RESPONDING TO
CAPABILITY SURPRISE
A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces
Committee on Capability Surprise on U.S. Naval Forces
Naval Studies Board
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.nap.edu
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by Contract No. N00014-10-G-0589, DO #5 between the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of the Navy. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
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COMMITTEE ON CAPABILITY SURPRISE ON U.S. NAVAL FORCES
JERRY A. KRILL, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Co-chair
J. PAUL REASON, ADM, USN (Retired), Washington, D.C., Co-chair
ANN N. CAMPBELL, Sandia National Laboratories
TIMOTHY P. COFFEY, McLean, Virginia
STIRLING A. COLGATE, Los Alamos, New Mexico
CHARLES R. CUSHING, C.R. Cushing & Co., Inc.
SUSAN HACKWOOD, California Council on Science and Technology
LEE M. HAMMARSTROM, Applied Research Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University
NATHANIEL S. HEINER, Northrop Grumman Corporation
LEON A. JOHNSON, Brig Gen, USAFR (Retired), Irving, Texas
CATHERINE M. KELLEHER, University of Maryland and Brown University
JEFFREY E. KLINE, Naval Postgraduate School
ANNETTE J. KRYGIEL, Great Falls, Virginia
THOMAS V. McNamara, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems
RICHARD W. MIES, ADM, USN (Retired), Fairfax Station, Virginia
C. KUMAR N. PATEL, Pranalytica, Inc.
HEIDI C. PERRY, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.
GENE H. PORTER, Institute for Defense Analyses
DANA R. POTTS, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company
JOHN E. RHODES, LtGen, USMC (Retired), Balboa, California
ROBERT M. STEIN, Brookline, Massachusetts
VINCENT VITTO, Lexington, Massachusetts
DAVID A. WHELAN, The Boeing Company
PETER G. WILHELM, Naval Research Laboratory
JOHN D. WILKINSON, Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Staff
CHARLES F. DRAPER, Director, Naval Studies Board
DOUGLAS C. FRIEDMAN, Study Director and Program Officer, Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology (as of October 1, 2012)
BILLY M. WILLIAMS, Study Director (through June 20, 2012)
RAYMOND S. WIDMAYER, Senior Program Officer
MARTA V. HERNANDEZ, Associate Program Officer
SUSAN G. CAMPBELL, Administrative Coordinator
MARY G. GORDON, Information Officer
NAVAL STUDIES BOARD
MIRIAM E. JOHN, Livermore, California, Chair
DAVID A. WHELAN, The Boeing Company, Vice-chair
TIMOTHY P. COFFEY, McLean, Virginia
CHARLES R. CUSHING, C.R. Cushing & Co., Inc.
JAMES N. EAGLE, Naval Postgraduate School
ANUP GHOSH, Invincea, Inc.
JAMES R. GOSLER, Albuquerque, New Mexico
SUSAN HACKWOOD, California Council on Science and Technology
CHARLES E. HARPER, Semtech Corporation
JAMES L. HERDT, Chelsea, Alabama
JAMES D. HULL, Annapolis, Maryland
TAMARA E. JERNIGAN, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
BERNADETTE JOHNSON, Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
LEON A. JOHNSON, Irving, Texas
TERRY P. LEWIS, Raytheon Company
RONALD R. LUMAN, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University
RICHARD S. MULLER, University of California at Berkeley
JOSEPH PEDLOSKY, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
HEIDI C. PERRY, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.
J. PAUL REASON, Washington, D.C.
JOHN E. RHODES, Balboa, California
FRED B. SCHNEIDER, Cornell University
PAUL A. SCHNEIDER, The Chertoff Group
ANDREW M. SESSLER, E.O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
ALLAN STEINHARDT, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.
