Address by Rear Admiral Alfred G. Harms, USN
Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet
Fourth International Symposium on
Technology and the Mine Problem
13 March 2000 Greetings & Amenities.
I thank you for inviting me here today to represent the interests of the Pacific Fleet on behalf of ADM Fargo, who unfortunately couldn't make it due to visits with two distinguished Senators today back in Pearl Harbor. I am certain that he would have truly enjoyed giving a speech on mine warfare before an audience of certified experts. So let me say just how happy I am to be here in his stead.

This opportunity reminds me of a story about a man who had just arrived in heaven. Attracted by a large crowd, he inquired what was going on. "Oh, it's 'show and tell' time," came the answer. Then he was asked if he had anything he'd like to share. "Why sure," the new arrival quickly responded, "I'll tell about the big flood we had back in 1889, when I was a boy in Pennsylvania." "That will be fine," came the response…"but remember, Noah will be in the audience." I feel like a guy with an overflowing puddle talking to a whole audience of Noahs. To be perfectly honest with you, mine warfare is not my area of expertise. But I will take the best stab at it that I can.
When I spoke with RADM John Pearson a few weeks ago, he very kindly suggested a few topics for me to cover. We have taken that aboard, and today I will raise some of the concerns we have at CINCPACFLT. I'm here before you today to not so much give a firm PACFLT position on all these things, but to bring up some important issues for discussion by the experts - you folks.

Mine warfare should be one of our core competencies. With that said, there are two functional areas that we refer to under the umbrella of mine warfare - first being mine-countermeasures, and second being offensive mining. There is a lot of dialogue on improving our capability in offensive mining. But, I will primarily speak today to mine countermeasures - and also raise a few questions that are of critical importance to the fleet.

Our perspective on mine warfare in the Pacific is driven by its potential impact on our operational environment as an asymmetrical threat. With very little investment or effort, the enemy could significantly impact our freedom to maneuver. In an AOR that encompasses more than 100 million square miles, the majority of which are under water, and through which travels a significant amount of our two-way trade as well as the trade of our allies, there is no end of opportunity for an enemy to seize the advantage afforded by mine warfare should conflict arise.

As I'm sure you recall, our operations in the Pacific Theater were significantly impeded by the placement of mines during the Korean War. In fact, the first Navy vessel lost during the Korean War was a minesweeper destroyed by mines off Chuksan, North Korea. Two more minesweepers were sunk trying to clear mines at Wonson Harbor. Furthermore, efforts to clear lanes through the harbor, defended by approximately 3,000 contact and magnetic mines, caused a delay of 5 days in planned operations. Even then, 5 days was too long to allow the enemy such an advantage.

Today, when because of advances in information technology we operate at close to what Bill Gates calls "the speed of thought," such a delay might mean ceding both the tactical and information advantage. While we lost precious time and devoted valuable assets to dealing with the presence of mines, our foe could be maneuvering freely and putting us on the defensive. You will get no argument from anyone in the Pacific Fleet that we need to devote considerable effort to resolving the mine problem.

This is all in keeping with current Navy investment in technology. I can think of at least seven organic MCM systems currently under development, slated for implementation in FY05, each of which seeks to resolve a particular aspect of the mine countermeasure problem. Up until now our focus has primarily been on product delivery from the acquisition folks. But, as we get closer to making many of these systems a reality in the fleet, our focus must shift to the question of: how we are going to employ these products?

This question brings me back to one of the issues John Pearson suggested I address - how do we integrate emerging organic mine capabilities into the Fleet battle plan and current doctrine? Well to answer that question, we would first have to resolve a few things. First, though we have these great systems planned and on the drawing board, and a few under development, they have not yet been fielded or tested. So, I would have to ask what are the actual vice theoretical capabilities these bring us, and what is our confidence level in their performance? Essentially, how much can we rely on these new systems?

Let's say I make an assumption that all systems will work 100% as designed and that when we employ them, we will know with certainty that we have reduced the mine threat to an acceptable level. Our next challenge will be - where are we going to put them? How will we integrate these new systems into the Carrier Battle Group or the Amphibious Ready Group? Whichever way you look at it, there have to be trade-offs - either in space or flexibility.

