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Admiral Burke, Admiral Watkins, distinguished award winners, members and guests. This is my first annual meeting as Chairman of the Editorial Board. Although I’ve been a member of the Naval Institute for over 30 years, I didn’t realize until I saw the list of members who’d been with us for over 50 years that I’m not over the hill; I’m barely halfway up that hill.
It is a very special privilege for me to have been appointed and now elected to the Board of Control and to serve on the Editorial Board. Although I’ve been reading the Proceedings for many years, I really didn’t realize the amount of effort that has to go into making that publication what it is. I now know, and I’m very proud to be a part of it.
I thought I’d take just a few moments to offer you some observations from the deck plates, from this guy who’s been in the engine room for only a few months.
First, I look at the Institute as kind of a triad of three interacting elements, they being you, the membership; the full-time professional staff; and the President and the Board of Control. We all have very different functions. I will tell you that I’ve been impressed by the unique and extraordinary quality of our membership. It takes a great deal of time and effort to think through the conceptual ideas, prepare the manuscripts, submit them, follow the Proceedings, and submit the subsequent comments and discussions that we get from you. We get all of these from our membership in a very heavy way. I would just say that I applaud your efforts, and I stand in great admiration of your intellectual depth. You challenge the Editorial Board; you challenge the staff; you challenge each other with your thought processes. I find myself very proud to be a part of your membership.
Secondly, with regard to the professional staff, I’ve learned since I’ve been here that we probably have the finest publishing staff of any professional journal and scholarly press in the country. Beyond that, if you’ve not been back to see the Institute offices in operation in Annapolis, when you get back to the East Coast you ought to do that. We’ll all just welcome you. In every single area of management, whether it’s the Proceedings/Naval Review or the Naval Institute Press or marketing or membership promotion or the library and the photo services, you will find an unparalleled quality back there, run by people who are so good that they are recognized nationally by awards for things that they’re doing for your Institute. It’s unparalleled in my experience, and you ought to stop by and take a look at it.
Finally, the President and the Board of Control should and do, I think, give you the guidance and leadership and sense of direction that we need in the Institute. I think that you expect them to provide for, and to keep before all of us, the needs and requirements of the naval profession, the sea services.
The Institute does that in two specific ways. First, by informing. Certainly, we all agree that the Institute does that very well. Those of us who, over a great number of years, have read and followed the Proceedings and engaged in the professional debates, have been enriched by it and are better equipped professionally.
The other thing that we do is that wC use the Proceedings as a forum for ® expression of new ideas, not just for the officers and enlisted men and women of the sea services or our me111 bership, but on a world-wide basis. People from every nation in the world are free to express themselves on our pages, and they’re the people who tru y recognize that maritime strength is so crucial to the continued freedom of ® Western world.
Now, as we use our pages as a forum for such discussions and debated inevitably you’ll find that some ideaS are controversial. That is not a bad thing. It’s been our view on the Edi® rial Board and in the professional sta that so long as those controversial ld are well formed and constructive, they have a place on the pages of your m - azine. In fact, it is this point and cou terpoint process that hones concept ideas and expands minds and helps to articulate difficult thought. u
I want to tell you something that y may or may not realize, but there ar some remarkable things going on u1 naval circles today. We not only af , seeing a dramatic change in tactics technology forced on us by these rap idly changing times, but there is g° on in this country today a virtual re naissance of strategic naval though'- That doesn’t happen very often - ,^s maybe every ten or 20 years. But
happening now, and because it is being reflected on the pages of your Naval Institute Proceedings, you are a part of it.
So I would just ask you to read those articles, read your Proceedings, and reflect on what you’ve read. Talk about it in your wardrooms and your messes and your homes and your classrooms. Argue with what you see, and give us your thoughts, because we think that they, too, need to be in print. We need to share those thoughts with the leadership, because you, the membership, all are not only the body politic of the Naval Institute; you are also the strength of the naval profession and the strength of this great nation.