TIMOTHY M. SWAGER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Navy Liaisons
RADM JAMES G. FOGGO III, USN, Director, Assessment Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, N81 (through July 31, 2013)
RADM HERMAN A. SHELANSKI, USN, Director, Assessment Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, N81 (as of August 1, 2013)
RADM MATTHEW L. KLUNDER, Chief of Naval Research/Director, Innovation, Technology Requirements, and Test & Evaluation, N84
Marine Corps Liaison
LtGen RICHARD P. MILLS, USMC, Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command (through August 7, 2013)
LtGen KENNETH J. GLUECK, JR., USMC, Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command (as of August 8, 2013)
Staff
CHARLES F. DRAPER, Director
RAYMOND S. WIDMAYER, Senior Program Officer
MARTA V. HERNANDEZ, Associate Program Officer
SUSAN G. CAMPBELL, Administrative Coordinator
MARY G. GORDON, Information Officer
Preface
A letter dated December 21, 2011, to National Academy of Sciences President Ralph Cicerone from the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Jonathan W. Greenert, USN, requested that the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Naval Studies Board (NSB) conduct a study to examine the issues surrounding “capability surprise,” both operational and technical, facing the U.S. naval services. Accordingly, in February 2012, the NRC, under the auspices of its NSB, established the Committee on Capability Surprise on U.S. Naval Forces.
This committee has found that addressing surprise as it might impact U.S. naval forces is a complex subject with multiple dimensions, including time, mission and cross-mission domains, anticipation of enabling technologies, physical phenomena, and new tactics that can enable surprise. Surprises may come over timescales ranging from seconds to minutes in a complex engagement; alternatively, time may be seen as a cause of evolving, breakthrough surprise that has been secretly developed over decades. Missions such as air defense and undersea warfare, which U.S. naval forces conduct in the open ocean and the littoral regions, all have myriad entry points from which capability surprises can originate (land, air, space, and cyberspace). There are also accelerating new technological advancements globally, which again, singly or in combination, can constitute the basis of a capability surprise.
Given the complexity of surprise, there is no simple way to guard against it. A number of explicit actions are needed. First and foremost, leadership must help others recognize the importance of understanding capability surprise and what it demands of U.S. naval forces, such as ensuring that organizations include preparation for and mitigation of surprise as one of their functions,
including scanning and related activities, in order to discern potential surprises. Here, it is important that organizations are timely and diligent in examining the scope and seriousness of such surprises, and that they can identify other organizations that might be able to help anticipate, mitigate, or respond to these surprises.
TERMS OF REFERENCE
At the request of the Chief of Naval Operations, the Naval Studies Board of the National Research Council will conduct a study to examine capability surprise—operationally and technically related—facing U.S. naval forces, i.e., the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Specifically, the study will
(1) Select a few potential capability surprises across the continuum from disruptive technologies, to intelligence-inferred capability developments, through operational deployments and assess what U.S. Naval Forces are doing (and could do) about these surprises while mindful of future budgetary declines;
(2) Review and assess the adequacy of current U.S. Naval Forces’ policies, strategies, and operational and technical approaches for addressing these and other surprises; and
(3) Recommend any changes, including budgetary and organizational changes, as well as identify any barriers and/or leadership issues that must be addressed for responding to or anticipating such surprises including developing some of our own surprises to mitigate against unanticipated surprises.
This 15-month study will produce two reports: (1) a letter report following the third full committee meeting that provides initial observations and insights to each of the three tasks above; and (2) a comprehensive (final) report that addresses the tasks in greater depth.
THE COMMITTEE’S APPROACH
In accomplishing its task, the committee took on a variety of capability surprise topics, as requested in the terms of reference. Today’s U.S. naval forces continue to face a wide range of potential threats in the indefinite future and for this reason must continue to balance and meet their force structure needs. Indeed, the Naval Operations Concept 2010 report—authored by the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Commandant of the Coast Guard—noted, among other things, that
the Naval Service is rebalancing its force structure to address the blue, green and brown water threats potentially posed by very capable state adversaries, as
well as the maritime security and irregular littoral challenges posed by both state and non-state adversaries.1
Included in these envisaged threats are surprises from adversaries employing all sorts of capabilities, from low end to high.
