Strategy in its widest meaning includes logistics and tactics, but it is convenient to consider logistics and tactics as integral branches of the art of war, and the province of each must be understood and clearly defined before the work of the staff can be properly coordinated. To this end strategy is limited to planning and directing, while logistics provides the means and executes. Strategy, for instance, decides that we need a certain force in the Pacific and prescribes its character, disposition, and employment. Logistics provides this force, maintains it and places it, all in accordance with the demands of strategy. Tactics covers the movements and operations of the forces while in contact with the enemy.
All the activities of the navy come under one of these three heads, but strategy and tactics are so closely connected that in a discussion of logistics it is not necessary to differentiate between the former two. We will therefore consider only the two titles, strategy and logistics, and distribute the activities of the navy between these, leaving tactics and the line which divides it from strategy to a later paper.
Naval strategy includes the following:
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- The number of vessels of each type required and their characteristics.
- Location of naval bases and repair stations and their capabilities.
- War plans providing for all possible contingencies.
- Organization of the forces.
- Operations and movements of forces in the execution of policy in peace and war.
- Operations and movements of forces for the purpose of exercise and test, as in war games.
Naval logistics includes the following, all to be performed in accordance with the requirements of strategy:
(a-1) Planning, constructing and maintaining the fleet.
(b-1) Fortifying, developing and maintaining naval bases and stations.
(c-1) Enlisting, maintaining, educating, training and drilling personnel. This includes target practice,
(d-1) Providing, storing, and delivering supplies of all kinds, including ordnance, ammunition, fuel, clothing, provisions, etc.
(e-1) Transporting personnel and materiel; care of ill and wounded.
When we began a few years ago to build up our navy, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the question of materiel occupied the attention of the leading minds of the service almost to the exclusion of all thought of the personnel. This was only natural, for the personnel seemed to be at hand, ready to be developed when the materiel should have been supplied. But, as a result of this point of view, the materiel has developed faster than the personnel, and we are now suffering not only from the direct effects as shown in a shortage of officers and men, but indirectly in the difficulty we have found in educating the public to a realization of the fact that it requires as long to train a gunner as it does to build a gun, and much longer to develop an officer than it does to build a ship. However, both materiel and personnel are now in a fair way to receive due consideration, and the development of the personnel of the individual ship has reached a high degree of efficiency. Logistics has performed this part of the task very successfully. We may say that the following items under logistics have been fairly well taken care of:
(c-1) Enlisting, maintaining, educating, training and drilling personnel.
(d-1) Providing, storing, and delivering supplies of all kinds, including ordnance, ammunition, fuel, clothing, provisions, etc.
(e-1) Transporting personnel and materiel; care of sick and wounded.
With items (a-1) and (b-1) it is different.
Item (a-1), planning, constructing and maintaining the fleet, has received a great deal of attention, but the delays in planning and building our ships, the frequent changes after construction, the unsatisfactory condition of our submarines, and the inadequacy of our aeronautical service, are clear indications that either the organization of this branch of logistics is defective or that the personnel is inefficient. Now the general opinion of the service is that the personnel involved is not inefficient, and we must therefore attribute the trouble to defective organization.
Item (b-1), fortifying, developing and maintaining naval bases and stations, has been the subject of much discussion in the service and out of it, but so far as the writer knows, it has never reached the stage where logistics could properly take it up. It is the business of strategy to determine the location and capabilities of naval bases and repair stations, just as it is the business of strategy to determine the number of vessels of each type and their characteristics. It is evident that in determining these questions, strategy is limited by logistics and must therefore give full weight to logistic considerations. Thus it might be desirable from strategic considerations to have a naval base at a certain place, but difficulties of construction or of fortification, or some other reason, might make the location there impossible. The same is true of ships where cost, protection, armament, speed and radius of action are conflicting qualities. Here again strategy (or tactics) determines after receiving all possible information from logistics.
I do not purpose in this paper to discuss in detail the methods now followed at the Navy Department. That these are not thoroughly successful is shown in the paragraphs preceding. My purpose is to take the department organization now in existence and without changing it materially allot the various tasks in accordance with more correct principles. It will be seen that nothing radical is necessary in order to accomplish this, but a clear understanding of certain ruling principles is essential. These may be formulated as follows:
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- The difference between strategy and logistics must be clearly understood.
