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Morskoi Sbortiik and the Gorshkov Series
Commander Mathew J. Whelan, U. S. Navy—Ks noted in the Secretary’s Notes of the January 1974 Proceedings, introducing the series of articles, "Navies in War and in Peace” by the Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei G. Gorshkov, the articles appeared in the Soviet naval journal, Morskoi Sbomik. This is a professional, monthly journal, somewhat comparable to the U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings.
The circulation of Morskoi Sbomik is unknown, but it can be assumed from its instructional and propagandistic content, that it is intended for the officer ranks of the Soviet Navy. As the leading journal of the Soviet Navy, one can also assume that it is intended to reach an audience outside purely naval circles. This view can be substantiated by the fact that articles appearing in Morskoi Sbomik draw comment in such relatively widely circulated Soviet newspapers as Pravda and Red Star.
An article written by the Soviet Navy’s Chief of Staff, Fleet Admiral Sergeyev, appearing on the 125th anniversary of the founding of Morskoi
ENTER THE FORUM
Regular and Associate Members are invited to write brief comments on material published in the Proceedings and also to write brief discussions on any topic of naval interest for possible publication in these pages. A primary purpose of the Proceedings is to provide a place where ideas of importance to the Navy can be exchanged. The U. S. Naval Institute pays an honorarium to the author of each comment or discussion published in the Proceedings.
Sbomik, is particularly helpful in establishing the intended mission of the journal. Admiral Sergeyev claims "... a prominent place in the training and education of the officers of the Soviet Navy . . .” for the journal. He goes on to state that it " . . . has aided officers in mastering the necessary set of technical military skills . . .” and has ". . . focused attention on improving weaponry and combat equipment.”
In addition, he says, Morskoi Sbomik ". . . continues to aid the naval leadership in the political and military education of command personnel.” The journal ". . . explains the ideas of Marxism, Leninism, and the policy of the Communist Party, and the Soviet government to Navymen.” Admiral Sergeyev then goes on to comment that ". . . the journal has begun to more daringly bring up actual problems troubling naval officers and discuss them with the readers.”
This last comment is particularly significant, and should be kept in mind while reading the articles written by Admiral Gorshkov. In Morskoi Sbomik's introduction to the Gorshkov series, the editorial board stated that in its opinion ". . . the publication of these articles will foster the development ... of a unity of views on the role of navies.”
As was noted in the Proceedings’ introduction to the series, Admiral Gorshkov is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The First Secretary of this Committee, Leonid Brezhnev, just as Khrushchev and Stalin before him, is ultimately responsible for the conduct of Soviet foreign and defense policies. Therefore,
given the scope of Admiral Gorshkov’s articles and their appearance in the leading navy journal, it may be inferred that the articles reflect not only Gorshkov’s personal views, but also those sanctioned by the Central Committee of the Communist Party. This assessment must be qualified, for as one Sovietologist, John Erickson, said ". . . institutional representation is no real index of the influence of the Soviet Navy.” * As Rear Admiral George H. Miller, U. S. Navy (Retired) points out, however, there is little that is not important, and all of it is "deadly serious.”
"Navies in War and in Peace”
(See S. G. Gorshkov and G. H. Miller,
pp. 18-27, January 1974 Proceedings)
Kenneth J. Hagan, Assistant Professor, Department of History, U. S. Naval Academy— One can only praise the Proceedings for publishing Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union S. G. Gorshkov’s series, "Navies in War and in Peace,” which originally appeared in Morskoi Sbomik. Rear Admiral George H. Miller, U. S. Navy (Retired), is accurate in his comment that virtually all the material in the first installment is important. Yet, the initial essay raises at least as many questions as it answers. Perhaps the lasting result of all the articles together will be the opening of a new era of discourse on naval strategy. If so, one of the topics sure to be debated will be
*See J. Erickson, "The Soviet Naval High Command, Proceedings, Natal Review Issue, May 1973, pp. 66-87.
Comment and Discussion 99
the relevance of Alfred Thayer Mahan.
Rear Admiral Miller alludes to Mahan in his closing remarks. He urges today’s strategists to study Gorshkov’s writings as diligently as European statesmen studied Mahan in the years prior to World War I. If this parallel between the contemporary Soviet naval officer and the almost legendary American naval theorist accurately forecasts Gorshkov’s final niche in history, the Russian should welcome Admiral Miller’s comparison. But a great deal more can be said about Gorshkov and Mahan at the very outset of the appearance of the English translation of "Navies in War and in Peace.”
