"Weinberger-Powell Doctrine Doesn't Cut It"
(See J. Record, pp. 35-36, October 2000 Proceedings)
Colonel R. W. Strahan, U.S. Marine Corps, Commanding Officer, Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center—I realize it's been fashionable to criticize the Weinberger Doctrine since 1992, but I think Mr. Record's version went too far when he stated that, "among other things, the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine is simplistic and flawed." Let's review the doctrine and let readers decide.
- "The U.S. should not commit forces to combat unless the engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies." Mr. Record seems to think that because it's tough to define "vital" we shouldn't use that as a test. I think that before we purposefully commit American blood and treasure, we ought to understand where the problem falls on the importance scale to our allies or us. To do less is irresponsible.
- "If we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should do so wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning." Mr. Record thinks "winning is even more elusive." Holy cow! Who out there thinks we shouldn't have a definition and a plan to win?
- "We should have clearly defined political and military objectives," and forces should be matched to those objectives. I don't think even Mr. Record can find fault with the fundamental concept that ends and means should match.
- "The relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed—their size, composition and disposition—must be continually reassessed and adjusted as necessary." It is my opinion that we failed to do this in Lebanon and Somalia, and I firmly believe the arrangements that didn't match the "new" missions contributed to both disasters.
- "There must be some reasonable assurance that we will have the support of the American people." Notwithstanding Mr. Record's obvious point about the role of leadership in influencing public opinion, does anyone think support of the people via Congress is a bad idea? The North Vietnamese certainly knew the value of American public opinion. In addition to the common sense of this approach, my copy of the Constitution suggests the American people (through their elected representatives in Congress) have a great deal to say about the funding, organization, and use of our armed forces.
- "The commitment of U.S. forces to combat should be a last resort." Somehow Mr. Record reads that as an "implicit rejection of force as an instrument of diplomacy." Americans have a long history of gunboat diplomacy, but who thinks we should not try diplomatic, economic, and informational levers before pulling the trigger?
The Weinberger Doctrine, I think, represents a reasonable (as opposed to simplistic and flawed) framework with which to think about the very serious business of committing Americans to combat. It does not exclude instances that fall outside the arguably gray areas; it just suggests we do so at our peril. The last stake through the heart of Mr. Record's credibility was the statement "this nation deserves a new doctrine for using force abroad that balances national interests and responsibility as the world's only superpower." Well, let's hear one, Mr. Record.
"Saving Naval Aviation"
(See S. Rowe, p. 30, September 2000; J. Hood, p. 12, October 2000 Proceedings)
Vice Admiral Richard C. Allen, U.S. Navy (Retired), President, Association of Naval Aviation—I have been a member of the U.S. Naval Institute since 1969. I am writing because I am becoming less enchanted with Proceedings. I really have seen a declining change over the last three or four years with the character of many of the articles. It seems that Proceedings is catering more and more toward controversial subjects at the expense of the Navy. I do not appreciate that. I understand an interest in offering a wide variety of subjects, but I would hope that the Editorial Board would ensure that the articles published in Proceedings are helpful in creating a proper forum for discussion, rather than be laced with vitriolic accusations and inaccurate, misleading, or non-existent facts.
A case in point is Lieutenant Commander Rowe's article. It is a very biased attack on naval aviation by a writer who is clearly upset over the Navy's decision to remove the antisubmarine warfare (ASW) capability from the S-313 and project its retirement without developing an aircraft to replace it in the near term. The author departed from the Navy after 12 years of service as an S-3B naval flight officer and obviously is carrying a grudge. His views, while respected, are not founded on factual information or logic, and the Editorial Board should not have accepted his article as written.
A few of his unfounded accusations include the following:
- Accuses Navy leadership of forgetting what the Navy is about.
- Accuses Navy leadership of neglecting core competencies.
- Accuses Navy leadership of discarding capabilities for which Navy alone is responsible.
