The Defense Department lacks a departmentwide strategy for maritime domain awareness and without one, it cannot chart performance, assess risk or prioritize resource allocation for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, reports the Government Accountability Office.

"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," say auditors in a GAO report (.pdf) published June 20.

Currently, DoD components prioritize maritime domain awareness risks on a mission-by-mission basis, says GAO.

While DoD acknowledges that there are maritime domain awareness capability gaps in its four different strategy documents that mention the problem, none of the documents fully address organizational roles and responsibilities, say auditors. The national and DoD strategy documents also lack provisions for allocating resources, measuring performance and monitoring progress, says GAO.

GAO recommends DoD develop and implement a departmentwide maritime domain awareness strategy and undertake a comprehensive risk-based analysis, according to the report. In a response to the report, DoD agreed with GAO's analysis and outlined action, planned or currently underway, to address the problems.

Maritime domain awareness challenges vary depending on location. For example, Navy lists piracy as an issue off the west African coast, trade disruption in the waters east of the Indian subcontinent and human smuggling as a problem near the West Coast of the United States, according to GAO.

For more:
- see the report, GAO-11-621 (.pdf)

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