Hendrix's View from an Island Nation

Regular readers know the importance of the United States being the world’s premier sea power, but that is inside the lifelines of our corner of the national conversation. 

For a whole host of reasons we have discussed here over the years and on Midrats – in spite of our nation surrounded by the fruits of the open seas – the larger American public does not see it. We suffer, in essence, from our success.

The time when the free flow of goods across the globe was not a given has slipped well out of living memory. Except for older cohort GenX and older, no one even remembers the regional threat the Soviet Red Banner Fleet aspired to be right before the empire she served collapsed and disaggregated.

Not just the United States, but the developed and developing nations throughout the globe who benefit from the post-WWII maritime environment suffer from seablindness. There are other powers - resentful, bitter, and grasping – who even though they benefit from the global agreement – wish to break it down and create something new. Not so much that they want something better – they just don’t like a system they had no role in creating – one defined by the assumed ever-presence of the United States Navy and her friends.

As fish are not aware of the water they swim in, so the global economy does not fully understand the world it exists in … and the fact that it is under threat of disappearing. 

Our friend Jerry Hendrix has been an integral and valuable part of the public conversation for well over two decades – longer inside the lifelines of the US military. 

This month he has an exceptional article over at The Atlantic titled, “America’s Future is at Sea” or in the more flashy online version, "The Age of American Naval Dominance is Over" that you need to take time to read. He weaves together not just the history, but the economic, diplomatic, and civilizational threads that all connect to American seapower. 

What adds additional importance to his article is the venue. 

As I mentioned in the opener to this post, “we” know this story – or at least most of it. The problem is too many others do not. 

The Atlantic has a certain readership segment which includes many people of influence and proximity to the levers of power, or a degree or two separated from someone who does. The vast majority of its readers who are not soaked in the details involving the maritime domain.

These people need to understand the issues as much as readers here do. You really need to read it in full, but here are a few pull quotes I’d like to share. He starts out strong;

Very few Americans—or, for that matter, very few people on the planet—can remember a time when freedom of the seas was in question. But for most of human history, there was no such guarantee. Pirates, predatory states, and the fleets of great powers did as they pleased. The current reality, which dates only to the end of World War II, makes possible the commercial shipping that handles more than 80 percent of all global trade by volume—oil and natural gas, grain and raw ores, manufactured goods of every kind. Because freedom of the seas, in our lifetime, has seemed like a default condition, it is easy to think of it—if we think of it at all—as akin to Earth’s rotation or the force of gravity: as just the way things are, rather than as a man-made construct that needs to be maintained and enforced.

But what if the safe transit of ships could no longer be assumed? What if the oceans were no longer free?

Nothing is guaranteed ... or as Papa Salamander would often tell me, "No one owes you a living."

Imagine, though, a more permanent breakdown. A humiliated Russia could declare a large portion of the Arctic Ocean to be its own territorial waters, twisting the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to support its claim. Russia would then allow its allies access to this route while denying it to those who dared to oppose its wishes. Neither the U.S. Navy, which has not built an Arctic-rated surface warship since the 1950s, nor any other NATO nation is currently equipped to resist such a gambit.

Or maybe the first to move would be Xi Jinping, shoring up his domestic standing by attempting to seize Taiwan and using China’s anti-ship ballistic missiles and other weapons to keep Western navies at bay. An emboldened China might then seek to cement its claim over large portions of the East China Sea and the entirety of the South China Sea as territorial waters. It could impose large tariffs and transfer fees on the bulk carriers that transit the region. Local officials might demand bribes to speed their passage.

"Gentlemen's agreements" only work if both parties act as gentlemen and keep their word. What happens when one party decides not to be? What is the enforcement mechanism ... or is there one at all?

If oceanic trade declines, markets would turn inward, perhaps setting off a second Great Depression. Nations would be reduced to living off their own natural resources, or those they could buy—or take—from their immediate neighbors. The world’s oceans, for 70 years assumed to be a global commons, would become a no-man’s-land. This is the state of affairs that, without a moment’s thought, we have invited.

This is not alarmism. A discordant and ill-timed blending of demography, debt, economics, and politics are driving the global system of crisis - what we warned of starting 13-yrs ago as "The Terrible 20s."

—a “free sea”—first enunciated by the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius in 1609. The United States and Great Britain, the two traditional proponents of a free sea, had emerged not only triumphant but also in a position of overwhelming naval dominance. Their navies were together larger than all of the other navies of the world combined. A free sea was no longer an idea. It was now a reality.

In this secure environment, trade flourished. The globalizing economy, which allowed easier and cheaper access to food, energy, labor, and commodities of every kind, grew from nearly $8 trillion in 1940 to more than $100 trillion 75 years later, adjusted for inflation. With prosperity, other improvements followed. During roughly this same period, from the war to the present, the share of the world’s population in extreme poverty, getting by on less than $1.90 a day, dropped from more than 60 percent to about 10 percent. Global literacy doubled, to more than 85 percent. Global life expectancy in 1950 was 46 years. By 2019, it had risen to 73 years. 

What happens if global trade retrogrades to a prior, less safe, less predictable (hurting insurance carriers ability to properly set rates) and vibrant time? Well, you look at the positive effects of growth in the past to see an inverse of what a return to the multipolar ocean might bring the future. That is what Jerry just did. Re-read the above and ponder even a fraction of that headwind;

It is important as we look at today's challenge to accept that we are not a passive victim of a changing world. No. We are here mostly as a result of our own actions. Decline is a choice.

As a side note, if you are not already thinking of another article in The Atlantic from 16 year's ago, Robert D. Kaplan's "America's Elegant Decline," go ahead and read it now.

It is never to a nation’s advantage to depend on others for crucial links in its supply chain. But that is where we are. In 1977, American shipbuilders produced more than 1 million gross tons of merchant ships. By 2005, that number had fallen to 300,000.

Today, most commercial ships built in the United States are constructed for government customers such as the Maritime Administration or for private entities that are required to ship their goods between U.S. ports in U.S.-flagged vessels, under the provisions of the 1920 Jones Act.

The U.S. Navy, too, has been shrinking. After the Second World War, the Navy scrapped many of its ships and sent many more into a ready-reserve “mothball” fleet. For the next two decades, the active naval fleet hovered at about 1,000 ships. But beginning in 1969, the total began to fall. By 1971, the fleet had been reduced to 750 ships. Ten years later, it was down to 521. Reagan, who had campaigned in 1980 on a promise to rebuild the Navy to 600 ships, nearly did so under the able leadership of his secretary of the Navy, John Lehman. During Reagan’s eight years in office, the size of the Navy’s fleet climbed to just over 590 ships.

Then the Cold War ended. The administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton slashed troops, ships, aircraft, and shore-based infrastructure. During the Obama administration, the Navy’s battle force bottomed out at 271 ships. Meanwhile, both China and Russia, in different ways, began to develop systems that would challenge the U.S.-led regime of global free trade on the high seas. 

Read it all.

If this isn’t enough Hendrix, and there is never enough, Jerry will join us this upcoming Sunday for Midrats. Don’t miss it!

Our Navy at its Best: "Yeah, we can do that."

Over at DVIDS, a nice series of pictures that represents one part of our Navy that doesn't get to see the light of day often enough. Those who have served know it, probably been part of it, and nothing is more memorable than being right in the crunch of it all.