The current study leverages many of the insights from the 2009 Defense Science Board (DSB) report and the 2008 Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC) report but focuses on U.S. naval forces. It is divided into two parts. The first part selects a few surprises from across a continuum of surprises, from disruptive technologies, to intelligence-inferred capability developments, to operational deployments, and assesses what the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard are doing (and could do) about them while being mindful of future budgetary declines. The second part examines which processes are in place or could be in place in the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard to address such surprises. For example, it explores the pros and cons of a variety of ways to improve the naval forces’ response to such surprises by means of red teaming, by employing our own capabilities to surprise others, and by identifying barriers that could prevent the adoption of such processes or reduce their effectiveness.
The committee was convened in February 2012. After its first three meetings, the committee drafted its interim report.2 It held three additional meetings and conducted a site visit over the next 4 months to gather input from the relevant communities and to discuss its findings and recommendations. An outline of the committee’s meetings is provided in Appendix F.
ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT
This final report contains the committee’s findings and recommendations and builds on the framework first described in the interim report. Chapter 1 provides background information and introduces the six phases that are proposed to address capability surprise. Its Finding 1 and Recommendation 1 are complemented and supported by findings and recommendations that are found in the subsequent chapters. Each of the next six chapters—Chapters 2 through 7—describes the stakeholders, performers, and activities of six functional framework phases. Those chapters also describe the importance and key attributes of these six phases in the context of the surprise scenarios and exemplars, which are described in more detail in Chapter 8 and Appendixes A and B.
Finally, in Chapter 8, summarized in “ready reference” format, the committee presents the composite capability described in the preceding chapters in terms
_____________
1Gen James T. Conway, USMC; ADM Gary Roughead, USN; and ADM Thad W. Allen, USCG. 2010. Naval Operations Concept 2010, Department of the Navy, Washington, D.C., p. 82.
2The interim report, Capability Surprise for U.S. Naval Forces: Initial Observations and Insights, was released on January 15, 2013.
of modifications that leverage the entire naval infrastructure to address surprise on a routine basis with adequate, prioritized resources. The result is expected to be a change in naval culture to ensure more responsive, more resilient, and more adaptive behavior across the organization from the most senior leadership to the individual sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen.
Jerry A. Krill, Co-chair
J. Paul Reason, Co-chair
Committee on Capability Surprise on U.S. Naval Forces
Acknowledgment of Reviewers
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Ruth A. David, ANSER (Analytic Services, Inc.);
David J. (Jack) Dorsett, VADM, USN (Retired), Northrop Grumman Corporation;
Robert A. Frosch, Harvard University;
Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., Naval Postgraduate School;
Harry W. Jenkins, Jr., MajGen, USMC (Retired), Gainesville, Virginia;
Kathryn B. Laskey, George Mason University;
Cato T. Laurencin, University of Connecticut;
D. Brian Peterman, VADM, USCG (Retired), Command at Sea International;
Fred E. Saalfeld, Springfield, Virginia;
Nils R. Sandell, Jr., Concord, Massachusetts; and
Neil G. Siegel, Northrop Grumman Information Systems.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Stephen M. Robinson, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Appointed by the National Research Council, he was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
Contents
Options for Coordinating Surprise Mitigation
Examples from the Commercial and Academic Sectors
The Scanning and Awareness Approach
Methods to Assess and Analyze Surprise
System-of-Systems Modeling and Simulation for Experimentation and Risk Reduction
Modeling and Red Teaming Opportunities in the Committee Defined Scenarios
4 PRIORITIZATION, OPTION DEVELOPMENT, AND DECISION FORMULATION
Conceptualizing Raw Options to Mitigate High-Risk Surprises
Concept Refinement and Proof of Principle (Assume Three Viable Options)
Prioritization: Three Options—Which Is the Most Attractive?
Develop Transition Decision Package
5 RESOURCE AND TRANSITION PLANNING
Mitigating Risk of Surprise Within the PPBE Process
A Policy of Resilience to Mitigate Risk and Enhance Response
Operational Scenarios with Anticipated Surprises and Policy Implications
Organizational and Budget Implications
Integration and Interoperability
7 FORCE RESPONSE (PREPARATION AND READINES)
TTPs and CONOPS Development for Preparation and Response
Measuring Force Readiness Today
Preparation and Response Through Exercises, Training, and Experimentation