What We Can Learn from Jackie Fisher

The architects of the naval transformation in progress today could learn much by studying a similar transformation of a century ago in Great Britain. Its chief orchestrator was First Sea Lord Admiral John Fisher.

Today's ongoing naval transformation in the United States bears remarkable resemblance to that of the Royal Navy 100 years ago. Both eras are marked by rapid technological change, global economies, and great uncertainty. Like Great Britain at the zenith of the Industrial Revolution, the United States faces challenges in the Information Age.¹ Like British Strategy, the U.S. strategy must balance competing demands to secure its homeland and refashion its military to secure its interests far from its own shores.

During his tenure (1904-1910) as Britain's First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir John "Jackie" Fisher made dramatic changes in the warfighting capabilities of the Royal Navy. He was at the forefront of many innovations: electric lights, large-caliber guns, long-range gunnery, the transition from coal to oil, torpedo boat destroyers, and the submarine.² Fisher recognized that different strategic priorities and new "rule sets" were revolutionizing naval warfare. He transformed the Royal Navy to remain competitive within these rule sets with a comprehensive vision tied to Britain's strategic interests, including the need for economy.³

Fisher's naval revolution holds lessons for U.S. naval leaders. The transformation he started included three interconnected components: personnel reforms to maximize human capital, reallocating resources to generate recapitalization funding, and a technological revolution. Each component holds lessons for today's "Sea Power 21" vision and ongoing transformation.⁴

Personnel Reforms

While the Fisher revolution is normally associated with HMS Dreadnought, his transformation road map actually began with personnel and educational reform. As historian Arthur J. Marder noted, "To Fisher the man was always more important than the machine."⁵ The human element was a critical component of Fisher's approach to transformation and British naval policy.⁶

This revolution began with reforms to the officer corps and its education. The so-called Selborne Scheme established a common entrance and training program for all officers, including line officers, engineers, and marines. Instead of training separately from the start, the officers were to spend at least five years together as midshipmen and sub-lieutenants in school, training vessels, and in the fleet before specializing in their respective fields. The Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth were established to enhance naval education. The stark barrier between line officers and the "greasers" who ran the dark engineering spaces no longer had a place in a fleet intricately tied to steam-driven and electrical machinery.

Fisher also reduced tuition at the naval colleges to allow a wider range of candidates to attend. Having been a penniless lad of less than noble birth, Fisher lamented, "Surely we are drawing our Nelsons from too narrow a class."⁷ In addition, the naval war colleges at Portsmouth and Greenwich were refocused on strategy and command.

Fisher also worked to improve the lot of the average Tar, which had not changed measurably since Trafalgar. Harsh discipline, rum, and hammocks were still parts of the daily regimen of a British sailor.^₈ Fisher can be credited with improving the messing, living spaces, and pay of the lower deck, and for phasing out disciplinary techniques inconsistent with a professional force.

Today's U.S. naval transformation also recognizes the importance of human capital. The Sea Warrior program portends dramatic increases in the quality of training, education, and career management for sailors.⁹ Equally important, Sea Warrior responds to criticisms to stop treating a technologically literate volunteer force like a conscripted labor gang.¹⁰ Sailors and junior officers need to sense that they have joined a cause and calling worthy of the sacrifices it entails.¹¹ Better training and education opportunities, better tools, and a more professional culture are the necessary foundation of naval transformation.

Resource Redistribution

The second element in Fisher's transformation road map was a radical redistribution of naval resources. Driven partly by the need for greater efficiency in a declining naval budget, as well as by the need to provide sailors for his reserve reforms, Fisher mercilessly scrapped obsolete ships, dockyards, and stores. Because the sun never set on the British Empire, its navy was scattered in many distant posts, operating outdated gunboats. They were good for showing the flag, but they were utterly worthless in modern war. Fisher focused on "concentrating our strength into ships of undoubted fighting value," while "ruthlessly discarding those that have become obsolete." he proposed junking nearly 250 craft. This "miser's hoard of useless junk" was tossed overboard to free manpower and funds for transformation.

Another part of this plan was a redistribution of remaining naval assets in accordance with England's strategic priorities. While the Foreign Office was still reeling from the sharp cuts overseas, Fisher directed a further redistribution of the Royal Navy's combat power to provide homeland security. Partly in recognition of the rising German threat, Fisher withdrew squadrons posted in the Pacific, South Atlantic, and North American waters. By shifting resources, he ensured Britain's margin of superiority at home.