Having said that, Admiral Watkins, on behalf of the Editorial Board, the Board of Control, the professional staff, and the membership, I would like to thank you for the inspired and distinguished leadership that you’ve given us through this year. This is an exciting time to be a member of the Institute, and all of us look forward to the challenges of the year ahead.
Before I leave you, I would like to touch on one other subject, and that is that in spite of the very good news in the annual report, this is a disquieting time for the Institute. This year. Commander Bud Bowler, who has been our Secretary-Treasurer and Publisher for 22 years, is not with us and will be retiring in September. In all of these years, Bud has never missed a meeting, and he looked very much forward to coming to this meeting, where we had hoped to provide the recognition that he so richly deserves. Over two decuples, we don’t see the change so dramatically, but over two decades there have been remarkable changes in the Institute. The membership has gone from something less than 50,000 to very nearly 100,000. The revenue in Ihe book sales has gone ifrom $500,000 a year to something over $4.5 million a year. To carry this load, the staff has been essentially doubled in size. The Proceedings and Naval Review are dis- hnguished and intellectual publications which are widely read and widely rec- °gnized by a growing international feadership. Three years ago. Bud was recognized in a formal way by the Sectary of the Navy Medal for Superior Civilian Achievement. I would like you ajl to join with me now in an expres- s'on of acclaim and recognition for a vcry great leader who has done a remarkable job over a long time with this marvelous institution.
Thank you.
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17
Admiral James D. Watkins, U. S. Navy, President, Board of Control
not
nation?” The problems we face are
to
Admiral Burke, fellow Institute members, distinguished Institute guests, faculty and students of the Naval Postgraduate School. It is always a privilege to attend the Institute’s annual meeting, and to participate in these awards ceremonies. I am very impressed with the continuing, healthy growth of the Institute, whose membership is about to break 90,000.
Most importantly, I think the greatest tribute to and role of the Institute is its function as the leading vehicle of our demonstrated interest in naval professionalism. There is no doubt in my mind that professionalism is alive and well in the seagoing services today— the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. This is extremely important now, more so than ever before, because of the critical world situation we face—a time of “violent peace.”
A few months ago, while I was Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was required to be the lead witness in testimony on Capitol Hill regarding certain military actions in Beirut, I was pontificating on the subject of military practices. Suddenly, a messenger passed a note to me which said, “The President wants you to call him.”
And I thought—“My career is probably terminated. I’ve just said something terribly wrong, not in confluence with national strategy.” And it worried me through the rest of the hearing.
So I tried to determine in my own mind where I had gone awry. I was totally prepared to give the President a full justification of what I was convinced he had probably just seen on the Cable News Network or had heard from some other national media covering the hearing. Upon completion of the hearing, I called the President at once, and he said, “Admiral Watkins,
I just wanted to thank you for that wonderful book.”
Caught off guard, I thought to myself, “What book did I send to the President?” And then I recalled I had just sent him an inscribed copy of Keepers of the Sea. He had already thumbed through the book and found it so attractive and so interesting that he took his valuable time to telephone thanks. So if you haven’t seen that wonderful presentation of what the Navy and Marine Corps are all about, you should get a copy.
This has been a busy year for your Navy-Marine Corps team. We had the tragic shoot-down of the Korean Airlines Flight 007 in the Sea of Japan.
We saw a state-sponsored terrorist murder 241 of our brave Marines and sailors early one Sunday morning in Beirut. We had Eastern Caribbean states ask for our help, to come in and clean up the residue of a bloody coup on the tiny paradise island of Grenada. We had the continued push of Marxist-Len- inist expansionism in our own hemisphere. We watched the tragic events in Rangoon in which 12 Korean diplomats were killed in a bloody assassination.
All around us we see elements of a new kind of warfare. It’s unconventional warfare—terrorism at its worst. So it is a tough time for us; a time of violent peace. As a consequence, we in the United States Navy and Marine Corps find ourselves in the midst of the fray, trying to do everything we can to bring stability to various regions. I can’t remember any time since the end of World War II when this nation has faced times more difficult, aggravated principally by the frightening alternative to peace as modem weaponry becomes more awesome every day.
