Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance: DOD Needs a Strategic, Risk-Based Approach to Enhance Its Maritime Domain Awareness
Released: 2011-06-20T00:00:00

Letter

Background

DOD Shares Responsibility for Maritime Domain Awareness with Other Interagency Partners

Since September 11, 2001, the federal government has emphasized the need for a coordinated response to maritime threats. In December 2004, the White House issued National Security Presidential Directive 41 (NSPD- 41)/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 13 (HSPD-13), Maritime Security Policy, defining maritime domain awareness as the effective understanding of anything associated with the global maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy, or environment of the United States. NSPD-41/HSPD-13 also directed the Secretaries of Defense and of Homeland Security to jointly lead an interagency effort to prepare a National Strategy for Maritime Security to align all federal government maritime security programs and initiatives into a comprehensive and cohesive national effort involving appropriate federal, state, local, and private sector entities.

Interagency coordination for maritime domain awareness is primarily exercised within the Maritime Security Interagency Policy Committee, which reports to the National Security Council Deputies Committee. A Maritime Domain Awareness Stakeholders Board consists of representatives from all departments and the intelligence community advises the Maritime Security Interagency Policy Committee through its Executive Steering Committee. DOD, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Transportation have all appointed executive agents for maritime domain awareness who, together with a representative of the intelligence community, constitute the Maritime Domain Awareness Stakeholder Board Executive Steering Committee.

DOD Directive 2005.02E establishes policy and roles and responsibilities for maritime domain awareness within DOD. This directive designated the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy as Office of the Secretary of Defense Principal Staff Assistant to oversee the activities of the DOD Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness and designated the Secretary of the Navy as the DOD Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness. In addition, the directive establishes several management functions that the Executive Agent is required to conduct for maritime domain awareness, including: Overseeing the execution of maritime domain awareness initiatives within DOD and coordinating maritime domain awareness policy with the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy); Developing and distributing goals, objectives, and desired effects for maritime domain awareness, in coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy) and the Under Secretary of Defense (Intelligence); Identifying and updating maritime domain awareness requirements and resources for the effective performance of DOD missions; and Recommending DOD-wide maritime domain awareness planning and programming guidance to the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy) and the Director of Programming, Analysis, and Evaluation (now the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation).

The Secretary of the Navy issued an instruction in January 2009 that assigned the Chief of Naval Operations with responsibility for achieving maritime domain awareness within the Navy. This responsibility includes aligning Navy guidance with DOD policy guidance and coordinating with the Joint Staff to ensure that combatant commands have the necessary Navy resources to support their respective maritime domain awareness requirements.

In May 2009, the DOD Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness requested that the Joint Staff solicit maritime domain awareness annual plans from the military services, combatant commands, and defense intelligence components, as required by DOD Directive 2005.02E. In December 2009, the DOD Executive Agent completed an assessment of DOD components’ annual maritime domain awareness plans. The effort was intended to provide the Executive Agent with a “horizontal look” at maritime domain awareness concerns across DOD. The Executive Agent used information from the plans to: (1) gather program and project priorities, (2) formulate and update overarching DOD maritime domain awareness goals and objectives, (3) craft programming and planning recommendations, and (4) synchronize and align combatant command and component efforts and resources. The DOD Executive Agent is currently conducting an assessment of 2010 component plans.

DOD relies on organizations both within and outside of the department to achieve maritime domain awareness. The Office of Naval Intelligence is a core element of Global Maritime Intelligence Integration, whose goal is complete maritime domain awareness and their primary mission is to produce meaningful maritime intelligence. The Office of Naval Intelligence produces a Common Operating Picture and Common Intelligence Picture, both of which are compiled from multiple sources of intelligence. The Office of Naval Intelligence, together with the Coast Guard’s Intelligence Coordination Center, compiles and provides a list of vessels of interest to DOD and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) components. In addition, the National Maritime Intelligence Center, created by the Director of National Intelligence, serves as the integration point for maritime information and intelligence collection and analysis in support of national policy and decision makers, maritime domain awareness objectives, and interagency operations at all levels.

