Get Serious About the Science of Influence
Dr. Bryant identifies examples of unsuccessful influence operations by Russia and China, among others. However, the latest example of an influence operation working is the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian uproar across the country.
The enemy has created a well-planned, organized, and funded information warfare campaign in the United States, resulting in large crowds protesting against Israel’s response to the October Hamas attacks.
Large-scale protests started very soon after Israel began military operations. Many protesters seem to have no idea why or what they are protesting, but professional activists organizing protests and social media platforms pushing misinformation and disinformation have caused masses to proclaim support for Palestine and call for the destruction of Israel.
This operation has influenced political and policy decisions in the United States and other nations. It appears the ingredients for successful influence operations seem to be planning, funding, and misinformation.
—CAPT James T. Rooney, USN (Ret.)
A Military Medicine Dilemma
Ensign Mazza highlighted two distinct dilemmas for military medical personnel that need clarification.
The first—a hypothetical choice between treating an enemy combatant over one’s own personnel—does not create a conflict between ethical duty to patients under the Hippocratic Oath and duty as a member of the armed forces. The United States is a signatory of the four Geneva Conventions and the three additional protocols. These clearly direct that the sole function of military medical personnel is to provide or facilitate medical care to the sick and wounded, and they must do this solely on the basis of clinical need rather than the affiliation of the patient.
Perhaps a better example of conflicting oaths and ethical dilemmas would be the forced feeding of detainees at Joint Task Force Guantanamo, which in at least one case resulted in disciplinary action against a Navy nurse who refused to participate. While the Navy ultimately dropped charges, the conclusion of a “Legal Authority and Policy” memorandum dated 21 June 2013 was conflicted and provided no clarity as it acknowledged that force-feeding is acceptable under U.S. federal law but international law (and some medical ethics) defines it as “never acceptable.”
His second proposed dilemma questions the appropriate use of military medical personnel in a combat scenario, something he was asked about during his medical school interview. But it is not an ethical dilemma. It is an operational one of command decision-making.
I faced a situation as a trauma surgeon during a simulation with the 4th Medical Battalion manning its Forward Resuscitation Surgical System (FRSS) during Exercise Global Medic at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, in 2023. During the exercise, the battalion commander asked me to assemble and lead a small surgical team outside the FRSS and push forward. By maintaining close proximity to the advancing battle zone, we could provide damage-control surgery closer to the point of injury. This would theoretically increase the success of life-saving interventions, albeit by saving the few at the potential expense of the many that could be treated at the FRSS.
I was similarly as skeptical as Ensign Mazza about committing valuable resources out of the “safer” rear operating area and into a more exposed and vulnerable forward position. The potential loss of my team might jeopardize not only the care of the Marine combat unit we were supporting but, indeed, the wider mission. When a powder-filled tennis ball dropped from an inexpensive commercial drone “exploded” at my feet simulating a mortar, my concern was validated. The surgical team would have been eliminated, taking a significant FRSS capability with us.
While my battalion commander perhaps made a tactical error, his order was still lawful, and there was no dilemma for me. It is the price we pay as Navy physicians and medical personnel for doing our duty: To obey orders to provide the best possible care to our Marines during the inevitable fog of war, even if that order may result in tactical failure.
—CDR Richard J. King, MD, USNR
An Island Too Far: Lessons from Guadalcanal
Lieutenant Commander Fujii’s description of Japanese amphibious capabilities during World War II is valuable both for historical context and its present-day relevance.
The article brought to mind a comment by a mentor, a former Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who knew future–Lieutenant General Victor Krulak. My friend said that “Brute” described his prewar experience in China, where he observed and documented a Japanese bow-ramp landing craft that seemed to have potential for the Marine Corps. According to a 2009 obituary, Krulak’s recommendation for further examination was ignored by officialdom, although Krulak did discuss the concept with Andrew Higgins, who designed the famous “Higgins Boat” landing craft.
On a related subject, there is frequent internet discussion (mostly ill-informed) about Operation Sea Lion, Germany’s proposed plan for invading Britain in 1940. Very few commentators realize that, because the Wehrmacht lacked adequate sealift and amphibious capability, it had no chance of conducting “D-Day in Reverse.” I have often said that, without a “gator navy” (and assuming German air and naval superiority), the Germans would have had to seize two or more Channel ports intact to deliver heavy equipment. The British certainly would not have allowed that to happen.
