ARGUMENT: MARTIME SURVEILLANCEOutsourcing Surveillance: A Cost-Effective Strategy to Maintain Maritime Supremacy
Persistent surveillance is one of the most valuable types of surveillance missions. But, Josh Portzer and Aaron Stein write, “Persistent surveillance is a challenging problem for two reasons: capacity and cost. In today’s budgetary climate, “simply increasing U.S. military capacity is not tenable. [But] by increasing the number of sensors globally, the Department of Defense would not only gain valuable, near-persistent surveillance data in areas of interest at (relatively) affordable prices, but also would enjoy the option of gray-zone operations given the strategic ambiguity that outsourcing provides.”
All militaries watch other militaries. They do so to learn how their allies and adversaries move, train, and operate. By understanding another military’s “pattern of life,” they learn about weaknesses and vulnerabilities that can be exploited later in conflict (or with allies, they learn about and incorporate sound military practices).
Josh Portzer and Aaron Stein write in War on the Rocks that the Russo-Ukrainian war has confirmed what was already widely known about this age-old practice: Valuable surveillance is difficult to maintain over long periods of time.
It demands both assets and money. Naval surveillance in the Russo-Ukrainian war is further complicated by the fact that a third party — Turkey — controls access to the territorial sea — the Black Sea — bordering the conflict zone and that Ankara has chosen to remain neutral in the conflict. No matter how difficult to maintain, however, surveillance of the Black Sea and its environs remains critical for Ukraine and its allies. Taking as a given that Turkey will deny traditional U.S. Navy vessels access to the Black Sea for the conflict’s duration, we believe a bit of creativity is warranted to maintain persistent surveillance in the region.
The U.S. Navy could pursue two interrelated policies to achieve this. First, it could outsource a significant amount of surveillance tasks to both American and allied merchant vessels. Second, the United States could deploy small numbers of marines or special operations forces on allied vessels and equip them with military and commercial-grade sensors for surveillance. These partially outsourced surveillance systems could also be scalable for other contingencies around the world to support broader U.S. interests and increase global surveillance.
All militaries watch other militaries. They do so to learn how their allies and adversaries move, train, and operate. By understanding another military’s “pattern of life,” they learn about weaknesses and vulnerabilities that can be exploited later in conflict (or with allies, they learn about and incorporate sound military practices).
