Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee - Global Maritime Strategy Initiatives

Interview

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REP. RICK LARSEN (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll just jump in quickly.

Thank you all for coming today and helping us understand the cooperative strategy for 21st century seapower.

The questions are really focused right now for Admiral Allen; if you can talk a little bit about some issues a little closer to home for me, but as they relate to the strategy.

The first thing I want to ask is with regards to the Arctic, how this particular cooperative strategy aligns with the polar policy end capabilities, if you can speak to that generally. And then I want to get into specifics after that.

ADM. ALLEN: Happy to. This year we had the largest amount of receding ice in the Arctic history. The implications for traffic over the top of Russia or potentially through the Northwest Passage raises the specter of the need to have presence up there for any range of missions that any of our services may have to accomplish.

For that reason, we have initiated a requirements development process to take a look at how we would execute our missions that support the strategy, including search-and-rescue operations, environmental response, critical infrastructure protection, and so forth. But I think we really need a reasoned discussion on the requirements and what it means to operate at high latitudes.

There's a work group that established under the National Security Council to look at the current Arctic policy that was issued under presidential directive in 1994. All this is converging. In the meantime, our commander up there is looking at proof of concept for both aviation and surface operations, navigation issues, communications issues and so forth.

REP. LARSEN: Could you talk a little bit about your deepwater acquisition program specifically? I'm on Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. We've had a lot of discussions about it on that committee. But can you talk about how the deepwater acquisition assets would fit into the cooperative strategy as it relates to the Arctic and talk specifically about any specific assets that would be supportive of the strategy?

ADM. ALLEN: Happy to do that; particularly the capabilities of the national security cutter. And we just finished machinery trials last week. We're very pleased with the progress there. That contract is -- all current issues have been resolved. We are commencing construction on number three. We think this thing is being stabilized in the way that the committee was looking for.

Coast Guard cutters, by their nature, have to be interoperable with the Navy, because under statute we could be transferred to the Navy in times of war. But we also do a lot of law enforcement work. We do a lot of work with coalition international partners in search and rescue and oil-spill response. Because of that, we're kind of a linking pin. We can go down to low-tech and no-tech partners.

And as far as executing the strategy, deploying a Coast Guard cutter in concert with Navy assets out there in global fleet station concepts, we become a force multiplier at the lower end in dealing with coalition partners, and it makes a perfect match.

REP. LARSEN: Can you discuss -- can you talk a little bit about the Coast Guard's polar ice-breaking fleet and if it's meeting its current mission performance requirements, and if not, what it will take to meet its performance requirements?

ADM. ALLEN: We currently have three ice-breakers in the U.S. inventory -- the Polar Sea, the Polar Star, which are heavy-duty ice- breakers, and the Healy, which is an ice-strengthened research vessel.

As it stands right now, we need to make some decisions on the long-term future of the Polar Sea and the Polar Star, because they are approaching the end of their service life. That needs to follow a very deliberate requirements development process, which I addressed earlier. But, quite frankly, those ships are going to have to be addressed in the next five to 10 years. One is laid up in commission special status. One is operating right now. But it certainly is something we're going to have to get our arms around in the future.

REP. LARSEN: Need to further explore that. For the three of you, is there a test-case country where you all, the Coast Guard, Marine Corps and the Navy, are working together with that country that we can sort of put our minds around this cooperative strategy? Is there a country right now where the three of you are cooperating in trying to develop an integrated approach with that particular country that you can help us --

ADM. ROUGHEAD: Well, I think not so much a particular country, Mr. Larsen, but rather the regions where we operate. For example, we have the USS Fort McHenry, one of our amphibious ships, that's operating off the west coast of Africa. And it's a cooperative effort with us, Coast Guard, the other armed services, and the host nations themselves.

And it's this ability to come into an area, do training, work on maritime security schemes and thinking with those countries. So it's more of a regional approach. And we get a lot of benefit from that.

ADM. ALLEN: We have law enforcement attachments and trainers that are deployed on the Fort McHenry. We just finished a deployment with the Navy in the Caribbean with the Comfort, a hospital ship that deployed down there. There were Coast Guard hospital corpsmen on board as well.

REP. LARSEN: General Conway?

GEN. CONWAY: I can only think of one instance, and it's probably off the Philippines, working with the Philippines Special Operations forces, where we're embarked aboard Navy ships and putting forces ashore on a frequent basis.

REP. LARSEN: Okay, thank you.

