Sea Control - Sea Control 274 - "Fire When Ready, CTN1!" with CDR Ted Pledger

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

Links1. “Fire When Ready, CTN1!,” by Commander Ted Pledger, USNI Blog, July 19, 2021.

Hey folks, Jared here. We are back on our two pods per week schedule, so we're rolling out Commander Ted Pledger today to discuss his article on the USNI blog, Fire When Ready CTN1. Just going to highlight our last two episodes as well. We had Brian Clark and Brian McGrath discussing the Navy's operational model, and then Walker Mills interviewed Dr. Milan Vigo on naval strategy and operational art. This episode was edited and produced by Taylor Fairless. We just launched the call for submissions for the SimSec Forum for authors and readers over at the main website if there was a particular piece that you enjoyed this year, nominate it, and if it gets enough votes, you can hear the author present his or her work. We've also

officially put out our call for articles for the end-of-year fiction contest, so go over to simsec.org for full details. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast Network, The Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and Apollo of Iron Brew Bottles wherever you download your podcasts. On that note, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. My guest today is Commander Ted Pledger, and we'll be discussing his contribution to the U.S. Naval Institute blog, Fire When Ready CTN1 about offensive cyber operations. I'll add a caveat to that in that, you know, if you signed up for the podcast today in the hopes to hear about like, quote unquote, cyber tactics and how the U.S. Navy does cyber, that's not what we're going to be talking about.

It's going to be primarily command and control and roles and responsibilities discussion so we can remain outside of the classified realm here. Ted, welcome, and would you mind telling the listeners a little bit about your background? Hey, thanks, Jared. And first off, just really appreciate the opportunity to be here and humbled by the invitation, and I'm looking forward to a great conversation. My background, surface warfare officer, 21 years, pretty standard career path. Spent most of my career on the destroyers, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. I did a couple of Minesweeper tours. And right now I'm on the joint staff in the G7 here in Suffolk.

Thanks. And as a reminder, all opinions are our own, not reflective of any organization with which we may be otherwise associated. So, Ted, was there a specific experience in command that prompted you to write on this topic? yeah so no specific experience but since leaving command last fall i've been doing a lot of thinking and reading about the changing character of war and the future of warfare and what we're calling all domain warfare and some books that had a real significant impact on me and really challenged my thinking were ghost fleet by pw singer and august cole and 2034 with the admiral severitas and elliot ackerman which i know you've had them on your show talking about their book and then another book that i read called future crimes by mark goodman where he talks a lot about

how bad guys can and will exploit technology for you know nefarious purposes and uh so i kind of had all that rolling around in my head and a few weeks ago i was out for a run thinking about this and then i i was thinking about uh you know this you know streaming conscious thought process uh the book Fleet Tactics, which I know you're familiar with and have talked about by Captain Wayne Hughes. And he advocates for the principle of firing effectively first. So if you accept this principle, naval tactics is a truth, to win an engagement, you have to fire effectively first. And then you make some assumptions about the next conflict that's going to be initiated. The first shots are going to be cyber attacks, really, as we see that in Ghost Fleet in

2034. It seems to me that the way we train to fight right now are ships. We're not really fighting in all the domains effectively. It's almost kind of like we're fighting with one arm tied behind our back. So your average U.S. Navy destroyer will be armed with, and I'm just going to run through a list here. I'm not even sure this is all inclusive, but so you got Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, harpoon surface-to-surface missiles, depending on which flight you're on board. SM-2, SM-3, SM-6 missiles, again, depend on which flight of destroyer you're talking about and its specific mission set. Five-inch gun, torpedoes at the rocket launch and over the side varieties, close-in weapon system. There's a lot of options to put weapons

downrange. How would you describe the process and the permissions required for a ship CO know to authorize firing those weapons yeah so i i think um you're talking processes and permissions you've got the the process piece and i'll talk a little bit about that and then the permissions which you know we kind of bend that and rules of engagement and authorities so the process piece and uh you know just to to use an analogy if you went and bought a let's say a pistol uh you know at the local store brought it home you know there's some things you got to do before you you fire that weapon you got to take the clip out put the bullets in put the clip back in chamber the round remove the safety and then pull the trigger so there's a

there's a process going there and it's the same way with a weapon system on the ship so all those weapons that you you mentioned whether it's the sm2 missile or the five inch gun or the torpedoes you know we've we've got various you know safeties and in place and fire breaks you know to before we we we have to do to fire that weapon right um so there's a there's a time piece to it and there are things that we can do to remove those safeties so that we can quickly fire that weapon if we need to you know the permissions the rules of engagement you know first and foremost every ship commanding officer every ship has the right and obligation of self-defense so if there is an imminent attack or attack is in progress that ship can take self-defense or defensive measures okay you don't

