ARTICLE

October 2004

‘Deep Blue’ Searches for Innovation In Anti-Terror Tactics, Technology

by Roxana Tiron

Following a terrorist attack in the Northern Persian Gulf this spring, a small U.S. Navy research team began focusing on getting into the enemy’s mindset and tactics.

Originally created in 2001 to come up with innovative ideas on how to tackle the war on terrorism on a strategic level, the Navy’s Deep Blue team has seen its mission expand during the past two years. Working in direct support of Marines and sailors, Deep Blue is in charge of providing useful technologies to the fleet, according to director Rear Adm. (Sel.) Michael Mahon.

Deep Blue decided it needed to implement a “red team” approach to developing new tactics after two sailors and a Coast Guard member were killed in an April 24 terrorist attack on an oil platform in the Gulf.

“There are red cells out there, where you have people that are analyzing intelligence, but there is no marrying up that intelligence with operators and looking at it all from the red perspective” and figuring out their tactics, he said.

Within Deep Blue’s newly created red-team capability, the Navy conducts surrogate adversary analyses, Mahon explained.

“We bring the intelligence community together with the operators,” he said. “We look at situations to figure out how the bad guys would attack us, and then, based on that analysis, we look at ways to solve that problem.”

Mahon has a staff of 12, which already is stretched thin. Members are assigned to fleet commanders with whom they have direct communication, he said. They help the commanders solve their problems and feed information to the chief of naval operations at the same time.

“[We talk] to the fleet commanders, look up what their missions are out there, what capabilities they have to perform their missions and what [other] effects they need to accomplish that mission,” he said.

In order to make the red team concept successful, and to complement the small staff, Deep Blue reaches out to “other parts of the Navy or the government,” Mahon said.

After the April attack, the Navy leadership asked Mahon’s team to help find ways to protect forces in the Persian Gulf, he said. “I have gone from being just the guy that comes up with innovative and transformational ideas to the guy that also needs to take some of those ideas and go seek technology to solve those problems.”

Mahon established a technology insertion team to work that issue on a daily basis, he said. “Their job is to identify technologies that satisfy war fighting deficiencies,” which have to be taken care of immediately.

His teams have strong ties to the Office of Naval Research, their parent organization; the Naval Research Laboratory; the systems commands, and in some cases to industry, Mahon said. Immediately after the attack, Mahon’s team went out to the labs and industry, and asked for help to improve the defenses of oil platforms.

Subsequently, the Navy deployed a series of port security technologies, including maritime improvised explosive counters, an elevated netted sensor, long-range acoustic devices and waterside security barriers.

Deep Blue, however, looks at all capabilities gaps—not just those that have been prompted by the terrorist attack, Mahon said. Some of the technologies Deep Blue recently fielded include new vessels, biometric collection tools, body armor, squad level radios and joint land attack cruise missile defense, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles and surface vessels.

As a problem solver, Deep Blue does not have its own budget, Mahon said. “I do not have the resources, but I have access to people who do,” he said. If the problem is serious, there usually is no problem receiving the money for certain technologies, he added.

But Mahon does not only look at what goes wrong. He also is charged with analyzing the concepts that work, and with doing what he calls “opportunities analyses.” A result of that is the fleet response plan, which is meant to ensure fleet readiness, he said.

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