In March 1999, Maj. Gen. Dennis T. Krupp, USMC, director of the Expeditionary Warfare Division in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee during the fiscal year 2000 defense authorization hearings. In briefing the committee on expeditionary resource requirements and assessments, he said the following: 

Today, expeditionary warfare forces are more relevant than at any previous time in our history. Since 1969, [U.S.] naval forces have responded to some 90 operational contingencies around the world--half of these occurring in the past 10 years alone. This relevance is further validated by the propagation of expeditionary warfare in the international arena. Britain, France, Australia, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Greece, and Singapore--all these countries have, or are developing, doctrine, operations, and platforms to execute amphibious or expeditionary operations in the littorals. ... As we move into the 21st century the Navy/Marine Corps team will continue to find itself in turbulent waters around the world. In response to the asymmetric threats our Sailors and Marines will likely face, expeditionary warfare will be instrumental in executing the emerging Navy and Marine Corps strategies, "Forward ... From the Sea" and "Operational Maneuver From the Sea." 

Krupp then highlighted four critical concerns that will have a major impact on any maritime power contemplating future operations in the world's increasingly complex and dangerous littorals: 

(1) Strategic lift--i.e., the capabilities needed to deploy and maneuver forces, and then conduct sustained operations; 

(2) Countering asymmetric threats, including sea mines as well as land mines; 

(3) Force protection, including mine countermeasures (MCM); and 

(4) Assessing the role of national policy in the committal of forces to expeditionary operations. 

Post-Cold War naval strategy and doctrine articulates an increasing need for combat-ready naval forces in the littorals of the world. It also places heavy emphasis on the forward presence of U.S. maritime forces and the growing need, therefore, for improved contingency-response capabilities to deal with the complexities and dangers of a volatile world. The increased post-Cold War threat of conflict in the littorals, Navy and Marine Corps leaders say, demands an agile and dynamic strategy with forces to match. 

Force Protection: The Mine Threat 

Improved MCM platforms and systems are mandatory for any maritime force operating in the increasingly high-risk littoral regions of the world. Other force-protection priorities include TBMD (theater ballistic-missile defense) systems, ASW (antisubmarine warfare) platforms and systems--particularly those that would be effective against diesel-electric submarines operating close to shore--and antiship missile- and air-defense systems. All of these varied requirements are at the core of the high-priority force-protection issues that must be addressed if the U.S. Navy-Marine Corps team is to prevail against the proliferating and increasingly capable asymmetric threats posed by enemy forces. Unfortunately, many of the onboard defensive sensors and weapons that arm today's forward-deployed naval forces were developed during the Cold War and were focused on the Soviet "blue water" threat. Moving from that deep-ocean environment into the compressed battlespace of the "brown water" littorals has placed considerable strain on current sensor suites and weapons systems, which were optimized to meet the open ocean challenge posed by the former Soviet fleets. 

The need to operate in the multifaceted complexities of the littoral regions further complicates the already difficult maritime challenge facing U.S. naval forces. Rapid "pop-up" threats, the reduction in detection ranges, and the compressed reaction time available to respond to hostile acts in the littorals, all are made more difficult by the probable presence, in most crisis scenarios, of friendly or neutral players within the same littoral waters and/or airspace. Reaction times are now being measured in seconds, not minutes, moreover, while combat systems struggle to perform as intended in a cluttered environment much different from that anticipated by the original system designers. Land clutter, as well as commercial shipping and aircraft in the littorals, adds new complications to the challenge of detecting and defeating--within seconds--an antiship cruise-missile attack, an approaching aircraft, or fast patrol boats operating close to shore. When these and other threats and challenges are superimposed on a hostile mine-warfare environment U.S. maritime forces will be hard put, at best, to prevail in the early stages of conflict. 