As every student of naval history knows, Mahan’s seminal book was The Influence of Sea Power upon History, first published in 1890. In it, he advanced certain precepts from which he rarely deviated during the 20-odd years of prolific writing that followed. His thesis was that the study of history, and especially the interpretation of English history, revealed immutable principles which determine every nation’s power on the high seas. Naval and maritime strength, in turn, measure a country’s greatness in relation to other nations.
In stark summary, the six principles which ultimately control the success of statesmen in increasing their nations’ seapower are: (1) geographical position, (2) physical conformation, (3) extent of territory, (4) size of population,
(5) character of the people, and
(6) character of the government. The manifestations of seapower, as molded by those six determinants and the statesmen’s manipulation of them, fall into two categories. First, the navy emerges as defender of the nation and protector of its commerce. Secondly, the commercial marine becomes a naval reserve, source of prosperity, and partial index of national greatness. So wrote Mahan.
The striking facet of Gorshkov’s first essay is the way in which he has imbibed Mahanian principles and, to some extent, transformed them into Marxian dogma. According to Gorshkov, geography determines all national policy:
Marxism considers the geographic environment, which also influences the character and development of armed forces, to be one of the constant and
invariable conditions in the development of human society. Among the many elements embraced by the concept of the geographical environment and affecting the development of mankind, and, consequently, also of the armed forces of states, are the seas and oceans.
Mahan’s focus was somewhat narrower. He emphasized naval and maritime power to the exclusion of broad socio-economic concepts such as "human society” and the "development of mankind.” That caveat having been made, however, Mahan’s conception of geographic factors clearly anticipated Gorshkov’s formulation. Under the heading of geographical position, Mahan wrote:
It may be pointed out, in the first place, that if a nation be so situated that it is neither forced to defend itself by land nor induced to seek extension of its territory by way of land, it has, by the very unity of its aim directed upon the sea, an advantage as compared with a people one of whose boundaries is continental.
Gorshkov alludes to other Mahanian principles in the course of his article, perhaps most notably "highly important factors [such] as the social and political systems, the social composition of the people” and the "character of the leaders of the fighting men.” But Gorshkov is even more of a Mahanian than these pragmatic adaptations of the American strategist’s "natural conditions” would suggest. He also adopts several of Mahan’s ideas regarding the purely naval questions of strategy and tactics.
Mahan insisted that a navy’s primary objective in warfare is destruction of the enemy’s force. In 1890 this view was heretical. American naval strategy at that time consisted largely of commerce-raiding and coastal defense. By 1900, American naval strategists had been won over to Mahan’s viewpoint, and apparently Soviet leaders are following suit today. Gorshkov concisely defines the strategic objective of naval warfare as ". . . the defeat of the enemy and the destruction of his vital forces and material (i.e., his ships with their crews and weapons stores, and weapons or shore objectives located within range).” The Soviets intend to attain these wartime naval goals by means of concentration of force, a favorite Mahanian strategic technique. Admiral
Gorshkov praises navies for ", . . their high degree of maneuverability, and ability to concentrate secretly and to form powerful groupings which are of surprise to the enemy.”
Gorshkov is not concerned only with war. Like Mahan, he sees naval power as one constituent element of a more comprehensive scheme of seapower, the total of which measures national greatness. He also uses the Mahanian didactic device of drawing lessons from history. As a preface to a detailed discussion of naval history through the battle of Trafalgar, Gorshkov generalizes:
In tracing the direct dependence of mankind on the World Ocean over the entire course of its centuries of history, it is impossible not to note how the ability of peoples to learn to appreciate the ocean, and to use it for their own needs, directly affects the growth of the political prestige of the country and its economic and military power.
The similarities between Mahan and Gorshkov are therefore numerous, but there are important differences as well. For example, Gorshkov stresses the scientific value of oceanographic research done by the navies of maritime powers. Here he diverges from Mahan, who had little appreciation of navies as instruments of science. This divergence may well reflect the epochal changes that have taken place since Mahan wrote. Indeed, there is now a real question of the relevance of Mahan to contemporary naval strategy, as Commander James A. Barber, U. S. Navy, pointed out in a most intelligent essay, "Mahan and Naval Strategy in the Nuclear Age,” published in the Naval War College Review in March 1972.