When you are well trained and well led with the right climate - things, in this case it really did, can come out of the blue that you haven't EXACTLY trained for, but ... you've done some things kind of like it.

You look at your Sailors, and you say, "Yes sir, we can do that."

One of the best communities for such responses are the Navy's EOD pros. Nice to see a little love heading their way, as much of what they do never breaks out in the open ... which is a good thing.

Check out the pics and track the story where you find it.

BZ.

Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Feb. 5, 2023. EODGRU 2 is a critical part of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Force that clears explosive hazards to provide access to denied areas; secures the undersea domain for freedom of movement; builds and fosters relationships with trusted partners, and protects the homeland. At the direction of the President of the United States and with the full support of the Government of Canada, U.S. fighter aircraft under U.S. Northern Command authority engaged and brought down a high altitude surveillance balloon within sovereign U.S. airspace and over U.S. territorial waters Feb. 4, 2023. Active duty, Reserve, National Guard, and civilian personnel planned and executed the operation, and partners from the U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Aviation Administration, and Federal Bureau of Investigation ensured public safety throughout the operation and recovery efforts. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tyler Thompson)

Happy Thanksgiving

 ...and a special thanks to everyone at sea who puts in that extra effort to bring a proper Thanksgiving meal to their Shipmates.

The Failure of the Institutions

If you believe the threat from China is overblown, our Navy is well led, and that our fleet is big enough, then this is not the post for you. If you are concerned for all of it, grab a fresh drink and dive right in.

We are facing of something our nation has not had to seriously consider in well over three decades; we do not have free and unfettered access to the sea.

Even when Soviet submarines roamed the world’s oceans at will – though closely watched – and the Red Banner Fleet could send battle groups on cruises through the Gulf of Mexico, we had fair confidence in one thing – the Pacific was an American lake.

No more.

Even when the Soviet Union’s navy gave the US Navy and her allies pause to consider how to deal with her, we always had more and better combatants.

No more.

Depending on how you measure things – globally or regionally – we are on the cusp or just past the cusp of being the world’s second largest blue water navy.

As there is a lot of ruin in a nation, there is a long-dwell nature to apparent power – an inertia of power. In certain areas such as naval aviation and submarines, we maintain a substantial qualitative and capabilities edge, but that gap in narrowing. When you take into consideration sheer numbers, the gap is even narrower. When you take into consideration interior vs. exterior lines of operation and the required length and width of the logistics tail for the US Navy to sustain operations west of Wake … it’s OK to get a bit of flop sweat. You aren’t the only one to see it. You have good company.

Or do you?

At this moment in time when, for the first time in over two decades, the security environment and clear requirements to meet the most pressing national security challenge – the People’s Republic of China – are in bold relief, you would think the rising tide would lift the maritime argument and a nice following wind fill the sails of the navalist position … but it isn’t.

Why?

The answer is fairly straightforward, hard to correct, and multi-causal; our institutions have failed us.

In a nation as large as ours, individuals must combine their efforts and hopes in institutions to effect change for those things which are important to them. One person can only do so much. Organizations representing tens to hundreds of thousands get attention. 

With government entities, those organizations and institutions provide supporting fires for the uniformed and civilian leadership given a charter by the American people via the Constitution and the laws enacted by their elected representatives to take responsibility for a specific area.

In all times these organizations are expected to advocate – aggressively – for the position and interests they were founded to support and serve. We have an adversarial system where ambition checks ambition; agenda checks agenda; ideas check ideas. Argument, creative friction, and debate are essential for a healthy and effective system.

In rough times when the seas and wind are counter to your desired station, one suffers a holding action against others who are stronger. You struggle, compromise, give some ground, but you don’t stop. Others will take all you are willing to give. That is a feature, not a bug. It is how, when led and executed properly, weak ideas are worked out of the system regardless of the ebb and flow of the POM cycle.

When the environment demands more from your areas of interest and responsibility, and the table is set such that you have the easiest argument, it is expected that you will take advantage of the moment. Not just because it will make it easier for you to advance your argument – which it will – but in the big picture, the nation you support needs you to do this. “The moment” is a manifestation of a real-world problem,

Nothing is granted. You are not entitled to anything. As Papa Salamander told me all the time growing up, “No one owes you a living.”

You have to earn it. If you feel the Navy needs a larger share of the budget to meet the challenge of China, then you need to advocate for it. You need to fight for it…and when I say “you” I mean “we” and the most important and powerful parts of that “we” are our institutions; our maritime power institutions dedicated to seeing the USA remain the premier seapower.

Let’s start with the most obvious. Our uniformed Navy is itself an institution. It reports to its civilian leadership in the Executive Branch with oversight from the Legislative Branch. There are your big pixel maritime governmental institutions; the uniformed and civilian leaders in the Department of the Navy.

As reviewed yesterday, the CNO is engaged in a rather low-energy talking point about 500-ships, but in 2022 that is not even remotely achievable. He knows it, you know it, Congress knows it as well. A number is not an argument, and yet he is investing personal and institutional capital on this line that is almost immediately ignored if it is heard at all. Why?

In the last year one of his highest profile public appearances was when he shoveled heaping piles of personal and institutional capital in a fight defending a red in tooth and claw racial essentialist Ibram X. Kendi  against who would normally be the US Navy’s natural allies in Congress. Ultimately he lost that battle and removed Kendi’s racist book and others from his reading list, but in the face of everything else going on in the maritime world, why?

What about the Vice CNO, Admiral William K. Lescher, USN? Maybe he could throw some sharp elbows for the maritime cause? Sadly, not. Just look at his exchange with Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) back in March. He seems to be the “Vice Chief of Joint Force Operations” more than anything else. He is focused on something, but advocating for sea power is not it.

With the night orders from the CNO and VCNO as they are, if you expect any significant advocacy from the uniformed Navy leadership who report to them for --- checks notes --- the Navy, you are going to have to wait for a long time, time we don’t have. It isn’t going to happen.

What about the civilian leadership of the Navy, the SECNAV and the Under? Will they lead the charge? 

First of all, again I would refer you to yesterday’s post. If you have not read it yet, give it a read and come back. 

SECNAV Del Toro is first of all a political appointee who, though a former naval officer, is mostly known as a political fundraiser for the Democrats and as such you need to understand that is his reference point; he is a party man. A party man can do a lot at a certain moment in time where history calls, but I don’t think that is going to happen here with the SECNAV. He will follow the signal from above. Nothing more.

Take a moment and ponder – when was the last time you heard the SECNAV or Under out front on The Hill or to the greater public about our maritime requirements? Yes, I fully understand what goes on behind closed doors, but that slow roll in an ever-slower bureaucracy infested with scoliotic nomenklatura is well past being of use. The American people must be provided the information and motivation to understand how their entire standard of living – and to a great extent their freedoms – is guaranteed by our mastery of the seas. Is even a rudimentary effort being made in this regard? 

Just look at the USN’s YouTube feed – a primary communication device for the American people. What has the SECNAV talked about there this year?  LGBTQ+ Pride Month, Juneteenth, Army birthday, Asian-Pacific Islander Month, Mental Health Awareness Month, Women’s History Month, carrier air birthday, and Black History Month. 

There you go. There’s your communication. Dig harder if you want … but if you read CDRSalamander and you are not readily aware, then imagine the general population’s situational awareness of the dragon just over the horizon.