According to ONI (the Office of Naval Intelligence) and other intelligence agencies, approximately 50 nations currently possess sea mines and mining capabilities--a 40 percent increase since 1986. At least 30 of those countries have demonstrated a mine-production capability, and 20 have attempted to export these weapons--all of which adds a whole new dimension to the growing asymmetric threats to expeditionary contingency planning. In the hands of relatively small hostile powers (and/or terrorists), the sea mine and antiship cruise missile may soon become the worldwide weapon of choice for attacking, or at least restraining the freedom of action of, the superior surface combatants of U.S. and allied naval forces. 

Holes in the MCM Shield 

Today, a fundamental MCM capability gap still exists. The U.S. Navy has still not fully addressed or ad-vanced its capabilities in very-shallow-water mine countermeasures (VSW MCM) much beyond those used by the Army and Navy engineers at Omaha Beach in Normandy on 6 June 1944. That capability gap is particularly evident in the VSW zone--the offshore area where water depth extends from 40 feet below the surface and decreases from there to the surf zone (SZ) and the shoreline. 

Some recent-year expeditionary equipment acquisitions--including helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft--will help bypass that threat area. But if the beach and surf obstacle belt is positioned within an integrated--or, at the very least, a well-concealed--defensive architecture, the outcome will be less predictable. In any case, LCACs (landing craft, air cushion) and AAAVs (Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicles) will still be carrying the bulk of Marine forces and their equipment ashore, just as conventional landing craft will be carrying the heavier Army units to their objective areas. 

One way that the Navy is addressing the VSW mine threat is with the Assault Breaching System (ABS), which includes the Shallow-Water Assault Breaching System (SABRE) and Distributive Explosive Technology (DET). The ABS, mounted on a team of two LCACs, is a system--loosely based on the Marine Mk5-line charge--designed to neutralize the mine threat with line and net charges. SABRE is a single rocket-deployed demolition line-charge system, used primarily in the surf zone, that is effective in water depths between three and 10 feet. DET is a dual rocket-deployed system that fires an explosive array (or net) charge from an LCAC to destroy mines in the shallow-water zone from three feet up to the beach. SABRE and DET are near-term basic systems designed to give expeditionary forces an initial capability to clear the surf zone. 

These systems represent a major step forward. But there are still numerous problems, obvious to many operators, that must be overcome. One example: Because ABS is deployed from a LCAC, its use exposes both craft and crew directly to the mine threat and to other inshore defenses. In striving to take the man out of the minefield it appears, therefore, that the Navy has developed a system that solves only part of the problem. 

Other in-service VSW assets include marine mammals, which are trained to locate underwater ordnance. Teams of marine mammals already have been effectively deployed in numerous operational situations. However, the use of such teams also hazards personnel and other valuable assets. The future direction of VSW experimentation must therefore include greater emphasis on UUV (Unmanned Underwater Vehicle) technologies that provide operators with a low-profile, clandestine, mine-countermeasure capability. 

The Move to Organic MCM 

Since the Gulf War the U.S. Navy has invested more of its scarce MCM resources in the "dedicated" mine-warfare force. The Navy Mine Warfare Command in Ingleside, Texas, comprises 27 mine-countermeasures ships (MCMs) and coastal minehunters (MHCs), plus helicopters and EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) divers, and is by far the most capable mine-countermeasures force in the world. The Achilles' heel of the Navy's MCM strategy, however, is that it remains a slave to time. Even with MCM ships forward-deployed in Bahrain and Japan, it could take upwards of 45 days for the ships to reach the minefields to be swept. This real-world obstacle is particularly daunting when one considers that most post-Cold War contingency plans must be executed within hours of the warning order. In that context, 45 days is simply too late. 

The other major mine-warfare dilemma the Navy is facing is an internal cultural one. Today, mine warfare is a separate warfare "community." In the five decades after World War II, though, the mine force almost always played "second string" to the aviation, surface, and submarine communities. However, today's threat has elevated mine warfare to a unique position that takes it well beyond the traditional warfare-community definition and has made it a core warfighting competency. The Navy is grappling with this changed state of affairs and has been reassessing the way mine warfare is integrated into its combat operations. In a speech to the Mine Warfare Association in April 1998, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James L. Jones Jr., then military assistant to Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, said that the "ultimate goal of this evolutionary process," taking mine warfare "from dedicated force to organic capability," is the eventual replacement of that dedicated force "so that every deployed operational commander is breathing, eating, sleeping--in essence, living--mine warfare in [his] daily activities." 

