If you are looking for reasons to be upbeat and optimistic, don’t read further. There is no joy here.
In our Navy culture, we sure seem to have one thing down pat; we have the whole “hold Commanders responsible” routine down pat at the Field Grade and below.
The commanders of the two guided-missile destroyers that were involved in fatal collisions with merchant ships in 2017 will face military criminal charges that include charges of dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide, after the two incidents that resulted in the death of 17 sailors total, USNI News has learned.
Command is command; it is what it is. This process will work its way out, so let’s put this to the side for now.
Let’s go back to the Navy’s Strategic Readiness Review from less than a month ago.
Become a True Learning Organization: Navy history is replete with reports and investigations that contain like findings regarding past collisions, groundings, and other operational incidents. The repeated recommendations and calls for change belie the belief that the Navy always learns from its mistakes. Navy leadership at all levels must foster a culture of learning and create the structures and processes that fully embrace this commitment.
While I think that there are good people in places who understand what needs to be done, I don’t think – as an institution – that we are serious that changes need to be made. If we are, the message is not sinking in.
In the last week, three senior leaders have said things that signal we are not there yet.
When you look at their comments in light of not just the events of 2017, but the longer chain of sub-optimal performance in our collective decision making of the last few decades, there is a common thread; we don’t want to change. We don’t want to learn. It isn’t that we don’t know anything, it is just that what we do know is wrong. They don’t want to reflect and act, they want to return to the comfortable, unchallenged talking points from before.
There is no sense of an organization humbled to action, but instead one so stubborn and hidebound in its discredited practices and theories, it is just trying to outlast the outrage.
It should go without saying, nothing personal here. These are all professionals who have dedicated decades to service to their nation, good people in hard jobs doing the best they can, etc, etc, etc. But so have others.
In most cases, they are only trying to do the best they can with what they have been handed – but that does not excuse their acts and words now. The time for happy-talk is long past – even if that is what got you where you are. The time for canned talking points that could have been spoken at any time in the last two decades is gone. To keep acting and thinking this way is an insult to every ear that hears it.
No one is beyond reproach.
Case 1: VADM Thomas Rowden, USN, Commander, Naval Surface Forces.
Rowden listed technological advancements that are — or soon will be — increasing the lethality of the fleet, including Maritime Strike Tomahawk, the multi-mode Standard Missile-6, the installation on the Harpoon cruise missile on the littoral combat ship USS Coronado, the linking together of the F-35B joint strike fighter with the Aegis Combat System and the ability to attack land targets from an amphibious warfare ship.
He also noted the change being made in the surface force culture, that being a focus on “mastery vice sufficiency.”In that topic, he praised he Weapons Tactics Instructors — “the Warfighting Jedi” — emerging from the Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center and populating the fleet as progress which cannot be overstated.
Technological advancements? Returning traditional capabilities to the fleet that were foolishly removed? Yes.
1. Maritime Strike Tomahawk, AKA TASM. Updated seekerhead and software I’m sure, but this is a 1980s capability.
2. Multi-mode SM-6. New missile but we had the anti-surface capability in the SM-1 that we got rid of over a decade and a half ago. As a semi-auto is a technological advancement on a revolver, sure – but again this is only a marginal improvement on a capability we once had and threw away.
3. Harpoon on a LCS: a 1970s missile bolted on a ship that has less anti-surface capability than a Pegasus Class hydrofoil. Yes, this is better than nothing, but not a technological advancement.
4. Linking together aircraft and ships. OK, fine. As my iPhone 7 is better than my iPhone 3 was, but I’m sorry – aircraft have been linking to ships for decades. Those F-35 possibilities are impressive on paper – but in practice? No one knows. How will they do in a non-permissive EW environment with a learning and evolving enemy? We kind of know – but we ain’t talking about that on this net.
5. Mastery vs. Sufficiency. Thank you very much for validating the critique of our surface culture to seamanship, but what actions will lead to mastery? What metrics? What actions – now – are you taking to change the incentives and disincentives for more time at sea? How are you changing manning – now – to help address this? Not talking points, not what we’d like to do – but action.
