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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
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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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS    500 Fifth Street, NW    Washington, DC 20001

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.

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-27837-9
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-27837-6

Copies of this report are available free of charge from:

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Copyright 2013 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
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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.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine.

The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council.

www.national-academies.org

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
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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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
×

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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
×

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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
×

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,

Page viii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
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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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
×

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.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
×

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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
×

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.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
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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.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2013. Responding to Capability Surprise: A Strategy for U.S. Naval Forces. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14672.
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From a military operational standpoint, surprise is an event or capability that could affect the outcome of a mission or campaign for which preparations are not in place. By definition, it is not possible to truly anticipate surprise. It is only possible to prevent it (in the sense of minimizing the number of possible surprises by appropriate planning), to create systems that are resilient to an adversary's unexpected actions, or to rapidly and effectively respond when surprised.

Responding to Capability Surprise examines the issues surrounding capability surprise, both operational and technical, facing the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. This report 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 Naval Forces are doing (and could do) about them while being mindful of future budgetary declines. The report then 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. 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. The recommendations of Responding to Capability Surprise will help 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.

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