What Are We Doing Right?
By Rear Admiral Paul Becker, U.S. Navy
For the past 40 years, there has been a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Director for Intelligence (J2). (I’m proud to be the 20th.) Of these 20 directors, 11 have been Navy, 5 have been Air Force, and 4 have been Army. Previous Navy J2s, who were all rear admirals at the time, include Elizabeth Train, Michael Rogers, Jack Dorsett, “Jake” Jacoby, Tom Wilson, Mike Cramer, Mike McConnell, Ted Sheafer, Tom Brooks, and Bob Schmitt; 10 intelligence officers and 1 information-warfare officer.
As one can see, the Navy leads the other services by more than a 2:1 ratio in this assignment as principal intelligence adviser to the chairman. I believe this is for three reasons. First of all, we think strategically and operate globally more frequently than our peers. As Admiral Rogers told me, “Navy operations typically require us to cross multiple combatant-command lines and work distinct problem sets in different theaters during deployments.” Naval officers do this multiple times in their careers at the junior, mid-grade, and senior levels while embarked with forward-deployed mobile-command elements. When we deploy, we must routinely think and act quickly as “first responders.” Thus flexibility and agility are part of Navy culture.
Second, “we have early and frequent experience providing assessments and advice to very senior officers,” according to Vice Admiral Dorsett. I suspect most Navy J2s briefed rear admirals when they were ensigns and admirals when they were lieutenants. Packaging all-source data and turning it into concise information for senior officers is a skill that should not be overlooked. The sooner one begins accumulating this experience, the sooner one will establish expertise and credibility with senior operators.
Third, we do this while viewing our battlespace in three dimensions with multiple interconnected domains (space, air, surface, subsurface, land, and cyber). Our sister services, by comparison, traditionally deploy less while embedded with maneuver forces/command elements (especially before 9/11) and often view the battlespace as either distinctly functional (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance/targeting) or with fixed key terrain (threats to flags, frontiers, and fences). I believe that our past shapes our present and future, and all Navy J2s benefited from their Cold War experiences operating in and among the Soviets on the high seas.
According to Vice Admiral Wilson, “It sharpens your operational focus as an intel officer when you are the target.” During the Cold War, intelligence officers not only trained as we would fight; we did everything in peace and crisis that we’d do in war except pull the trigger, and intel officers played key roles in Fleet defense, power projection, and strategy development. Vice Admiral Jacoby said that during his N2/J2 service, he was often considered by his chains of command as a de facto deputy N3/J3. In addition to providing military-intelligence advice, he was asked for all kinds of military guidance.
History of the JCS J2
When the National Security Act of 1947 established the Joint Staff, there was no JCS J2. The service intel chiefs fed the Joint Staff pertinent reporting through a group effort called the “Joint Intelligence Committee,” which reported to the Director of the Joint Staff. Over the course of the next decade, intel professionals on the Joint Staff were subordinated to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) following its creation in 1961. From 1961 to 1990, the DIA director was dual-hatted as the JCS J2, and the organization was known as the JCS Intelligence Liaison Division (DIA/DI-2), J2 Support Office, and its leader eventually was designated the Deputy Director of DIA for Joint Staff Support (JS).
According to Rear Admiral Brooks, who was “JS” from 1985 to 1987, “different DIA directors treated the J2 function differently. Some came to all the morning briefings and tried to act as J2. The other smarter ones recognized that they could not be the J2 and simultaneously run a large agency.” In 1990, as an outgrowth of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, General Colin Powell decided to change “JS” to “J2.” As Vice Admiral McConnell said, “[Powell] announced at a J-Code staff meeting one morning that I would be sitting at the head table as his J2 and the DIA director would sit in the supporting seats along with [the director of] the National Security Agency. That was the end of it, and the old JS became J2 from that point on.”
The JCS J2 mission is clear and its execution complex. Its mission is to provide the chairman with intelligence centered on strategic warning, deliver all source responses to contingency operations and plans, and advocate for current and future warfighter-capability requirements. Others may benefit from our work, but the chairman is our principal customer as he provides his best military advice to the Commander-in-Chief. In the course of our duties, we always keep in mind General Powell’s famous direction, “Tell me what you know, tell me what you don’t know, and tell me what you think.”
