Vectors: Heroes, Villains & Heartbreak on the Bridge of the U.S. Navy
Thomas B. Modly. Charleston, SC: Advantage Media, 2023. 493 pp. $29.99.
Reviewed by Commander Jeff Vandenengel, U.S. Navy
Most sailors and Marines serving outside the Pentagon likely cannot name a single Under Secretary of the Navy, past or present—except the Honorable Thomas Modly. On the positive side, when Secretary of Defense Mark Esper relieved Navy Secretary Richard Spencer as part of the Eddie Gallagher fallout, Modly admirably committed himself to his position as Acting Secretary of the Navy. He generated a list of 110 ambitious institutional goals to accomplish in 110 days (what he determined to be the average span of an acting secretary of the Navy), did not shy from major decisions, and sent out weekly “Vector” messages to the entire Department of the Navy on key issues.
On the other hand, just as the Navy was finally done with the Gallagher public affairs fiasco, Mr. Modly played a key role in another one: the botched response to the COVID-19 outbreak on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). Whether sailors and Marines know him as a “hero” or a “villain,” they at least know him.
Published three years later, Modly’s Vectors: Heroes, Villains & Heartbreak on the Bridge of the U.S. Navy is a fascinating, candid, and well-written book covering his time as Under and then Acting Secretary of the Navy.
Vectors is valuable because of the insight it provides on what it takes to achieve institutional change in the Department of the Navy—and the forces that can resist that change. Modly details his efforts to plan for the fleet’s future with the Future Carrier 2030 study and the Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment (INFSA). His successor immediately canceled the carrier study, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense did not allow INFSA’s publication and instead briefed the National Security Advisor on it without Navy participation (more evidence to support Dr. Steven Wills’ argument in his book Strategy Shelved: The Collapse of Cold War Naval Strategic Planning [Naval Institute Press, 2021] that the Navy has lost much of its ability to develop its own strategy). Modly pushed the Education for Seapower Strategy and “Breaking the Mold” initiative at the Naval War College; both failed to attract support from uniformed leaders and withered away.
Vectors concludes with the COVID-19 outbreak on board the Theodore Roosevelt, during which Modly relieved the carrier’s commanding officer, Captain Brett Crozier, creating a public affairs firestorm that resulted in his own resignation days later. At the time, there was intense national debate over who was right. In truth, they were both striving to do what they thought was best in a difficult situation and they both made serious mistakes.
Captain Crozier also published a book this year, Surf When You Can: Lessons in Life, Loyalty, and Leadership from a Maverick Navy Captain (Atria Books, 2023), cowritten with Michael Vlessides—an interesting read that joins the ranks of other retired officers’ leadership books. In both the book and interviews, Crozier stated he would not change his actions if he could, arguing he was taking care of his crew. His desire to get help for his crew was not the issue, but rather the means he used to secure that help, a problem Crozier only lightly touches on. In contrast, Modly is frank about his own failures, what he was trying to do, and where he fell short.
Both Surf When You Can and Vectors are worthy of reading, but Proceedings readers should pick up Modly’s book first.
Commander Vandenengel is a submarine officer and author of Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the United States Navy, available from the Naval Institute Press in November 2023.
Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Paul Scharre. New York: W. W. Norton, 2023. 473 pp. Ilus. Abbr. Notes. Index. $32.50.
Reviewed by Captain George Galdorisi, U.S. Navy (Retired)
There are few issues today in which there is more heat than light than artificial intelligence (AI). Voices pro and con cover a wide spectrum. These (often shrill) opinions range from those who opine that AI will change our lives for the better in profound ways, to those who believe that unabated AI development will lead to the end of humanity. Some have even called for a pause in AI development.
When it comes to the issue of inserting AI into military platforms, systems, sensors, and weapons, these arguments go into overdrive. While some are of the opinion that the United States must win the AI arms race with its peer competitors, China and Russia, others argue that the U.S. military will lose control of its AI-enabled tools and disaster will ensue.
Fortunately, Paul Scharre’s Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence has arrived at just the right time in the midst of these debates. The book presents a balanced and well-nuanced analysis of the myriad issues surrounding the use of AI in both the civilian and military realms.
Extensively researched and amply cited, this book’s core argument breaks down the four battlegrounds that will affect the future of artificial intelligence and how this technology will evolve. The author explains why whatever nation leads in this field will have the potential to be a world leader. These four areas are data, compute, talent, and institutions.
After the Four Battlegrounds’ short presentation of these four areas, its eight parts and 35 chapters address the particulars of each factor. The author bases his analysis on numerous first-person interviews with an array of AI experts. Extensive notes provide the granularity to support the narrative.