So it is a very important time for all of us to think seriously about our responsibilities to this nation. We must try to elevate ourselves above the degrading self-criticism of nearly everything we’re doing as a nation. It is time for America to get its act together, for all Americans to start pulling on oars in consonance with the. time-tested democratic principles on which this nation was founded.
For example, we cannot continue to overly constrain the President in the execution of foreign policy. Divisive criticism that exposes and thwarts secret and sensitive negotiations can result in damaging the possibility of peaceful resolution of serious conflicts. And degrading self-flagellation only serves to reduce our foreign policy flexibility by damaging our credibility. When destructive self-criticism results in an inability to pursue peaceful diplomatic initiatives, the foreign policy alternatives are greatly reduced and the possibility of military action is heightened.
We, as members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, feel strongly that military alternatives should always be last resorts after well-considered policies have been given a good try. I happen to think our policies are sound, but unfortunately cannot be executed today because of the nonsense we sometimes heap upon ourselves by excessive internal politicization of the foreign policy process.
Again, for example, after the tragedy on 23 October in Beirut, I don’t remember one individual—not on Capitol Hill or in our news media—who stood up and raised serious question as to our nation’s renewed resolve to deal firmly with such state-sponsored terrorist acts and the depraved leaders who reveled in this form of unconventional warfare. Rather, the concentration of the national debate was on the questions of why didn’t we have more clips in the guns; why hadn’t we issued more flak jackets; and why hadn’t we made bunkers higher? Perhaps these individuals, looking for a quick and politically expedient scapegoat, didn’t want to face the really tough issue at hand.
I think it’s a terrible indictment that someone didn’t stand up and say,
“Wait a minute. The real issue is: who perpetrated this criminal attack? And what are we going to do about it as a
simple, they are complex; we need to sift through these messy situations together and develop statesman-like and consistent responses. It can be done it we decide to work together. It is not an impossible dream.
If we do not take such a harmonious national stance, the Soviet Union’s leaders will avoid World War III and superpower confrontation, yet slowly achieve all their objectives by unconventional and intimidating means. q
So why am I giving you this lesson- Why does this impact on the United^ States Navy and Marine Corps team- Because we find ourselves continually in the middle of the nation’s inability to execute well-laid foreign policy- Failure to allow the Chief Executive set and carry out foreign policy today in a cohesive fashion is dangerous to hope of the Western world’s surviva ^ a time when we face very serious pr lems world-wide.
Another element of concern is the Soviets. We’ve seen them walk out of the Geneva talks when their propaganda machine failed to upset NATO’s resolve to counter their SS-20 missiles with our Pershing II’s. We’ve seen them backed into a corner in the aftermath of the 007 shoot-down. We’ve seen them get a black eye in Grenada, as we exposed the Soviet and Soviet bloc connection in that part of the world. We’ve seen them fail in various nations, thrown out by host governments who eventually found them distasteful. We all watch in horror as they force their will on Afghanistan.
At the same time we see these setbacks, we see a nation developing military capability unmatched. Just last week, we saw hundreds of ships underway, including nuclear attack and strategic submarines. We saw hundreds of bomber sorties, including, for the first time, exercise of their Backfires. All this was part of the largest Soviet naval exercise ever conducted in the Baltic and Norwegian Seas, larger than the Okean ’75 world-wide series.
Almost simultaneously, they conducted an amphibious landing only 90 miles southwest of Hanoi, and coordinated other operations in the Sea of Japan. Their missile firing submarines were also moving closer to our Atlantic Coast. And major Soviet combatants travelled to the Caribbean, exercising with Cuban ships only a score or so miles off our Gulf coast.
So yes, we’d better take note. The Big Bear is getting fidgety as he is being backed further and further into his lair. He is backed into a comer and doesn’t like it. This is not a happy posture for any of us.
At a time when the USSR finds itself somewhat ostracized, it is espe- eially important that our Navy-Marine Corps continue to demonstrate we have the right deterrent stuff. We must continue to send a positive signal to that nation—and others—that we are ready, h required, to stop mischief. I can assure you we are more ready than I have seen in all of my 35 years of c°mmissioned service.
