Lessons from the Somali Pirate Experience
(See J. Farrant, pp. 76–78, February 2014 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander Claude Berube, U.S. Navy Reserve—With the threat of Somali piracy sufficiently diminished or, as some suggest, eradicated, the time is right for lessons learned, but the author’s assessment of armed guards and private navies is outdated. Armed security forces were used on commercial ships in the Gulf of Aden, but the issue of escort security ships was less pronounced. Specifically, the author uses an example from the oft-cited two-year-old article about a U.K. firm—Typhon—that offered a “private navy.”
In the course of my research for various articles as well as coediting a book on private maritime security, I interviewed or found many firms that claimed to have ships (in two cases they coincidentally claimed to have 14 vessels each) and others that claimed to be in the process of purchasing vessels. Most firms tended to spend more time, cost, and effort on their press releases proclaiming capabilities; in actuality, few had escort vessels or basing ships (otherwise known as floating hotels or “floatels”). Future articles need to scrutinize these companies rather than taking their press releases as reality. The lessons learned from piracy need to be based on the most accurate information.
Time for a U.S. Cyber Force
(See J. Stavridis and D. Weinstein, pp. 40–44, January 2014 Proceedings)
Andrei Perumal—I commend Admiral Stavridis and Mr. Weinstein for bringing focus to cyber warfare and agree that changes are needed to ensure we can “acquire and retain the nation’s best technical talent.” However, I question their proposal to create a new military service, a U.S. Cyber Force, as well as their reference to the creation of the U.S. Air Force as an accurate precedent and model.
The authors state that cyberspace “warrants what the sea, air, and land each have—an independent branch of the armed forces.” In the National Security Act of 1947, however, the Navy retained its air power. This isn’t a small distinction. Instead of consolidating the new technology (air warfare) in a new, independent branch, the act created a new branch and then spread that technology between it and other branches.
It is also debatable whether the creation of the U.S. Air Force as an independent branch of the armed forces has served us well. The Air Force is built around a technology, the airplane, and a medium of warfare, the air—whereas the Army and Navy are each built around a mission, or type of warfare. Air, surface, and subsurface are all mediums of warfare. Naval warfare and land warfare are very distinct from one another. The Navy deploys nearly as much in peacetime as in war. Naval warfare strongly favors the offense. Land warfare traditionally aims at gaining and occupying territory. We seek to control rather than occupy the seas. These differences are not absolute and often blur, especially in time of war, but these are differences of emphasis and degree.
A more useful description of our three military departments is that the Navy is built around naval warfare and the mediums within, whereas the mediums of land warfare are divided between the Army and Air Force. The Navy organizes, equips, and trains to fight naval warfare. The Army does so with land warfare, but with the cooperation of the Air Force. The Army owns land warfare, but not all the necessary mediums. The Air Force owns the medium, but not the war.
Services should be built around types of warfare. Building the Air Force around a technology, but not owning the war, has left the technology as the end, rather than the war. Building a separate, independent service around cyber warfare would bring focus on the technology first, but less on how that technology serves our needs in warfare. One may argue that the creation of the Air Force was useful for developing a powerful new technology. That may be so, but it isn’t a prerequisite, as the Navy’s development of aviation as well and significant technologies such as nuclear propulsion show.
In our time of escalating budget pressures, we must ensure that cyber resources are directed to efforts that most significantly enhance our ability to wage and defend war. In this, the Navy model, rather than the Air Force model, is more apt.
We Really Are a Global Force For Good
(See M. Krull, p. 12, January 2014 Proceedings)
Barrett Tillman—The fact that we’re discussing the Navy’s motto when the service searches for real-world roles and missions says much about the state of the Navy.
One might argue that the last time the U.S. (or any other) Navy irrefutably was “A Global Force For Good” was 1941–45. Yet the Navy website (www.navy.com) claims, “America’s Navy is a force as relevant today as it’s been historically significant for the last 237 years.” That’s what admen call “puffery.” How can today’s missions possibly compare with the world-historic contribution to winning World War II, or the half-century Cold War?
They can’t. That’s why I tried to draw attention to the Navy’s public-relations problem in my June 2009 Proceedings article “Fear and Loathing in the Post-Naval Era.” I insisted that the question is not whether we need what the public perceives as a large, seldom-used navy, but whether we have the kind of navy we need—and how we convince the taxpayers to keep funding it.
