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Navy’s technocrats and greatly expand their scope of We also need to sharpen the focus of the other restrict® line communities. Perhaps additional restricted line des>g nators will have to be created to encompass emerging SP^ cialty fields so demanding and highly specialized aS require service on a full-time basis uninterrupted by s duty and other warrior demands. . .,v
A revitalized restricted line corps, including especia the engineering duty community, should be the prima response to the need for technicians and the lead solu 1 to the imperatives of the procurement process. With th officers serving as our dry-side experts, the warriors co get back to war, to the art of applying the tools furnis by these restricted line specialists. j
Design and support of Navy platforms, sensors, weapons do not take place in a vacuum, of course, ^ warrior viewpoint is crucial and cannot be provided engineering duty or other restricted line officers aC - alone. The current solution has been to try to jam warrior and technician skills into the same skull, caUS ^ both functions to suffer. An alternative approach that co
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The Navy’s corps of unrestricted line officers is on a collision course with the future. Though well manned and well led, we are diverting from our purpose. In this welcome era of fleet rebuilding, we must look inside ourselves to ensure our spirit as officers can carry a resurgent Navy.
Warriors: The unrestricted line officer: who is he? The answer in wartime is clear—he is a combat pilot, a man- of-warsman, a silent hunter of the deep. In Harold Lasswell’s excellent phrase, he is involved in “the management of violence.” He is, in short, a warrior, and the system in wartime seeks out for larger roles those who fight best.
Memory fades in peacetime. The system tends to forget what combat demands, rewarding instead those characteristics in its officers that better suit a corporate boardroom. Management for its own sake takes precedence over the ability to favorably control violent acts, and the standards of the profession skew toward a tidy set of values not like those needed in war. In a quest to make each officer expert in some civilian field, the time, emphasis, and dedication needed to make him truly expert in his unique field— war—are displaced.
Conventional wisdom holds that natural warriors will emerge and take over when conflict starts, but this hope is predicated on having time to fumble around and sort things out in the early days of the action. In this thermonuclear age, the luxury of gradually shifting to a wartime footing simply will not exist. The conflicts of this era are come-as-you-are; the peacetime Navy will instantaneously become our wartime force, and its current slate of officers the one with which we go to battle.
So where do we stand? Facts indicate the unrestricted line is sliding away from warrior thinking, and the U. S. Navy is heading in the direction of becoming the U. S. Navy, Inc. Consider our officer corps’ tooth-to-tail ratio. The operational fraction, the proportion of unrestricted line officers in the officers corps, is now under 55%— nearly half our officers do not fight. Where do we use the
“The conflicts of this era are come-as-you- are; the peacetime Navy will instantaneously become our wartime force, and its current slate of officers the one with which we go to battle.”
unrestricted line’s finest talent, its flag officers? Fewer than one-third of them command naval forces. The other two-thirds manage, plan, budget—in general, they run the corporation.
Look at our education policies. Fewer than 200 Navy officers are in senior service college learning something about their warrior craft, but more than 1,200 are in fulltime pursuit of advanced degrees in some form of postgraduate education, degrees useful ashore both to the cor poration and to the individual, but generally remote from combat skills. And what is the direction of a Navy having 203 public affairs officers, but only 27 officers teaching coordinated battle group tactics?
We are on a foul course, emphasizing dry land activities instead of maintaining our steady gaze on a nasty outsi world that may require us at any moment to condu prompt and sustained combat operations at sea. Simp > said, we are in danger of losing our edge, of worrying st’ much about running a good business that we forsake o true craft, of focusing so intently on peacetime issues tna we lose our warrior soul.
Technicians: The drift away from warrior values stems from legitimate efforts to cope with a challenging Pe:lC'e time Navy. The modern Navy is filled with technical com plexity, not only in its hardware but also in the manage ment process that designs, procures, and supports tn hardware and in the political process providing the re sources for the Navy.
The need for technical experts is not entirely new, h°w ever. What is new is the shift of aim from restricted W officers to the unrestricted line as the primary source shore technicians. The past solution to these challenge_ created the engineering duty community. But technology has evolved away from that community’s foundation in shipbuilding; thus topics like information manageme and space technology are largely outside the engineer1 & duty officers’ ken.
The engineering duty officers have also failed to gener ate the same confidence in their program manageme abilities as they have earned in shipyard management- a result, they have not stood up as the core of the pr°Je manager leadership. They have lost their position 3s premier naval technicians ashore, with the warrior cofi^ being plugged into the breach and vainly trying to be things in the Navy.