6. Warfighting Jedi. Do you even Star Wars? The Jedi are responsible for the fall of the Republic, rise of the Empire, First Order, and have a horrible record of operational planning, strategic thought, and are generally inept. WTI is not a “new” concept in any case, and may Buddha help us if they have the record of the Jedi.
This kind of nudge-nudge-wink-wink happy-talk talking point review could have come from a Surface Boss in 2016 or 2015. Has nothing happened in the last year to change our random Flag Officer speech generator algorithms? Is there no interest in at least changing that? Why focus on systems and platforms – and not the core of our failures of the last year; culture, training, and manning? It is fun and easy to talk about expensive things you hope to include in a POM to come – but what about the hard steps to take now?
Throwing O5s at Courts Martial is not hard to do. It is the easiest thing to do. Manning, training, and supply – those are hard things.
Case 2: RADM Ronald Boxall, USN, Director of Surface Warfare: a few entering arguments from me first. We do not have enough cruisers. Those that we have are growing older and older. Our DDG do not have the capabilities that a CG should have. They are an adequate substitute, but not a good one. In an increasingly challenged environment at sea, our CVN need more and better escorts. The Chinese have modern cruisers (Type 55) in serial production. Our CG(X) program to replace the weary TICO class was a clown car of fiscal excess and lack of program control. Instead of jumping generations, we are back to trusting the protection of our CNV to an evolved but declining CG created by design teams led by men who served in WWII and Korea.
We downplayed technology risk with DDG-1000 and LCS with the results we have two white elephants and no modern cruiser ready for construction. In his comments I see all those errors coming back.
We are way overdue for our next surface combatant. When we should be cutting steel on Hull-1 of the CG-74 Class CG with proven technology and SPRU-like white-space in the design for modernization in future flights, what are we doing?
Rear Adm. Ronald Boxall, told a crowd at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium that his team is building over the next year a capabilities document that will sketch out the next surface combatant, one that integrates new sensors and technologies that will make it relevant into the future.“People are always asking: ‘What’s the next cruiser?’ ” Boxall said. “What I’m telling you is that it might not be a cruiser. What we are looking for is what do we need our surface ships to do at the big level, what do we need to do at the small level and what do we need to do with unmanned because it is a different Navy out there.
“And so we have to look at how we optimize our force inside surface warfare and then merge that outside of surface warfare with the other platforms and across all domains.”
Did you get that? Of course you didn’t, it is complete gobbledegook. This could have been written almost two decades ago in the rising tide of the Transformationalist Era. Have we learned nothing from that fiasco?
Also, it is not a different Navy out there. The oceans are the same. The requirements are the same. The useful technology is evolutional. The navies rising to challenge us are putting to sea non-vapor ware weapons and existing cutting-edge TTP while we are pretending – again – that with enough hope and seabags full of money borrowed from our grandchildren we can leap-frog over them with PPT promises made by people who will never have to go in harm’s way outside the black ice on the beltway.
I’m sorry, but did he pick up the wrong text? Did his Loop give him a speech from 2016?
Case 3: Admiral Phil Davidson, USN, Commander U.S. Fleet Forces Command.
“You’ve got to be able to handle fatigue,” Adm. Phil Davidson said Thursday in a speech at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium.
“This is about more than just, ‘the routine is too much.’”Ship captains were ordered last year to submit plans for sailor work and watch rotations that would allow crews to sleep at more regularly scheduled intervals.
Davidson pointed to leaders aboard the destroyers Fitzgerald and John S. McCain who had to cope with fatigue after their ship collisions killed 17 sailors in the West Pacific last summer.
“Whether it’s lack of sleep or it’s the physical exertion of it all, there is a component of it there that is not robustly tested in the fleet,” he said. “We have to take a look at that.”
No. Full stop.
This is simple. There are 24-hrs in a day. You need X amount of time in a day to sleep. You need Y amount of time in a day to do your job, train for your job, teach others to do their job, hit the head, eat, be a human. You have Z amount of time in the day to stand watch.
That is it. If we cannot do that in peacetime then then answer is clear; you do not have enough people on your ship. You do not have enough properly trained people on your ship. Most likely, both.