If you ask me as the Battle Group Commander, where I do have experience, I would tell you that I wouldn't necessarily want my carrier tethered close to land in order to stay within range for the CH-60S to carry out its mine-hunting/mine neutralization mission. That may be an argument easily resolved through the use of another platform as a lily pad, but still, it raises the question.

Then, given the finite space within ARG/MEU ships, we must also weigh the tradeoffs for ARG employment of MIW assets. If you ask the Marines, I'm not sure they'd happily offer up already tight space in the ARG for a dedicated mine warfare helicopter. What would they have to give up? The flexibility to move Marines between the different ships of the ARG? Troop lift ashore? A dedicated SAR helicopter during ship to ship and ship to shore operations? These questions have to be resolved.

Next, if for argument's sake, we say that it will be fully multi-mission capable, what is our strategy for resolving competitive multi-mission taskings? We may assume that the Mine Warfare Commander, if there is one (a question that I will come back to), will regularly encounter asset allocation issues in coordinating MCM-capable assets, since assigned submarine, ship, and aircraft platforms are multi-mission capable. For example, can we really do all planned missions (TBMD, ASW, MCM, AAW) from a single surface platform? And do them well? The possibility exists that current capabilities may be degraded, jeopardized or lost in order to effectively support the proposed Organic/Assigned MCM mission capabilities.

Additionally, assigned MCM capable platforms will be challenged to complete MCM missions if they are also tasked in other mission areas. Certainly, the officer in tactical command will provide deconfliction and mission prioritization, but nonetheless, multi-mission tasking may extend timelines for completing MCM missions. What then is the impact on the timeline or sequence of the whole operation? As Hamlet would say, "aye, there's the rub."

So, there's one question John asked me that I haven't answered and a few questions that I've thrown out for your debate. On to the next issue I would like to address - the dedicated mine warfare commander and how that changes the CWC structure.

If without argument mine warfare is a core competency, then do we need a dedicated mine warfare commander? Will actual CVBG/ARG/Task Force MCM capabilities and employment merit a permanent MIW commander? If we develop the capabilities that we say we are going to, and if we resolve the questions surrounding employment and multi-mission challenges, I would say yes.

That then begs the following questions: who will it be (i.e., will it be another commander who is dual hatted or a single function commander) and where will the MIWC operate from? What then is the impact on the battle rhythm? From my experience, the effectiveness of the Task Force commander is dependent on his being able to rely on the warfare commanders to do their jobs smoothly, recognizing how their piece of the puzzle fits into the whole. In order for the prospective mine warfare commander to fully integrate into this team, he would need to be positioned in a manner or location that affords him access to the "big" picture.

CINCPACFLT staff recently reviewed the proposed Fleet Mine Warfare Concept of Operations. Let me state at the outset that it is incredibly difficult to develop a CONOPs based only on prototypes and in some cases systems that are still five years away. So our response was that while it represented a good initial effort to codify how emerging mine warfare capabilities might be integrated into current doctrine, the organizational framework and operational concepts it described offered significant changes to the composite warfare commander (CWC) war-fighting organization and the nature of current operations; changes that reflected yet unproven capabilities. I've already discussed many of the questions we raised in response. But with regards to integration of the MIW commander, one of the suggestions we offered was that the MIWC should be co-equal to the other composite commanders.

Fleet Battle Experiment "F" Quicklook (conducted in Fifth Fleet in December), validated the MIWC coequal and co-located with the Sea Combat Commander, with both reporting directly to the Joint Force Maritime Component Commander, and embarked aboard the carrier (in this case the JFK). In the exercise, the Mine Warfare Commander was responsible for both mine clearance and offensive mining. One observation from the exercise was that the co-location of the MIWC and the SCC facilitated the development of a combined MIW/ASW concept of operations. The command and control organization permitted integrated waterspace management and effective use of dedicated and organic MCM assets. We believe that this may be an effective way to integrate the Mine Warfare Commander into the CWC structure. Future exercises and Fleet Battle Experiments will explore this and other options further.

Note that I've briefly discussed the impact of organic MCM assets and the dedicated MIW Commander. That is something we can talk to. John Pearson also asked for my thoughts on the Fleet Engagement Strategy. I'm not going to go into much depth because right now it is still in development. However, I do have one relevant concern.