DOD Leverages Numerous Capabilities to Collect, Fuse, and Share Maritime Information to Respond to Global Maritime Challenges

DOD, combatant commands, and joint task forces leverage numerous capabilities to enhance maritime domain awareness, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance collection platforms; intelligence fusion and analysis; and information sharing and dissemination. These capabilities assist DOD in responding to the range of maritime challenges, some of which are identified in figure 1.

A range of platforms, such as sensors on naval vessels and aircraft, provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance collection capabilities. Once maritime domain awareness related data is collected, fusion and analysis capabilities assist DOD combatant commands and joint task forces to combine data from a variety of sources to provide information that may include location, course, destination, cargo, crew, and passengers of a given vessel. In addition, DOD uses a number of capabilities to promote the sharing and dissemination of maritime domain awareness information. For example, the Maritime Safety and Security Information System uses an existing, worldwide vessel safety system—the Automatic Information System—to produce an unclassified, Internet- based, password-protected ship tracking system. Currently, more than 50 nations participate in the Maritime Safety and Security Information System. In addition, DOD is working with other international partners to set up more advanced networks to share information.

To validate joint warfighting requirements, including those associated with maritime domain awareness, DOD uses its Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System. The primary objective of the system is to ensure the capabilities required by the joint warfighter are identified with their associated operational performance criteria in order to successfully execute assigned missions. The Joint Requirements Oversight Council oversees this system and Functional Capabilities Boards, headed by a general, admiral, or government civilian equivalent, support the council by evaluating capability needs, recommending enhancements, examining joint priorities, and minimizing duplication of effort across the department. There are eight Functional Capabilities Boards: Battlespace Awareness, Building Partnerships, Command and Control, Force Application, Force Support, Logistics, Net-Centric, and Protection.

DOD Identified Numerous Maritime Capability Gaps, but Does Not Have a Comprehensive, Departmentwide Strategy to Manage Risk Associated with These Capability Gaps and Guide Future Investments

DOD has articulated a broad strategy for maritime domain awareness and identified numerous maritime capability gaps through various documents. However, DOD does not have a departmentwide strategy that adequately defines roles and responsibilities for addressing gaps, aligns objectives with national strategy, and includes measures to guide the implementation of maritime domain awareness efforts, measure progress, and assess and manage risk associated with capability gaps.

DOD Strategy Documents Does Not Have Departmentwide Objectives, Identify Roles and Responsibilities, and Align with National Strategies

We previously reported that it is standard practice to have a strategy that lays out goals and objectives, identifies actions for addressing those objectives, allocates resources, identifies roles and responsibilities, and measures performance against objectives. The federal government, DOD, and its components have developed a number of documents that incorporate some of these key elements of an overall strategy for maritime domain awareness. Examples include the following: The National Strategy for Maritime Security broadly identifies threats to maritime security and strategic objectives and actions needed to achieve maritime security.

The National Plan to Achieve Maritime Domain Awareness is intended to guide the execution of the security plans tasked in NSPD- 41/HSPD-13. It supports the National Strategy for Maritime Security by outlining broad goals, objectives, threats, and priorities in order to coordinate maritime domain awareness efforts at the federal level.

U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Pacific Command worked with the Joint Staff to develop DOD’s Maritime Domain Awareness Joint Integrating Concept to, among other things, provide a common vision for the future of maritime domain awareness related operations within DOD, identify maritime domain awareness capabilities and tasks and conditions for each capability, and inform future capability analyses.

The DOD’s Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness completed an annual assessment of maritime domain awareness plans prepared by several DOD commands, military services, and defense intelligence components. The assessment organized the analyzed information from the plans into three critical areas where it determined that DOD must focus and expand its efforts: increased information sharing, enhanced situational awareness, and enhanced data on vessels, cargo, and people.

We found that these documents and others DOD and the Navy have developed demonstrate a considerable amount of effort toward defining and organizing DOD’s maritime domain awareness efforts, but we determined that they do not have several key elements that a strategy should contain. DOD’s Maritime Domain Awareness Joint Integrating Concept and the Assessment of U.S. Defense Components Annual Maritime Domain Awareness Plans are two of the key documents used to guide current maritime domain awareness efforts and execute the national strategies. Table 1 summarizes the desirable characteristics of a strategy and compares the elements contained in DOD’s Maritime Domain Awareness Joint Integrating Concept and the DOD Executive Agent’s Assessment of the U.S. Defense Components Annual Maritime Domain Awareness Plans 2009.

