Archive for the 'Navy' Category
This Sunday March 10 at 5pm (don’t forget the time change “spring ahead”) Episode 166: ‘Expeditionary Fleet Balance” on Midrats at Blog Talk Radio:
Do we have the right balance between strike as embodied by carrier air and expeditionary forces based around amphibious ships?
What capability is most cost effective and gives the combatant commanders the most flexible assets in their area of responsibility?
What is driving our Fleet structure, and do we have the right mix? What is informing our decisions, and what should be informing it?
Our guest for the full hour will be Lieutenant Colonel James W. Hammond III, USMC (Ret), senior manager at WBB.
Prior to retirement in 2005, he was Director, Commandant’s Staff Group.
As a starting point for our discussion, we will review his points in the FEB13 Proceedings article, “A Fleet Out of Balance.” Previous published articles and letters in the Naval Institute Proceedings and the Marine Corps Gazette have dealt with Naval Surface Fire Support, Counterbattery support from the Sea, Electronic Attack, Revolution in Military Affairs, and Provisional Rifle Companies.
Listen live (or download later) here or on our iTunes page.
Posted by Eagle1 in Marine Corps, Navy | read comments (0)
To the scribes, to the thinkers, to the families, to those in the arena…in honor of one who served our Navy well in each of these roles. http://www.neptunuslex.com/
In the Navy, our concept of an organization is dominated by the “chain of command” and the quintessential “org chart,” both of which are vertically focused. These concepts do a good job of telling us who we work for, and who works for us. However, they serve little purpose in outlining with whom we should work. These relationships are horizontal in nature and help us navigate the seams of an organization, seams which are readily apparent in a traditional, vertically-focused “org chart.” While vertical relationships are key to authority and responsibility, effective innovation, planning, and execution are typically dependent on horizontal relationships.
The Chief Petty Officers’ Mess is well known for establishing horizontal relationships. Chiefs utilize relationships established during CPO 365 and within the Chiefs’ Mess to solve problems and accomplish the mission. In essence, the effectiveness of the Chiefs’ Mess is based in large part on these horizontal relationships. These horizontal relationships need not be limited to the Chiefs’ Mess, however. Command members at all ranks, officer and enlisted, can and should seek to establish these relationships in order to make themselves and their command or organization more effective.
A good example is the somewhat recent emphasis on the N3/N2 (Ops/Intel) relationship, linking the operator to the intelligence professional, and vice versa. The result has been greater synchronization between these supporting entities. Another example is the establishment of the Information Dominance Corps (IDC), which seeks to establish a close working relationship between information-focused communities. Regardless of where these information-focused professionals work in an organization, a roadmap for their horizontal relationships has been pre-established by the formation of the IDC. The possibilities for horizontal relationships are truly endless, while the potential value in establishing and utilizing these relationships is immeasurable.
Establishing a horizontal relationship takes little effort. Warfare qualification programs, command functions, social events, and command organizations, such as the First Class Petty Officers Association, all encourage the establishment of horizontal relationships. Getting out of your work space and interacting with your peers is another method. Share each other’s roles and responsibilities and seek to identify overlap, and common or supporting efforts. Then establish a relationship and ensure you leverage it whenever necessary or feasible.
Horizontal relationships need not be limited to your own command or organization. Establishing relationships with other commands or supporting staffs can be beneficial as well. Horizontal relationships can also be established within a wider community, leveraging the collective thoughts of a large, diverse group. Tools like the IDC Self-Synchronization website enable establishment and utilization of such relationships.
So the next time you think about the chain of command or look at an org chart, focus on the horizontal vice vertical aspects of the organization. Identify the seams and look for places to establish horizontal relationships, relationships that will help make you and the command more effective. Then set out to navigate the seams.
