U.S. Naval Institute Day One Onscene Report

U.S. Naval Institute Day Two Onscene Report

U.S. Naval Institute Day Three Onscene Report

 

  

 

CONFERENCES: WEST
ON SCENE REPORT: U.S. Naval Institute DAY 1
West 2009—Defense: Reset - Redesign – or Reinvent?
By Leslie Wolf Branscomb 
  

The 18th annual West conference, sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, kicked off Wednesday in San Diego with thousands of attendees, hundreds of exhibitors, and one common theme: change.

The three-day conference and expo appropriately titled "Defense: Reset – Redesign – or Reinvent?" started with a breakfast address by Navy Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert, Commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command.

Greenert stressed the need for collaboration and cooperation in the coming years, as the armed forces will be inevitably asked to do more, but with less funding. "This cooperative strategy for the 21st century recognizes that preventing wars is just as important as winning the war," he said. One key to the changes ahead is to be prepared for quicker deployment of ships, Greenert said. Currently, the Navy has 283 ships—fewer than in 2001. Greenert also called for a more efficient way to train for war. Better simulations are needed as technology improves, he said. He compared simulations of the past to playing a Pac-Man game, whereas now "we need X-Box level." "We need the realism to mimic at-sea operations as if they were genuine," Greenert said. ""We need an ability to simulate multiple high-end threats."

Greenert, like other speakers later in the day, said better relationship-building will be the key to maritime security in the future. "Forces can surge, but trust and cooperation cannot be surged," he said. "You've got to earn it." Greenert cited Operation Continuing Promise, which brings humanitarian aid to South America, as a good example of military relationship-building. "Building partnerships, developing mutually beneficial skills, and fostering good will . . . this is how we will prevent a war in the future," he said. And these relationships won't only be beneficial for preventing war, they'll help with counter-terrorism efforts and threats as diverse as drug trafficking, piracy, illegal fishing, and oil platform security. "Our folks are out there getting it done, and the common thread is flexibility and interoperability. They can go from delivering Tomahawks to delivering humanitarian aid," he said.

Balancing the Force Structure: Is it Possible?
At a morning panel titled "Force Structure: What's the Right Balance?" an all-star cast of speakers debated what the future military framework will look like.
Most said that finding the right structure is a continual balancing act, one that is never easy to determine precisely. According to the moderator, retired Army Colonel Jack Jacobs, "The future is probably unknowable, and all we can do is guess from our experience." Jacobs, a Vietnam War veteran, Medal of Honor recipient, and military analyst for NBC and MSNBC, said that one thing everyone should keep in mind is a quote from author Lewis Carroll: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." It's one thing to have an objective, just as it's easy to enter into a marriage, Jacobs joked. But keeping it going is another matter. "It always takes more resources to hold onto an objective than it does to take it in the first place," he said. "It may be easy to take objectives, but it's tough as hell to hold onto them if you don't have the resources." Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Daniel "Fig" Leaf echoed Jacobs' concern about resources: "Clearly, we're not talking about how we're going to grow. We're going to shrink. In general, I think it's clear that the Defense Department is going to get smaller." "So how do we do that intelligently? There is no precedent," Leaf said. He urged leaders to make "sober, clear-minded risk assessments" when making decisions about cutbacks. "That doesn't mean we need to do more studies," he added.

Leaf, former Deputy Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said that two key positions should not be relinquished: our advantage in space, and the nuclear deterrent. Regarding the latter, he said, "That is an area where we overmatch the rest of the world right now, and I think we need to keep that." Retired Army General Barry R. McCaffrey agreed that nuclear deterrence and control of space should be priorities, as well as dominance on the air battlefield. "I think we walk away from that nuclear deterrent at our peril," he said. ""And I think somebody ought to start standing up and saying that." McCaffrey also stressed that the future defense budget is unknowable and urged military leaders to stand up for their needs. "You're supposed to assess the threat . . . come up with ways to counter it . . . put your ideas in writing and defend them vigorously. Then live with the political outcome." Retired Navy Admiral Robert Natter added that the United States needs to continue to maintain control of the seas, as well. But realistically, the military is also going to have to learn to operate and sustain itself in an environment of decreased defense spending, he said.

Retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Joe Weber brought up another point that was repeated throughout the day: Department of Defense bureaucracy and costly expenditures for new systems that take so long to develop they may no longer be useful when the time comes to use them. The focus needs to be on flexibility, affordability, and sustainability, he said. McCaffrey was quick to note that, "We're not a business. We're not very efficient." But, he added, "I think the American people will pay for the security they need, if they hear good ideas presented in an ethical manner."

The Continuing Threat of IEDs
The first day's luncheon keynote speaker, Army Lieutenant General Thomas F. Metz, has taken on the new and notable role of Director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization. Formed in 2006, his group with its small staff will also be competing for dwindling resources in coming years. But, he stressed, it couldn't be more important. "Almost daily we continue to lose Soldiers, Airmen, and Marines to improvised explosive devices," he said. Citing his own experience, Metz said "our enemies are smart, innovative, and ruthless." But while everyone is focused on a possible catastrophic event involving weapons of mass destruction, attention should also be paid to the proliferation of homemade bombs. "The IED is used by the enemy as a tactical weapon for strategic purposes . . . because it appears to be the best way to erode our national will." Unlike a single, mass catastrophic attack, the IED is the weapon that will "kill us by a thousand cuts," Metz said. "We need to fight it, just as we would fight inter-continental ballistic missiles." Metz also said that, while he would welcome the creation of some kind of "ray gun" that could detect and destroy IEDs, a better approach is to focus on the capability of the IED to "defeat us strategically". Metz gave a computer-aided demonstration, showing the vast amount of information currently available to the public, including airline departures, traffic conditions, recent earthquakes, cloud patterns, crime statistics, and more. The key to defeating IEDs, he said, will be to share and analyze data that can predict where, when, and how bombers will strike. "We must focus resources and intellectual capital and not give up until we can give predictions that have a high probability of being right," he said.

Cyberspace—A New Kind of Battlefield
In an afternoon panel titled "Cyber Challengers: What Keeps You up at Night?" the speakers agreed that all the defense funding and weapon systems in the world will be useless if a lone enemy with a computer is able to infiltrate military cyber-networks.

The panelists acknowledged that at this time there is no one computer network for the U.S. Navy, nor one that connects all the armed forces. And the need for security and certification often dramatically slows the acquisition of new computer system components—sometimes to the point that they are obsolete by the time they're acquired. While some audience members decried the slowness of the military to adapt to new cyber-technology, James P.Craft, Deputy Director, C4/Deputy Chief Information Officer of the Marine Corps, said acquisition of new computer systems needs to be quicker. But he added that, unlike private businesses, the military doesn't have the luxury of going out of business for making a poor choice.
Robert J. Carey, Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer, added that the lengthy testing and certification process is needed, because it diminishes the risk of introducing any holes into the military network. Navy Vice Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr., Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Communications Networks, said more attention needs to be paid to the new breed of high-tech terrorists as funding decisions are made. "They have built a deadly new model of insurgent at a fraction of the cost of building and maintaining a traditional military force," he said. The military must enhance its computer network operations, Harris said. But at the same time, they must be systems that taxpayers consider affordable, and they must be relevant to those fighting the war. Navy Vice Admiral H. Denby Starling II, Commander of the Naval Network Warfare Command, said the senior leadership well understands the threat of cyber-warfare. And young service members get it, because they grew up with it. But there is a lack of understanding among middle management, he said, and there needs to be a culture change for people to understand that focusing resources on computer networks is as important as traditional weapons. "Some of them [ships' networks] are older than we'd like them to be," Starling said. "We recognize the need to bring all of that up to a common standard." Improvements are under way, albeit slowly, he said.  "What used to be a nearly impossible process is now merely an onerous process," he said.