DOD and its components have completed or are developing additional efforts that may assist the department in organizing its maritime domain awareness efforts. The Department of the Navy developed a strategy for maritime domain awareness in response to a congressional committee report requirement, and several draft maritime domain awareness roadmaps to guide the Navy’s implementation of maritime domain awareness. Additionally, as of November 2010, the Chief of Naval Operation’s Information Dominance Office was developing a Navy Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Roadmap that outlines the Navy’s vision for capabilities needed to fulfill its missions and priorities, including maritime domain awareness. As of November 2010, U.S. Pacific Command was in the process of drafting a maritime domain awareness concept of operations. This concept of operations is intended to provide a common understanding of intelligence support to maritime domain awareness throughout the combatant command. In June 2010, an interagency working group issued the Current State Report, a reference document which identifies maritime domain awareness tasks, capabilities gaps, and ongoing efforts related to each gap. Finally, in July 2010, the DOD Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness developed maritime domain awareness planning and programming recommendations, which were based, among other things, on the 2009 annual maritime domain awareness plans submitted by DOD components to the Executive Agent. While these efforts may help the individual components work towards more effective maritime domain awareness, developing a departmentwide strategy that clearly outlines objectives and roles and responsibilities will better position DOD to align more detailed objectives with national strategies and coordinate the results of ongoing and future efforts across the department.

National and DOD Strategy Documents Also Do Not Have Provisions for Allocating Resources, Measuring Performance, and Monitoring Progress

As part of the overall framework for successful strategies, prior GAO work has also emphasized the importance of allocating resources, measuring performance, and monitoring progress as sound management practices critical for decision making and achieving results in specified time frames.

While DOD, its interagency partners, and other DOD components have identified numerous capability gaps, DOD does not have a risk-based approach for assessing its maritime capabilities and gaps. Although some interagency-level and DOD component-level documents have prioritized maritime domain awareness capability gaps in comparison to other maritime gaps, the identified gaps have not been allocated resources within DOD. Additionally, DOD does not measure performance and monitor progress in implementing maritime domain awareness and addressing these gaps.

We assessed a number of DOD and interagency documents to determine the extent to which resource allocation and performance measurement were incorporated and found mixed results. Examples include: National Maritime Domain Awareness Interagency Investment Strategy. DOD representatives collaborated with interagency stakeholders to develop a document that identified critical tasks and recommended lead and supporting federal agency stakeholders to coordinate interagency activities to address these tasks. However, the Interagency Investment Strategy is not what is traditionally considered an investment strategy with developed cost estimates or proposed dollar amounts for each agency to invest. Instead, it identifies critical capability gaps and makes recommendations on areas for interagency efforts. For example, it recommended that DOD work with DHS and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to establish national data standards for maritime domain awareness. Interagency Solutions Analysis Current State Report. The Current State Report provides the status of maritime domain awareness capability gaps, solutions, and tools in use to address those gaps and the effectiveness of those solutions to mitigate the gaps. This document is an output of the Interagency Solutions Analysis Working Group, a group of interagency subject matter experts that are comparing current capabilities against scenarios that required, among other things, information sharing and other capabilities in the maritime domain. The DOD Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness, the Department of the Navy, and the Office of Naval Intelligence participated in this process. However, this document does not identify resources to address identified gaps. Additionally, this document does not provide metrics to assess performance or monitor progress in addressing identified gaps.

Department of Defense Maritime Domain Awareness Joint Integrating Concept. This document identifies required capabilities, associated tasks, and the DOD joint capability area for each required capability and each associated task. However, it does not identify how resources should be targeted to address the capabilities and tasks nor does it assign specific components within DOD to address each capability and task. Additionally, this document does not contain milestones for measuring progress in addressing the capability gaps and tasks will be measured.

Assessment of the U.S. Defense Components Annual Maritime Domain Awareness Plans 2009. The DOD Executive Agent solicited maritime domain awareness annual plans from DOD combatant commands, military services, and defense intelligence components. The plans outlined each component’s planned maritime domain awareness capabilities and described current gaps. The Executive Agent assessed the plans and listed critical areas for expanded focus and efforts. However, several DOD components did not submit plans, so the assessment may not include departmentwide data. Also, as identified in table 1, this assessment does not incorporate several key elements that would help guide DOD’s implementation of maritime domain awareness including an allocation of resources and investments, performance measures, and a mechanism to monitor progress.

