Where Will the Warriors Come From?

This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected.  Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies.  Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue.  The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.

Many of the brightest naval officers seem to be going to submarines like the Dallas (SSN-700), and learning skills “once reserved for the engineering enlisted man.” Will the Navy be left without enough warriors to plan and conduct combat operations?

the

froi

no

technology-dominated navy of today, one wonders ^,rri where another Nelson will rise if future leaders have

^Defe:

^nse Department’s development of officers competent

strategy and joint (multiservice) matters. Con-

8^res

\y_a^^Se the number of naval officers attending the Naval

ife bo

^essay-type examinations at both levels; establish a

^leyel_s

s

‘tent

off. Phase education process to develop joint specialist th_e'^^rsj increase the study of strategy at all levels; convert gj_c ^ational War College into a National Center for Strate- aod: ^tUc*^les’ both a research and educational institution;

off!

Th

°ⁿ on both service and joint tracks.

^986 Goldwater-Nichols Reorganization of the De department toward “jointness,” and will require ^avy to scrutinize its career pattern for education.

Horatio Nelson earned renown from feats of valor on the bridge of an English warship. But his suprem- . acy in battle required more than valor; much less Ppreciated, he was a zealous student of the art of war. In

comparable opportunity to study the martial arts. The °dern naval officer is being shortchanged in developing ^nalyticai-intellectual skills in the use of force. Since the ^chon landing in Korea in 1950, the record in developing : carrying out a combat operation has been strategically ^ cnior to the game plan of the average professional foot- ^a * ^team on a Sunday afternoon.

. ^ar% under the impetus of operational failure by the I ^ltary, a congressional panel recently completed a year- p_rⁿ§ study of professional military education (PME) and °Posed far-reaching changes that may influence the ca- * °f all line officers. More naval officers may have a _tj ^ance to attend a war college and the course of instruc- ^a otay change considerably.¹ he charter of the panel called for an assessment of the

both

srnan Ike Skelton (D-MO), task force chairman, sub- r_ec ^ec* legislation to the new Congress to push forward his f_r ^Ortlntendations. He seeks to develop a defense-wide _Ser^^evvork to tie together the curricula of both joint and cr_e '^{Ce sc}hools with specific objectives at each level; in- ^ar College and make the Command and Staff and Senior ^s more distinct so that officers will attend not either °th levels; improve faculty qualifications; require fre- .. ^lncrease the educational content of the Capstone (flag of '^^rs’) course at the National War College. A Director (V. 'htary Education will be added to the staff of the c^an, Joint Chiefs of Staff to coordinate military edu-

t|)_e ^Skelton Panel aimed to ease the implementation of ^udying the Art of War at the Naval Academy: The Academy has long been considered a quality engi- th_e i'‘‘8 school, quite overshadowing its modest repute in kn_0w,^eral arts and humanities. Unfortunately, most of the N_e]_s ^e(lge and analytical thinking that the future Horatio th_{e n}°^{n 0r} Chester Nimitz needs to fight a war emerges in a fir^Hgineering areas. The professional naval officer is ^r°titi f ^technician in a technically oriented society; the Cat_Ccj^{etl n}aval officer must be much more than a sophisti- Of _ar ^engineer. It is difficult to imagine that the profession tle|_a ^{s c}an be learned, as at present, if first exposure is ^et^ ^Until a mid-career command and staff college—or ^a senior war college.

The Air Force claims to be the most technical of the services, but the Air Force Academy, like West Point, balances technical and liberal arts studies roughly 50-50; the Naval Academy for years claims a need to train 70­80% engineers. Attempts by recent Secretaries of the Navy to increase the nontechnical studies met only cos­metic success.² Every midshipman regardless of major should receive an introduction to the history of warfare, the elements of strategy and tactics, the staffing and plan­ning process, and a history of the military art. Many tech­nical courses offer training rather than education, their content is not retained for long, and the information has only marginal utility in a career. Learning the military art is a primary career value. Ideally, intellectual curiosity should be instilled at the Academy level because it rarely develops later. The stimulus to study history, to develop lifelong habits of reading the military classics, and to cre­ate an interest in those areas so vital to one’s professional development must be implanted and nourished from the earliest days. Equally important, the future warrior must be identified, nurtured, and supported at every level to produce the future commander the country needs.

