No justification could negate the negligence of a bridge team that resulted in loss of life. However, while the recent accidents are profound tragedies, for which our hearts deeply mourn the deaths of our shipmates, they are a function of probability and a culture of cost-based, calculated risk we created for ourselves.
The Largest Blue-Water Fleet in the World
First, on the matter of probability, it should come as no surprise the U.S. Navy operates the largest blue-water fleet in the world. Its closest rival in terms of size, China, only in the last decade has shown an emergent interest in worldwide deployment of its ships. China’s security interests, though expanding in geographic scope, remain for the most part confined to the waters within and immediately adjacent to their exclusive economic zone. While the United States’ Cold War-peer, Russia, still harbors and exercises global reach, its fleet strength of blue water-capable surface combatants has waned to roughly a quarter of that of the United States. The United States is the only naval power to conduct regular, blue-water operations outside the local waters of its territories. Almost in perpetuity, the U.S. surface fleet can count dozens of ships at sea sailing outside territorial waters or local operating areas. Sustained forward presence is a unique U.S. naval capability, which protects the free-flow of maritime commerce integral to the global economy.
Owing to that protection, worldwide merchant traffic is booming. According to figures published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), world seaborne trade by weight of cargo saw nearly a four-fold increase between 1970 and 2015.[1] At the beginning of 2016, there were 90,917 commercial cargo ships in service capable of transporting over 1.8 billion deadweight tons. [2] Critical sea lines of communication are more congested than ever. Consequently, according to figures published by the European Maritime Safety Agency in 2016, while the rate of severe accidents (i.e., those resulting in the total loss of a vessel) remain relatively constant and rare, the number of ships involved in accidents at sea has risen significantly from 2011 to 2015 from 1,500 to around 3,600 ships, annually.[3] Despite this dramatic uptick, recent events notwithstanding, U.S. naval ships continue to safely traverse the busiest maritime thoroughfares in the world on a routine basis.
Overreliance on Automated Systems
The modern overreliance on automated and digital systems does not help matters. Merchant ships and modern navies alike rely on electronic and automated navigation systems, use of which was a calculated cost-saving decision to remove some of the expensive human-element from the pilothouse. These systems are remarkably precise, seaworthy, and safe—until they are not. The transition to digital navigation and ship control systems is a necessary evolution, yet automated technology, with all its fail-safes, is no replacement for the meticulous human adherence to the rules of the road, as well as fundamental bridge team knowledge of navigation, plotting, and seamanship.
While grounding and contact with another vessel remain the two steadfast kisses of death for a commanding officer (CO) of a surface ship, recent trends in their firings underscore a more pervasive phenomenon accentuated by the zero-defect mentality of the surface fleet—loss of confidence due to poor material readiness, poor crew morale, or misconduct. Modern COs have a broader range of tangible and intangible peace-time challenges than ever before in history. Balancing the minefield of the millennial workplace along with an unprecedented operational tempo, maintenance, and assessment cycle becomes a more challenging proposition by the day. The U. S. Navy continues to attract natural leaders and churn out cultivated ones at its historic pace, yet the men and women imbued with the responsibility of command cannot do it alone. Even the strongest Cos need a team of driven, educated professionals to support them. Unfortunately, decisions made by the naval surface force over the past 15 years have degraded the capacity for cultivation of its officers and enlisted alike.
Lack of Mentorship, Less Training
Critics gesture to budgetary pressure and operational tempo as the root causes of the fleet’s foundering safety record, yet more precisely, it was a series of calculated efficiency initiatives during the 2000s that crippled sailor development and deckplate knowledge. During this period, surface warfare decision makers engineered strategies for leaner manning aboard ships and dramatic changes within the schoolhouse. Top-6 roll-down, a program designed to gut the expensive petty officer and chief petty officer ranks, undermined the development of a generation of sailors on board surface combatants. The impact to between-the-lifelines mentorship was devastating as divisions previously lead by chief petty officers, were now managed by well-intentioned, less-experienced petty officers first-class.
