Readiness Does Not Equal Lethality

Lethality has become such a focus of conversation in recent years that it has reached buzzword status. In Proceedings, for example, there have been articles on distributed lethality, individual lethality, cyber lethality, and even financial management lethality.¹ These articles have accompanied a general uptick in the use of lethal or lethality as a descriptor. Still, buzzwords can serve a purpose—they can bring attention to issues, start conversations, and help develop priorities for funding. The problem is that overuse can render a word practically meaningless, and if lethality starts to lose its meaning, there could be real consequences.

A central problem with lethality as a buzzword is how often it gets discussed alongside readiness, as if the terms are interchangeable—a ready force is a lethal force. Lethality and readiness are not the same thing.

Readiness is being capable of undertaking a mission when called. In essence, will something—personnel, weapons, aircraft, or technology—be ready when needed? Readiness does not equal lethality. It merely describes whether the item in question will be capable of performing according to its intended purpose when the time comes. Washing machines on board an aircraft carrier may be ready more often than some F/A-18s, but they contribute to the mission in a vastly different way. Nevertheless, if the F/A-18 is not ready when needed, it is no more lethal than the washing machine.

In the case of a larger platform, readiness is a function of maintenance, operability, and reliability. Readiness is independent of the platform’s importance, although it becomes more important as the platform becomes more essential to the mission. Readiness contributes to lethality; however, even if an aircraft is ready when called on, does that mean it will be lethal? Other significant factors must be present, as well. Human performance, training, and intelligence, for example, are all necessary to take a capable aircraft and conduct a mission. For this reason, it is inaccurate to use readiness and lethality interchangeably. Readiness is a necessary condition of lethality, but readiness is not sufficient to define or describe something as lethal.

There is another important distinction between readiness and lethality. Many things in the Navy are graded as pass/fail, and readiness falls into this category. For example, sailors are not qualified to stand as officer of the deck while underway if they almost passed the test. If you address something with readiness in mind, no consideration is given to how good that thing is relative to something else. Borrowing from an old joke, the best and worst aircraft in the fleet can both be ready to fly (and the worst student who graduated medical school is still called doctor). Readiness is not a measure of quality.

Lethality is not pass/fail—lethality is a continuum. It should be evaluated as more than simply which side emerged victorious. Consider a squad-level engagement against a near-peer opponent. How long did the engagement last? How many rounds did each person fire? What tactics were used during the engagement? Was there any collateral damage? The situation is far more complicated than simply who lived and who died. Lethality requires a more holistic view. The conditions of victory matter as much as the victory itself. The most lethal unit is the one that inflicts the most casualties while also returning all its service members home alive.

Ultimately, language matters because language affects how we think about things and, in turn, what resources we invest in those things. In the case of readiness and lethality, confusing the two concepts can muddle our evaluations. We cannot allow lethality to become so diluted that it loses all meaning.