The Navy’s growing emphasis on humanitarian aid and disaster relief needs to be addressed in its mission statement, which currently states, “The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train and equip combat-ready naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas.” Nothing there about helping storm-ravaged nations or providing disaster-relief supplies. It’s what sailors call “pizza delivery,” though the phrase does not appear in Lieutenant Commander Krull’s essay. Yet navy.com contains “pizza”-oriented phrases such as “securing a better tomorrow” and “everything from rebuilding schools to conducting cleft-lip clinics.”
We already have a Force For Good. It’s called the U.S. Coast Guard, which is devoted to life-saving, search-and-rescue, and environmental protection. Those missions attract people who want to Do Good, though of course the Coasties lack the Navy’s oceanic reach.
If we allow the Navy to be concerned with a catchy slogan, “A Global Force for Good” leaves much to be desired. Presumably it goes without saying that the U.S. Navy, and America generally, seek to Do Good. But “A Global Force for Whatever” lacks zing. And continued reference to “the brand” sounds more like Madison Avenue than “Anchors Aweigh.” Therefore, let’s modify the mission statement so that at least the product matches the brochure.
Once upon a time prospective sailors were urged to “join the Navy and see the world.” Maybe that’s not a bad motto, because at least it accurately describes one of the benefits of serving at sea, especially for sailors who have trouble generating much enthusiasm for delivering pizza.
Lieutenant Michael Yates, U.S. Navy (Retired)—Lieutenant Commander Krull’s premise regarding the Navy’s slogan, “America’s Navy: A Global Force for Good.” is that it is a good one; we just need to use it more. If that is the case, I would like to add a few that may help. Include the slogan as part of each command’s Plan of the Day; at the end of divisional quarters each day, the entire division chants “American’s Navy: A Global Force for Good,” just before “Fall Out.”
However, most of us know that it is not a good slogan. People who would respond to that slogan would be more likely to join the Peace Corps, Doctors without Borders, or, if they wanted veterans’ benefits, the U.S. Coast Guard. First, we live in the United States, not America. In this era of globalization most people know the difference. Second, the slogan seems to be saying, “Just ignore all of those radars, missile and gun systems, and the haze-gray paint. We’re really here to deliver humanitarian goods to nations in need.” Most people aren’t joining the Navy to do that. Third, the wording isn’t nautical. The slogan, and the article’s reasoning, could be applied to any of the other services, including organizations mentioned here.
With a little thought, a much better slogan that applies to the U.S. Navy should replace this one. How about: “United States Navy: We won the Battle of Midway!”
Revisit the Next Security Frontier
(See T. B. Hayward, E. S. Briggs, and D. K. Forbes, p. 10, January 2014 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander Earle M. Mitchell, U.S. Navy (Retired)—In refuting anthropogenic climate change, the column by Admiral Hayward, Vice Admiral Briggs, and Captain Forbes relies heavily on material supplied by the Heartland Institute (four references, to be exact). This organization is a non-scientific nonprofit that is a champion of conservative issues. Its funding comes primarily from organizations such as Donors Trust, which serves as a conduit for companies such as Exxon/Mobil, Koch Industries, and others.
The majority of the world’s scientists believe that global climate change is happening now, the major contributor is mankind burning fossil fuels, and the largest offender is coal. The leading source of energy on Earth is the sunlight that strikes the planet’s surface. The U.S. Navy recognizes this and has installed the largest solar-energy farm in Virginia at Naval Station Norfolk. The article goes on to discuss “free-market policies.” Realizing that I have limited space, I won’t go into the complexities of the Oil Depletion Allowance in our tax code. I merely wish to mention that the allowance is now 100 years old and it permits oil producers to write off in taxes more than the cost of setting up and operating wells. So much for free markets.
James Sandison—I am quite disappointed in the column my former CNO and two other senior naval officers have authored in support of the denial of global warming. United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC) Assessment Report #5 clearly states that the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and that it is extremely likely that the dominant cause is human activity. Recent examples: Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York, typhoons in the Philippines, the polar vortex over North America, and widespread flooding in Europe. While the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists are in concurrence that the planet is warming, they have not reached agreement on the rate of heating, extent of sea-level rise, and direct connection to increasing intensity of extreme weather events.
This article is a carefully crafted refutation of global warming (now known as climate change) and promotes the idea that global warming is not a proven theory. It further goes on with the promotion of the “drill, baby, drill” idea, citing national security as the necessity warranting the unfettered free-market development of our natural resources.