 

Read More about our conference and comment on the issues at hand at the
Naval Institute Blog

 

 

 

CONFERENCES: WEST

ON SCENE REPORT: U.S. Naval Institute Day Two
WEST 2009—Defense: Reset - Redesign – or Reinvent?—

By Leslie Wolf Branscomb
The second day of the 18th annual West conference, sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, began in San Diego with a rousing conversation about whether China should be considered a friend or foe.

Retired Navy Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt, director of the Center for Naval Analyses Strategic Studies, and Dr. Jacqueline Newmyer, President and CEO of the Long Term Strategy Group, tackled the subject with the help of moderator David Hartman, the former host of ABC's Good Morning America.

While neither panelist was willing to say for certain whether China is our foe or not, they both agreed that caution is warranted. "China is simultaneously many things," McDevitt said. "It's a partner . . . a long-time competitor . . . and on the issue of Taiwan, it's a potential enemy." McDevitt also described China as a single-party authoritarian state. "But economically, they're capitalists," he said.
Peacetime has been good for China, and their economy has grown, Newmyer said. They value stability in the region. However, China is suffering from the current economic decline, as is the United States, and that could have an impact on that country's political stability. "Twenty million migrant workers are unemployed," she said. "The level of unrest in the provinces is growing" as people return to their villages.

Any scenario in which the country's economy is rescued by large-scale consumer spending is unlikely, Newmyer said. Families are restricted to one child, and there is a tradition of saving money, she said. "They don't have a lot of confidence that the state will take care of them," she said. "There is no social safety net really in China."

Hartman detailed a brief history of our modern-day relationship with China, which can be traced back to the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. The next day, the Chinese joined the U.S. Allies and declared war on Japan.
However, a period of civil war in China followed, culminating with the nationalists being moved off the mainland to Taiwan in 1959. Poor relations persisted for a couple of decades, broken by President Richard Nixon's historic visit to China in 1972 and the establishment of full diplomatic relations eight years later. Since then, our relationship with that country has been strained at times because of the incident at Tiananmen Square, reports of human rights violations, and other problems.

McDevitt said he was not willing to say whether China poses a threat, but he did say the Chinese army has been focusing on the possibility of taking over Taiwan. "There's a possibility the U.S. would ride to the rescue of Taiwan. They're worried about us intervening in a way that would not allow them to achieve their military objective," he said. So China's strategy has been to keep the United States at arm's length. Meanwhile, the Chinese are working on their submarine fleet, land-based missiles, and a surveillance system for detecting approaching ships. "We call it anti-access," McDevitt said.

The United States currently enjoys military superiority over China, but that edge needs to be maintained, McDevitt said, while also keeping a balance in the region.
Newmyer pointed out that China has gone to war with other countries quite often during a period we consider peacetime. "There are things that we do that might strike them as quite offensive or provocative, and we might not even appreciate it," she said.

Both panelists agreed that China has made a concerted effort to crush any attempts at opposition, particularly organized religion—the government's treatment of the Falun Gong sect being the prime example. Their fear is that organized groups could pose a threat to the government. However, Newmyer said, 75 million people in China are members of the communist party in China, and at least that many are Christians. "So that's a real concern for the communist party in terms of their ability to maintain control," she said. "I think they have a lot of worries, concerns, and insecurities."

Despite the possibility of offending China, McDevitt said we shouldn't shy away from talking about their human rights record, product safety, and other issues. "I think it would be a mistake to feel we cannot be critical of certain policies," he said. "We should be true to ourselves."

Straight Talk from Warfare Commanders
After the morning's discussion on China, matters returned to the everyday problems facing the military in this age of reduced resources and ongoing war.
The moderator of Thursday morning's panel, retired Marine Corps Colonel Robert Work, had this to say: "We're in desperate need of straight talk right now." Since 1998 the United States has had ten straight years of defense buildup—the longest since World War II.

However, during that time there has been a huge pent-up demand for non-defense discretionary spending, which has taken a back seat, Work said.
In many respects, it's been a hollow buildup, he said. The cost of personnel has exploded, so most of that money has gone toward people rather than buying things. For Fiscal Year 2009-2010 the Department of Defense planned for a 13 percent increase to $581 billion, Work said. However, the budget will likely be about $535 billion—no increase at all.