Anyone familiar with the wrenching budget decisions made by Chiefs of Naval Operations over the past decade will recognize that the U.S. Navy already has undergone a difficult resource reallocation process, drastically reducing the fleet from roughly 550 ships to less than 300 today. These steps were necessary to pare down the Navy within projected resources. Without such difficult calls, today's Navy might have more ships, but they would be undermanned and inadequately funded for operations or maintenance.¹²

A declining U.S. surface fleet modernization rate shows how critical future economies are. The Navy must pare down its overhead, support infrastructure, and research facilities to ensure sufficient funding for necessary recapitalization of tomorrow's fleet.¹³ As Fisher described his own cost-cutting efforts, the choices must be "Napoleonic in audacity and Cromwellian in their thoroughness."

One interesting twist from Fisher's revolution is the need to reverse the "recall of the legions" of his day. Since the U.S. defense strategy stresses "deterring forward," the U.S. Navy must maintain a flexible and credible forward presence. To do so, it will have to pursue innovative concepts, such as today's Sea Swap experiment, which rotates crews on overseas stations rather than ships. New deployment paradigms are needed to maximize return on investment in major platforms while retaining the cohesion vital to effective war fighting.¹⁴

Technology

No aspect of the Fisher revolution has drawn more attention than HMS Dreadnought. Fisher's third component leveraged technological advances to exploit speed, firepower, and precision gunnery. Conventional reciprocating engines could not produce the 21 knots Fisher demanded, and thus turbine engines were employed. The Dreadnought's big gun battery of 12-inch guns in five turrets combined range and firepower. A broadside from a Dreadnought was the equivalent of two or even three from a preDreadnought. The new vessel completely outclassed any competition. Just as important to Fisher and the British Treasury, the ship cost only 10% more.¹⁵

Fisher's main efforts, however, were not focused on the Dreadnought. he believed the strategic environment facing Britain instead called less for a conventional battle fleet and more for new types of ships capable of new tactics. An extremely fast cruiser with minimal armor but with the precise, long-range firepower of a battleship was his response to the new operative rule sets. The Invincible class battle cruiser combined a speed of 25 knots and eight 12-inch guns. Fisher envisioned these multimission ships serving as screening forces for major engagements and for securing Britain's exposed lines of communication. As one naval historian noted recently, "Fisher sought to make one type of ship perform the work previously done by three."¹⁶ The Admiralty would garner enormous savings in funding, training, and manpower from this approach.

Heretofore, most historians had viewed Fisher's overarching aim as preparation for a naval Armageddon against Germany in the North Sea.¹⁷ His real goal was to create a Navy that could defend the home waters while still maintaining its global economic networks. The battle cruiser was his answer to the competing demands of Britain's global interests and dwindling resource base. Rather than stay tied to Britain's outdated Two Power Standard, Fisher embraced a qualitative model to ensure England's maritime supremacy. For Fisher, capability counted more than old ships.¹⁸

Defense of the British Isles was based on an equally controversial strategy called "flotilla defense," which employed submarines, torpedo boats, and destroyers. Such a sea denial approach could preclude an invasion while the main fleet was contending with an adversary far from home. Fisher based this effort on his belief that advances in technology, including undersea warfare, long-range torpedoes, and analog fire-control systems, could lead to revolutionary tactics. Fisher's comprehensive strategy offered the Royal Navy an integrated approach to meet England's needs within a tight budget.

The United States faces the same challenges today, with new concepts and technologies as large parts of the equation. The U.S. Navy has its own Dreadnought already; its aircraft carriers are the ultimate expression of U.S. military might. No challenger will enter this competition in symmetric terms. But the Navy has not yet responded to new countertactics in the contested littorals, where—like Fisher and the Admiralty—it is afraid of exposing its highend "Dreadnoughts."

Today, with the DD-X program, the U.S. Navy may achieve Fisher's vision of a powerful greyhound capable of connecting the fleet to operations ashore, screening the main fleet, and reaching out with its suite of long-range delivery systems to ranges never before reached by naval guns. Its multimission capability and integrated electronic drive could prove faster and more powerful than Fisher's beloved turbine-driven Invincible-class battle cruisers.¹⁹

Fisher never saw his flotilla defense system come to fruition. But the U.S. Navy is at the threshold of realizing it, albeit in reverse. The littoral combat ship essentially is a flotilla offense platform, designed to dominate the contested dead zone between the battle fleet and the populated littorals.²⁰ Fisher appreciated the inherent dangers of the complex environment in tight waters and the value of small craft. The current U.S. Navy program is the sort of innovative response to new rule sets that Fisher would have championed.