Today, our experience level is up, Uearly doubled in the career force over fhe last four years. First-term retention 's up over 60%; we’ve never seen any- (hing like it. Spirit and morale are soaring; corrective maintenance is down; supply readiness is up; equipment readiness is up; drug usage and c°urt martials are down; ships are clean ar>d ready to fight.
We’ve got our strategic act together, and we’re working around the clock in wargaming at the Naval War College in Newport, testing and improving our contingency plans. We may be outnumbered three-to-one by the Soviets, but we still have what it takes to carry the day at sea. This is because of our superb people, well supported by the American public.
We are this nation’s number one deterrent force because we are out there every day of the year. Ten battle groups last year were moving around the world to defend this nation. At any one time, 8 out of 13 are moving world-wide to respond to crises, carrying out national commitments.
I know I can speak for the Commandant of our Marine Corps and state that we are extremely proud of our Navy and Marine Corps people today. I was aboard Independence giving her the Navy Unit Commendation last week after she returned home from an extraordinary cruise with 156 out of 178 days underway. And as 1 looked down that hanger deck, I saw 2,000-plus sailors in white hats and bell-bottoms, and not one of them complaining about the cruise or the length of time at sea. This was the most beautiful sight imaginable.
All our people ask in return is a little fair treatment—critics off their backs on retirement, and off their backs on the supposed largess of their pay.
Just give them a fair wage and benefit program, tell them from time to time that they’re doing a great job, and I guarantee America will continue to receive the best defense possible.
Fortunately, that kind of support is there today. But if it ever wanes again as it did in the 70’s, we will see our readiness go down quickly and concurrently lose our edge as a meaningful deterrent element of national strategy.
So we have a very disturbing world situation and a nation trying to come to grips with its responsibility of world leadership on the one hand; and military services in the best state of readiness since the end of World War II on the other.
The worrisome world situation was predicted. Because of our lethargy and malaise in the last decade, a time during which we misled ourselves and believed our nuclear affluence would carry the day forever, we didn’t allocate adequate resources for our own defense. During this period of supposed detente, we essentially executed a unilateral military freeze relative to the relentless Soviet build-up.
In 1980 we awoke to find we were woefully behind, and had left the door
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open to world-wide adventurism by the Soviets and their surrogates. We are now working hard to come back to life, and to hold our western world leadership heads high again.
So if we falter and stumble—stuck in the morass of self-flagellation in which we often find ourselves when we try to implement foreign policy—then we won’t be able to achieve our worldwide goals of peace and stability. We will open the door further to moves by the Soviet Union. They will see our indecision as weakness; they will not hesitate to pounce. We must be careful. Otherwise, you will see more and more military options being exercised as perhaps the only ones left to this nation. This is distasteful to me and, I believe, to the American people as well.
Our emphasis should be on longterm, strategic thinking. We must develop new ideas, aggressive approaches to our security and long-term growth. We need to bring national strategy and military strategy into good harmonic balance. We must get the facts, and then get the truth out to the American people. Then we must build a national consensus, stopping the tendency of self-doubt.
I know that this nation, when really put to the test, will come together. But I would hope that we would come together before an event, a crisis, takes place. We can avoid crises if we do this. We can deter those who would heap evil upon us. Certainly we in the seagoing services are ready to carry our share of the burden.
This is a particularly interesting moment in our nation’s history. The record will someday show that we either came together to deal with world events, or that we could not. If we cannot come together, the result will be the demise of the freedoms we cherish.
But there are good things that this nation is doing, and every once in awhile we ought to recognize them. When we have a Grenada-like victory, for God’s sake, let’s capitalize on it.
I commend to you the kind of approach taken by Andy Rooney, the famous columnist and satirist. He decided he was going to come down off his pedestal and get out and see what it’s all about out there at sea. And perhaps his trip to USS Guam in the Eastern Mediterranean is indicative of what might happen if all non-believers who are caught up in that terrible mismatch
between public opinion and media reporting had the opportunity to see us in action.
