Studying the Navy's Future

On 8 May 1959, a retiring Secretary of the Navy (who was soon to become Secretary of Defense) made a significant recommendation in a speech to the Navy League of Philadelphia concerning the problems of the future U. S. Navy. His recommendation was made more significant by the fact that it was his swan song speech, and the pith of six years of experience as Under Secretary and Secretary of the Navy:

We should ask scientists in industry to help us with fresh thinking on our long range objectives and on our weapons systems.

We should establish a long range planning group that will possess clear identity and independence. Its composition should include scientists and persons from industry and academic life along with naval officers with recent operational experience. This group must enjoy a close and continuous relationship with American universities and industry. It should possess its own funds with authority to contract for studies with outside organizations. Furthermore, it must be able to recruit the best qualified personnel both within and outside the Navy for short-term work or special projects.

The conclusions of this long-range planning group should not be diluted by the opinions of others but should flow directly to the Secretary of the Navy and CNO and the Commandant of the Marine Corps who can later consult with anyone they respectively may choose.

Six months before this speech, Secretary of the Navy Thomas L. Gates had instigated action to answer this Navy need. Admiral Arleigh Burke, then Chief of Naval Operations, concurred fully that a new long range study organization over and above the Long Range Objectives Group (Op93) was sorely needed to serve the Secretary, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and himself.

Secretary Gates turned the problem over to his Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC), a nationally recognized panel of scientists, and asked them to advise him concerning the Navy’s needs of a decade or more in the future.

Dr. G. C. Suits, Vice President and Director of Research of General Electric, and then Chairman of NRAC, replied on behalf of the Committee on 5 January 1959:

The Navy should be in a position to conduct such studies in its own house and with its own people, both civilian and military—that the need for such studies is a continuing one which should be recognized and implemented on a permanent organizational basis.

We urge that the Navy proceed forthwith to establish a competent group to make studies of the kind under discussion, taking into account presently available capabilities and identifying appropriate additional skills and services that may be required. To satisfy the latter need, we suggest that a technically competent civilian contractor agency be established or designated, to participate on a fulltime basis, and that the plan should include a long-term continuing relationship with this organization as part of its total study capability. . . . The terms of reference of this group should clearly establish that it is not available for the solution of the day-to-day problems in the Department of the Navy.

The Chief of Naval Operations had long had a group of skilled scientists, under M.I.T. management, whose mission included long- range studies. This organization—the Operations Evaluation Group (OEG)—had, in fact, performed substantial service in long-range planning. However, it was heavily committed to the solution of short-range problems and to support of the operating forces. Thus Gates’s speech and Suits’s recommendation led to the creation of the Institute of Naval Studies. INS was set up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to become a unique kind of naval long-range planning agency. Shortly after its establishment, the administration of the complementary research programs carried out by OEG and INS was streamlined by placing them under a single Office of Naval Research (ONR) contract as the major components of a newly formed Center of Naval Analyses (CNA). The contractor for CNA and INS is the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania, a nonprofit institution with its own laboratories. It is one of the oldest (1824) research institutions in the country. INS is composed of naval officers on active duty, selected civil service personnel, and private civilians (the latter, employees of the Franklin Institute who serve the Navy under an ONR contract). The technical direction is provided by a civilian Director of Research (also an employee of the contractor) working for the Chief of Naval Operations and the Secretary through a double-hatted director, a rear admiral who (1) fills a billet on the CNO’s staff (Op09E), and (2) also serves as “Scientific Officer” of the ONR contract.

If this organization and arrangement sounds complicated, it’s because it is. To explain why such an agency was needed and to describe the novelty of INS takes quite a bit of telling.

To illustrate the uniqueness of INS, some background and history of the growth of cooperation between American science and the U. S. military is a prerequisite for balance and perspective.

Although the Naval Observatory was established in 1830 for the purpose of scientific research, the first step in our history to organize academic brains for aid in government matters was taken in 1832 when the Franklin Institute was asked to investigate the reasons for explosions in steamboat boilers. In 1863, President Lincoln established the National Academy of Sciences for the purpose of providing scientific advice to the government. Up to 1913 the Academy had made only five studies, and two of these were on the rather mundane and, we trust, unconnected subjects of the purity of whiskey and the preservation of paint on Army knapsacks. In 1915, the Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, proposed the establishment of a “Department of Invention and Development,” to be headed by Thomas A. Edison, to seek weapons to fight the “new and terrible engine of warfare . . . the submarine.” This led to the establishment of the Naval Research Laboratory at Anacostia.