- Accuses the Navy of eliminating the battle group's ability to operate in a contested littoral without land-based support.
- Accuses the Navy of having myopic dedication to strike capabilities and stripping the carrier air wing of critical support in virtually every other mission area.
- Questions why we should buy carriers and suggests that Air Force tanking can ensure combat reach for land-based strike fighters.
- Suggests that without proper support (common support aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, etc.), carrier strike aircraft merely duplicate Air Force capabilities at much greater cost.
- Sophomorically suggests that the offsets required to fund his desired programs should be found across the spectrum of Navy programs.
- States that without the Navy's support aircraft capabilities, Navy air will become a redundant and meaningless force.
I do not know where Mr. Rowe is getting his facts and figures upon which to base such accusatory statements. He lacks the background depth to accurately judge the reality of the Navy's overall warfighting capabilities and how they are entwined within the Navy and with the other services. He very clearly needed a tour on the Chief of Naval Operations' Staff for Naval Aviation in order to gain appreciation for the tremendous work that is being done every day to maintain the strength and flexibility that naval aviation and Navy forces as a whole provide, while struggling to improve overall capability. I appreciate that all is not well regarding such things as aircraft age, modernization, recapitalization, operational tempo, and a host of other problems, but I believe that Mr. Rowe needs to mature, understand reality, and quit living with his grumpy attitude of resentment over the Navy's conscious decision to eliminate the ASW capability from the S-313.
Proceedings needs to more closely screen the articles it publishes to ensure they are factual and can stand on their own merits. Publishing diatribes offered by disgruntled people offers little credibility to what I used to view as an outstanding publication. The U.S. Naval Institute claims to be the "Independent Forum for the Sea Services" with CNO an honorary President, Vice Admiral A. K. Cebrowski as Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Vice Admiral J. R. Ryan as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors. The magazine therefore should reflect the proper views for, not against, the Sea Services. If I were in the Air Force, I would take glee in the fact that an independent magazine supported at the highest Navy leadership level is allowed to attack the very Navy it is meant to support. I have great problems with that. I believe Proceedings needs to take a round turn on itself and clean up its act.
Alan Withers, Boeing Service Engineering—In his excellent article, Lieutenant Commander Rowe concludes that a focus on strike warfare has lessened the ability of naval aviation to be "useful, relevant and unique." He does not explain why the Navy got into this bind.
Naval aviation's heart always has been in the Central Pacific, making sudden offensive thrusts into enemy territory with large task forces and big deck carriers. This doctrine lasted through the end of the Cold War, with plans to the fight the decisive battle in the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap and then attack the Kola Peninsula. Despite a wonderful 60year record of success with this Central Pacific doctrine, I believe that naval aviation is planning to fight the wrong battle in a future war.
Two things have happened which make this legacy dangerous. First, naval aviation steadily is becoming an orchestra with just one tune: strike warfare. As Commander Rowe points out, the air wing will need land-based tankers and other support to operate in a challenging scenario. The realm where only a carrier air wing can conduct strikes has greatly shrunk. Second, the United States has not lost control of our sea lines of communication since 1944.
I feel that the Navy's greatest contribution to victory in 1945 was winning the Battle of the Atlantic. Numerous small groups fought a bloody battle of attrition over an extended period. Naval aviation is losing the ability to win this kind of war against a resourceful and capable sea power. We are still a maritime power. If our shipping and airlifters cannot reach the war zone, we will lose that war. German submarines almost forced Britain out of two World Wars. The Japanese Navy had a very offensive doctrine, yet lost the war because they could not support farflung garrisons or bring strategic materials to the homeland.
Carriers will always be needed to perform the missions that only the Navy can do: antisubmarine warfare, maritime patrol, air defense of the sea lanes, minesweeping, and supporting the Marines ashore. The equipment needed to fight a protracted war over our sea lanes looks vastly different than for strike warfare. The F3F Wildcat was outclassed by the Zero in the Pacific but worked just fine flying off a Jeep carrier, looking for submarines. The Navy will need many smaller carriers to be where they are needed, when they are needed.