Department of the Navy Initial Capabilities Document for Data Fusion and Analysis Functions of Navy Maritime Domain Awareness. This 2009 Navy document summarized a capabilities-based assessment that identified capability shortfalls and recommended approaches to improve Navy’s overall maritime domain awareness capability. According to some DOD officials this initial capabilities document reflects the Navy’s view, but not necessarily the views of other DOD components and interagency stakeholders. For example, many Navy maritime domain awareness documents are Navy-centric and it is unclear how they align with interagency efforts. Lastly, the Navy initial capabilities document does not resource identified gaps.

These documents articulated broad strategic goals for maritime domain awareness and identified several critical capability gaps; however, DOD has not allocated resources to these efforts. Additionally, the Department of the Navy initial capabilities document, DOD’s Maritime Domain Awareness Joint Integrating Concept, and the National Maritime Domain Awareness Working Group Interagency Investment Strategy gaps were separately approved by DOD’s Joint Requirements Oversight Council, but DOD has not developed a departmentwide capability gap assessment for approval by the council. We also previously reported that the requirements determination process is more focused on the needs of military services than the joint warfighter, and combatant commands and defense intelligence agency needs are often not incorporated into this process. A departmentwide strategy, including a capability gap assessment, would assist DOD in assessing and prioritizing maritime domain awareness capability gaps that have already been identified through various service and interagency efforts in order to integrate them into its corporate processes—such as the Joint Capabilities Integration Development System—for determining requirements and allocating resources.

Multiple DOD and Interagency Documents Have Identified Maritime Capability Gaps Primarily in the Areas of Collection, Fusion and Analysis, and Information Sharing

Interagency maritime domain awareness documents identified maritime capability gaps and designated DOD as the lead agency to address some of these gaps. For example, in October 2005, the National Plan to Achieve Maritime Domain Awareness identified numerous near- and long-term maritime domain awareness priorities relating to maritime capabilities, and listed DOD as the lead agency for 22 of these priorities. In May 2007, the National Maritime Domain Awareness Requirements and Capabilities Working Group developed the National Maritime Domain Awareness Study Interagency Investment Strategy, which prioritized capability gaps. The Interagency Investment Strategy listed DOD as the lead or co- lead agency to address a majority of the prioritized gaps. The Maritime Domain Awareness Steering Executive Steering Committee approved an execution plan for a maritime domain awareness Interagency Solutions Analysis which would develop a coordinated, interagency approach for addressing previously identified gaps. In April 2010, the Interagency Solutions Analysis Working Group decided to focus immediate efforts on closing existing gaps related to information about the three areas of people, cargo, and vessels for the interagency group to initially address.

In addition to interagency efforts, DOD and Navy documents have identified maritime domain awareness capability gaps related to the department’s ability to collect, analyze, and share information on maritime vessels. For example, DOD’s Maritime Domain Awareness Joint Integrating Concept identified required capabilities that the joint forces will need to address in order to conduct future operations to develop and maintain awareness of the maritime domain. In addition, DOD is conducting a Maritime Domain Awareness Joint Integrating Concept capabilities-based assessment that is considering current and programmed capabilities through 2012 in addition to projections of future programs. An initial capabilities document for this assessment was approved on November 29, 2010. This capabilities-based assessment is also intended to validate the Maritime Domain Awareness Joint Integrating Concept and provide a baseline of maritime domain awareness elements to inform interagency efforts.

Key themes have emerged through the identification of capability gaps in several national, interagency, and department documents that DOD may need to address to support maritime domain awareness. DOD components have also identified maritime domain awareness capability gaps. While initial capability assessments share common themes, there has not been a departmentwide prioritization of these capability gaps. As DOD components start developing solutions for these gaps and allocating resources, the absence of a departmentwide prioritization may result in unnecessary duplication of efforts or redundancy in addressing shared capability gaps. A departmentwide prioritization, determined by a comprehensive, risk-based approach would assist decision makers in more effectively allocating resources to the joint forces departmentwide and contribute to interagency efforts to prioritize maritime capability gaps.