I make no mention of the U.S. Marine Corps intel officers in this mix not because they are any less capable than the best in the business, but because their relatively small size and focus have not afforded them a joint career path with fluency in many of the same functional/geographic areas as their peers from the other services. I’d be remiss to point out that while the JCS J2 is a key position within the intelligence community, it’s not an essential assignment to rise to the top of our profession. Think of the greats in our line of work who were not JCS J2s, such as Admirals Bobby Ray Inman, Bill Studeman, and Bob Murrett, and Generals Jim Clapper, Mike Hayden, and Keith Alexander, to name a few. But sitting down with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, and listening to his perspective on discussions held at the highest levels of national power, and then offering, “Sir, here’s what’s important, why it’s important, and what I’d recommend you consider” is as good as it gets in our profession and the gold standard to which we continue to groom our future leaders.
Ensuring Success in the Future
The Navy should not assume it will automatically continue to serve in this assignment more than our sister services in the future. As the Army’s Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess points out, “experiences gained by other service intel officers during a decade-plus of combat in Southwest Asia will pay dividends that could lead to them offering more attractive JCS J2 nominees in the future.” The Navy should continue best practices that groom our senior Information Dominance Corps (IDC) officers for success, but to remain competitive—for almost any senior nominative Joint Intelligence assignment—we must stay on pace with evolving global-security challenges and joint-intelligence operations by:
• Selectively assigning our counterterrorism (CT) and counterinsurgency (COIN) top performers who proved themselves during Southwest Asia combat into key analytic/operational positions focusing on the Asia-Pacific region. Assigning our best battle-hardened, U.S. Central Command-experienced IDC officers into the U.S. Pacific Command area of responsibility will broaden their geographic/functional expertise to what is arguably our greatest national-security concern for the 21st century. This offers a chance for these rising stars to apply core skills that were once used to understand and defeat al Qaeda and the Taliban regional strategy (not just defeat their forces) to understand and (if necessary) defeat China’s regional strategy. This intellectual rebalance from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific should apply to those with a CT/COIN background as well as more junior officers (See Commander Tuan Pham’s April 2014 Proceedings article, “The Rebalance Requires Brains, Not Just Brawn”).
• Continuing to place our IDC’s strongest officers in the key joint assignments that tend to produce theater intel center commanders and combatant command J2s. Each of the past ten JCS J2s previously served as a Combatant Command J2, held major command, and possessed field-grade experience on a joint staff. It’s always challenging to blend in such assignments with a traditional Navy career path, but there’s certainly a precedent for such a string of assignments, and the benefits are apparent.
• Cross-detailing select mid-grade/senior officers within the IDC between the intelligence and information-warfare communities. This should be awarded to our best and brightest at the field-grade level to capitalize on those officers’ skills and expand their experiences in additional warfighting areas (see Commander Henry Stephenson’s October 2014 article, “Masters or Jacks,” and Vice Admiral Ted Branch’s November “Comment and Discussion” response). Cross-detailing should not be done at the company-grade level when junior officers are still learning the fundamentals of their communities’ tradecraft.
According to the first head of the Information Dominance Corps, Vice Admiral Dorsett:
As we move further into an information-intensive era, the success of our Navy depends on our professionals becoming ever more specialized . . . in the profession of intelligence . . . with opportunities to sub-specialize in a wide variety of areas. That means intelligence has been, and will continue to be a profession of specialists . . . who have a deep as well as broad understanding of the fundamentals of intelligence and a superior ability to employ those fundamentals. A few of those fundamentals include a penetrating knowledge of our adversaries, competence employing our ISR systems, an ability to execute kinetic or non-kinetic targeting, situational awareness of the maritime domain; effectiveness in analysis; and conveying assessments and teeing-up implications for commanders and national decision-makers.
The unpredictability of world events is the most challenging portion of the JCS job. For all of the reasons highlighted here, today’s and tomorrow’s IDC officers will be well positioned to succeed in such an environment and be highly competitive as nominees to serve Navy and nation as the JCS J2 on America’s Joint Staff.
