Lord Admiral Nelson’s famous dictum “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort” accurately reflects the immutable advantages of strong, resilient, and offensively capable land-based forces against relatively poorly armored and fragile naval forces. Nelson’s counsel, gained from experience fighting against Dutch, Spanish, and French bastions of two centuries ago, remains prescient. However, as weapons range and precision increase, with hypersonics and space-based munitions slated to continue this trend, soon every naval commander who leaves the safety of homeport could be fairly painted as foolish. We must seek modern solutions to this age-old problem.
In the era of great power competition, margins of victory will be razor thin. Nations seeking to exert influence and secure their national interests ignore any competitive domain at their own peril. As 21st-century warfare increasingly expands into cyberspace, this holds particularly true for American naval forces and offensive cyber warfare. For many conventional naval officers, the topic of cyber warfare invokes vague notions of dark rooms, brightly lit screens, and the click-click-click din of mice and keyboards, a concept difficult to couple with “normal” kinetic operations such as anti-surface warfare or strike warfare. Although familiarization with troubling scenarios contained in futuristic tales such as Ghost Fleet, where a coordinated series of cyber and conventional attacks leads to a Chinese invasion of Hawaii, has increased awareness of the growing importance of cyber warfare, conventional naval officers generally continue to be cyber warfare “noobs.”
However, as systems become more integrated and nearly all electronic commercial products connect to form a ubiquitous Internet of Things, it is clear that the United States must be able to effectively compete in the cyber domain if it is to succeed in the coming fight. Just as in previous revolutions in military affairs, whether it be the development of the longbow, the heavy gun, aerial bombardment, or precision munitions, the ebb and flow of military technological development requires potential competitors to adapt or to whither. The rapid evolution and pervasiveness of the cyber domain is no different, and American naval forces must both leverage offensive cyber capabilities to degrade adversary networks, unmanned systems, and anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems and align cyber command and control relationships to best support kinetic warfighters who, no matter how sophisticated technology may become, will still be tasked with the unchanging duty of the warfighter—closing with and destroying the enemy.
What Should Cyber Do?
This essay presumes either that active hostilities between the United States and a belligerent power have either begun or that the United States intends to presumptively attack to gain the initiative in a pending conflict. Although specifics concerning the legality of offensive cyber warfare operations continue to be negotiated, blatant attacks ought to be reserved for periods of intense, active conflict between nations. Within the overall context of offensive cyber warfare supporting kinetic warfighters, we must assume that kinetic warfighting is to take place. Keeping in mind that the foundational task of the naval commander in warfare is to “fire effectively first,” this article explores how innovative offensive cyber warfare capabilities can assist modern naval forces do so.
The traditional tactical problem for naval commanders is how to effectively deliver sufficient firepower at the right place and time to remove the threat of a counterattack, all while preventing an adversary from doing the same. The history of naval warfare is one of perpetually greater stand-off distances between combatant forces. In the modern anti-ship cruise and ballistic missile age, these stand-off distances can be hundreds or even thousands of miles. In an A2/AD environment, modern naval forces are effectively fighting against ever more capable forts. For a naval force to penetrate to an appropriate distance to launch ordnance or a strike package of carrier air-wing aircraft, modern adversaries will potentially have such a force under near constant threat. The tyranny of geographic distance and the slow speed of naval vessels as compared to antiship cruise missiles (ASCM) and antiship ballistic missiles (ASBM) are unlikely to change due to the laws of physics.
Offensive cyber warfare should first seek to thwart an adversary’s scouting efforts to localize U.S. naval forces. Assuming that the American objective is to penetrate threatened seaspace to a designated launch point for a strike package that would degrade or eliminate hostile naval forces, A2/AD systems, or enemy air forces to pave the way for follow on strikes of the landing of expeditionary forces, it should be clear that the primary enabling objective should be to remain untargetable by these forces. Once localized, even very capable air defense capabilities are unlikely to survive indefinitely against near-peer ASCM and ASBM attacks.
Cyberattacks can assist the kinetic warfighter with these goals. Adversary satellite surveillance, long-range scouting aircraft, unmanned systems, along with intelligence and reconnaissance assets will be desperately seeking to localize U.S. forces. Disciplined emissions control and effective military deception tactics can complicate adversary satellite and long-range surveillance efforts. However, if these methods should fail to conceal U.S. forces, these disparate but integrated systems must communicate and coordinate vast amounts of data to provide a coherent and actionable common operational picture to adversary commanders. This data must pass through a network that should be exploited through offensive cyberattack. Offensive cyber operations integrated into an aggressive concept of operations presents the potential opportunity to stymie or distort these transfers of data and disrupt the effective command and control of systems of geographically dispersed scouting and attacking forces.
A successful cyber offensive targeted against adversary command and control could provide valuable time and space needed for conventional naval forces to penetrate contested waters sufficiently to a launch their attack. As Rear Admiral Girrier and Captain Hughes write in the recently updated edition of Fleet Tactics, a historic analogy for a similar state of affairs can be found in the opening night hostilities of the Battle of Guadalcanal in which both American and Japanese forces completely lost situational awareness and combat effectiveness. Instead of relying on the darkness of night, we must to rely on the darkness of a muddled or distorted common operating picture and command and control infrastructure to succeed against increasingly competitive adversaries.