Barber accepts the continued validity of Mahan’s ". . . fundamental concept of command of the sea . . .” and the importance of concentration of force. But he also notes certain obsolete and misleading features of Mahanian thought. One of these is Mahan’s curt dismissal of commerce-raiding. The emphasis upon fleet engagements, which formed the basis for much planning before World War I, proved largely misplaced. In that war, as in World War II, destruction of the enemy’s commerce proved at least as important to the outcome as battles between capital ships.
Barber also notes that the entire in- tellectual foundation of Mahanian thought is mercantilism. That body of theory was popular in the western world in the 17th and 18th centuries. It enjoyed a brief and intense revival in the late Victorian years, precisely the time Mahan was writing. Mercantilism contends that colonies are economically beneficial, perhaps even essential, to the economic prosperity of manufacturing nations which by their very nature require constantly expanding sources of raw materials and markets for their industrial plants. As Barber notes, ". . . most economists now dismiss mercantilist theory as both obsolete and seriously defective.” Yet, this was the theory undergirding the historical eras Mahan studied in his search for immutable principles.
Gorshkov’s focus in the first essay is on precisely the period treated most extensively by Mahan, the 16th through the early 19th century. Thus, the analytical technique of the two naval theorists is similar, and the historical periods of interest are the same. Indeed, both
writers see a single battle, Trafalgar, as one of the best examples of the principles they espouse.
Whether Gorshkov is consciously duplicating Mahan is a question impossible to answer. But the duplication serves to illustrate several points. First, Mahan has achieved a renewed relevance by being so clearly incorporated into Soviet naval theory. Secondly, whether the process was conscious or not, the adoption of Mahanian ideas by the Soviet naval leadership marks the maturation of Soviet naval theory. Gorshkov now views the oceans and his navy as Americans have viewed the high seas and their navy for three quarters of a century'. Finally, and more speculatively, given the limitations of Mahanian—or Gorshkovian—technique as explained, perhaps it is time to subject the foundations of American naval strategy to a searching reexamination. The methodology of such a reappraisal would be quite simple: scrutinize Mahan as a creature of his times and inquire about the entire concept of immutable and unchanging principles. The result might
well be a naval strategy for the nuclear age, rather than one more refurbishing of one man’s late 19th century intellectual construct.
"Full Systems at Launch”
(Sa D. P. March, pp. 34-41, January 1974
Proceedings)
Captain William Mohlenhoff, U. S. Naty, Former Assistant Chief of Staff for Material Readiness, Commander, Task Force 77—Before detailing my criticism of the article by Lieutenant Commander March, it should be said that it was well written, the concepts sound, and the general message conveyed one which needed to be stated. Unfortunately, the author left the impression that Commander, Task Force 77 (CTF-77) had little or no role in establishing the "full systems” program. In fact, the concepts were formulated before the USS Enterprise and Commander, Attack Carrier Air Wing (cvw) 14 reported to CTF-77. It was at the "in-chop” briefing prior to CTF-77 operations that this policy was provided
This classic, although surveying at some length the fleets of the significant maritime powers of the day, is primarily concerned with a detailed evaluation of the strength, performance, and administration of the British and French navies, while drawing attention to the threat posed by the latter. This reprint of the 1859 edition makes available a work of great interest to the student of nineteenth century naval history.
Chapters include: “Of Steam and the Screw-Propeller,” “On Manning the Navy," "Naval Tactics and Gunnery, and Modern Improvements in Artillery," while appendices include a classified statement of the ships composing the French Navy, a table showing the expenditures in England and France on the pay, victualling, and clothing of seamen, marines, etc., and an abstract of the existing laws relating to the Volunteer Corps.
Republished 1974. 439 Pages. Illustrated.
Extensive appendices.
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Comment and Discussion 101
to the ship and the air wing. The CTF-77 briefings and, later, the basic operations orders, reflected this policy for all carriers operating under the command.
While credit cannot be given to the Enterprise/CVW-14 team for originating the full systems policy, credit is certainly due the ship/air wing team for the way they turned to, made the policy their own, and carried it out to full beneficial effect. In fact, this ship was the only one to fully achieve the desired result. They were aided in this because great operational demands were not placed on this ship/wing until later in the deployment.
Lieutenant Commander March further recommends less reporting and combination of reports, but doesn’t say how one accomplishes this and still achieves satisfactory communication of Fleet operating problems to supporting commands.
"Full-systems” management can only be adequately achieved with emphasis at top levels of command, relayed down through the echelons to the individual technicians and administrators doing the maintenance work and filling out the
maintenance and operating reports. These reports are the feedback information that any control system, including a management control system, needs to function. It is agreed that the reporting requirements could be better conceived, but constructive recommendations are needed.