If we all agree that mine warfare is a core Navy competency - which I believe that we do - then we must man our operational staffs accordingly. I'll tell you honestly that on our staff, we have one officer dedicated to mine warfare issues; and his background is entirely from EOD. I think the same also holds true for the numbered fleet commanders and the type commanders. If we expect our operational plans to fully take into account mine warfare issues, then perhaps we ought to have a better representation of experience and knowledge on our staffs. In preparing for this conference, it certainly would have helped to have a cadre of officers with mine warfare experience.

With that said, I have a few more problems - or challenges - I'd like to throw out for your consideration. In our review of the draft MIW CONOPs, the fundamental problem we had was that the CONOPs seem to lack an overarching strategy and associated doctrine to address key issues with respect to Fleet Mine Warfare. It was, in short, somewhat premature. We don't believe that we have a clear long term Navy strategy for mine warfare. As former Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Archie Clemins used to say, "if you don't know where you're going, how do you know how to when you get there?" Also, the Navy/Marine corps team has not yet agreed on an acceptable overall level of risk that we accept with our MCM capability. None of the existing or new weapons systems delivers a 1.0 probability of kill — and with the increasing challenges of hunting and neutralizing mines that we expect, I suspect we will never approach a level of risk of zero. So, how much are we willing to accept? This decision will influence how much and what type of MCM assets, dedicated and organic, that the Navy will ultimately procure. First however, we need to look deeper into the associated risk.

?Of course, affordability is a primary driver. Our current strategy, such as it is, relies upon maintaining dedicated MIW assets, while developing organic assets at a rate that time and funding permits. Navy leadership has obviously committed to further developing our MCM capability, and rightfully so. ONR, through its Future Naval Capability teams, recognizes MCM as one of their highest priorities and is requesting funding for MCM appropriately. There are also several Science and Technology groups specifically focused on the mine problem. But neither of these efforts are near-term solutions. One impact -- which we don't want-- is that we may have to live with a dedicated force that is difficult to move to the location where we need them and an organic force that isn’t adequate for the job.

Another pressing operational issue is the lack of MCM capability in today's Navy in the surf zone and the craft landing zone. War-games have shown us that we need an organic MCM capability to support ship to objective maneuver (STOM), and our efforts thus far are not doing so. I'm sure that we’ll all agree that we want to avoid another Wonsan scenario. So it is clear that we need to develop a concept of operations for STOM in a mined littoral environment. You can argue that the organic aviation MCM (AMCM) platform, the CH60S, will provide such a capability, but that still doesn't fully answer the question -- which platform is going to host it and how do we integrate the capability into the STOM/OFMTS doctrine?

It is fundamentally important to have a strategy and the mine warfare doctrine interface that supports the overall strategy. We do believe that it is somewhat premature to go straight from acquisition to a CONOPs without thinking about the implementation concerns and without having an overarching strategy.

Many of these questions should be answered along the way as we continue to quote unquote mainstream mine warfare. A key step in this direction is the recent effort underway to write a MCM Capstone Requirements Document (CRD). This important document is necessary to specify the overall levels of risk and lay out the overall capability that we would want to the acquisition community to achieve. Additionally, the Navy owes itself clear guidance on the scope of the MCM warfare area, which also outlines the acceptable level of risk, operationally feasible timelines, and the proposed mix of assigned versus supporting MCM assets. This effort should also leverage off the N81 IWARs effort in defining and assessing capability architecture and synchronizing the program of record.

If mine warfare is to become a viable warfare capability, we must give it the same degree of attention we give our other core warfare competencies and treat it the same way. Then, the Fleet Engagement Strategy will have something concrete to market in terms of organic MIW.

As you may have noticed, I have raised more questions than provided answers, but I'll honestly tell you that we're not ready to take a stand. We do firmly support the overall Navy effort being led by OPNAV N85, and we do support the good work being done by COMINEWARCOM and by our operational staffs throughout the AOR.

Mine Warfare poses many challenges for our future Navy and we are now at a crossroads on how to implement our combined efforts into a sound approach. Symposiums such as this are an excellent forum to start building such an approach. I hope I have provided some food for thought. Today was just too good an opportunity for me not to raise some of the questions we are wrestling with in the Fleet. Hopefully I have wetted your appetite. Now, I will be happy to entertain your questions.

Thank you for your attention.

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