Masters or Jacks?
(See H. Stephenson, pp. 58–63, October 2014 Proceedings)
Vice Admiral Ted N. Branch, U.S. Navy, Director of Naval Intelligence/Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance—I want to thank Commander Stephenson for his recent article, which outlined his views on aspects of the Navy’s approach to developing information dominance (ID) as a fourth warfighting pillar, alongside air, surface, and undersea warfare. I welcome the continued dialogue in Proceedings on these issues that I think are important to the Information Dominance Corps (IDC) and to the Navy as a whole.
Commander Stephenson is concerned that cross-detailing officers in the IDC might somehow diminish the specialized skills and abilities these officers possess and currently provide. I see cross-detailing as quite the opposite—an opportunity to capitalize on their specialized knowledge while at the same time broadening their portfolio by exposing them to the full range of ID capabilities and perspectives in order to maximize operational advantages and warfighting efforts. My intent in cross-detailing officers (i.e., detailing them to billets traditionally filled by officers from other IDC disciplines) is to more deeply professionalize the IDC by developing an acute awareness of all IDC capabilities among professionals who are already master practitioners of their respective disciplines.
This approach is not unique to the IDC; it is used by other communities to develop a similarly broadened perspective in their officers. Strengthening the interdisciplinary nature of the IDC is vital to adapting successfully to the evolving complexity of the future warfighting environment. Our Navy would be ill-served by perpetuating single-discipline solutions to increasingly complex information dominance/warfare problem sets. This approach is supported by years of academic research that points to the value of interdisciplinary education and research.
With respect to the role of ID within the existing Composite Warfare Commander construct, it is still a moving target. While we are working with the Fleet to help define the optimum organizational construct for ID afloat, that structure will ultimately be determined by the Fleet, not the Chief of Naval Operations staff in the Pentagon. It will evolve over time, through trial and error and operational stress, much as the current construct has evolved and continues to evolve today.
Commander Stephenson’s concern that the maturing role of ID afloat will distance intelligence officers from their commanders is unfounded. Having served as a warfighting commander, I’m confident that no commander will allow any organizational construct, particularly one under his or her direct control, to keep them from the intelligence (or any other discipline’s information) they might need to make critical warfighting decisions. Commanders are hungry for interdisciplinary perspectives that shape and deliver a wide range of kinetic and non-kinetic options.
One additional point: Commander Stephenson unduly constrains the impact of ID capabilities by asserting that their effects are limited to the non-kinetic realm. In fact, they contribute to or directly provide effects that go far beyond the electromagnetic spectrum. Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) is a prime example.
The Navy needs its IDC leaders to possess both a great depth of expertise in a specific discipline and a wide breadth of experience across ID and the other warfighting disciplines. This is all about warfighting. The complexity of today’s threats demands us to be both masters and jacks, and that is what we in the IDC will deliver to the Navy.
(See W. Lee, L. Cole. and J. DiRenzo III, pp. 18–21, October 2014 Proceedings)
Jeff Hughes—I was excited by this article from the Atlantic Area Team, particularly in that one of our most respected senior Coast Guard officers acknowledged the critical need for preparedness activities if operational leaders are to have any hope of avoiding another strategic surprise or predictable failure. Along with the exercises identified by Vice Admiral Lee, I offer a renewed emphasis on contingency planning as a preparedness activity that requires our urgent attention. The Coast Guard should take three immediate steps toward that end.
First, adapt the Joint Pub 5.0 planning process. With clear guidance as to what contingencies each commander should plan for, we should implement the “In Progress Review” process for the development and approval of living plans. Implementing that process will result in two positive gains for the Coast Guard. It will ensure alignment throughout the chain of command (understanding from the Commandant to unit commanding officer as to the effects we desire from response operations), and it will give contingency plans a more appropriate level of attention from our most senior leaders. This alignment is critical so that when the next contingency occurs, even if communications are cut off, the area commander can be confident that commanders are acting toward a unified objective and know without further discussion what personnel and resources must be mobilized and staged to support the local commander. There is no time lost waiting for a request for forces.
Second, we should ensure the level of planning is consistent with the threat and risk. Plans for those contingencies we face most often (maritime security, oil/harzardous-materials response, etc.) should probably be operation plans vice concept plans. At a minimum, we should specify a level of planning that requires the identification of potential unified command sites, regional staging areas, and detailed development of personnel and equipment requirements for up to and including our worst-case threat.
