Time-Out for the Hard Charger

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able to do battle in the “joint

tion, however, produces familia^¹^ ₀p-

fundamental political, strategic,

The United States is riding the bow wave of explosive technological growth. Tomorrow’s hyper-velocity, sea-skim­ming cruise missiles, robot-controlled weapons platforms, stealth aircraft, and

Our best operators need time both on the bridge and in the classroom. Today’s high-tech Navy demands leaders whose understanding reaches beyond systems and doctrine—and who can teach and inspire tomor­row’s hard chargers.

space-based weapon systems epitomize our national military strategy, which demands quality weapons with a long- range standoff and high destructive ca­pacity. These state-of-the-art systems will assist the successful employment of U. S. forces through peace, crises, or limited or general war.

The most critical element of any high- tech weapon system is the human opera­tor. If technology is to measure up to its promise, people must come first. Today’s leaders must not only know how to build or employ these cutting-edge weapons, they must also know how to mold officers who will master the rigors, uncertainties, and high-tech challenges of the 21st cen­tury. In today’s era of limited resources, fiscal constraints, and reduced officer end strength, even the “cutting edge of tech­nology” will not eliminate the require­ment to do more with fewer assets. The only way to ensure that the Navy will have officers like Chester Nimitz. Ray­mond Spruance, and “Bull” Halsey to fight its future battles is to reexamine its leadership requirements and continue to hold the strain against the increasing number of wickets an officer must pass in current ensign-to-admiral career paths.

These paths are now filled with numer­ous requirements and little time to meet

them. Officers must be operational riors from their own services, and also

Future Pentagon leaders also must be ^ ticulate and masterful in their ability

sity of military force to the nation -          _f6.

ian leadership. Since it is the ^^aV^,_rS.' sponsibility to “grow its own '^ea ^es* the service must continue to take |,ip and the brightest, mold their l^ea . ₍jng skills in operational and war-n& ^j, experience, and then stimulate the intellectual growth through educa • ₀f Why intellectual growth, ^instf gpe? continued operational experience- ational experience and training course, hone war-fighting ^sk|J|^s ._tu ^itb

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erational issues, which underlie u ^1 thinking needed to deal with chan£®__at' von Clausewitz wrote that only -

Proceedings / Octo^b

ktii'? ^Eom 'heir own operational expe­ct'd to be reactive instead of pro­relying on preprogrammed action .. ^a'n stimuli. Understanding weapon -Os is one thing, but the opera­te art of employing these weapons to ;ip_e ,^e strategic goals demands trained, ^r'^enced, and educated leaders.

\^^Cat'^on: Education deals with the Ui_e ■ and mental discipline that shapes of ^Cllect to cope with the challenges trai_nj^0rnPl^ex.ity and change.¹ Although

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of their respective warfare

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"khe ^c°mes the hard part: cutting loose Hu_e , ^and the brightest so they can con- ^d»,."^c'^r formal education. Incumbent

|^{fS re}alize that naval warfare technol- hati₀

cliapo;,¹ objectives, and doctrine are

^{J v}vuinidiiucis jjutcivC/ ui& liucuii

i, ^ ^ents of a rapidly developing situation ,_:,_|^attle; then they decide on a course of quickly and accurately. Nothing is dty. ^necessary in today’s war-fighting lijgh °ⁿⁿ>ent of computers, satellites, and Jj. ^tech weaponry. Here, victory will sj^il on a commander’s ability to as- i-jfo ^ate vast amounts of information, to i_)r|iⁿ'^ze and task numerous subordinate adv Zanders, to delegate authority in of an engagement, and to under­lie Weapon capabilities and limita- tlij. ; Leaders who use tactics drawn

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important, it is only a process g transitory job skills. Training ^eVer take the place of education. Ofpt^avy recruits officers on the bases Pre_v; Education and potential, rarely on Slid ^Us 'raining. This prior education ’ⁱ*i_rij^^rce'ved potential then leads to ^W*^{lere new}ly acquired officers flight ^c “technicians” (pilots, naval Vers °L'^ccrs, ship drivers, division offi- ^dg^CtC'L Officers become rudimentary • °ⁿ*y ^af^ter they have experience in V!'"⁸ People, money, and weapon ^hiy ^{S Ear}'y ’ⁿ 'I¹⁶ career path, the best ffid '^Clans start percolating to the top &e_a[er^e tagged to assume positions of ^5rid ] ^resPonsibility as integral members to, '"'^J