need permission for that you've got permission for that inherently after that you know the permissions and authorities to fire your weapons it really depends on what the chain of command is delegated to the co um so from an offensive standpoint um it just generally speaking that co that ship is not gonna be able to go out there and just start shooting willy-nilly uh there you know there are certain permissions um given and from an offensive standpoint it's you know that that authority to fire offensively it's usually above the ceo and again there's a lot of different considerations of the threat threat environment um you know and what the what the nature of the conflict is so what's the difference between the the kinetic weapons that we just mentioned and

cyber fires yeah so kinetic weapons is what we traditionally think of when we we think of a weapon so a gun a missile a torpedo a bomb it's a physical weapon it's a it's a piece of ordnance that can be launched, and it's going to detonate or make contact with the target, and it's going to cause an effect. It's going to cause some physical damage. So we're looking at this ability to project firepower or fires to cause that effect. When we start talking about all-domain warfare, and we start incorporating these non-kinetic fires, so it's not a piece of ordnance we're going to launch, but it's, it's something that we're going to do, an action that we're going to take that's going to cause some sort of effect. And it's, it's really, when we

talk about warfare and combat, it's really that effect that we're trying to achieve. We want the enemy to do something or stop doing something. You know, so it's, you know, I want a ship to not shoot at me, for example, to put it simply. So I'm going to, I'm going to shoot a missile and try and sink it or a torpedo okay but then you know so does it have to be a kinetic does it have to be a piece of ordnance to get that ship to render it you know combat ineffective um so you know we talked about your cyber capabilities and we're not going to go into that but you know there are things that happen um you know you can go to open source and there's things that hackers do all the time right and their their vulnerabilities and systems um you

You know, if you had the capability and the tools to do that. Right. So you achieve that same effect, making that other other ship ineffective in a non-kinetic way. So why are you advocating for the CTNs as a deployable detachment rather than using ship's force personnel? Yeah. So so CTNs or cryptologic technicians network, they're the Navy's cyber specialists. So they do network defense, digital forensics, network exploitation analysis, cyber planning, to name a few things. And they're really the Navy's most skilled and highly trained cyber warriors. Only 600, approximately 600 CTNs in the Navy. So not a lot of them when you start thinking about how many ships we have and how many people in the Navy, over 300,000 people active duty.

So on a ship, you know, I say a ship, you know, your typical cruiser destroyer platform, you know, you've got information systems technicians, and they're your communicators, external communicators. And they've got training in computers and networks, but that's really only part of their job description. So the ITs, they're a legacy of the old radioman rating, the RMs. And as I mentioned, they're responsible for all the off-ship communications. So they've also got external voice communication circuits, data links, in addition to maintaining the IP connectivity. And they're very skilled and ITs are very good at what they do. But when compared with the CTNs, ITs just don't have the depth of the cyber experience or the training. So you mentioned the comms piece and as well as the network piece for your sort of traditional shipboard IT personnel.

But what additional duties they have just as by nature of being a member of a ship's company, because there's a lot that goes. I don't think people understand what it means necessarily to be expeditionary if they're not. They have not been part of a Navy. There's there's a lot of extra duties that go into just doing, quote unquote, your job. Yeah. So the the I.T. is on a ship. And, you know, as you know, Jeremy, on the ship, it's everyone's really busy. Everyone has a lot of responsibilities and the I.T.'s are no different. So, you know, ITs just within their own job description, you know, in their rate, you know, they do typical IT kind of stuff that any, you know, civilian would be familiar with. So they do, you know, what I would kind of call IT help desk kind of stuff. So they're constantly, you know, unlocking email accounts, you know, fixing printers, your program's not working, your application's not working.

And, and I'll just give you, you know, an anecdote on my, my last ship, you know, the medical folks that are on our ship, you know, they use a lot of different applications with the medical services do, you know, for, you know, in the course of their job. And a lot, it seemed like there were always issues with the medical team and their computer programs. And it was every single week, there was an IT and medical, you know, fixing and helping them, you know, get the programs all straight in the way. So, you know, that consumes a lot of bandwidth from the ITs on the ship. But they've also got preventive maintenance on their equipment. They're doing every division is responsible for damage control maintenance. So that's maintenance on valves and CO2 bottles and things like that. New sailors on every ship in the Navy, a new sailor, first term sailor checks in.

They're going to spend 90 days off the bat doing food service attendant duties. So helping out on the mess decks, serving food, cleaning up, not part of their job as an IT. And then you've got the things that involve the entire crew. So we're always doing drills for damage control, fighting fires, flooding, and then anti-terrorism force protection drills, you know, part of those teams. So ITs are doing that. So it's just standard kind of life on a ship stuff. And everyone's got all these responsibilities. So your ITs, their bandwidth is consumed much with a lot beyond just network cyber kind of stuff.

