Based in Newport, R.I., the Naval War College in November embarked on a series of public talks to be held in major cities across the country in an effort to broaden awareness and support as the Navy prepares its future maritime strategy that recognizes the interconnectedness of the world economy. An enabler would be the so-called “1,000-Ship Navy,” a vision that would bring together maritime forces from around the world and extend the global reach of sea power.

Over the next six months, the college will conduct 1,000-Ship Navy symposia, called “Conversation with the Country,” in several major cities, including Phoenix, Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. The first was held Nov. 14 in Newport.

Experts emphasize that the concept is a work in progress, and the goal is not to establish a permanent international naval task force. It is to foster partnerships that network and share information to create a global picture of maritime activity available to all participants, which would include port operators, commercial shippers and others. In addition, members of the 1,000-Ship Navy would respond in concert to threats to their common security interests.

During the past two years, the concept, also known as the Global Maritime Partnership, has garnered support among senior U.S. Navy leaders who see it as a way for the service to continue to patrol the seas against a backdrop of restrained budgets and mounting costs associated with the global war on terror -- a reality faced by numerous navies around the globe.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Mullen said last year during a speech in Newport, “Our level of cooperation and coordination must intensify in order to adapt to our shared challenges and constraints. We have no choice in this matter. I am convinced that nobody -- no nation today -- can go it alone, especially in the maritime domain.”

The concept of a maritime security network was also raised in mid-October at a European sea power symposium for Mediterranean and Black Sea countries in Venice, Italy, with 30 navies and coast guards represented from around the world, including Russia, Mexico and Singapore. Commercial shippers and the International Maritime Organization also were present.

Since August, the Naval War College has been conducting gaming and analysis related to the concept in an effort to advance the vision of a 1,000-Ship Navy. Although other countries currently are not involved, Navy officials said they hope to capitalize on the presence of representatives from 55 nations at the school during future forums.

Other efforts to advance the idea include the initiation of a pilot program for the Navy’s prospective Global Fleet Stations (GFS) at U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command (NAVSO) in Mayport, Fla., in late September. The GFS would serve as a command and staging base for military, nongovernmental and international organizations to focus on regional maritime security issues such as theater security operations and antiterrorist efforts.

A notional GFS would comprise a command ship, one or more small surface ships, and perhaps a Riverine unit and helicopter detachment. The GFS would provide an information fusion center, medical facilities and other support.

NAVSO offered to coordinate the GFS pilot in its area of responsibility, which includes Latin America and the Caribbean, because it is already working closely with several countries in a relatively small area, according to an Oct. 6 Navy statement. NAVSO hopes to begin the pilot by the spring of 2007.

Full realization of the 1,000-Ship Navy concept could take years, even decades. At the Venice symposium, however, Mullen urged all navies that want to be involved to “move beyond dialogue” by collaborating on the fundamental elements of its operation.

He urged other naval chiefs to “bring your ideas for implementation” to the International Sea Power Symposium, a biennial seminar attended by high-level representatives of naval staffs from around the world. The 18th symposium will be held next fall at the Naval War College.

Current Navy plans call for a 313-ship U.S. fleet, though the service will be hard-pressed to meet this goal given the rising costs of new ship construction amid increasingly tight funding constraints. But regardless of the size of its fleet, the Navy increasingly has recognized the need to collaborate with other militaries, coast guards and even commercial shipping companies in an effort to respond to crises at sea.

Even with a rudimentary capability, an alliance of international naval, marine and coast guard forces could conduct security and law enforcement operations at sea.

The 1,000-Ship Navy concept already has been seen in action during international relief efforts here in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, and more recently in the eastern Mediterranean, where nearly 170 ships representing 17 nations came to evacuate citizens from Lebanon during the Israeli-Hezbollah war.

In southeast Asia, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia are coordinating patrols and sharing information to combat piracy in the Strait of Malacca.

Another potential scenario for the 1,000-Ship Navy actually occurred in late October when the British Royal Navy announced a possible maritime threat to vital oil installations in the Persian Gulf, including Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest offshore oil export facility. In response, western and regional naval units began patrolling off the coast of Saudi Arabia on Oct. 27 to guard against a possible attack.

“That is one sort of higher end [example] of the cooperation of navies, and that is obviously a military version of it,” said one Navy official familiar with the 1,000-Ship Navy effort. “The potential spectrum of operations is much broader than that, but that would be one way in which the idea of a 1,000-Ship Navy would be useful.”

But the span of conceivable threats and potential operational responses to them “is far less dramatic than that,” the Navy official said, adding that simple networking and information sharing among navies would be the focus.

Another source said the goal is to share open-source information between navies and develop a global awareness of what is going on. The type of information would include data on all ships underway on the world’s oceans and their course, speed and cargo. Navies involved in the cooperative effort would apply the information to maintain stability in key areas, such as the east coast of Africa.

A key to success, this source said, is to stay away from classified information.

“This is not the sharing of intelligence,” he said.

Sharing classified data on a broad basis is extremely difficult due to legal and administrative limitations on its distribution

For example, international cooperation could involve illegal fishing off the coast of one of the nations in the Gulf of Guinea, which holds economic rights linked to the Gulf but lacks the vessels necessary to police it. Under the 1,000-Ship Navy concept, other nearby nations with a stronger maritime capability would be available to respond to the situation.

Navy officials say the idea has drawn increasing interest among U.S. friends and allies, in part because it could be built on existing international agreements. But many political hurdles remain, including the issue of national sovereignty and the potential for some nations to view U.S.-led maritime collaboration as a threat.

To date, U.S. Navy leaders have been clear about the inviolate nature of national sovereignty as it applies to the 1,000-Ship Navy.

“It’s not as if there will be this interdisciplinary band of roving naval forces scouring the world’s surface looking for evil to stamp it out,” the Navy official said. “Nations participate or don’t participate to the extent that they desire based on self interest.”

Other potential obstacles include technical challenges associated with interoperability among disparate navies.

However, U.S. officials say such issues are easily addressed. For example, officials say the 1,000-Ship Navy could benefit from the interoperability already established among allied navies through the NATO alliance.

“The technical side of this gets overblown,” the Navy official said, noting that most large ships today at a minimum have a satellite phone, a computer desktop with Microsoft Windows, and an automatic identification system used for identifying and tracking ships. “If you have a desktop and an INMARSAT and AIS you’re probably a fully vested partner in this and if you don’t have them there will be ways for you to play.”

The AIS, or Automatic Identification System, is a commercial shipboard broadcast system that acts like a transponder and enables users to track the location of and communicate with all other ships within range. Based in London, Inmarsat plc operates a constellation of geostationary satellites that provides mobile communications to virtually every part of the world.

In a recent Op/Ed piece that appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser, Mullen wrote that the security of the “global maritime commons” is being challenged by new threats and enemies that are transnational in scope and complex in nature.

He said dealing with these new threats -- terrorism, smuggling, illegal immigration and the transport of weapons of mass destruction -- is made all the more challenging by the rapid expansion of world markets.

“The world’s fleets carry 90 percent of global exports totaling nearly $9 trillion and help employ 2 million people. Those numbers will likely grow as the global economy becomes more interdependent and more reliant on the vital lifelines of the sea,” Mullen wrote.

He added that maritime forces are uniquely positioned to secure the lifelines of economic prosperity while deterring those elements that threaten them.

“Consider piracy. If you had told me five years ago that I would be sending U.S. warships to conduct antipiracy patrols off Africa, I am certain I would have been skeptical,” he wrote. “But the truth is that piracy can no longer be viewed as someone else’s problem. It is a global problem because of its deepening ties to international criminal networks and the disruption of vital commerce.”