To achieve this mission, the Academy requires a profes­sional teaching faculty trained for the purpose. Such a faculty must be built around the uniformed officer, as at West Point and Colorado Springs. Much of the compara­tive weakness at Annapolis is a byproduct of its half-civil­ian, half-military faculty. The long survival of the present system is not a measure of its effectiveness. The 1975 Department of Defense Committee on Excellence in Edu­cation (Clements Committee) found that “the missions of the service academies are best served by having highly qualified young officers with recent field or fleet experi­ence teaching in the majority of classrooms.”³ The Com­mittee recommended an increase in the uniformed faculty at the Naval Academy to 65% by 1980 and a gradual re­duction in civilians to 5% or 10%, with all military faculty members to have at least a master’s degree. Several Naval Academy superintendents agreed with the committee’s goal, but since no progress has been made—today the faculty is 54% civilian—other naval leaders apparently do not.

One major reason is the near impossibility of finding qualified teachers in uniform. Only a few are available and present policies cannot produce more. Many military offi­cers assigned to the Naval Academy have high hopes of a challenging and rewarding teaching role and of advanced professional study. They come away frustrated. Very few teach academically demanding subjects. Unique to the Navy, Congress forbids sending naval officers to graduate school to prepare them to teach. The Skelton panel will add leverage to change this incongruity. Without graduate training a naval officer cannot compete with civilian aca­demics. Scholarly research beyond the needs of the class­room is unknown to the staff in uniform; they do not pub­lish. Nor is the duty career-enhancing. Few make repeat tours; fewer make flag rank. One of the objections to using the West Point system at Annapolis is the limited chance to earn a star. Yet both the other academies are far ahead of the Navy in this respect. Some outstanding officers who

lege programs themselves became sufficiently chaH^eIV

ing, the question answered itself. The Naval War

for ■

that vice^{s 1}

The Navy lacks enough qualified officers to teach at the Naval Academy (right) and is even prohibited from send­ing its officers to graduate schools to prepare for teaching assignments. At the Naval War College (facing page), the major warfare communities are not represented equally. This results in an anemic strategy course.

served at the Naval Academy do make flag rank. But the selection for the teaching faculty is haphazard, depending more on availability than suitability.

Civilians who teach at Annapolis or Newport, espe­cially in military history and the art of warfare, are not enhancing their teaching careers either. There has never been a golden era of academic excellence in the liberal arts at Annapolis. Teaching does not provide easy entry into a scholarly elite. Many civilians who teach military officers are gifted but lack operational experience and are uninter­ested and unprepared in the study of strategy as a distinct discipline. To improve quality and remain competitive, the Academy civilian faculty recently sought a much- deserved pay increase. Open discussions revealed that they do neither graduate-level teaching nor significant re­search, and their publishing record is inferior to the mili­tary faculties at West Point or Colorado Springs. Teaching at the Naval Academy, however, requires more than teaching at a civilian college, so requirements should be based on filling the special needs of the midshipmen.

The Changing Role of the Naval War College: At the Naval War College, Admiral Stansfield Turner revolution­ized the curriculum in 1972 into a sound graduate-level experience. Periodic major changes in the academic pro­gram then and since are not unknown at all the war col­leges, but few, if any, survive the incumbent head. Admi­ral Turner showed more foresight than the rest, however, by signing to long-term contracts a core of quality civilian professors, who have been able to retain continuity in the academic program despite the flow of short-toured mili­tary officers through the faculty. Yet how can even the best of civilian scholars be expected to carry the intellec­tual burden of teaching military strategy in the halls made famous by Stephen Luce and Alfred Thayer Mahan? How can the uniformed officer, who lacks extensive prepara­tion, be expected to do better?

