Where are the Cyber Warriors?
(See W. J. Toti, p. 13, July 2017 Proceedings)
Captain Toti begins with something he knows didn’t happen: President Roosevelt asking the CNO in 1939 what the CNO would do with the Navy’s submarine force in the event of war. The President knew about the uses of submarines from his eight years as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. If he had any question, it was about whether the Navy planned to wage unrestricted submarine warfare.
Captain Toti told that story for effect, and I agree with him. Not enough of us understand cybernetics to assess, let alone develop, alternative courses of action in a cybernetic conflict. The technology changes so fast that it outpaces even the best efforts to master it, and so even very intelligent people hesitate to come to grips with the technology.
But it’s not all our fault. Have you ever asked a question about cyberwarfare? If so, maybe what happened to you happened to me. First, the younger tech-savvy people around me laughed. They were thinking, “analog dinosaur.” Then, when the security folks found out I’d been asking questions, I was told to mind my own business. “You’re not cleared,” they said. Ridicule, burying the uninitiated under acronyms, and saying “You don’t have a need to know” drives people away. Letting that happen to the inquisitive may cost us victory.
Depression, Anxiety, and An ger are Treatable
(See K. Eyer, p. 16, May 2017; D. Scott, pp. 83-84, June 2017 Proceedings)
Captain Eyer did not mention Form SF86—Questionnaire for National Security Positions. This is a required form all active-duty military, civilian, and contractors must complete to hold a security clearance. This has to be completed every five or six years by anyone who holds a security clearance.
With a few specific exemptions, seeking psychiatric counseling is considered a “red flag.” As a result, many active-duty professionals and others working for or supporting the DOD are unwilling to seek required therapy for fear of losing their clearances and therefore their livelihoods.
The services are making the right noises about suicide prevention, but until the stigma is addressed, and potential employment consequences of seeking therapeutic counseling is understood to not necessarily be a security clearance issue, people are going to under report or not seek the services they need.
The Navy has a Gender Problem
(See J. Purvis, p. 11, July 2017 Proceedings)
The Marine Corps has a gender problem according to Jim Purvis. Wrong; Mr. Purvis has the gender problem when he decries the fact that the Marine Corps has succeeded in warding off gender integration. It appears that the Marine Corps is the only one of our armed forces that has done so. Which only proves, once again, the age-old fact that the Marine Corps is this country’s premier fighting force.
Establish a Stategy Board
(See K. Eyer, p. 13, June 2017 Proceedings)
With the disestablishment of the Strategic Studies Group in Newport, Rhode Island, the Navy is now bereft of anything resembling a uniformed professional group dedicated to the analysis of factors that will impact the Navy. True, there are staff divisions that bear that burden. But incumbents in such billets suffer nominally fixed terms as do CNOs as noted by Captain Eyer.
In the final report of the Strategic Studies Group it was reported that an overwhelming onslaught of new technology is already in operation today. That is certainly no surprise. Check your wrist or belt. Counters to obvious potential threats are in planning or development today—but not coordinated in any observable way.
What is lacking, as pointed out by Captain Eyer, is a recognized strategy “of operational and tactical plans and visions” that exists and is supported across the board. Amen to that! It is hoped that Captain Eyer’s timely recommendation will bear fruit.
Sharing the Sacrifice can Close the Gap
(See A. Fraser, pp. 52-55, July 2017 Proceedings)
For stepping forward to take on an issue others fear to address and for providing a guide to close the civil-military gap, kudos to Captain Fraser.
The central shift in national security is the increased difficulty in creating improved citizen cohesion to support homeland security.
I am not persuaded that a national program should begin with a lottery. Instead, I believe it begins with individuals who leave high school before graduating. Congress should mandate that no initial driver’s licenses should be issued to these individuals until they first register and then remain in good standing with their local sheriffs for two years.
During this two-year period, the Department of Homeland Security should test these individuals for character, learning ability, and physical fitness and offer an initial six-months basic training focused on U. S. military law and history/civics, modern communications, and first-responder skills. Time should be dedicated for career and education opportunity counseling.
Youngsters who complete this training satisfactorily should report back to their local sheriffs to receive their national identifications (required to apply for a driver’s license) and enroll in the Sheriffs’ Homeland Security Reserve. These youngsters will be placed in the sheriff’s lottery or volunteer for an alternative military service program.
Are There Just a Few Good Men?
(See K. Hunter, p. 10, April 2017; R. Jacobs, B. Carr, N. Monacelli, p.8, May 2017 Proceedings)
Ms. Hunter’s excellent article WAS A CLARION CALL to all Marines. All of us—male and female, active duty, former and retired, and Marines at all leadership levels, from the lowest fire team leader to the Commandant—need to reassess our personal adherence to our core values of honor, courage, and commitment. Ms. Hunter’s article communicated a symptom, but what it seemed to have missed was identifying the root cause of the “Marines United” fiasco.