"100th Anniversary Issue of the Proceedings”
(See October 1973 Proceedings)
Editor’s Note: Professor Russell is the author of ",Seventy-five Years of Progressive Naval Thinking,” which was the lead article in the October 1948 Proceedings, commemorating the Diamond Jubilee of the U. S. Naval Institute.
Professor William H. Russell, History Department, U. S. Naval Academy (Retired)—The Centennial Issue delighted me in so many ways, that I must share its pleasure. Yet, it provoked also a conflict between nostalgic enthusiasm
and future concern, which fixes me in a nice dilemma. In personal terms, the Anniversary Issue emphasized that dilemma by marking two eras: the Institute’s first 100 years; as well as the first 25 years of Proceedings service to me. Running my mind’s eye back through those 300 magazines evoked two vistas, one of them retrospective, the other prospective. In retrospect, I must applaud the men whose thought helped all of us prepare for the changing, changes that characterize our immediate past. But in prospect, I’m frightened that the past 25 years produced relatively few landmark articles, and that those few had about as much contemporary impact as a feather falling into mercury. Hence, a nagging question: does the Proceedings’ forum generate the kinetic energy required for overcoming our Navy’s institutional inertia? After considering the evidence, retrospective, as well as prospective, my answer remains equivocal—and (therefore) hopeful.
Appropriately you chose the third Roy C. Smith, and the only Neville T. Kirk, to revisit Proceedings—past. Cap-
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THE. SLIDE: RULE
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For either, Slide Rule for the Mariner, written for the non-mathematician, is an invaluable aid to the navigator and ship handler.
For offshore use, all the formulae for celestial navigation and great circle sailing are collected together in a few pages; by means of these formulae and a slide rule or calculator, sights may be reduced more rapidly than by using most tables. Long-Term Sun and Star Almanacs are included for emergency use.
Formulae for position fixing in pilot waters are also included, as well as for converting from U. S. to metric measures, for calculating propeller slip, fuel consumption, rigging loads, variation in draft when heeled, etc. Brief reviews of plane and spherical trigonometry are also included. 191 Pages. Illustrated.
Slide Rule for the Mariner
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tain Smith’s personal credentials complement his fourth-generation and birthright membership in our Institute. He built well on solid, centennial preparation by Professor H. O. Werner and Rear Admiral Bruce McCandless. The pictures in his text attest to the reservoir of visual evidence that will put a myriad of historians in our Institute’s debt. Your recognizing Professor Kirk reinforces the judgments of those numerous midshipmen grateful for his moving them to read—not a gloss about our dear, Old Navy, but rather the living record made by men whose professional experience shaped it. Perhaps it takes a scholar, who once worked his transatlantic passage on a square-rigger, and who troubled himself to penetrate the technological mysteries of the combat ship, to convince even a space-age sailor that if he isn’t a "gunner” he shouldn’t be there.
Yet, the whole Anniversary Issue tempered my nostalgic euphoria by reaffirming that no-sayers, plus the-future- is-now-men, greatly outnumber those who realize that it takes 30 years of
forward-looking preparation to grow a competent, wartime leader. For every foresighted article by Ensign W. L. Rodgers, the 19th-century Proceedings reveals far too many officers who called the ram their Navy’s best hope. In the same context, K-read establishmentarian dissent in 1888 against Lieutenant D. H. Mahan’s foreshadowing of the FMF in his "Three Considered as a Tactical Unit.” Or review Philip R. Alger’s delicate implication (in 1899) that an internal explosion sank the USS Maine. Or ask how many took heed during World War I, when Marine Corps supply officers echoed A. T. Mahan’s 1911-call for sea-based, amphibious logistics, and when a naval constructor advocated fortifying Guam. Two decades later, an essentia] minority must have reacted to commentary on the carrier’s true role (for example, see Forrest P. Sherman’s article in the early 1930s). For otherwise, we could not (between 15)43 and 1945) have projected sea-based, carrier-centered, amphibious task forces all the way to the Asian continent. Indeed, our Pacific wars of 1941 to 1945
and 1950 to 1953 attest that Proceedings-^^ sometimes taught better than the majority of its readers knew—a fact that makes the Anniversary Issue sound a mite modest.
Right now, that praiseworthy century of service importunes me less than does concern for Proceedings-future. What about that fellow who will edit the Anniversary Issue in 1S>98? Will he continue to emphasize the great-achievement. years from 1873 to 1923? Or can he focus constructively on the Proceedings contributing technological maturity in the years 1973 to 1S>98? An experience I’m enjoying, may shed light on these questions, if you will indulge me three more paragraphs.