The possession of organic mine-warfare capabilities obviously would expand the overall MCM capabilities of the Navy and, of perhaps greater importance, decrease the response time necessary to commence the MCM campaign. The suite of systems needed to provide such organic capabilities would include integrated onboard MCM sensors and weapons that make up the combat-systems package of the Navy's surface ships, submarines, and helicopters. Doctrine would change to require that the forces comprising the Navy's carrier battle groups (CVBGs) and amphibious ready groups (ARGs) execute the mine-countermeasure missions as a core warfighting competency, and that MCM be a mandatory mission skill within the battle groups. 

Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Jay L. Johnson has committed the Navy to "going organic." The initial operational capability (IOC) date for the first organic battle group MCM package is 2005. According to Krupp: "That is our line in the sand. We need to get the organic systems into the hands of our commanders at sea so that we can meet our stated national objectives. Mines must be reduced from being showstoppers to being merely a speed bump in the conduct of expeditionary operations. Organic MCM will get us there." 

Status Reports Now Required 

Mine warfare has been thrust into the forefront of maritime expeditionary debates. It seems likely, therefore, that program support for these vital systems will no longer suffer from a lack of sponsorship. Although the development of a more forward-looking strategy required some initial prodding from Secretary Cohen, a recent Mine-Warfare Certification Plan mandated by Congress requires that the Navy report its MCM status annually. The "new" mine-warfare strategy, it seems, is off to an impressive, albeit tardy, start. 

The current Mine-Warfare Concept of Operations, initiated in May 1999 and made into a "final draft" later in the year, includes considerable input from the Navy's fleet commanders. Meanwhile, an Integrated Process Team (IPT) in Mine Warfare Systems Science and Technology (MWS S&T) was formed to "prioritize the most applied portion of the S&T account, as desired by the CNO and VCNO [vice chief of naval operations]." The S&T funding is expected to have a major impact and move MCM technology from the laboratory bench and prototype phase out into the fleet. 

The federal and industry scientific community is working closely with the fleet to ensure system interoperability of many of the future organic technologies now in development. For example, in November 1999 the Navy successfully completed the first of a series of tests of the CH-60S Knighthawk helicopter, which is expected to replace the MH-53E as the organic airborne MCM aircraft of choice. Under current Navy plans, the versatile CH-60S will deploy five of the seven initial organic systems. 

Parting Shot 

Effective littoral power-projection capabilities are essential if the U.S. Navy is to prevail in the near-shore battlespace of the future. But complete domination of the maritime battlespace can be achieved only through total situational awareness. The ability to clearly identify and discriminate among a complex mixture of hostile, neutral, and friendly forces, and the capability to immediately respond to and defeat enemy threats, including mines, will be mandatory. 

The Navy already has made substantial investments to support the Marine Corps' Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFTS) concept. The ability to operate unrestrained in the world's littorals is considered a "key enabling" capability for the execution of U.S. national security policy in missions ranging across the entire spectrum of conflict from humanitarian operations to a major theater war. Asymmetric attacks on the forward-deployed combat forces of the United States and its allies must now be expected in all future crises. Low-cost inshore mining represents one predictable response by opponents of U.S. overseas operations. 

In the past the Navy frequently accepted, and institutionally adhered to, so-called "fair-share" cuts that created an imbalance between requirements and resources. The result was, among other things, a disjointed MCM effort. Today, an awareness of the littoral mine threat has been thrust to the forefront of expeditionary program priorities by the nation's naval leaders. In his April 1998 speech to the Mine Warfare Association Conference, Jones reflected on the MCM situation as he saw it at that time. "Shakespeare could well have been addressing our commitment to organic MCM when he said: 'The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.' 

"Now is the time," Jones said, "to readdress that approach and fix the remaining capability gaps."