Arleigh Burke was a hard-charger by nature, never content to rest on his laurels.
Thus at the Battle of Blackett Strait–a victory for the United States–Burke was unhappy. Commanding a Destroyer Squadron, he was on the bridge of his flagship, looking out for the Japanese destroyers Murasame and Minegumo. When his radar operator picked up a ship close to shore, Burke hesitated to fire at first.
Sure enough, the contact had been one of the Japanese ships, and Burke’s hesitation allowed them to get within weapons range. A battle ensued, thankfully resulting in the sinking of both enemy destroyers.
Burke, frustrated with himself, asked one of the Ensigns standing watch what the difference was between a good officer and a poor one. After listening to the young man’s response, Burke offered his own:
“The difference between a good officer and a poor one,” he said, “is about ten seconds.”
The Pacific Theatre of World War II tested the United States Navy’s resolve like no other conflict before or since. We look back on the battles memorialized as part of our culture and hold them as the gold standard for naval operations today.
But luminaries like Arleigh Burke knew those engagements could have been better. The same bug that struck him at Blackett Strait–hesitation–cost the United States many other opportunities throughout the theater.
If he were alive today, pacing the bridge wing, Burke might regard the culture of hesitation we seem to have built in our Navy with a more acute displeasure than he did 83 years ago. And he would demand we improve.
Simpler Times
Burke and his crews were successful, in part, due to their understanding of the strategic calculus of World War II: kill or be killed. In a war of attrition, the goal is to inflict as much damage on the enemy as possible while staying afloat, or, in the immortal words of General George Patton, “to make the other bastard die for his” country.
Though the tasks of major war at sea, on land, and in the air were gargantuan, the strategic environment may have been a bit easier. It was the ability of every Sailor to understand this paradigm–down to the mess halls and deck plates–and their commitment to see it through that would catalyze American victory in the 1940s.
Today, the United States still maintains the most capable naval force in the world. We still operate at sea, on land, and in the air, in addition to the realms of space and the broader electromagnetic spectrum. Capitalizing on the ingenuity of our people, we have incorporated technological advances into our platforms that enhance our tactics, techniques, and procedures.
These accelerations in technology have led to a commensurate quickening of decision-making in the battlespace. Colonel John Boyd’s “Observe-Orient-Decide-Act,” or “OODA Loop” describes the process that each individual or unit must go through to learn and succeed. As Colonel Boyd famously proved, the ability to operate inside an adversary’s OODA Loop is often the difference between victory and defeat.
Yet, as we increase the pace of our tactics and decisions, we are doing so at the expense of the strategic proficiency of our junior sailors and officers. Worse, senior officers often exhort to subordinates to “focus on your tactics,” implying that the understanding of strategy and policy should be left to those with “experience.”
This growing lethargy in learning and understanding brings with it a creeping risk–a hesitation–that should be untenable to us as warfighters. We are doing a disservice to our service when we develop aviators who can “center the dot,” but cannot describe the geopolitical diversity surrounding their Carrier Operating Area (CVOA); when we develop submariners who can maintain a reactor within checklist specifications, but cannot debate the merits of improving personnel policy in the service; when we develop surface warfare officers who can stand on their feet for hours on the bridge, but cannot fathom how the position of their ship in the ocean impacts the global economy. We develop this risk across both our Restricted and Unrestricted Line communities.
Sometimes, this risk manifests itself in mistake: the bombing of a hospital instead of a legitimate military target, or confrontation with a tenuous regional actor. Often, however, the risk is in unmeasured opportunity cost: the option or consideration no one in the room brought to attention; the detail that goes unchecked because it wasn’t part of our rigid formula; the stakeholder we do not consider but whose reaction will impact our long-term success or failure. We build in a culture of hesitation to our systems when we make such a clear distinction between tactical execution and strategic understanding. Just as in Burke’s time, it is costing us opportunities.
Shared Consciousness
In his book Team of Teams, General Stanley McChrystal describes the concept of “shared consciousness” by saying, “our entire force needed to share a fundamental, holistic understanding of the operating environment and of our own organization, and we also needed to preserve each team’s distinct skill sets.” Rather than developing bland generalists, McChrystal remarks that the goal for his organization was “to fuse generalized awareness with specialized expertise.”
We are a Navy full of essential skills and experts; we need these to fight. But in order to win, shared consciousness among all ranks and at all levels is required.
Above all, this is a leadership issue. Our service has no place for those who tell their subordinates to “focus on tactics” at the expense of strategy. We may win the battle, but we will surely lose the war. To increase the pace of our various OODA Loops–and mitigate a culture of hesitation– we must develop sailors who are both tactically lethal and strategically aware.
Discussion of strategy and policy should be encouraged at all levels. Many good commanding officers, both past and present, have fostered an atmosphere of questioning and discussion in wardrooms and ready rooms. This should not be mere serendipity; we should select officers for these positions who are capable of engendering this environment, and continue to promote those who have proven they can do so in a respectful, constructive manner.
These discussions should lead to action and writing–to white papers, articles, blog posts–that are read and in turn debated, rebutted, and written about. Moreover, we should not limit this activity to individual ships and units; this environment should exist at the Pentagon, at our Fleet Replacement Squadrons and Afloat Training Groups, with our peers on the Joint Staff and in classroom settings, and with our multinational partners around the world.
Separately, we must not allow our reliance on technology to institutionalize a culture of hesitation. With more information being consumed and analyzed at a much quicker pace than ever before, it is easy to simply complete the blocks in our checklist and make a voice or chat report, rather than developing a system of communication and execution that capitalizes on shared consciousness. We must return to our uniquely naval roots of the Composite Warfare Commander Concept and command by negation in order to build a better system, or else we will be doomed to repeat the kind of hesitation that Arleigh Burke so desperately wanted to avoid.
In the final analysis, we are not compartmentalized into separate tactical officers and strategic officers. We are naval officers and warfighters; there should be no difference.
Admiral Burke’s experience at Blackett Strait played out between ten and twenty knots. Our experiences today demand that, while our ships may still travel at that speed, our decision-making and understanding scales exponentially faster.
For this generation of naval warfighters and decision-makers, the difference between a good officer and a poor one may be ten microseconds. And we must make every one count.
