their causes. As Rear Admiral Farragut understood, “it
does not do to give your enemy such a decided superiority over you.”44
In 1950, after three thousand mines stymied plans for an amphibious assault
onWonsan, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Forrest Sherman, declared,
“We’ve been plenty submarine-conscious and air-conscious.Now we’re going to
start getting mine-conscious—beginning last week!”45 Four decades later the
CNO, Admiral Frank Kelso, underscored fundamental lessons relearned in the
northern Persian Gulf and called for renewed mine consciousness: “I believe
there are some fundamentals about mine warfare that we should not forget.
Once mines are laid, they are quite difficult to get rid of. That is not likely to
change. It is probably going to get worse, because mines are going to become
more sophisticated.”46Writing on the eve of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, Admiral
Robert J.Natter,Commander,U.S.Atlantic Fleet and Fleet Forces Command,
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warned: “Our first prioritymust be improving our near-termcapabilities, but it
is also important to keep an eye on our long-term vision of mine warfare. . . .
Given the growing threat to our fleet and the current state of technology, we are
fools if we don’t.”47
Eight thousand foreign-flag ships enter American ports each year.Millions of
other vessels and pleasure boats ply America’s waterways. But only a few come
under close scrutiny by the Coast Guard or the Navy or state and local marine
police. This is troubling, as the Libyan ferry Ghat proved beyond reasonable
doubt that any ship can be a mine-layer once—if not many times. In short, as we
address America’s “threat-rich” maritime security problems we must become
mine and UWIED conscious, if not “last week” then certainly before a terrorist’s
weapon ruins our day.