DOD Does Not Have a Comprehensive, Risk-Based Approach to Assessing Maritime Domain Awareness Capability Gaps

DOD has not assessed the risk associated with its maritime capability gaps, in addition to not prioritizing these gaps. As we have previously reported, an agency’s strategic plan should, among other things, address risk-related issues that are central to the agency’s mission. To provide a basis for analyzing these risk management strategies, we have developed a framework based on industry best practices and other criteria. This framework, shown in figure 2, divides risk management into five major phases: (1) setting strategic goals and objectives, and determining constraints; (2) assessing risks; (3) evaluating alternatives for addressing these risks; (4) selecting the appropriate alternatives; and (5) implementing the alternatives and monitoring the progress made and results achieved.

Even though DOD, its interagency partners, and its components have made efforts to identify and start prioritizing capability gaps, DOD does not have a departmentwide risk assessment to address high priority capability gaps. DOD Directive 2005.02E, which establishes the department’s policy for maritime domain awareness, states that the department will determine its resource priorities and awareness levels needed to persistently monitor the maritime domain. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review states that risk management is central to effective decision-making. As shown in table 1, we have previously reported that risk assessment and risk management are desirable characteristics of national strategies. We have described risk assessments as including an analysis of threats to, and vulnerabilities of, critical assets and operations. The results of risk assessments may be used to define and prioritize related resource and operational requirements.

Currently, maritime domain awareness is prioritized through various mechanisms across DOD, instead of through a departmentwide approach. For example, DOD’s combatant commands and components prioritize maritime domain awareness differently based upon their respective missions. Additionally, when prioritizing capabilities across DOD, maritime domain awareness falls into multiple capability areas. For example, according to DOD documents and DOD officials, maritime domain awareness capabilities are assessed under multiple joint capability areas and functional capability boards through the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System process. Figure 3 illustrates this.

The various interagency and DOD views on capability gaps and priorities may not provide a full assessment of the risks associated with these gaps at a departmentwide level. Table 2 illustrates that current DOD-wide documents do not meet all of GAO’s criteria for a risk assessment. Prior GAO work has cited that while principles of risk management acknowledge that risk generally cannot be eliminated altogether, enhancing protection from known or potential threats can serve to significantly reduce risk.

Efforts such as The Maritime Domain Awareness Joint Integrating Concept and Assessment of U.S. Defense Component Annual Maritime Domain Awareness Plans have demonstrated DOD’s progress in identifying capability gaps related to maritime domain awareness, but have not been included in a larger, departmentwide maritime domain awareness risk assessment. As a result, DOD may lack the insight needed to actively manage the risk associated with identified capability gaps.

Additionally, because maritime domain awareness is a broad interagency effort, DOD may be unable to effectively coordinate with its interagency partners in the absence of a clear departmentwide strategy for maritime domain awareness. Consolidating these component efforts to prioritize capability gaps into a comprehensive departmentwide approach to risk management may facilitate developing solutions for each gap. A strategy that includes a comprehensive, risk-based approach to managing maritime domain awareness, including a departmentwide assessment of the critical capabilities, may also provide better information to decision makers about the potential implications of policy and resourcing decisions both within DOD and across the interagency.