To raise the profile of what our nation needs to get the maritime services ready for the fight in WESTPAC,  the civilian leadership will be less help than the uniformed leadership.

They both are both smart people in hard jobs doing their best – but they are not acting like they know what time it is. 

What about the Naval War College? Good question, what about it? Love the place, has some great people there, but it is mostly internally focused … and talking amongst ourselves is not going to impact all that much – especially when in recent years a lot of institutional capital has been going towards things not all that related to sea power.

That leaves concerned navalists to look outside government.

If you are looking for influence operations inside the beltway, then you have to address think tanks. Quick, without going to google, tell me what DC think tanks have been pounding the drum about sea power?  

Not that easy, is it? In 2020 Craig Hooper looked at this challenge and the situation has not improved all that much. There are good places with good people, but outside of a commute of DC, who is hearing and reading? How many people in Congress know them outside a usual-suspects handful?

They are there, but they are not upping their game, have the ability to reach outside their bubble, or influence people already sold.

Outside government, who do navalists rely on or defer to in order to pursue their goals? There are two old stalwarts that at first blush seem to be natural fits.

First the Navy League of the Unites States. Here you see a budding of what may help in the Center for Maritime Strategy … but boy-howdy it is having trouble getting in gear. It isn’t easy to find on NLUS’s website and its Dean, Admiral Foggo, USN (Ret.) recent comment signals that sadly it does not know what time it is. 

The Navy is not broken, and the acknowledged challenges it faces won’t be helped by yet another layer of bureaucracy. What the Navy needs is more support and more focused missions.

There is still an opportunity for a mindset change and to find its footing, but time is short. The CMS is not there to “support” the official Navy position, but to promote sea power. Not to reinforce what the Executive Branch puts out, but to encourage the nation’s leaders and people to support the navy it needs. Those two items, as is in stark relief this year, may not be the same thing.

Then you have the United States Naval Institute. On its homepage it says it is, “The home of influential debate since 1873.” – but is it still? What have they done so far this year outside their publishing house?

They started off the year with the regular “Maritime Security Dialogue” where usually someone on USNI’s staff sits down and chats with a guest. In essence, a closely controlled, inhouse podcast co-produced with the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies and sponsored by Huntington Ingalls Industries, the USA's largest shipbuilder. 

In January it was with the 4-star commander of USCENTCOM. In April, the 4-star CNO. In May, a 3-star Marine. In July a gaggle of USN 2-stars from the aviation side of the house, and then with a 4-star Marine. In essence, General and Flag Officers talking about themselves and their jobs underwritten by a primary player in the naval side of the military industrial complex our guest on Midrats Sunday is concerned about.

Again, internally focused.

Of course there was the annual “West” events in San Diego which is effectively a trade show for the military industrial complex with nice little side events sponsored this year by L3Harris and USAA. 

There was a discussion about cyber with an Army 4-star at the USCG Academy in New London, CT, sponsored by the William M. Wood Foundation – the same foundation who sponsored the annual meeting at the Jack C. Taylor Conference Center in Annapolis that you read about in almost every mailing you receive from USNI or the USNI Foundation.

DC. Annapolis. New London. San Diego.

Again, internally focused.

Are we really “getting the message out” or are we simply talking to each other about what we put on our FITREP and CV?

We are not selling sea power. We are not telling out story. We are not evangelizing to the heathen masses. We are selling each other to each other. Telling personal stories about each other. Evangelizing ourselves to each other’s institutions.

Does this promote sea power at the national level, or just the people responsible for it?

None of our institutions – outside a few people hidden in corners and speaking out of turn – are acting like they understand where we are in time and place.

Inertia. Entitlement … and in some cases base self-interest.

The institutions are not turning in to the coming storm. They are not even running away. They are just staying on PIM set out years ago and hoping if something does happen, it will blow up on some else’s watch.

Where does a nation turn? Good question. I don’t have a good answer. 

These times do not come up very often, but we are in one. Where is today’s OP-23, Admiral Denfield and Vice Admiral Brogan of Revolt of the Admirals fame? Where is Vice Admiral Tom Connolly of F-111B renown? I don’t know who they are or even if we have such people in the shadows. So far, silence.

We need to tell a story, but all the higher institutions we would rely on are failing their moment. It isn’t that they won’t tell our story, they are actively avoiding it in favor of other priorities while hoping for the best.

Our institutions are failing the nation at a critical juncture. From both the uniformed and civilian side of the house, the established, comfortable, well-funded, and large navalist institutions are letting our nation down.

As a result, it isn’t jobs, income, sponsorship, or friendships that are at stake – but the strategic position of the United States and the international order we underwrote since the end of WWII. 

Those are the stakes of the battle over providing and maintaining a navy to meet the challenge of China’s rise.

Our present leadership and institutions are failing us. They either need to change – and change quickly – or we need to promote and support new leaders and new institutions to do the job that must be done.

The only entity that seems to be rising to the challenge happens to be the one with the lowest national approval rate; Congress.

The Legislative Branch’s House of Representatives and Senate, from both parties and independents, are starting to produce Members who desire to dust off their oversight responsibilities and are growing more comfortable being confrontational with underperforming uniformed and civilian leaders from the Executive Branch.

Unless something changes soon, there is the navalists' best friend; Congress.

What to do With America's Maritime Disinterest, with Jimmy Drennan - on Midrats

Few navalists can look around them and feel content that their peers, government, and the American people understand - or for that matter seem to care - that our nation's wealth, health, and security is all based on the fact that we are a maritime and aerospace republic. 

Without excellence, mastery, and control of these two areas in the face of the challenge from China, all else is in danger. Inside and outside government, what needs to be done to create the conditions so we can provide for those generations who follow us the place and the world previous generations earned for us? 

Making a return to visit, our guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss this broad ranging topic will be Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Drennan, U.S. Navy, former president of the Center for International Maritime Security.

Join us live if you can, but it not, you can get the show later by subscribing to the podcast. If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here. You can find us on almost all your most popular podcast aggregators as well.

VADM Brown; Remembering the Johnston's Turn

There are many fine traditions in the naval service, especially in the Anglosphere. One of the best was summarized by Admiral Nelson, RN.

When in doubt, attack. That bias for action in the face of a threat is an admirable trait, especially when contrasted with a more common human reaction – to freeze. 

As we have evolved as a species, other reactions developed past these Upper-Paleolithic instincts of Homo Sapiens. Indeed, in the modern evolution of Homo Bureaucraticus, scapegoating and blame-shifting have sadly become more common through natural selection. In Ottomanesque bureaucracies, game recognizes game, and such responses are rewarded and passed along generation after generation, eventually being a characteristic trait of a sub-species. 

Megan Eckstein kicks the work week off with a broad ranging, complicated, and important development in the story of the burning of the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), whose two-year anniversary will arrive at the end of next week.

I see it as two interrelated stories; our Navy’s institutional failure of the fundamentals (Part I), and a gentleman’s response to an attack on his honor (Part II).

We’ll do a “Part-I” and “Part-II” format.

Before we dive in to Part-I, let’s review a few entering arguments which have anchored many conversations here over the last 18-yrs that apply in this case.

1. The Navy’s investigatory and legal system is no longer fit for purpose. It is hopelessly compromised by a culture infected with undue influence, sloth, and self-focus.