It was not until the years immediately prior to and during World War II, however, that science was fully mobilized in behalf of the military, not only in the United States, but in other countries as well. It was during this period, for example, that British scientists, in co-operation with the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, developed sonar and radar. It was during this period that the first military operations research organization was formed to advise on convoy procedures, zigzag plans, fleet air defense formations and a host of other problems.^[1] It was during this period that German scientists developed the V-2 missile. And it was during this period that the United States developed the A-bomb. This latter development was the crowning cooperative effort between science and the military in the United States. With the development of the bomb the scientist propelled himself almost unwillingly into the very front rank of government. From it flowed the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Science Foundation, the establishment of the “Special Assistant for Science and Technology” billet on the President’s staff, and the phenomenal expansion of the “nonprofits.” The term “nonprofit” is a very loose one encompassing three general types of organization: (1) universities and colleges, which can either be an “on-campus” activity (M.I.T., Cal Tech) or a separate appendage associated with the univeristy and very loosely controlled by it (Lincoln Labs [M.I.T.], Applied Physics Laboratory [Johns Hopkins]); (2) “created,” private, corporation-type nonprofits whose primary business is government service (Institute for Defense Analyses, RAND, Systems Development Corporation, Stanford Research Institute); and (3) “established” nonprofits which were in existence long before World War II and which are not wholly or predominantly government supported (The Franklin Institute). “Nonprofit” is also misleading inasmuch as the vast majority of government contracts provide a “fee” or general support allowance in the contract cost.

To illustrate further the extraordinary and extremely rapid growth of the partnership between science and the military, compare the government expenditures for all military research and development in 1939 and 1961. In 1939, it was only 25 million dollars. In 1961, the figure had rocketed to about 7 billion dollars, a 140-fold increase. The total national Research and Development (R&D) expenditure was approximately 14 billion dollars, of which 3.2 billion went for applied research and 1.3 billion for basic research. Of these national funds the federal government spent 9.2 billion dollars. Within this 9.2 billion, 81 per cent came from the Department of Defense, 11 per cent from the Atomic Energy Commission, and 7 per cent from the National Aviation and Space Administration.

From such facts, it is self-evident that U. S. defense has become science and technology’s major supporter and promoter, and that the future well-being of our country has become increasingly dependent on a strong and continuing R&D program. As Don K. Price wrote in 1954 in his Government and Science, “ . . . the United States cannot be defended except by the maximum development of science, and . . . science cannot be protected in its freedom, or supported with funds, except by government.”

In this mushrooming co-operation between the government (particularly the military) and science, the Navy until 1950 had kept pace primarily in two ways: the “in-house” naval laboratory (using civil service personnel) and the Office of Naval Research with its farsighted and admirable program in basic research through contracts with universities and industry.

But the Navy’s co-operation with science and the academic world began to lag in the 1950s. The laboratory system of the Navy was strong and still growing (by 1962 more than 40 naval laboratories and research agencies were in operation). The ONR program, commenced in 1946, was exceptional in the armed services in the field of basic science and fundamental research.

With the fantastic 14,000 per cent growth in scientific/military effort taking place, however, the growing scientific needs of the Navy could no longer be accommodated within the in-house naval laboratories or the ONR/university system. A glaring gap was becoming ever more apparent. The laboratories and research agencies were providing excellent support to the bureaus in applying new scientific knowledge to the Navy’s systems needs and in defining, designing, and developing new and improved hardware. But the Chief of Naval Operations, isolated from the intricacies of evolving science and immersed in today’s crises and short-term problems, could scarcely keep pace with the myriad of new developments. In this environment, he had not the time to contemplate at length the impact of these scientific developments, or the equally important social, psychological, economic, and political trends, or the broad subject of national security and the future role of sea power. Yet, without lucid concepts in these areas, the Navy would not long be able to maintain its momentum. It was this condition that led Secretary Gates to the conclusion that the Navy needed a new instrument for planning and exploiting the full contribution of the academic and scientific communities.

In seeking to establish Mr. Gates’s new research facility, the Navy had four possible methods:

(1) To establish another in-house government agency consisting of naval officers and civil servants similar organizationally to the laboratories;

(2) To seek a contract with an industrial organization having a large research capability;

(3) To seek a contract with a university; or

(4) To seek a contract with a nonprofit institution.

The possible use of an industrial or profitmaking organization was discarded for a variety of reasons—conflict of interest problems primarily. The possible use of a university for the work was also discarded. Universities were admirably equipped to do basic or “pure” research. But many academicians believed passionately that their main job was education and that they had no place in the weapons business or in the conduct of classified military research. In any case, a university did not offer a satisfactory solution for the type of long-range problems the Navy was seeking to solve.