Finally, we need to change the way we think of preparedness planning from an organizational perspective. Planning is important, and we need to ensure that is reflected in the way we assign people to planning positions. We must give those positions higher priority in the assignment process. With that recognition, though, we must hold planners accountable to produce effective, executable plans. And plans should not be developed in a vacuum. Planners lead the process for operators (or response professionals, if you prefer) to develop plans.
As stated in Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1, “Planning is the art and science of envisioning a desired future and laying out effective ways of bringing it about.” Our plans should be synchronized with and reflect the intent of the most senior commanders. They should provide a framework that we study and train for during the calm so that our actions are unified in times of crisis, and we are not caught off guard.
(See J. Garvey and N. Schellman, pp. 28–32, October 2014 Proceedings)
John J. Gallagher, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary—As the former division commander of the Coast Guard Auxiliary in New York City, I read with great interest Lieutenants Garvey and Schellman’s article on clandestine boat capability. The Coast Guard currently has at its disposal a large fleet of non-standard vessels ranging from jet skis to a retired Point-class cutter at its disposal through the Auxiliary on both coasts, the Western rivers system, and Puerto Rico. These boats are regularly deployed as part of the Coast Guard under orders with qualified, uniformed civilian small-boat crews and coxswains. Many of our crew members are former law-enforcement and military professionals now enjoying a well-deserved retirement, but they still have extensive expertise at the ready.
Many are also skilled mariners with blue-water experience. All of us are trained in the Incident Command System response model and have at least a minimum security check. Some of us have gotten higher security clearances already and stand communications watches at the stations. In terms of numbers, the Auxiliary is almost as large as the active-duty component of the Coast Guard. It should be taken advantage of more and more as a force multiplier, especially when the service is stretched to its limits as it often is.
While we are excluded from explicit law-enforcement or military roles, the Auxiliary has been an active presence in patrolling America’s waterways and has also been involved in such risky duties as providing translators for the Africa Partnership Station with both the Coast Guard and the Navy (and I believe we even now have a member working in Dubai). Examining a creative way to put these non-standard vessels and our excellent personnel already in place into play to assist with developing a clandestine boat capability would certainly be worth looking into. Consistent with the long history of the Coast Guard, it would also be a way of doing a great deal more with much less than required, something that we’ll certainly be called to do going forward no matter what.
(See E. A. H. Sand, pp. 46–50, October 2014 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander Craig F. Pearson, U.S. Navy Reserve (Retired)—Lieutenant Sand may be stepping on a few toes with this article. Those who are the trainers and graders of shipboard (and for that matter all) facilities should take his thoughts and recommendations to heart.
Training and practicing to the inspection and exercise has become endemic to the American education system. As a teacher who has worked in three different states, it was frustrating to me to “teach to the test.” We were never required to do so, at least not as an official policy, but it was understood that it needed to be done to measure student success. Teachers fully understood that a disservice was being done to the students. Those students would ultimately fail in their post-secondary education, if not in life.
Lieutenant Sand has given us four cogent and well thought-out principles that address the immediate need to prepare for new adversaries willing to to go head-to-head with the U.S. Navy. The author did not mention China and the People’s Liberation Army Navy, but the implied threat was obvious. The need to prepare is incontrovertible, but it must be done properly.
Lieutenant Sand has exceptional ideas and writes with boldness and conviction. Difficult problems need to be brought to light with well-thought solutions. Leaders like him will take the the Navy through these shoal waters.
(See N. Friedman, pp. 90–91, September 2014 Proceedings)
Captain Keith F. Amacker, U.S. Navy (Retired)—Dr. Friedman’s column drew comparisons between the Russian response to the July shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 017 by a Russian SA-11 missile and the American response to the 1988 shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus by the USS Vincennes (CG-49) in the Persian Gulf. Captain David Carlson, a friend and shipmate of mine, was there as CO of the USS Sides (FFG-14) when the Vincennes shot down the airliner after misidentifying it as an F-14. Both Captain Carlson and I wrote articles in Proceedings about what happened and why. My article addressed the poor performance of the Vincennes’ combat-system organization and the abysmal state of combat readiness of the ship.