So you mentioned you hinted at this in your piece. Are there any additional benefits to a more robust CTN detachment aboard ships? Yeah. So when you talk about a detachment, so you're not part of ship's company, But like for a deployment or a workup cycle and deploying, a group of sailors will come on and they'll be part of that ship's company for a predetermined period of time. And we've done this with cryptologic technicians in the past with Flight 1 DDGs. Those ships aren't built with the organic capabilities, so when they deploy, they'll send a CT deck underway with them. But as I said, CTN-600 or so in the fleet, that's a low-density asset. So the detachment construct would, you know, one, allow the Navy to, you know, allocate to need.

So taking these, you know, these low density assets and kind of put them, you know, in very, you know, the critical places around the fleet, whether it's, you know, ships or staffs that are getting ready to go on deployment or to certain AORs or areas of responsibility. But also the detachment sailors are not burdened with a lot of the standard shipboard responsibilities. So this would really allow them to focus on their mission requirements and their job. And the other benefit that you specifically mentioned is they would then be able to contribute to defense, cyber defense for the unit. Yeah, and that's a great point as well. I'm glad you brought that up. You know, so we, ITs, and we've talked about the responsibilities. So they are, shipboard ITs do, you know, the network defense piece.

And we'll probably talk a little bit about the training and how we do cyber now on their ships. But, you know, that is something that they focus on. But, you know, when you're taking an IT that I mentioned all of their responsibilities versus somebody who is specifically trained on networks and an in-depth knowledge, you know, it's not hard to see who's going to have a better focus and better skill set to do that network defense. And especially if you're going into a high threat environment, high cyber threat environment, you know, you really want to protect those networks as best you can. Yeah, we're going to get that train piece in just a second. I did want to ask one more follow up here. If you're inserting that detachment aboard the ship and you're choosing, when are you putting them on board?

yeah i'd be looking to put them on board um you know somewhere before you start your integrated advanced training um you know so that's you know before comp 2x um you know you start really getting into the the war fighting piece of of your training um i i think that'd probably be the best time to integrate them so what training did you get prior to command on on cyber at all then And attacks, defense, what training did you get besides the annual training that we all do? Yeah. So if we're talking about prior to command, to assuming command, I'll say I'll kind of start by saying that the training that CEOs get before they get to command, in my opinion, it's it's really good. And, you know, and as you know, Jared, it's a very robust training pipeline, several months, almost a year before you actually get to your ship. And it's everything from ship handling to decision making to personnel.

There's a piece if you're going to an Aegis cruiser destroyer, you spend several weeks in Dahlgren, Virginia, and simulators. And they've got a really great, great system there. And we're constantly getting better. So, you know, I think the training that we do is really, really great. But when you get into cyber and employment of cyber, I mean, really nothing. You know, it's been several years, but I think we may have had a brief on network security kind of stuff. And, you know, we do, you know, we do train for network security and cybersecurity on the ship as part of basic phase and things like that. But when we talk about offensive cyber, we don't really train to that. And I don't blame anybody. I'm not trying to throw any arrows. But I think this really just kind of speaks to where we are as a military and how we view cyber. And it's just a mindset that we need to change.

and we need to start thinking about cyber as a weapon system or an arrow in our quiver that we can use and then when we do that it's going to change our perspective and i'm confident that we'll align our training resources to to meet that um but i think um because it is such a highly classified uh warfare area and we you know we don't want to reveal our capabilities i'm not advocating you know you know this isn't a conversation about if we should do this or not But I think moving forward, we're doing ourselves a disservice and not using the full extent of our capabilities if we're not going to train to use offensive cyber. Yeah, I mean, even the conversation about effects, I'll just point out the hypothetical that you threw out earlier was a true hypothetical because neither you nor I have any idea if that is a reasonable ask or capability or not. we're just kind of guessing based on what we read in the media so yeah no and i and again i go back

to the book that i read um and i mentioned um future crimes by mark goodman and it's um it's a wonderful book and he goes in great detail about you know just things that hackers have done and it's you know let your imagination run wild and you know if people can imagine it they've probably done it um so there's a there's a lot of open source stuff out there but you know again i'm a ship guy but you start thinking and imagining scenarios and you know you know we'll look at the um the book 2034 you know one of the first opening scenes is uh you've got a surface action group in the south china sea and uh you know they have interaction with the chinese navy and before they know it they have none of their communications work and it's not explicitly said