- Tasks must be allotted among subordinates so that the task of each subordinate shall be in itself homogeneous in character and logically within the scope of his capabilities.
- Each subordinate to whom a task is allotted must be given the authority and the means necessary to perform it.
- The responsibility for the performance of each task must be undivided and personal.
- Superior authority having allotted a task to a subordinate must not interfere with his performance thereof. Superior authority must limit its activities to coordinating work and to such inspections as will enable it to be thoroughly cognizant of the progress and the result produced.
There is a theory of government based on the principle of "balance and check" where the liberties of the people are supposed to be protected by balancing and checking the power of one branch of the government by the power of another branch. We see this in our Congress where the Senate and House, originally intended to represent different interests, now merely serve the purpose of holding each other in check; the veto power of the Executive is another example; while the Supreme Court in declaring laws unconstitutional has frequently checked both Congress and the Executive. But, however such a system may make for "safety first" with regard to the liberties of the people, it certainly does not make for progress, and there is a tendency in our day to sacrifice "balance and check" in exchange for greater efficiency. Curtailing the power of the British House of Lords is a case in point.
We see this same system resorted to in party politics, and even sometimes in society, where one faction is played off against another by leaders who thus seek to retain control by holding the balance of power.
But what should we think of a business corporation in which any of the energies of one department should be expended in neutralizing the energies of another? The answer is simple: the competition of more ably conducted corporations would soon drive it out of business and it would cease to exist.
At the Navy Department we have an all-powerful head to whom strategy and logistics are as unfamiliar as are statesmanship and finance to a naval officer. He is appointed to the office as an exponent of the policy of the administration, and as such it is logical and correct that the expert officers directing the strategy and logistics of the navy should be under his orders and responsible to him ; but it is neither logical nor correct that he should direct any details of these highly technical divisions.
The navy list shows that at the department there is a Secretary's advisory council consisting of the assistant secretary, the chief of naval operations, the chiefs of bureaus, the commandant of the marine corps, and the judge advocate general. There is also a chief of naval operations with a corps of assistants of high rank chosen for their ability and professional knowledge. There is a third body known as the general board, to whom are referred questions of moment by the Secretary. The composition of this board gives great weight to its decisions, and these have come to be regarded as expressing the highest technical opinion in our country on naval subjects. Again, each bureau chief holds his authority directly from the Secretary, and orders issued by a bureau chief within the scope of his responsibility have the same weight as if signed by the Secretary. There is too much talent here to be consulted; too many authorities on highly technical matters to be coordinated and reconciled by one official to whom it is all new ground.
There is a strong feeling among officers who are familiar with the practical work of the Navy Department and who have noted the loss of efficiency which results from so many heads that the chief of operations should exercise full authority over the bureau chiefs. This I believe to be radically incorrect. It is simply an illustration of the natural desire of strong men trained to exercise authority seeking to extend their power in every direction.
In the first place, what should be the relation between the strategical branch of the navy and the logistics branch? Of course, it must be recognized that the mission of logistics is prescribed by strategy, but it is incorrect to deduce from this that strategy must direct the manner in which logistics shall perform its task. My idea is that the office of operations represents strategy and that the various bureaus of the department represent logistics; moreover, I believe that the relation of these two branches should correspond very closely with those which exist in mercantile life between the consumer and the producer.
Consider one or two special cases:
Operations (strategy) requires a number of battleships, battle cruisers, scouts, destroyers, submarines, flying machines, etc., with certain characteristics. Operations does not produce these things; it needs them in its operations. Accordingly, operations (strategy) calls upon the bureaus (logistics) to supply them.
Or, operations finds that certain ships are in need of repairs or alterations; it calls upon the bureaus to make these repairs or alterations.
Again, operations needs officers and men in accordance with its plans and organization. It is the duty of the bureaus concerned to fill this need.
The examples could be multiplied indefinitely.