Optical Properties
of the Sea
Although this book presents the physics of light and color using mathematical models, the nonphysicist and the nonmathematician will readily understand the technical and scientific explanations of underwater transparency and visibility and the optical data of suspensoids. A theory of optics is developed into a mathematical model, while at the same time the general knowledge of optics is applied to the real world’s sight under the sea. This book explains the optical aspects of the marine environment to both the layman and the professional.
Topics covered are the electromagnetic spectrum, radiation laws, solar radiation, radiometry and photometry, the effect of the hydrosphere on light (reflectance, absorption, scattering, extinction.
by Jerome Williams
attenuation, and beam transmittance), the mathematical model for suspended particulate matter, the visual threshold of the eye, the Secchi disc, viewing submerged objects from above and beneath the surface, forecasting water clarity and turbidity, and an analysis and critique of the more popular optical instruments.
112 pages. Illustrated
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During the Academic years 1970 to 1973 a group of Naval Academy midshipmen (about 125 in all) exposed themselves to the most traditional of our Navy’s shore-based, officer-training exercises; that is, a "game-board” problem. They focused a semester-study of "Scapower” toward a scenario, which posited a sea-based, "small-war” projection of seapower up some distant estu-
Comment and Discussion 103
ary, about five years from "now.” For some 13 weeks, their course ran conventionally, except that they invited a veteran of each post-1942 operation (which they studied) to discuss it with them. During the semester’s final weeks, they studied directly the sea-base problem (often with contemporary specialists), and wrote their individual solutions as a final examination. Reviewing the bibliographic commentary (which that exercise produced), throws some light upon the role of Proceedings-futmt. They drew heavily upon each issue of the Naval Review, as well as upon Rear Admiral John D. Hayes’ prize essay. They made good use of Charles DiBona’s article about modernizing our shipbuilding. And they used well a scattering of effectively-detailed riverine narratives. They used few oral-history transcriptions, because logistical limitations have prevented that Naval Institute project from moving very far into the 1960s or 1970s; but their ample use of eye-witness veterans attests to the need for expanding it. The kinds of veteran- testimony now available emphasizes that point. In general, the 1942 to 1945 and 1950 to 1953 Pacific veterans offered evidence adaptable to a sea-based operation projected for 1975 to 1985. However, much eye-witness evidence from veterans of the 1960s disparaged any sea-based effort (many midshipmen heard, "But you can’t do that! Now here’s how we did it!”). The few midshipmen who interviewed enough veterans (across the whole span from 1942 through 1972) found the negative evidence a useful temperer of impetuous enthusiasm. Hence, my conclusion about the prospective need for a full oral record among young and middle-grade, as well as from older, officers.
In more general terms, this experience with oral evidence suggests a new context for the Proceedings’ next 25 years. Instead of veterans of a recent, innovative, and successful war (as was the case in 1873), today’s Proceedings depends upon veterans of a recent frustrating war whose purely naval aspects resembled the 1914 to 1918 war far more than they did Pacific operations during the 1940s and 1950s. By way of analogy, what would have been our Navy’s situation in 1898 if, for a generation, its officers had to look to 1846 to 1848 for their
best examples of operational employment, and overcome the effects of continental-oriented naval operations throughout the 1860s (suppose, for example, that in 1862, U. S. naval forces had dominated the Mississippi as far as St. Louis, but in 1870 had to fight their way even as far as Baton Rouge)?
It sounds exciting doesn’t it? I envy those Proceedings people who face that challenge. I look forward to reading the same sort of frankly innovative articles that embellish the Proceedings-1873 to 1898. And I hope we generate even more of them. The officers who must lead our 1998 Navy deserve nothing less.
Pleasure Boats and Oil Spills
John Warren Giles, Member of the Bar of New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.—If you are the owner of a private pleasure boat and it is damaged by an oil spill, can you recover from the oil company or its insurers? Two owners of private pleasure boats which sustained physical damage from contact with an oil slick brought an action against the Union Oil Company of California and other oil companies and their insurers, seeking to recover not only for such physical damage, but also for loss of navigation rights in the channel and in the harbor.