After Andy Rooney went out to USS Guam, he wrote a fantastic article entitled—“Sailors off ships in Lebanon made of the right stuff.” I won’t read it all to you, but I think his statement in the last paragraph is worth noting- He wrote, “If the scientists in the laboratory are going to start fooling around crossing genes and splicing human traits together, I hope they find a way to marry the straight-forward decency I’ve seen in the sailors aboard the Guam with the honest but often cynica concern of me and my friends.”
Pretty tough self-criticism, and I applaud Andy Rooney. I wrote and to him so. Hopefully, some of his colleagues will now go out and see what we are doing.
I would ask you then to try to influ' ence those who have not touched base with our Navy and Marine Corps in awhile, those who have not seen what we can do. Invite them to get out and see for themselves, and stop making the same kinds of critical accusations about our dedicated people in uniform as many did in the Vietnam period.
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Thank you for joining me here today in this important annual meeting of the Naval Institute. It’s a great honor for me to come to my alma mater, the Naval Postgraduate School, where I spent some of the most informative and important years of my naval service. In fact, those years were so important that they inspired me to stay in the Navy for a career, so this is a special place for Sheila and me to visit. We are very pleased that the Naval Institute selected the PG School this year as the site for its annual meeting.
Thank you all very much for being part of this wonderful Institute—a leader in professional naval thought. God bless you all.
Questions and Answers Question: Some Oliver Hazard Perry- class FFG-7s have already entered the naval reserve. Can we expect that other improvements will be forthcoming to make the naval reserve a powerful and modern fighting force?
ADM Watkins: The answer is yes. In Congress today there is an intense desire to see us move additional forces mto the reserve. We are responding by doing so at the fastest pace possible, consistent with our ability to recruit.
We are concerned that if we try to push more of our new frigates into the reserves too rapidly, then we won’t be able to recruit the necessary mix of reserve personnel we would need to man those ships properly. However, we are serious about our reserves, and we will continue to put modern equipment into our surface reserve force. Of course, we’re also putting the latest of our air resources into the naval air reserve— F/A-18s, E-2Cs, A-7Es.
The reserves have always been important to us. They are part of our Navy resources and we must be able to call upon them on mobilization day, not mobilization plus 30. Therefore, we have this tremendous urgency to modernize equipment, and to make sure our reserves are fully ready to move with us on day one.
Question: What is your assessment of the F/A-18 as a dual-purpose air platform?
ADM Watkins: The best! As you know, we went through an incredible process of damnation of this superb aircraft in the press before we even had a chance to get it out and really work it over. Today, the Marines are in love with it, and we’re in love with it too.
It is very exciting to see how F/A-18 squadrons are now being introduced in the fleet. We have never had a finer introduction cycle for an aircraft into the Navy.
The Hornet has far exceeded all of our reliability and performance standards. Because there was one set of specifications established seven or eight years ago that it did not meet, this became the cause celebre. Everyone wanted to throw out the baby with the bath water.
Today we’re flying those aircraft at 600-mile ranges, with 4,000 pounds of bombs, and doing all kinds of tasking in both the strike and the fighter roles.
Fortunately, we were strong enough to overcome all of the political obstacles, which always are thrown up by those whose interests lie in other areas.
We’ve just introduced the first F/A- 18 squadron into our reserves; they’re flying replacement air group aircraft on weekends. We’re moving the F/A-18 aboard Constellation. She’ll be the first carrier to have an all F/A-18 fighter- attack squadron.
It is also very interesting that when others competed a variety of aircraft for
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their own nations’ needs, the F/A-18 came out on top. Spain picked the F/A- 18; Canada picked the F/A-18; Australia picked the F/A-18; and we expect Greece will pick the F/A-18 as well. Those are tough jurors.
The F/A-18 is the future, with the right equipment on board to do the kind of close air support and escort work which is essential for modem air- ground and air-air combat operations. So we’re enthusiastic and excited—it’s a winner.
