“The loss of the Thresher led to the creation of the Submarine Safety and Quality Assurance (SUBSAFE) program, and no SUBSAFE-certified submarine has been lost since the enactment of the program.”[1]
Today the U.S. Navy is embarking on the digitization of our forces. We are connecting our forces in ways never imagined. We are creating program integration offices, cognizant authorities to digitalize their portfolios and connect to the greater naval forces. Digitization is the Navy’s 21st-century evolutionary pivot, the scale and technical challenges akin to the nuclearization of the Navy. It is an imperative to learn from our past and tragedies like the Thresher submarine disaster and subsequent implementation of the SUBSAFE program to inform the digital transformation. Failing to abide these lessons in the information domain will unhinge consequences that will not be contained to a single vessel; rather, they will present a loss of such strategic and national consequence that may be unrecoverable. The intent of this paper is to draw out lessons learned from Thresher and to evoke the details of how Admiral Rickover developed SUBSAFE and to apply them to today’s digital transformation.
“The Devil is in the details, but so is Salvation.”[2]
On 10 April 1963, the USS Thresher (SSN-593) sank during deep-diving tests about 220 miles east of Boston, Massachusetts, killing all 129 crew and shipyard personnel aboard in the deadliest submarine disaster ever.[3] The Thresher disaster was a crystallizing moment for the nation, the Navy, the newly established nuclear power community, and for the individual at the center of nuclear power, Admiral Hyman Rickover.[4] In his address to industry following the incident, he stated that the causal factor for the Thresher loss was not due to the installation of the disruptive technology within the pressure water reactor (PWR), but due to a material failure of the systems that surrounded the PWR. The failure was analyzed to be that of a salt-water piping system joint that relied heavily on silver brazing instead of welding. Earlier tests using ultrasound equipment found potential problems with about 14 percent of the tested brazed joints, most of which were determined not to pose a risk significant enough to require a repair.[5] The standards for the metallurgy, design, industry, government, and inspection criteria were there, but not enforced. This deeply troubled Admiral Rickover.[6]
After Thresher and during the establishment the SUBSAFE program in 1963, Admiral Rickover emphasized to both industry and government that the PWR forced an increase to standards, and those new standards must be relentlessly enforced.[7] Surrounding systems, pipes, valves, welds, metallurgy, manufacturing processes, workforce quality—all had to increase due to the PWR’s capabilities and demands on the submarine.[8] The PWR enabled deeper depths; longer durations under the surface; increased pressure on the electrical, hydromechanical, and all supporting systems. What troubled Admiral Rickover most was the Navy learned this lesson through unnecessary loss of life, which he viewed as completely preventable if the standards were maintained and upheld. Admiral Rickover would relentlessly hold all entities accountable to the standards, routinely checking his “pinks” (deficiencies on pink triplicate paper he carried with him at all times) and personally ensuring the technical solutions were closed and that the culture was adjusted to eliminate future errors. Admiral Rickover stated, “In my work I probably spend about 99 percent of my time on what others may call petty details.”[9]
Before nuclear powered submarines like the Thresher, submarines were dirty and foul-smelling places to work due to the presence of diesel engines operating underwater. The machinist mates were often the subject of intra-service puns and jokes about grease and dirt. The overall workplace hygiene of a submarine was lax (compared to other communities) and most accepted that things leaked. It was noisy, dirty, dank and required near constant tinkering to make the submarine work. In stark contrast, the Thresher was quiet and pristine. Her crew were the most elite sailors and officers, with advanced degrees and extensive schooling. The plant was not greasy and dirty, and instead of large wrenches to keep operating, the Thresher required persistent detailed attentiveness to gauges, often coupled with calculations to determine PWR operations. Fixing the Thresher was complex, deliberate, and methodical compared to the diesel patchwork, undocumented, and tribal procedures. The cultural change was stark. Admiral Rickover drove the change in culture, at personal levels through his legendary interview process and hands on approach. The lesson is that the change in technical standards drove a commensurate cultural change and required resolute leadership to eliminate error and provide assurance.