Conclusions

Our prior work has shown that a strategy including goals, roles, and responsibilities; resource allocation; and performance measures can help ensure that agencies are supporting national and interagency objectives. Achieving maritime domain awareness requires cooperation across a range of agencies throughout the federal, state, and local levels. DOD has a lead role in maritime domain awareness both because it serves as a key enabler for its own maritime activities and because DOD is positioned to provide so many of the resources which assist other agencies in meeting their respective maritime domain awareness needs. It is important that DOD components’ efforts are consolidated together and aligned amongst each other to ensure that departmentwide maritime domain awareness needs are met and appropriate contributions to the efforts of its interagency partners are made. In the absence of a departmentwide strategy for maritime domain awareness, including the prioritized allocation of resources to maritime domain awareness, measures of performance in meeting the goals and objectives, monitoring of progress in addressing capability gaps, and assessing risk, DOD may not be effectively managing its maritime domain awareness efforts. Efforts on the part of DOD combatant commands, military services, the DOD Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness, and interagency working groups resulted in the identification of several capability gaps, some identified by multiple components. The next step in achieving effective departmentwide maritime domain awareness would be a departmentwide strategy and risk assessment that incorporates these efforts. As DOD and the rest of government face increasing demand and competition for resources, policymakers will confront difficult decisions on funding priorities. Threats to the maritime domain are numerous and include the use of large merchant vessels to transport weapons of mass destruction; explosive- laden suicide boats as weapons; and vessels to smuggle people, drugs, weapons, and other contraband. The importance and vulnerabilities of the maritime domain require that efforts be made to reduce the risk of maritime threats and challenges, such as a terrorist attack or acts of piracy. Additionally, a comprehensive, risk-based approach would help DOD capitalize on the considerable effort it and its components have already devoted to maritime domain awareness, make the best use of resources in a fiscally constrained environment, and contribute to interagency efforts to address maritime threats. A strategic, risk-based approach is particularly important in light of emerging threats in the maritime domain and an increased strain on government resources. Such a departmentwide approach will provide DOD with important tools that can assist in confronting the myriad policy and fiscal challenges the department faces.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To improve DOD’s ability to manage the implementation of maritime domain awareness across DOD we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Secretary of the Navy, as DOD’s Executive Agent, to take the following two actions: Develop and implement a departmentwide strategy for maritime domain awareness that, at a minimum Identifies DOD objectives and roles and responsibilities within DOD for achieving maritime domain awareness, and aligns efforts and objectives with DOD’s corporate process for determining requirements and allocating resources; and Identifies responsibilities for resourcing capability areas and includes performance measures for assessing progress of the overall strategy that will assist in the implementation of maritime domain awareness efforts.

In collaboration with other maritime interagency stakeholders, such as the Coast Guard and the National Maritime Intelligence Center, perform a comprehensive risk-based analysis to include consideration of threats, vulnerabilities, and criticalities relating to the management of maritime domain awareness in order to prioritize and address DOD’s critical maritime capability gaps and guide future investments.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

In written comments on a draft of the prior, sensitive report, DOD concurred with our recommendations and discussed actions they are taking—or plan to take—to address them. DOD’s written comments are reprinted in their entirety in appendix II. DOD also provided technical comments, which we have incorporated into the report where appropriate.

In concurring with the first recommendation, DOD stated that they have completed the initial policy, goals, and objectives for maritime domain awareness and promulgated it in a document to all DOD components. DOD also stated their intent to identify responsibilities for resourcing capability gaps and performance measures for assessing progress in achieving maritime domain awareness. DOD identified further steps it is taking to establish objectives for maritime domain awareness, assign appropriate roles and responsibilities, and conduct a second assessment of annual maritime domain awareness plans to inform DOD’s overall effort to develop a departmentwide strategy. We believe these actions will address the intent of our recommendation and better enable DOD to address maritime capability gaps.

DOD also concurred with our second recommendation. DOD stated that it will collaborate with the other principal members of the National Maritime Domain Awareness Coordination Office to develop a comprehensive, risk- based approach for maritime domain awareness. The DOD Executive Agent is also requesting that DOD components include risk assessments in their annual maritime domain awareness plans. We believe these actions will address the intent of our recommendation and help DOD prioritize its maritime capability gaps and guide future investment decisions.

We are distributing this report to the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy, and other relevant DOD officials. We are also sending copies of this report to interested congressional committees. The report is also available on our Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-5431 or dagostinod@gao.gov. Contact points for our offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix III.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

We were initially asked to look at four questions: (1) to what extent has the Department of Defense (DOD) developed the capability to perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) activities in the maritime domain; (2) to what extent has DOD integrated the maritime domain awareness investment strategy into its overall ISR capability investment strategy; (3) to what extent does DOD have operational plans, planning and coordination structures in place to meet maritime domain awareness and maritime homeland defense requirements; and (4) what gaps, if any, exist in DOD’s ability to identify maritime threats, achieve fusion of information sources from interagency and international partners, coordinate a response, and deploy forces to address identified threats at all relevant distances from the United States. We agreed with the requesters to respond to this request with two reports. The first report focuses on maritime capabilities and the second report will focus on maritime homeland defense. However, we considered the homeland defense perspective when we determined our site visits so we could gather relevant data on maritime homeland defense where possible and feasible to support the second report. As a result, we focused the scope of this audit on geographic combatant commands that had both a maritime focus and a homeland defense mission set. We determined that U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Southern Command, and U.S. Pacific Command met this criteria, and we conducted site visits to a facilities, such as operations centers, engaged in both maritime domain awareness and homeland defense that support these combatant commands.

