Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Do USVs Have a Future in Latin American and Caribbean Navies?

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CIMSEC – Unmanned surface vessels (USVs) are sailing full steam ahead, as evidenced by their (deadly) efficiency in attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces against Russian targets across the Black Sea. Though the security landscape in Europe is dramatically different from that of the Western Hemisphere, new technologies are always of interest to any armed service and USVs should be no exception. Whether USVs have a future in Latin America and the Caribbean merits deeper exploration.

The Rising Ransomware Tide, Chinese Spy Cranes, and the Biden Executive Order on Maritime Cybersecurity

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War on the Rocks – In July of 2023, Japan’s largest port, Nagoya, fell victim to a lockbit ransomware attack, causing operations to grind to a halt and Toyota to suspend its import-export packaging lines. This was just one of many recent incidents within the larger marine transportation system and showcases how fragile the sector is to these attack profiles.

Searching For Lost Submarines: An Overview of Forensic Underwater Methodologies

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CIMSEC – How does one find an object not meant to be found? Forensic maritime investigators in 2017 stumbled across this question when searching for the disappeared ARA San Juan (S-42) – an Argentinian submarine whose mission centered around stealth. Despite the environmental challenges and the restrictions imposed by the profile of submarines, several complementary forensic tools have emerged as authoritative standards and best practices for underwater search operations. These include: (1) optimization of preliminary search boxes through Bayesian probabilities, with updates for posterior probabilities throughout the search; (2) side-scanning sonar systems; and (3) unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) for imagery, access, and identity verification. In explaining the efficacies and drawbacks of such methods, this analysis highlights the importance and evolving future of search optimization strategies.

Focus on the Fundamentals: The Siren Song of Technology in Maritime Security

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CIMSEC – Instead of being wooed by “game-changing” technologies, maritime security professionals should focus on ensuring their organizations can perform critical functions first. Similarly, professionals who partner with chronically under-resourced organizations should focus on assisting with basic functions instead of dangling “silver bullets” that promise to solve all their woes.

The Vibrant Military and Criminal Activities Across the Caribbean Sea

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CIMSEC – While the Caribbean Sea is currently not as dangerous as the Black Sea or the Red Sea, from combating drug trafficking and illegal fishing to humanitarian assistance/disaster relief operations to a belligerent Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela, Caribbean naval forces have many daily missions and priorities. The United States, via US Southern Command and the US Coast Guard, and the armed forces of France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom – which have overseas territories across the Caribbean – are all present across Caribbean waters and are critical partners of regional defense forces.

2023 World Naval Operational News Highlights

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The ten most significant naval news stories/ trends / themes this year included:

  • The Ukrainian Navy’s closing of the Black Sea to the Russian Navy. What lessons can other navies learn from Ukraine’s anti-access area denial strategy?

  • The Houthi’s closing of the Red Sea (with help from their sponsor Iran) to merchant shipping. What lessons will other insurgencies learn from this anti-access area denial strategy?

  • The US Navy’s alarming ammunition expenditure while conducting successful anti-ballistic missile and cruise missile target practice against the Houthis in the Red Sea. Will the US Navy be able to use this experience to convince the US Congress to increase its surface to air missile procurement in order to have a more than adequate missile magazine depth in case of war with China?

  • The increasing emphasis Western navies are placing on countering sea bed warfare against all the critical national infrastructure that exists under the sea. When will naval budgets meet naval aspirations for this new arena of warfare?

  • The transformation of the Baltic Sea into a NATO sea, with Finland joining NATO this year and hopefully Sweden joining NATO next year. What will Russia do in response?

  • The awakening of Japan and the Philippines to the Chinese threat, as evidenced by their increase in defense procurement. How will they spend their funds in order to best deter China?

  • Taiwan’s beginning to adapt a porcupine strategy for its defense against a Chinese invasion. Will Taiwan be able to keep buying these low-cost, unglamorous, but effective weapons in ever-increasing numbers going forward, or will they again revert to buying high-cost, glamorous and ineffective weapons?

  • The European Union’s growing realization that it has a role to play in the Indo-Pacific theater, evidenced by increasing European naval deployments to that region, such as seen with France’s Charles De Gaulle strike group deployment this year. How can Europe get maximum use out of its constrained naval resources?

  • The US Navy’s interesting experiments with TF-59 in the Persian Gulf, its experimental unmanned surface vessel squadron. When will the US Navy have learned enough from experiments to start building medium and large unmanned surface vessels for use by the fleet?

  • The difficulties that Western navies (Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Navy, Royal New Zealand Navy, US Navy, US Coast Guard, US Maritime Administration) are experiencing in recruitment and retention. If these countries were to expand their fleets, how would they man them?

Digital Piracy Returns to Sea: Protecting Autonomous Ships From Online Attacks

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War on the Rocks – Commercial shipping has made major strides in recent decades toward digitalization. Supply-chain concerns, green technology, and costs across the industry have led to a new push for automation. This promises greater efficiency, but it also creates a massive new target for cyber attacks. Where the internet once borrowed the term “piracy” from the maritime domain, we are rapidly reaching the point where it will be possibly to digitally hijack a container ship on the high seas. 

Tumult in the Deep: The Unfolding Maritime Competition Over Undersea Infrastructure

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War Zone – With an average depth of about 4,000 meters (or about 2.5 miles), most of the ocean and seafloor are out of sight and out of mind. However, trends suggest that the deep ocean and seabed are poised to rise in importance – both physically and as a venue for Information Warfare (IW) – due to the intertwined nature of critical infrastructure, resources, and national security. Undersea infrastructure is rapidly growing and populations are becoming ever more dependent on its utility. This infrastructure growth is posing novel challenges and opportunities for competition and national security. Navies must astutely follow the development of undersea infrastructure as they may be called upon to defend, attack, or influence it.

The future of underwater warfare

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Council on Geostrategy – Professor Andrew Lambert writes that while the prospect of AUV submarines powered by AI roaming the deep ocean, striking submarine cables, ships and land targets at will may add a frisson of uncertainty to current anxieties, the technology is costly and offers limited return for continental powers focused on sea denial and area defence. It is more likely that, in the short term, AUVs develop into effective components of mixed underwater and three-dimensional security and combat forces which will enhance sea control, rather than challenge it. AUVs operating as fugitives in a hostile ocean will find it difficult to achieve tactical, let alone strategic effect.