The United States relies on freedom of maneuver on the seas to create deterrence and respond to crises. Anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) systems were developed by competitors to forestall timely responses to short term military adventures aimed at delivering a fait accompli outcome. Recent years have seen the rise of operational concepts designed to enable U.S. forces to operate in the face of these threats. Called stand-in forces, they propose to use a dispersed force connected by a robust command and control (C2) network, sharing sensors and massing fires to deny the seas to potential adversaries and hold their forces at risk.

The U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army are in the process of delivering forces purpose-built for this task, but for these to be relevant they must either be forward based or speedily deployed. For deterrence by denial to be effective, allied stand-in forces—similarly equipped, trained, and organized—are required. NATO nations are especially well-positioned to take full advantage of these approaches and refine them accordingly.

The Allied Contribution is Critical

Allied nations along the frontiers of potential adversaries represent the equity of forward engagement, already living and operating in the shadow of A2/AD. They enjoy an inherent “home court” advantage, with all the advantages that U.S. stand-in forces lack. No matter how well trained or lavishly equipped, the most appropriate inside force—the one best-suited to disperse and operate in any country—is the one created by and operated by the nations themselves.

To deter and defend against potential aggression, allies should consider moving away from current maritime structures in which resources are focused on a few blue water units and instead look toward a force designed to “[d]istribute offensive capability geographically.” This can be done by reapplying resources to develop an agile, resilient maritime defense with nodes across all domains. A heavily armed, hard-to-find, hard-to-kill networked fires complex would challenge the underlying calculus for any attempt to prevent intervention via A2/AD capabilities; it would “. . . open battlespace and enable concealment and deception in order to inject uncertainty and complexity into an adversary’s targeting.” Such a force would be ideally designed and positioned to integrate with and be reinforced by U.S. and allied expeditionary units.

NATO’s forward points of contact with Russia offer the most fertile ground for capitalizing on this approach. For example, the three Baltic nations deep within Russian WEZs could use their limited resources to each field a battalion centered upon a fires company of trucks and boats armed with Naval Strike Missiles (NSMs), supported by ISR and logistics companies designed to distribute these capabilities across each nation’s territory. This would pose a persistent, difficult-to-counter threat to any surface ships in the Baltic Sea. If equipped with a dual-purpose missile like the currently in development Joint Strike Missile, they would be able to strike both land and maritime targets, multiplying their deterrence value accordingly. Similar forces could be developed by allied and partner nations in the High North and Black Sea regions, to great effect.

While several Western European nations use amphibious landing forces, only a few maintain units dedicated to fighting in the littorals. Italy’s Lagunari Brigade, Norway’s Coastal Ranger Commando and Romania’s 307th Marine Regiment are all nominally marines due to their amphibious capabilities but in actuality are designed to primarily operate in the littorals, not from ships. NATO partners Sweden and Finland operate similar units. Missile systems operated by these units are invariably short-ranged. While some nations maintain limited coastal defense cruise missile (CDCM) capabilities, these are generally operated as batteries, with a full complement of launch, C2, radar and support vehicles, in a way that is not doctrinally compatible with tactical and operational dispersal.

The foremost concern in the formation of stand-in forces must be the development and delivery of effective, mobile missile systems designed to be employed from a wide variety of platforms. The United States has already purchased the Norwegian NSM to equip the littoral combat ship and Marine littoral regiments. Other possibilities exist, such as the French Exocet MM40 Block 3 or the Israeli Delilah cruise missile, among others. Whatever missiles are used, they should be small enough to be mounted on platforms as small as light trucks, combat boats and helicopters, in addition to maritime patrol aircraft, strike aircraft and naval combatants. For example, the NSM is already carried by ships and fixed-wing aircraft; India is considering putting NSMs on its MH-60R helicopters, and Kongsberg has already produced CDCM batteries built around this system for Poland.

Existing littoral forces could be adapted, re-structured as small, dispersed units armed with stand-off weapons, operating directly inside adversary weapons arcs. Complex multi-mission missile systems may be outside the defense budgets of small nations, even with U.S. assistance, but the groundwork for a distributed defense can still be laid. ISR and logistics teams, supply caches, and the active preparation of necessary EMCON and C2 architecture are all both feasible and easily scaled. Local forces prepared and trained to operate in tandem with stand-in forces deployed from other nations would accelerate responsiveness and enhance the effectiveness of the deterrence by denial strategy.

Recommendations

The United States can immediately take action to strengthen deterrence by denial by fostering the creation and integration of allied stand-in forces. Because it is so early in the development of these capabilities, there is a golden opportunity to bring allies in “at the ground floor” to discuss the creation of complementary structures and explore partnerships in development of the necessary technologies. Allies already squarely within adversary A2/AD bubbles, like those in Central and Eastern Europe, are struggling with military modernization and should be designated as prime candidates for military assistance with the express purpose of developing and equipping their own stand-in forces.

Within the NATO context, local forces could be re-oriented to integrate with and support deployed stand-in forces. Cooperative development partnerships should be formed to further the establishment of full-capability stand-in forces. Additional options include:

1. Direct the Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation to develop and experiment with integrated approaches to Allied stand-in forces;
2. Engage the NATO Support and Procurement Agency to coordinate acquisition partnerships in support of collective procurement of the necessary systems;
3. Use the NATO Security and Investment Program (NSIP) to build the necessary infrastructure support dispersed logistics and networked C2 systems in forward areas;
4. Incorporate multi-national stand-in capabilities into ongoing NATO concept development and planning efforts; and
5. Integrate these forces into exercises as a demonstration of allied resilience and capability.

In the Pacific, similar approaches could be utilized to create stand-in capabilities in the First and Second Island Chains.

Final Thoughts

As the world returns to great power competition, the United States should encourage its allies and partners to re-evaluate their force structures and attenuate strategies to maximize littoral defenses, where they enjoy distinct home field advantages. In Europe and the Pacific, the United States and its allies can cooperatively create stand-in forces to deliver deterrence by denial effects where they are needed most. Restructured to increase resilience, firepower and the ability to mitigate threats in peace and in war, a more distributed force would be able to “ . . . change the adversary’s cost calculus and buy time for flexible deterrent options and assembling a joint task force.” As long as allies maintain control of their coastlines and vital airports, they will be able to hamper and hold at risk adversary military operations, providing opportunities to disrupt, flank and strike key facilities and assets. There is a golden opportunity here to collectively re-orient around a multi-domain force that emphasizes weapons rather than platforms by using units designed to integrate in deep, resilient defensive networks able to resist enemy advances from the outset.