The respect that we exhibit for our fellow human beings is rooted in our personal moral values and standards. Unfortunately, those values and standards have been under attack from the progressive left for many decades to the point where they are almost non-existent. The well-defined Judeo-Christian morals that once formed the backbone of this great nation and guided behavior in our families and society as a whole gradually have been supplanted by the squishiness of moral relativism.
At the end of the day, this is not a male-female issue, or about “policing your own.” It’s about establishing, maintaining, and conforming to a set of moral values and standards that apply equally to all members of a society.
Deceptions Operations in Full Spectrum ASW
(See M. Glynn, pp. 73-75, July 2017 Proceedings)
Almost 13 years after my most significant (only?) contribution to naval operational art was first developed, I was pleased somebody still cares enough to explore its implications.
I was bothered by Lieutenant Glynn’s admonition that, more than a decade after full-spectrum ASW was made official Navy doctrine, he still finds it necessary to argue, “We should train our forces with a full-spectrum ASW mindset….” I would have thought that these concepts should have undergone a great deal of investigation, development, challenge, expansion, and maturity. To have a knowledgeable ASW officer suggest that we are still in the infancy of training and development of these concepts, more than a decade after I retired from the Navy, is worrisome.
It was exactly this fear that led me to publish the concept in the Proceedings open forum in June 2014 (“The Hunt for Full Spectrum ASW”). I worry that even this wide exposure may not have helped. I still believe the concept to be revolutionary, but only if it is developed and employed.
While Lieutenant Glynn did a masterful job analyzing the concepts behind full spectrum ASW, I do want to correct one point. He seemed to write off the “mask our forces” thread of full spectrum ASW, moving on to the next “saturate the enemy with false targets” thread. I would assert both are equally important. Masking can be achieved by something as simple as a modification of the ship’s acoustic signature, creating a false “singing screw,” and so on.
Revolutionary New Ship for the Navy?
shortcoming in the Navy is that it does not have a truly survivable ship. The absence of a survivable ship denies the Navy essential capabilities, the most important of which are the ability to risk a credible and sometimes essential visible show of force in high-threat situations and the fleet’s inability to support Marine amphibious operations with essential naval surface fire support and enabling troops to be brought rapidly ashore by sea. At present, Navy doctrine is to keep its ships at least 100 miles from a hostile shore as a protection against antiship and other weapons. This means that Marines must now essentially depend on MV-22 Ospreys to carry out amphibious operations, but they are still vulnerable to advanced and ubiquitous surface-to-air missiles which could pose a decisive threat to our Marines in the air. “Over the horizon” surface assaults, now contemplated, are simply impractical with present assets.
Hope for a highly survivable ship meeting the requirements outlined here reached me in an email from Kenneth S. Brower, who had been one of the nation’s top naval architects with enormous experience in ship design and weapons effects on ships. He wrote,” They [our present surface combatants] are, in my view, simply catastrophically vulnerable and vastly over priced. In a ship (as elsewhere) size matters. Very large supertanker hulls, that are well designed, approach being unsinkable. I would bury a FFG/DDG combat system somewhere inside these vital hidden areas with advanced armor and would trade speed for survivability and reduced cost. . . .”
The ship to be converted would be a supertanker with a 250,000-long ton displacement (with a full fuel load) 1,075 feet long with a 170-foot beam and a hull depth of 80 feet. As transformed into a Navy expeditionary ship (ES), she would displace a maximum of 125,000 long tons, and most likely much less, and would have a draft of less than 30 feet. Brower explained that this huge hull “reduces the probability of hull girder failure from an under keel attack. Second it could easily survive multiple side torpedo hits” Also, its huge volume and heavy structure with alternate layers of water and steel bulkheads on each side would defeat most high-explosive, shaped-charge, and other armor-piercing weapons. Other parts of the ship would be protected by advanced armor. The ship would be propelled by two LM2500 gas turbines generating 29,500 horsepower each.
Brower suggested that a FFG/DDG combat system and an advanced gun system be installed. I would go beyond this by creating a gun deck just below the main deck with a highly visible array of numerous upgraded and improved 8-inch/55-caliber guns (plus some 5-inch guns) which would give the ship a warlike appearance (unlike our present ships). These guns would fire laser-guided extended range rounds. (Normal range is now about 30 miles.) If practical, large caliber (12-inch and above) would be added as would the DDG’s advanced gun system. Well below deck would be a number of vertical launch systems with a wide array of missiles. On the main deck would be air defense and antimissile defense weapons. The huge main deck would accommodate an assortment of MV-22s, CH-53s, other helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and F-35B vertical/short take-off or landing Joint Strike Fighters. More important, the ES would carry a variety of amphibious craft to support a significant landing. These craft would be lowered by davits. A Marine expeditionary unit (MEU) would be embarked with Marines manning the weapons and augmenting ship’s company in other ways. The psychological impact of a ship this size with so much visible firepower and the capability to rapidly land a substantial, battle-ready Marine force would be enormous and extremely useful as an ideal crisis response ship.