2. No one can trust a “Big Navy” investigation. The smart will lawyer-up early with outside counsel, keep meticulous records with secure backups, trust few, and suspect anyone who directly or indirectly will benefit from their downfall. It isn’t always about right and wrong, the longer it goes on it brings out the worst aspects of our adversarial legal system – it is about what can be blamed on whom not in the service of justice, but in service to the career goals of those conducting the investigation and prosecution.

3. We have too many Flag Officers with too few real Flag Officer responsibilities. As such, we have a warped culture where large numbers of ambitious people are underemployed and seek authority yet wish to avoid responsibility as demanded by our present system of incentives and disincentives. 

Part I: C2 Matters

I hope Megan does not mind me pulling so much from her article, but especially for those who have served in staff positions, the core to this story is the C2 diagram (Figure 1) in para 6 of Enclosure (3) of OPNAVINST 3440.18 Dated 13 Nov 2018.

To start out, no, I have no idea what the doctrinally correct definition of a “Bridge Line Command” is. 

I spent 9-yrs of my 21-yr Navy career as a staff officer on USA and NATO staffs with untold hours working on C2 diagrams and relationships. I have never heard of that term, and a little googlefu cannot find it defined anywhere. I only see it referenced directly or indirectly to 3440.18. If you can find anything better, please let us know in comments. 

Additionally, para 6 ends with the phrase “command bridge line.” That is also a term I am not familiar with. I can only find one other Navy use of it in a NAVSEA document referring to communications. I will assume it is related to para. 3 of Encl.(3) but the list there is not fully congruent with the strange dashed box in Figure 1 of Encl.(3) … so, we’ll just put it to bad staff work.

So, yeah … how this ever got approved is beyond me, but it is what we had … and bad staff work usually manifests itself with poor results in the field … and here we are.

So, there is no definition of what the solid lines are in the diagram vs the dot-dash line … there are all sorts of inadequacies with the diagram itself and I’m not going to pick it apart anymore, but the important part is on the previous page in paras 1 and 2:

1. The chain of command is provided graphically in figure 1 of this enclosure. As the in-hull incident commander, the ship’s CO controls all damage control efforts on board the ship. The CO is assisted by a fire department senior fire chief or officer and naval supervising authority project superintendent (if applicable).

2. The area or unified area commander will remain in constant contact with the in-hull incident command. All requests for additional resources, special equipment, or technical expertise will be passed through the area commander. The area commander will man all bridge lines.

This is rather clear, “…the ship’s CO controls all damage control efforts on board the ship.” So is, “All requests for additional resources, special equipment, or technical expertise will be passed through the area commander.” … and the Area Commander reports to the Primary Commander (Fleet Commander).

So, I believe the “Area Commander” here would be CNRSW and the “Primary Commander” would be C3F.  BTW, why does Commander Navy Region Southwest hardly get any mention here? Seriously, I have no idea.

Now that we have this. Behold this mess;

The initial response to the July 2020 fire that destroyed the multibillion-dollar amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard was uncoordinated and hampered by confusion as to which admiral should cobble together Navy and civilian firefighters, according to new information from the then-head of Naval Surface Forces.

The discombobulation in those early hours meant sailors may have missed a small window to contain the fire in a storage area. One admiral who said he lacked authority to issue an order pleaded with the ship’s commanding officer to get back on the ship and fight the fire, when the CO and his crew were waiting on the pier. And when that admiral — now-retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown — found the situation so dire that he called on other another command to intervene, it refused, Brown said in an interview.

...

Brown, as the type commander for surface ships, said he should have played a supporting role the morning the fire broke out.

...

So Brown called ship commanding officer, Capt. Gregory Scott Thoroman, who said he and the crew had left the ship and were on the pier. The investigation into the fire noted the crew pulled out of the ship twice during the firefight that morning.

Thoroman should have been coordinating with the base’s Federal Fire Department and the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, collectively forming the incident command team, according to a 2018 Navy instruction laying out fire prevention and fire response responsibilities for ships in maintenance.

...

With the Navy’s organization falling apart, he called the Expeditionary Strike Group 3 commander, Rear Adm. Phil Sobeck, around 11 a.m.

“Phil, you can tell me to eff off, because I’m not in your chain of command, but you have to get down to that pier and provide leadership and guidance because they’re all sitting at the end of the pier watching the ship burn,” Brown said he told Sobeck. “And he goes, ‘Admiral, I’m getting in the car, I’m on my way.’”

...

Brown directed his staff to contact U.S. 3rd Fleet around 12:30 p.m., but 3rd Fleet’s position was, “The ship’s in maintenance, it’s not our problem.”

Who accepts responsibility? Who avoids it and why? As a friend mentioned earlier today to me, “Quite sure Kimmel did not say “not my job.””

After the staff-level call failed, Brown set up a call with 3rd Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Scott Conn, for the two three-stars to hash it out directly.

“I said, hey, Phil’s down there, but we have to formally establish a new command structure. And he told me he wasn’t going to do it because the ship was in maintenance and it’s not his problem. And I said fine.”

...

He then called the then-Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. John Aquilino.

“I told him what I had done, what I was seeing: the C2 degrading on the pier, there’s no focus of effort, people are off doing their own things. And I told him that I had asked Scott to take command and he said no. And I said ... ‘Phil now works for me, and I’ve got it.’”

“Absolutely, Rich, you got it, put the fire out,” the admiral replied, according to Brown.

At the time we were all wondering what was going on. Chaos, that's what.

A bias for action, again one of our better traditions. In times of crisis, often those who should be responsible do not rise to the occasion, endangering not just themselves and their command, but everyone around them. It is not unheard of for this to be part of a cascading set of failures to act. Below the primary failure no one will do anything absent that direction as they either lack confidence or perspective to see the failure, and those above who should take charge don’t for similar reasons or just plain ignorance.

What did VADM Brown do here as CNSF? No, he was not in the chain of command, but he was a leader who saw a failure to lead and he stepped up to try to get those who are responsible to act, and absent their actions, fill the gap as best he could as a supporting entity outside the chain of command.

Did anything he did make things worse? Did they make them better? Was any other leader showing what we ask our leaders to show – a bias for action? What does our Navy reward? What does it punish?

Part II: Honor Demands

Let’s look a bit at how I framed Part-II at the start of the post, “a gentleman’s response to an attack on his honor.” It should go without saying, but as we live in a tender and reactive age, “gentlemen” can be seen as non-gender specific, but also very specific to men. Interpret that as you wish.

Duty. As an officer in the United States Navy, who do you owe your duty to? There is both a simple and a complicated answer to that. Let’s start with the Oath;

The Oath of Office (for officers): "I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the _____ (Military Branch) of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."

The Constitution first of all, that is pretty much a “Ref. A” answer. We have that document and rafts of judges up to SCOTUS to give us the “Ref. B.” Serious, yet complicated in its simplicity. That is the easy part. Then “the duties of the office.” There is that concept again, “duty.”

In the military context, that definition is rather broad and open to interpretation, but I like the definition the State of Connecticut uses;

…the performance of military service by a member of the armed forces of the state pursuant to competent state military orders, whether paid or unpaid for such military service, including training, performance of emergency response missions and traveling directly to or returning directly from the location of such military service.