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LCDR Chuck Hall is an Information Warfare Officer and member of the Information Dominance Corps. He enlisted in the Navy in 1988 and served 13 years as a Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) prior to commissioning as a CWO2. Subsequently selected for LDO, he transitioned to the Restricted Line once he completed his BA in Middle Eastern Studies. He currently serves on the CCSG-8 staff, embarked in USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER. When at home he enjoys spending time with his wife and three amazing children. He has also contributed to Connecting the Dots with his blog post Waiting to Lead.
From the U.S. Naval Academy:
“It’s our privilege to announce a very special project designed and created at the Naval Academy that should be of great interest to fans around the world. Led by Midshipman Chris O’Keefe (now an Ensign), “A History of the Navy in 100 Objects” premieres today on the Naval Academy website at www.usna.edu/100Objects. O’Keefe modeled his “100 Objects” after the BBC’s “A History of the World in 100 Objects.” It was while listening to the BBC podcasts that he realized that the Navy didn’t have a similar series about its history and heritage and decided to produce his own. In his spare time, O’Keefe set about identifying objects in the Naval Academy collections to develop the series, and interviewed experts from the Naval Academy, the Naval Institute and elsewhere about the objects. Navy leaders such as Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Commandant of the Marine Corps James Amos, and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz provided commentary for the series. Twice a week, for the next 50 weeks, a new object will be released. The first is about the crypt of John Paul Jones. Jones is considered by many to be the founder of the American Navy, and this podcast discusses his contributions to history. Future object podcasts will include the Momsen Lung, deck and hull plates from USS Monitor and CSS Virginia, and a Pearl Harbor bomb arming vane. All of the objects used in the project are located at the Naval Academy, either in the museum, the Archives and Special Collections of Nimitz Library or, like Jones’ crypt, on the grounds of the academy.”
An ambitious project! BZ Ensign O’Keefe and everyone involved!
Posted by admin in Education, History, Innovation, Marine Corps, Naval Institute, Navy | read comments (3)With sequestration hovering like a black cloud, PME like everything in the Defense Department is under the hammer and in flux regarding present operations and future planning. Nobody knows quite what to expect and many decisions are beyond internal control. Nevertheless, there are decisions being made or apparently being considered that are within Navy control that have PME faculty in a tailspin. In a time of high faculty anxiety already, this is just one more stone. We don’t need to do this and there are even costs and morale savings to be gained in taking a different approach.
Communication in the PME community too often seems to utilize a very Asian “information is power” model. Official notices or all-hands meetings where messages of “all is well” or “all isn’t well but we don’t know anything” are common. Even in “normal” times, that allows the rumor mill to function on overdrive. In times of extreme fiscal constraint such as currently being experienced, when clearly all isn’t well, speculation and rumor naturally runs especially rampant. Will faculty be furloughed? How would a furlough be instituted? Will civilians be treated differently from military faculty and support staff? Are faculty basically facing a 20% pay cut? On these questions we will all have to wait and see. Other questions, however, are not dependent on the actions of others and could be addressed if those in charge chose to do so.
For example, faculty travel has been dramatically curtailed as a result of the financial crisis. Again, that is understandable. A choice between funding a faculty member to attend the International Studies Conference (ISA) and buying fuel to keep ships running seems pretty obvious, even to the person whose trip to ISA has been canceled. But travel and association with peers is part of academic life. The best teachers are also active researchers who must interact with peers. Therefore, if the Navy intends to maintain the kind of “world class faculties” it often purports to want, and to have, other avenues of funding ought to be sought, and made user friendly, which they are not.
Consequent to an investigation that found expenses related to some conferences being funded by the Navy were extravagant – a finding confined to a remarkably small number of groups – a new battery of forms, procedures and requirements have been generated within the Navy that make is difficult if not sometimes impossible for faculty to travel and attend conferences, even if not funded by the Navy. The required hoop jumping is difficult and ambiguous.
To cite a personal example: I had a trip turned down in November, fully funded by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to the annual meeting of the prestigious NAS Space Studies Board, on which I serve with permission. The reason given was that approval for faculty to attend conferences now apparently includes a DC component, and whoever does that in DC simply never got around to it.