We must bring back the engineering duty officers as
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0rces that pull unrestricted line officers this way, that Way. but seldom in the direction they would head if the art i War were receiving its proper attention. Beyond recon- C|''ng the technician versus warrior conflict in our philoso- pNy of the officer corps, we must straighten out the me- aanical system attempting to manage that philosophy.
. The personnel system generally works well on the sea S|de of the Navy. The shore side is the problem. In trying 0 develop expert talent in arcane fields, we have created ee rival specialty systems:
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►
D,
Plernents the restricted line solution ashore is a teamwork Astern that joins warriors with dry-side specialists for uty tours in the shore establishment, permitting both the ^arrior viewpoint and the good-management approach to Nourish together.
Specialties: The mechanism that implements the Navy’s noed for technicians is the officer personnel system. In resP°nse to the Navy’s complexity, we have personnel juanagement schemes laid atop one another in an effort to evelop the kinds of expertise we think we need. Clearly, We have overdone it. In trying to make unrestricted line beers into every manner of expert, we have them all angled up with the restricted line inside a monstrosity of a Personnel system threatening to collapse of its own
The failure to decide on a single, simple scheme to uianage line officer specialization is a root cause of our Pr°blems. The confused officer personnel system creates
• • . the unrestricted line is sliding away ;rom warrior thinking, and the U. S. Navy 's heading in the direction of becoming the i • S. Navy, Inc. . . . We are in danger of *°sing our edge, of worrying so much about Running a good business that we forsake our true craft, of focusing so intently on peace- l,nfe issues that we lose our warrior soul.”
designator specialty, enjoying the patronage of the eputy Chiefs of Naval Operations for the individual war- are specialties (Op-02, -03, and -05) and, on the reacted line side, the backing of the individual community sP°nsors, such as the Director of Naval Intelligence for the bUelljgence officers, etc.
Subspecialty, associated with specific sponsors, princi- pal|y in OpNav. The communications systems technology ^specialty, for example, is sponsored by the Director of ^aval Communications.
. The Weapons System Acquisition Management System v^sAM), sponsored by the Chief of Naval Material. Both
SAM and subspecialty labels are applied indiscriminately to both restricted and unrestricted line.
Each sponsor thinks he owns everyone he sponsors. He °esn’t. The officer with a certain designator is the same officer with a subspecialty is the same officer selected for WSAM—he can’t be three kinds of expert at once. He can’t fill three jobs simultaneously. And, in this mess, he can’t figure out what he should be doing or where his long-range efforts should point; losing sight of the warrior ethic is not difficult.
Suppose the various sponsors were to achieve some protocol describing how the rival specialty systems could operate without competition? The situation is still too complex to be workable. The following is the mathematics of the specialty business for line officers:
- 13 designators in four paygrades (0-3 through 0-6)
- 56 subspecialties and six levels of subspecialization
- Three WSAM designations Turning the crank on these numbers:
13 X 4 X 56 X 6 X 3 = 52,416
There are 52,416 possible kinds of line officer specialists in a Navy which has in total only 43,000 line officers. The specialty system is not often looked at in its entirety. If the entering argument is WSAM or designator or subspecialty, the system seems fairly simple, but when seen with these three approaches operating simultaneously as they actually do, the complexity appears unmanageable.
It is. The system is a morass. The solution is simplify, simplify, simplify, with as strong a case as can be made that warrior values must be preserved. The distinction between unrestricted and restricted line must be made crystal clear, with the source of specialized experts in science, engineering, and management being the restricted line and civil service, not the warrior class.
How important is all this specialization? The track record suggests that there is less here than meets the eye. Matching the actual officer population against the requirements of the billet base is a mathematical impossibility. Because of this, myriad assignments have been made in which the officer lacked the specified tickets. These mismatched tours are routinely executed with high performance, demonstrating that the need for specialization is overstated. Conversely, some precise-match tours have ended in less-than-total success, making the case that credentialed specialization guarantees nothing.
The unrestricted line officer with a well-rounded background ultimately offers far more to the Navy than one who is a narrow specialist. The push to intensify and narrow specialization as one moves up the ladder is opposite
“The engineering duty officers . . . have lost their position as the premier naval technicians ashore, with the warrior corps being plugged into the breach and vainly trying to be all things in the Navy. We must bring back the engineering duty officers as the Navy’s technocrats and greatly expand their scope of duty.”
of how the business and academic worlds treat this issue. In those realms, an enlarged grasp of broader issues is expected as the individual moves up. We expect the same at the jump between captain and flag rank, but try to force an ever-narrower path up to this point.