Navy Vice Admiral Thomas J. Kilcline Jr., Commander of Naval Air Forces, said the military has had to make some tough choices over the past ten years, including taking some aircraft such as "our beloved Tomcats" (which Kilcline flew) off-line.

"I'm excited about what's ahead of us," Kilcline told the audience. "We're going to face some more tough choices, but I'm confident that we're positioned to do so."
Lieutenant General Richard F. Natonski, Commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command, noted that our country has been continuously at war since 2001, with the Army and Marine Corps carrying the brunt of the fight. Like many others throughout the day, Natonski said the all-volunteer military has not had any trouble recruiting since 2001, nor any problems with retention.

There are now 202,000 active-duty Marines, up from 175,000 before 2001, he said. "We did not lower our standards," Natonski added—96.3 percent are high school graduates. He said the Marines have added three infantry battalions, plus numerous specialists.

The focus now, said Natonski, is in finding a better balance between deployments and time at home. Because of the quick turnaround during wartime, "we've lost some of our skill sets," he said. Not only do Marines (and other service members) need time to relax between deployments, they also need to be trained in other areas to be truly successful.

Continuing that discussion was Navy Vice Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, Commander of the Third Fleet. "We really need to focus on the things that move us forward," he told the lunch crowd.

He reminded the audience that 90 percent of the world's commerce continues to flow on the world's oceans, and 75 percent of the planet is covered with water. Furthermore, 90 percent of the Earth's population lives near the ocean. "It's about being able to monitor a global maritime terrain," Locklear said.

In the last 20 years forces have been spread out more thinly, he said, and operating more in a joint and combined arena. Looking back on the Cold War, the model was "a blue-ocean confrontation with the Soviet Union," he said. "Today we find a very different situation."

"Our fleet commanders today require networks which are continuously available" and as fast at sea as on land, he said. "These changes have come in fits and starts . . . and are not necessarily well-coordinated."

Key issues include expanding network capability, reliability of those networks, interoperability, and affordability, Locklear said. "We must remain a fast, agile, cost-effective force or as a Navy we could perish."

How to Find the Best People—and How to Keep Them
The afternoon's topics of discussion turned away from warfare to people—how to find the best and how to retain them.

The first panel, "What You Need to Stay in Uniform", was sparsely attended but quite enlightening as several officers gave their personal accounts of what made them join, and stay in, the armed forces.

Moderator Vincent W. Patton III, former Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard, recounted an entertaining story of how he was so obsessed with following his brother's footsteps into the Navy that he had, by the age of ten, memorized the names of all the ships deployed at that time. On his 17th birthday his father took him to sign up. However, Patton entered the wrong office—the Coast Guard office—and was fascinated by pictures on the wall of penguins in the Arctic and fiery rescues at sea. The rest is history.

Marine Corps Captain Scott A. Cuomo gave a moving account of what inspires him to stay in the Marines, even during the toughest combat.
On the morning of 11 September 2001, he was sitting at his kitchen table reading an article about terrorism. A phone call prompted him to turn on the television. "The level of anger that shot through my body . . . was too tough to put into words," he said. Cuomo said his wife was hysterical for two hours until learning that her sister, who worked near the Twin Towers, was safe. Cuomo was in graduate school at the time and wanted to go fight immediately. But, he said, his superiors sent him back to school, saying there would be plenty of time to fight later.

Cuomo said he thinks 9/11 is the key reason why a record number of people have enlisted in the Marines since. "Simply put, it's because we want to win," he said.

"There's thousands of enemies out there that wish to take our freedom, who don't like our way of life," he said. "To the average Marine, this is unacceptable."
Money and time off are nice, Cuomo said. "But ultimately, what Marines want is they want to go fight. Keep sending us to the fight, keep challenging us, keep telling us it's impossible, and we'll go there."