Eliminating these two narrowed the choice of establishing a research facility to either an in-house agency or a nonprofit. The in-house agency would give the Navy the advantage of complete control allowing the Navy to choose the study program, to select people, and to set deadlines. But such an approach was likely to produce results which decision makers in the Department of Defense and Congress might simply shrug off as “parochial ideas from a captive group.” Moreover, there were serious doubts that an in-house agency could attract and keep the top-notch civilian talent that was required. Already, many of the scientists in naval laboratories were being lured away by the higher salaries offered by the nonprofits and industry.

The choice thus seemed to narrow down to the nonprofit—a research institution or foundation which would work with the Navy. The nonprofit solution offered the independence and renumeration to attract the right kind of scientific talent, and the nonprofit could accept specific assignments for specific naval tasks with reasonable deadlines. Moreover, created, private corporation nonprofits had become the fad since World War II. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had its Weapon System Evaluation Group; the Air Force its RAND, MITRE Corporations; the Army its ORO (now RAC); and the Atomic Energy Commission its Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The Navy alone of the military departments had the bilinear organization with its designed division of responsibility between the CNO and the Bureaus. It had its strong in- house laboratory system supporting the Bureaus and its excellent ONR program. Traditionally, the CNO had provided guidance to the Bureaus and to ONR through his prerogative of specifying requirements. With the mushrooming technology and expanding R&D programs, the CNO was beginning to lose control, primarily because of insufficient scientific and analytical support. It was to be a function of INS to provide this support to CNO and to bridge the widening gap between his office and the Bureaus. Clearly a “pure” nonprofit was not the answer. Instead, the Navy wanted something different—a miniature integrated combination of an OpNav, a nonprofit, and an in-house laboratory.

For, indeed, the Navy did not want or need a “pure” nonprofit for its long-range planning. Instead, the Navy wanted something tailored to fit its particular needs—a combination of a nonprofit and an in-house agency. There were three important reasons: (1) the Navy insisted that it had a vital role to play in seeking answers to its own future; (2) the Navy believed it could not and must not contract away its decision-making responsibilities; and (3) the Navy insisted that its knowledge of the ocean environment, of combat and operations at sea, and the inter-relation of the sailor and the ship were essential ingredients to the solution of any real and urgent long-range naval problems.

In seeking a different solution, the Navy had the support of both Congress and the Bell Committee:

“We also feel,” wrote Secretary of Defense McNamara, NASA’s Webb, Civil Service Commission’s Macy, AEC’s Seaborg, National Science Foundation’s Waterman, the President’s Scientific Advisor Wiesner, and Budget Director Bell, “that innovation is still needed in these matters [obtaining scientific services] and each agency should be encouraged to seek new and better arrangements to accomplish its purposes.”

While insisting it intended to join the proposed new agency and to participate in studies and searches for solutions, the Navy was aware that this marriage, like all true marriages, had to give something to the partner; in this case, freedom and independence. The balancing of these seemingly contradictory aims—to join but not to dominate—was crucial to success.

In the very simplest terms, what the Navy wanted was a nonprofit organization which would work at the SecNav/CNO level (Army and Air Force nonprofits work at Subordinate levels) and permit the Navy to have a voice in selecting the long-range problems to be studied, an organization that would accept both qualified naval officers and outstanding civil servants from naval laboratories as co- equals with the contractor’s scientists. For its part, the Navy would provide the money, the information, and the support without unreasonable supervision. Hopefully, such a marriage would permit the nonprofit contractor to seek solutions to naval problems with independence, objectivity, and creativity with operational realism integrated from the outset, and to have such ideas and solutions be both salable and attractive to DOD and Congress.

With this background, the goals which had been so cogently established for INS by Secretary Gates come into sharp focus:

•     clear identity and independence;

•     composition to include naval officers with recent operational experience;

•     close and continuous relationship with American universities and industry;

•     the best qualified people both from within and from outside the Navy;

•     conclusions flowing directly to SecNav.

At the present time, INS consists of 40 “physical” and “social” scientists, all Franklin Institute employees, ten naval officers (one rear admiral, three captains, one colonel, four commanders and one lieutenant commander), and five civil service scientists from naval laboratories. The latter group currently includes representatives from the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, Naval Missile Center, Naval Electronics Laboratory, Naval Ordnance Test Station, and the David Taylor Model Basin, all on a one-year loan from their parent organizations. The majority of the officers have postgraduate degrees, all are Naval War College graduates, and all have had recent command-at-sea experience.

