Soapbox
November 2009 IssueSustaining Undersea Warfare Superiority
by Bruce C. Spear
Naval strategists recognize anti-submarine warfare (ASW) as a timeless priority, essential to protecting the U.S. Navy’s use of the sea. Over the course of the past several years, essentially since the end of the Cold War, there has been an increasing focus on the littorals, and even a new ship class, the littoral combat ship (LCS).
Despite the perpetual ASW priority, the business of undersea warfare (USW) has declined. The principal drivers include: the distraction of the long ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the concomitant focus on “irregular warfare”; a perceived lack of an imminent, credible threat; the impact of declining budgets, fewer platforms and a downsized market; reduced numbers of experienced professionals in government and industry; and rapid advances in and global availability of computing technology. This has diverted our attention from maintaining access in a global economy where we are dependent on imports.
We have allowed our competitors and potential enemies to close the gap in an area where we’ve held supremacy. We are now lagging an acquisition cycle behind fielded adversary capabilities. Clear requirements against today’s multiplex, diverse, asymmetric, agile and extremely elusive threats are difficult to identify, although certain components are evident, including evolving diesel-electric and air independent propulsion, sixth-generation attack submarines and formidable advanced weapons. While we may retain individual unit superiority, we may not have supremacy. Insufficient force levels would make it difficult for us to prevail in any prolonged conflict. Effectively, we face both new and expanding traditional missions. Distributed, force-multiplying and asymmetric technologies to deny the threat space and time are not being vigorously pursued. The minimal analysis expended on requirements indicates that multiple, advanced capabilities will be needed to hold any player at bay. However, we may no longer hold an advantage against threats that rapidly adapt ubiquitous military and commercial technology into ready capability.
Over the past decade, fleet size was reduced by 60 ships, and ASW-capable platform numbers have decreased. There is perceived insufficient rationale for major acquisition programs; rather, the trend is to fix, modernize and sustain legacy systems. Funding domestic programs and the ongoing wars leaves reduced funding for USW programs. Industry, struggling to sustain USW resources, is not investing in breakthrough technology but instead is using incremental development to insert only that technology which fits within budget constraints—creating capabilities that appear to be dictated by budget rather than operational requirements. To remain viable, industry has consolidated and depended on foreign military sales.
Today’s intellectual base comprises a significantly reduced number of aging personnel who are drawn to higher-profile, better-resourced programs because of the lack of visible USW priorities and investments. This talent pool is, therefore, losing years of specialized study and hands-on USW systems development experience. Although personnel courses in computers, digital processing, network hardware and software are available, university physics and acoustics courses do not address USW functionality and systems.
If a capability for designing and producing undersea warfare systems is to be realized, a cooperative program would be required between government, industry and academia to train students in the application of a science and engineering education to the development of USW systems.
Open system architecture (OSA) and commercial off-the-shelf technologies (COTS) have reduced the size of production contracts, leaving industry to rely on research and development (R&D), system integration and life cycle support roles. Small R&D jobs, spread over broad technology areas, favor lower overhead costs and small business. Systems integration requires larger organization and infrastructure, favoring large business; however, government entities now compete with industry in this role. Rapid COTS technology changes require fluid design and implementation as well as flexible life cycle support. The government historically provided life cycle support, but because large numbers of spares are unnecessary and potentially obsolete before use, a large support infrastructure is no longer needed. Industry, specifically the integrator, is better able to provide life cycle support because of its overall system knowledge.
The four drivers—perceived lack of threat, declining budget, reduced intellectual base and implementation of OSA and COTS technology—have now converged to a point where the USW industry is fighting for survival.
To reverse this decline, USW needs a partnering approach among Navy, industry and academia to focus requirements, budgeting, R&D and acquisition. One way to do this is through partnerships in which the provider of specific services is selected for the most cost-effective approach. Near-term objectives of any partnership should be to: align and prioritize R&D and acquisition requirements with projected future threats; balance R&D expenditures across new development and modernization; integrate and leverage investment across industry and government; develop programs with adequate work mix and funding to sustain a capable work force and physical infrastructure; apply available funding to maximize delivery of products by eliminating duplicate efforts, assigning roles and work for the most cost-effective execution and eliminating underutilized facilities; and address critical industrial and human capital trends and shortfalls.
Bruce C. Spear is chairman of the National Defense Industrial Associa-tion (NDIA), Un-dersea Warfare Division. He is a senior scientist at Science Applications International Corp. and holds Superior Civilian Service, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Decibel and NDIA Adm. Charles Weakley awards.
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