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The Navy’s white paper, . . From the Sea,” is not about change; it is about the politics of change. In this sense, there are two kinds of white papers: the kind that meets change head-on and the kind that tries to deflect change’s full impact.
Both seek to keep the people and places they speak for healthy and alive. The head-on kind believes that change will not permit keeping the old ways over the long term. The head-on white Paper thinks of change as real, no matter what it thinks of the changes themselves.
The deflecting kind believes that change is just another challenge for politics. As long as the old politics rules, change is really whatever politics makes it. And that is what white papers can try to do.
The head-on white paper acts on change; the deflecting White paper repackages for change.
“. . . From the Sea,” is a deflecting white paper. It is not deceitful; it is honest. It is not frivolous; it is serious. Its problem ls a fundamental misreading of change.
“. . . From the Sea” sees:
^ Change as essentially complete. The Cold War world has been replaced by a New World Order. The Third World War has been replaced by Desert Storm and Restore Hope. End of story.
► Change as controlled by normal politics. The white paper sPeaks to the Defense world of Washington during the Bush regime. The Navy’s biggest worry is the politics of “jointness.” ► Change as holding for the next four years. “... From the Sea” ■magines the Navy putting into practice the lessons of change (past tense) through the politics of 1992. The Navy will finesse a stable niche through political correctness, the paper seems to say.
But change is not complete. Those riding herd on it tee gone, and things will not hold long enough to let • • . From the Sea” be the Navy’s vision.
The Navy will be driven in the next four years. It will not be doing the driving. Who or what does the driving is less important than where the Navy ends up. The Navy’s vision—-its white paper—must deal first with this truth. Only then will the Navy take part in change, and turn change to its own advantage. What is driving the Navy?
Budget. It’s the economy, stupid, and it’s not going away. The Pressures of 1992 may lift as the economy recovers, but even two 0r three good years will not grow us out of debt. The deficit will Worsen, spending will swell, and taxes will just not cover it. The small cuts of the next two years are not the Navy’s problem. The much bigger cuts that lie in wait three or four years ahead tee definitely the Navy's problem.
And these cuts will be easier to make if demand for the Navy drops. A few years without a war, with only a few Somalias to show, will make the slashers’ case much easier. Public interest ln imbroglios abroad may flag, especially if an upcoming Amer- ,can adventure turns sour. Add that to a public push for gov- emment to get its fiscal act together ....
Finally, very tight budgets will whet the appetites of those ^ho would reorganize Defense. They will insist we can substi- htte efficiency for money. The most dangerous result of budget cutting could be a revised National Security Act that seriously changes the Navy as an institution.
Society. The Navy world we know is at risk. The Navy is a Society within American society. In this sense it is a classic subculture (in the argot of sociologists). What we might forget, however, is that the Navy also reflects American society as a whole. The Navy society from its class structure to its own internal subcultures mirrors the 20th-century U.S. industrial society. That hirger society is changing.
One byproduct of this change is the push for full female and homosexual inclusion in Navy society. People expect the Navy to look no different than civilian society. This is a huge challenge for the Navy, but it is not a challenge simply on its own terms: that is, how to integrate women and homosexuals. It is a much bigger problem of adjusting to the social impacts on the Navy of an economic revolution.
This is a revolution in how things are imagined and made. We call it the information revolution, but it is also a revolution in war. The Navy is a society of war. It must operate the most highly developed systems industrial society can make. In the 20th century this meant a Navy labor force of engineers and managers (officers), foremen (chief petty officers), and machinists (enlisted). The Navy of the next century needs a much smaller labor force of professionals, all equally skilled. The transition of the Navy from an industrial society to an information society will push the entire Navy toward the social values—or class— of other professional American elites.
This means simply that future Navy society will mirror American elites and their guilds (medicine, science, the law) rather than, as in the past, an entire cross-section of American industrial society. Therefore, the value structure of Navy society will be tied more self-consciously to that of America’s elites. This process is deep-running, and may take 20 years, but inclusion of women and homosexuals is simply the change we now see above water.
Enemy. There may be no enemy for years, even decades.
What does this do to the Navy consciousness—its identity, its ethos? It is one thing not to be at war. It is another to have no enemy. It is yet another not even to see what a real enemy would look like. It is the third prospect that we face today. A long peace is seductively dangerous.
One danger is that war readiness goes—not a sudden loss, but a slow erosion of mind. The Navy will lose its mental attitude for war. Worse, its daily activity will help obscure the loss. Raids, rescues, even a little war or two will strengthen the sense of a Navy superior to all comers and likely to stay that way. The Navy will believe it is ready for all wars even though it is ready only for what remains of war—in peacetime.
Another danger is that war planning goes. If the enemy can’t be imagined, how do you plan to fight him? The Navy will be stuck in a world where the biggest threat is just a little bigger than what the Navy faces every day. Planning for a big war will become harder as it becomes harder to believe it could happen.
A final danger is that modernization goes. The peacetime world will task the Navy with budget cuts and social experiments. The last thing the Navy will want is to add to its own stress. Navy leadership will try to hold on to as much of the old Navy world as it can. This means holding on to the forces that made the Navy world what it is. Holding on to familiar forces and people means less money put toward an unfamiliar future—a lot less money.
These problems work together perversely. The pressures of a long peace could lead the Navy to resist change rather than embrace it. So this is what a Navy white paper needs to do. It must:
► Accept a new Navy reality. Accept the fact that it will push the Navy in different ways, and requires a different response.
► Accept the truth that change is not going to stop. Tell the whole Navy that change needs to be faced head-on.
>■ Lay out the problems of this new reality openly. Make change an opportunity, not a curse.
► Don’t give in wholly to the fashions of peace. New roles beckon, but they can be mere fashion.
► Think about the enemy; imagine—however distant he is— what he might do.
And even in a long peace, prepare for war.
Michael Vlahos
47
Proceedings / February 1992