In practice, things get complicated from there. Loyalty is talked about a lot, yet abused more often. Are you loyal to people, or institutions? Yourself? Your family? “Ship, Shipmate, Self” is something we throw around a lot, and is a useful entering argument, but it is not a one-way relationship. As in all well-functioning systems, the relationship is interlocked and multi-relational. 

Most will find themselves in situations small and large where they find out that their assumptions about the systems they are a part of are no longer valid. The agreements, spoken and unspoken, that enabled decades of hard work and success, are broken. They are not working. Perhaps they never did.

Then what does one do? Where one may have spent decades taking the burdens of an organization you love on to yourself personally, when does that act of love become more of an acceptance of abuse? When does a man reach a point where the honor of love is replaced by the dishonor of accepted abuse?

Part-II is about a man who found himself in a place many have found themselves in before. An organization he invested his life in, built his reputation on, and most likely loved – turned on him. He sees if not an upcoming assault on his honor, then at least an injustice, a bearing of false witness, and at a minimum an attempt to make flesh an untruth hewn from the body of his reputation.

Some will advise a man to take such things as part of the job, to not make a fuss for … the sake of the institution. Some will counsel to appeal within the system, that regardless of its malperformance to date, one must trust the system regardless and work within it. 

There is another school of thought that forces an answer to a hard question; what do you owe to an institution if that institution breaks its bond with you? What honor is there to give the gift of trust to an untrustworthy organization? If one party breaks spoken and unspoken agreements, what rule under heaven obliges the other party to act as if the break never occurred?

There is a time to accept that you are in a place you never desired to be. That even though you did all you could possibly do in the scope of your authority and responsibility, other entities are shaping your reality. They are stronger, larger, and on paper at least, more powerful. When they have you bracketed you can simply carry on as before in the knowledge that this is the fate you have been dealt, or you can decide that fate is what she is, but there is a way to embrace it with a higher honor based on a higher ethic to embrace that fate on your own terms. 

Call flank-speed, full left rudder, and engage the attacking force head on.

That, in a fashion, is how I read the strange Kafkaesque place Vice Admiral Rich Brown, USN (Ret.) finds himself in. 

Brown said he is sharing his story with Defense News now as he faces a secretarial letter of censure. He was named in the investigation as contributing to the loss of the ship, but was cleared by what’s known as a Consolidated Disposition Authority in December. He said he was not interviewed for the investigation into the fire.

Capt. J.D. Dorsey, a spokesman for Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, told Defense News “the secretary is still in the process of reviewing the command investigation and has not yet made any final decisions on actions beyond what the CDA has imposed.”

...

Brown didn’t dispute the Navy’s accounting of the rest of the five days of firefighting as laid out in the investigation, but said the investigation’s accounting of how the command and control fell apart during a crisis is incomplete and the investigation itself was “fatally defective” without interviewing him or including a full picture of what will be a key lesson learned.

...

The retired three-star said one of the reasons he wanted to share his perspective about the fire is because the same command and control flaw played a role in the 2017 collisions of destroyers Fitzgerald and McCain and the 2020 fire on Bonhomme Richard. Brown led the McCain investigation and participated in the Fitzgerald investigation, and he said one of the recommendations he made at the time was to reinstate a Cold War-era command structure that had two chains of command: one for ships in maintenance and the basic phase, led by a one-star admiral focused on ensuring they built up their readiness, and one for ships in advanced training and deployments, led by a one-star focused on employing their warfighting capability.

Brown said this setup could have prevented the Fitzgerald and McCain tragedies, and that he had urged the Navy to revamp the command and control setup in 2017.

“I was told, ‘It’s not going to happen; there’s one chain of command.’ That’s what they all kept saying to me, there’s one chain of command, and that’s the operational chain of command, which the [type commanders] are not in.”

...

Had the Navy made Brown’s recommended change in 2017, Bonhomme Richard would have been clearly under Brown’s control in 2020 and he could have taken more aggressive measures when the fire broke out.

Brown said the Navy must learn from this disaster and make the proper reforms to prevent another ship from being destroyed — and the right lessons can’t be learned or the right reforms made if the Navy is working off an incomplete and inaccurate investigation.

...

Brown said, despite the major role he played while the ship was on fire, he was never interviewed. Conn emailed him about a potential interview and to ask five specific questions related to the roles and functions of the type commander. Brown answered the questions, but said Conn never followed up to arrange a formal interview.

Brown said he had no indication he would be named as contributing to the loss of the ship until the report came out.

“I am convinced that there was undue command influence on that investigation at the end, because when you look at the findings of facts, in the findings of facts behind my name, they just don’t make any sense. And why won’t they talk to me?” he added.

...

Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Sam Paparo serves as the consolidated disposition authority for this incident and sent Brown a short letter in December stating that “I have determined your case warrants no action.”

Brown said he thought the issue was resolved until his lawyer in early June warned him Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro would be sending a letter of censure.

“I just don’t know what facts changed in the last six months,” he said.

...

Asked what he hoped would happen by talking to the media, Brown said the Navy has a pattern of punishing three-stars for political expediency without examining root causes and making reforms.

Though he planned to let it go before, “now I don’t think I can, because I think the Navy is destined just to make the same mistakes again and again, especially the surface navy, because we don’t have the [command and control] right.”

The more I think about this story, the more it becomes clear that VADM Brown is taking the only possible path honor, at least as I see it, demands. However, in defending his honor, he is creating a greater good for our Navy and the nation it serves.

The Navy bureaucracy and Admiralty of the last few decades continues to fail its Navy and nation. There are exceptional individuals in both, but as a body the system of incentives and disincentives as they have developed are not just underperforming in selection in aggregate, they are damaging the institution, ill-serving its Sailors, and as a result providing an sub-optimal force to defend the maritime and aerospace requirements of the republic.

The Bonnie Dick burned two years ago. In 53% of the time we took to fight WWII, Where are we? We have arrested a junior Sailor who still has not gone to trial. We still do not know what happened and if the Navy has taken pro-active steps to ensure it does not happen again.

Justice delayed is justice denied. Bad investigations protect the guilty, hide the truth, and poison the future. Accountability thrown on the innocent reeks of the vilest institutional decadence. 

Bravo Zulu Vice Admiral Brown. Bravo Zulu.

Larter, Returning ... You Never Get the Sea out of Your Blood - on Midrats

 

If you've missed having David Larter on the Navy beat, well you're in for a treat.

Though everyone's favorite former OS2 is no longer a defense journalist, like most Sailors, he doesn't leave his love of the sea or affection for his Navy behind. 

Returning to Midrats, but this time with a little California sunshine kissing his cheeks, David will be with us for the full hour Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern. We will cover the waterfront from Ukraine, fleet size, how we treat our Sailors, global food security, China, and the things navalists should be thinking about, but aren't.

Join us live if you can, but it not, you can get the show later by subscribing to the podcast. If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here. You can find us on almost all your most popular podcast aggregators as well.

Not How You Signal Power

So, we have this great new Australia-United Kingdom-United States alliance in the Pacific.

We are supposed to be the big power here  -  to instill confidence in the face of a growing China.

What signal does this ship send?

Context here:

Welcome to our close friends from @USNavy to Brisbane for a routine logistics visit. The Men & Women of #USSFrankCable will also work alongside #YourADF to provide vital support to Australian communities as part of #OpFloodAssist. Thank you and Bravo Zulu !🇦🇺🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/3h1wxAaWUi

— Chief of Navy Australia (@CN_Australia) March 17, 2022 

There is no excuse here. This speaks for itself.