To the extent that these efforts to create narrow-gauge specialists from the warrior class are successful, the individual warriors are less able in their primary role. Opportunity costs must be paid. Time spent learning dry-side
• • the customers are running the store. . . . The manning system cannot expect to improve until the flag officers of the Navy quit messing with it and let those charged with running the system run it.”
topics is time not available to polish war skills, to broaden one’s knowledge of naval warfare to learn the real business better. Warriors have but one specialty. War.
In looking at any changes to the officer personnel system, a caution is warranted. Substantial changes to the officer training and distribution system will be difficult in the climate now existing—one of pitched battle among the senior officers of the Navy to increase in both quality and quantity their individual share of officer corps talent. At present, the customers are running the store. As one admiral has said recently, the manning system cannot expect to improve until the flag officers of the Navy quit messing with it and let those charged with running the system run it. Along with reform to the mechanics of the personnel system must come the discipline needed to let the system function.
Tribalism: Platform-based operational skill is fundamental to combat in this modem age, but not as the highest level of naval warfare. We ignore the higher functions in our insistence on doing all and defining all in terms of warfare specialty.
The breakdown of the unrestricted lirte into its three principal specialties has been called unionism, but the problem is past that point. The term “tribalism” better describes the extent to which platform labels (surface, air, submarine) now overwhelm the classic definition of unrestricted line officer in our naval culture, for we behave toward one another with all the comity of rival tribal groups traditionally in contest with each other.
Tribalism permeates the officer distribution system, the promotion system, and the training system; it is the basis on which we buy hardware and spend money. Community allegiance has become our faith, transcending Navy loyalty as the repository for our greatest devotion.
There would be no problem if the tribes fought separately. They don’t. There would be no problem if each community would leam all there is worth learning from the other specialties. They won’t. There would be no problem if officers in jobs cutting across warfare specialty lines could think Navy Blue. Often, they can’t. ConsC' quently, we have one Navy trying to be three navies—an largely succeeding.
Warfare issues that don’t line up one-to-one with a waf' fare community are poorly handled. Electronic warfare mine warfare, and antisubmarine warfare, for example have all suffered for want of a strong tribal interest.
At the level of strategy, each community tends to pjajj its own war. Consider the submariners, whom many thin* are ready to steam independently, and the surface warfare officers, who seem to see their role principally in terms ° engagements between formations of surface ships, a 10 Bon Homme Richard versus Serapis.
Key strategic issues not firmly placed in one of the tribes tend to be left for others to handle. For example shipping protection is relegated to the Naval Reserves f°f planning and, largely, execution. And the Marine Corps appears as the prime mover of amphibious warfare. MisS ing is a strategic sense that flows from an overall view ° naval force as a military instrument through broad warfare concerns and only at the end comes to rest in platfor111 interest.
Two recent developments are welcome steps away fro111 tribalism: the full-scale adoption of “composite warfafe commander” tactics for the battle group and the formul®' tion of the “maritime strategy” as a cohesive single body of naval operational concepts. Unfortunately, these imp°r' tant improvements cannot alone force an end to narr°vV parochialism.
Thinking good thoughts won’t cure tribalism. We mu,s act, forcing officers of the unrestricted line to think in
“The term ‘tribalism’ better describes the extent to which platform labels (surface, air, submarine) now overwhelm the classic definition of unrestricted line officer in our naval culture, for we behave toward one another with all the comity of rival tribal groups traditionally in contest with each other. . . . We have one Navy trying to be three navies—and largely succeeding.”
Navy-wide terms much earlier in their careers, and usin=- the training and assignment systems to insert them into t other communities where they can both teach and lear*’_ And, if a broad definition of unrestricted line officer is prosper, we probably will have to force the platform spo° sors out of the assignment business. Finally, we must ed cate this and future generations of naval officers to see full spectrum of naval power. The trend toward three na vies must be reversed.
Fundamentals: A warrior’s instincts make him a stude*1’
len of victory rests on the weapon, not its wielder. Inc first is easier to fix. If we have the wit to shift Responsibility for technical specialization to the restricted we create the opportunity for the unrestricted line
to pursue a full education in the history, tactics,
^ Actions crucial to readiness.