Around that same time, the classroom based, six-month Surface Warfare Officer School (SWOS) Division Officer Course was stricken from the career pipeline of newly-minted ensigns with the implementation of the much maligned SWOS-in-a-box software series. Ensigns were now sent directly from their commissioning source to ships, assigned a division replete with its associated duties, and handed a stack of educational CD-ROMS to complete in their spare time. The era produced an overreliance on computer-based training at all levels of sailor education. During this period, A- and C-schools undertook a marked shift to self-paced, computer-based lessons that produced scores of minimally trained sailors who scarcely had contact with live, experienced instructors. Many of these initiatives have been revised or abandoned altogether. However, the core of present-day shipboard leadership is now comprised of the generation of senior petty officers and midgrade officers most affected by those programmatic mistakes. Fortunately, many have developed into fine surface warriors, despite the poor decisions made in pursuit of a leaner surface warfare enterprise.
As evidenced by the tremendous damage control efforts by crews aboard USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and USS John S. McCain (DDG-56), our ships excel at endeavors for which they train. The crucible behind which the full heft of the command triad rallies during each training cycle is the main space fire drill (MSFD). Led by the executive officer (XO), our ships’ damage control training teams enjoy the total support of top leadership, and with good reason. Not only is the MSFD the crowning event during multiple engineering and damage control assessments, should calamity strike at-sea, a ship’s crew is her only savior. Crews of both errant vessels fought valiantly based on the training they rehearsed, thereby saving their ships, shipmates, and selves—further evidence that given attention, our system of on-the-job training works. Unfortunately, on most ships, assessment areas such as navigation (MOB-N) and seamanship (MOB-S) do not garner the same focus from the command triad, nor from the immediate superior in command (ISIC). Even though, just as a properly trained damage controlman can avoid downing a damage control assessment by grounding his CO2 canister, a quartermaster-of-the-watch can avoid collision by understanding the automated alarms on the voyage management system (VMS).
Improving Readiness
Two additional modifications to the surface warfare officer pipeline would further improve readiness. Abandon the recently created plans and tactics officer (PTO) first-tour department head position, created due to a glut of candidates in the surface department head pipeline. Presently, ships have no model for how to staff the PTO department and therefore the departmental leadership opportunities for each PTO vary from ship-to-ship. Yet since there is no denying the manning problem, a more effective solution would be to make that extra department head the navigator, and make it a position of distinction. Give him or her responsibility for navigation, executive, and deck divisions, thereby relieving the operations officer of arguably his most challenging division and elevating the stature and responsibility of the new first-tour department head post. Under this construct, the responsibility for planning remains with the operations officer, tactics with the weapons and combat systems officers, and all things navigation and seamanship with a more senior and seasoned Navigator.
In addition, revise the weapons tactics instructor (WTI) program to make it a department head pipeline requirement. WTI is an outstanding evolution in the training of surface warfare officers; however, it is positioned at a point in officers’ careers that it does not ensure return on investment for the surface community. It is offered between division officer tours for promising young leaders and was meant as a professionalization initiative as well as an incentive for retention; however it guarantees neither. Depending on the cyclical strength of the civilian labor market, which is now thriving, the division officer WTI program likely will not consistently yield its intended return on investment due to attrition from service. Therefore, make the anti-submarine warfare WTI program part of the operations officer pipeline for AEGIS officers, the antiair warfare WTI program part of the weapons officer pipeline, and create or augment navigation and engineering expert pipelines for the navigator and chief engineer, respectively. Such a system will ensure return on investment, and arm career naval officers with skills that will serve them well as eepartment heads and in command.
In the calculated pursuit of efficiency, the surface fleet committed a series of small course corrections that has left it standing into danger. To avoid finding itself in extremis, decisive action is required within the internal scope and authority of the community to steer clear of the hazard. Seafaring in the modern era remains a risky endeavor. We owe our ships every advantage to ensure they are staffed with a cadre of well-trained, professional mariners, as well as warfighters.
Endnotes
[1] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), “Review of Maritime Transport,” United Nations Publication (2016), p. 6, http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/rmt2016_en.pdf.
[2] UNCTAD, “Review of Maritime Transport,” (2016), p. 30.
[3] European Maritime Safety Agency, “Annual Overview of Maritime Casualties and Incidents 2016,” (2016), p. 15, http://www.standard-club.com/media/2519681/annual-overview-of-marine-casualties-incidents-2016.pdf.