Coast Guard Master Chief Petty Officer David Getchell said the thing that's kept him in uniform is that the Coast Guard is so small, "everybody treats it like family."

Navy Lieutenant Elizabeth Griffiths, the Secretary of the Navy's protocol officer, said that after she left the conference she would be taking off her uniform for last time. Griffiths said she made the difficult decision to leave the Navy because she has a two-year-old child. "The military has so much to offer, but I have no doubt in my mind I'm doing the right thing because I have a son at home," she said. "If I'd stayed, I'd be at sea right now, and so would my husband."

It's a common conundrum for families with both spouses in the military, she said. Do you deploy at the same time and send your children to live with relatives? Or do you have opposite deployment schedules and never see each other? Griffiths said she received great support during her pregnancy, but said the Navy could do more to resolve work and family conflicts.

Navy Force Master Chief Petty Officer Eric Page is older than the other panelists and explained why. "I got kicked out of high school, and the Navy saved me from jail," he said. His first four years in the Navy were "turbulent, to say the least." He got out, got married, had a child, and took a job in private industry—then realized he wanted back in.

"It's all about leadership . . . pushing you along, setting you up for that next challenge, and making sure you get through it." Page said he had two great chiefs who pushed him through, and now he tries to do the same for others. "My favorite thing is talking to my Sailors," he said. "Seeing if they're smiling, how they greet me—it takes me about two minutes to determine how their quality of life is."

Moderator Patton asked the panelists what they most valued during their time in the service.

Page said it was teamwork and a family environment. For Griffiths, it was the availability of mentors. Gretchell said the Coast Guard is great about looking out for each other, and Cuomo said leadership is key.

"Never ask a Marine to do something you're not willing to do yourself," he said, recounting a harrowing journey to Abu Ghraib, along a road lined with craters from explosions and burned out hulls of other vehicles. Cuomo said his battalion commander came along, shotgun in hand, immediately erasing any doubts Cuomo had.

Following this discussion was a panel on finding, developing, and promoting people with the "right stuff." Navy Captain David Marquet said he'd had the opportunity to serve with different combat leaders and discovered that a lot of them had different personality traits. There's the "throwback" leader, a grizzled cigar-chomper who says he's going to do it his way, then there's the more laid-back leader. Both can be effective, Marquet said. "There is no one leadership personality," he said. "It comes in many forms."

Two attributes, however, stick out: courage and loyalty. "Anyone who's served in combat and tells you they weren't scared isn't telling the truth," Marquet said. But some have the courage to work through that, suppress their fears, and be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. Loyalty and love are also important, to the point where you have to be willing to go against your survival instincts.

Navy Rear Admiral Robert P. Girrier said the Navy is seeking those who value service, seek responsibility, dig deep, perform at high levels, value teamwork, and are adaptive and innovative. "We develop our people with training and education, and we're committed to lifelong learning," Girrier said. "A powerful motivator in most people is a deep desire for self-improvement."

Army Lieutenant Colonel James R. Crider said the military should look toward recruiting people from academic institutions. Last year in Baghdad, he said, he served with a man who'd graduated from Yale with a degree in literature. "He was a fantastic thinker, outside the box," Crider said. "We need to encourage our officers to get degrees in social sciences, political science, history and literature."

The panelists also talked about the importance of rewarding, rather than punishing, those who take risks. "Once we attract the right people, they really enjoy it," Crider said. "You want to create an environment where people feel wanted, where they feel needed."

 

CONFERENCES: WEST
ON SCENE REPORT: U.S. Naval Institute DAY 3
West 2009—Defense: Reset - Redesign – or Reinvent? -
Day Three 

By Leslie Wolf Branscomb

West 2009 wrapped up in San Diego Friday with a spirited discussion on how to improve the shipbuilding process, and continued calls for innovation and reinvention in this time of dwindling resources.

The day began with a breakfast address by Ms. Linda A. Mills, Corporate Vice President and President of Northrop Grumman's Information Technology Sector. She called for a new era of cooperation between government and industry. "There's no denying it, defense is going to be significantly affected by our current economic crisis," she said.
There is no choice but to "abandon the incremental pace and linear approach we've used in the past," Mills said.