The location of the Institute of Naval Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was deliberate—to satisfy Secretary Gates’s stipulation of clear identity and independence in an area enabling close and continuous relationship with American universities and industry and in an area, according to Dr. Suits, “not available for the solution of the Navy’s day-to-day problems”—away from the Pentagon, in other words. Cambridge is close enough to Newport for the Institute to take advantage of the Naval War College’s naval- oriented academic atmosphere, its excellent library, experienced faculty, and student body and lecture program. At Newport also, the Director of the Institute, a rear admiral, maintains a small liaison office and staff and discharges his function as “Scientific Officer” of the contract. Many of the nation’s top colleges are in or near Cambridge and it is a prime area for defense-oriented industry, yet it is only a one-and-one-half-hour flight from Washington—close enough for convenience, distant enough to prevent interference.

We stated that INS’s creation was not without birth pangs; nor is its growth without teething troubles. Again the marriage metaphor is appropriate. Two variant philosophical concepts, two jargons, two systems of education, two methods of judgment and decision making, two levels of experience and two ideas of organization—the scientist’s and the naval officer’s—have to be adjusted and reconciled. The problem of wedding a contractor and the Navy (without making it a shotgun affair) is a thorny one.

This adjustment and accommodation problem can be illustrated by the experience of Thomas A. Edison in World War I. Here is the account of Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels:

Gold braid and naval etiquette and regular hours bored Edison. When he was interested in an experiment he forgot to eat or sleep. He expected naval officers to do likewise. One day, when he was irritated at what he called “red tape humbuggery,” he asked me how I could stand the frummery. Another day, in irritation over the failure of some officer to give him credit for the notable service he performed during the War, he declared: “I made about twenty-five inventions during the War, all perfectly good ones, and they pigeonholed everyone of them. Naval officers resent any interference by civilians. The fellows are a close corporation.” At times, it called for all the diplomacy I could command to keep the wizard from exploding when there was a delay in furnishing him everything he wanted. But although Edison did not like red tape, he loved the Navy and made large contributions to it. . . .

Learning to work together in harmony and co-operation, each community ridding itself of its preconceptions and predilections, and realizing that each of the three groups— civilian scientist, naval officer, government scientist—had a vital and worthwhile contribution to make to the Navy’s future has been the biggest and hardest lesson to be learned.

One of the most difficult problems that INS was created to tackle is the problem of spotting ideas or scientific facts which are already available but which are not being recognized or utilized. As one wag put it, what we need is an invention which will recognize new ideas. In modern science, today’s facts were yesterday’s theories and today’s theories may be tomorrow’s facts. The principle of radar was available in the 1920s, for example, but radar was not produced until the eve of World War II. The basic facts of atomic power were available in the 1930s, but not recognized or utilized until the 1940s. The simple, though difficult, problem is to be able to recognize uses for unharnessed old and new ideas. Masers and lasers we have today—how can they be harnessed to the benefit of our sea power?

At INS, the team of naval officers and scientists will try to be alert for that obscure fact, idea, or development that might have a dramatic and drastic impact on naval warfare. A new tidbit of basic knowledge of the ocean, for example, seemingly unrelated to military matters and being sought for food- from-the-sea, or power-from-the-sea, or minerals-from-the-sea, may become the long and avidly sought ASW breakthrough.

Another difficult and very basic problem for INS is the great danger of underestimating present technology. Scientists and naval officers are often shortsighted, frequently fallible, and usually conservative.

Some of the Los Alamos scientists who built the first atomic bomb, on the very morning of the Alamagordo test, were taking bets “the thing” wouldn’t explode. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Director, wrote: “We established a pool in the laboratory to record the guesses as to the yield of the first bomb. An overwhelming majority made estimates under a few thousand tons; figures in the hundreds of tons were popular. ...” Major General Leslie Groves, who was in over-all charge of the Manhattan District, wrote: “As late as the middle of 1945, the responsible heads of Los Alamos felt that the explosive force of the first implosion type bombs would fall somewhere between 700 and 1,500 tons.” The force was 20,000 tons.

In the 1920s, the great English chemist, Haldane, stated that atomic energy could never be used for anything. In 1936, the well known and respected Austrian physicist, Thirring, said there could be no space flight. In 1947, many aeronautical engineers were certain that the sound barrier was impenetrable. Even so farsighted and talented a man as Vannevar Bush stated in 1948 that there could be no ICBM. Sputnik took the nation by surprise. And today most scientists believe there is no military necessity for man-in-space.

U. S. naval officers are equally short-sighted; the Navy of 1850 was not enthusiastic about either ironclads or steam engines, and steam- powered vessels were still carrying sails in World War I. Naval aviators proved the airplane and the ship could be married as early as 1911, but the first carrier was not built until 1922 and, when built, she was used defensively as “the eyes of the fleet.” Not until 1943 did the carrier task force come into full flower. With all our emphasis and devotion to aircraft carriers, it was the British who developed the jet engine, the steam catapult, the angled-deck, and the mirror landing system. The submarine, almost literally, had to be broken over the Navy’s collective head before it was accepted. Prescience is a rare quality seen about as frequently as a really new idea.