Question: Is there any foreseeable future for large amphibious aircraft?
ADM Watkins: It’s hard for me to say that there isn’t anything on the horizon, because there are so many things that surround the concept of modern amphibious warfare. For example, in the Marine Corps, this year we’ll be bringing aboard the LCAC—which is the air-cushioned vehicle that moves at
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about 50 knots—capable of moving large volumes of equipment and personnel into unimproved areas.
We’re seeing the ability of our forces now to move rapidly into any part of the world by rapid sealift, which we have just procured in our Five-Year Defense Plan. This represents more dollars into sealift than we have put there in all the years since the end of World War 11. These 33-knot roll-on/ roll-off ships, purchased from industry, can carry an entire army division of personnel and equipment to Europe in less than four days.
So, I think we’ve almost stepped beyond the consideration of the old flying boat concept. It was good for the times, but we really don’t see it as a viable concept for the future. I believe that’s about as good an answer as I can give you—we simply don’t have enough resources to go in all these directions simultaneously.
Question: Admiral, if the President decides we must cut back on the defense budget, can the Navy live with fewer than 15 carrier battle groups, or should other services bite the bullet first?
ADM Watkins: The Navy has learned to live with the funds provided to us for many years. So the question is, can the nation live with the cuts?
Right now our carriers deploy for seven months, are back for about ten months, out for seven, and back for ten. This is very difficult on our people, yet they gladly perform this duty because they know our national commitments are great. And it is our people who have responded in over 80% of all international crises since the end of World War II. We will continue to do so in the future—this is our legacy.
If our Navy is cut, then we will have to cut back on commitments. We cannot lengthen those deployment cycles any further. So in the long-run, it is our nation which will suffer. And nobody wants to cut back on commitments to places like the Strait of Hormuz; the Middle East; South Korea; and the commitments in our own hemisphere.
Besides, I don't think we’re going to lose the 15 carrier battle groups. In the first place, we have the carriers. They’re in hand, being built today.
One offshoot of the two nuclear-powered carriers now building at Newport News is the fact that they will deliver the Teddy Roosevelt two years early— She’s being delivered to us this fall.
But this is not to say cut-backs aren’t serious...they are. We’ve had four good, solid years of getting our feet back on the ground. All of the service chiefs, and the Secretary of Defense, are pleased with the results. I know the President is very proud of what he has done to put us back on our feet again.
My feeling is, there is pressure right now against the defense budget because of the deficit issue. It is a very popular issue in an election year. I think it’s a tragedy, however, to keep focusing on the military build-up as the reason for the deficit. I think that’s a terrible simplification of a very complex issue. It is very unfortunate to keep pinning the deficit tail on the military donkey, because I think now is the time when we need solid, steady growth, which is responsibly managed.
True, we have to get rid of the $400 claw hammers and $105 diodes, but we’re doing that. And American industry is behind this effort as well. No one knew what was hidden behind double-digit inflation until it was exposed a couple of years ago. And we were the ones—not Congress, OMB, investigative reporters or anyone else—who exposed these problems.
That’s not the major issue the nation needs to address right now. We have a problem with the Soviet Union in strategic arms limitation talks; we have problems with nations heaping terrorism upon us; we need a strong military to ensure there’s no adventurism on t part of irresponsible nations. Those are the real issues. If we keep harping on cutting the military budget to solve the deficit problems, we are going to fee the fires of Soviet expansionism.
Besides, we give this nation great ^ return on its defense dollars. We’re s going to have our 600-ship Navy, but our battle groups may be a little smaller. This is what we need to ensure this nation’s freedom and the fie® dom of the western world. That’s w a the defense build-up is all about.
I think we’re going to come throug the budget process alright because we’re demonstrating to the American people that we know how to do our job. This nation has the best Navy un derway today that defense dollars can buy. We have proved this from easte Mediterranean to eastern Caribbean, from North Atlantic to the southern Indian Ocean. We will continue to the same.
Thank you very much. It’s been good being with you.
This address has been re-ordere and re-oriented for publication.
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