The Navy is at the forefront of the U.S. rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region, a fundamentally maritime domain with contested global commons. This “pivot” builds on decades of a strong regional presence and long-standing alliances and partnerships with countries in the vicinity. To be effective, however, the rebalance must incorporate “brains” in addition to “brawn.” While the Navy has strengthened its presence in the Pacific by increasing its rotational force deployments, basing more ships and aircraft forward, and fielding new capabilities, its efforts to enhance its intellectual capital are still underreported, under-resourced, and too often undervalued. But this is beginning to change, due in large part to the efforts of the staff of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
The “brains” initiative consists of three key components.1 First, the Navy is improving the nation’s alliances and partnerships through the unprecedented integration of headquarters, command staffs, operating forces, and increased multilateral exercises. Second, in collaboration with the other services, it is refining the doctrine, training, and proficiency to defeat anti-access/area-denial threats as part of the Air-Sea Battle concept. Third, the Navy is using the Naval War College (NWC), Naval Post-Graduate School (NPS), and Naval Academy to cultivate and deploy its intellectual talent to the Asia-Pacific region to support the rebalance. This last component is perhaps the most important and challenging, as it underpins the other two and focuses on people, the Navy’s asymmetric advantage.
The Demand for Intellectual Capital
Pacific Fleet commanders at all levels rely on sound advice to make operational and tactical decisions synchronous with national and theater policies and strategies. Those who advise them—typically the intelligence officer (N2), operations officer (N3), and their staffs—must possess a comprehensive understanding of the regional actors and dynamics to assess fluid situations, predict the probable outcomes of planned actions or operations, and help commanders circumvent or alleviate unintended consequences of their actions.
In addition to operational expertise, these trusted advisers must also have deep regional expertise in politics, economics, cultures, demographics, and military trends to help commanders better understand the operating environment and optimize their operations and engagement with foreign counterparts. This will improve strategic thinking by helping commanders ask the right questions and avoid mistakes such as making pitfalls in anchoring, overestimating increasing power, underestimating decreasing power, perceiving or processing information through the filter of personal experience, and having an ethnocentric view. Regional understanding is critical during Phase 0 activities (theater security cooperation through the shaping of the battlespace) where timely, synchronized, and targeted actions can deter hostility, lower tension, manage escalation, and perhaps ultimately avoid crisis or conflict.
Consider the case of the Pacific Theater in World War II, for example. On the Japanese side, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto spoke English fluently, studied at Harvard University, and had two postings as a naval attaché in Washington, D.C., during the interwar years.2 These experiences shaped his strategic perspectives and war plans, which included the reluctant decision to attack Pearl Harbor in the hopes that America would seek a negotiated peace settlement rather than go to war. He saw firsthand the industrial might of the United States and understood the strategic imperative not to awaken the sleeping giant. Unfortunately for Japan, General Hideki Tojo, who had never visited the United States, ignored Yamamoto’s counsel.
On the American side, General Douglas MacArthur spent many years in Asia between World Wars I and II.3 His experience abroad also molded his strategic perspectives and influenced his subsequent assignment as the Supreme Allied Commander in which he oversaw the occupation of postwar Japan and implemented sweeping economic, political, and social changes that still remain. His comprehensive understanding of the adversary and operating environment helped him to defeat and then transform Japan.
The U.S. Navy and Army assigned many talented officers as attachés in Beijing, Tokyo, and other capitals throughout Asia in the 1920s and 1930s. A number of returning naval attachés to Japan actively supported the NWC war games of the 1930s, which trained future wartime commanders (Chester Nimitz, William Halsey, Raymond Spruance, Richmond Kelly Turner, and others) during the interwar years; gave them a working understanding of the Japanese war aims, military objectives, and operational plans; and gave them sufficient background to anticipate the Imperial Japanese Navy’s operational moves and make appropriate countermoves throughout the war. In a famous 1965 letter to then-President of the NWC, Vice Admiral Charles Melson, retired Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz wrote, “The enemy of our games [at the NWC] was always Japan and the courses were so thorough that after the start of World War II—nothing that happened in the Pacific was strange or unexpected.”4
Today, a regionally capable staff officer who can operationalize his expertise for a commander is a staff force multiplier. A case in point is the staff of commander, Battle Force 7th Fleet (CTF-70)/Carrier Strike Group Five (CSG-5). The N2, in concert with the N3, regularly contextualizes China’s actions through the cultural and historical prisms of its contemporary foreign policy and “master narratives,” which reinforce political, social, and economic trends. These include wealth and power, China’s rightful place in the world, the belief that only the Communist Party can save China, the gloriousness of getting rich, the quest for social justice, the restoration of great tradition, and the quest for democracy.5
These historically grounded cultural themes reflect Chinese identity and experiences and give the Chinese people an understanding of who they are, where they come from, and how to make sense of the rest of the world. China’s contemporary foreign policy reflects President Xi Jinping’s desire to have a “new type of great power relationship with the United States”—largely on Chinese terms. He views China as a great and rising power that deserves more respect and accommodation from a declining United States.
