The new Dynamic Force Employment concept does not have to break a foundation of Operational Fleet Response Plan predictability for Navy families—but it can.

I once attended a Surface Navy Ball with Admiral John Harvey Jr. as the guest speaker. He gave a great speech, one part of which was “Stick around long enough and you will see the old become new again.” I have been around the service for just over 30 years, and that seems to be just about the “turning radius” of the Navy. My, how things have changed.

The following quote is from a Defense Media Activity post, dated February 2014 (emphasis added):

The Navy’s new Optimized Fleet Response Plan (O-FRP) was unveiled in a keynote address delivered at the 26th Annual Surface Navy Association National Symposium in Crystal City, Va., Jan. 15, 2014

Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command Adm. Bill Gortney explained the changes to the new O-FRP, addressing Quality of Service and blending both Quality of Work and Quality of Life efforts by providing stability and predictability to deployment schedules over a 36 month O-FRP cycle. One of the highlights from his address was the Navy’s efforts to lock in eight-month deployment schedules for Sailors. These changes are intended to return a sense of normalcy to a Sailor’s schedule by evening out the Sailor’s family life and increasing retention rates and Quality of Work for their command.

“What’s happened here is that over time . . . we lost predictability in the way we generate readiness,” said Gortney. (Emphasis added.)

Then comes 2019 and Dynamic Force Employment (DFE). According to an article from The Strategy Bridge:

Dynamic force employment is a new concept rarely discussed outside the halls of the Pentagon, and, when described publicly, the discussion seems limited to the flag officer and Secretary of Defense level. Unlike in the current force employment model, in which the carrier strike group knows where and when it will deploy years in advance, the dynamic force employment model allows the Department of Defense to rapidly re-task the carrier strike group or deploy in an unpredictable manner or location. What is not yet known is the effectiveness of these actions vis-à-vis Russia and China, nor is the cost of the altered deployment tempo on the equipment, people, and readiness of the U.S. military. (Emphasis added.)

After one iteration, what is now known is the potential impact on the sailors and their families. The following is from the January issue of the U.S. Naval Academy alumni magazine Shipmate, in an article called “Perspectives on Dynamic Force Employment,” where two junior Naval officers discuss their experiences as follows:

The main difference from previous deployments was its ambiguity and unpredictability…this affected everything from coordinating (operations) and in-port maintenance…but the hardest part was the families.” One cited “having to say goodbye to family and friends…and the disjointed nature of reunions with his child”. The article also notes that it was very difficult to plan the right maintenance at the right time; “the problem ultimately manifests itself as the maintainers have to work extremely hard on short notice once the plan is finalized.[i]

Finally, and most telling in the context of the OFRP concept (of only five years ago) that was designed in bring stability to families was the impact of this new policy on the junior sailors:

they didn’t have families to come home to, having sent them elsewhere, stored or sold their cars, in anticipation of a longer deployment…this is easier for the senior enlisted and officers to deal with these struggles, and I feel like this is a consideration that the high-level planners didn’t take into account.

That last quote is easy to understand when we revisit the DFE article, which began like this:

Dynamic force employment is a new concept rarely discussed outside the halls of the Pentagon, and, when described publicly, the discussion seems limited to the flag officer and Secretary of Defense level.

Irony abounds—the individual who bore the responsibility for taking care of “all those things the high-level planners didn’t take into account”—such as families—was the command master chief of the USS Harry S. Truman, who retired after making an unfortunate comment during a visit from the Vice President, erasing all the good he must have done as the point man in dealing with these challenges, and (a doubly unfortunate side effect) taking with him a unique perspective as the one individual who could have shared those lessons and provided learning points for the next time. Some have said that DFE and OFRP cannot coexist, but I disagree—I think DFE concepts could fit exactly into the “sustainment phase” of OFRP if applied as intended, to allow the flexibility that DFE requires.

Recent reporting has detailed some of the ongoing challenges with OFRP in execution. As Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday notes in that article, the other elephant in the room is surface maintenance. There are other foreseeable and potentially catastrophic effects when the unpredictability of the DFE is superimposed on the increasingly inflexible firm fixed price maintenance policies that have been instituted with OFRP over the past five years. The Truman sailors identified the tactical impact of DFE on planned maintenance, but there could be more dramatic long-term effects if the trend of cancelled shipyard periods continues. Similar impacts were seen after the 2012 deployments of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), that may have contributed to delays in the yards several years later. Pacific Fleet Commander, Admiral Aquilino, testified to Congress that, because of a personnel shortage (roughly 6200 at sea), the Navy is “are forced to take some risk in the Maintenance Phase.” DFE could impact the maintenance planning process and amplify that risk at a the strategic level if entered into without eyes wide open.

While this article was based on the USS Harry S. Truman deployment, the recent USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group deployment is a more recent reminder that this issue will not go away soon. As the Navy reexamines the OFRP process, I would point to reader to my wife Gudrun Cordle’s USNI Blog post on the navy’s stress problem, one that was shared and reposted tens of thousands of times, and consider the effect the uncertainty and ambiguity of DFE, if expanded, is likely to have on families—basically undercutting one of the key tenets of OFRP. Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Drennan, a frequent USNI Blog and Proceedings contributor, summed it up nicely in a recent War on the Rocks article:

Compassionate, creative, and enduring leadership is absolutely critical in responding to the challenge of superdeployments. Compassion shows our sailors that their (and their families’) struggle is not taken for granted, fostering an environment of trust and commitment. Creativity enables leaders to keep things “fresh” throughout nine or more months of deployment, and to show our sailors how they fit in the grand scheme of national security. Endurance is the key to completing the mission as leaders on superdeployments. Much like championship-winning quarterbacks that play their best in the fourth quarter, Navy leaders need the energy to finish stronger than they started in the ninth or tenth month of deployment.

While DFE, like many past programs (remember sea swap, rotational crews?), was dubbed a success before it started, and components of it may be necessary to deter and defend against rising threats of peer competitors—one can only hope that lessons are being learned. A sober and open discussion of all aspects of the DFE policy presents an opportunity to learn and make adjustments or allowances to ensure that the Navy does not run its team into the ground—or out the door—despite the best of intentions, and make the job easier for those who would harm the United States.

Endnotes

[i] LT Lily Hinz, USN, “Perspectives from Dynamic Force Employment,” Shipmate (January 2019).