The U.S. Navy should always place officers with the best leadership qualities at the highest levels of command. But as currently structured, the officer corps excludes a significant subset of talented naval professionals—those in naval special warfare (NSW).
The Navy should assign NSW officers and senior enlisted as commanding officers (COs) and command master chiefs (CMCs) in the fleet. These admirals and force/fleet master chiefs should command large formations in the conventional Navy, not be limited to NSW billets. This change would allow the Navy to benefit from the combat experience and culture of its special-operations component and recapture the fighting edge that characterized its World War II–era dominance. Operators such as SEALs and special warfare combat crewmen (SWCC) are uniquely qualified to lead in a way that will inspire and refocus Navy commands at all echelons.
The Problem
The NSW officer and enlisted career tracks create a cadre of specially recruited and selected sailors who are excluded from the highest and most meaningful levels of command in the Navy. Three- and four-star NSW officers typically serve only at joint special operations forces organizations that are mired in interservice rivalry. NSW’s notable absence from the service’s highest posts is not a result of the community failing to produce leaders: SEALs have been elected to both houses of Congress, led NASA’s astronaut office, and regularly rise to high levels of corporate leadership.
In his book On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, Dr. Norman Dixon identifies some of the common flaws in how military institutions select leaders. One mistake the services make is assuming officers who excel at junior levels in a certain type of unit will also excel in command. By selecting only surface warfare department heads to command ships, and only the best ship COs to command carrier strike groups and fleets, the Navy might miss out on strategic thinkers and strong leaders who begin their careers in different communities.
In other military branches, special operations experience is a valuable stepping stone. Army and Air Force special operations officers routinely bounce to their services’ conventional units. The Army has a framework for this career-management practice—the Abrams Charter. When then–Army Chief of Staff General Creighton Abrams reactivated the 1st Ranger Battalion in 1974, he did so in part so the unit’s professionalism and esprit de corps would spread to the rest of the Army when its young leaders went on to command conventional units.
Like NSW, Marine Special Operations Command (MarSOC) struggles with what to do with its leaders. Major Michael Cariello Noblit wrote in Proceedings last November that the Marine Corps perceives that MarSOC “drains talent from the rest of the force.” NSW suffers from the same perception, because the Navy does not benefit from the officers or senior enlisted members within its special operations component. The greatest talent contribution NSW provides to the Navy is via sailors who attrite from SEAL and SWCC pipelines. Insulating NSW careers deprives the Navy of potentially great senior leaders.
Integrate Naval Special Warfare Top-Down
The silently agreed-on difference between an Army Ranger commanding a corps and a SEAL commanding a fleet is that while Army and Air Force special operations are elite versions of the services’ core competencies, what NSW does has nothing to do with what the Navy does. Increasingly, that is no longer true. As Rear Admiral Wyman Howard wrote in 2020, NSW recognizes that it is, once again, a supporting element to its parent service and is working at all levels to realign.
All NSW groups are aggressively pursuing new tactics and equipment to support fleet functions forward of the Navy’s capital assets. NSW has rapidly adapted its maritime infiltration skills toward fleet support, notably during exercises. But NSW capabilities remain enigmatic to many conventional Navy commanders. For fleet commanders to fully understand how NSW capabilities fit into maritime operations across all phases and functions, they must have NSW officers within their organizations or be NSW officers themselves.
Talent Management is Nuanced
A talent management model for SEAL and SWCC leaders in the fleet could emulate the path available for aviators.
Career aviators who excel at squadron command are sent to nuclear power school, as well as navigation and shiphandling training. They are given command of ships and can eventually command carriers. High-performing NSW commanders could follow a similar path after their first command tour. The shipboard commands for which they are eligible would be carefully selected. A NSW officer could command a special boat team, then a landing platform dock. A SEAL delivery team CO could go on to command a submarine outfitted for special operations support.
A NSW officer with the right training in commanding a ship would not introduce additional safety or procedural risks to the unit. Ashore, these officers could employ emerging technologies and unconventional tactics in command of units such as unmanned surface vessel divisions and cyber mission teams.
NSW senior enlisted members would be even easier to integrate into the seagoing navy and might be an even more potent addition to the force. NSW master chiefs have the most combat experience of any community in the Navy. They are routinely in charge of remote combat outposts and formations of special operations craft. As shipboard command master chiefs (CMCs) and chiefs of the boat (COBs), SEAL and SWCC enlisted leaders would increase combat readiness, physical standards, and creative problem-solving capabilities in their units. CMC afloat positions require deckplate leadership and the ability to foster a culture of excellence, sometimes at the expense of the subject-matter expertise that comes with seniority in a certain rate. This is part of the reason why CMCs and master chiefs give up their rates when they are selected.
Again, the aviation community shows a possible career trajectory: Rates such as aircrewmen are already fulfilling CMC roles in the surface navy. Similarly allowing eligible NSW senior enlisted members to serve in CMC and COB afloat jobs would improve command culture across the deckplates. At higher levels of senior enlisted leadership, commanders have already caught onto the magic of NSW master chiefs: Two of them serve as senior enlisted leaders for geographic combatant commanders.
Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast
NSW’s culture is crucial to its success—more so than its recruiting, selection, training, or resourcing. Officers from their ranks would infuse the seagoing navy with the warrior ethos that has always characterized the SEAL and SWCC communities. That is important because the future of maritime warfare is a fast-paced, complex battlespace that will require innovative multidomain solutions. This is a challenge for the Navy, because the service is highly compartmentalized, but NSW leaders are comfortable with multidomain fights. NSW operates above, on, and below the surface of the water to accomplish missions that depend on relationships with the surface, air, subsurface, space, and cyber components of the joint force.
To meet their mission, NSW leaders must be adept at developing and empowering junior personnel. Such officers in the surface navy would foster the same team environment found at a NSW unit, which would prove to be an asset in a communications-denied environment that demands rapid decisions.
By integrating NSW officers into fleet commands, the Navy could revitalize its seagoing spirit, equipping the force with the leaders and warfighting culture the modern maritime battlefield demands. By adopting the can-do attitude and adaptive multidomain mindset central to NSW operations, the Navy can quickly sharpen its fighting edge and guarantee it is ready to face peer adversaries in the Pacific theater.