While Scharre deems all these areas to be important, he suggests that institutions are arguably the most vital factor in marshaling a nation’s AI potential. Along the way, he dispels many myths and misconceptions regarding AI, especially regarding defensive, as well as offensive, AI-enabled military operations.
Four Battlegrounds’ final chapter, “The Future of AI,” builds on all that is presented earlier and addresses the question likely on the minds of everyone interested in national security: What will happen in a future conflict if AI-enabled weapons, none of which are controlled by humans, are employed by adversaries? The positions presented in this book will inform the necessary debate on this issue for years to come.
Practitioners will find this book useful and refreshing as it breaks new ground and addresses areas that previously were opaque. For the interested layperson, this book provides a readable and convincing primer on AI. Given the intense interest in AI today, it is crucial that Americans participate in an informed debate. More so than any other book on the market, Four Battlegrounds is an essential work to ensure a fact-based dialogue on this subject.
Four Battlegrounds is a welcome addition to the corpus of work regarding what many consider the most important emerging technology today. Unlike most works of nonfiction that deal with technical topics, this book reads like a novel, and the reader will keep turning the page to find out what happens next.
Captain Galdorisi is a career naval aviator whose 30 years of active-duty service included four command tours and five years as a carrier strike group chief of staff. He is the author of 16 books, including four New York Times best-sellers. His latest book is a writing primer, Braveship Writers Share Their Secrets (Braveship, 2023).
Sailing Upwind: Leadership and Risk from TopGun to the Situation Room
ADM Sandy Winnefeld, USN (Retired). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2023. 342 pp. $32.95.
Reviewed by Commander Graham Scarbro, U.S. Navy
The scene: late-1990s, in a conference room at Initech, a leading software development company. Tom Smykowski, an Initech employee with people skills, sits down at the table across from “the Bobs,” two business consultants looking to trim the fat at Initech. Tom is flummoxed by a single question: “What would you say. . . ya’ do here?”
This famous line, from the 1999 movie Office Space, comes up frequently in the military, whether in jest at an overworked colleague’s frustration with his workload, or as a light ribbing for a naval flight officer whose job is often made obsolete through software updates.
Before reading Admiral Sandy Winnefeld’s memoir, Sailing Upwind, I would have glibly remarked about the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (VJCS): “What would you say . . . ya’ do here, sir?” After all, isn’t that a bit like being Assistant (to the) Regional Manager? (That’s from the sitcom The Office, but it’s the same idea.)
Winnefeld served as the ninth VJCS from 2011 to 2015, at the end of a career that spanned a pivotal era in U.S. national security. His book sheds light on the position he occupied on the JCS. But, before getting to that, Winnefeld reflects on the long road that brought him there.
He relies on his love for sailing as a metaphor for the difficulty of overcoming the normal challenges of the naval service, learning the ropes in a disorienting variety of career assignments, and dealing with the routine frustration that occurs when trying to sail against the prevailing winds of bureaucracy, policy, and the other variables that shape a life of service.
The memoir starts in the cockpit of the F-14 Tomcat, in which his shipmates dub him “JAWS,” a play on both his initials and his status as an admiral’s son (“Just Admiral Winnefeld’s Son”). JAWS experiences the waning days of the Cold War as a Tomcat pilot and TOPGUN instructor. He accepts his first assignment to the Pentagon just in time to witness the last act of the Cold War as a Joint Staff officer with a front-row seat to the planning and execution of the Gulf War and the U.S. military’s post–Cold War identity crisis.
Winnefeld follows a winding course to the Vice Chairman’s office: carrier command at sea during the 9/11 attacks, strike group command during the bloodiest days of the Iraq War, command of Sixth Fleet, Joint Staff, commander of NORAD and Northern Command, and, finally, to the Joint Chiefs as Vice Chairman. His career epitomizes the varied ways in which naval officers lead and serve, often in billets that seem completely disconnected from the ones before.
But Winnefeld traces a strong through line of flexibility and adaptability, disrupting standing procedures that get in the way of the mission, and willingness to pursue new adventures.
Throughout the book he also includes “Anchors”—focused sections in between chapters in which he highlights his personal leadership philosophies. Each Anchor describes a different aspect of leadership that is as valuable to the youngest leading petty officer as it is to the (second-) most senior four-star flag officer.
Readers will find plenty of biographical, policy, and strategic detail to create a fuller picture of the VJCS. Discussions around the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS, cyberwarfare, and insights into the 2011 Budget Control Act (“sequestration”) highlight Winnefeld’s tenure as VJCS. But his consistent answer to the Bobs’ question—”What would you say . . . ya’do here?”—throughout the book is that leaders at any level are responsible for themselves, others, and their organizations, to guide them and to advocate for positive change even in the face of contrary winds.