Large amounts of crude oil had escaped from the ocean floor underneath and near Platform "A” on the outer continental shelf of the United States in the Santa Barbara Channel. Escaping oil floated to the surface of the ocean and was carried by wind and tide until it virtually permeated the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel and Harbor. Trial was held on behalf of the owners whose pleasure boats had been damaged and rendered unusable for a period of time as the result of the spill. The special master concluded that federal maritime law was applicable to the plaintiffs’ claim and thereunder loss of use of a private pleasure craft was not a compensable item of damage.
On appeal, the Court held that plantiffs’ claim for property damage to their vessels and for interference with their right of navigation was a maritime tort cognizable by an admiralty court, but under federal maritime law loss of
use of a private pleasure boat is not a compensable item of damages. Therefore, no cause of action sounding in tort can be maintained when the alleged injury is interference with the plaintiff’s use of their boats in the Santa Barbara Channel. The court said that there is no right under California law to recover for damage to the navigational rights enjoyed by these plaintiffs. The court also said that interference with the public’s right of navigation in the navigable waters of California is a public nuisance, but a civil action for damages arising out of a public nuisance cannot be brought by a private litigant unless he has been specially injured.
In order to succeed, a plaintiff must be able to show special injury to himself, in person or property, of a character different in kind from that suffered by the general public. Here, the damages suffered by the plaintiffs on account of their loss of navigation rights in the Santa Barbara Channel were no different in kind from those suffered by the public generally. The Court concluded by saying that the plaintiffs were deprived of no more than their "occasional Sunday piscatorial pleasure.” For this deprivation there is no recovery either under California law or general maritime law. This case was the Oppen v. Aetna Insurance Co., 485 Fed. 2nd 252.
"Graduate Education—
The Continuing Imperative”
(See M. Freeman, pp. 56-60, September; and pp. 87-88, December 1973; and pp. 85-86, January 1974 Proceedings)
Captain George L. Dickey, U. S. Naiy— Why should the Navy have a battery of technically-educated and qualified officers? For openers, we have a large annual Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) budget of $2.73 billion in FY-74, $3.34 billion in FY-75; clearly big business. Though ably assisted by a dedicated group of Civil Servants, uniformed officers are in charge and have the responsibility for managing the RDT&E programs. Navy officers in joint programs and in Office of the Director, Defense Research and Development (ODDR&E) exert further influence on the total DoD budget of over $8-billion for RDT&E. It follows that we should
be able to exercise good technical judgment in the weapon systems acquisition process. If one accepts the idea that we need such people in uniform and considers available methods of obtaining officers, it becomes clear that we had better provide much of the needed education.
The schooling must be oriented more toward technical management and decision making than production of practicing engineers and scientists. It must first teach an aspirant to communicate with his civilian and military, government and industrial colleagues in the appropriate technical field, be he preparing to be a project officer, ramrodding contractor R&D efforts or an OpNav action officer helping to determine formalized weapon systems requirements. As for understanding the technical area of responsibility, there is nothing quite so sad to watch as a technically insecure military officer with R&D decisionmaking responsibilities (i.e., control of R&D money), under assault by an executive vice president of a large industrial contractor, backed by a couple of smart PhDs and a hot-shot marketing man.
The discussion could now lead to the relative merits of specialists (e.g., engineering duty officers) and line officer sub-specialists. I think we need both, and our system produces them.
A few other reasons for opening the minds of young officers to science and technology merit attention.
► Today’s hot-shot, young officer can become tomorrow’s old fud, resisting change and basing important decisions on "that’s how we’ve always done it,” or, he can grow into a mature and wise decision-maker, balancing the need for innovative progress for the future with proven performance of what we have already. By instilling scientific curiosity, appreciation of what technological advances can and cannot do, use of the "scientific method in analysis” and other mind-expanding factors, we may ensure a continuing body of senior officers who "think modern” and act accordingly. It can start with educating our smart, zealous, young officers so that they can grow technically, while they are furthering their conventional careers and managerial expertise.
► Laboratory and teaching assignments. Not to be overlooked is the need for
some officers qualified to take on these jobs.
► Management of applied research and exploratory and advanced development activities. I single out preparation for this type of assignment because a lot of the work itself is in developing new, advanced technology; schools do not, in a lot of cases, have courses covering the endeavors involved. Therefore, one needs a broad-based education from which to enter into the specialized fields. Furthermore, the education needs to be exploratory and scientific rather than of a practical engineering nature. We must have a few managers who will accept a statement made by Arthur C. Clarke, noted scientist and writer: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
► Filling slots with the other Services in joint activities. I know of three occasions in the mid-1960s in which the Navy lost influential slots in ODDR&E and its Advanced Research Projects Agency because it would not or could not supply technically qualified officers.