The cooperation between operations and the manufacturing bureaus should be limited to the cooperation between consumer and producer. The consumer does not enter the shops of the producer, nor does he dictate how the producer shall run his plant; but he does consult with the producer and order in accordance with his needs and what the market affords. So operations should not enter the domain of the manufacturing bureaus of the Navy Department nor dictate to these departments how their shops should be run. Operations should consult with the manufacturing bureaus, tell them what it wants, and then insist on getting it. Operations should have no authority over the bureaus outside of this. If operations cannot get what it wants, operations reports the fact to the common superior, the Secretary, who then takes such administrative action as may be necessary to correct the trouble.
Efficiency in gunnery, aviation, or in any other department of the navy is a product just as much as efficient guns, flying machines, etc. The bureau of navigation (a better name for which would be bureau of personnel) should produce. (Officers and men capable of handling the materiel supplied to the fleet by the manufacturing department. A proper organization places the training of officers and men in the bureau of navigation (personnel); target practice and engineering competition have no proper place in operations.
On the other hand, inspection is a very important department of operations. In mercantile life the producer must please the consumer; competition enforces this law. There is no such competition in the Navy Department, and we must resort to inspection in order to maintain this important relation between the producer and the consumer. Accordingly, operations must develop and avail itself of a thoroughly organized system of inspection to pass judgment on personnel and materiel supplied by the bureaus on demand of operations.
In order that operations may be reasonable and logical in its demands on the bureaus, it must be competent to formulate correctly all demands and specifications for the materiel and personnel it requires, and to this end there must be free conference between operations and the bureaus, and officers of the logistics branches should be detailed for duty in subordinate positions in the office of operations.
It is a mistake for operations to duplicate the functions of the bureaus or to take charge of or direct any of their work. Its mission is to formulate its demands from the point of view of the consumer. When it loses sight of this mission and encroaches upon the various missions of the bureaus, it violates one of the principles 'of organization and there is a loss of efficiency. Here again we shall be kept in the straight and narrow path if we act on the theory that operations is the consumer and that the bureaus are the producers.
We have now defined the relations between operations and the bureaus; but it is evident that if we are to get cooperation among the bureaus themselves, they cannot deal individually with operations, else we shall soon have operations the coordinating factor, which would result in operations absorbing the bureaus—and this is exactly what many able officers advocate and which the writer believes is absolutely wrong.
At present, the bureau chiefs communicate directly with the Secretary, who in general is without technical training and whose mission is policy and is not logistics any more than it is strategy. But the Secretary appears to be the only recognized coordinating factor, and the Secretary's advisory council, consisting of the chief of operations, the chiefs of bureaus, the commandant of the marine corps, and the judge advocate general, emphasizes the democratic spirit of equality existing among these various departments of the navy. This is not correct organization.
Just as all the activities of strategy are grouped under one head, the chief of operations, who is, nominally, the highest technical expert available in that branch, so the activities of logistics should be grouped under another head who should be the best technical expert available to cope with the problems he would have to handle. The office of assistant secretary of the navy offers a suitable title and position for the person selected for the task. He would necessarily have authority over the chiefs of bureaus and over navy yards as industrial establishments. Any man competent to be the president of a railroad or of a large manufacturing concern would have the necessary qualifications.
The marine corps is an organization complete in itself, with its own strategical and logistic divisions. It is correct that operations should direct its activities.
The judge advocate general is technically in the Secretary's office. He is a law officer, pure and simple, and has no other functions. He properly has nothing to do with either strategy or logistics.
The general board should be looked upon as a body of the highest technical experts to answer questions of strategy or tactics laid before them by the chief of operations. Plans of campaign drawn up in the office of operations should be thoroughly discussed by them, and they could themselves, if called upon to do so, draw up war plans for the chief of operations.
The above organization eliminates the system of "balance and check," which now acts as a brake on the energy of the department. Far from diminishing the importance of the Secretary of the Navy, it enhances his importance and authority by liberating him from a multiplicity of unfamiliar details and leaves him free to exercise control and supervision, select the right man for each task, and direct the whole machine. He ceases to be the head of a number of small units, the energies of which he must constantly seek more or less effectively to coordinate; he becomes the head of an organized body, a great unit which looks to him for supervision and guidance and whose energies he controls and directs. It is "scientific management" applied to the navy.