Vice Admiral Briggs and Captain Forbes have authored a number of articles on this topic, including one in the July 2012 Proceedings. They cite the Heartland Institute in their latest article to support their agenda. The Heartland Institute formed the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a non-scientific political group, to appear creditable and to obfuscate the findings of the U.N. scientific panel.
It’s quite annoying that I find this type of article in Proceedings, but it has long been a forum for different views, which I support. In the words of my old master chief, “I will fight for their right to their opinion, but they are dead wrong.”
Daniel Connell—The authors deny that climate change is man-made, citing souces that are not credible. The Heartland Institute is not an organization devoted to science. Readers would be well advised to examine its credentials. The other source, Dr. Roy Spencer, is a well-known scientist, but his assertion that climate change is natural and not primarily man-made has been credibly challenged by the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists who have been studying climate change.
Captain Bruce A. Williams, U.S. Navy (Retired)—It was encouraging to see in Proceedings a well-presented case against the establishment’s dogma of anthropogenic global warming. The fact-based arguments made by Admiral Hayward, Vice Admiral Briggs, and Captain Forbes heavily outweigh the assumptions and flawed climate models touted by generously funded segments of the scientific community, their government benefactors, and their media partners in the lucrative climate-change industry.
The Earth’s climate has indisputably been changing since the formation of the planet and will continue to do so. The formation and subsequent disappearance—without human assistance—of the mile-thick ice fields that once covered North America is one of several fairly obvious reminders of that. Climate change is a fact of life, a perpetual, cyclic phenomenon of nature we do not control. Furthermore, any future warming that may actually occur could well turn out be as much to our species’ benefit as to our detriment. Devoting enormous fiscal resources and sacrificing worldwide economic health to battle an unproven, speculative threat is devoid of logic and unwise in the extreme. Life, including mankind, adapts to the changing Earth, not vice versa.
The authors’ column (and this response) will likely be greeted with derisive rebuttals from those in the “science is settled, debate is over” crowd. Nevertheless, I am confident that real data exhibiting the extent of natural climate variation, and the time-tested principle of scientific method will not continue to be ignored for much longer.
Lieutenant Commander Sherwin Y. Cho, U.S. Navy—I read with interest the column by Admiral Hayward, Vice Admiral Briggs, and Captain Forbes, and I noted the many references to Dr. Roy W. Spencer’s statements as examples of factual science. Although I disagree with Dr. Spencer’s conclusions on climate change, I agree with the authors that strategic independence is a priority.
What is surprisingly missing from the debate on climate change and homeland security, however, is the effect that an ambitious policy of carbon-emission reduction will likely have on the world’s reserve currency, the U.S. dollar. In 1971 President Richard Nixon ended the Bretton Woods monetary system—based on the gold standard, whereby an ounce of gold could be redeemed for $35 and all the major currencies were pegged to the dollar. Within a couple of years President Nixon, with the agreement of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, had essentially placed the United States and the world on a petrodollar system to replace the gold standard, which until then had been used for decades to curb inflation of the money supply.As international oil is traded mainly in U.S. dollars in this monetary system, buyers need to sell their currency to buy dollars in order to buy oil. This worldwide demand for the dollar, accordingly, drives up the purchasing power of the dollar and enriches the American consumer.
Because of the vast scale of global trade, the amount of foreign-held dollars is in the trillions. Should the dollar be rejected as a reserve currency for the global oil trade as a prelude to hostile actions against the United States, or because of perceived failure to honor our part of the agreement with this monetary system, or because of a significant loss in the purchasing power and a stronger, more reliable currency taking its place, the foreign-held dollars will eventually flood back to the United States. Trillions of dollars entering circulation and chasing after the same number of goods and services will cause a severe price inflation. As wages and pensions almost always lag behind price increases, this inflation will impoverish millions of American households.
What is worse is if the trillions of dollars in excess reserves held at the Federal Reserve from successive rounds of quantitative easing since the Great Recession are unleashed onto the fractional-reserve banking system in pursuit of greater yields, and the money supply grows even more rapidly. This currency shock triggered by the removal of the dollar’s relationship to the oil trade is probably a more immediate threat to homeland security than other fossil-fuel concerns; it is often overlooked and should be considered when shaping policies regarding environmental degradation and energy independence.