Seeking to attend a conference is another tripwire working against faculty seeking to remain professionally active. If a faculty member is requesting to attend a conference using Navy money, the conference must be deemed “mission essential” to the Department of the Navy. That rationale, while regrettable, is understandable. But whether that qualification applies to trips fully funded externally is unclear. If a request to travel is fully-funded by the inviting group, but is deemed to be a conference, it apparently still can be turned down – thereby requiring faculty to take annual leave if they want to attend. If travel is partially funded externally and the faculty member volunteers to personally pay for the rest they still have to take annual leave to attend – apparently even if the event has not been designated a conference.
And nobody seems able to declare definitively what constitutes a conference. Personally, for example, me speaking as part of a panel to several hundred people was not considered a conference, me speaking to a group of 40 students was considered a conference, and acting as a moot court judge in China was considered a conference as well. What are the guidelines? The legal officers within PME, at least at the Naval War College, are struggling mightily to make determinations on a case-by-case basis – and their efforts are greatly appreciated by faculty members. But would it be so difficult for those setting these requirements to provide clear guidelines that could be known and understood by all? The lead-time for making these decisions is currently 30 days, though rumor has it that will soon be changed to 60 days. These constantly changing, ambiguous rules will soon have a chilling effect on faculty performance, if they aren’t already.
Perhaps most insidious and potentially chilling is the rumor that consequent to a Navy Investigator General (IG) finding of wrongdoings at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) originating from a complaint about a university publication about the university, the Navy is considering instituting a policy of pre-publication review of faculty publications. While the Navy, like any government agency, clearly has the right to review employee publications for security purposes, the processes, parameters, and unintended consequences for such a review process within an educational framework should be clearly considered before instituting such a system. I strongly suspect that has not yet happened.
Who would conduct these reviews? The Public Affairs Office at the respective commands? I suspect they have neither the time nor the substantive expertise. The Security Office? The Legal Officer? How would they be done in a timely manner? When there is talk of furloughing faculty, would new staff be hired to screen publications? What would be their qualifications? What would be included: books, article, OpEds, media interview material, public presentations…personal blogs?
I attended a space conference this month in Washington, DC. A very high-ranking government official enthusiastically recommended James Clay Moltz’s book on space to the audience. Dr. Moltz is a faculty member at NPS. I’ve been told my Orbis will now be part of a required reading package for new faculty at a senior PME institution. NWC faculty member Milan Vego’s book on operational art is a standard within PME. Also from the Naval War College, faculty member Nick Gvosdev writes a weekly online column, “The Realist Prism,” and Thomas Mahnken has his online blog “Shadow Government.” Will similar publications be supported in the future? Will ongoing, online publications be subject to review?
What would the censors be looking for, security violations…or something broader, perhaps sensitive topics? Who will determine what is sensitive? Might this article be considered sensitive? And perhaps political correctness would be considered? That could all but negate the Academic Freedom required to make any great educational institution, or a great educator great.
The rumor mill is already in high gear. I have written about this potential pre-publication review process once already, based on communications from NPS faculty who had been present when it was raised in a meeting. I then received mail from another NPS faculty chastising me for raising such a rumor, saying unequivocally it had never happened. I have now heard a similar rumor about publication reviews at the Naval War College. OPNAV clarification would go a long way toward calming waters on this very sensitive issue in a very turbulent time.
Finally, I must also ask a question that I have asked repeatedly before. Are there designated individuals in OPNAV involved in discussion of these issues who actually have experience in what is required to be a professionally active academic? To prepare materials for a 21st century professional education? Or, are bureaucrats or consultants who have no idea of either requirements or consequences making these seemingly arbitrary decisions? Would a similar approach be taken if creating procedures that would affect the running of a ship?