Despite cutbacks, she said, it should be remembered that military technology being created today will likely become part of our lives. For example, global positioning systems (GPS) and wireless technology were developed for defense. Now they are "thoroughly embedded in our cars, and in our Blackberries."

Echoing comments made over the past few days, Mills said defense will need to focus on interoperable communications that link the military with federal and local authorities and first-responders.

Also, she said, the magnitude of the cyber threat to America is "hard to overemphasize." President Barack Obama, she noted, has already ordered an immediate review of cyber security efforts. "The problem is urgent enough to be a Presidential priority," Mills said.

"An honest examination can only conclude that America represents a huge target to the rest of the world," she warned. "Building a partnership between industries and government will be essential to protecting us all...The resulting solutions can serve the economic and social well-being of the entire country."

"This is an era of tremendous change and uncertainty," Mills concluded. Yet "every time America has been deeply challenged, Americans have devised a new way forward."

 

How Can We Fix Navy Shipbuilding?

One of the more popular topics of the three-day conference was a candid discussion of the shortcomings in the existing shipbuilding system, and how it can be improved.

The conference's final panel was moderated by Dr. Scott C. Truver, Executive Advisor of National Security Programs at Gryphon Technologies. Rounding out the panel were Vice Admiral Kevin J. Cosgriff, former Commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command; Mr. Fred Harris, President of General Dynamics NASSCO; Mr. Ronald O'Rourke, a specialist in national defense for the Congressional Research Service; and Rear Admiral Mike Mahon, Deputy Director of Surface Warfare.

Harris' thorough presentation clearly placed the blame for most cost overruns and shipbuilding construction delays on the habitual practice of designing a ship as it is being built. Cost and man-hours can be dramatically reduced if the ship is fully designed prior to construction, he said.

Yet, since it takes a long time to build a modern Navy ship, thousands of changes are often made in the design along the way—each contributing to yet another delay and increase in cost.

It is key to "understand what the requirements are early, and make sure you stick to the requirements," Harris said. He painted an unflattering picture of recent Navy shipbuilding history, rife with plan instability, unrealistic funding, and changing requirements. The result has been late design and planning completion, cost overruns, delivery delays, poor quality, and lack of trust and confidence between the parties, he said.

"For U.S. shipbuilding to be affordable, a paradigm shift must take place,"" Harris said. "We must create partnerships early on with all relevant stakeholders."

As an example, Harris cited the Seawolf submarine, which ran $250 million over budget. "It's a great ship, but it cost too much to build. Too many changes," Harris said, adding that only 6 percent of the design was completed when they started building.

The process improved a bit with the USS Virginia, which had about 50 percent of the design done when construction started. But the PC-1, he said, showed how it can be done. For that one, NASSCO used a design procured from the Korea. The design was completely done before building started – in fact, the Korean engineers refused to turn over any designs until all were done.

"We delivered the ship six months early and under contract value by about 22 percent," Harris said. "If you really get the design and planning done before you build the ship, you'll be saving at least four million man-hours," he said.

"The government needs to come through," Harris said. They need to "institute a disciplined process to minimize change and support the schedule once design has begun."

Truver pointed out that criticism of the shipbuilding process has been going on for decades.

Cosgriff started his remarks by saying that "at the most elemental level the U.S. Navy is its ships." He added that the absence of disciplined planning "is emblematic of what's wrong with the system as it is today."

"Earnest hard-working people build it, and equally earnest hard-working people change it," Cosgriff said, noting that some of those changes are needed. "Technical and acquisition standards exist for good reason," he said, but if they are obstacles to progress, perhaps they need to be changed.

"Navy ships are not broken," Cosgriff said. "They are the best and most capable warships and support ships in the world."

"But the process is not good enough, and frankly, I think we're better than this." The bottom line, Cosgriff said, is that "shipbuilders need to build what's authorized on time and within the allocation. No less and no more."