Major deficiencies exist in strategy and planning. The civilian has his own career to advance and studying strat­egy offers no entree. Until the recent resurgence of interest in military history, few academic institutions in the United States or Europe offered an advanced degree in military studies.⁴ The disciplines of history and political science have their own demands that are not necessarily consistent with war college needs. The absence of theory and con­ceptual rigor throughout current approaches to strategy and strategic thinking is critical. Even though this lack is less prevalent at Newport than in the other war colleges, it is endemic to all.

Conceding the major academic role to civilians, how­ever gifted, may be a short-term necessity but it is a long­term loser. How can a military establishment retain its

virility after surrendering its intellectual destiny to the* not in uniform? The intellectual curiosity that is instills the Naval Academy must be allowed to grow through^' an officer’s career. Today, little time is allowed quah people in uniform for research, writing, and publican ' and the magnitude of that task can hardly be minium² Military strategy can never be addressed satisfacj⁰ until the military scholar can be given the opportunity ^ become a strategic thinker. John Collins found only ^tw° . three individuals in each service competent to teach ^s egy; none of the names was well known.⁵ Today ^st ^ gists are neither made nor born, but simply appointed- founding of the Strategic Studies group at Newport a nine years ago—eight officers working approximate; ^ year in a highly conceptual environment—could small step in the right direction, but these carefully ^ lected individuals are returned immediately to the proper effort will require personnel to make a five-1° year commitment.            _Q\.

To improve their academic experience at the war leges, many students in the past participated in oft- . degree programs at civilian universities. But a p^r°P^j, challenging program at the war college would allow ^ ther time nor energy for outside study. When the wa

Coll^

is now taking the initiative in seeking accreditation j master’s degree program for the war college course -j| wholly on upgrading it as necessary. Accreditation ^ require meeting criteria of educational quality and ³  ₉

ented faculty. One can only hope it will also req¹ careful selectivity and reasonably long tenure for the e cators in uniform.

The Navy’s PME Shortfall: Can it be by choice Navy is so much more austere than the other ser

the

Th,

^e absence of a requirement to provide an adequate pro-

fa

the

quality of student to suffer. The Navy often stated that

offering opportunities for formal schooling? Making so ^evv high-quality officers available for educational quotas Indicates a lack of priority more than a lack of officers.

^Ssional education to carefully selected students causes ^lts goal was to send the top 50% of each year group to the ^C()iTimand and staff level, and to select half of these for a ^Senior war college. We have never come close.

Students for the Army War College are screened far Jtt°re rigorously than in the Navy. Selection is reputedly ^0re severe than selection for colonel, and completing the '^Var college course is almost mandatory for selection to j\^neral officer. In the Navy, officials have long main- jted that the number of officers required to man the fleet ^loWs only relatively few to attend both a mid-level and ^ⁿⁱ°r war college. Even if this is true, the answer is not, [^s done now, to send some to each level and few to This policy reduces student quality, encourages ^edap in the courses of study, and lowers academic stan- ^arc*^s- It also lowers the quality of the military faculty, ^Se only academic preparation came from the previous

Vcap

c_er .^{as a} student. The minimal training of top-rank offi- j_n ^{s lr}> the art of warfare becomes haphazard. The increase „*** of the Naval War College and in quality of the cnts since the Watkins era increased the numbers of _be,o^aates who make flag rank, but the percentages are still s_e] ^w the Army and Air Force. For those who fail of abo^Ct'°ⁿ’ P^remature retirement shortens their career by sj , ‘ seven years. Even the fortunate ones disappear from ^eXn ^VV'^¹ little to contribute for their special war college idg ^rience- It is tragic that so many officers feel that the a_n, ^Career plan is to be selected to go to the war college—

Th^{101 80}’

sp_e ,^e Skelton panel asked the Chief of Naval Operations t₀ ‘tally to review the system, to allow naval officers dj_s.. ^end both schools, and to give each school a more ^lE^ ^curr‘^cul^um-⁶ This focus in coordinating the career T_be .Pl^an is vital; its lack is part of the Navy’s problem.

