"Despite the remarkable developments in military technology, despite the weapons and machines which have vastly expanded our striking power, it is still a basic truth that the only absolute weapon is man. Upon his determination, his stamina, and his skill, rests the issue of victory or defeat in war."
GENERAL MATTHEW R. RIDGWAY, U. S. Army
TIME Magazine in an October, 1953, article entitled "The Great Man Hunt" reached a conclusion of some significance to naval officers as well as to business men. In summary the article states, "The trend in business is away from seeking specialists—except for specialized jobs—but to go after the men with wide, overall interests, especially those who have demonstrated qualities of leadership and ability to get along with people."
While it is true that Time Magazine was speaking primarily of American industry, this statement applies equally well to the U. S. Navy, one of the nation's three largest "businesses." Until the late 1930's, the Navy generally acknowledged that command was to be exercised by those officers prepared for it by successful service in a broad range of duties including, but not limited to, submarines and aviation. Fleet and Force command was exercised by any officer judged to be qualified to command, and those flag officers lacking previous, formal aviation qualifications were frequently given a shortened qualification flight course before being ordered to command. Such bold and drastic steps were taken to assure that officers were trained to command all types.
World War II produced in a five-year period a technical advance in weapons and the art of naval warfare that might have taken fifty years to produce under peacetime conditions, and the postwar surge of scientific research, spurred forward by Navy-sponsored basic research, produced even greater advancements. It is not unnatural, then, that an uneasy feeling should develop in the Navy. These technical advances might soon become so far-reaching that command in the Navy would become the function of a committee, or group, of experts. Because of the technical complexities of his specialty, each expert would only be able to command a portion of the whole naval structure. The Navy has rejected this concept of command. The rejection is easy, because the basic error in the concept is easy to perceive, but a more insidious and less perceptible error still remains. It is the concept that, although command by technical specialists is wrong, command by naval officers specializing in aviation, or submarines, or guided missiles is right, and that an officer not specializing in one of these fields does not have the necessary background to exercise broad command. This is the real problem—a problem that needs a firm solution in the near future.
THE PROBLEM: SPECIALIZATION VS. NON-SPECIALIZATION
For purposes of discussion the present problem is considered to be the decision facing an officer of remaining a line officer not specifically qualified in aviation or submarines or becoming a specialist by virtue of qualification in aviation or submarines. While there is certainly a potent argument that the line officer qualified in aviation (and to a lesser extent submarines) is really the true line officer and the non-aviator is the specialist, for purposes of this discussion the aviator and submariner will be considered specialists. An officer who has completed two or more years of postgraduate work in a technical specialty is considered a specialist also, but of a different category.
An examination of the recent history of specialization and its changing trends should be of continuing and vital interest to all segments of the Navy's officer corps, from the young officer seeking guidance at the start of his career, through the officer in mid-career attempting to assay the value of his committed position, and to the older officer on the policy making and advisory level who seeks to advise younger officers.
The young officer of today in his first tour at sea finds himself beset with much conflicting advice. He finds doubt about the age-seasoned reasoning that a naval officer's primary function is to command at sea and that qualification to command should imply the ability to command any and all naval weapons. He soon reaches the conclusion that this generalization of command policy is desirable and that it is at least the stated command policy of our Navy. In actual practice, however, he finds that, if he does not become a qualified submariner or an aviator, he will never regularly command units containing submarines and aircraft until he has reached the level of an Amphibious Group or a Fleet Commander. If he does qualify as an aviator or a submariner, however, he can at least command two of the three basic naval types in the grades of commander and captain. As an aviator, he can expect command of an aviation unit and of an aircraft carrier, and as a submariner he can, if he chooses, command a submarine and either a destroyer or an auxiliary. In his second and third cruises at sea, the young officer reaches his second time of decision. He must decide whether or not to request postgraduate training. If he still believes in the eventual re-emergence of the theory of command, he will probably desire to avoid specialization in postgraduate work on the theory that he is a "weaponeer," a skilled user of any and all weapons, and that three years away from the study of the full scope of his art is not to his best advantage. On the other side of the argument, he sees the growing trend of the practice of giving command of ships embodying new weapons and new propulsion systems to so-called specialists.