A Continental Divide: Caribbean and Mediterranean Migration
By Commander Adam Chamie, U.S. Coast Guard
In early October 2013, Lampedusa Island, a small Italian island in the southern Mediterranean Sea, grabbed international headlines when an overloaded 66-foot fishing boat with more than 500 migrants capsized less than a quarter-mile away. Over 360 Somalian and Eritrean men and women perished.1 One week later, only 75 miles away, another migrant vessel capsized inside Malta’s territorial waters. Of the 200 Syrians and Palestinians who had departed Libya, more than 30 died.2 Some later claimed that Libyan militiamen had fired on their vessel at the onset of the voyage.3
The two tragedies sparked a passionate international debate, generating cries of a “migrant crisis” and widespread public outrage. Despite consensus that future calamities must be prevented, there were many opinions regarding which nations were responsible and possible solutions.
The United States has its own challenges with illegal migration in the Caribbean Sea. Men, women, and children from Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and other countries head to sea in overloaded boats. Some reach U.S. soil, but many more are interdicted and repatriated, and an unfortunate few never live to recount their horrific journey. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employs an effective strategy to deter maritime migration and save lives at sea. Perhaps the European Union and its 28 member states could benefit from our successes.
It’s Not So Simple
To the casual observer, the situation may look simple. Migrants depart African and Eastern Mediterranean nations, then head for the closest European countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece, and Malta. They are picked up by maritime forces, brought to shore, and ultimately released. Many migrants head to central and northern Europe. At first glance, this closely resembles maritime migration in the Caribbean Sea. The U.S. Coast Guard interdicts and repatriates hundreds of migrants annually, but countless others arrive safely and disperse into the general population.
Although there are tragic incidents of migrant deaths in the Caribbean, far fewer lives are claimed each year. In 2013, there were a reported 81 deaths in the Caribbean, compared to 707 in the Mediterranean.4 With clear similarities in motive, method, geography—yet far fewer deaths—there must be practices and policies from the Caribbean that could help our friends across the Atlantic.
But the number of crossings paints a much different picture and represents the true severity of Europe’s maritime migration challenges. In 2013, the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted more than 2,000 migrants in the Caribbean Sea along the most common migrant routes north of Cuba and Hispaniola, and between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.5 In 2013, approximately 40,000 migrants reached Europe using the central Mediterranean route from North Africa toward Italy and Malta.6 In this single year, 20 times more migrants crossed the Mediterranean’s busiest route than the Caribbean’s.
The Push & Pull Factors
Caribbean migrants are drawn to the United States by higher wages, more jobs, and educational opportunities. Typically, they are not driven from their countries due to a lack of freedom, government oppression, or persecution.
Meanwhile, most African migrants are fleeing unstable and unsafe conditions like those in Egypt, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia. Syrian migrants—more appropriately called refugees—are also not financially driven. From 2011 to 2013, more than 2 million refugees fled Syria. After arriving in Libya, they have reportedly been forced into overcrowded boats and sent to sea at gunpoint.7 On the Caribbean shores, there simply is no equivalent to Syria’s civil war, Egypt’s bloody uprisings, or human-rights abuses in Eritrea.
The United States’ current policy regarding maritime migration is commonly called “Wet Foot, Dry Foot.” If migrants reach American soil, they are subject to U.S. immigration processes for removal. If they are stopped at sea, they are repatriated. However, Cubans who reach U.S. soil are generally allowed to stay, and some who have been interdicted at sea are granted asylum. There are no dedicated social policies or laws that pull Dominicans and Haitians to U.S. shores.
This is a stark contrast from Europe. Migrants arrive by boat in the south, but their destination is often much farther north. In 2013, Syrians filed the most asylum requests in Sweden, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Bulgaria.8 From late 2012 through 2013, more than 4,500 Syrians requested asylum and another 7,500 already in Sweden requested permanent residency.9
U.S. policy after interdicting migrants at sea is simple. We repatriate them to either their country of national origin or country of departure. Some Cubans are granted asylum based on interviews. But migrants are rarely repatriated in the Mediterranean. Europe’s non-refoulement policy essentially means they will not return any migrants found at sea due to concerns for potential persecution and maltreatment. For example, the Italian Coast Guard brings migrants to Italy for processing, and the Spanish Guardia Civil takes them to Spain.
