In 2011, Navy Times reported that seven U.S. Navy commanding officers (COs) had been recently removed from a command billet, or “sacked,” under the alarmist headline “7 Skippers, 1 Common Failure: Booze and bad judgment got them fired,” bringing the 2011 total to 22.1 Such was the commonality of CO sackings that Navy Times started an online tote, suggesting that—with a reported 25 sackings in 2012 and 17 in 2013—the 2011 figures were indicative of a trend. It can reasonably be deduced from these figures that the U.S. Navy has a serious problem with some of its COs, but is taking action to remedy the situation.
Unfortunately, such public humiliation of errant leaders has an often underestimated downside. Regardless of the egregious behavior of some of the fired COs, it is evident that the message reaching other COs is not the one intended by higher authorities—that command is a privilege necessitating the highest standard of personal conduct—but that because of a widespread misinterpretation of the trend associated with the removal of individual officers, command is a penance to be survived. The principal problem is the disconnect between the message intended by higher headquarters (“Do not embarrass the U.S. Navy by behaving badly”) and the message as it is perceived at the front line (“Do not make any mistakes”). This distortion has resulted in the unintended secondary effect of creating a climate of risk avoidance, where the risks associated with hazardous activities are not mitigated through appropriate management, but are instead avoided entirely.
Consequently, the U.S. Navy has inadvertently created a situation whereby officers are potentially rewarded for surviving their command unscathed. This is resulting in a generation of officers being unwittingly inculcated into the idea that remaining firmly within their professional comfort zone in terms of shiphandling, weapon system employment, etc., is the safest route to secure promotion—i.e., that risk avoidance is a desired end state in and of itself. Given that COs are avoiding opportunities to develop individual and unit skills as they attempt instead to minimize higher-level scrutiny and questioning of their tactical decision-making, such a cautious approach is contradictory to that required to develop warfighting skills. The longer-term effects are similarly critical. As such officers achieve promotion through the lack of negative evidence against them, this mindset could migrate to the strategic level, where risk aversion will result in missed opportunities as a consequence of unnecessary trepidation by future military leaders.
Risks and Rewards
To prevent tactical risk avoidance from creeping upward to the operational and strategic levels, it must first be demonstrated that a tactical-level problem exists. For contrast and simplicity, and because of the author’s familiarity, the U.S. Navy’s surface warfare officer (SWO) community will serve as a case study. For illustrative purposes, the example of two minehunter COs—one U.K. and one U.S.—will be used.
Suppose each minehunter needs to deploy an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) for training purposes. Both COs note that, while within the operating limits of the UUV, the combination of factors such as sea state, crew fatigue, etc., means that there is a small risk of damage to the UUV during the recovery phase. Nevertheless, having assessed the conditions, taken specialist advice, and made a considered judgment about the level of risk, the COs authorize the deployments. Regrettably, during the recovery phase, the UUVs are damaged.
While frustrating for the U.K. CO, this is not a complete disaster as he is able to task his technicians to repair it. If they cannot, he can authorize them to seek contractor assistance. If the contractors are unable to fix it, the logisticians can be ordered to source a replacement vehicle so that the damaged UUV can be returned for repair.
In the short term, the CO’s operational capability is temporarily reduced by one UUV. However, the CO and his team have identified the limit of their current operating ability and the factors that led to the damage so they can learn from their mistakes and improve their performance next time. Despite the short-term reduction in operational capability, the crew’s longer-term warfighting capability will improve overall. The CO’s superior will be informed and, provided he concurs that it was reasonable for the CO to accept a higher level of risk given his intention of maximizing the training benefit for his team, the superior is likely to assess that “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” The CO achieves closure knowing that his decisions will be supported provided they are appropriate to the development of a warfighting capability. In short, Field Marshall Sir William Slim’s 1952 advice to leaders—effectively “Give inexperienced leaders another chance”—encapsulates the United Kingdom’s attitude toward military risk management as accurately today as it did 60 years ago.
In contrast, if the U.S. CO damages his UUV, it is not so easy to “transfer the problem.” Unlike the U.K. CO who is freed from budgetary constraints at the unit level, the U.S. CO is more likely to face difficult questions about his decision-making. This is because the U.S. CO faces the unpalatable decision of either spending money to repair the vehicle immediately, thus increasing the risk that future defects will affect his reduced budget, or deferring the repair until he is confident that his budget can cover other contingencies. If he chooses the former he is vulnerable to the accusation that he is taking too much risk with the longer-term program, while if he chooses the latter he suffers the ignominy of having to routinely report that his unit is not operating at full strength. Neither option is particularly appealing.
There is also an ethically dubious third option available: choosing not to deploy the vehicle in the first place. In this way, the CO can maintain his UUV capability, thus protecting his limited budget from financial shock and preserving his unit’s “fully operational” status on paper. If he is forced to deploy a vehicle, he can do so in the sheltered confines of the harbor, thus “checking the box” with minimal risk of damage. Admittedly, his team will not be as proficient as they will need to be in combat. However, such a decision would seem logical for an officer motivated by the desire to rise to higher ranks.
In addition to the standard ambition inherent in most officers, promotion concerns for mid-level COs are magnified given their high-profile command assignment and their awareness that they must have had a strong track record in comparison to their peers or they would not have been selected for command in the first place. It is important to note that the American CO need not lie to protect his reputation, as he completes the drills demanded of him, even if in benign conditions. Indeed, a morally ambivalent argument could be made that by protecting the reputation of his ship he is preserving his crew’s morale, albeit at the expense of operational capability.
It is contended that this pattern of behavior already exists and that immediate action is required to dispel the “climate of fear” at the waterfront.