The next broad category, officers in midcareer attempting to evaluate the position to which they have already committed themselves by virtue of their previous selection of a specialist or a non-specialist oriented career, is a particularly vital one, because officers in the executive officer and command brackets exert tremendous influence on younger officers of the first category. An officer in the grade of commander finds that his position is committed. He can no longer request postgraduate instruction, nor can he request command duty involving more than one type of ship unless he has already qualified in aviation or submarines. He faces ten to twenty more years of his career during which radical technological changes can be expected, yet he can only go along with the tide, hoping that the theory of command will eventually emerge triumphant, but vaguely suspicious that it may not do so in time to save him. His only defense is the acquisition of some minor specialty open to the general line officer which he can use upon retirement. If he remains true to the theory of command, at this point in his career he will have realized that he must leave behind the actual practice of the art of going to sea and must enter the broader command fields of political science, strategic planning, and international relations. If he accepts this change and applies himself vigorously, he will successfully cross the doldrum period of the non-specialist and enter an equally successful second phase of his career, but one which still does not hold out much hope for the eventual exercise of broad command, under present policy.
The third broad category of naval officers is the captain or admiral who has reached the final stage of his career with no further choice in the matter of specialization, but with the important obligation of advising younger officers on the subject. His advice must necessarily be compounded of equal parts of past experience, assessment of stated and actual policy, and prediction of future technological trends. It is to this group, which exerts so much influence on junior officers, that our young officers must look. This group alone can set future command policy and assure or deny the basic theory of command.
Before further discussion of this vital naval problem, an examination of the analogous problem in the field of business offers a fertile field for comparison and contrast.
SPECIALIZATION VS. NON-SPECIALIZATION IN BUSINESS
During the period from 1910 to 1950 this country made tremendous technical strides in the engineering and manufacturing fields. The college educational system geared itself to the demands of industry and business, and therefore the requirements generated were largely for specialists—research experts in various engineering fields, sales experts, manufacturing experts, and cost accounting experts. The need for such experts was dictated by the technological breakthroughs demanded by the increasing competition of business. Changes in technology meant a different and better product, and success in business generally flowed from the sale of the newer product. About 1950 radical technological breakthroughs in business began to assume less importance, and success in industry began to stem instead from efficient management. As Time Magazine described the situation in the article previously referred to: "Seldom has there been a greater opportunity for able men . . . the chief reason is that industry, which has just doubled in size during the great boom, needs far more bosses than it has had time to train. . . . Most big corporations have long believed that the best way to obtain executives is to take the most promising men from the work bench or college and to set up a systematic program to turn the brightest of them into bosses. These men are shifted from department to department to get the broadest possible view of the entire operation and to keep from getting into the rut that is frequently the penalty of overspecialization. . . . Industry is discovering that the men who can run one company can run another one making an entirely different product, because qualities required for most top jobs are virtually identical—the ability to judge and pick men, to adjust easily to change, to make sound decisions quickly and frankly." This, then, is industry, discovering that specialization is not necessary for executive ability, but is rather to be avoided. The fields of education and personnel management have been quick to perceive this change and to tailor education and personnel procurement to the needs of the business world. Mr. Herryman Maurer, in an excellent study of this problem published in Fortune Magazine in April, 1956, entitled "The Worst Shortage in Business," describes the problem as follows: "Big recruiters clamor for the well-rounded specialist whom a college just can turn out in four years. There is similar demand for the man who is equally adept at getting specific jobs done and creating good group morale. The man who combines personal initiative with ability to adapt to the group. There are recruiters who believe that a Big Man on the Campus necessarily combines both ability to get things done and group adaptability." From the same article comes this prophetic statement made by Clarence Randall, Chairman of Inland Steel—"For the perpetuation of management in corporate life we require trained men in the creative and imaginative qualities that come from a general education. We want, first of all, a man who has demonstrated that he can master any subject. And above all, we require a man who has the intellectual courage to tackle something for which he was not trained. Past emphasis on specialization has actually made it necessary for many companies to send technical men back to school at one of the many universities that provide refresher courses in the liberal arts and general business before trusting them with important management responsibilities."