The U.S. Coast Guard District in Miami coordinates migrant-interdiction operations in the Caribbean Sea. This joint effort includes customs and border protection along with other DHS and federal agencies.
In Europe, migrant-interdiction operations are organized unilaterally and multinationally. Like the United States, countries patrol their own waters and adjacent high seas. The European Union’s external border-management agency, Frontex, coordinates multiple large-scale counter-migration operations throughout the Mediterranean. Frontex employs ships, boats, aircraft, and people volunteered by member states. The complexities of managing assets from multiple countries often operating in unfamiliar regions make for an additional challenge not faced by the U.S. Coast Guard.
The United States enjoys a positive working relationship with our Caribbean neighbors regarding maritime migration. The Haitian government helps repatriate migrants from anchored U.S. Coast Guard ships in Cap Haitien. The Cuban border guard typically employs nonlethal means to deter vessel departures and turn boats around that are intercepted at sea.
In 2013 Morocco was the only African nation effectively participating in coordinated Frontex operations in the Mediterranean. Response by the Libyan Coast Guard has been less reliable.
What If the United States was the European Union?
Every aspect of Europe’s maritime migration challenges is more complicated than ours. We have Haiti and Cuba; they have Libya and Egypt. We have one nation; there are 28 in the European Union alone. We have one Coast Guard and one Customs and Border Protection. They have over two dozen Coast Guards, navies, customs, finance police, national police, and other maritime units charged with migrant interdiction in the Mediterranean. We repatriate most of the migrants found at sea, while their migrants come to Europe and stay.
What if instead of our 56 states and territories, the United States had 56 sovereign nations? What if we had no federal law enforcement agencies or Coast Guard, but 56 different police, customs, and maritime forces? What if Africa and the Middle East were on the other side of the Caribbean Sea? What if we could not repatriate migrants?
To help paint this picture, imagine a fishing vessel capsizing off Tampa Bay, Florida, with 360 migrants dead. Florida’s Coast Guard takes the blame, but most of the migrants were destined for the attractive social policies in Wisconsin and Michigan. Imagine if Costa Rica was in the middle of a bloody civil war where the government used chemical weapons against its citizens. Their people flee to our shores where we don’t have room to care for them, and repatriation is simply not a humanitarian option. Then, the United States processes over 40,000 asylum requests for Costa Ricans fleeing their civil war.
No Clear Solution
If we define the goal as completely stopping illegal maritime migration, there is no realistic solution for any country. Limiting illegal entry by sea—however a nation should define the acceptable level—is more appropriate. Ensuring the safety of lives at sea must balance with any national objective.
There is no simple solution for Europe. As the imagined scenario suggests, America’s counter-migrant strategy does not fit the Mediterranean. Most challenging is that the biggest factors are simply outside Europe’s control. Ending Syria’s civil war might close the floodgates and perhaps refugees could return home. More stable governments in Egypt and Libya might provide more productive partners to deter migration and help interdict at sea.
A solution should include a review of national laws and social programs that motivate migrants to risk their lives to reach countries such as Sweden. European nations define their own attractiveness to illegal migrants. There should be a link in responsibility to countries like Sweden that attract migrants, and countries like Italy and Malta that must rescue, shelter, and process them—and take the blame when migrants die.
Repatriation at sea and deportation must be pursued where possible. This will require conditions to improve in Syria, Libya, Egypt, Eritrea, and Somalia—but what about sub-Saharan Africa? Failure to return migrants to countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal does little to deter migrants.
Following the Lampedusa tragedies, I was privileged to speak to three European Union (EU) audiences about mass maritime-migration response in the Caribbean. At these events, I listened to passionate debates and detailed presentations by a variety of member states, EU, and international organizations all trying to find a solution.
