Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance: DOD Needs a Strategic, Risk-Based Approach to Enhance Its Maritime Domain Awareness
GAO-11-621
Published: Jun 20, 2011. Publicly Released: Jun 20, 2011.
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Highlights
Maritime security threats to the United States are broad, including the naval forces of potential adversary nations, terrorism, and piracy. The attacks on the USS Cole in 2000, in Mumbai in 2008, and on the Maersk Alabama in 2009 highlight these very real threats. The Department of Defense (DOD) considers maritime domain awareness--that is, identifying threats and providing commanders with sufficient awareness to make timely decisions--a means for facilitating effective action in the maritime domain and critical to its homeland defense mission. GAO was asked to examine the extent to which DOD has developed a strategy to manage its maritime domain awareness efforts and uses a risk-based approach. GAO analyzed national and DOD documents; interviewed DOD and interagency maritime domain awareness officials; and conducted site visits to select facilities engaged in maritime related activities. This report is a public version of a previous, sensitive report..
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | To improve DOD's ability to manage the implementation of maritime domain awareness across DOD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Navy, as DOD's Executive Agent, to develop and implement a departmentwide strategy for maritime domain awareness that, at a minimum (1) 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 (2) 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. | DOD concurred with the recommendation and reported a number of efforts underway or planned to address the recommendation. Most of the efforts come under the purview of the DOD Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA). Some of these efforts include updated Policy, Goals and Objectives for MDA within the Navy and updated MDA Planning & Program Recommendations. DOD reported that updates to these documents will assign roles and responsibilities and align efforts with DOD's established processes for determining requirements and allocating resources. The MDA Executive Agent also plans to continue assessing Annual MDA Plans throughout major DOD commands and components, which inform... DOD's overall guidance and planning documents for MDA. In July 2013 Navy officials reported that the DOD Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness consulted with Office of Deputy Assitant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and formed a writing team to draft a DoD MDA Strategic Plan. The strategy will be signed by the Under Secretary of Defense Policy and supplement DoD Directive 2005.02E. The strategy will include the baseline metrics and assignments for execution of the Interagency Solutions Analysis. Navy officials report that the the department-wide strategy has been completed and will be officially released on September 30, 2015. This addresses the intent of the recommendation.
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| Department of Defense | To improve DOD's ability to manage the implementation of maritime domain awareness across DOD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Navy, as DOD's Executive Agent, in collaboration with other maritime interagency stakeholders, such as the Coast Guard and the National Maritime Intelligence Center, to 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. | DOD concurred with the recommendation and reported that the MDA Executive Agent planned to present the matter to the members of the interagency National MDA Coordination Office (NMCO) for further consideration on implementation. The MDA Executive Agent also planned to request that--as part of future Annual MDA Plans--DOD Components report on threats, vulnerabilities, and criticalities as well as provide insight on how threats and vulnerabilities are balanced. The MDA Executive Agent would incorporate requirements from the National Maritime Intelligence Center into the Annual MDA Plans cycle. In July 2013 Navy officials stated that the DOD Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) Executive Agent...
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Defense capabilitiesDefense operationsDomestic intelligenceHomeland securityInteragency relationsMaritime securityMilitary intelligenceMilitary missionsNational defense operationsPerformance measuresRisk assessmentRisk managementSecurity threatsStrategic planning