Top of mind in the natsec ecosystem this week and probably for the weeks to follow will unquestionably be the collapse of our project in Afghanistan. The story is unfolding still and there are many more chapters to be written. Regardless, all the oxygen in the room will mostly be consumed there.
On this topic, I’ve already spoken my piece SEPCOR on the national security apparatus and uniformed leadership earlier this week. Today I wanted to take a moment to step back from all that is swirling around and talk about “what next.” What do we have a great degree of control over to the long term benefit of the nation? Something basic. Fundamental. Doable.
What can navalists do to help the 2nd and 3rd order effects from this national humiliation?
What actions can our leadership take now without waiting for higher intent, direction, and guidance to try to settle the waters around our nation and its interests? What do we already have in our remit that we can focus on, shore up, and develop positive momentum?
Let’s back away from the problem at hand a bit … and then back up further. I mentioned it earlier, but let’s bring it up again; national humiliation. There are different aspects of this growing humiliation that are already manifesting itself, the first of which is how others look at us.
Let’s start with our closest friend and take a moment to listen to a speech earlier today in the British House of Commons by Tom Tugendhat, MP.
The mission in Afghanistan wasn’t a British mission, it was a Nato mission. … And so it is with great sadness that I now criticise one of them. … To see their commander-in-chief call into question the courage of men I fought with — to claim that they ran. It is shameful. … this is a harsh lesson for all of us and if we are not careful it could be a very, very difficult lesson for our allies. … to make sure we are not dependent on a single ally, on the decision of a single leader, but that we can work together with Japan and Australia, with France and Germany, with partners large and small, and make sure we hold the line together.
That is our closest friend outlining a loss of confidence. That is just one datapoint from a friend, but it is safe to say that it is probably somewhere in the center of opinion.
What are those nations who are not our friends thinking? I don’t think I need to spend all that much time on discussing how emboldened they are. It is self-evident to anyone who reads USNIBlog.
Let’s go back to what our Navy can do.
As I mentioned earlier this week, many are thinking of the much smoother Soviet expulsion from Afghanistan as a benchmark. At the time, that opened many eyes to the rot in the Soviet system in other areas that was clear to see if you looked for it. Many of those visuals, especially those of us who saw it in person, came from their navy.
At the end of the Soviet Union through the following decade with Russia, untold articles, pictures, or just personal accounts were seen as proof of the corruption and decay of the nation, demonstrated by their navy’s belching engineering plants, breakdowns, streaking rust, flowing oil slicks, shabby looking bases and Sailors. If people were looking for secondary indicators or confirmation that things were not quite right, all they had to do was look at her navy.
That is what our Navy can do right now to at least counter what will be a growing host of friends and concerned nations who wonder if they can count the United States and her military.
The always present cells of latent anti-Americanism inside our friends will be emboldened and those who support us humbled. We can help our friends and frustrate our enemies by simply doing better at what we’ve been neglecting.
Presence has always been a Navy peacetime mission, now it is more important than ever.
As a starting point, there can be no more excuses for ships to deploy and then pull into a foreign ports looking like this did while entering Kiel;
Appearances matter as they are indications of larger issues inside the skin of the ship and the minds of its navy’s leaders. Do we need to deploy less to free up money and Sailors to make sure our ships showing the flag are manned, trained, and equipped properly? Fine, then do that. If you are not being manned, trained, and equipped properly, then you know what to do – I nor anyone else should have to tell you.
Big impact items don’t have to cost big money either.
No nation’s leader visiting a US Navy warship should have his shoes greeted by something that looks like it came out of the floor of my Uncle Bubba’s deer stand.
No more should the bridge of a US Navy warship be manned by Sailors dressed as if they are about to lead an infantry patrol in Kunar Province.
No more should a Sailor in the National Capital Region look like he’s walking back from the Bagram Green Beans. That war is over; that era ended in a humiliating, ignominious defeat. So should the LARPing.
Over the next few months while the highest levels of the national security infrastructure try to get a firm footing on what is next, other nations will be watching. For many – especially our friends, allies, and potential allies – the first American military presence they will see will be in the shape of a United States Navy ship coming in port, conducing an exercise, or simply passing through.
They will be looking – yes that most superficial thing, looking – at the US Navy for a secondary indication of a nation in decline, degraded, decrepit – breaking down, rusting in place.
We can’t control the international or national press. We cannot control what is happening at the POL-MIL level, but we can control how we look, operate, communicate, and comport ourselves at sea and ashore.
As our nation and its national security infrastructure works to right itself, we should be ahead of them in showing the world our true nature.
Our presence and visibility, if done right, will help bring back our national credibility on the world stage. That credibility will build confidence in others of us that we will need in the future as new challenges emerge.
We have the mission, we have the tradition, heck I know we have the will in the fleet – we just need it to be a priority of our leadership.
What was, was. What is, is. The future is an open question.