Those looking for insight into the policy processes at the highest levels or a cockpit-level view of a highly transitional and disruptive era in U.S. Navy history will enjoy this memoir. The chapters are quick reads that are accessible to those who have not spent time in the Pentagon or an admiral’s chair. Admiral Winnefeld’s book is an insightful work on leadership, a widely varied naval career, and the work done by service leaders at the highest levels.
Commander Scarbro is an active-duty naval flight officer.
Japanese War Fantasy 1933: An Edited and Annotated Translation of ‘Account of the Future US-Japan War’
Kyosuke Fukunaga, edited and annotated by Jamie Bisher. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military History, 2023. 208 pp. $20.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Kyle Cregge, U.S. Navy
What if Ghost Fleet (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015) or 2034: A Novel of the Next World War (Penguin Press, 2021) not only were lauded by the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations and Pacific Fleet Commander—but also came true? No doubt, if a Sino-American fight for Taiwan comes to pass, historians will look back not only to U.S. strategic sins of omission and commission, but also to the fiction that informed and displayed many of the warfighting assumptions, wise or not.
In the preface to Japanese War Fantasy 1933, freelance historian Jamie Bisher seeks to answer the question: “What were they thinking?” They being the Empire of Japan and, specifically, the Imperial Japanese Navy, who, in attacking Pearl Harbor, set on a course to naval destruction and national subjugation. As Bisher explains, U.S.-Japan war fiction was common at the time, even dating back to a pre–World War I book, and much like U.S.-China writings today, books, periodicals, and op-eds contemplated what would become the 1941–45 war in the Pacific.
Bisher, through his archival work, answers that question via the reprinting and annotating of the war fiction novelette of retired Japanese naval officer Kyosuke Fukunaga. Fukunaga’s 1933 Nichibei-sen Miraiki, translated by U.S. intelligence analysts as Account of the Future U.S.-Japan War, was publicly celebrated along with forewords by Admiral Kanji Katō and Vice Admiral Nobumasa Suetsugu. The former served as Chief of the Navy General Staff and the latter as commander of the Combined Fleet and IJN’s 1st Fleet—among the most senior naval officers during that time.
Fukunaga’s story is preceded by a riveting Bisher introduction of just under 50 pages. Among the revelations are the stories of Japanese aid to the Mexican revolutionaries in 1913; 1916 Japanese commando raids against military and civilian targets in Texas preceding the proposed Japanese-Mexican-German alliance later exposed in the Zimmerman telegram; U.S.-Japan hostilities during the allied interventions in the Russian Civil War and, specifically, the Russian Far East around Lake Baikal; and other discussions of espionage during naval treaties, racial animus, Japanese political acceleration, and the censorship that affected distribution of Fukunaga’s work.
What were they thinking, then? It is as equally interesting to see what Fukunaga got right as what he got wrong. To the former, despite much discussion of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, the war in his story pivots around sinking aircraft carriers and the implications for air superiority and sea control. The characters’ obsession with ratios derived from the London Naval Treaty for ship-based gunnery and carrier aircraft will remind readers of retired Navy Captain Wayne Hughes’ Fleet Tactics (3rd ed., Naval Institute Press, 2018). This, combined with a surprise attack beginning the war in the Pacific and the Japanese obsession with a “decisive battle” to end the war, proved unsettlingly true.
By far the biggest overestimation was the idea that race would supersede national loyalty, earning two different sections. In the first, a Black sailor, motivated by Jim Crow–era discrimination, sabotages the deep ammunition magazine of a battleship passing through the Panama Canal, leading to the ship’s explosion and destruction of the key locks in the canal. In the second, Japanese Americans, in defense of the Japanese war effort, damage the mast holding a U.S. Navy airship, leading it to float away, untethered. The latter act of sabotage occurs at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, one of the many cities on the West Coast that would intern real-world second-generation Japanese Americans when the war began. In short, the effects of race were not on a single side.
An enjoyable and breezy read for the amateur historian, Bisher’s work is perfect for the long plane ride or weekend reading. However, my biggest takeaway was the conflicting timelines between all pre-war speculative fiction and reality. Fukunaga, Ghost Fleet, and 2034 all portray wars relatively short in scale, yet World War II was won as much by the arsenal of democracy as it was by the service members who did the fighting. With a defense industrial base now withered in the post–Cold War era, the United States cannot risk making the same assumption as the Imperial Japanese: that a decisive battle alone will deny the adversary—an industrial power itself—its prime objective.
Lieutenant Cregge is the operations officer for the USS Pinckney (DDG-91) and the 2022 Proceedings Author of the Year.