To determine what capabilities DOD currently uses to support maritime domain awareness, what gaps still exist and how these gaps are prioritized, we assessed capability needs established in national guidance such as the National Plan to Achieve Maritime Domain Awareness and DOD guidance such as the Joint Integrating Concept and DOD Directive 2005.02E, which establishes DOD policy for maritime domain awareness. We compared this information with current capabilities and gaps described by combatant command, military service, and supporting intelligence agency’s officials during interviews and site visits. For example, we visited several combatant and joint operation centers to observe what capabilities were used at maritime operations centers. In addition, we evaluated DOD’s efforts to prioritize capability gaps against established DOD acquisition processes such as the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System. We reviewed prior GAO work on risk management and compared it to existing DOD maritime domain awareness capability documents to determine the extent to which DOD applies a risk-based approach to managing capabilities and identified gaps related to maritime domain awareness.

To determine the extent to which DOD developed a strategy to address maritime domain awareness capability gaps, we reviewed prior GAO work on strategic planning including GAO’s work on assessing specific components of national strategies. Given that there is no established set of requirements for strategies, we relied on GAO assessments of national strategies and the criteria that were applied to assess these strategies. We identified six desirable characteristics that national or departmentwide strategies should contain. We assessed these criteria against existing DOD and component-level documents such as the Joint Integrating Concept, the DOD Executive Agent’s Assessment of the U.S. Defense Components Annual Maritime Domain Awareness Plans 2009, and the Department of the Navy’s capability assessment and roadmaps to determine the extent to which these documents contain the elements of a departmentwide strategy. We specifically focused our assessment on the two departmentwide efforts to identify a maritime domain awareness strategy, DOD’s Maritime Domain Awareness Joint Integrating Concept and DOD’s Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness’s Assessment of U.S. Defense Components Annual Maritime Domain Awareness Plans 2009. To determine the extent to which DOD has allocated resources, measured performance and monitored progress in addressing identified capability gaps, we reviewed the same documents noted above to see if identified gaps were resourced within DOD, and if implementation and monitoring programs were discussed in relation to these gaps. We also assessed the information described in these documents against information obtained from combatant command, military service, and supporting intelligence agency’s officials during interviews and site visits.

To evaluate our reporting objectives, we obtained relevant national, interagency, and DOD-level documentation and interviewed officials from the following DOD components and interagency partners: Under Secretary of Defense (Intelligence) Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and America’s Security Affairs Defense Intelligence Agency Defense Intelligence Operations Coordination Center National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics) Joint Chiefs of Staff Department of the Navy Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (N3/N5) Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Information Dominance Division (N2/N6)

Office of the Chief Information Officer Office of Naval Intelligence Office of Naval Research U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet U.S. Navy Third Fleet Naval Air Systems Command Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Combatant Commands Headquarters, U.S. Pacific Command Headquarters, U.S. Northern Command Headquarters, North American Aerospace Defense Command Headquarters, U.S. Southern Command Headquarters, Fleet Forces Command Joint Forces Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, U.S. Strategic Command The United States Coast Guard Headquarters District Five, Sector Hampton Roads District Eleven, Sector San Diego Intelligence Coordination Center Maritime Intelligence Fusion Center (Atlantic Area) Maritime Intelligence Fusion Center (Pacific Area) Joint Harbor Operations Center, Port of San Diego The Office of Global Maritime Situational Awareness / National Maritime Domain Awareness Coordination Office We conducted this performance audit primarily from June 2009 through November 2010, and coordinated with DOD from January to June 2011 to produce this public version of the prior, sensitive report issued in November 2010 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Davi M. D’Agostino, (202) 512-5431 or dagostinod@gao.gov.

Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Joseph Kirschbaum (Assistant Director), Alisa Beyninson, Christy Bilardo, Stephen Caldwell, Gina Flacco, Brent Helt, Greg Marchand, Timothy Persons, Steven Putansu, Amie Steele, and Cheryl Weissman made key contributions to this report.