Air Force, for example, assigns a three-star general,

directly under the chief of staff, to command the Air Uni­versity at Maxwell Air Force Base, including all schools from squadron officer through senior war college. I know of no comparable role for the chief of naval education and training (CNET). Lacking centralized supervision the goals of the Naval Academy, Command and Staff Col­lege, Naval Postgraduate School, Naval War College, and lesser schools vary, and they function largely within self­determined, loosely coordinated orbits.

A major shortcoming in the war college and postgradu­ate schools is the nonparticipation of nuclear-trained offi­cers. Their absence detracts from both the war colleges and the nuclear program. For two generations nuclear power has siphoned off the cream of the officer corps. These talented officers have much to give and more to receive from the war college experience, but few appear in any nonengineering program. The 1989 classes in the Naval Warfare and Naval Command and Staff colleges include 96 aviators, 41 surface, 9 submariners, and 35 “others.”⁷ For the “nukes” the war college is supplanted by a new center of learning so essential that every officer aspiring to higher command at sea must attend: the Senior Officer Ship Material Readiness Course now at Newport.

Retired naval officer and distinguished historian Thomas Buell claims that at a time “when the navy needs enlightened officers who are experts in the art of war, its senior leaders instead are learning skills once reserved for the engineering enlisted man.” He offers persuasive evi­dence of the overstress on engineering and lack of strate­gic and tactical experience among senior commanders.⁸ For example, some of our newly selected flag officers reach the Capstone course at the National Defense Univer­sity having never written a strategic estimate or an opera­tion order.

Developing Strategic Thinkers: Developing strategists was a major goal of the Skelton panel. This is a particu­larly difficult task because the invasion of civilians as pro­fessional thinkers at every level has virtually preempted the art. A potential Mahan in the modem Navy would be counseled to serve only one teaching assignment and to avoid that if he could. Seeking ways to improve the medi­ocre state of strategy study, Lieutenant General Raymond B. Furlong, U. S. Air Force, conducted a noteworthy con­ference at the Air University in 1979 on “teaching strat­egy at the war colleges.” Participants from all mid-level and senior schools reached unanimous agreement on the necessity for the uniformed professional to regain his lost stature in the field of strategy and doctrine, and recognized the value of the military heretic in challenging traditional beliefs.

This conference cited at least four primary reasons for the loss of military stature. First was the nuclear weapon, which became an immediate captive of the civilian intel­lectual and seemed to make all previous concepts of strat­egy obsolete. Second, military training in strategy-making was by no means adequate—it was too brief, too casual, and came too late in life. Third, the increasing dominance of management and budget in the curricula intruded more and more into strategic thought. Fourth, the professional

national security strategy.

iitiy

iect is to misunderstand the purpose of a war colleg^e ‘

r. Man⁸.,

...                                                                 ..                 ouM<!

a top priority. The career stage in which officers atten^.^, senior war college coincides with the stage in their ^ tary education when they should look outward, whe^rey military must be put into context with national and m tional concerns as but one factor in the equation ⁰                                                                                  ,

tional interest. Previously, it may have been suii¹ ₀. even admirable, for the military officer to look 9^U1 chially at his service from a position within. Now he                                                        _s,

a broader scope, not only to expand his own perspe^c ^ but also to gain appreciation of the concerns of the^ ^ players. The Skelton panel specifically recogniz^^t need in a summary recommendation that the major s of PME should be the employment of combat for^ce . jp, the conduct of war, with secondary attention to leade management, and executive fitness.⁹              ^d'

It is of limited value to examine a current defense _f0\e get. Study of the budget is important primarily in ¹

in uniform, who traditionally avoided intrusion into policy-making as a violation of the principle of civilian control, is more and more drawn into national security policy-making at the top levels of government.