There are a very few people who can get by with 4-hr sleep a day, rarely exercise, have no interests outside work, have no family, and have iffy personal hygiene. That is not the benchmark for your Navy. That is not who you want your Navy to be populated by. We’ve all served with people like that. Want to continue to bleed talent? Tell our best young men and woman that is what they need to succeed.
“Not robustly tested?” No, I think the FITZ and the MCCAIN just put the cherry on the top of the fleet testing of the last couple of decades + of optimally manned experimentation. The jury is in … oh wait, we have to Commanders going to Courts Martial for Negligent Homicide, Dereliction of Duty Charges – bad phrasing on my part.
This makes no sense, unless you are in complete denial.
The Navy needs to find a way to “safely and proficiently” test sailors in higher-fatigue conditions, Davidson said.
“We have to teach them the difference between routine conditions and those fatigue conditions as well,” he said.
No. We do that every day. We proved through 2017 in WESTPAC that we cannot operate safely in peacetime – as a result we are in no condition to be ready for sustained wartime conditions where real fatigue sets in.
Our Sailors have been tested in fatigue conditions, and they failed as humans will do when abused by their employers in such a way.
Let’s go back to the SRR.
CHAPTER 6: Industry Best Practices and Learning Cultures
…
Well-intentioned, dedicated Navy leaders, faced with complex, near-term problems, have made difficult decisions over many years using the best available information.
…
To better understand the dynamics of how large complex organizations, like the Navy, learned and adapted following a tragic event or series of safety mishaps, this Strategic Review included discussions with key leaders of leading global companies in the aerospace, maritime, and medical industries. They were selected because they are recognized global leaders in their respective fields and because of their records of learning and changing after tragic events. Each company official articulated that, in retrospect, their tolerance for, and accumulation of, multiple, seemingly minor, decisions made to “get the job done” degraded recognition of unsafe daily operations.
Let’s go back to those industry leaders and ask them if they work their employees who operate heavy equipment to the point they can’t tell the difference between normal and fatigue-inducing conditions?
They don’t even get close to that line – and they would fire any leader who encouraged such behavior if the unions or trial lawyers didn’t get to them first.
Again, have we learned nothing? Is this 2018 or 2008?
Does our Surface leadership sound like they have in any way been humbled by the demonstrated failure of the last year? No.
Maybe we are just a bit early in this game. As reported by Sam LaGrone early yesterday, Case 1 may be heading out the door.
The head of U.S. naval surface forces will be replaced this week following the results of an independent investigation into the two fatal collisions in the Western Pacific that claimed the lives of 17 sailors, several defense officials confirmed to USNI News this week.
Vice Adm. Tom Rowden was set to retire in a ceremony on Feb. 2 before being replaced as commander of U.S. Surface Forces (SURFOR) and U.S. Surface Force Pacific (SURFPAC) but will instead quietly depart the position to allow his replacement, Rear Adm. Richard Brown, to take charge sooner.
It is time for a general turnover of positions until we see leadership that is ready to change. We need leaders who, like Vince Lombardi, will look at the fleet and say, “This is a Navy.”
Reassess the fundamental assumptions that are the latent causes of our recent discontent. Go back to basics and build from there.
As the former COs of FITZ and MCCAIN get ready for their ordeal, there are a few things we should keep in mind.
They were not the ones who created the conditions that addressed manning shortfalls by cross-decking Sailors neither trained nor qualified for the watches they would stand.
They were not the ones that created the conditions where ships could not get the depot level maintenance they needed, so already short-manned ship’s company would complete that required maintenance out of hide – not doing their primary jobs or getting enough rest.
They were not the ones who so “optimally” manned their ships to the point there was little white-space in the calendar for the COs to fully train and drill their crews.
They were not the ones who were more than happy to deploy ships that demanded 80-100 hr work weeks for weeks and months on end and expected nothing bad would happen on their watch.
They were not the ones who created a culture where self-abuse was a virtue; where professional development and mastery of your craft was seen as an obstacle to ambition.
…and yet, they will be the ones at Courts Martial. They were in command. That comes with the package.
Is it too much to ask for real change as opposed to that sad, slow, and slightly pathetic regression to the mean waiting for all the outcry to fade in the ambient noise past the news-cycle escarpment?
We can do better.