*actical development requires the learning that can only f 1116 from real use in real platforms by real sailors; fleet ► db^k is crucial to tactical improvements.
► leved by looking at a static weapon system.
: Unt*l forced to think and act under totally tactical condi-
° ^'s craft. True warriors find great fascination in the actics and strategy of war. The best warriors regard skill 'J'hh their weapons as high art. We should hope to find ese attitudes firmly set in the spirits of the Navy’s unre- S r,cted line officers.
Instead, what we frequently find are two substitutions •0r belief in warrior fundamentals: the aforementioned v°lvement with technical specialization at the expense k tae warrior craft, and a complacent assumption that the
line officer
r---------------------- —-------------- --------
a strategy of his warrior profession. A willful effort to Pgrade the war college system, junior and senior level, is e proper mechanism to achieve this goal, made more 'able by bringing tribal matters back under control, off 6 mathemat>cs is simple—for the unrestricted line •j,, 1Cer> subtract postgraduate school, add war college. CV rev*tal'zati°n °f the Naval War College as a result of >ef of Naval Operations Admiral James Watkins’s initi- lves is a superb start. We now need to create the career essures for war college attendance that exist in our sister trices, in which these schools are crucial steps on the I* to senior rank. Only by studying war can we avoid e yarning history’s lesson the hard way.
. *° fix the second substitution, we must revisit the fun- to ^enta^ warrior tenet that sweating in peace is preferable bleeding in war. We have fielded an entire arsenal of emingly no-sweat weapons. Because they appear so sy and so effective, we gloss over the fact that we have little experience in actually exercising with these eapon systems.
we used to love to shoot the cannons. Now we have eapons whose cost and range prohibit routine firings, ben we do get to shoot, the emphasis is on proving Ccess rather than on finding the failure point, on evaluat- § the hardware’s performance rather than improving the in tlCS’ 0n feeing data to the technicians rather than train- g to the warriors. And finding realistic, hard-nosed 'ning on the beach to supplement the meager opportuni- s at sea is hit-or-miss; it is a function of how smart the ,oS|gn team was in planning for training when they put §ether the weapon system.
we ignore some basic facts in this blithe approach to
► 'Weapons:
{■ weapon systems with the level of complexity now cUnd are bound to suffer failures and degradations in fur at> making hands-on training that fights through mal- eapons use must be second nature, a state never
°ru We have not Gained. e1 be excuse de jour is that nobody provided funds for efcise weapons or for training centers. The rejoinder is
that Navy budgets and priorities are not delivered to us by Martians. We say what counts. We warriors need to take charge and make certain that our fleet of today is as ready in fact as the planners’ fleet of the future is hoped to be. We have gotten very distant from our weapons. The measure of the problem lies in the absence of roars from the fleet to improve weapons training. Until every platform has been forced to prove its weapons skill under the most demanding of tactical conditions, we are collectively whistling past the graveyard.
Is any part of the Navy doing right by the modem weapons? Sure. Naval aviation has its Top Gun school, and the new Strike University further advances readiness. The surface Navy continues to remain fully ready in gunfire support. Submarines train in both torpedoes and ballistic missile systems in total realism without firing live ordnance. But the list pretty well ends there. Tomahawk, Harpoon,
“We warriors need to take charge and make certain that our fleet of today is as ready in fact as the planners’ fleet of the future is hoped to be. We have gotten very distant from our weapons. . . . Until every platform has been forced to prove its weapons skill under the most demanding of tactical conditions, we are collectively whistling past the graveyard.”
surface ASW weapons, the Standard missile, tactical nuclear weaponry, and more have little opportunity for effective training either at sea or ashore.
The fear here lies not with our inattention to weapons being irreversible in war, but rather with a fatalistic certainty that sailors will die, ships and aircraft lost, and victories forsaken as we learn with live rounds in battle what we failed to force upon ourselves in peace. Skill with weapons is the essence of the warrior’s craft. And we find ourselves lacking.
Evolution: The Navy’s last war ended in 1945. We have remained busy, and the flyers have had a serious go at combat twice since then, but our last conflict with a competent navy occurred 40 years ago. We are in our third generation of naval officers since these last battles. With the pessimistic assumption that we are between wars, not past them, the question occurs about our progress as we have evolved to the present.