The civilian intellectual appears in much of this to emerge as the devil. Not so. The civilian, drawn like a moth to the atomic flame, filled the gap in strategy­making created by new technology, and the military strat­egist quickly lost dominance. Lacking his practical contri­bution, current concepts of the role of nuclear weapons are still primitive. Here again the military scholar is chal­lenged to regain his former stature.

The professional officer must develop a theory of war. Here the contribution of both the scholar in uniform and in mufti has been insignificant. Nor does the literature offer significant help. The rebirth of interest in Karl von Clausewitz was a great stimulus; it needs to be nurtured beyond infancy. Not only must strategy link, in some gen­eral sense, resources to ends, but it must provide the con­ceptual basis for developing and exercising a variety of operations or campaign options, of relating assets to ob­jectives within a cost-risk framework.

Jointness: The new vigor in strategy and strategy­making offers a much-needed incentive to the services. The 1958 amendments to the National Security Act speci­fied that all strategic planning originate not within the ser­vice staffs, but in the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). This provision, repeated three times in President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s message to Congress, was not enforced at the time because the JCS claimed to have neither the per­sonnel nor the facilities to develop strategy. The task, therefore, was delegated to the services and, although the original reason has long since disappeared, large and pow­erful staffs in each of the services continue to dominate national strategic planning. The 1958 law also provided that control of all combat operations be placed under the unified commanders. The service roles are limited: to pro­vide, train, and equip forces for the unified commands. The key to educating more officers in joint operations, therefore, lies first in carrying out the law as written in 1958—particularly as restated in Goldwater-Nichols— and changing the missions of the war colleges so that they may play primary roles as joint institutions.

The law places combat operations under joint control but the planning process includes the operational expertise and sensitivity to service functions that an armed forces staff must have. The goal is not simply to train a joint elite. The aim for 30 years has been to focus all training and strategy-making in a joint environment, continually enriched by service values. Service roles should be self­sustaining within the joint structure.

The Goldwater-Nichols mandate for the war colleges to focus on joint study is not new. The Naval War College was founded in 1884 as a joint institution. Admiral Luce believed that certain common principles form the basis of all broad strategy. The first officer permanently assigned to the Naval War College staff was an Army officer. All war colleges have been directed by the JCS Chairman to offer a joint curriculum.

The joint structure will operate satisfactorily in a ^crlSlS if only one service is involved; the usual case invol^veS more than one service and planning frequently goes avvrf Moreover, the missions of the service colleges still do n represent what they are tasked by law to accomplish- ¹ Air War College mission, for example, revised in 19° ’ aims “to prepare senior military officers to develop,^11181,1 tain, and lead the aerospace component of national po"¹₁, to deter conflict and achieve victory in the event of war- Joint study and other elements of national power ^vV°¹!. find difficulty intruding into a curriculum based litera ) on that mission.     ^

In refocusing the war colleges’ joint responsibilities’ Skelton panel recognized that they should not be un joint control. Each service college will offer ^corTinl. learning objectives for joint studies; each has the °pP°^_e nity to develop service philosophies as elements ot joint strategy, thus fulfilling the needs of the parent vice and of students from other services in future J ^ assignments. At the apex, the National War College fill an entirely new role as a center for strategic stud ^ both a research and an educational institution, focusing

Much constructive thought and energy has ^recel _i been expended within the services seeking to devel°P U. S. defense structure built around competing ^018,1 _e and continental philosophies of war. Important as studies are to the services, they naturally tend towa _ger. parochial view generally uncoordinated with the other vices or allies toward common goals. The overall ^reSP^, sibility for a national defense philosophy, Congro^sS lieves, belongs in the joint aegis.            _s.