It remains to be seen if the EU or European countries will adopt any of our best practices. Our dialogue continues and is strengthened through the commitment of the Department of State, DOD, DHS, and U.S. Coast Guard. The future of Mediterranean migration hinges largely on unknown conditions in Africa and the Middle East, but the EU cannot adopt a wait-and-see approach. The good news is that they know that.
1. Gavin Hewitt, “Italy boat sinking: Hundreds feared dead of Lampedusa,” BBC News, 3 October 2013, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24380247.
2. “Mediterranean ‘a cemetery’–Maltese PM Muscat,” BBC News, 12 October 2013, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24502279.
3. “Migrant boat ‘shot at’ as it left Libya,” BBC News, 13 October 2013, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24514340.
4. International Organization for Migration, “Behind the Numbers,” 17 December 2013, www.iom.int/files/live/sites/iom/files/pbn/docs/behind-numbers.html.
5. U.S. Coast Guard, “Maritime Migrant Interdictions, 8 January 2014, www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/cg531/amio/FlowStats/currentstats.asp.
6. Frontex, “Update on Central Mediterranean Route,” 18 January 2014, http://frontex.europa.eu/news/update-on-central-mediterranean-route-5wQPyW.
7. “Migrant boat ‘shot at’ as it left Libya,” BBC News.
8. Frontex, “2013 Summary and Outlook for 2014,” European Patrol Network Meeting (Warsaw, Poland), 5 December 2013.
9. Chris Morris, “Sweden’s asylum offer to refugees from Syria,” BBC News, 23 October 2013, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24635791.
Preparing the Workforce to Lead Anytime, Anywhere
By Master Chief Boatswain’s Mate Kevin Leask, U.S. Coast Guard
Since the late 1990s, Coast Guard leadership-development curricula have focused on competencies defined in the Coast Guard Leadership Development Framework. This model is organized in four broad categories: Leading Self, Leading Others, Leading Performance and Change, and Leading the Coast Guard. Each of these is further subdivided into what eventually defines the Coast Guard’s 28 leadership competencies. While these are critical to leadership development, the system is somewhat limited. Blending the competency model with a transformational leadership-development model would better prepare the workforce for leading, regardless of pay grade or rank.
The Current Model
In 1997 the Coast Guard decided to establish a leadership-development center to design and conduct courses based on its core values and the 21 leadership competencies it used at the time.1 The current model, approved in 2004, consists of a three-component system: the 28 competencies; responsibility levels; and required levels of expertise, which include methods for gaining and demonstrating competency in each. The first component relates to leadership: the knowledge, skills, and expertise expected of Cost Guard leaders. The second component defines the responsibility levels and levels of expertise. The responsibility level is generally defined by pay grade or rank with the level of expertise within each competency based on a graduated continuum, building as the member advances within the organization. The third component focuses on how each member gains and demonstrates the competencies through formal processes such as leadership schools and informal avenues such as mentoring and billet assignments.
With competency-based leadership, students can tell someone what they need to know to be a leader, depending on the organization. However, this model is limited in a few ways. First, although there is an assumption the competencies relate to being an effective leader, this model does not define how these competencies yield effective leadership performance.2 Second, with the competency-based leadership-development system, a participant builds expertise in each aspect as he or she advances. However, this is more theory than reality. Not every competency is embedded in the Coast Guard leadership curricula. Thus the 28 competencies are only part of the curriculum for some leadership schools and absent from others. Time and funding constraints are the primary reason for this gap in developing a true competency continuum.
While this system isn’t ineffective, it is limited in developing leaders who can lead anytime, anywhere, at any level within the organization. As the Leadership Development Framework states:
Rank alone is not an accurate indication of the responsibilities the member may have or the expertise an individual requires within a specific competency area. For example, an E-4 may lead several other service members as part of a boat crew or on the deck of a Coast Guard cutter, a few, or none, with each situation requiring a different level of skill.3
Designed to increase an individual’s skills as he or she advances, this system does not account for differing levels of responsibility within the same rank. Additionally, because the 28 competencies are the expected knowledge, skills, and expertise of Coast Guard members, it is assumed that everyone can be a leader as long as they develop each particular competency. However, other than leadership-development course assessments, there is no current system in place that evaluates the effectiveness of the model used since 1997. A recent effort has aimed to redesign the Coast Guard Enlisted Evaluation System to better align with the competencies; however, even if implemented, the evaluation system will only measure mastery within that particular skill, not leadership effectiveness.