I may have a follow-up later, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

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REP. LARSEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, we're going to play a lightning (film ?) (to/the ?) blink here, given the shortness of time. Perhaps, Admiral Thad -- maybe for a comment -- Allen, does the Law of the Sea Treaty -- does approval and ratification of that help, hurt? Is it neutral on what you want to accomplish with a cooperative strategy, especially as it relates to other nations?

ADM. ALLEN: I believe accession to the Law of the Sea Treaty is a very positive thing for our Navy and for our country. What I saw in the Pacific was that -- the fact that we had not acceded to the treaty kept countries from doing things with us that would have enhanced the maritime security and the interoperability that are so important across a range of operations.

REP. LARSEN: Yeah. I couldn't agree more. In fact, sometimes I think we're inhibited because of two things. Number one, we're dealing with countries that understand we haven't acceded to the treaty, and number two, we are not in a position to rebuke claims that are not consistent with the Law of the Sea Treaty because we have not ratified it.

I will tell you, just in relation to Arctic issues moving north, issues related to the Continental Shelf, the potential for 25 percent of the world's oil and gas resources maybe unexploited in that part of the world, not having a seat at the table when the claims are made on the Continental Shelf by Russia, I think robs us of a chance to act where we need to under the strategy, and also it is going to inhibit our ability to make claims on our own Continental Shelf. It's ironic that lack of ratification may be impacting our ability to exercise our sovereignty.

Second, Admiral Roughead, in your testimony, you talked about vessel tracking system. And perhaps for -- again, both Admiral Roughead and Commandant Allen, can you talk about a Navy role and Coast Guard role, and where that line is in the VTS. Is there a line, or how does it overlap --

ADM. ROUGHEAD: My view is that we no longer live in world of lines, and the ability to be able to merge the information we have, with the information the Coast Guard has, with the information other agencies have and other countries may have, that's where we have to go.

GEN. ALLEN: Maritime Domain Awareness has two major components. One is what we would call Global Maritime Situational Awareness -- be able to sense and understand what's going on there, and in the information associated with it, which we would call Global Maritime Intelligence Integration.

Both of those functions have a place. Global Maritime Intelligence Integration is part of the DNI organizational structure, and that community of interest is currently being headed by a Coast Guard flag officer. Global Maritime Situational Awareness is a program office at Coast Guard headquarters within DHS, but is headed by a Navy admiral. There are no lines.

REP. LARSEN: So as that applies back home in the Strait of Juan De Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia, and between Washington State and British Colombia with the Vehicle (sic) Tracking System, there's really no -- not only are your systems interoperable, but your people are interoperable.

ADM. ROUGHEAD: Exactly.

Do you want to answer that?

GEN. ALLEN: That's correct. In fact, we just opened a joint harbor operations center in Seattle, on Pier 36. It has representation from the Navy, in a force protection role, related to the movement of their vessels in and out of Puget Sound. And I might add, we have international cooperation with the Canadian Vessel Traffic Services in Tofino, that actually exchange information with our Vessel Traffic Services in Puget Sound.

REP. LARSEN: Yeah. Back to -- back to China, if I could just weigh in a little bit on that.

You just -- Admiral Roughead, you discussed a little bit, in response to some questions, I was going to ask, you know, what is your judgment of the Chinese military modernization? Do you have a judgment that is good, bad or indifferent? Or, how do you --

(Cross talk)

ADM. ROUGHEAD: Well, my judgment is that it is a navy that is modernizing at a rate that is exceeding what our expectations have been. There is -- there are resources that are flowing into it. It's a navy that is becoming more capable, more modern, has legs that can get it into the blue water.

And the most significant change that I have seen in my observation of it over the last 13 years is in the human dimension. We can all watch the systems they're buying, the capabilities they're buying, but what I have seen is the nature of the leadership. These are now officers, in their navy, who have grown up in their areas of specialty -- whether it's submarine, or a surface ship, or an aviator, and bring that perspective and that ambition to their leadership positions. And I think that's one of the major drivers in shaping their navy of the future.

REP. LARSEN: Does that relate -- are you saying that although they're all PLA, they're becoming more professionalized as a military, as opposed to strictly an arm of the party?

ADM. ROUGHEAD: Or those who had risen out of the army and they are now -- these are now very professional naval officers, their desire to constitute a non-commissioned officer corps is also indicative of the value that they place on the human resource.

REP. LARSEN: Yeah. I'll just make one final note -- and not to differ too much with my friend and colleague from San Diego, California, who's not here now -- but I prefer if the Navy stuck to the Navy and let the U.S. Trade Representative's office stick to trade issues.

ADM. ROUGHEAD: Thank you, sir.

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