As the standoff between the little orange life boat of and the USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) continues, both sides are saying they are sending reinforcements.
Fox News is reporting that the USS Boxer (LHD 4) will be moving to reinforce the US Navy ships responding to the incident. Reuters is reporting the USS Halyburton (FFG 40) is among the US Navy warships responding to the region, while some pirate punk named Da’ud from Eyl is suggesting his clan is sending help as well.
“We sent reinforcement men to help them,” said Da’ud, who declined to give his full name. The reinforcing pirates are in two groups, one of which was already at sea, he said.
The US Navy resources in the 5th Fleet are not unlimited. With ongoing operations off the coast of Iraq guarding oil terminals or carrier operations supporting Afghanistan, the warships responding to the stand off in the Indian Ocean are likely being pulled from other duties, likely the prevention of piracy in other locations.
During the presidential transition phase, several think tanks produced reports that discussed force structure issues to address low intensity, low spectrum threats at sea. In a Center for New American Security report, Frank Hoffman called for Maritime Security Groups to address the low intensity regions in sea. Bob Work, in his Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments report (PDF), calls for an expansion in force structure under the Global Fleet Stations model to address these types of low intensity challenges.
The Small Wars Journal, who can smell irregular warfare over the horizon, picked up on the April 2009 article written by Commander Henry J. Hendrix titled Buy Ford, Not Ferrari. I think we need more thinking like this:
Naval forces that have basic abilities to police the sea lines of communication while also seizing port call opportunities to build the basic communal building blocks of productive life ought to be an important component of the future Navy.
The next step on the Navy’s path to a new future should be the creation of “Influence Squadrons” composed of an amphibious mother ship (an LPD-17 or a cheaper commercial ship with similar capabilities), a destroyer to provide air, surface, and subsurface defensive capabilties, a Littoral Combat Ship to extend a squadron’s reach into the green-water environment and provide some mine warfare capabilities, a Joint High Speed Vessel to increase lift, a Coastal Patrol ship to operate close in, and an M80 Stiletto to provide speed and versatility.
The Influence Squadron should also heavily employ unmanned technologies to further expand the squadron’s reach. Unmanned air, surface, and subsurface platforms could be deployed and monitored by the various vessels, extending American awareness, if not American presence.
These forces, operating every day around the world, would represent the preponderance of visible U.S. naval power. Their understated capabilities would epitomize America’s peaceful, non-aggressive intent, and would carry out the new maritime strategy’s stated purpose of providing positive influence forward. However, the Influence Squadron, carrying credible firepower across a broad area of operations, could also serve to either dissuade or destroy pirate networks that might seek to prey upon increasingly vulnerable commercial sea lines of communication.
If we could insert several PCs and smaller, fast vessels into this situation to support USS Boxer (LHD 4), USS Bainbridge (DDG 96), and USS Halyburton (FFG 40) I think we would have the making of a real “Influence Squadron” capability today. One necessity to implement this capability looks to be for the Navy to develop logistics ideas on how to support PCs and other smaller vessels at sea over extended periods of time without beating the crews ragged.
As this situation highlights, aircraft and unmanned systems are great tools, but nothing gets resolved until the US Navy sailor arrives to take care of business. Against irregular challenges at sea in the 21st century, the sailor is the weapon of choice, and should be the payload deployed to influence the populated spaces where irregular forces operate.