“Success teaches us nothing; only failure teaches.”[10]
The lesson today is that our new technologies, the way we intend to operate them and fight an interconnected war, are collectively and individually devalued or even worthless if we do not surround them with standards to protect them. In 2020 the equivalent PWR is not a singular piece of equipment or capability; it is the connectedness of our forces which reside in information. The Navy’s 21st-century power nexus is digitization, which must be protected at the same level of paranoid persistence that Admiral Rickover protected the nuclear Navy.
Fundamentally there are two types of problems: technical problems, which have technical solutions; and cultural problems. Which require leadership solutions. The Thresher tragedy drove Admiral Rickover to double down on solving the technical challenges of increasing standards and to follow through with steadfast leadership to culturally redefine the subsurface Navy.
Technical Challenges
The technical challenges to protecting information are well understood, but not uniformly enforced. Physical security standards for buildings, spaces, access control systems, and alarms are all well documented and relatively simple to execute. Recent natural disasters, renovation projects, and new construction offer opportunity to re-build at the highest standards. We must not allow ourselves to view security as a “bill” that reduces our buying power, rather it is an investment that assures the viability of our future forces.
The technical challenges to protecting the information within our digital structures is not as well understood. The standards are not common, are often service specific implementations, and are granularly enforced driven by personalities. In our systems commands we lack network engineers and network topology analysts. Our operational forces are challenged to maintain desperate networks with inconsistent frameworks and procedures. Collective alignment to standards is a large technical problem that requires manifest topology to align homogeneous, machine level, automated standards across DoD. We should not have variation in standards and should have a common technical baseline that is transparent, enforceable, and not at the discretion of individuals. There are solutions and standards. Technical solutions exist. We must agree to, align, and enforce standards to achieve information assurance across the Navy and DoD.
Cultural Challenges
The challenge to cultural change for compliance and enforcement standards is that the Navy is not a digitally homogenous force. The age continuum of the naval force has differing digital intuitions, understanding, pragmatic experience, and expectations. Our youngest sailors are digitally unencumbered and expect seamless interface with information. Conversely, our most senior officers were indoctrinated into the digital world with giant machines equivalent to steam engines and now operate digital machines equivalent to nuclear reactors in their hands. The heterogenous understanding of the digital world creates chasms in our values, and a gradient in values is arguably the largest leadership challenge when attempting to change culture. Collectively as leaders (which we all are in the digital fight) we must all embrace and drive hygienic practices, design our digitization technologies that remove human error, and have resolve to prioritize assurance.
My respectful recommendations to all echelons are:
To senior leaders: Challenge every new or existing weapon system, procurement project, network architecture, or “lightning bolt” on a chart with the questions “is that data residing on assured systems?” and “how is it protected?” Relentlessly enforce compliance upon our industry partners, tactical warfighters, and procurement agencies. Accept no deviations or excuses. Invest in technical solutions that prioritize enabling assurance and all domain compliance that are invariant to human operator.
To commanders: Embrace the standards and enforce digital hygiene. Security is the opposite of convenience—hard is authorized. Execute the standards relentlessly. If our peer commanders can operate a nuclear reactor underwater, we can hold ourselves to the same assurance standards. Don’t allow perceived mission pressures to enable workarounds to known assurance standards. Use compliance as a source of strength and power, not an excuse.
To the warfighter: Own the standards. At your tactical schools of excellence teach to the standards and inculcate the next generation to uphold and be experts at compliance. Don’t mistake weaponizing information as an administrative burden. The data is your weapon, and we are counting on you to be the source of excellence and expertise for our communities. At all costs, don’t create an excuse for not following the procedures. Employ the standards.
To industry: Execute the standards. Standards do not prevent profit if properly integrated. After the Thresher incident, industry resisted the increased standards for nearly every reason. The submarine building industry cited that the skilled workers would never exist, tools weren’t meant to meet the standards, metals couldn’t be manufactured to the metallurgical standards, and ultimately the demands of Admiral Rickover would not be profitable. Truth be told: industry found a way to make money, hired the right people, and today we have enjoyed the longest and most robust safety record of any other nation. Please adopt, embrace, and execute the digital standards.