Critics have sometimes characterized PME faculty (especially civilian academic faculty) as lazy and unproductive. There is unquestionably deadwood at all academic institutions – civilian or PME. Being deadwood, however, has nothing to do with their pedigree, but with what are they doing currently. Are they professionally active in their fields, and consequently, are they teachers who can challenge theirs students with current ideas and depth? Or are they simply bureaucrats with academic titles, phoning-in teaching and collecting paychecks? Politicos hiding out until the next change of administration in DC? Ambiguous and arbitrary rules with a chilling effect on professionalism will actually encourage deadwood, serve no purpose and quickly damage the already questioned credibility of PME.
Sometimes, those who consider or issue new policies and procedures are unaware of the tumultuous unintended consequences that result, because the individuals charged with executing the new policies and procedures are reluctant to point out problems. If those in charge realized what was going on though, they might be very anxious to fix things. Perhaps that is what is happening now, and so raise these issues for awareness, hopeful that those in charge will want to address them.
Dr. Joan Johnson-Freese is a Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Her publications include: Heavenly Ambitions: America’s Quest to Dominate Space; Space As A Strategic Asset, and over 80 journal articles. She is a member of the Space Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the International Academy of Astronautics, and a member of the Editorial Board of China Security. She has testified before Congress on multiple occasions, and is regularly interviewed by the media, including CNN, CBS, ABC, The New York Times, Reuters and the BBC, on space issues. She also teaches courses on Globalization & US National Security, and Space & Security, at Harvard Summer and Extension Schools. The views expressed in this article are the authors’ alone and do not represent the official position of the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.
For the Athenians, the Great Harbor of Syracuse was anything but. A monument to their tactical bottle-necking of the “world’s” most powerful navy, the Great Harbor symbolizes the cost of trading mobility for convenience. The five carriers lined up like dominoes in Norfolk are reminiscent of that inflexibility, serving as a greater metaphor for constraints the fiscal crisis may impose on the US Navy worldwide.
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed after the enemy has finished exterminating your entire naval task force and running you to ground in a quarry where you are executed or sold off as spoils of war.”
-General Patton
There needs to be some discussion on the use of “ex” in news stories concerning military members across the board.
However, the big offender on the list today (actually yesterday now…) is Navy Times. Yesterday on the site’s news pages I read two headlines stating “Ex-Navy SEAL” and “Ex-SEAL…” both are differing subjects (screen shot right). However, within the article they correct themselves to use the proper label of “former.” Yes, there is a difference.
Perhaps those at Navy Times know there is a difference and they’re only link-baiting… maybe not. Matters not if they are link-baiting to get your attention- they should at least give the individuals they’re discussing the respect of proper labels.
So what’s the difference? Well, if you ask a Marine they can tell you outright; however, for some reason it’s not as prevalent in the other services. The label “ex” (e.g. ex-Coastie) should lead one to believe that this person was once a Coastie but it no longer because they were discharged for wrongdoing or some other ill thing (actual title: Ex-Coastie commits wire-fraud). Whereas the label of “former” spells out that the individual was once a member of said service and left on good terms (good conduct discharge, retired. etc.). For example the Navy Times had a story of an “Ex-Coast Guard member” who wrote a book (I’m reading it with a review soon); however, this was NOT an “ex” Coastie but, in fact, a “former” member of this great service.
The soapbox was there, I stood up and said my piece, now I’ll get down.
When I joined the Editorial Board of Proceedings two years ago, I conducted a brief survey of the magazines articles from 1875-1919. The primary purpose was to determine what ranks were more likely to write for and be published in Proceedings. The post and results can be found here.
One of the common concerns I’ve heard as Chairman of the Editorial Board is that Proceedings “only publishes articles by Admirals and Generals, especially the CNO.” I admit that I didn’t know how to answer until recently. Proceedings receives submissions from most ranks and civilians and while articles published by flag and general officers are sometimes cited by other media, I wanted to know so that I could give an informed answer to people who asked. Therefore I conducted a new brief survey of articles from Proceedings beginning with the February 2011 issue and concluding with the January 2013 issue. I tallied the articles based on the rank of the author. In the case of multiple authors, each author was included in the tabulation. Articles by regular columnists like Norman Polmar, Norman Friedman, Eric Wertheim, Tom Cutler, and Senior Chief Jim Murphy were not included in the tabulation.