Naval aviation needs to relearn some new tunes, get away from a Central Pacific mindset, and prepare to fight the next Battle of the Atlantic. This rebalancing will take a long time and cost a lot of money. The hardest part, however, will be giving up 60 years of naval aviation tradition and success and preparing for the future. It reminds me of an old song:
You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss
The Navy still has to do ASW and all that other stuff
The fundamental truths apply
As time goes by.
"What Happened to the Kursk?"
(See N. Friedman, pp. 4-6, October 2000 Proceedings)
Theodore L. Gaillard, Jr.—Dr. Friedman lists several hypotheses put forward to explain explosions that sank the Russian Oscar 2-class Kursk, a massive cruise-missile submarine originally designed to counter U.S. carrier task forces. The absurdity of the collision theory, which he discounts, clearly will be evident once salvage divers see whether damaged metal in the forward hull curves in (supporting the collision concept) or peels out. Embarrassment concerning internal causes for another Russian peacetime submarine disaster may well be the reason for such reluctance to request outside help.
There are two other catalysts for the disaster deserving a closer look. First is the explosion of one or more of the Kursk's cruise missile warheads, which would have wreaked havoc further back along the hull than a torpedo explosion. In 1986, a Soviet Yankee-class nuclear ballistic missile submarine had the liquid propellant of one of its missiles explode, forcing it to surface before it eventually sank in the Atlantic. A different kind of missile was in use on the Kursk, but there would similarly have to be liquid fuel on board for the SS-N-19's reputed jet engines. Dr. Friedman comments that one such missile had just been launched. Therefore, could there have been a liquid fuel leak with a spark from static electricity or a short circuit to ignite the first small fuel explosion that then set off the warhead(s)?
The second explosion was reported to have been equivalent to a couple of tons of TNT. SS-N-19 antiship cruise missiles possess warheads of 1,000 kilogram/2,200 pound TNT-equivalent each. Such massive damage farther back along the hull would have made communication with survivors almost impossible. The Kursk has ten separate waterproof sections, and the explosion would have been more in the middle of that arrangement, right next to the command/communications center. The escape module would have been rendered immediately useless, and the only reason that the sub would have survived at all is that Oscar 2 cruise-missile subs are massive and have double-hull construction, with the missiles mounted in ambient pressure conditions in launch canisters between hulls.
On the other hand, the torpedo hypothesis seems far stronger. A probable cause for the loss of our own Scorpion (SSN-589) in 1968 was faulty torpedo battery design leading to battery fire and low-intensity detonation ("cook off") of one of its torpedoes. A torpedo battery fire and/or low-intensity detonation may not be the final cause found for the Kursk, but at the moment external evidence reported certainly includes that possibility. So far, however, the battery problem does not seem to have been implicated in other Soviet/Russian submarine disasters.
But if the torpedo that Dr. Friedman says was next to be fired was in fact the VA-111 Shkval, we're looking at a rocket-powered 200-knot torpedo far more advanced than anything we have. The Shkval photo in the July 2000 Proceedings reveals interesting control systems, probably because of its speed. Normal torpedoes have control surfaces only on their rear fins or pumpjet shrouds. Given its speed, the Shkval sports four pop-out control surfaces about 60% of the distance back from the nose for direct hydrodynamical control, plus four pairs of extended pipe orifices (arranged at 90 degrees to each other), probably for differential thrust control. There are two apparent sensor units 180 degrees apart and a shielded exhaust unit in the lower right quadrant that is not repeated on the other side—perhaps an exhaust outlet for an onboard auxiliary power unit.
