Best of the Web Read NationalDefenseMagazine.org for daily updates and news: Marine Corps Faces Command, Control Challenges at Sea.

• Author: Carberry, Sean

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Marine Corps maritime expeditionary warfare capability is critical to operating in the Indo-Pacific --and as much as the right ships are needed for successful operations, technology gaps in commandand-control systems at sea might be the immediate vulnerability, officials said.

"There's nobody else in the world that can do maritime expeditionary warfare like we do," Shon Brodie, director of the Marine Corps' Maritime Expeditionary Warfare Division, said at the Modern Day Marine conference June 28. "We build some of the finest ships capable of those things in the world and probably in the history of the world. But we have an adversary that's gaining on us in that particular area of advantage."

In particular, afloat combat command, control, communications, computers and intelligence, or AC5I, modernization is not keeping pace with advances in technology, he said.

Scott Cook, afloat C5I branch head for the Maritime Expeditionary Warfare Division, said once the platform, access and tools are in place for expeditionary warfare, a commander needs to be able to coordinate the activities, and that requires networking the force.

"In the littorals--the maritime nearshore environment--that is your most difficult environment, both from spectrum saturation, from threats, from the mediums," he said. "The way waves propagate on the water is different [than] the way they will propagate over land."

It's a tough environment, and maritime expeditionary warfare requires connecting the widest range of platforms in that environment, he said.

"How do you do a longrange strike with a joint strike fighter? How do you coordinate a [humanitarian assistance and disaster relief] mission to get the logistics? How do you find a high-value target and maintain target custody?" he said. "All of these things require your AC5I systems to be modernized and work together."

While there have been successes and advances in that regard, the division is tracking 123 systems in an environment of rapid change, which is no small task.

"The enterprise, the policy, the funding, the resourcing, the commercial and industrial base, make all of those 123 systems working in concert a constant challenge, especially if you follow Moore's law, when those things change every 18 to 24 months," he said.

There are two specific challenges to improving AC5I, he said in an interview at the conference.

"One is, when you're looking at the systems, you need the systems to do different...