I'm embarrassed for myself, my Navy, my nation, and for our friends for showing them so much disrespect by showing up as their guest like some late-Soviet trawler.  

On the Navy, China, and Taiwan Words Matter - and This Week is a Good Week

A few quick items of good news where we have some strong messaging coming out.

First a report of SECNAV making the right stand against a weak organization;

China’s increasingly muscular efforts to isolate Taiwan internationally have paid off in Washington after a foreign naval association caved in to Chinese pressure and reversed course on letting Taiwanese officers join the group.

Several people familiar with the dispute said the Washington-based Naval Attachés Association rescinded an invitation for Taiwan to join the group, which includes officers from American allies, after China strongly objected.

What did SECNAV Del Toro do?

The US navy has banned officers from attending NAA events. Carlos Del Toro, navy secretary, last month said it did not support China’s “coercive tactics” and opposed efforts to “manipulate independent organisations”.

China often leans on governments, NGOs, companies, and the media to deny Taiwan’s sovereignty. But the NAA case is a rare example of it forcing a group in the US to sever ties with the island.

It highlights the difficulty Washington faces in trying to expand exchanges with Taiwan and normalise contacts with Taiwanese officials while the US and most powerful nations deny Taipei diplomatic recognition.

BZ SECNAV. People and organization either get it, or don't get it. Sometimes they need to pick a team and publicly put their cards out. If that is where NAA stands, then so be it. We don't have to stand with them if they show such NBA-like cowardice in the face of the PRC.

Next over to the uniformed side of the house. As you would expect with this week's Surface Navy Association’s 34th Annual National Symposium in Washington, D.C., we have an opportunity to set the tone for the new year and Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, Admiral Daryl Caudle, USN did not disappoint. Dare I say ... he decided to go full Salamander;

“We need to be angry at not having the right manning. We need to be angry at not having the ships out at the right time,” Admiral Daryl Caudle said at the Surface Navy Association annual convention on January 12. can kick.”

Caudle, who said in his opening remarks that he wanted more ships and a bigger budget, said the Navy does not have the “luxury of doing more with less”.

“We can’t just build a bunch of ships and fill them with the right equipment, the right number of people,” Caudle said.

Keep it up. Call it out. Be the squeaky wheel. Yes, I know there was some rah, rah fluff in his speech, but this bit of direct talk gives me hope.  More of this Admiral. More of this, please. I'll take the "W."

What about the Legislative Branch of government? Also from SNA-22 we have strong - and correct - thinking from of another leader on The Hill on naval and national security issues who will speak clearly, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI).

The only short war for Taiwan would be a quick Chinese victory. If we’re going to win, we’ll have to buy time to amass assets in the region while denying the Chinese invasion. I’m concerned that our planning has not caught up to this reality, and our wargames don’t even integrate financial and economic warfare into their scenarios. However many munitions, logistics nodes, and fleet enablers we think we will need, we will need more. This goes for Taiwan itself, which needs enormous quantities of not only anti-ship and anti-air missiles and mines, but also enough food, water, and other essential supplies to enable the island’s defenders to weather a blockade that could last months or even years.

Some of these defenders on the ground should be American. We should expand training missions in Taiwan, particularly when it comes to pairing National Guard units with Taiwan’s reserve forces, and regularly send senior military leaders to Taiwan to engage with counterparts and see the relevant wartime terrain with their own eyes. CyberCom should send Defend Forward cyber teams to Taiwan. We also need to be building the operational planning structures we will need ahead of time while incorporating allies like Japan and Australia. This includes re-establishing Joint Task Force Five One Nine under INDO-PACOM to run point on contingency planning in the region and re-establishing the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Command to fully integrate wartime planning with Taiwan.

Keeping with the SNA-22 wins and from the other side of the aisle, Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) is thinking 3-4 steps down the road and has clearly done some wargaming of her own.

You want something actionable now for the porcupine? Here you go;

The vice chairwoman of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday said new legislation is needed to allow the U.S. to respond faster should China invade Taiwan.

President Joe Biden “doesn’t have the authority [under the law] to actually respond” should China attack the island, Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., said, noting a U.S. response would be needed to maintain stability in the region.

“If China were to invade Taiwan today, the president would have to come to Congress for authorization to respond,” the 20-year Navy veteran said while speaking at the Surface Navy Association symposium in Arlington, Va. “We can’t lose [the] months that it would take in order for us to provide a response.”

Let not your heart be troubled. There are smart people out there who are thinking right and - if given the opportunity - will speak and hopefully act in line with their thinking.

We have good people ... we just need to get them closer to the levers of power to get us where we need to be. 

Time is short. Faster please.

There is a Presence Mission ...and there is a Presence Mission

If you are going to call something a presence mission, then it needs to actually be present where it matters.

If we are trying to make a point about Ukraine ... is the Ionian Sea really where we need to be?

I'm pondering over at USNIBlog. 

Come join the pondering. 

Merry Christmas!

May the Christmas spirit find you where ever you may may be. 

The US Navy wishes you peace on this day, but if you don't want peace ... well ... in the finest traditions back to George Washington, we can handle that too.

Fullbore Friday

Back in 2014 we took a day to give a nod to MA2 Mayo, USN. A year later friends at USNI News posted the final report.

Make sure and read the VCNO's endorsement below. Lots to ponder there, and in honor of Perry Officer Mayo, you should give it a read.

---

In port.

Just another watch on the pier.

Tic. Toc. Yawn. It's 23:20. Watch is almost over.

Thing is, there is no such thing as a normal watch. You never know when the call comes. You don't even have to be at sea. You don't even have to be overseas. You can just be at the largest naval base in the world in your own nation.

When in a moment things can turn from boredom to the point where character, instinct and training take over. The first, is the most important - the rest only support it.

MA2 Mark Mayo, USN. Fullbore Shipmate; fullbore.

(the shooter) parked his tractor-trailer cab near Pier 1, was able to walk onto the pier and began heading up a ramp toward the USS Mahan when he was confronted by Navy security, said Mario Palomino, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agent in charge of the Norfolk field office.

The man then got into an altercation with a female petty officer and disarmed her, Navy officials said. Palomino said Mayo stepped over the disarmed officer and fired his weapon at the assailant. He was serving on watch for the installation that night and came to help once he saw the civilian board the ship.

Multiple pistol rounds were fired between the gunman and Navy security forces responding to the scene, Palomino said. The Navy has said previously that the truck driver fired the shot that killed Mayo.

The base's commanding officer, Capt. Robert Clark, said Mayo's actions to protect the disarmed officer (sic) were extraordinary.

""He basically gave his life for hers," said Clark said during a news conference.

Ship, shipmate, self? Yep; it means exactly what it says.

MA2 Mayo enlisted in the U.S. Navy in October 2007 and began working in Norfolk in May 2011.

“Petty Officer Mayo’s actions on Monday evening were nothing less than heroic. He selflessly gave his own life to ensure the safety of the Sailors on board USS Mahan (DDG 72),” said Capt. Robert E. Clark, Jr., commanding officer, Naval Station Norfolk.

There is more background at the above links and here about the shooter that I really don't want to cover here. There is plenty of time later for that and what lessons we can take away from it.