To answer the question at hand, in a two-year period only 1.8 percent of published articles were the product of a service chief – including two by the Chief of Naval Operations, one by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and one by the Commandant of the Coast Guard. In fact Ensigns and 2nd Lieutenants (with 2.8 percent) and Lieutenants junior grade and 1st Lieutenants (with 2.3 percent) published more than the service chiefs. Of published articles by military personnel, Navy Captains and Marine Colonels were the most prolific with 11.9 percent. Of all articles published in the past two years, the category “Other” (comprised primarily of OSD/DoN civilians) and “Faculty/Think Tanks” – those whose primary job is to think and write – dominated the pages of Proceedings with 16.5 percent and 16.1 percent respectively.
The Editorial Board reads every article provided to it by the Proceedings editorial staff. We evaluated each of those articles based primarily on how well the author has developed and supported a particular concept. We debate the merits of each article and not necessarily who submitted them, although we do look more closely at articles generated by enlisted and junior officers to see what the next generation offers.
Therefore, if you want to be part of the same forum for debate that led young officers like Lieutenant Ernest King to write, if you have a new idea or perspective, if you think you can make the case for that perspective, then I encourage you to write and submit to Proceedings. Your idea might challenge or support conventional wisdom. It might be something that no one has thought of – or has taken the time to pen. It might be an idea on how the sea services improve processes, support people, or modify platforms. Don’t be satisfied with what “might be.” Write. Engage. Be part of the debate. Start the debate.
“Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”
LCDR Claude Berube, USNR teaches in the History Department of the U.S. Naval Academy and is Chair of the Editorial Board of Naval Institute Proceedings. He is the author of over thirty articles and the co-author of three books. The views expressed are his and not those of the Naval Academy or Navy.
Posted by admin in From our Archive, Marine Corps, Naval Institute, Navy, Proceedings | read comments (12)
USAF photo
Please join CDR Salamander and me on February 10, 2013 at 5pm Eastern U.S. for “Episode 162: Air Diplomacy, Air-Sea Battle, and the PAC Pivot”:
Photo: Lockheed Martin
As we shift from ground combat in Asia and reset to a more natural position of a naval and aerospace power, are we thinking correctly on how to best leverage our resources and strengths?
Photo: MDA
How should we be using sea power and air power to create the right effects during peace, yet be poised to have the best utility at war? Are there concepts, habits, and systems that have had their time and should be moved aside for newer tools and ideas?
Our guest for the full hour will be Dr. Adam Lowther, Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest in Washington, DC.
He is the author of numerous books and articles on national security topics and previously served in the US Navy.
Join us live if you can here or download or listen to the show later here or on our iTunes page here.
Posted by Eagle1 in Air Force, Aviation, Foreign Policy, Hard Power, Homeland Security, Maritime Security, Navy | read comments (0)
Unable to attend the 2013 USNI West Conference and Exposition in San Diego last week?
Well, you might have missed some really good information – except that you can still view some of the key presentations and panels by watching them on USNI’s YouTube page and get a summary of each day’s summary here.
Almost like being there except you miss the giveaways at the vendor’s booth.
Also, given that Midrats has Super Bowl “Best of” going this Sunday, it’s a way to get your “talking ’bout National Security” fix.
Posted by Eagle1 in Aviation, China, Cyber, Foreign Policy, Innovation, Marine Corps, Maritime Security, Naval Institute, Navy | read comments (1)Recent Posts
- Midrats this Sunday, May 17 2013 – Episode 167: Intellectual Integrity, PME, and NWC
- Remembering our Fallen Coast Guard Shipmates and their Families
- On Midrats 10 Mar 13, Episode 166: “Expeditionary Fleet Balance”
- Guest Post by LTJG Matthew Hipple: From Epipolae to Cyber War
- For Strength and Courage: Neptunus Lex
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