Interestingly, Dr. Friedman states that, contrary to the recent Russian response, after the Vincennes incident “the United States quickly owned up to responsibility and made enormous efforts to change procedures so that repetition of the tragedy was less likely.” This is largely untrue. After the 1988 mishap, American officials, uniformed and civilian alike, told various lies and blamed the Iranian pilot. Not until eight years later did the U.S. government compensate the victims’ families, and even then expressed “deep regret,” not an apology. The awarding of medals to the crew of the Vincennes and the failure to discipline her commanding officer made it all the worse.
Repeating Three Strategic Mistakes?
(See D. A. Adams, pp. 18–23, September 2014 Proceedings)
Captain Dale C. Rielage, U.S. Navy—Captain Adams sees a U.S. Navy that is eager to embrace the opportunity for “sweeping fleet actions” in the Pacific. Rather than spoiling for major fleet combat, the U.S. Navy has been remarkably slow to face the reality that sea control will be contested in future conflicts. A quarter-century focused on close-air support from secure sea bases has placed high-end naval combat outside the comfort level of most Fleet units and outside the routine consideration of most Fleet officers. Bringing the Fleet to face this challenge has required overwhelming evidence and deliberate senior-level leadership.
Captain Adams suggests major naval combat between nuclear powers is no longer possible without resort to nuclear weapons. While it is possible to cite Chinese—and American—commentators who suggest rapid resort to nuclear arms, the likely result of mutual nuclear armament is a deterrence that prevents use of nuclear weapons by either party. The idea that the United States should economize on Fleet capability by lowering the nuclear-use threshold revisits ideas of nuclear-weapon advocates dating back to the 1940s. Such strategies foundered on the difficulty of making the threat credible. Our allies regularly express doubt that the United States would commit to a conventional fight over their ownership of a few small islands—a nuclear threat strains credulity and thus offers no real security.
What, then, of the “unrestricted, paramilitary maritime war” that Captain Adams suggests China is pursuing? Here, we risk confusing a political challenge with a force-structure problem. The issue is not that naval forces are incapable of dealing with national enforcement of “expansive maritime claims.” The presence of a Coast Guard national-security cutter vs. a littoral combat ship in a crisis is a distinction of little consequence outside U.S. jurisdiction, especially as the cutter is itself a capable combatant. Rather, the issue is whether any nation has the political will to challenge the Chinese pretense that it is engaged in routine law-enforcement activities—and accept with the challenge the danger of escalation.
Meanwhile, our Chinese navy counterparts show no signs of believing major fleet actions are relics of the past. Such force-on-force operations are a regular part of the Chinese training cycle. Their naval construction over the past decade has focused on high-end, multimission combatants, capable in both fleet actions and lower-level combat and noncombat missions. These are the units that are “over the horizon” when Chinese maritime law enforcement challenges our allies and partners, ready to move the conflict out of the “unconventional” realm.
The destabilizing effects of Chinese maritime-claims enforcement pose a challenge for the entire U.S. government and our partners in the Pacific. While naval forces have a role in addressing them, these tasks are not a basis to retool the Fleet. The U.S. Navy must be ready to gain control of the seas where and when necessary. That idea is not alcohol for a drunkard; rather, it is a core competency of the service.
(See M. Glynn, pp. 32–35, September 2014 Proceedings)
Senior Chief John Cataldi, U.S. Navy (Retired)—As a retired P-3 aircrewman, I read Lieutenant Glynn’s article with interest. His idea, while definitely displaying out-of-the-box thinking, has merit and deserves consideration.
What I found troubling in his proposal was not the idea of forward basing, but the numbers. When I served in patrol squadrons between 1974 and 1987, the fleet squadrons had 12 aircrews and 9 aircraft. Today’s squadrons still have 12 aircrews, but only operate 6 aircraft. I’ve heard the argument that improved technology, capability, and readiness allow six aircraft to do the work of nine. What is rarely mentioned, though, is that for a six-aircraft squadron to fly the same number of hours as a nine-aircraft squadron, the individual airframes in the smaller squadron will have to fly more hours than the individual airframes in the larger squadron. With the increased flight hours on those six airframes, they will wear out faster than those in a nine-airframe squadron. It should also seem obvious that no matter how you massage the numbers, a squadron with six aircraft cannot be in nine places at one time. In my opinion, for the forward-basing proposal to work, each deployed squadron should have at least nine aircraft. If that means shrinking the stateside squadrons, then so be it.