Due to the inherently “pulse” nature of modern missile warfare, the decision to open fire is more consequential than in the past. Consider that British and German forces combined fired thousands of ineffectual rounds at one another during World War I’s Battle of Jutland—a phenomenon unlikely to be repeated in modern naval combat. A modern ASCM or ASBM can cost millions of dollars and are fielded in finite quantities. Further, unlike carrier-based aircraft, fired missiles cannot be recovered. The mere act of spinning up and firing large anti-ship missiles integral to modern A2/AD systems generates electromagnetic and infrared signatures that may be detectable from long range satellite sensors to the benefit of the attacking force.
These considerations, coupled with the need to attack effectively first, meaning that sufficient resources must be committed to the opening salvo that, if successful, would preclude a dangerous American response, will seriously complicate the adversary commander’s decision to open fire, and allow a greater freedom of maneuver for U.S. naval forces. From a tactical perspective, only enough time is required for U.S. forces to close within striking range and launch either missiles and/or aircraft toward their desired targets. Once friendly naval forces have launched their pulse of naval power, some combination of vertical launching system missiles and carrier-launched strike aircraft, the need for continued cyber offensives accompanying the immediate tactical operation will decline as kinetic forces degrade adversary capabilities.
The goal of offensive cyber operations in support of kinetic forces should be to degrade adversary situational awareness such that they are unable to confidently localize and attack American naval forces. Instead of a networked web of technologically advanced sensors, they must return to the age of situational awareness provided by conventional scouting forces, such as that provided by a pilot looking out their window and reporting via radio to headquarters.
A note is warranted concerning unmanned systems. Current generation unmanned systems are typically remotely controlled by a human operator performing tasks such as piloting, observation, and analysis of data returned from the system. This two-way data link presents opportunities for offensive cyber exploitation or degradation. Ideally, a truly effective cyberattack against adversary unmanned systems would result in a hostile takeover of control of such systems, effectively turning the vehicle into an asset for American forces. However, measures such as confusing the system’s piloting sensors or degrading the quality of its sensor data back to headquarters would serve to further degrade the adversary’s confidence in their sensor network. As nations seek to remove humans from hostile environments, they must seek opportunities to attack cyber-based systems with cyber-based weapons.
A related category of vessels, tattletales, surface-craft, submarines, or aircraft positioned far forward of attack forces to scout will be used to locate American naval forces. These designated vessels will be seemingly innocent, non-hostile nation flagged, and eager to report to home base the precise GPS location of American forces. As maritime traffic has increased, so too has reliance on internet databases of shipping for identification and tracking of shipping. The Automatic Identification System (AIS) provides real-time data as to the position, destination, and port of call of large vessels on the high seas. It is already standard practice for the U.S. Navy to operate AIS aboard its vessels in receive-only mode during potential hostilities. AIS and similar databases, shared via computer networks, will continue to permeate the maritime domain. Measures such as degrading relied upon networks or databases at opportune times could increase the decision time of adversary forces and allow for contested water penetration. Sowing confusing within this and other related databases could be difference makers for American forces.
Alignment to Support the Kinetic Warfighter
Considering how to align current cyber command-and-control relationships to best support kinetic warfighters, a few fundamental principles must be adhered to. Firstly, the hallmark of American naval fighting prowess is centralized intent, but decentralized execution. Although the natural tendency will be to centralize execution of advanced, innovative capabilities such as offensive cyber warfare, we must resist the phantasmic allures of overly centralized operations. An appropriately qualified O-6 cyber warfare commander ought to be included within the composite warfare concept construct of carrier strike groups and empowered to execute offensive cyber operations within prespecified bounds as they deem fit.
Cyber warriors must be stationed in such a position that they have reliable connectivity and communications—which may preclude their deployment on ships at sea. However, they must be integrated into the battle rhythm of strike group forces and be included as a key planning consideration before executing offensive kinetic operations. The cyber warfare commander embarked on the carrier would serve as the composite warfare commander’s subject matter expert and key advisor on cyber operations and coordinate and integrate the timing and execution of cyber operations within the larger tactical or operational context.
Lastly, in the coming fight cyber operations will be just as crucial as other battlespace shaping warfare areas, to include information, electronic, or intelligence warfare. Although offensive cyber warfare is still a developing discipline, adequate respect must be paid to the potential advantages of a decisive offensive cyber warfare capability in degrading or eliminating adversary scouting and defensive efforts.
Conclusion
Effective offensive cyber warfare will be a critical enabler of successful kinetic naval operations in the 21st century. Conventional warfighters must appreciate the cyber battlespace shaping that must occur before hostilities to give the best chance of operational success. Cyber warfighters must similarly understand the inherent tactical problems kinetic warfighters confront and work to ameliorate the unchangeable characteristics of war in balance of friendly forces. If the technological developments of the 21st century will force every seagoing force to “fight a fort” in addition to adversary naval combatants, we must take advantage of all potential domain advantages to have the best chance of success in the coming fight.
As long as navies exist, ships will steam into dangerous waters to deliver decisive firepower against adversary forces. In the increasingly complex competitive environment, offensive cyber operations must be better appreciated and fully integrated into the afloat commanders’ toolkit of tactical capabilities. Failure to compete and exceed adversary cyber capabilities will result in a less integrated, capable, and powerful naval force. This would unfortunately be, as Admiral Nelson would say, foolish.