I have my opinions, but not here, not today. 

Petty Officer Mayo, well done.

---

259089347 USS Mahan Shooting Report

Happy Thanksgiving

As I like to do on Thanksgiving, I would like to thank one specific blessing; the US Navy's Culinary Specialists, Mess Cranks, and everyone who makes the extra effort to put together such an important feast for our Sailors on such an important national holiday.

We love you guys ... and maybe we don't say it enough - but even if we do, we'll say it again today. 

The Fat Leonard Podcast with Tom Wright - on Midrats

If you are even remotely connected to the US Navy, you have directly or indirectly been impacted by the "Fat Leonard" scandal. 

A husbanding agent who used every tool in a very old book - greed, sex, power, influence, and envy - managed to have have naval officers and high ranking law enforcement officers become party to his drive for wealth and influence.

One of the best places to find the details of the scandal and to hear from Leonard Glenn Frances himself, is in "The Fat Leonard Podcast."

Our guest today will be the podcast's creator, Tom Wright, the coauthor of Billion Dollar Whale and the cofounder of Project Brazen, a journalism-focused production studio. 

Tom worked for the Wall Street Journal for over twenty years. He’s a Pulitzer finalist and has won numerous journalism awards, including the Gerald Loeb award for international reporting. In 2020, Stanford University honored Tom with its Shorenstein award in recognition of his services to journalism in Asia.

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here. You can find us on almost all your most popular podcast aggregators as well.

Culture, Competition, and Conflict: three rants on the state of Surface Warfare, by Bryan McGrath

The BONHOMME RICHARD fire report has the Surface Force in the news again, and one of our favorite ex-SWOs Bryan McGrath gave a speech to the Surface Navy Association's Washington DC chapter earlier today. He had a few things to get off his chest, and the things he said are worth a broader audience. 

Bryan has been kind enough to send along the text of his remarks for publication here - well worth your time.

Bryan, over to you!

---

Speech to the DC Chapter of the Surface Navy Association

 21 October 2021

“Three Rants”

As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you for the introduction, Captain Bryans. It was an honor to be asked to be here, and I am grateful for the opportunity.

I hope the folks of this chapter know how lucky we are to have Bob Bryans leading us while he’s doing incredibly important and difficult work over at OPNAV. He’s the best of the best. 

When Bob asked me to do this talk, he requested a theme, and because this isn’t my first rodeo, I knew that the quicker I gave him one the quicker he’d get off my back about giving him one. So, I said, “Culture, Competition, and Conflict”, and we both went on with our lives. And while I have a feeling that I will hit each of those topics during my talk today, I ask that you give me some latitude to meander, and I’ll do so with the structure of three broad areas of concern that I call…the three rants. 

Also, I want to get something out of the way up front. I am a consultant. I happen to have business relationships with the Navy, specifically agreements with the Commander of Naval Surface Forces in San Diego and the Director of Surface Warfare Programs at OPNAV N96. In those jobs, the government pays me to tell Admirals Kitchener and Schlise exactly what I think. And that is what I do. Sometimes they agree with me. Sometimes they don’t. At no point has either one of them or their predecessors ever asked me to change or modify my opinion to suit the Navy line, nor have I ever taken a position publicly that isn’t my own. Nothing I say is carried water for anyone else. Period. Are we clear? 

Ok. Let’s get on with things.

Rant One: Good Competition

Let’s start with rant # 1, and that is, I want to talk about “Competition”. The previous administration centered its national security strategy and national defense strategy around the imperative of renewed great power competition. One doesn’t have to have a doctorate in international relations to see that we are elbow deep in great power competition again, and this was a rational response. Following this policy focus, the sea services promulgated a new maritime strategy, and the CNO updated his NAVPLAN, in BOTH CASES, raising the prominence of what has come to be known as the “competition phase” of the continuum of competition. The other phases of the continuum being “crisis” and “conflict”. 

I believe all four of these documents—NSS, NDS, maritime strategy, and NAVPLAN—were well-aligned to the security environment we face, and all pointed squarely at seapower as a primary tool of action and influence. The fact that all four placed considerable focus on the competition phase led me to several conclusions.

First, competition is different than crisis, or conflict. It is how the United States Navy spends the overwhelming balance of its time. It is where the United States Navy (and seapower more generally), has its greatest impact, acting as it does as the guarantor of America’s security and prosperity. 

The primary products of competition phase seapower are—as I said—security and prosperity, both of which owe their promotion primarily to one factor—the conventional deterrence of those who would disturb the peace.

Conventional deterrence is the ballgame, and as the Navy is the Service that promotes conventional deterrence where it matters and to a larger extent than any other element of American military power, one could and should have expected the Navy to receive more and more consistent resourcing. 

Additionally, and for the interests of this audience and the biases of this speaker, no part of America’s arsenal is as critical to providing conventional deterrence where it matters than the Surface Force. Forward, distributed, networked, lethal, visible, and sustained surface forces. 

Given the emphasis on competition, the focus on conventional deterrence, and the degree to which force structure discussions in 2020 seemed in no small part to be variations on the single theme of growing the Navy, it appeared as if an important point of consensus had been reached. The fact that it was reached after four years of TALKING ABOUT growing a Navy and with little or nothing DONE about it provided many of us with the nagging sense that the clock was running out on the consensus. 

It is now late 2021, and it appears that consensus is dead. The concept of military competition and its desired by-product conventional deterrence has been replaced by something called “integrated deterrence”, a term which strikes me as a means to de-emphasize the military contribution to deterrence while emphasizing other “whole-of-government” contributions, which invariably are less expensive than maintaining proper fleet.

We saw our first evidence of this in the 2022 budget and its approach to shipbuilding, and we continue to see more evidence of it as time goes on. No one at OSD is talking about competition anymore, as we’ve entered the stage of defense planning that goes something like “when there aren’t resources available for both the deterrence of war and the conduct of war, defer to the latter”. In the process, we—the Navy, DoD, the United States—will field a Navy that is marginally better at fighting war and LESS able to deter war. I think this is a troubling and dangerous path, and I urge the Secretary of the Navy and the CNO to take every opportunity they can to advise against it.

I know it is hard to for the numbers people at OSD CAPE and N81 to quantify the benefits of conventional deterrence. I know it is far easier to do force on force analysis and come up with exchange ratios and campaign results. But that whole system ignores what we know to be true—that persistent, powerful naval force forward—specifically, surface forces—is the backbone of our conventional deterrence posture, and if we continue to de-emphasize powerful forward presence that creates doubt in the minds of potential opponents, we will be left with terrible decisions about whether and how to intervene when opportunistic opponents realize we’ve given up on the day-to-day competition. Critics of naval forward presence sometimes suggest that it destabilizes the security situation. Do you want to know what is even more destabilizing? The other guy having the perception that the competition is over. 

A prominent voice in the national security world recently opined that we need to abandon this “cop on the beat” mentality, because we don’t have the forces required to carry it out. So, he’s telling me that instead, we should diminish the fleet while implementing more of an over-the horizon strategy that is an even less powerful deterrent? 

How about we build the Navy we need?