Mahon said that in order to improve the process, the Navy must learn to exercise discipline in the requirements, but also build flexibility into its ship designs. Also needed is a clear understanding of how the ship will accomplish its mission. "We must resist the temptation to have every ship do every mission and do them all extremely well," Mahon said.

O'Rourke said the perception of overall unaffordability and insufficient accountability has led to the Navy taking "a terrible hit in its credibility" on Capitol Hill. Cost estimates need to be more realistic to defend against the risk of "the conspiracy of optimism," he said.

"The game of defense acquisition has turned into a game of liar's poker," O'Rourke said. An early low and unrealistic price can help shipbuilders win the bid, he said. But if people don't believe that number is really going to stick, is it worth it?

O'Rourke said the Navy should also make a concerted effort to remember old lessons learned from shipbuilding mistakes, and should even establish a center for shipbuilding lessons learned, so they aren't repeated. Another option, he said, is to establish a director of shipbuilding with a long-term tenure. "It would at least provide a chance to hold somebody in the end accountable for something that was promised years earlier," O'Rourke said.

How do you think we should fix Navy Shipbuilding? Share your comments on this at the Naval Institute blog post: Fixing Navy Shipbuilding

 

West 2008 Comes to a Close
The three-day conference wound to an end with an entertaining and candid presentation by Vice Admiral Robert S. Harward, U.S. Navy, Deputy Commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command.

Harward, a Navy SEAL, started by joking that he'd made the officers who invited him to a breakfast meeting complete a run with him first— and added that he wasn't sure he'd be invited back.

Addressing the conference's overriding theme—whether the military should reset, redesign, or reinvent during these changing times—Harward said: "There's no doubt we are the dominant military force in the world… but you can be dominant and irrelevant."

"We can train for that large confrontation that may come in 10 or 20 years," he said. "But what if it doesn't come? Will it matter?"

Today's military environment is complex, Harward said. It includes traditional warfare, catastrophic events such as 9/11, irregular warfare like the improvised explosive devices planted by terrorists, and disruptive elements that may target computer networks. In the future, he said, "our enemies may not even have guns, but will be just as capable of killing us."

Harward pointed out that efforts are being made to address the complex future of warfare, evidenced in the 2008 Joint Operating Environment (JOE) Report, which addresses challenges and implications for the future joint force, and in the Department of Defense's January 15, 2009 report of this year titled Capstone Concept for Joint Operations, which offers some solutions. "These documents weren't meant to be policy," Harward said. "The documents are really meant to frame the discussion, to keep people thinking, to look ahead and prepare."

Harward cautioned that our adversaries know what we are doing at all times. "They are students, they watch us, and they see what we're doing and they adapt."

Harward showed a number of slides from his time in Iraq and Afghanistan during 2003, putting a face on the real-time problems faced during combat. Several photos showed truckloads of locals, smiling . . . and armed to the teeth. He challenged the audience: "Are these good guys or bad guys?" The more important question now, he said, is not what they are, but how do they look at us. "How do we make sure they look at us as the good guys?" he asked.

Other slides showed his group's find inside a cigar factory in Iraq: crates and crates of suicide vests loaded with explosives. Suicide bombings were a problem then, in 2003, and the problem still hasn't been solved, he said.

Still other slides told the story of how a group of Harward's special operators were surrounded by small Iranian gunboats while traveling up a river. It could have been a "turkey shoot" he said, a veritable bloodbath which would result in the Iranian boats being destroyed. But the order was given to turn back. Harward said he was proud of his Sailors for resisting the justifiable urge to fire at the Iranians who were pointing weapons at them, because they understood that their tactical decisions on that day could have strategic implications.

Concluding his talk, Harward said that to ensure we not only win the war we're in, but future conflicts as well, requires an "understanding of where we are, and what looms around the corner."

"I'm very optimistic we're going to win this thing," he said. "Not only now, but in the future." 

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CLICK HERE to obtain video files from West 2009.

CLICK HERE for SIGNAL Magazine online daily coverage of West 2009.