Competency-Based Leadership
First labeled as a skills-based leadership-development process, competency-based leadership was developed in the early 1990s as a project funded by the U.S. Army and Department of Defense.4 Its intent was to identify the skills that contributed to exemplary job performance. The result was a model that allowed for leadership capabilities that could be developed over time through education and experience. It focused on the knowledge and skills that make effective leadership possible.5 Virtually every U.S. military organization has some form of competency-based leadership-development system. Just as the Coast Guard competency system is limited in leadership development, other military services would benefit from implementing a transformational leadership-development system to complement their competency-based one.
In the process of transformational leadership, a leader engages with others and develops a connection with them that raises every participant’s level of motivation and morality.6 The principal focus is improving the performance of followers and providing opportunities for them to realize their full potential. It also focuses on developing a follower into a leader. Current models of transformational leadership each have strengths and weaknesses. They all rely on similar developmental processes; that is, their creators interviewed successful leaders from all levels within an organization to determine their common characteristics. From these results, their particular transformational-leadership model was built.
The transformational-leadership model currently used in Coast Guard curriculum is James Kouzes’ and Barry Posner’s The Leadership Challenge. Since 1982, they have asked the same fundamental question about leadership: “What did you do when you were at your personal best as a leader?”7 Covering over 30 years of research and countless interviews, Kouzes and Posner developed their model, “The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership.”8 They found that leaders from all over the world were at their best when they modeled the way, inspired a shared vision, challenged the process, enabled others to act, and encouraged the hearts of followers. This model is supported by ten commitments, two for each practice, and a leadership-practices inventory 360-degree leadership-assessment tool consisting of 30 questions. Unlike the competency system, which does not define the translation of the competency into effective leadership, the 360-degree leadership assessment is based on observable leadership behaviors: how someone actually leads or is leading as observed by others.
Additional research conducted by Kouzes and Posner revealed that a leader’s behavior contributed significantly to factors such as commitment, loyalty, motivation, pride, and productivity more so than any other single variable.9 A recent study conducted by the human-resource services firm Randstad found the number-one reason people quit their job was their manager.10 The study also revealed that eight out of ten employees believed that the relationship with their direct supervisor had a significant impact on how happy they were at work. Exit surveys conducted with members leaving the Coast Guard found similar results: Members left the service based on their relationship with their immediate supervisor. Results from a 2005 survey indicated that concerns over command climate and supervisors played a role in their decision to leave.11 As Kouzes and Posner point out from their extensive leadership research, an organization’s leader is the most important person to those closest to them, regardless of his or her position.
A competency-based program is clearly beneficial in leadership development; such a system provides specific leadership skills that someone can learn and practice. It is designed to tell someone what they need to know to be a leader, and depending on the model, a stepped approach at building these skills. However, the competency-based model does not define how to be a leader and requires a development system to support the learning and building of these competencies throughout a career. Over the past couple of years, by adding a transformational leadership-development model to an already existing competency-based one, the Coast Guard developed a leadership model that builds needed leadership skills throughout members’ careers that also prepares them to lead anytime, anywhere, and at any level.
1. Ray Blunt, “Growing Leaders for Public Service,” Human Capital Management Series (2004): 56–57.
2. Peter Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice (Los Angeles: Sage, 2010), 55.
3. Coast Guard Leadership Development Framework, COMDTINST M5351.3, 2-2.
4. Northhouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice, 43.
5. Ibid., 44.
6. Ibid., 172.
7. James Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012), 2.
8. Ibid., 3.
9. Ibid., 25.
10. Suzanne Lucas, “The Top Ten Reasons People Leave Their Jobs,” 18 October 2013, www.cbsnews.com/news/the-top-ten-reasons-people-leave-their-jobs.
11. Coast Guard Career Intentions Survey: October–December 2005.