that's a cyber attack but you know a lot of our comms run through ip services um so you know again it's not a great leap of imagination to think wow that's that's kind of scary when you start thinking about what our adversaries could potentially do to us and boy wouldn't it be nice if we could do that to them so did you get any training on offensive or defensive measures at the unit level when you were in command yeah so at the at the unit level we're really focused on network defense um and and rightfully so uh because it's it's it's really hard to do and it's but it's critical that we get it right so it's you know scanning you know applying patches um you know just your network security kind of stuff and it's here it's a security protocols um and then

you know in the integrated advanced phase you know there there's uh training and that's part of scenario development in the, the chips will go through is, you know, how to respond to cyber attacks and things like that. Um, but I think, uh, when we start talking about, um, offensive cyber, um, again, it's, you know, it's not something that we're really trained to. Who do you think would have the battery then for offensive cyber measures? I mean, who would have the release authority to go ahead and execute? yeah that's a great question um it's uh you know as far as the battery is is concerned i'm not an expert from what i understand about cyber you know all someone really needs is a computer

um you know some software or some sort of tool to get into an adversary's network and a connection between the network so the battery could be you know it could be anywhere really it could be someone on the ship it could be another ship um you know as i mentioned in the in the article it's you know the the ship could be kind of a forward observer and somebody ashore or another ship could launch an attack um you know and you know if you think about um you know the speed at which cyber operates and you know how fast you can send and receive an email um you know i think the you if there's a shore battery construct you know you launch that attack from you know a shore uh it can work as long as a you know somebody the co is is in that loop um you know quote unquote calling the

shot right so um i think the authority piece um it can it could lie you know we talk about offensive operations so you're shooting a tomahawk the co is not going to you know make the call to shoot a tomahawk missile per se. It's probably going to come from somebody else, right? But the CO is saying, push that button or fire, giving the order to launch that weapon. So I think cyber could be a similar type of deal where the CO is tracking another vessel or another target or a target that they want to launch a cyber attack on. And the CO can be relaying this information to somebody else um and then somebody else makes that decision but i think uh you know we start talking about all domain integrating all of our weapons together um you know i think that the ship

and the co and the tactical action officer the people who are actually on the front end or the tip of the spear you know they've definitely got a role to play in how we use this capability and the dilemma that i always come back to with a lot of these offensive weapons and where I shouldn't have said battery. I should have said batteries release authority. Where that authority lies is every time I read one of these books, whether it's 2034 or Ghost Fleet or pick your piece of thicket, there's always an assumption built in there that there's a loss of communications at some point. And there's a ship alone and unafraid very far forward without the authority to employ some of these weapons. If we're looking at some of our current constructs. So that's why I think that's an interesting discussion to have. But what training do you think is necessary then for commanders in the employment of the offensive cyber measures? you know i think uh you know this is just my my thinking or opinions but i think it'd be just kind

of fun and interesting to go to some place like dahlgren or surface warfare schools command in newport where we do simulator training you know come out of information center scenarios and we you know hone and refine our tactics in these simulator environments and just tell the tell the the COs or the TAOs the tactical action officers hey in addition to all these other weapon systems you've got this you know specific cyber capability that can do certain things to your adversary to this we'll say class of ships or or whatever that you may encounter during this scenario, and just see how that they would use these capabilities. And some people may not have a clue what to do. And other people, you know, the Jared Samuelsons may think of some very

innovative ways to employ cyber attacks and offensive cyber operations. And just, but I think, you know, putting this in the hands of some warfighters and seeing how they use it, you know, that could yield some some pretty interesting results and then from there we can start to develop some ttps and tactics techniques and procedures and doctrine um and then shape our training around that but um you know it it wouldn't take a whole lot i think to uh you really kind of start exploring this uh this space and see what's in the realm of possibility yeah i'm hearing wargaming is the answer that was my uh that was my takeaway from yeah yeah absolutely all right well that's all the time that we have for today uh ted where can

we find you online and what are you working on next you got any other other projects brewing yeah so i'm on i'm on social media um you can find me on facebook or linkedin ted pleasure and uh you know something that that i've been chewing on for a few months now is a future of uh what's the future of maritime competition at centcom and completely unrelated the cyber, but, you know, is, you know, the future U.S. naval footprint in CENTCOM is probably going to look a little bit different now that we're out of Afghanistan and, you know, Iraq is not what it was, you know, a decade ago. You know, we're putting our pieces more in Europe and in the Pacific. You know, China is building up its capabilities. And from what I'm reading,

that it looks like they're going to deploy a carrier strike group to the Western Indian Ocean at some point in time. So, you know, how are we going to respond to that? What's that, what are the strategic implications of that future? So, again, I'm still writing on that, and we'll kind of see what happens, but that's what I'm chewing on. I look forward to reading that when it comes out, and maybe we can bring you back on to talk again about that. But thank you again for joining us today. To the listeners, Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. © BF-WATCH TV 2021