To all hands: Adapt, change, and embrace the standards. We are the system that surrounds the digital reactor. We are the equivalent valves, pipes, welds, and metal that must elevate our standards to protect the reactor. Our previous digital practices were leaky, noisy, dirty, dank—we must become digitally clean, quiet, and pristine. Details matter in the contested information fight. We all must execute what we may perceive as small digital details that aggregate to an empowered, assured, digital force. Don’t be the silver brazing, be the welded bond.
“I believe it is the duty of each of us to act as if the fate of the world depended on him.[11]”
The Thresher disaster taught the Navy that standards are everything for assurance and the result was SUBSAFE and the outstanding record it has delivered. The standards need to increase not only for the “new thing,” but for “everything” that surrounds the “new thing.”
The Navy’s 21st century-evolution is our digitization. The digital transformation initiative is underway, full steam ahead. I respectfully submit that at the bow of our digitization must be relentless compliance with the highest standards for assurance, we must lead at the helm with steadfast resolve, and we all must get on board. This is our “never ending challenge.”[12]
Endnotes
[1] The Honorable Jim “Hondo” Geurts, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, linkendin.com, posted 26 September 2019.
[2] Admiral Rickover’s acceptance speech, 1975 for recipient of the William J. Kroll Medal for Zirconium by the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM).
[3] Praveen Duddu, “Peril in the depths – the world’s worst submarine disasters,” Navaltechnology.com, 6 March 2014.
[4] Rickover Blames Ballast System For Fatal Dive of the Thresher, The New York Times, 17 April 1964.
[5] “50 Years of Steely Purpose-USS Thresher Remembered,” 10 April 2013, Archive Today on Navsea.navy.mil.
[6] Cantonwine, Paul E. “The Never-Ending Challenge of Engineering: Admiral H.G. Rickover In His Own Words”. [Works. Selections. 2013]. Admiral Rickover testimony to Congress 1998, “Properly running a sophisticated technical program requires a fundamental understanding of and commitment to the technical aspects of the job and a willingness to pay infinite attention to the technical details,” he said. “If you ignore those details and attempt to rely on management techniques or gimmicks, you will surely end up with a system that is unmanageable.”
[7] Statement of Rear Admiral Paul E. Sullivan, U.S. Navy Deputy Commander for Ship Design, Integration, and Engineering Naval Sea Systems Command before the House Science Committee on the SUBSAFE program, 29 October 2001. The loss of THRESHER was the genesis of the SUBSAFE Program. In June 1963, not quite two months after THRESHER sank, the SUBSAFE Program was created. The SUBSAFE Certification Criterion was issued by BUSHIPS letter Ser 525-0462 of 20 December 1963, formally implementing the Program.
[8] Cantonwine, Paul E. “The Never-Ending Challenge of Engineering: Admiral H.G. Rickover In His Own Words”. [Works. Selections. 2013]. Admiral Rickover’s keynote speech at the National Metal Congress on 29 October 1962, New York City.
[9] Cantonwine, Paul E. “The Never-Ending Challenge of Engineering: Admiral H.G. Rickover In His Own Words”. [Works. Selections. 2013]. Admiral Rickover’s speech at the Egleston Medal Award Dinner at the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science on 5 November 1981.
[10] Cantonwine, Paul E. “The Never-Ending Challenge of Engineering: Admiral H.G. Rickover In His Own Words”. [Works. Selections. 2013]. Admiral Rickover speech at the U.S. Naval Post Graduate School 16 March 1954.
[11] F. Duncan, Rickover: The Struggle for Excellence (Annapolis, MD: The Naval Institute Press, 2001), 4–6.
[12] Admiral Rickover’s keynote speech at the National Metal Congress on 29 October 1962, New York City.