To do its work, INS has a useful bag of versatile tools. The contractor, of course, can hire talent, temporary or permanent employees, to solve a problem in any particular naval field. If need be, he can employ consultants (a much used device in a shortage-of- scientists situation) or subcontract. One part of a problem or study area can be subcontracted to an individual or company for solution. Equipment, of course, can be hired (computers, for example).

The same capability is available on the naval side of the house. Civil service scientists from naval laboratories can be called in for short or long periods. Naval officers can be ordered aboard for temporary duty.

Thus, INS can assemble a tailor-made group of experts to augment its regular staff, to attack any particular problem or study area. Also, it can make use of summer studies where large numbers of experts can be assembled for brief periods for committee work on particular problems.

INS has been described as working at the CNO/SecNav level seeking solutions to long- range naval problems. What sort of problems? And how does one define “long-range”? INS is not concerned with basic research or with the design or development of hardware. Its mission charges INS with conducting a program of study and evaluation of:

• National security and national objectives of the Navy;

• Nature of warfare and future threats to sea power;

• International environment and situations involving the possible use of force by the Navy;

• Implications and effects of advances in science and technology on sea power;

• Resources and other economic factors affecting the Navy;

• Forecasts of likely enemy capabilities and use of these capabilities in the sea environment;

• Naval functions, postures, and capabilities to support future requirements;

• Means of attaining required naval capabilities.

Long-range is that outer limit of time in which the ingenuity of man and science can give a reasonably logical and accurate prediction of the future. Long-range is generally accepted to mean no more than 15 years.

With the mission of INS and the definition of long-range in mind, here are some typical study areas of INS:

Sea Movement. In 1963, atomic propulsion is becoming “old hat.” But other possibilities in power technology for naval ships are foreseeable—lighter weight nuclear power plants, gas turbines, magnetohydrodynamic plants, thermionic plants, thermoelectric plants, and fuel-cell plants. How would a radical improvement in propulsive power, or reduction in plant weight or size, or increase in ship’s speed affect tomorrow’s Navy? How would we use a 60-knot destroyer, carrier, or submarine?

Ocean Environment. The United States enjoys a tremendous geographic advantage on a planet which is predominantly oceanic. It has been said that when Columbus set sail for the New World in 1492, man’s knowledge of the oceans was one per cent. Almost 400 years later, our knowledge is 3 per cent. How do we exploit our precious geographic advantage and the converse disadvantage of land powers?

Space. Regarding space operations, the U. S. Navy in 1963 stands in time approximately where U. S. naval aviation stood in 1915. Tremendous possibilities and capabilities which affect U. S. sea power are discernible. Astronautics will increase our ability to communicate more positively, more securely, and more quickly. Space technology will vastly improve our knowledge of the earth’s weather and sea conditions, will vastly increase our powers of observation of sea traffic and commerce and our ability to navigate very precisely. Conversely, sea power has much to contribute to national space programs—launching missiles from the sea is but one example.

Tasks. One of the fundamental studies INS has undertaken on a continuing basis is to forecast the tasks, or jobs, which national decision and policy makers could ask tomorrow’s Navy to perform. To make such a list requires some reasonably logical forecast of the 1970 decade. How can we best predict the world of 1975? This is one of the most difficult, elusive, and challenging tasks of INS.

Weapons. Like all the services, the Navy can conceive an abundance and variety of new and improved weapons. What are the implications of their use at sea, in limited war, in the ocean depths?

Aircraft. A good many scientists and aeronautical experts are convinced that dependable, competitive vertical take-off aircraft are just over tomorrow’s horizon. Others are betting on Ground Effects Machines. How would such aircraft change the Navy of 1970 and its carriers, its strike and amphibious potential, and the ability of the Marines to move inland?

The novelty of INS lies in the Navy’s attempt to create an in-house relationship at CNO’s level using an out-of-house contractual arrangement in a partnership combining civilian scientists and naval officers in such a way as to give the Navy a policy-making voice and retention of its decision-making responsibility but without jeopardizing the scientific community’s freedom, independence or creativity or without dominating or exercising military control. There may be bona fide doubts whether such a unique and complicated marriage will work, but certainly there can be no doubt of the Navy’s right to try it.

This partnership of science and the Navy can be made to work, I believe, and might even become the prototype of the Defense/ Science vehicle of the future.