► Career Motivation. I find that a lot of young people want the opportunity to advance their knowledge, perhaps specialize in a particular field and maintain intellectual growth.
What is the best system for graduate education? I contend that a mix of Naval Postgraduate School and civilian- university graduates is optimum. First, we determine the need, e.g., the graduate school product we want. We have a good plant already, so if the PG School can supply it with little added change in resources, it should get first try. If a university can do a better job for the money, or is clearly superior, it should be used. The Navy has used this system for a while and it works. The Naval Postgraduate School is the only practical place for some curricula, as there simply is none other. In other cases, a university will not tailor an inter-disciplinary curriculum which leads to the very important Masters or Doctorate, or the university requirements entail too many irrelevant courses. We might recall that the universities and colleges have gotten a lot of criticism in recent years because of inflexibility, outmoded degree requirements, and such.
The Air Force has an in-house educational facility similar to ours. It is the
Residence School of the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), Wright- Patterson Air Force Base. Its antecedents date back almost to World War I, though the present school started in 1946, with the Army Air Force. I presently work with a number of graduates who hold advanced degrees from AFIT. They are good.
Having attended the Naval Postgraduate School and a leading university, and with youngsters presently in colleges or not long graduated, I will make some comparisons as a non-statistically- significant sample of one. My education periods commenced 21 and 15 years ago, respectively, perhaps reducing the credibility of my observations a bit more. It would be interesting to know if the conditions described still obtain.
► Quite naturally, the self-discipline demonstrated by teachers and students at PG School was superior. The lack thereof deterred learning at the civilian institution, in my opinion. I point out that students and others at my university burned down the ROTC building a few years later and forced the ROTC off the campus.
► The PG School profs were, for the most part, better and more dedicated to classroom performance. They were teachers first and researchers second. The PG School faculty seemed to recognize that they had a product to turn out.
► My PG School curriculum was carefully tailored to predicted needs. Currently, in my fourth sub-specialty duty ashore, I have used knowledge gained at Monterey far more than that from the university. However, the snob value of an advanced degree from that university has been quite valuable.
► Nevertheless, I chafed a bit at the rigidity of the PG School curriculum. There were no choices in profs or courses.
► The graduate level courses in the university were, in many cases, more advanced. Several PG School courses with the same labels were no more than adequate prerequisites for the later ones. They really needed to be deeper.
► Mathematics courses were a problem in the university, as they were not tailored to the needs of my department. Two weeks of instruction in each of several methods of solving certain types of problems would have been just right.
Comment and Discussion 105
Instead, one had to take a full quarter in each. Result—a lot of self-taught higher mathematics or much unneeded formal classtime.
► This particular university was geared to produce a physics PhD, five or six years after baccalaureate, except for geniuses. This was much too long.
► The association with graduate students in the university was both interesting and rewarding, even at my relatively advanced age. On the other hand, my PG School classes with a more mature group, all with operational experience and a good sense of responsibility, was equally beneficial. Any class with students from various sections of the country, different undergraduate backgrounds, and a variety of duty or work experiences, should be good.
► I haven’t found much use for my advanced education on board ship, regardless of the origin. Ashore, it has been essential.
► At the university, I objected to having 60 or, in one case, 100, students in a difficult, advanced, graduate-level course in math or physics. There is little ques
tion that the small PG School sections were superior.
► To my dismay, there was, in general, more personal contact with the PG School faculty members than with the university profs.
Having displayed my biases, I will add some recommendations:
(1)Increase the output of officers with advanced degrees, with plenty of emphasis on future weapons needs and the technology advances possible. (A few years ago, the Navy was a poor third in the number of officers with advanced degrees, within the three Services.)
(2) Consider a program to update a technically-educated officer a few years later. Technology is advancing very fast, and five years makes .a tremendous difference.
(3) Commence now to give every officer a modest education in a few very necessary fields. As of today, a rudimentary knowledge of electronics, computer sciences, space science, and weather are almost a necessity. There may be others.
(4)Offer added inducements to recruit more young people who have
completed some graduate work on their own, or who are in the process and would like to commit to the Navy and gain immediate specialist or subspecialist standing.
Rear Admiral Mason Freeman, U. S. Navy—I have visited the Air Force Institute of Technology, and the Naval Postgraduate School maintains contact with our sister institution. I concur with Captain Dickey that it turns out good graduates. My qualifying adjectives, "sustained, historically maintained” in-house capabilities and the use of the plural in the word "skills” were intended to indicate the singular nature of the Naval PG School. In this connection, the Air Force, unlike the Navy, relies mainly upon civilian institutions for advanced education.