Have we remained true to naval tradition and the lessons paid for in blood? Have we held our course, emphasizing those virtues which best promise victory in our next contest? The answers are perhaps less positive than we would like them to be. Our junior officers are as fine a group as have ever presented themselves for duty. They look to us for example, a picture of what they should aspire to be in later years. We should be concerned with what they are seeing.
come
and that means the official solution will have to
As we evolve, we must worry that the right characteristics are not being bred into our naval officers. Decisiveness and aggressive competence are to be sought in warriors. A willingness to exercise judgment and make decisions before every last fact is known is highly desirable in leaders forced to function in the fog of battle. Assumption of risk is an integral part of the profession of arms.
Our trend is unhealthy. A drift away from the warrior mentality is reflected in traits now often appearing in naval officers. Our overriding concern seems too often to be with professional safety as we pursue the Navy’s business.
“We display a reluctance to strike bold positions, a hesitation to do the right thing until all the facts are certain, the votes counied, and the career impact of the action known to be benign. We’ll put our lives on the line when we step into a cockpit or stand out to sea, but damned if we’ll risk that promotion.”
We display a reluctance to strike bold positions, a hesitation to do the right thing until all the facts are certain, the votes counted, and the career impact of the action known to be benign. We’ll put our lives on the line when we step into a cockpit or stand out to sea, but damned if we 11 risk that promotion.
We have arrived at a set of standards having less and less to do with being a warrior. Perfection. No missteps. Hew to the company line. Stay on the reservation. Conform, look good, and don’t agitate the water in the pool. We must question how well these standards serve our profession. No argument is made for sloppy navigation or bad conduct, but we must start to reward fully such traits as boldness, courage, risk taking, and a willingness to act even if the outcome is uncertain. In grading officers of the unrestricted line and in selecting them for senior rank and special responsibility, the highest rewards should be reserved for those officers needed for victory in combat.
Changing Course: The gulf between the warrior ethic and the peacetime Navy is widening. A summary of this essay’s main points lists these problems:
► Confusion in the aimpoint of the unrestricted line corps
- Fuzziness in the purpose of the restricted line
- Difficulty in the development and management of tec nicians and specialists
- Fundamental flaws in officer advanced education
- Inability to consistently field weapons training as g°° as the weapons
- Unwillingness to function early and well as blue sui e rather than warfare specialists
- Evolution of values in the warrior corps in the directio^ of a conformity that seriously threatens to institutiona mediocrity
- A mellow peacetime complacency with all of the abo The business side of the Navy is in fine shape. We &
building good ships and aircraft, we are pumping up sU tainability at a sound rate, and we, the Navy, are doin^ this with such innovation that it amounts to a revolution defense procurement. Let’s declare victory here and s ' our focus to the non-programmatic, non-dollar-intensi problems listed. , t
We won’t find a silver bullet to use on the problem, we must march toward a solution, however painful effort. The path to a revitalized warrior corps should 0 low two lines of attack. As individual officers, we nee wrestle with these issues inside our own minds. The pr° lem needs to be lifted from the inarticulated unease nia^ of us feel to a level of conscious identification within officer corps. .
The official Navy must also act, for the problem l'v inside the way we are organized, the way we run the P sonnel business, and the way we train and educate, problem hits just about every power sphere in the Na r
either as a top-down initiative with total commitment o fully supported recommendations from a council of vV1 men convened solely to tackle the issue.
The officer corps cannot rest on the planning, progra ming, and budgeting treadmill nor cease to be competeo( in the acquisition of new hardware. But we also can ignore the ultimate requirements: the spirit and skill to ^ wars. We owe it to ourselves to focus every bit of cour B and insight we possess on two fundamental questio^ What should an unrestricted line officer be? D° achieve that ideal?
Commander Byron is currently Executive Assistant, Office of Appraisal, SecNav. He is a proven subspecialist in strategic weaponSej a WASM selectee, and he has served in the Naval Military Pers°0ln- Command. Commander Byron has also served in six ships and has manded the USS Gudgeon (SS-567).
“The Most Unkindest Cut”.
During the more hectic days of the Solomons Campaign in World War II, Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey took time out for Sunday services. The chaplain, who appeared with a large Band-Aid on his chin, delivered a classically long and dull sermon. When services were over, Admiral Halsey asked the chaplain about the Band-Aid.
“Enemy action, padre?”
“No, Admiral, I was thinking about my sermon this morning and cut my chin.”
“I see. Well, next time, think about your chin and cut the sermon!”
Major Wayne A. Silkett, U. S. Army
(The Naval Institute will pay $25.00 for each anecdote published in the Proceedings)
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Proceedings / Jl,ne
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