The Third Offset Strategy must close the growing gap between U.S. sailors and modern technology. Technology is evolving too rapidly for the Navy’s policies and procedures to keep up.
In 2005 a pair of underdogs from the United States shocked the chess world with a world championship tournament win. The tournament was for “freestyle” chess—a variation that allows human chess players to exploit computer assistance. The U.S. players used only their home computers to dominate the amateur bracket and to go on to defeat teams of grandmasters who were using specialized chess computers. Garry Kasparov, the Russian former world champion, summarized his thoughts on the matter—now known as “Kasparov’s Law,”—“A weak human plus machine plus better process is superior to a strong human plus machine plus inferior process.”1
Kasparov understood what had happened. He had watched machines become stronger, faster, and more available until a computer (IBM’s Deep Blue) defeated him in 1997. Deep Blue won by employing brute-force calculations to play tactically perfect chess. However, perfect tactics are vulnerable to superior strategy. Kasparov lost the six-game match to Deep Blue by a very small margin—three games to two, with one draw.
Kasparov’s Law foreshadows the operational environment of today’s Navy. Technologies that were once only available to wealthy militaries are becoming available to anyone, and the price is dropping fast. The technological playing field is being leveled, leaving the greatest gains for the Third Offset Strategy at the intersection of human and machine. That is where the Navy can innovate most productively.
The John S. McCain Tragedy
Investigators of the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) collision identified confusion about which station at the ship’s control console (SCC) had control of the ship’s rudder as a major contributing factor. What should have been easy to determine created extra confusion and stress while in extremis. Control systems on ships, aircraft, and submarines must be clear, concise, and visually decisive. This was not the case on the John S. McCain and is not the case on many new ships.
On Arleigh Burke–class destroyers, the indication is displayed in a small drop-down menu on a computer screen. At night, these screens are dimmed to the minimum brightness, which almost certainly was the case on the bridge of John S. McCain when the order to shift steering control was given at 0519.
Adding to the opportunity for confusion is that it takes several steps to transfer control from one station to another. Instead of quickly pressing a button or throwing a switch, the helmsman must use a trackball to locate the cursor on the computer screen, move the cursor to the drop-down menu, click the menu, and select which station should gain steering control—all while still steering the ship. This process must be repeated by the receiving control station to complete the transfer. One might as well ask the helmsman to text and drive.
The transfer of a ship’s control function should be clear, quick, and decisive, just as orders to the helm or any other standard order or report. Watchstanders are trained on the importance of brevity, verbatim repeat-backs, and standard terminology. If the Navy does not demand that technology uphold these same basic watchstanding standards, it is doomed to put more bridge teams in situations similar to the one on the John S. McCain.
The John Warner Offers Some Good News
The USS John Warner (SSN-785) has integrated the tenets of human-machine teaming into its modern periscope controls. Instead of a complex, unique, expensive joystick, the crew uses an Xbox 360’s controller to operate the electronic periscope. The sub’s assistant navigator, Senior Chief Mark Eichenlaub, notes that:
a lot of crew members grew up playing with [the Xbox 360 controller]. . . .[They] were intuitively able to figure out how to use it on their own within minutes, compared to hours of training required for the joystick. . . .The [joystick] that costs about $38,000 can now be replaced with an Xbox controller that typically costs less than $30.
The John Warner has increased watchstander proficiency, reduced training time, and reduced control systems costs by an unbelievable 1,267 percent, all by capitalizing on an existing and well-developed human-machine relationship.
The Way Forward
No longer is cutting-edge technology customized to fit the rigid framework of the Navy’s needs. Unlike in the first two offset strategies, today’s high-impact innovation and change are being made outside of the lifelines. The weight of administrative requirements and a “zero-defect” culture slow the Navy’s progress of human-machine integration while competitors scramble to get an advantage. There are several steps that can be taken to optimize the Navy’s framework of policies and procedures.
Allow enlisted personnel to write and debug code. Ships, submarines, and aircraft increasingly are digitized. Preventing qualified sailors from debugging lines of code is like tying one hand behind the Navy’s back. At present, there seems to be no middle ground between giving sailors unrestricted root access and barring them from editing software at all. Still, one must be found. Further, sailors must be given more programming fluency, unless the Navy is to rely on expensive and scarce civilian software engineers as a sole source for fixing code.
Enlisted technicians can troubleshoot every system on a ship at a detailed level—except software. Instead, bugs are allowed to run rampant, creating false alarms, incorrect setpoints, and a difficult user experience. Relatively small issues easily cascade into bigger casualties when what is going on inside the digital systems is unknown.
Grant departmental leaders non-critical local-operating procedure (LOP) approval authority. An LOP is created when a sailor discovers that current procedures are ineffective, unsafe, or inaccurate. Permitting departmental leaders to review and approve LOPs for non-critical systems will result in faster implementation and revision of local-operating procedures, in turn producing more complete and holistic feedback reports and force revisions. This will cut the lag time between administrative change and actual change on the deckplates. Allowing sailors to see immediate results from their feedback will encourage them to give better feedback more often, the most effective way to iterate through all of the inevitable bugs that come with a new technology.
Take advantage of skills inherent in today’s technologically proficient sailors. Sailors who were born in the early 2000s are joining the Navy. As digital natives, these sailors have grown up in a world of technology, innovation, and rapid change. They have more inherent knowledge of technology than any generation before. The Navy will squander a huge resource if it does not take advantage of these skills. Give them tools with which they are familiar, and they will learn quickly to operate new technology with higher proficiency and reduced training times. Adversaries such as China and Russia are taking advantage of their digital natives, and if the Navy wants to stay relevant it must tap into the power of American youth.
The Navy is engaged in computer-assisted warfare today. It must better unify sailors with ships to create the best possible human-machine sea power team, just as the U.S. underdogs did when they defeated superpower opponents at freestyle chess.
1. Kasparov, G. K. (2017). Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins.
Lieutenant Strain received a B.S. in Mathematics in 2012 from Huston-Tillotson University while earning his commission through the University of Texas NROTC unit. He has served on USS Independence (LCS-2) and the USS Stockdale (DDG-106), where he served as assistant chief engineer. He is stationed in Naples, Italy, where he is acting as a security force assistance desk officer in N-52 Africa Engagement Group.