These are not isolated cases. Many companies hire naval officers as executives for the specific reason that they are proven executives. A large California banking chain has stopped hiring young college graduates exclusively and now procures ex-naval officers between the ages of 30 and 40 because its management has decided that it can teach a service-proven executive banking, but it cannot necessarily teach a banking expert to be an executive. So runs the specialist versus non-specialist analogy in business. Many of the problems have a familiar ring, and with but few changes of words the solutions to these business problems might well be the solutions to similar naval problems.
STEPS REQUIRED TO ASSERT THE IMPORTANCE OF THE COMMAND FUNCTION IN THE NAVY
Today the Navy itself must examine the problem of career guidance and particularly the choice of specialization versus non-specialization. The career span that lies ahead of the young ensign entering the service next summer is fantastic in its possibilities. No one can say with certainty what specialized function, as we now think of it, will become most important to the Navy twenty years from now. Certainly we face a transition from piloted aircraft and surface and submarine ships through guided missiles and sub-surface ships to some ultimate missile and ship forms as yet unknown. The young officer under today's career rules finds himself faced with today's rules but tomorrow's game. Is he to choose the submarine specialty under the assumption that the Navy of tomorrow will be a fleet composed entirely of true submersibles, or is today's aviator to fly tomorrow's guided missile from a concrete underground cockpit? Possibly he feels that the electronics engineer is really the fleet commander of the future. Whatever he feels, he is entitled to the guidance of his senior officers who set the day-to-day rules within which he must choose his career path. The best assurance he can have is the collective opinion of his senior officers to the effect that the theory of command still holds true and that at some future date, not too far distant, today's rules will be changed to fit tomorrow's game. Much faith is required to hew to the command theory today and to resist the urge to specialize, yet we certainly want to attract and to keep in our Navy a breed of young officers, each of whom enters the Navy with one confident thought—to aspire to supreme command. A young man who aims lower is less than the caliber we desire. If this premise is true, then we must make clear to him the path he should choose to attain this goal. Either we must declare that he will succeed to broad command only if he becomes a specialist in guided missiles, or aviation, or submarines, and name which of these specialties holds the most promise, or we must hold to the theory of broad command and tell him that there is only one real specialty—command. If we have the courage to recognize this truth, then we must implement our decision and indicate clearly the path of command advancement from ensign to fleet admiral.
CONCLUSION
Our conclusion can best be stated in the words of the late James Forrestal who stated in a conversation with Sir Oliver Lyttleton, Minister of Production under Mr. Winston Churchill, "In any business each department—labor, design, production, sales, accounting—thought itself the most important, but there still remains that imponderable element which provides the synthesis for all of them, namely, management, which is the ability to handle people, to select leaders, and to exercise judgment."
Mr. Forrestal succinctly summed up the problem as well as the solution in the field of business. The Navy's problem is the same and the solution "To provide management to handle people, to select leaders, and to exercise judgment," is certainly the same. Our personnel management forces, our selection boards, and our training and educational systems are attempting to arrive at a solution. They are blessed with an easy task. No one will ever know whether they have actually produced and chosen the best available naval leaders. Like the manager of the New York Yankees, almost anyone they choose to send up to bat has an excellent chance of producing a hit. The large number of dedicated, capable, excellent men available from which to make choices assures capable top leadership—but this is not a true solution. Our system should insure not just excellent leaders, but the most excellent. To accomplish this, we must abolish the present bars and restrictions on command function. The command function must be restored, without restriction, and must be enhanced, clarified, and faithfully supported.