By very rough count, years ago I concluded that upward of 90 percent of World War II amphibious operations succeeded, almost entirely those conducted by the United States and Britain.
—Barrett Tillman, Life Member
Improving At-Sea Missile Rearming
The issue of rearming vertical-launch system (VLS) cells has existed since the first VLS installations in the 1980s. Initially, ships were equipped with articulated cranes, whose presence reduced by three the number of missile cells in the magazine.
The introduction of longer and heavier missiles made the cranes’ use infeasible. As a result, they were removed. But the Transferable Rearming Mechanism (TRAM) for which Ensign Hoang advocates is just a reintroduction of a concept that was rejected many years ago.
However, I agree with Ensign Hoang’s premise that the time surface combatants lose when they must return to a safe haven to rearm must be reduced.
Instead of employing TRAM, the surface force could learn lessons from submariners, who regularly use cranes on submarine tenders in forward-deployed areas to transfer heavier missiles. It would seem that destroyer tenders or some Military Sealift Command equivalent could be similarly equipped to allow safe transfer of VLS canisters in forward areas.
—CAPT Robert O. Strange, USN (Ret.), Golden Life Member
International Commanders Respond
The viewpoints of foreign navy chiefs are always of interest, not only for what is said, but also for what is not. Each focuses on the need for potential recruits to see the armed forces as a viable alternative to business by offering salary perks, work-life balance, and opportunities for career advancement in the eyes of the Gen Z demographic.
In short, all the discussions focus to varying degrees on pandering to the self-centeredness of this particular population brood.
While being competitive is a necessary element of productive recruiting efforts, none of the chiefs’ comments discuss the very real problem of Gen Z’s seeming lack of any desire to support national goals of democracy, stability, and security. The attitude of this group seems to ignore the contribution of a nation’s military to individuals’ pursuit of personal gain and comfort. Gen Z seems to want to be part of something meaningful and bigger than themselves—but apparently serving the country does not count toward this goal.
I certainly cannot begin to offer a solution to such a complicated and thorny issue, but successful recruitment will ultimately depend on the existence of some feeling of moral obligation to give something back to the nation in terms of time, effort, and talent. Short of a national threat from a natural disaster or foreign power, it is hard to imagine what might provide such motivation.
Perhaps a mandatory period of national service could foster some of the feelings that currently seem lacking. Until the “me-versus-we” paradigm is challenged, military recruitment will continue to fight an uphill battle.
—Hank Caruso
The RAN, SSNs, and Nuclear-Trained Wardrooms
I was privileged to work in the 1970s through 1990s with many Royal Navy (RN) and Royal Australian Navy (RAN) submariners. If I were one of them, I would probably respond to Lieutenant Commander Bean with: “You’re right, mate, nobody asked you.”
Both allies have been operating submarines successfully for decades with wardrooms composed of warfare-branch and engineering officers. It is a culture deeply embedded in their navies—and others.
The RN commissioned its first nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Dreadnought, in 1963. Adapting a U.S. Skipjack-class reactor plant for its first nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) did not drive the RN to change its long-standing wardroom composition or attempt to recreate the U.S. Navy’s all-nuclear-line-officer model. The arrival of Australian SSNs should not be cause to change what has proven to work for those sailors.
I would remind Lieutenant Commander Bean that, for decades, the U.S. submarine force, too, operated very successfully with wardrooms comprising nuclear- and non-nuclear-trained line officers. Although the arrangement occurred mostly on ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs)—on which general submarine officers (GSOs) served in weapons and navigation billets—they also occasionally served on SSNs.
Lieutenant Commander Bean asserts that having all-nuclear wardrooms would somehow make the Australian SSNs “a more persistent and effective deterrent force in the Pacific.” He offers no proof or rationale for that assertion, which implies that Australian and British submarines at present are not as effective as they could be because of their wardroom composition. Absent evidence, one might equally assert that adopting the RN and RAN model of wardroom manning could make U.S. submarines more effective.
A GSO myself, I spent nearly six years as an SSBN weapons officer and SSBN squadron weapon systems officer, during which time I observed numerous submarine crews. The notion that under the mixed-officer model we were not “one team, one fight” never occurred to me.
—CAPT Frank Dunn, USN (Ret.), Life Member
The PLA Navy’s Blue Team Center Games for War
Better Command and Control for Theater Undersea Warfare
As the Chinese Navy uses “Blue Teams” to prepare its commanders for combat with the United States and China’s neighbors, the U.S. Navy and its allies also need better preparation to employ all means available to demonstrate their ability to prevail, thereby deterring Chinese aggression. Agile and survivable combined-arms command is key.