If the Shkval has a solid propellant main motor, and if a battery problem, short circuit, or static electricity generated a fire or spark that set off the propellant charge while the torpedo was still within the sub, that would explain the soft initial thump, and the two-and-a-half-minute delay until the main explosion. The torpedo would have exhausted its propellant within the forward compartment of the sub, creating absolute havoc, followed by the explosion of the warhead. On the other hand, the auxiliary power unit and main propellants might be multiple and liquid fuel, stored separately until mixed in the combustion chamber where they ignite hyperbolically. If there were a leak that allowed even two drops of those different propellants (such as unsymmetrical dimethyl-hydrazine and red fuming nitric acid) to come into contact with each other, then same result as above would occur.
Will we ever know? It depends on how much the Russians release—probably not much. Nevertheless, even in peacetime, the silent service can be a hazardous profession. The families of those Russian sailors deserve our prayers.
"Submarine Rescue: Ready for a Worst-Case Scenario"
(See D. Walsh, p. 89, August 2000 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander Michael Kubiniec, ILS. Naval Reserve—This article provides an interesting history of the deep submergence rescue vehicle (DSRV) program in the U.S. Navy. It points out that the maximum operating depth that permits rescue operations is 2,000 feet for the current DSRV's as well as for the replacement submarine rescue diving and recompression system (SRDRS). Although these rescue submersibles certainly have valuable utility, it must be pointed out that their overall practical usefulness is quite limited.
As a submarine officer who spent almost 12 years on active duty with tours on three nuclear submarines, I know that submarines spend the vast majority of their underway time in water whose depths far exceed 2,000 feet. Should such a casualty occur resulting in an uncontrolled depth excursion such as unstoppable flooding of a major compartment of the ship, the submarine will sink and will pass through its theoretical crush depth well before reaching the ocean bottom, resulting in a total loss of the submarine and all hands on board. This is the risk we face as submariners every time we go to sea.
Following in-port periods when maintenance has been performed on certain seawater pressure boundary components designated as "Subsafe" systems, a required retest is performed upon return to sea. The integrity of the seawater boundary components is verified during an deliberate and controlled procedure to take the submarine to "Test Depth" whereupon tests and visual inspections are performed. Upon satisfactory retest, these systems are now recertified. During this evolution at test depth—an operation with a potential risk—the submarine is typically operating in "shallow" waters. Therefore, if a casualty to a seawater pressure boundary system did occur resulting in the bottoming of the submarine, it is highly likely that a successful rescue operation could be conducted. This is where the practical usefulness of the submarine rescue vehicle is most applicable.
Therefore, without discrediting the submarine rescue vehicle program, the fact remains that submarines spend the vast majority of their underway time in waters deeper than 2,000 feet. Your readers should understand that if a loss of depth casualty should occur to a submarine, it most likely will not survive the depth excursion to the ocean bottom.
"Don't Make SWO the Default"
(See 1. Scaliatine, pp. 87-88, July 2000; T. Darcy, pp. 20-22, August 2000; T. Laurie, pp. 14-16, September 2000; J. Ritenour, J. Clark, p. 29, October 2000 Proceedings)
Vice Admiral Peter M. Hekman, Jr., U.S. Navy (Retired)—I am sure the article and subsequent letters resulted in a great deal of discussion both afloat and ashore. I am just as convinced that they all present a mind-set that will be most injurious to the surface warfare officer (SWO) Community. To refer to the SWO community as a "dumping ground" for those officers that for some reason are not continued in their own warfare specialty is to simultaneously degrade the SWO community and all those officers who, for whatever reason, are moved to that community.
I served as a surface warfare officer for 33 years, in four division officer tours and three department head tours (all but one in engineering billets including that of executive officer of a carrier), a destroyer executive officer tour, and three command tours before commencing several flag officer assignments leading to the command of Naval Sea Systems Command in 19881991. In so doing, I served with numerous officers who were moved from their specialty of choice to the surface community. These officers were my superiors, my peers, and my subordinates. I cannot recall one of those many officers who did not serve with distinction in the surface community. In fact, their added knowledge and experience was looked upon as a valuable addition to the community and the command.