^'ioh i^t0° complex and that strategies,

Sgin °^bje

^{0 u}pd-^{8 t0}° ^raP'^d|y no' to take time out ^ate the potential heavy hitter. In

return, the warfare community receives back a stronger leader who can under­stand concepts beyond mere facts and doctrine—a thinker, not just a parrot; one who looks ahead, not to the past.

Along the career path, discretionary choices made by the Navy (such as decid­ing to send a front-running aviator to the Naval Postgraduate School instead of to the fleet replacement squadron for a short tour) and mandatory constraints imposed by external agencies will influence the leadership profile. The Goldwater- Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, for example, changed the way the United States is managing its military forces and, as a consequence, has altered the way career paths must develop for potential flag officers.

Since World War II, the military ser­vices have increased their emphasis on joint and combined forces. The Gold- water-Nichols legislation included the following two provisions that affect the way the Navy selects its leaders:

► All military forces are now assigned to an operational commander (commander- in-chief of a unified or specified com­mand). The Navy has no independent operational authority for its own forces.

► Joint education/joint duty is a manda­tory prerequisite for many flag billets.² While there is little doubt that the legisla­tion will benefit the way the U. S. mili­tary fights, there is plenty of doubt on how well the Navy can fit the joint educa­tion/joint duty requirement into the career paths of its officer corps. Out go some discretionary choices; in come the man­datory constraints set by Congress. The Navy, however, is making every attempt to conform with the new legislation and is adjusting force planning issues as neces­sary.

The Goldwater-Nichols Act, in fact, recognized the need to educate prospec­tive leaders. Representative Ike Skelton (D-MO), Chairman of the Military Edu­cation Panel of the House Armed Ser­vices Committee, has launched a con­gressional inquiry, hearing testimony in Washington and at various U. S. and Eu­ropean service colleges. The panel’s 1988 agenda includes a review of the Department of Defense’s plans for imple­menting the education provisions of the Goldwater-Nichols Act and the ability of the DoD education system to encourage the development of exceptional military thinkers, planners, and strategists.³

The panel appears to be dedicated to educational reform, not just the training required to enter joint billets. One of the first issues Congressman Skelton raised concerned military officers’ apparent lack of understanding both of the role Con­gress plays in the defense decision­making process and of the laws that apply to the services.⁴ Hopefully, this educa­tional reform will also offer a plan of action that will provide adequate higher education while simultaneously main­taining a well-structured career path for tomorrow’s leaders at little or no cost to fleet readiness.

The Bureaucratic Warriors: Based on the Goldwater-Nichols Act and yearly appropriation battles aimed at balancing the budget, Congress apparently desires the services to provide leaders who are a perfect meld of an operational warrior, a joint-forces warrior, and a bureaucratic warrior; a leader who can accomplish both cost-effective peacetime manage­ment and strategic wartime successes.

Such leaders, indeed, are needed to fight the “bureaucratic wars.” Deterring aggression is an expensive task, and for the country at peace, Congress finds it hard to spend tax dollars on the training for war required to deter the real thing. In fact, the country at “peace” would rather focus on the more immediate and tangible social programs to benefit its people than on the potential danger that exists beyond the horizon.⁵ Out of this complex situa­tion is borne the “bureaucratic warrior”: a warrior who must battle for a share of defense dollars in direct competition with other services, with the commanders-in- chief of unified and specified commands, and with social programs; a warrior who must be able to work through an acquisi­tion process that is a lot tougher at times than calling for close-air support or naval gunfire; and a warrior who understands the current atmosphere of dramatic tech­nological change and who has the confi­dence necessary to acquire the cutting- edge weapons needed to meet an evolv­ing threat.