On the first Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Strategic Studies Group (SSG), established in 1981 by Admiral Thomas Hayward, Captain Dan Wolkensdorfer (maritime patrol aviator) and Commander Bill Owens (submariner) began working on a concept for combined-arms antisubmarine warfare (ASW). In early 1982, Vice CNO Admiral Bill Small tasked the group to employ recent deep intelligence on the Soviet Navy to create a strategy for defeating the Soviets. I spent my two-week annual reserve training that year conducting sea and air analysis for the SSG.
Focusing on the Soviets’ priorities for defense of the homeland and their concepts of correlation of forces and combat stability, the SSG created a strategy for pressing forward north of the Greenland–Iceland–United Kingdom (GIUK) Gap to sink Soviet ballistic-missile submarines while also degrading Soviet outer air defenses to open B-52 routes to Moscow.
The theater undersea warfare commander (TUSWC) is the progeny of combined-arms ASW. A NATO ASW exercise in the Norwegian Sea in 1986 with a TUSWC at Northwood, UK, resulted in greater detection rates than maritime patrol aircraft were available to prosecute. A similar exercise on the Barents’ Ridge in 1988 used a mobile TUSWC deployed in Norway. But as the Cold War wound down, ASW budgets went from $8 billion to $1 billion, resulting in the loss of many combined-arms ASW skills. Reexamining those lost skills by means of red/blue-team war-gaming and analysis would be a good way to begin rebuilding them.
As emission control becomes essential for forces within weapons’ range of adversaries such as China, seamless relations among the maritime operations center (MOC), joint force maritime component commander (JFMCC), and TUSWC are essential. Exploring colocation of a JFMCC and MOC with linkages to a TUSWC should be a high priority.
The Navy needs to begin treating such command centers as it does major platforms with OpNav N2/N6 (information warfare/naval intelligence) as the resource sponsor. As before, deployable MOCs/TUSWCs should be investigated for survivability. Operational analysis, including gaming these concepts against what we know about the red team, should guide changes to doctrine, which must be made.
—CAPT John T. Hanley Jr., USNR (Ret.)
There’s a Diversity Gap in the Wardroom
I have two issues with Ensign Barbero’s article. First, I disagree that the Navy and Marine Corps officer corps needs to become more diverse. The lower diversity of Navy and Marine Corps officers compared with enlisted personnel (and/or of Navy and Marine Corps enlisted personnel compared with the United States as a whole) should not bother anyone. Joining and remaining in the Navy and Marine Corps should be based solely on merit.
There is little evidence that, for example, anyone is the least bit concerned that the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, PGA, NASCAR, NCAA Division 1, and every other sports league in the United States is extraordinarily less diverse than U.S. society—because sports leagues must be merit based. Leagues must appeal to their fans, which is pretty unimportant when compared with the mission of the Navy and Marine Corps: “To support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies.” The gravity of our mission makes it imperative the military finds, recruits, and retains the very best citizens and Green Card holders.
Second, I disagree that “cultural trust” even exists, and the notion seems somewhat racist to me. Further, the notion of cultural trust implies other categories of trust: ethnic trust, gender trust, religious trust, political trust, climate trust, etc. Trust (without further categorization) is essential for relationships and leadership. Trust is earned through actions, not a person or leader’s immutable characteristics/traits.
Trust in a Navy and Marine Corps leader starts with that leader’s pursuit of personal excellence by working to become or maintain his or her abilities as a ship driver, aviator, supply officer, infantry officer, and so on. This includes, as Rear Admiral Grace Hopper expressed it, management of things and leadership of people.
In The Greats on Leadership (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2016), Jocelyn Davis says leaders earn trust by doing three things:
• Set an example for others to follow—leaders go first—and work alongside their teams to achieve their mission while making their people shine.
• Create hope. Help everyone see the light at the end of the tunnel, so they can understand the importance of their work and see how they fit into the organization.
• Focus on people by developing, mobilizing, improving, and caring for them.
Trusted leaders are never seen to be bureaucrats, tyrants, or lackeys. One more thing: Trusted leaders are not confined to the wardroom. Navy and Marine Corps senior enlisted are generally excellent leaders who take care of and grow their people, which includes “managing up” and “leading up” to grow their assigned officers (including commanding officers).
—CDR Christopher W. Urban, USN (Ret.), Life Member