By understanding Chinese master narratives and contemporary foreign-policy perspectives, a commander can discern the reasons and motives for China’s actions. This allows him to get inside the Chinese “observe, orient, decide, and act” loop, and plan and execute his operations accordingly.
The Asia-Pacific Hands Program
In support of the 2012 Department of Defense (DOD) Strategic Guidance and rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region, the Navy recently developed the OPNAV N13F-initiated and -sponsored Asia-Pacific Hands Program to enhance naval readiness there. The program’s goal is to build regional understanding and confidence in officers en route to select operational-level billets in the Pacific Command (PACOM) area of responsibility. It is currently open to Information Dominance Corps officers and may later expand to unrestricted line officers.
Selected officers will receive a foundational regional education at NPS that includes a comprehensive expertise element to meet documented requirements before deploying to their PACOM assignments. The intent is to enhance performance at the operational instead of the tactical level and provide an initial short-duration, regionally focused educational regime of three months with additional educational opportunities throughout careers that could include repeat tours in support of PACOM operations. At NPS, officers will take at least three master’s-level regionally relevant academic courses (two required and one elective) designated by the Navy Language Regional Expertise and Culture Office. Officers who complete the course will receive a master’s certificate, 12 hours of graduate-level credit, and an additional qualification designator (AQD).
Unlike the Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands Program, which lacks permanent billets, the Asia-Pacific Hands Program can direct detailing officers to extant designated billets as identified by the joint staff’s Capabilities-based Requirements Identification Program. Asia-Pacific Hands billets will be aligned to existing requirements, and keep the officer on “due course” in his or her community. Participants will gain regional insight as a result of multiple tours in PACOM and be encouraged to continue their studies on their own by attending an approved university. AQDs indicating higher levels of regional knowledge would be awarded and become part of the officer’s service record for future detailing opportunities. This will help the Navy to identify and develop officers capable of progressing to senior decision-making levels, and who are also well-versed in the area of responsibility. The intent is not to make officers less competitive for promotion or hinder the detailing process; the program should be another tool to help detailers put the right people in the right job at the right time. Asia-Pacific Hands is cost-neutral; the resources that support it are drawn from programs that already exist, and the return on investment will be realized for years to come.
Developing Regional Experts
In the near-term, the Navy must continue investing, maturing, and sustaining this nascent program. The best practices learned as the program progresses will optimize the use of already-existing academic and training resources to ensure that it better meets the current and future requirements of the rebalance. It should leverage pre-existing training curricula for cost savings and to create synergy across similar communities, increase program throughput, quickly send graduates to the Fleet to support the rebalance, and satisfy the growing demand signals.
In the mid-term, the program should be broadened to include academia and think tanks such as the Asia Pacific Center for Strategic Studies, the Center for Naval Analyses, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Atlantic Council of the United States, the RAND Corporation, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. The Navy should explore additional educational opportunities with top-tier universities to give Asia-Pacific Hands participants an intermediate-level education—as a follow-on to the foundational regional education at NPS—and links to the academic world. Other efforts should build inroads to think tanks, which also could offer opportunities for officers to gain more regional insights, alternative perspectives, access to top-notch strategic thinkers, networking, and mentorship, as well as the opportunity to inform and influence policymakers.
In the long-term, initiatives should aim to restructure the Asia-Pacific Hands Program and greater education enterprise to include its expansion to other communities (unrestricted line, logistics, and public affairs to include the reserve component), services, and agencies (State, Treasury, and Commerce); establishment of an executive course for flag and general officers bound for PACOM assignments; management of Asia-Pacific Hands participants’ career paths to include advanced education opportunities, fellowships such as the Federal Executive Fellowship and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI Fellowship Program, multiple PACOM tours, and career progression (as officers do not want to deny or delay operational milestone tours and potentially derail their careers); build other combatant command-specific “Hands” programs as required; and the recapitalization of the “sunsetting” Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands Program to bring selected individuals into the Central Command Hands Program.
As Admiral Jonathan Greenert has said, “All the technology in the world is great, but without the right people, forget it . . . [people] have been our asymmetric advantage.”6 The rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific requires not only ships and aircraft, but also educated, insightful people. Without regionally-trained experts, the rebalance will not succeed.
1. ADM Jonathan Greenert, USN, “Sea Change: The Navy Pivots to Asia,” Foreign Policy, 14 November 2012.
2. Edwin Hoyt, Yamamoto: The Man Who Planned Pearl Harbor (New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing, 1990).
3. Richard Frank, MacArthur (Great Generals) (New York: Macmillan, 2007).
4. Naval War College’s Role in U.S. Navy Victory in WWII, http://blackboard.leavenworth.army.mil/.../H208RC%20The%20Naval%. Douglas Smith, Carrier Battles: Command Decision in Harm’s Way (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006).
5. “Country Report: China’s Master Narratives,” OSC Monitor 360, March 2012.
6. ADM Jonathan Greenert, USN, “American Military Strategy in a Time of Declining Budgets,” Keynote Address, American Enterprise Institute, 5 September 2013.