The Missing Component

While history has been kind to Fisher's dynamic drive and innovative spirit, the ultimate test of any transformation is performance in battle. Not all of Fisher's concepts panned out, and the Grand Fleet performance at jutland remains controversial to this day. Some historians blamed his volcanic personality or failure to establish a naval staff for the Royal Navy's shortfalls.²¹

Ultimately, what undercut the transformation of the Royal Navy was the lack of doctrine for command and control. Fisher's grand plan extended the Royal Navy's capability, but it was incomplete. What was sorely missing at jutland was an appropriate philosophy of command. Admiral Sir John Jellicoe's Grand Fleet could deliver a broadside of 400,000 pounds of shot, more than double Germany's total. The Royal Navy deployed 272 heavy guns against the High Seas Fleet's 200 and completely outranged them with the only 15- and 14-inch guns at sea.²² But gross measures of total firepower are poor metrics for evaluating real capability, especially without a system to bring them properly into action.

When Jellicoe made his famous remark that "there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today," he was partly right. There were technical deficiencies in British armor, flash protection, and gunnery procedures. The real deficiency, however, was the loss of the [Vice Admiral Horatio Lord] Nelson Touch. It was not "the bloody ships" that were principally at fault. It was the inadequate doctrine of command and control.

Nelson's great example had long been erased from the collective Royal Navy memory. While Nelson's crushing victories were lionized, his methods were displaced by a century of peace that had reestablished "the fetish of centralized command."²³ Overcentralization and cultural conditioning had rusted the cutlass's edge. Ship handling and navigation were practiced, but tactical drills under realistic conditions were rare. Initiative and risk taking by junior officers was not tolerated, much less encouraged.²⁴ Few senior officers paid attention to matters of strategy, operational art, or command. Even fewer bothered with new technologies such as wireless radio.

Admiral Jellicoe centralized decision making in his flagship and issued detailed Grand Fleet Battle Instructions. Critics point to these as exemplars of micromanagement. After the war, Winston Churchill noted:

Everything was centralised in the Flagship, and all initiative except in avoiding torpedo attacks was denied. . . . A ceaseless stream of signals from the Flagship was therefore required to regulate the movement of the Fleet and the distribution of fire. In exercises such a centralisation may have produced a better drill. But in the smoke, confusion and uncertainty of battle the process was far too elaborate.²⁵

The blame cannot be laid entirely on Jellicoe. A generation bred to peacetime conditions, deprived of initiative or the chance to think critically under duress, was hard pressed to win in the fog of the North Sea at Jutland.²⁶

The U.S. Navy faces a similar challenge today as it adapts it operations to face asymmetric adversaries, incorporates new technologies, and raises a new generation of officers and sailors. ForceNet was intended to be built around an adaptive and "human-centric" command-and-control approach.²⁷ ForceNet is to provide the decision superiority and speed of command called for by network-centric warfare.²⁸ But this will require culture change and attention to the human element—the "21st-century Warrior"-not just the technical systems.²⁹ The awesome connectivity, precision, and lethality of "Sea Power 21" are founded on that young officer and sailor. This program must avoid a slavish devotion to technology and hardware and invest instead in the human software that will employ it. ForceNet also should emphasize the fundamentals of command in chaotic conditions, including decentralized and dispersed decision making within a netted system. The Navy risks a repeat of jutland until this critical component of naval transformation takes root.³⁰

Conclusion

A century of the "long calm lee of Trafalgar" produced calcifying effects on the Royal Navy until Fisher arrived.³¹ His transformation recast the Royal Navy into the force that fought and won World War I.³² Fisher had one advantage that today's U.S. Navy leadership does not: a clear identifiable threat. Fisher faced entrenched opposition but ultimately galvanized a coherent transformation in part because of the Kaiser's High Seas Fleet. Yet his transformation was incomplete, for he did not counteract the dead hand of dated doctrine.

Today's U.S. naval transformation is well positioned to avoid that problem because of "Sea Power 21"'s more comprehensive approach. But the sea services must remain focused on war fighting and open to new ideas and concepts-even the littoral combat ship.³³ They must take risks, explore disruptive technologies and controversial ideas, and hone skills for the next test.³⁴ "Sea Power 21" represents a powerful transformational vision. To fulfill this vision, the sea services must face crucial doctrinal issues to ensure no future naval commander quips, "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today."