The lack of a joint approach handicaps other stu _

All the senior war colleges cover management and bu b But many officers have had considerable practice in jj[ agement before they reach the war college and most ^ have attended courses at nearly every stage of their reers. Many also possess advanced degrees in man ^ ment or some aspect of it. To take these officers by ^ hand and lead them again through the elements of th^e j

)lleg^e^_c.

its place in the spectrum of military education. M⁸ ment is an appropriate course of study, but it should n^ ^

^standi

>ng of service roles. The political process demands

"j national security, where defense needs fit in with other ^c|aimants. To look at it otherwise is like buying a family ^Car without taking account of income, mortgage pay- ^II'^ents, tuition, and other domestic expenditures. One Sains no rational understanding of the issues at govern­ment level in subsequent assignments without such com­Parisons. Strategies and weapon systems above all need study and evaluation in broad terms, to prevent the budget torn going out of control.

During World War II the U. S. military arms pursued ttfee separate strategies within the loosest type of confed­^eration. The atomic weapon added a new strategy for each S^£rvice in which the airman seemed to favor a strategy ^Ul]t around the largest nuclear bomb that could not be °^Wn from a carrier; the naval airman with the largest that ^c°uld; the soldier with one that could be fired from an Cillery piece, even if only two bridges in Europe could ^Pport the vehicle; and the Marine, perhaps, with an °mic hand grenade. Neither defense costs nor budget _Q ^s°urces will ever again allow the services to fight three— J ^s'^x-—separate wars. Nor has any nation been able to ^0rd both a maritime and continental strategy. It is vital ^at the hard choices on weapons and strategies be ^rashed out jointly from the beginning, with full under-

^1,0 less.

of war college studies is on joint learning objectives. In the orderly progression of professional military education, the study of military issues should not be done in isolation, but rather with more consideration of the other ingredients besides the military that serve the national interest. This should be done with understanding and not, as often hap­pens, with condescension. The aim is to educate and en­large the outlook, not merely to harden existing points of view. Otherwise the student at graduation will be more or less what he was on entry; this is hardly a profitable use of his time or the taxpayer’s money.

The Military Officer in Government: The U. S. military officer is increasingly involved as an adviser in the bu­reaucracy. The experienced officer is the best disciplined, trained, staffed, and organized resource in government. His special talents are widely sought to fill policy posi­tions not only in Defense but in the State Department, on congressional staffs, and throughout the federal bureauc­racy. When the Oliver North crisis broke, 20% of the Na­tional Security Council staff was furnished by the Navy Department.

But the military officer, trained in the use of force, tends to favor military solutions. General George Marshall cautioned that looking at a political problem from a mili­tary viewpoint soon makes it a military problem. In an unnatural obeisance to the principle of civilian control of the military, he tends to isolate military policy from politi­cal objectives. For example, George Kennan, distin­guished statesman and former faculty member at the Na­tional War College, spoke frequently of his conviction that the steady militarization of U. S. thinking about the Soviet Union in past years has left the country without any clear politico-diplomatic outlook on U. S.-Soviet relations and thus, apart from strategic-military measures, any long­term policy at all. It is a tragic indication of the degree of militarization of U. S. policy that, in a 1987 poll, Britain and West Germany saw the United States as a greater threat to world peace, or less concerned about peace, than the Soviet Union.¹⁰

War college curricula in national strategy, particularly at the National Defense University, should concentrate on political, diplomatic, and foreign economic affairs to broaden the base of understanding by senior leaders, par­ticularly those in uniform. They have a unique contribu­tion to make to the federal government, but their narrow educational base limits their productivity. Broadening that base is supported strongly by the Skelton panel.

Conclusion: The Navy requires a far more comprehen­sive PME plan based on reinstituting off-duty study, pro­motion exams, and certification by correspondence

An unenforced 1958 law places control of all combat oper­ations under the unified commanders. We must adhere to that law, particularly as restated in the Goldwater-Nichols Act. As recent experience in the Persian Gulf shows, joint combat operations are the rule rather than the exception. Each war college, accordingly, must develop its service’s philosophy as an element of joint strategy.