There is talk of yet another force structure assessment in the wind, and my fever dream is that the Navy produces an assessment that is pretty consistent with the work it did in 2020, and then take a new position on that work. Well, not a new position, per se. But the position that the US Marine Corps has taken for much of my life. And that is, do the analysis and state the requirement. If the requirement is affordable within given resources, pursue it. If it is not, let political leadership know what the risks are and then do your best with the resources allocated. But never, NEVER, let available resources be the thing you start with when you seek to derive the requirement. And never, NEVER, change the requirement to fit the available resources. 

Rant Two: Bad Competition

Ok—let’s move on to rant #2. And it is another rant about competition. But a different kind of competition. 

I want to talk a little about the acquisition system by using a couple of examples of where I think the Navy has made grave errors, and then suggest that the time is ripe to make sure we don’t make that same error a third time.

About 11 years ago, the Navy moved forward with the Air and Missile Defense Radar, or AMDR program. A huge and critical effort, AMDR replaces the SPY 1 series of radars in surface combatants going forward, and it represented a franchise win for the company that competed and won the business. 

I don’t know much about this competition, but the urban legend is that Raytheon put a ton of internal investment money into winning this contract. I can imagine the conversation between the business unit lead and the CFO, where the business unit lays out the opportunity, the costs, and upside potential once serial production began. Considerable resources were applied, Raytheon won, and we expect to see the first ship with a SPY 6 AMDR radar commissioned in 2024 or so. Or put another way, we will not see an operational SPY 6 for a couple of years on a ship that won’t deploy until later in the decade.

But that did not stop the visionaries of the Navy Acquisition system from conducting a competition recently to bring on a second source to produce SPY 6 radars?

If I am that Raytheon CFO, I gotta be coming out of my skull. “We invested all that money and before the first one is even fielded the Navy is trying to find someone to undercut our price?”  

I think he or she has a good point. 

Now, I am a political conservative. I am a capitalist. I believe in free and competitive markets.

But defense production is not a free and competitive market. It is skewed by externalities unknown to most businesses in America. It is a monopsony, or at least a near monopsony, with considerable constraints placed on doing business internationally. 

For industry to make the kind of internal investment necessary to create the advanced capabilities that the Navy requires, they need to know that they will be able to get their money out of serial production. I’m all for competing but starting the competition before the first arrays are even placed just makes no sense.

But it isn’t just SPY 6. The same, or a similar move was made on the Navy’s SEWIP Block III program recently, and from what I can discover, similar conditions prevailed. In this case Northrop Grumman won the contract after considerable internal investment. No ship afloat has a fielded SEWIP Block III. Yet Navy acquisition recently sought to compete for serial production.

This is insane, and if this race to the bottom continues, it places the Navy’s Large Surface Combatant or DDG(X) program at serious risk. And here is why.

The Navy needs a sea-based, high-powered laser. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s call it the BAL—or Big-Ass Laser. Why does it need a Big-Ass Laser? Well, it needs a Big-Ass Laser because in a war with a big, aggressive country, after the carnage of an initial series of exchanges, our fleet will have to—as my friend Paul Giarra says—fight its way to the fight, and then fight through to the fight. It will be doing this against a country with a considerable ability to build missiles, and so we need a way to counter them that doesn’t bankrupt the United States.

To my mind, the logical place to put the Big-Ass Laser is on the BAS—or Big-Ass Ship. That is the DDG(X). The folks deriving requirements for this ship and doing trade studies and analyzing hull forms and all that stuff need to understand that the purpose of the Big-Ass Ship is to carry the Big-Ass Laser. 

The case for the Big-Ass Laser is that we will not be able to operate within the contested area NEARLY confidently enough unless we can project power from protected sea space. The Big-Ass Laser will give us that confidence.

Now…back to the whole question of competition. Capable tier-1 defense firms are busy with all manner of research and engineering designed to position themselves to compete for the Big-Ass Laser. It is difficult to conceive of being competitive without spending a considerable amount of internal investment money. So here I am, the VP of Big-Ass Navy Lasers at Acme Big-Ass Laser company, and I am going to talk to my CFO about getting the money necessary to upscale our current efforts to be able to compete for this contract. I deliver my perfectly crafted pitch, and then she looks at me and says, “why would I give you a dime after what the Navy has done with SPY 6 and SEWIP? How can we go to our shareholders and say that this investment is wise, given that EVEN IF WE WIN, the Navy is going to create a competitor before the first unit is fielded?”

How do you answer that? 

The bottom line folks is that if conventional deterrence fails and we get into a shooting war, we’re going to need to project power in order to fight our way back in. The high-power laser is the thing that we need to help us do that, and the real estate, cooling, and power for it will be provided by the DDG(X). Screw up the acquisition of the Big Ass Laser and the Big Ass Ship becomes an expensive luxury. 

We must get this right.

Rant Three: Culture and Systems

Ok—my final rant. I want to talk about culture, or more to the point, the perception that there is something wrong with our culture in Surface Warfare. I’ve been on this rant for four and a half years now since the collisions of 2017.

Those two collisions created and enabled a chorus of critics to charge that the there were “systemic” problems in Surface Warfare, particularly in the Surface Warfare culture. I asserted then, and I continue to believe now, that what others want to attribute to culture or leadership or some other ill-defined systemic failure, can more properly be attributed to a lack of resources. Simply put, the fleet was on the ragged edge because there weren’t enough ships to do what was being asked of them. To the extent that the system contributed to the collisions, it was this. 

But make no mistake about it. Those two ships had collisions because people who knew better, who knew what the rules were, and who knew what the right thing to do was—chose to do otherwise. 

If you want to make the charge of systemic failure, it seems to me you have a responsibility to account for why that failure was confined to one theater and a small number of ships. ADM Davidson, former INDOPACOM Commander, got into some hot water when he suggested as much before Congress. And while that was neither the time nor the place to try and make that case, it is a case that needs to be made. 

We have problems in Surface Warfare. What we do isn’t properly understood by policy-makers, we don’t do a good job in educating them, as a result, we get insufficient funding that results in too few ships, manning problems, deferred maintenance, and sub-optimized training opportunities.  

My inherently testable hypothesis is that if we properly resourced Surface Warfare, you’d hear a hell of a lot less about systemic and cultural problems. We are maintaining nearly a similar number of ships deployed every day with 295 ships that we did thirty plus years ago with twice that number. You want a systemic problem, there it is.

The culture I know is one of mission accomplishment, and I have no desire to see this diluted. 

Every generation has had ridiculous administrative burdens. That’s part of the job. What has changed is that the fleet we own and operate is insufficient to the operational tasks asked of it. Some say we ought to cut back on those tasks, that all this stuff we do around the world should be restrained, that we ought to bring the fleet home and operate it as a surge force with a bit of a cruising mindset, rather than a forward deployed force. 

I’d be happy to go along with this, but only after I was convinced that the American people were content with no longer being top-dog. Because if you’re going to be the world’s dominant political, economic, military, and diplomatic power, you aren’t going to do it from Norfolk and San Diego. The nation that believes itself to be those things is reflected in a powerful, forward deployed Navy protecting and sustaining its security and prosperity, along with that of like-minded nations. At the center of that fleet is the surface force and the professionals who operate it. They are the nation’s primary conventional deterrent, they are the nation’s primary military diplomats, and they are the nation’s primary crisis response force forward. 

It is time to resource them accordingly. 

I only hope that people are listening.

Thank you, and I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have.

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Bryan McGrath is the Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group. These views are his and do not represent any client.