Prioritize the Human Factor for Future Naval Warfare

When considering conflict with China in the western Pacific, there is much discussion on the need for advanced sensors and weapons, machine learning–infused battle management aids, and algorithms that increase the speed of combat decision-making. Advocacy for this kill-chain improvement competes with calls for increased readiness, battle spares, and expeditionary logistics. These improvements are all needed to better prepare the nation to deter or, if necessary, defeat China. Yet, any discussion of the future of naval power is incomplete without a focus on the efficacy of the Navy’s most substantial weapon system: its officers and sailors.

To support a combined and joint force campaign in the Pacific, Navy leaders should undertake an actionable review of service personnel policies. The distribution of manning, specifically officer manning, needs to be adjusted to better align with the skills necessary for the service’s war aims. The Navy no longer should detail officers based primarily on who is most interested in certain billets and who has the senior advocacy to place them in those billets. War is a human endeavor, and preparation for conflict on a grand scale must take stock of human capital and consider the Navy’s force design at the individual level.¹

Four principles underpin a better framework for managing officer talent to bolster the Navy’s warfighting stance and position its leaders to implement the Chief of Naval Operations’ 2024 Navigation Plan:

Capacity

The Navy needs more officers, but an increase will require changes in both personnel-management policy and the law—in this case the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA), signed into law in December 1980 by President Jimmy Carter. The Navy cannot continue to prioritize seniority over individual merit and cap control-grade (O-4 and above) officer numbers; it must have more flexibility to promote talent when needed. DOPMA gives the services greater latitude in promoting doctors, nurses, lawyers, and chaplains, in part because their professions require extensive schooling and expertise. In a protracted conflict with China, the Navy will need similar latitude to retain professional warriors with decades of experience. Indeed, DOPMA reform or service-initiated paygrade tenure waivers would benefit many, but particularly officers who would not otherwise promote (having been passed over at least twice). More important, the Navy would benefit from harnessing talent for tasks requiring specialized expertise.

Described as “a better static description of the desired officer structure than dynamic management tool,” DOPMA is insufficient to prepare the officer corps for the flexibility a peer conflict would require.² Absent an unyielding policy maverick with ample time to advocate, it is unlikely DOPMA would be modified until well into a long naval campaign. Nevertheless, two small adjustments could deepen the Navy’s officer talent pool ahead of conflict:

 • Increase the retire/retain quota. Under Military Personnel Manual section 1811-010, an officer “may request retention on Active Duty in a retired status or voluntary recall from retirement and ordered to Active Duty,” but under quotas governed by the Secretary of the Navy. Any quota limit should be managed and increased to a point whereby the Navy could retain as many officers as needed to continue key tasks at critical headquarters and seagoing units. With the retention of more officers who otherwise would have been required to retire under the law, the Navy could add critical experience ahead of conflict.

 • Increase lateral-transfer opportunities. Rather than restrict the outflow of officers from parent designators, the lateral transfer and redesignation process should permit more officers to redesignate to a specialty for which they are better suited if the gaining community agrees. This aperture expansion should not be merit-blind, and there should not be extensive waivers of community entry requirements (e. g., a transfer into naval aviation should be physically qualified for flight duty), but there should be more opportunity for the qualified to seek placement in a community of their interest.

Capability

Amid the calls for additional tactical capability in sensors, combat systems, weapons, and nonkinetic weapons, a potential conflict also highlights the need for the numbered fleet headquarters to function as a maritime component command headquarters at the operational level of war. The numbered fleet staffs have atrophied over time in the luxury of post–Cold War maritime supremacy.³ In a conflict in which sea control cannot be assumed, and sea denial must occupy a larger part of U.S. planning efforts, Navy fleet headquarters and their maritime operations centers (MOCs) must be enlarged.⁴ Three succinct actions would help in this regard:

 • Fully man the MOCs. The Navy traditionally has prioritized manning subordinate fleet staffs and units over manning the MOCs. In a western Pacific conflict, however, the Seventh Fleet MOC would originate tactical orders and operational fleet direction supporting the joint force commander. Given that the IndoPacific joint operating area is primarily maritime, the Navy’s best planning and fleet-managing talent should be in the MOCs, specifically at U.S. Pacific Fleet and U.S. Seventh Fleet, but also at the Third and Fifth Fleet staffs, where they should have key supporting roles.