The issue of "the snob value” of an advanced degree from a prestigious university has frequently arisen. It cannot be denied, even though it may often be overestimated in the eye of the holder. Lacking full information, some seg-
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ments of our naval community have failed to show an awareness of the current PG School quality. The prestige value of the Naval Postgraduate School degree has increased significantly since the 1950s, and in some areas is as prestigious as any.
Captain Dickey speaks to the "rigidity” of the Postgraduate School curriculum. There will always be some students who feel that pedagogic constraints are greater than necessary. There has been a considerable broadening in curricula options and electives since the Captain’s day. To some degree, the flexibility available is controlled by resources, and in a day of tightening budgets one may expect to see a decline in student options.
Captain Dickey’s observation that graduate-level courses in the civilian universities were, in many cases, more advanced reflects the 1950 Naval Postgraduate School approach to its task of preparing students in many curricula for further work at other institutions. Today, courses are indeed deeper since the PG School is now turning out the finished graduate.
The only really unsettling words in the Captain’s comments were the ones, "I haven’t found much use for my advanced education onboard ship.” Again, this is a natural and widely held view of those with advanced education who don’t find continuing research in shipboard duties. Nonetheless, it is a rather purist expression, which discounts much of the individual’s ability to perform better in a task and to understand his environment with a great deal more perception with his education than he would have without it. This is an ability which grows in importance in the increasingly technologically-complex U. S. Navy of today.
Although Captain Dickey answers some of Lieutenant Hura’s comments in the December Proceedings, I would also
like to give my views on three matters he raises. The first is the broadening aspect of attendance at civilian universities, and I would only add that it is rare to find a composite naval community including air, surface, and submarine in a common study environment and, when you add to that, naval experience from some 25 foreign countries, the U. S. Army, the U. S. Marine Corps, and the U. S. Air Force, the balance swings toward the Naval Postgraduate School for broadening.
With regard to entrance qualifications, Lieutenant Hura rightly says "we should begin to worry about the caliber of our officer undergraduate programs.” He wrongly concludes, however, that "it appears counter-productive to provide graduate education to individuals who are incapable of good performance as undergraduates.” The Navy, at any given time, has a span of some 30 year- groups from ensign to captain, and to attain a Navy with a higher caliber of officer undergraduate backgrounds would require decades. Furthermore, a close analysis would show that 40-to- 45% of every year group are wartime volunteers, who have a wide variety of educational backgrounds and who have served the Navy well in a combat environment. It is not likely that this historical composition will change. In addition, experience has shown, in many areas, that with maturity and motivation, ordinary undergraduate performance can be converted to high graduate school performance. The fact that civilian universities do not feel obligated to make this conversion is no reason for the Navy to neglect some of its finest officers.
Finally, and perhaps the most difficult area of contention, is Lieutenant Hura’s desire to be convinced with statistical figures about costs. He quotes educational costs per quarter as ranging from $400 to $900. I do not know what he
includes in the words "educational costs.” The latest hew reports show that, nationwide, tuition in an institution is only 21% of the cost of education. The remaining 79% is heavily subsidized by state and federal funds, and thus eventually by the taxpayer. This might reduce the Navy budget line, but it does not reflect the cost of education to the taxpayer. The subject is far deeper than this particular statistic I have quoted, and effectiveness must also be weighed along with dollar statistics. Much of the educational dilemma in the Navy today stems from a philosophic view that the objective in education is to obtain a degree without regard to the value of the knowledge content behind the degree. The Navy needs to ensure that its objective is to attain the best possible professional development for each officer. Where formal educational processes can assist in attaining this objective, they should be employed to ensure maximum gain in advanced instruction. Any degrees that stem from this process are highly desirable credentials, and from this standpoint, i.e., credentials, degrees should certainly be encouraged.
A comparison of examples, such as Lieutenant Hura’s UCLA "educational costs” and my (Defense) operations analysis examples in the original article, will not suffice to resolve skepticism on this issue. The PG School is again engaged in extensive study to reexamine its past figures which show that the direct cost of education at the PG School is in the mid-range of all institutions in the country. When my judgment as to effectiveness is added, I do not believe it is irresponsible to reiterate my statement in the original article, that other educational processes are more expensive (in terms of total resource requirement) in the process of educating than the Naval Postgraduate School, and are less likely to fulfill the needs of the Navy.