My second issue concerns Lieutenant Glynn’s statement that a forward-deployed maritime patrol-and-reconnaissance (MPR) community would reduce the opportunity for officers to command a front line squadron. He alluded to possible personnel reductions in the future MPR force. Aircrew reductions in the MPR community have been occurring over the last few decades, although they have not occurred evenly. When I arrived at my first P-3B squadron in 1974, each aircrew consisted of 13 members: 3 pilots, 2 naval flight officers (NFO), and 8 enlisted aircrew. With improvements in technology and aircraft, the number of enlisted aircrew positions has been reduced to the point that today the P-8A carries only four enlisted aircrew, yet the number and composition of officer positions has not changed in over 40 years! I would think that with the advancement of GPS navigation and computers, that the navigator/communicator position on board a patrol aircraft (currently held by an NFO) could now be handled by an enlisted aircrewman. That would eliminate 12 officer positions from each squadron. A more radical plan of officer-crew reduction could also involve eliminating the third-relief pilot position by training the tactical coordinator (an NFO) to function as a relief copilot during the transit portions of a mission.
The only sure bet in the future is that budgets will get smaller. The MPR community needs to put everything on the table to figure out how it can get the most combat capability out of its shrinking slice of the budget pie. If the community doesn’t change from within, the change will be thrust on it from above.
(See D. Cope, pp. 56–61, August 2014, and S. N. Mullin, p. 9, October 2014 Proceedings)
Captain William Toti, U.S. Navy (Retired), former Special Assistant to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations for Requirements (1999–2001); Chief, Naval Submarine Forces Requirements (2001–2002); Assistant Chief of Staff for Fleet Antisubmarine-Warfare Requirements (2004–2006)—Lieutenant Cope’s article brought me back to my similarly titled “Stop the Revolution: I Want to Get Off” published more than a decade ago (Proceedings, July 2000). His message, however, is very different.
While my message was an appeal to redirect warfighting requirements from those sexy “Revolution in Military Affairs” capabilities toward the more mundane, dirty-war-centric capabilities that might actually do good in the wars we were likely to fight, rather than the wars we wanted to fight (a message that has withstood the test of time in the post-9/11 world), the “revolution” Lieutenant Cope steers us away from is a revolution in engineering design, an avoidance of the kind of overreaching production effort that is likely to fail in procurement. In so doing, the lieutenant himself overreaches a bit, and misses an important, perhaps pivotal, point.
First, he refers to programs like the Seawolf-class submarine and F-22 as examples of “recent” procurement excess. In fact, those programs were executed as a way of recouping significant investment made in those capabilities in the years before the Berlin Wall came down. Rather than flush those Cold War investments down the toilet, the decision was quite properly made to recoup some marginal benefit from those sunk costs. And unless Lieutenant Cope is a very old lieutenant, those decisions were made around the time of his birth, so it’s difficult to characterize those examples as “recent.” But if someone is trying to make a point, those programs are indeed the gift that keeps on giving.
More importantly, I believe the lieutenant misses a key, perhaps causal, deficiency that leads to the program-execution woes he refers to: a substantial breakdown in the requirements-to-program execution-feedback process. It will always be the tendency for “requirers” to characterize their requirements in the purest of terms: “This is the military capability I need.” It will always be the tendency of the “validators” to affirm, “Yes indeed, if that capability is delivered, it will add military value.”
Program managers want to be heroes too, so their tendency will always be to try to deliver that which people say cannot be done. It will always be the tendency of the “acquirers,” the service-acquisition executives, program executive officers, and program managers (who by the way do not have the authority to question validated requirements) to do their best in delivering to those validated requirements. But what is not effectively happening today is the feedback mechanism from the “acquirers” to the “requirers” that says, “For this amount of money, that is all you can get. Do you still want it?”
I don’t believe the problem has been, as Lieutenant Cope asserts, that we too often seek revolution in delivered capability. I believe the problem to be somewhat more mundane: the lack of a process to dial in requirements as a function of cost. We have been seeking such a process for decades, trying many recent potential solutions with the F-35, with the Virginia-class submarine, and with other platforms, some with more success than others. Yet the solution remains elusive.