Officers are moved from specialty communities to the SWO community for a variety of reasons. Take aviation, an example which is cited in the articles. It is no disgrace to fail to qualify as a naval aviator. Simply qualifying for the training is a significant mark of distinction, and my personal experience tells me that not very many SWOs can meet the aviation community's entrance qualifications, much less pass the rigorous academics and flight training. I could not. Most failures occur because of developing physical problems or simply the fact that landing on the flight deck on a rainy moonless night takes a bit more reactive skill than that individual thought he or she had when striving to enter the program. Nothing less than perfect is acceptable. The authors should try it sometime. There are no slackers in naval aviation; only very bright people of great courage who try very hard to succeed against great odds. The SWO community should be proud to accept those that transition and welcome them in the sense of who they really are.
The same holds true for other communities. I used to literally beg the Bureau of Personnel for officers transitioning from submarine warfare into the SWO community. These officers had also met demanding entrance requirements and had experienced one of the finest training and qualification programs in the world. They were disciplined and could follow directions and procedures better than most SWOs without additional training. As with former aviators, I found I could assign these officers to a billet or task and rarely if ever have to work to adapt them to their new community. I trusted them and made strengths of their background. And they in turn performed with loyalty and distinction despite the SWO community not being their original service choice.
There is a principle of leadership that appears to be overlooked by the authors and those of like mind. That principle says that "everyone really wants to do a good job, and if they are not doing a good job, its because their leadership has failed to define what a good job is." To let it be known as a community that these transitioning officers are not valued by the community is to tell them right off they are not expected to do a good job; that their talents, efforts and expertise are of no use to the community. The very idea of forming "a 0000 designator community for poor performers" indicates the SWO community cannot define a good job nor use the talents of its officers in performing it. This is a failure on the part of the SWO community and its leadership. To take the position promoted in the cited articles is most injurious to the SWO community and to those officers who are transitioning to SWO. Just think about what we are telling them! We should welcome them, even recruit them, and give them the leadership and opportunity they deserve. Who knows? They just may end up running the place!
"The Credibility Crisis"
(See E. Donnelly, pp. 42-48, August 2000; T. Strother, p. 20, September 2000; H. Shelton, pp. 12-14, October 2000 Proceedings)
J. J. Gertler, Analyst, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Readiness Programs and Assessment, 1995-1997—The mission of Proceedings includes provoking lively debate, and Elaine Donnelly's opinion piece in the August issue certainly should do just that. It also contained so many unfounded or already refuted assertions that proper rebuttal could keep a substantial staff well employed.
I shall leave most of the field for others, and confine my comments to the one point of fact to which I was a personal witness.
In her article, Ms. Donnelly states that: "Even the greenest recruits know that politically sensitive realities are being downplayed or denied up and down the chain of command. Witness the 1997 gag order that Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Readiness Louis Finch imposed on staff members to prevent publicity about negative field-trip reports."
Unfortunately for Ms. Donnelly's argument, no such gag order ever existed. As one of the staff members supposedly "gagged," I can state unequivocally that the guidance we received from Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Louis Finch—which was suggested to him by the Joint Staff and a service—was to treat internal working documents and notes under the rules observed in companies and newspapers throughout the country. It was, in short, to make sure anecdotal information was accurate before we published it. Even the staff member whose leaked trip notes were the subject of the memo Ms. Donnelly cited calls her allegation "a crock." The staff member added that, "Nowhere in [the memo] was there a gag order of any sort."
During the period that Ms. Donnelly discusses, the Office of the Deputy of the Undersecretary of Defense Readiness initiated the first on-site audits of reported readiness, which are now used by the Senior Readiness Oversight Committee and in reports to Congress. It advised the services and Office of the Secretary of Defense on improvements to the timeliness and accuracy of readiness reporting. And it provided—through the Joint Monthly Readiness Reviews—Quarterly Readiness Reports to Congress, and defense of readiness issues during the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review. These reports and reviews represent exactly the kind of unvarnished visibility into readiness issues Ms. Donnelly advocates.
That's some gag!