A SUGGESTED PROGRAM
If we are to achieve adequate results, we must cut deeply into old traditions and usages and perhaps hurt some established sensibilities, but to progress we must take steps at least as radical as these:
1. Affirmation of Principle—Declare and reaffirm the validity of the basic theory of command; that the basic function of the naval officer is and always will be to command; that special qualifications, while desirable, must remain secondary; and that qualification to command implies qualification to command any naval unit above the ship or aircraft group level.
2. Enhancement of Command Function—Many abortive efforts have been made to achieve one simple, solitary improvement in this field—that of re-establishment of the star as the indication of qualification to command. Here we offend a majority of our officer corps because we do not want to offend the six percent who would have to change to a corps insignia. We might well note the pride with which our established corps wear their corps insignia. Officers who now wear stars but are not qualified to command at sea would soon develop equal and well-merited pride in their own newly-established insignia. Many improvements have been made, but we must press for greater progress, particularly in the field of removing some of the multiple layers of over-supervision now imposed on ship and unit commanders in order to restore their freedom of command.
3. Broadening of Command Function—At an early stage in the career of each officer provide sufficient training in, and knowledge of, the major naval fields of aviation, submarines, and surface ships and new developments to enable these officers to command multiple types at mid-career. Temporizing with this principle in order to meet personnel manning problems can only result in a generation of second rate commanders. If an officer can spend five months at the Armed Forces Staff College learning functions of the other services, certainly five months can be found earlier in his career during which he can serve temporarily in aviation and submarine units.
4. Removal of Command Restrictions—Remove all restrictions on qualifications for command above the submarine-aircraft level. This restriction will die hard, if at all, but the rewards will be commensurate with the effort required to remove it. There are many inconsistencies in our present system. Navy Regulations require that the commanding officer of an aircraft carrier be a qualified naval aviator. If a non-aviator cannot command an aircraft carrier, is he qualified to command a fleet containing these types? We frequently see line officers, qualified in submarines, but who have never served a day in destroyers or cruisers, ordered as destroyer squadron commanders and cruiser commanding officers. Does the submarine qualified officer know any more about the cruiser's guns than he knows about the carrier's aircraft? According to Navy Regulations he does.
5. Clarification of Path of Command Advancement—It is important to note the distinction between grade advancement and command advancement. We now carefully guarantee a grade advancement system, but only the average officer is interested in this type of security. The above-average officer is interested instead in the path of command advancement. He desires to achieve advanced grade mainly because of the opportunity it offers for increased command responsibility. Removal of command restrictions would in a large measure serve to clarify the path of command advancement. Our Navy developed "Battleship Admirals" not necessarily because of the rigid belief of the admirals in the efficacy of the battleship, but because the admirals serving in battleships were prevented by command restrictions from leaving battleships. We face similar circumstances today in that we are on the verge of producing "Carrier Admirals" because we do not allow them to leave carriers. Let us beware of the decisions made by officers whose futures are bound to single weapon fields by specialization and Navy Regulations. The only officer who can be honest and impartial in his judgment of the emphasis which should be placed upon the various possible weapons of the future is an officer who is well grounded in the use of all weapons and who is qualified to command them all. This is the officer with the only real specialty, the ability to exercise broad command.
This program is radical, but if it were not, it would be of little value. We must move rapidly and surely to free our command systems from the fetters of the past. The future will not wait, and we must be ready to command it. To do so we must insure that the exercise of broad command remains the Navy's top specialty.
Graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy in 1937 and from the National War College in 1956, Captain Mack is currently Commander, Destroyer Division 22.
During World War II he was Gunnery Officer in the John D. Ford (DD-228), Executive Officer of the Preston (DD-785), and Commanding Officer of the Anderson (DD-460). Subsequently he served on amphibious and destroyer staffs, commanded the Richard B. Anderson (DD-786), was officer-in-charge of the U. S. Naval School (Academy and College Preparatory), and served in the Officer Detail Section of the Bureau of Naval Personnel.
This is his fifth article to appear in the Proceedings.