This summer, the Coast Guard moved into the second year of executing its comprehensive
recapitalization program—the Integrated Deepwater System.
Deepwater began in 1998 as a 20- to 30-year program to replace the Coast Guard’s
aging and increasingly obsolete inventory of aircraft, surface vessels and supporting
systems. Following the Coast Guard’s alignment under the Department of
Homeland Security in March 2003, Deepwater will address emerging mission needs
in support of the Coast Guard’s new Maritime Strategy for Homeland Security,
as well as the performance of all of its multiple missions.
Key to this process is the identification and validation of new and evolving
programmatic requirements, the development of consensus among Deepwater’s
many stakeholders, and the harmonization of efforts with the Department of Homeland
Security (and its five directorates), the Department of Defense, and other federal,
state and local agencies.
The need to balance Deepwater’s desired capabilities with best value
argues against a future posing constantly changing requirements. Yet, for a
program originally conceived long before 9/11, and projected to last more than
20 years, it is imperative that the process for generating and validating new
requirements be timely and responsive to evolving demands.
Deepwater always will be a work in progress. The program will upgrade existing
surface and air assets while developing new and more capable platforms—including
improved systems for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance and advanced logistics capabilities. The entire
Deepwater system will consist of three classes of new cutters and their associated
small boats, a new and upgraded fixed-wing manned aircraft fleet, a combination
of new and upgraded helicopters, and both cutter-based and land-based unmanned
aerial vehicles. Other Coast Guard platforms, (including ice breakers, buoy
tenders, and small boats) are not a part of the IDS program.
Of $6.8 billion approved for the Coast Guard in fiscal year 2004, $668 million
is allocated to the Integrated Deepwater System. The appropriation includes
$143 million for aircraft, which covers the purchase of a CASA 235 maritime
patrol aircraft; $303 million to be used in part for construction of the first
424-foot National Security Cutter; $101 million for the development of a network-centric
command and control system; $ 45 million for a common logistics information
system, and $50 million for the development of a vertical takeoff-and-landing
unmanned aerial vehicle that will deploy from IDS cutters.
The program’s requirements are based on the roles and missions stipulated
for the Coast Guard by statute and congressional mandate. The “Major Systems
Acquisition Manual” served as a starting point for initiating this comprehensive
acquisition program and defining its requirements. The original mission need
statement bears well under the pressure of continually evolving system requirements,
because it defines the outcomes and capabilities necessary for the Coast Guard
to perform its missions properly.
By 2005, 50 percent of all federal acquisitions must be performance based,
according to the Office of Management and Budget. Deepwater’s original
system performance specification and its modeling and simulation master plan
will serve as the basis for generating a new capstone requirements document
during the months ahead.
Identifying, defining, and validating emerging Deepwater requirements are challenging
tasks. It is difficult to project 10, 20, or more years into the future. This
long-range view is dictated, however, by the expectation that Deepwater’s
key assets—the National Security Cutter, for one—will remain in
service for close to half a century.
Fifty years ago, the Coast Guard conducted ocean station patrols across the
breadth of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to safeguard passengers flying overseas
on commercial airliners. That mission fell by the wayside as the range, safety,
and reliability of passenger aircraft steadily improved. Today’s fishery
patrols were not a significant part of the Coast Guard’s mission in 1953,
yet they are of growing importance, owing to the steady depletion of fishing
stocks and other threats to the vitality of the global marine ecosystem.
To help make Deepwater responsive to the needs of the fleet, the program’s
staff relies upon information reported in each Coast Guard area commanders’
annual “Regional Strategic Assessment.” Together with cutter patrol
summaries, they provide useful data points to identify emerging operational
trends. Weekly teleconferences are held with the Coast Guard’s Atlantic
and Pacific Area Commanders’ operational staffs to update them on program
issues and to solicit their recommendations. Weekly program summaries are transmitted
to area commanders and cutters on a continuing basis.
At Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C., members of the Operations
Directorate also serve on several “integrated process teams” tasked
to address issues such as the operational plan to support maritime-domain awareness
initiatives, the deployment plan for the Coast Guard’s maritime homeland
security strategy, and the review now underway to address the Coast Guard’s
response to incidents involving weapons of mass destruction.
In each instance, there are implications for the Deepwater system if new or
modified capabilities are required.
Rear Adm. James C. Olson, the director of operations capability on the Coast
Guard headquarters staff, also shapes the requirements-generation process. One
of his responsibilities is to assess how changes in U.S. national security strategy
(one example is the February 2003 National Strategy for the Protection of Critical
Infrastructure and Key Assets) affect Coast Guard action plans.
Five years ago, the Operations Directorate commissioned the Coast Guard’s
Intelligence Coordination Center (collocated with the Navy’s Office of
Naval Intelligence at Suitland, Md.) to conduct a strategic-intelligence study
of the Coast Guard’s future missions. Eventually, this study was combined
with the Office of Naval Intelligence’s report on worldwide maritime challenges,
projected out to 2020. Non-Coast Guard strategic assessments, classified and
unclassified, also are reviewed to identify broad-based national-security trends
and to estimate their possible impact on the Deepwater system.
Emerging Requirements
The most obvious change in mission requirements for the Coast Guard relate
to homeland security. As the lead federal agency for its maritime component,
the Coast Guard has worked for the past year to define Deepwater’s role
in implementing the new “Strategy for Maritime Homeland Security,”
unveiled in December 2002.
Deepwater will contribute measurably to the requirements for increased maritime
domain awareness, enhanced security operations, modernized security capabilities
and competencies, and increased readiness for homeland defense.
It is important to recognize, however, that the Coast Guard’s mission
demands are increasing in other mission areas. The protection of the marine
environment and fisheries, for example, are areas of growing significance internationally.