 • Rotate successful post-command officers into key MOC planning, operations, and control functions. The best post-command O-5s and 0-6s should be sent to numbered fleet headquarters instead of other shore duty options. One numbered fleet senior officer told me, “Every time I had a particularly challenging problem to solve, I turned to one of the few post-command unrestricted line officers to get it done.” This official lamented that the list of qualified officers in the headquarters was much too short—it fit on a Post-It note on his desk.

 • Continue the careers of the military operations planners through the period of concern (approximately through 2030). The Navy’s investment in operational planning education and experience is often lost when dedicated officers do not screen for command, which is the enabler to continued promotion. As such, there are too few officers familiar and practiced enough with operational art, deliberate and crisis planning, and supporting commander decision-making. Waivers to continue officers on active duty past their rank’s high-year tenure threshold should be sought for select maritime staff officer course graduates and Navy operational planners. Similar to the permanent military professor program at the U.S. Naval Academy and Naval Postgraduate School, a permanent military planner cadre should become the backbone of continuity at the MOCs.

Consistent Leadership

To win a protracted conflict, leaders with the most experience must remain in the fight. One change that supports this would be to lengthen tours for key command positions. Rear admirals should serve two to three years in strike group command positions, not the 12- to 13-month tours that have determined the battle rhythm of the main Navy tactical fighting units. The command-tour cycle must adapt to face a longer conflict, so strike group commanders with more experience and knowledge of their own force after a certification workup cycle could lead protracted combat patrols.

Similarly, the Navy should firmly adhere to “operational detailing,” a term historically meaning that commanding officers of ships and squadrons would rotate based on the deployment schedule. In practice, the Navy often rotates commanding officers and senior leaders based on their career clocks, nominal tour lengths, and the requirement of their subordinates to show progression in the commanding officer’s fitness report summary group.⁵ In a protracted conflict, the highest priority should be commanding officers with warfighting experience, and they should remain in command until their ships or units return from combat.

Extending the tour lengths of tactical leaders would also align them better with the longer tours of the naval component commander/numbered fleet commanders and their staffs. Some would cite the continuity that the executive officer to commanding officer “fleet-up” model provides; however, this would still risk disruption. It is better and safer to extend commanders until their units clear from the war zone and are in refit/recertification.

Collaboration and Connectivity

Finally, the Navy needs to work even more earnestly with allies and partners. Coalitions with the United States’ staunchest allies will be the key to victory in a western Pacific conflict.

There has been much talk of technology being interchangeable versus interoperable, but the human element remains critical to ensure coalition technologies and systems communicate and share information more cleanly and rapidly.⁶ Meaningful personnel exchanges within coalitions are more important. In an existential conflict with a peer competitor, the United States and its allies must embed liaisons in their key decision-making nodes.

A second facet of collaboration is improving access to commonly needed information. The United States should seek and allies should expect widespread removal of unnecessary classification caveats, particularly the devastating “no foreign nationals” (NOFORN). With many naval liaisons in the headquarters of allies, navies will not be operating from the same page if they cannot share classified information. While Navy commanders rarely influence national agency classification decisions, they can choose to omit rarely consequential NOFORN information from briefings and keep the broader material releasable to all who join arms against a common adversary.

The Pacific Fleet commander’s All Pacific Fleet 014/22 order states, “Guns, warships, aircraft carriers, and submarines do not win conflicts. Fighting men and women do.”⁷ Success will not come by technology alone, but through the people who use it.