Today’s bureaucratic warrior has wit­nessed a revolution in military affairs since the end of World War II. This revo­lution has been characterized not only by technological advancement in weapon systems, but also by innovative system procurement strategies, shrinking defense budgets, and a growing government in­volvement in military affairs.

Victory in the Pentagon and on the floors of the House and Senate can only be attained through intellectual fire­power. That firepower needed to win the Navy’s force-planning and defense ac­quisition battles can only come through well-educated, highly trained, operation­ally experienced bureaucratic warriors. Such warriors must be able to speak an operational language in a joint atmo­sphere about highly technical weapon

deni*

Commander Furness is a LAMPS who has served tours in HSL-37, HSL-30-

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systems, and must also be able to choose and justify cutting-edge weapon systems built in the 1980s and 1990s that will serve the fleet well into the next century. Such officers can serve to counterbalance the increasing number of congressmen without military service, who, perhaps, lack the experience required to under­stand fully the symbiotic relationship be­tween those who grant and those who use military capabilities.⁶

Teaming Technology and Leadership: Today’s weapons allow the nation to fight smarter, not harder. The United States depends on its technological advantage to compensate for quantitative shortfalls, but still relies primarily on people to win its battles. The challenge for today’s leaders, then, is to continue shaping their successors, who will push beyond to­day’s technological barriers.

The dilemma inherent in this task is hard to resolve because of insidious pit­falls in the Navy’s career paths. In addi­tion to the Goldwater-Nichols Act, which mandates one more “ticket to punch” for tomorrow’s leader and takes away time available for other career-path require­ments specified by the Navy, the Navy must deploy a large percentage of the total number of its officer corps with the fleet during peacetime because of world tensions. Hence, it can spare relatively few officers for both postgraduate educa­tion and formal service school education. In addition, resources available for de­fense will probably be restricted more than in the past. As a consequence, offi­cer end-strength cuts have already been mandated by Congress for 1989-90, leaving fewer officers available for schools. Finally, operational command­ers generally owe a great deal of respon­sibility to their own particular organiza­tions. Committing officer resources elsewhere (that is, to the Naval War Col­lege or a joint staff) is not always in an organization’s best interests. In fact, for new programs such as Aegis, the LAMPS-III, or the F/A-18 Hornet, com­mitting officers to career-enhancing bil­lets outside the organization could de­prive it of the resources necessary to survive and prosper.

The bottom line is that today’s opera­tional commanders must continue their profound strategic personnel manage­ment perspective and retain their invest­ment in human capital to develop a force of productive, competitive, and imagina­tive leaders. Unfortunately, operational commanders must take their officers ‘ ‘out of hide” from their communities to sup­port the strategic management policy of providing manpower for the good of the

armed services. This will continue to ^ tough force planning issue. But ^even. especially—in a high-tech era, the p^e " must still come first.

'RAdm. Ronald J. Kurth, USN, Pf^esl1 Notes.” Naval War College Review. Spring p. 3.                   .

²LCdr. James K. Gruetzner, USN, and MaJ-_

Caldwell, USA, ”DoD Reorganization.

Naval Institute Proceedings, May 1987. P- ³James C. Hyde, “Military Educators Grades?” Armed Forces Journal Internationa ruary 1988, p. 24.

-'Ibid.                                                                            ■■pe-

⁵George Schultz. “On Alliance Responsible F partment of State Bulletin, Vol. 85, No. - — tember 1985, p. 35. _Bf>adin^esS

⁶John Burlage, “Force Cut Better T(^ian o 8. Dip: Carlucci,” Navy Times, 11 April I ^ Car* (An interview with Secretary of Defense ' j_n(i)jng lucci in which he stated his concern over^ ^g^sS' military expertise in Congress and how one man recently quoted Tom Clancy’s novel “' :\ptj Rising [Putnam, 1986] as an authoritative source.)

42. He has significant operational ^exP^er‘^enC^_nd frig' made extended deployments on destroye^rs ‘ ^ ates from both coasts. His last deploy¹™'¹¹ ^ _env officer-in-charge of a LAMPS-III dctac ™ ^_Qfly barked on board the USS Doyle (FFG- mander Furness is currently assigned to War College in Newport, Rhode Island