In June, at the conclusion of their summit in France, leaders of the “Group
of Eight” nations issued an action plan calling for more active measures
to improve marine conservation, sustainable fisheries, tanker safety and pollution
prevention.
A three-year study by the Pew Oceans Commission, released in June, calls for
immediate reform of U.S. ocean laws and policies to restore and protect the
ocean ecosystem.
Should the United States adopt more stringent measures to protect the marine
environment and improve maritime safety, the implications for the Coast Guard
are clear. Deepwater must be poised to anticipate new requirements in these
and other mission areas.
New requirements also flow from the Coast Guard’s engagement with the
Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. The National
Fleet Policy Statement commits the Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy to work together
to synchronize their multimission platforms, infrastructure, and personnel to
provide the highest level of naval and maritime capability.
Deepwater seeks an even greater and more productive Navy-Coast Guard collaboration.
Last year, Deepwater’s Program Executive Officer Rear Adm. Patrick M.
Stillman, and the Navy’s Program Executive Officer Ships, Rear Adm. Charles
Hamilton II, signed a memorandum of understanding and established a working
group to specify common technologies, systems, and processes critical to both
the Navy’s future Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and the Coast Guard’s
National Security Cutter, Offshore Patrol Cutter and other platforms.
A joint working group also was established to specify common technologies,
systems, and processes critical to both the Navy’s LCS and the design
and development of Deepwater’s surface platforms. This team holds regular
meetings and staff exchanges. In Deepwater’s C4ISR domain, for example,
interoperability is an essential requirement.
Earlier this summer, the Department of Homeland Security issued a new “Investment
Review Process” policy to integrate its capital planning and investment
control, budgeting, acquisition, and management of investments. One of the policy’s
purposes is to ensure that spending on major acquisition programs supports the
DHS mission. It established several high-level oversight boards and councils,
including a Joint Requirements Council (JRC), tasked to oversee the requirements
process, to validate mission-needs statements, to review cross-functional needs
within the department, and to make recommendations on proposed new programs.
Vice Adm. Thad Allen, the chief of staff of the Coast Guard, is the service’s
representative to the JRC.
The Coast Guard’s long history sustaining cooperative relationships with
the Navy, the Customs Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Immigration
and Naturalization Service, and other federal, state and local agencies will
be of great benefit in forging new joint competencies and partnerships within
DHS during the months and years ahead.
Several near-term priorities guide Deepwater’s implementation. Because
the program is planned to last more than 20 years, older and increasingly less-than-reliable
assets must be sustained until replacement equipment enters service.
One key priority is to design the National Security Cutter properly. It will
be the Coast Guard’s principal capital ship for the next 40 years. It
will serve in joint operations with the Navy, and will be the key command-and-control
platform for major Coast Guard operations, the surface platform with the long
sea legs necessary to operate in the far reaches of the Pacific and Atlantic
high seas.
Additionally, Deepwater’s C4ISR system will be a critical contributor
to the Coast Guard’s future network-centric force of cutters, patrol boats,
and manned and unmanned aircraft. The C4ISR system must link seamlessly with
the Coast Guard’s non-Deepwater assets and other agencies.
The acquisition strategy lends itself to continuing refinement. As the program
moves forward, the Coast Guard is sensitive to the need to adjust it to fit
changing circumstances.
One requirement, for example, is the interoperability between Deepwater’s
C4ISR system and the Coast Guard’s Rescue 21 command-and-control system.
To serve as a systems integrator for Deepwater, the Coast Guard selected a
contractor team, Integrated Coast Guard Systems, led by Lockheed Martin and
Northrop Grumman.
The National Security Cutter already is under contract and scheduled to enter
service in 2006. Its initial requirement for chemical-biological-radiological
defense capabilities was modified to incorporate a one-zone “citadel”
to enable it to operate in a contaminated environment. Similarly, the size of
the NSC’s flight deck will be enlarged to allow it to operate Navy, Army,
and Customs and Border Protection Agency models of the H-60 helicopter (built
with the tail wheel located at the end of its empennage). The NSC’s flight-deck
traversing system also will be upgraded to make it more compatible with Navy
helicopters.
Having a flexible acquisition framework that lends itself to continuing refinement
does not mean it is easy to make modifications. There is, for example, an unavoidable
(and salutary) tension between the role of the Coast Guard’s program sponsor
in identifying new IDS requirements and the Deepwater program executive officer’s
responsibility to execute the program on budget and on schedule.
The funding for Deepwater originally was estimated at $17 billion (in capital
and operating funds) over 20 years, with annual appropriations of about $500
million (fiscal year 1998 dollars). As new proposed requirements are identified,
the Coast Guard must evaluate them for review by DHS.
The Department of Homeland Security considers the Coast Guard’s Deepwater
requirements as part of its investment review process.
Armed with strong analysis, supported by system-level modeling and simulation,
the Coast Guard will be able to demonstrate the benefits associated with a change
in IDS requirements and their costs. This will enable DHS to make a more informed
assessment of budget alternatives.
The Coast Guard’s alignment with other DHS agencies with a similar mission
also will create new opportunities to assist in meeting the department’s
homeland-security mission. For example, Deepwater’s C4ISR architecture
may be suitable to satisfy DHS requirement for seamless connectivity and interoperability
among all directorates in the department. Similarly, Deepwater’s application
of unmanned aerial vehicles for airborne surveillance also may lend itself to
collaboration with other DHS agencies.
Deepwater’s system-of-systems acquisition approach provides the Coast
Guard with the flexibility it needs to adapt to future requirements.
Capt. Richard R. Kelly is the sponsor’s representative for the Integrated
Deepwater System in the Operations Directorate at U.S. Coast Guard headquarters,
Washington, D.C.