Counter Arguments
Critics may argue that downplaying the sackings of COs will not send the intended message about the benefits of virtuous conduct to other officers. While the justification for attempting to create behavioral patterns among COs is understandable, there are several ways to counter such a claim.
First, the argument is moot given that the message is already being misinterpreted. Second, it is unimaginable that the U.S. Navy would seek to promote officers into a command position if it believed that behavior of COs was only being modified as a result of the sacking of other officers “pour l’encouragement des autres.” At risk of being embroiled in a deep philosophical debate, any officer who behaves well purely out of fear of the consequences of being caught does not have the inherent moral values that society rightly demands from its military leaders. Third, it is most emphatically not suggested that all sackings are wrong. As those who have displayed gross moral turpitude have clearly made themselves unworthy of such a privileged position, it is simply proposed that more care be taken when directing a message toward the collective audience of COs. Rather than ceding dissemination of such message to the shotgun approach of sensationalist headlines such as those seen in Navy Times, a targeted messaging campaign would help COs feel supported, such as a “CO’s eyes only” summary of recent removals with a précis of the key lessons from each unfortunate incident.
A second counterargument could be that the standards within the U.S. Navy are higher than those of other navies and that the U.K. example represents a slippery slope. Noble as this perfectionist sentiment may be, my personal discussions with several minesweeper COs have indicated that such fastidiousness is misdirected, given that ships are already selectively ignoring the spirit of the law by not exercising in combat conditions.
Third, it could be argued that the U.S. Navy already manages risk well. At the organizational level, this is true given that it routinely operates at the extremes of risk acceptability. Such a counterargument is a conflation between organizational risk, which the U.S. Navy has had centuries to refine, and individual risk, which is only developed over the course of a comparatively short career.
A fourth counterargument could be directed against the limited sampling size of the evidence presented here, given that it is primarily the firsthand experience of a relatively small group, to argue that the views of the COs included are merely a statistical anomaly. But the author’s experience is supported by informal discussions at the U.S. Naval War College that suggest a broad cross-section of the U.S. Navy recognizes the nature of this problem.
Five Solutions
Having framed the problem, five alternative yet complementary solutions to this multifaceted problem can be developed. First, the message given to COs needs to be refocused from the negative “Do not embarrass the U.S. Navy by behaving badly,” which is widely misinterpreted as the ominous threat of “Do not make any mistakes,” to a more positive expression that still contains the original sentiment, such as “Provided you do not embarrass the U.S. Navy, your superiors will support you fully in your demanding command position.” Although this might seem like a minor rewording, the emphasis is important, as it is this “all of one company” message that is being lost in translation from senior to mid-level officers.
Second, the U.S. Navy might consider a more circumspect approach in the content of its condemnation of failing officers. Reducing the column inches spent dwelling on the shortcomings of the unfortunate few, with a particular shift in emphasis away from the tabloid sensationalism seen in Navy Times, will help calm the frayed nerves of young COs who perceive that they are being set up for a fall. Public affairs officers have a key role to play in ensuring that a proper balance is struck between the freedom of the press and the protection of operational capability.
A third method of refocusing the message is the arguably idealistic aspiration of revamping the fitness-report system such that only officers of appropriate moral standing are promoted into privileged command positions in the first place. Although detailed discussion of this topic falls beyond the scope of this article, it follows that honest and accurate reporting would prevent the majority of inappropriate officers ever being selected for command, with the result that fewer COs would be sacked subsequently. This would help other COs feel more comfortable about the security of their own positions.
Fourth, “pushing the envelope” should be recognized as an essential element in advancing the tactics, techniques, and procedures of the U.S. Navy. Rather than a generic condemnation of acts that skirt the boundary of tactical acceptability, individual examples of acts that show how the proactive use of risk management techniques can enhance current procedures should be applauded.
Finally, it is rare for any officer to achieve senior rank without personally experiencing situations in which they took too much or too little risk. Sharing these lessons with mid-level officers, through such means as “fireside chats” at prospective CO courses, would allow senior officers to share their experiences in an informal setting while also building the mindset required to ensure that COs feel supported by the naval hierarchy. This need not be a mea culpa session, but it should be made clear to COs that everyone makes mistakes and that the COs can learn and recover from them. This is essential to keep from creating a climate where COs dedicate excessive attention to avoiding mistakes at all cost or, worse, covering up their mistakes to avoid admonition. The naval aviation community’s non-punitive safety stand-down periods would seem to offer the SWO community an easily-transferable template.
Managing Risk by Supporting COs Better
It has been argued that the U.S. Navy is unwittingly creating a situation where risk avoidance at the tactical level will ultimately result in strategic paralysis. Then-Commander William J. Toti presciently summarized the current challenge facing the U.S. Navy when he wrote in 1999,
[Y]ou have to learn how to be a good CO today, so you don’t have to unlearn bad habits later. If you are timid in demeanor because of fear of failure, or weak in execution because of fear of leaning too far forward, or are primarily motivated by covering your behind, the morale of your crew and your ship’s performance will suffer. On the other hand, if you decide to enjoy your tour by leveraging the warrior spirit, both attitude and performance will improve, and your career will take care of itself.2
As Toti warned, it is imperative that the U.S. Navy encourages mid-level COs to manage, not avoid, risk at the tactical level through the provision of a supportive, not competitive, command network. This way, senior strategic leaders of the future will not have to unlearn the risk-avoidance habits they acquired at the tactical level to mold the battlespace to the U.S. Navy’s advantage.
1. Navy Times, 7 November 2011.
2. CDR William J. Toti, USN, “Open Letter to Lieutenant Butler,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 125, no. 6 (June 1999), 156.